The overwhelming darkness

This time of year has been hard for me since I was 18.  For the longest time I wanted nothing to do with decorating for Christmas, or celebrating it, or even seeing the decorations plastered in all the stores I had to shop in for the necessities.

One month before I turned 18 my Gramma died.  It had been a long process and thanks to shared intuition between me and my Mom we made the decision for me to go see her before my intended summer visit.  That visit was my chance to say "goodbye" and I'm so glad I took it even though the phone call a week after I got home truly shattered my heart.  I remember the exact song that was playing on my radio when the phone rang at 5am.  I remember what I did that day with a clarity I wish wasn't there.  I would love to forget that day completely but my tender heart won't allow it.

Considering I am 30 this year, it has been 12 years since I lost Gramma.  Many people would say that I should be past this heartache by now.  If this were my only heartache maybe I would be, but there have been so many since then that they have all just compiled to make one giant heartache that I can't banish or move beyond.

Not only have I lost Gramma, but I lost my Uncle Roy too.  My house should also have more kids in it than it does, six more to be precise, but only one other with a name.  I've also been raped by the man I chose to marry and be the father of all of those children, and have since divorced him.

Then there are my health problems, both old and those newly discovered.  I've known since I was 20 that I had endometriosis and while it is an awful disease to live with, I HAVE learned to live with it.  I know the risks it poses to my fertility but when it comes to risks to me personally there really aren't any.  In addition to the endo, I broke my foot two years ago and it has been causing me pain ever since.  I recently had an appointment with a doctor down here in CO and she informed me that due to the type of fracture I had, the docs I had at the time should have done surgery immediately.  If they had I would have significantly less pain, possibly none at all.  Instead most steps I take are at least achy if not downright agony.  Again, while awful to live with, its not life-threatening so I'm managing.

There is one newly discovered health problem that terrifying me.  It was discovered when I went in to sign up for a drug trial for a new drug that controls endo pain.  Part of their medical screening to make sure the subjects are healthy enough for the drug is an EKG.  Basically a scan of your heart to make sure its working the way it should.  Mine came back abnormal 11 times before they gave up and sent me to a cardiologist.  So, no drug to help my endo pain and now suddenly I'm being told there is something wrong with my heart.  As much as it would devastate me to lose the capability to get pregnant again and carry our growing child, I would rather all of my reproductive organs be removed than have there be something wrong with my heart.  But I don't get a choice.  It is likely thanks to something, a virus getting me so sick that it damaged my heart, happening to me when I was a teenager and we just never knew about it because I have no symptoms that stand out from my asthma or heartburn.  But now I am being told I have congestive heart failure.  At 30.

My heart is so full of loss and heartache that it is sometimes hard to see through the overwhelming darkness of it all to the light that has been growing in me and my life lately.

I try to remember how loved I am now.  I try to remember that our family is in a better situation now than it was up in WA.  I try to remember that my kids are healthy and thriving here.  I try so hard, but it is becoming increasingly harder to see the light.

I am hopeful that after this holiday season is over and I don't have to pretend to be happy all the time that I will actually be able to process things better, maybe even seek out therapy.  I know I need to take care of myself but I don't even have it in me to do it for myself.  If I do therapy at all, it'll be for the benefit of my children and my love, L.

Worries of a Kindergarten Mom: Home he comes.

We have made the decision to pull C from school.  He likes his teacher, loves learning, and wants to make friends but its the last one that's not working out.  In fact, in his desire to fit in with his classmates and make friends he is bringing home some very upsetting stories and behaviors.  These stories include him getting shoved down or tripped on the playground, getting punched in the nose in the library, and getting smacked in the face in class and those behaviors are being relived here at home in his interactions with his sister, only R is on the receiving end.

To make the reasoning behind our decision to pull C from that environment and find another schooling method for him clear, let me explain a bit about our boy.  He is sweet and tender-hearted, always the first to comfort somebody if he knows they're sad.  He is very eager to please and he loves helping with things because he knows it makes whoever he is helping happy.  He is also a joker, always trying to make people laugh.  Lately he hasn't been any of those things, if anything he has been the opposite of most of them.  Between the physical bullying and the emotional effects its having on him it wasn't worth losing who he really is just to keep him in school.

Snow day for R so she is joining C in school today.  And Houdini is "helping"
(he attacked R's pencil moments later)

We started homeschooling this week and so far it has been a success.  After a week off for Thanksgiving vacation, a week away from the bullies, he's already showing signs of improvement behaviorally and emotionally.  Signs, mind you, nothing huge yet but I am truly hoping that with more time the damage done will be reversed.  We've done 3 days of school so far and every day he says he loves it.  Today he wasn't feeling too good in the morning, and we had snow falling, so he was completely distracted.  By this evening he was feeling much better and started doing school stuff all on his own just because he loves to learn.  I can't wait until we get in a groove with the three Rs (reading, writing, arithmetic) so that we can branch out and add in other fun things more regularly.

Short post about something so huge, I know, but talking about the whole situation still infuriates me beyond belief and I try hard to follow the old teaching, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  Maybe after we've gotten a bit of time and distance away from the whole situation I'll be able to talk more on it but for now I'd just like to try and focus on the positives of today.

Innocent love and compassion.

Today on the way home from picking R up from preschool I was given proof of just the type of girl she is and I couldn't be prouder.

R: "That man with the hat, I just want to hug him!"

Me: I notice a homeless man sitting outside the little corner store we're stopping at and ask her "The man in front of the store?"

R: "Yes! I want to hug him!" She's getting very excited now.

Me: I park the car and as we're walking into the store she holds out her hand to him, he looks to me to make sure its okay and I just smile at him and ask him, "She wants to give you a hug, is that okay?"

The man: With a look of shock and joy on his face he answers, "Of course! God bless her!" And he got a classic R bear hug.

Once inside, R informs me she wants to give him lunch and tells me to get him a sandwich. Instead we get him a loaf of bread and some lunch meat. When we come back out and give it to him, she has a gigantic smile on her face and the man was speechless for a moment before thanking us. I told him it was her idea and he just beamed at her. 

Now, if I haven't mentioned before, R is only 3.5 years old.  And somehow she innately knows that feeding somebody who looks hungry is just the right thing to do and that a hug can brighten somebody's day. I am in awe of my baby girl today.

Me in church?

Until last Sunday I had not willingly gone to church since I was 18 years old (I'm now 30).  Sure I'd been in churches for friends' choir performances or rummage sales and, quite sadly, for a few funerals as well.  But I hadn't actually attended a service in over 12 years until we packed the kids into the car last week and dove right in.

If you're wondering why I haven't been to church in so long, the short story is that I just didn't feel comfortable going anymore.  The longer story is that after I graduated high school a lot of my friends in the church went off to college and when I tried going back after my first failed attempt at college, it just wasn't the same.  About that time I was also realizing that maybe mainstream Christianity wasn't my cup of tea for various reasons.  Not the least of which being that I'd fallen in love with one girl and was trying really hard to convince myself that my friend J was really just that.  Add in that I'd been slowly feeling more drawn to earth-centered religions and I was just a walking ball of sin.  I was convinced that if anybody ever found out they'd kick me out of the church, so it was just easier to leave on my own terms.

So, like my realization about my sexuality, my shift in religious beliefs wasn't just a phase.  I loosely follow an eclectic mix of Pagan traditions and don't really belong to just ones.  I also still believe in God, though my feelings on Jesus are mixed.  Essentially I believe in the christian God, but I also believe that he is not alone.  I observe the changing of the seasons, I talk to the moon as well as pray to God.

After reading all of that I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're confused about why I'm going back to church.  Well, mostly the answer is that it's just time.  I've been feeling really disconnected lately, not from my immediate family exactly but more like that I'm missing a sense of belonging to something bigger than just us.

L and I found a Unitarian Universalist church here in town and because L has been to UU churches in the past and has always felt comfortable attending them we decided to check that one out.  Before we went I had a chance to do a little homework (aka: ask the great Google) on UU churches in general, and especially the values and beliefs they hold.  Considering that they are not only accepting of my non-christian beliefs but integrate them into services, as well as the fact that they are LGBT friendly, I'm pretty sure this is going to be the kind of church we'll be attending from now on.  Also, whether we continue to attend the tiny UU church here in town, or travel 45 minutes to attend one of the bigger ones in the next sizable town/city is not decided yet.  The one here is certainly convenient, and the people of the congregation were all lovely and welcoming, but the congregation is older (more my mom's age) and I was really hoping for at least a few people our age with kids closer to C & R's age.  As it is we are the only people in their 20s/30s that attended last weekend, we'll see how this weekend goes because we're going back in the morning.  Who knows, even if no other younger people are part of the congregation this might just be our new church home.

Best surprise ever.

So when I wrote this post back in August about hoping to someday get married to my sweetie, I was expecting there to be a super long wait before she was even ready for one of us to pop the question.  Well, she surprised the heck out of me and last night after a pretty serious conversation about kids and marriage she got down on one knee and asked!  For lack of proper planning time, neither of us had an actual engagement ring handy for the other so we just exchanged our personal rings that we each wear on a daily basis and then we made a few phone calls and sent a few messages.  Today we've told a few more people but we haven't made a big general announcement yet as we're wanting to make sure all the important people (aka people who will get offended if they find out on Facebook) are told personally first.

As of yet we have almost no details worked out.  No date, no specific location (though we know it'll be in WA), and only one wedding party member confirmed because she's L's best friend and L couldn't help but ask her today when she called her to share the good news.   We also know we'll be using her grandmother's wedding bands (set aside for us by her cousin A), and that we won't be having a strict color theme.  While I'll probably be in a blue dress and her in a suit, L's maid of honor will be almost guaranteed to be in pink.  Its going to be a crazy fun mish-mash of clothes and people but I think its going to be amazing.  Especially if her cousin A helps me plan it like I'm sure she's dying to.

L keeps expecting me to break down in tears of happiness, and while I'm sure I will on the day (whenever that happens to be) right now I'm just so darn happy that I can't hardly stop smiling.  I'm also still in shock that it was her that popped the question instead of me, and that it was so soon, but in my heart I always hoped it would be her asking.  With her uncertainties and hesitance about marriage, up until now, I always wanted to ask but knew it would be better if I let her ask on her own time.  And apparently that time just happened to be last night.

Life turned upside down

So, shortly after my last post we made a very unpleasant discovery about our rental house that we moved into in July.  I'd been getting nasty blistered bug bites starting a couple weeks after we moved here and we thought it was just mosquitoes or some nasty flies.  It wasn't.  What it turned out to be, we discovered after we sprayed for possible fleas, was bedbugs.  Yep.  Bedbugs.  Is your skin crawling at the idea?  Mine is too.  Even now, knowing the house has been sprayed, my skin still crawls.

If you're wondering just what about yucky bedbugs have to do with my life being turned upside down, let me explain.  Those blistered bug bites were an allergic reaction to the bugs, which considering I'm allergic to other kinds of bugs and lots of other things (plants, animals, dust, etc.), isn't really all that surprising.  Unpleasant and annoying, but not surprising.  Most people their story with bedbugs would end as soon as you get the house sprayed.  Unfortunately, its extremely expensive to spray for bedbugs when a house is inhabited because all of the furniture and personal belongings of the people need to be sprayed too.  Our landlord balked at the price, offered to try DIY bedbug remedies, but eventually agreed to the professionals doing it so that C would have a minimum of upset now that he's settling in.

The day came for the first spraying and we stayed out as long as they told us, plus a couple extra hours so by all rights everything should have been fine.  After being home for less than an hour I noticed an odd burning sensation on my face by my mouth and over the next 3 hours it continued to spread up my face to my eyes, ears and throat.  It got uncomfortable for me to swallow, and was starting to get difficult to breathe when finally L and my mother convinced me it was time to go to the ER.  Turns out I was having an allergic reaction to the spray that was used to kill the bugs I was having an allergic reaction to...

We slept at L's office that night and then the next morning we called the exterminator to find out just what was going on with me and what we should do.  His suggestion: get a lawyer and stay out of the house.  When we asked how long it would take for the chemicals I was having a reaction to to wear off he told us three months after each treatment.  Because of the level of infestation in our house (apparently for over a year before we moved in, unknown to the landlord because the last tenants were just awful) we were going to need three treatments with the last one being a month and a half after the first one.  If I've confused you and you're trying to do the math for just how long this means I'm supposed to stay out of the house it is going to end up being about 4.5 months from the first treatment until I'm able to move back in.

Yeah...

So for the past week I've been living in a tent in the backyard, only running into the house long enough to use the bathroom and to shower when absolutely necessary.  I can't cook for my family, can't tuck my kids into bed, can't snuggle up on the couch with my partner and watch movies (let alone share a bed).  Its been a nightmare.  My depression is setting in hard being separated from them like I am, and I'm just in the backyard.  Because of it being fall and the weather starting to change, even this situation isn't good enough because it gets absolutely frigid at night.  Our landlord offered to let us rent a little two bedroom place a few blocks over for cheaper than he'd normally rent it just because its his house that is causing my health issues.  Unfortunately even a cheap rental, when you add on utilities, is way more than our budget can stretch to cover.  Not to mention I'd be totally separated from the kids and alone except for my dog.

In steps my friend B with an offer for me to stay at her house while we wait for my house to be livable for me again.  This will save us hundreds of dollars and I won't be alone, but I'll still be without my kids and my love.  My mom has offered to take the kids to school in the mornings so I'll just do pick-ups and then come over to the house and hang out outside during the day.  Its going to be hard, but its a better solution than me living outside in bad weather, or living in a house completely alone.

I just can't wait until my life is back to normal.  I didn't move 1600 miles to be separated from my family.

Family

There is something special about the relationship L and C have with each other.  She has loved him even when she and I weren't allowed to talk to each other, before he even knew she existed she loved him.  And just last week, after a year and a half of her being in his life, and 8 months of her living with us, something heart-melting happened.  L sums it up best with her post on onesentence.org "The first time he called me "Mom", he was snuggling with me on the couch and then followed it up with "This is the best day.""  Something tells me she felt the very same way. 

The dynamic duo R & C posing on R's first
day of pre-school.

Our family is settling in nicely here in Colorado and despite all the big changes in their lives the kids are doing especially well.  They love having friends they get to play with all the time, R especially loves school, C is adjusting to school slowly but surely.  Best of all though is that a lot of C's behavior issues seem to be mellowing.  He's still got a lot of the 4/5 year old boy moodiness and limit testing going on, but the extreme temper tantrums and things of those ilk have pretty much gone by the wayside.  The fact that C is actually feeling safe enough in our new life to call L "Mom" makes me feel like just maybe uprooting their whole lives was worth it.  

Even R is starting to call L "Mama" pretty regularly and that melts my heart too.  They love her, and they are starting to realize that she's really sticking around.  For preschool, R was asked to draw a picture of her family and she managed it pretty well.  There are 5 different colored stick figures and her teacher labeled them all according to who R told her they were.  There was Brother, Mommy, Mama, Mimi(my mom) and RyRy.  Our current living situation may not be "normal" but at least the kids know they are loved.

Speaking of our living situation, I now know we aren't the only two mom family at the kids' school!  I saw another one yesterday when picking R up from pre-school, they were there to get their son from the 4 year old class.  It may not seem like a lot to some people, but knowing we aren't the only family like ours at the school is really reassuring.  Looks like we aren't as alone as I've been feeling after all.

**Author's note: Please forgive me if this post seems a bit jumbled, I'm sick as a dog and operating on not nearly enough sleep.  The second I'm used to, add the first in and well... **

What the heart wants

Back in March I wrote about what marriage equality meant to me and while it wasn't a long post it touched on how I truly feel about marriage equality.  Over the past five months as more states have been added to the list of those that allow same-sex marriages, and since moving from that does to one that only has domestic partnerships, I've had a lot of time to think.  I know, I know, that's where the burning smell is coming from.  Really though, I've thought a lot about this.

L and I are incredibly happy how we are.  For all intents and purposes we are living like we're married already but the truth of it is that we're not.  While us not being married really doesn't affect us at all in our personal lives and how we interact with each other I still want to be.  I want it so badly.  Yep, there it is for all the world to see, I want to marry my silly, compassionate, wonderful L.  I've always been a believer in second chances and what L and I have now is one huge second chance, one that I want to enjoy to its fullest and with no regrets.  I dream of the day that I will be able to call her my wife.

However, the catch here is that while L isn't opposed to the idea of marriage, she just isn't ready.  There is a lot to take into consideration before we take that plunge and I can understand why she wants to take her time to think it all over.  If it were just her and me involved in this whole thing it might be an easier decision for her, but we are raising two kids together as well (mine biologically but hers in heart which matters just as much!).  She wants to make sure that whatever decision we make will do right by C & R, as well as me and her.  There are also other things she needs to be able to take time thinking about too, and as ready as I am to throw all caution to the wind and just go for it I really admire her for wanting to be confident in her decision.

So, while my heart gets all warm and fuzzy and my eyes get misty at wedding stories, pictures and videos, I will just keep dreaming for now.  It may not be tomorrow, but hopefully someday in the relatively near future my lips will get to say the words that my heart already has and we will be able to share our love with our closest friends and family in a ceremony that is just as quirky and full of love and laughter as our life together already is.  I can't wait to see what our future holds!

Worries of a Kindergarten Mom: Where to even start?

Well, the post-move/before-start-of-school insanity is kicking in.  The house isn't fully unpacked yet, getting C enrolled in a school close to our house was a nightmare, and we're dead broke.  Yay!  

Okay, so maybe that yay really does make me seem crazy but I'm really beginning to feel it.  This move was killer on our finances and while I don't regret making it for an instant, the fact that it cost us nearly twice as much to move here as we expected, and that we're still paying on the house we left in WA until October 1st, means that buying school supplies and uniforms (yep, both kids' schools require uniforms instead of regular clothes) is going to be incredibly hard.  Can you feel my stress levels rising yet?  If you can't, just keep reading.

Even if we were still in WA and our finances weren't so dire I'd still be feeling the crazies right about now, however.  The impending upheaval in our family's daily lives is going to change everything.  Both kids will be going to school for the first time in only a matter of weeks.  My house will be empty of chatter, and screaming, and giggles for at least 3 hours a day while both kids are gone, and then even after R gets home from preschool its still going to be strangely quiet because by herself she's quiet as a mouse most of the time.  Then, once they're both home there is going to be homework to be done and stories to be told of their days spent away from me.  That'll be cool, but really weird.  

While I am excited for both C & R to go to school, because they are both so excited, I'm also getting pretty anxious as well.  I had sincerely hoped that both kids would be in the same school but as things have worked out they just won't be.  This means instead of one set of parents, teachers, and staff to get used to and try and fit in with I will have two sets.  Instead of only having to worry about how our kids would be accepted at one school for having two mommies who don't happen to be incredibly religious I'm now faced with two.

On the whole, I love our new city and our new life here.  But this whole school thing has me more than a little nervous.  I have no idea when the proper time is to mention to the kids' teachers that, oh by the way, I'm not their only mommy.  When I was doing C's enrollment papers the other day I think is when this hit me.  There were questions asking about who the child lives with, and what those people's relationships were to the child.  There were places for "parent/guardian #1" and "parent/guardian #2" and a third place for "parent the child doesn't live with".  It was cool, but a bit startling that the forms weren't just limited to mom and dad but that they made it pretty generic for any possible parenting combination.

When I got home from enrolling C, and the two of us being given the grand tour by one of the lovely secretaries, L asked me if I had mentioned that C had two mommies and I immediately felt bad that I hadn't.  If anybody actually takes the time to read the forms it will be crystal clear that he does, but it never came up in conversation and I was honestly too nervous to say anything.  I don't want C's first experience with school to have a shadow hanging over it before he even starts just because of who I love and am planning on spending my life with.  R is a lot more durable than her brother when it comes to change and not a whole lot phases her so even if there are issues at her school as well I have a feeling I will be able to cope with those better than if there are some at C's school.

My big worry right now is how/when to tell people about our family.  Where do I even start?  With the kids' teachers?  With the super sweet secretary?  With the principal?  With another parent?  A secondary worry I have has to do with those annoying money issues I mentioned earlier.  Most of the local assistance groups that help with school supplies and uniform costs are religious groups.  And while I wish it wasn't the case, I know that many of those groups do not like or approve of our type of family and I honestly would feel horribly awkward even going to them for assistance in the first place.  

Luckily I have L.  She's not much of a social butterfly, much like myself, but at least she is better able to handle my worries than I am.  She's the more level headed of the two of us by far.  I know that even if things do get rocky at either of the kids' schools she'll be able to help me not overreact too much.  I just wish I had at least one connection to a family like ours here, that way I could hopefully talk to other parents who have been through the worries I'm going through right now that could laugh and tell me everything will be just fine. 

We survived the move!

We made it to Colorado all in one piece!  Tired and cranky and ready to just settle into our new house, but we made it.  Two weeks ago.  Why haven't I posted this sooner?  Because trying to get settled in has been something of a chore.  We are quickly discovering that trying to squeeze two fully furnished houses into one is quite the challenge.  Not to mention our new abode is riddled with problems from the last tenants.  Our poor (but amazing!) landlord has been practically spending his days here for the past week trying to get it up to snuff.  He feels awful that we moved in with it in such awful condition but we don't mind too much.  It just means that he's more than happy for us to do little improvements around the place to make it nicer and more our own.  I honestly don't see us leaving here the whole time we're in Pueblo unless something even better comes up.

On top of the house problems I've been fighting with my once-broken foot.  It has been causing me a lot of pain and just the other night I kicked one of our boxes of stuff destined for the thrift store.  Today is day three since doing that and I'm only just now able to put my full weight on it again.  My down time from my foot means that the mountain of boxes hasn't shrunk at all since I hurt it.  We have unpacking and projects to get done but I just can't be on my foot for long.  Its so incredibly frustrating.

Despite the issues we've been dealing with, I'm really coming to love our new hometown.  I've got two amazing friends here, both of whom have kids the same ages as C & R so they've got friends here too.  We live a block from one big park, and two from a smaller one.  The big one just behind our house has a pool and a free splash park (fountains for the kidlets to splash around in) and both have nice play equipment.  There is a zoo not far away, a children's museum, and so many different activities for the kids that I just can't wait to have the time to get them involved in something.

Speaking of time, we've got just over three weeks until C's first day of Kindergarten and 1 month until R's first day of Pre-K!  I can't believe both of our kids are starting school this year, its just so strange.  They are both super excited about going to school though so I'm excited for them.  Just need to figure out where to get uniforms and find their school supply lists and get them ready.  Also need to change our address with the school district and hopefully get C into a school closer to our house.  As it is, the one he's enrolled at now is a 10+ minute drive from our house and since both he and R will need to be dropped off at/by 8am at different schools that'll be horribly inconvenient.  Oh well, the school district doesn't open up again until the 5th of August so I guess I'll just have to wait.

There are so many things left to do before we're totally settled but at least we're here.  Our family is back together (with the addition of my mom) and even though they talk to him a couple nights a week on Skype, the kids are finally adjusting to just living with L and me.  The stability of being in just one house is proving a good thing for them, just like we thought it would.  C is having fewer accidents at night and is being a little less defiant and R, well she's three so she's just going to be crazy for a while no matter what.  Over-all the stress on everybody seems to have lessened since we got here.  I miss our friends and family back in WA, but so far CO is proving to be a great fit for our family.

A little reprieve

This whole getting packed up and ready to move 1500 miles thing is rough.  Its even harder when the one person that would be the biggest support to me is already in our new hometown working her new job.  L has been in Colorado since the end of May, she left days after R's 3rd birthday, and it has not been easy with her gone.

For a few weeks I was juggling school, packing, kids, and legal paperwork so I could get permission to move the kids out of state.  Once school ended and I got the bulk of the paperwork for the courts done things should have gotten easier right?  Well sure!  Except they didn't.  My load got a little lighter, what with no homework and paperwork to do, but emotionally things got tougher.  L and I have done the long distance thing before and we knew what it was like so we thought we were prepared.  We weren't.  Not even close.

After having lived together for 5 months, having to separate again was the last thing we had expected to do.  Our relationship is sound, and I'm still ridiculously happy in it, but the first month or so that she was gone was really difficult.  We normally communicate pretty well but emotionally this separation was harder on both of us than the others and because of that the communication really suffered.  Talking ,skyping, and texting didn't really happen a lot for that first month as L got settled in our new town and in her new job.  Those things all reminded her of just how much she missed me, the kids and our life we were building before everything got crazy with this moving stuff.  I tried my hardest to understand her new emotional distance that helped her cope with the physical distance, but where she needed her space I need contact more than ever.  It was brutally hard.

Then something happened a couple weeks ago, I honestly don't know what changed, but one day she started joking with me again!  Whatever had been going on eased up and things have been getting back on track.  I think it had something to do with both of us realizing we only had a matter of weeks until we knew we were going to get to see each other again.  Regardless, the return of her joking around and more open demeanor brought instant relief for me.

While things had been going better for us, this past weekend though brought total stress relief for an amazing mini-visit.  L was here for less than 48 hours but it was perfect.  Her mom had come to visit and eyeball the house to see if she wanted to buy it (she did!) and L hadn't seen her in a while so she had booked a ticket up here.  For the first time in months I was asleep before midnight and the dang eyelid twitch that has been plaguing me since she left magically disappeared.  While both of those things were nice, the best part was seeing her and the kids together again.  I know I've said it many times before but C and R absolutely adore L and seeing the three of them together just melts my heart every single time.  To see the woman I love being loved by and loving on my littlest loves is, to me, pure perfection.  Having our little family complete again for even such a short time was just what I needed to get me through these next few hectic weeks.

So now L is gone to Colorado again, the kids are being little terrors like normal, and packing is super stressful.  But! I've had my emotional batteries recharged.  I can do this.  And in less than a week we will be leaving this town behind and starting our five day journey to L and our new life.

Worries of a Kindergarten Mom: Will my kids have problems in school because they have two mommies?

As I've been trying to wrangle all of the necessary details for our upcoming move into some semblance of order it just occurred to me tonight that starting in August when C and R start school, kindergarten and preschool respectively, that I'm going to get to navigate the possibly tricky world of elementary school politics.  I've never done this before and while I'm excited my kids are starting school and will be making new friends I can't help but wonder how their new friends' parents and teachers will feel about me and L.  How many other families at my kids' school are going to have two-mom or two-dad families?  Are we going to be something strange to gawk at or are we going to be just another ordinary couple?

When asking my friends for school advice for the kids this question wasn't even a blip on my radar of all-important-things-to-ask.  Instead I asked about the teachers, and the curriculum, and if they can handle kids with attention and emotional issues like C's.  Never once did I think to ask about things like if the school was LGBT friendly, or if it had serious religious leanings.  I don't think of these things because to me our family is just like any other with small children.  I don't think of these things because religion doesn't play a big part in our daily lives.

But now I'm worried.

The "what ifs" are bombarding my brain (at 2am no less), demanding to be given thought better late than never.  What if our kids get teased for having two moms.  What if the other kids' parents won't let them play with C and R because their family is "different".  What if (heaven forbid!) the teachers discriminate against C and R because they don't like mine and L's "lifestyle".  What if because we aren't a good Christian family that the kids get left out of after school playdates with their classmates?  What if, what if, what if?  If I didn't already have a headache this train of thought would definitely give me one!

At this point there isn't a whole lot that can be done.  The kids' information has been submitted, they are both enrolled.  We got to pick our first and second choice schools for the kids to go to but aside from that the school district will actually decide for us and once the decision is made and we are informed of it in late July/early August it'll be too late to change where they go this year.  Best case scenario all of my what if worryings will be for naught and the school that the kids wind up in will be fantastic and open-minded, regardless of our family make-up or religious beliefs.  Worst case scenario...  I don't really wanna go there but we all know it'll be bad.

Only time will tell how this turns out but I know I've got my fingers crossed.  I just really hope that our family's first foray into the public school system isn't a total bust simply because our kids have two mommies.

Complicated life

In my absence this past month I've been working on trying not to fall apart as my life goes through some major changes again.  We are actually going through with the move to CO.  It looks like it may be in as few as 5.5 weeks but could be as many as 8.  Either way its too long though.  L has already left for CO to set up her new job and she started working this week.  Its been great for her in that she likes having something to do with herself, but being apart from our family has been hard on her. 

Truthfully its been hard on all of us.  R seems to be doing the best out of the three of us, she misses L a lot and asks for her on a daily basis, but mostly she's pretty accepting of the whole situation so long as I remind her that L wen to CO to work and find us a new house to live in when we move down there too.  Unlike his sister, C is taking it pretty rough.  He's been extra moody and clingy and strangely shy with strangers and even some people he has known since he was a baby.  His therapist (yep, my 4.5 year old is in therapy for coping problems related to the divorce...) says that he just isn't coping well with yet another person leaving him and that the shyness at least is his way of "stepping out" to clear his head and try and adjust to whatever situation is causing him to be shy.  Silly me opened my mouth and said that sounded just like something I do a lot and from that point on his most recent therapy session was actually a therapy session for me...

I basically got told that if I want my son to learn to cope and to be himself, sensitive and gentle and all, that I need to learn to do the same.  How can I argue with that? I know that L is supportive and wants to help me get back to who I used to be, but its been so darn long that I just really don't even know how to be myself anymore.  Its been too long since I've been allowed to be anything but the person who just shoves their feelings aside as an inconvenience rather than a real part of me.  She also told me that having emotional reactions to things isn't a sign of weakness, just that I am a gentle and sensitive person.  L has said something very similar to that on more than one occasion and while I love her and value her opinion above anybody else's, hearing the same thing from the therapist kind of made it really sink in.  If somebody who didn't know me could read me so well and could pick up on one of my biggest challenges, then it must really be something to try harder to fix.

I've been hoping to find somebody to talk to but there just never seems to be a good fit, I never seem to be able to open up to a therapist the way I can to friends or even a few random acquaintances.  And yet, 8 weeks before we are set to leave, I find somebody.  Just figures!

C will see her maybe 3 or 4 more times before we leave and I strangely find myself hoping that maybe one of those times I will get to talk to the therapist more about me.  I want to get better so I can be a better mom for C and R, so I can be a better girlfriend for L, but with this move and L and I being separated because of her heading down early for work I'm scared that I'm just going to get worse.  My emotions are so tangled lately because of the legal stuff required to move the kids with me out of the state, and I'm overwhelmed by the prospect of packing up our house by myself (for the most part).  Not to mention I'm finishing up Spring Quarter of school and I had to drop a class because I just got so far behind.  There is just so much going on right now, so many complicated things that I am trying to juggle.  I just don't have time to have an emotional reaction to anything, otherwise I'll never get anything done.  I want to scream and cry but at the moment it will serve no purpose.  

If I can just make it through until the truck is unloaded on the other end of this move, then I'll allow myself to react and possibly fall apart.  But I'll be with L again, in our new home, in our new state away from so many of the issues that I've been dealing with for way too long, so what really will there be to fall apart about?  For a little while I would just really like things to be simpler, just so I can get my feet back under me and get my head and my heart back on track for the first time in years.  I'm so incredibly tired of everything being so complicated.

True family.

I have been dating L for over a year and for a good portion of that time I kept it quiet on my end unless people asked because, while I was separated from my husband our divorce wasn't final yet.  Didn't really want to get grumbled at for dating somebody new while I was still married on top of people finding out the person I was dating was a woman.  Almost a month after the divorce was final I decided that it was time to tell people about L and me.  And while it wasn't a big "Hey folks, I'm gay!" sort of thing, and it was totally impersonal because I did it over Facebook, that was my way of coming out.  The people that saw it reacted in various was but only one actually said something slightly hurtful which she later apologized for.  It went surprisingly smoothly, and everybody I've told since has been at least accepting that I'm happy now even if they don't understand how I can love somebody of my same sex and many people have been downright happy for me and super supportive.

Why am I telling all of this so many months after the fact you're wondering.  Well, because a little over a week ago I found out that not everybody was as accepting as I thought.  It turns out that some of my family members on my mom's side (her youngest brother and his oldest son) had made it very clear that if there was any chance of me bringing L to any of our family holidays or camping trips that they would not be going.  Nor would they be keeping in contact with me anymore.  Plus, they had convinced my up-til-then-neutral uncle to do the same.  My mom's sister was already in what I call "love the sinner, not the sin mode" because her granddaughter is also gay and she has had to deal with it already for quite a few years.  And while I don't think she's likely to follow in their brothers' footsteps, she's not standing up to them either.  I didn't find this out from the family members who were cutting me out of the family, I found all of this out from my two cousins who came to visit last week.  During casual family gossip as they talked with my mom.  Fantastic.

Cue fairly emotional breakdown.  I held it together until they left, I even managed to hold it together until after the kids went to bed and almost until L and I went to bed.  I was already missing my dad thanks to L's dad's visit the week prior, but with this news that the uncle who had been a father figure to me had basically disowned me, I really needed my dad.  I sent him a message on Facebook that night (at some ungodly hour like 3am) and then the next day gave him a call.  I told him everything that I'd found out and then I broke down crying and begged to know if he hated me too (which he assured me that he certainly didn't).  Somehow the man survived my meltdown, he has never been good at dealing with me when I'm crying, and we had a good talk after that.  He told me all the things that L had already told me (how it was my mom's family's loss to cut us out of the family), he told me that he still loved me, and he told me that I should talk to my (step)sister C since she has been out for years.  I confessed I was scared to contact her out of the blue for something so serious when I've barely kept in touch for random everyday stuff over the years.  Its a family failing on my dad's side, we're all awful at keeping in touch.

When I had called my dad, we were actually on the ferry down to Seattle to visit with L's cousin A (I took a sanity day from school so we took a roadtrip to visit with family that loves us to try and get my mind off things).  We let the kids play in her back yard and garden, did a bit of gardening ourselves, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.  It was what I needed and it helped keep me out of too bad a funk for most of that day and night.  The next day though, I started to feel pretty awful again and L and I had a pretty serious talk about moving closer to my dad and his family.  I mentioned Colorado where my friends B and M live and that B had offered many times to let us crash at her house until we could find a place of our own.  L was instantly sold and we started looking into that city.  I found two colleges in that one city that would work with what I need to do for my nursing degree.  I found out that preschools are free.  My kids will have 4 automatic playmates (two that they used to have before M and her family moved there). Jobs are pretty readily available for L and cost of living is pretty cheap.  And best of all, its only 4.5 hours north of where most of my dad's family lives.  All good signs we should move there if you ask me.

This town seemed amazing but the family thing was still bothering me so, despite my nerves, I sent a message to my sister C.  The message basically told her that I was having a rough time dealing with how my mom's family was reacting to my relationship with L (and the fact that we are raising my two kids together).  She isn't on Facebook much but I had forgotten to ask my dad for her number so it was the best I could do.  It took her until yesterday, a week from finding out I'd been disowned, until she got back to me.  The hour long talk I had with her was the best possible medicine.  I already pretty much had my feelings over the family issues under control but having my big sister excited about us moving so close so she could meet L and the kids just totally made me realize that everything that L and Dad had already said was true.  I don't need those people in my life if they don't want me to be in theirs.  I have family that does love and accept me just the way I am.  Maybe my mom's family will come around someday, but even if they don't it doesn't matter anymore.  Its still going to hurt for a while I'm sure, but ultimately that hurt doesn't stand a chance when compared to how happy I felt hearing my sister so excited to get to have a relationship with C & R.

Last I checked, true family are the people who want you in their lives and love you no matter what.  Sometimes they're related to you by blood, sometimes they're not, and sometimes they're just really good friends.  Its time to surround myself and my happy little family with those people and just move on.

Stuck... Or maybe not?

For the past few years I have been doing my darndest to get a good education that will actually be useful in a career.  If you've been reading for any length of time you know I finished my LPN certificate and got my license last year.  Unfortunately the job market around here for baby LPNs fresh out of school is pretty awful.  So, instead of stressing over it too much (trust me, there is stress) that I can't get a job, I've just been finishing up all the requirements for the RN program at my local campus.  I will finally be done in June and will be able to get my name on the waiting list, hooray!  Or at least it should be hooray if I hadn't heard some news today that has me feeling both relieved and frustrated.

Before I can explain the news, first a little background on how the way the RN programs run on my campus.  They do one single part-time (7 quarters) program that's starts in the fall every two years and sometimes, if they get an extra grant, they'll run a full-time program (4 quarters) starting during one of the winter quarters that the part time program is running.  Complicated and messy, but so far it has worked for people.

Now, the news I got today from one of my fellow RN pre-req students is that even if we get on the waitlist at the end of this quarter there are no available slots for the 2014 part-time program.  If by some luck they get the extra grant they will start the full time program this coming January (nine months sooner than the part time program) which will hopefully free up spaces for the part-time program.  But at the moment its not looking promising.  So what does this mean for me?  If I want to continue going to my school for nursing, as soon as I am done at the end of this quarter I will very likely have over 3 years of waiting.  Damn.  If I wait for a spot for me to open up at my current school it means I will be stuck in the same town for at least the next 5.5 years as I waited for the next opening and then actually went through the program.

So you remember my comment about the job market being awful for new LPNs here?  Well because I've been holding out for this particular program I have only really been looking locally.  But if I give up on waiting for this program it opens up a world of possibilities for employment and education locations.  I would probably still stay in this state, mostly to cut down on visitation drama with C & R's dad but also because both L and I have family here.  If I could find a job and/or an RN program out of state though maybe that'd be a better fit. 

Not only would a potential move help with getting us financially stable and getting me finished with my education (for now), but it would also give a bit of distance between me and the ex which I really think would be helpful for both me personally and my relationship with L.  I'm sure it'd be awful for him, and I know for a fact he'd fight for a parenting plan I wouldn't be okay with.  I also think it would be good for the kids in the long run.  I don't want to take them away from their dad, but I really do think that living in primarily in one house with visits to the other, instead of equally in two and being constantly jostled and never able to settle properly into a routine, would be best.  C especially would benefit from more stability.  He doesn't handle uncertainty and constant change well and is actually (at 4.5 years old) now seeing a counselor for SAD (situational adjustment disorder). 

In a way, what should have been disappointing news about the program I've had my heart set on for the past three years is turning out to maybe be a bit of a blessing in disguise.  I don't feel restricted to this area because of school anymore.  Sure we've got a home here and family and friends, but if we can do better for our little family elsewhere wouldn't it maybe be worth it?  It really is nice not feeling as stuck anymore.

Why I talk about the hard stuff.

I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends, B, today.  She has been through a similar situation to mine (spousal sexual assault) and she too is now in a healthier relationship.  While I was talking to her about my new love and how much L knows about my relationship with my ex I used the words "rape" and "abuse" and various other ones like those.  And she stopped me short and told me she was proud of me for being able to talk about what happened. 

Wow.

I talked with B a little bit more and I explained to her that, hard as it is, its important to me to be able to put words to what happened and to talk about it because I know there are people out there like me.  People who have been through a horrible situation (abuse, divorce, infertility, chronic pain/illness, etc...) and who likely feel so incredibly isolated because of it.  I talk about the hard stuff so that other people will know they aren't alone.  Even if they aren't ready, willing, or able to talk about the hard stuff right away, they at least know that when they are ready that somebody will be there to listen.  What B told me after that completely validated everything I had just said because she told me that while she isn't able to talk about it all just yet, that hearing me talk about it is "very very helpful".

This blog was originally meant to help me process the hard stuff going on in my life by laying things out "on paper" so to speak.  I've always been able to think more clearly once I write things down and I'm actually able to see my thoughts before me and go over them.  I had hoped that by having this blog public that maybe somebody in need of knowing they weren't alone would find it.  And while B had no idea about my blog, if what I have been doing this past year to help myself has actually enabled me to help even one person, even just a little bit, in their own healing process then I know it was the right thing to do. 

I have always been a fixer, have always wanted to help people when I can see them hurting.  With this great thing called the internet I don't actually see a lot of the friends I've made in person but that doesn't change the fact that if I know when they're hurting and that I want to help.  Heck, there are people out there that I don't even know but I know they're hurting and I want to help them too.  If my talking about hard topics has even a smidgen of a chance of helping them the way it has helped B then I will certainly keep doing it.  The more people speak up, the less alone we will all feel, and the stronger we will all become knowing that we've got support and understanding.

**Funny little bit of trivia: I used to write RP (role play storylines) on a forum and that's where I met both B and L as well as a few of my other good friends.  I will forever be grateful to that board, and the author who's books our RP was based off of, for those friendships.  One of which eventually developed into the amazing relationship I have with L now.

Equality and dreams of marriage.

Life has been good to me lately. Crazy like always, but good. The relationship I’m in now with L is the most fulfilling one I have ever been in and I have never been more in love. You know I did the marriage thing before and it ended badly, but I honestly think it’s just because I wasn’t with the right person. The right person was half way across the country, right where she had been since before I got in a relationship with the man I married. It’s a very long story but basically what it boils down to is that at the time I had been scared of who I was and he was the safer relationship choice, the one that I could happily tell my family and friends about without worrying about judgment, and also the one that I could actually do the whole wedding and kids thing with that I had dreamed about since I was little. In the end it wound up being the relationship most wrong for me out of all the ones that had come before. Yet I still was able to marry him, even if maybe I shouldn’t have bothered, purely because he was a man and I was a woman.

Until it passed at the ballot box this past election, I wouldn’t have been able to do that with my new love simply because she is also a woman. Luckily Washington State is full of many people who agree with me that gender should not be an issue if two people choose to commit themselves to each other and want to get married. If we ever choose to get married, it’s nice to know that my relationship with L won’t legally be seen as “less” than the one I had with my ex-husband. After all, this relationship is way more to me than that one ever was. Our kids (mine biologically with the ex) also know that they now have two mommies that adore them and one of those mommies is a lot less tense, stressed, and anxious than she was over a year ago.

If we do get married I will be proud to have the kids there and involved. It’s what families do, after all, when parents remarry. What difference should it make that the kids will be getting a step-mom instead of a step-dad? She loves them and they love her. We are already a family and we don’t need the validation of marriage to make that true. I needed a bit of time to grow and figure myself out before I could realize this though. Knowing that we can go that route if we choose to, however, gives a certain measure of comfort in this uncertain world.

I wouldn’t change my relationship with L for anything; it has made me a better person, a better mother, and a better friend. Even if Washington voters hadn’t decided to allow same-sex marriage last November I would still be with her now, we would still be in love, and she would still be an amazing and loving parent to C & R the two crazy monkeys that adore her. A part of me will always hope for the dream of marriage and a family I had as a little girl. And now, at least in a few places, I will be allowed that dream regardless of the gender of who I want to marry.

Love doesn't have to be hard.

She made this for me a while back when I was having a hard time.

Maybe we are still in our honeymoon period.  Maybe its because we have both wanted this for so incredibly long.  Maybe its because I finally found The One for me.  Whatever the reason, all I know is that I am in the kind of relationship I have seen other people in and wondered if such relationships really existed.  I've had what I would consider good relationships in the past, as well as bad ones, but I'm not sure that love has ever felt this simple. 

It amazes me daily how different things are with L than they were with anybody before her despite similiar, and sometimes even more complicated, challenges to our relationship.  I don't think there is a need to go into those particular challenges but they are definitely there and a lot of them have to do with me and my baggage with C & R's dad.  Others have to do with her own adjustment from single life with a job to suddenly being a mother of two crazy, rambunctious, snuggly kids and being unemployed.  Even with all of this, she (most of the time) has seemingly endless amounts of patience, understanding, and kindness.

I may not feel the need to go into what things we do have to contend with on a daily basis (mostly because they are rather common or pretty personal), but I am happy to say that I am finally in a healthy relationship that has absolutely no power struggle to it.  I never feel like I'm being told what to do, I never feel like I'm being talked down to, and I never wonder if something I say is going to cause an explosive fight and leave me walking on eggshells for days.  I have my moments of uncertainty and panic where I worry that I've done something wrong but all it takes is a no-nonsense talk with L to be reminded that I am safe with her in every sense of the word and that even if I had done something wrong we would work through it and fix it instead of letting it hang over both of us and make life miserable for days.

I know that no relationship will ever be easy all of the time, but its nice to have finally found one that isn't hard most of the time.  It's a wonderful thing to have living, daily proof that love doesn't have to be a constant fight.  That it really doesn't have to be hard.

Anniversary

**trigger warning**

Anniversaries mark big events in our lives.  Typically those events are something we want to remember because they come with happy memories, like wedding anniversaries or even birthdays.  Unfortunately there are also anniversaries for other big events in our lives that we really would rather not remember.  Deaths, heartbreaks, and (at least in my case) rape.  One year ago tonight my whole world changed forever.

I had been hurt by him before, three times I would call rape and multiple incidents of coercion to get me to do what he wanted sexually.  I wouldn't say I forgave him for those things but I had just shoved them out of my everyday thinking and had moved on with my life.  We had two kids together and I thought I needed him to make it by on a daily basis, to my way of thinking there was no point making things worse than they already were.  That is, until I got woken up with a hand pressed hard on my mouth and my nose being pinched shut while one of my hands was being directed to "get it hard".

After a year the details aren't as fuzzy as I'd like.  I wish I could forget how his hand felt on my face, on my throat, on the wrist of my hand that wasn't occupied.  I wish I could forget his words to me as he threatened certain acts that I knew were going to hurt like hell because they had hurt before.  I wish more than anything that I could forget how he oh so casually said immediately after, "Why are you crying, I didn't actually hurt you."  Only to be later followed up by, "I didn't realize you were crying until we were done."  Like there was actually any 'we' involved in the whole thing.  I fought to get away but he was stronger and heavier than me, I was groggy from sleep and he had me pinned so I could not force my body free.  A year later I wish I had called the cops.  I wish I had gotten the rape kit done.  I wish I had not waited two weeks to go to the police and CADA.

I'm not sure how things would have gone if I had done things differently but I can't help but wonder just how much suffering our family wouldn't have had to go through if I had not been so scared of confrontation.  I know the divorce wouldn't have been "friendly" and we likely would have had a huge custody battle for C & R.  But maybe the ex wouldn't have been able to try and kill himself if he'd been in jail for what he'd done.  I will never know.

I'm trying not to let this anniversary overwhelm me but I'm not sure how well I'm going to do.  As I'm writing this, I'm 30 minutes away from when the end of my life as I knew it started.  I haven't gone to bed yet, not sure how well I'll sleep, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to enjoy tomorrow/today (Valentine's day) a lot more than I did last year.  It shouldn't be hard.  This year I've got love in my life that I know will never hurt me like he did.  L is nothing like him.  I need to heal and to celebrate that love I have with her and I think that whatever grieving or pain I have to deal with on this anniversary needs to be dealt with tonight before I go to bed so that when I wake up I can move on with my life in a way I haven't been able to do just yet.

The great and the awkward.

Our family outting to the park today was a bit odd.  To any casual observer we might have appeared as two friends bringing our kids to the park or maybe one mom + kids and mom's friend, and maybe to the few people who might have noticed me holding L's hand for a while we might have appeared as what we really are.  That is, until the ex showed up too.  Then things started to get awkward.  Three adults, two kids and the kids calling all three of us mommy, mama, and daddy... 

Most of the time the ex was off following C, while R hung around with L and me.  She was obsessed with a couple of adorable little babies (an 8 month old girl, and a little boy maybe 14 months old) and one of them had two mommies.  When that trio first got to the park both L and I watched them long enough for us both to figure out what we thought we were seeing, then we looked at each other and smiled before she leaned into me and stayed that way till we had to go off and chase R again.  L isn't one for extreme PDA (making out in public) and I'm totally on the same page.  But she has said that even the more mild stuff like holding hands just opens up the possibilities for people being jerks.  I however, strangely considering my normally shy-ish nature, could care less what people think about whose hand I'm holding.  I love her and if I want to hold her hand dang it I will.  Or at least I would if I knew she wouldn't be uncomfortable.  So, when she leaned into me today at the park full of people I was on cloud nine.  She even proceeded to tuck her hand in my elbow at one point, and at another she let me hold her hand (sadly short-lived as R took off again...).

I wasn't brave enough to flat out ask if we could meet with the kids again, but R and the little boy totally hit things off so I asked them if they went to that park a lot.  When they said they did and then asked if we did, I explained we have a small park within walking distance of our house and normally go to that one but that maybe we should start going to the big park more often so the kids could play together the other mom's both smiled and said they thought that'd be cool.  I did my best not to squeal and do a happy dance right then and there.  Yes I'm excited at the prospect of R having a little playmate of her own instead of one of her big brother's, but I'm also kinda giddy at the idea of making friends with another two-mommy family.  I know there are others in this town, but seeing one at the park with their adorable little flirt of a baby boy (he was even flirting with me lol) just made me stupid happy.  Even if we never run into them again its nice to know we are in fact not alone.

I wish things were simpler sometimes and that the kids truly were just mine and L's but that's not the case and I'm okay with that most days.  And I'm happy to say that today's family outting to the park went great despite the awkwardness of our parenting situation and the fact that L still can't stand the ex.  I know where she is coming from, I know why she can't stand him, all I can hope for is that someday she'll at least be able to fake tolerance well enough to fool the kids.  She's been able to fake it with her step-monster for years so maybe she'll be able to do the same with the ex because I'm pretty sure its too much to ask (at least anytime soon) for her to be able to genuinely be friends with him.

New normal and parenting woes.

I'm learning to adjust to my new normal.  L is pretty well settled, school is back in session for me, and the kids are spending more time with their dad.  Its weird.  The first two make me really happy, the third I have mixed feelings about.  I love having alone time with L, its great to be able to just have peace and quiet in the house and just do grown up things without having to worry about little people's needs all the time.  At the same time, I'm prone to nightmares about something bad happening to them when they aren't here.  I trust their dad with them but I guess I've just gotten so used to them always being here that it freaks me out on a subconscious level when they aren't.

I feel guilty, but despite enjoying the quiet time I sometimes still think it'd be easier for all of us if we didn't have to juggle which home the kids were going to be at.  I want the kids to see their dad, they love him so much, but I'm really not sure how well C is handling the instability of it all.  Its too much change all the time.  He's been mouthier and has been having more potty accidents lately and while the sass might just be due to his age the potty issues aren't.  Why can't co-parenting with an ex be simpler?

I really wish I had the money to put C in preschool because that way he'd at least have one stable thing through out the week even if his home isn't.  He needs the socialization, the structure, and he could really benefit from the learning environment too.  Too many things I can't offer him and it makes me feel like I'm in over my head at times.  I always wanted to homeschool the kids, but as they get older I'm realizing that its probably not for us just because I am too unorganized to do it regularly.  I've got workbooks for him that we work on sometimes but that normally only lasts a few minutes at a time because he doesn't have the attention span for it and, admittedly, I don't seem to have the patience and tolerance to deal with his lack of focus.

If I can't get him into preschool, it would at least be nice to find him an activity he can do.  I had him in swimming last year and he really loved that and I'd love to do that again but I think something with a bit more activity would be good for him too.  He's like a cooped up puppy at times and really needs an outlet for all of his pent up energy. 

Maybe, if I'm really lucky, someday I'll figure out this whole parenting thing...