Catch up

Wow, per usual I am way behind on writing.  I will try to sum up the last several months in just a few paragraphs, haha, yeah right.  So this year just wouldn't be what it has been without another major monkey wrench in Emily's life...the whole problem with her teachers just got worse when the new lead teacher up and quit last fall, leaving just the assistant.  Not that anyone seemed to care much, that new teacher turned out to be about as warm to the kids as a block of ice, and didn't make much of an attempt to keep things familiar and routine for them. 

So the assistant was able to finish out 2018, and she had the experience and qualifications to be the full-time teacher, but she lacked the number of teaching hours that the state requires in order to be the lead teacher.  So at what turned out to be our last meeting in December, we were told if they could not find a new lead teacher in the next two weeks, they would be forced to close, either permanently or at least for the remainder of the 2018/2019 school year. 

Most people agreed that they wanted to try and stick it out, and do whatever they could to help the school find a new teacher.  I did too, but I also didn't want to cling to an impossible reality, and then have no school for Em when it closed.  If they couldn't find a suitable teacher in the last 9 months of looking, I held no hope for the next two weeks.  So when I picked Em up after the meeting, Ryan and I agreed her last day there would be the last day before Christmas break, and we would find a new school for her.  I figured even if they did somehow find someone new, what was to say she would be any good or stick around?  The board had already failed the kids and us by not telling us at the start of the school year that their teacher was only interim, so I had no faith in them to keep the school going.  They didn't make it, by the way, no teacher was found, so they did indeed close.  It does sound like some good changes have been made, and they will be re-opening for 2019/2020.  That does us no good of course, but that school had been around since the 70's.  I was sad to see it run into the ground by an incompetent board.

It was not what I wanted to do, but I agreed that if they would take her, Emily could go to Ryan's old private school, where his best friend was now principal.  I figured it would be very difficult to find an opening in any of the co-ops around, and while I did enjoy being involved in her school, the idea of coming into a new co-op mid-year, catching up on fundraising goals and working in the classroom schedule and whatever job I would have sounded very daunting.  I did have issues with sending her to his old school, but I will admit, it was nice to just let her go to school, and not deal with all of the co-op stuff and involvement right then.  Things were still stressful with the divorce, and having one less thing on my plate was a good thing.

So Christmas was good....it was different but good.  We hosted my family on Christmas Eve, and then Ryan came over Christmas morning to watch Emily open her presents.  She loved all her gifts, and I think she had a very nice Christmas.  Once she had a chance to play with some of her things, I got her ready and then she left with her dad to go spend Christmas day with him and his family.  Having nowhere to go, I was just going to stay home and wallow in my misery, but my sister-in-law and brother had a change of plans with her family, so they insisted I come over and not sit home and feel blah.  I took a nap after Emily left, but then I managed to shower and go to their house.

My SIL ended up being very sick, so she holed up in her room all day, and my brother and I headed out to get Chinese not long after I got there.  I figured it would be like the Chinese place they went to on A Christmas Story...the only ones there.  But no, apparently many people had the same idea, and the place was packed with people waiting for carry out orders.  We were too hungry to wait, so we ended up getting a frozen pizza and some snacks from 7/11 and sat around and drank and chatted and watched tv.  Definitely my most different Christmas day, but I still had fun. 

So a week or so into the new year, Emily had her first day of preschool....again.  This school started almost an hour earlier than her old one, so that was a bit of an adjustment because Em does not like to be woken up.  She's a "wake naturally on her own time" kinda girl, and 7am is not what time she wakes naturally, but at least having every other day off makes it better, and next year she can go back to a 9am start time.  She adjusted to her new school very well.  I've said it a million times, but I am so glad she does not seem to have my anxiety.  When I was her age, I would not have handled it well,  having to start preschool twice, and coming into a class where everyone had known each other for months already, but she did great.  She quickly made friends and is really doing well there. 

The divorce was final at the end of January.  I was so glad to have that done with.  Being divorced is good, but getting divorced sucks.  Oddly enough, we got along that day the best we had in months.  Unfortunately, it didn't last, but I knew it wouldn't.  I wanted a divorce for a reason.  Next month will be one year since we split and he moved out.....I feel like we have made great progress in the last year.  Things go up and down, as I suspect they always will, but for the most part, I do think things are better than I ever imagined they could be.  I may not think that when we're in the downswing of our new relationship, but things can always be worse and I think we're all starting to settle into our new lives. 

I don't know how Emily is doing inside, but on the outside she seems to be handling it well and adjusting.  She went through a period where she seemed unsure of showing the other parent that she loved or had fun with the one she was with, even to the point where she didn't want to wear the winter coat that her Nana bought her in front of me, presumably because she thought it would upset me.  But I haven't noticed her doing anything like that lately, so hopefully, we explained it well enough to her, and she understands that she doesn't have to favor one of us over the other, and we won't get upset that she loves us both.

In February I asked Emily where she wanted to go to dinner that coming weekend, and she said the Lobster place (Red Lobster).  I do like it, but I am not a huge fan of seafood, so I said why don't you ask daddy to take you some time.  Then I said actually if that's where you want to go, we can go there, and she asked, with daddy?  I said no, not with daddy.  But then I thought, why not?  So I asked him if he would like to join us for dinner that weekend, and suggested we should do dinner the three of us every few months for her sake.  The last time we went, which was a few weeks ago, her dad was coming to pick her up for his weekend, and I told her they were going to dinner and I was coming too, and she was so excited. 

As things change, as we each begin to date and move on, that may not be plausible to do anymore.  We'll always be there together as her parents for things like school plays, and her birthday and other stuff, but I don't see the family dinner thing continuing on for a long time.  As much as any new man in my life has to understand that Emily has a dad and he will be in our lives, I also think there is a fine line between getting along for the kids, and making your new SO uncomfortable by doing too many "family things" with your ex.  But as we're not even quite to a year yet, I think it's still important to do these things on occasion to show Emily that we can get along and that we are and will always be her parents, even if we're not together anymore.

Her age helps a lot too.  I think (I hope) this happened at the perfect time.  I first began seriously considering leaving when she was only two, and it absolutely broke my heart to think of her not even being able to remember us being a family.  But I was also afraid of waiting until she was too old when it would be harder for her and impact her more.  The first time we separated, she was 3.5 and it was so hard.  I still remember that first day without Ryan home..... every time she heard a truck or a lawn mower outside, she'd get excited.  Her little face perked up and she said "that must be my daddy" and she'd run to the window, only to watch her face fall when she realized it wasn't him.

That seriously broke my heart into a million pieces.  I sometimes forget that as a child, you love your parents, even if they aren't perfect.  The things I wanted to kill him for, she either didn't see, or didn't understand, or forgave easily  In my mind, he was an asshole one too many times, but in her mind, he is her daddy and she loves him and it hurt me so much to see her hurting.  It's what made me consider several times, staying for her.  To keep her family together, even if I was miserable.  But thankfully I realized while I was making her happy in the short run, I was hurting her in the long run.  She would only get older, and more cognizant.  When I thought of her coming to me as a teen or an adult, and telling me that she always knew I was unhappy with her dad, that was what made me realize I couldn't stay, 

So thankfully I think things happened at a good age for her.  She's old enough to remember happy times as a family, but young enough to be able to adjust to her new life easier and get used to her new normal.  I hope so anyway. 

We managed to successfully pull off a joint birthday party for her in March.  I figured things were still too new for his family to comfortably come to what is now just my house, and being her 5th, we wanted to invite some friends and my house just does not accommodate that many people if the weather does not allow it to be outside as well.  Being in mid-to-late March in Michigan, that is rarely possible.  So after some disagreement, we finally settled on McDonald's.  You really cannot beat it for the price.  You get food, entertainment and space all for less than $70.00.  Most everything else we looked into was well over $300.  I'm sure some people can afford that no problem, but I am still trying to adjust to just one income now, and really, did she have any less fun at a $70.00 party vs a $300 party?  I highly doubt it.

I didn't have her the weekend of the party, and I was very stressed about it so I just laid around and gave myself a lazy weekend.  I also enjoyed not having to run around like a crazy person, getting the house in order for company, buying and making food, and all the other crap that goes into having people over.  I don't know, she may be getting a McDonald's party every year now.  Seriously the entire thing was cheaper than just buying food to have people over.  But not having anything to keep me busy was bad in a way, because it just let me succumb to my anxiety over her party.  We'd never had it at a place before, and since we invited a few kids from school, there could be some people there I didn't know....and it was the first time being around all of his family and friends since we split, and I was worried about how our two sides would mesh. 

So I ended up not feeling well all weekend, and having some very weird and kind of disturbing dreams.  The one night I even dreamed that I had taken a nap, and overslept for her party, and I woke up feeling terrible.  So Sunday afternoon, I was a nervous wreck.  When I am anxious, I'm either hot and sweaty, or I'm freezing.  That day my body decided on hot and sweaty.  Awesome, really doesn't help with trying to look nice.  So I stopped on the way to get helium balloons, but the place had run out of helium.  Crap!  I normally order the balloons a few days before, and I didn't this time.  She said if I had placed an order ahead of time, they would have had to use their helium tanks off the shelf to fill the order. 

So now I had to go in the opposite direction of the party, and a few cities away to the other location to get the balloons.  But luckily since Ryan lives right near that McDonalds, he got there early, and I ended up getting there at least a few minutes before anyone else arrived.  Emily came with her Nana and Papa, and she looked so cute with the Minnie Mouse shirt that I got her that said birthday girl on the front and her name and a 5 on the back.  As it turned out, there was another girl's party that same day in Emily's class, and her invites went out first, so none of her school friends were able to make it.  But she did have two friends there, plus her cousins and a couple of our (now just his) friends' kids. 

So once everyone arrived, Emily ran off and played on the equipment with her friends, and then the food came out.  There was a definite divide in the room....I hung out with my brother and SIL and best friend the whole time, Ryan was on the other side of the room with his friends.  Most people from each side said hi to each other and our parents all made nice and chatted a bit, but you could feel the tension.  But still, considering how contentious our split was, I think it went very well.  I am sure in some families, some people wouldn't have even come, or there could have been some words said, or some passive aggressiveness.  So I think everyone did very well considering, and I think it speaks volumes to how much everyone loves Emily to all put our differences aside and come celebrate her birthday.  And the best thing is, she seemed to be having so much fun, I am sure she wasn't even aware of anything. 

Her cousin helped her open her presents and read all her cards for her, which I was grateful for because I hate doing that.  I was laying in bed thinking about it the next day, and suddenly I realized....my niece was still calling me Aunt Amy.  I was so happy when I realized that.  I mean, I was part of the family before she was even born, and she was only a year and a half old when we got married.  So she never knows of a time when I wasn't around and doesn't remember the time when I wasn't officially her aunt.  But still, people you never had a problem with do weird things around divorce, and I had no clue if anything was said or opinions of me were shared with the kids. 

For her and my nephew's birthdays, I sent them money and gave them specific "niece and nephew" cards and signed them Aunt Amy.  A few weeks later, I got thank you cards from both of them, addressed to Aunt Amy.  So it's nice to see that whatever feelings there are between me and their parents, they obviously are supporting them in still having a relationship with me.  Emily is just crazy about her cousins, and they are getting older, they are 13 and 10.  My nephew will be driving in a few years and as they get their own phones and become their own person, I would love to leave the door open to still have an aunt/niece/nephew relationship with them. 

In March, I took Em on our 2nd annual weekend stay at a hotel so we could get away for a mini "vacation" and to swim.  I was a little worried she would be sad without daddy there since he obviously was there last year, but she did fine.  I think she did ask if he was coming, but she accepted my answer pretty easily when I said no.  It was a nice weekend, we got to swim twice, and she loved running around the hotel room, and we took some toys, and they have a big, yummy continental breakfast each morning.  She keeps bugging me to go back for another weekend, but I keep telling her we will go again but not till next year.  I don't want to make it about money (but damn, a few hundred just to sleep somewhere else for two nights, lol) so I told her if we go too often it won't be as special.  She thought about it for a minute and said, I don't want it to be special, let's go again.  Man, I love that kid, she cracks me up.

The week after her birthday, me and my dad and stepmom took her to see Disney on Ice.  She loved it and she was so excited when Mickey and Minnie came out.  This isn't why I asked them to go, but I will admit, I was glad to have them there since they picked up the tab on a few things.  That shit is so expensive.  She wanted this light up wand that had Mickey's head silhouette on top.  I thought my dad was going to die as he reached for his wallet and the guy said it would be $30.00.  Funny though....did she get it?  She sure as shit did.  Would I have gotten a $30.00 light up wand when I was her age?  Absolutely not.  Such a softie in his old age.

I had her for Easter this year.....finally I got a holiday.  I didn't have her for Thanksgiving, and while I did have her for Christmas Eve, and itis my preferred choice over Christmas Day, not having her on every holiday was a huge adjustment.  So I was glad to have her for Easter.  I was still pretty sick, I got an upper respiratory infection at the end of March, and it was still going pretty strong at Easter.  So that morning she searched for and found her basket.  She got the usual candy, and also got a Wrapple (funny little animals that go around your wrist and speak gibberish....she got one for her birthday so she wanted it to have a friend) and a pillow just like Minnie Pillow except with Mickey on it.  She asked for it and loves it, but Minnie Pillow is still her one true love.

I was going to try to go to church that day.....I try to go once or twice a year whether I need it or not, haha, but I just felt too miserable.  My dad had been sick too, though not as bad as me, and didn't feel like going either.  Ah well, maybe I will make it for Christmas this year.  So once we got ready we went to my dads.  It was a nice dinner, and my brother and SIL got her a kite so they took her down to the park and tried to fly it.  That was nice, gave me a little break.  It's hard to still be mom even though you feel like death and just want to sleep and want peace and quiet. 

A few weeks ago I turned the big 4-0.  I'm good with it, everyone was right, turning 40 was definitely easier than turning 30.  Your 30's is so different from your 20's.  But your 40's isn't much different than your 30's, plus by then you've lost some of your will to be bothered by some stupid stuff.  The only issue I have with being 40, is knowing that 50's is next.  What I thought was old when I was a kid, gets younger and younger as I get closer to that age.  But 50's still sounds pretty old to me.  I don't feel like I could be old enough, to be looking at 50's.  I know it's still ten years away but still....time flies. 

I woke up that morning and got Emily up for school.  I sat down to do her hair, and I opened the living room blinds to find all this stuff on my lawn.  I had plastic pictures of cows all over my lawn, and a big sign that said Holy Cow, Amy is 40.  At first I thought someone had been running all over my lawn early in the morning, but I discovered it's a company that you hire to come to do it.  Either this guy is a former burglar, or he has a very promising career should he ever change paths.  I found out not only was I awake when he came (around midnight), but he only set off my Ring Doorbell at the tail end (and it didn't alert me) and Nalah never even made a sound.  Now granted, he was probably pretty quiet just sticking signs in my lawn, but my dog barks at everything, so I am very surprised she didn't sense him or hear him walking all over the lawn. 

As I suspected, it was my brother and SIL that did it.  So I took Em to school, and then I grabbed breakfast from McDonalds and just went home and chilled.  Normally I go to the gym after I drop her off and then work, but I hadn't been to the gym since before I got sick.  I was feeling much much better now, but still got exhausted very easily, so I figured one more day off from the gym wouldn't hurt.  And I took a personal day off work, so I had three wonderful hours to just sit, and do nothing, and read all my birthday messages on FB while Em was in school.

So then I went to pick her up, and she and I went to the movies to see Ugly Dolls.  It was cute, not the best kids' movie I ever saw, but decent.  Then I decided I needed a new purse, so we went to the mall and after looking at about 50 of them, I finally found one I liked.  There is an indoor play area at the mall that Em loves, so I let her play there for a while.  As soon as we walked in, a girl her age came up and said, do you want to be my bestie?  She grabbed Em's hand and they ran off together. 

After a while we had to get going home, Ryan was stopping by on his way home from work to help Emily give me my present.  "She" got me some Adidas slides.  I had mentioned a while back that I wanted some so they got me a pair.  I think I used to have some but they didn't make it through Nalah's puppyhood.  So then Em played outside for a bit....it was funny, everyone that walked by our house wished me a happy birthday.  The neighbor girl came over and wished me a happy birthday and I said thanks, how did you know?  Haha, I'm funny.  Her dad text me earlier saying the lawn looks great, Happy 40th!   My neighbor like 4 houses down, who I don't even know, came out on his porch and yelled, Happy Birthday!  It was awesome, I definitely felt the love that day. 

Once my brother got off work, he came over and the three of us went to dinner.  My SIL was visiting her parents, but she sent a bouquet of flowers for me and one for Em along with a bottle of wine.  So I am a huge creature of habit and tend to go to the same restaurants all the time and get the same thing all the time.  So for my birthday dinner I decided to pick this Italian place.  I'd been a few times, and I did get the same thing I got those other times, but it's sooo good.  So it was nice going someplace different for a change and my brother loved it too.  When the bill came I asked the waitress if she could split it between my card and his, but he said no, it's your birthday, and handed her his card. 

They really went all out to make my birthday special.  It was nice anyway, but being my first birthday alone, and being a rather big one, it was really cool of them to do so much.  I had a great day.  The next day I went and got my hair cut because, well I needed it, but also because my stylists does a great blow out and my hair looks so nice after a cut, so I did that before going to my dad's for my birthday bbq.  We originally were going to invite more family (and unfortunately a lot of my friends are scattered across the US) but it had rained pretty heavily the last few days and my dad's yard was flooded and it would have been too crowded to have it in his house with too many people. 

So it was just the immediate family and my best friend and her two boys.  But it was good, all my favorite people were there.  So he grilled chicken and ribs, and then we had cake.  My brother and SIL got me a Ron Swanson (from the show Parks and Rec) Funko doll.  He is my favorite character on that show, he's so grumpy and hates everyone and everything, I love him.  Emily is obsessed with him.  She cannot understand why I got a toy as a present and she wants to steal him.  I may have to take him into the office so he will stay on my desk.  He doesn't seem safe in my home office.

My stepmom got me some shower gel and body polish that I had been wanting, and my dad gave me money to buy clothes.  That evening I went back home and changed, but then came back to my dad's so my friend could pick me up to go out for drinks.  Emily was staying at my dad's that night, so I figured I would too after the bar.  I like going out in my hometown...just like the bars and atmosphere better, so that means I always drive since I am a good 20 minutes away.  But since it was my birthday, Amanda drove so I could get drunk.  Mission accomplished.  I had a margarita, two martinis, an orange mule, and at first, I kept doing the rhyme wrong in my head, but then when I finally realized, "liquor before beer you're in the clear."...I ended my night with a beer because I really wanted one, and was happy to realize it wouldn't make me sick.  It was a great night out with my bestie, and I had a great birthday. 

I felt fine when I woke up the next morning, but unfortunately what woke me up was the sound of Emily crying and puking.  But luckily since we were at my dad's, once I got her cleaned up in the tub, he took care of the laundry.  So that morning set off a week-long virus for her, which meant no school all week, which meant no gym for me yet.  So finally she was healthy and went back to school last week. 

She has just a couple weeks left of school, and her year of preschool will be done.  I don't know how that is possible.  It seems like just yesterday we were taking her picture on the porch, her holding a sign that said first day of preschool.  Before I know it, she will be posing for her first day of Kindergarten picture.  Well, I think I am sufficiently caught up now.  Hopefully, I will write again sometime between now and her first day in the fall. 

Wow I am so far behind.  I can't believe its almost Christmas and my last post was in August.  So the biggest thing of the fall was, Emily started pre-school.  She did really well, she didn't cry, and neither did I.  She was nervous for the first day, and a little reluctant to let go of my hand, but she did very well.  It didn't take her long to acclimate and now she does just fine.  She still sticks by my side at drop off but she will often play with her friends as long as I am standing close by.  But I've noticed a lot of other kids are like that too, even the kids that were there last year for 3 year.

She's already made a little friend, Avery.  She went to her first classmate/friend birthday party a few weeks ago.  It's going really well.  We just had a snafu where both teachers just up and quit last week...that was weird.  I know it is a job to them and they have life issues that go into their jobs just like everyone else, but it was hard on the kids for them to just leave like that.  I hope they had a good reason for just quitting.  As it was we only had a one week notice....found out on Sunday night that their last day would be Friday, but then the next day the one teacher did not come in, and the other one quit right after that, so she had no school on Wednesday and only an hour on Friday to meet the new ones.

But the new ones seem good, and she seems to be taking to them pretty well.  Kids are resilient, but still....how many more disruptions and changes is she going to have to go through this year?  One of our biggest struggles was getting her up and ready in the morning.  She has school Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the Tuesday of her first week, we still had to get up early for our first child custody hearing.  That morning was horrible.  It's like she decided no, I'm not getting up today, I got up yesterday....not happening today.  I was stressed about going and getting there.  It was downtown, which shouldn't have been a big deal since I used to work down there, but it's been like 13 years since I left there, so navigating downtown isn't as easy for me as it used to be.

So I'm screaming at her like a crazy person to get out of bed and get stressed and she is just flat out refusing.  Normally I can keep my cool, but I was already so stressed, I just couldn't that day.  It was terrible.  I later text my neighbors and told them I was sorry if they heard what sounded like a murder taking place.  Emmy was screaming at the top of her lungs.  I finally got her ready and of course, the whole way to my stepmom's house to drop her off, I felt like shit for yelling at her and not being more prepared.  And it was raining, and I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get to her house in rush hour traffic.

I only dropped her off to my stepmoms about 15 minutes late, but I did not allow enough cushion to even be 5 minutes late.  Getting downtown sucked and traffic that way was even worse.  I had a specific parking garage I  planned to park in, but I mistakenly got stuck in a lane that only turned left.  I knew by the time I navigated around the one-way streets, I'd probably be all turned around and actually be late, so I pulled in the first garage I saw.  Normally I hate the ones that are a valet, but that day I was grateful to not have to find a spot and walk through the garage.  I parked my car, tossed my keys at the guy and ran.  It was about 5 minutes to 9 and I was still a few blocks away.

As I'm speedwalking down the street, I see who looks like my former brother-in-law....I was like wait, that is him, why is he downtown this morning?  Then I realized the guy with him was my ex.  He had on a suit, it's like my eyes glossed right over him because I am not used to seeing him in a suit.  So it was kind of good to run into them because I couldn't be in too much trouble for being late if we walked in the door at the same time.  But it was also awkward because we were there to basically fight over our daughter.  So the three of us walked to the building and found our courtroom....only to be told they didn't have our case on the docket that day.  Greeeaaaat.  His lawyer was already there and when mine came in, she tried to straighten out the issue.  They claim something wasn't filed right and we did not have a hearing that day.  Hmmm, my money is on the Friend of the Court having messed up.  Unless my lawyer's courier is brand new and didn't know what they were doing, they presumably do that kind of stuff all the time.  But the Friend of the Court has literally dozens of people that could have screwed something up, and sorry, but government workers don't always impress me much.

I was so pissed that my horrible morning was for nothing and we didn't even have a hearing.  But it worked out because we both just met with our lawyers and had an informal hearing.  So the good news is, everything stayed the same, I still had her the majority of the time and he still had her every Wednesday and every other weekend, and the even better news, we did not have to come back for the next hearing scheduled for this month since we worked things out that day.  Whew.

I talked with my lawyer on the way out and I think we came out a different door than what I went in because once we parted ways, I was turned around.  I feel like I have a pretty good sense of direction, and my old office was literally just blocks from there, so I used to know that area pretty well, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to get back to my parking garage.  Thankfully the name of the garage was on my ticket, so I googled it and literally walked holding my phone, mapping me back to the garage.  What would we do without technology?  I felt like Joey from Friends when he had to "go into the map" in London.

So thankfully now after a few months of school, Emily is much much better about getting up in the morning and getting ready.  It was hard at first because for 4 years, she was used to lazy mornings where we just sat around the house and maybe got ready eventually to leave the house around 11.  But now all of a sudden she had to get up at 8, eat breakfast, get dressed and go.  It's getting much easier now though, and we're settling into our new routine.  I'm amazed at how good school has been for her.  She's been saying hi and bye and thank you to strangers at the store when they speak to her, where a few months ago she would have just stared at them, or hid behind me.  And she's learning so much, it's so much fun to see her little personality continue to expand and see how much she knows.  I miss the baby days a lot, but she's like a little person now who I can have full conversations with and have fun with and just be silly with.  I feel like even just in the last 4-6 months she has become a whole new person and grown up so much.

So September had some good times like a school field trip to a nature center, and I got her out camping again one last time.  That weekend was chilly so there was no swimming, but we took walks, we played tennis, had campfires....it was a good time.  A very short weekend, we couldn't get there till about 6 on Friday night, and because of school, we had to pack up and go home Sunday afternoon.  Definitely way too short.  But the previous trip, Friday to Tuesday was a little long.  That's too many days in a camper with just a 4-year-old and a dog.  So Friday to Monday would have been perfect.  But I didn't want to make her miss school....between potential snow days, and scheduled days off, I'm trying not to miss too many days that we don't have to.

We also had some sadness in September though, we had to put our kitty down.  He was 16 years old, I'd had him since I got my very first apartment when I was just 22.  I loved that cat so much, he was my little sidekick.  For so many years it was just me and him.  In June he was diagnosed with kidney disease, and the week before I decided to put him down, I could see a decline in him.  It was hard, I miss him so much.  I was terrified to tell Emily.  She has had so many changes, disruptions, and losses lately, and now her first loss of a pet?  Oye!  So the night before I sat her down and told her the news....she said, ok bye Zoey!  Don't get me wrong, I am so happy she didn't have to suffer more, but geeze, not even one tear?  Just kidding....Zoey had retreated to living strictly in my office long before Emily was old enough to know what a cat was.  He really only came out to use the litter box downstairs and then he went right back in the office.  When she would come in while I was working, she would occasionally try to pet him or make kissy noises in his face, to which he would either shrink back away from her or try to bat at her with his clawless paws, which Emily just found funny.  So she really had no real relationship or attachment to him.  Just as well, he was already 12 years old when she was born, I knew he wouldn't be around forever.

We'll get a new kitten soon, but probably not until spring.  Before we let Zoey go, I didn't think I would make it more than a few weeks before going to get a new one, but now that he's gone, I'm taking this time to mourn him and just be a one pet household for a little while.  It is very nice to not look for puke before walking or sitting anywhere in my office (he was always a puker, even before he got old and sick) and not scooping a litterbox is very nice.  I also don't want to deal with a curious kitten and a Christmas tree this year.  In my first apartment, I just had a little 3-foot table top tree, but Zoey would climb it all the time and knock it over a lot.  I don't feel like battling that this year.  Hopefully, by next year the cat will have lost a smidge of her curiosity.

I honestly could go a lot longer without another cat.  The dog is a handful and keeping up with her messes as well as Emily's is enough.  But Emily loves cats so much, I want to get her a kitten to grow up with.  She's got Nalah, but they're both too hyper and rambunctious.  Its a rare day either one of them slows down long enough to cuddle, and if you do try to cuddle Nalah she starts licking you.  I'd love to have a playful yet snuggly cat that will sleep with Emily and can be HER cat.  If she lives as long as Zoey did, Em would have her all the way through college.  I've looked online a bit but like I did with Zoey, I think when we're ready we'll just go to the shelter and see if one picks us.  But that means we cannot visit any shelters until we're ready to take one home.  We used to occasionally do that when we were bored...but having Zoey and Nalah and a few years back, Vinny and Emily at home, there was no way I would bring another cat home no matter how cute they were.  But now, with no REAAAAL reason not to, I'm afraid I'd jump the gun if I saw a really cute one.

So Halloween sucked for me, but Emily had a great time.  I couldn't go to her Halloween party at school because Ryan and I had mediation.  Huh, never underestimated the shittiness of someone when it comes to money.  And good news to all the men out there, you may still be behind in the fair treatment when it comes to custody, but man or woman, we're all equal when it comes to getting screwed for having more money and the sense and responsibility of being a saver.  Maybe that is my calling in life.  I should go into motivational speaking for people who are about to get married.  Do want you want, get married, see if it works, but don't make THESE mistakes with your money when you get married.

So we had agreed to get dinner that evening and take Emily trick or treating together in my neighborhood, but after mediation, I was so mad and upset I couldn't even think of doing that.  So he took her out around his place, and then I picked her up at 7 and we went trick or treating at home.  My bro and sis-in-law knew how upset I was so they came over to trick or treat with us, and then they bought us a pizza and we all had dinner.  I <3 them.  Family can get on your nerves and you're all busy with your own lives, but when you really need them, they're right there for you.  Emmy was Minnie Mouse while with daddy, but she wanted to change into Batgirl when we got home.  We still had that costume from the Super Hero Daddy-Daughter Dance last winter, and I was glad to get two wearings out of it.  She was the cutest Batgirl ever!  Thank goodness I planned to have her wear pants underneath though, she must have grown like a weed since February, that skirt is way shorter on her now.  So I think Em still had a good night, and she was so happy to have her aunt and uncle surprise us with a visit and the weather could not have been more perfect, especially for Michigan.  It had rained all day and night before and that morning some.  By trick or treat time, it was a nice 50 degrees, no wind.....a very nice fall evening.

I couldn't work that day, I just couldn't concentrate so I blew it off.  When Em started school I upped my hours to 30/week (from 25) which will now put me on track to be eligible for benefits in December.  I am so thankful they changed the rule.  It used to be you had to stay at 30/week for 90 days to be eligible, and if you dipped below that, even just an hour, you had to start over with the 90 day count.  But they recently changed it to an average of 30/week.  So thankfully I was able to take Halloween day off and only work 24 hours that week, but then I spent the last two weeks working 33 each week to stay on track.  I cannot wait to have PTO and paid holidays.  The PTO is awesome, but I'm more excited about the holidays.  Thanksgiving was the last holiday I had to work.  For Christmas I can take the day off and get paid, but more importantly, I don't have to then cram 30 hours into 4 days instead of 5 by not working on the holiday.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, it was awful.  The day itself was ok.  I worked in the morning but I did not get as early of a start as I wanted.  Then I showered and went to dinner at my dad's.  That was good, my brother and SIL were there, my cousin, my stepsister and stepmom and her stepdaughter from a previous marriage, her husband and her two grown girls.  I was kind of blue through dinner without Emmy there (Ryan got her for Thanksgiving this year) but it was still good.  I needed to work more when I got home, but I only did an hour.  So that meant the next day I had to work 8 hours instead of 6.  I worked from 11-7, which is like the worst possible hours to work....you start in the morning, work through the afternoon and into early evening.  All three parts of the day, yuck.  So by the time I got done, I just ordered pizza and sat around.

I was in one of those moods where I had a ton I had to do, and even wanted to do, but I had no motivation to actually do it.  So I was restless.  The next day I woke up with a migraine and I was stuck with it all day.  I could barely move without feeling nauseous and wanting to cry.  Excedrine migraine didn't help, pop didn't help, a hot shower helped a little but not enough.  I ended up watching two not so great movies, and just felt so blah and depressed.  Part of it was the migraine, but I missed Emmy so damn much.  I felt so depressed.  He had her from Wednesday till Sunday night.  It was the longest I'd ever been without her.  By Saturday night and definitely by Sunday I am missing her on his weekends, but at least I can have some me time and do things I cannot get done when she's with me.  But 5 days was just too much, thank God those extended visits don't happen too often.  And I know what some of you may be thinking....if you can't do 5 days, how do you think dads feel that go all week or more.  I do feel very bad for some dads, I would die without my baby for that long.  But her dad doesn't even call her when he's not with her....ever.  I guess he cannot miss her that much.

Sunday I thankfully did not have a migraine.  Often times they come in 3's but I guess this time someone decided to have mercy on me.  So I thankfully got some cleaning done, and finally got the last of the fallen leaves mowed and bagged up.  I was so excited to finally go pick up Emmy I left the house too early....I had to drive a few miles out of my way and come back around so I arrived closer to 7.  I don't think he would complain about coming a few minutes early, but I was set to get there at like 6:40 or 6:45, and I try not to be that early.  I admit I let her stay up too late that night because I didn't want to stop snuggling her.  I just love that little girl with all my heart and soul.  We've always been close, she's been my precious doll since the minute she was born.  But I think me and her dad splitting will actually make us even closer.  I really hope we can be that mom and daughter that are best friends....well, her best friend, in between riding her ass to make sure she grows up to be a good human being.  But I think she's on a good track.  When we were up north a few months ago, I bought her a Barbie (knock off Barbie from the dollar store) so she would have some toys to keep there, and my stepmoms friend bought her some window clings (my girl is NUTS about window clings).

When we gave her her treats, she gasped and said oh thank you Mommy, thank you Debbie!!!!  I try so hard not to spoil her, but when she gets so excited about something, it's so hard not to want to produce that excitement all the time.  This past week I took her to see The Polar Express at the IMAX.  She'd seen the movie before, but I thought she would have fun seeing it at the theater.  She was glued to the screen the entire time.  She loved it, and it's all she can talk about now.  Tonight at bedtime I surprised her with the book from the library.  She just absolutely loves it.  After the movie, we went back to my dad's (she had been at my dad's all day while I went into the office) and picked him up and went to dinner with him at this local bar that is famous for their burgers.  I was a little unsure of taking Em there (it's a bar but has a room of just restaurant seating) but when we walked in there was a little boy about her age eating dinner in his karate uniform. 

Last night I took my stepmom out to dinner.  My bosses were appreciative of our hard work at fiscal year-end, so they said we could go out to dinner and they would pay for up to $75.00.  My stepmom has helped me out a lot and she's always paying for stuff when we hang out, so I wanted to take her out for dinner.  We went to my favorite Arabic restaurant and with a wine carafe and appetizer and entrees, we easily spent the $75.00 plus a little.  I felt kind of bad about not taking my dad too, but I left Emmy with him, I am sure he enjoyed being home with her more than he would have going to dinner.  She said to him, "Baba, did you enjoy spending time with mommy on Thanksgiving"?  Haha, sometimes I think she is an old lady disguised in a 4-year-old's body. 

Today we were supposed to go to a Christmas festival with my brother and SIL, but it rained all afternoon and night, and I figured being outside in the cold rain would be miserable.  So instead my brother came over this evening and we went to a local park that has Christmas lights set up.  It's basically a two-lane roadway with parks on either side.  I believe it spans about 12 miles total.  The lights are only about 5 miles though.  But they're very cool....we've gone to them every year since Em was born.  Afterward, we went to dinner.  It's been a fun week/weekend.  Tomorrow my stepmom is coming over to bake cookies.  I used to get together one day in December for the last several years for cookie day with my inlaws, but I guess those days are over....so we'll start our own tradition.  I think I will take her to see Santa this coming week.  I cannot believe Christmas is almost here.

I think that's about all of the updating I have.  See you in probably another three months when I get around to writing again.

Summer fun

Oh, why oh why am I still awake?  I'm very tired, I don't think it'll take long before I pass out, but for some reason, I am resisting it.  Emily and I are camping right now.  I don't know for sure what will happen to the camper amidst our recent separation, but it's very likely it'll have to go.  We only went camping once this summer as a family.  We were planning on going again but I had an allergic reaction the day before which put a hold on those plans.

So last week I was thinking, I should take her before the summer is over.  Our campground will move your camper out of storage and onto a site and then off again (for a fee of course but well worth it) so I didn't need the truck to go.  I've done a lot with getting the camper set up, but mostly the inside stuff.  I'd never stabilized it, leveled it or hooked up the sewer, water and electric.  But I thought it can't be that hard, right?

I hadn't planned on telling my husband (er, ex?  I don't know) because I didn't want him to unnecessarily worry that I would break something and discourage me from going.  But, I realized he had both sets of keys, so I had to get keys from him and thus tell him we were going.  He was kind enough to offer to set it up for us, which I declined, but I did take him up on talking me through it on the phone.  I watched a few youtube videos and asked a few people beforehand, so I was pretty confident I would do ok.  Our campground is pretty "groomed" so when the ground people put it on site, they had it basically leveled already, I didn't have to do anything to level it.

I just had to put the stabilizer jacks down, and hook everything up.  I had the basic idea of how to do everything, but we have this awesome thing that hooks up on the sewer hose that allows you to also hook up a hose to it so you can blast water in the black tank to help clean out any gunk that didn't freely flow out.  There were several parts to put together to hook that up, and I had NO idea the sewer hose was literally IN the bumper.  We've owned this thing for 5 years and I had no clue that's where the hose is stored.  So talking to him on the phone for that part was quite helpful.

But, I got it all.  I've always taken care of putting the slide out and awning out, turning on the air and fridge and hot water tank, so that was all a cinch.  I've sort of started campfires before, but not a ton but I did ok with that.  Friday night the stars aligned and I had awesome wood and got the fire started very easily and it burned well all evening.  I figured with getting in kind of late and having to get the camper all set up, we'd just go out to eat that night, so we went out for Mexican.

I will say, those are some of the times I am the saddest.  In some ways, not much has changed because Em and I often spent a lot of time together just the two of us.  But we would fairly regularly go out for dinner the three of us, so those outings feel kind of weird now.  I used to really enjoy our day dates when he and I would just go out running errands and go out to lunch.  So after dinner, we came back to the camper, had a fire, tried to have s'mores but all of our supplies for it were old.  The chocolate had turned white and the marshmallows were super sticky and hard to pull apart. 

Saturday morning we woke up to lots of rain.  My brother and his wife were talking about coming for the day, and maybe even staying the night and trying out their new tent.  It was rainy/gloomy all day off and on, so we mostly stayed in the camper, except for when we ventured out to go to the store.  I was just about to get dinner started when my brother called to say he was on his way.  My sister-in-law couldn't make it because she had plans early the next morning.  So when he got there he helped me get the fire going...I just didn't have any success that night, and even he had to keep using lighter fluid but eventually got it going on its own.  So we grilled hot dogs over the fire (the best kind) and I put a pot of beans on the fire too.  Yummy! 

He brought new s'more stuff, but we were so full after dinner and we had let the fire go out, so we never got around to them.  By then it was time to go in and get Em to bed, but not before she challenged her uncle to a game of checkers.  Once she was in bed he and I stayed up pretty late shooting the shit.  I am glad he made it, the more the merrier I always say.  While I was preparing dinner he set up his tent.  I don't know, maybe if we have to say goodbye to the camper, I'll give tent camping a try.  It always looks like fun, but it never seems as fun when you actually do it.  Not sleeping well, waking up feeling kind of wet....but who knows.  Maybe I could hack it in the fall.  I hate HOT weather, so maybe I would fair better by trying real camping in the fall.

So this morning we got up and sat around for a while.  He had to get going home soon so we packed a lunch and had a picnic down by the beach under a weeping willow tree.  It was pretty idyllic.  He had to get going after that so then Emily and I went swimming in the lake.  She had fun collecting seashells and seaweed which she kept naming.  Haha, goofball.  I had heard that previous summers quite a few people got swimmer's itch from the lake.  I had never heard of it and never got it from swimming in that lake before.  But now that I knew about it, I was kind of paranoid, but I heard swimming in a chlorinated pool afterward should kill whatever causes it.  We had never checked out the pool before and since this may be one of our last few times at the campground I figured it's now or never. 

It was nice, very good size pool, the bathrooms were apparently just redone last year.  I don't know what they looked like before but they look nice.  I wish they would redo the bathrooms and showers in the campground.  Those are pretty scuzzy.  Though last fall I took the leap and showed in the camper.  It's quite nice.  Yes, the shower is small, but it's fine and while you can't dawdle, you can take a decent shower.  You don't have to take a speed shower in order to not run out of hot water.  And Emily's been taking baths in the camper, the tub is the perfect size for her.  It's way better than having to pack up all your bathroom stuff to go to the communal showers.....I'm always on the warm side, so unless I am freezing, I take cool to colder showers.  But even then, it's so steamy in communal showers, I am sweating again by the time I get done showering, it sucks.  So I am happy to not shower there.

So after the pool, we stopped at the campground store and got some ice cream, and then we headed back to the camper for quiet time.  Em laid in my bed and I put a movie on for her and I took a shower.  When I was done, she was already out.  So then I cleaned up some around the camper and called my stepmom to talk for a while.  When Emily woke up, I grilled burgers and made mac and cheese for dinner.  I hadn't wanted to start the campfire yet so I made the mac and cheese by putting the pot on top of the grill.  That took forever.  I probably should have just used the gas stove top in the camper....but then I would have been going back and forth to check each part of dinner. 

By then it was getting late and dark so we took the dog for a walk.  I love that it's a very dog-friendly place.  Though that does come with some downfalls.  I have flea bites all over my feet and ankles, and my dog doesn't have fleas.  Treat your dogs people!  So then Em took a bath and then we made a fire.  I was having trouble with it again tonight.  Some wood and pinecones got it going pretty good, but I also had to keep using lighter fluid.  We made hobo pies.  We have these plates that you put bread in and then pie filling, closing them up and put them in the fire....they came out pretty good.  We're going to use those to make grilled cheese tomorrow for lunch.

I tried popping some of that Jiffy Pop that you pop over the fire, but I never got it to pop more than a few kernels.  It reminded me of when we were kids, we were staying up north on our other piece of property. The place we have now is right off the road, and the area is all mowed like a yard...but that place, which my dad still owns is way down a two-track road off from a dirt road, way back in the woods with lots of woods and trees and growth around.  So we were headed back to our camper at the time, and we took our cousin with us so he could enjoy the campfire before we went to bed.  I think he's a few years younger than me, so he was probably 5.  So being real wilderness, all we had was the light of the campfire, so my dad put some jiffy pop on the fire for us to snack on.  After a while, he was like it should be done by now.  He found a flashlight, cut the bag open.....and it was all solid black char!  My cousin thought that was just the funniest thing in the world.  He talked about it for days and months later.

So tonight I snapped a picture and tagged him in it on facebook.  He was like oh man, your dad and jiffy pop will forever be connected in my head.  So, day number 3 of Em getting to bed pretty late.  But it's summer and we're "on vacation".  If you can't stay up late on vacay then when the hell can you?  So today was Sunday, we're going home sometime on Tuesday.  My stepmom might come up tomorrow for a few hours.  That would be nice if she can because I need to get some work done tomorrow so it would be cool if she can take Em to the beach or pool while I get some work done.  I was going to work some tonight but by the time I got her in bed it was after 11 and I still had to pay bills.  Blah. 

I don't know what we'll do tomorrow.  It's supposed to be hot again, so maybe we'll go back to the pool...get ice cream again.  I'd like to take her out in a paddle boat but I have a feeling she may not like it.  We'll see.  I've got to take her to the playground too, we ran out of time today.  And do an arts and crafts thing with the seashells she got today.  Well, I'm off to bed.  I know it wasn't a lot of work given the fact that I didn't have to tow the camper and put it on the site, but I am pretty proud of myself that I got it all set up by myself for the most part and was still able to take her camping despite our situation right now.  I hope she'll have great memories of our camping trips.  Or at least see pictures and know she had fun....she may not remember some of this so well being only 4.

Tennis fail

When I first took Emily to the daycare at the gym, she adapted perfectly and was so good.  No tears, no apprehension.  We said bye and she said bye and all was good.  She was a little nervous for ballet, but she went with the other kids and did great.  Gymnastics, she made me walk her to the door of the gym but then she was fine and went running in all excited.  She did great with swimming too....she was a little nervous some days because she does not enjoy dunking her head under, but otherwise she did fine.  On the morning of the first day of VBS, she said she was a little nervous, but she was totally fine once there and was great about me leaving.

She started tennis yesterday and bam....crying, tears, wouldn't leave my side.  She wouldn't even go try.  I kept telling her she needed to try and if she didn't like it she didn't have to do it.  I hated to see her little sad face, crying and clinging to me.  I so badly want to say it's ok baby, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, you can stay snuggled up to me forever.  But I know that's not what is best for her.  There were a ton of things my dad made me do growing up that I HATED and I was just adamant that I would never like.  And most of the time I ended up loving it.  And even if I didn't, I was better for having tried it.

So I KNOW what the answer is, I know she needs to at least try it, but she just wasn't budging.  I thought maybe I didn't hype it up enough.  For her other stuff, I talked about it a lot and got her all excited.  I kind of forgot she was even going to be doing it, so I didn't talk about it a whole lot.  I got her on the court for about 30 seconds yesterday, she swung at a few balls and I think even hit 2 out of 3 of them...and when that drill was over she came running off the court to me, crying her little heart out.

Yesterday at my dad's he practiced with her and she dragged him outside 3 times to play, and she was all excited and said she was going to play today.  She even pinky promised.  Today we got to the courts and she said she was going to try.  I even tried bribing her, telling her that if she tries, she'll get a treat at Target.  She said ok!!

But as soon as the coach called them on the court, she stepped back and clung to me again.  I said I thought you were going to try today and she said no.   I reminded her about her treat from Target and she said she didn't want it.  I again got her on the court for less than a minute but as soon as the coach came over to talk to her, she stepped back a few steps and then didn't want to try. 

I told her if she wasn't going to try, then we needed to leave and she said ok, so we started to walk off the court when she said no I want to try.  So we went back but the second she got close, she ran off again.  So I said ok we're going.  Then the entire way to the car she was crying and whining that she wanted to try.  I told her I wasn't going to play those games all day, she had plenty of chances to try.  So then she kept whining for a treat from Target, but I told her no because she didn't really try.

Does she need to play tennis?  Will her life be negatively impacted if she doesn't play tennis?  No, of course not. Though I admit I am a bit disappointed because I love tennis and it would be awesome if she does too eventually and we could play together as she gets older.  But I will never force her to do something like that if she doesn't want to do it.  But I was frustrated and baffled that she has done so well with all her other classes and lessons, but this one she acted as though I was taking her off to be slaughtered.

She's seemed relatively unscathed from me and her dad's separation thus far, but since the first week he moved out, she has been wanting to sleep with me in my bed.  I've been letting her most nights because I just do not have the strength and patience to fight her, especially when I have to work after she goes to bed.  I don't mind her being in my bed at all, and if she is feeling a little insecure from the recent change in our house, I have no problem with giving her some extra comfort and security.  But, many people have advised me to discourage it, or it'll be impossible to break later.  I myself remember certain periods where I slept in my mom's bed as a kid, and I remember how hard it was to go back to my own bed at first.  But I survived, I turned out ok.  But I do think the fact that she doesn't ever want to sleep in her room anymore is troubling.  If she just asked every couple days to sleep with me, but was fine sleeping in her own bed when I said no, then I wouldn't worry about her coming into my bed now and again.  But she wants to sleep with me every single night now, and it's a huge fight to get her to stay in her own room.

So I don't know....I don't know if her resistance to tennis is somehow related to being upset over the separation.  The last thing she went to was VBS and she loved it and had no issues whatsoever.  The very first day she went, was the day her dad moved out except later that day....so was she ok because by the time she knew what had happened, she had already started VBS and was fine?  Or is none of this related to the separation?  She did mention the fact that her coach is a boy.  She is shy, but she will warm up to women usually, but she tends to be a lot more shy and timid around men.

But, she did have male instructors for swimming sometimes when we had to do a makeup class and she seemed fine with them.  But then again she had already been in swimming for a couple weeks when she had to have a boy teacher.  Could it be that she has finally just reached the age where she realized she can speak up and say no she doesn't want to do something?  I don't know.  But I am nervous about her starting pre-school now.  She doesn't have to play tennis, but she does have to go to school.  I have been all along, but I'll make sure to keep getting her excited about school.  We need to go pick out a new backpack for her new academic career, so that should be exciting.  We want her to try soccer in the fall and go back to swimming once summer is over, so we'll see how she does with those things.

So tonight I was cooking dinner and she wanted to help, so I let her stir the soup.  We decided that it was "troll soup" since we had watched Trolls all day.  So we were naming crazy ingredients to put in it, and then she says wait, it's missing something.  She ran into the living room, and when she came back I thought she was tossing in an invisible pretend ingredient.  Nope, she sprinkled the soup with dog hair...yeeeeach!

Thankfully we had another can of soup.  Since we had more, it was funny, but if we hadn't had any, I would have been very sad. 

New chapter

So, as I write this post, it's official.  My husband and I are separated.  Well, not legally official, but as official as unofficial gets.  It's been hard...making the decision to split up my family is of course the hardest one.  From the moment you see those two pink lines your life is no longer yours, and every decision you make affects your little one.  Sometimes in a good way, and sometimes badly and in this crazy world called parenting sometimes it's really hard to determine which side of that fine line you're on.  Or maybe you have to make a decision that hurts them in the short run, in order to benefit them in the long run.

I love my husband very much, but for many reasons that I won't get into, this separation was very necessary so that I can slow down, breathe, and decide which direction to take my life in.  Emily and I are doing ok, we're just trying to adjust to what is our new normal for now.

There are so many sad things about separation and divorce.  I think back to our wedding day...how happy we were and how hopeful.  Nobody or at least I would say very few people walk down that aisle assuming they will ever divorce one day, but sadly it is a reality for so many.  One of the things that digs into my heart so much is all we have been through together, namely, losing Kayla.  Losing her is a bond we will share forever, and I do worry what will happen to that bond over the next several weeks, months, and years.  Nobody else on this planet knows what I went through except for him.  Nobody else knows the love I feel for her as a parent, and even though we don't talk about her a whole lot to each other, I do worry that I am losing the one person I can dissolve into tears in front of and he knows exactly how I am feeling.

I guess that's a silly thing to worry about right now when I've got so much more on my plate.  But I still do.  I don't know what our future holds, but I wish just one thing, that we can both find the strength to be the best parents we can be, both to Emily and our sweet angel in Heaven.

I suppose my entries from here on out may be a little different now, but my blog is no stranger to transformation.  It started as a venting platform for my first miscarriage and the struggles of infertility, then it morphed into a pregnancy journal, and for the last four years, a parenting blog.  Now I am on to the next chapter of my life, and my journey as a "single mom".  I say that in parenthesis because I don't like that term as long as dad is still in the picture.

So, it'll be tough, but we'll be ok.  A wise man once said (just kidding, I have no idea who said it), "It's ok to be a glow stick.  Sometimes we need to break before we shine".

Princess Bride

Thirty-seven years ago my mom woke me up bright and early....well, it wasn't bright, it was so early it was still dark out.  I want to say it was around 4am, but I could be mistaken.  I was only a little over 2 after all.  She woke me up so we could watch Princess Di marry Prince Charles together.  The whole "event watching" must have taken a couple of hours, but in my hazy memory, I can only remember about 30 seconds or less of it.  I can remember being up with my mom and knowing it was uber early, I can remember my dad coming home from work and laughing at us, shaking his head and calling us goofballs or something for waking up so early to watch strangers get married, and I remember Di arriving in her horse-drawn carriage, and I think it was that moment that I became enamored by the idea of princesses and beautiful wedding gowns.

I remember thinking how beautiful she was, and I was glued to the TV, amazed at her train that seemed to be miles long.  In fact, that was one of my requirements for my own wedding dress 28 years later, it had to have a decent length train.  It paled in comparison to Di's, but it made me feel like a princess nonetheless.  I'm actually quite surprised I remember even that much.  All these years I had always assumed I was 4 or 5, but a couple years ago I looked up the date and couldn't believe when I saw that their wedding date was July 29, 1981 and I had just turned 2, three months earlier at the beginning of May.  My dad swears up and down that I must be mistaken, there is no way I could remember something that far back.  He is certain I watched it when I was older, on vhs or something, but my mom wouldn't have been so cruel to have woken me up before dawn to watch a tape.  Besides, I am sure it was many years later that we got a VCR, and even later that we even owned an actual store-bought tape.  All of our movies and shows were taped off from tv.

So this past Saturday, I woke up at 5:45am...this was after going to bed at 1:30am.  I woke up thinking, why in the hell am I doing this?  Oh right, because I've been waiting years and years to have a little girl to watch a royal wedding with.  I begrudgingly had to go to work on the morning of William and Kate's wedding because I didn't have any sick days at the time, but I did get to see her "long walk" and her arrival to Westminster Abbey  We had not yet begun trying to get pregnant (we would just a few weeks from then) but I was still so sad I didn't have kids yet, especially a little girl to make this special memory with and I was so hoping Prince Harry would find someone in the years to come, and hopefully it would coincide with me having a daughter and her being old enough to at least remember as much as I did.  And here we are! 

So I stretched the sleepies away and went in to wake Emmy up.  I was happy she woke up in pretty good spirits.  She's a morning person, but it has to be on her terms.  I quite often wake up to her singing over the monitor, but if I have to wake her up, she's generally not too happy.  The night before we had ran around town, trying to find the props I wanted for this day.  We got some plastic champagne flutes at the dollar store, but to my dismay they did not have anything resembling sparkling grape juice or tiaras, so we were off to Target.  I was bummed since I was trying to do it on the cheap since most of the stuff would be thrown away after, but I found a couple tiaras in the birthday party section, and the sparkling grape juice was much cheaper than I expected.

So we turned on the TV just in time to see Meghan's car begin the "long walk", we had our tiaras on and we were sipping our "champagne".  Emily was playing much of the time and wasn't super interested, but she did seem intrigued when I told her about when I was a little girl, and I watched the groom's mom and dad get married with my mom.  And she did come snuggle in my lap and we watched as the new duchess arrived at the chapel and debuted her dress.  It was a nice moment with my little girl, and one I hope she remembers long after she is an adult.  Maybe one day her and her daughter can wake up early and watch George, Charlotte, or Louis get married.  Or maybe one of the newlywed's kids, that is if they plan to have any.  I would guess they're expected to, even though Harry's kids would be so far down the line.  But hey you never know, what if William abdicated and for one reason or another none of his children took the throne either.  Stranger things have happaned. 

So Emily is in swim lessons right now which I am sure I have mentioned.  This week is actually her last for the summer...I figure with camping trips and stuff we'll be too busy to make it, and she swims in her Nana's pool every week, why pay for lessons when we can just reinforce what they have been teaching her all summer, and then pick them back up in the fall.  Plus I want to sign her up for tennis, and possibly soccer.  She loves to run around the yard and kick the ball around.  Each week, they call us in for class, I walk her to her lane and her teacher, she sits on the side of the pool on her little turtle kickboard and I tell her ok have fun, love you.  I wave goodbye, and if I catch her eye again as I am walking out of the pool area, I wave again and she smiles and waves.

Now, I've been a full fledged adult for a long time now.  I've owned a home for almost 9 years, I've had a good job for 13, I've been married for 7.5 and I've been a mom for 5.  But there are still days when I just don't feel like an adult, and I have to pinch myself and it's still kind of surreal to think about the fact that wow, I'm an adult...I'm a wife and a mother.  How did that happen?  Well ok, I know how it happaned.  But I've noticed it most with swim lessons.  I am not sure why, because I did do other activities as a kid, but maybe the swim lessons sticks out because I had to take them for a couple summers, and I dreaded them.  To this day I am not super comfortable in water, and while I can swim, I am not a strong swimmer and I would prefer not to have to.  So perhaps because of that, my swim lessons stick in my memory from when I was a kid, and I was always nervous before every class.  A lot of reason was I was anxious about what we would be doing.  Would they make me try diving?  Going down to the bottom?  What if I got water up my nose.  I hated getting water up my nose.  But also because I was very shy, I didn't like having to go in without my mom, and I was always anxious that I wouldn't be able to find my class.

So it just always strikes me as I am walking out of the pool area, waving to my daughter, and giving her a reassuring smile that she will be fine and I'll be just outside watching, that it doesn't seem like all that long ago that I was being dropped off for swim lessons, but now I am the mom dropping my kid off for them.  It's just trippy. 

So Em has been going through a phase again.  It's not quite as awful as the one back in December, but that only lasted two weeks and this one has gone on longer.  She's been very whiney and complains a lot, but she is also not listening, like really not listening, and she's been back talking a lot.  She'll ask if we can do something and I'll say no, and she'll adamantly say yes!  The other day she was eating an apple, and per usual, only ate about a quarter of it.  I told her to go get a ziplock to put the rest of it in.  She says um, no.  You can.  I said Emily, go and get a ziplock.  She says, no thank you.  I like how she is at least polite while being a defiant brat.  I let it go, which kills me, but had I insisted, she likely would have thrown a fit and I would have had to send her to time out, and then she'd be crying and whining in time out.  Yes, I choose my battles, and this time I chose peace. 

I just feel like lately, more and more, my baby girl is slipping away and this little angry, hot tempered, sassy, back talking bigger girl has taken her place.  Like, when did this happen?  She's only four!  Is four really the dividing line between sweet baby and bratty big girl?  I know so much of what she does is all age appropriate, she is becoming more and more indepdendent by the day so she wants to push boundaries, make decisions for herself and gets mad when she is not able to.  I know she is not doing anything every other four year old on the planet has never done.  But sometimes it is so hard not to want to treat her like the much bigger girl she is trying to be, and realize she is still very little.  Like, she still loves to climb up in my lap, which I love.  But she'll do it with no regard for me...she'll lean over and dig her elbow into me as she gets comfortable, or she'll step on my thighs and plop herself down on my lap, not caring if she hurts me at all.  It's so frsutrating, I tell her over and over to be more careful and more aware of what she is doing, but she'll just do it again in a few minutes. 

That's when I get legitimately angry, and feel like she is doing it on purpose just to piss me off, even though in her little mind, she likely cannot make that connection,  I yell, and then I feel terrible for yelling.  But then ten minutes later she is off doing something else that she "knows she isn't supposed to do" but likely cannot retain that information, or does but is testing me, and then I'm yelling again.  But then, no matter how tough of a day I have had, the moment she is in bed, I miss her like crazy and I want to go crawl into bed with her and snuggle her and tell her what a good girl she is and how much I love her.  It's enough to make you insane.

She and I went out on a mommy-daughter date the other night.  My husband went to a concert, so I thought she and I would go out too.  I had planned on dinner and then ice cream, but she was begging for ice cream first.  I was about to argue back when I realized it may rain, so we should probably do ice cream first just in case.  The girl doesn't eat anything anyway, so it's not like the ice cream would spoil her dinner.  So we went to this place called the Dairy-go-round.  The building is shaped like a carousel and there are small carousel-like horses all around.  She was in her glory, she loves horses.  So I got her a cup of chocolate ice cream with m & m's and I got vanilla with reeese pieces.  She insisted on eating her ice cream while sitting on the horse.  After a while, she asked to try mine so I gave her a bite, and after a bit she says, let's switch.  So we switched cups, and not long later she says I'm done, I'll take mine back now.  Haha, wow.  Such a scammer.

So before we left, she had to try out all the other horses, especially since they were all different colors.  The only one she didn't get to try was the purple one, but it was occupied and she didn't look like she was going anywhere for a while.  Her Nana doesn't live too far from there, and the first time I had taken Em there a couple years ago was with her, so I told her I bet Nana would take her if she asked, and it would probably be a time of day when not many people were there and she could ride the purple one.  Before we left she had to say bye to the pink one, and she acted like she was taking her saddle and bridle off before putting her in her stable for the night.  So then we went for Chinese.  My husband isn't big on chinese so I figured it was a good night to go, and we had actually gone just a couple weeks back, and Emmy seemed to like it.  She didn't really eat of course, except she loves those little crunchy strips they bring you, but she liked the place so she was pretty well behaved and didn't ask to leave every second. 

I loved my dinner and it was so much food I got another snack plus two lunches out of it.  After dinner, we ran around getting stuff for the royal wedding.  It may have been a bad idea to go out that night, as we didn't get home and get her to bed until after 10:30 and then she had to get up early the next day.  But we had a fun night out together.  Saturday morning after the wedding she and I made donughts.  She had fun decorating them and even more fun eating them.  I took a short nap after that, and then the three of us went to the library, they brought in a small petting farm for a couple hours.  There were bunnies, an alpaca, some lambs, a calf, a small pony, some baby goats and a big goat.  I was shocked that she actually fed the goat, and she rode the pony....it was just a short ride in a smallish circle but she enjoyed it.  She's gotten so much more shy and timid over the last year or two.  She rode ponies twice at this park last summer, but this time as we stood in line she'd go back and forth between I don't want to ride it, and yes I do want to ride it, and back to no I don't want to ride it.  I said well we didn't wait in line all this time, just to get out of line and then have you scream and cry because you do in fact want to ride the pony.

So she wanted me to pick her up to put her on, and I did walk somewhat beside the pony as she went, but otherwise, she did really well.  I was surprised.  Then she wanted to go inside and play for a little bit.  I always forget how amazing our library is.  They have a really nice kids area with lots of toys.  So she played for a bit while I picked out some books to check out.  We need to go there more often, she has so much fun playing with the different toys (which do not make a mess in my living room) and I've actually really looked forward to bedtime stories tonight and last night since we had new books to read.  I get so tired of reading the same books over and over and over.  And it's not due to a lack of books, she's got tons of books, we've just read them all, plus some...and then some more.  I love my paycheck now, but somedays I really miss just working 10 hours a week.  Ten hours was a cake walk, it was literally just two hours a day and on occasion when I got busy with some time and worked more, I got to have an extra entire day off. 

I really miss having more time to spend with Em....we used to go out in the middle of the day, for walks, or to the mall or library, we'd go out to lunch.  But now I feel like I work so much and I'm just running here and there and busy all the time.  But on Tuesdays and Thursdays I typically do not start working until she goes down for quiet time at 3pm, so we really should start going places more on those days, even if it's just the library or the park.  I will say, she has been trying lately, but she is very low maintenance.  A trip to the park, some play time in the back yard, a walk around the neighborhood or an hour playing with slime and you'd think you just gave her the world....she's pretty easy to please.

Except when it comes to food.  But I just ordered these fun little things that might help make meal times easier.  I got some fun cookie cutters for stuff like fruit and veggies and even lunchmeat and cheese.  I also got some colorful toothpicks with hearts and stars and stuff on them to stick in grapes and cheese, and I plan on serving some of her food in cup cake papers....maybe if I make lunches and dinners fun and cute, she'll be more apt to eat it.

I love to write down the funny things she says so I will remember them later.  Today she had a speck of dirt on her arm so I tried licking my thumb and wiped it off.  She hates when I try to clean her with my saliva.  She jerked her arm back and says mommy, it's not going to come off just by licking it, that's gross!   Haha, says the girl who acts like she's just going to kiss you, but licks your tounge instead.  Yeeeeuck!

Fun stuff

I just finished making scratch-off reward cards for Emily.  I cannot wait to use them.  I'm trying to be chill about her still waking up wet some mornings since the doctor said it's still totally normal and can go on until 7 or 8 or even older.  But still, she does do better with staying dry when we keep track and make a big deal of her staying dry.  I'm trying not to pressure her because for the most part, I do think a lot of it has to be when her body and mind is mature enough to hold her pee all night, but if keeping track helps her to stay dry, then why not.  So if she stays dry all 7 mornings of the week, she'll get to scratch off two prizes, and if she stays dry 6 days out of 7 she'll get to scratch off one....staying dry 5 or less does still get a star on the chart and an atta girl, but not scratch-off prizes.

I made some the other day, but they called for contact paper but I didn't have any, so at the suggestion of a commenter, I used a white crayon to color the "prize" to put the waxy layer down and then painted over it with nail polish.  It worked ok, but to use nail polish I think you really need to be scratching it off in a specific time period when it's dried enough, but not too dry because it wasn't real easy to scratch it off.  I made enough for 4 weeks, so obviously the nail polish is going to be very dry.  Plus, I don't want to waste my nail polish, and the smell was bad.  I could have used paint, but my hand was very tired by the time I got done coloring them all with the white crayon.

So I picked up some contact paper and voila, much better.  Just draw some circles on the contact paper, paint them with (mostly) equal parts acrylic paint and dish soap mixed together, once dry peel off the back and stick them over the prize on the card.  I did stuff like McDonald's sundae, extra time before bed, extra bedtime story, take a walk, go to the library, blind bag (I'm sure most parents know what those silly blind bags are), mommy/daughter date...I'm most excited for that one, so I hope she scratches that one off soon.  We went to this Chinese place the other night for dinner and it was soooo good, I had been craving Chinese and it did not disappoint.  Emily actually liked quite a bit of what she had and said how much she liked it there, which is pretty rare for her.  So I think if we do a date soon, we'll go there for lunch, and then I'll take her to the Dairy Go-Round.  It's this ice cream place where the building looks like a carousel and they have carousel horses all around the building.  She hasn't been there since she was pretty little, I don't think she could even walk yet, so it'll probably be like the first time there.

I also made her some chore charts with money attached to them.  We're pretty bad about remembering to give her an allowance, so I thought I would make up a bunch of non-weekly chores that she can do and each one has so much money attached.  So like, she can sort through her toys bin and put them all away in the right containers for a dollar, today she sorted her clean laundry and put them all away for two dollars....I think we'll also give her a weekly allowance, but I want it to be pretty small, like a dollar a week because there are certain things she should be doing no matter what and not because she is getting paid.  But I also want her to learn the value of money and to learn to save and spend it wisely. 

So we'll encourage her to save it, but every now and again maybe we'll see how much she has and tell her if she wants a toy she can pick something out.  Then she can learn that she has,  say $25.00 but this toy she wants is $30 so she cannot get it and she has to either pick something cheaper or save a little longer for that toy.  Then she can give the money to the cashier when we check out....I'm excited.  We also have good deed money.  It's clipped to the fridge with a post it and $5.00, and she has to do 5 good deeds to get the money.  But they'll just be good deeds that we happen to witness her doing, so like today without me telling her to she picked up the toys she had laying out so she could bring out these special toys from my office.  I did tell her to do that the other day, but the fact that she remembered, and did it today without being prompted was good, so I gave her a check mark toward her good deed money.

The other night I was playing Mario on Wii (I introduced her to it and now I am hooked on it again.  I just beat it again for the millionth time, and I just started over again) and it was around midnight and suddenly I heard Em crying from her room.  I ran in there and she was just sobbing her little heart out, but I quickly realized she was still asleep, so she must have been having a nightmare.  So I told her it was ok and I rubbed her back and she calmed down some but not much, and then I started singing and she calmed down almost instantly and settled back into a peaceful sleep.  I hate that she had a nightmare but man, I loved that she needed me and just my singing (which I've done since she was an itty bitty newborn) calms her almost instantly.  I cannot even remember the last time she has cried like that in the middle of the night.  It may be close to a year now.  Anymore, once I tuck her in for the night, that's it.  Which I know all you moms of newborns or even older kiddos who just have difficulties at night are like pshhhhha, such problems.  But it's true what they say, you'll miss it one day.

I wouldn't want to go back to the days where I had to go in multiple times a night or get woken up in the middle of the night....but she's growing up way too fast and it feels good to still be needed.  She has been pretty difficult this weekend, not listening and just being loud and getting into mischief, but it doesn't matter how rough of a day we've had.  Once she is tucked in for the night, most nights I have to really fight the urge to go in there and snuggle with her.  Mostly because I know I'll never get out of there without waking her up.

I just printed off some "kindergarten" line paper.  I think I'll start working with her on writing her name.  I won't push her, if she gets it she gets it, but if she has troubles I won't keep pushing her.  I get annoyed at how much different pre-school and K is now since I was a kid, so I definitely don't want to heap the pressure on her to learn a bunch of stuff that I feel they are too young to be learning yet.  When I was a kid, pre-K and K was all learning through playing.  Sure we had lessons about numbers and colors and stuff, but I think school starts off way more academic now rather than play, and I even know of some Kindergarteners who have homework in K.  Really? 

I'll admit, I am a little nervous about Em coming in, her first year in formal school, with a bunch of kids who have either been in daycare since they were infants or who at least did 3-year-old preschool....I do worry she will be behind a bit.  I know some kids her age that can write their name.  But at the same time, I know she is smart in so many ways, and she, of course, won't be the only kid coming from a stay at home/work from home mom household who has not been in daycare or pre-K all this time.  I heard someone say how they are so glad their kid has been in daycare all this time because of how much they know and can do and my kid still loves me and they know I love them and they were not raised by daycare.  Ok, I am not knocking working moms/kids in daycare whatsoever.  I know we're all doing the best we can do, and had it not been for some very fortunate circumstances that I was lucky enough to have, I would have been working 40 hours outside the home and Em would have been in daycare at least a couple days a week.

I am not in any way saying that daycare kids do not feel love or that they feel neglected or abandoned.  We all love our kids and working or not working is not indicative of our love for them.  BUT, being home with me these years has provided Emily with a lifetime of memories and closeness to me that she could never get from daycare.  I'm not saying daycare kids are lacking from not having that, but I do believe Emily a  received wonderful gift of getting to stay home with me.  I stayed home with my mom, and I love the memories I have of those days.  You have all your life to go to school and work, to have deadlines and rules and times you have to be someplace.  I have absolutely loved being home with Emily these last 4 years and most days not having to go anywhere, and just cuddling a lot of days, or playing and laughing.  I guess I am just saying I am very happy with my choice, and I hope most moms can say the same, whatever their personal situation is.  Yes, she may be a bit behind the other kids at first, but I would assume the teachers look for that to see which kids may need a little more help with things to "catch up".