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seventh and last

2012-05-15T14:03:54-07:00

Today is my last wedding anniversary.

I mean, the last one before my divorce is finalized. It would’ve been seven years today.

It makes me unbelievably sad to think about it. It’s not that I want to stay married to Dave. I don’t. Not anymore, I really don’t.

I guess it just makes me think about the actual wedding day, and how happy we were then, and how full of hope and promise and potential we were.

Poof. Gone.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk about it for the past week or so. Then I decided that I’d had enough of my stupid moping, and I was going to do something drastic to cheer myself up when the day finally rolled around.

So I texted my hairdresser and asked her if she was working today and had any openings. She did. (Have I mentioned that I love my hairdresser? I do. And I also love her teenage daughter who babysits.)

I decided that maybe a lighter hair color would lead to a lighter mood.

Keep in mind that I haven’t colored my hair in over 10 years. This was a very, very big deal for me to decide to do this.

Before:

(Ignore the frizz, I had just worked out & showered, so my fly-aways were out of control.)

…

During… And let me just say, that I don’t think there has ever been a sexier photo taken of me, ever:

Yeeeeeah, baby. You know that’s hawt stuff right there.

…

Aaaaaand, after:

I have to say, I really love it. The highlights are subtle, but they blend in my grays, and it’s enough of a change that it feels like a really big deal to me.

Overall, not such a bad way to spend my last anniversary. It was a nice distraction and has kept me from moping all day, so I suppose in that sense, it was a total success.

seventh and last is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Mother’s Day 2012

2012-05-13T20:10:39-07:00

This evening, I started thinking about how this Mother’s Day ranks in contrast to prior years.

I think last year might’ve been my worst Mother’s Day ever. I was nine months pregnant and my marriage was falling apart. Pretty hard to get worse than that, right?

By comparison, this year, my entire Mother’s Day weekend was really fun. And although I didn’t take nearly enough pictures of it, I’ve been thinking about all of the little moments from this weekend that I want to remember, and wishing I had snapshots of them.

These are my top ten snapshot moments that I want to remember (in chronological order, not order of importance… that’s just how my brain works).

1. Spontaneously deciding to take the girls to the playground with my dad on Saturday afternoon. The look on Lucy’s face in the swing. The look on Catie’s face the whole time.

2. Catie going for a sleepover at my parents’ house on Saturday night. She spent the afternoon and evening gardening with my mom. (Her report of it, later? “Mommy, we put POOP on the tomato plants!!” Ahh, thank you, fertilizer.)

3. Watching Lucy enjoy being the center of my attention for a few hours, and not having to share any toys whatsoever with her big sister.

One of the only pictures I took. That face she’s giving me just cracks me up.

4. My “friend” (because I don’t know what else to call him) who came over on Saturday night and brought me flowers (“Because you’re a mom, and moms are supposed to have flowers on Mother’s Day”). He even knew to bring tulips, because they’re my favorite. He also brought me mango and dark chocolate, and he snuggled up on the couch with me and rubbed my shoulders while we watched a movie.

5. Deciding on Sunday morning to get Lucy and myself dressed, head to Fresh Market, buy some expensive-yet-OMG-delicious pastries, and take them to my parents’ house to surprise them.

6. Taking a nap with Lucy in my parents’ guest room while Catie and my mom planted more flowers in the yard.

7. Listening to Catie’s happy sing-song voice outside as I fell asleep.

8. Going to dinner with my parents, because my mom and I both decided that we weren’t cooking on Mother’s Day. The kids were both so, so good in the restaurant, which is freakishly rare. (Usually you’ll have one good one while the other melts down. It almost never happens that they’re both good at the same time.)

9. After bathtime, dancing around my bedroom to “Rumor Has It” by Adele with my girls. Catie and I both singing along to the song, while Lucy giggled and squealed with delight when I bounced her around to the beat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(For the record, “Set Fire to the Rain” is Catie’s favorite Adele song. Which is kind of hilarious, to hear a 5 year-old sing a completely tortured love song. But she rocks out to it, and I love it.)

10. At bedtime, Catie hugging and kissing me and telling me that she missed me while she was at Mimi and Pop-Pop’s house, and that she was glad to be back home. And then immediately asking if she could spend the night at their house again soon.

Overall, yeah, this Mother’s Day pretty much kicked last year’s ass.

I hope all of my mama friends out there had equally fantastic Mother’s Days this year. Because God knows y’all all earned it.

Mother’s Day 2012 is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

six things for Friday afternoon

2012-05-11T09:08:07-07:00

Ok, I have to get that picture of Alice Cooper off the top of my blog.

So! Moving on! Here’s a bunch of random kid stuff.

1. Words of wisdom from my 5 year-old: “In China, they eat their food with Chapsticks.”

There is a very important vowel distinction that needs to be made there.

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2. She also informed me, after watching perhaps one too many episodes of Dinosaur Train, that she is an omnivore.

“That means that I eat both meat AND vegetables.”

Why, yes. Yes it does. Slow down, kiddo. You’re getting too smart. Kindergarten doesn’t even start for another 2 months.

(Related: holy crap, she starts kindergarten in 2 months!!)

(No reason for this picture except I can never get one of her smiling at the camera.)

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3. Speaking of my kids growing up too fast, this just started happening.

That right there is an 11 month-old baby, walking. And yeah, ok, she needs to use her little push car for support and balance, but still. WALKING. I am so completely not prepared for this.

And look how pleased she is with herself!

KNOCK IT OFF, LUCY!!

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4. Maybe because of the almost-walking milestone, or teething, or maybe it’s just a standard-issue sleep regression, but Lucy’s sleeping habits lately have been horrific. A couple of nights ago, she was awake every hour from when she went to bed (at 8:30 p.m.) until 3 a.m. And you know, I don’t get to take a day off work just because I’m tired, so that was awful.

At some point, I decided that I just couldn’t take it anymore and I left her to cry it out in her crib. It was after midnight, and I hadn’t had a chance to take a shower because she’d been awake so much. I figured that in the 10 minutes it takes me to shower, surely she’d give up and fall asleep, right?

She was still screaming when I got out of the shower. I gave up and walked into her room. The smell hit me before I even turned on a light, and I knew (even in the dark) that she’d puked. And yep, I was right, she’d screamed so much that she made herself barf. Fabulous.

Because, you know, cleaning up a puke-soaked sobbing baby and changing crib sheets is TOTALLY what you want to do at 1 a.m.

(Plus side? Catie slept through all of it. Small favors and all that.)

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5. Last night, I had a really hard time getting Lucy to sleep (again) and she was up until almost 10 p.m. But, once she was out, she actually slept all night. So, I guess we could call that an improvement? Maybe we turned a corner? Fingers crossed.

I have to say I find both of my kids to be way cuter and more endearing after they let me get a full night’s sleep.

Even if this morning, Lucy did crawl over to me to give me a kiss, and she Alicia Silverstone’d me with a mouth full of chewed-up Cheez-Its.

Kids are disgusting creatures, man.

(And yes, I used Alicia Silverstone’s name as a verb. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it. And prepare to be grossed out.)

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6. One baby milestone that I fully endorse?

“It’s cool, mama. I got this.”

Self-feeding FTW! This has got to be my most favorite thing ever.

Yeah, alright, I guess I’ll keep her around. For now.

six things for Friday afternoon is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

I think I should treat myself to a new purse now

2012-05-01T10:01:15-07:00

This is one of those random “nobody cares about my dreams, I know, but I swear this one is funny” asides:

I dreamed that I was accused of murder. I was innocent, but there were a couple of dead bodies in my yard, so obviously I was the natural suspect.

Rather than stick around to clear my name, I ran away and started working for the Mafia. You know, as you do. They had me manage a restaurant that was part of some scam operation.

Then, I left the restaurant after working my shift there, and I was picked up by my boyfriend, Alice Cooper.

Yeah. THAT Alice Cooper.

He took me purse shopping. Turns out Alice Cooper has fabulous taste in handbags. Who’d have guessed, right? But he picked out a purse for me that was, like, the most perfect purse I had ever seen in my life. And I thought how cool it was that he totally got me and my taste, and what a great boyfriend Alice Cooper was.

Alice Cooper. Seriously.

Then I woke up. End scene.

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Ok, here’s a weird story and I’m looking for opinions on how to proceed, because I have no clue.

I’ve been doing this online dating thing, right? And most of the time, for first dates, I’ll meet a guy for coffee or lunch during the daytime, because the kids are already at daycare and that way, I don’t have to pay extra for a baby-sitter. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of first dates will never evolve into second dates, and I don’t see the point of spending money on a sitter unless I know the dude is worth it.

So, this guy contacts me and asks me out. He seems nice enough and fits my basic requirements, so I agree to meet him for lunch.

He shows up, and it turns out, he’s in a wheelchair. There was no mention of it in his profile. That’s… a little weird, right?

I tried not to look surprised and just go with it. I didn’t ask any questions about his handicap, because he didn’t mention it and it seemed rude to bring it up. We had lunch, and he seems like a perfectly nice guy, but I didn’t get any “spark” or anything like that from him. And I don’t think that had anything to do with the wheelchair, I think he’s just not really my type. He comes off as a little conservative and uptight, which is not generally what I gravitate toward.

But then, he texted me later to ask me out again, and I have no idea to respond. Is there anyway that I can say “no thanks” and NOT sound like a totally superficial jerk?

I talked about this with a friend, who seemed to think that I should be angry about the misrepresentation, and that his lack of mobility should’ve been clearly stated in his online dating profile. I kind of see that side of it, because yeah, it’s not really cool to just surprise someone with something so fundamental about yourself. But I also see why he might leave that information out, because he probably thinks that a lot of women would dismiss him for that. And that’s probably true, sadly.

I don’t know. Is there a way to extricate myself here and not sound mean? Any ideas?

I think I should treat myself to a new purse now is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Random Sunday stuff

2012-04-29T08:06:04-07:00

Lucy made a joke! We were playing upstairs in my room, and I tossed her onto my bed (which she loves).

She crawled up to my pillow, lay her head down, then looked at me, waved and said, “Ni-ni, bye-bye.” Then she cracked up laughing at herself.

I mean, ok, she’s only 11(!) months old, so it’s pretty amateur humor. And I don’t even think it’s the first time she’s done something like that, it was just the first time I noticed it. Like, whoa, she’s this whole little person instead of just a blobby baby.

And I know that it’s kind of a minor development, really. But, y’all! Baby made a joke! I’m so proud.

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Speaking of 11 months old: holy Moses, Lucy is going to be one year old next month. I just… I can’t even.

We aren’t really doing a big thing for her birthday. We’ll do a family thing, and I’ll probably bring cupcakes for the staff at daycare. But, you know, she’s one. She isn’t going to remember if there was a party for the occasion or not.

I, on the other hand, feel as though I deserve a party for surviving this first year. Because this has been undoubtedly one of the most difficult years of my life – which of course is not Lucy’s fault, just circumstances, but still.

To that end, the lovely Greis will be coming here that weekend, and I believe the equally lovely Dawn will also be in town then, and I am planning on a girls’ night out of epic proportions. (If you’re local and around the first weekend in June? Let me know!)

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Yesterday I took Catie to get a haircut from my hairstylist. Her first real, grown-up, non-Supercuts haircut. She was so excited.

She was even more excited about the fact that there was a bakery two doors down from the hair salon, so we stopped by there for a cupcake after her haircut.

That’s just how we roll.

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Another random Catie aside – I know that she picks up on everything from me. Really, I do know this. So you’d think I’d be more careful about what I let her overhear, right? Well, I recently found one area where I’ve been failing at that.

Lucy loves to follow me into the kitchen and pull stuff out of the lower cabinets while I’m busy. There’s nothing dangerous that she can access, so I don’t worry about it too much.

Anyway, Catie came into the kitchen and asked why there were sponges (like, unused, still-in-cellophane kitchen sponges) on the floor. I said, “Oh, Lucy must have pulled them out of the cabinet.”

Catie gave this big heavy sigh, and said, “Ahh, dammit.”

Which is basically exactly what I say when I’m annoyed about one of the kids making a big mess. So, pretty much no question as to where she learned that. Big ol’ guilty finger is pointing right at me.

I knew that making a big stink about it would be the exact wrong thing to do, so I just kind of mildly said, “You know, sweetie, that’s a grown-up word that Mommy really shouldn’t say, so I don’t want to hear you say it either, ok?” She said ok, but now I’m waiting for that phone call from daycare.

Oh well, it could’ve been worse, right? At least it wasn’t an F-bomb.

Random Sunday stuff is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

The Why of Dating

2012-04-20T06:30:24-07:00

On my last post, I got a comment that asked:

Why do you want to date? It seems like, after such a difficult experience, starting another relationship would be quite an ugly prospect.

I started typing a reply to her, but it started to get ridiculously long, and I thought, oh what the hell, I’ll just make a new blog post about it. (Thank you for inspiring me, Jane! For real. This blog needed to get the cobwebs blown off of it.)

So, I guess there’s 2 major parts to this answer.

1. Dating does not necessarily equal a relationship. When I first started dating (over a month ago), it was really just because I wanted to get out of the house sometimes, and I wanted to flirt and feel pretty. I felt like such a frumpy, boring, 30-something mom, and I was in dire need of some kind of charge to my self-image. And it turns out? Having a lot of different guys find you attractive is a pretty damn huge ego boost.

Really, when I started doing this, actually getting serious about anyone wasn’t on my agenda.
Positive reinforcement to my self-esteem? Absolutely.
A social life? Sure.
Sex? Hmmm… possibly.
But, a boyfriend? Nope, no way, uh-uh, not gonna happen.

Of course, my thinking on that is a little more fuzzy now. There’s a guy I’ve been seeing and I’ll admit that I do have a pretty big crush on him at this point. I still go out on dates with other guys here and there, just to make sure I’m not getting too hung up on him. I need to try to keep a little distance, even if it’s just an illusion for my own emotional well-being. But we talk on the phone every day, and I smile every time I see his name show up on my text messages. So… yeah. I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend, but he’s getting close to being in Boyfriend-ish Territory.

FOR THE RECORD. (Because I know some people are going to read that last paragraph and fuh-reak that I’m jumping the gun.) I am not losing my head over this guy. I like him, yes, but I do still have common sense. He hasn’t met the girls, and he won’t for a long, looooong time, if ever. He knows this, and is fine with it. He’s in the same place I am, separation/divorce-wise, and feels the same way about the idea of me meeting his kids. (Because honestly, the fact that we both have kids is a huge “Proceed with Caution” flag to both of us.)

2. As for why someone would want to have a relationship after a divorce? Well, you know, you might get food poisoning, but it doesn’t mean you stop eating forever. Companionship is a pretty basic human need.

The fact is, this is how the majority of my life has looked since last August:
* Morning - Wake up, scramble to get the kids & myself dressed, and ship them off to daycare.
* Daytime - Work work work.
* Evening - Pick the kids up, feed them dinner, give them baths, get them to bed. Clean the kitchen, wash/make baby bottles, maybe watch TV for a little bit, then go to bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sometimes we do fun stuff on the weekends, but more often than not, I feel like I’m just struggling to catch up. I spend my weekends doing the grocery shopping and laundry and all of the other stuff that doesn’t happen during the week.

And let me tell you, that right there is a pretty bleak existence. I basically spend my entire life either in Mommy Mode, or Working Mode. There’s no time to just be… me. I miss me.

I kind of skate by in survival mode a lot of times, but there’s this weird thing that happens after the kids are in bed and the house is totally quiet. That’s when it all sinks in, and I get horribly lonely. I feel completely isolated, and it’s awful. I hate nighttime.

But that’s shifted in the last couple of weeks. Now, most nights, I talk to my “friend” on the phone after the kids are asleep, which makes it feel infinitely less lonely. And sometimes I’ll have a date scheduled (with him or someone else) that I can look forward to, and it keeps me from sitting around moping about how alone I feel.

So, I hope that sort of helps to explain why I would want to date again. And you know, I’m not usually the English Lit type, but here’s where I’m going to throw out one of my favorite quotes that sums up my feelings about divorce & new relationships better than I could ever say it.

“Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.” — Samuel Beckett

The Why of Dating is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Thursday Brain Dump

2012-04-19T08:44:18-07:00

So. The fish died. All three of them. I’m a very efficient fish killer. The key appears to be forgetting to pre-treat the water. You’re welcome. (Also, whoops.)

Catie handled it so-so. There were a lot of tears, but then she got excited when I told her we could go to the pet store to pick out new fish. So, you know. We cope, we move on. Such is life.

Rest in peace, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi.

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I don’t usually go this long between blog posts, and I think that staying in my own head this much is probably not good for me. The issue is that I’m not sure what to share, how much is too much. I’m having trouble deciding exactly where my boundaries are.

At the same time, writing things out usually makes me feel much better. So I should probably be doing more of that.

Where to start…

My mom is insisting that I need to see a therapist. She’s concerned about the dating thing. She thinks that I was so starved for affection in my marriage, that I’m greedy for it now.

[Side note: I know some people in Dave's family still read this blog, and that previous sentence might upset them. All I can say to that is that the only two people who knows what goes on in a marriage are the two people in it. We each have our perceptions of what things were like, and that perception colors our reality. I'm not going to say anything negative about Dave himself, because I don't need to. But I'm allowed to talk about my own personal experience. Also - if you don't like the fact that I'm not going to be all happy & joyous about my failed marriage, perhaps you shouldn't be reading my blog anymore. And yes, I see when you visit here on my stat counter.]

So, yeah. Apparently I’m greedy for affection, attention, positive reinforcement, etc., from men. Maybe that’s true. I don’t necessarily see the harm. If I want to flirt and have guys tell me that I’m cute, how is that such a bad thing?

I guess I could see it possibly being negative if the kids were being exposed to any of it. But the only difference is that occasionally they have a baby-sitter in the evenings, which is usually a big fun event for them. They aren’t being introduced to some revolving door of men or anything even remotely like that.

There’s really no reason for this picture to be here, except that I’m talking about myself, and good lord, I do love my hairstylist.

The therapy issue is kind of a weird topic for me. I was in therapy for a while last year during most of the really horrible stuff (both before and after the separation). And I’ve been in therapy a couple of other times in my life. In theory, I know it’s a positive thing, I know it helps people. But for me, personally? I’ve never gotten anything out of therapy. I think I have a fair amount of self-awareness already, and I typically leave therapy sessions feeling exactly the same as I did when I walked in the door. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, right?

(And don’t tell me to go to a support group for single/divorced parents, because I’ve heard that suggestion too, and OMG I would rather bash my own forehead into a hard, bumpy surface than endure that.)

I suppose you could make the argument that if it doesn’t work for me, I need a different therapist. And that might be an entirely valid point.

There’s a lot more I’d like to say about the issue of dating, but that’s at least 5 more blog posts right there, and this is probably long enough.

The upshot here is that I probably will give therapy one more shot, mainly to make my mom happy, so she can know that at least I tried. Maybe I’ll even learn something this time around. Who knows.

Thursday Brain Dump is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.