sueeeus

the good

My boys are home.  Safe and sound in their room.  Nighty night, boys.  I love you.

the usual crap

I wait around for Gadget to call and let me know what time he’ll be ready with the kids.  No call, so I decided to go to Target and pick up the school supplies on BB’s kindergarten list.  My BB is going to kindergarten!  I can hardly fathom it!  I figured I’d be a few miles down the road in the general direction I need to be.  So Gadget calls around 8 pm and asks where I am, why am I not at the park and ride.  When I get there, he has the nerve to get on my case for not packing enough clothes for the boys, and for not packing baby wipes for LB.  Last time he complained that I didn’t provide enough diapers.  Am I way off here, or isn’t it remotely the least bit feasible and reasonable that their dad should be at least a tiny bit compelled to keep a few diapers and baby wipes and a spare change of clothes on hand for his own kids?  And he dares to criticize me for this?  The man who balks and rages that I’ve gone to the state to ensure that he pays one hundred and fifty stinking dollars a month to support his two sons?  Have I mentioned (I’m sure I have) that that contribution constitutes a whopping 2.5 days of daycare a month.  It makes me utterly sick to my stomach that he dare make jabs about the expense of anything, while concurrently insinuating that I’m lacking as a parent.

Or maybe I read too much into things.  The man knows how to push my buttons.

The suppressing of those emotions, so that my kids don’t hear it in my voice or see it in my face, nearly made me wretch during the ride home.

on a side note

The new kids were in the car, waiting, so I got to meet the four of them.  They are beautiful.  The baby is so squeezable, I just wanted to hold her and cuddle her.  What can I say.  I love kids.  There are three girls and one boy, all under 7.  Their dad shaved their heads because they had lice.  The girls were devastated, as they would be, but they are very beautiful, even with almost no hair.  Beautiful.  One girl asked me “Why did you break up?”  It’s so heart wrenching, how they try to work things out, these little ones.  My BB said he wished we didn’t break up and he wants to live with Daddy, but he wants to live with me and Nicole and all the kids.  Oy.  Explain how that’s not the way things work to a five year old.

LB has a scab with a bruise on his forehead that wasn’t there yesterday when I dropped him off.  Gadget insists it was.  I spiked his hair before he left.  I know it wasn’t there.  Today he’s got scrapes all over his elbow and hand.  Of course he falls.  He’s a toddler.  But please, keep an eye on him, and tell me what happened so I know how he got hurt.

I’m glad Gadget met Nicole and has a family life to live.  I hope they all work out.  I hope they raise those children well.  I just wish he’d be more of a man and a father where his own children are concerned.

thanks, I feel better now

Whatever would I do if I couldn’t throw my thoughts out on my blog?  I’d either implode or explode.  Either way, it wouldn’t be pretty.

I have about ten drafts hanging out around here.  Some go back a few years, even.  This one I started last November, but it mostly still applies.  It seems that my emotional state tends to be somewhat of a broken record, anyway.  So here goes.

I wish I had somebody to talk to right now, but since I’m a blubbering fool, I wouldn’t be able to speak coherently anyway. I do have someone to talk to, several, in fact, and I’m truly grateful — yet I don’t always feel like I’m truly understood.  It would be nice to be understood.

~*~*~*~

It can be a serious character flaw, to want to please one and all.  It would behoove me to grow a backbone.  It could come in handy both in my professional life and my personal life.  Instead of standing tall, puffing out my chest, and deflecting the onslaught with wisdom and grace, I take it, and take it, and keep on taking it.  But later, I have to pay the piper.  It all goes inside and churns away at me so that I find myself short of breath.

I wish I could be like Superman.  The way he soars up, up, and away, closer to the sun, folds his arms across his chest, closes his eyes, and rests and recharges.  Then he’s all strong and rejuvenated, and ready to blaze into action.  Me, I hear the cacophony of demands, wails, criticisms, insinuations, whines, expectations, opinions and complaints, but rather than filter through it and find the nuggets of goodness, I feel as though I’ve got kryptonite shrapnel embedded all through me, and I’m incapacitated so that all I can do is curl into fetal position while I’m kicked around, hoping for it to end, searching my mind and my will for some fragment of strength to hold onto and pull myself up, up, out and away from this mess.

Is it very helpful to be told I should be stronger?  Not much.

I commented to some of my work friends that I should develop a shell to shut these things out, but they almost all said that if I did, it should be selective to only those necessary.   In a way, that’s a heartening thing to hear.  It perhaps supports that there is value and merit in the kindness and softness that exposes my vulnerabilities.

~*~*~*~

What’s in a name?  I’m wanting to change my name.  I didn’t have it changed in the divorce, because I didn’t have any hard feelings toward Gadget at the time, apart from the simple fact that the marriage absolutely had to end.  Mainly, the kids have the same name, so I thought it would be less confusing as we go through life to have the same name.

However.  As time goes by,  and shades of character unveil, I find myself wanting to remove all traces, insomuch as is possible.

I could take back my maiden name, but I hesitate to do that.  I think that I associate it with an identity of who I used to be, rather than who I am.  That was someone from a previous life.  Someone who wasn’t as sure of herself as I’d wished her to be.

It raises the question, ‘Who am I?’  Which prompts the response, ‘24601’.  What if I changed my name to Valjean?

Sueeeus Maximus Valjean.

I kind of like it.  People will think I’m whacked.  Which, maybe I am.  My dead brother would totally get it, though.  He’d dig it.

~*~*~*~

BB has told me several times lately that he wants me to become a vampire so that I “don’t never die”.  It troubles me somewhat that my mortal demise is so prevalent in his thoughts.

~*~*~*~

I do need to be stronger.  I get that.  I just don’t want to be told.  It’s another one of those character flaws.  I’m pretty sure that if I could get rested, I might just be stronger.  It’s so elusive, though, is rest.  Meanwhile, the children call.  I hear the youngest crying.

…that would be the high road…

~*~*~*~*~

My boys spent Saturday night and all of Sunday with their dad.  Their coats were forgotten.  Sunday night, night, I repeat, I got a call from Gadget.  The truck won’t start.  I’ll have to pick them up directly, rather than meeting in the middle.  Fine.  I repeat the address back to him, that he’d given me, in order to comply with visitation rules, only to learn that he’d given me a bogus address.  WTH.  WTH. Armed with the correct address, I set out to collect my boys.  Of course I took a wrong turn and ended up way the hell away, deep in the heart of parts unknown, parts where it’s best not to pull over, parts where it’s best NOT TO BE.  He doesn’t exactly live on the nice side of town…   But I eventually got there, collected my boys, and returned home.  I think it was well past 10pm when I finally returned.  Pissed off, on many levels.  I simply don’t get why he would give me a bogus address.  In what universe does it do any good to do such a thing?  I’m flabbergasted, to say the least.  And grateful to have gotten divorced. Grateful.  Who is this stranger that I spent the last nine years with?

~*~*~*~*~

Now the boys are sick.  Pneumonia.  Nice.  It’s hard not to point any fingers.  They could just  as well have gotten sick while under my care.  Even so.  They are on antibiotics, and we caught it early, so we’re nipping it in the bud.  My beautiful little boys.  I want them to be WELL!

~*~*~*~*~

I, myself, am disoriented.  Having trouble with names.  What are my boys’ names, what is my name (Sueeeus Maximus, I’m not completely gone yet), what is Skills’ name?  It’s so strange not to be able to hold my own thoughts, and somewhat disconcerting.  So much so that I came home from work, just in case.  Had a hot eucalyptus and peppermint bath, a two hour nap, and a small salad, but still feel like my brain is not quite connected to the rest of me.  So strange.

~*~*~*~*~

Skills has a psycho ex.  Nice.  Does everyone have at least one psycho ex?  She’s throwing the STD card, among other things.  Noice. Maybe I should introduce her to Gadget.  They could be very interesting to one another, leaping about in the quagmire of all their tales and deceptions.

~*~*~*~*~

Oh, did I forget to mention that Gadget’s roommate L and her son C have moved out, and he is now entertaining a new woman roommate, who has three kids.  Gadget told me he was tired of the drama and tantrums on L and C’s parts, and that he was looking for a new roommate.  According to BB, and this has to be taken with a grain of salt, as he is just 5, the new woman shares a room (bed) with Gadget.  Just like the last woman, L.  Nice.  I really don’t care if Gadget sleeps around or goes through women like bubble gum, but I do care what environment he presents to my children when they are in his care.  I need to know that any other people, whether children or adult, who are living there are being decent and good to MY boys.  This, in addition to the crap address bit, makes me inclined to refile the visitation papers to remove further rights until adequate responsibility can be shown.  It’s asinine, that he would behave like this.  He loves his kids and wants to be a part of their lives, yet he pulls this $#!t.  And I want the kids to grow up with respect and admiration for their dad, if at all possible.  Can he not see this?  Is he so immature that he would make these piss-poor life choices that ultimately do nothing but hurt himself more?  I shake my head in utter consternation.  I need to talk to him about these things, but have to collect myself and my thoughts before I do.

But I am just. Too. Tired.

~*~*~*~*~

Apart from the scorned lovers’ drama, I had an incredible weekend.  Incredible!

~*~*~*~*~

I hired a sitter and went OUT on a Friday night.  Out!  Skills took me to his ‘club house’ where an AC/DC tribute band was playing.  I actually had a couple of drinks.  Drinks!  Me!  And loosened up commensurately.  Wink wink.  We danced and laughed and laughed and danced.  He’s a people magnet, is Skills.  It was fun to see him in that element.  Master of all he surveys.  Kind of like me.  Queen of all I survey.  (In our own worlds.)  Ahem.

Saturday night, after Gadget drove off with my kids, Skills arrived to whoosh me away.  We drove into the city, where he’d secured waterfront view reservations at a fine seafood establishment.  He fed me steak, asparagus and king crab legs.  So, so nice.

We slept.  (Minds out of the gutter people.  We truly just slept!)

Sunday I made pecan and apricot waffles, and we went for a two hour walk along a nearby trail.  So, so nice.  We enjoyed each others’ company for the rest of the day, until it was time to collect the kids.  After which everything went to hell in a handbasket.  See above.

I just found out that I have to pay somewhere around 10k in state taxes to a state in which I don’t live, for property I sold five years ago, and for which I already paid nearly 20k to the federal government.

Boo.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

CRAP.

*~*~*~*~*

Updated to say that, in addition to owing tax, there is interest added on top of that.  I am seriously sick to my stomach.

He’s being an ass.  He doesn’t think so, but I think so.  It’s all perception anyway, and this is my reality, regardless of how he sees it.

So, what should I think or how should I take it if he got a new cell phone and won’t give me his new number?  Never mind the part about not telling me, so that I get to continue paying his $100/month service plus there will be a $175 cancellation fee.  Nice move, Mister Communication Skills.  His job changed hands and he won’t give me his new email address either.  He did give me his new work number, but what good does that do me if there’s any reason to reach him while he’s not working?  He won’t tell me where he’s staying either.

Ass.

He was supposed to go to a parenting seminar, ordered by the state in all divorce cases, on Friday.  But did he go?  No.  He had things to do he said.  He said he rescheduled.  I hope he was telling the truth.  I don’t know what happens if you don’t fulfill your court mandated obligations, but I’m sure it’s not particularly pleasant.  He doesn’t seem to think it matters much.  Or something.  Maybe he thinks he’s above the law.

Ass.

Yesterday he showed up to winterize the boat.  I thought he’d do it himself, but he said something about taking it to a friend.  I wanted to go to the cable store to get the account switched to my name, since it’s in his name, and asked if we could do that.  He said he had to get going because his friend had somewhere he had to be at 3.  Since it was after noon, I thought that was pushing it for getting it done, even if they were super efficient.  Meanwhile, I begged him to load the generator in the van for me so that I could return it, since he’s refusing to do anything for me any more.  He won’t install it.  He won’t winterize the sprinklers.  He won’t do anything.  He says, ‘You wanted to be single.  You can hire out.’

Ass.

Am I right?  Anyhow, I figured I’d better return it while I could, but it turns out it had a 30 day return policy and this was day 40.  Nice.  I’m stuck with $1400 store credit for Home Depot.  Maybe I’ll get a granite slab for my island counter.  It was a challenge returning the electrical box as well.  That was $300 and he’d gotten the display, so it was marked down.  The store didn’t want to take it back because it was used (as THEIR display) and it claimed to have all parts there, but when they looked it over, they said it was missing three things and that I’d have to take it back to the store where he got it, 30 miles away.  Meanwhile, I’m holding a tired and cranky LB and trying to keep my ADD BB within reach, and insisting that all the parts that it came with are there.  Back and forth and forth and back, and finally I asked which parts are missing, and they described them, and I said, let’s look in the boxes.  Lo and behold, eventually, I accounted for all the parts.  And they still wanted me to take it back to the other store but I begged the man, and he could see I was on the verge of tears, so he authorized the return and I got my $300 back.  Meanwhile, I’m not sure how my blood pressure fared.  It’s so hard not to voice my frustrations or keep my composure in front of the kids, when I want to SOB and just wail it out because the stress is so….   ….stressful.

Back home, I thought he’d be there.  The cable store closed at 5, so I gave him until 4:30, but started calling around 3:30.  Finally he called me back around 4:30 and had no intention of returning home.  He had dropped the boat off and gone on with his day.  Without so much as a word, when he knew what I wanted to do.  Yet somehow he claimed that he didn’t know I wanted to do that.  So frustrating.  And I had things I needed to do as well, so I ended up driving my tired kids on another errand, cutting into their dinner and bed times and totally messing up their schedule.  Such a frazzled day.  Even so, I sort of expected he might return at some point to put the boat back, but he never did.  When he did call, I finally said to him, ‘You know you’re being an ass, don’t you?’, to which he actually sounded surprised. ‘No!’  Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and when I said goodbye, he hung up.  Without a goodbye.  How rude.

Ass.

I spent the evening reclaiming my bedroom and bathroom.  I removed all his stuff and put it in his office.  I made more room for LB’s crib, sorted LB’s clothes, rearranged to make things a bit more baby safe near the bed.  LB likes to play ‘run away’ on the bed and crawls off as fast as he can, stops, turns and sits, but he gets SO CLOSE to the edge that it practically makes my heart stop.  I dread him falling, so at least now there are no sharp corners in falling proximity.  It felt good and liberating to have my own bedroom.

Today I had more errands to run.  I noticed the boat house (a 10’x20′ aluminum/tarp structure) had shifted somewhat, and hoped he’d return while I was out and resecure everything.  Imagine the horror of returning home, turning the corner into our culdesac to see the boat house had blown across the front yard and had lodged in and against a tree.  It looked like it must have tumbled end over end completely.  Thank God it didn’t blow into the street or damage any body else’s cars or property.  That was around 4:30.  I called, and called, and called.  I called the new work number, the discarded iPhone number and sent email.  No returns of any kind.  Since it wasn’t blowing any further, being stuck for the time being in a tree, I semi-calmly proceeded to feed the children, bathe the children, put on a movie for BB while I put LB to bed.  8:30, still no word.  So what did I do?  I took the blessed thing apart.  Piece by stinking piece.  Most pieces snapped together, but two parts were bolted, and I couldn’t for the life of me find an allen wrench in the chaos of his garage clutter.  I had to leave them in place, and in the end, one support rod crushed under pressure.  I’m sure he’ll have something unkind to say about that.  But I took care of it.  I took it all down and put all the parts in the utility trailer and even strapped them down so they wouldn’t blow away.

I am woman, hear me roar.

And I am SO PISSED OFF.

I have been told, on countless occasion, that I am up tight about things. Especially money matters. Oh, I s’pose there’s some truth to that. What with growing up keenly aware of the value of a dollar and the need to make it stretch to feed, clothe, and shelter nine kids, and all. We never took handouts. No government cheese. No food stamps. My parents were too proud to accept assistance (which made absolutely no sense to me as a child, because, hey, it was free, and if we got food for free, then we could maybe buy clothes at the store, and not the neighborhood garage sales), so we made do. There are others who have real need, I was told. Little did I know I was learning an important life lesson, which was made all the more meaningful the Christmas that I volunteered for the Adopt-a-Family program and filled the Christmas list for an underprivileged family. I shopped happily, thinking of the joy I was bringing that family. It began to turn sour when I drove up to their home and realized that they lived in an apartment complex that I had considered, but decided against because it was too expensive. As I arrived, a very fashionably dressed woman stepped out of a new Toyota Camry, and I soon discovered she was the mother of my adopted family. I was driving a 1982 Subaru hatchback (which I bought for $300). Once in the apartment, I couldn’t help but notice the giant 50-some inch television and the black leather furniture. Honestly, I was sickened by it all. She was saying how glad she was to be able to put something for her boys under the tree. It was all I could do to maintain a cheerful face, leave the bags of gifts and groceries, and hightail it out of there. These are the kinds of people that take advantage of the system, the kind my mother did not want to be. Sure, maybe that woman needed to maintain a particular image in her line of work, but it certainly seemed that she could have been able to do better for her children if she’d cut back a little on herself. But that’s just me. (And I’ve digressed, again.)

I was raised to make do. It was the respectable thing. So it’s been ingrained for a very long time. Sure, there were the teenage years where I would have loved to have something name-branded like the cool kids wore, but I survived. Then came the age of acquisition, my twenties and thirties in which I over-compensated the poverty of youth with all manner of tchotchkies –I finally found that word spelled in a book I’m trying to read. If nothing else, I have the until-now-elusive spelling to show for the effort. Now in my forties, it’s time to purge and simplify. I feel so burdened by clutter and belongings. I want only things that have form, fit, and function. Plus, perhaps, a handful of frivolous items that I absolutely love or that have historic and/or sentimental value. Apart from that, I want to be free of it all. That is where I am now.

So it has been somewhat irksome to notice how intently Mr. Gadget has been perusing the Dell web site and ads, looking at laptops, going so far as walking through the web site configuration wizard. A laptop purchase, at this time, seems frivolous to me, since he has a fairly new, over the top computer already. He does no hard core computing. No graphics, no programming. No blogging. A little emailing. A little surfing. It just seems unnecessary. It’s just another toy. And the acquisition of toys? Annoys me. He came from a large family, and I think they possibly did take some assistance, and they got to wear new clothes, rather than rummage-sale finds, yet, it seems that he remains firmly embedded in the age of acquisition. Perhaps it’s because of his first marriage. I’ve heard tales of how the wife (certainly not he) charged up their credit cards to the limit so the kids could have a good Christmas. They could only afford to pay the minimum so of course the interest charges racked up, and up, and up. Eventually things fell into a state of collection. WTH, I say. So irresponsible. That’s my big thing. Don’t spend money that you don’t have. If you don’t have it, find a way to make do, do without, or save up. However long it takes. Okay, so it may look like the pot is calling the kettle black, because I put nearly all my purchases on my credit card, but I pay it off every month. Never, ever, do I buy something that I can’t pay for at once (well, except real estate, but c’mon… …not many people can buy that outright… …so that’s a reasonable exception). If I say anything, he will always say, “It’s easy for you. You make a lot. You have a lot. You can buy whatever you want.” Apart from the fact that I made a conscious effort to obtain credentials with which to make a good living, whereas he did not, he doesn’t seem to get that one of the reasons I might have more is that I don’t buy every single thing that I might fancy, and that I no longer carry the attitude that I’m missing out on anything and need to keep up with the latest trends. Perhaps he feels like he had to do without for so long (due to trying to keep up with the ex’es spending habits) that he’s still trying to compensate. I get that. I just don’t like it. If he does decide to buy something that requires a loan… Oh my goodness, all hell will break loose. (If I find out about it, that is.)

We’ve kept our accounts separate, and that suits me fine. He had a joint account with his ex which she controlled, and it got out of hand. I had a joint account with an ex that I controlled, and it was fine, but we both maintained our own individual accounts, and also, we never actually married. I wouldn’t mind having a joint account for the common expenses, but it would be one more set of books for me to keep, so our current arrangement works well enough.

It’s just wearisome, that he continues to want things. Expensive things. On many, I cave. We have a large screen tv. We have a 3-car garage. We have a hot tub. We have a 4-wheel drive truck. It’s the act of wanting that I find wearisome. I wish he could be content with simplicity. Where I might like to paddle a canoe or a rowboat, he would want to drive a speedboat with a wakeboard. Where I might like to go sledding and build snow men, he’d want to go snow-mobiling. The faster the better. Where I’m happy to camp in a tent, he dreams of an RV, or at least a camper trailer. All these material things. They suffocate me. And if I ever do find something that I want, I feel guilty about it. As though I shouldn’t have anything, because I don’t want him to have anything. And it’s not that I don’t want him to have anything. I just don’t want him to want what he can’t afford. (And I certainly don’t want to be buying all this crappe!)

Meanwhile, I realized that my old desktop hasn’t, in fact, given up the ghost, and has behaved quite well for the last several months. I hardly use the laptop at all. It’s not convenient to sit outside and blog, because the screen brightness is lacking in daylight. It’s hazardous to sit with it on the couch, what with a rambunctious two year old leaping about. So. I wrapped it up in Christmas wrap and gave it to Mr. Gadget. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday (and please don’t you dare ask or suggest anything of any monetary value when Christmas and birthday time rolls around, and you’d better give me something really REALLY nice). Now Mr. Gadget is happy, with his almost new top of the line whiz bang $2000 reduced to $1400 with employee discount laptop. Until the next gadget catches his fancy.

Thank you all for your warmth and well wishes.  Things have been mostly good, with a smattering of not-so-good.  It’s so easy to fall back into familiar patterns, and many of those are patterns that could stand to be reshaped into something better.  Yet there they are.

The good things have been sweet and uplifting.  Even encouraging.  But one careless comment and in less than a blink of an eye, whoosh, we’re teetering on the brink, flailing and trying to regain our balance.

It’s precarious.

He’s going through something that I don’t understand, and I’m trying to give him as much clearance as he needs.  Yet there are times when I can’t help but think about how I’m bending over backwards to make sure his needs are met, but the price is that my needs are compromised.  My needs that have already been compromised.  For so, so long.  I yearn for balance.

Do I not deserve it, since I’ve set the precedence by being an enabler?  A fixer?  A comforter?  A mother?

It’s my nature to help.  I’m a helper.

Sometimes it feels as though I’m being taken advantage of; and that — I don’t like.

The devil on one shoulder sneers, “You did it to yourself,” and the angel on the other shoulder whispers, “You are loved.”

Always having to be the strong one takes it toll, and seeds of resentment slowly put down roots.

Tomorrow I’m taking a day off to get my hair done and window shop the downtown market, alone.  It will be very, very good for me.

I have some happy posts with new kiddo pictures coming soon.  They fill me up, my beautiful boys.

I can’t think of anything selfless that I did today.   As for blessings?  I think the highlights would be baby laughter and both kids finishing their dinner without a  three hour struggle.

Kind of frustrated with Gadget, though, and if I even dwell on it, it completely blows my glass half full exercise out the window.   I could stop here.  I could.  I should.  But  I won’t. (It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to, whine if I want to, whine if I want to…  …you would whine to if it happened to you…  hahahaaahahhahahhaha)

It would be nice if I weren’t the only one who noticed that the baby needed a new diaper, that  BB’s bed needed to be made, that the soiled bedding needed to be washed, that the already washed clothes needed to be folded, that the now-folded clothes needed to be taken upstairs and put away, that the baby needed another new diaper, that the dinner leftovers needed to be put away, that the dishes needed to be loaded in the dishwasher, that the dishwasher first needed to be unloaded, and the clean dishes put away, that the baby needed another diaper, that the baby needed a bottle, and then another, that the kids needed to be put to bed…

I might as well be a single mom.

…and he has the nerve to get irritated with ME for asking for help, because when I want help, I want it NOW, not in a minute, not later, not any other time besides now.  NOW.

Because I shouldn’t even have to ask.

Now, I realize that an exhaustive (and exhausting) whinge is self-indulgent, but it got me through another pumping session, and for that it was well worth it.

That is all.

Gadget is away for a week, visiting his brother Gizmo in California somewhere.  He’s not the best of planners, my Gadget, and announced one day not so long ago that he had a week of vacation time that he needed to use by the end of the year, or forfeit it.  And to him, vacation means going somewhere.  He didn’t like my suggestions of staying home and doing things around this city.  After all, people come to this city for vacation, so why not take advantage of what we have at our own back door (and not spend a fortune)?  He totally turned his nose up at that idea.

Being the sucker enabler that I am, I looked into last minute cruise deals.  There were some great deals, but as it turns out, babies must be at least six months old.  So no cruise for us.  So how about Disneyland?  He was all gung ho about that, but the more I thought of it, the more I realized that it would be absolutely wretched for me, since I’d be the one with the baby, walking around all day, having to find a place to pump, working out how to store the milk, and generally just watching them have fun.  Which made me consider sending BB and Gadget, alone, while I stay home with LB.   That would save a good grand at least, and I’d be a lot more comfortable.  And of course he makes the comment, “I don’t want to stay in a dive hotel.”  (Translation:  You’re a cheapskate.  Defense:  We’re not made of money, Dude, and why spend five star prices when all you need is a place to sleep since you’ll be gone all day every day.)  But then I thought I want us to vacation as a family, so if we can’t all go, then none of us will go, and we’ll just plan a trip for later, when I’m not bound to the insufferable breast pump.  We could manage a drive to see my sister, but no, he didn’t want to do that.  To him, that’s obligation, not vacation.  We settled on him going to visit his brother Gizmo, and me staying home with the kids, or possibly taking them to see my sister.  So much for spending time as a family.  He’s a master manipulator (he claims not!) and I’m an idiot for letting it happen.  All because I allow him to corner me into a guilty place where somehow I’m doing him wrong by not wanting to spend thousands of dollars venturing out somewhere, preferably tropical.  Clearly I have some serious underlying issues that I need to get to the bottom of.

He tends to see things through rosy glasses.  Probably my fault too, because he sees a plane trip as a fun thing to do, and I see it as a hell ride with a handbasket full of logistics to accompany it.  Two kids, one of whom is exceptionally defiant and prone to loud unpleasant and lengthy outbursts, a car seat, a booster seat, a stroller, at least two pieces of luggage, a breast pump, a cpap machine, pump paraphernalia and milk storage items, not to mention the need to work around the pump schedule itself.  These things he’s oblivious to.  These things make even the thought of travel sheer insanity.  The oblivion itself is maddening to me.  I find nearly everything about travel very stressful.

That said, I was actually happy at the prospect of having some ‘single’ time.  The freedom!  I was also happy at the prospect of visiting my sister.  But as luck would have it, this is the weekend that winter touched down with a fury, so the roads are dangerous, and I cancelled the trip.  My vacation, therefore, is being a single stay at home mom.  Nice.

It was nice.  Very nice, in fact.  Liberating, even.  One less kid (the biggest boy of the house) to care for.  It felt great to distance myself from all the thoughts described above, and to enjoy having the home to myself with no resentment at chores undone and general perceived lack of initiative.  (Why is it that a man who works all day thinks he’s entitled to relax all evening, as if life’s duties stop at five o’clock.)  I cleaned the fridge, and it made me so happy to gaze upon those sparkling shelves!  I enjoyed my peaceful home for the first couple of days, but tonight I found myself feeling melancholy and, dare I say it, missing him.  I even called him and told him so, much to his surprise.  He didn’t believe me, really.  He tends to assume he’s always on the verge of being kicked to the curb.  I do miss him.  Truly.  I like to be together as a family.  I like having him around (even if I have to remind him that I do, in fact, need help around the house and parenting the children).  But most of that warm fuzzy missing him was snuffed out when I discovered, close to midnight, that no outdoor winterizing has taken place, the snow has arrived, and I am left rifling through the garage looking for insulating materials, then wrestling with the outside faucets in the black of night with snow falling all around me, removing garden hoses from the spigots, rigging some sort of insulation to the faucets, hoping to stave off frozen and burst pipes.  I miss him, yes, but some resentment has resurfaced.

Some vacation.  I am using it to capture as much rest as I can.  Tomorrow, snowmen and sugar cookies.  BB will be very excited to see the snow.