changes

I couldn't believe the weather that we had today! When I walked the children to the bus stop this morning the sun was shinning and the birds were chirping... I am guessing that we were not the only ones that think it's seemed a little like Spring outside. Well that is just fine by me!! We can continue on with Spring weather and cruise right on into summer!
I spent the majority of the day waiting for the stupid maintenence people to show up and make the repairs that we have requested consistently for 5 months now. I think my husband is about to tell them to bite the big one, fix it himself and send them the bill with next months rent. It is frustrating when you live somewhere and you pay all of this money for these so-called conveniences that they provide (or well that they are supposed to provide) and they just drop the ball and want to be slumlords.
A friend of mine works for these idiots and you wouldn't believe the shit that I hear! I know that when our lease is up the obvious choice is going to be for us to move. I am hoping that with 2012 comes a ton of positive changes that enrich our lives.
I am pleased to report that the school district has seen fit to grant my request and will be moving my oldest son to a new second grade teacher at the beginning of the term, which starts on Jan 31st! It is about time! We have suffered through two semesters with the worst teacher that I have ever met. I am suprised that I made it this far without having a knock-down drag out fight. We have endured her accusing or child of racism, calling him "bubba", neglecting to teach him and require him to work with the class, segregating him from the other students and singling him out. I could go on and on. Worst of all she refused to communicate with us at all. I have high hopes for the new instructor and I am looking forward to a better rest of the year.

Child Discipline

1-15-12
I really hate having to punish my children. I feel bad for everything that I ever made my Mother have to discipline me for when I have to punish my children. As I am speaking to them about what they have done wrong I flash in my mind and for an instant I am in their shoes and it is my Mother talking to me. I know what they are feeling when I am talking to them and how upset they are with me that they have been busted and cannot just do as they wish.
I often times tell them how my Mother's punishment would have been much more severe if I would have committed this infraction. I wonder why that is. I mean do we over time build a tolerance to behaviors and begin not to care as much if this happens to us? For example... if I rolled my eyes when my Mother would have told me to do something she would have busted me upside my head. My child rolls his eyes and I tell him how my mother would have hit me and I instead make him write sentences about eye-rolling and being rude to his mother. Yet I am no less slighted than I'm sure my mother felt when I rolled my eyes at her. I am rarely physical when it comes to punishing my children. There is much more bark than bite and I often wonder if that is to blame for some of their behavior. My children have been paddled a few times in their lives. For things that would cause physical harm to them or to another. For example : walking in the road. I mean I would much rather paddle my son then see him splattered on the road.
Am I weak?
I mean it guts me to hit my children in any type of way. I cannot stand to hear them whine or cry. It has been this way since they were born. I like a calm environment. I try to give them a chance to make mistakes and learn from them. The rules in my house are clearly outlined and they know what I expect of them and at 5 & 7 they know what the consequences are by now. We take away the toys they like best. They get time outs or tv rights taken away. No sweets. Writing sentences. Early Bedtime. Yet sometimes I feel like I am talking to a brick wall and that I am not getting through to them at all.
I believe a lot of behavior can be avoided by simply engaging the children in a positive way. Playing games with them, reading books to the,, coloring, play-doh... I like to involve them as much as possible in the things that I am doing too, like cooking dinner and cleaning. It helps some - but it not always the easiest thing to do. I mean to say that sometimes it is just easier to complete the task on your own - due to time constraints.
It's weird because most people that meet my children as of late comment to me that they are extremely well behaved and that they find them to be very loving and respectful! It puffs my chest with a bit of pride, and I guess that I am grateful that they are doing this in public, there has surely been times that they haven't and I know what it is like at home. But that is it isn't it? I mean the goal is to have them function well in society and prepare them for the multitude of rules that they will have to follow in everyday life as an adult, right?
I am assured by many of my older relatives that it is a mother's lot in life to always wonder if she is doing a good enough job or not. To always feel like we are failing them in a sense so that perhaps we continue to strive harder to do a better job and think of new innovative ideas.
All in all I want my children to love me. I want them to feel safe and know that I care and not think of me as some kind of ogre. I remember how I felt every time that I got spanked. How I hated the person spanking me to point that I could barely remember what I had done wrong to begin with. In fact looking back now I cannot recall on single incident that I was spanked for - just being spanked. Also, I don't recall making a conscience choice to not do this behavior again but rather learned to be more sneaky about it and not let my parents know what I was up to.
I want my children to make mistakes. I want them to learn now why the choices they are making are wrong and grow the desire to make good choices. I want to be there for them to help them understand why the way I am pointing them is right and not suffer through the mistakes that I have made.
My children are sitting at the table now, writing sentences for rule breaking that has been on-going since they woke up this morning. UGH! It's been a long Sunday morning. They are griping about writing them and how annoying each other is at a mild roar. I am sitting here wishing that they would just finish them so we can bake some cookies together.
Enough of my rambling, I am going to see if my paper has arrived.

1.13.12 part deux

I thought that I was through writing today and that the day was going to be uneventful considering the fact that we intended upon staying in. No such luck, Friday the 13th rears it's ugly head and vomits it's dismay all over our proverbial laps if you will.
It's been no secret to any that know me that my kids' father is pretty much a deadbeat who can't hold down a job and has barely donated a nickel to the cause of raising these children since their conception. To look at him now makes me wonder whatever I was thinking, sadly not that he was much better than but at least he had teeth... I see him today on video chat and he looks like a fat crack head. his teeth are rotting from his face and look gross and terrible; i feel sorry for him for an instant, thinking to myself how much it must suck to be that young and prolly never be able to find a date ( i mean eww who seriously wants a yuck mouth but another yuck mouth?) I remember when his teeth started going bad how I would make him smooch my cheek instead because I was afraid to get bacteria in my mouth. I guess I am paranoid like that.
It hard for me not to resent him and hold things against him. He doesn't make these children a priority and I know what it is to have a father that deems his personal life more important than you. I know what it feels like to wait on the steps because he doesn't show. To call and he doesn't answer or return your calls. I know what it feels like and I feared it from the very beginning and did not want it for my children. It's a terrible thing. So it shocks me almost when I feel that pang of sorrow for him momentarily when my oldest son reduces him to tears by refusing to call him Dad, because he is simply tired of the disappointment. He told him today and it was like for a moment I felt myself transported into his shoes and my heart sunk. It's like I knew what he was feeling.. not hard to figure out it was all over his face and just as quickly as I felt bad I felt like "good!!!! FUCK YOU!!! now you know how you make my babies feel"
I'm going to hell.
I already know they are reserving a special place for me. I have a hard time forgiving people. Perhaps it is actually not that I don't forgive them but rather I can never really let it go unless they are groveling for forgiveness and even that has a limit. Don't get me wrong I come off like a cold heartless bitch, but I actually give a whole lot of myself to others. I thought that was important for a very long time. To give so much of myself away. Like maybe if I put it out there people would understand the madness that seems to permeate my brain like a plague.
Either way I am getting way off topic lets come back to this in a moment.
The point is that the baby daddy shows up out of nowhere and wants to video chat with the children only to get butt hurt and so then to balm himself in a sort of ways I am sure he directs it towards me and tells me that he had run into some of my mothers blood relatives which I had openly disowned months ago because they are disgusting and I couldn't bear the thought of having them in my life after the way that they felt content to treat me after my mother passed away suddenly this passed year. He brings them up and it rushes to me a million thoughts with every word he speaks of them and I finally resolve to pent inwardly a furious rage and tell him I don't car to hear anything else about them. FUCK THEM!!
All I want to do is move forward with my life and take care of my children and husband. I want to learn how to be the best at that. I want to learn how to be a better more productive member of society and the kind of friend that you cannot bear to live without. I want to be loved and missed, much like my mother when I am gone from this earth and admired mildly at least while I am here.
I want to bury the mistakes, iniquity and indifference of my past beneath the garden that is blooming in the spring of my life as of current. I want all the negative things, people and all the hurt to fade into a faint memory and learn how to be actually happy and content.
I am safe.
My kids are safe and I am teaching them the right things.
That's all my Mother ever wanted.
I am the shell of the person that I used to be and I am trying dearly to fill it with the person that my mother always dreamed that I would become all I need is the chance to do so. Give me that or GFTO!
So I cooked chicken schnitzel, green beans and potatoes for my family tonight and cranked the music in my headphones and settled here with you to release the whirl of my brain upon this page so that I can wind down and get back to the Zen like peace that I have tried to make the center of my day. Watching 'Killer Elite' with my husband after the kiddos go to bed and knowing that tomorrow is another day :)

Friday the 13th - 2012

Friday the 13th 2012
I decided that I was going to keep the children home from school today and make it a four day weekend since they have Monday off for Martin Luther King Junior Day. Devoid any superstition about today's date - it seemed like the thing that was going to work out best.
We have had an on-going issue with my oldest son's teacher. I am not sure if it is just a personality conflict or the fact that she refuses to keep the lines of communication open but I just don't feel like we are on the same team. My husband says that she is flaky... but I could care less about that. She could be a whole box of flakiness and I wouldn't care if she would let me know what was going on with my kid so that he could complete the second grade and be done with it.
I spoke to the principal this morning and asked him to move my son to another second grade class at mid-term. He said that he would call me back next week to let me know his final decision. I can tell you know that it better be in accord with what I asked him or I will be contacting the school board next.
Yesterday, he came home from school with a note scrawled in his agenda book... she writes really big so that I have no room to write back and so being the bitch that I am I stapled a note to the page. I don't like her. Either way... the problem appears to be that he refused??? to do an assignment?? she go on to complain that he did the assignment but it took him 90 minutes so he was getting an "f" on it. When he got home and I talked to him about it he said that he actually was doing the assignment but that she was all over the place and he had no idea what she was asking him and once he tried to ask her she was talking to him like he was a dumbass and she had no time for him. PMTFO!! So I signed his paper and refused to ground him for it. I did however talk to him.
Yesterday was also my Father-in-law's birthday. When my husband arrived home from work we let the kids call him and sing to him. It was very cute. It looked like my husband was tearing up a little bit, which I also thought was very sweet. We talked to him and we are thinking about taking a vacation this summer to go see him.
It is gloomy out and there is still no snow on the ground. I get tired of the depressing rain.. but I am grateful that everyday it rains is a day that we do not have snow on the ground. I hate the snow - my kids would prolly string me up if they heard me saying that - but I do! I hate it with a passion. No one knows how to drive... it's cold and yucky... I would be fine if it just kept raining and we coasted on into Spring! I am actually looking forward to planting a few flowers this spring.
I would say garden... but there is no real way that I can have one here... space does not allow. I have half considered a container garden like they do on the rooftops in the city. I just don't know if we will have the extra money to invest in such a project. Gee, sure would be nice to have fresh veggies all summer long. Maybe I will look into it more and see what I can come up with.
Anyways that is all I have for today... The kids are home so I'm thinking it is a good time to bake some cookies and catch up on some Mommy time.

2011 sucked ass

2011 SUCKED ASS!
Excuse my language but it was the most horrible year that I have had in a long time. Namely because my Mother died.
I think a lot about the day that she died. About the events leading up to it and about the day itself. I remember franticly trying to get ahold of her and wondering where she could be but feeling the need to continue trying over and over only to find out later that was about the time that they had pronounced her dead. I mean was she reaching to me? Fighting not to go? It kills me. It slays me in such a gruesome way emotionally that I feel actual physical pain from it.
No one can describe the love you have for your mother (or for the person you consider to be your mother). No one can harness that love and toss labels all over it that would make someone understand the depth and magnitude of that affection. You may not even fully comprehend yourself how you feel for her, but I assure you when it slips like sand through your fingertips and falls away from you it will be painfully obvious just exactly what you have lost and the emptiness you then know will all but suffocate you.
I thought that I would lay down and die right beside her when they told me. I wanted to explode. Screams wretched from the bowels of my soul and still no comfort. I feel like that every single day still. I just hold it in as much as possible. I cry about everything. I miss everything. Her smell especially. The funny way she would say things to make me laugh and the way she loved me even when no one else could bring themselves to do it.
I feel alone without her. Disconnected from everyone and everything in such a way that I can't even tell you. It's like you see the gloss of the surface but are totallly missing the murky mess beneath.
I hear people tell me that it will get better. I guess because they have experienced loss and it got better for them. But you are wrong. It won't ever get better or easier for me. I am forever altered now that she is gone. Her passing casterated my heart. You can cauderize a wound so that it will not contuinue to bleed out - but sometimes without you knowing there is a slow bleed within that poisons you. THIS is the hurt I feel.
It sucks you know because I love my children very much. I want to be there for them and I want to live long enough to be a part of my grandchildren and great grandchildrens lives. I have serious doubts of it happening sometimes I mean my Grandmother died at 63 and my mother at 52... am I to die at 41?  My mother died exactly 5 years after my grandmother and that would be exactly 5 years after my mother... see a pattern?
My grandmother was sick. I guess we knew that she was going to go somehow. But my Mother... she wasn't sick at all. I was robbed of her. I cannot wrap my head around it at all. Her ashes sit only feet from my bed so that I can see them when I open my eyes. See I dream of her and sometimes it is so real that I forget that she is dead. I could fool myself but reality is a hard-hitting abusive prick.
I was telling a friend the other day that I will prolly never be able to let her go. I think of all the people that are able to scatter ashes or press them in the earth and I just  don't see me being able to let her go. I know the ashes are not her. That is to say, that she is gone from this earth and they do not contain her very soul merely pieces of the vessel. But the vessel is what held me close and the vessel is all that I have left.
My mother's boyfriend of 18 years is a total asshole. I had the legal right to remove everything from the house but I didn't. I tried to be civil, yet he continues to slight me for hate. He withholds family heirlooms that are sentimental to my family from me. He is brash and hateful in his speak to me, about me and my children and he I think it majorly an injustice that he contnues to suck air from the earth. I am cornered to a decision point where I have to decide whether to persue legal action against him for with-holding what is rightfully mine or to cut my losses and let karma do it's work. The thing is that I don't know what I am capable of living with and it pisses me off because one day he will move on and those things mean nothing or hold no monatary value so he will purge them, but she will always be my only mother and he is just doing it to be hateful to me.
In fact I lost my entire family at the same time that I lost my Mother. Not a single one of them make any way to contact me or inquire as to how I or the boys are. None of them. Not a one. I have nothing to offer them. However I bet if I won the lotto tomorrow they'd be sweet as pie. Shame. I'm actually apretty amazing person when you take the time to get to know me and you are not trying to treat me bad. If you met them ever, you could see how they could totally miss that.
My Mothers' friend tells me all the time how they are garbage and I am better off without them... that my mother was never a part of the kind of people that they are and that I really just don't need them in my life. I see other family's function and good or bad they are better than anything that I ever had with my mother's siblings.
My husbands family is amazing and I am so blessed to have them open their hearts to me. They are the family that I always wanted in so many ways and I am eternally grateful that my children will grow inside of their masses - knowing the warmth and love of a real family.
I have much to be grateful for. Please don't think in the wake of my misery that I take any of that for granted.
I am also blessed with some pretty amazing friends. Thank you.
With the grace of God, find mercy and let 2012 be filled with blessings.