My Daughter vs the Dragon that is School

Ok.  If middle school doesn't start off great next year, I am pulling Kaylen out and will home school her through someplace like Connection Academy online school.

I can not, and will not, go through another year where all hell breaks loose every afternoon because she has had a bad day at school and hates school and school is the worst thing EVER, and the anger at the world, etc.

I never, ever thought I would say this but her sensory issues from age 2 years until....well.....last year for a lot of things and still going on for others were way easier to deal with than her pure hatred of school this year.  It is putting me through the ringer and I have had it.  Four more weeks to go.

For all that is good and holy; let this school year be over.

There has not been a single day when she has come home and said she has had a good day.  Her teachers and beyond shocked by what I tell them goes on from pick up time until....well...usually 5 or 6.  All they see is a very happy child, excited about learning, always willing to help, etc.

I see a girl who works so hard to keep it together at school that she implodes upon getting into the car.

So. Much. Fun.   NOT!  I'm whipped.  I'm beat.  I can't take it any more.  I seriously think I am going to have a nervous breakdown.

Crafts usually calm her down but not today.  Today she is melting down all over the place over the smallest thing not going right.  💔

Random

Have you ever th get about just taking off the rings?  I wonder if she would notice.  Or care.  She takes hers off all the time.  The slightest perceived anything and off go the rings (thigh often explained away by "I took them off because I was doing XYZ".  I'm beyond caring.  They are off more than they are on.

I think about taking mine off.  After all, I'm not even sure what they mean anymore,  

They used to make me so happy.  They don't lately.

My Mind is Whirling

Yeah.  Welcome to my cluttered mind.  I have so much swirling around that I can't even capture a clear shot.  It's just been one of those days where you "feel" something in the air but you can't define it.  You can't see it.  It's just "there".  And it doesn't feel good.  Just the opposite, in fact.

As Kaylen would say on a day like this "I'm really sad and I feel like I am going to cry but I just don't know why."  I've got that one beat.  I've already cried today and I'm pretty sure I will do it again.

I've started listening to old CDs that are in my car: Taylor Swift, P!nk, Rascle Flatts, Lady Antebellum, etc.  Songs I used to blast back in the early days of being left.  There is beauty, strength, and oh so much pain in the words, in the music.  One nice thing is I can blast them now and Kaylen, who was four at the time, can still sing every single word.  Proud parenting moment?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  You be the judge.

In the past 11 years I have lost SO much and to be fair, what I may have gained doesn't even come close to balancing the scale.  The truth is, the scale is so completely unbalanced I don't even know how I'm still standing.  But then....AM I still standing?  Maybe it is all an illusion.

I remember when I was little and I would wonder if life was really just one long dream that someone else was having,  was any of it real?  Kind of a real Horton Hears a Who quandary.  Well....if this is all just a dream, I'd like whoever the dreamer is to wake up and set me free.  Sure, sure...there have been some pretty amazing and spectacular times in my live, overall.  My kids, to be sure, and I would never wish them away.  I'm just saying.....if it's a dream, it wouldn't be real anyway, right?

Mother's Day is coming up.  This is terrible, but I dread Mothers Day.  This year the kids won't be with me which makes me sad.  I love Kelton and Kaylen's attempts to make it super special.  Mother's Day is coupled with my dad's birthday and my mom's passing.  Nine years ago I spent my 6th Mother's Day clearing out my mother's belongings from the adult home where my parents had been staying and moving my dad into his new apartment in a retirement community.  Good time all around.

I'm at Kaypens gymnastics class right now and my head is being filled with little voices and coaches corrections.  I guess this is a good place to stop and maybe tomorrow things will make more sense.

I do have another post I can easily write but I am still processing.  And there is a LOT to process.

Life goes on.  Some how...life keeps going on.

The Last

I attended my very last elementary school conference.  How can this be?  How could the years from Kelton entering kindergarten to Kaylen ending her 5th grade year gone *this* fast?  So much, oh so much has happened in those years.  Not all good, not all bad.  But what I would give to go back to the day I left a five year old teary Kelton in his kindergarten room.  That day that I went home and cried for the three hours he was away from me.  Yes.  Let's go back to that day and start over.  It's just gone by so fast.

Movie Day!

We had a special outing today.  A very sweet friend of mine gifted us with a trip to the movies a little while ago and I have been waiting to use it.  Today, we went to see the movie Zootopia.  We had so much fun!  I haven't been to a movie in years (yes....you read that right.  Years.) so it was a little bit like walking into fantasy land.  It was the theater by our old house which brought back a lot of good memories.

And then....as if that wasn't enough fun, as we were walking in I heard "Casey! Casey!"  Another one of my sweet friend (Erin) was there with her girls.  There is nothing like a hug from a good friend.  :). We stood and talked until we were forced to take our seats for the previews.  So much fun!!!!  

After the movie, we stopped by 7-11 because they are running a promotion this weekend where if you bring in a container (no bigger than 10 inches in diameter) you can fill it up with a slurpee for $1.50.  Before we left the house, the kids scrambled to find containers big enough (and of course they couldn't finish their slurpees but whatever - they had a blast!).

All in all, it was a really good day. Minus the sensory meltdown Kaylen had at the beginning of the movie.  She started flipping out and I couldn't figure out why.  She curled up against me and cried, begging to go home. I finally remembered her sensory issues when it comes to a place with a lot of loud noise, a lot of people and too much stimulus.  I reminded her what was probably going on and that seemed to calm her down a lot.  It took almost all the preview time for her to settle down but then she was good.  It's odd when sensory issue things pop up when I had all but forgotten that a particular thing was ever an issue.  We really have made progress over the years.  :)

(I want to give a HUGE hug and thank you to my friend who was kind enough to send us to a movie.  Thank you thank you thank you!!  It will make an awesome memory for us.  ❤️)

What a great day.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The eternal question these days.  I wish so many things.....that I had never left my well paying job in Seattle after Kelton was born (but then again....being able to be with my babies full time was a gift I would NEVER wish away.  I was fortunate to be able to be there for them.  I don't take it for granted as it was amazing to watch them grow, I was able to be there for their firsts and being a stay at home mom was what I had dreamed of since I was a little girl.  I know how lucky I was.  I had a partner who supported that....until I didn't.  Until my dream of being a mom wasn't a big enough goal for someone else.

But now......(well...even then) I have a medical condition that makes working a full time job impossible so I have ended up being dependent on someone.  In my relationship with D, I didn't feel dependent.  I felt we were a team, a unit, a family.  Today, in this world I find myself in?  I'm nothing more than a convenience at best and an inconvenience at worst.  Days and weeks go by when I wonder what I am doing.  Why do I stay?

The kids.  Right.

They don't want to move, or change schools.  Well..to be fair, I think the moving would be ok but the changing schools, especially for Kelton, is a no go.

And where would I go?  I've given tight to going to the DSHS office to see what options are available.  Is there (and I can't believe I'm saying this) section 8 housing available out here in this school district?

And here is where I stumble:  this is NOT the life I promised those helpless babies when I held them in my arms.  I promised them a family, stability, having their needs met, having their wants as life allowed. Having their two parents, who dreamed them into existence, be with them, together, until they were ready to be on their own.

I have failed so much.  I am a great mom to them but I know I have let them down in ways they won't understand until they are older.

If I could have anything I wanted I'd ask for a permanent home for just the three of us, in the school district they are in, money to pay the bills and food in the cabinets.  I don't want for much....just the freedom to be me with the two of them.

Not worrying if today is the day I will say, or do something that will bring about mean words, cruel silence for days.  Emotional abuse.

Oh and right....the debt I allowed to be accumulated in my name?  I want that gone, too.  I was so stupid.  So, so stupid.

So I sit here, paralyzed by fear.  By the unknown.  I used to be strong and sure of myself.  I'm not anymore and I hate it.  I feel weak, lost, unlovable.  I don't have any fight left.

I just want to go home.

But I have no home to go.

I'm still here. Lost but deep in thought at the same time.  I just wish answers were clear as to what I need to do.  Well.......the answer to what needs to happen is clear but the path...I can't even begin to visualize.

Emotional abuse.

Mental abuse.

Financial abuse.

Narcissistic personality.

I can see them now and I am better at deflecting it but this is no way to keep living.

My kids are my primary concern.  They seem ok.  She is nice to them and doesn't dismiss them the way she does with me,

And still.  Oh and still.

F                  F

 A                   A

  L.                    I

    L.                    L

     I.                      I

      N.                     N

       G.                      G

DrOwNiNg

Never engh

Never good enough

Why was I even put on this planet?

Ummmmmm

Who takes the vacuum out of the closet at 1pm and leaves it sitting around for the rest of the day only to decide it is time to vacuum once it it time for bedtime for Kaylen?  It's hard enough to get her to sleep after a weekend at Dakota's but this?  This feels almost calculated.  I'm sure it isn't in the sense of evil calculations however I have asked many times for her not to start loud projects at 8pm.

Doesn't seem that much to ask for.

Apparently it is.

Hot Air Balloons

Fifth grade at The elementary school means hot air balloon building.  They are made from tissue paper and glue by a group of four kids and one adult.  I was able to go in and help Kaylen's group and it was so much fun!  I loved hanging out with her and seeing her in the class (we've had a rough school year with her so being able to be there, and see everything, helps me and her).   I learned she is oh so very hard on herself.  (Apple....Tree). But all in all, it was so much fun.

She Is Going To Be 11????

My baby girl is going to be 11 in 10 very quick days.  I have no idea how this has happened?  They said it would go fast but they never said *this* fast.  Those days of long ago when she was tiny, and loud, and into everything.  The nights of no sleep, the days of tears, silly grins and toothless smiles.  Those days are so far away and yet when I look at her, it feels like I can just reach back and grab it.  And yet....look at her.  So beautiful and so sure of who she is and yet.....complicated and unsure of this whole growing up thing.

She is amazing and wonderful and.....mine.  I created this magnificent person.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't find myself loving her more and more and more.

I sure hope I'm the mom she needs me to be.

Time Keeps on Ticking, Ticking, Ticking into the Future

What is happy when it comes to relationships?  How "happy" is enough?  How much "not happy" is too much?

I never lived in the future with Dakota.  We were married, we're raising a family.  I felt secure, safe, loved.  I find I live in the future every single day now.  When the next explosion comes, and it will, what do I do?  Where do I go?  How will my children handle it?

We have talked about it before, the kids and I, Abt how this is no way for a marriage to be.  They look at me with tears, begging me to just stay and not rock the boat.  The love their friends, their school, where they live (I have no idea what type permanent damage I am doing to them.

If I could find someplace to live, rent free or section 8, here in this area, I would.  I don't want to harm the kids anymore than the divorce and the constant battles with themselves on who they want to be with and when they want to be there.  I just don't know what to do.

Nothing I say is right.  But then she asks if I'm happy.  I slowly nod my head yes even though my mind is screaming "NO!  I'm not happy.  I signed up to be in a marriage with a fully functioning adult who would share responsibilities 50/50.  I don't have that.  I have three children and one adult who can't seem to constantly adult.

I'm so far in debt.  I see no way out.  Sure, I'm responsible for not saying no on sooooo many things that are part of our debt but I came into this relationship with zero debt.  And now I'm struggling to buy milk...let alone take my kids to a movie or out to dinner.

I can't see my way clear.  This wasn't how she was, for the most part, in the early years.  Yes, I look back and see plenty of red flags but I ignored them.  I really shouldn't have ignored them because now I am stuck and to make a move right or left will be to hurt my kids.  They have been hurt enough.  So have I, if we really want to be honest.

Truthfully, if my sister hadn't moved, the kids and I would probably be living with them.  My brothers house is full of a family of four and I'm positive they wouldn't be thrilled with a family of three moving in and messing up their carefully constructed lives.

Never in a million years, when I stood in front of family and friends in 1995 at Echo Falls Country Club, would I have ever imagined life as it is today.  If I had known, would I have done things differently?  I don't suppose I will ever know the answer to that question,

The End of a Long Painful Week

It's been a week, that's for sure.  I woke up Saturday morning around 6am in so much pain that I could hardly breathe, let alone function.  Every breath brought me to the brink of tears as I fought to hold them back.

615am.  Stephanie is still sleeping so soundly I can hear deep sleep breathing.  I don't know if it is comforting or enraging.  I can't move a single inch, the dog wedged herself tight against me and the cats were happily snuggled everywhere else.  And still, Stephanie's sleep breathing goes on.

I want to wake her.  I want to cry out but I can't bring myself to do it.  The tears slide down my cheeks and off the side before landing in my ears.  Trying to reach up and brush them away is pointless.  My limbs are asleep....tingling in that incredibly painful way.  Neuropathic pain.  Oh how I have gotten to know you well.  And oh how I hate you.

The time creeps slowly forward.  At 730pm, with tears streaming down my face, the sobs starting to get all too real, Stephanie stirs and starts to come awake.  Startled out of sleep, she asks what I need.  I whimper "I have to get up and I can't move."

She gets up and moves out of my way, thinking, I'm sure, that I should be able to roll over and easily, slid from bed.  Not so much.  I make maybe 1/4 turn.....maybe more like a 1/8th...and the tears I had been holding back burst through the dam and flood everywhere,  "I.........can't". I mumble.

She sits there and rubs my back, my arms, my legs.  She dries my face.

Meds.  Meds.  It's all I can think of.  If I get them in me, it will be a good 30 minutes before I can breath without a shooting pain.

Every move, every inch sends sharp waves of pain through every part of me.  I have to force myself up.  I cry, big sobbing, ugly crying but I finally get my feet to the floor and I'm standing.  Standing.  I'm standing.  Holy Mother of God - I am standing.  I reach for the wall and balance myself between the wall and the bed frame.m I ever so slowly reach the bathroom.  THANK GOD.

I reach for the door that holds my medication.  I can't even think.  Should I take the entire bottle?  No...probably not the best idea.  I sort out two of one kind and two of another.  I fill a cup with water and slug the combo back.  Please please please work quickly,

Stephanie helps me put on my slippers (no way I can reach down that far) and a cozy soft jacket to cover up my super cozy jammies.  She steadies me as we head to the living room couch.  She sets me up and makes sure I am comfy.  She makes both our coffee's and leaves me alone to collect myself.

That was one heck of a morning wake up.

The rest of the week has been pretty much a repeat.  Except I've learned to get myself up.  And oh...I ordered and received a HurryCane cane to help me get around from the bed to the bathroom a bit more easily.  It was a tough call to make but you can only deny the fact that the disease is starting to get a lead on you and you just might need so help.  Not in public yet but around the house,  and hey....it might make it easier to ward off the naysayers when it comes time to needing a handicap parking permit...which I fear is coming soon.

The one thing I never, ever really considered when people talk about constant is how much energy constant pain takes from you.  How I can go to bed and be asleep by 9pm, that I can literally sleep until noon the next day.  I woke at 10am this morning and I could have easily gone back to sleep for a few more hours except I knew I had chores to do and I had to pick Kaylen up at school at 2pm, pick up Kelton and go get their immunizations.  Then stop for some groceries before going home.

By the time I arrived home, I was utterly exhausted.  It's Friday and I am trying to stay awake for a little longer since the kids are up late tonight.  Stephanie headed to bed around 5pm and I was so jealous,

I hope I can sleep in in the morning.  My gut says no but the hope inside me says yes.  We will see.

They say you are only as old as you feel.  Guess what?  I'm about 110 years old.  But I am glad to be alive.

Friday

It's weird.  I've gone from Friday being the best of all days to Friday being.....well...just a day.  True - I don't have to get up at o'dark thirty but since I'm not really sleeping well these days, that doesn't really matter. Tonight the kids go to Dakota's so that's no fun for me.  I much rather they were here.  Yeah - maybe I AM co-dependent on my kids but if you served your days in 95% silence, and your kids were the only ones who brought joy, happiness, laughter, and well...NOISE to your day, you probably would be, too.

So let's explore the comment about "hearing my voice" through my writings.  I actually like that statement.  Thank you.  Being heard is something that is rare to happen these days so that feels good.  Facebook is great and all but let's be honest: rarely are any of us truly honest there.  I'm not.  Well....most of the time I'm not.  So much judgement.  You know you are being judged when people read it, scroll by, and don't acknowledge.  Maybe not true for everyone but for some.  It's weird that I feel I can be more honest on this blog, which is open to oooooh....pretty much anyone who owns a device that can access the internet.  Of course - I probably won't be 100% honest here either because (no wait.  Honest always with what I write.  Not honest in that I don't share every single thing.) well...it's the internet.  Even when I was having trouble with D, before divorce, I had a top secret, locked down tight, blog that I think only three people were allowed to read.

So yeah - I guess this is where my voice can be heard.  Again.  I'm tired of being silenced.  I was more ME when I was alone with the toddler aged Kelton and Kaylen than I do now.  And I was even MORE me, in the first year post divorce.  Lonely, scared, alone but more ME.  No wait - I wasn't really lonely.  I was lonely all the years D was in school but I was so used to it by then that lonely didn't come to play.  I was comfortable in that house by myself with my children.  I had done it for so long it just didn't phase me.

Maybe that's why life now doesn't really phase me all that much.  It's just weird because I'm not alone in the house.  She is always here, in the garage where she stays most of the day.  If she is inside, she is getting more coffee, showering, or sleeping.  Yep.  That is the sum total of my relationship.  It wasn't always like this.  The first couple of years were good.  We went out, we talked, we hung out in the same room.  But now?  I'm alone inside a marriage.  Instead of just having Kelton and Kaylen to care for, I also have Stephanie and Andrew.  Not what I signed up for.  I wanted a functioning family unit.  This is not.

I have all but stopped care taking Stephanie.  It dawned on me one day that it was pissing me off.  She isn't a child.  She can make, and attend, her own appointments.  She knows when her meds are low and need to be refilled so letting them go and running out is her issue.  Not mine.  I take care of going to my pharmacy and taking care of my needs.  She is a full fledged adult.  Even if she doesn't feel like it.

Heck - I don't feel like a full fledged adult but like it or not, I am and I have responsibilities that reflect that.  I have two children that need to be care taken.  They need appointments, they need to be driven places.  For some reason, the assumption has been made that I should do the same for Andrew and while I am HAPPY to help, I am NOT happy to do everything because she just doesn't wan't to.  Andrew's a great kid.  Really he is.  We had a few years there when I thought he would be the death of me but as he has grown up, he really is interesting to listen to and fun to interact with.  He and Kelton get along so well you would think they were birth brothers.  In face, all three of the kids get along.  It's just I resent being put in the mommy role for two other people when I am already the mommy to my two.  Now....if she stepped up and helped me with my two, no problem.  But she doesn't.

This is how yesterday went:
She was up around 830a.  The boys returned from the bus stop because their bus was late.  Instead of just jumping up to take them, I took them.  No biggie.  I didn't hear anything besides a mumbled "morning" from her all day.  After having coffee, she set up her bio mat (google it.  It's good for medical conditions but honestly, I think she uses it to hide but what do I know) and stayed on it for almost two hours.  Then to the garage to smoke again.  Then to the shower.  Back to the garage.  Around 230p, she went to bed.  The kids arrived home and I took care of all that stuff.  Dakota arrived at 5p to pick up the kids for their mid week dinner visit.  I had cereal for dinner.  Andrew made himself hot dogs.  The kids came back at 730p.  I went to get ready for bed so I could be comfy while putting Kaylen to bed.  Right about then....8pm, she got up and went to the garage.  No hello, no hi, no "Wow sorry I missed the entire day.  How are you?"  Nothing.

I get the house ready for the night and put Kaylen to bed.  After she is drowsy, I leave the room and put myself to be.  It's 845p.  Kelton comes to say goodnight at 10p.   And somewhere between then and 3am when Kaylen wakes me because she had a nightmare, Stephanie came to bed.

It's all just so weird. Not at all what I thought life would be.  I'm getting used to it.  Housemates.  I do the chores of the house, grocery shopping, bill paying, etc. and the kids and I get to live here.  But a marriage?  This is NOT a marriage.  At least, not any kind of marriage I've ever seen.

I was less lonely with just my two little ones.  How ironic is that?

Ok - time to get ready to take Kaylen to school.  I can hear the dog starting to whine because she knows it almost time for a car trip.  Pretty funny, actually.

Have a great morning, drink a cup of coffee for me and I will probably be back later.  I forgot how much I liked to write.  :)

Coffee, Anyone?

I couldn't sleep. Well...I did sleep until about 3AM and then I was awake.  Finally, at six, I decided to just get up and take a shower.  Then I snuck into Kaylen's room, turned off her dreaded alarm clock and woke her up.  Since she is usually the first one up, she was a bit surprised to see me there but happy that she didn't have to wake to her alarm.

Her school has an ungodly start time.  First bell is at 7:45am which means we leave the house at 7:30am to get her there in time.  I can't say I will miss this early wake time next year when she starts middle school.

Middle school.  Wow.  She seems too little to me for middle school.  *sigh*  I guess time waits for no one.

Shannon said something interesting yesterday in a comment.  She said she missed hearing my voice.  I guess I'm confused.  What does that mean?  Mostly, I'm just sitting here rambling...which is also mostly what I do on Facebook.  Just curious.

The house is still so quiet.  I can hear various animals wandering around, Kaylen eating, the hum of the fridge, and the bubbling of the fish tank.  Oh - and an annoying tick tick tick of Kelton's clock behind me at "his" computer set up.

I'm stuck.  I have nothing else to say right now.  Guess I will go sit with my iPad and check TimeHop, Instagram, and then Facebook.  Seems like I have a long day stretched out in front of me.

Don't Just Read the First One

Keep scrolling.  I think I wrote three yesterday and two today.  :)

Seriously?

I was just looking at my blog.  Did I really not post a single blog post in all of 2014?  How did that happen?  Heaven knows I had a million things to blog about.  Maybe that was the year that was hush hush in all that was going on.  You know - protect the "family unit" at all costs?  Weird.  No wonder I felt so crazy.

I mostly do all online things on my iPad these days (No, I didn't strike it rich.  I call it a parting gift from my father.) and blogging, while possible, is more difficult from the iPad.  Though to be completely honest, I'm having trouble with this basic keyboard for the desk top.  It doesn't auto correct my spelling and it doesn't put in the apostrophe and spell check....HA!  (Not that I'm an awesome spell checker or proof reader in the first place.)  Not to mention sitting in the desk chair is quite painful and I can't do it for long before I feel like I need to jump out of it.  The couch is more comfy and I am able to adjust pillows and blankets to ease the pain of my back.

Speaking of pain (nice segue, Case!), Dakota sold our family home last week.  I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly sad it makes me.  Maybe in the back  of my mind I always thought I'd move back there.  Maybe.  Possibly.  Probably.  But now?  I will never again step over the threshold. Never again call it home.  I miss it. More than I should probably.  Six years down the road and maybe, possibly, I'm still in denial.

I'm sure if I were truly happy, I wouldn't be.  Oh but that's a story (and a long one at that) for another day.

I just don't know how she could have sold that house.  Emotionally speaking.  We bought it from her mom, we raised our babies there (okay, mostly I raised our babies there).  I remember one of the last times I was in the house.....it was empty but I laid on the living room carpet and just listened.  I could hear faint echos of the laughter of my babies.  Faint crying but mostly the joy and the happiness that the house held.  Leaving that house for the last time took all I had in me.  And now, for forever, that house is just part of a long closed chapter.  You know what though?  Before chapters get closed...it should be a mutual decision.  I didn't want that chapter closed.  If I were truthful (which why not, right?) I still don't want that chapter closed.

Sometimes I wonder how it feels for her....looking backwards.  Is there a place in the timeline that should would go back to and try to do differently?  Knowing what she knows now....would she change it?

It's too late.  Too much water under the bridge. Time moved forward and all that so it wouldn't do me any good to know the answer.  Besides...whatever the answer would be would most likely kill me.  Either way.  So......I will just have to wonder.  And visit my old life in my dreams.  Which, yes, I do.

Wednesday

My plan is to blog a bit every morning while I have my cup of coffee.  We w ill see how that goes.  :)

I have the kids all off to various schools...all driven today, courtesy of me.  I always drive Kaylen (otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get her out the door.  School is not her favorite this year.  She had the best ever teacher last year and there is no way she will ever top that again (you know, we all have that ONE teacher?)  Her's was Mrs. Fern and Mrs. Fern adored Kaylen right back.  This year, one of her teachers is awesome while the other one, she just doesn't connect with.) and today Kelton had to turn in his big National History Day project which is hard to handle on the bus, plus it's pouring rain today.  And well...the high school is just a few blocks further so I took Andrew as well,

And back home I came in the down pour.  I'm hoping that my grandmother's line of "rain before seven stops by eleven" is true.  The cold and damp are a brutal double downer for me.

I was reading through Facebook posts of mine a day or so ago and I realized something:  I'm pretty funny.  I guess I don't see it in the day to day because mostly I see it as sarcastic but reading back, I couldn't help but laugh.  No wonder everyone has always told me I should write a book.  I've wanted to but God help me, I have no idea what to write about.  People say "Your life" I say "What's so awesome and cool about THAT?"  Nothing.  So here I sit.  :)  Though for reals?  If someone approached me (again) and help guide the process, I'd be all over it.  (and I say again because I did write a chapter in a parenting book a few years back.  I have no clue if it was ever really published though.)

Want to know something funny?  Kaylen writes almost identical to me.  I see notes lying around the computer area and I think "What is that?  I don't remember leaving a post it there......oh wait...I don't play Mine Craft so clearly I didn't write that."  It's surreal.  Maybe someday I will leave her some cryptic note and then play all innocent when she is puzzling over what it means.  Hee hee.

Speaking of Mine Craft.....whoa.  I wish I was in on the design team for that one.  They have to be sitting pretty.  I have never heard of a more popular game.  Angry Birds was big or a while but Mine Craft has staying power.  All three play it.  They can play with friends who are playing from their homes.  Technology is so crazy wild.  When I started this blog, I had a flip phone and no clue about texting.  How far we have come.

My coffee is almost gone.  You know what that means?  And no.....unlike in years gone by, it doesn't mean pour another one.  I've cut waaaaaaaay back on caffeine.  I can actually go weeks without a cup of coffee and then I will have one.  It's weak enough that it doesn't jack me up, which is good because that is one feeling I can't stand.

I will leave you with this:  in a quiet house, the pump on the fish tank can make it seem like a radio is on.  Or a device is doing *something*.  It's kind of freaky.  You know.....just sayin'  :)

Friends of Time Gone By

The coolest thing happened the other day.  I received a friends request on Facebook from someone I used to be incredible close to.  I have been thinking of her for a while now but the shock of seeing her name was undeniable.  I confess I have stalked her blog every now and again and sometimes her comments or her photo would pop into mutual friends news feeds.

I admit.  I hesitated before hitting the confirm button.  There was so much hurtful drama that surrounded our parting and unfriending.  The same hurtful drama that caused me to lose so many of the people I had called friends for so many years.  Years have passed.  What?  Five?  Six?  Closer to five, I'd say.  I'm not sure of the exact chain of events anymore (time, pain, etc have dulled and blurred memories) but it felt like one day I had a big group of friends and the next....none.  Anyway - the specifics aren't important anymore.  I'm going to guess that things worked themselves out in whatever manner they were meant to.  I, for one, found myself busy with Crestline PTO and the friends I mad there.

Anyway.....opening the door and letting this friend back into my life kind of shook me up.  It makes me wonder about the other people of that time.  Where are they now?  In the back of my mind, they have all stayed in exactly the same place.  The same houses.  The same number of kids.  The same groups getting together for this, that, or the other thing.  Only....that isn't true.  I found out that two people I had kept neatly placed in their houses with their children have moved far away.  Others have had more kids, gone back to work, sold their homes and moved.  I don't know why I'm surprised because MY life certainly looks nothing like it did back then.

Those people.  Those friends from long ago.  I wonder if they think about me.  I wonder what they think if they do.  (And if it's mean and nasty, I really don't want to know.)  I wonder if they wish it had all happened in a different way as well.

And here's a head scratcher for you: if someone who was a friend for a long time on FB unfriends you and then, months later, starts to follow you on Instagram: what does that mean?



I'm sitting here staring at the blinking cursor.  I don't know what else to say.  As I posted on Facebook last night, my head is swirling with so much but the words are hard to find.  It's weird.  It's like I don't trust myself anymore.  Or maybe it's that I don't trust people anymore.  Who is for me.  Who is against?  And I'm 51 so does it really matter?  Yes.  It does.  I wish I could say it doesn't.  But it does.

Technology.  A tool created and sold to us under the guise of keeping us all connected is really a tool to take away being connected to people.  People will read this and they will either choose to leave a comment, or they won't.  I won't know who just read the crap I let flow through the keyboard.  Probably not many since I have been MIA so often.  But it's hard.  This blog was filled with all things kid related and now?  I don't have those cute stories to share.  Or cute photos.  I'm lucky to get a photo that is usable of Kelton these days.

Eh.  Anyway.  It is what it is, right?  The only way out is through and all that happy jazz.

Onward we go.  Ever onward we go.  Even when I don't want to.

Just Wondering...

...Who am I these days?

I seriously have no answer for that question.

When the kids were little, I know who I was and how I fit into the world but now that they are growing older, I know less and less of who I am.

In 9 months, the same amount of time it took to make each of them, Kelton will be in high school and Kaylen will be in middle school.  How in the heck?!?!?  I mean seriously......HOW did so much time pass by.  I still feel like I should have toddlers running around causing chaos, chubby little arms wrapped around my neck, play dates, outings, parks, after dinner kitchen dance parties, plastic plates neatly divided into compartments so I (someone who could life her whole life without cooking or making another meal...I mean....HELLO?  When I was little we were supposed to be living like the Jetson's now.  Push a button.....hot meal delivered.  Push another button, a capsule filled with all you needed to eat right) could make sure they each got their food groups.

TV shows like Blue's Clues, Dora, Max and Ruby, The Wiggles used to be the soundtrack of my life.  Now?  Now it's silence.  Uncomfortable silence at times, comfortable at others.  I'm ok with silence...it's just that I have to wonder.  Is this it?  Is this all there is after all those years of being THE one that two little people counted on twenty fours hours a day?  Do they just grow up and leave me behind?

Yes...I know that's what they are supposed to do.  It's what I've been teaching them to do since the day they first rolled over, or crawled.  Definitely by the time they were walking.  The goal is raising healthy, happy, productive members of society and I am doing that.  But.......it leaves me lost.  I don't like it.

The hormones.  Oh deal heavens let talk about the hormones.  Push pull and push again.  They need me, they hate me, they want me, they want me to leave them alone.  Except when they are hungry (and that takes us right back up to the second paragraph.)  Except when they need something or want something from me.

Kelton towers over me.  Like...for real. He is a good 5 inches taller than me. I promise you, I never REALLY thought I would have to look up at my child/  But boy oh boy does he like being taller.  Never a day goes by that he doesn't call me "Little Mama" or say "You are SO short!" to me.  Kaylen, thank goodness, still has a couple inches to go before she is as tall as me.  But the child can wear my shoes (and has been complaining that my size 5.5 shoes are too small for her now).

It's all so strange.  In my mind I still see them as small but there is no denying that time is marching on.  Heck - one look at my gray hair will attest to that.  I guess it is a good thing that in my mind I still see myself as in my mid 20's.

My life.  So not what I ever thought it would be.  So it all still begs to question:  Who am I? And how on earth did I get this *this* place?

My Girl

Kaylen has been running fevers for weeks and weeks now.  Truth is, we are probably looking at months and  months now.  She has missed a lot of days of school so far this year (like.....18) because well.....when she gets ready for school and then collapses into a heap of tears, mommy tends to send her back to bed,  Or when she arrives at my bedside in the wee hours of the morning complaining of feeling awful, I tend to have her turn off her alarm.

I don't know about you, but when I feel awful and am running a fever, out in the world is the last place I want to be and acting like I'm fine is waaaaaay below the last thing I want to do.

All winter break, she ran fevers.  She missed the first two days after winter break.

*****interrupted because I had to go get her from school.  *sigh* *****

Anyway, I took her to the doctor on the second missed day because my mommy gut is going crazy.  Low grade fevers on a continuous basis are the hallmark of some really bad things.  The doctor is the same one we were with last winter when she had funky stuff going on, too.  Not really fevers then but tons of tummy problems and pains.  (Maybe she is just allergic to winter and we should move to Hawaii to live with my sister.  :) )
The doctor ran urine and blood tests, both of which came back fine.  Which is great... BUT...then what is causing these temps?  My friend suggested it could be hormonal.  It is something to think about, that's for sure.

It's just frustrating.  I don't want to baby her but I don't want her at school feeling like crap either.

I just don't know.