Ok, cutting back on the double-posting…read it at writebrite.net. 

Every couple months or so, my kids decide they want to push their limits.  Not physically, but thier  Mommy-imposed limits.  Thankfully they tend to be on a different schedule so I am not faced with two little monsters at the same time, although there have been particularly rough patches when their push time has overlapped.  I’m guessing the girl’s time was when my parents were visiting and she was going through a “No!/I don’t want to” phase.  Now it’s the boy’s turn.

Granted, he’s been a little under the weather since returning Saturday from his dad’s (par for the course) so he’s been medicated most nights just so he can breathe well enough to sleep.  Thanks to the benadryl, he is getting sleep, but it also makes him very tired in the morning.  (Of course it probably doesn’t help that his dad also lets him stay up to whatever time he wants with the hope that he will sleep in the  next day…nothing like taking the needs of your kids above your own!) 

Anyway, the boy has been cranky, whiny, defiant, and argumentative, and it’s driving me nuts.  Add to it that my PMSing (read: insomnia, lack of concentration, achy body, and general all-around crankiness) and today marks day three of not smoking, and that makes for an all around unpleasant mood in my house.  *sigh* This too shall pass…right?

I get that kids push their boundaries, but when half the time they don’t have any boundaries whatsoever, they push that much harder when suddenly some are imposed.  This is making life as a co-parent/single mommy very difficult.  I have friends who mourn the fact that their kids’ other parent is not involved at all, but I have a hard time sympathising when I go through this tug-of-war constantly.  I feel bad about bitching that my ex-men and their families (yeah…they live with their parents, still, after 6 and 2 years, respectively…I have great taste in boys men!) are so overly involved in my kids’ lives, but really, when all you want is to be able to work together to make a child’s already broken life more stable and you find yourself butting heads with not just the other parent, but the other parent’s parents, it gets very frustrating.  I could suffer through it all, money, stress, balancing everything on my own, if they would just step the hell off!  But they won’t, so I find kids and myself the victim of their whims and bad judgement time and time again. *sigh*sigh*

A bright spot: the boy rarely goes through this pushing thing for more than a couple days, so by the time the girl comes back home this weekend, he should be back to being his normal princely self.  Hopefully the girl has got it out of her system for the month and we will have peace over the next couple weeks…hopefully.

His day did get exponentially better!  Yea!  In a little over two hours of his first day of school, the boy had so much to tell me, all with a perma-grin.  I’m so happy it got better!  HUGE sigh of relief here.

As the class walked to the front hall where the bus driver and a scattering of parents were waiting, I looked on anxiously to read the face of my little one, completely distraught with the thought that I would see and unhappy face, or even worse, evidence of crying.  My fears couldn’t be further from the reality.  He walked out, proud, with the rest of the class, holding hands with a little girl.  I didn’t really pay attention to her, as most of the kids seemed to have a “buddy system” thing going on for walking through the halls.  She went to her dad, and the boy came up to me.  He waved bye to his teacher, and after a quick introduction to his bus driver, he drug me outside to the car.  Once away from any possibly prying ears, he dropped the bomb…

The boy:  “Mommy, did you see that girl who was holding my hand?”

Me: “Yes, I saw her.”

The boy:  “She’s beautiful!”

Me: “Yes, she is very pretty.  What is her name?”

The boy: (puzzled) “I already told you.”

Me: “You did?  What is it?”

The boy:(very matter-of-factly) “BEAU-TI-FUL!”

Me: (after picking my jaw up from the parking lot) “Oh…”

Thankfully he was happy to prattle on past Ms. Beautiful to the books and the teacher and all the other things they did until we arrived at the sitter’s house.  He ran in and began on her about his day, throwing me a quick kiss before he went about his merry way. 

My little boy is growing up…and already has a girlfriend??!!  *sigh*

At least his first day went well.  I was a little more worried than I originally thought.  Now I’m contemplating what kind of school-age mom I will turn out to be…and what kind of school-age kid he will be.  Will he be a trouble maker?  Will he be picked on?  Will I be in parent-teacher conferences constantly?  Will I be a member of the PTA?  Can I imagine myself as a PTA mom?  Will I help him with his homework (yes, even in Pre-K…on his first day…he has homework)?  Will he help me with mine one day?  Will he get straight A’s?  Will he struggle?  Will he need speech therapy?  Will he be smart, but lazy, as I was?  Will he push himself?  Will he be happy with mediocrity?  So many worries/concerns/questions/what-ifs…and it’s only his first day!  What ever am I going to do when the girl starts school too? 

The hardest part of all of this is not being directly involved in his everyday life.  I have always had a hard time with not knowing, I mean really knowing what was going on at his dad’s house; what he is doing, how he reacts to things, what is going on around him, etc, etc.  Now, there is another venue for the hole in my sight.  I always made a point to go early and stay a few minutes late at daycare, just to have time to observe him there, just so I could pretend I knew what was going on throughout the day while I’m at work.  It’s amazing how far I can stretch a few minutes a day and pretend it’s always that way!  I can’t so much do that now…and especially as he gets older.  (I can imagine the “oh Mmmoooommm“s now!)  *sigh*  Why do they have to grow up so fast?

I just dropped the boy off for his first day of school.  HUGE milestone in his/my life!  And before you ask, no, did not cry.  It may seem callous to those of you who tear up during commercials for the Sears Portrait Studio and carry an endless supply of Kleenex in your purses (no offense intended to those of you who do), but I’m just not that girl.  I don’t cry often, and especially not in front of my kids.  But I will admit it was difficult.  The most difficult part was leaving him in the care of someone I don’t know…well actually a lot of someones if you count the whole school administration thing.  He was actually excited at one point about going to school, but that quickly faded into “whatever” when we got up this morning, and sunk into something that looked a little like fear mixed with “why the hell are you abandoning me in this weird place” by the time we got to his classroom.  It may be part my fault.  My endless, “are you excited? make sure you listen to all the grown-ups. are you excited? you’re starting school! are you excited? make sure you tell your teacher if you need to go potty. are you excited? make sure you tell the bus driver you are going to Miss B’s house after school. are you excited? be a good boy. are you excited? ARE YOU EXCITED?!”  Really, who can blame the kid when mom is a little bit of a freak!? But he is a trooper, armed with his new yellow folder in his SpongeBob backpack, with his SpongeBob shirt, and third pair of clean underwear (not sure why he felt the need to change three times since last night, but whatever makes him comfortable), and his Spiderman Sketchers, we headed to the school.

When we got to his new classroom, it was “circle time.”  Now, I have no idea what “circle time” actually is, or what the goal is, but whatever.  All the kids were on the floor…in a circle, of course…with the teacher.  The boy took one look at the scene and was instantly opposed to it.  The teacher did not get up to meet him (grumble grumble grumble) but did invite him to come sit with the rest of them.  He just stared.  I gave him a little push and asked if he wanted to go sit…mistake…I should never have posed a question like he had some other option.  He calmly looked at me and said, “how about I do something else?”  Ha!  My little genius doesn’t need no stinking school!  After a little coercion, both verbal and physical, he trudged head down and sat next to the teacher.  Guessing that was my cue to leave, I shot him a smile and waved, which he returned with a blank stare, also known as his I’m-really-not-happy-about-this-whole-situation-here,-MOM look and I reluctantly walked back to the front of the school with the secretary.

And now I am home, counting the seconds until I can run back (litterally, I could run…the school is about a 1/2 mile from my house) to the school to scoop him back in my arms.  My only hope is that his day got exceedingly better after I left…I hope, I hope I hope…

Welcome to 2009!  This is a post that should have been put out yesterday, but since I was in the fetal position for most of the day having partied just a little too rambunctiously on New Year’s Eve, it had to wait.  I’m still not 100%, but I’m feeling 1 million times improved from yesterday.  Let’s just say I’m glad my neighbors slept in so as not to witness my full-force vomiting in my front yard while trying to stumble home.  (Thanks, Y, for helping a sister out!)

2008 has come and gone and between bouts of puking, chills, and sleep, I had plenty of time to think on the year and all that happened.  My year seemed stressful, and extra long, but in looking back, it really wasn’t that bad.  My relationship with Mr. W blossomed into the all-fulfilling splendor it is today.  Not without it’s hiccups and break-ups of course, but a little bit of heartbreak is good for a couple.  It makes you value what you have.  Knowing the pain of loss without actually losing just makes you want to hold on tighter in the end.

I worked things out with the ex-men, and have my son full time now, and my daughter…well, still working on that.  At least we aren’t fighting anymore.  That’s one thing.  Oh, and January 16th…the STBX will officially be X#2!!  Woo-freaking-hoo!!  17 long ass months…but it will finally be legally over!

Work is work is work.  I made new friends, and enemies, and found out who I can trust and can’t.  I got more responsibility which will hopefully lead to more pay in the near future.  But in the end, work is work is work.

2009 will be long and lonely with Mr. W away until September.  I do get to see him twice, for two weeks each on our fabulous family vacations…but home just isn’t home without him there.  I intend to get organized, stay busy (but not too busy), finish my degree and start on  my masters, take lots of pictures and maybe even sell a few, eat better, feed my family with love, and just be happier all around, for myself and for my loved ones.  After all, everyone knows if Mom’s not happy, no one is happy! 

So, funk-be-gone and let a very happy new year commence!

One of my friends, Y, asked me to draw her a tattoo recently and I just finished it.  I’m actually pretty proud of this one, as a tattoo or just as a drawing:

I changed a couple things since scanning this, like the lump (which is in fact her left leg under her skirt) in her lap.  I added some folds in the dress to make it actually look like her leg, rather than a strange, almost inappropriate lump. 

She is still unsure about her colors, and I left it up to the tattoo artist to work out the shading and stuff on the wings to give them more dimention and life, but all in all, I’m pretty proud of this one. 

It has actually spurred another request by another friend and co-worker to help her out with her tattoo that she isn’t very happy with.  Could this be a new calling for me?  At the very least, it’s a hobby that I enjoy.  A friend, and fellow tattoo lover mentioned a while back that I should take some of my drawings up to the tattoo shop and see if they’d be willing to put them up as flash for any incoming clients.  The artist, R, that we go to actually started out that way…sketching in the shop (which was then a garage shop) until one of the main guys noticed his abilities with a pencil and suggested he try it on skin.  He never turned back.  R is one lucky guy.  He loves his work, truly, and he is very talented. 

I’m working on something for myself and I will post it when I get something solid.  Until then, at least I can put my marks on my friends! 

I’ve been staring at this blank “add new post”  page for a week, having nothing really to say.  Or maybe it’s just that I’ve had so much going on that I couldn’t nail it down to one subject…or even wrap my head around my thoughts enough to differentiate among them.  Either way, I’ve been neglecting my blog and in turn, my outlet for all this funk.  NO MORE!!

So…

• Parents left after a loooong two-week visit for the holidays…whew
• I have mice in my house.  Not one or two, but probably hundreds at this point.  I did call an exterminator who put out poison boxes (yes, I realize this is rather inhumane of me, but you are just going to have to deal with it because mice in my house, in my food, in my freaking bed is so not cool on so many levels!), but they are still there, I just know it.
• I am dog sitting, three small dogs, for a week.  Of course this has allowed me to confirm that I am in fact allergic to dogs!  Swollen, itchy eyes, tightness in the chest, scratchy throat…oh yeah, totally allergic…4 more days to go…
• The boy is starting school on the 5th.  Pre-k, but still school.  It’s a big and wonderful step, for him, for his dad, for me.  But, this single-mom thing is killing me as I am doing all the work in this effort and thereby shouldering all the stress.  Immunizations, physicals, registration, daycare, buses, school clothes that actualfit my weed-like child, visitation schedule that coincides with the school vacation/days off schedule…on and on and on.  I am so not digging this whole single mom, singular responsibility bit. 
• Bills.  Christmas has come and gone, but the damage to my bank account lingers on.  Damn me and all my generosity!
• Mr. W is going through a rough patch.  I know he is a grown man and can take care of himself, but I just can’t help but to worry!  That’s what I do with the ones I love, I worry when they aren’t happy.  Good or bad, it’s just my way. 
• Insomnia.  3 nights and counting.  I even took benadryl Sunday night (for the allergic-to-dogs thing) but still no sleep.  ARGH!
• My teeth hurt, for pretty much no reason at all.  The dentist even said so.  (ok, this “stress” is pretty weak…but seriously, they hurt!)

None of these things in and of themselves are much to scream about, but I have caught the post-holiday funk and it just amplifies everything.  As I read around the other blogs I peruse from time to time, I’ve noticed that this funk is running rampant among quite a few of us.  Is it normal?  Is it catching?  I’ve never really suffered from post-holiday funk before (not to be confused with post-holiday crud…which I also am dealing with…but that is probably because when I’m in a funk, I eat crap, and lots of it to compensate…but I digress), then again, normally I am ecstatic all throughout the holidays, so it’s all kind of new to me this year.  Is this an omen to the disposition of 2009?  If it is, I’d rather stay in ‘08.

In an attempt to look forward with hopes for the new year, and aspirations for myself, I’m going to do something very different this year: Resolve.  Yes, I am going to make New Year’s Resolutions.  I never have before, and as cliche as it probably is at this point, I’m going to list them here for all of you…you might want to get some coffee because these are probably pretty stale:

• quit smoking
• exercise in some way, shape, or form
• stop drinking soda (except for my daily 130pm Redbull)
• eat soup or a single sandwich for lunch every day
• take more pictures
• post more pictures
• spend less money
• hire a maid*, if only to facilitate all of the above, and
• cook dinner for the kids every night
• blog at least 5 times a week (my life isn’t that interesting, after all)

I know, cliche and boring, but it’s my first time…be gentle. 

*I realize the hiring of a maid goes against the spending less money, but bear with me on this one.  A maid means less time spent cleaning, which means more time.  Time to cook, time to exercise, time to spend with the kids, time to take and post pictures, just time.  I feel there is a serious shortage of time in my days, so anything I can do to get more has to be a step in the right direction.

My little boy is five years old today!  How the time flies when you’re stressing divorcing worrying divorcing again fighting having fun!  Pretty soon he’ll be starting school, getting in trouble, discovering girls, drinking, driving, drinking and driving, hating mom, graduating high school, going to college, moving out, and starting a family of his own…whew!  Where did the time go?

In all seriousness, I’m happy for my little boy.  He’s getting older and wiser.  I called him this morning from work to wish him a happy birthday and he said thank you with such genuine appreciation and happiness, I could hear him smiling on the phone.  My baby isn’t a baby anymore.  It’s a little bitter sweet, I confess, but the sweetness way outweighs the bitter in this case. 

 I look forward to the years ahead.  The days of banging my head against a wall while trying to convince a toddler of something are coming to a close with the actual ability to reason on the horizon.  Oh, I know I’m not anywhere near the edge of the woods yet, but at least I can take comfort that the edge is there…somewhere…way up ahead…

So today is his day.  The boy was born a month early, just in time for Christmas.  It was a real shocker, but a very happy Christmas for me.  But I vowed never to let his birthday get caught up and hidden in the hustle and bustle of Christmas day.  I promised him at birth he would never get combined presents or go without a party to celebrate his day simply because Christmas was two days later.  True to my word, we are having a small gathering this evening.  My parents are here, of course.  But Mr. W’s kids, ex-wife (the first one…mother of the kids), and her husband will be joining us for dinner and cake.  Unfortunately my kids will be departing to their respective dads’ houses the day after Christmas, so the gift exchange with Mr. W’s kids will have to take place tonight as well.  This is not true to my word.  I’m feeling terribly guilty about the whole thing, but I can’t find another way.  We have a ton of presents for the older kids, and I know they have a few for mine.  Damn the ex-men, once again, for this horrible schedule.  Don’t get me wrong, I would never begrudge my kids or their dads the right and joy to spend holidays together…but really, the day after Christmas??  Makes me wonder if I will get the same consideration next year…not that I’d want to.  I would like my kids to have a day or two to recover from the festivities at one house, to really appreciate and play with all their new toys, before being shuffled off to the other house to do it all over again…but that’s just me.  But on the bright side, how many kids get two whole Christmas’s every year?

My mom isn’t exactly what I would define as a “movie buff,” but she has seen tons of movies in her life.  She doesn’t watch TV much, and instead relies on movies, old and especially new, to pass the hours she doesn’t sleep.  The reason I say she doesn’t classify as a “buff” in my book is that she has a very short memory, which is great for a movie watcher.  She can watch a movie a dozen or so time, each time being like their very first.  It’s actually quite amusing to watch her watching a movie, marveling at the events unfolding, surprised even that the plot untwists the way it has the first ten or so times she watched it.  She also doesn’t get most of the subtle undertones or messages in movies, so she relies solely on the surface entertainment value of the film.  So no, I wouldn’t call her a “movie buff,” but since she’s been visiting, we have been watching a bunch of movies, including Ground Control, an older  movie from the late nineties starring Keifer Sutherland as an air traffic controller…cool movie for controller types, but others, probably not so much; Speed Racer, the movie version of the cartoon… I think…pretty cool racing scenes, although the story was straight out of a cartoon plot; Becoming Jane, a charming movie starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austin (one of my favorite, yet not yet read authors…I know…strange, but Pride and Prejudice and The Jane Austin Book Club make me want to read everything she ever wrote in one sitting, something I will need a good number of hours of solitude for.); and The Women, starring Meg Ryan, Annette Benning, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, and Jada Pinkett-Smith.

This last movie intrigued me the most.  It’s about friends, specifically women friends.  In fact, there are no men at all in the entire movie…well, except for the baby boy born in the last scenes, but he doesn’t really count.  There are no men’s voices, despite the oft conversations with them on the phone.  There aren’t even any men on the streets of New York, where a lot of the movie is set.  Is that even possible??

Basically the plot goes like this…Benning gets gossip from a nail girl about Ryan’s husband cheating on her with a perfume girl at Saks, played by very sexy Mendes.  The friends get together to decide whether to tell Ryan, meanwhile, Ryan gets the same bit of gossip while getting her nails done, and by advice from mom, played by a very well maintained, although probably not without pharmaceutical help, Candice Bergen.  Of course, girlfriends convince otherwise, including some amusing confrontations and conversations.  I won’t spoil the movie for you, so you’ll have to see it unfold for yourself. 

The thing that intrigued me the most about this movie was the friendships between these women.  They were all very different, with very different priorities and lives, all busy, but still, the strong bonds remained among them.  It made me think about my own life and lost friendships along its path.  I don’t have any real “lifelong” friends.  I don’t have girlfriends that I can always turn to.  I don’t get together with the girls.  I do have friends scattered all over the world, but our correspondence is monthly at best, and we haven’t seen each other for months, if not years.  Counting out my blood family, and even then, only my parents and children count, I haven’t had any relationship of any kind that has lasted the test of time.  None longer than a couple years, and only if in close proximity with almost daily interaction.  I don’t know if it’s my lack of social grace, or my being an only child, or my moving every couple years with my father’s military transfers, or what.  I’ve never been good at making, or keeping friends.  As a matter of fact, my best friend almost always falls within the same body of whoever the man in my life happens to be at the time.  That makes it extremely difficult to 1) break up with someone, and 2) find a sympathetic shoulder to cry on (since that is traditionally a job for a best friend who you are not actually breaking up with).

I am exceedingly jealous of women who have these types of relationships with other women.  I’m jealous of those who visit each other regularly and enjoy endless conversations about nothing.  I’m jealous of those who know each other so well that they not only know when the other is upset, but know the perfect combination of wine, flowers, and chocolate to cheer the other up with.  I’m jealous of those who laugh and cry and hope and despair side by side, holding each others’ hands (or heads) along the way.

I have found women with whom I relate well with, sort of…but never really well.  The comfort level isn’t there, or if it is, it doesn’t last.  Our lives change, and we grow apart and I’m left back at square one.  So what is my problem?  Well, I’ve traced it to a number of things:

• When I’m in a romantic relationship, I delve so deeply and wholly into it, that I tend to neglect my others.
• I am reasonably young, and most of the women my age are in a totally different place than me.  I am balancing young children, with working full time in a traditionally male world, with going to school full time for an engineering degree, with almost-constant drama with the ex-men, with life in general.  Most women my age may be going through one or two of the above, but not all.  It’s hard to bond with someone who can’t possibly understand my life.
• My interests are strange.  I like photography, movies, video games, books, and writing.  I color with my kids, or doodle at work.  I love shoes, but also like to get dirty.
• I get along much better with men.  I spent more leisure time with my dad and his friends as a child, so naturally I learned leisure from them.
• I’m terrible at keeping in touch. Email, phone, letters…they all allude me.

So here I am, without the comfort of a girlfriend, observing those around me from afar via movies, blogs, or stories from my friends who have their own girlfriends, at a time when, quite honestly, I could really use one.

*sigh*  Poor me, right?  *sigh*

I am cranky as shit!  I am extremely sexually frustrated (two months, dammit!  and two more to go!), people at work are getting on my last nerve (the asshole at work is rearing his ugly head again, not at me, but in his general holier-than-thou-I-know-everything-about-everything attitude which is usually followed by a statement that is so epicly wrong it’s ridiculous), and the girl is being a brat, or rather, the princess is being a royal brat!

#1 — I won’t delve too deeply into this one as it is personal, and although I try to maintain complete openness and honesty in this blog…sometimes you just have to filter in good taste.  But I will say my solo time (as little as is available with parents visiting, sheer exhaustion by the time I get to bed, and the at least twice a week I have a little person sharing my bed with me) is just not cutting it!  I miss my Mr. W…in every way!

#2 — The asshole struck again yesterday with his blatant stupidity coupled with his holier-than-thou attitude.  He ignored some potentially serious safety violations at work until his hand was forced, then made snide, unprofessional comments that basically said, “Hey, we don’t care about safety here.  The only reason I’m bringing it up is so I don’t have to listen to the guy that is concerned whine.”  WTF!!  Then, taking on his role of I-know-everything-about-everything, he put on his trainer hat and gave some epicly wrong information to my trainee!  *argh!*

#3 — I’m not sure what her deal is, but my little princess is really pushing my buttons.  Last week, it was just her and I and we had a wonderful time.  She was well behaved.  She was sweet.  She was happy.  This week, she’s talking back (a lot), her favorite two phrases are, “I don’t want to” and “NO!” and she is being totally unreasonable in her demands.  Yes, demands.  I don’t expect a three year old to be particularly reasonable in her requests, but demands…oh, hell no!  I have to constantly remind her that I am her mother and she should speak to me with a certain respect.  I don’t expect her to learn that lesson from her other parent or family, but she knows better at home, I know she does.  Because of my frustrations in other parts of my life, I’m not handling her attitudes and outbursts very well.  I’ve done a lot of yelling and threatening over the last couple days.  I can’t seem to keep my calm long enough to do what works in place of the yelling.  Honestly, I can’t seem to even recall what works.  We haven’t had behavioural problems in quite a while, and when I’m in that red faced gonna break something (no, not my child…but something) mode, I can’t even think straight!  I need to find something to maintain my calm.  Not sure what that is yet…but I need…something.

Sex is obviously out of the question as it’s not available at this time.  Can’t drink since it’s probably not a great outlet for frustration, and besides, step-dad is a recovered alcoholic so I had to stash all my liquor and wine for the visit.  I’ve been smoking more, although I was hoping my parents’ visit would help me cut down or quit completely.  I don’t know what else to try…*hrumph!*