Ah, the pitter patter of tiny feet in huge combat boots

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Since the Big Girl’s been dominating the posts of late, a brief moment for Thing 2.

(Photo taken by her Pinkalicious Big Sis)

She’s been trying on pretty much every word you say to her, so while she still isn’t very clear all the time, her vocabulary is expanding. She is still the belle of the ball at daycare, where everyone loves her in all of her sweet and tiny glory. She’s a very generous kiddo there, doling out hugs and kisses to all, and sharing/playing really well with the other littles in her class. The comments from her ‘teachers’ are always along the lines of how well she participated in the activities, how much she enjoys playing and how well she gets along with the other kids. We had a couple biting incidents, with her on the giving end, and then karma came around and, well, bit her back. She had a couple bites from other kids, but that all seems to have leveled out.

She will go almost any woman who holds their arms out for her. At the grocery store the other day, she was having a hissy fit and another shopper stopped and said “Awww. You need to come home with me, you need a maw-maw.” and held out her arms – Miss O walked right over and let the woman pick her up, then waved bye-bye to me and blew me a kiss. As the woman was a grandma, she naturally fawned all over O, and probably would have cheerfully taken her home for the evening had I asked.

I really wish my kids were more outgoing and less shy … sigh.

I think O may need some speech therapy; we’ll see when (if) I ever get her in to the doc for a checkup. I really need to stop saying I’ll take her in and actually *make* the appointment, don’t I?

I’ve been using gentian violet and some antifungal cream on her ringworm, and will strip the bed/crib and wash everything on hot with bleach while they’re at Dave’s this weekend. Dawn, I don’t think she got it from the cats. Number one, these guys are 100% indoor and b, the spot is under her diaper on her hip. If she got it from them, it would be on her face, guaranteed. I’ve never seen a kid love on cats more, and it’s always hugs and kisses.

She is the huggiest, kissiest kid – I get a gazillion hugs and kisses every day, and at night when we’re going to sleep, she kissed me like 10 times after we’ve done lights out and I’m laying with them to sleep. And she falls asleep either on me or pressed against me. Since Bean snuggles in from the other side, I’m a well-loved mommy

But don’t let the cooperative hugginess lull you into thinking she’s a creampuff. She may be tiny, and look harmless, but under that diminutive exterior is one headstrong, opinionated and strong-willed little person. And I say that in the nicest, most positive way. Like her aunt before her, Miss O’s motto should be “I may be small, but I’m tough.”

(Honestly, I think it makes her just *that* much more endearing)
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I swear on my mother’s grave … should something fatal happen to her, God forbid.

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Only in Texas can you go to bed wearing a tank top and running the a/c, then wake up freezing, needing a sweatshirt and the heater. It was 90* yesterday. It’s 41* at 8 a.m., 34* with the wind chill. Seriously. A 50* difference in 12 hours, and the wind is blowing like a mother.

Bean and I are off to a Princess Tea Party (translation: my own private hell, but it’s got to be better than a Bob the Builder live show …) and then we’re meeting new-to-her friends at the Zoo.

A few Beanisms before we leave:

Well then you don’t get a choice to play with me. You only get a choice to play with Olivia. And I’m not happy with you. I wanted you to get a choice to play with me and I’m sad you’re not. Now no-one is going to play with me.

I like nice wolves. I will hold it in my arms and rock it.

~~~***~~~

The Princess Tea Party was a trial for me, but nice for the kids. Bean made it thru almost half of it, which means she lasted about twice as long as I did (internally). She threw an absolute fit when we arrived, however, and every girl except her was wearing a princess dress. She had her Sleeping Beauty dress on earlier, but didn’t want to wear it for some reason and switched to a fabulous pink leopard pants and a different shade of pink dress combo. So when we arrived and she saw all the princess dresses, she flipped. I tried to reason with her for awhile, but gave up and left her running in circles freaking out so I could go stand in line for our tickets. Times like that I’m damn sure no-one is going to try to take off with her, so I was comfortable being 20-30 feet away and turning my back on her so I could crack up.

I managed o talk her down off the ledge with some water and Cheez-Its from vending, and the rest of the event went by without another word about the princess dresses.

After that we stopped at PetSmart to look for a pink kitty (I never mind stopping to look for pink kitties, as I’m pretty sure she’ll never find one), and then at Lakeshore Learning to do some arts and crafts. She made a very cool mixed-media deal with a Floam-type deal and dot-on paint. And I made her a book; it was supposed to be her doing it, but she assumed a managerial role and directed my activities.

We ran onto some friends there, but they were on the way home. Bean played with the daughter outside, where they had sensory/play tables set up with moon sand, some space sand and this stuff, that a girl told me was the same as what’s in disposable diapers. She continued to tell me she did a report on disposable diapers and found they cause cancer. I was like “you don’t say that to a mom!!” … sigh. So I asked her if playing with the stuff was going to give us cancer, too? Put that in your pipe and smoke it, smarty pants!

After that, we headed to the zoo, where we met M and her son R. R is just a sweetie, and so mellow compared to the boisterous Bean I was given a gift of ‘natural consequences in action’ from the petting/feeding zoo goats. Bean threw a hissy fit about me not wanting her to carry the food bag. I relented, warning her that she needed to keep it away from the animals. Pushover that she is, she held the bag out to a goat, and sure as shiznit, the goat snagged it, she pulled back and food went everywhere.

When I asked her if she wanted to pick any of it up, she sat down and said “No, you can do it and I’ll sit here and watch.” Riiiggghhhht.

After the zoo, I took Bean shopping, which is essentially window shopping in stores she likes to mess with stuff – trying on shoes at Marshall’s; messing with phones, computers and cameras at Best Buy; fawning over kitties at PetSmart. She did score some Moon Sand and Elmer’s Go Paint they had for dirt cheap at Marshall’s … it’s hard to pass up bargains on creative play stuff, ya know? Especially the ‘consumable’ stuff like arts and crafts supplies.

She cracked me up so many times today … I need to start carrying one of those little voice memo recorders with me because I forgot nearly everything she said But I was laughing out loud at some of what she said. Like these:

Stinkin’ bashaw person. Hit the gas! (Bashaw is a bastardization of ‘oh pashaw’ … and in my defense, ‘Hit the gas!’ is usually all I gripe in the car. The additional fluff is just Bean being Bean.)

Baby Abigail is like a million cute. Miss O is no cute. (When I asked if her sister was as cute as another baby she knows)

(Talking about how she ran off in the parking lot) Yeah, I could get hit by a car and die. But you’d still have Miss O.

(Talking about me getting in a car accident) And you could die. But I’d still have my daddy. And I’d tell him “my mommy got dead in an accident” and we’d both cry.

Poor Miss O. Bean did think kindly of her a few times today, especially when we got home and hadn’t picked O up from Dave’s. The little one is staying with daddy to give Bean and I a whole 24 hours or so to ourselves. So bedtime tonight was a plethora of books and then mommy-Bean snuggle time. And that totally rocked.

And we’ve now broached the topic of killing/eating animals. She’s definitely working this one out, so prepare yourselves for “Talk about cutting up wild boars” and “Talk about killing pigs and making bacon” type discussions.

Bean. The gift that keeps on giving.
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That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!

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Ack. How’d I miss Friday? Oh … that’s right. I was putting it off until the evening as I’d be kid free, but then the cold I’m fighting kicked my tush and I watched a movie, took a bath and went to bed. I’m still pretty achy and crappy-feeling, but it’s amazing what 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep will do for the body.

My mom and Miss O and I spent Friday bargain-hunting for kids clothes. Bean is very partial to wearing dresses with pants instead of shirts with pants, and Miss O is still a bit too small for most of the ‘grow into it’ stuff leftover from Bean’s toddlerhood. It’s so cute to watch her tiny and cute self walk around with a head that looks, especially when her hair is down, almost as large as her legs and torso. Like an orange on a toothpick.

I’ve discovered that I really get a kick out of resale/second-hand shopping. There’s just something in my DNA that is energized and invigorated by scoring stuff for cheap. I did one of the big resale ‘events‘ and then hit the Salvation Army and Goodwill. Truth be told, the prices are just way, way better at the latter two than at the ‘events’, whose prices are usually on-par with resale shops.

As we drove around yesterday, Miss O nodded off. So I continued to drive so she could have a quick nap. And my mom and I talked about all kinds of stuff.

She asked me if Dave came to me and said “I made a mistake”, would I take him back.

Now this is a question I’ve asked myself before. I assume he’s asked himself his own variation of it at some point or another. I think, as humans, we always ask ourselves these questions. In a way we almost *have* to, as we look back and look forward and navigate through life. But they are questions that are hard to answer honestly; out loud, especially, but even internally. Each of us has a question of this magnitude. Some of us have more than one.

But these types of questions require us to swallow pride, to admit mistakes, to feel hate and anger, to face up to truths and lies. Things we’ve felt or told ourselves and things we’ve expressed to others.

I answered her without hesitation: I’d want to try.

It’s not that I’m in love with him. It’s not that I really want him back. Or that I’m motivated by wanting my life back. Honestly, I don’t think it could ever work again. But in that same vein of honesty, I don’t feel that our marriage ever needed to end. There wasn’t anything so egregious that – handled properly – couldn’t be rectified. I made small mistakes, he made big ones, and when everything reached it’s crisis, he’d moved too far away to ever give the marriage a chance.

That’s a hard truth to walk away from without regret, you know? That an inherently good, but flawed, marriage died without the due diligence it deserved. So when I think “what if he wanted to try again?”, and I factor in Bean’s still-broken heart and my own annoyance that we never actually tried to fix things, my logical, rational side says “how could you not want to give it a chance?”

There are hard truths in life. Some of us understand and accept them, some of us don’t. In my opinion, one of the hardest truths is that you won’t always love and like the people you love and like. You’ll hate them sometimes. You’ll wish they were not a part of your life, that you had nothing to do with them, that they would just go the hell away. In marriage, you’ll wonder if you married the right person, if there are greener pastures, if you made a mistake … you’ll also be amazed that someone can love you, faults and all, and put up with you day after day. And, if you’re really lucky, they’ll put up with you forever.

But there will still be days you hate them and they hate you.

And that’s okay.

If you want to read something worth reading, take a look at Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst. There were few things in there I hadn’t, on some level, accepted or known. But it was amazing to me to see these things in print. She has another book, Grown Up Marriage, that I want to read. Necessary Losses challenges so many illusions about love and life – the illusions of perfect love, perfect friendship, perfect marriage, a perfect life … Life is messy and sucky and fun and hard and great all at the same time. But it will never, nor will anything in it, be perfect.

So when I think about that mythical ‘trying again’, it’s from that place I was at while I was married. The place that knows there is no perfect, that love isn’t *always*, that hate is *sometimes* and that in choosing to love someone, we do so knowing that we could make that choice with someone else with equal odds of success.

But I also think about it from the place of betrayal, of shattered trust, of hateful words and thoughts and feelings. And, knowing that, I know that even with my best efforts, and even with true remorse and commitment from him, the likelihood of me ever achieving a loving, trusting relationship with him again are slim to none. Knowing that he is capable of such a betrayal – how could my trust ever be total and complete? And without total trust, how can a relationship survive? I, personally, don’t believe it can. Not really. Not in a way that’s good, and honest and true. If there’s betrayal and both parties can get back to absolute faith in one another, I think there’s a good chance. But getting back to that faith …

So yes, I’d want to give Dave another chance. And I’d want to really, really try – both for myself and for my kids. And, truth be told, for him. (Talk about truths that are not easy to admit out loud, as I’m sure some members of the peanut gallery will construe from that statement that I’m still in love with him and *want* him back. Sarah.) Because I do believe that people can make mistakes and be forgiven and given a fresh slate. I just don’t know if I’m capable of that level of forgiveness, were it ever sought.

This is all just an exercise in thinking out loud, and sharing thoughts and feelings on divorce and life, as I’ve drifted away from this kind of stuff for awhile. I don’t expect that this will ever be a real thing for me to consider, and I’m honestly glad about that. I’m really liking being a single parent, really liking being on my own and really liking being able to take my time looking for and choosing a mate that will respect, appreciate and – most importantly – share my take on life, love and hate. I don’t want to share my life with someone for whom those illusions have yet to shatter and for whom the potential and freedom of those shattered illusions is lost. I like the freedom of being single and the freedom of accepting and embracing my necessary losses.
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I’m a troublemaker … doing things my own way

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I signed into LinkedIn today, and on the main page there was a ‘people you may know’ list. Dave was at the top.

It’s kind of ironically symbolic of the state of our relationship these days. We may know each other. It’s a strange sense of disconnected connectedness … we share so much history, and have so much that will tie us together for the foreseeable future, but we conduct ourselves as casual acquaintances.

I was cleaning off my desktop computer’s hard drive last night and found my wedding vows. That was a bit of a sucker punch to the gut … I didn’t get weepy, but it was a little hard to see all the vulnerability I gave him staring at me in black and white. After the initial, split-second recoil from seeing my words and drifting, for a moment, into what they meant to me, I recovered to the here and now and decided to save them. Who knows – maybe one day Bean or Miss O will ask and I’ll have those words to show them. As with the diamond earrings I still wear, the furniture I have kept, and the photos I preserve, I don’t feel a need to purge the artifacts and vestiges of my married life.

Some might say that my holding on to things says something … what, I’m not sure. To me it just says that I can move on without a General Sherman-esque approach to all physical remnants. It’s just not practical to see a bunch of good furniture for pennies on the dollar simply so the furniture I have now wasn’t “ours”, ya know? Dave gave me all the photo albums and whatnot, and it just seems … I dunno … kind of crass to throw that all away …

What *do* you do with all the momentos? It’s not like I have any pictures of us up or anything like that, but I do have little things he bought for me or we bought together. They’re not practical things like furniture, but am I supposed to throw them all away? I don’t look at any of it and pine for him or our marriage; frankly, it’s only when I’m doing this kind of directed thought that “oh yeah, we bought that in New Orleans” and the like even occurs to me.

It just seems kind of silly to me to trash a bunch of things when there are two living, breathing people to remind me that my life was once intertwined with his. Maybe if we hadn’t had children the scorched earth policy would make sense, but when every second of my day revolves around the girls, a few chochkes aren’t really going to be a jarring reminder that I was once married

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It’s been five days without Bean, and while it’s been kind of Zen-like and peaceful, I do really miss her. Dave says she really misses me, too, but I’m sure by midday Tuesday, she’ll be telling me she wants to go to daddy’s house instead of telling him she wants to come here

I took some time getting photos off the camera and uploaded for my family and friends. Here are two of my favorites, as they capture the girls’ personalities so perfectly.

Yes, Bean is wearing tights. In Texas. In late September. For the uninitiated, there are about two hours in February where it’s actually cold enough around here to require tights, so Bean is several months too early. She’s nonplussed by that fact, and will wear tights to bed, to school or anywhere I’ll let her. I usually just let her wear them at home, since they add a cumbersome layer for last-minute potty trips. If Bean didn’t insist on stripping from the waist down, they probably wouldn’t be as cumbersome …

The picture is quintessential Bean.

And this is totally Miss O – always on the move, and always happy. As long as she’s not expected to sleep in a crib, that is. O has just wrapped up her Tupperware cabinet play, and is now bee-lining for the camera. She’d love to get her hands on it almost as much as I’d love for it to last another year or so …

Lyrics from Weezer’s “Troublemaker“

I only want a friend who will love to the end, what do I get?

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Are you registered to vote? Google has a fab tool for helping you find out if you are, how to register and where to go. You have NO EXCUSES. If you’re making up an excuse now, watch this video. In some states, tomorrow (October 4th) is your last day to register or have your registration postmarked – so if you haven’t registered yet, please, PLEASE do so.

Yesterday, Miss O fell asleep in the car, so I parked in the shade and read a book for a little while. I usually have her listen to classical music in the car if there’s nothing good on NPR (Bean always asks “What are they talking about?” when I listen to NPR – it cracks me up trying to explain talk radio to her). Anyways, they were yapping on about the composer on the classical station, so I started channel surfing and stumbled upon “our song” – Alanis Morissette’s “Head Over Feet“

Instinctively, I reached to change the station. Before today, that song was guaranteed to make me sad, possibly reduce me to tears. It was a perfect song for Dave and I – he pursued with a dogged determination, and finally won me over. And I fell head over feet. But I left it on (and I’ve just listened to it again so I could linky it). I didn’t cry, or even feel sad. A bit melancholy – in the pensive sense, not the depressed sense – and with a hint of a wry half-smile on my face, but not despondent or depressed.

It was a good, affirming moment. Then I decided to start driving again to see if O could get in a decent nap, but she woke up. That was less good and affirming … However, she and I have been having such a mellow week without Bean that it’s no biggie that a short nap meant she needed to go to bed earlier than usual.

I think I’ve reached that point that I’m comfortable and happy in my new skin.

I’d probably even be a little excited about being single if dating didn’t seem like such an insurmountable task. Meeting someone, finding time to go out, having them be okay with two kids, four cats and probably a dog or two by the time I’m dating again …

Speaking of dating … When Miss O and I were at Whole Foods yesterday, the title song came on. I used to have it on a mix tape I made when one of my ex-boyfriends was doing a guest DJ thing at the local alternative station. I remember that I called and requested “See a Little Light“, in a smooth move of sappiness – he played it, but it didn’t have the desired impact

I’ve a long history of music being tied to affairs of the … errr … heart. I once left The Violent Femmes’ “Prove My Love” on a (different) boyfriend’s voice mail … remember Kel? Got chewed out for it, too, but at least it was more subtle than someone’s brilliant bottle rocket fiasco. I’m just sayin’ …

Lyrics from “What Do I Get” by The Buzzcocks
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And I’m like "yeah whatever!"

Before I get going – did y’all see this from SNL last night?

We did not get even a drop of rain from Ike here. Not a stinkin’ drop. Next time, I am draining my car of gas, throwing out my canned goods and drinking all my bottled water. I’ll throw out the candles and batteries too. Just hook us up with some rain, for Pete’s sake!

So the other night during Bean’s middle-of-the-night vomit episode, I was cleaning her up and she says: “When I am older, I can ride a plane to visit Shannon in California.”

Yes, yes you can.

Followed by: “Where is my daddy sleeping in California?”
Mommy: “Uhhh … what?”
Bean: “Where is my daddy sleeping in California?”
Mommy: “Ummm … maybe a hotel?”

Seriously. At close to midnight with me all dazed and confused and trying to clean puke out of her bangs.

Which got me thinking, once I finally got both of them back to bed and asleep. Where *was* her daddy sleeping in California … I thought on it a little while, and the most amazing thing occurred to me – I did not care where he was sleeping. It truly didn’t bother me to think he was staying with Shannon.

The next day I shot him a quick (businesslike) email to ask why she was asking me where he was sleeping. I was spared, thankfully, the remedial “I’m making room for Shannon in my life” that I usually get, and he said he didn’t know why she was asking, but that he didn’t assume she was asking anything ‘grown up’; I agreed. I think it’s just a logistical thing, in her mind. It was just a bit of a shock when she asked – I wasn’t even thinking about that, let alone prepared with a good answer. I just figured if he later told her something different, it was easier to explain I had mistakenly assumed hotel than that I had mistakenly assumed Shannon’s house, you know?

I relate the story only for this purpose – I think I’ve reached the “whatever” stage. Not a defensive ‘whatever’, but an apathetic ‘whatever’. It’s his life to lead as he chooses, and as long as his actions won’t have a negative impact on the girls, I really don’t care what he does. I’m going to have some fun with the businesslike emails, but I’m not bothered by his insistence on impersonal boundaries. Amused, in a way, that he finds it necessary, but maybe I’ll understand when I meet someone new. Maybe not. That’s my life to lead.

Bean and I went to a birthday party for one of her friends yesterday. I found out form one of the moms that there was a case of head lice in Bean’s class last week … I cannot imagine a better week for her to have been out sick!

After the party, we went out shopping together, looking for nap stuff for her at school. That’s right – she starts going full days M/W/F as of tomorrow. I’m so torn. On one hand, it will be good for her, I think, and it will certainly make things a bit easier for me – and for Miss O’s napping. On the other hand, I’ll miss her. And on the weeks that Dave has her all weekend, I’ll only see her Monday and Wednesday nights, and all day Tuesday. I just don’t know if I’m ready for her to be gone so much!

While we were out yesterday, we stopped at Petco to see what animals were there for adoption. The folks from Austin Greyhound Adoption were there, and I really think I may have found the kind of dog I want to rescue. I’ve always held these dogs in the back of my heart, figuring nothing was more deserving of a good home that a former racing greyhound. But a couple things held me back. They are not really dogs that people see and think “that dog might eat me”, and I kind of wanted that in a dog – not a dog that would, but a dog that looked like it could. I also worry about a dog trained to chase a small, furry thing living with cats.

But Bean fell in love with the greys. She was in the face of each one, stroking and telling each dog how pretty they were, and what nice dogs they were. Each dog got a kiss on the flank, too. I have never seen her so enamored of a dog … I think it was just their quiet, mellow nature that hooked her. These aren’t hyper, bark-y dogs – these are big, Zen-like dogs. “45 m.p.h. couch potatoes”, as the Austin Greyhound Adoption card says.

On the way home, she said “I want to get a doggie on Tuesday.” She has never initiated the adoption discussion – it’s always me asking “did you like the dogs? did you want a dog?”

I know, I know. Four cats. But the cats truly spend all day either in their room or under my bed, in Bean-and-Miss-O avoidance mode. They come out at night when the girls are in bed, but I could easily keep the dog in my office with me until I go to bed, then in a crate at night. That would give the cats their space, too. And some greys are fine with cats – I’d just have to wait until the rescue found the right one for us …

Yes, I need help.

I’ll compound that need with the following Beanism.

I taught her “diarrhea cha-cha-cha” a few weeks ago. You know, from the diarrhea song. Not the whole song – just the diarrhea cha-cha-cha part. On our way to the party yesterday, she serenaded me with “diarrhea cha-cha-cha” set to the tune of London Bridge. It went something like this:
Diarrhea cha-cha-cha
cha-cha-cha
cha-cha-cha
Diarrhea cha-cha-cha
Di-a-rrhea.

I’ve never been more proud.

Lyrics from Liam Lynch’s “My United States of Whatever“

‘Cause I’m free to do what I want any old time

Julia and Dawn, thanks for the offers – y’all are too sweet.

I called in the cavalry – a.k.a. grandma and grandpa – and fled the house for an hour at It’s A Grind, where a hazelnut latte and free wi-fi made me feel like a human being again.

I spent my hour re-learning about the Marshall Plan … I’ve been reading Charlie Wilson’s War, and it has totally reignited my passion for International relations. The book is fascinating, engrossing and sometimes laugh-out-loud entertaining – and it lays down such a detailed and amazing history of the secret war in Afghanistan in the 1980′s. If you have any interest at all in foreign policy, the Cold War, the CIA or the Afghan war – read this book. I’ve been working on it for a couple days, taking notes for researching everything the piques my interest. I’ve also pulled a few old textbooks off the shelves to go back and read a bit more on foreign policy and international relations.

I’m a dork. I know.

This afternoon I did a Target run to grab a few just-in-case hurricane essentials. Now that I’ve prepared, however modestly, we’re sure to not even get a damn sprinkle from Ike … between my protective sphere of influence that I’ve moved with me to every hurricane state I’ve lived in (there has never been even flooding from a tropical system in any area I’ve been living in) and my preparations, Mexico better watch out.

You know what tomorrow is? Thursday. Woo-Hoo!!

Lyrics from “I’m Free” by The Soup Dragons … oh yeah – I’m reaching into the way back machine for this one.

Just think of all the happiness this little one will bring

Bean’s instructions:
“When you do this green stop sign, you have to remember to say bo-no
When you see the purple stop sign, you say ka-na
When you hear the music, you all have to dance”

Bean’s typing:
IIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSAAAAAAAAABBBBBEEEEEEEELLLLLL

Bean’s sulk:
“It’s a horrible, no good, bad day.”

Bean’s interspecies communication:
“No, I’m talking to Willow – excuse me. Willow, ummm, Max scratched my mommy.”

Bean’s future plans:
“When I’m a little bit older, I can go to Germany. I want to go to Germany so I can get married. I want to wear a pink dress and a pink skirt and tights and ballet shoes. I figured out that.”

Bean on beauty:
“I was going in your bathroom to put Chap Stick on and I looked in the mirror and I was beautiful!”

Bean’s greetings:
“Good morning bike. I didn’t take a nap.”

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She’s really something other than else, isn’t she? I was trying to keep a good mad up earlier, when she wouldn’t nap, but a few Beanisms later and I was putty in her hands.

Speaking of getting a good mad going, I’m actually finding it damn near impossible to be angry at Dave anymore. When people are talking about him getting a karmic payback, or about hoping he has his heart broken, I can’t even agree. I honestly wish him well.

There’s still some hurt now and then. Especially as I look toward this Thanksgiving, when he’s asked to have Bean because his whole family will be here. The thought of it not being “us” anymore, and me sitting home with Miss O, gets a little depressing. Adding to the psychic burden is knowing that last Thanksgiving is when this all began, and that within a week or so, my world as I knew it was absolutely shattered.

But that’s hurt and, still, a bit of confusion and “what the … ???!!!” – I can’t even drum up anger about that. And I don’t really care about the why’s or what happens going forward, and I don’t find myself obsessing about much of anything – and I don’t find myself obsessing about anything at all to do with him.

But he’s still in a lot of my dreams. I don’t feel much of anything for him anymore, and I certainly don’t love him anymore, but – best as I can tell – he’s still the featured male role in most of my dreams. There’s never anything physical, and when I try to get back into what the dream was about (which I never really succeed at – I only ever remember bits and pieces), I don’t recall there were feelings of love or lust in the dream. It’s just that he’s there, as my counterpart. From what I remember about the dreams, they are odd, so I assume it’s just my psyche working out details and cleaning out my baggage, and with 12 years of accumulation, there’s likely quite a bit of housekeeping to do …

Wanted to share a link to great opinion piece from Gloria Steinem about the selection of Sarah Palin as VP. Thanks Aunt Deb for passing it along

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Oh – and curse you, Jen. I was supposed to be cleaning this evening … you can’t dangle Bones in front of me and not have me jump. Mmmm. Booth. Maybe my subconscious will give me a new costar in my dreams tonight

Lyrics from “In Your Dreams Tonight” by Agent Orange

It takes a lot to piss me off

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A random thoughts kind of post.

ID’d a new spider yesterday – I’ve found a few hanging around the house, and they remind me of a widow, only they’re brown with almost a Harlequin pattern on their back. Turns out it’s a harmless relative of the widow, known as Steatoda triangulosa, or cobweb spider. They eat brown recluse spiders, among other things, so as long as they stay out of my way, they’re welcome here.

There was a small praying mantis on the window the other day, too:

It was gone by the time Bean woke up to see it, but I was glad to have spotted it. I named it Zorak

Bean wanted to color with me today. I had my choice of markers.

Bean: Would you like green or blue?
Mommy: I’ll take blue.
Bean: No, you can have green. Blue is my favorite. This one is purple. You can’t have purple, either.

I had a dream last night that I was out with my folks, and we stopped into some small coffee shop for coffee. There was a gorgeous (French?!?) man playing barista, and there was an obvious attraction between us … I’m still feeling warm and fuzzy about the interaction and flirting. The healthy woman part of me is wondering what dating and flirting would be like again … the mom and warrior goddess/protector of my children part of me is terrified of wading into the dating pool. But that didn’t exactly stop me from pilfering the latest issue of Austin Monthly from Bean’s PT office so I could check out the 2008 bachelors

I got a virtual slap on the wrist from Dave for my email tone being too “chummy”, and was admonished to maintain a businesslike tone. My next email to him began “Dear sir”, and closed with “Cordially”. So much for thinking we’d reached a kind of understanding … c’est la vie.

It didn’t piss me off tho, or make me sad. It amused me that he felt the need to say that. As if a friendly tone is somehow threatening or bad. I had been planning to send a nice email about being okay with a lot of stuff, possibly even being able to wish he and Shannon well, and asking about how we could work toward being able to do some of the big things together (like O’s b-day coming up in December). I’ll skip that email now, since it would be a wasted effort.

I had a moment of “You know, I really should be happy that it’s over if he couldn’t love me the way I deserve to be loved” earlier today … and you know what? I kind of am.

Lyrics from All’s “Gettin’ There“

Whatever will be, will be

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Ya know, I appreciate that Dave hasn’t exactly been a paragon of virtue and trustworthiness, and I get the strong emotions.

I’m not chastising anyone for their opinions, at least not in a mean or harsh way. I put it out there, I take the comments, good or bad. (I may 86 the anonymous comment feature, tho.)

But I don’t see any reason to expect Dave and Shannon to deliberately undermine me as a mom. Nor do I expect them to force terminology and feelings on the girls. I’m not saying, with absolute certainty, that it can’t/won’t happen, but I *am* saying I do no expect it to happen. I expect things to go as well as they can. Why should I expect things to be bad when it’s just as easy (and way more healthy) to expect them to be good?

Shannon is someone’s mom. Dave is the girls’ dad. I can’t imagine that either of them would deliberately want to cause the kind of pain that trying to push me out as a mom would cause me AND the girls – they both value and treasure their own roles as parents and, hopefully, can imagine their own feelings were they in my place. I know when I’ve talked to Dave about this, he knows that introducing Bean to Shannon was really hard from the ‘new mom’ perspective, and he has no plans to cast Shannon as anything other than daddy’s friend Shannon. Bean (and eventually Miss O) will be allowed to create their own labels/roles for what Shannon is to them.

Yes this is hard for me, and yes it hurts. But I do not want to be in The Bad Place about all this – I have to trust and believe that neither Dave nor Shannon would deliberately try to replace me or undermine me. And even if I didn’t trust and believe that, what could I possibly do about it? A big, fat nothing. So why go there?

But Dave does have a right to insert Shannon into the girls’ lives. Just as I have a right, as soon as I meet a guy who wants my washed-up old self, to insert someone into their lives. How we handle introducing and involving the new people is what is paramount. And rather than focus on a bunch of negative scenarios, I’m choosing to trust that neither of them have any interest in harming my relationship with the girls.

Lyrics from “Que Sera, Sera“, sung by Doris Day
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