Tag: single life

There’s No Way I Can Pay You Back But The Plan Is To Show You That I Understand You Are Appreciated

She was set free3 Comments

Today I learned/taught myself a very valuable lesson.

Over the past few days I’ve overheard my kids conspiring together about their great master plan for today. The great previously dreaded Mother’s Day. But as I let them go off in secret together to plan whatever it was they were planning, or even to overhear them plan about meeting later to plan, since let’s face it, a 5&8 year old aren’t the best at being secretive or quiet when it comes to surprises, it made me smile. Their time together gave me time alone yes, but it also helped a bond grow between them, which could come at no better moment since the bickering between them has been at an all time high. Through this great secret they held together without me, They created their own sense of teamwork on this great adventure to surprise me on my special day.

This morning came and unfortunately I heard them up and at it bright and early which is something I’ll remember to gently make known next year is a no no, but their excitement was palpable. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were up to, which was nice, since lately all that goes on between them is constant bickering, so to just hear quite footsteps and the occasional whispers was something new, although it would have been more appreciated later in the day. Anyway, the soft knock at my door came a few minutes later, followed by them sneaking in proclaiming Happy Mother’s Day bearing all their brown paper bags from school and day care along with coffee and a cinnamon bun left over from our company last night. To see them so happy and excited to have me open their gifts and working together was enough for me to not bitch them out for waking me up early on the weekend (a previously well established rule they just broke) and actually get up to participate.

The gifts were everything you’d expect, tons of fingerprint flowers and copy/paste poems, but that wasn’t the important and valuable part. The moment that made the impression on me was when I realized that I could enjoy my “special day” with just my kids. That we could be happy with just the three of us. That I can find joy in the fact that they love each other and me. That I’ve taught them to be caring and sensitive enough to value these special moments and so they recognized that and took time out of their Sunday morning cartoons to make my day important. They didn’t need a dad to lead the way or money to buy expensive gifts. We only needed each other and love.

It made me happy to understand for myself that as a family we can succeed on our own, even in the seemingly crappy moments that have been structured to support a family with maybe another parental figure that could lend to the planning of more elaborate activities. I have the most amazing and valuable support found in my kids and I appreciate the fact that they learn what I teach. This just means I have to be aware of what lessons I lead them through, as well as what thoughts I lend them to build their lives upon. But from what they exhibited this morning, the selflessness and teamwork was an excellent start.

Definitely made me one proud mama. Best Mother’s Day yet.

-Tupac Shakur/Dear Mama-

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Welcome To Existence Everyone’s Here / Everybody’s Watching You Now Everybody Waits For You Now What Happens Next?

She was set free5 Comments

Today an ad popped up on my Instagram about preparing wills.

This is something I have been purposefully avoiding my entire life.

Not because I’m afraid to die because of death and all that jazz, but because in my will, I will undoubtedly have to name a Guardian for my kids. And I have no one who I would name. At this point in my life there is not a single person or couple that I would want my kids to be raised by other than with me.

My parents are out of the question for many reasons, part being the strained relationship my mother and I currently have. But also, they’re old. I want my kids to have a fun fulfilling life and my parents don’t have it in them to be sitting at soccer practice once a week and dance recitals/school plays all the time. They’ve done the discipline thing (horribly) and I don’t want them (my parents or kids) to go through that ordeal. They are just not the right fit. Sure they’re fine for a visit here and there and I trust my kids with them for like a sleepover, maybe even a weekend or something although that’s never happened, but anything longer would just be to much of them. And I know what to much of them turns into. Been there done that got the postcard and all the bills from therapy type situation.

My older sister R has 4 daughters of her own and as much as I’m sure Z would love being surrounded by sisters (or hate having less attention focused on her) I would feel uncomfortable for Little E being put in a situation like that. Plus they are super strict and highly religious and I’m just not on the same page regarding their beliefs about god or many other things in life, and therefore wouldn’t want that for my two children.

My younger sister N just had her first child last summer. I will admit it has changed her attitude towards life for the better in my opinion. It’s not so much all about her anymore which is nice to see, but the way her and her husband D live is just chaotic. They both love my kids but they have no sense of organization or discipline and they struggle so much with finances that I just can’t add this kind of thing to their life. It would be a lose/lose situation for everyone.

And that’s it. Those were my choices. I thankfully have sole custody of my kids, and they are OBVIOUSLY not going back to E. But I have no friends that are close enough to even consider for the possibility. And you can’t prepare a will without having that plan ready to go to put into the will. Like what am I going to do? Write a will but say ‘ oh I’m not a responsible enough person to have decided who my kids are going to live with so just either let my family decide or make them wards of the state’? Cause that’s basically what I’d be doing so what’s the point.

You can’t name someone Guardian in your will, without discussing it with them first. Like at least make sure they’d be willing and able to do it. I have no one to have that discussion with. I live my life independently from everyone, which as a result has ironically enough left me independent from everyone. So now, I have these two precious children to care for, and I do care for them. So much that right now in my opinion, no one else is good enough to care for them if/when I die. So I have to just not die until they’re old enough to care for themselves. Oh but C you say, what about accidents? What if you get run over by a car tomorrow?

DUH!!!!! So now you see my motherfucking problem. I have to make a will! I have to pay off my debts. I have to plan for them. Z still has 12 more years to go until she’s 18. 12 more years. I’ve only been a parent for 8.5 but I’ve made it this far. First I had to get through the divorce. Now, it’s time for me to actually start looking ahead. Planning for the future. Something I haven’t ever really done before. Everything was just get me through this day, this week, this marriage, this divorce. And now? Well now I need to be able to say get not only me through this life, but my kids through theirs.

So I’ve got to start planning ahead. But how do I plan another parent for my children? Seems like trying to get the past and the future to merge as one. I already picked a dad when I made them, and that didn’t work out well as we all know. As you can see I’m quite hesitant to try again. I don’t want to utterly fail my kids in the parenting department twice… or more.

So needless to say I won’t be writing a will anytime soon.

As dumb as it seems, it seems more logical than wasting time and money on preparing a will when I don’t know what it should say.

-Switchfoot/Dare You To Move-

I’m Going Deep, In Over My Head I Want To Be Caught In The Rush, Lost In The Flow, In Over My Head I Want To Go

She was set free1 Comment

So I got an unexpected call today.

I was at work at the swimming pool called me. Little E was on a field trip (and will be on the same one for the next three Wednesday’s) for swimming lessons. They spend 30 minutes for lessons and then have 30 minutes for free time. Well, they called to inform me that Little E had just been pulled from the pool by the lifeguard.

The guard had seen him struggling under water in the deep end and had to jump in a save him.

Now I honest to goodness before today felt pretty confident in Little E’s swimming abilities. We were out in the lake practically everyday last summer and I feel fine letting him go out chest deep on his own. I mean I’m there on the beach and I’m a great swimmer (I’m embarrassed to say I was in synchronized swimming when I was younger) so if anything happened I’m there. I’ve seen him swim his laps in the pool to be able to swim in the deep end and feel comfortable leaving him there while I relax in the hot tub with Z.

So to hear that something happened enough that the lifeguard literally had to dive in to save him? Disconcerting for lack of better word. The caller informed me he was doing fine now and was back in the water with a life jacket on now, but that it was just protocol to call the parents when that type of situation occurred. Uh duh. I should hope so!

She also told me that I should monitor his behaviour for the next three days for any flu like symptoms or sluggish behaviour that might indicate secondary drowning (or something like that, I was just trying to absorb everything she was saying). Either way, if I see anything different about him in the next few days, I have to take him immediately to the emergency as it might indicate that he inhaled water and is slowly drowning.

Grrrrreat.

Here I’m glad at the moment he’s ok. But there’s so many thoughts going through my head. In no random order, I hope he wasn’t to embarrassed. Little E is my sensitive and very easily embarrassed child and I can just imagine how being pulled from the water in front of his entire classroom and then being made to wear a life jacket after has affected him.

Next. How did it happen? I know he’s a good swimmer. So was he just fooling around with his friends and get pushed under? Or did he actually just wear out and start struggling on his own? Not that it matters in the end as I wouldn’t cast blame, but I like to know these things.

Also, should I be monitoring him 24/7? Like should I stay awake through the night? Or set hourly alarms to check in on him? Or is that paranoia speaking?

Next. Why the fuck do these things keep happening to my family.

Dear universe. That’s more than enough thank you very much.

But last, it made me realize that I could have lost my son today and there’s so many things I’ve failed to teach him still. There’s so many ways I’ve fucked up so far and it just made me think of all the things I had to fix before I die let alone him. I wasn’t ready. For the first time in my mind, I wasn’t ready for death. I’ve been prepared for my own death for whatever long now. I couldn’t care less, and had zero fear facing that. But to be faced with the death of my child before me? Thats the only thing that has terrified me in recent times this deeply. He’s not yet had a chance to experience anything deeply enough to die. I felt like if he died I would have failed in protecting him. That I didn’t ensure his success. There are too many ways to describe it, but basically I felt like I needed more time with him to set him up for a chance to discover his will to live and choose and die on his own.

And now is not that time.

-Dive/Steven Curtis Chapman-

On Top Of Spaghetti, All Covered With Cheese. I Lost My Poor Meatball When Somebody Sneezed. It Rolled Off The Table, And Onto The Floor

She was set free2 Comments

I’m sure EVERYONE will be thrilled to know I found the spaghetti.

Yesterday I sat down in my living room to read and my coworker sent me a text and just as I reached over for my phone I saw the corner of the container under the other arm chair

A chair both I and Little E looked under multiple times. So I called both the kids in from outside and had them sit in the chair saying I had a question for them. They were so excited thinking it was going to be a fun game. Instead, I asked them both what they thought was underneath the chair, but the weren’t allowed to look. I asked if they thought there was anything special about the chair they were sitting on, and if perhaps it was hiding something. I was trying so hard to get a read off their faces but honestly it was a wash.

They knew nothing. So finally I let them know that the missing green spaghetti container was under them, and they both needed to pick it up and deal with it.

So it was lost and now found, but I still don’t know it’s journey in between the fridge and the chair. If only spaghetti kept blogs.

I Wake Up In The Basement I’m So Hungry/ I Must Be Here Sleepwalking

She was set free6 Comments

How to explain the unexplainable.

Sunday night I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs with ceaser salad for dinner and the kids loved it. Everything was all good. So I decided to send the leftovers with them to daycare for lunch the next day. I asked Z to get out 2 containers for me to divide it up for them. She made a big deal about her getting the green lid one and Little E said he wanted the green one too, leaving the blue lid unclaimed (seems like a stupid detail but just wait). I ignored them hoping they would forget about it by the morning, a pick your battle kinda situation and just closed them up and made my salad in my own Tupperware, with a red lid for anyone keeping track. Then I stacked all three in the fridge, thinking nothing more about it.

Skip forward to Monday morning when I tell Little E to get their lunches ready and he says there’s only one spaghetti container in the fridge. I yell from the bathroom to look harder KNOWING I just put it in there last night, three Tupperware one on top of the other. You can’t miss it. A minute later he calls back saying it’s not there.

So I’m thinking he’s just being lazy and not seeing something that’s surely right in front of his nose, and I stomp off to the kitchen prepared to whip the door open and prove him wrong and find the green lidded container that had most likely dropped behind something and go one with our day. I open the fridge. I look. I can’t find it. I LOOOOOOK hard. It’s not there. I look in the freezer. It’s not there. I check kitchen cabinets. Nope. I look in the damn garbage. Nothing. I call Z thinking she might’ve possibly hid it in some secret place to ensure she got the green top. She has no clue. I might’ve gone over board on my interrogation techniques, because seriously wtf could it have gone, but I could tell both the kids had no clue, and as a mom you know if your kid is lying. So I let it go as far as them lying went.

Then, since I was running out of options I even went so far as to check to make sure all the outer doors to our house were locked (lol I know) to make sure no one came into our house in the middle of the night and indulged on my fantastic spaghetti and then left leaving everything else untouched. Locked, obviously. So now I’m left with sleep walking/eating? And I’m like 100% sure it’s not my kids since I hear when they get outta bed to use the washroom. Little E is in a metal bunk bed that makes hella noise when he moves let alone gets in and out. And Z just doesn’t understand how to open a door quietly. So was it me? Like honestly did I eat or hide this stupid container? I’m not sure about anything anymore.

So I give Little E my salad since we’re running out of time and I have to get to work. When we got home I started a mass hunt for this thing. I looked through the fridge thoroughly again, under couch cushions and beds. Double-checked all the cupboards and drawers. Backpacks and purses. Everywhere and anywhere I thought of I searched and I can’t find the stupid Tupperware. And I know I used it because it’s not in the cupboard clean. It’s not in the dishwasher. I remember the kids fighting over it.

So we have some proverbial fairy stealing pasta making me go crazy. But I honestly have no idea what happened to it, and I don’t want to find it in a week or two based on the rotting smell coming out of somewhere.

And if someone in my house IS sleep walking? Well that’s just a whole other level of stress I don’t have patience for.

– Alice Cooper / The Awakening –