Why On Earth Would I Buy That?

This Christmas my kids and I were extremely blessed by many of you readers. Due to your generosity, my kids had an amazing Christmas. My daughter was able to get her Puppy Surprise and when the "litter" that arrived in my PO Box was so much more than I could have ever anticipated, my nonprofit pulled a team together to pay it forward and brighten the faces of the children in our organization; children whose families have been devastated by domestic violence and because of that are also financially struggling.

You guys really blew me away this holiday season and as I keep saying to people, I really don't even know what to say. I thought about writing another mushy-gushy post, but to be honest I have no more tears left to cry. I spent Christmas morning crying as I watched my children squeal with glee and I could see that for once, all their dreams were coming true, and then I cried because their dad wasn't around to see it. I cried when I collected the Puppy Surprise toys for the shelter; happy that so many kids would be thrilled, and then I cried because so many kids shouldn't even be in the shelter to begin with. I've spent many nights recently crying myself to sleep — scared as always for what tomorrow will bring, but also just because I feel so incredibly blessed.

I am so incredibly blessed.

But I simply cannot cry anymore and so in looking forward to the New Year, I want nothing more than to kick it off in the best way possible; LAUGHING! And so with that, here are a few things that I am happy did not show up in my PO Box this holiday season. In a spin off to our usual "Things That Make You Ask Why?" series, I bring you "Why On Earth Would I Buy That?"

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 Why is it so apparent that whoever designed this toy does not have children?

Because no kid has ever asked for a "make your own chandelier kit" and no parent has ever jumped at the chance to buy one. Do you know what kind of crafts I like my kids to do?

The ones that they can do alone.

Any toy that requires an electrician be present in order to play with it probably also comes with glitter.

Parents, you know what I'm talking about when I say glitter.

GAH!

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Well, That Never Happened

So I've been attempting and failing to get a new blog post out for DAYS now, and I'm finally waving the white flag. Between The Boy Child getting taken down by the stomach flu, The Girl Child getting hit in the face at daycare and needing stitches, a bunch of year end work that needed to be done for the nonprofit, multiple deadlines I've been trying to meet as my (writing) employers close out their year end publishing schedules, and a litany of other ridiculous yet time consuming events that have taken place over the last week, I fold.

Do you hear that universe? I fold, you win! I will never see my sofa again because you win!

A Better Way To Spend Your Time

“But no one will think I’m pretty!” she said, her 7 year old face starting to well up with tears.

Dressed as if she were going to be in an elementary school fashion show, she was wearing the dress that she begged me to stay up late last night and wash, enough plastic bracelets to accessorize the entire 2^nd grade, my cherry Chapstick (because “maybe my friends will think it’s lipstick!”), and yet she still wouldn’t get out of the car.

Looking at the 7 year old face wearing the cherry red Chapstick that I would never normally allow her to wear to school, my mothering instincts wanted nothing more than to lock the car doors, and take her back home where I could protect her.

But I couldn’t do that and she knew it, because it was a conversation that had kept her and I up late many nights over the past few weeks; a conversation revolving around the fact that she didn’t want to wear her new leg braces to school.

My daughter has worn braces on her legs since she was two years old, but a year ago at the suggestion of her physical therapist, we decided to see how she would do without them, and for about nine months she did great!

But then she stopped doing so great.

After a trip to the doctor and a check-in with her old therapist, it was decided that she needed to go back in the braces overnight and for periods of time during the day. To say that my daughter was crushed would be the understatement of the century. Although braces for her won’t be a forever thing, she doesn’t care, because for her they are a “right now” thing and right now she is in 2^nd grade where the kids are learning to judge each other on anything and everything.

She doesn’t want to be judged.

To her, she feels the way that every little girl wants to feel. She feels like a princess, a model, a singer, a dancer, a comedian, and a valedictorian. She is goofy, spunky, crazy, funny, smart, caring, precious, and loved. But when she looks in the mirror, she sees plastic that makes her feel “different, less than, and broken.” And when that reflection shines back at her it overpowers the princess wearing the cherry red Chapstick and 37 plastic bracelets, because she knows that when other people look at her, they aren’t going to be looking at her bracelets. She knows that the other kids (and even some adults) are going to be looking at her legs and that everything else that makes her who she is will become secondary to the one attribute that people will naturally focus on.

And it kills me.

A Week With My OTHER Weirdo

As most of you know from my Facebook post, The Boy Child had a surgical follow up appointment last week. It was a week sooner than it was supposed to be but I had noticed a couple of things that had alarmed me a little bit and I wanted the doctor to take a look at him. The doctor sent him for a couple of tests before he saw him and after going over the test results, the doctor informed me that unfortunately the surgery had not been a success. I was pretty bummed, but you know what?

I can't do anything about this.

There is absolutely nothing that I can do except to wait for him to heal enough that we will be able to try again, and when that time comes, we will get through it.

We will.

But that's not today. So for now I'm choosing to turn my attention elsewhere and so today we are not going to be talking about surgery. Nope, we are going to talk about the fact that my son is crazy.

Adorable, but a total nutcase.

I actually wrote the remainder of this post back in October (when I wrote about how strange his sister was), but I never got around to posting it, and I have to tell you, he gives his sister a run for her money in the weirdo department. At just 4 years old, when he isn't busy washing his hands with a used urinal cake, he is doing other things that are just plain strange.

This is what it's like living with him for a week:

Monday:

"Let me show you the cut that I have on my finger."

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Tuesday:

I'm Going To See My Family (Yep, You Read That Right)

I thought it was a Christmas card when I opened it.

If I had known, I would have prepared myself a bit more.

It wasn't a Christmas card, but rather an invite to my grandmother's 90th birthday party.

I know that a birthday party invitation doesn't seem all that scary, but when I haven't seen much of my family in nearly 3 years, the thought of seeing any of them  — let alone all of them at once — was enough to suck the air directly from my lungs and leave me gasping for breath, hoping that I didn't pass out.

I don't want to go to the party.

But I think I should.

Sorry I'm Late

Sorry, I've been lazy, so here's a post that has been building up in my file folder for two months now and I just haven't gotten around to publishing it. I have however, gotten enough emails from readers asking "why haven't you posted any of the free weekend activities that you guys do?" to let me know that I'm slacking.

I also didn't realize that so many of you were using my free weekend activities to spark ideas for your own family, so I apologize for being so delayed. If there is any advice that I can give you, it's to go to your local library, recreation center, and park district office and get the informational booklets that nearly every town publishes on a quarterly basis. The booklet should detail all the events and festivals that will be going on in your area, and most should have the costs listed with the event time information.

Because I have absolutely no money for entertainment and yet I don't want my kids to miss out on their entire childhood, I go through the book and put all the free activities right into my calender so that I can plan ahead for the ones we want to attend.

ANYWAY, I figured this extended holiday weekend would be the perfect time to drop this post's enormity on you because some of you might have a little extra time to get through it all! So jumping back to the end of September and moving forward, here is what has been keeping us busy, free and otherwise.

Surgery Is Over

Well, surgery is over.

I'm sorry I didn't update sooner but it was a really long day yesterday. I'll also go ahead and apologize for the quickly done and somewhat terrible photo editing below, photo edits aren't really my immediate priority today but I know how caring so many of you are and I didn't want to make you wait any longer for an update!

The surgery went pretty well. It was more involved than we were anticipating, but he did well and is now home.

We got to the hospital at 6:30am, but you would never have known it was that early by the enthusiasm The Boy Child showed for the hospital playroom.

And yes, he is wearing footie pajamas and rubber rain boots. It was early, don't judge!

Once he was taken back to pre-op, we waited... for hours. With him not being allowed to eat or drink anything, it was a long wait.

Eventually they took him back to the OR and after I paced the waiting room for what felt like eternity while I watched the surgical board for updates, I was finally called back to see him in recovery.

I cried.

Even More Surgery On Friday; A Message About Flat Tires And Broken Dreams

It’s 11:14 am and I’m sitting in the hallway of a very fancy theatre while my daughter watches a play with her class. I drove her here but she didn’t want me to sit with her, because “mom, that’s embarrassing.” Typically I’d have a lot to say about her attitude, but I’m exhausted and therefore making the executive decision to just let her snarkiness slide.

Plus the play looked stupid.

So here I sit, ushers walking by as they appear to wonder why I’m perched on the edge of a sofa that is probably more for looking at than sitting on, but alas, I’ve never been the most socially appropriate person, so why start now?

I’m tired.

My alarm went off yesterday at 4:00 am and in the dark I bundled my children into the car and drove us across town to Frisbee Boy’s Mom’s house, where she then drove the three of us into the city so that The Boy Child could be seen by a team of specialists at a major university hospital.

There's A Conspiracy Brewing...

A few months ago, a Facebook business networking group that I belong to started promoting a variety of subgroups that the group owner is calling "missions." Before that the group had served as a connection tool where local business owners could network with each other. But then suddenly the group owner started repeatedly asking all of us to join at least one of the subgroups as "a good way for businesses to give back to our community." I wasn't sure how many more commitments I could pile on my plate right now, but when I saw that one of the subgroups was aimed at raising domestic violence awareness and that one of my nonprofit board members had joined, I decided to join the DV mission.

Then things got strange.

My Friend Was Murdered

My friend was murdered last week.

I'm in complete shock.

Several years ago my friend's husband died of a drug overdose, leaving her as a single mother to her young son. Looking back, her situation reminds me very much of the one I was in, except that in the end, my drug addicted husband left, and her's died. I always thought mine would die.

Not long after he died, she met someone and got pregnant. She was so happy — that is until her new boyfriend hit her. So while still pregnant, she left him.

I took care of her son on the day the baby was born. I'll never forget him asking me every five minutes to call his mom and see if his sibling was born yet.

My friend had a little girl and thus became a single mother to two children without fathers.

My friend changed her life. She recognized the pattern she was in and she decided to put an end to it. She became an advocate for taking charge of your life and an ambassador of self-respect; a loud, outspoken, caring woman who spent her time teaching teenagers that you create the life you want to lead, and that you are worth more than the people who try to bring you down.

She lived for others and exuded everything that I've always aspired to be.

Last year, 9 years after her 1st husband died, 8 years after she left her abusive boyfriend and gave birth to her daughter, she got married. She thought she had found the life she was always looking for; the same life that so many single mothers and DV survivors hope to one day find. She had a complete family and she was thrilled.

But then just a couple months later, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Not one to back down from a challenge, she kicked cancer's ass.

Two weeks after getting a clean bill of health, last week, her brand new husband, her chance at a fresh start, murdered her.

Yea, I Totally Eavesdrop

As most of you know, I have a rare genetic disorder that causes me to have to be on a very specific medical diet. Every couple months I have to get a blood test that measures markers in my blood that tell my doctors if I'm ingesting gluten. Because I don't have any immediate reactions or digestive symptoms to eating gluten, I really have no way of knowing if I'm getting "glutened" by something until a major problem arises (remember how sick The Boy Child suddenly got?), which I would obviously like to avoid.

I've gotten a bunch of emails recently asking me (and Mr. Attorney Man actually asked me the same thing not long ago), "if you eat gluten, does it eventually filter out of your system?"

The Destruction Of Life

As I've talked about before, I used to do a lot of missionary work. For many years I spent part of my summers traveling the country and seeing poverty and human suffering that most people cannot even imagine. As I've also mentioned before, quite a bit of that time I spent in New Orleans. Sure, I walked the French Quarter, had a beignet at Cafe Du Monde, made my way down Bourban street, and tasted Jambalaya so authentic that it came from locals who would make it at their houses and bring it to the mission house (oh my gosh SO spicy send help!!!), but unfortunately my New Orleans experiences were even more authentic than that. I saw what many people never see past the jazz musicians and Voo Doo shops; the hopelessness and crime.

The first trip I went on was to help build a teen center to give kids a place to hang out. The goal was to get kids off the streets and away from gun violence, drugs, gangs, and prostitutes, and prepare them for a future outside of everything that was surrounding them. That trip was a lot of hard labor, but it wasn't too much different than any of the other trips I had been on before, except for one thing.

The big difference between that trip and any of the prior trips I had been on, was how unsafe it was.

On every other trip I'd been on, I had lived among poverty. I worked in towns filled with nothing but hungry, dirty, desperate, people who all needed help, and my heart overflowed with tears for people who couldn't even afford basic needs. But my first New Orleans trip was nothing short of shocking.

I'd seen dirty, I'd seen hungry, but I had never seen so much danger.

Forgive the poor quality, I had to take pictures with my phone of the pictures in my albums because I don't have a scanner. I took this picture standing just outside of the youth center.

There were rules. Women were never to go outside alone must always be accompanied by a man. Men had to travel in pairs. When the sun started to set, everyone must be inside.

Crime was at an all time high and it wasn't hard to see why as we watched strung-out prostitutes turn tricks in a house 50 feet from us and drug dealers with guns in plain view walk up and down the street looking for their next sale. A sign bolted to a light pole read "attention drug dealers and prostitutes, this is a school bus stop so please take your activities elsewhere. You've made your choice as an adult, now please allow our children to become one." The sad reality though is that only 1 out of 7 children who grew up in the neighborhood would ever become anything other than the people that sign was warning them against.

The neighborhood reeked of dying dreams and hopelessness, which was quite evident by the lack of police presence; a haunting symbol that the outside world had given up on the residents of this town.

For the kids whose parents even bothered to send them to school, they were stepping off the bus each day and onto the only street that many of them would ever know; a fact that would claim many of their lives.

I'd walked among poverty before, but this was the first time I'd ever been hell.

Why Living With A 7 Year Old Is Like Living With A Drunk College Student

Living with a 7 year old is like living with a drunk college student because you have absolutely no idea why they do most of what they do, you constantly have to watch them, and then there are moments when even during their stumbling awkwardness, they are able to argue an amazingly valid point.

I know this because I live with one and this is what a week of living with her looks like:

Monday:

I told The Girl Child to stop running down the hallway of the office building we were in. Looking very annoyed, she informed me “I am not running. I am speed walking and I just happen to be very good at it.”

I'm At Least Going To Try

If you remember, in June 2014 I decided to take my Ex back to court for unpaid child support. It was a decision that I had really struggled with because I was nervous to reignite his anger, but the kids and I were really struggling due to his refusal to acknowledge our existence or his court ordered child support payments. 

Eventually I decided that it was in my best interest to take him to court on the issue. I would highly encourage you to go back and read the posts surrounding those dates so that you know what I'm talking about, but for now I'll just put a very large cut and paste here from June of last year: 

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Please be aware that the following is a cut and paste from June 2014

"I’m tired of it. I’m tired of him. I’m tired of seeing things always work out for him while the kids and I struggle so much. Decide to hit your wife? Sure, go for it, no one will care. Decide that you don’t want to be a father anymore? Sure, just walk out the door and never look back. Decide to have your wife raped? Sure, the police aren’t going to do anything about it anyway. Shake your baby? No problem, your wife will dedicate her life to healing him while you just go about your merry way. Decide to stalk her for a few months because it’s all fun and games? 

Absolutely, go for it, you’ll never be prosecuted anyways.

When Love Hurts

She stomped out of the room, turning around just long enough to shout "I wish daddy was here and not you!!"

My heart exploded.

For a kid that is rarely in trouble and raises her voice towards me about as often as I change out my yearly calender, I was shocked.

Shocked, hurt, and shaking with anger.

I walked out of the kitchen, right past her, went upstairs, and climbed into bed. I don't know why I got into my bed, I just knew that I needed to distance myself from her before I started screaming everything that I was thinking; telling her everything about her father that I have tried so hard to protect her from over the last three years.

After laying there for a good 20 minutes and letting my knee-jerk anger subside, I came to the conclusion that what she did was normal.

Not appropriate, not acceptable, but not totally abnormal.

She gave me the equivalent of the "I love daddy/mommy more than you" phrase that at one point or another most young kids have thrown at a parent during an argument.

The Girl Child no longer loves her dad in the way that a child should, because she no longer knows him. But in that moment she was upset with me and having no other adult to turn to for support, she wished away the one the parent that was upsetting her and spoke aloud what she often keeps in silence.

She wants a daddy.

And while it hurt me to the core that she would wish away me and yearn for him, I have to remember that the reason she isn't angry with him, is because she is grieving him. She misses him (or rather the idea of him) and at 7 years old she doesn't understand all the things that I myself, as an adult, don't even understand.

Her dad abandon her and this is going to be a long road where I'm caught trying to navigate the path of allowing her to know enough about him to understand why it's better that he is not here and yet not letting her know more than she should be expected to handle at her age. Up until now I haven't told her the truth about her father because I need to remember that he is half of her DNA. I don't ever want her to feel like she harbors evil inside her because of him and furthermore, every scientific study out there proves that bad mouthing a parent to a child is detrimental to their mental health.

But at some point she obviously needs to know the truth.

Facebook Continues To Remind Me That My Kids Are Weird

(I'm going to apologize ahead of time, for some reason screenshots appear a bit fuzzy when you read them via an email subscription. You may want to click the title link at the top of the email and read it directly from the blog if you are having that problem. Sorry!)

Do you remember the post where I told you that "I Learned My Kids Were Weird From Facebook?"

Well a peek at my most recent facebook statuses has alerted me to the fact that not much has changed! My kids are still just as strange and my Facebook page will continue to be the vault that reminds me of that fact. Now that I'm reading over my status updates, does anyone want to adopt The Boy Child?

I Found My Mother's Family

My grandmother died five months ago.

I just found out a few days ago when I stumbled across her obituary online.

Well, stumbled may be a little misleading since I was in fact looking for her, but I wasn't expecting to find out that she was dead.

Actually, I wasn't even expecting to find her at all.

Now before I go any further I should probably clarify a few things, the first being that this is not the grandmother that I used to live with. Nope, that grandmother is alive and about as well as you can be when you are nearly 90, and I'm happy to say that despite the distance that I have put between myself and 99% of my family, she is one of the few people that I am still in contact with.

So the grandmother that I found online, she is the other one. My step-grandmother to be exact, but I never knew my real grandmother because she killed herself when my mother was three. This woman married my mother's father when my mom was still very young, and then several decades later she murdered him (or so the tale goes). After the murder my mother disowned my step-grandmother (a family tradition I guess?). I was roughly 12 years old when she did that and very much like what went on in my family when I disowned my mother, the rest of my mother's family turned around and disowned her.

I guess I do have something in common with my mother.

So... The Dance Recital Was... Interesting...

The Girl Child had her dance recital!!!

That Is Not My Problem

I'm sure Mr. Attorney Man is going to kill me for sharing this story, but oh well. I'm a fast runner so I think I'll be OK.

Several months ago we had a board member meeting for our nonprofit. Because our board consists of people spread an hour in every direction, it can be a bit challenging to find a time and location that works for everyone.

On this particular day we were to meet at 3:30, about 45 minutes away from where I live. I knew it was going to be a busy day so I had stayed up late the night before getting everything ready for the meeting to ensure that I would be prepared, and then I finally crawled into bed around midnight.

The day of the meeting I woke up early — roughly 5am — because I had a million things to do if I was going to be leaving work early. At 1:30pm I made dinner and put it in the fridge for both kids, then I went and got $45 dollars from the bank to pay the babysitter. At 2:00 I picked The Girl Child up from school (an hour before school lets out) and took her to a friend's house because I had no way of picking her up from school that day. After that I drove to The Boy Child's daycare center where I installed both kids car seat's into my babysitter's car (she works at the daycare) so that she could take The Boy Child home after daycare and pick up The Girl Child on her way.

Finally I started my 45 minute drive to the board meeting.

Good Luck With All Of This

It's the weekend!!!!

Last weekend I updated you on the craziness that has been going on in our life, but geez, I've also been so busy at work (and I'm not even talking about running the nonprofit!). Allow me to update you on a month's worth of articles that I wrote while sitting the waiting room during The Boy Child's therapy, and hopefully it will give you something to do if you are taking it easy this weekend!

Here, have fun combing your way through all of this:

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I rented a human being off of an Internet site, and no, I'm not kidding. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever done and since you all know how strange I am, that's saying a lot. 

"I Tried Renting A Friend And It Was Incredibly Awkward"

My Child Does Not Have Autism

We were packed in like sardines in a can; all six kids lined up in a row watching the magician. I was sitting on one end of our kids and my friend was sitting on the other. 

To my surprise and The Girl Child’s delight, The Girl Child was chosen to go up on stage as the Magician's assistant for one of the tricks. When she went up there I whipped out my phone so that I could snap a few pictures of her ear to ear grin.

After taking three photos I turned to my left to see what The Boy Child's reaction was to his sister being "on stage."

But I didn't see him.

“Wait a minute” I said to my friend. “Where’s The Boy Child?”

As Usual...

As usual, it's been really busy around here and since you guys are always sweet enough to email me and see what we are up to, here's the monthly update!

I've been working insane hours and there's been something else taking up a lot of my time (which we will talk about later this week or early next week), but I've continued to maintain my stance on "No Work Weekends." It hasn't been easy! Just knowing that I have a TON of work that needs to get done makes relaxing on the weekends hard, but I'm determined to remain steadfast in my belief that my priorities are my children and I need to remember that when it comes to deciding where I focus my attention.

Focus your attention on what you most wish to succeed.

So here we are and another month has gone by! First off, Henry has continued to adapt well to the craziness that is our household.

Even though Henry sleeps most of the day, I think he's a little lonely now that The Girl Child has started school for the year. 

What!? Already!? Didn't school just freaking end!? 

Yep, she actually started weeks ago! 

Another Round Of "Conversations I Didn't Think I Would Be Having This Week"

I hadn't done one of my "conversation" blog posts in a while, so I made it a point last week to take a note of at least one strange conversation I had a day, because let's be honest here, it's not like I'm getting any more normal.

Monday kicked itself off to a rocking start when I was at the Chiropractic office that I work at on Monday's (that's it, I'm going to have to make them a label, they have been on here like 5 times already). Anyway, one of the chiropractors and I were going to be hosting a table together at a local festival coming up in our area — him for his practice and I for the nonprofit, but together so that we could share the cost — and I needed to know some of the details for event. As I've mentioned in other posts, he has a very dry sense of humor that unless you know him, comes off as very blunt and unfriendly.

Game on.

Me: What time are you going to get there?

Him: When I get there.

Me: OK, well how will I know if you are there?

Him: Well, if you show up and you see a tent, I'm there. If you show up and you don't see a tent, I'm not there yet. (Chuckles to himself)

Me: Well look at you Mr. Funny Man, laughing at your own jokes, so proud of how funny you think you are with your witty comebacks.

Him: (Looking slightly embarrassed, he attempts to re-route the conversation) Don't wear black. It's going to be hot, so that shirt you are wearing right now, don't wear anything like that.

(Apparently now I need help dressing myself?)

Me: I'm not going to wear black, I'm going to wear tinfoil so that all of my sun will reflect onto you. At least that way when you are standing around with that grouchy statue-like face, you will have a nice Greek tan going on.

Him: I could absolutely see you wearing a tinfoil hat.

Me: Duh, how else will the mothership find me?

And then I turned around, left, and went home.

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Tuesday:

On Tuesday a good friend and I went to go see Magic Mike XXL in the theatre. 

(P.S. it was awful. I write better text messages than that entire team of writers did coming up with a plot line, but if you were just going to see the actor's bodies, well then step right up and buy a ticket because it did not disappoint)

After the movie my friend and I were sitting in the hallway of the theatre because neither of us were quite ready to go home yet but we didn't really have time to go anywhere else. I told her that we should take a selfie and commemorate a rare outing without kids, and then at the last second I turned and pretended to kiss her.

Mr. Attorney Man And I Almost Died (not really but almost)

Court was… interesting, but not in the way that you might think.

As you know I posted on Monday night that I had JUST found out that I had a court date on Thursday morning to extend my Order of Protection. I was freaking out because this blog was born out of an attack that occurred due to retaliation when I got the initial order. Obviously I didn’t want to go through that again so I had a tough choice to make; risk my life and extend the order, or risk the kid's safety and let it lapse.

I was supposed to let Mr. Attorney Man know on Tuesday if I wanted to extend it or not, but due to a ridiculously busy week and a lot of inner turmoil, Wednesday night snuck up on me and I still had not made a decision. When I got a text from Mr. Attorney Man that basically said “I need an answer from you," I responded back with the only thing that I knew for certain; “how am I supposed to make a decision on something that might get me killed when I haven't had time to make any safety plans?”

In the end it was decided that if my ex showed up we would request a continuance on the case and if he didn't show up, Mr. Attorney Man assured me that the order would be "rubber stamped through" (meaning that it would be automatically extended and I wouldn't have to really talk to the judge) and then it should take a few days before he would even be served with the order, so that would buy me a little time.

I was about as OK with that plan as I was going to be with anything at that point, which really meant “I get that this is my best option but I really just wish that I didn’t have to deal with it at all.”

When I woke up on Thursday morning I felt so unnerved and sick that I gagged on my toothpaste.

I then got ridiculously lost on the way to the courthouse.

I knew that there was some construction going on near the courthouse, so I had planned for it and left my house early, but what I was not expecting was over 6 miles of one-way-street detours that took me through neighborhoods, a construction zone, what appeared to be an abandoned commercial district, and then eventually spit me out clear on the other side of town. When I passed a house with a sofa on the front lawn and a hotel that advertised "we have color TV and waterbeds," I realized that I was in the beginning of every scary movie I had ever seen.

My GPS had gone from continuously telling me to “make a u-turn when possible” to eventually just showing what appeared to be my car floating around in space.

Court Decision

I'm sorry that I didn't respond to all of your messages, I've just been a little overwhelmed this week. I did read all of them and I truly appreciate each and every one of you who took the time to comment, they all meant something to me.

I don't have a long post because it's been a bit of an emotional day, but after pushing Mr. Attorney Man off for much longer than I should have, I decided literally an hour ago that I am going to go to court tomorrow morning for the Order Of Protection.

I'm not sure if it's the right decision or not, I can't even promise that I'll go in once I get there, but I'm going to try.

I'm kind of a mess right now so I'm just going to climb into bed and hope that tomorrow goes quickly.

Thank you for all your support.


Photo Credit

Having A PTSD Crisis Here...

So this morning I texted Mr. Attorney Man to let him know that my Order of Protection expires in a few weeks. Renewing it was something that I had been somewhat pondering but mostly just pushing out of my mind, and I wanted to at least touch base with him and see what it entailed before I really let myself get too worried about it.

His response was absolutely not what I was expecting.

Sorry, You Caught Me On A Bad Day

A few weeks ago I chaperoned a daycare field trip to a laser tag arcade.

The minute I walked in the owner of the place latched onto me like a creepy ass leech. We weren't even there ten minutes before this guy was telling me how beautiful I was (not even a compliment, I guarantee he says that to many people), trying to help me put on and take off the laser tag vest, and just generally being weird. At one point he offered me a job because he said he would love to spend some time watching me.

WATCHING ME.

ALL KINDS OF SPINE SHIVERS ARE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

No, I do not want a part time job that high schoolers have just so that I can hang around with your creepy ass all night.

NO. THANK. YOU.

The other teachers? They thought it was hysterical! It probably had a lot to do with the fact that in order to just shut the kids up so that he could talk to me, he was handing them buckets of tokens, giving them drinks, and letting them play as many games of laser tag as they wanted. At one point he even rigged one of the games so that The Girl Child would hit the jackpot.

Then even after she won he gave her every single thing she laid her little eyes on in the prize cabinet.

When it was finally time to leave and after practically peeling this man off of me, I was about to walk out the door when I realized that I had lost one of my earrings; an earring that I was sure had been torn off as this guy manhandled the laser tag vest on me despite my protests of not needing help.

In the split second that I had to think about what I was going to do (since the kids were already on the bus), I gave him my phone number and asked him to text me if he found it.

Yes, I'm not stupid, I knew he would probably take advantage of that (which he did), but I figured that after I got my earring back I would just block his number.

He found my earring but in the end I decided that going back wasn't even worth it.

Blech.

SHUDDER SHUDDER SHUDDER.

So when this happened just a few days later, sorry dude, but you caught me on the wrong day.

I'm the peach blurb

Yea... so that happened. Sorry dude, like I said, you caught me on a bad day.

You could have at least offered to buy me dinner first.

***********************

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On Losing My Anonymity

We were in the car, all six of us, a few girls that I knew and a couple that I didn’t. We had been in the car for a while when somehow the topic of Botox came up, which immediately segwayed into the topic of plastic surgery. As the girls were commenting on what they considered would be "going to far," eventually the conversation turned to me. I laughed and then said “well hell, I don’t know what kind of judge I would be, I’ve already had a nose job!”

I then braced myself because I knew exactly what was coming next.

Every single head in the car, with the exception of the driver, turned around in their seat to get a better view of my nose.

They all do it, every single time; anyone who has just learned that I had a nose job. They want to see exactly what it looks like — judge the work if you will — and in doing that they most often judge me. I can see it in their eyes before the words even start to stumble out of their mouths. It usually starts with something along the lines of “…..oh… well… wow. I mean it looks great! You can’t even tell… I never would have guessed. I mean no one would ever know.”

And that is just it.

When it comes to nose jobs, people assume that you would never want anyone to know. They assume that having plastic surgery on your face is something that you would be ashamed to admit, that maybe you don’t want anyone to know that you are now “fake pretty” — that you paid to look like this.

There seems to just be something inherently shameful about admitting that what people see might not be the “real” you.

Plus, there’s something culturally shameful about admitting to being vain and that’s the only reason people have “nose jobs,” right?

I get it. I 100% get it.

If you remember, I had the surgery done to correct a nose that was first broken when I took a knee to the nose as a child — a break that literally shoved my entire nose upwards and instantly created a large bump. It was broken several more times over the course of my lifetime and eventually settled leaning off to the left side of my face.

OH. EM. GEE. NO!!

The Girl Child had curriculum night at her school a few nights ago. Because they didn't want a bunch of kids interrupting the teachers and parents, the school had a drop-off classroom where kids could stay and watch a movie; both of my kids were excited to go.

There were two sessions that night and I ended up being the only parent that showed up in my daughter's class for the second session, which you know, totally rocked because the teacher and I got through everything really fast.

Unfortunately it wasn't fast enough though, because when I got back to the drop-off room The Boy Child was just coming back from the bathroom, by himself. 

The teacher, probably not having any idea otherwise, had sent my just-turned-4 year old down the hall, by himself, to find a bathroom.

Not. A. Good. Idea.

The Boy Child didn't share in my opinion though and was pretty excited to tell me that not only did he get to go wandering around all by himself, but he had gotten to use the men's room for the first time ever.

Sick Children, Crazy Ex's, Disowned Family Members, And A Really Creepy Bug!

A friend and I took our kids to the zoo.

The biggest attraction came during lunch when we found a crazy looking caterpillar.

To say that we were interested yet terrified would be the understatement of the century.

At one point my friend got him to cling onto a stick and when she swung him in my direction I must have broken an Olympic record the way I (from a seated position) leapt over our table and escaped to safety.

No freaking way was I about to let that thing touch me!! Even the kids were flipping out as is evidenced by my friend's screaming son.