Life’s full of tough choices

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Bean, on the way home tonight: I want to stay at your house for all the days. Even the daddy days. Daddy’s house is not my home. Your house is my home.

I don’t even know what to say to that. She’s told me multiple times this week “I miss you when I’m at daddy’s”, and I’ve done my standard I know it’s cool having two homes, but it’s hard, too, isn’t it? When you’re at daddy’s you miss mommy, and when you’re at mommy’s you miss daddy spiel, but tonight when I rebutted with daddy’s home is your home too, she replied with “No. Only your house is my home. Not daddy’s.”

This stuff is just hard for kids sometimes. I think it’ll be a bit easier for her when Miss O spends the night at Dave’s and there isn’t so much pick-up/drop-off activity going on all weekend. Because both days I dropped O off at Dave’s this past weekend, she started crying as soon as he took her out of my car while Bean was insisting she wanted to come with me. Not fun for anyone.

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I took Cody back to the shelter today. It made me nauseous and I hated doing it, but I’d reached the point of not trusting him anymore, and he and I were in a kind of standoff.

The peeing was obviously a dominance thing, and while I probably could have resolved it in time with training, I just couldn’t justify the risk of him deciding to show one of the girls he was the boss of them. In his defense, I never got even the slightest inkling that he would show any aggression toward them; to the contrary – he always seemed to accept that the little ones are beyond reproach. But there isn’t a single dog bite story that doesn’t begin with “s/he was great with the kids …”

They were a little curt with me at the shelter, not that I blame them. They have a hard job and seeing an animal come back has to be like a sucker punch to the gut. The woman warmed a little when I declined the offer for a voucher for another dog; I told her that this could have happened with any dog and if I wasn’t willing to give Cody more time, I shouldn’t get another dog. At least it’s a no-kill shelter, so he has a good chance of finding a new home eventually.

So, it sucks, I hate that it went down like this, and I feel guilty/crappy as hell that he’s back in a damn cage and probably cold, confused and sad. But I’d feel a bajillion times worse if one of the girls got hurt, and that’s really what I have to think about here.

Stuff is hard for mommies, too, sometimes.
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Workin’ nine to five …

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I love my down time weekends. I got a ton of cleaning done, bought almost everything I need for Miss O’s party this Saturday and got to watch some football and take a hot bath.

My stomach still just ‘ain’t right’ after being sick on Thursday. Whether I eat bland food or migas, I just have this general feeling of “ugh”. Blech.

Here’s a fun aside – my mom sent me a ‘what kind of dog should you have?” quiz and I scored – you ready? – a bichon frise. Can *anyone* (besides Bean, who would be in heaven) see me as a bichon frise owner? Seriously.

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So, Dave’s been hounding me about going back to work when Miss O is 18 months old. His Vulcan Mind Meld with Shannon complete, he now thinks daycare is great and that both girls will benefit from full-time care and the routine/structure it confers. Oh and he’s hurting financially. And it’s “ludicrous” that he’s paying me to stay home with one kid.

Now, the hurting financially, I’m not knocking that. I don’t want that for him at all, as it’s not good for the girls, directly or indirectly. ‘Course if he had just sold the house when we separated and moved into a townhouse or apartment, well … He wants to go directly into another home, though, and being on two mortgages now (our old place and my new place), plus what he pays out in alimony makes it impossible for him to qualify for much. Maybe he shouldn’t have done the whole household purge of furniture that he did if things were tight, huh? But I guess the risk of Vick cooties was pretty steep, and if he sat in a chair I sat in, who knows what would happen …

I’m not negating or poo-poo-ing (poo as in poopie, not Winnie the Pooh) any of the money concerns, but I’m hating the whole paradigm shift when it comes to what “we” wanted for our girls. I know daycare/preschool/whatevah is *not* the end of the world, nor will it scar my girls for life. And if they were both Bean’s age or older, I probably would have gone back to work already. But I had kids specifically because I planned to stay home with them for as long as possible – I even entertained homeschooling as an option. Then Bean turned three

I mean no offense to anyone with kids in daycare. If that’s your choice or your necessity, I fully support that. It just wasn’t *my* choice. But if he has his way and cuts me off alimony, it will become my necessity.
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Even when I’m a mess, I still put on a vest / With an S on my chest

Save for a couple bumps, we had a pretty good weekend.

Today was great. Went grocery shopping during Miss O’s first nap (8 a.m.-ish, which is kind of ridiculously early, but hey, it is what it is), then came home and chilled for a little before having lunch at Thundercloud (Bean’s request). She went down for her nap really well, and Miss O snoozed on my back. Dave picked Bean up at 5:00 to stay at his place for the night, and while Miss O took forever and a day to go to sleep, it was free of the usual hysterical screaming portions that result from her wanting something NOW and me being otherwise occupied getting Bean ready for bed.

Yesterday, I earned another sucktastic mommy merit badge. It should have been a good day, as I got out alone for a couple hours for a friend’s baby shower brunch, but before I even left, I earned my badge.

I was nursing Miss O on my bed (as usual), and Bean was totally not listening to me telling her to keep it down and to not distract Miss O, since she won’t eat as much when she has Bean to smile at and try to play with. So Bean was up on the bed screwing around, and then started bouncing and jumping on the bed, and launching from her knees. I kept asking her to stop, and she wouldn’t. Then she started doing it right next to Miss O’s head, so I pushed her away. Well, she did a total sideways flop and hit her head on the headboard. And not just a glancing blow – her forehead just above her eye connected with an edge.

It was awful. She was in pain, and crying, and the first words out of her mouth were “why did you push me mommy?” I’m fairly certain I’ve never felt like a worse person in my life.

So I was trying really hard today to set Bean (and, by extension, me) up for success … I used to do it a lot when she was a little younger, but I haven’t been doing it lately and I really need to. While there was certainly no intent to have her hit her head yesterday, pushing her out of the way was not in line with the parent I want to be. And while everyone (except me) will cut me slack for it, it’s obvious that Bean’s not the only one who needs to learn a little better control.

So in lieu of a crafty/creative challenge in the short term, I’m challenging myself to step back up to the Supermom plate and start hitting ‘em back out of the park. I talk a good talk about my kids being the most important thing in my life, but with all the distractions of the past 6 months, they’ve been bearing the brunt of my emotional exhaustion. I owe them that – and I owe myself that. I hate knowing I’m not being the mom I want to be

Lyrics from Alicia Keys’ Superwoman

At last your number has found you, your number is one

Bean: (hollering) One is my favorite minute!!

I told her she could play for 5 more minutes, and when I told her she was down to four minutes, she started arguing that it was one minute. So I let it be just one minute. Gotta love a preschooler with no concept of time or numerical order

We didn’t do a whole lot yesterday. I was on my own for school drop-off, so once that was done and I was home again, I really only had to nurse Miss O, play with her a little and strap her in for her nap. She slept a good hour and a half or so while I finished a book (Girl, Interrupted) and then we picked up Miss I.

From there, the afternoon got a bit rough, but there were a lot of high points. The low points all centered around Bean just flat-out not listening to me. She’s smart, she’s sweet and she’s basically a “good” kid, but she will. not. listen. I really need to get my head back into some parenting books so I can develop some approaches that work … right now I speak, repeat a million times and then either count to three or holler. The counting to three usually works, but sometimes I’m too pissed off to remember to do it {blush}.

I woke up at 4:00 this morning to nurse Miss O, and since I’d fallen asleep with the girls last night (around 8:00) my body snapped to attention and alertness … so I’ve been up an hour and a half, but at least I’m by myself. I need some more coffee or a cup of tea, though – I’m fighting off something, and a night of post nasal drip turned my already-scratchy throat into a swollen, painful mess.

Here is my yarn stash:

And my fabric stash:

And my “I’m going to try to make diapers” scrap stash, along with some snaps and Lastin:

And that, my friends, is why I need to learn to sew and to crochet. My mom clued me in to a sale on a BabyLock machine, but I’ve heard not-so-great-things about the store. I think I’ll be shopping closer to home, anyways, so I can take advantage of the free lessons. It’s just that buying a sewing machine will have to wait until I have some money coming in.

No word back on the job I applied for, but I don’t expect to hear anything for awhile.

And now the girls are up, and Bean is nagging me incessantly and I’ve already had to count to three and lock her out of my office and, since she has the listening skills of a rock, holler. And it’s not even 6:15.

Update:

And to show you how quickly a day can go to sh*t:

7:30 – I break a jar of Goldfish and have to yell at Bean (repeatedly) to get her out of the kitchen while I stand, barefoot, in the middle of a pile of broken glass and fish
7:45 – Miss O is screaming in her Around-We-Go, Bean is asking every time I turn of the vacuum “are you done now?” and I’m hollering at both of them to just give me a freakin’ minute
7:50 – I’m finally done with cleanup and I go to put Bean’s shoes on her and she tells me “I like daddy’s house. I want to stay with daddy”

Lyrics from the Rollins Band’s Your Number is One

Motivate me, I wanna get myself out of this bed

Loving the challenges – there’s nothing better for whiny, self-indulgent feelings than a swift kick in the ass. In this case, small things I can start and complete in a day and that make me feel like I can accomplish *something*.

You know y’all are jealous of this one

The ingredients

Bean kneading

The dough, pre-rise

The bread

I actually enjoyed the kneading part. So did Bean, although we were kind of the “good cop/ bad cop” kneading team, with her pressing the dough gently and me beating it up. But hey – she helped, and I made bread the old fashioned way.

I think I may have used a touch too much flour, and the loaf didn’t rise as much as I would have liked while it was baking, but it was better than the no-knead bread, and better than the non-bakery breads I’ve purchased. And a bajillion times better than sourdough (kack!)

I also went for a run today. Well, a power walk with some running mixed in. I like to start out running until I’m winded, walk until I catch my breath, and then repeat until I’m done.

I definitely needed the run, as Dave has decided he wants to modify ‘custody’ a bit, leaving me with the girls the bulk of the time. It’s so hard to talk about this and not sound like a sucktastic mommy when I whine about how much it takes out of me and how much I need the downtime, but damn, Sam – these two take a lot out of me!

Bean cannot listen to a thing I say until I holler at her and Miss O doesn’t nap long enough in the afternoon to stay cheerful past about 5:30-6:00, and since that’s dinner time, you see where I’m going … Bean can’t really be trusted on her own; well, she kind of can, but I have hear palpitations any time I’m alone with O since I know I’m just as likely to find Bean hanging out and *not* getting in trouble as I am to find her on top a counter with a knife (I exaggerate, but she scares me). O takes for-evah to fall asleep, so then I have to bring Bean in the room and hope to hell she doesn’t distract/disturb/awaken Miss O.

And that’s just the last couple hours of the day. We go through variations on that theme all. day. long.

So I need the endorphins – I just need more than I can work up in a 30-minute cardio burst. That’s where the bottle of wine in the fridge comes in I haven’t opened it yet – I’m kinda saving it as a last resort on the really bad days, but don’t think I’m not eyeballing it come 4:30 or so most days.

Today’s Beanism: “I’m still not feeling too good. I guess I can go to sleep when I’m not feeling good, but I definitely need to go to the doctor tomorrow.”

(I have no idea what, if anything, is wrong. When I asked her what hurt, she said “My tummy, my eyes, my ears, my toes, my arms …” If it’s true, that’s awful, but she doesn’t have a fever or any obvious signs of illness, so I don’t know what to make of it)

Lyrics from Good Charlotte’s Motivation Proclamation

Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy

So I’m most of the way through my first challenge – baking bread. I followed JV’s advice (thanks and smooches!) and went to Instructables and I’m in the final rise of Easy Bread. ‘Course that means I’ll have hot bread around 11:30 tonight, and will of course have to eat a few slices with butter, but it’s not like I ever go to bed before midnight anyways.

I started it this morning around 9:00, and for some reason my giant brain was computing 12-18 hours of rise time to be between 9:00 and 3:00 *tomorrow*, which would have been a great time to bake bread. 11:00 at night, not so much. But it is what it is.

Some work-in-progress photos

The gear:

The dough after mixing:

The dough ready for the second rise:

Just dumped the now-risen dough into the dutch oven, and I wasn’t super impressed with how it all went down, but it’s baking now.

And we have bread. Notthe prettiest or best tasting bread I’ve ever had, but definitely not the worst, either. It beats any sourdough bread any day, that’s for sure.

And – stop the presses – Bean pooped on the potty at Dave’s house!!

She even called me to let me know. Although the conversation started with “I want to come to your house mommy”, and I heard Dave in the background encouraging her to tell me what she was really calling about, and *then* I got the good news. There were several other requests to come to my house, tho, and it broke my heart. Apparently that’s been a pretty constant request since he picked her up from school on Friday. At least I’m taking her to her friend C’s birthday party tomorrow, but I’m dreading trying to drop her back off at Dave’s.

Lyrics (I’m stuck with this song in my head as a result of “easy bread”) from The Eagles’ Take it Easy