Our Reluctant Move

The last time we moved I was excited. We were getting out of a house I hated. In that house I had almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was there that I broke my ankle falling down the stairs. It was a money pit. As soon as we completed a major repair, usually asking one of our sets of parents for the money, another huge repair was needed. In fact the day before we finally moved the pipe under the bathtub broke.

The neighborhood wasn't the best. In the few years I was there it went down hill. The elementary school at the end of the street closed. Businesses that had been there for years closed or moved. I didn't feel safe taking my baby for a walk around the block. There was a drive by shooting around the corner from us. We even had a level 3 sex offender living just 7 houses away from us.

When mom offered us a way to get out of there I did all I made sure we accepted it. It meant we had to live in a house my mother in law owned. Dennis wasn't thrilled about that, but for our child's sake (for back then we only had on child) we accepted. We got out of there and I was relieved.

Now almost 6 years later my mother in law anted us to move from a duplex to a single. She was not happy about the mess in our house. In fact neither was I. It has just become too much. I know it needs to be cleaned, I also know I have no idea how to get it done. I have become a hoarder. I am embarrassed by it and afraid because I don't know how to fix it.

So here I am moving out of one house, that has become a disaster, into another new start for us. This house has writing all over the walls, no matter how we punish the children they still managed to cover the walls with scribbles. I gave up trying to remove it al. I always assumed I would just paint over it all. In fact I had even planned to do just that this summer.

The house I am in now is just a huge fail for me. Was it the crippling depression I suffered last year that was my breaking point? I don't know, but somehow I just stopped in this house. I crawled into bed and gave up. I hide in my room and avoid all I can.

In the last year I have gone through therapy, I went back to school to get trained for a job I always wanted but never let myself pursue. I faced my fears and usually won.

So now we have a final chance, move to a new house and start again. My MIL is amazing, how many other's would keep on helping, even when it looks like all will fail? So I am determined to make this work. I am trying to make this move be out last. I am going to make this house be my priority along with my family.

The house is around the corner from us. We can actually walk everything over to it, though I am hoping to move many things in one major trip. But I am approaching this move different from the last.

We are painting before we move in. When we moved into this house we moved in on the first day we could and it was chaos. We did nothing really to help make this house our own. Nothing new, no painting the walls, no real thought about what were bringing and what we didn't really need.

So we are slowly moving things into this new house, we are painting, to make it ours. We are making sure the furniture works in the house and we are getting a few new things to finish it off. The kids are being a lot of help and are helping us stay focused. We want them to invite their friends over and not be embarrassed to bring them inside.

We really didn't want to move, we never would have suggested it. The timing was awful, right at the end of the semester, and all I could think was that I wanted no part of it. Now I am accepting it and I think I am even embarrassing it. I think I am in a better place to take care of the house. The move might have been reluctant, but it was necessary I think.

Mother's Day 2010

I don't know why it has taken me so long to write about Mother's Day this year. Yet I did. This year I took charge of my Mother's Day. Usually my children go all out for mother's day. I get drawings, gifts from the Dollar Store. I love that they go the extra mile for Mother's Day. It is the complete indifference my husband shows that gets to me every year.

Now I have to say that I don't expect him to get me a gift, after all I am not his mother. However I believe he should guide the children in what they want to do for me on Mother's Day. Maybe take me someplace nice to eat, or encourage them to make me a nice craft that I will treasure for years to come. I even tell him specific ideas because I know he not the most creative person.

Yet every year I get a couple cards that he has taken the children to buy, usually on the morning of Mother's Day. I love the cards and I save them.

I also make a big deal about Mother's Day for my mom. I make sure to take my time picking out a card for her. I look for meaning and love watching her reaction when she opens it up and reads it. I hunt for the perfect gift. Not an expensive gift, but one I know my mom will appreciate. And every year I get flack from my husband because I spend money, too much money, on my mom every year.

He tends to take a low key approach to Mother's Day with his mom. I don't even know if he called her this year to even say "Happy Mother's Day" to her. I asked once just before he left from work and he said he hadn't yet. He says he never really celebrated the day with his mom as he grew up. I always did. The day meant a lot to me even before I was a mom.

So this year I took charge and made the day my own. I got an email about The Melting Pot having a special Mother's Day menu. I always wanted to eat there and never could convince Dennis to take me. Bonus, the price for the kids meals was so cheap and we just got our tax refund so I know we could afford it. I called and made reservations for our family and my parents too.

The morning of Mother's Day I got some fabulous gifts from my children. Poems and drawings created in school, hugs and kisses and lots of love. Perfect, I had a great start to the day. Then I got the usual cards, bought that morning of course. Though this year they were not signed. He couldn't even be bothered this year to get the kids to sign the cards. He didn't even sign the one he gave me.

He, of course complained about the money I was spending on dinner, though he didn't over complain to the point of an argument. This is the first year we didn't get into a fight on Mother's Day I think. He though a fondu meal was in his words "Stupid". Though he didn't harp on that either. For that I was happy.

The kids loved the meal. They loved the different types of fondus and thought cooking the food themselves was awesome I think my parents enjoyed it to. They were a bit apprehensive about the meal because it was a fondu meal. I had a blast. I loved watching the kids. I loved spending time with my family and my parents. It was perfect. We had a new experience and we had a fantastic Mother's day.

It wasn't because of the gifts or the cards, but because we were together and had fun. Next year I will have to remember to take charge again. I might not be able to afford the Melting Pot then, but I am sure I can find something that is just as much fun for us to do together as a family.

He Smeared Ketchup in his Hair (AKA why I am going to snap)

If you ever see me aimlessly walking around muttering to myself "I love my son, I love my son" over and over again this is why.

Tonight the kids were playing nicely, I was so proud of them. P had discovered a way to make music with two metal poles and dragging them on the sidewalk. It really did sound nice and there was a specific musical pattern to how he was doing it. I wished I had a video camera to record it. B was dancing to it and it was lovely.

Then bedtime rolled around.

P took a shower and somehow remembered to use shampoo, I have to check because he doesn't always remember to use soap and shampoo in the shower. He remembered tonight and I was pleased. I thought it was going to be a nice easy bedtime. I was wrong.

After many prompts from me he finally got pajamas on and then I smelled ketchup. I catch him running in the bathroom and see red. I mean on his body, not me getting mad. I literally saw red. He had smeared ketchup all over his chest and I caught him smearing it into his hair as he ran into the bathroom. He wasn't going to wash it off, he just wanted to look in the mirror.

My son was literally covered in ketchup. I don't understand his obsession with food and making messes. Why would anyone want to cover themselves in ketchup? I know his brain works differently than mine because of the asperger's. This is something that I will never understand.

I admit it I snapped and screamed. He just got out of the shower and he had to get back in. He did get back into the shower quickly too.

I start to calm down and the shower turns off. I tell him that if I smell ketchup in his hair he will have to go back in. He says he used shampoo and steps out of the bathroom wearing soaking wet pajamas. He took the second shower wearing his pajamas. I lost it again. He got sent to bed without our usual bedtime routine. Then he had the nerve to ask me for a snack. It is a good thing I love him because I think that was the only thing that saved him tonight.

Sugar Snow and the Forgetful Tooth Fairy

I have been reading from the "My First Little House Books" for the last month to my children at bedtime. I wanted to introduce them to Little House on the Prairie and the main books were still too much for them. These books were full of brilliant illustrations and really engaged my children. I didn't know how much until I read the book titled "Sugar Snow". P focused right on that book and had me read it over an over again.

The book was about making maple syrup from sap. Immediately P wanted to tap the maple tree in our backyard and make our own syrup. To get him off that track I started looking for places near us to go and see how it was done. Serendipity was with me and one of the moms in my mommy group posted about the Maple Weekend at the end of the month. It took some time and help from friends but I managed to find a maple farm relatively close to us.

This weekend was the when we decided to go, the morning started out a bit rocky though. Worse it was my fault. P lost a tooth yesterday and was so excited about the imminent Tooth Fairy visit. He put his tooth under his pillow and went to sleep with dreams of money in his head. He woke up from a bad dream and came into my room, he brought the tooth with him and put it under my pillow. I went to sleep and so did he, I never, opps I mean the tooth fairy never came.

He woke up and eagerly reached under his pillow expecting a dollar, he found his tooth still in the box he put it in. He sadly woke me up and had such a sad face and voice. "Mommy, why didn't the Tooth Fairy take my tooth. He was in tears. I asked if he checked in his room, and he ran into his room to check. I quickly put the money under the pillow hoping that if I tucked it in the corner maybe I could fix it.

He came back in my room so sad. I felt like the worse mommy ever. How could I forget to make the switch? I had completely blown it, I forgot about the missing tooth and broke my son's heart. I asked him to show me how he looked under the pillow and he showed me, but he didn't see the now present money under the pillow. I had to direct him to it. Now I had to think of a reason to explain why he still had the tooth. That actually wasn't even a concern for him after he was the dollar I had just hidden there.

He came up with several theory's about why he still had the tooth. I loved hearing him tell us all about it. The one he has latched onto is she forgot it and will back tonight get it and will of course leave him some more money. I think that might just happen, An extra dollar from the Tooth Fairy seems like a fair price to pay for being such a forgetful mommy.

So the morning was not the best start. Then the day didn't get much better. I couldn't find our camera, so I had to borrow my mom's camera. The directions I wrote down to get to the maple farm were wrong and we drove around for such a long time. Worse we were heading the right way by accident and I said we should turn around because my directions said something different. Finally we sucked it up and called the farm for directions.


We managed to get there before they shut down for the day. We met a turkey, and the kids got to pet him. They were surprised at how soft the feathers were. His head was a wrinkly and we touched it expecting it to be rough and cold, instead his head was soft and warm. Funny how you expect one thing from visual cues and prior knowledge and then it is so different from what you expect. I touched that poor turkeys head several times because it was so very different from what I expected. P too was fascinated by the turkey, B however was afraid of it. I can understand that too. It was a big bird, and when he fluffed up his feather's he looked even bigger.

We took a tractor ride to see where they tapped the trees. I was expecting buckets and found out they use tubing conencted to many trees and the sap flows into large containers. This tubing can stay in place for ten years, they just hve to change where they tap the tree every year. We heard about how the weather has to be cold at night and not too warm during the day. This was also discussed in the book P kept having me read over and over again. He even told the tractor driver all about the book.



Now B loved the furry animals. She pet the bunnies, guinea pigs, llamas and of course the pony. She didn't want to ride the pony and we didn't make he, but she sure loved to pet that pony. She would have brought the pony home with us had we let her.

So even with a rocky start I think the day ended up pretty good. P went right to bed as soon as we came home. That never happens. Usually he is in my room at least ten times trying to stay up as long as he can.

The Three Little Pigs

Last week my son was in a school play. He had joined an after school theater program. He was so excited when he came home from the first meeting. My son proudly announced to me that he was going to be in a school play in front of the whole school. Practice was once a week and finally one day a script came home.  P was playing Little Pig 1 in the Three Little Pigs.

The play was a bit different than the Three Little Pig story most of us know. The Big Bad Wolf in this story was trying to bake his grandma a cake and ran out of eggs. He went to the Little Pig's houses to borrow eggs. So basically it was a big misunderstanding. P's character was a little on the lazy side, and just built his house out of sticks to save time. Hmmm.

P and I practiced his lines every night. He knew them with no problems. I could feed him a line from anywhere in the play and he could recite his line from memory. I couldn't wait to see the play. I knew he would perform wonderfully. The day was getting closer and sadly I had a conflict.

I was asked to start observing in a classroom on the same morning as the play. I knew it would be bad form to call off for the first morning, even if it was to see my son perform in a play. I had to miss it. Luckily all his grandparents, Daddy and B went to the first performance and P was wonderful I hear.

All the characters read from the scripts, I was a little disappointed when I saw that. Why had we practiced for so long if they were going to use their scripts. In my heart I knew P didn't need it, even if he used it. I heard from multiple sources that P was loud enough for the audience to hear him with no problems. This made his grandparents very proud.

After the play he had a chance to mingle with the audience and he was thrilled to have so many family members there. My father shook his hand and told him that he was a wonderful actor.


It broke my heart that I couldn't be there to watch my son on stage. I am so proud of him.

Farewell My Friend

Saturday, January 31, 2010, a man I worked with for ten years and have been a friend of his it feels like forever passed away. In 2009 he was diagnosed with brain cancer and I think we all knew this day was coming. He was the director of the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium at Buffalo State College and by far has been my favorite boss in all my jobs.

I sit down and think about all we have gone through. We went to Florida to view Halley's Comet, or as I called it Halley's Fuzzy Cotton Ball. I still remember his ray gun that he kept in his office desk drawer. I wonder how many times I was "shot" by that gun.

His favorite planetarium shows to do in my memory were the pre-school shows. He loved the children and had a great connection with them. He had a box of puppets that he used for this age group. If I recall there was a dog (for Canis Major) and a Bear (Big and Little Bear) but there was third one too. I can't remember what the third puppet was. I wonder if the puppets still are in that brown cardboard box tucked away behind the ring of seats that circled the room?

He and I worked on many special projects together. We were downtown one year for an Imagination Celebration. We had star-wheels that the children could assemble when they stopped at our table. It was a hot sunny day and we had so much fun working with the children and helping them build their own star-wheel so they could go home and identify the stars and constellations in the sky.

I truly believe it was through working with Art at the planetarium that I found my passion of working with children. He and I both loved to work one on one with the children who visited the planetarium and we would often volunteer to go out in the public to bring the love and joy of astronomy to them.

Art was there when I started my journey of teaching. I wish he could have seen me get my teaching degree. The last time I saw him he wrote me a wonderful letter of recommendation for my Masters of Elementary Education program. He was trilled that I had decided to go back to school and get my masters degree. He knew that working with children was my passion and he helped me get that acceptance letter last summer.

Farewell my friend. I thank you for all you have done for me over the past 25 years. I will think of you often as I teach and bring joy to faces of children in a planetarium. It is because of you that I am who I am today.

Its About Me

So what do you do when your worse suspicions come true? Those two to three hour mystery drives start to make sense. Mysterious out of the blue shaving before a trip to the grocery store is seen in a different light. The denials that anything happened still ring in my ear and the garbage that this is my fault is thrown back in the face of the man who uttered them.

This last year has been a whirlwind of destruction for me. I have worked to rebuild this crumbling marriage. I brushed the suspicions aside and accepted his differences and worked on my anger issues. I allowed him to be who he is and started reinventing myself. I am the only one who I can make change. It only took two years of courtship and twelve years of marriage to accept that.

All I ask for in return from him is a little romance. I want to be swept off my feet again. But then I see him falling asleep on the couch and eternally watching the hockey game, thanks to the NHL channel he can watch hockey 24/7 now. There is no summer free of hockey for me anymore.

He now is obsessed with curling. I know, curling!!! He had a countdown on facebook for weeks announcing when he was going to curl for the first time. The only time I am mentioned by him on facebook it is because I prompted him to do so. I see the passion in his eyes for curling, and am jealous.

I stood up to him after the spitting and hitting and let him come, granted not back into my bed. That was the only thing I could control. So I took it away, until I felt like a wife again. I am still waiting to feel like that.

I took months for me to start to trust him and love him again. Then just when I thinks things are going well he betrays me by reaching out to other. People he doesn't even know, that is the worse part. He said since I cut him off that he had to go to other people.

He swears he stopped and he even said he was sorry, which he never does. That is one of the things we argue about. He just never things he is wrong so he feels since he doesn't think he is wrong that he doesn't need to apologize. He said he was sorry.

I can't afford to leave him right now. So I decided to stay, finish my degree and when I get a job I can reevaluate how we are then. My gut says leave, take the kids and never turn back. My brain tells me I can't support myself, let alone two children on my own. What he makes barley covers our expenses now. How can it support two households?

So I stay. I spend most of my time in a different room than he is in. We watch two different televisions. We have no common interests anymore. Did we ever I find myself thinking?

I am selfish, I want to have what we had long ago. I want him to with no warning in the super market to hug me an announce he loves me for no reason. I want to get lost in his eyes again. I want to feel the flutter in my heart again. I want to feel loved. Yes this about me, it is about my feelings and its about who I am today.

Why is there play-dough on my kitchen ceiling?

My life may be in turmoil but my children always manage to ground me. I don't know when it happened? All I know is last night before I left for a much needed night out with friends there was no play-dough on my ceiling. I was out most of today too. Tonight after the kids went to bed I went into the kitchen to make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and something made me look up. On my ceiling is a pancake flat disk of mostly red play-dough.

I am always telling them to make sure they keep the play-dough away from the carpets but I think this is a bit extreme. I have to admit it made me chuckle. Maybe it was a good thing both were sleeping soundly and looked so darling in their beds. Technically I never said no play-dough on the ceilings. With my luck P will mention this too me, and he would be right.

Now you may be wondering where the offending clump of play-dough is now? Well, it is still there on my ceiling. The evidence is waiting for the sleeping not so innocents to awaken and be confronted by a mommy who no doubt will be struggling to keep a straight face.

I love my children, I love my children I love my children...

Emotionally Numb

Its back to school time and of course that is a change in routine. One week off of school is all it takes I guess. Oh the tears my son shed today made me want to cry. Of course it doesn't help when you are dealing with marriage issues too. It was a rough day for me too. How do I handle all of this? I can't take time to deal with the betrayal when one of my babies is having such a bad day.

I admit that after my daughter went back to school today I went back to bed. I have had such a hard time sleeping the last few nights. No children were home so I had time to mope.

D has been very attentive to me the last few days. He even bought me a gift. It was just something from the dollar tree, but he never buys me gifts. Oh it is not making up for what he did. He will be on his best behavior for the next few weeks, but I know he will return back to super clod.

And so here I am, once again facing the end of my marriage and I am scared. Every time he is out of the house for a long time I wonder what is he really doing. And he goes out a lot. He also takes his time when he is out. Hours can go by. I was suspicious before because he would be gone for so long and have stupid reasons for being gone for so long.

I think the worse part of this is I am really not as upset as I feel I should be. Even when I confronted him I was not yelling at him. I feel strangely calm about what happened. I am so tired of being the one working to get our marriage back on track. I am tired giving suggestions to help our marriage only to be ignored. I am tired of getting into fights because we are having trouble just talking with each other. I am just plain tired.

And so here I am, once again facing the end of my marriage and I am scared. I was prepared to leave if I had to after I graduated. I never dreamed I would be facing this choice with a year left of school. I never dreamed I would be in this situation. I feel betrayed and am emotionally numb.

What Do I Do Now?

How many months have I been writing here? How many months have I been trying to fix this mess I call a marriage? We have been sleeping apart for months. The fighting has pretty much stopped. But he can't do the one thing I need. I want romance again. I want him to reach out to me so I don't feel so alone. Put me first once in a while.

His face lights up when he sees a hockey game on TV. I can't even get a hello when I come home. I was just starting to think we could fix us. We had a nice Christmas, though again no gift from him. I am used to that though. He will buy the kids the stupidest toys but never anything for me. Okay I guess that one still bothers me a lot. Anyway we have been getting better and We have had a few nice evenings on the couch together.

Then tonight I find out that he has been trying to get together with other women. Thanks to a good friend I now know the truth. She sent me an email that he wrote. I called him and read him the evidence. He couldn't deny it. He tried to pin it on me by saying we hadn't been together for so long that he couldn't wait any more.

Seriously. Instead of reaching out to another woman why couldn't you just do what I asked and reach out to me. It was all I asked. All I needed to connect with him again. Now I have to deal with this.

If I believe him he has not actually hooked up with any of his contacts. I told him I need to think and he was on a short leash now. There was no excuse for this. I don't trust him. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to me.

So what do I do now? It is so easy to say leave him. That is my first instinct. How do I do that with two kids while I am school? In one year when I have my degree maybe it will be easier to leave?

Needless to say he will still be on the couch and I will still be alone.