Polar Express

Another good piece of advice from Doctor Youngblood was a warning about trying to avoid living "parallel" lives with Nathaniel. He pointed out how under even normal circumstances that happens so easily....you're doing your thing while he's off playing with his cars or watching a show....but add to that suddenly becoming a single mom and you really have to start watching it.

There's so much to do. How can I do it all and still be spending time enough truly WITH my child?

One suggestion Youngblood had was to incorporate Nathaniel into what it is I am doing. Let him help make dinner, set the table, etc. This also ties into his advice to get Nathaniel to bed a normal hour because that way some of these things I feel I need to get done I can do after he's down for the night.

I still catch myself all the time falling into that parallel existence, but more and more I try to be conscious of it enough to bring our paths back together. Tonight was an example. I put on Polar Express for him to watch. Having seen it already myself, I had planned to stick a Romantic Comedy into my laptop, put on some headphones, and sit with him on the couch while he watched his movie and me mine. Well, it didn't take five minutes for me to realize I couldn't do that. He was so taken with that movie, he talked and made observations about it all the way through. So I quickly set my headphones aside, relaxed, and turned myself over to the Polar Express. And, as it turned out, it was well worth a second viewing, particularly when shared with someone seeing it for the first time. Then it's magic.

Nighty night

Update on the bedtime rituals since seeing Dr. Youngblood. Tonight, we started reading an hour earlier than usual. Thankfully it gets dark earlier because you can't put anything over on that kid. If he looks out the window and see it's not "nighttime," he's not buying into your game. This night was rougher as he threw a very long fit and would not stay in bed. I tried a little of that technique of just kindly but silently returning them to bed over and over and over......Then I switched to something Dr. Youngblood told me about "lending them your calmness." I sat in bed with him and held him very tightly, "constraining" him really, as I tried to help him just get past his hysterics and pull himself together...AND stay in bed. It was not an easy battle. But, I DID get downstairs by 8:45 PM and was able to tidy my kitchen and then even spend a little quality time with my dog. Slowly, I'm learning to get some of my own life back and at the same time working to be completely present when he and I ARE together.

Maybe next year...

I failed with my gardening plans this year. I was going to experiment with "rock mulching" gardening and try to grow just spinach and scallions....two good shade plants since I have plenty of that. However, events conspired against me (I can blame it on that although laziness might have been more at the root) and last week I tore down even the feeble remains of Matthew's hillbilly herb garden he'd begun before leaving. Leeloo had already taken the space and used it to store the numerous dirty diapers she steals from the pail when I'm not watching. She rolls around in the diapers in Matthew's neglected garden like a mobster moll rolling around on a bed covered in 100 dollar bills. Then she eats them.

Put that kid to bed!

I recently spoke with Nathaniel's original Pediatrician from the hospital about how things are going since our family split up. It was such a great conversation and full of so many things that I don't know where to begin. It may take several posts as I process the information and apply some of his suggestions and insights.

I think to start with I'll explain how it is that I have this quiet moment to actually sit down and blog.

The Doctor wanted to know if Nathaniel slept well through the night . I assured him we didn't have any problems on that front, but then I happened to just jokingly add that things have really changed from the old days when Nathaniel would always get up WAY earlier than I wanted to and make me wake me up. Now, I'm the first one up and I have to harass him into getting out of bed. Dr. Youngblood nailed me on that immediately. "He's going to bed too late!"

He reminded me that kids need a lot of sleep and that I too would benefit by having that time alone in the evening after he goes to bed to do some things for myself.

And so here I am enjoying the multi-tasking thrill of simultaneously facebooking, gmailing, blogging and skyping :)

Pediculus humanus capitis

There is such a stigma attached to this affliction, but you find you have to quickly get over it once your three year old starts spending more time out in the world. The temptation to point a finger elsewhere is also very strong. Ohhhh, yes, he must have got it from that neighbor kid…
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And, of course, if Nathaniel has passed it on to anyone else, then he, too, is now "that neighbor kid."
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So, logically, you have to just let that kind of thinking go, buck up, and try not to take it personally when your kid is infested with lice. Getting it under control has been difficult this week in part, I think, because he now lives in two households and until we all got on the same page and coordinated our efforts, we might as well have been inviting the lice in for tea and crumpets. Actually, I'm not even 95% sure we're through this yet so knock on wood.
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On the bright side, our current ordeal inspired me to finally purchase electric hair clippers which will save money on future haircuts. The second day he was sent home for having lice, I cut it down to 3/8 inch. The THIRD day, it went down to 1/8. It's pretty challenging to cut hair that short and get it even. It's getting cold, though. I can slap a hat on his head.

Personal Landscaping

I heard on Cosmo Radio that it was important to men that a woman be "well groomed"....like as in, well, you know....a little "landscaping," so to speak. My interest piqued, I applied more effort to these ends and it did, indeed, elicit a definite interest from my husband. Okay, maybe not enough, since he moved out of the house within the month, but hey....

Now I'm a single mom.

Now I find myself left with the questionable experience of being a girly girl, pampering myself, soaking in a bath, thoroughly grooming myself, not for a man, but because I have a gynecological appointment in the morning!! Is that sad or funny? I am not sure. Think I'll go with funny....

Tide Coldwater

After reading a consumer reports article regarding laundry soap, I decided to stop buying the "cheap brand." I would always look longlingly at the Tide every time I went to the store and discovered, in Consumer Reports' data, that Tide Coldwater formula would only cost me 6 cents more per load to use. I decided this was an acceptable "splurge," particularly since I do 99% of my laundry in cold water.

Sadly, it ended up costing me $4.00 a load when Nathaniel decided to pour the ENTIRE bottle of Tide detergent into the laundry machine after I'd only gotten to use it about three times. It's just so unjust.

Where's Daddy Bear?

Nathaniel went through an interesting stage with his beloved Daddy Bear. Daddy Bear went missing for about a week and I was in a panic. It's his number one special stuffed animal. I kept looking for him and tried to not mention his name so as not to remind Nathaniel of his existence and consequentially kick off some major freak out about his disappearance.

Then, one evening, I was walking out of our bedroom and glanced over at the bookshelf by the door. There was Daddy Bear stuffed behind of display of cars. I realized then that Nathaniel had hidden him away for what reason I do not know. I can only imagine it has something to do with mine and Matthew's separation.

I left Daddy Bear there and after a couple of weeks, Nathaniel went and got him out again...obviously he'd known where the bear was the whole time. It was interesting.....

Unsolved Mysteries

It is generally accepted that girls use way more TP than boys. If so, then why does my bathroom tissue last forever now that my hubbie's moved out of the house?

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Some time ago, I bought ten adorable juice glasses at Target. I now have two left, although I never saw or heard of any of them being broken or lost. What did he do with all of my juice glasses over the years?

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I would think that the toddler in the house would create the most trash. However, since splitting with my husband, our household trash output is less than half what it was.

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A roll of paper towels lasts me two weeks or more. We used to go through two in a week. What was he using all those paper towels on?

Bad Hair Day

I wish I'd taken a picture of the bad haircut I gave Nathaniel the other day. It didn't even fall into the "so bad it's cute" catagory. He looked like a 30 year old man from 1970. I ended up by taking him that same day to get his hair buzzed.In lieu of a picture, I have recreated what his hair looked like after I was done.....

My future indie rocker

glimpse into my day

Halfway through the morning, my co-worker untucked my shirt collar where it was massively folded and crumpled under. How many patrons did I serve looking like that? Then tonight, as I climbed into bed, I noticed I had put my underwear on inside out this morning.

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Mmm, life as a single mom. Priceless.

Independence Day

I hadn't planned on taking Nathaniel to any fireworks display tonight. I didn't think he'd notice or care, or even know what a firework was. Halfway through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a friend called to encourage me to go out to see the fireworks. I asked Nathaniel if he wanted to and was surprised how eagerly he said yes and then how he went on to warn me that they would be loud and scary. Where does he learn this stuff?

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It was fun and I'm so glad we went. I've never really struck out on my own to do things like that...too shy, too self conscious. How will I know where to park when I get there? What should my posture look like when I'm standing around? What if people look at me? While Lexapro helps with much of this, there are still times when I am reluctant to try something new and that's where Nathaniel comes in.

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It was such a cool feeling just the simple act of pulling my car out at the end of the night, joining lines of other cars driving over the grass field down to the highway and then a long, long line of us heading back to town. It felt "grown up," while at the same time feeling nostalgic...a hundred half remembered nights driving home in the back seat from some event, windows open, summer.

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All these small rites of passage from child to adult that I'm only now beginning at 42. What an odd and interesting experience.

Frontline

Leeloo caught fleas the last time she was at the vet's. I can hear her even now, wimpering a little as she tries to scratch her itches. Earlier in the day, I vowed to go on line tonight and buy her a batch of Frontline...budget be damned. And then, oh the simple yet much appreciated gifts from the cosmos, I found half a dozen treatments of the stuff in her doggy supply box left over from some previous time I'd used it. These are the victories I measure.

The bra

One good consequence of having hubbie move out is that I now get the occasional opportunity to go shopping ALONE while he has Nathaniel. I reveled in wandering down the aisles of Walmart a few days ago, dawdling here and there. Chance brought me to the Ladies Department and I celebrated my newfound shopping freedom by trying on a pile of braziers. I wear only granny bras. It is my plight in life. Not only am I a full cup size different on each side, I have absolutely no natural "lift." Push-up bras look hideous on me, creating not rounded valleys of tempting flesh, but an unappetizing décolletage of jiggling jello.

I was delighted to find a $9.00 that fit nicely and was a little more tailored than my usual. I chose one in black and, on mad impulse, a second one in an animal print. I hesitated, wondering if that was really "me." And then I shoved it into the cart thinking "it COULD be me, I could be that person."

Still, it nagged at me. Finally, I felt compelled to show it to a friend. "It's animal print," I confessed sheepishly. "I don't know what exactly, leopard or tortoise shell maybe." She looked at it and then looked at me with pity. "It giraffe print."

I returned the bra.

Night Time Trials of an Abandoned Woman

Okay, this latest experience tops the one I had in the middle of the night during the last rain storm when the door that leads to the outside had blown open and it was actually raining ON me in my BED. I stumbled out of my dank blankets, across the wet floor to reach Nathaniel who was standing up in his bed, intermittently illuminated in the great shocks of lightening, crying "Mommy, I want to sleep in your bed! I want to sleep in your bed!" It was all pretty dramatic, yet has been topped now by just the absurd discomfort and horror endured as I awoke in the wee hours of dawn to a bed full of macaroni and cheese, spilled juice and blood from baby's nocturnal nose bleed.

The Child Catcher

During this first week of my husband's and my separation, Nathaniel and I have now watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang about 14 times. My three year old now knows it so well that we can play out the menacing Child Catcher scene together. When I'm The Child Catcher, I skip around the house in my best imitation of Robert Helpmann in the movie, brandishing lollipops in my hand.

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"Children!" I croon evilly. "Lollipops and candy! And all free today!"

Nathaniel has interpreted the character of The Child Catcher a little differently. First of all, he calls him Fuzzy Wuzzy. He doesn't find him at all scary. When he plays "Fuzzy Wuzzy," He creeps around the house calling "Children, children," but then when he finds me he simply offers me a lollipop and then merrily says "Goodbye!" before going off somewhere to eat the rest of the candy by himself.

I can't say my take on the character is "better" than his. I mean, we just have different artistic visions, no doubt equally valid. It's like William Makepeace Thackeray developing Becky Sharp as a very flawed - and often unpleasant - character in Vanity Fair, but Focus Films totally changing her into a honest, plucky and charmingly irrepressible heroine for the 2004 movie.

Koko's Kitten

What a mean thing I inadverntantly did today. We were all getting into the car for a family drive when Nathaniel insisted on getting into Daddy's car instead of mine. When I told him to get his butt into my car only laughed maniacally. "Fine," I called. "We're going in Mommy's car. See you later!" and with a merry wave, I started my engine.

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Oh, the look of horror on his face. He immediately came tearing out of the back seat yelling "No! You no leave! I scared." Then, as Daddy scooped him up and tucked him into the carseat in my car, he looked at me seriously and added "I sad." Speech patterns much like a verbal form of gorilla sign language. "Good hurry you. Candy give. Koko love kitten." Simple but completely eviscerating in getting the point across.

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Could I have felt like a bigger piece of sh*t? Here you go, kid. Your very own abandoment issue. No need to thank me.

I love Nathaniel in the morning. He always wakes up smiling and speaking with a sing song kind of lilt in his voice. "Good morning," he says over and over, grinning. So different from the little demon he becomes when his 8 PM bedtime approaches.

In the best case scenario, we retire together to read some books and he falls asleep before we're done. I should say that that is what's best for me. Popular wisdom would say, and no doubt be right, that it would be better for his sake if I allowed him to learn how to put himself to sleep. In anycase, this scenario is a pleasant one and how it goes a third of the time.

Another third of the time, we read the books but he does not fall asleep. Then, I either put up the baby gate and leave him to his own devices or I fall asleep myself, dimly aware of him roaming around the room, scattering toys, getting into my nightstand, breaking Daddy's alarm clock....

The final third of the time represents the true ying-yang, bi-polar, biorythmic extremes he can progress through between waking up and going to sleep. A day that begins with his sweet little smiles can turn, by 8 o'clock, into a nightmare of angry outbursts and irrational, contradictory demands. "I want my bike!" Okay, here's your bike. "NOOOO!!!! Don't touch it!!!"

On my Birthday last week, this process was succinctly exemplified. That morning when he very first woke up I said to him, "It's Mommy's birthday today." He was so cute. "You're birthday coming today?" he kept saying in response. Flash forward to that night. "Hey, it was Mommy's birthday today." "NOOOOO!!!!! It's NOT your birthday today! It's NOT your birthday!"

More on the family bed...

"Sometimes working parents permit (or even promote) the family bed as a way of compensating for inadequate time spent with their child during the day. Then feeling less guilty because they have nighttime togetherness, they make less of an effort to try to make time for daytime togetherness." (What to Expect…The Toddler Years)

In the list of "possible negative side effects" of sleeping en famille, this was the only one in the "What to Expect…" book that struck a surprising cord. While not intentionally replacing time spent together during the day with that at night, I recognize that I sometimes do feel like letting him sleep in our bed is an opportunity to spend a little more time with him. Add to that the calm, cute cuddliness of a toddler asleep versus a cranky toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of the Dollar Store and suddenly these nocturnal visits seem like an opportunity for some real quality time. In any case, I think the warning to not feel so satisfied with spending time asleep together that you find it easier to ignore your kid the next day is one worth contemplating.

Webcam

Strange Buffet

On the road to Texas for the holidays, we stopped for lunch at a Chinese buffet.  The loud conversaton going on at the next table was half amusing, half irritating.   A woman and her husband were telling another couple about their daughter-in-law.  “That woman he chose to marry is absolutely horrible! " spat the mother-in-law.  "He did NOT choose well. She is the WORST." So began a long saga which continued even as we finished our own lunches and left, and even after the mother-in-law declared “Oh, but we shouldn’t ruin our lunch talking on and on about her. We should talk about something else.”

Here are some exciting highlights. Please insert hateful and pious tones where they seem necessary.

~She is so cheap. She was walking around like “la la la” when we were getting our family portraits done and she never even offered to help pay for it.

~"My son never goes to church anymore because SHE's not into it."

~"She didn't even help with our anniversary party. My daughters did everything. All she did is bring a green bean casserole."

~She filed a lien against my car! I have NEVER been so humiliated in my life. At the court house, they were like "who filed the lien? She's your daughter-in-law?!" I cold tell she was really embarrassed and she just goes "That's what they told me I had to do at the bank…" Well, after that I went ahead and paid $500 and a couple months later $500 more for that car . I haven't spoken a word to her since.

~She never says thank you. For my son's birthday I gave him a Christian book and HE was, like, " Wow, I really appreciate you and dad."

~Oh, look here. This is my Baptist Grace pen. It's my favorite pen.

~She sure holds a grudge. I'm like, hey, get over it all ready! So what if I said something "mean" to her years ago. I can't help it that I'm Christian and I think it's a sin to live together before you get married.

As we stood up to leave, I fantasized about walking up to their table on the way out and saying, "I can tell you why she doesn't help pay for your family portrait or help out with your anniversary parties. It's because SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU!"