Reflection

Yesterday, having been my birthday I thought it might be a cause to reflect...a little. It has been a rough year, but in many ways a blessed year....but still a very rough year. Things absolutely did not go my way, I have had new experiences, some pleasant and some that make me go WTH was I thinking? Seriously? I did THAT!?

I am not a perfect mom, and I don't ever plan to be....simply because it is not possible. I have tried. I have worn myself out from sheer exhaustion trying. I am not the perfect daughter....I get mad, I say things I don't necessarily mean and well, we don't get to choose our family do we? I am not the perfect sister....I get mad to easily to be, but I love my siblings regardless...just won't put them on my Facebook anymore. I have loved, and I have lost, but this last year has shown me that regardless of what happens....family is the most important.

So what have I learned this year....

1) God loves us regardless of our mistakes and will forgive us, if we ask.
2) Patience is a virtue that I DO NOT possess.
3) Just because you know what you want, does not mean you will get it.
4) Being the perfect mom is not about to happen
5) I like being single....but there are days it sucks.
6) My children are my life
7) With 4 children, its a good thing I like being single (most days) because no wants to take on these 4!
8) Life is not what you make it, but how you deal with what is thrown at you shows what kind of person you are. Stuff happens beyond your control. Deal with it, get mad, cry, move on.
9) The person you divorced will constantly amaze you and contradict the person you thought he/she was.
10) Vodka makes everything go away for awhile, add cranberry juice and it makes it a lot sweeter and easier to swallow.

We all live our lives worried about whether we are doing it right. If you are happy you are fine. I still want the condo in San Francisco, the perfect house, the perfect family, the perfect everything.....but I have the perfect children...for me and as long as they are healthy and happy, my life is good. The occasional Vodka cranberry bliss will suffice as an escape from the mundane.....and I do mean occasional!

Until the next Scribble..............

Midnight writing....

So it's midnight and I can't sleep. The kids are all asleep, the house is clean, my school work is done and here I am drinking a cup of tea, wondering why I am still up. The burners are all off, the doors are locked, I didn't forget anything, but something is off.

As I sit here I realize that I have changed. The person I am today is not the girl I was when I got married. I have grown a lot in the last six years. I would never have described myself as strong, but I am. I know many people have told me I was, but I just always assumed its what people say when they want you to feel better about the crappy situation you are in, but they are right, and I am stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.
I am a lot "softer" in some ways than I was before. Not really sure when that happened, but there it is. I am not the idealistic girl I was when I got married either. The one who believed that happily ever after was real, or who believe that love was all that matters, that if you have love, you can get through anything. I don't see the world through rose colored glasses, but I do believe that no matter what you have been through, there is always something better. At least I would like to believe that. In this way I am a lot harder than I was before too.
I can look back and remember the good times we had as a family and realize, it was not all bad. The bad just over clouded the good and there was no going back. Sometimes, even when you love someone, you just have to let them go. Apart of me will always love him. Without him, I would not have the 4 beautiful children I have. For that I could never truly hate him. I want to, but the best parts of both of us are in them and therefore I can't hate him. (this is that softer side I was talking about).  K has her dad's sensitive side, but she hides it really well. S is extremely sensitive to. A has his love of things technical and for the outdoors. M unfortunately never got to be around him, so he doesn't portray any of the characteristics, but he does look a lot like him, and I see his dad in him every day.

I am a lot more independent than I was at 18 or even 25. However, that is more so because I have had to be. I don't like being dependant on anyone, and I know that part of that is not want to let anyone in. I have to do it for myself and for my children. I have to know that I can make it on my own.
It can be hard to separate the mom from the individual to see that I am not just a mom, but I am a person aside from that. She kind of gets lost in the day to day Mom activities, but she is there. She's the part of me that enjoys going to San Francisco just because and not for any particular reason except that she loves it there. She is the girl that can throw routine out the window for a day (but only a day, any more than that and functioning becomes difficult). She is not wild or the party type, but she is her own identity aside from being Mom.

The tea is gone and I am feeling a little drowsy. I could go on, but maybe another time. The house is eerily quiet, without the kids fighting and bickering and the dog barking. So I guess I will say goodnight...or good morning, which ever you prefer and go to bed! Hopefully sleep will ensue, as I have to be awake in 6 hours.

Until the next Scribble......

Punishments for kids are really punishments for Parents...

Over my morning cup of coffee I got a brainstorm. A has ADD and effectively surprises me daily. I don't know if I am getting my sweet Mr. Man who loves his mom and is generally happy, or the demon child who can rip a door off its hinges in a tantrum big enough to rival the sinking of the Titanic. So while I was drinking my coffee, I decided that after our latest storm, he needs to be back on a routine...DUH Mom! Summer was typically slow and lazy for us, which is a nice change from the school year craziness of band, scouts, and whatever else they choose!

So here is what I did, I limited television time to 1 hour a day on the weekdays and no video games at all on the weekends. No friends houses during the week and Mom is going back to scheduling everything...UH O Kids. Well a week into this and it's UH O Mom! It has effectively and ultimately been the week from hell! While this was not a punishment, it is a way to cut down on the tantrums and not listening...this kid needs routine...all kids need it, but this child, like his Mama needs it!

I ruined his life....yes because television and shooting people on a game is your life. I put a roof over your head, feed you, cloth you and give you what you need and try my damnedest to get you what you want and I ruined your life. My bad for carrying for you for 9 months and then torturing myself by pushing you out so you can have life....oops!! My bad! Because lets face it Mr. Man, that is where your life began.....

I am the worst mom ever...mean...horrible. Yes, that is me (especially before my coffee in the morning...look out) I am so mean that I don't abuse you, don't starve you (at least not intentionally, I mean there are days I go, oops I forgot to give them breakfast...well in my defense, they didn't ask for it either). I read with you at night, cook you meals, bake you stuff, find money for your book fair and I am the worst mom ever...tell that to the kid who has nothing and whose dad is drunk all the time and whose mom hits him and leaves him alone all the time....bet he will trade your hugs and kisses for his beatings and the fighting in his house...yup!

Speaking of which that Vodka Cranberry is starting to sound good right now! Of course its not even 8am in the morning, so that is out of the question...if only I could be one of THOSE moms! The perfectionist in me won't allow it! HA!

Then I started to think about the punishments we give our children. Yes, in theory its for their benefit to learn the rules, to learn discipline and respect...bla bla bla....yet its always more of a punishment for us....the whining, complaining, crying, yelling, tantrum throwing and all because they can not watch TV for a week....OMGoodness whatever will you do? O go outside and play...fresh air, grass, ride a bike....all the things kids did before the Playstation....the playground you know was the original Playstation.....and we wonder why kids are obese these days! Its called the couch and video games while snacking on Cheetos! UGH! Spare me. So the headache ensues because the kids won't be quiet (I'd say shut up, but that is worth .10 in the swear jar) and your trying to get dinner ready, (bad mom that you are) and help the other child with their homework, which by the way you now need to go back to the 6th grade to learn...Can write a college paper on the fundamentals of policing and due process vs. crime control model, but you can no longer divide decimals thanks to them changing the method on you! WTH!?

BRB...need more coffee.....

OK, so now you are pulling your hair out, wondering why you took their games away in the first place? Did you really think they were going to pick up a book and OMGoodness...READ? Yup you did! Silly! So after the 5th time asking them to do something and they say only if you give me my gameboy back, you (Yup here comes horrible mom rearing her ugly head) You yell, "if you don't get you a$$ in here and clean this up and do as your told, your gameboy gets it! The homeless kid with the abusive parents is going to get it! O wait, that's gonna be you in two seconds." BTW loosing like that even for a second, is bad, but its gets the message across and the shock factor is great!  However, just so you know, punishing your children is also a punishment for yourself! YES! Your mom was right, you will be paid back for all the times you messed with her! Ha ha! Joy!

Until the Next Scribble.......

The Perfect Mom

We don't need to stop watching television because of the violence, the swearing (I mean really who doesn't slip once in awhile and in a sleep-deprived haze say the F word?), or even for the inappropriate sexual content that our children don't need to be exposed to. (I mean not letting them watch all that on TV is going to stop them from seeing it in reality. Have you ever walked through the Tenderloin?) The reason we really need to stop watching is because of the Carol Brady's, the Claire Huxtables and even June Cleaver. These are the real culprits on television!

Who vacuums in heels and pearls, wearing a dress and her hair and make up all done? Who hasn't spent a day on the couch eating bonbons like Peggy Bundy? These moms have set a standard that all of a sudden mom's feel they need to live up to. A full course breakfast before the kids head out the door, kisses on the forehead as they go to school (OK so we all do those), and the house is immaculate before 9 am. Dinner on the table by 5 pm and then off to clean up, pack lunches for the kids and hubby and then get immaculate looking to go to bed. WTH?!?

Listen ladies (and men because this goes for Stay-at-home-dads too), perfection is not a reality and if it is, your children are suffering and can never live up to it. It's OK to vacuum the friggen house in your sweats and a messy ponytail with no make up! Really it is! No one is going to deprive you of Mom of the year because you failed to look like a princess while cleaning your house.

Crap, you mean to tell me that dinner was late and not on the table by 5? Your children ate at 7? Shame on you! What were you thinking? Why is the laundry still on the couch unfolded? Get over it, it will get done and no one died because they ate dinner at 7! We have children who have school activities, extra curricular activities and we are busy, hell they are lucky to eat at 7! :) As a single mom, ever aspect of their care, cleaning up puke, making meals, cleaning, laundry, bathing (for the younger ones...older ones are on their own) transporting, and all the other aspects of mommying, are up to us, including taking out the trash, mowing the lawn (this is why I opt for a condo in the city...no lawn/yard care. Anything to make being mom easier), and working to pay the bills.

So moms (and some of you dad's), if your hair is messy, your make up not done and you accidentally go to the store in jammie pants and slippers, its OK! Perfection is not the goal,  having children does not mean you need to be perfect. It does not mean you need to have a house so sterile and immaculate you can perform brain surgery on your kitchen floor. The goal is sanity (if that is even slightly possible), confusing your neighbors a little with the noises coming from your house, and having healthy children (no one says they have to be happy) and did you know it is OK and even slightly required to give them chores! ACK! YES! Your little ones can put their own laundry away, sweep the floor and clean up their own toys! Who knew! You sure as hell never saw the Brady kids cleaning nor the Cleaver kids. I'm just saying, at least in my house, that is 4 extra set of hand (for 8 hands in total) that can help do things around the house!

So grab a book, a glass of wine (or cup of coffee) and sit back while you watch your little ones trying to figure out the vacuum and how to fold a shirt just like mom! Ha never going to happen and the drawers might be a little messy....OK that last line was hard for me write, I despise messy drawers, cabinets, cupboards and closets! I also despise messy children, houses and everything else, but I have decided WTH, messy can be good, all those parenting experts agree...messy and dirty = higher tolerance to germs! Well bring on the germs, my children are immune!

Until the next Scribble......

Vodka Reality Doesn't Suck

                Everyone tells you that divorce is liberating, kind of like the feeling you get when you have held your pee in for a long time and finally get to the toilet and let it out. The relief you feel is enormous and liberating. They tell you that you will start over and you are so much better without him (or her), and that you are finally free. No more fighting over who does the dishes, when in the end you know its going to be you. No longer being asked whose house is in that painting you just put on the wall. No idea....I didn't paint and no I don't know the artist. No more of going into the bathroom only to see that his clothes again did not make it INTO the hamper, just IN FRONT of it.  I'd say no more toilet seat being left up, but I have two boys so I am luck if its up and NOT peed on before my tired butt plops down on to it and nearly falls in.

                The first few days, you think maybe they are right. Maybe there is something to what they say. You can do this, you can live alone, raise your children on your own and you can start over and life will be how you always pictured it. Vodka induced pictures of the picture are a lot rosier than reality. Vodka allows you to see a seaside cottage as your new house decorated with shabby chic furniture and décor and the kids cheerfully playing on the beach while you sit in your lounge chair, vodka and Kindle in hand relaxing away your worries.

                Reality paints a whole different scenario, one you can’t change with another glass of Vodka and cranberry juice. In reality’s picture you are being woke up by your five year old toddler at 5 am in the morning wanting to get ready for school. You are stumbling bleary eyed to the coffee pot stepping on the Thomas the Train tracks your son didn’t pick up like you asked him to five hundred times. As you get to the kitchen you realize you are out of coffee and there a no clean towels for your little man’s shower. As you are drying him off with a cotton tee-shirt and getting him ready for kindergarten you suddenly realize that today is not a school day! It is Sunday and you should still be in bed. That cute little cottage by the beach is actually a trailer in the country or an apartment on the wrong side of the tracks, and the shabby chic décor is thrown together pieces of furniture that have no rhyme or reason to it. Relaxing, in reality is an impossibility or resembles something to crashing into bed after an exhausting day of playing mommy and taking care of the house and everything else. The children fighting, teasing and running around the house trying to draw blood from one another, while leaving behind what I assume would be the effects of a hurricane that had ripped through and then turned back around and ripped through again, followed by an earthquake that tossed the items around even more, for a finished look that makes you glad you don’t have the shabby chic décor….

                OK so reality is not as bad as it sounds, but divorce is not as rosy as everyone makes it out to be either. While you were married you lived comfortably, and by comfortably I am not talking about a comfortable house in the posh part of town with a maid and a butler, but life made sense, you had a routine, you had a schedule that worked. Nothing seemed impossible. Marriage, however, is not as great as it sounds either. You have to…ugh…compromise. Ugly word.  Both have their ups and downs and their pros and cons, but the only thing that makes it truly worth doing is, another glass of Vodka and the simple fact that these children make it all worth the sacrifices you have had make….of course there are the days you would take it all back, redo it and pray to go back undo it all just for a little bit of quiet. What the hell, it will be quiet enough when I am dead, right?

Until the next Scribble...... 

               

God's Time...

     It has been a little while since my last post. Some days it seems like there is nothing to write about except the same things over and over. However, one of the reasons I started this blog was because I wanted to get back into writing, so I guess that means that I should post more often.

    School takes a lot of my time and keeps me busy, as does having four children. Life seems a little hectic at times. I get frustrated that nothing seems to change and it really needs to change. I keep reminding myself, change comes because change is wanted, except that its not coming and I definitely want it. Trying to be patient and waiting for God's timing is frustrating. In general I am not a patient person and I want things to change now not tomorrow. I keep reminding myself that God knows the situation and he has a reason for his timing and for not allowing things to change now, however, it also makes me angry that he is allowing this situation to go on, that he is allowing my children to suffer, I could care less about me. Not to say that I don't care about me, I do, but my children are more important. It gets harder and harder to trust Him, and I find that I want to do things my way and in my time, but I know that won't work either.

     So I need to trust more, listen better and pray. Although I see more hair pulling, frustrated tears and silent screaming coming as I work on the first three. 'Good things come to those who wait' well I am waiting...

Until the Next Scribble.....

Forgiveness...(kind of long)

I am only human and as a human I make mistakes. Sometimes big ones, and sometimes not so big ones. However, no matter what I do wrong, God forgives me. So the question is, even when I think I have, but have not, why is it so hard to forgive someone.

Divorce is never easy, no matter how "friendly" you and your spouse try to make it. The truth of the matter is, that divorce should never be an option. My own husband once told me that, "there was a reason you go married in the first place and that reason is always there and it never goes away".  Apparently, if it never goes away, you can push it aside and find someone else to replace your wife before you leave your marriage.

So much of me wants to be angry at him and cause him pain like he has done to me and our children. Children that he says matters to him and to whom I defend him to. I tell them he loves them, and honestly I believe that he does, his mind is just clouded to what should really matter in life. I tell them he would see them if he could, and part of me believes that too. My ex is not a horrible father, or he didn't start out that way. When A gets angry and says I need to find him a new dad to replace the one that doesn't call him back, that excludes them from his life and the one that doesn't love them like he used to, I tell him point blank that daddy loves him, he just lives so far away and day to day activities keep a person busy. What I don't tell him and what I want to tell all of them, is that your father is a jerk. He is a selfish, lousy, poor excuse for a man, pathetic, weak and sorry individual who put another woman, a moral-less, home-wrecking, father stealing, equally pathetic and weak individual above the needs of his family and the emotions of his children. That he is a lousy husband a terrible father and does not deserve the children he helped create and bring into this world. I want to hate him with everything that is in me. However, I don't. I don't hate him and I know that deep down that father, the one that loves these children unconditionally is there.

So what is the point of all this...simply that I need to forgive him for leaving our marriage, for putting some woman in the middle of our marriage. A woman who did not belong there. Who does not belong in the middle of our family. For she alone is standing in the way of my children having a father...and yes I need to forgive her too. However, I am human and that is going to take more time.

Everyone asks why I am angry at the other woman, more so than I am angry at my husband. Ex-husband, and the truth is I am angry at them both. However, it is not like she was innocent and didn't know this man was married. She knew. She chose to ignore it. She put herself in the middle of my marriage when she should have backed out. She should have dropped all contact with him. She caused my children unbearable pain by taking part in the break up of their family. She played the pathetic, helpless victim...something I won't do.  She made the choice to break up what God brought together. While I realize that my husband was to blame as well and that he let this home-wrecker break up our family. So this is forgiveness that is going to be hard to come by, but I know that God will help. With God, I can forgive him and maybe one day her too.

I pray for him daily, and I pray for myself to be able to forgive him. I pray God's will for our lives and for our parenting relationship. I was not a perfect wife, and I knew that my own bitterness towards him played a huge part in our divorce. He wasn't the victim and he wasn't a perfect husband either...obviously. What I do know, is that a woman once willing to come between a marriage won't hesitate to do it again. I have also been asked if I would take him back if it was God's will...and the answer is I don't know. I used to say No automatically, and I find it hard to believe that after all the angry words, the years, and the bitterness and everything that has happened in the last 5 years...that God would even want that or Will it...then again he is God. If and ONLY if it were God's will...there is no humanly way for us to get back together, he doesn't want it and I don't either....after all, how would I trust him? I forgave him the first time...I couldn't the second time and now I am truly trying to work on it....for my own piece of mind.

Truly I don't think or believe this is what God wants. I know he wants me to forgive him, so each day I pray for him and for us as parents of the same 4 children. I pray that one day we can both let go of our anger, hatred and bitterness. On the days I backslide, I pray a flower pot falls on his head. Or another (yes another) blender gets thrown at him. Then I repent and ask God for forgiveness. If God can forgive me of all my transgressions, then I can certainly forgive my ex. Forgiveness is not about him, its about me. I don't want anything getting in the way of my relationship with God. Certainly not an ex-husband. So I continue to pray and I daily remind myself to forgive him.

I know this "scribble" was a little long...but it was important and I needed to get it out. Its been on my mind for awhile.

Until the next scribble.....