My two cents on...family:

Hello friends.  It's been a while since I've last written.  I could say it's because I've been busy (I have been, but no busier than usual), or that's it's due to the insane amount of nothing that's happened to me over the last couple of months (that would be a bold-faced lie), but neither of those are the reasons for the absence of my babblings.  It's actually because I've been so uninspired lately.  Uninspired isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing as how I find irritating and controversial things to write about normally.  Uninspired just means that nothing in my busy and extremely strange life has been that irritating or controversial to write about recently.  So, I feel blessed I guess, to be counted among the normal who go about their day enjoying the planet they live on and those who inhabit it.  Well, until now.


It's usually around the holidays when we take a closer look at our families.  Some of us have small, close-knit groups of just a few members, but all of them know that no matter what, each of those people would die for them if ever given the chance.  Then there are some of us who have large, widely spread families who have lost touch through the years, moved too many times without sending an updated address, or just plain suck at communicating in general, so they couldn't tell you if Aunt Millie was on husband number three or seven or exactly how many cousins they currently have.  Now don't get me wrong, there are any number of combinations varying between the above two extremes to accommodate any type of family situation out there, so don't feel left out.


Something we all have in common though, is that urge to be with family on the holidays.  At least the big ones.  Whether we have a loving family who embraces us, our kids, and all our wacky baggage, or we have a scattered group of relatives who all come together for the yearly bitchfest to slaughter each other's character, we feel drawn to them around this time of year.  It's human nature.  Or all those commercials that secretly make us cry, like the Folgers one where the girl puts the bow on her brother who's home on leave and tells him that he's her present this year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOQk_pWmisA).  You cried, don't lie.  Either way, we find ourselves in the perpetual holiday family "do we or don't we" game every year.  Do we host Christmas here or drive two hours to mom's house?  Who don't we want to see?  Well, if we have Thanksgiving here, we could invite Suzie and her husband, but tell John and his wife that we don't have room here for all the kids.  Who do we buy for?  Who do we send cards to?  Who don't we want to offend?  And on and on and on and on and on...


So, what if you're like me and have, by far, the most scattered, disconnected, disjointed and unattached family ever created?  How do the holidays feel?  Well first, please allow me to elaborate a bit on my personal family, er, tree.  It goes a little something like this:

It's ugly, I know.  All mixed in here, we have a total of how many houses to visit during the holidays?  And I'm not even taking into account my in-laws or friends, or even my cousins, nieces/nephews or any other extended family!  If you need any help deciphering this cryptic Mayan code, let me know, I offer after school tutoring.


So, I'll tell you how they feel.  The holidays, that is, not my family.  It's stressful and mind numbing and strained, but it's most of all sad.  Yeah, I said it, just plain sad.  Hubs' family is close, and they all talk on Thanksgiving and Christmas (at least).  The phone gets passed around and everyone says hello and I love you before sending the receiver on to the next person. It's part of the reason I married him.  I always longed for that family that was close to each other, no matter the miles in between.  Relatives who traveled in for special occasions, tables filled with loving smiles, and even just holiday phone calls to send their best.  It was all what I'd wished for every year when I made my Christmas list.  "Dear Santa, this year, please give me a close, loving family".  Well, my wish did eventually come true when I married, but I do still secretly wish Santa would change my own family some day.  It may be a long time off though.  As of right now, if I wait for a holiday phone call from my father, I'll be waiting till I'm in the grave.  One can wish though, right?


So what are we to do when our own family has failed us this time of year?  Who do we turn to?  I don't know about the rest of you with scattered sand for families, but I turn to everyone else around me.  They may not be my blood, but sometimes blood doesn't make a family.  Sometimes there are others around us, like friends or our own children and spouses' families, that can help fulfill that longing we feel right about now.  Sometimes love can come from even the most unlikely place, like a co-worker or local barista.  And then sometimes, all you actually need is to watch some sappy commercials about Christmas, coffee, and a perfectly placed bow to feel happy and content with who you are and what you have.  Thanks Folgers.

My two cents on...the real world

Something funny happened this morning.  I was scrolling around on Facebook, texting a friend of mine, and feeding Little, all while thinking of how no one has home phones anymore, and I had a lightbulb moment.  I know, none of those things seem related, but in my crazy, sideways mind they are.  They all have to do with the way we live in our real world today.  It's not the same real world I grew up in as a kid.  It's not even a real world that I can fully understand, but I guess it's the only real world that we have right now, so I better figure it out sooner or later.  I was listening to the radio the other day and heard about an article that gets posted every year for college professors, so they can brush up on the real world as it is for their incoming freshmen, so they don't make complete fools of themselves by referring to things in a manner that is foreign to their students.  It's called the Beloit College Mindset List (check out the link!).  I decided to take a peek at the list for the incoming class of 2015, and boy are there some doozies on there.  For example, number 57: They’ve often broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.  Really?  Yikes, that sounds brutal!  Now, I've made some of my own notes on where I think our world is today, as compared to years gone by, and I've really focused on the main concept of our world's technology and how it's so heavily relied on in today's real world.  Let's see how I do.

First, lets take a look at social networking.  Whoever the men and women are who woke up one day and invented the idea of sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Formspring are geniuses!  I mean, real live geniuses among the ordinary.  It seems in the real world today we can't live without our social networking sites.  We have real addiction issues.  If you ask someone to either give up their Facebook for one week or hand over their first born child, they would most certainly sign off all rights to their own offspring just to save their ability to update their friends on what just transpired!  Facebook, and sites like it, has changed the face of the real world as we know it completely.  It has even changed the way we speak to each other and interact with people upon first meeting.  I've compiled a Facebook-specific list below of real world changers that I thought of:

• Friending v.: When you first meet someone in real life, if you hit it off, one of the first things you ask about is if they have a Facebook.  If their answer is "yes", you tell them you will friend them as soon as you get home.  Then the waiting game begins.  If you are the one who does the friending, you are nervously conscious of how long it takes the other person to accept your request.  If it's more than a day or so, you start to freak out, because doesn't everyone check their Facebook at least once a day?!  On the other hand, you may be one of those people who likes to play it cool, and doesn't like to do much friending.  You prefer people to friend you.  But deep down inside, after you meet someone and they tell you they'll friend you, if they don't right away, you burn with anticipation.  You can't possibly make the first move though, because it's an unspoken rule on Facebook, that the one who does the friending is ultimately more interested than the one who doesn't.  So as you wait for your little double people icon to pop up with a number one next to it, signifying a new friend request, you count down the minutes wondering if you should have just been the one to initiate the friending in the first place, because now it's too late in the game, and you'll only look desperate if you send a request now.  I'd equate this to something like calling someone, leaving a message, and waiting for a call back, or sending a text message and waiting for a response.
• Defriending v.: This is the opposite of friending and comes like a thief in the night to steal away your privileges to view your prior friend's profile.  Defriending someone is like the ultimate slap in the face, except unless you personally tell them you did it, they won't know until the next time they try to interact with you.  Facebook doesn't tell them, it prefers to stay out of your little quarrel, and lets you take the passive aggressive way out.  Defriending is also used as a threat when you're arguing with someone.  Like, you can say, "if you don't stop acting like such a total moron I'm going to defriend you".  Don't you wish you could actually do this in real life?  I know a few people I wish I could just "defriend".  
• Facebook stalking v.: This term is used when someone is telling you that they spent hours at some point looking at every inch of your Facebook profile.  Your pictures, your bio, your wall posts, etc.  It's funny how the term "stalking" has become so acceptable when used to refer to what someone has done with regard to your Facebook profile, but if that same someone were to tell you that they stalked you in real life you'd call the cops on them.  Think about it.  You're flattered if a guy you like tells you he "Facebook stalked" you, because you know he's interested enough to look through your pictures, your info and checkout your wall, just to get to know about you more.  Now if that same guy were to follow you around, look through your underwear drawer, take pictures of you at Starbucks, and track down your friends from high school, meaning he was actually stalking you, you would be so far from flattered you'd probably freak out and change your name!
• Wall n.: This is where all of your status updates go, and where your friends can write little notes to you for all to see.  Unfortunately, Facebook has coined the term "writing on your wall" to mean that someone left a comment for you to read.  So now I can never actually, literally, write on someone's walls ever again without them thinking I'm talking about their Facebook.  My graffiti days are officially over.
• Tag v.: Apparently it's fun to make sure that everyone is well aware of who exactly is in your pictures, as well as who exactly you are with, no matter where you are.  You have the ability to tag, or basically attach your picture or status to any of your Facebook friends, so that everyone can be sure of who they are.  Sometimes it's even become a fun game to tag people, even if they aren't actually there, as a kind of joke for one reason or another.  How would this even apply in real life?!  
• Status update n.: Before Facebook, you would have to pick up your phone to talk to one of your friends to let them know what you were up to.  Now, with the click of a mouse, you can let everyone know what you're up to all at the same time.  What were you thinking Facebook?!  I now have to know about everyone's life moments, down to the tiniest detail, including but not limited to their dinner selections and bodily functions.  I never once used to have a friend call me and tell me that they were headed to the bathroom for a number two, but I do now via their Facebook status.  So thank you for that.  
• Photo posting v.: I know friends of mine who are so obsessed with taking pictures just for the purpose of posting them to Facebook.  Like, "oh, take this picture so I can put it on my page"!  I also know people who take pictures at some event, and before I'm even home from this same event I see that the pictures have been posted.  Never before in real life have I seen such an intense need to share our life story as I do now in the world of Facebook, as represented through our photos.  I also see the types of photos people take and post, and I have to say, I'm kinda weirded out by some of them.  The self portrait in the mirror with the kissy face, the half-dressed hoochie pose, the drugs and money shots.  Really?  But my all time favorite pictures I see on Facebook are the ones that are clearly pictures of you and someone else, where you've cropped out the "someone else" altogether.  It always makes me wonder what that person did to get cut, or if you're just that narcissistic to know that the picture is way better with only you in it.

Facebook isn't the only instance where our real world has been completely changed.  With the introduction of smartphones that can do pretty much anything you could ever need, there isn't any reason you would ever disconnect and rejoin reality.  When your phone can check your email, text messages, voicemail, Facebook, Twitter, Google, stocks, bank information, Words with Friends, Angry Birds, watch movies, take pictures and videos, catch up on TV, sports, radio, and news, what's left?  Why would you need to ever look up from the screen?  I've seen couples sitting next to each other, clearly on a date or night out, looking at their phones the whole time instead of each other.  Were they texting each other instead of having a face-to-face conversation?  Maybe.  I wouldn't be surprised.  Or were they so engrossed in whatever they were doing on their phones that they forgot that they were even on that date to begin with?  That sounds more like the probable answer.  Our smartphones have now become smarter than us.  They have replaced our human experience with a technological one.  People now don't have to learn how to get over the awkwardness of real conversation, they can hide behind text messages and email.  When you're in an elevator, or on an airplane, and don't want to talk to the person next to you, you can pretend you're texting someone and deter any personal communication.  The age of home phones used solely to call a friend to come over for dinner is obsolete.  We now live in the age of smartphones that we rely on to find us what we want for dinner, then to make us the grocery list, tell us what store to go to to find the ingredients needed, gps the route there, and then send a mass text and evite to let our friends know to come over.  Later, it'll post the pictures we took to Facebook and the cycle will be complete.

I guess we will never go backward into the real world of the past, where people had to actually look at each other to talk, and didn't break up by defriending each other on Facebook, but I do sometimes wish our real world of today wasn't so technologically dependent.  I wish we didn't rely on our smartphones to tell us the weather when we could step outside and feel the rain on our faces.  But in the same breath, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't say I was thankful for the advances in today's technology, because where would I be if I wasn't able to multitask so well?  I mean, how else would I be able to write this, check my Facebook, read my emails on my iPhone, help The Noise with her homework and make dinner by looking up new recipes online, all at the same time?  So I guess the new real world we live in isn't so bad after all.  It's just a new version.     

My two cents on...friendships:

I haven't written in a while because well, I've been off saving the planet.  Actually, I haven't, but I've been off doing some really amazing other cool junk.  Just thought you should know.  Anyway.  I've learned a lot about a lot of things over the last month or so, and one of the things I wanted to write about most was friendship.  I've spent some time really evaluating the term and evaluating what it means to different people and different age groups, so here's what I've figured out.  I think.


When we are small, we say that everyone is our "best friend".  The Noise, my little social butterfly, loves to make friends.  She will talk to anyone.  She will walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them her whole life story in an instant, even if they didn't ask for it.  It's a little disconcerting in this day and age, because well, she's a young lady and young ladies shouldn't do that sort of thing.  We've been working on that concept, but we are still a work in progress.  The other thing I've noticed about her is that she and her best friends seem to switch around every day.  It seems to be an epidemic, this best friend switching, so I'm told by the teachers.  They do it all the time.  One day, two girls are "best friends", then the next day, they can't stand each other and are making fun of each other's shoes and hair and handwriting.  But then, low and behold, the day after that, they've made up and are "best friends" again!  So what is this teaching our youngest generation about friends?  Are they that disposable?  Do they come and go that easily, as if they are made of paper and can float in and out with the morning breeze?  I remember as a Girl Scout, singing a little song while we all stood in a circle, it started off like this: 


Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.A circle is round,
it has no end.
That's how long,
I will be your friend.

Friendships just seemed to mean more when I was a kid.  My friends were supposed to be made of precious metals, silver and gold, and even though one may have been around longer, the other was just as special. But maybe that's because I remember being best friends with everyone, and can't remember the days we weren't friends and made fun of each other's shoes and hair and handwriting?  It's a mystery.

Now Hubs on the other hand baffles me with his friendship making skills.  He makes fast friends, and as an adult I feel like that is much more difficult than when you are a child.  I am always in awe of how quickly he can connect with someone on a personal level, and I feel like I missed out on a monumental moment that must have happened in the blink of an eye when the two of them went from just meeting to being inseparable in mere seconds. They're calling and emailing and texting, and he's asking if they can come over for dinner or if they can come over to just hang out (aka play Xbox) after the kids are in bed.  I feel strange and uncertain because I don't know who this person is.  I almost feel like a mom, in the sense that I want to ask him if I can meet this kid's parents or what kind of upbringing they've had.  It's all so sudden, and I haven't had time to figure out if I think I like them or not because I can't even remember their name yet, much less remember if I've associated them with the correct place in which they met, or time in which they last hung out.  I have a terrible memory, and it's even worse with names, so I have to make word associations, like "this is Bob, and he's the guy from the Soccer game", and they I say, "Ohhhhhhhhh, okay, Bob from the soccer game, got it".  I secretly forget again 12 minutes later, but at least I've tried to put some association together.  But, see these are such fast friendships I just can't keep up.  Then, they abruptly end.  Not in a bad way, but they usually run their course, and the two remain friends in a sense, but just not as intense of friends as they initially were, so they fall off the radar.  I get thrown off, because Hubs has then moved on to a new fast friend, and the cycle continues.

Now in my case, I'm terrible at making friends.  I always have been.  It's not that I'm not a nice person, and it's not that I don't like having friends.  I just don't think I am one of the type of people that can have multiple relationships at once.  Maybe it's because I have such a bad memory and can't even commit someone's name until the seventh or eight time we've met.  Or maybe it's because I just have one too many things to do to make enough time to add another relationship to my list.  I know that sounds awfully snobby, but I really am not a snob at all.  I give my whole heart to the relationships I have; my marriage, my kids, and my family, so there's little leftover to give to anyone else, and I don't want to give poorly to a friendship.  What I've found is that I do best with friends who are very much like me.  They are okay with the fact that I don't call every day, or text every 28 seconds with updates on my life.  Those are the same friends I've had for over 10 years or so and they are pretty familiar with how I operate.  They've accepted me for all my flaws and imperfections, and they know that there are probably 1,000 times every day when I think of them, and say to myself, "I should call so-in-so", but then when I get home, I get to doing something else, and I forget.  They know in their hearts that I love them, and I know they love me, and on the rare occasion we see each other or talk to each other, we catch up and act as if we haven't missed a beat.

Now, I know there are those of you out there also, who I have watched from afar because you aren't within my family or friend circle, who are in the "addictive friend" category.  I call it that because what I see is a constant, almost obsessive need to stay in contact with your friends on a 24-7 basis, whether through phone, email, Facebook, text, personal contact, etc.  I'm not sure if this is a normal phenomenon, but it kinda creeps me out.  I'm not gonna lie.  Maybe I'm either too old or too young to understand whatever was in the water when it occurred, but it's weird.  A little space could be good for a friendship I think.  No?  Don't get me wrong, I love my best friend.  I mean, I have known her for 16 years.  That's a long time.  There isn't anything I wouldn't do for that girl.  But, I don't know that I could talk to her 24-7.  I tried to live with her once, and that didn't exactly work out so well.  How do you do it?  How do you keep from killing each other when you are that attached at the hip...or at every organ for that matter?  Please, help me further understand, because this one I'm still baffled about.

I recently went away on a trip with some teens from my church, and one of them made me a friendship bracelet on the long drive home.  I've never had someone make me one before.  Even as an adult, it made me feel special.  Now I know it may not have held the same meaning as it would have had it been made for another teen, but nevertheless, it made me feel like I was a real friend.  I still have it on my wrist now as I type this, and I hope to keep it on, as you're supposed to with a friendship bracelet, till it falls off.  Because even though I may not be any good at making friends, I do know what a friend really is, no matter if their made of paper, silver, gold, or string.

My two cents on...marriage (part two) - No Matter What:

Just so you know faithful readers, this post will possibly be more offensive to some than my others on topics such as divorce and politics.  I am going to let it all out, because I'm angry and I feel the need to speak openly and honestly about this subject as it's been weighing on me for quite some time.  Just fair warning.


In the last several months I've been faced with multiple friends and acquaintances of mine speaking of leaving their spouses due to various reasons I won't go in to.  If you've read any of my divorce blogs you'll know how strongly I feel about that subject, and you'll know how against it I am, even though I have personally suffered through it myself.  Maybe that's why my feelings are so much stronger than they were even before that incident, because I know for a fact now how detrimental it really is to a person's total life and general state of well being.  So in hearing these people talk about it as if it were as passe as a dentist appointment, I can barely keep my composure much less keep my words and thoughts to myself.  When I hear someone say, "I think I'm going to leave my husband because he's just so annoying" my blood boils inside my skin so hot I think it's literally going to melt away and I'll be left standing there a hot, red, bloody mess dripping all over the place.  Clean up on aisle three!

What does marriage even mean anymore?  Didn't we all say those same vows, when we stood up in front of everyone we knew and loved, and promised we'd spend the rest of our lives with this person?  "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part".  I'm sure they went something like that, or some similar variation.  Basically, we told our God, our family, or even just our future spouse alone that we planned to spend our life with them, no matter what.  Come Hell or high water, we were in it for the long haul.  So what does it mean?  Allow me to break it down for you line by line, just in case you didn't know.

To have and to hold:  This is completely literal.  You belong to each other now.  You are mine and I am yours.  Not in the sense that you are an object, able to be calculated by a numeric or monetary value, but you are so much a part of your spouse that without you they are no longer completely whole.  They will have a piece of them missing.

From this day forward:  Marriage is immediate and everlasting.  There is no three day waiting period like when you want to buy a gun.  When you say "I do", you walk down that aisle into eternity.  There is no end.  If there were, the phrase would say "from this day till next Wednesday" instead.

For better, for worse:  This is the one that a lot of people skip over when they're thinking of walking away a few years down the road.  Marriage is easy when you're in the "for better" days, but when you're in the "for worse" ones, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  There's no clause in your vows that leave out things like: he clips his toenails in bed, she is a terrible cook, he never brings me flowers, she doesn't keep a clean house, he rarely compliments me on my looks, she's really let herself go lately, he hasn't done a load of laundry in two years, she wouldn't know how to please me if I drew her a road map, he constantly chooses his video games over me, she always wants to go out with her girlfriends, and the list goes on and on. 

For richer, for poorer:  Money can only buy you so much.  If you didn't realize what this section meant when you were marrying Mr. Moneybags, and then he lost his fortune in the downturn of the economy, you may be seeing now that you don't have much of a marriage left to stand on.  When a marriage is built on love, it shouldn't matter how much is in the bank as long as you have each other to hold on to in the unemployment line.

In sickness or in health:  Sickness is a much broader term than many people realize.  And things like cancer, Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addictions, alcoholism, etc don't just go away with an antibiotic or a vaccine.  What is a spouse to do when their husband or wife suffers from one or more of the above, or even something different?  Do they walk away?  Dealing with a lifetime of doctor's appointments, counselors, hospital stays and endless piles of paperwork is a daunting task even for the most dedicated spouse.

To love and to cherish: Kind of like that having and holding thing, this part is pretty similar.  Here you're saying you will treat your spouse as something special, something you hold in the highest regard.  Even more special than that kegerator or your signed copy of the Backstreet Boys CD.  To cherish something is to treat it like it is the most prized and adored thing you have ever had in your presence, and you would do anything to make sure you never let it go.

'Till death do us part:  If you were to skip everything that was said in between "from this day forward" and "till death do us part", you really would sum it all up.  Basically, with the final line in your vows , you are saying that no matter what, even if you didn't cover it in all the fluff in between, from now until the end, you will never break the bond of marriage you just sealed.  'Till death is pretty heavy.  You didn't say, "till I get really tired of your crap" or "till something better comes along".  You said, "till death".

Now, here's where I get pissy.  I've been divorced.  I know what it's like to look at that man you said those vows to and want to throw up every time you look him in the eyes.  I've lived a life of heartache and shame and torment.  I spent years trying to mend all the broken pieces of a life that should have never even existed, before it ever came to the moment the Sheriff knocked on my door just days before Christmas holding the divorce papers in his hands.  I gave everything I had before that gavel fell on that hot August day, and then I left it all in the courtroom and walked away knowing I did everything I could.  I have no regrets.  I know there isn't one ounce of myself I could have given any more of to try and save what could never have been saved.  It was damned from the start.  Because of this, I know what it means to give it all, and I know what it means to leave nothing at the door.  Even when you might not like the person you see staring back at you, the fact is, that's the same person you stood at that altar with some number of years earlier and promised "till death" to, and until you can say you really did give every ounce of yourself and then some, you aren't done.

The last several reasons I've heard for people wanting to leave their spouses are just awful.  They have literally caused me to get sick.  On top of the fact that most of the couples have children involved.  I would never in my lifetime put my children through what my daughter is currently going through unless I knew for a fact that I had done absolutely everything in my power to save my marriage to their father.  I don't care what anyone says, a child needs their parents, and no, it is NOT better for them to have mom or dad be "happier" apart then miserable together.  Problems will follow you wherever you go, and if you just keep running from them, you will only teach your child how to hide from pain.  But if mom and dad stay together and work through their problems, the kids will be happier in knowing their parents love each other and them, and they will have learned that it IS possible to work things out, not just run from a problem because it's easier.

Hubs and I have a saying.  No Matter What.  We use it all the time.  It sums up our vows, the way we feel about each other, the way we feel about our marriage and our life together as a whole.  No matter what happens, no matter what comes our way, no matter what anyone tries to do to come between us, we will always cling to each other, we will always have each other and we will always love each other.  At the end of the day and at the end of our lives, all we have is us.  When the kids and the friends and the family and all of our worldly possessions have fallen away, all we will have is me and him, and if that's not good enough, then nothing else will ever be.  So no matter what, we must be eternally happy with each other, and then everything else is a just bonus.

Now, I'm not saying our philosophy is so amazing and everyone should follow it, but what I am saying is that if you get married you should know what your vows mean before you say them.  You should mean them and stick to them and believe in your marriage more than anything else.  You should believe in it so much that you know it's worth fighting for.  No one else is going to fight as hard to keep your marriage together as you, and you are the only one who can mend what is broken when it falls apart, but only if you give it the effort it deserves.  Marriage isn't easy, and it takes work.  It's a full time job, and you have to want it bad enough to make it into something beautiful.  Once you've figured out how to work with your spouse and not against them, I believe you'll realize that there isn't anything you can't overcome together.  I believe you'll see that your marriage is strong enough to survive whatever the world throws at you, no matter what.

My two cents on...divorce (part four) a short story:

I'm filing this under divorce because that's what it's related to.  I'm going to write this as a short story because I feel like I need to remove myself and my family from it as much as possible, even though it hits very very close to my heart.  This story is dedicated to my daughter, who will always be my superhero, even though she's lost hers.


A long long time ago, in a land far away, there lived a little girl named Ella.  She was a beautiful little girl, who was smart and kind, and had a smile that could turn anyone's stormy day into a ray of sunshine.  She was simply marvelous.  She lived with her mom and step-dad, since her parents had divorced when she was only three years old.  Her dad saw her usually every other weekend or so, but he also worked a lot, so Ella learned to count on him less as the years passed.  She loved all of her parents, but worked especially hard at loving her dad the most.  She thought he was her Superman.


When Ella was around eight years old, her dad became quite absent from her life all together.  He had squandered away all of his money for the millionth time, he had no place for them to live when it was his time for visitation, and he had absolutely nothing to show for himself.  This broke Ella's heart.  She wanted so badly for her dad to make his life better so he could spend more time with her, but it just didn't seem like it was as important to him as it was to her.  He always had some scheme or plan that fell through, followed by some grand excuse as to why he couldn't see her again that week.  Many months went by while Ella's mom and step-dad tried to comfort her in her sorrow, and then finally word came that her dad had found a place to live and they could spend more time together again.


Things started off great for a few weeks.  Ella couldn't have been happier.  Her dad picked her up on his weekends and spent time with her.  He even had a nice girlfriend that she fell in love with.  Her heart was finally starting to heal, and she was feeling like everything was going to be ok.  Her Superman was showing her just how much he cared.   He was trying, so she tried to overlook the other things he would do, like he would make her feel bad for loving her step-dad, or tell her things like "you shouldn't have to do chores at your house, they treat you like Cinderella, I wouldn't treat you that way".  Eventually, it really made Ella start to question her own family, wondering what was true and what was lies.  


Then Ella's birthday came.  The big 9!  She was spending the day with her dad that year, and all year he had been promising her he would take her to Disneyland for the weekend.  He said they would stay overnight there and everything.  She had been excited for months!  Ella's mom waited patiently till she came home the next night, wondering how the trip had gone.  When Ella walked in the door it was clear something had gone terribly wrong.  Through the cries and sobs, Ella's mom could make out a few things like "we didn't go to Disney...I didn't get any gifts, not even a card...he broke up with Christina and I didn't even get to say good bye".  She was a crumpled mess on the floor.  Not what a little girl should look like on her birthday, much less ever, after coming from seeing her father.


In the following weeks, Ella's dad found excuse after excuse as to why he couldn't see her, or why he couldn't call.  He even went as far as to tell her one day that she wasn't worth making a trip to see for a few hours on his day off, because he had other stuff to do.  When he finally did have the availability to see her, he did little to enjoy the time with her, and instead chose to sleep all day, Ella said, while she watched movies alone.  The final straw for Ella was when she was telling her dad just how special she was, because she had a gift inside her.  It was a gift for caring for others.  Her mom had told her about it when she was trying to comfort her a few months earlier, and Ella really held onto it.  Her mom called it empathy.  She said Ella had this gift of being empathetic to others in a way that was special and that the world would be a much better place if more people had that special gift too.  Ella's dad, upon hearing about this, told her she wasn't special at all, and that empathy is nothing but a word in the dictionary.  That was it.  Ella's heart had broken for the last time.


When she got home that day, there was something different about her.  She wasn't the same Ella.  Her smile wasn't as bright, and her eyes had lost their childlike sparkle.  Ella had grown up in the car ride from her dad's house back home that day.  She had sorted out a lot of things about the universe that no nine year old should have to sort out.  She walked in and laid down the most staggering statement of brokenhearted conviction a child has ever uttered: "My dad doesn't love me, he doesn't think I'm important and he never tells me the truth.  He says he loves me and I'm the most important thing in his life, but he doesn't act like it at all.  He doesn't know who I am, and if he did, he wouldn't love me that way.  My dad lives like there are two of me, and he spends all of his time searching for the me he wants me to be, the me who doesn't exist, that he has completely lost sight of the me who's standing right in front of him.  He doesn't even know I'm here.  He's never going to have time for me and he's never going to love me".


Ella's mom and step-dad loved her through the next several hours as she continued to sort out what she could and then she went to bed.  That night changed their family forever.  Ella would still have to see her dad after that, and they would still have good times and bad, but her heart was forever hardened that night.  Her Superman had fallen from the sky in a fiery ball of his own kryptonite, never to be found again.  She filled her heart with the love she received from her other parents, and clung to her step-dad, looking to him to be the true father in her life, but a small hole always remained.


What's the moral of this story...I don't know, do stories always have to have morals?  Maybe it's not so much a moral, but a warning.  A warning for those of you who are trudging through your lives thinking you've got better things to do than call your kids on their birthday, or go see them when you have some free time instead of do something for yourself.  You'll regret it someday.  Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even next year.  But when you're old, and she's grown, and you see how beautiful and marvelous and stunning she has become without you, you'll regret it.  You'll regret how you missed out on all of the little things now, because they will seem so much bigger then.  Let me warn you now, that once you've broken something as fragile as the heart of a child, you have not only destroyed any chance of you being able to repair it, but also of anyone else being able to repair it.  That child will grow into an adult who feels a burn in their chest when they think of you.  They'll tense up when someone mentions your name.  Your birthday will come, and every year they'll debate sending you a birthday card or if they should call you.  Maybe one year, they'll stop.  You may not know the damage you've done till the day you also regret it, many years from now, but one day you'll know.


Whether you're divorced or not, treat your kids like the jewels they are.  They will only be small for a short while, and you won't be Superman forever.  You can either retire gracefully, still thought of fondly in the memory of your little girl who chuckles when she sees pictures of you running around with a bed sheet tied around your neck, or you can fall from the sky, shot down by the kryptonite from your own selfish, self-centered gun.  The choice is yours.

My two cents on...growing up:

Growing up is a tough pill to swallow.  Some of us grow up at a young age, and some of us, like Peter Pan, never grow up.  Or at least we never want to.  What exactly is growing up anyway?  What does it actually mean to grow up.  Literally it means your physical stature would get taller than what it is now.  You would grow in an upward direction.  If that were physically the case in this sense, I wish I would grow up a little more.  Unfortunately, it doesn't follow the literal definition so I'll never get any taller than I am now.  Super.  Instead, it's more of a figurative term really.  Growing up means you become more adult-like, you take on characteristics of someone who is mature and responsible, you are able to take care of yourself and be accountable for your own actions, and you've passed on from the ways of your youth and your childlike behaviors.  Unfortunately for Peter Pan, growing up is a fact of life, just like being born, paying taxes, and dying.


As a child, I looked at grown ups like they were so much larger than me.  Not only that, but they were just larger than life in general.  Grown ups were just huge.  Dad was a real superhero who could also fix anything, or at least he knew exactly who to call when he broke it while trying to fix it.  Mom was a whiz in the kitchen and yelled my name louder than any other mom in the neighborhood when I was in trouble.  My teachers knew so much more than I ever thought any person on the whole planet could, and I felt so lucky to have them at my very own school.  Then one day I realized they actually weren't that big, and I started to notice that they were just regular people with average abilities, mostly all about the same size and shape, and there really was nothing exciting about being a grown up at all.


Then, slowly but surely, grown ups started to disappoint me.  One by one.  They went from being my superheros to being my worst enemies.  They weren't so big anymore, but they were just big enough to leave a lasting imprint on my heart for the future to play with later. The ones I trusted the most let me down the hardest.  I didn't want to be like them.  I didn't want to be that type of person when I grew up.  But no one would teach me how to be a grown up the right way.  I found some pretty drastic ways to figure it out on my own, far too young.  I stumbled and fell along the way as I tried to walk the thin line between being a child and an adult.  That thin line is called being a grown up and it's not easy when you don't have a road map.  I made a lot of mistakes and I got hurt and burned and scarred and broken, but it brought me through the gap between childhood and adulthood, just like it was meant to do.


Now, as a part time grown up, part time Peter Pan and part time adult, I look at it all and think that things would probably have gone much smoother if I had just waited a bit longer to grow up.  Those things I stumbled over, and the fires I went through wouldn't have hurt so bad if I'd been a little older and probably taller (maybe).  I came to the conclusion that the act of growing up is sort of like the boat that ferries you from childhood to adulthood somewhere in and around the time you're in your late teens - early 20s. It's up to you to either take the scenic route, making sure you stop along the way for things like college and traveling, and lots and lots of early 20-something experiences, or to take the speed boat like a bat outta Hell, crashing through everything, on a mission to just get there whatever the cost.  I chose the later, and really wish I hadn't sometimes.


There's so much about being a grown up that can wait.  Like bills.  Take my bills, you can have them, just give me math tests back in return!  Or expectations.  Just the general expectations of you as an adult are so different from what they were as a child.  I wish I could be five again when I was only expected to know my ABCs, pick up my toys, and make sure I didn't hit anybody at school.  I can totally do that.  Make sure I keep the peace in my household while simultaneously running two businesses, working a part time job, being a full time stay at home mom and a full time wife, while also maintaining the bills, appointments, bank accounts and schedules of our family, and throwing in some time to do the few things I enjoy doing for myself or others?...every day...without messing up?  That's a lot, but sure, I can do that too.  Is it ok if I hit someone though?


So what is it about being a grown up that is so enticing?  Why are the kids of today lining up around the block to get on the speed boat, just to go crashing through the best time in their lives to get to adulthood?  It's not like they don't have everything they could possibly need that adults can have too.  Cell phones, computers, TVs and cars.  Am I missing something?  It can't be alcohol because no one who wants to drink that bad waits until they're 21 anyway.  It's unfortunate, but true.  And quite honestly, I know far too many adults who are of legal drinking age that are better off without it themselves.  So what is it?  What is that magical fairy dust that makes kids go ga-ga for growing up?


One word.  Independence.  Being able to say I want to eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for breakfast every day for a month for no other reason other than the fact that I want to, and then doing it.  As a grown up I can.  I would never in my lifetime eat that, but I could if I wanted.  I will confess, I ate a whole dozen chocolate chip cookies yesterday.  But I'm a grown up so it's ok.  At least that's what I told The Noise when she asked why I was allowed to and she wasn't (I wasn't about to tell her I was trying to make the pain of feeling like a failure as a mother go away through some cookie therapy).  And that right there is the proof as to why the cycle continues.  As kids, we just want to be grown ups so we can tell ourselves what to do. which would surely be infinitely cooler than what our parents want us to do.  Then, when we become grown ups, we don't like the responsibilities and expectations that are put upon us, so we plead to become kids again so someone else can be in charge.  


So cheers to those who take the scenic route and live life within every moment, instead of always waiting to get to the next step.  Remember, all we have is today.  Yesterday can never be changed or recovered. Tomorrow is never a guarantee, nor can you foresee what's coming, no matter how hard you look.  So if you're wasting any time worrying about either, you're losing out on the most important gift: The Present.

My two cents on...a "day" in the life of a stay at home mom:

I was recently asked the question...the very infuriating question: "so what do you do all day"?  It took me a few days to scribble down some notes, delete the foul language, scribble some more, delete some more gibberish about calling someone's mother some choice words, and then what I was left with was a lot of little ideas that made no sense.  So I decided to turn my scribbling into a blog, and here we are.  I had a hard time giving a straight answer to such a fluid question, because there really is no straight answer.  Maybe that's why my notes were so difficult to piece into a complete sentence.  When you ask a stay at home mom what she does all day, it's not like asking a corporate mom what she does all day.  She doesn't have an Outlook calendar that she can reference to outline the meetings and tasks she completed at any given moment.  She probably doesn't have a day planner (although I've met a few moms who do, and I think they are awesome mom gods because I could never be that organized) with her daily to-dos mapped out, making sure she's also penciled in time for things like yoga and lunch.  If you ask her, and she's not chasing after a screaming toddler who's trying to smear peanut butter on the curtains with a steak knife, she may be able to answer you with a "huh?" at best, so in trying to forgive her absentmindedness and clear inability to articulate the full scope of her "day", I've come up with a little play-by-play for you to browse through, just in case you were curious as to what us stay home moms do do all day.


Let's start in the wee hours of the morning.  If, by chance, we didn't wake up with our kids physically in our bed, feet in our ribs, morning breath in our faces, we would wake up to the sound of them crying, whining, saying they're hungry, tapping us on the forehead, etc.  As a stay at home mom, children are our alarm clocks in some way, shape or form.  I would love to wake up to the smell of coffee like in the commercials, or to the sound of birds chirping like in the movies, but that is not my destiny.  Every morning, my 6am alarm clock goes off, and his name is Little.  Following our wake up call, we are greeted with a morning full of needy, tiny humans.  All of the sudden, once mom's up, everyone is hungrier, more tired, crankier, more forgetful of their daily tasks, mouthier, slower to get ready, and just all around more ridiculous than any other time of the day or night.  This is most especially true when we actually have to go somewhere like school or church.  All Hell breaks loose and now we have to turn into the crazy, psychotic, screaming, raging monster mom on a rampage to eat her young, all before we've even had our morning cup of coffee.  No one wants to see that.

Assuming we get everyone out of the house without committing an act of cannibalism, our day progresses.  Many stay at home moms have multiple children, myself included. I have two, one in school and one I care for at home.  So once I've dropped off the eldest, I come home to the madness that will consume the next several hours I call my "workday".  Things generally start off with trying to entertain Little in any way possible.  Toys, games, funny faces, stupid shows on TV, dancing, jumpy bouncy things, rolling on the floor, singing, and just generally making a full on ass out of myself for his amusement.  When I look at the clock and think I've exhausted at least an hour and he might be ready for a nap, I realize it's only been 10 minutes, and the cycle continues.  Once he does get pissy (aka tired) enough to want to take a nap, I lay him down and make a mad dash for one of the following: the kitchen (to eat, usually my last choice), the computer (to either work, update my Facebook status, or blog), the bed (who am I kidding, why did I even type that?), the shower (again, who am I kidding?), the laundry room (I usually only have time to get through Hubs' clothes, maybe that's why I constantly smell like vomit), the bucket of cleaning supplies (in hopes of actually getting far enough under the piles of crap to actually use them to clean instead of just "picking up"), or a Tetris inspired combination of as many of the above as I can cram into the amount of time he decides to nap.

Lunch time comes and we eat a good, nutritious meal.  By we, I mean Little.  I feed him his food, while munching on a smattering of string cheese, Klondike bars, Cheezits and dry cereal at some random moments between the hours of 7am and 4pm.  Stay at home moms, although located most closely to our kitchens, rarely get the chance to sit and have a peaceful, quiet lunch, much less a moment to look for something in the kitchen to eat that isn't either portable or filled with caffeine, calories, sugar or guilt.  Once lunch is over, the fun of earlier that morning continues with me acting a fool for the giggles of my tiny human, and finally the time comes when we have to pack up and go get The Noise from school.  I then have to suffer through the Hell of dealing with the mini van drivers in the parking lot, as well as the possibility of running into certain other moms, dare I go inside, who feel the need to look me up and down in disgust just because I refuse to be a stuck up snob and take 12 hours to get ready before I leave my house to come to the school to begin with (I feel no resentment about this at all).  Anyway.  My giant ball of energetic craziness comes bounding into the car on full volume, and I get to hear all about her day all the way home.  Nevermind the migraine that's been creeping in from listening to babytoons on full blast all day, sure honey, shout away.  Today she's best friends with the girls who called her names yesterday.  I can't keep up.  She needs $9 for a field trip tomorrow, and she has to dress up like a pioneer.  Ok, first, who carries $9 on them?  Now I'm going to have to go to the bank and pull out a $20, stop somewhere and get change, they're gonna give me either two $10s or a $10 and two $5s, and then I'm going to have to ask for $1s.  Whose stupid idea was it to ask for $9?  Just make it an even $10 and pocket each kid's extra $1.  Who cares!  Then, she needs to dress up like a pioneer?!  And I have one day's notice?!  Yes, because I keep a supply of pioneer attire on hand at all times, just for occasions such as this.  So now, I'm going to have to stop somewhere and look for something that looks "pioneer-y".  I get to hear her whine at me for two hours about how the pioneers didn't wear that, and then I'm going to get mad, and we will have a replay of crazy, psychotic, screaming, raging monster mom from this morning.


The assumption from our husbands, as stay at home moms, is that we are always available and able to make a delicious and well rounded dinner each night without issue.  That is usually the case, and I love cooking, so I'm happy to oblige, unless I get the occasional curve ball or have something to do that makes it hard for me to make a nice meal that will be ready by a reasonable dinner hour.  When I say curve ball, I mean something like a text message from Hubs asking for some random, off the wall dinner that we don't have the ingredients on hand for, that I need to go to the grocery store to shop for, and will need to wait till he gets home to do.  That means that by the time you get the shopping done for the ingredients needed for this curve ball meal, you find the recipe, you follow the recipe and get the meal made, it's now 9pm and half the family is asleep or already ate Ramen noodles because they were starving.  It's also difficult to make dinner when everyone else in the house seems to mysteriously need your help at the exact moment you are trying to make dinner.  Hey, don't worry about the ground beef burning on the stove, sure I'll help you find that piece of mail you've been looking for all week, while also helping her with her math homework that she mysteriously just forgot how to do the minute I turned the oven on.


Once dinner is made, all the plates are fixed, and everyone sits down to eat, it is inevitable that something will happen to cause mom to have to leave the table.  The baby will start to cry (he gets fed before or after dinner in hopes that I can eat a hot meal), something will have been forgotten at the table, someone's food isn't right or needs to be re-heated, cut up or fixed.  Whatever it is, as the mom, it's our responsibility to make sure it's addressed.  That being said, even when I've tried to take all necessary precautions to ensure I get to sit and eat with my family, something will always come up.  It's my mom destiny, just like smelling like vomit.  After dinner, the cleaning up of the fallout commences.  When you have kids, meal time is synonymous with an atomic explosion.  If any beverage that wasn't clear was consumed, now is when you'll start cleaning it from places you never knew red Kool-aid could penetrate.  So, after I take the next half an hour to pick up all of the tiny bits of food matter that have managed to find their way into the four corners of the entire universe of my home, I collect everything into the kitchen for The Noise to do in the morning (this is her one chore), or if I'm feeling exceptionally irritated, which I have been lately, I clean the entire kitchen myself just to make myself feel better.  


If I were a corporate mom, I would have entered the scene right around dinner time, so being stuck inside the ever-shrinking walls of my home wouldn't seem so daunting.  But the fact that I have only left the house on this particular example day to take my daughter to school, pick her up and run to the store for some ingredients to make the masterpiece dinner Hubs requested is driving me a bit batty come bed time for the kids.  Everyone gets bathed and tucked in, bedtime routines get executed, hugs, kisses, night lights, and "I love you"s.  Then, as soon as I close the last door, with the last child tucked in, my mind immediately turns on full speed.  As a stay at home mom, since you've just spent your entire day at your first job being a mom, you don't get any time to use your adult brain for your second job until the kids go to bed.  Now, depending on what your second job is, your adult brain can go in any different direction you choose.  My second job is actually my real paying job that I do from home.  So I immediately have to get to work before my brain cells fall asleep.  Once I get some work done, then I can go on to jobs number three (blogging), and four (drawing).  Those help me keep my mind from remaining completely in kid land, where everything is made of Playdoh, and the volume is always on full blast.

Somewhere in there I fit in some adult conversation with Hubs, since I usually don't get to interact with many grownups throughout the day either, unless you can count me yelling at DJ Lance Rock.  After I've numbed my brain, and get pissy (aka tired) enough to go to sleep, I fall into bed, usually still in my clothes, and pass out, knowing I'll be waking up to my tiny human alarm clock in just a few hours to do it all over again tomorrow.

As a stay at home mom, I am so much more than just a mom.  Any mom has a tough job; a corporate mom, stay at home mom, or otherwise.  The mom role is a difficult vocation on its own.  Now having done both, I can say with certainty, being a stay at home mom is harder mentally than being a corporate mom.  What I will say is that not many people, especially if they haven't done it themselves, understand moms who stay home with their kids.  That in itself adds to the level of difficulty because there are constantly people, just as the opening statement of this blog outlines, who question what us stay at home moms do all day (yes, with that tone).  So here it is in bullet form for those who need to see it in quick form for easy viewing:

• I feed the hungry
• I clothe the naked
• I constantly work to maintain world peace
• I run all of the errands, including the stupid ones
• I do all of the shopping
• I cook all of the meals
• I oversee the order and maintenance of my home
• I do most of the cleaning, with the exception of the chores I dole out to my kids (then I redo the the chores they've done because they do a terrible job)
• I pay the bills and maintain our budget without having to shut down the government
• I am the tour bus, the chauffeur, the taxi and the Ms. Daisy driver
• I kiss boo boos and play nurse, even though I never went to med school
• I am the teacher and the coach when the kids come home from school and practice
• I hold daily therapy sessions at the dinner table
• I try to be enough of a friend for my kids to confide in but not too much for them to take advantage of
• I am the disciplinarian
• I am the advisor and final say on most child related decisions
• I keep a watchful eye over my kids at all times wherever we go
• I dream about all of the things I do or don't do that I forgot to mention in this blog after I published it

I do all of these things, and then some, while simultaneously being a stand up wife, employee and friend.  I don't get sick or vacation time, lunch breaks or mental health days.  My job isn't over at 5pm, and I can't leave my work "at the office".  My boss is my conscience, and I'm still waiting to score a "commendable" on my annual review.  I can tell you that I love my job (number one, two, three, four and so on) though, more than I ever thought I could love any job ever.  When my teachers told me in school that I better pick a career that I liked, or at least liked enough to want to do daily, I never imagined being a mom would be that career.  I always thought I'd want to be something glamorous like a queen or a rockstar, but mom is actually way cooler.  It's the number one thing people have tattoo'd on them somewhere, so it really can't be half bad right?  So, for all my stay at home moms out there, the next time someone asks you what you do all day, tell them you shape the world, one tiny human at a time.

My two cents on...mini van driving Catholic school moms - the sequel:

I didn't think I was going to have to revisit this topic, because I thought I had made myself perfectly clear the first time about how I felt regarding these certain moms.  I have even mentioned them subsequently throughout a few other topics along the way, to pay tribute to their stupidity, but I have had a few choice encounters over the last few weeks that have really tweaked my hot button, so I felt the need to say something.  Let's learn our lesson this time, shall we, so we can all move on and work on being loving examples of great parents to our little ones, so they can grown up to be all they are meant to be and more.


We'll start with the most heinous story first.  I was running a little (ok, a lot) late dropping The Noise off to school a few weeks ago, and when you're late, they won't even let you go to the normal car line, you have to go to the other side of the school.  To the office.  Boo...Bad girl.  I mean we were only like, one minute late, maybe ten, but who's counting.  Anyway, the parking on that side is really narrow, and is flanked on one side by diagonal parking spaces which butt up to the passenger side of the cars that are pulled up dropping kids off.  Let's just say whoever's idea it was to make this a drop off zone needs to not reproduce, or work with children, ever.  So she's was getting out of the car, on the passenger side, she kissed Little, then opened the front passenger door to lean in and kiss me (awwww).  As she leaned in, a car in one of the parking spots started to back out.  In true idiotic form, and since she was driving a Mercedes, God forbid she looked behind her.  She backed into my daughter!  Granted, she wasn't going fast enough to actually hurt her, but she bumped her with the back of her car.  It was church day, and if The Noise had been any later, she would have been in trouble with the priest (even worse than just being regular late), so I laughed it off with her and sent her on her way.  At this point, you would think this mom would have jumped out of her car, come running over to my car, "I'm sorry" flying, and made sure everything was ok.  Nope.  She just sat there for a minute, looked back at me through her rearview, waved her hand and said "SORRY!" and then drove off.  I know she knew she hit my kid, because I saw her face when she bumped her, then she of course had to pull her car forward to un-pin The Noise from between my car and her car.  Had she not driven off as quickly as she did, and had I not been in utter shock for the moments that I was, I believe I may have gone to jail, had to find another school for my child, and may have had to move to a new city all in the same day.  I had to sit in the parking lot for about 20 minutes after she drove off just to regain my composure before I came unglued.  She better be glad I haven't seen her in the car line since, or we would have exchanged some serious words.


I then encountered my arch-nemesis driver yesterday morning, and I have been fuming over it ever since.  This time it happened in person.  She's the one with the zebra hair and ridiculous makeup who thinks she is so much better than everyone else, and the one who walks up in front of all the other moms to get her kid from the car line.  Just to give you a little background, she is a stay at home wife of a very well off husband.  I think he's very nice.  I've only met him a few times, but he seems quite personable.  She, on the other hand, is just a pretentious snob and seems to think there's something about her that's more special than the rest of us average moms who can only afford to buy our kid's clothes at Target and get our hair cut at Supercuts.  They have a few kids, but their one daughter is in The Noise's class.  She's a snob too.  Truly like mother like daughter.  It's sad really.

So, back to yesterday, I dropped The Noise off in the car line.  I made sure to avoid any other "drivers" at all costs, since I was already in a foul mood, and really wasn't ready for a mom throwdown at 7:45am.  It was "let's make a budget" day, to see if Adrian can be a stay at home mom anymore and my reason for stopping into the office was to make sure I didn't owe the school any money before the end of the school year.  Lucky for The Noise, I had pre-planned to leave the car that morning and had at least put on real pants in place of my pajamas, but I was still just slightly under-dressed in my dirty t-shirt, head band, unbrushed hair, no makeup, bags under my eyes and lack of coffee attitude.  The last person I wanted to run into was HER.  The one I would have hurled a rock at on my David day.  The one who looks me up and down any chance she gets.  The one who I have daydreams about starting a real high school "meet me in the parking lot after the bell"  fight scene with.  It looked like she was on her way to the gym (because don't all stay at home moms have time for the gym?), and of course, even not being dressed up, she was still in her perfect mom state of perfectness.  Hair perfectly placed in a perfect ponytail, matching sweats, new running shoes, with the perfect pair of matching ankle socks.  Shoot, I can't even find socks that match each other, much less match my shoes.  She immediately looked at me, gave me the once over, and looked back at the secretary and kept talking.


Here's where the situation got ugly.  My blood's gonna boil just thinking about it.  My daughter goes to Catholic school, duh.  And as if the tuition, fees, cost of books, uniforms, field trips, supplies, events, parties, yearbook and other miscellaneous "things" wasn't enough, each family is also required to do service hours each year.  A total of 22 hours is required and if you don't complete them, you have to pay $25 per hour for what you don't finish at the end of the year.  Yeah.  So, I of course, was waiting patiently for Ms. Fancy Pants to hurry up and be done with whatever meaningless task she was there for, so I could speak to the secretary about any outstanding school balances I had, when I happen to overhear (ok, I was totally eavesdropping) the reason why she was there.  She was trying to weasel her way out of her service hours!!  Not only that, but when they told her she couldn't get out of the hours, she was trying to bribe her way out of having to PAY for them!!  So let me get this straight, you think  you're too special to do the service work for your kid's school, because why?  You don't have a job, so you can't possibly be busy doing something else.  I have a baby that I stay home with and I've found a way to complete hours.  Then, when they told you that you couldn't weasel your way out of the hours, you wanted to bribe them (by telling them you were going to have a party at your house!!  Oh I so wish I could just give you her name and blast her all over the internet, but I'm not that mean) so they wouldn't make you pay for them, even though we all know you have the money to pay it?!  I can't believe what I had just witnessed taking place.

Someone else came in the office at that time and was gooing and gahing over Little in his stroller, so I got sidetracked from the trainwreck I had been watching, but I'm pretty sure they still made her pay, because I saw her hand the secretary a check out of the corner of my eye.  I felt a sense of relief that she was at least held to one of the same standards as I was, even if she was allowed to snatch her bratty kid from the carline before mine, or cut me off without the courtesy of a wave or a thank you.  I'm still pretty sure I saw her give me the once over again as she passed me to walk out of the office, and she didn't even stop to tell me how adorable Little is, which, if you can pass him up without stopping, you must be heartless, but I already knew that.

So, as I surmised in my original post, it seems to me that these moms are really more consumed in themselves and their appearances than in the world of actually being a mom.  Is my appearance sometimes a bit (or a lot) disheveled?  Yes.  Could my house use a maid service?  Yes.  Am I scattered and late and usually halfway lost or less than prepared for whatever it was I forgot I was supposed to be doing?  Absolutely.  Do I give 110% of myself to being a mom and a wife?  Yes.  Maybe that's why I don't have much left over for my dishes, or my makeup or my pedicure.  Or maybe that's why I forgot to take a shower yesterday or run that errand I said I was going to run three days ago.  I try my very best to do my very best at what I do, but this is my very first time being a full time mom and wife.  I've only been doing it for seven months and there's a pretty steep learning curve.  The difference between me and all those mini-van driving, kid bumping, too good to contribute my time, secretary bribing, Barbie doll wanna be, Fancy Pants moms is that even though I might not have all my crap together all the time, at least my heart's in the right place.

My two cents on...divorce (part three) and the children who suffer the fallout:

The gravity of this post may be too much for some to read, and I will tell you in advance it may even be one that offends some too.  It's not meant to.  But it might.


I was mid post on another topic, a funny one actually, when something terrible happened to The Noise.  Her world was shaken by the all too familiar painful stab of heartbreak she has come to expect from "X".  And on her birthday to make matters worse.  We spent the entire weekend trying to put her back together, and mend her broken heart, but there's only so much you can do when a little girl's Superman turns out to be her Lex Luther time and time again.  Only she can be the one to make that distinction, and all you can do is sit back and watch, praying like hell he doesn't hurt her bad enough, but that he hurts her enough for her to finally see what a bad guy he is, all without her thinking that you are the one to blame for all this to begin with, because if you had stayed, everything would have been normal and fine and butterflies and rainbows.  It must all ultimately be your fault.  Yes, it is.


Divorce is a funny thing for kids to understand.  They will never figure it out.  It doesn't matter how old they are when their parents split up, so trying to justify in your mind that doing it when they're an infant or waiting till they're grown will somehow be better than doing it when they're smack dab in the middle of being a kid is pointless.  It's all the same: confusing.  A child will always wonder why their parents are choosing to divorce.  They will search for answers until the end of time.  And even if you give them an answer, that answer won't be good enough.  They'll think there's still some other reason that you're not telling them, so they'll keep looking.  Or at least thinking.  Why?  If you've been married for one year, "why couldn't they keep trying, why did they give up"?  If you've been married for 30 years, "why did they waste all this time together if they knew they weren't happy, why didn't they just let each other go a long time ago"?  Endless wondering.


Deep down inside, especially when they are young, they will always want you to get back together.  It would make their life so much easier and less painful.  How would you like to spend the first 18 years of your life being torn back and forth from your family every other week, flip-flopping holidays and birthdays, missing out on vacations, special events and parties because it wasn't "your weekend"?  Things would be a lot better for everyone if you would just get back together is what they think.  Now, granted, they aren't aware of all the reasons you got divorced to begin with, which I'm sure are dynamite, but all they know is that what is happening now sucks for them.  When their hopes of you getting back together dwindle away, even despite their best efforts following all the steps they saw in that box office hit Disney movie depicting the kids who get their divorced parents back together, they are just left angry and bitter, and you become the target of their resentment for the second time around after the initial divorce related anger you just finished getting them through counseling for.


No matter how old they are, or how young they are, if they live at home or not, they will always look at themselves as a possible suspect in the motive for this demise.  "If I am a product of this union, and this union was such a disaster not worth saving, something about me must also be a disaster and could be partially responsible for this mess".  A thousand "it's not your fault"s will make you feel better, but the writing's on the wall.  How can you look at your child's mother or father with such hatred, but then look at your child and tell them there's nothing about them that would be cause for concern relating to the demise of this marriage?  For example, The Noise looks just like "X".  I mean, they are identical twins.  She acts like him sometimes too, especially when she wants to piss me off.  Is it my daughter's fault that her dad and I are divorced?  No.  Do I sometimes have to take a breather and walk into the other room when she's acting up, because she is that much like him that it is too real for me to deal with in an appropriate manner?  Yes.  That's just me being honest.  She will always have to deal with that.  Being treated just a little different than Little and any other kids because I know I can't reprimand her the same way as I do them.  She just reminds me of "X" too much sometimes.  These children will always know there is in fact something about them, by nature of the fact that they are products of what broke, that is broken themselves.


Children who come from divorced parents will always have hearts torn in two.  They will always have split allegiances.  They feel it's not ok to love mommy and daddy because mommy and daddy don't love each other.  They just don't understand, because mommy doesn't foster a healthy love for daddy and daddy doesn't foster a healthy love for mommy in their respective homes.  More than likely the other parent is berated, belittled and talked about like a piece of garbage.  The child is made to feel like loving their other parent is wrong and shameful.  Even if not on that severe a level, true love of the other parent is never allowed in one parent's house.  Their heart remains torn because it just can't be whole in either place.  That would mean that it would be ok for it to love both parents at the same time, with the love for each swirling around inside together, but that is impossible under the conditions in which it's been placed.  They will always have an empty space in their heart, on the side where the other parent's love goes when they're away from them, because there's nothing else in there to fill it up.  In many cases, by the time they're teenagers or young adults, their hearts are so full of holes and empty spaces, they are willing to fill them with anything to make the pain go away.


And where do the step parents fit in?  When your real parents are divorced and you have step parents, who are you supposed to really love?  Is it ok to love your steps?  Are you allowed to call them mom and dad?  Is it acceptable to give them hugs and kisses and let them tuck you in at night just like you would your real parents?  When do you let your guard down?  Do you ever?  Children with step parents have the hardest time trying to understand where they fit into this new dynamic.  Not only are they dealing with all of the above, but now they have a new person in the mix that is pulling at mommy and/or daddy.  They are scared this person is taking their parent away.  They may lash out or shut down.  They won't know how to act around this person or their new extended family.  Things are going to be really weird, probably for a really long time.  It could take years to build a bond with a step parent, and it could take only a moment to tear it apart.  One little thing could cause that bond to come crashing down.  The child will be in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop with this step parent, so they will be much more likely to suffer the backlash of emotions than the parent themselves.  The step parent will be pitted against the parent and the child will play mind games to try and see where everyone's allegiances lie within their homes.  They will test limits and boundaries and patience.  Being a step parent will be the hardest role to play in a child of divorced parents' life.


These children look through eyes the rest of the world doesn't understand.  When they grow up with parents who've already disappointed them and stolen their trust, which I hate to be so blunt but to a child that's what divorce is, there isn't a far way to fall from there.  I remember being a child, after my own parents had divorced, and looking at every adult with such disdain and distrust.  I no longer had respect for any of them, including the ones I had never met.  Once they've had their childlike sense of trustworthiness taken away, they're now of the mindset that all adults need to earn their trust and respect, instead of the idea that it is freely given until proven otherwise.  They see the world now through the eyes of a child who's been hurt, which is not like the eyes of an adult who's been hurt.  An adult who's been hurt can feel the pain, but has the experience of life and the knowledge of what they've learned along the way to carry them through.  They have understanding and foresight.  They have reasoning and logic.  For an adult, even though they've been betrayed, they are able to reason that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that things will get better.  Someday.  For a child who's been hurt so deeply, especially by a loved one such as a parent, without the knowledge, experience and reasoning skills of an adult, the sense of loss and complete despair is overwhelming and unbearable.  A child who has no hope of a positive ending or an optimistic future, because they don't have the reasoning skills to take them through that thought process, looks at the world through eyes that only see the color grey.  Their mind stays clouded and they see people as only out for themselves.  Their self esteem takes a nose dive because the view of their reflection is so distorted.  They either withdraw inside themselves or become overly gregarious to distract from their lack of confidence in their own abilities.  Sadly, we will never be able to fully see what their world looks like, because we are adults.


In my personal situation, The Noise will never think that "X" is at fault in any way.  With all that he has done, and I could write an entire novel on just that alone, she will never think that it was by any intentional fault of his own.  To her, he can do no wrong.  When she comes home crying every single time he drops her off, and she tells me all of the awful things that have happened, and I try to help her understand that he needs to take responsibility for his actions.  Somewhere along the way in the conversation, she's given a well rehearsed reason for his despicable behavior and I have become the villain in the story for even attempting to discredit his heinous and ridiculous excuses.  I manage to always become the bad guy.  I live in a constant state of "mommy, he didn't mean to...so you shouldn't...and why are you so mean".  I do my best to keep my composure and maintain my internal peace, but all I really want to do is scream.  The momma bear instinct in me wants to do so many things that the rational human woman won't let me do.  I only hope that one day she'll be able to fully see who her Superman is, who her Lex Luther is and who's been standing right next to her this whole time.