Mama's Garden

Where am I and how did I get here?

2010-05-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

I am having one of those moments. A lot has been going on since my move to Texas and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. We have run into some road blocks and found new routes and had to change our plans and expectations. A lot of good stuff has happened as well. There have been many adjustments and those are never easy. We have been working through things and our love for one another is what keeps us going and optimistic for the future.

What I'm struggling with right now is his hesitation to officially commit to me, while in all other respects he has committed to me fully. He likes to playfully refer to me as his 'wife' and has even referred to me as such when meeting new people. I have told him how this makes me feel, but he continues to do it. Granted in many respects it is like we are married and in reality marriage is just a piece of paper; however, I still don't see the point in calling someone something they are not. Maybe I'm just being anal; I don't know. As I see it, if he wants to be able to call me his wife than he should man up and actually propose to me. If he isn't sure by now whether I'm someone he wants to spend his life with, then he will never be sure.

What keeps me going everyday and puts a smile on my face everyday is him and the kids. When I get to lay around and cuddle with them and laugh and smile, it makes all the struggles everyday seem not so bad, . He is not only my lover, but my best friend and his love carries me through. That is why I wonder if I'm just expecting too much and being too anal about the whole official commitment thing. I know that my previous relationship issues, may be playing a role in how I'm reacting and I don't want that to be the case. I know that I'm probably reacting out of a scared place that doesn't want to find myself 4 years from now in the same relationship that I was in before; I have to remind myself that he is not the same person and it is a different situation. However, it is hard to not let your past affect your future. It is an uphill battle, but it is worth it!

An explanation!

2010-03-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

You are probably wondering what happened to me and why I have left you hanging for soooo long. I do apologize and I swear there is a very good reason. Besides getting settled into my new surroundings, I decided it would be a great time to start my own business. Yeah I know, just a bit crazy, right? So that has been keeping me very busy. I signed up for some night classes in starting your own business at the local college to help me get started and they were quite helpful. I'm still trying to get my website launched, just putting on the finishing touches and collaborating with the amazing web design student from the University of Houston who is helping me. Everything else is good to go. My facebook and twitter pages are up, so go and check those out when you get a chance. I will try to update when I can, but I don't see things slowing down a whole lot anytime soon. Which is probably a good thing because then that means I have work.

I'm sorry it has been so long....

2010-01-12T19:54:00.000-08:00

It has been a month or more since my last post and that is just sad. So much has been going on and so much has happened since then. I want to tell you all about it but don't know where to start. It would take me many, many posts to fill you in on everything, so I will just have to do a brief overview of events.

We left California in the early morning of Dec. 21st after moving and packing the Uhaul truck all day and meeting up with friends one last time before we headed out. We had dinner and then saw the 3D IMAX version of Avatar, which was amazing by the way. A great way to end our time in California, good food. good friends, and good entertainment. Leaving the LA basin at 2am on a Monday was a good idea, because we avoided having to try and manuveur a 26' truck with a car in tow in rush hour traffic. We drove all morning and thru the next day, trading off driver when one of us got tired. We stopped that evening and spent the night in a motel and got some much needed sleep. We spent the night in El Paso and covered the rest of our journey the following day and evening. Texas is a huge state and we only went through a portion of it. It took us the same amount of time to cover California, Arizona and New Mexico; that it took us to make it from the Texas Border to Houston. Crazy, huh? We pulled into Houston around 3am on Dec. 23rd and we were so glad to finally have arrived and not have to be stuck in that damn truck any longer. I have to say, it definitely was the best Uhaul truck I have ever been in, so it could have been worse.

That was the beginning and end of many things. It has been a whirlwind since that day and doesn't seem to be slowing down, but it has been all good.

To be continued....

Moving Madness!

2009-12-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness! This week has been insane and it is only Wednesday. We have stayed up every night for the last week till 12pm or later trying to get everything done. Yet we still have a ton to get done. N has had a final every night this week, plus work and I was home with a sick kid for the first part of the week, while also trying to get work done from home. On top of all that, we are having to share my car because some jerk decided to run into N on the freeway and take off, rendering his car useless. I just keep thinking, only 5 more days; just let me survive the next 5 days and everything will be okay. I'm looking forward to a nice long vacation from everything once we make it to Texas. I'm also looking forward to working from home and getting my own business off the ground. I'm looking forward to not having to commute to work everyday and being able to walk my kids to school, instead of having to battle traffic everywhere I go. I'm also looking forward to having my own garden again and living in an actual house instead of an apartment. I just have to make it through the next week.

For now it is back to work!

Every Day is a New Experience

2009-12-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have found this to be true, especially when you have kids. My new experience for the day? Talking to my daughter about her biological father and answering her questions. Yes, she is 5 yrs. old and up until recently didn't know a thing about his existence. I didn't try to hide it, it just never came up and she was being raised by another man who she was perfectly happy to call dad and that is what he was to her. I knew that at some point it would have to be addressed, but I was perfectly happy to leave well enough alone until such time. That is until her biological father contacted me via Facebook.

Her father and I were married for all of a year and a half. We got married a little over 3 months after meeting and split 6 months after getting married. Our daughter was conceived on our honeymoon in Florida. Within 3 months of getting married, I realized what a mistake I had made. I found out important information that I should have known about him, before we got married. Things about his past that had I known, I would have never married him or gotten pregnant with his child. I will admit that finding these things out was so devastating that I contemplated ending the pregnancy. I was scared and didn't know what to do. I had been a single parent before with my son for several years and I was in my senior year of college and couldn't imagine going it alone with two kids. I couldn't bring myself to end the pregnancy, especially since we had planned her. She was no accident, she was meant to be and apparently I was meant to raise her on my own. I tried to make things work, but it was a losing battle. Things got progressively worse between us until one day he followed me to the grocery store after I had dropped him off at a friends house. He followed me around the grocery store making threats to me under his breath; I had never seen him like this before. It scared me and I didn't trust him not to do what he was threatening to do. I didn't want to leave the store because I had a feeling that once we were alone he might do something to me. I tried to resist leaving and he got more angry and shoved the cart into my pregnant belly and grabbed my keys and left as concerned patrons asked me if I was okay. There was a police cruiser outside handling another issue at the store and seeing as he had taken my car and I had no way to leave on my own, I went outside and talked to the police officer about what happened. The officer got my car back for me and tried to encourage me to file a report against my husband. I was hesitant and just drove to my mom's instead. My husband showed up at my mom's house not more than a few minutes after I arrived, this is after the officers had told him to leave me alone and go cool off. This was enough to convince me that I had to do something, because he was not someone that I could trust. I went down to the police station to file a report and get a restraining order against him. As I was giving my statement of what happened and answering questions about how the altercation started, the police officer said that he had dealt with my husband before much to my dismay. That is when I found out my husband had a long history of addiction. Somehow he had been able to hide it from me all along; I don't know if he had been clean when we met and had started using again recently or had been using the whole time and had just been really good at hiding it from me. Needless to say, I was done. This new information on top of the other things I had found out before that, just made it obvious that there was no way that it could work between us. He soon went away to a boot camp style drug treatment program and I didn't have to deal with him anymore. I finished the rest of that school year and gave birth to our daughter 2 days after I turned in my final project for the semester. My ex was released from his drug treatment program when our daughter was 4 months old. I told him I wanted a divorce and he refused to give me one. He saw his daughter several times after his release and would just show up at the house at times that we hadn't agreed upon. He showed up one night at my house all messed up, begging me to take him back; he was on something and I had never seen him like that before. Not long after that he flunked a drug test and was sent to jail. I served him divorce papers in jail and we have not had contact since. I started dating a cop that I met through other circumstances and then a year later moved out of state for a job. That cop and I got engaged and he helped raise my daughter from the time she was 8 months old. He is the only father she's known, until now.

When N and I started dating I told him that D was not my daughter's dad, even though she called him dad. I told him a little about her bio dad and that she didn't know anything about him because we split when she was an infant. His reaction to this information was, "you know she is going to want to know her real dad someday and will probably seek him out". A part of me kind of knew this, but was hoping she would be like me when I was a teenager and my sister looked up our dad and got back into contact with him. I didn't have any desire to really get to know him, although he wanted to get to know me and for awhile I accommodated his desire to play dad now that I was grown. But the reality was that I didn't consider him a father at all and I had no respect for the fact that he had abandoned us when he and my mom divorced and had never supported us or tried to be involved the whole time we were growing up. I had no respect for the man and eventually cut off communication. I was hoping that this would be the way it would go with my daughter's dad. But then he found me on Facebook and now it doesn't seem like it will be that easy.

I showed my daughter the only picture I still have of her dad holding her when she was a few months old and the card that he made for her before she was born that is part of her baby book. I answered her questions about where he was and why he never lived with us, in very simple terms that a kid could understand. She said she wanted to meet him and her older sister who now lives with him and his girlfriend. He has been asking to talk to her and so I asked her if she wanted to talk to him and she said she did. So I helped her dial the phone and she spoke with him briefly because he was at work. It was a very hard thing for me to do and I'm still not sure if I did the right thing. If he is a changed man, which I really have no way of knowing for sure since we live 3000 miles apart; I don't want to keep him from knowing his daughter. Part of me feels like if I try to keep her from knowing him, she will just seek him out anyways as an adult and feel resentment towards me for keeping her from knowing her dad. Maybe if she knows him now and see's him for who he is, there won't be that novelty factor of the long lost father syndrome. I don't know? This is one of those situations where your damned if you do and your damned if you don't.

This is unknown territory that I'm entering and I'm feeling very much alone; even though I know I'm not the first nor the last single mom to have to deal with this. I just hope everything turns out for the best!

A stressful time...

2009-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about the holidays. I'm stressed out by the impending move that we will be making in just 19 days. There is so much to do that has yet to be done and it just feels like there isn't enough time to get everything done. It has really hit home for both of us that we are leaving California in less than a month. We are each dealing with it in our own ways. I'm starting to get cold feet about leaving my job, moving to a state where I really don't know anyone, giving up my freedom and independence to be with the man that I love.

When I tell people that we are moving and they ask the normal questions that everyone asks and I respond that no I have no friends or family there, no job, no ring, no nothin'. I realize how crazy it sounds and that is why they give me that look like I am crazy. I would probably do the same thing if I were them. Having been a single, independent mom for a good part of the last decade it is really hard to give up my independence and put my trust in a man. It is scary as hell, let me tell you! I know we are doing this together and it is a decision that we made together and he has been very supportive, even when I'm freaking out. It doesn't make it any easier, though. We both joked about whether it was too late to change our minds the other day, but in reality neither of us want to change our plans. This is what we both want, even though we thought that I would be able to find a job before we move, it isn't the end of the world that I haven't yet. I have other plans and possibilities to keep me busy.

Once we get there I know I will be okay, it is just the weeks leading up to our departure that are hard. I think the best way to handle it is to not think too much about it and analyze every detail, because that just makes me feel like I might lose my mind. I would rather not lose my mind over this move!

From no restraint to frugality!

2009-11-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

I grew up poor and always wanting for something. My mom did the best she could as a single mom of 4, but often it wasn't enough. I wanted to have nice new cloths like my friends, instead of the hand me downs from my cousin and thrift store bargains. Anyways, so when I got to be old enough to get a job and make my own money, I did. I knew that was the only way I would be able to buy some of the things I wanted to have, but my mom couldn't afford. I babysat from the time I was 12 years old; I got my first real job at 16 yrs. old working as a bank teller after school. I only made $5.15/hr. but it gave me a little money to play with and I was able to buy cloths that I wanted, etc. I remember the first credit card offer I got. I was 18 yrs. old and still in high school, but I had had the same job for 2 yrs. and a bank account and line of credit, so they must have decided I would be a good candidate for a credit card. I was so excited; my mom on the other hand didn't think it was a good idea. But I was 18 yrs. old so what could she do, but warn me. Soon after, I got pregnant with my first child and that minor $500 credit limit card got maxed out. Then when I got into Cornell University, oh my goodness; the credit card offers came pouring in. Trying to go to school and support my child and pay for everything on my own was a nightmare. I quickly ran up loads of debt through student loans, credit cards, etc. It was how I was able to make it through school. I probably could have lived at home with my mom the whole time instead of living in student housing for 2 of my 4 yrs. there, but I wanted to be independent of my mom. So now I'm living with my mistakes, as we all do. At the time I thought that when I graduated I would be making enough money to afford to pay all my student loans and credit card debt. How naive I was! Then I got married and we ran up even more debt and we had a baby together and then when we divorced I got left with all the debt we ran up together because it was all in my name.

When I finally did graduate, my job options were not so great. I ended up having to take a job at a design/build landscaping company that wasn't able to pay me very well and so I was struggling just to even pay my rent and daycare, let alone put food on the table, so I had to stop paying my credit cards and student loans. What was happening was I was paying the minimum balance on my credit cards every month and then I didn't have any money for food or gas, etc. So then I would end up charging those necessities on my credit cards and it just got so out of hand and my cards were maxed out. I felt like it was this delicate balancing act of just keeping my head above water. As fall came, I was informed that in the winter time they often temporarily laid off most of the staff, because there really wasn't much work in the wintertime. With this possibility of unemployment for several months looming over me I decided I needed to find a better job, one I could actually live on and had benefits, etc. My mom had moved out to California a few months earlier, so I no longer had any family support nearby. My mom had been trying to get me to move out to California once she was there and my brother had been trying to get me to come out as well while I was in college, so I decided, what the heck! I went onto the ASLA website and found a ton of firms in California who were advertising job openings and I started sending my resume out. I was amazed at how many responses I got back. I set up interviews and made plans to come out for a week and interview with 7 firms in 7 days from Northern to Southern California. It was quite a trip and I ended up canceling one in San Diego because I was just exhausted from all the traveling and interviews. Before I even arrived back in NY, I already had a job offer, not the one I wanted, but a pretty good job offer. So I waited a few days and got several more job offers and picked the best one that fit what I was looking for and paid decent. They wanted me to start in a month, so I had 1 month to pack up all out belongings, find an apartment, and move all our belongings across the country and get settled. 1 month is not enough time, but somehow I made it happen, with some help from my then boyfriend and my aunt and uncle who I had to borrow $5000 from to pay for moving cost and first and last month's rent on my apartment. Without their help, none of this would have been possible. At the time, I was optimistic that I would be able to pay them back within my first year out here, but yet again I underestimated how much it would cost to raise two kids in California. My salary at my new job was more than I could have ever hoped for back in NY, but this isn't NY and that great salary here is not enough to support 3 people and a boat load of debt. I quickly learned this. I still have yet to pay off all my debt, but I'm working on it, slowly but surely. It is daunting and overwhelming at times. Having grown up the way I did, I never wanted my kids to have to go through that. They have it alot better than I did, that is for sure, but I'm not able to give them everything I wanted to be able to provide them.

I find now that I never want to buy anything except the absolute necessities, like food and gas and paying the rent and bills. I never buy myself anything, anymore. I just can't justify it. I didn't even want to spent the money to get a crown on one of my teeth that was in need of it, because it just seemed like there had to be a cheaper option. I even waited a year to get it done, because I didn't have the money at the time. I find it interesting how when you say you can't afford something, they always say well we have a credit option you can apply for. Like buying something on credit makes it more affordable. No, it just means you will end up paying more for that thing that you really couldn't afford, but bought anyways and you are going to have to deal with that mistake for months and years to come. It isn't easy living within your means nowadays, because everyone has gotten so used to not having to. But it is possible, just a little harder. I will probably not be able to buy a new car anytime soon or cosign on a mortgage, but at least I won't be living in a fantasy world that will come crashing down around me in years to come. My goal is to be debt free in the next 20 years. I think it is feasible. It just means that I will be wearing the same old cloths that I bought ten years ago and I will be driving my car that I bought in college till I'm a middle-aged women.

N and I have very different perspectives on money issues. He came from very little, as I did, but his family was able to help each other out and open businesses and do quite well for themselves as he got older. He also came from a two parent household with an extended family support system, so it really isn't comparable. It is interesting to see how we each deal with money issues. For example, his TV broke soon after we moved in together and rather than buy an affordable one to replace it, he wanted an even better one than what he had had before, which would be about a $1000 investment. He thought that if we split the cost it wouldn't be so bad, but I informed him that I definitely couldn't afford that and had never even paid more than $100 for a used TV before. I had no need for the large fancy TV that he wanted and would be just fine with a smaller cheaper one. That would not do for him, so we have been without a TV for about 3 months now. When I told him I didn't have the money he suggested that we put it on his credit card and then pay it off over several months. Yet again I had to explain that that wasn't an option for me as I couldn't afford anymore monthly payments than what I'm already paying. It is such a foreign concept for people, it seems. I think I'm helping him to be more responsible with money; he didn't go ahead and buy the TV. He paid off his car and is waiting to get a new TV when we can save up enough for it.

Managing money is such a joy! Can you see the sarcasm dripping from that statement?

Sperm Donor vs. Father Figure

2009-11-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

Some people believe that a male who gets a women pregnant is by default the father of said offspring. I beg to differ. There is a huge difference between a sperm donor and a father. HUGE! Just like when a couple goes to a sperm bank because they cannot conceive children on their own for whatever reason and they are implanted with a strangers sperm and conceive a child that way. They don't consider that person the child's father because in most cases they will never know who that person is and that person will never be involved in the child's life or financially support the child. In some cases, that child will be raised by another male who isn't biologically related to that child, but considers that child to be their own and they care for and support that child as if it was biologically related to them. This person is the child's father in all respects except genes. I think too often we put too much emphasis on who the child is genetically related to rather than who is actually physically and emotionally there for them on a daily basis.

I have two sperm donors and only one man so far who has actually been a father to my children. My ex cared for my kids and treated them as his own for the 4 years we were together, even since we have split he still tries to be involved as much as he can living 3000 miles away. Because of this, my children call him dad. Whatever issues we had in our relationship, this is one area that I cannot say anything bad about him. He took on the responsibility of raising another man's children and that is a very noble thing. My current partner is also in the same position, he has taken on that role as a father figure. Although he has no desire for my kids to call him dad, which is fine, he is still filling that role of what a father should be doing; caring for his children, helping to support his children, etc.

Now I'm sure that there are sperm donor's that can become wonderful father's at some point in their offspring's life, but I haven't seen it happen personally. For some reason, we as mother's seem to have this fantasy that our sperm donor's will miraculously turn into the father's that we want them to be for our children, but it rarely happens. Why is that instinct so strong? Why is this urban myth so prevalent in our society, to where we put so much weight on who is the biological father and give them more credit then they often deserve or earn? I will admit that at one time I fell prey to this fantasy. I tried to encourage my son's sperm donor to have a relationship with his son, but it was a disaster waiting to happen and luckily I wised up before my son got very old.

I have just been mulling over this concept since I was recently contacted by my daughter's sperm donor after having not heard from him since she was only months old. She doesn't know much at all about him, except that he exists and I think it is best that way.

*To clarify, a sperm donor can be anyone. Someone you were married to, someone you were in a relationship for several years with, someone you had a one night stand with. It doesn't mean that they were anonymous. In order to qualify as a sperm donor, you have to have knocked a women up and not stepped up to take care of the child and be involved in their life.

The News!

2009-11-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

So I can finally break the news. Yay! You have no idea how hard it is for me to keep a secret. I'm one of those people who have a really hard time keeping things a secret, I just want t0 tell everyone when I find out something new. So you can imagine that it was quite painful for me, trying to keep the wraps on our upcoming move to Texas! I needed to talk with my boss first before I blasted it all over the Internet. He was surprised and sad, but we had a good little chat and he was supportive of my move and offered to write me a recommendation. There was some serendipity in my decision to leave and that helped me feel a little better about my decision, seeing as they have been really good to me at my firm. I wrote earlier in the summer about the layoffs that we had at our firm and my concern over one of my coworkers who was on maternity leave and whether she would be able to return to work once her leave was up. She was supposed to return two weeks ago and never did, then it sounded like she would be coming back next week. It turns out that we just don't have any work for her right now and so she was going to have to go on unemployment which I'm sure was disheartening for her. Now with my leaving, she will be able to return to work once I have left, which is good for her and her family and for the firm, because they won't have to try to hire someone to replace me.

So you are probably wondering why in the hell I would want to move to Texas, right? I'm wondering the same thing! Honestly, it is never a place I thought I would live, but things happened and life is unpredictable. N has family there and they have been wanting him to move back for awhile now and with the economy the way it is here, that idea has become more appeasing lately. Facing the rising costs of living here and the continuing cuts in income for both of us, we have decided to leave California for the time being and move to Texas. In some ways we are sad to be leaving, because there is alot that we will miss out here, including friends and some family. But we are optimistic that things will be better for us in Texas and we will be able to afford to settle down and start a family together. The cost of living in Texas is half of what it is here and N's younger brother and his girlfriend who has two kids as well, just bought their first house last year outside Austin. We know that the likely hood of us ever being able to afford a house in California is very minimal. Whereas, in Texas we could be in a position to buy a house within the next two years. N already has work opportunities there and I'm following some job leads, but haven't yet gotten a job. I'm also toying with the idea of going back to school to get my MBA and starting my own Landscape Architecture firm, which has been a dream of mine for awhile now. This could be a good time to for me to do it.

I will continue to work towards getting my license in California because this is where I first applied for my license and once I get it here I can just apply for reciprocity to Texas and get it there. That way I will be licensed in both states and can therefore work on projects in both states. I will be taking the last two LARE exams in December before I leave, so I'm hoping that I pass; so I don't have to fly back here to take them again. After that, I will just have the California Supplemental Exam to pass and then I will be licensed. When I'm done with the licensing process I will be sooooo relieved. It will be the last step in a process that I started almost ten years ago when I decided that I wanted to become a Landscape Architect. If I had really known the full extent of what that entailed, I might have chosen a different profession. No joke! But I'm glad that I didn't, because I really do love what I do!

I'm looking forward to a new beginning with N, but at the same time it is a bit frightening. Having another person to share the adventure with makes it less frightening, but still overwhelming. We are a team now and have decided to create a website for our upcoming adventure, so our friends and family can follow along and see what we are up to. Once it is created I will post the link here, so you can follow along!

Update: Here is our family migration blog!

The Marrying Age!

2009-10-29T12:41:00.001-07:00

Is it just me or does there seem to be a certain age when people decide that you should be married by? Maybe it is when you reach a certain time span of dating someone that you start getting asked the question, "So when are you getting married?". I guess I have reached that magical number, lucky me!

I never used to have that problem. I was married once, but we weren't together for very long before we got married, so I guess we never had time to meet that magical number and we were also young.

In my last relationship, we got engaged after dating for a year and I had decided to move to California for a better job and because after a year of dating I really didn't think it was going to go anywhere. He was a diehard bachelor, 16 years my senior and he showed no signs of settling down. I guess my decision to move across the country triggered something in him that made him decide that maybe it was time to settle down or he was going to end up old and alone. We were engaged for 3 years while living on opposite coasts, but never made it official for many viable reasons. It was never meant to be and he could never really bring himself to actually settle down. Good intentions only get you so far! People never really asked me when we were going to get married, probably because they knew how impossible the situation was.

Now 9 months into my relationship with N, I'm getting bombarded with questions on when we are going to get hitched. WTF? It is even more awkward when we are hanging with another couple or group of friends and we are asked point blank. How are you supposed to answer that? Yeah we will get right on that!

Don't get me wrong, we have talked about it, but we just aren't ready to take that step. We want more time to get to know each other, we have only known each other for 9 months for peet's sake. Plus we both have been engaged before and it ended badly, so we are in no hurry to jump into anything! What is the hurry anyways? We are happy together, enjoying our life together and making plans for the future. Whether that future includes marriage, only time will tell! Like I told one of my friends who didn't get the hint, "if I had something to tell you, you would know"!

Just because I'm closing in on 30 does not mean I need to hurry up and get married. Been there done that, it's nothing new! In my opinion, you all are just finally catching up, what took you so long. I already have two kids and your just deciding to have kids now! See, it is all a matter of perspective.

Hopefully this will lay it to rest. Probably not though! Oh well!

There are some changes afoot!

2009-10-26T12:50:00.001-07:00

I don't want to say too much too soon, but there are some big changes about to take place for our little family! Change of location, change in job, etc. It is exciting at the same time that it is scary as hell! I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the changes and things that need to be done between now and the end of the year. On top of all the planning and preparations, I am also trying to study for my last two licensing exams at the beginning of December. So needless to say I am very busy and probably will be till after the end of the year. But I will try to update when I can.

For now I'm just trying to keep on top of work, which has been very busy of late and keep my sanity as well as keep my happiness. Sometimes slowing down and just being can be the best remedy for the blues. This past weekend, like many weekends was just so busy! Friday night we had a going away dinner for one of our friends and the kids favorite babysitter Kim. She is moving to Colorado, having grown up here and gone to college here she is ready for a new adventure. We are every sad to see her go, but wish her the best in her adventures. On Saturday, after N got done with class in the morning, he took the kids for a few hours so I could get some studying in. Then we headed over to his single-dad friend's house so they could watch the fight while the kids played together. N is so excited for him because he has met a really great women who seems like she is mature and ready to take on his kids, which is great. I really like her!

We were going to do a benefit walk/run for DaVita Kidney Awareness in LB on Sunday morning, but Saturday was kind of a late night and we ended up sleeping in and missed it. I feel bad because we had registered to do it, but we so needed a morning to just sleep in and relax and that is exactly what Sunday was. We walked to the park and laid in the grass while the kids played, it was such a beautiful day! I so miss the New England fall. California just doesn't have a fall. We were going to take the kids to a pumpkin farm and pick out pumpkins, but it didn't happen. That is the other thing Pumpkin Farms here are not real Pumpkin Farms, they are just mini amusement parks in a parking lot with pumpkins and a petting zoo. In upstate NY, they have actual Pumpkin Farms, with real cornfield mazes that are cut into an actaul cornfield. My coworker and I were talking about this the other day because he is from the East Coast as well. He says his kids complain about it being cold in the morning and he just looks at them and is like, you have no idea what cold is! Yes, I missing the East Coast, can you tell?

I will try to get pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes and post them with a Halloween post. I also have pictures from our trip to Legoland two weekends ago that I need to post. There just aren't enough hours in a day!

You Know You Have Chosen The Right Man When...

2009-09-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

Your sick as a dog and he not only takes care of you and runs to the store to get you soup and medicine, but also takes your kids to the park and the movies and the swimming pool and helps them clean the house and do the laundry! That is one way to melt a girls heart and convince her that yes she wants to have more babies with you.

I started coming down with something last Thursday and was considering staying home on Friday, but being the workaholic that I am, I went in anyways and ended up feeling worse by the end of the day. So I spent the whole weekend in bed wondering what I had done to deserve this. I had even brought home work with me Friday night telling my boss as I was leaving that I would have the grading plan done for his review on Monday. Hah! That didn't happen. By Sunday I was sure I had the flu, I hadn't been this sick in a long time, so it had to be that. Stayed home today and rested some more and went to the Dr.'s and it turned out that I didn't have the flu, but some sort of viral infection. Got my antibiotics and so I should be good as new in no time!

When I think back to last year about this time, I vaguely remember coming down with something similar and spent several days in bed very ill. Only last year this time, I had no one to help me. I was completely alone, no family, no friends nearby. It sucked big time!

I feel very blessed to have met such a wonderful man who takes such good care of me!

Working My Ass Off and My New Obsession!

2009-09-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

So I really haven't had alot of time to write, but I have really wanted to. I have a ton of work to do at my day job and then school has started to pick up for the kids and my man, so I have been very busy with home life as well and now on top of it I'm getting sick because I have been exhausting myself. Plus I've got some hush-hush plans that I have been working on that is keeping me up late at night. I would love to break the news but I can't just yet because it is still up in the air. I know, I'm a tease!

Somehow in the middle of all this madness, I have found a new obsession or maybe a more accurate description would be a new internet blogger to stalk! I found her blog through a piece in the LA times earlier in the week and have been pouring over her blog every spare second that I have as well as a few that I don't really have! Anyways, her blog is amazing and she is so talented, so I'm sharing her blog with you. Check out The Pioneer Woman!

She has tons of yummy recipes, beautiful pictures and gardening tips and has even written out the romantic story of how she met her husband who she refers to as Marlboro Man. I'm only half way through it and can't get enough of it. She has great stories about raising 4 kids on a ranch in the middle of nowhere and how she came from her well-to-do city girl life and became a ranchers wife! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Now back to work.....

Meeting the In-Laws!

2009-09-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep last night and wishing I wasn't at work today! Why you ask, did I only sleep 4 hours last night in the bottom bed of my kids bunk bed? Here is the answer!

Got a call from N around 5:45pm as I was wrapping up my work for the day, asking me when I was going to be coming home? I told him I would be leaving shortly and asked him whether he had already picked up the kids from daycare or if I should? He told me that he hadn't picked them up but he could and that his mom had returned from her trip to Cambodia and was waiting at the airport for us to pick her up. We knew she was going to be arriving in LA soon, but didn't really know when until she called when she landed. She often has a several hour layover at LAX en route from Cambodia to Houston and vis versa. On her way to Cambodia last month she had a layover for several hours in LAX and we didn't know until she called and it just happened to be the same weekend that I had agreed to watch my neighbors kids so she could go to her high school reunion. So I stayed home with the kids while N went and spent a few hours with her. She was expecting to meet me as we have never met before, but this time we did finally meet and she had brought N's grandma and grandpa as well who are in their 80's and still full of energy. The traffic at the airport was especially bad, worst than I have ever seen it and I have spent alot of time going to and from the airport since I moved here. We had to take two cars because our sedans would not be able to fit everyone and their luggage in one. Yet another instance where I'm missing my Isuzu Ascender, which would have fit everyone and their luggage.

By the time we got home it was after 10pm and everyone was exhausted and hungry. We put the kids to bed and I began making shrimp fried rice for everyone. The twist to this is that N's uncle was on his way down from Stockton to our house in Irvine (approx. 6-8 hr. drive) to pick up grandpa and grandma who were going to be staying with him, while N's mom was scheduled to fly out of LAX the next morning at 9am. Talk about a whirlwind visit! N and his mom and grandparents were all chattering away in Khmer while I made dinner; I was able to recognize a few words here and there in the conversation but mostly I was completely oblivious to what they were talking about. Now and then N would narrate a bit of what they were talking about in English to me. Even though his mom has been here for close to 30 years, her English is still fairly rough and she is more comfortable speaking in her native tough. I bought a Khmer language dictionary a few months ago to learn to speak Khmer. It has been a slow process, it is a fairly complicated language and has the largest alphabet of all the languages. Like many languages it has several ways of saying the same thing depending on who you are talking to and their status in life. This just complicates it even more. N has been helping me with flashcards, but I think that it is one of those languages that would be much easier to learn if you were immersed in it for several months. Unfortunately it is not a widely spoken language, so it is not easy to find a language course in it at a local college. I would like to at some point go to Cambodia with N as he has not been back since he escaped the killing fields with his family when he was 2 yrs. old.

As we were eating together, I was amazed at how strong and resilient his family is. My grandmother lived to be 91 yrs. old and yet for the decade before she passed she stayed in bed after falling and having hip surgery. I can only imagine what N's grandma has been through in her life and at 81 yrs. old she is walking and sharp and has a full head of jet black hair with a spattering of grey here and there. N's mom has long beautiful black hair with no visible greying and she is 55 years old and looks so young and vibrant compared to how my mom looked at that age. My mom started getting grey hair at 26 yrs. old after she had her first child. By the time she was 4o yrs. old she was completely grey. I found my first grey hair around the same time and have slowly been getting more. His family ages well, that is for sure!

In a previous post I wrote about my fears that his family wouldn't accept me and those were all unfounded. They were very nice and accepting and I felt very comfortable around them. That just goes to show you that there is no point in worrying about something that may or may not happen. You deal with it when it comes up and if it never comes up than you won't have spent any time worrying about it.

First Day of Kindergarten and other Stories

2009-09-10T15:13:00.000-07:00

Miss T has been counting down the months, weeks, days till she starts kindergarten for a long time now. That day finally came and she couldn't have been more excited. She woke me up at 6am this morning to remind me that today was the first day of school and I needed to get up so she wouldn't be late. We went through the morning preparation, which she had seen her brother go through for the past 5 years, but this time she actually had somewhere to go too! We went yesterday at 4pm to find out who her teacher was going to be and had all our supplies for kindergarten ready. We walked with her big brother to meet his bus and then we headed off to her school. (A goes to a different school because our neighborhood school doesn't have special ed classrooms) There was no parking for several blocks due to the first day madness, but we finally found a spot and walked the distance back. We were a little late but found her classroom and met her teacher and she was so comfortable and ready for school. In those first few moments in class she seemed so grow-up in how she handled everything, it was amazing to see. When we arrived one of the kids in her class was bawling uncontrollably and when I picked her up another little girl was crying as well, but she seemed so calm and mature. Which is quite a contrast from when she is at home. She likes pretending like she is a baby and she tries to milk being the youngest of the family for all it is worth.

This morning as we were getting ready I asked N if he wanted to come with us for the first day of school and in his half asleep stupor he mumbled that he would think about it. He came along and as we were leaving after the first day meet and greet, he commented about how the whole ritual was strange to him because back when he was in school, his parents either dropped him off or he walked to school and his parents never came and met the teacher on the first day of school. This is contrast to the swarm of parents hanging outside the classroom snapping pictures and some even video taping their kids first day of kindergarten. I explained to him that it was considered proper etiquette now to show up with your child on the first day of kindergarten. I think that his experience was partly due to the fact that his parents were recently arrived immigrants at the time and spoke very little English and were working non-stop in order to make ends meet, so it just wasn't an option.

I wrote in an earlier post about my trials and tribulations with trying to work out transportation and daycare around my daughters kindergarten schedule as well as my work schedule. Last week I received a letter from her school informing me that due to the large number of kindergartner's that are enrolled this year they had to add a third kindergarten class and my daughter had been changed to an early bird instead of a late bird which was a huge relief because now I can drop her off at school before I leave for work instead of having to stay home in the mornings with her. I still have to go back at 11:30am to pick her up and take her to the Boys and Girls Club, but I can use my lunch hour for that. It is a wonderful thing when things fall into place. When I picked her up today at 11:30am and asked her if she wanted to eat lunch with me before I dropped her off at the Boys & Girls Club, she said she would rather go straight to the Boys & Girls Club instead of eating lunch with me. I think the last week that we have spent together on vacation has taken it's toll, she doesn't even want to spend time with me anymore. I'm not going to let it hurt my feelings because it is all new and exciting right now and soon she will be tired of it and begging me to stay home with her instead of going back to work. Instead I got to spend some time at home with no kids and no boyfriend and eat lunch and do whatever I wanted. It was great! Then I went to pick up A from school and take him to the Boys & Girls Club because the transportation dept had told me last week when I called that it would take a week or more to get his drop-off location changed to his after school program. So until then I would have to drive him; just one more inconvenience to muddle through. I called today after dropping him off and apparently the nice lady I spoke with yesterday at the district office did some magic and they already have the change in the system so he will be riding the bus tomorrow. Score!

In other stories, we had a wonderful week on vacation together! At first I didn't know what to do with all that free time with the kids, but it didn't take long to find things to keep us busy. Since I'm broke we couldn't go on a real vacation or even join N on his trip to Austin, but we still had a good time. Last Thursday was the first day of our vacation and I dropped my mom off at the airport in the morning, as she is leaving us to move to Northern Cali. Spent some time at the pool, did some back to school shopping, etc. Friday morning we took N to the airport for his trip to Austin and then decided since we were already up at 6am we might as well make the most of it and so we headed to the mountains to check out Lake Arrowhead. Little did I know Lake Arrowhead is a huge private lake and there is no public access, so after finding that out we headed over to the nearby Lake Gregory. There is an exercise trail that encircles the lake and so we walked around the lake and had lunch and then decided to call it a day and head home to swim in the pool at home instead of the yucky looking lake water. We visited a friend of mine on Sunday and saw her new house; tried to go bowling but couldn't find a place that was affordable and didn't have a huge waiting list. Monday we picked up N from the airport and heard all about the houses he saw and his adventures with his brother and kids. We finally found a place to bowl and had a blast and then went out to dinner at Lucille's BBQ House and there was so much food and it was so yummy. Tuesday we planned on going to Lego land and drove all the way down there only to find out once we arrived that they were closed. So we hung out and walked around Carlsbad for a little bit and then headed back home for some fun at the pool. Wednesday was more relaxing at the pool and grocery shopping for last minute items for lunches, etc. Our vacuum cleaner broke so we had to get a new one.

Apparently I'm a workaholic because on my last day before my vacation started, I started a new park project and the concept was due today and I had just started designing the renovations and really wanted to finish it, so I told my boss that I could take it home with me and work on it while I was on vacation. He told me that it was fine, he could do it and to enjoy my vacation. So I did. I have to admit that even though I was on vacation I was still checking my work email via my iPhone and so when I got the email yesterday from my boss about the park project concept that was due today, I wasn't surprised. I had a feeling that he was going to leave it to the last minute and it wouldn't be done when I got back to work, which is why I offered to take it home and work on it. So instead of relaxing and getting lots of rest on my last evening of vacation, I had to go into the office to pick up the files and drawings and spent all evening after I put the kids to bed working on it till 2am. I'm amazed at how well I'm coping on 4 hours sleep. I'm sure it will catch up with me eventually. Unfortunately it has caught up with N who has been working full time and then going to school full time in the evenings and staying up till 12-1am doing homework. He started coming down with something last night and then text me this afternoon that he was going home sick to get some rest. Poor guy!

On top of all of this I have been planning a birthday cruise for N and 25 of our friends for the last two weeks and have yet to get a babysitter for this Saturday! It will totally suck if after all this planning I can't even go. Our usual babysitter is unavailable, our back-up babysitter is unavailable. All our friends are going so we can't ask any friends, I'm desperate at this point. I'm hoping for a miracle!

What is normal anyways?

2009-08-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend we got to experience what it was like to have 4 kids instead of 2. Let's just say it was an interesting experience.

One of my single mama neighbor friends (we will call her M) had her 10 year high school reunion this weekend and both of her parents, who usually help out with her girls were out of town, so she asked me if I would mind taking the girls for an over night. I checked with N to make sure we didn't have any plans already for the weekend and then told her we could take them.

On Saturday M was going to drop the girls off around 4pm and we decided at the last minute to go to the Sunset Junction street fair in Hollywood. So we ran it past her and picked up the girls early and had to drive two cars because we couldn't fit everyone into one of our cars (this is when I really miss my Isuzu Ascender which seated 7). We battled traffic into LA on a Saturday afternoon and it took us about 2 hours to reach our destination which would have taken us 1 hour without traffic; we parked and hopped on the shuttle to Sunset Junction. Although I had never been to Sunset Junction before this, N had gone several years in a row as it was just down the street from his bachelor pad, which he had left behind to come join our family. It was very West Hollywoodish, quirky and intriguing. We all had fun but the kids got bored after we blew through all our tickets and weren't interested in listening to the great live music. N and I decided that next time we would come back without the kids for an evening of dancing and adult fun!

First let me give you a little background before we continue. M and my kids are about 6 months apart, she has two girls, I have a boy and a girl. Her oldest D was one of the first people we met when we moved into our current apartment. She used to hang out at our next door neighbors alot until they moved about a month after we moved in. She is 6 months younger than my son A. Her little sister is Z who is 6 months older than my daughter T, who have become best friends as well as arch nemesis, depending on the day and mood. My mother cared for D and Z before and after school up until June, so the four have spent alot of time together in the past 8 months since we met them.

This was my kids first overnight, so it was a pretty big deal. They were super excited! While at the same time I was wondering if I had lost my mind. I survived, so I guess I didn't.

We were wandering through the crowd at Sunset Junction trying to make our way to the kids rides since that is what the kids wanted to do, even though we were more interested in the live bands. I have the two younger girls on either side of me and A is holding N's hand and D is walking in between us. I see D try to grab A's handle, but he pulls it away instinctively ( he has an aversion to holding hands for some reason, it is a sensory thing I think) Remember A is high-functioning Autistic, so he has his quirks. A few minutes later as we are trying to find the place where they sell tickets for the rides, A and D are walking in front of me and they start holding hands and talking to each other about what rides they want to go on. I'm kicking myself right now that I didn't get a picture of it, because it was so sweet. For those few minutes, I felt like maybe someday my son will actually be able to have friends and meaning relationships with others his age. Too often I have seen him be the outsider in the group, because he is different, he isn't 'normal'. He has had friends at school, but it has never translated to having them over to play or him getting invited to things. I know it is hard for him, because he wants so badly to play with others, but at the same time he doesn't know how to engage his peers in an age appropriate way. I try to explain to him and role play with him, but it doesn't seem to help a whole lot. They get tired of hearing about whatever subject he is obsessing on at the moment and he will never be like other kids his age and so most of the time they will play with him for a little bit, but then don't want to play after awhile.

With D it has been different, she has always been understanding from the beginning. I remember one day overhearing her stand up for A, when some neighbor boys were saying that he was in kindergarten and didn't know anything. She told them that he was in 4th grade and that he was better at certain things than they were, like putting together complicated Lego sets and playing video games. She gets tired of hearing about Lego star wars and will tell him, but she will also play light sabers with him sometimes too. She will remind him when he is reciting movies incessantly, to not do movies. She is like a big sister even though she is actually a little younger than him. Sometimes I wonder if it would be any different if they went to the same school; if she would be embarrassed to be his friend? N thinks she has a crush on A, which could be the case. That may be why she is so nice to him.

It is hard to know if A knows about crushes or even notices girls yet. He only knows what he has picked up from Disney movies (not the best example for love) and his family. He has been interested lately in knowing who he will marry when he gets big and worries about finding a wife to spend his life with. At 10 years old, it is hard to understand why he would be worrying about this, but he does. He once told me he could marry me and I quickly told him that you can't marry your mom, then he thought he could marry his little sister and I told him he couldn't marry his sister either, so then he wanted to know who he could marry? How are you suppose to answer a question like this? I tried my best to assure him that it wasn't something he needed to worry about right now, that he would find someone someday.

Dating and relationships are so far past where he is at emotionally and will be for a long time, but I know that we will be confronted with it way before he or I are ready to deal with it. He is just too damn cute for his own good. He is so kind and sweet and unaware of the harsh world; I hope some day someone will appreciate him for the wonderful person that he is. N and I were talking about this the other night and he appreciates what a unique person A is and is ready to take care of him for as long as he needs to be taken care of. We really don't know what the future holds for him. I believe that he will be able to function in the world on his own at some point. He is very smart in certain areas, such as computers and engineering-type things and has an incredible memory for certain things. He is very friendly and outgoing even if he is still working on proper social etiquette. I have often joked that I would teach him CAD and put him to work for me when I start my own firm.

Lately he has been telling me that when he gets big and is 16 yrs. old he can drive a car. Yeah, we will see about that. I told him that he has to keep doing well at school and we will see when the time comes. I'am not looking forward to that day, but maybe he will be more mature by then.

I got A's test scores from this past school year over the weekend and because he is in special ed, they have a modified version of the California S.T.A.R. exam that they take. It was ironic reading the scores, which placed him at an advanced level for special ed. Does that translate to a remedial level in regular ed? As far as I'm concerned it is all relative.

Miss T Lost her First Tooth!

2009-08-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

It happened last night; I lost my baby girl and she has been replaced with a big girl, toothless smile to boot! I remember loosing my first tooth and how excited I was when I found it in the pear that I was eating. I had watched my big brother lose his teeth and wanted it to happen to me as well. So when I noticed last week that my daughter's two bottom teeth were loose, during our nightly teeth cleaning; I knew it was only a matter of time. I talked with her about what would be happening soon, as she was still quite young when her older brother lost his teeth. My mother suggested getting the book "Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth" by Lucy Bate, which she read to me when I first lost my teeth. I had planned to get it from the library this weekend, but as usual we were so busy, we never made it to the library. It is a great book and I should just buy a copy, it is so timeless.

I was washing the dishes from dinner and the kids were watching a movie, when my daughter ran into the hallway to have a look in the mirror and came running back out with her baby tooth in hand. She was so excited, 'look mommy, look; I lost my tooth'. She immediately wanted me take a picture to send to Dad. There was a little blood but she didn't seem to be phased about it. She had been going over what would happen when she lost her tooth for several days. She informed me that she knew that I was the tooth fairy and I would have to dress up like a butterfly or princess and bring her treats. When I asked her how she knew that she said grandma told her. Thank you grandma!

I texted N who was still at work and he replied back, 'Nice! Your playing tooth fairy... I look horrible in a tutu'. Lol! She wanted to put her tooth under her pillow, but I convinced her to put it in a little tea cup next to her bed so it didn't get lost in her bed. The tooth fairy visited her last night and left her a pair of tiny flower earrings and some chocolate in exchange for her tooth which is being saved in a special place.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for work early this morning, so I didn't get to see the excitement when she woke up and found what the tooth fairy left for her, but I'm sure she will be just as excited when I get home and can tell me all about it.

Next big girl milestone, starting kindergarten! She is so excited about starting school, but I know it will be a very emotional day for me. She already picked out her backpack, we still have to pick up the list of supplies that the school sent home. For some reason school is starting late this year, the first day isn't until Sept. 10th, so I will be posting about it when the time comes. This is just the beginning of many firsts to come for my big girl.

With the good comes bad too!

2009-08-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

As you may already know my mother is moving to Northern California to live with my Aunt and Uncle at the end of August. So I have been scrambling to find before and after-school care for my kiddos. For my son it was fairly easy, but my daughter is another story. She is starting kindergarten this year and for whatever reason California has to do things differently than everywhere else I have lived and they only do half-day kindergarten. Everyone wants to have their kid be an early bird kindergartner and because we registered in March instead of in January, we got to be a late-bird. Which means that she goes to school from 10:05am-1:35pm. So I have to find care for her in the morning as well as in the afternoon and transportation to and from school. There is a program at her school that does before and after-school care, but it is incredibly expensive and I just can't afford it. So I was desperately looking for something that would work, but nothing presented itself. I work full-time and had contemplated cutting back to part-time so I could be home with her in the mornings but I really couldn't do it financially and I would have lost my health insurance if I cut back to part-time. But I kept feeling like I should try to make it work because I knew I wasn't going to be able to find someone to provide care and transportation for what I could afford to pay. So I figured out a work schedule that would make it possible for me to be home with her and transport her to and from school and I would end up having to work weekends to get in 40 hrs. per week, but I was willing to make that sacrifice. I consulted with N to see if he had any problem with helping out on the weekends so I could work and he was supportive of it, so I emailed my boss yesterday to set up a time to discuss it with him and didn't get any response till today. He usually is pretty good about responding promptly and I saw him a couple times in the meantime, but he didn't mention anything about the email. So I started feeling a little uneasy, thinking that it was a bad sign; wishing I hadn't even suggested it.

First thing this morning my boss calls an all office meeting in the conference room. Now I'm even more nervous. A couple people are missing I notice, but I don't really think too much about it. First he tells us the good news that we got a couple of the park jobs that we proposed on, then he drops the bomb on us. They let go the Associate who just got his license and was our only LEED certified consultant and the new guy we hired almost a year ago. He said they had no choice and that the two had been expecting it because the project that they had been working on together had fallen through and they had nothing to work on. We are all in shock! Up until this point we had not had to lay anyone off, we just took pay cuts 5 months ago. He said that with the projects that we have right now we should be okay for the next 18 months, but things can always change in the meantime. With the projects I have right now that I'm working on they should keep me busy for the next 6-12 months. After that if we don't pick up more projects then it isn't looking too good. We have been proposing on a lot of projects; now it is just a matter of whether there is funding for the projects and the competition is very stiff now with so few jobs available.

I'm hoping that seniority may mean something if we have to have more layoffs. If so, then there are a couple of people that will go before I get the ax, but that is no guarantee because they laid off our associate who has been here for like 10 years, which is a lot longer than me and a couple other people. I think the reason for their layoff was purely to do with the fact that they didn't have paying projects that they were working on, so my boss couldn't justify paying their monthly salary until things picked up and they did have paying projects again. My boss did say that if things picked up they would likely come back to work.

So after this meeting I'm really worried about the future of my job and all that. Now I'm even more sure that is was bad timing on my part to bring up the whole daycare issue and changing my work schedule. Still no mention about the email from him and I'm too nervous to bring it up. Then about half an hour later I get an email from him saying that he spoke with the VP and they are both okay with my schedule change and to just let the office manager know my new schedule. I went from totally stressed and worried to such relief in 60 seconds. So as they say, with good comes bad and vice versa. It will be nice to be able to be home in the mornings with my daughter and take her to and from school. It may even give me time to study for my licensing exam coming up in December. A single mama can hope, right?

I'm feeling really blessed right now that I still have a job and I work for a great firm that is willing to accommodate my parenting responsibilities as being as important as my work responsibilities. I know that not all firms are like that, so I know I'm lucky!

After our meeting the VP came into my office and was telling me not to worry about the immediate future, because once I was done working on what I was working on, he had a new park project for me to work on for him. So I'm not too stressed anymore, but it is still a downer knowing that people I have known and worked with for awhile are in that very unfortunate position. I wish them the best and hope it wont' be permanent.

PARK(ing) Day 2009

2009-08-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Got an email over the weekend from the EGB-OC about their upcoming green event, PARK(ing) Day 2009. If you haven't heard of it you should check it out. It is fairly new, but a really amazing concept. A friend of mine who is also a landscape designer did it last year with his firm and said it was a really great experience. It will be happening all over the US in a City near you on Sept. 18, so you should definitely check it out. I'm trying to convince my boss that we should participate, he seems to be open to the idea. So now for the planning and execution. I will take pictures and post if we do end up doing our own exhibit.

Trying to make the world a little greener one parking space at a time!

Raising Biracial Children in a Race Obsessed World

2009-08-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

One summer my niece came to stay with us for a couple weeks, she was about 4 or 5 years old at the time. It had been awhile since we had seen her and her mother needed help as she was a single parent at the time. I had gone down to DC when she was born to help my sister and brother-in-law in the first couple weeks after she was born, so I had a special bond with this little girl. I had started dating my son's father that same summer and even though he and my sister shared a commonality, they were both adopted and both African American; my boyfriend showed no interest in meeting my sister while she was in town. Those couple weeks that my niece was there were quite a learning experience. She came with her hair done all nice and braided and we obviously didn't know how to care for her hair and definitely didn't know how to style it, so after a couple days of being at our house we took her braids out and tied it back in pigtails for the rest of the time she was there because that is all we knew to do. I remember one day walking into the local grocery store with her and we were walking down the aisle and an African American women stopped her and started talking to her and telling her how beautiful she was and I'm holding her hand, smiling at the women and the women is completely ignoring me as if I'm not even there and then she continues on her way. That was my first realization that there are people out there who have anger and resentment over different races mixing. My niece is mixed although you can't really tell. Her mom as far as we know is African American, her dad is a mixture of African American, Chinese, European and Native American. When he was growing up they called him Rainbow Man because of his multiple ethnicity's. I found him to be quite attractive when I met him at age 14. I think he was my first crush on someone outside my own race.

Back to the summer before my senior year of high school. So I had started dating my son's father, but he wasn't the first person I dated who wasn't Euro-American. A couple months before him I dated a guy who was Mexican American, but didn't experience any racial issues with him. O-Dawg as they called my son's father at the time was very popular and went to the regular high school, where as I went to the Alternative High School. His adoptive dad (Grandpa John) was a teacher at the regular high school. We were in love, he was my first love and I fell hard for him. We were lucky enough to live in a small town that was relatively open minded, although it was surrounded by very rural not so open minded areas. We dated our whole senior year and made plans to go off to college together and get married after college and start a family young. But as the year wore on things changed, he had left home and was living with friends and then he couldn't stay with them anymore and my mom offered him a place to stay with us. So he moved in and his grades had been going down during the fall semester so he had to go to a remedial high school until he could get his grades back up. Within a couple months of him coming to live with us, I found out I was pregnant. He stopped going to school soon after and my mom kicked him out, because their agreement was he could stay with us as long as he was going to school.

That was the beginning of his life spiraling out of control; he got into all kinds of drugs and dealing and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Our relationship ended soon after when I found out that he had cheated on me with someone else. We had gotten an apartment together that summer, but I ended up moving back in with my mom after it ended. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when our baby was born 4 months later. When I held him for the first time in my arms, I was overwhelmed with joy and happiness. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen with his golden skin and his dark curly hair. One of my friends referred to him as the Buddha Baby, because he was so chubby and golden and always smiling and happy. He was my Buddha Baby! At that time I was so naive to think that people would just see how beautiful he is and not care what his ethnicity was. But as he got older and started school and I had to decide what race box to check when I enrolled him in school, those delusions soon disappeared. Soon after he started school he was diagnosed as High Functioning Autistic and I was faced with the reality that my perfect little Buddha Baby was not going to be seen the way I saw him. Not only was he a biracial boy, but he was also developmentally challenged. He now had two strikes against him. Although racial issues have come up and he has heard people around him talk about race, he seems to be pretty oblivious to it all. I don't know if that is a good thing or not. In general he doesn't really understand most social interactions and how it all works, he tries but you can tell that it is a foreign concept for him and he seems to have a hard time understanding conceptual ideas, which is what race is in a lot of ways; a concept that one race is better than another or one skin color is inferior to another.

My two kids have been raised for the most part by their Euro-American mother and African American stepfather. Although I'm sure that they can see the difference between us, they don't seem to talk about it a lot. When they do, they talk about the similarities rather than the differences. Such as the fact that we all have black or brown hair and most of the time my skin is only a few shades lighter than theirs. I have never heard them describe their dad's skin, but if they did they would probably say it was brown, which is what color it is. I have never heard them describe someone by their skin color. I think that is something that people learn as they get older. This 'colorblind' approach that they seem to have probably has to do with the fact that we live in a very mixed racial area and we have friends who are from different races that they interact with regularly. At one point we lived in an area that was predominantly Hispanic and I remember the first time that my son noticed that his classmates were different than him, because they spoke Spanish. He went up to one of the mom's after school one day and tried to speak Spanish to them, the women looked at him like he was crazy because all that came out was mumbo-jumbo which is what it sounded like to him when they were talking. I had to have a talk with him about how even though that is what it sounded like to him when they talked, there was actually a language that they spoke that they could understand and that if he wanted to be able to speak their language he had to actually learn the words and not just make them up.

I have had people ask me if my kids are adopted. People are very curious/nosey and they are always asking what nationality they are because it is hard to tell what they are. Now I'm involved in a relationship with a man who is Cambodian and when we are all together people stare a lot. I'm use to it because I have been experiencing it for a long time, but he isn't so much and so he notices it a lot more. He told me one day that he noticed people staring at us and trying to figure out how he fit into the picture. I told him he would get use to it. Some of his closest friends are from other races and he speaks Spanish fairly well because for a time the majority of his friends were Hispanic. He has a special gift for picking up languages, I think because English is his second language and because he learned to speak two different languages at a young age. He is much more open minded than his family is though. They are very traditional and think that he should marry a Cambodian women. From what he has told me, the elders in his family don't understand why he dates 'white women'. His brother is dating and living with a 'white women' who has kids who aren't his, they are completely against it. I guess if you are a single mom in Cambodian culture then that means that there is something wrong with you. I don't understand it. But then again, they still have arranged marriage in their culture, so again it is just differences in culture. So imagine how I feel about the idea of meeting them and I'm a single mom with two biracial kids. He wants them to accept me but at the same time he doesn't care if they do or not because he is happy with me and that is all that matters. Still I'm nervous about being judged and about my kids being in a situation where they may never be accepted. I can handle not being accepted, but I can't handle my kids not being accepted based on the fact that they have parents from different races.

I have met some of his cousins who are his age and they have all be very nice and welcoming, but they were born here so they are used to the fact that they don't live in a little bubble. It is the Aunts and Uncles and his Mom that may not be as welcoming. He wants to introduce me to them by myself, without the kids first; so they can get to know me for who I'am and not have them just write me off because I'm a single mother, etc. I'm not so sure about this idea because a big part of who I'am is being a mother. I feel like that would be like pretending I'm someone that I'm not. If they can't see past that and see all of my accomplishments and what a great person I am then I don't want to meet them at all. Maybe that seems harsh, but after dealing with prejudice and discrimination towards me and my kids for the past decade, I feel like if you let things slide your just perpetuating the problem.

On another note, I find it ironic that since I had my son I seem to be hit on more often by African American men than any other nationality. Not sure how much of it has to do with the fact that I have a biracial child and they see that I'm open to relationships with people of other races. I have dated Euro-American men in the last ten years but they either knew me before I had kids or they got to know me professionally first and then started dating me. This observation was played out this weekend when I was hanging out with my boyfriend at his electric bike rental store along the harbor downtown. The kids and I had gotten some ice cream and were walking back to the rental station; this guy drives by and circles the roundabout in front of the rental station as we walk up and he parks and gets out and takes some pictures across the street and then comes over to the bike shop and my boyfriend starts talking to him asking if he wants to try a bike and he says, 'actually no I'm here to talk to her'. So I reply what can I help you with and he starts talking about how he saw me and my kids and wanted to come talk to me and get to know me. At this point I realize he is hitting on me and I kind of smile at my boyfriend in an awkward way and he saves me by saying to him that he is my boyfriend and he will take that as a compliment that he has a hot girlfriend. The guy was very polite and apologized but couldn't look my boyfriend in the face. My boyfriend handled it quite well, I thought. It struck me as very strange that he would assume that the guy I was talking to and hanging out with wasn't my boyfriend. I can only imagine what was going through his head, but hopefully he learned something from that experience.

With things going the way they are, I will soon have my own little Obama clan.

One of Those Days

2009-07-30T18:59:00.001-07:00

So I missed my train home and am sitting at a Starbuck's trying to kill an hour till the next train. Every time I really want to get home early to hang out with the kids, this seems to happen. It's summer and I would so much rather stay home and hang out with the kids everyday, than have to go to work. Every morning when I'm getting ready for work, my daughter asks if I can please stay home with her and everyday I have to tell her I can't because I have to work in order for us to have a place to live and food to eat.

It is hard to keep going on those days because I feel like I'm missing out on my kids childhood. I have been so busy with school or work for their whole childhood, but I haven't really had a choice because if I didn't provide for them, who would?

I'm working towards my dream of being able to work from home in the near future, although it is a long and time consuming process, but that is my goal that keeps me going. I signed up for my next LARE exam in December and shelled out the money for the prep course in November, $820 gone. But if I study my ass off and pass, then I will be one step closer to attaining my dream to own my own landscape architecture business and have a more flexible schedule so I can take the kids to dance class and baseball practice or just spend the day at home with them once in awhile.

After 5 years of school I had to enter an apprenticeship of sorts for two years under a licensed landscape architect before I could even apply to start taking my licensing exams of which there are 5 exams total. But you can only take them at certain times of the year 6 months apart. So once I take the exam in December I have to wait till June to take my last exam. I have passed 3 of the 5 exams already, so I'm getting closer. In a year from now I might actually have my license. That is something to look forward to. Just have to take one day at a time.

What are your dreams for the future? What keeps you going everyday?

Be Careful What You Wish For...

2009-07-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

I must confess I'm PMSing and I always getting mopey and bitchy and just dissatisfied with life in general whenever it is that time of the month. So last night I called one of my good friends I have known for a long time and hadn't talked to in awhile and so we were catching up and I start to tell him about what is going on in my life and kind of complaining a little (okay maybe a lot). He laughs and says to me be careful what you wish for because you got just what you wanted and now you still aren't happy and I thought about it and he was right. Dammit, I hate when they are right!

In general, I know that I have a pretty good life and most of the time I'm thankful for all that I have, but then once in awhile I look at where I am and where I would like to be right now and I get frustrated at how far I still have to go. It isn't easy being a single mom, but it is even harder to make the transition from being a single mom to being in a committed relationship, especially with someone who isn't a parent themselves. You have your routine and your balance and you pretty much run the show and now you have to think about one more person who has their own life and plans and you can't tell them what to do and you have to consult them on decisions, etc. That being said, I know this person is so worth it. I just have to remind myself to see the glass half full instead of half empty.

My biggest thing that I have been worrying about is having more kids. I had pretty much thought that I was done with having kids; I'm okay with the status quot as it is. However, I left the possibility open that if I met my Mr. Right (which I have) they might want to have a child together. If that person was willing to take on my kids from previous relationships then I think it is only fair that I accommodate their desire to experience parenthood first hand. This was the deal breaker for my boyfriend. He absolutely wants to have kids with me and if I didn't want to have more kids it wouldn't have worked for us to be together. This compromise I'm willing to make for him, however I'm scared out of my mind! Having been a single parent for so long and seen relationships not work and then being left to care for the kids alone, I do not want to go through that again! I know there are no guarantees in life and you cannot protect yourself from everything. I know he is different and even if, god forbid, we split 10 years from now he would take care of his kids and not leave me to care for them myself. The fear is still there.

The other part of it is that he wants to have kids in the next two years which is fine with me, but I don't see how we are going to be able to afford it in the next 2 years? Both our jobs have experienced loss of income due to the economy and things aren't looking like they will pick-up anytime soon. We really cannot afford to pay for full-time daycare and neither one of us could really quite our job to stay home with the baby. At least not where we are living now. We would like to move to Austin in the next year or so to be closer to his family, but our jobs are here and now isn't really a good time to be job hunting. I also don't want to wait too long because my kids are already half grown. If we wait 5 years to have kids then there will be a 10 and 15 year difference between them and the baby. Plus I will be 35 by then and I want to be done with having kids by then!

I know that even when you plan things they don't always workout the way you think they will and you just have to go with the flow, but sometimes it is just so hard to except that. My friends witty advice to my rant was, "well it sounds like you better get ready to take another Lamaze class"! Thanks dear friend for lending your ear to my bitching and telling me what I needed to hear.

Moving Out!

2009-07-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

In a previous post before we went on vacation I wrote about the drama between my mother and I and as you can imagine that was not the end of that issue. On the trip back from the Bay Area to SoCal, my mother informed me that my Aunt and Uncle had invited her to come and live with them in the retirement community that they live in. They have an extra room and would like help caring for my uncle's 90 year old step-father. She said that she had decided to take them up on their offer and planned to leave when the kids start school in Sept. This was quite a surprise and I didn't really know how to react at the time because it was unexpected.

Once I got back home and talked with my boyfriend about it, we were both shocked and dismayed at how she had come to this decision without any regard to the agreement that she and I had made when we moved to our current apartment and despite the disagreements that we have had, she had said before we went on vacation that she would stay until the lease was up in Dec. and then would likely go somewhere else. Which we were fine with because we would be able to move to a cheaper apartment to make up the difference that we would be paying out in daycare expenses. I moved to my current apartment because of the fact that she was joining us and we needed more space and I could afford the higher rent since I wasn't going to be having to pay out almost $1000/month in daycare anymore. Her decision to leave in the middle of the lease is very disappointing and has really stressed out relationship even further to the point where we may not have a relationship anymore. I feel like she really doesn't care what affect this will have on me or the kids. Things change and circumstances change but I really did not expect this from my mom. I would expect this from a regular caregiver or babysitter, but not the grandmother of my kids.

It has been pretty rough for me over the last couple days because I feel like I have not only been put in this very unfortunate financial position but I have also lost my mom who I once considered my closest ally. We are trying to see if we can get out of our lease and move into a cheaper apartment now or whether it would just make more sense to stay where we are now until the end of the lease. I told my boyfriend in an email today, in reply to one he sent me about an apartment he found, that I feel like I'm back where I started +3 years ago when I first moved to California. I don't like that feeling, I don't like starting over; but maybe it is necessary. His response was; "but this time your not doing it alone". This is true, but I'm so hesitant to believe this, because of so many past promises and plans that never happened with my ex. I know that he is different and I shouldn't let what happened before affect my relationship with the person I'm with now, but the past does affect the future. You can't erase the past and it does effect you for the rest of your life, but I'm trying to not let it effect my relationship. But it is hard sometimes. I know that we will get through this and it will strengthen the bond that we already have.

We have often said to each other, that we wished that we had met each other a year or two ago when we were both doing so much better financially and we could have been saving so much money in that time and would be in a better financial place than we are now that both our jobs have cut our pay and I'm overwhelmed with debt and no way to pay it off. Things happen the way they do for a reason, even if those reasons don't make any sense at the time.

Back from PACT Camp!

2009-07-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we left on our first family vacation in awhile. I had been promising the kids I would take them camping again, but it never happened last summer because I had to cancel my vacation at the last minute due to a change in the project schedule on one of my big projects I'm working on. It was so disappointing because we were all looking forward to getting away from LA and enjoying the outdoors. This year we made it happen; actually Grandpa John made it happen.

PACT camp is a camp for parents of children who are trans racial adoptees as well as their kids. Grandpa John has been involved in this organization and camp since the beginning; I think this was their 8th year. We have heard about it and seen pictures from it, but this year he invited us to join him there. We have been looking forward to it since spring! The day finally came to head up to Northern California and make our way to the Alliance Redwood Center in Occidental, CA. It was a long drive, but we took the 101 which goes along the coast for part of the way and it was so beautiful. We arrived in camp around 5pm; as we are walking up the driveway to check-in and get our camp info and cabin assignment we see Grandpa John. It has been a long time since we have seen him. He has never met my youngest so we did introductions and catching up. Let me just say, the Alliance Redwoods Camp is a very nice place and big too! They had several other groups there as well as ours, but it didn't seem crowded at all. They had a heated pool, playground and skate park, ropes course, recreation room with pool tables and fuse ball, indoor basketball courts, etc; nestled in a Coastal Redwood Forest.

We got our cabin assignment and began the process of unloading the car and getting settled in our cabin. As soon as we had unloaded our car it was dinner time and we all made our way to the dining hall. This was the beginning of a wonderful weekend. We met so many nice people and great kids and it was definitely a learning experience as we were the only family there that did not have an adopted child or an adult who had been adopted. Although we were there for a reason, not only to see Grandpa John; but to begin the process of helping the kids understand the affect that adoption has had on their lives and will continue to have as they grow older. Both my children's father's were adopted; is this a coincidence? Maybe, but I think that it is much more complicated than that. I have an older adopted sister as well who I really didn't grow up with but got to know later as an adolescence and adult. At some point, my kids will want to know why their father's aren't involved in their lives and why I don't know anything about their birth parents and why they don't really have much family on that side.

So that is the back story on how we ended up attending this camp. It has been awhile since I took a vacation with the kids alone and probably the reason for that partly is because it is quite a feat to take a vacation as a single parent, especially when one of the kids is autistic. It was a bit overwhelming the first day or so because the schedule they had for me and the kids was so jam packed with activities and lectures to go to. While the kids did different activities during the day, the parents went to lectures by different speakers and experts in the field of adoption and specifically trans-racial families and the challenges they face and how to deal with parenting in general. I really enjoyed all the lecturers and activities that they provided and the kids really enjoyed their camp counselors and the adventures that they had together. Most of the camp counselors were biracial or adopted and so the kids could really relate to them and look up to them.

We got family time after lunch in the afternoon and you could sign-up for group outings such as indoor rock climbing or canoeing down the Russian River, or just spend some down time together. We went canoeing on the Russian River one day and did the ropes course another day. One day we just hung out at the pool and swam. One night when we were walking back to our cabin after brushing teeth and getting ready for bed, my son was walking ahead and I had the flash light. He comes running back towards me saying that there was something up ahead crawling around, he was pretty scared. So we slowly walk towards our cabin with the kids hiding behind me with my flashlight in hand and as we get closer to the cabin and my light rests on the face of a raccoon staring back at us next to the trash can outside our cabin. That was enough adventure for the kids, they were quite scared and were sure that the raccoon would be able to get into our cabin. Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night as my daughter would not sleep in her bunk bed and those cabin bunk beds are not meant for more than one person.

All in all it was a really nice break from routine and the kids had a blast and they didn't want to go home. Hopefully we will be able to do it again next year!

The Summer Without a Garden

2009-07-14T17:13:00.001-07:00

I have a passion for gardening and have been doing it since I was a teenager. I probably got it from my mom, who always seemed to have a garden when we were growing up.

This is the first summer in a long time that I haven't had a garden. I'm not sure why I didn't do a garden this year. I could give any number of reasons why; I have been working a lot, don't have the money to invest in supplies that I needed, etc. They are all valid reasons but not good ones.

When I first moved to my new apartment in December, I sat down at my drafting table and took measurements of my new yard (which is quite large for an apartment) and started envisioning what I wanted to do with it. I designed an amazing yard that I would love to have some day but it would take an incredible amount of time and money to make it happen. Now, if I planned on staying where I am for the next 10 years it would make sense to make it nice while I'm here, but I don't plan on staying that long and so it just doesn't make sense to invest the time and money. I hope to someday in the near future be able to buy a house and be able to make my dream happen. In the meantime, I will continue to container garden and find more projects like my friend Peter's edible park/community garden project to help out with and be a part of.

It just doesn't feel like summer without being able to pick fresh fruits and vegetables from my garden!

The Week Ahead

2009-07-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

As usual we had a very busy weekend! It is impossible to fit into two days what would really take 5 days to get done, but every weekend we try. Of course not everything gets done and by Sunday night we are completely exhausted. This Sunday night was no exception, however to add to that exhaustion, as it was nearing 9pm my mother and I got into a disagreement that turned into a stressful analysis of the state of our relationship. Which has been stressed to say the least for awhile now. As I have always said, we get along better when we don't live together. Unfortunately, my mother is getting old before her time and due to poor financial choices she is in the unfortunate position of having to be dependent on the help of others. This is how we have come to live with one another once again.

We have lived together on and off over the last 10 years; in the beginning I lived with her because I was a struggling single mom going to college and trying to support myself and my son. As the years went on I moved into my own place, got married and soon after pregnant and before the baby was even born we were separated and he was in rehab. I moved back home again when my daughter was 3 months old after struggling through the first couple months after birth, alone with a 5 year old who had recently been diagnosed with autism. After graduating from college a year later and getting my first job post-college, I moved into my own place once again. My mother sold her house soon after and moved out to California to live with my brother who was going to build a grandmother apt. for her adjacent to the house that he and his then wife had just bought. Within 6 months of graduating, I had found a better job in California and moved out to Orange County and a new life for myself and my kids. My mother helped find the apartment that I moved into and came and stayed with me while I started my new job and found daycare and an afterschool program for my kids. I literally had one month from the time I interviewed and accepted a job to when they wanted me to start. Not much time to plan a move from Upstate NY to Southern California and find housing and daycare, etc. Within 3-6 months my mother went back to staying with my brother whose marriage was falling apart and the plans for the addition for her had been put on hold indefinitely.

Fast forward to 8 months ago, after having had to listen to her daily complaints about her job caring for an autistic boy in LA and renting a room from my sister and her new husband, I felt like I wanted to make things better for her. I was having my own difficulties with issues at school with my son and paying out 1/3 of my income in daycare and not having any help or support system nearby. It seemed like it would be beneficial for both of us if she came to live with me. I proposed and she accepted.

In the meantime, I found an apartment in a nicer area with better schools, but a longer commute. It cost more than my previous apartment, but I could afford it if I didn't have to pay for daycare. After moving into the new apartment I found out my son was no longer eligible for disability income which he had started receiving when he got diagnosed with autism, due to my income level being too high. Losing that source of support was hard, but then a couple months later we got hit with pay cuts at my firm. Money became very tight and I could no longer afford my car payments and had to give it up and reclaim my Geo that I had bought in college and had been letting my mom drive for the last couple years. I no longer had a couple hundred dollars a month to give her for whatever she wanted. I still cover her needs but nothing extra. I think the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, was when my boyfriend and I decided to move in together. I wasn't going to move to LA where he was and uproot my kids, so he agreed to move in with me. It was a transition for all of us, we all have had to make accommodations; but for her it seems to have been the hardest. It seems like she really doesn't like the change in dynamics of the household and can't accept her position in it.

My boyfriend is amazing! First, for the fact that he deals with all the chaos that is my life. Secondly, that he chose to leave his nice spacious bachelor pad in LA to move into a cramped two bedroom apartment with two kids and my mother, without batting an eye. That is what I call love! Last but not least, he is incredibly talented and makes me laugh everyday. Since he has moved in and we have had to consolidate our stuff and get rid of alot to make it work, my mother has been especially unhappy with the new arrangements. I, on the other hand, am very happy with the new arrangements! Complaints have ensued; first quietly to me when we were alone, now very vocally to anyone who will listen. We can't seem to agree on much anymore and she does not like the fact that she doesn't have much say in how the house is run or that she has much control over her future in general. I can imagine that it is hard getting older and seeing that your life really didn't turn out the way you had wanted it to, but at same time you have to accept your situation and make the best of it. She has other choices, she could go live with my brother and his wife in Chicago, but instead of two kids there would be three. She doesn't seem to like that idea either. What she really wants to do is have the freedom to travel and do all the things she couldn't do when she was raising 4 kids on her own. This I understand, but she didn't set her life up for that to happen. She invested money in things that never gave the return she was hoping for and now is left with nothing.

This brings us to the disagreement last night. I am planning to go on vacation later this week and attend the PACT camp which my son's grandfather invited us to 6 months ago. This will be our first and probably only real vacation this year. It is an 8 hour drive to camp and is organized and paid for by Grandpa John. My aunt lives close where we will be and one of my mom's friends lives nearby as well. My mother has been wanting to visit both of them for awhile so I suggested she ride up with me and hang out with them while we are spending time with grandpa. It turns out that we have to check in by 6pm at camp and even if we leave early in the morning we will be arriving very close to the check in time. My mother told me last night that her friend who lives down the road from the camp, isn't going to be home that day; but instead will be at her beach house about an hour away. She wanted me to drive her the extra hour after already driving 8 hrs. that day. I suggested that maybe her friend could pick her up from camp as we needed to be there by a certain time and if I had to drive her over to her friends and back I would miss the check in time. This was just too much to ask of her and why was I being so mean? Being the passive-aggressive person that she is, she said that she just wasn't going to go then. To be honest, I could care less whether she came or not. Spending 8 hours in a car with her is not really how I want to spend my vacation but I wanted her to be able to see her friend and sister. The BF was against the idea of her staying, as he was very much looking forward to having the house to himself for a few days of peace and quiet. If she stayed it would not be peace and quiet. He did his best to try and help us come to an agreement, but in reality the conflict was not about the trip but something much bigger and harder to work out. It was the epic conflict of a mother not wanting to give up her role as head of the household and the daughter who has to tell her mother that she is the head of this household and it is time to take the backseat.

More drama to come......

Life is Like a Rollercoaster

2009-07-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I’m on this amusement park ride that is going so fast that I can barely see what’s up ahead before I get there and don’t have a chance to look back to see what I missed. All you can do is go with the flow until it slows down and lets you off. Every year that passes brings so many new things and people to my life; I’m always amazed at how much my life changes from year to year. A year ago, I was stuck in a relationship that I was not happy in and was holding on to for the sake of the kids. A year later I am in a new relationship with someone that makes me very happy and my kids are happy and healthy. It is an amazing feeling when you are with a person who compliments you and makes you feel amazing when you wake up to them every morning. I want to feel that way for the rest of my life.

I have been in a number of relationships that didn’t work for various reasons. After the failure of my last relationship of 4+ years I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t meant to have that in my life. I had come to accept that I may never meet the right person for me and may always be a single parent and I was okay with that because I knew that my life was pretty good compared to what it could be. I finally decided I had had enough with Mr. D in August of 2008. However, it still took me awhile to let go of what we had and I knew that I needed time to work through everything. I told myself that I wouldn’t date for at least 6 months to a year. I remember my friend Peter asking me when I was going to start dating again? I told him that I would know when I was ready and I knew I wasn’t ready yet. In December of that same year, Mr. D asked if he could come spend Christmas with us. He had wanted to spend Thanksgiving with the kids but I told him I really wasn’t ready to see him and please don’t come. By December I felt like I was ready and I would be okay, but once I saw him the last 6 months of moving on and letting go pretty much went out the window. We did what we shouldn’t have; we fell back into our old ways of relating to one another as if we were in a relationship. Much like sliding on an old pair of shoes you haven’t worn in awhile. It ended as only it could end; both of us upset and wishing we had not gone there again.

It is hard to detach yourself from someone that you have spent the last 4+ years with. It is a slow process, but it happens eventually. A month after Mr. D left I went on a rock climbing trip with my friends Peter & Laurel. I had been really wanting to do something like this, but just hadn’t had the opportunity to do so because I had no one to take the kids for a whole weekend. It was an amazing first weekend away from the kids. This is where I met my Boyfriend.

We arrived in camp after spending the day climbing with some other friends and Laurel announces, “N is here”. I was unfamiliar with who this person was and she proceeded to introduce us. As soon as we meet I’m overwhelmed with an attraction to him, I want to know more about him. He obviously attracts people as he has a group of people surrounding him listening to one of his jokes. Laurel tells me later that he does comedy.

Later that night we get a chance to chat around the fire for a bit and he seems to be interested in getting to know me better, but once I tell him I have two kids he seems to lose interest and move on to other things. We had a few brief conversations that night and then Laurel & Peter and I left and went to sleep at a friend’s house. When we came back to camp in the morning everyone had already left for a day of climbing at various locations. I didn’t see him again, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. As we drove home from a weekend of climbing I asked my friend Laurel about him and she filled me in a little about what she knew of him. It turned out that he was the organizer for the rock climbing group in our area, so it was fairly easy for me to contact him without it being obvious that I was interested in him. I emailed him when I got back home and told him it was nice meeting him and to let me know when his next comedy show would be, so I could check it out. He emailed me back and said he would keep me posted and sent me his phone number and said that he sometimes did shows down in my area. I was hesitant to send my phone number back and didn’t respond for about a week, as I was unsure if I was ready to take that step. But I did and he ended up calling me a day or so later and asking me if I would like to meet up for dinner after work, since he was going to be down in my area doing a show that night. I was a little taken aback as I wasn’t quite ready for him to call me so soon, but I accepted and we met for dinner that night and had a great conversation. That was the beginning of something amazing and we have pretty much been inseparable since. We are just about moved in together and it feels really good despite some bumps along the way.

A Decade of Single Parenthood

2009-07-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have a 10 yr. old son and for the most part, I have been a single parent since the day he was born. That is not to say that I haven't had relationships or even be married in that time frame, but throughout that time it was very evident that I was indeed still a single parent. How do you ask is that possible? Probably because I didn't choose the right people or avoided relationships that would require me to open up my life to someone else fully. My son's father was the first man that I really fell for and who subsequently broke my heart. If you had asked anyone in my life at that time they would tell you it was no surprise, he had issues and lots of them, he was a bad boy! I was blind to them and saw his flaws as opportunities to save him. This first heartbreak caused me to choose men that I couldn't fall for like that again. They always had something about them that allowed me to keep them at a distance and not really fall for them.

My first single mom fling happened when my son was 5 months old, I really wasn't ready for a relationship and wasn't even thinking about anything like that, as I was still getting used to my new role as a mom and still licking my wounds from the failed relationship with his dad. Sun Man was someone I had met before and known since before I had even started dating. He was much older than me and very much a free spirit, not anyone I had thought about seriously. One day he had come over to my mom's house to watch a video and when it was over he asked for me. I was upstairs attending to my infant son. I came down not knowing why he would be asking for me and we sat and talked and he invited me to come over to his house for dinner sometime. That was the start of our little fling that lasted all of a month or two, but it helped me to get out of my cocoon that I had been in for awhile and see that there was life beyond my baby's daddy. We are still friends to this day and is one of the few people I still keep in touch with who knew me back then.

Once I was a young and innocent girl...

2009-07-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

That is how many young single mother's stories start. Mine is no different. I had my oldest child at the tender age of 18, two months shy of my 19th birthday. I should have been scared shit-less but I wasn't. Maybe because I had been taking care of babies and kids since I was a kid myself; I felt confident that I would know what to do. I remember going to one of my birthing classes and most of the women there were in their 20's or 30's except myself and another girl who was 16 or 17 yrs. old. At one point the instructor asked each of us, soon to be mom's if we were scared or nervous about having a baby for the first time. Each person answered in turn and the other young mom-to-be, stated that she was scared to death and really was not ready to go through the birthing process. When it was my turn, I said that I wasn't scared and was ready to meet my baby and was confident that I would be able to make it through the birth. I'm not a person who is intimidated easily and having a baby at such a young age was no exception. I have always been the type of person who, if you told me I couldn't do something I was going to prove you wrong.

At 36 weeks, I was so ready to have the baby already. I couldn't sleep very well because whenever I would lay down on my back, the baby's weight would make it hard for me to breath and cut off my circulation. I researched ways of inducing labor and tried any suggestions that my midwives had, but to no avail. My baby was going to come when it was ready. My due date was December 25th and on the evening of December 23rd I started to feel an annoying pain in my lower back that started to spread to my abdomen. At first I didn't know that it was the beginning signs of labor, but as it continued and got more intense I realized that it was finally happening. My mom called the midwife and we timed the contractions. I had told the father earlier in the day when I saw him that he should stick around and have his phone with him because I had a feeling that the baby was going to be coming soon. Despite my warnings he went to a party in a neighboring town and got shit faced and when I did call him, when it was obvious that I was going to have to go to the hospital that night, he was too drunk to drive. What can you expect from a 19 yr. old boy who was scared to become a father and had no idea how to even take care of himself? At the time it hurt my feelings because I was so young and naive to think that having a child would somehow force him to grow up and change his ways. As I have come to learn over the years that rarely happens.

By midnight, my contractions had become more intense and closer together and it was time to head to the birthing center where I was to give birth. My midwife was already there with another women who gave birth around the time we arrived. It was a bitter cold night, with soft snowflakes falling as my mom drove the 30 miles to the birthing center. I had picked my ideal place to give birth. The September Hill Birthing Center was next door to the county hospital and was located in an old house on top of a hill overlooking Seneca Lake. The birthing suites had a very homey feel to them with giant four post beds, a rocking chair, baby bassinet, private bathroom. The two birthing suites shared a room which held a huge jacuzzi tub where I had decided I wanted to have my baby. What could be more relaxing than giving birth in a hot tub?

When we arrived the midwife checked my cervix and I was only dilated to 3-4cm so they wanted me to get some sleep as I probably wouldn't give birth till the next day. Unfortunately, the contractions were so intense that I couldn't sleep; eventually they gave me a shot to help me relax and sleep. I could still feel the contractions through the painkiller and so did not sleep much at all. The next morning I woke up with contractions that were so close together, I really didn't get to rest at all. I tried to take a shower and eat something, but anything I put in my mouth came right back up, even water. So we decided it was time to fill up the tub. Once in the tub it seemed to help me relax a little between contractions although I was starting to get light-headed and dehydrated, so they gave me some O2 and had me suck on ice chips. Within 30 min. and a couple pushes my son was born on Christmas Eve. He was the best Christmas gift I have ever received and the start of a new chapter in my life.

A New Beginning!

2009-06-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying this blogging thing again. I started one a couple years ago, but didn't keep up with it and so it never took off. I have had some new beginnings recently in my life and have been getting the urge to write again. So it is only fitting that I start blogging again. I have been inspired recently by some other kick ass single mom bloggers, so here I am. Hopefully this will also be a good way for my friends who are scattered around the country to keep up with what is going on with me. Here's to new beginnings!

Cheers!