Back By Popular Demand(meaning my sis wants a blog) July 31, 2009

It’s been a very long time since I posted anything new here. After being inundated by countless fans by text and email..he he he..I have decided the best way to stop the craze is to give the people what they want..and face it..the people want ME!

I have been living the American dream, that’s what I have been doin! I am unemployed and staying home this Summer with my three children. This is very rewarding, for without it, I would miss all the incessant bitching, fighting, name calling, hitting, grievances, whining and ingratitude..and that’s just ME!  The children divide there time evenly between antagonizing eachother, and antagonizing me, save a couple days they spent at the lake with my father. What was supposed to be a week became a little over 48 hrs. Maya missed her mama and Gavin failed to walk on water like his his eldest sister Chloe.

I was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the solitude but instead my time was spent filing police reports with the Holt and Ny PD in response to my ex posting a casual encounters add on Craig;s List..with my cell phone number! That’s right! For a good time call.”1-517-977-5151″…go ahead and try it, SICK BASTARDS! I have now ..unlisted cell and home numbers. Apparently booty calls begin around 10:05 p.m. in these here parts. So if any of you wonder what to expect? Abdul wants to know “what is you like for fun to do? and Travis? “I like long walks on the beach and your $#@!%%^^ in my ^%$@& and …stimulating conversation..of cours! Trevor?..oh Trevor. he doesn’t know what he wants so I suggest you curl up to “Lars and the Real Girl”, discover it’s Lars you really want, and move on!

I have been divorced from Maya’s flopping bag of douche and nozzle-father for 3 years and he still manages to infiltrate himself! It is maddening. I swear I could shit a better human being than he ever hopes to be. Enough of that though!

My sister had her kid finally! Jameson Dallas. You might remember from previous blogs that we were certain this was going to be thee longest pregnancy of OUR lives..and it lived up to it’s expectations. Did you know you could get carpal-tunnel from pregnancy? or that Pregnancy was a terminal condition and not a state of being at all? GEEZ! I don not know how, after 3 live births and two miscarriages that anything like that was possible..maybe I was too young to discover it or, maybe it’s cuz im from planet EARTH! I swear that girl didn’t know a mucus plug from an electrical plug! But she survived and with the help of her worthless husband, did create a handsome unassuming little gem!

Chloe still hates my guts but we still go to therapy. I have learned that there is no psycological cure for stupidity and pre-teen hormones so I arm her with knowledge and wait for her to fall flat on her face. Loving her is not hard at all, fighting the urge to perform shaken baby syndrome is another matter!

My father is adjusting well to widowhood. He finally stopped asking for my girlfriends phone numbers, stopped asking his ex wife to date him, and stopped asking my mom’s friends out. He just fishes now, putting a very literal claim on the old :”theres plenty of fish in the sea..or Camp Thornapple.

Sisterjen is LURV again. I am so happy for her. I was worried that with all the STD’s that are rampant she’d have trouble finding someone who didn’t have oh say..HERPES, but she did! And he is smart and funny and he loves her and her kid! I never doubted this would come to pass, as I LURV as well from the heart of my bottom!

That pretty much sums it up for me but I will be back! BIGGER AND BLACKER!

A Very Paper Christmas November 22, 2008

Last year I didn’t have the money to get a Christmas tree for my kids. I was really sad and disappointed in myself, fearing I had let the three of them down. I don’t remember if it was Jen or my mom, who suggested it, but whoever it was, the idea was to make a tree out of construction paper, and have the kids decorate it. I was embarrassed and mortified at what I believed to be thee biggest white trash idea anyone had ever thought of! I thought about how dumb my kids would think I was for doing such a D-list thing, but it was either the paper tree or no tree at all.

To make matters worse, when I finally screwed on the courage to go forward with the tree, I realized I had only notebook paper!!! No forest green to make the tree, no reds or green and yellows to make paper Christmas lights, nope, just your standard college rule!! Go Me! I said fuck it, and stuck the notebook paper to the sliding glass door, taping piece by piece, till what I thought, resembled a tree. As I was finishing it, I decided it didn’t look as good as the real thing, but nowhere near as bad as no-thing. I let the kids draw on lights and tinsel and they even made ornaments. I think they might have even had fun, too.

I missed the point completely, for an entire year almost until, just yesterday, my son said,”Hey Mom, you remember that tree we made last year as a family, that was pretty cool!” The sad thing is, no, I hadn’t remembered until the very moment he reminded me. Something I would have just as soon forgotten because of how it made ME feel, stuck with my kid, and gave him a special, lasting memory.

I did decide we will get a real tree this year, that I will make it happen no matter what, and we will all put it up and put the real lights and decorations too, as a family. Sometimes it is the stupidest, simplest, and most “white-trash, D-list stuff that makes a lasting and positive impression on the ones it matters most to.

Who knew that the “bottom of the barrel” could be so rewarding?

Welcome to Iwantsville November 21, 2008

Maya has been absorbed in the Spirit of getting  since the commercials for Christmas began about 2 weeks ago. Thank you, Meijer, Toys with a backward “r” Us, oh, and Target and Wall-Mart, too!! My kid has barely said anything not starting with the phrase,”Can I have..”, in days. I know it’s perfectly normal, and a bit cute, I admit, to see her so excited about the new stuff she might get, but, I don’t want her to forget the real meaning of Christmas. I am not a religious person, though I grew up in the Lutheran church my entire life, and still attend(infrequently) and my girls go to a Lutheran school. I do want my kids to realize that Jesus Birthday is what the real celebration is about. I think it puts things into perspective. I also think that during the holidays it is good to remind children that there are so many people that don’t get a tree, or presents, or even the chance to dream about a Christmas to remember. I think maybe that’s why Thanksgiving should be an even bigger deal than Christmas. We have a lot of shit to be thankful for, yet, we might gladly skip by it, just so on December 25th, we can get more stuff!

I have tons of Christmas memories,  all usually involving a fight at some point between dinner and the annualChristmas game, and, it was my moms favorite time of year. I swear she started shopping on Valentines Day. She gave the best stocking stuffers ever! Forget clementines and nuts(sorry Gramms), I am talking perfume, lotions, Sephora, Philosophy, gift cards, jewelry…and she always found that one thing she knew you really wanted the most! I cherish the times, we all got locked out of certain rooms, and we could hear presents being wrapped, and scotch- tape ripping and ribbons being tied. I remember the sound of laughter and the twinkle in my mothers eyes.

That twinkle. I am going to miss her presence, and feel it all around me at the same time. I am going to put that Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving, just like mom made us promise we would, hang the ornaments she adored, and remind my kids of the magic that my mom always showed me.

The one hump we have as a family, is my dad. I was telling my friend, Rachel about him tonight. I understand it’s his first Christmas without his wife, and there is no way of getting around the fact that she is gone, but I am so afraid he isn’t even going to try to bring just a little to the table for us  kids, and we need that. I need him to go shopping and hang tinsel and stockings. I know he won’t and I am angry about that. I told him today that I would help him figure out what gifts to get who and help organize things, but he is all sad and teary eyed, and I wish I could help him understand that it’s important that he be what we need right now. I asked him what he would like for Christmas this year and he says,”It doesn’t even matter about that…not anymore.”

I know my mom, and I know how she did Christmas, and I know I am not her, but I also think that it would be honoring her, and the traditions of our childhood, if we embraced her memory instead of embracing our grief. I miss my mom, and I cry my share, more than that probably, but I will not spoil my kids magic, I won’t! I will take in all the I wants and can I haves that I can muster, if only to see a twinkle in the eyes of my kids this Season.

Baby Talk November 17, 2008

My sister Mikki, who is thirty, is expecting her first baby. If you knew my sister you would see why this is going to be as onehotjen put it,”thee looooongest nine months of our lives!!!” You see, Mik has dogs, not kids. The only practice she has had in nurturing, is when she wrangles one of her Shitzu’s to put on a new sweater. She doesn’t like messes and it takes her 3 hrs to get ready to take the trash to the dumpster.

I remember her saying several years back, and I quote,”I will NEVER have children after I saw what it did to you and Jen!” This is why I hope she gets a huge ass on her 5′4 inch frame(she weighs about 115 lbs). And this is why I hope she gets hemorrhoids, heartburn, motion-sickness and gives birth to a 15 lb. baby…SIDEWAYS. She calls me all the time with questions like,”My back and tummy are hot(but my hands are ice-cold), is that normal?” Today I unfortunately missed a call from her. When I called her back, she couldn’t talk, but whispered,” I can’t say it now but there was something going on dnthr, but I am good now.”

I’m sorry, I said, but what’s: dnthr? “You know… down there?”, she responded in just a bit above a whisper. I knew what she said the first time, but she is such a prude, I had to make her wiggle a little. Hehe.

I actually don’t mind too much about the questions, it’s just that she acts like she was given a death sentence to an unheard of phenomenon! I want her to be able to come to me and ask anything, I know if mom was here she would be asking her, but I guess the fact that I have been having kids since I was like 12…not really(17) and I have a medical degree, she assumes I know everything.

There is so much I don’t know. For instance, sex can be kinda messy ya know, how could she possibly survive it? I bet she keeps wet napps on the night stand and an industrial size fan on high, so she doesn’t sweat! Okay, I’m mean, but she is something else entirely.

I am excited about the baby shower. I havent discussed it with my siblings yet, but we havent had a baby in our family since Maya, and that was in 2003! It may sound bad, but I think this little baby will be a welcome distraction from all the sad going around. I hope so.

 

 

I Survived and other Juicy Bits… November 16, 2008

WE DID IT!! 24 hours with my kid and not one single blow-out!  Everything went according to plan. We watched movies and had a lot of fun. I am so relieved. Of course there were a few sibling battles, but that’s cake compared to what I thought might happen. Maya was happy to have her big sis around and they were nice to each other until bed time when there routines were out of sync, so Maya slept in my bed and Chloe was left in the other room, and all was well once again.

This gives me hope. I took her back to my dad’s and I am sure he will ruin her again, but I think I have the upper hand on this situation little by little. I want her to come back home, I just don’t want to rush it, and have things fall back into chaos.

Paul is on his way home from Charlevoix, not sure how I feel about this yet. He did not call me a single time the entire weekend  and I find this to be a bit odd. He has this weird quirk, when he is around other people he won’t talk. We will be having half a conversation on the phone but if someone walks into the room….nothing. I can always tell when he has an audience because it’s silent. This drives me nuts!! He is a VERY private person, but come on, ya know? We have very separate lives, he does his thing i do mine, if we come together at some point that’s good with him, if we don’t..oh well. When he is with me he won’t even answer his phone if people call, sometimes for an entire weekend. If he is with friends, he doesn’t answer my calls. Separate, divided,yours, mine, this and that, no “ours”. This is getting really old after 2 years!!

He gets on my nerves. Everything is a “crisis”, I am so sick of hearing,( I’m in a crisis babe!), that I could throw up in my mouth. He is the only person I know in this planet that cannot handle more than one thing at a time. It’s either this “crisis” or that “crisis” but please don’t suggest he make it plural, he is liable to spontaneously effing combust! 

His mother passed away five weeks prior to my own mothers death, and they had a very special relationship. I had only met her a few times, and since her death I have often wondered what that woman could have possibly said to make thing okay in his world? I don’t want to be his mother, but I fear that that’s what happened, as i have afore-blogged. I got the impression that he may have been a bit of a MAMA’S BOY, but it could very well just be that she could talk him out of his tree when he acted like Chicken Little,”the sky is falling the sky is falling”!!! I may never know.*eyes rolling*

Not sure I want to know anymore, it’s one of those thing’s I am trying to work out in my litlle pea brain…sigh!

Sans men weekend… November 15, 2008

No men this weekend…save Gavin, cuz he is just a little man. Paul is gone to visit his dad up North, dad is hunting for horned beasts, so it’s just me and muh girls…yes Chloe too, and Gav. I am really excited about this. I had lunch with Jen and my buddy Rachel and I shopped and then I took the kids over to play seen it on TV( Rachel’s house). I got to sleep in bed with Maya, which I really miss when Paul is in town.

I am a bit nervous about the longevity of Chloe’s stay, but I am hopeful. I have it all planned out. I am going to make a yummy spaghetti dinner with three cheese bread loaves, and ice cream for dessert and we will all watch Kit Kittridge..I made Gav promise to not throw a fit over a chic flick, and he said he would cope, just for Chloe…he is a good boy!

I am not afraid of my daughter, I love her, I just know that sometimes she flips her lid on me and then there is no going back. I learned in our last session, to scoop her up and not let go when she acts like that. “Just put your arms around her and tell her you are not going to let her hurt us.”(us meaning me and Chloe)

I am not sure if “put your arms around her” is code for “restrain her till she stops kicking you”, or what but I am willing to try. She just arrived so I must attend to her..let ya know how it plays out…

All kinds of Frustrated November 13, 2008

I am in a funk like no other right now. I am unhappy and irritable and disappointed, and yes, Jen, I AM taking my meds!! Most of my problems are things I can fix if I had the balls to, some of them are circumstantial, which at some point, were probably my fault as well.

I feel very alienated from my family, and I miss my Friends that I can’t see on a regular basis. I am in a very dull and unsatisfying relationship that I want out of, but when I say things like,” I am not happy, or I think I need a break”, they don’t seem to stick. Not sure if he just does not want to hear it or what the deal is, but “enough” seems to not hold much weight, or maybe I need to be mean? I don’t want to be mean or end things badly, I don’t think it’s necessary and I don’t want to lose his friendship, not that I am all that convinced that we are friends anyway..I don’t know.

He is like a fourthchild,(like Taco Bell’s Fourthmeal advertisement..it looks good, you want, it but don’t really need it) and I don’t need that shit. I have allowed this to turn into what it has evolved into, but now I feel like there is no way out. I wish I could do SOMETHING with grace and diplomacy like my sister does, but I’m not built like that. I envy her so much it hurts. She is everything I wish I was and know I can never be. We all say that we aren’t going to be like our parents were, and we mean it, but we always end up doing it anyway. Not her. She made a conscious choice long ago about who she was going to be in this world, and she owned it. She doesn’t get all wrapped up in other peoples drama, and I know she will tell me my post is bull shit, and I need to quit being a big wanker. I hate it when she does that because I really just need a mother who will tell me it’s going to be okay. I am not saying that what she does say and do has no value because it does, or that she should be my mother,(she is soooo good at it though) because it’s not her job.. I just prefer to have her say what I want to hear, and that’s not her way.

She said to me about my issues with Chloe, my oldest,” You need to be the mother she needs you to be.” But, I don’t know how. I need a mother, and I don’t have her anymore. My mom played such a vital role in her life that I don’t know how I fit. But I want to be the mom she needs and deserves. I wish mom was here so badly, and I wonder when it’s going to stop hurting so much. I did not have a great relationship with my mother, we were too much alike, and we both had to have the last word, but there were times when we really bonded and understood each other, and unfortunately they were too far and few between… I would like to think that if she was here, she would have some good advice for me, at least that makes me feel better.

It’s the holidays too. The “firsts” are coming up. The first thanksgiving, her first birthday, the first Christmas, all the firsts without her. Then on top of that is the first baby, not mine don’t freak, but my sister Mikki, is having her first baby, and I wanted to be happy for her, but as soon as she told me I was immediately sad. I started crying, not because I am not happy for her, but because I am sad that my mom wont be here to see it.

On a high note, Chloe and I had session three and it was very good. It was the first time she actually showed anger toward me in front of the Dr. and I was actually grateful for it! Finally someone can see things for what they truly are. I actually think I need the therapy more than my daughter does, but I will only say that here. After the appointment she came back to my house and had lunch and we watched a movie and it was nice. We talked about her grades, and how proud I was of her effort and good marks..she is a very good student, always has been. Next is once a week sleepovers, little steps toward wranggling her backinto the fold!

I have my second interview tomorrow for the site coordinator position with the traveling physicians, and I am really excited. I need this job, but will try not to act like I NEED THIS JOB!!! So pray for me or think good thoughts, I would like to feel good vibes during this interview.

I would truly benefit from having a girls weekend with my sister, I don’t know how she feels about it, but sometimes she is just the softest place to drop my stupid head. I hope someday I can do the same for her…whenever she decides it’s OK to drop a little, just not completely on her face like her lil’ sis!!

Rocking The Vote..(or tipping it on it’s side) November 5, 2008

Well, Geezers, John, THAT wasn’t  mavericky at all, by golly!

I didn’t vote for Obabma, not that it matters one bit, seeing as the Rest of America did. So okay, I have no choice but to roll with it. I will say that it was an awesome time in history for all people to see the first black president, we have come far, but really, whomever you are, you got a lot of work to do, so get on it.

THat’s all I got..

Reinventing the Feel! November 2, 2008

My sister recently had the rug pulled out from under her when her “husband” decided to lose his mind and “find himself”. Now she finds herself moved in to the basement apartment of our fathers with her son Holden, and she is really taking the whole thing in stride. Most people who get separated do it selfishly, angrily, thoughtlessly, but not my Jen! Her reaction to the whole ordeal, though don’t get me wrong, tears have been shed, has been reminiscent of my mothers attitude each and every time she was handed a death sentence with cancer: “Well this sucks, but ok, I can do this!”

So, yesterday she got all moved, and then she bought the paint colors she wanted for her new digs, and we painted! What was once a dingy, abandoned space, is now what she lovingly refers to as her “Tiffany Box.”

“Does’nt it look Just like a Tiffany Box”, “I mean wow, I love my new Tiffany Box”. And it does, elegant and sophisticated, just like my sister. It has a cottage feel to it and it is hers and she loves it, like one might love, oh, I dunno, a..Tiffany Box!

The point is simple, we cannot choose our circumstances always, but we can decide how we handle it. While she may have wanted to come completely undone and be vindictive,( vindictive being my suggestion) she chose to roll with it and do what she felt would make her happiest with her son. I am very proud of her for rising above all the cliche separated/divorced behavior. As she said before ,” He’s (the “Tool”) not the only one in this relationship with options.”

Girls got heels of steel!

goul morning! October 31, 2008

Conversation with Maya (she’s this many…5):

Mama, in the morning can you wake up the VERY FIRST time your eyes open, it’s Halloween tomorrow, you have to make me Minnie Mouse?!

I did wake up THE VERY FIRST time my eyes opened, because it was 6 a.m. and she was knocking ever so slightly on my door, whispering,”Mom,hey Mom, my costume is on your dresser, and I don’t want no black nose, just makeup on my eye lids and lips and face, but not my nose.”

So began my mourning. I was really excited because this was like Christmas to her. She is quite possibly the prettiest, noseless Minnie Mouse I have ever seen! I wanted to eat her cheeks, like when she was a baby.

Gav got ready himself in his Indiana Jones gear, hat, lasso, the whole get up. I tried to re-create a goatee, but he said I was no good at it and went and washed it off. Oh well, here’s to trying.

Chloe is staying with my dad but I wanted her to come early so I could do her face. She is Ruby the Pirate. I thought it would be really fun, but she showed up all bent out of shape because” These fish-nets are not working, they look stupid! I want another costume!”

Slow your row little sister, that ain’t happenin!!..She flipped out awhile longer, but we worked it all out. Everybody is off to school for field trips to Peacock Farm and loads of candy. Poor teachers!

Hope everyone has a safe and spooky night!!