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Dear Mom and Brandon
I am terribly sorry I made you mad. Its just that I don’t like that chore. Anyway I am probaly not going to argue next time but I still don’t like picking up dog poop. I hope you will at least get over what I did today and just remember I say this only once tomorrow is a new day just like heaven is and a new life. Oh and two more things use the money I give you for something you want or use it with other money and two solve this riddle so I at least don’t have to be yelled at.
riddle: what do you call a crazy man?
thank you
Jacoby [middle][last]
aka troublemaker
P.S. I will be in my room if you need me but take you time on this letter
Jacoby: Hello hello
Are you there mom
Mom
me: Hiya baby! I’m here!
Jacoby: Great your back where we huh
me: I am back. I’m glad you like chatting, it’s fun isn’t it?
Jacoby: Ha that was a joke
me: I know it was, funny boy.
Jacoby: Well it was momma
me: What’s your favorite color?
Jacoby: What are you talking about
me: I’m asking what your favorite color is, silly goose!
Jacoby: OK red
me: What your favorite song?
Jacoby: What honey pie
me: Ha, did Brandon tell you to call me that?
What’s your favorite song, prankster!
Jacoby: Jingle bell rock
me: What’s your favorite movie?
Jacoby: First brand ion did not tell me to call you that
And it is monty python and the holy grail
me: Ah, you’re clever then. 🙂
What’s your favorite book?
Jacoby: Diary of a wimpy kid 🙂
me: Do you want to talk about anything else?
Jacoby: What are all those questions for
me: Just trying to think of things to talk to you about.
Jacoby: One second dragons
Me: Uh, what?
Jacoby: Dragons for Pete sake
me: Of course, that makes perfect sense. ..Not.
Jacoby: What the heck are you talking about
me: You tell me, you’re the one writing gibberish about dragons!
Jacoby: It’s no gibberish ma’am
me: I love you sweet boy
Jacoby: I love you too
Driving Lorelei to a slumber party, unsure if the address I have is correct.
Me: Hey Lo, do you know if Lydia lives in Ava’s neighborhood, where we went to Girl Scouts at that school last year?
Lo: Uh, I dunno.
Me, driving down the street: Does this look familiar at all?
Lo: Uh, I dunno.
Me: You’ve been to Lydia’s a couple times, right?
Lo: Yes
Me, pulling up to a brown house associated with the address I think it is: Is this it?
Lo: I dunno. I’ll ring and ask if Lydia lives here.
************
Jack, in the same scenario set up.
Me: Hey Jack, do you know if your friend lives in that neighborhood we went to that park once last year that had a zipline at it?
Jack: Yes, you go down that street that has Price Chopper, and then you turn right on the street where Aaron, my friend from pre-school we once had a playdate at his house lives, then you take a left at that big house with the old car in front. I’m pretty sure the house we’re going to used to be painted blue, but I think they painted it brown last year.
……
Me: Give Bran a wet willy, he loves them.
Lo: SarCASM? [ed: she puts the emphasis on CASM and it kills me]
Me: Uh.. yeah. That was. He hates it.
Lo: That’s what I thought. You shouldn’t say what you don’t mean.
Me: (mumbling) … I’m sorry. I was trying to make joke.
Lo: It’s not a joke if I don’t get it.
I know music hipsters are over Adele (if they even admitted to listening to her), but I’m a sucker for all versions of this song.
Every once in a while I mungle on to my blog and think about writing something. But with each passing year I’ve noticed my thoughts becoming truncated down from thoughtful post to clever Facebook status to clumsy tweet. Luckily I don’t have the patience for Twitter, or my brain would be reduced to a vacuum of white noise.
Part of the reason I haven’t blogged as much as I used to is that I don’t have the luxury of time like I did when I stayed home with the kids. When my days were mostly homebound with Jack, and my thoughts were mostly centered on new motherhood and the universe we lived in. It was a blissfully innocent time then, despite wading through the world of autism, and on my most mentally tired days now I sometimes find myself wistful for the simplicity I had then. Which, please don’t mistake for me saying I want to go back – I don’t.
Had there been any doubt in my choice to leave (and there wasn’t), it was brick and mortared this last year. And then soldered in adamantium and buried in the middle of the earth.
No, what I wish is that this wave would stop fucking moving, so that I could finally slow down and try to find that focus again; figure out what percentage of me can be devoted to what and whom, and then settle back down again. I miss the freedom I had then to feel passion about parenting. Or anything to be honest. I want to think about my family’s nutrition again. I’d like to maybe take a cooking class – I’m about a decade too old to cop-out on my inability to cook functionally. I want to read books and participate in my book club more than perfunctorily. I want to be able to invest time in being a doula again. Or find a writers group or volunteer program or anything that I know I once had the energy for, and would be something that makes me feel less like my days are spent just trying to focus on the next bright spot.
I know that part of the reason I don’t write more is that it’s harder to know where I stand with my audience. A good friend is going through a messy divorce, and I’m reminded again that everything involved in that – whether there’s drama tagged along or not – is like being turned inside out for all to see. (And evaluate and opine on.) A time when people will call you for coffee just so they can look you in the eye and tell you what a horrible person you are. AS IF the previous 10, 20, 30 years of being an acceptably good person suddenly carries no weight once you cross a line they draw in the sand. I still can’t get over the entitlement, and it’s been years since I separated. I had a blog for years before anyone gave much of a rats ass about my choices, and the self-centeredness that is inherent in blogging was fine then, because I obviously didn’t have as much to worry about. And aside from the ongoing legal shit
(because hey, let’s drag this out for another year! Let’s make attorney fees in the TWENTIES OF THOUSANDS, SHALL WE? Hooray!),
I don’t have anything to hide now. But I am tired and wary. And unsure if I even WANT to entertain anyone with my thoughts, if doing so leaves me open to the same criticism now that I apparently didn’t deserve then.
Except I need to, because when I do every once in a while mungle on the blog, I read old posts I had totally and utterly forgotten about. Things I simply would not have remembered had I not written it down out of SAHM boredom. So even though my life is infinitely busier and more stressful, I know I will regret it if I stop writing altogether just because it takes energy and time I may not have currently. If I were to create a timeline of my real life vs what you’re seeing on the blog, it’s ridiculous how much is missing. I think 11 posts in all of 2011 demonstrates that. Hell, I got married in July and am just now mentioning it. Why? Because I couldn’t decide whether to shit or get off the pot with this thing, as it limped along not being anything real.
Therefore I am officially, publicly committed to writing more. My family deserves it as an amazingly technological record-keeping tool, if nothing else. Plus my memory is beginning to suck, and though I may not have the luxury or innocence to while away my days like I once did, it doesn’t mean life isn’t going by just as quickly and without worthiness of preservation. So at least twice a week. To start. And that makes me excited, having an excuse to make myself do something that once brought catharsis if not happiness.
The gossip fodder is just an added benefit of course, but mostly it’s about the kids. Our family.
Hiya kiddo. Eight years ago right now I was walking into the hospital after 13 hours of labor, cussing through contractions and demanding Miss Megan not speak about the candy in the vending machine. In two hours and forty-eight minutes more you were born, all purple and quiet in a room full of people praying you’d make a sound.
If I’d only known how loud you’d be after that first squawk.
I love you Jack. You changed my life irrevocably for the better.
Because I’ve missed you.
I’ve had this blog for almost four years now, and I’ve never had to think about the consequences of my writing, mostly because I could never in a million years have imagined I’d be where I’m at. The short answer for my absence is that Jon and I went to court about vaccines, and he used a blog post against me. I was called a dangerous mother amongst other things, and in the end I lost, spectacularly – mostly due to a tidy technicality in KS law about children and religious beliefs. I will never get over how that event played out, and it’s not something I wish to discuss, so if you think you have suggestions for me please know the topic has been exhausted, I promise. There obviously is more than this simple paragraph explanation, but I just can’t discuss it publicly.
To know that honestly the only thing that could be worse for me regarding the kids is death or kidnapping/molestation, gives an idea of what this feels to me – truly I have nightmares about it. You don’t have to have known me well to know how many years this topic has been important to me, and there is damned near nothing I can do that will change the outcome. I lost and I am hurting. Period. I’ve sincerely never thought my friends who made different choices didn’t love their children or weren’t trying to do what they felt was best, and I need that same grace now more than I have ever. Please send supportive thoughts, this is the hardest parenting thing I’ve ever done, if not the hardest thing period.
So, for now I’ve removed all the old posts with vaccines as a tag, and have found myself in the totally surreal world of actually researching to find reasons that would convince me this future for my children can be something I can attempt to support. I have to find a way to pull it together before those appointments, and if I can scare myself (oh, fucking irony,) into believing this is better for them, maybe I’ll be able to do it. So far I have failed epically, even while legitimately trying.
I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do it.
On a correlated note, it’s been five months and two days since those emails first started this phase of court and attorneys and Latin phrases I never thought I’d learn, like pro tem and nunc pro tunc, and ex parte, and no issue is really resolved. We’re still fighting over child support and the profit from our house and even which school district the kids will be in. It will likely be close to a year before it’s over, and I could spend tens of thousands of dollars in the end on legal fees. Good thing I genuinely like my attorney.
I think the worst part about it all is that I am so cynical now. I find myself not being surprised to learn things, as if my character barometer for people has shifted from a default of most likely a kind person to most likely vindictive, just not yet triggered. Sure, I get that I’m still in this and someday I will have had some space from it. But much of my naive idealism is gone, and perhaps whatever wisdom I can gain from that will be helpful for me eventually, but right now it just makes me sad that my filter is cracked. But hey, I’m not dead yet, so technically I’m supposed to be stronger. I’ll let you know when I figure out where. 🙂
And to end this update on an upswing, life otherwise is strong. Brandon and I are doing great, and are for lack of a less attention-getting word, engaged. We’re leaning toward Elvis and Vegas at some as-yet-unplanned point, so start saving your money if you want to see that spectacle. We’re also buying a house in my old neighborhood so the kids can stay in the area; Lorelei’s starting Kindergarten (d’oh!) in the fall, and Jack will be in third grade. We’re busy, we’re stressed, but we’re happy and we’ll be fine.
We will be fine. And someday we’ll be awesome again.
Peace and love, hope you’re all well.
That’s what Jack would like the name of his biopic to be someday. I’m down with it.
We watched Temple Grandin last night, and there’s no real clever or undramatic way to say that I pretty much cried from beginning to end. Little rivulets of wet just slid down my cheeks, whether my eyes were wide as I calmly watched or I was doing my involuntary mouth-scrunched-to-the-side attempt to stop from launching into full-on ugly cry. I think it was a little disconcerting to Brandon, since he kept asking why I was crying now, and I just kept shaking my head and saying because. Which is the most helpful kind of answer, I know.
And it wasn’t necessarily that I was overcome with sadness, though I’d be lying if that didn’t have a component. I think it was simply the recognition I was seeing, over and over, that hit me so hard. It was really hard to see all of the mannerisms you stereotype for Asperger, being so subtly and incredibly acted as if the story was about my son and not someone else. The familiarity of Grandin/Danes’s stims and actions (reactions) were so familiar to me it was shocking, though I suppose in fairness I’m not sure why. Probably because Jack is Jack to me, and I (obviously) forget that some of his behavior is not personal or individual, but tied into his hard wiring. Which even if these behaviors are not always.. mmm.. awesome, it’s simply hard to accept that once again, my sweet monkey is at the mercy of something bigger than he.
More than that is the idea that if Jack views his world the way the movie suggests, he really is the most resilient little kid I’ve ever known. All kids are resilient, sure, but I don’t know if I could continue to truck along like he does with that much sensory overload and confusion. And I know he trucks along because he doesn’t know that this isn’t life for everyone, but that ignorance itself makes me sad because it simply hurts me to think that there’s no foolproof or guaranteed way to protect or even help him navigate this. And that’s so maudlin and dramatic, I know, but fuck if it isn’t actually true. He told me a few weeks ago that he knows his brain is different, and that he has ‘storms’ in his brain when he feels himself getting upset, and the thunder and the lightning get to be too much and that’s when he needs a break and he KNOWS THIS and he’s ONLY SEVEN and it simply hurts me that it hurts him.
And what if this is what his life will be like? Always being unable to read people or situations, cringing when he hears the hand dryers in a public bathroom or flinching at automatic doors? He does those things, and I hate it for him. He’s grown so much since he was little, but do I really think he’ll ever just ‘catch up’? I don’t know. I still think so. Maybe that’s denial.
And I don’t pity him as if I think he will never be successful or will live a life less fulfilling than mine; I have the wisdom to not presume other people’s happiness. But what makes me sad is knowing that he struggles far more than my other child, and his struggles don’t always make him wiser or stronger – they’re just things he learns to adapt to because he wants to be accepted. I see him wanting to understand the game, but not knowing how to ever play, because the rules elude him. How tiring must that be? Kid sleeps like a rock; I would, too.
So yeah. I don’t feel this degree of sad very often, because it’s not helpful. I focus on the wonderful things about him because he deserves it and I agree with the movie’s motif of different, but not less. But regardless of why or how it’s there, the fact remains that my child functions in a way that makes it harder for him, and my inability to ease or protect him like any worthy supermom could, sucks. Period.
I was fifteen when my sister was born. And though I lived with her for three years before leaving for college, I don’t really have a lot of strong memories concerning that time period. One that does stand out, though, was when she was just over a year, and I had the idea to take her to get pictures taken of both of us for my parents for Christmas. I had the whole thing planned out, but it necessitated having a reason to take Lizzie somewhere in the car without my mom, something I’d simply never needed to do before. And what stands out incredibly clearly to me is that when I was preparing to leave, Mom started crying while sitting at the table. When I asked her what was wrong, she just said she wanted me to be careful, because by taking my sister with me, I was essentially leaving her helpless to protect not just one, but both of her babies.
I don’t think I ended up doing it. I don’t remember.
The point is that now, as a mother, I can’t believe she would have taken that leap of faith to entrust me with her baby. I was a reasonably smart and average teenager, but I was by no stretch a great driver, and she obviously knew that. Yet she attempted in that moment to bridge the surely difficult road of parenting her generationally-gapped daughters, and made it clear to me that though she was scared, she trusted me. It was huge and though I’m sure that’s why I ended up choosing something else to do, I know I couldn’t have fully understood that sacrifice until only recently.
Much appreciated retrospectively, Mamasan.
And before you grab your pitchforks to hunt me down for being all evil Momsville, let me tell you that he and Brandon spent a long time on the internet machines going over the rides beforehand, and he was asking for that one in particular. And once again I am amazed by his perseverance. He obviously thought he was going to meet his maker in that picture, yet he was totally fine immediately afterward, telling me that the ride was horrible, and beaugarding my ice cream while suggesting we move on to the Fury of the Nile.
As Lorelei would say, he cracks me out. Sweet heysoos I love that boy.
Hi. I’ve got a couple minutes, so I figured I could use it to write an update with werds and not pictures or head-spun-off-my-neck vents, all while avoiding laundry in the process. So huzzah!
For those of you who have asked me outside of this, Yes, we had separate parties and No it didn’t really go too badly as far as The Question. I was asked, and I just said it worked better this year blah blah blah. Lorelei broke into tears a couple days before Jon’s party asking why I couldn’t go, but she has been the more sensitive one in this whole thing, and has also quickly learned to cry (re: manipulate) for the opposite parent when in trouble. To wit: When I discovered last week she had dismantled some of the Death Star Jack and Brandon have been working on for eleventyfourteen weeks, her response was to immediately throw herself on the couch, cover her head with a pillow and say she loves her daddy. “Of course you do, honey. But you love me, too, and that has nothing to do with why you played with Jack’s Legos.” Her reply? “I don’t love you. I just wanted to play with Legos.” Sigh. Little shit. I am imperturbable to your attempts to hurt me. As far as you know.
I switched to Sprint for my phone, recently, and it pained me to do so (they’re home-based in KC and tend to have a dizzying and cyclical chokehold on employees and threatened layoffs) but they could offer me virtually the same plan I had with Verizon for about thirty bucks cheaper. Plus, I got a NEW PHONE. THAT I LIKE. FOR FREE. Which is muy bueno because it took me about 7 minutes last year to realize I really didn’t like the Blackberry Storm. So, uh, yeah, if anyone wants one of those, I have one I’ll sell you cheap. Surely someone who doesn’t use opposable thumbs might like it.
My last day at my current job is next Friday. It’s been a great year with a lot of flexibility to transition to from staying home to working, but our upcoming move back to Jack’s school district has upped my living expenses tremendously, and I need to find something full-time. I had an interview yesterday at a company I really liked, and I am doing whatever voodoo finger-crossing magic I can in hopes that it works out. Send good thoughts or money my way, whichever you have more of, thanks.
Millie/Willie/Pilly (Jack’s sudden declaration for a name) got out last weekend, right before I had him scheduled to get fixed and de-clawed. After a few days I was more worried than I wanted to admit. But we found him and life was warmhappyloving until Monday morning when I came home for lunch and discovered that THAT ASSHAT CAT HAD PEED ALL OVER MY FRIGGEN COUCH. I am still trying to get it out, and we are going back and forth on whether we’ll have to just get rid of it. I swear to someone that if I’d only discovered it that morning before I took him in for his re-scheduled appt, I would have saved some money on the de-claw by pulling out his nails one. by. one. I made cat collars for them and named him Shim* Willie. Sucker.
I cut the crud out of my finger trying to saw through a baguette, but after a week or so I think it might begin to try and close up. I may have needed stitches, but I figure if I didn’t get them when I sliced open my hand at thirteen carving my pumpkin, and I didn’t get them when I drove glass into my palm at 21 while shoving down the trash, why start in my 30s? My friend JacobJ used to say he had magic squirrels protecting his car while he drove. Maybe he’s onto something. Or, my life as a cutter has been epic fail.
We’re spending a lot of time with a good friend who’s moving in a few weeks to Omaha. A big group is driving her down there to dump her stuff on the lawn and drive off, but before then we’re hanging out a lot, and it seems fitting to the sad-ish feelings I used to have every year at this time when school was ending. Bittersweet times, right now. But we have a new float trip scheduled for the end of June, so we’ll refuel our cache of inside jokes then.
And I think that’s it. I’ll end with a song, because I usually do, and hope everyone’s Spring is starting up like it seems to have decided to here. Finally. This is one of my new favorites, ‘Awake My Soul’ by Mumford & Sons.
Ciao, micos.
*Watch 30 Rock if you don’t already. Then you’d get the above reference without the link. My goal in life is to be Liz Lemon.
I was very surprised to hear from you today. It’s been what…almost three years?
I gotta say I’m sorry you’re sorry to hear that I not only got a divorce but am now Living In Sin* with a guy (whose name is BRANDON, for future prayer record). I personally think both were good decisions for me, for myriad reasons, but I understand that you wouldn’t know all those reasons and would immediately be gravely concerned about me, because I’ve fallen so far from what Our Lord wants for me.
[*I’ve always been fascinated with this title. Aren’t we technically all living in sin by definition? Or is this one of those asterisked-code-red ones that gets more judgment than the usual sins, like homosexuality and pre-marital sex? They should put out a hierarchy handbook of this stuff, methinks.]
I’m also sincerely sorry that you are that worried about my soul. I actually think God is probably a helluva lot more understanding and wise than many people give him credit for, and would recognize that Jon and I were young, dumb kids when we got married at 22, and actually spent way more time thinking about our majors in college than we did knowing ourselves. Not to mention understanding such a tremendously weighty life decision. It’s too bad that you think I ruined the kids’ and Jon’s lives, and that you’ve lost respect for me. I’ve lost a lot of respect for people too, but I guess I don’t get a voice because I’m the one with the corrupted soul and evil, life ruining powers. Muahahahawhatever.
You’ll be relieved to know that I did, in fact, Think Of The Kids (and therapy – I even used it to facilitate the decision-making! I know, right? And she was a Christian, too!). I continue to Think Of The Kids in every decision I make. I’m moving back to Jack’s school district next month to ensure that after Jon sells the house, Jack is guaranteed to stay in the environment that has comforted and propelled him as far as he’s come. Rest assure that Thinking Of The Kids is something that is my top priority. This must be a common theme, though, my being a horrible mom, because the kids’ grandparents discussed in the beginning of the divorce the idea of taking me to court as an unfit mother. Damn Wellbutrin. It’s risky business during stressful times in your life.
I don’t know that everyone has the same goal in mind, though, that Thinking Of The Kids concept. Because despite having planned – and discussed with Jack – having one birthday party for next weekend, it’s since been decided that some people can’t be there if I’m there. (One guess who might have voiced that opinion.) Which is all well and fine for me personally, except for that minor detail of when Jack looks at me Saturday night and excitedly asks if I’m still coming to the party the rest of his world will be at the next day, his actual birthday. And I’ll say no to him. Though I don’t yet know what I’ll tell him the reason is. Because I’m too busy to make time? Because I don’t love him? The truth – that grandma and grandpa hate Mommy? I have no idea.
No really, I’m serious. I have 4 days before he asks me, and I truly don’t know what I’m going to say to him. But I have to take the bullet one way or the other, and making a kid think his mom doesn’t want to come to his birthday is not Thinking Of The Kids, as far as I’m concerned.
So what’s my point, old church acquaintance? It’s that your email was fucking ridiculous, all-around. It was hypocritical and ignorant and out of line ad infinitum. But unfortunately, it wasn’t new to me. You are in a growing line of people who not only feel entitled to my business, but in fact feel even more entitled to tell me what a rotten person I am, despite it being glaringly obvious that you don’t have all the info.
Thus, perhaps you could revive the game (and/or phone-tree) my old neighbors had, and add to the speculation of when I come and go, and what I am wearing. WEARING. BECAUSE APPARENTLY DIVORCE = PROSTITUTION. NO WONDER EVERYONE IS SO ANGRY AT ME. Or you can join my insurance guy who told me that he’d hold off on taking my name off Jon’s life insurance, because we all agreed that hopefully there can be a reconciliation (to which I blurted out we, who?). Or the countless people who fairly or not, decided they could no longer have a relationship with me, because of my choices. Of whom I respect that right, so long as you don’t leave anonymous passive/aggressive comments on my blog later on.
And then you can bite me.
Because what you won’t do is think that somehow you’re going to guilt me into following your template for morality. You’re not going to be the person who gets to punish me, and you’re not going to convince me that I shouldn’t be trying to admit and repair my mistakes, even if in doing so I have to put myself out there to be flayed as the fucking imperfect human that I am. I made a choice that despite being anathema to you, is one that I feel is actually best for myself and the kids, (and more than perhaps anyone, Jon) in the long run. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe I am, and in the end, it shouldn’t matter to you. Because regardless of the fact that virtually every single person who has said something stupidly cruel during this fishbowl-I-call-my-divorce was a professed ‘Christian’, what I won’t do is believe that God, whatever it/he/she may be, approves of your behavior – or more important the demographic you think you’re representing. Because what you’re saying to and about me is not kind-hearted or evangelical, it’s sanctimonious judgmental asshattery, and I’m so friggen OVER IT.
(Except I’m not, because I’m obviously pissed at the moment. But after this? OVER IT.)
So please take your ill-informed righteousness, and move on down the road. I am done justifying or explaining anything to anyone. I’m not the first person to get divorced, I’m not a bad mother, and most of all YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW ALL OF THE DETAILS I REALLY TRULY FOR REALZ PROMISE YOU.
But many thanks for reminding me why I left organized religion.
Sincerely,
Jen
P.S. Before you can go there – I’m not defensive, I’m cynical. And pretty hurt. But I am not defensive.
P.P. S. I helped a baby come into the world yesterday. Doesn’t get more miraculous than that. Did you do that? Doubt it. 1 God Point = Jen
Coach: “Jack go stand on the field by the ref.”
Jack: “OK, what’s a ref?”
He is not good at all, people. Like, at all.
But I truly can’t explain how proud I am that that has nothing to do with autism, and everything to do with his being related to me.
Last night when I was reading books at bedtime, I noticed she was humming a mashup of the Darth Vader theme and the traditional Wedding March. Then when I was kissing her goodnight she whispered to me that I looked as pretty as Queen Amidala.
Those monkeys fill up every extra space in my world with love.
Dig it. Saw this as a blogmemeideawhatever, and I’m totally stealing it because I love having an excuse to write my posts as lists. Onward ho.
1. I, too, just got the new Buzz for gmail, and see now why my friend said it was becoming goobook. I love me some google, so I’m down. (I was also a wave behind some friends on the new FB layout, and I gotta say it feels a wee bit like being picked last for teams again in junior high.)
2. I’ve begun to edit a book in my spare time for a very nice gentleman who is in a writer’s circle with a friend. The money I make will be nice, but more than that it feels good to use my brain in a comfort zone; getting paid to (essentially) read books would be a cool profession to work toward.
3. A dear friend from college is back in town for a few months, and is pregnant with her second child. Seeing her and being there for a prenatal visit has me more excited than I’ve been in a while about birth. I’ve been decidedly on hiatus with Bradley stuff, mostly b/c I feel like I shouldn’t be teaching impressionable first-time parents about what is often one of the most important days of their life, if I don’t have my shit (al)together personally. I have the knowledge and the passion to teach, but I don’t want to do it half-assed, and something just doesn’t feel right at the moment to try and pretend I can give them the focus and attention they deserve. Soon hopefully, but not yet. At least not for strangers. However attending births as a doula is a different thing, and I’m itching for another one. We’re coming up on a year since my last birth, and I’m getting baby crazy again. Either way, I’m hoping to take E with me to the next birth conference; the key speakers will be uhmaaaazing to see.
4. Divorce sucks. Even when you can pat yourself on the back for being amicable, it’s a messy, tiring and trust-eroding event that doesn’t simply end with the court date.
5. That said, we have Jack’s conferences tonight, and I am proud that we can have periods of pretty wicked fighting, but still remember what it was like to be friends – enough that we can put it aside and work together on things involving the kids. Co-parenting (aka My Not Having Full Control Over Every Aspect Of My Children’s Lives) has been the hardest part for me, hands-down.
6. I need to set up a new paypal account so I can renew my imbedding space so I can actually imbed songs instead of sending you to youtube to listen to the song “Sweet Disposition”. It was in the previews for 500 Days of Summer, so when it became popular recently I immediately remembered liking it. I’m sure I’ll tire of it pretty quickly, especially if it’s getting radio play, but until then I LOVE IT. Even with the U2 sounding beginning. I’m such a sucker for pop.
7. My boyfriend and I have the opportunity to piggyback on some friends’ vacation to San Francisco in May, and I’m trying to finagle finances to make it work. Mama needs a vacation, people.
8. Soon I will update the kids’ dictionary, but I’ll start (and publicly remind myself to do it) with Lorelei’s saying yets instead of lets, and Jack’s version of glubs instead of gloves. Heh.
9. My friend Liz and I are starting a business where we write or edit dating profiles for people. Not sure how it will go, but how awesome would that be to not only make enough money to work from home but ALSO bring couples together, one dating site at a time? Huzzah, right?! Win-win in my book, so head our direction for help, por favor.
10. And that’s it. I have the squiggly lines in my vision that prelude a migraine (possibly from navigating Buzz), so I’m going to say goodbye and happy Wednesday. Hope all is well in your worlds.
Huzzah! 
