Yawn...

So, yeah, might not be the best time to do this, but...oh, well.

So, D got a new job. He got the call Thursday that an OTR company that runs TCU (temperature controlled units aka refrigerated trucks) wanted to hire him. Friday they called and told him he was going to start today. They have a terminal less than 100 miles from here, so he was able to leave this morning. Early this morning. Like up at 5:30 early this morning. Yeah...I'm tired.

We had a great weekend though. Took D to Fantasy of Flight for his birthday. He and the boys loved it. Not that I didn't have a good time as well, but it was definitely  more of a guy thing. It was very cool to see all those different planes, though.

We stopped at a local mexican restaurant on the way home for dinner. That was also wonderful. Great food, ran into some friends we haven't seen in a while, very relaxing. Then when we left, J whacked his head on a wall and gave himself a minor head wound. Bled like crazy, but he's ok. That kinda put a slight damper on the day, but not much.

Then yesterday, D & I went and packed up his stuff and stuck it in storage, and got the stuff he needed for the truck. We also hit Walmart and did J's birthday shopping. Came home and had dinner, and watched some TV. I'd hoped we'd get to bed early since we had to get up so early, but we still ended up being up until about 10:30. We had to pack his bag, and make sure he had everything he needed.

The alarm went off at 5:30, and I sooo did not want to get up. We ended up laying there for another 15 minutes or so before we finally got up and got moving. I tried to go back to bed after he left, but I couldn't sleep. I'd been awake too long, and the boys got up about a half hour later.

I miss him already, but we'll be ok. He's in orientation now, and by Wednesday morning, he'll be heading out. He's so much happier now. He's not more rested just yet, but he will be.

We're working on things, figuring out how we want to handle everything and get done things we need to get done.

C started his new dose of medication, and there has been quite an improvement. His behavior and attitude are obviously better, but his grades are also increasing. His teacher did tell me that he has 3 D's right now on his progress report, which is unacceptable and he knows it, but they are high D's and the teacher seems to expect them to continue rising. And since I know what he's capable of, I know they will.

Both boys have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. For C, it is a follow up to see how the new dose is doing and also his yearly well child check. For J, it is the well child check, and I'm also going to be talking to the doctor about whether we should increase his dose. His problem is not so obvious grade wise, but in terms of behavior. He gets way cranky in the afternoon and evening, the pill doesn't seem to be as effective for him. He gets in trouble at school for touching other kids and their stuff, for talking too much, for getting out of line, for not doing his classwork properly or for racing ahead of the rest of the class and then getting the work wrong. He comes home and he argues with me, with his brother. He doesn't listen.

Things are improving all the way around. I'm just hoping they stay that way.

Now....I'm off to try to take a nap. Good night...

I'm so excited!!

I don't even know where to start.

D & I are finally back on track. I can honestly say I think we are both happy again. We are moving forward with our relationship again, and not feeling the same uncertainty and confusion that we had been for a while now.

And...the really exciting news....I have a job interview! I've been looking for work for 2 years now. There's been nothing. But, we desperately need me to find something, because D's job just doesn't pay enough for me to stay at home, and the otr thing isn't happening right now.

So Friday morning, I posted a "seeking" ad on a local website, letting potential employers know that I was looking for work. Friday evening, I got a call. That same evening, I emailed my resume to him, and he emailed me an application and an overview of duties and such.

Saturday morning, I'd sent the application back, and last night, he emailed me a 21 page document listing, in detail, the job duties, along with step by step instructions on how to do them. Late last night, he emailed to set a time for the interview.

I am very, very hopeful about this. I have to think that he wouldn't be this quick on everything, or sending me information about the job that is this detailed, if it weren't very likely that I'd get the job. I could be wrong, but I'd rather think positively.

The boys are doing ok. I think J is about to need his med dose upped, as his brother did recently. They both have their appointment next Monday, so we'll discuss it with the doctor then.

D's birthday is tomorrow. Saturday, we're celebrating and he'll get his present. I think he'll really like it; it's something he's wanted for a while. I know the boys are going to enjoy it, too.

Well...I started working on this post this morning, and then I got distracted...well, not distracted, but I had to get some things done. So, I set this aside and got stuff done. During that time period, I've had yet another potential employer respond to my seeking ad. So, now I have two potential jobs in the works. I've gone from having no job prospects and no real hope of finding any to maybe having 2 to choose from. I definitely feel like life is beginning to look up for me.

I had begun to feel as though my depression might be returning. I was finding it very hard to get much of anything done, and it seemed like everything I tried to do ended up turning out all wrong. Now, D & I are doing better, things seem to be improving with the boys, and I should have a job very, very soon. D & I will quickly have the money saved up to move in together. I'm beginning to feel quite happy again.

Things are better. This is good.

So....yeah

A couple of weeks ago, D & I were supposed to meet at a local defunct limestone quarry. It's up for sale, and he had some ideas that he wanted to take a look around and determine if they would work.

On my way to meet him there, a car got in front of me, and decided at the very last second that he was going to turn left right in front of me. This turn required him to slam on his brakes. He had no brake lights, and no turn signal. So I had no warning he was going to do this until my car was nearly making love to his bumper...actually making love is too nice. We know what term should go here.

I could not go out around him as there were other cars there, so I did the only thing I could: slam on my brakes and hope like hell I wouldn't hit him. Well, in this process, I ended up skidding and ended up in the grassy median, facing back in the direction I'd come from. No one was hurt, nothing was damaged. After taking a moment to calm down (and finish cussing the jerk who caused it), I went on and met D. We had a very nice afternoon at the quarry, by the way.

So, anyway, after this little fiasco, I noticed one day that my car seemed very...bumpy. If I was going 20-30 mph, I felt like I was horseback riding. If I went faster than 50, it felt more like, uh...well, let's just say if I were alone in the car, it could have been a lot of fun, shall we? :)

I  mentioned this to my dad, and he commented that when I skidded, I may have "flatspotted" my tires. This is apparently where the rubber gets flattened in one spot when you skid. This, it seems, makes for a bumpy ride much like I was getting.

He didn't seem overly concerned, so I wasn't overly concerned. The consensus seemed to be that the ride would be bumpy, but eventually the tread would wear to match the flatspot and things would be fine.

Yeah...that didn't exactly happen. What happened was that yesterday, I noticed that it seemed to be getting worse. But I thought that perhaps I was simply paranoid, or overly anxious or whatever. Then, this morning, I was certain it was worse. I had come to the conclusion that if D & I felt we could afford it, I was simply going to go get the tires changed, because the bumpiness was beyond annoying. And I was getting somewhat concerned.

Then I left to pick the boys up from school (it was an early day today). I knew then that it was worse, as it got louder. I pulled over to check the tires; everything appeared to be fine. I got back in the car, and pulled back onto the road. I hadn't gone more than maybe 10-20 feet before I heard the bang and pulled back over. I opened my door and before I even got out, I saw the shredded tire and the metal cords inside it.

I was very lucky in that my friend Carolyn drove by, and took me to the school to pick up the boys. My mom came and helped me change the tire, and then I went to our excellent local tire shop and got two tires put on the car. Two hundred and eleven dollars later, my car no longer feels like I'm riding a horse. And I can hear the radio again.

So, yeah, this was not a good day.  I spent money we can't afford to spend, spent time I didn't have on the side of the road, and ended up having something completely different for dinner than I'd planned (since dinner was kind of complicated and I didn't feel like dealing with it).

I had one drink to ease the stress, and now I'm sleepy. Off to watch America's got Talent and then go to bed.

Regardless of what you think, I have thought about this

So, my ex has started (for the time being anyway) making regular, albeit smaller than ordered, child support payments again. Now, my mother is worried that he will call, wanting to see the boys.

I'm not worried. I know he won't call. I know him. He doesn't want the responsibility of kids. That's why he disappeared in the first place. Honestly, I never expected to hear from him in any way, shape, or form ever again. He filed, and then withdrew, to modify the child support. When you read that sentence, read that he filed and then withdrew to try to get the child support lowered, because that's really what it was about. And I'm 99% certain that that's also the only reason why he's now paying child support. And I'm relatively certain that once he figures out a way to get out of it again, the payments will again disappear.

In the process of what was supposed to be a small discussion about this matter, my mother got upset that C told a friend of his that they (my boys) didn't have a dad. Well, no, that's not quite right. She's upset that I didn't immediately correct C on this matter. She feels that I should have told him that he does in fact have a dad and given him all kinds of details about him.

Now, look, we all know I hate my ex. It's pretty much a given. And the fact that I hate him and complain on here about him from time to time is a large part of why I try to keep this as anonymous as possible, so my sons will never associate it with us.

But regardless of how much I hate him, I would never try to interfere in his relationship, if he had one or wanted one, with my sons. HOWEVER, this fact does not mean that I feel it necessary to make him a continued daily presence in my home and my life.

The fact is, 5 years ago, he chose to walk out on my sons. He chose to eliminate himself from their lives. I don't know why; he never bothered to even tell me he was going to walk away. My sons do not remember him walking out on them. They do not ask questions about him; they do not talk about him. That is their choice, not mine.

I do not try to hide him or pretend he does not exist. But I do not think that bringing him up to two boys who don't ask about him is a good idea. To me, it's cruel. I think it would be cruel to continually bring up a father who doesn't come to see them, doesn't call/write/email, and has essentially pretended they don't exist for the last 5 years.

When they ask (and yes, I say when...they will ask one day), I will answer their questions about their father. I will not lie to them, I will not tell them half truths. But I also will not deliberately hurt them.

When they ask why he doesn't come see them, I will tell them that it's because he doesn't know how to be a father. This upsets my mother. She thinks that's lying, because she says we can't know his reasons. No, we can't know his reasons.

But regardless of what she thinks, I have given this statement a lot of thought. It's the most truthful answer I can give them that doesn't leave room for them to think it's their fault.

If I tell them I don't know, they will think I am saying that because I don't want to tell them the truth. They will think I am lying. I refuse to allow that.

If I tell them he's too busy, he doesn't want to come, or anything like that, they will find a way, as children do, to think that that means something is wrong with them, that they did something wrong or bad or that he didn't like, that he doesn't love them.

I'll be damned if I'm going to do that to them.

Telling them he doesn't know how to be a father puts the blame squarely where it belongs: on him.  Not knowing how to do something is no one's fault but your own.

Is it possible that I'm wrong? Of course. There may be an angle to that statement that I haven't seen yet, that will allow them to think it's their fault. There may be other aspects to it that I haven't seen yet that make it wrong.

But I'm doing the best I can here to make sure my sons grow up happy, healthy, and not screwed up by the fact that I divorced their father. I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes, and I'll make more.

I'm doing what I think is right. If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'll deal with it. Just know that I have thought about it, and I really do believe I'm doing the right thing.

...........

So, I started two different posts this week, intending to publish both, and then reaching a point where I stopped for one reason or another. We'll see if this one makes publication.

C has a doctor's appointment this afternoon. His meds are not working, at all. I may have to pay for the meds myself, since I don't think the insurance will cover it because I just filled the Rx for the old dosage a week or so ago. But it needs to be done, even if I do have to pay for it myself. His grades are suffering badly, as well as everything else in his life.

D & I are still doing better, although we did have a major setback yesterday. We've worked it out, and although I'm very hurt by what happened and will have to work to trust his word again, we will get past this. He did something really stupid and that he shouldn't have done, but at least he could admit he messed up. And it certainly wasn't the absolute worst thing he could have done.

He's made trainer at his current job. It doesn't really pay any extra, but he loves teaching others how to drive, so it's a good thing. He's still hoping to get on with this other company, but we'll see how it goes. He's still not thrilled with the place he's at now, but now that he's a trainer, he's a little happier.

J's teacher has seen me a couple of times now, and has told me that J is doing a great job: he listens really well, he pays attention and follows directions, and his grades are excellent.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make some money. The ChaCha thing is doing so-so, it doesn't look like the photography business is really going to take off, and there's just no jobs out there.

I'm sure there's other stuff I meant to talk about, but for now...my brain won't cooperate. So I'm off.

I'm pissed!

So, I'm standing in line at the grocery store this morning. Every Friday, I drop the kids off at school, and then immediately hit the store at the godawful hour of 7:30ish, to avoid the crowds that congregate later.

First, I get stuck standing in line behind a family of three: mom, dad, and little boy. And it seems they like to stand in the checkout line and argue, debate pricing strategy with the cashier, and oh yeah...get the wrong size of everything and run it all back one at a time to get the right size...all while I stand in line behind them with milk getting warm and butter starting to get to room temperature, because there's no other line open. *sigh*

I finally get close enough to put my stuff on the belt. As I wait semi-patiently for them to finish, I start scanning the covers of the various trash magazines that grace the checkout line. I always roll my eyes at the ridiculous headlines, and the only way I ever read those magazines is if someone I know buys them and passes them on to me for whatever reason. Hey, it's free reading material...and I can't survive without something to read.

Then I look at the cover of Us Weekly. On the cover is a picture of some brunette girl with a baby in her arms. The headline reads Teen Mom: I'm Broke. Ummm...why is this newsworthy? There are single moms all over, both teen and otherwise, that are broke. Why, exactly, is this one so special? Oh, yeah, because she is apparently famous, had lots of money, and has now blown it and can't afford rent and food for her baby.

Look, I'm sorry, but I just can't muster any sympathy for this girl, whoever she is. I'm a 31 year old mother of two. I chose to wait until I was stable enough financially to have a child, and mature enough to raise it on my own. Later, my circumstances changed and yeah, now I'm a broke single mom. But I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me, and I certainly don't get to be on the cover of a magazine begging for said sympathy.

And what really gets me is that she had money. And blew it. I'm sorry...if you get money, and you're stupid enough to waste it all in today's economy, then you don't get sympathy. Why should we feel sorry for you for being an idiot? Why should we feel sorry for you when you got yourself knocked up? I know, I know, she's young, blah blah blah. Not an excuse anymore. Teenage pregnancy is not the big hush-hush secret it used to be; expectant moms don't get sent to the convent or off to live with Aunt Edith until after the baby's born, to return home claiming they went abroad for a year to expand their horizons. If you aren't smart enough to know that having sex can result in a baby...well, all the more reason you shouldn't be having sex.

And why doesn't she have enough dignity, enough pride, to NOT want to announce on the cover of a national magazine that she was stupid enough to waste the money she had and now can't care for her child? Didn't her mother ever teach her about responsibility? About doing what you need to do to take care of yourself and your child? Well, I guess that is expecting a lot from a mother who didn't seem to care enough to make sure her kid didn't waste all her money.

Ok...done ranting. Just had to get that off my chest.

So...D & I are doing pretty good now. Still not great, of course; that'll take time. But we're getting better and better with each day that passes. Looks like he'll be back otr pretty soon, which is good. The place he's currently working is absolutely horrible. This week alone, he had a powering steering line, an air line, and a tire blow...all in a 3 day period. And the owner claims it's the driver's fault if a tire blows. Not sure how exactly he came to that conclusion, but...whatever.

C is going to be getting on a higher dose of his meds. He's having massive trouble paying attention in class, and he's not doing so well here at home, either. So, I've got to call and get him an appointment in the next couple of weeks and get his dosage upped. Then, we'll see how it goes from there.

J is, as always, doing wonderfully. Great grades, great behavior, lots of friends, etc.

That's about it for now.

It's Friday! Not that that really means anything...

We made it through the first week of school. I'm pretty sure we're mostly intact. All the fingers and toes are still there...haven't checked brains yet.

C came home with homework again today. Even on Friday, they have homework. I'm finding this not  only ridiculous, but intrusive. I also have to wonder, with all the homework he's expected to do, when and what is he actually being taught while at school? I mean, *are* they actually teaching him anything? Or are they just acting as glorified babysitters for 6 hours a day? I know I'm just frustrated, and I realize they do teach him, and they do a lot. It just seems...I guess I feel if they were effectively doing their jobs, then the kids wouldn't need so much homework. And I'm all for parental involvement, I am very actively involved in my children's lives, both academically and otherwise. But I send them to school for a reason, a reason that I am rapidly beginning to think no longer applies. The point of sending them to school was to provide them with a teacher who, I thought anyway, could provide them with a better education than I could. Considering the amount of time I spend helping with homework, I'm beginning to think we'd all be better off if I just homeschooled the boys. It would probably take less time, as well.

I'm also discovering that working from home is not as simple as you might think. It might just be because having been out of work for so long, I've come to think of myself as a stay at home mom and therefore feel it is my responsibility to keep up the house. But I find that when I'm working, I feel like I should be doing housework. But if I stop working to do housework, then I think about how I should be working so I can make money. I think it's just a matter of finding my balance, figuring everything out and planning my day. It is only week one, after all. I can't expect everything to run smoothly right from the start...just like everything else, I've got to find the rhythm.

My friend Carolyn's son got C's old teacher for 1st grade. It was the teacher that Lukas had in 2nd grade. She's been moved to 1st this year. Carolyn is so please with her. The teacher is an amazing teacher. She's wonderful with kids at any grade level, and great with the parents, too. What I find odd is that there is another teacher that got moved to 1st grade this year, and she's not such a wonderful teacher. She's actually had numerous complaints filed against her, complaints that as far as we can tell no one has ever actually taken seriously and done anything about.

This particular teacher was heard on a mother's voicemail calling that mother's child a bastard, an asshole, and being told to shut up and sit down and several other horrible things that should never be said to a child. For that incident, she was suspended with pay for 2 weeks while they "investigated" and then reinstated with nothing in her record about what she had done. And this was with proof on voicemail! I don't know the details of the other incidents, but I don't really think I need to. Based on that one alone, she should have been fired. This was when she taught 2nd grade.

Another parent at the school questioned why this teacher was still there, given the incident I mentioned. This parent was told that they moved this teacher to 1st grade, to see how she does there, and if she doesn't do well, she'll be fired. Ummm.....huh? We have a teacher who was recorded on voicemail calling an older child horrible names and saying other horrible things, and now we're going to experiment with younger, more emotionally fragile children to see what she does? Please explain to me how this makes sense. Why do we want to expose children who are even more easily hurt and influenced, who are even more likely to take what this woman says to heart and believe there's truth in it, to her? That just completely boggles my mind. When I look at things like this, it suddenly makes perfect sense why our children learn nothing and why we are so far behind other countries educationally speaking. How can we expect our children to learn when the people in charge are complete blithering idiots?

I'm glad that J didn't get that particular teacher, otherwise the school and I would be having some serious issues right now.

Both boys seem to like their teachers very much, a fact for which I am very grateful. C is not happy with the homework his teacher assigns, and honestly neither am I. But as I've told him, his teacher assigned it, so he must do it.

Today's math homework for him was about figuring out appropriate numbers for a description. For example, was the number of people living in a particular state in the millions? He had to answer yes or no. I had to laugh when I saw the following:

Q: Does your math book have millions of pages?
A (exactly as he wrote it): YES!!!

Can you tell the boy hates math? Not that I blame him. In fact, I'm right there with him.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

I love my children. I really do. No, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm reminding myself.

School sucks. Homework sucks. Hey...did I tell you that school and homework suck? They do, you know.

C is in 4th grade this year. Each year, homework has increased. The teachers claim it's 10 minutes per day per grade level. So, first grade is 10 minutes, 2nd is 20 and so on. So, 4th grade is 40 minutes. C takes...roughly 2 hours. I frequently find myself wondering if C is just that much of a whiner and procrastinator? Or if the problem is his ADHD? Or if the problem really lies with the teachers. I once, when he was in 1st grade, sat beside him as he did his homework and did it mentally myself. The 10 minutes that it supposedly should take him...is how long it took me, an adult who knows this stuff. I highly suspect that the teachers do the homework, and decide that how long it takes them is how long it should take the kids. They don't take into account that the kids are still learning this stuff and will therefore take longer. And then, with mine, you throw in ADHD and you end up with...2 hours a day spent on homework.

J gets done much quicker. Which leads me to believe that a large part of C's problem is whining and procrastinating. J is in 1st grade, but when he does his homework, he's done in about 10 minutes. C never was when he was in 1st grade; he usually took about a half hour. J has always seemed to have a much easier time academically than C, though. I'm not sure why. They are both incredibly smart, and eager to learn. I don't understand why it is that C won't just buckle down and get the work done. D tells me that I need to be firmer and make him get it done, but he's never here when we do homework, so he doesn't understand that I am firm. I am firm, I do make him get it done, the problem is that he doesn't do it in a timely fashion. And I can only do so much without making the situation worse.

I can't really put a time limit on him. First, it's hard to impose a time limit on something like this, because there's really no way to know how long is reasonable, considering he does sometimes struggle. Second, putting a time limit on him applies more pressure. And he doesn't do so well under pressure, which means if I put him on a time limit, he's going to feel more stressed, and therefore have more trouble concentrating, and thus take longer to finish.

I can only hope that as the school year wears on, as we get back into the routine, that things will get better. I can only hope that he will get tired of not having any time to play outside, or even inside for that matter, and decide on his own to apply himself and get the homework done.

On the plus side, it looks like D will have this otr job. It'll suck with him being gone so much, but we might actually have more time for each other. Plus, we'll finally be able to get the money together to get our own place.

I have a couple of friends who have volunteered themselves and/or their children to be my models to help me get my photography business going. And working as a Guide for ChaCha, though somewhat boring, does seem as though it might start paying off.

That's about all there is for now. Time for me to go figure out what the heck I'm going to make for dinner tonight.

Some conclusions...

So, recently things have been...not good. D & I have been struggling, I've been trying to decide if I have anxiety or not, no job, a whole slew of things. But, some things are beginning to improve.

D & I are not yet perfect, by any means. But, things are better. We decided one thing we needed to do was to lay out our expectations of each other as clearly as possible. We both felt like we weren't getting what we needed from each other. Turned out, once we laid things out, we weren't as far apart as we were beginning to feel. That alone has done wonders to ease the tension between us.

On top of that, I realized that a lot of our problems were stemming from my insecurities and my issues. I have been insecure for years, because my ex cheated and lied and treated me so horribly. And although it's insecurity in thinking that I'm not good enough, attractive enough, whatever enough, it's also a matter of trust. I couldn't trust that D loved me enough, cared about me enough, was just a decent enough guy, to not treat me that way. I kept waiting for it to happen. I kept pushing him away, trying to protect myself from the, I thought, inevitable hurt.

I finally came to the realization that not only did I have to stop, but that D deserved better. He's a wonderful, loving, trustworthy guy and he deserves better than to have a girlfriend who thinks he's just biding his time until he can do something to screw her over. I looked at all the ways our lives our intertwined already, from car insurance to our movies mixed together in the entertainment center, and realized that if he didn't really want to be here, didn't really want to be with me, he wouldn't have let our relationship get this far. He wouldn't have invested so much time and energy into this if it wasn't important to him.

I've finally begun to get past my issues and insecurities. When they start to rear their ugly heads, I just remind myself of the things I've realized, of how much he loves me, how committed we both are to this, how much we've already combined our lives, and that reassures me.

Which is especially important, since it appears he may be about to go back on the road. He's got to submit a small amount of paperwork, and it looks like he will have a new over the road job. I'm happy in one way, and not so happy in another.With the job he currently has, the pay sucks, the hours suck, we never have time to even see each other much less talk. Most of our communication is by text right now, because it's the only way we can do it. If he's over the road, he'll be gone for 2 weeks at a time, but at least when he's home, we'll actually have time together, and we can actually find time to talk to each other. He'll be much less exhausted, which is definitely a priority. So, it's one of those things where in one way, it's good and in another it's not. We'll make the best of it. We love each other and we will be fine.

In terms of the job situation, things are improving slightly for me, as well...although how much improvement is yet to be seen. I am working as a Guide on ChaCha.com. I get paid per question that I answer. It doesn't amount to much, I only make maybe $2-3 an hour, but at least it's something coming in. And in addition, I have started my own photography business. I have absolutely no idea how that's going to go yet, but I gotta do something, and this seems as good an idea as anything else. It's a business with pretty much no start up costs, since D is letting me use his excellent camera. I only had to pay for business cards, which I only paid for shipping for, because I got them on vistaprint.com. I'm working on convincing my friends to be my guinea pigs...uh, I mean models. I've got to get them to sign to model releases, but my intention is to take their pictures and then use them to promote my business by showing what I'm capable of and hopefully drawing in paying customers. Yeah, I'm not charging my friends. I figure if they'll do it, they're doing me a favor, so doing it for free is the least I can do. I will charge them if they decide they want prints, but only half cost.

The kids are back in school now,  so that will make everything easier...well, with some stuff. Having to deal with homework and such will make it harder, but whatever. It gives me more free hours during the day, but then I have more to do in the evening. But as it is every year, it's all a matter of getting back into the routine. Once we manage, then everything gets easier and better. It's only the second day...that means only 178 more to go. *sigh*

Well, I think that's about all that's going on for now. With the kids back in school, I should be able to blog more often, but we'll see.

To end this on a sweet note: both boys didn't want me to walk them in to their classes the first day. Yesterday morning, they both changed their minds. They let me walk them in on the first day. C walked about three feet to one side and two feet ahead of me the whole way, but hey...he let me walk him in !

Everything stays the same...sort of

Not much has changed in the last couple of weeks. D & I are still struggling, although we are both fully committed to doing everything we can to fix this. And so far, we are doing much better. We've talked about some things we've been holding back on, and getting things out in the open, which has been a help. I am pretty sure that in the end, we're going to be ok, it's just a matter of getting through right now. Stress and exhaustion isn't helping either. We're both stressed to the max over money, he's exhausted from his hours at a job he can't stand, I'm getting ready to start putting in some seriously long hours at a work at home job. These stresses are the same ones that couples all over are dealing with right now, so we're nothing special in that regard. I think that those stresses are just kind of piling on top of minor things and making it all seem bigger than it really is to us right now.

I haven't seen a doctor yet about my anxiety issue. But I have been taking some herbal stuff that is helping...quite a bit actually. And I've been working really hard at making some changes to my thinking, which also seem to be helping a lot. I've also tried aromatherapy, which does help, but the other things seem to help more. I'm thinking that I might be able to control this without seeing a doctor.

The boys go back to school on Monday. We went to school today and met their teachers. They both seem to have really good teachers again this year. Their school, however, is not as impressive as it once was. It has dropped from being an A+ school when C started to being a C school this year. I find it telling that they dropped to a C school after the new principal started last year. I truly feel the principal is not up to the job, but I suppose since it's not up to me, I'll just have to deal. If nothing else, I have decided that I am not quite so determined to stay in this school zone anymore. I would love for my boys to go to the same schools all the way through, and stay with their friends the entire time, and all that, but at the same time, I don't want their education to suffer. And if they can go to another school that is rated better and has better teachers and a principal that actually knows what he/she is doing, that may be more important to me. I guess it'll all be decided when we find a place.

They are excited, and ready to go back to school. And so am I, to be honest. I love my boys, I love spending time with them, and I love summer so much, but I'm ready for them to go back. I need a little break, and plus I need some uninterrupted hours to put in at my new job.

So what is my new job? Well, I have begun working as a guide for ChaCha.com. You text in your questions to 242242 and it gets routed to me or one of my fellow guides and we search for the answer to your question. It's rather fun, quick, not too difficult, and a great way to expand your knowledge. I get to look up answers to so many different questions and learn a little bit about a lot of things. I'll never get rich doing it, but at least it's an income.

I'll be getting a laptop this week, so that I'm no longer tethered to a desk. This will enable me to work when the kids have a day off or a half day, if they are sick, on weekends, during the evenings, and not be confined to the room the computer is in, since I can move the laptop to whatever room (or even outdoors) that I might wish to work in. D is going to install Linux on it for me, so that it will match up with my desktop. Once he switched me to Linux, he made me a fan for life. I love Linux. It is truly awesome.

Ok, so that's about all for now.

Oh, where to begin?

So, the tone of my blog may be changing. Kind of already has, as I'm sure you've noticed.

D & I are still struggling quite a bit. We haven't given up. I know I won't give up...him I'm not so sure about. I don't think he will, but he doesn't talk to me the way he should, so it's hard to know really what he's thinking. And I suppose I'm guilty of the same thing...not talking to him the way I should.

We argued yesterday. He claims I'm clingy. I don't see it, but he swears to it. I can admit that I get insecure, and I explained to him why I get insecure. It's got nothing to do with him personally, but there are things about our situation that trigger it. He's moved out to another town, about 40 miles away temporarily, while we try to save money to get a place together. That essentially makes this a long distance relationship. And while he was over the road, ours was pretty much a long distance relationship. As I explained to him, every long distance relationship I've ever had, including my first marriage, I was cheated on. So, the physical distance triggers that. And I know he'd never cheat, so you'd think that would reassure me and ease my insecurities. But nope, that's not how my mind works. I instead jump to the next worst case scenario, which is that he'll end things. I can't give any valid reason WHY I would think that, but I do. And so I want reassurance from him, in the form of physical affection, or verbal assurances that we'll be together again soon, or he loves me, or he's not going anywhere, something like that. This, I can see, could come across as clinginess to him. Which makes him pull back. Which further triggers my insecurities, and keeps the cycle going.

One thing I did discover today, however. I am insecure, there's no doubt about that. But...I began thinking. There's no good reason for me to be insecure about D. He's never cheated, never lied. He's never done anything at all to give me reason to doubt him. He's stuck it out with me, through times at least as tough as any other relationship I've been in, and those never lasted through those tough times because the guy couldn't stick.

And then I thought some more. It's not just D that I do this with. I don't just jump to worst case scenario with him. I do it with everything. The kids, the car, finances, health, anything and everything. And I go beyond just thinking "what's the worst that could happen?". I go into "this is the worst that could happen, and oh, it will happen, and oh, what will I do when it happens..." and on and on.

So then I did a little research. And there is this disorder, I'm sure most of you have heard of it, Generalized Anxiety Disorder. And it fits. I even realized that although I denied ever having had a panic attack, it's likely I did: the night I broke my ankle. When the ER doctor came in and told me I'd have to have surgery to repair it, I flipped out, rattling on about how I couldn't leave my kids, and I couldn't be hospitalized, and on and on. And, ok, maybe it's possible that my reaction was justified, but when I think about it...it really wasn't. My parents would have watched the boys for me while I was in the hospital. My mother did while I was in surgery. She came down and took care of them that evening, and got us all to bed before she went home.

I panic over things all the time. People have told me before that I do that, and I've dismissed them. I've told them they were wrong, or denied worrying, or any number of other things. But I realize now...they're right. I worry about things that there's no point in worrying about, or at least no point in worrying about at the time that I'm doing it.

What really sucks is I have no insurance right now, so I can't even see a doctor to talk to him about this. I'm going to try some natural treatments, and see what happens.

So, be prepared to hear a lot about my attempts to deal with all of this: sorting out D & I's relationship, figuring out whether my anxiety is normal or not, and just generally trying to get my life together.

Something tells me it's going to be a long journey.

I just can't fricking win!

Every time it seems like things are starting to get better, they just have to go and get sh*tty again.

D & I were doing so much better, and now tonight, things have just gone to hell again. He's mad at me, I'm not all that thrilled with him at the moment, and we can't work it out right now because he's got to get up in the middle of the night to go to work. So, we're going to bed (or rather, he's already gone to bed, I'll be going to bed soon) mad at each other. Not an ideal situation, in my opinion anyway. I hate going to bed mad at each other. It's what my ex and I used to do, and it's just bringing up too many ugly memories. I know D & I are very different than my ex & I, but the pattern is the same with that, and I don't like it. I don't want it to become a habit.

The kids were off their meds and taking herbs for their ADHD. Initially, I saw some improvement. Then, after a few days, there wasn't really any improvement, it was really about the same as on their meds. And a few days after that, it was as if there was nothing at all in their system. It was as if their ADHD was completely untreated. So, we've resorted to a combination of their ADHD meds and the herbs, which seems to be rather effective. I still wish the meds weren't necessary, but I just don't see a way around it right now.

I'm still having no luck with finding a job. There's just nothing out there. The rare occasion that I find something that *could* work, it ends up being part time or too far away for it to be feasible, or worse, both. I'd love to figure out a way to work from home, since that would save on childcare, gas, and so much else, but I just can't come up with anything that doesn't cost me money.

Living with my parents is...well, it's living with my parents. Not an ideal situation at all. They forget they are grandparents, and step all over me when it comes to the kids. They claim to not know they're doing it, and when I point it out, say they'll stop, but...nothing changes.

I'm just so fed up with my life right now. Nothing seems to go right for me. I've always been a rather optimistic person, and I keep trying to stay that way, but it's so hard. Every time it seems like I'm getting somewhere, I get knocked back, and further than I was before. I'm about ready to just give up.

Yet another update...

So, things are better and worse, depending on the particular thing.

We got the boys off the meds and totally on the herbal stuff. They seem to be doing pretty well on the herbal...about the same as on the meds. I think the true test will be once they go back to school next month, although I must admit to some trepidation about that.

As for D and I...we're doing a lot better in our relationship. Other things, not so well. He lost his job last month, and only just found a new one this week. None of it was his fault, but it made things very tough and tense for a while. They're better now, though. And, we still have another potential job in the works, one that actually provides a job for both of us. It's an apartment complex management deal, looking for a couple. Provides an apartment, paid utlities, 3 weeks vacation, and a salary. Ideal solution to all our problems, so we're really hoping. Keeps him home, too (as does the job he just found), which is a plus in my book. I love seeing him every day, although if he did have to go back on the road, I'd deal as I did before. But, as horrible as the whole situation has been, one good thing that seems to have come from it is that it really helped our relationship. Having this time together, being able to see each other and talk and just be close has really helped bring us closer. We're doing so much better than we have been.

Tomorrow, I'm visiting a couple of assisted living places nearby. D's father is older, and thinking it might be time. I told D, because he has to be to work at 4:30 in the morning, that I would check a couple of places out and get some info for him. We're not making any quick decisions on that, because if we get the apartment deal, we'll be relocating about an hour away from where we are now. His dad would like to be closer, so we want to wait and be fairly certain of where we're going to be before we move him and try to get him settled somewhere.

My family isn't doing so well, either, at the moment. One of my uncles (well, my dad's uncle actually), has cancer. He's had it for a couple of years now. He keeps going into remission and then it returns. Now he's to the point where he has to have frequent chemo, and he's been told that if he doesn't get it, he will die. This is the only brother my grandmother has left, and she's 80 years old, so this is particularly heartwrenching. I'm very afraid of what may happen to her if he dies. I fear she may fall into a major depression, which at her age and with her health, will be very bad for her. As if that weren't enough, my grandfather's brother had to have open heart surgery...I believe it was last week, maybe the week before. They wanted to inject a dye into his veins and arteries to check for blockage, and couldn't even do that. They immediately scheduled the surgery. He came through it fine, but he needs to lose about 75 lbs and change his diet, and that's just so they can do another surgery to finish trying to fix what's wrong with him.

Writing all this has made me realize...I'm old. lol Sounds silly, I know. But honestly, this made me realize it. I'm sitting her writing about all the people in my family who might die and how I'm looking at assisted living facilities for my (I hope) future father-in-law. This is not the kind of thing young people do. This is what grown ups - old grown ups - do.

Oh, one last little update: Hell has officially frozen over. Yes, it's true: my ex has made his first child support payment in 4 years! It's not the full amount, but it's a start. Do I think he's changed? No, not really. But if he's willing to make an effort, I'm willing to be open minded and see where it leads. I did get a letter a few weeks ago that he was requesting a modification of child support. And I was pissed, trust me. I had every intention of hauling his ass back into court and having him held in contempt and pushing hard for an increase. But now that he's done this...while I doubt he's changed, and I doubt it will last, I'm still going to keep an open mind and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe, he's finally grown up and will step up to the plate.

So, that's about it for now. I'm going to try to post more often now that things seem to be starting to smooth out around here.

Remind me NOT to be my parents when I grow up!

I love my mom and dad to death, I really do. But living with them makes them...annoying. All in one evening, my mom managed to make me feel like a crappy cook, and my dad managed to make me feel like a crappy mom. Neither of them deliberately intended to do that, I think, but they succeeded fabulously anyway. Part of that could also have been because D was leaving last night, and so I was kind of in a miserable mood anyway.

Yes, D was home again. Got home Thursday, left last night. We are...better. Still not good, exactly, but better than we were, and we keep getting better. We're talking more, about us and what's wrong with us and how we can fix it. I'm not getting into any details on here, it's all very personal. But we both realize that we have our own complications that are contributing to the mess that is our relationship right now, and that we both have to work on changing/fixing our complications. Some are easier than others to handle, and some take longer than others, but I think, as long as we both continue to try and as long as we still love each other (which we do!), we'll be all right eventually.

The kids are out of school for the summer, and have been for about 2 weeks now. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm about ready for them to go back. Ok, not really, but there are moments when I would give anything for a little break. D and I took them to Orlando for the afternoon on Friday. There's this really interesting store down there that carries...well, everything. Literally. They have this huge variety of different things, just kind of thrown in there randomly. It's actually quite cool. D could spend days there, I think and never get bored. And now, so could the boys. We stopped and had lunch on the way down. That part was...well, not so much fun. The guy taking our order kept asking the same questions over and over, clearly not listening to us. Then we all went to the bathroom, and discovered no soap in either of them. Think about this for a minute. The same bathroom the employees use...and no soap. All together now: EWWW!!!!

We're spending lots of time in the pool. The kids brought home a little card from school that gets them 2 free games of bowling every weekday during the summer. I paid for a family pass so that I can bowl with them. All we have to pay for is shoe rental, so that's a nice little thing we can do every now and then. And we're hopefully going to get together with a few different friends and their kids at local parks or whatever. We did have tentative plans to get together with a couple of my friends at a lake house belonging to one of the friend's friends. But...the lake is now teeming with bacteria, so no swimming. And if I can't swim in it, I don't see much point to going to the lake.

So...aside from last night, life is getting better. D and I are doing ok, the kids are doing pretty good. I'm trying them on some herbal stuff to see if I can get them off the meds for the ADHD. I am not happy with the meds, I feel it's too intrusive in their systems, and there's just too much that's unknown about what it might be doing to their bodies. I could try switching them to something else, but that's not any better. So, D and I discussed some various herbal remedies and we got them and are now trying them out. In the next day or two, I'm going to stop the meds and just go with the herbal and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Oh, and C got his FCAT scores in the mail last week. He scored above grade level all the way! Even in math!! That made me so proud of him. Knowing that even though he struggles with math, he's still above grade level eases my mind. I think he put too much pressure on himself and then I put even more pressure on him and it just made things worse. Having seen these results, I'm hoping that we'll both ease up next year and he'll do better.

Well, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll try to keep updating, but I have little time to do much of anything these days, with two little boys constantly asking can we go outside, can we go outside, can we go outside? You know how if you say a word too many times, it starts to lose its meaning and not even sound like word anymore? Yeah, the words "can we go outside" have reached that point.

Quick update

Well...things are far from perfect, but they are improving. D and I are talking more. We're definitely not where we used to be, but I don't think we're quite as close to falling apart as we were. I think we've managed to move back from that cliff. I'm feeling closer to him than I was before, and that's making a huge difference for me. I think he's really trying on his end, too, and that also makes a huge difference for me. When I believe he's trying, it makes me want to try harder.

The kids...we're getting there. School's about to be out for the summer, so I guess we'll see how things go. D and I had been discussing trying the boys on some various herbs for their ADHD, which I have ordered. I am now waiting for them to arrive so I can try the boys on them and see how they do. We agreed they have to come off the meds slowly, and that if the herbs don't work, we'll put them back on the meds. But I'm really hopeful the herbs will work, and D is confident they will.

We found a few different houses (well, I found them, since he's on the road) that we think will work. Yes, we are still planning to move in together. Another sign that we're getting better, I hope/think. One house is absolutely ideal, because it is 2 houses down from my parents. So the kids would be in the same school, same neighborhood, and still be able to see their grandparents on a very regular basis. Doesn't get any better than that. Let's hope D and I can get it. It also would be great because even though D wouldn't be able to park the truck at home, he would at least be able to continue parking it where he does now. No need to find a new place to park.

School's out tomorrow. One last half day and they're free. Which means Mommy is imprisoned. Ok, not really. Actually, I have various plans in the works with several different friends. Hopefully that'll keep us pretty busy and get us out of the house frequently. Between that, and when D gets home, hopefully we should find plenty to do so I won't have to hear a lot of "Mom, I'm bored!" over the next two and a half months.

So...that's what's up right now. I'll come back when I can and keep you posted. For now, things are ok and getting better, so just keep hoping for us on all fronts.

Oh, and just for laughs:

J: Mom, how old are you?

Me: I'm 31.

J: Wow! I'm never gonna be that old!

Thanks, son. I'll remember that the next time you want me to get you a cookie or something:

Me(quavering old woman voice): I'm sorry, J. I'm too old to get you a cookie.

Hit with a 2x4...well, not really, but it feels like it

Ok, so I haven't posted in quite some time. And this may be my last post again for quite some time. Things are...not good for me right now.

Well...no, that's not really true. Well, it is and it isn't. Yes, I know, I'm being confusing as hell. Welcome to my world.

I'm working on...well, everything. My life ha pretty much gone to sh*t lately. The kids have been out of control (this is not a new thing, but it's something I've got to get under control and quickly), I still can't find a job, and I was just informed that my relationship is pretty much in the toilet. Not that I hadn't suspected that for some time, but to have it confirmed really hurt.

We're not giving up...not yet. I refuse to give up. I'm willing to do everything and anything I can to save this. I love him, I want to be with him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, and I think I've made that clear to him. He...well, he still loves me. Right at this moment, I think that's about all that's going for us on his end. This is all stuff that I am pretty certain we can work out, if he wants it to work out. He says he does, and I'm hoping he's not lying.

Of course, these problems are not his alone. They are mine as well, and quite honestly, they are probably mostly mine. I have major issues from my past. I can never open up and let anyone in when it really counts. I back off and try to hide myself away, so that when the hurt comes, it's hopefully less intense, and with the hope that they will never know just how much they've hurt me. The problem with this is that I don't just become an emotionless robot, I completely shut down. All I can think about is what I think is about to happen, but since I don't want to let that show, I just totally shut down. I don't talk about anything, I don't do anything, I can't focus, I can't think about anything other than the pain I think is about to happen.

In case you never knew, this does not work in a relationship. Especially when the other person gets frustrated with you, and backs off, thereby unintentionally confirming your fears, which makes you shut down more, which makes them back off more, and so on and so on. You see why my life is such a disaster now? Yeah.

We've talked about a lot of this. I don't know if he really understands where I'm coming from when I try to explain this. But I'm not sure that he really NEEDS to understand. Because I've come to the very clear realization that I just can't do that anymore. I have to open up, I have to let him in, no matter how much hurt I might be risking. I have to believe in him, in US, or we will be nothing but one more failed relationship in each of our pasts. I don't want to be just another ex-girlfriend that he tells a future girlfriend or wife about. I want to be his girlfriend...someday I want to be his wife. I don't know for sure if he knows I want that, and if he doesn't, I'm not sure right now would be the time to tell him. The point here is that I know what I want from him, from us, and I also realize that if I don't change the way I react to things, the way I interact with him, not only will I never have what I want, I won't have him.

I've realized now why pretty much all of my relationships have been such miserable failures. With only one notable exception, I've never let anyone in, and when they got frustrated with not being able to get me, to get TO me, they've given up and either broken up with me, or behaved in such a way that they knew I would break up with them. The only exception to this being my former husband. He was the one person that I DID try to let in, which probably reinforced my reluctance to do so, since I got so badly burned by that.

I trust D. I trust him not to cheat, I trust him not to lie. I think he has told me a few little lies lately, in an effort to protect my feelings, or maybe just to avoid an argument, I'm not really sure. But I can't really say that I can hold those against him, since in truth, my resistance to talking to him about this problem, could probably be construed as a lie itself, so I suppose I have no room to be upset. And I can understand why he would do that.

I'm coming to realize that if I trust him, if I love him, if I want to be with him, then I have to BE WITH HIM. I have to stop hiding, stop trying to protect myself, stop waiting for that inevitable shoe to drop and crush me beneath its heel. I have to risk that pain, risk that crushing blow, otherwise we'll never have anything together. If I get hurt in the end, so be it. That whole "better to have loved and lost" and all that. He's the first man to make me believe that's true.

He's also the first man I've ever truly loved. I've thought I've loved before. I had feelings that came very close to love, I think. I've had relationships that ended painfully, that left me crying and heartbroken. I've had a marriage that left me broken, period. I thought I'd fixed myself, thought I'd figured out how to live my life after that. I realized last night that that is so far from the truth it's not even a joke. When D told me that he thought us breaking up was inevitable, my heart literally stopped beating in my chest for a moment. The thought of being without him...I seriously thought it would kill me. I love my children, I would give up my life for them, I'd do anything for them. And I suddenly realized, when we had that conversation, that I've said the same about D, and that I really do mean that. And if I really do mean that...then I have to do it. I have to be willing to do anything to make this work.

The biggest problem he seems to have with me is that he thinks I don't talk enough. I tried to explain to him that it's that whole "shut down" thing, and again, I'm not entirely sure he understands. I'm going to change that. He's giving me an idea of what he would want to talk about, so I'm going to start doing some research and find things that fit those topics to talk about. He's agreed to start bringing topics up, and I will ask questions and we will discuss those things. He says he'll try to stop backing off. Whether he does or not, I will force myself not to shut down. I will force myself to stay open, and to keep talking, and hope that that will make him stop backing off.

Well, actually there's one other thing that really bugged him. A website I belonged to that he felt was really stupid and annoyed him to no end, it seems. I gave it up for him. It's a site I've belonged to for years, but I gave it up to show him how serious I am about making this work.

I will make sure that he gets more of me than anyone else ever has, with the exception of my children. In some ways, I think I've already done that. I know he's had more of me than my former husband, the man I share two children with. But I'll give him more. I'll make sure he gets all of me, even the things that I'm scared to share or that I've never shared with anyone else. I'll expand my interests to include things he's interested in, and talk to him about those things.

I'm going to risk getting hurt. I'm going to risk having my heart broken again, this time by someone I truly do love, in the hopes that it will save our relationship and I WON'T get hurt. He says he loves me, and I'm just going to have to trust that and believe in that and hope that that is enough until we get the rest back. And I have to believe that we WILL get the rest back. There is no other option here. I guess the rest is up to him.

As for the kids...with the ADHD, they've always been more rambunctious and wild than typical kids, but for years we had it under control. Things got a little crazy for a while, and then their doctor introduced me to a discipline system that she thought worked really well for kids with ADHD. And it did. It worked wonderfully.

And then I broke my ankle and for whatever reason, let the discipline go out the window. And I haven't gotten it back yet. That's going to change. I'm restarting the discipline program, and going to get them under control. I don't know how long it will take, it would certainly go faster if we didn't have to live with my parents who unintentionally (at least I hope it's not intentional) undermine me and try to impose their own discipline which just doesn't work.

So, as to why this may be my last post for a while...well, I'm going to be busy searching for things to talk about, trying to salvage my relationship, and get my kids under control, and I just don't know that I'll have a lot of time for this. I'll try to update every now and then and let you know how it's going, but we'll just have to see. Keep checking in, though, since I don't know when I'll be posting.

Just....blah

I've been feeling very....blah lately. I don't know that depressed is quite the right word for it, but I suppose it might be close. I have no real idea why I'm feeling like this. I know of a couple of things that have happened that could contribute to me feeling down, but I'm not sure to this extent.

I've kind of started to feel...disconnected from everything, from everyone. It's kind of hard to explain. It's not a completely disconnected feeling, more like...like I'm out of sync with everything. Almost like I'm a step behind, or maybe I'm a step ahead. I can't really tell.

The kids had Spring Break. We didn't go anywhere, just hung out at home. But they got to spend pretty much all day, every day outside. That thrilled them to no end. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The weather is still beautiful; and now that it gets dark later, they are getting to spend a lot of time outside. They love it. Honestly, so do I, but if we could get rid of the mosquitoes, I'd love it even more.

I really have nothing to blog about right now. I felt like I needed to post something, since it's been a while, but there's really nothing to say right now. I feel like my life is falling apart, and I'm just not able to think of anything to do here. I know my feelings are ridiculous and not true, nothing is wrong in my life. I'm just in some stupid funk right now, and I wish it would go away.

No need for the "If all your friends jumped off a bridge" speech...

So, D was home last week. It was a nice time...until an hour or so after we got home. J said he was going in the house to go to the bathroom. After he'd been in there long enough for me to suspect that he might, in fact, be getting into something, I go to check on him. The phone rings, and since there's an extension in the garage, where we were, I asked D to go check on J while I grab the garage extension. When I answer, this is what happens:

Me: Hello?

Woman: Yes, ma'am, this is the ******* county Sheriff's Department. We received a 911 call.

Me: Silence.

Woman: From this number.

Me: Uh...that's impossible. My entire family is out..."

I run up to the porch where J is in the chair and D is standing there looking at me as I come running.

Me: J, did you just call 911?

J nods.

Me: Oh my god, ma'am. I'm so sorry. My 6 yr old son got hold of the phone and dialed it. Nothing is wrong.

Woman: That's ok, ma'am. A deputy will be out to do a well-being check.

I flipped out. D kept telling me to relax, but all I could do was flip out. The deputy came, and he was very nice about it, kept telling me to stop apologizing, but I just couldn't believe J would do that.

So, when I finally calmed down enough, I asked J why he did it. His response: because my friend told me to call 911. So....we don't need to have the "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" speech later. Instead, we'll just have the "Do you remember when you called 911 because your friend told you to?" speech. I think it'll be much more effective.

On an unrelated note, I got into a debate in my mommy groups tonight. It started out as a discussion and ended up as a debate. It was a rather simple topic, and I still don't see why it turned into such a debate. Basically it was about being a stay at home mom when you are with a man who is not the biological father of your children. My opinion was that yes, I would love nothing more in life than to be a stay at home mom with my children, but that I feel very odd about the idea of allowing my boyfriend to support me and my children. I feel a sense of responsibility that makes it hard to think that's ok. It's not a new sense of responsibility, just different, than when I was with their father. When I was with SD, it was a simple matter of they were his kids, too, and it was his job to take care of them. With D, it's not like that. They're not his kids, so they're not his responsibility. If he wanted to take on that responsibility (which, I will grant, in some ways, he does), fine, but it still would feel odd to me. The best way I can think of to describe it is that it feels to me like being lazy. By allowing him to work and support me and my children, even if I am taking care of the house and all, would feel to me like I am being lazy.

The debate began, and I suppose I should mention that I use the word debate loosely, because a woman who is considerably older than I and the other mother that shared my opinion, told us we were crazy. She is 68 yrs old, and of the opinion that a man should take care of women and children, whether they are biologically his or not. Of course, the majority of her argument consists of telling us we are crazy. Another mother got into the debate by telling us we should "get over it". I just find it intriguing that these women have no issue with letting a man take care of them. As I said, I would love to be a stay at home mom, but for me, the way I was raised, I find it hard to embrace the idea of seemingly sitting back and just letting my boyfriend bust his butt to take care of us when we are not his responsibility. I don't know, maybe I do need to just get over it, but it's just how I feel.

And on that note, I'm off to bed.

Oh...where to begin...

So the last couple of weeks have been...interesting, shall we say? We went to an outdoor birthday party last Sunday...and it stormed. Oh, that was fun. Kids banging away on a piñata (one that strangely enough made a metallic clanging sound if they hit it right), while all around us thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and the rain blew sideways under the pavilion roof at us. Yay!

Wednesday was a half day at school, and it was another fun day. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, only an hour and a half before the end of school. I was lucky enough to get there early, and they were able to get me in early. But then...the boys had appointments for eye exams that afternoon. And all that time I saved in the morning...was lost. And then some. Three hours for eye exams. The only plus to that was that their eyes haven't really changed. Which is good, but also makes it all the more frustrating that we were three for THREE hours!

But, the really exciting news is: J is done with speech therapy! They scheduled a meeting for last Thursday at the school, and when I went in, they told me he'd met all his goals, and was graduating from speech therapy. That absolutely made my week. I am so proud of him. He worked so hard and tried so much to overcome the impairment and he did it. He still can be hard to understand when he gets very excited or if he is very upset, but if you tell him to calm down and tell you again, he will. He also will stop and think while he's talking to make sure he uses the right word and says it clearly. It's a technique they taught him to cope with the speech impairment, but he's really taken it to heart and it makes a huge difference to how he speaks.

They are having the World's Fair at school next month. This is something they do every year. Each classroom does a different country, and they do all kinds of little projects to display, and they learn tons of little facts about the country their class is working on, and on the night of the fair, they always learn a fact or two about all the other countries, in order to get a stamp on their "passport". It's a wonderful learning experience, both for the kids and the parents. J's class is doing the United States. His teacher always tries to get a picture postcard from each state. They almost had all of them last year. This year...well, she's going to have quite a few. With D being a truck driver, I've enlisted him to help with this little project. I figure he's the ideal person to help us get a lot of postcards. J's teacher is quite excited at the prospect. I figure J will be excited when he begins receiving the postcards.

Some of my friends at the school and I have been contemplating how to get rid of the principal. The school has gone downhill in a serious way since he took over this year. He's alienating the parents, and doing nothing for the kids. There is a substitute teacher that is terrorizing the kids, the daughter of one of my friends in particular, and the principal is doing nothing to stop it. D has offered to create a website on which we could start a petition to try to get rid of the principal. If things continue, though, I think it may come down to a bunch of parents getting together and just going directly to the school board to demand he be fired.

Well, there's other stuff going on, but I'm tired and my brain just isn't functioning right now. Oh, wait, there is this:

We were at the eye doctor, waiting for them to be called back for their exams. C had found this plant and plucked a piece off of it. While he played with it, it broke apart into several smaller pieces. C held some in the palm of his hand, came over to me, hand outstretched, and said, "Here, Mom, have some weed."

I couldn't even speak, could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. Then, once I was under control, all I could think was that I hoped no one had heard, because how could I explain that he had no idea what he was saying, and how would I convince someone that he hadn't heard that at home? Thankfully, no one heard. But I will never forget the day my son unwittingly tried to make his first sale...by offering a sample.

I wonder if I can do it...

Well, C & J's friend is back at school this week, after his surgery. I was very happy to see him, and his mom. Her and I have had a couple of wonderful conversations this week. One of which, in combination with other things, have led D & I to thinking about making some very major changes with the boys.

As I believe I've mentioned before, Caroline and I have real issues with the principal at the school. We are not the only ones. It seems there are a lot of parents that don't like him, and even a couple of teachers don't like him. Since he took control, the school has changed drastically, and not for the better. When D & I first began discussing the idea of moving in together, I was adamant that I wanted us to live in this school zone, so that the boys could continue attending this school. Now, I'm not so sure.

The people in the offices have gone from being friendly, happy, kind and always helpful to cold, distant, and acting as though you are interfering with their day by coming into the school. As a parent, I do occasionally have cause to go to the school: a meeting regarding J's speech therapy (more on this later!), the book fair, a question for the teacher regarding homework, a conference to assess how the kids are doing. All valid reasons, in any reasonable person's opinion. But if you come in to this school, they would look at you like you came in and asked what color the sky is.

The kids can't talk in class. Understandable. They are there to learn, to do classwork, and they can't do that if they are chatting away. But now, the dean of discipline has decided they can no longer talk during lunch. Now, parents who homeschool are always told they should send their kids to school so they can socialize. Well...if they can't talk during class, and they can't talk during lunch, when exactly are they going to socialize? On the 5 minute walk to the car?

Caroline and I joked about starting a petition to get the principal removed. It started as a joke anyway. We agreed that with our luck, he'd find out we did it and our kids would be treated even worse. But, when I mentioned it to D, he actually had some really good suggestions for how we can do it and not have the fallout be on our kids. Caroline and I are still discussing and trying to determine if we really want to do this.

Regardless of what we do with that, though, D & I are seriously considering homeschooling the boys starting next year. With as bad as this school has gotten, and being uncertain that any other school would really be any better, homeschooling is sounding more and more like a good option. We can teach the boys on their own schedule, moving them forward or sticking on a topic as needed for them, instead of as needed for the slowest kid in the class, which may or may not be C & J.

Another thought behind this is that I think a large part of C's problem is that he is bored. He is very smart, and I think he just gets bored and doesn't put forth the same effort that he would if he wasn't bored. It's something I used to do. My dad did it as well. So did D. Homeschooling would eliminate this boredom, again because we'd be teaching them at their own individual level.

They would, quite possibly, spend less time in "school" than they do now. All the research I've done so far indicates that most homeschooled kids spend 3-5 hours a day on school related things, as compared to the more than 6 hours that the boys are currently doing, and then still come home and do homework. We would be able to do fun activities that would count as school activities, such as going to the zoo, or a museum, things like that. And we could go on days when everyone else is in school, therefore finding it less busy and more fun for us.

The only real drawback we've found so far is that all indications are that I can't homeschool and work fulltime. D apparently had already realized this, but I had not. I expressed concern that we might not be able to make it on just his income indefinitely, but he says that although it would be tight, we could make it work. I trust him, and I trust his judgment, so I'm going to hope he's right.

So, now, my last hesitation is wondering if I can really do this. Not just if I can teach them the things they need to learn (which I am fairly certain I can; and what I can't cover, D can), but if I can handle basically never having a break from them. Not that I don't love them and love spending time with them. But when they are in school, I get the house clean, laundry done, and some me time. Some time during which I can watch a little TV, read a book, do a word search, play around online, and just relax a bit. That will disappear if I am homeschooling. Granted, they are old enough to help with household chores, and in all honesty, they are probably old enough to do their own laundry (or C is, at any rate). Being a stay at home mom was always my dream, and when I stayed home when C was younger, I loved it. But C was younger. He was cool to just sit on the floor or in his playpen and play with toys while I cleaned up a bit. He took naps, so I had that time to read or watch TV. No more naps, and with two of them, there's always a fight over toys and such.

Fortunately, we still have several months to do more research and discuss it before we make a final decision. I want to make sure we do the right thing. I want the boys to have the best possible education, whether that is from a public school, private school or homeschool. And I don't think that going back and forth between homeschooling and regular school is really going to provide them with the best possible education. We have to decide on one and stick with it for the long haul.

The good news, though, is that yesterday I got a Meeting Participation Form from the school. This is what I usually get at the beginning of the year when we meet to evaluate where J is and what we expect to accomplish this year with his speech therapy. The reason given on this one is change in placement. I'm very hopeful that this means they will tell me he's met all his goals and no longer needs speech therapy. He has made amazing strides over the last year and a half. He still gets overly excited and becomes hard to understand. Or if he cries, you can't really understand him. But in an average conversation, he speaks clearly now.

Things are looking up, all the way around.

Singing in the rain...er, shower

So, C has developed a new...talent? hobby? interest? Something like that, anyway.

When he's in the shower, he likes to sing. I don't mean Madonna "Papa Don't Preach" type singing. I mean, making up his own songs singing. It's quite entertaining for those of us on the outside. Today's concert started out with a quiet version of "help me, help me, help me", peaked with "I'm a crocodile" and had an encore of gibberish. The last part I went and stood outside the bathroom, on the phone with D, and even D was cracking up. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even tell C he needed to get done and get out of the shower. I told D that next time, I'm going to get out the video camera and tape it. I can see it now...

C: Mom, I want to bring my girlfriend home to meet you and D. You, uh...you don't have any naked pictures of me on a bearskin rug or anything do you?

Me: No, sweetheart, no bear skin rug pictures.

Two days later...

Me: So, girlfriend, I have a video from when C was younger. Why don't we watch it?

I'm such an evil mommy. :)

So this week, C takes his first FCAT test. I'm worried, but not. I'm worried, because this is really pretty much a make or break test. I'm not because C has always done well on these types of things in the past. But I can't help but be afraid that he might freak out and not do well, and end up repeating 3rd grade over something this silly. J is taking great pleasure in reminding C that he doesn't have to take this test. Brothers...they live to torment each other.

I found myself making some rather...unusual mistakes today. Well, I don't know that I would call them mistakes, exactly, considering the direction D and I's relationship has been heading. We are moving in together, quite possibly within the next few months. But what I found myself doing today shocked even me.

I was in my mommy group (which I know I was going to leave, but it's like a soap opera...you get hooked and can't stop) and there were 3 questions that I answered this afternoon. I felt they were good questions, one that deserved honest answers. The type of question required me to speak about my relationship with D as well as my children, and I found myself referring to the boys as "our" kids. Usually, I call them "my" kids, or "my" boys, or whatever. It's always been "my", though, because SD doesn't deserve any credit for them, and I've been raising them alone. And I've answered other questions since meeting D that required me to talk about both my relationship with him and my kids, and used "my". But today, I found myself using "our". Initially, I was surprised, and even kind of thought, "what the heck did I do that for?" I even said it out loud, at which point I ended up explaining to D what I'd done. He laughed and said he'd found himself calling C "son" so he didn't think it was a big deal. Later, after I did it the 3rd time, he even said he didn't mind.

So, the first time I did it, I surprised myself. The second time I did it, it was more like, "oh, for Pete's sake, I did that again." The third time, I decided it was hopeless and I just need to accept that apparently this is what I'll be doing from now on. I'm not sure why I did it. I'm not sure what it was that made me suddenly think of them as "ours" instead of mine. I do know one thing, though. When I was with SD, even though he helped conceive them, I never ever thought of them as "ours". Even then, the boys were always "my". So...the fact that I am thinking this way about D says a lot about how I feel about him and our relationship.

It also just proves that DNA is not what makes a family, or a father. In the short time that D has been a part of our lives, he's already acted more like a father to them, without even trying, than SD has in their entire lives. They seem to have readily accepted him as a part of our lives and our family. I know there will probably be a day when they will rebel and pull the "you're not my dad" bit on him. I know there will come a day when they will probably resent him, hate him, or at the very least, make his life difficult, which means mine will be difficult. But I figure that's normal and bearable. And we'll deal with that if and when that day arrives.

It's very strange. I used to swear that no man would ever meet my kids before we'd been dating at least 6 months, and even then, only if the relationship was serious. I stuck to that rule for many years. No man I ever dated met my kids. And then D came along. And we haven't been together 6 months, but he's already met the kids, and I already can see him as their dad. We're already moving in together. The kids have accepted him and have no problems with him and I being together. And none of this feels rushed, or like a mistake, and I don't feel like I should feel guilty that we didn't wait longer for this stuff. I guess whoever said that when it's right, you'll know it, knew what he or she was talking about.

Student of the Month!!

So, I go to pick the kids up today. And the teacher that runs the car rider line was running a bit behind today, so by the time we got pulled up, the kids were already waiting. The boys climb in the car, and I notice C has this red ribbon on his shirt. So I ask what it is as I lift it, and read "Student of the Month" on it. I immediately have to start driving, as the line is moving, but C starts telling me how he's student of the month, and handing me a bumper sticker, a certificate, and his coupon that entitles him to a free sundae at Sonic. Yay...an excuse for me to go buy ice cream. :)

I am so proud of him. He's come such a long way since Kindergarten and 1st grade. If you go back to some of my much older postings, you'll read about the trouble he had and the diagnosis I didn't want to get (Most of this will be found around April 2007, just to help you out a little). He had such a hard time not only with grades, but also behavior. He couldn't stop talking, couldn't sit still, couldn't focus. ADHD was truly making his life miserable. I strongly regret not getting him diagnosed sooner. I was so determined to think that my son didn't have that problem, or that I could get him past it naturally, without medication, and all I did was force my son to struggle when it wasn't necessary.

And when I look at where he is now, I am glad that I did finally give in and get him officially diagnosed and started on meds. His grades have improved, his behavior is so much better, and he is a much happier child (although he already has a teenage attitude!). He would be in a completely different place right now had I continued to try to convince myself that disagnosis and medication weren't necessary.

J, however, is very upset that is not, and has yet to be, Student of the Month. I tried to tell him to just be patient, and to remember that it took his brother until 3rd grade to get it, but J does not want to hear this. He wants to just pout and feel like he's getting ripped off somehow. Forget the fact that his grades are always through the roof, and that he's never had the behavior issues that his brother had. He doesn't want to hear any of that, because it doesn't suit his agenda of pouting and being miserable.

Sometimes I wonder about children.

D is well entrenched in his new job. He is quite the happy camper. He's getting lots of miles, he loves his new dispatcher, and sounds so much happier than I've heard him in a long time. This makes me happy, of course. I still miss him, and I still can't wait until he comes home so I can see him and hold him and touch him, but at least now I know he's not absolutely miserable and stressed beyond belief when we're apart.

Of course, he still likes to tease and torment me, so now...I'm off to plot my revenge. :)

Why my kids don't have birthday parties...and other thoughts

So today is C's 9th birthday...wow, where have the years gone? I'm seriously having major issues with accepting that my firstborn, my baby, is no longer my baby, but now dwells in the realm of a land called "tweendom". My son is a tween. That's just...not right.

I had a friend ask me the other day (after she invited us to her daughter's 10th birthday party tomorrow - her daughter is 364 days older than C), why my kids don't have birthday parties. Well, it's pretty simple. One reason is that we live way out in the boonies and our current neighborhood does not contain a lot of kids around C & J's ages. Most of the kids are teens, or really, really little. Depending on where D & I eventually find a place, that may change, but that's what it is right now.

The other reason is the school policy. School policy says that you cannot invite selected, specific children to the party. It is all or none: either you invite all of the kids in the class, or none of them. And naturally, there is no real way around this.

Now, I kind of get why they do this: it sucks to be the only kid in the class NOT invited to a party. And yes, I can understand they would want to avoid the hurt feelings as much as possible, especially in this world where kids bring guns to school or commit suicide for no apparent reason. BUT...

I have more than one issue with this. One being that it's not fair. It SEEMS fair at first glance. All the kids get invited, so it makes it fair. But, it's really not fair. I mean, seriously, people that I don't know, or that I do know but don't like or they don't like me, don't invite me to their parties. And I wouldn't expect them to. I grew up getting invited only to those parties that I knew and generally was pretty good friends with the person having the party. So as an adult, I get the concept that if I don't know you, or we don't like each other, I'm not getting invited to your party, and you won't be invited to mine. I think this whole "invite all or none" policy is going to kind of screw with that. We'll have adults running around expecting to get invited to a party that the cashier at Walmart is throwing, even though they don't know said cashier.

Another issue is this: C is in the same classroom as a little boy we will call S. In Kindergarten, C & S were in the same class, and in the after-care program together. S's mother runs the after-care program. C & S were constantly, and I mean constantly, in trouble together. Every day in class, in after-care, these two were up to something. The teacher made specific notes that they were not to be put in the same class together in future. That worked...until this year. They are in the same class. And S has gone from annoying little troublemaker to full-on bully. He's been suspended for fighting. He picks on other kids, he pushes, hits, trips, kicks, slaps, smacks, punches, teases, threatens, you name it, he's done it. C realizes this kid is trouble, and wants nothing to do with him. Now...knowing that this kid is likely to try to start a fight with one or both of my boys, and has probably in some form or another abused at least one other kid in the class, who would likely be at the party, WHY on earth would I want to invite this child to my home? I mean, seriously, that just makes no sense to me. There is a person who has never met me, but doesn't like me. She's made threats. You don't see me inviting her to my home. So why would I want to invite this kid to my home?

Those are the reasons my kids don't have birthday parties. And just to clarify, it's not that they don't have parties. They do. We have a birthday dinner, where the birthday boy (or person; the adults get it too) gets to pick what they want for dinner. We have the cake of their choosing (C chose German Chocolate this year...yummy, but very very rich), ice cream (or in some cases, ice cream cake...very convenient), and presents. It's just a family thing. The kids, me, grandparents, and D when he's home for it. We keep it as a family event, mainly for the reasons listed above, but also because it's just nice to have it as a family event instead of turning it into some big, materialistic, can we spend more money then they did monster. We even have a $20 limit on the gifts. I am trying very hard to make sure that my kids don't turn into materialistic little snobs, and I think keeping their birthdays as a family event is one way to do that.

I'm not saying that my friend's daughter will be a materialist snob, my friend and her husband are much more levelheaded than that. And I know not all kids turn out that way. But so many people today seem to think that birthdays and Christmas are all about what you get and it becomes a competition to see who gets the best stuff. I want my kids to realize that these events, and all holidays like that are supposed to be about family, and friends, and celebrating an event, not spending money and getting stuff.

I am still very much in shock over this particular birthday. I'm not sure why exactly. Nine is not a milestone birthday, at least as far as I know. Next year, when he turns 10 (I really don't want to think about that!), that's a milestone. When he turns 13, or 16, or 18, those are milestones. Then of course, there's 21. Really, even 25 kind of counts. But this year, turning 9, there's nothing super special about that. And yet, more than any other birthday so far, I'm having trouble accepting it. When he turned a year, I was shocked, but I was also super excited, because it was his first birthday, so I guess the shock was kind of blunted by the excitement. I just can't believe he's 9 now.

I've reached that point where my birthday is really kind of just another day for me. The only reason I got excited this year (when I turned 31...which I would like to forget) is that D was home for my birthday. That made it special. Going out to dinner with him and spending time alone with him made it special. Otherwise I wouldn't have really cared. I'd have had my birthday dinner (stuffed shells) and cake (ice cream cake) and my babies gave me my gifts (little bath soap sets), but it wouldn't have been a big deal to me.

C was excited for his birthday. In fact, he got mad when he realized (on Thursday) that it wasn't yesterday, but in fact, today. He was ready for it.

J broke the nosepads off his glasses Thursday night. So after school yesterday, we had to go get them repaired. As I was driving home from this, with the boys fighting in the backseat, the song "Then They Do" by Trace Adkins came on the radio. I was listening to the song, and I kind of got teary, what with C's birthday today and all, and it occurred to me that their Sperm Donor not only probably doesn't remember that C's birthday was today, but probably couldn't tell you how old he turned either.

I used to feel bad that my boys had a "father" that didn't give a crap about them. I felt bad for my boys, felt that they were missing out on something. This year, I don't feel that way. Part of it is D. He's stepped in and wholeheartedly embrace the fact that my kids and I are a package deal, a ready made family. He has no issue with stepping up to put the boys in their place if they do something wrong, or doing family things with us, helping with homework, or thinking of us as a family instead of just a couple.

I've always believed in the statement that any male can be a father, but that it takes a real man to be a dad. But given that for the last 6 yrs, the only male figure in their lives was my father, I felt bad that their "father" didn't do more. My dad is great, don't get me wrong, but he's Grandpa. He does a lot for them and with them, but he shouldn't have to act as their father. So when D met my kids and easily found a relationship with them in which he steps into a somewhat parental role, and they so easily accepted him in that role, it made me fall all the more in love with him.

I've always tried to teach the boys that family isn't just about blood. I have uncles who are absolutely no relation to me at all. They are just incredibly close friends of my parents, but to me, they are uncles because I have always been able to count on them. One of those uncles was my ex's best man at our wedding; he informed my ex that if he ever hurt me, my uncle would hunt him down and kill him. He's not followed through on that threat, but that's only because we won't tell him where to find my ex, and he knows I don't want him in jail over my ex.

I have friends that I've known for years, and even when we've lost touch, I still consider them to be like sisters to me. We're just that close.

These are things I've tried to teach my sons. And to meet a man who also understands that is such a wonderful thing. It's...comforting to be with a man who understands that family is not about being able to trace a bloodline, but about love, and commitment and loyalty. And yes, I do consider D to be a part of my family now. He has become a very important part of my life, and I would do for him what I would do for any member of my family: anything. He comes second only to my kids.

Back to my original point though (if I can find my way back to it), SD made no effort to contact C for his birthday, as usual. He, I'm sure, doesn't even realize it's his birthday. And that's fine. I've finally realized that my kids don't need him, in any way, and they will not suffer in any way because he's not around. Between me, D, and my parents, they will have enough love, enough male influences, and everything they will ever need. There is nothing that he can provide for them, nothing that he can do for them, that I, D, or my parents can't provide or do. And the boys will never miss what they don't know.

One day, SD will realize what he's lost. He'll realize he missed out on the chance to be a father, to make a mark and be an influence in someone's life. He'll realize he had that chance, and that he chose to step back, and instead someone else stepped in and gladly took on that role. He'll know that another man was happy to be a dad to my sons, and loved my sons even though they weren't his blood. And SD will have to live with that. One day, he'll be a bitter, lonely old man with no one to care about him or visit him or talk to him, because he'll have chased everyone away. And he'll have nothing else to do but reflect on the fact that things could have been different, if HE'D been different.

Maybe that's why I'm having such trouble with the idea that C is 9...maybe it's that realization that C, and J as well, are growing up so fast, and that someday they will be adults and have their own lives. And all I will have left of their childhoods is memories. Maybe I actually feel a little sad that SD won't even have those memories. I don't know that I'd say I feel bad for him, but maybe...maybe it's that I know that the opportunities to make those memories are fading fast, and I want to grab hold of as many of them as I can, and as tightly as I can. And I feel...sad that he doesn't have that same urge, and won't until it's much too late.

Ok, enough depressing thoughts for one night. Off to bed.

Happy Birthday, C!