Letter to my mother

Dear Mom,

I don’t know what your problem has been for the last several months, but you need to figure it out and fix it.  Maybe you are depressed or mad or upset but whatever it is, it needs to change. You have been treating Dancing Chick like she is a problem that you have to deal with.  I have told you before that she takes everything you say to heart but I guess that has slipped your mind again.  I don’t know how you talk to her when I’m not there because she is afraid that you will be mad at her if she tells me. But I see how you talk to her when I am there and I’m quite certain it’s worse when I’m not. I know because you have done it to me my entire life. You have said many things to me that a mother should just never, ever say to a daughter.  The damage you have done is deep and is taking me a long time to fix.  I am a big girl now and can talk myself off the cliff when you make me feel stupid, useless, incapable or whatever kind of crap you chose to make me feel like at the time.  She is just a child and looks up to you and believes everything you say.

I know that you will never admit you have done anything wrong nor apologize for any of the wrongs that you have done to me or her, but maybe you could talk to a therapist for her.  Maybe you could stop and actually take a real look at yourself. She deserves the best and you are not giving her your best. I’m breaking the cycle here because I remember what it feels like.  Maybe it has been so long since your mother passed away that you no longer remember how that feels.  It is something that I deal with on a daily basis.  I will no longer explain myself to you.  I don’t owe you an explanation for anything that I do with MY family and I realize that now.

You have an easy life now.  You don’t work and don’t really have anything to worry about so stop trying to create things to worry about. Enjoy the things you have.

In a couple of years, Dancing Chick will no longer need to be babysat by you.  She will be able to decide for herself if she sees you or not (and I will honor her choice).  If you want her to choose to see you, you better start fixing yourself now.

Your daughter

PS.  Don’t nag Dad to come to my house to try to scare me into “being nice” to you.  You are a big girl too and should fight your own battles.

TV Interruptus Update

So, I think it’s been about a month since the Dancing Chick and I started cutting TV out of our life. It has gone surprisingly well. I love having my new 7:30 to 3:30 schedule (only problem is that I have to work until 5pm on Wednesdays due to a staff meeting that is impossible to reschedule..believe me, I’ve tried!). I think that has made a big impact on how our evenings run.  Our get home time depends on the day of the week due to dance classes but once we get home, there’s no more automatic TV turning on.
      

 At first it was kind of weird, almost too quiet. Then while sitting and talking over dinner (now at the dining room table not the coffee table in front of the TV) those silent moments were really weird. Eventually those silences weren’t so awkward (awkward silences with my kid? I know, WTF?). It was like pulling teeth the first couple of days to get her to talk to me. Then, it was like a switch flipped and I couldn’t get her to stop talking and eat her dinner. I learned about the kids in her class (including the little bitch that has been “mean” to her. I still want to punch that one in the face but I’m an adult and I guess that is unacceptable). I’ve stopped worrying about what time it is. With me getting out of work so early, we have more than just two hours together at night. I’m not sitting there watching the clock tick and wondering how we are going to get everything done before bedtime. I’m actually sitting with my kid and listening and giving her advice that she is actually listening to. And with more time at night, I now remember to have her get her stuff ready for the next morning which makes for easier mornings.
   

  So, while I make dinner, Dancing Chick either does her homework or takes a shower or whatever other night thing she needs to do. After dinner is reading or play with Furball time until 7pm-ish. We watch TV from 7-8 (though sometimes DC asks if she can read more instead of watching TV, YAHOOOOOOOOO!!) then she’s off to bed at 8. Several times, I have turned the TV back off and sat and read some more of my book. This, in turn, has helped me save money. Because I’m not watching so much TV, my Tivoed stuff goes unwatched during the week. So, I’ve found that on Friday and Saturday night when I would  usually be watching a movie that came from Blockbuster Online, I was catching up on Tivoed shows. I’ve now cancelled my Blockbuster Online account saving me $16.99 a month!

So removing TV from our life has helped to:

• Bring my daughter and me closer together.
• Has us reading more books that we enjoy
• Wasting less money on movie rentals.
• Getting myself prepared for when I start classes up again in January.
• Spending more time with Furball-In-Training so she learns how dogs are to behave in this house (she pretty much does whatever she wants right now).
• And just basically having more relaxed quality time every night.

They like me, they really like me.

I got my first blog award from Mass Hole Mommy (go check her out she is very cool)!! 

Now for the fine print: Accept this award and post it on your blog. Include link back to the blog you received it from. Pass the award to fifteen blogs you have newly discovered and Be sure to contact them to let them know they have been awarded!! Easy Peasy!  I can only do fifteen.  Every time I go to a new blog there is a link to another good blog. Ok, just fifteen. 

The Quest for T.
Vinomom
My Ramblings
A Day in the Life: Chronicles of an Only Parent
Diary of a Mad Bathroom
Musings of The Lil’ Devil Mama
The Dumbest Smart Girl You Know
Not Your Average Single Momma
Single Mom Says
Mommy Wants Vodka
Going Green Mama
This Mama’ Dharma
Sunshine on My Shoulder
Single Parent Plus 2
Finding Fairy Tales

Make sure you go check all of them out!

 

Wishcasting Wednesday

I remembered Wishcasting Wednesday this week and it’s a good one.

What do you wish to experience?

I wish to experience complete security.  I often wonder what it would be like to not live paycheck to paycheck and just know that there will be enough money, time and energy to make it all happen. Every morning I wake up and just hope that I have what I need to make it through the day.

Baking Soda Tub Saver

When I was looking at buying my house, there was a problem with the well  causing there to be a lot of iron in the water.  They fixed it (by putting this giant tube thing with a water proof cap that sticks up on the left side of my driveway, bastards) but I was still left with bright orange and red sinks, toilet and tub. The tub was the worst.  I tried this Iron Out stuff that my mom gave me.  Now this is some super-duper harsh chemical stuff.  I put it in the tub, let it sit with the window open and the fan on.  I opened the door and was blasted with the worst shitty diaper smell ever.  I guess when it eats the iron it emits a shit smell.  I put on one of those masks and went to work on scrubbing it.  I could seriously only be in the bathroom for 30 seconds at a time.  My lungs were burning (even through the mask) and my eyes were burning balls (tehe, I said balls) in my head.  But I wanted to clean that tub and prove to my mother that I would not have to replace it.  I did this several times (every time Dancing Chick was out of the house so I was only causing my own lungs to deteriorate) but it didn’t get it all off.  I tried scrubbing it with Bon Ami and all those less harsh chemical cleaners but it never got all of it off no matter how hard I scrubbed. 

Then I was reading about the many uses of baking soda for cleaning.  I found out that baking soda actually lifts iron stains off of tubs and sinks.  So, I made the baking soda paste (three parts baking soda, one part water) and stuck all over the remaining red stains.  I came in, no mask needed, breathing perfectly fine and started to wipe it off with a sponge.  It just came right off! There were some spots that I needed to pull the scrub brush out for but it all came off!  I couldn’t believe it.  All those chemicals that I put into my house, my septic system, not to mention my lungs and eyes and all I needed to do was use baking soda. 

I started using it in the toilet and the sinks and it’s really just amazing. You don’t even have to make a paste.  Just use it like you would Bon Ami or any other chemical powder.  It’s cheaper too which is always a big plus! 

Give it a shot and let me know how it works in your house!

A helpful place for single parents?!?!?!

I was reading at Single Parent 411 about taking parenting classes and decided to google and see if I could find one near me. I put single parenting classes in Google and there were maybe three or four links to parenting classes (two of which were not for single parents) the rest were all single parent dating. WTF?

Is that all that society thinks we worry about, how to date?  Yes, there are those select few single parents who worry more about their dating life than their family life but those are few and far between.  Why isn’t there help out there for single parents who want help parenting.  I know there are plenty of parenting classes but I want one specifically for what I need.  I hate it but I always feel like I’m being judged when I’m around married moms.  I’m not sure if they are threatened by me or if they just pity me. Neither of which is anything I want. I want a parenting class that I can go to and feel completely comfortable in.  And I don’t want the answer to problems to be let your husband take the kids or make your husband do more around the house to help you out. These are not answers to my problems.

I wonder what it takes to start a non-profit.  I would love to create a place where single moms can go to get the help they need,  judgement free.  There could be parenting classes, a gym, day care, mommy/daddy and me classes, workshops for single parents trying to go back to school or start their own businesses, a meditation center, a library of used book swap/store, all kinds of classes for the kids, a therapist on site, etc, etc, etc….on my.  I’m going to have to look into this.

What do I want?

I’ve been thinking about this for the last week or so and it’s harder to figure out than I thought. If you take everyone else out of the equation, it’s not as clear as I thought it would be.  I know what I want for Dancing Chick, but if I take what I want for her out of my own “What do I Want” equation, it’s like a blank slate.  I should now exactly what I want so I can go after it each day. So why do I have no idea? 

It all started when I realized that I procrastinate on every aspect of my job.  I really just don’t want to do it.  My company is paying for me to finish my degree so I have to stay for at least a year after I’m done or I have to pay it all back.  But I really just hate my job.  And if you are spending most of your time doing something you really don’t want to do, that’s just not healthy. The problem is that to start over is really not possible at this point.  I have a mortgage to pay now and a child to take care of.  I can’t take a cut in pay to start at the bottom.  So where does that leave me in the whole finding happiness in a job path?  Pretty much stuck.  I need to figure out exactly what I want to do that also involves something that I love and feel passionate about. I know that most people don’t like their job but I don’t want to live like that.  It makes me a grumpy person and that’s just not good.

I guess I really need to do some soul-searching.  The toughest part of being a mother, I think anyway, is remembering to do for yourself.  We want so badly to make sure our kids are happy and healthy that what we want becomes blurred with what is best for our kids.

Mission #1: Figure out what I want.

Mission #2: Figure out how to get it.

Mission#3: Put plan into action (I have a feeling this will prove to be the hardest mission).

My One True Love and the Shit it Became

This whole thing has been weighing on me lately but I just don’t want to talk about it. Knowing myself, I know that I need to let it go so I’m thinking if I just get it out here, I’ll feel better.

For about 9 years, me and I’ll call him The One That Wasn’t, were on and off and up and down and back and forth. There was always someone in one of our lives getting in the way. Not to mention the fact that we were both carrying some serious pain from past relationships, commitment issues, etc. We met at a bar, but it wasn’t the usual bar pickup. A friend of a friend is married to his brother and she introduced me to him. I was smitten from the beginning. He was getting out of a relationship and my friend of a friend hated his ex-girlfriend and wanted to find him a “good woman” (not sure why she picked me..but then that was back when I was still niave nice). So, off we went. On and then off and then on and then off and then on and then off…you get the point. The weirdest part of it all was that we always ended up back in each other’s lives when we really needed each other. I would be having a particularly hard day and he would call out of the blue. He would be having trouble at work and we would drive past each other, turn around and meet in a parking lot or something. We would be at a bar that neither one of us had ever been to before after a hard day of work, we would end up at a town function and run into each other among thousands of people. We just always came back together. We were Carrie and Mr Big (no one will ever understand just how true that is!). I always believed that at some point everything would just come together and everyone who ever caused us problems would die and we would be together. No matter what, he was there in the back of my mind.

I eventually moved to New Hampshire from Maryland when my dad was offered a job in Mass. I wanted to be back with my whole family and we were in an off again position. I hadn’t lived near my family since I was 12 so I put all my stuff in my parent’s garage and the movers moved all my stuff too. He showed up on my doorstep the night before I was leaving. Everything was out of the apartment and I was just sitting in the living room reminiscing and there was a knock on the door. I almost stayed but I needed to get out of that horrible town where people couldn’t stand to see others happy.

A friend of mine came up to NH to visit and thought it would be funny to call him. So, here we went again. On and off and up and down and back and forth. He came to see me, I went to see him. Then, one day, while at work none the less, the same friend who convinced me to call him, calls me and tells me to go on her friend’s MySpace page and check out this girl, I’ll call her Unknowing, and there are pics of her with The One That Wasn’t and the caption says “My man and me.” So, since I’m at work I have to put on my tough face and get mad while my insides feel like they are in giant knots (I ended up throwing up in the bathroom when I could sneak away. That was fun). I confronted him and he basically talked in circles, never really admitting it. He had made me The Other Woman on top of the unbearable pain he had caused me and that was too much for me. Long story short, I told him he was dead to me.

Anger and hurt together are like living in a giant vice that squeezes and squeezes. They squeeze you together until you feel like your insides are going to explode. So, in order to get out of the vice, I forgave. But forgiving and forgetting are two very different things. He would text and I would respond with just short responses. Whenever the topic came up of us trying again or him coming to see me to try to make it up to me, I made it very clear that would never happen. There is forgiving and there is forgetting. That was forgiving and not forgetting.

And in the middle of drafting this, stupid me, I went onto Facebook to see if Unknowing has a Facebook page and now I know why he has been on my mind so much. There is a pic of the two of them and she has an engagement ring on and it’s very obviously an engagement picture but her profile is private so I couldn’t see anything else. I texted The One That Wasn’t asking if he is engaged…waiting, waiting, waiting…..Response: I am. Knife in heart and I end up locked in the bathroom at work trying to breath. Lucky for me I have a great friend that could talk me down through texts. I couldn’t breath and didn’t want others to hear anyway so I had to text her. Thank you!

Charlotte (Sex and the City) once said that you get two true loves in your life. So, I get one more shot at it, right. Once I’m done with my current job (raising Dancing Chick) maybe I’ll find him. But if not, that’s ok too. Like I’ve said before, I am perfectly happy being single.

26 Random Things about me.

I did this on Facebook and thought I would share with the blogospher

1. At night when I sit in my own living room in my comfy chair completely free of pain, I think of my grandfather in the nursing home who hasn’t sat in his own living room in his comfy chair free of pain in about 4 years and it makes me cry.

2. I tell Wonder Dog my secret dreams/ideas/thoughts that I’ll never admit to anyone. Every time I see those Bush’s Baked Beans commercial, I cringe.

3. Every year on my daughter’s birthday she wakes up to a single pink rose on her nightstand.

4. I have a journal in my nightstand where I write little quotes or advice for my daughter as things in life happen to me and/or her. Sometimes I just write little notes about something she did that made me smile. This will also be on her nightstand on her 18th birthday.

5. I want to own my own bookstore someday but know that with Barnes & Noble and Borders out there it would be very difficult.

6. I once spent 4 hours in a bookstore when my daughter was out of town with my parents.

7. I have the entire series of Gilmore Girls and have tried 8 times to sit down and watch it all the way through. Reality always gets in the way.

8. I can’t sit down and study or relax at night if I know that the kitchen is a mess…even when I can’t see it. It’s some kind of sickness.

9. I have learned to let go of my regrets through meditation.

10. I have moved 32 times, I think. I may have left a couple out.

11. I love snow. It makes me feel like I’ve left the real world.

12. I am learning to play the guitar so I can write songs.

13. I went to a Catholic school in 1st Grade. I am very thankful that it was only one year.

14. I wish someone would have sat down with me in high school and told me to get an English Lit degree and go into Publishing. Reading for a living would be a dream come true. Getting my masters in English Lit is something else that I’m considering, but I think it may be too late to get into that industry. I’ve also considered going to Law school. So as you can see, it’s really up in the air.

15. People don’t seem to believe me when I say that I’m happy being single. They can be very insistent that I would be so much happier if I was in a relationship to the point where they get mad at me (not sure what that is all about). I no longer listen. I now believe that I do know what is best for me, not everyone else.

16. I learned about Buddhism in a Philosophy class about 11 years ago. My professor spoke just a little bit about it but I was intrigued. I did my own research on it and it just made sense to me. The principles are very hard to follow because it’s basically about changing the way you think and act every moment of your life but when I am practicing like Buddha suggested, I feel much better.
It makes me sad that I can’t be more open about it because so many people judge what they don’t know. I wish they would learn just a little bit and then they would see that it’s more a philosophy of life than a religion. Sometimes I wonder if people get it mixed up with Islam when they look at me like there is something wrong with me after finding out I practice Buddhism. Do they think I’m a terrorist?
Right now I don’t have enough time to practice but now is when I really need it. My bad attitude for the last year or so is proof of that. I should probably be reading one of my books by the Dalai Lama instead of doing this. Lol

17. One of the things that I have taught my daughter is to always question everything and never just accept something because someone tells you it’s so. One day she kept asking me questions about something (I don’t even remember what it was I think it was about what temp it had to be for her to go outside and play). I said “stop questioning me and just go upstairs.” On her way up the stairs, she says “well mommy, you’re the one who always tells me to question everything.” I’ve never been so proud of her.

18. My brother and I have never gotten along but when he was younger someone punched him in the stomach and I put the kid in a headlock and punched him in the face. I’m the only one who can punch my brother!

19. When my family tries to remember something in the past we always have to first figure out where we lived at that time.

20. I”m scared to death that I’m going to try to fix something in the new house and it’s going to end up costing me a ton of money to fix what I made worse.

21. I would like to buy a house that is all windows. I love letting the sunshine in. But that wouldn’t be very energy efficient.

22. I no longer trust people until they give me a reason not to. Now I don’t trust people unless they give me a reason to trust them. I hate that.

23. When we were younger, my uncles (on my dad’s side) used to hang my cousins and I by our ankles over the railing at my grandmother’s house.

24. Nothing irritates me more than single mothers who don’t put their children first and portray themselves as a victim as they continue to make bad choice after bad choice. These are the only single mothers that society seems to see.

25. I played soccer all through school but haven’t played in 13 years. I miss it.

26.I would love to have a house full of dogs. Dancing Chick  informed me the other day that she would like to have her own dog kennel and grooming business so we may get to have that some day.

Snotty little attitude

 

This morning Dancing Chick had the shittiest attitude! Everything I said got a snotty remark, a whatever, or a little attitude noise (anyone else get these attitude noises or is it something my kid invented?) It got to the point where I started screaming like a banshee. And then, of course, she starts crying. I told her that when she gives me an attitude, it makes me want to cry too and walked away. After she got dressed, she came out of her room with a nice, sunny disposition. I don’t want to have to scream like a crazy lady to get her to stop the little snotty attitude but I don’t know what else to do. And in the mornings, I am just unable to deal with a shitty tude.

I saw in my yahoo reader a blog title about kids with attitudes and that it’s their way of showing anger or something but now I can’t find it. Anyone know who’s it was???? Help please! I really need to read it!