sueeeus

Stupid stupid stupidy server that keeps choking, how am I supposed to blog with you being so fickle?

Gadget’s MO is to play his passive aggressive games and not give me the courtesy of any advance notice with regard to when he will take the boys. While it appears there may be a light at the end of this tunnel, since he’s expressed interest in synchronizing the visitation with his new woman’s visitation schedule such that all children can be together for the same weekend, there is no guarantee that he will follow through with any level of consistency.

Anyhow. He called at 8 a.m. Saturday morning and said he’d take the kids, and to meet him at 9 a.m. Nice. Does this give me time to make any sort of weekend plans?

I prefer to be able to make plans. I still sort of fall apart when the boys aren’t here. As much as I yearn for some down time or me time, I still haven’t learned how not to fall apart when they’re not here. A cloud of anguish descends — the grief that we aren’t a family, and I so, so, so want to be a family. Not with Gadget. That ship has sailed. It’s just grief that we aren’t a family, or rather, I’m not a family when my boys are gone. So I fall apart. Because, truly, that’s all I want. Family. Sigh. Therefore, knowing this is how things tend to go, I like to be able to book up my alone time so that I don’t have much time to fall under the spell of that cloud that so deftly and swiftly descends upon me.

Luckily, I’ve been able to schedule very short notice massage appointments each time I’ve come upon a free weekend. If nothing else, this indulgence does much to improve my overall well being. Man hands on me, this time for two full hours, working deep, deep, deep into the bound up muscles of my body. Wow, that almost sounds saucy. I could put a little more effort into that prose and come up with something racy! Massage doesn’t have to be man-hands. I’ve been trying different practitioners, but lately am pleased with this particular therapist. He’s got a little familiarity now with what I need, and because we went for two hours yesterday, he really made some progress and was able to loosen up the upper back and shoulders. I’ve been having chronic headaches, so this is a step in the right direction. And besides, I’ll take two hours of man hands on me any day, even if I have to pay for it!

So this free time can become very expensive. Shopping is one thing that gets me out of the house and that can be done on the spur of the moment. And what struck my fancy this weekend? I stumbled upon this iPod speaker contraption called an iHome, that claims to produce excellent sound. It’s kind of odd looking, and more expensive than the other options, but I figured, what the heck. I can return it if I don’t like it. Oh, I love Costco. Love. Costco is my crack. There, I said it.

Of course I can rationalize any mad spending. See, a speaker solution for the iPod allows me to listen to music without having to wear headphones and carry the iPod around. I seldom have pockets, so have to stuff the thing in my bra. And if I’m dancing around, well, it gets sweaty. Gross! Not to mention potentially limiting the lifespan of my iPod. Electronics and moisture don’t play well together. That’s just plain irresponsible, and we can’t have that!  And singing and dancing to music, reliving memories and experiences that the music evokes, is very therapeutic. Therefore it’s good for my soul. Good for my well being. And something that is good for my well being is worth spending mad money on. Yes? Yes!

I’m good. What can I say.

I tried to wrangle together a date or two within my minuscule window, but it’s just as well that I wasn’t successful. I could get myself into trouble if I acted on spontaneity like that! Instead, I stayed in, drank some wine, bombarded everyone’s FaceBook walls, and cyber flirted. So entertaining. This week I’ve had a sugar daddy offer, a few boy toy prospects, a heap of not-at-all-my-type-please-leave-me-alone pursuers, messages from a small handful of actually nice sounding men, including one or two I might agree to actually meet in person. Maybe. Or maybe not.

It’s fun, but wearying. I don’t really want to look around, troll about, or anything like that. I just want Mister Right-For-Me to show up in front of me, and I want to recognize him, say, “Hello there cutie pie, how are you, where have you been all my life?”, to which he says, “Looking for you, Sweetheart”, and that’s that. We live happily ever after. We don’t have to figure out if we’re ready to meet or even be with someone. We don’t have to figure out if we’re compatible. We don’t have to figure out if we’ll get along until we’re a hundred and one. We don’t have to wonder if the love and honor and respect and compassion and communication and understanding and interest and attraction and affection and everything or anything else will ever fade. We don’t have to wonder if the other will help raise our kids the way we want them to be raised. We don’t have to wonder if they’ll be true and honest. We don’t have to wonder if they’ll always have our back.  We don’t have to wonder if they’ll be responsible and trustworthy. We just jump into forever together.

I know. I’m bat crazy.

hello cutie pie, it's me, bat-girl

I don’t want that sugar daddy, though. That much I do know.

Oh, and that iHome thingy?  Sounds pretty darn good.  Whodathunkit?

Casualties of an extended weekend:

• 1 broken Wii remote – fried
• 1 broken Wii charger station (see above)
• 1 three year old child, afraid of the water since his everloving dad thought he was big enough to try going under
• eleventy gazillion DVDs out of order, with or without their jackets
• forty seven** opened but unfinished soda cans
• thirty two** opened but unfinished snack cracker/chip packets
• 1 mountain of laundry
• 3 mountains of dirty dishes
• general homeland chaos
• sore, sore feet
• headache
• 1 parental meltdown when her three year old decided he was afraid of public toilets (which is completely understandable) and would only go at home. This at the beginning of an extended weekend away from home. (Luckily, once settled in to the hotel room, he decided that one wasn’t too scary.)

Highlights of an extended weekend:

• An overnight stay at a swanky downtown hotel, complete with swimming pool, white robes, and unlimited complimentary*** milk and cookies room service for the children
• A glorious sunny day for the girls to wander, browse, and shop without the boys
• An opportunity for the boys to go play arcade games without the girls
• Dining out with family
• Playing in a beautiful swimming pool with happy happy children (prior to being dunked, that is)
• Two little boys sitting on a king-sized bed, snacking on cookies and milk, and playing ‘go fish’
• Five kids, two adults, popcorn, candy, snacks, sodas, blankets, and pillows (all in two vehicles parked side by side) at the drive in theatre for the new Indiana Jones movie.
• That blissful calm that descends when the four extra kids are safely delivered to their own home, and our little family of three is safely back in our own home.

*Memorial Day weekend.  So it’s yesterday’s news.  Better late than never.

**exaggeration — even so, TOO MUCH WASTE! Ack!

***may not be so complimentary considering the king’s ransom charged for just one night

Yin: All American boys at an All American game.

Yang: Chili-cheese goop on a certain youngster’s shoe. Now how did he manage that?

Yin: Garlic fries at the baseball game. Don’t tell the carbohydrates police.

Yang: Finding a sweaty piece of minced garlic lodged beneath my left boob, having survived the game, a night of sleep, and half the morning. Ewwwww.

Yin: A sandbox for a cyclone boy. He loves that thing!

Yang: The new neighbors have a cat. Apparently. In spite of our fully fenced yard, said cat has discovered the nirvana of litter boxes. Hello toxoplasmosis. Now Gadget has to dispose of ALL the sand, douse the box with scalding water (bleach and chemicals supposedly don’t work), build an ingenious lid mechanism, and refill the box. Meanwhile, we have to keep Cyclone away from it, and sanitize all the toys. Oh joy.

Yin: A double strength latte, first thing on a Sunday morning, made with fully caffeinated beans and half&half cream. Divine decadence.

Yang: The espresso factory requires no trivial amount of cleanup, what with loose grounds sprinkling the counter (bench, as the Aussie’s say), milk froth stuck to the steaming wand, and a hot puck of compacted espresso grounds in need of a good home. Still, totally worth it.

Yin: Spring in all its glory.

Yang: Allergies. Weeds.

Monster Truck Jam!

I don’t know if it’s just the fun of actually going somewhere as a family, or seeing the big grins on the boys’ faces as they admired the gargantuan vehicles. Maybe it’s just the Zoloft. But I had a great time.

It was an all day affair. We got tickets to the ‘pit party’ in which we could walk the pit and view the vehicles, the course and meet the drivers.

There was an event called a demo race that was quite fun to watch. Teenage boys (and girls, too) in their crash and dent cars would speed around the course, trying to make it to the finish, but also trying to eliminate their competition. Bumper cars on steroids. It was fun. At the pit party they let kids autograph their cars. The boys really enjoyed leaving their mark.

Even though I paid the premium price for our tickets, the only seating available by the time I committed to going were in the nose-bleed section. Even so, the boys loved it. Harry especially had fun climbing all those stairs.

It was a bit terrifying for me, being so high up with a squirming three year old who doesn’t have any notion of mortality.

I’m loving that my brother’s kids have moved back to our area. It’s good for the boys to spend time together. I loved having two little boys and one big boy at this event. It magnified the fun. The whole experience made me feel like such a MOM. And I love that.

It turns out that the Monster Jam is an annual event that takes place over MLK weekend in our neck of the woods. We just might make it a family tradition, since it falls between the big boy and little boy birthdays. And, because we had so much FUN!