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January 1, 2004
August 5, 2004—Repaving the Bumpy Road
Happy Thursday to everyone in cyberland!
Can I tell you how nice it is to have Joey home again! I always forget how much I miss him, not just him, but all the little stuff that goes with it. Extra cereal bowls in the sink, toilet seat left up, more cartoons than I care to remember, plus all the kid stuff. I have to watch my language again (I’m a potty-mouth at times) and I can’t lounge in the buff anymore. And Joseph, he’s got to remember all his old rules (his dad and I are complete opposites when it comes to discipline, I believe), new bedtimes, back to school, and everything else for a 6 year old. But, despite all the changes and getting back into old routines, there’s nothing like having him home with me and just getting to enjoy everything about him.
Joseph started his first day back to school on Tuesday. Everything went off smashingly well. No fights or major traumas, so he was more than happy to go back on Wednesday. His highlight of the day is getting to each lunch. He’s already made a few friends and he loves getting to eat lunch with them. He’s too funny. On his first day home after school, I noticed that he had only eaten his sandwich and some of his pretzels. He left his cookies and granola bar. No biggie. Well, Wednesday he did the same thing. So, I asked him why he wasn’t eating all of his lunch (thinking he was talking too much and not spending enough time on food) and he told me that he’s not allowed to eat his cookies unless the rest of his lunch is gone (the rule at our house). Poor kiddo! I didn’t bother to inform him that he doesn’t have to eat ALL his lunch, just most of it. So, he’s being the perfect kid (for once) and not eating his cookies. I told him that as long as he ate his sandwich all gone, he could eat whatever he wanted from the rest. Well, that made him perfectly happy, so we’ll see tonight if he made any changes.
My sister, Renee, has been coming around a lot more lately. She’s calling me almost every day (which can be burdensome, but she’s family…). She went out and bought Joey a bunch of school uniforms. Yeah for me. She’s really trying hard to fit in with the family again, especially after everything that has happened in the last couple of months. She still lives 3 hours away, but she comes out to visit at least once a month and stays in a hotel for the night. It’s nice to see her, but it’s exhausting trying to keep up with her! She has a small arsenal of mental problems, so she just jumps from one conversation to the next and loses her place quite often. She’s very responsible with her kids and everything, but she loses track of herself. Speaking of her kids, my nephews. I love them to death, don’t get me wrong. But they are wild children!! They know how to behave, but Renee doesn’t enforce this thought concept with them. When she was here a couple of weeks ago (and Joey was still at his dad’s), I let the boys play in Joey’s room with all his toys and stuff and two toys ended up getting broken. They are 9 ½ and 4, so it’s not like they don’t know how to be careful or anything. I didn’t even bother saying anything to Renee, it’s just not worth it. She’ll just act pissed off, then say that “boys will be boys”, and then she’ll apologize and call herself a stupid fool for letting her kids play with Joey’s toys. See, it’s happened before. But, she adores Joseph and dotes on him, so I just usually let it go. My own fault, but she’s not worth fighting with. Here’s what she did yesterday: She called mom and they talked and they both end up crying and bashing dad again. So, she gets off the phone with mom and decides that she’s finally mad enough to deal with dad. She calls him and reams him a new one for a good ½ hour. And then she finally calls me and wants to cry and ask me why dad is leaving mom and stuff. She just got done talking to the one person who can answer her questions, but then she wants more answers out of me!! What the hell? I told her that I don’t have the answers for her and that I’m sorry she’s so upset. Then the biggest kicker of all! Jesus came to her in a dream and told her that dad has a 20 something girlfriend! I could kill her! She’s so full of herself.
I think she’s a little upset with me since I won’t bash dad and I won’t apologize for him or explain things enough to her. Please don’t think that I’m heartless here, because I’m not. I’ve listened to my mom and held her while she’s cried and been there for my three sisters. But, I refuse to be mad at my dad. Would it be fair to be mad at mom if she was the one who decided to leave? Of course not. I may not approve or agree with him, but I still love him and this is between him and our mom, not us girls. Everyone else wants to be mad at dad and take everything out on him. What they aren’t realizing is that the door swings both ways and it takes two people to make a marriage work, not one. Dad’s not happy, why should he stay if he’s miserable? We’d tell mom to leave if it were the other way around. And, dad is being really nice about it. He paid off her car ($20,000), helped her get an apartment, paying her cell phone bill, etc. She got all the furniture minus the bedroom suite (it’s too big for the apt). I don’t know. Sorry, I get off on my own topics. But, I guess it’s good therapy for me. Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this situation? My sisters and I are all in our 20s, so there aren’t any kids still living at home or anything that need to be dealt with. Dad is living in another city 2 hours away right now.
I ended up with AF again… I HATE HATE HATE periods. I can’t stand them. I don’t want any part of them. I get awful cramps, I can’t sleep and I puke for a day (that was yesterday). I can’t wait to get pregnant so I can feel normal again. I loved being on the depo provera. I never had a period. Life doesn’t get much better for a woman, in my opinion. After my baby is born (I know, I gotta get preggers first), but I will be back on depo as soon as it’s safe for the baby. My cycle is being all screwy, too. Last month there were 37 days between my cycles and this month there were only 28 days. Just either make me normal or leave the periods to those women who relish them. (I don’t see very many volunteers for that one…).
Joey’s b-day is coming up in the next couple of weeks and I have absolutely no idea what we are going to do. Payday is next week and I know that I want to get him a new video game or something. We have a Playstation 2 and he just loves playing games. We’ve done Chuck E. Cheese the last two years in a row, but that gets expensive. He can’t take treats to school. That’s a new policy that I’m not familiar with. I understand the reasons behind it, but it’s kinda sad that we live in a society where it’s not safe for us to make treats for our kids’ birthdays at school. There are a couple of nicer mini-golf courses around the area, so maybe we’ll so something like that.
I gotta say that I’m a little disappointed about no one writing on my TTM board. I won’t bite anyone’s head off and I’ve asked a couple of questions in my previous posts. Only one person has ever written anything in there. Part of this diary, for me, is also like an advice column. Or, if you can share a similar experience, I’m all ears. I love to listen and I don’t mind other people’s advice. Here’s what my mom taught me. Listen to everything you hear and take away with you the pieces that make sense or fit into the situation. So, here are my questions: I’m new to this whole parent getting divorced thing…Any suggestions for my mom or my sisters or for how I can better deal with the situation. Another question. Joey has been a nighttime bed wetter since the day he was born. He still wears pull-ups to bed every night. Right now, we get him up twice a night (more Brannen than me), and sometimes he will still be wet when he gets up at 6 am. We’ve done the bedwetting alarm, he sleeps too hard, we’ve done the DDAVP (meds to help reduce nighttime urine production), doesn’t work, we’ve worn just regular undies, but the bed always ends up wet (and he doesn’t wake up when he pees). I had his tonsils removed because of his sleep apnea and now he sleeps deeper. The most he’s ever stayed dry is 3 nights in a row. He was dry today, wet yesterday and Tuesday, even though we got him up twice each night. I’ve gone through every resource I can think of. We’ve tried rewards for dry nights. The biggest problem is that he DOES NOT wake up, ever. Ever ever. Once he’s out, he’s out until he wakes up the next morning. Even if he’s sick, he’ll sleep through puking. (Gross, but he’s done it before). I don’t put him down or make him feel bad about the situation. He can’t help sleeping and not waking up. That’s like telling a cancer patient to just “wish away” their illness or telling them that if “they really wanted to get better, they could”. Just doesn’t work that way. So, ANY suggestions on that topic would be greatly appreciated. Even if you just want to say hi, hello.
I hope everyone has a great day and I’ll update again soon!
Rachel and Joseph
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