"You're a Good Mom" Guilt

So lately I've been having a lot of "you're a good mom" guilt. What's that? Well, it's when people tell me I'm such a good mom and I feel guilty because I don't feel like it. Sure, I do super awesome things with her, I've given her more experiences already than most people have in a lifetime, and she really is a pretty well behaved little girl. Here lately though, it seems like she wants nothing more than to terrorize her mama. Let me be honest right here and say my four year old has turned into a teenager. It's constant tears, disobedience, and so much more lately... but only for mama. When I asked her teacher at school, she said, she's doing great and gives hugs to everyone. Luckily, I have a good support team that helps me put her on track when she's being a little too sassy. But seriously, every morning there's tears for a variety of reasons... she doesn't want to wear the outfit (we picked out together the night before), I pulled her hair too hard (with hair like hers, it's bound to happen), the seam on her sock doesn't match up, I put the sock on the outside of her pants and not the inside, I put the sock on the inside of her pants and not the outside, she doesn't want to go to school, babysitter's, gymnastics, etc... it's like she finds every possible thing to complain about and rolls it all into one giant fit of tears first thing in the morning as we're trying to walk out the door. 

*deep breath* 

Okay, I know we've been through a LOT the past year... divorce, death, friends/neighbors moving, etc... but my little girl is a smart one, she knows how to play you. I battle between empathy and apathy, hard love and tender love, and all I know is that being a good mom is hard stuff! There's no manual that comes with a baby that tells you how to handle these things. Sure, there's 999 thousand articles on the Internet to read plus 999 thousand people who want to give you your advice but the best advice I've ever gotten and that I try to only give is, it's your kiddo, you know what's best so follow your gut but sometimes I'm just simple like WTH am I doing? 

And it's not just her giving me a hard time, it's the world, the people out there. Some people are really cruel whether they mean it or not. One kid asked AR why she didn't have a little sister and it broke both her and my heart. That is just an innocent example. Here's an example of a cruel stranger that infuriated me and I felt like I failed AR. I took AR to get her nails done because she was going to the Daddy~Daughter Dance. She was finished and I wasn't yet so she was sitting in the kid chairs and talking to John, the store owner who was doing a pedicure for another lady. She wasn't speaking loudly or interrupting, just asking John questions. Out of nowhere, this old lady yells at AR, "Knock it off!" I caught the tail end of it and told AR to come over to me. I asked if the lady was talking to her and what she had been doing. She said yes, the lady was talking to her and she'd just been talking to John. I wasn't really sure what had happened but I was confident that my daughter hadn't done anything to deserve to be talked to like that. Trust me, if my daughter is in the wrong, I'm the first one to get on to her and make her apologize. My mom always gets on me for being too hard on her but I'm trying my best to raise a respectful, well-mannered young lady. My blood was BOILING and luckily, we had a friend with us that talked me down from saying anything. The whole situation was just bizarre and I still wasn't even sure that the lady was entirely talking to her when we left. A couple hours later, I get a phone call from John apologizing for the lady speaking to AR that way and he wanted to make sure she was okay. I asked him if AR had been doing anything she shouldn't have and he confirmed that she was just talking to him and that he lady didn't really have a reason to yell at her like that. It made me feel better that AR wasn't out of line but I really regretted not saying something to that lady now. Either way, I thought it was above and beyond for the store owner to call us and apologize for something out of his control. I'm just glad that AR didn't seem too upset by it because the lady's need to yell at my child to knock it off could've easily ruined a very special day for her. And what was she wanting her to knock off? Being friendly? Being inquisitive? Being a child? I kind of feel like I failed AR by not saying something to that lady. 

*deep breath*

Some days I feel like I really rock the whole mom thing and others I feel like I'm failing miserably. At the end of the day though, my girl always asks to cuddle and love with me before bed. And that, my friends, is how I know I'm a good mom. I might be screwing up everything else, fighting over socks on the inside or out, destining her for hours and hours of therapy when she's older but when my baby girl looks at me and says she loves me, I know I'm doing something right. 

What I Miss About Being Married

It’s been a little over six months since our marriage was dissolved as the courts like to call it. It’s definitely been a period of adjustment for all of us and it continues to be as we cycle through the first year of school, holidays, activities, etc… as a two household family. While I’m in a much better place now than I was a year ago, there are still some things that I miss about being married. Of course, there’s the typical things like clogged toilets, bats almost flying in the house, and ironing that I miss. Matt was always in charge of ironing and unclogging toilets, and if that bat HAD flown in the house, AR and I would’ve been sleeping somewhere else that night.

To be honest, while Matt always did all the landscaping and yardwork, I don’t really mind doing it because it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can do it on my own… although I still haven’t mastered the art of weedeating... and he still does a much better job than I do. It still takes me probably 3-4x longer than if he would’ve done it but still, it gets done and I’m proud of myself for it! It also makes me wonder if I’d helped him with the yardwork, although he really didn’t need my help, if that would’ve helped things. We always operated separately, rarely as a team because we both knew the other was able to fulfill their “tasks” on their own. Still, there’s other things that you probably wouldn’t think of that I miss as well. 

Accountability-When Matt was in the house, and even when my mom was living with us, I was very consistent on getting AR to bed on time and she rarely ever slept with me. Now, it seems like a huge victory if she’s in bed before 7:30PM and most nights when she comes back after being at Matt’s, she somehow finds her way into my bed. I don’t know what it is about having someone else in the house but it helped to keep me on task as much as AR.

Eating a variety of food-I used to complain that I never got leftovers when I was married but now that there’s only one adult and one child in our house, I get PLENTY of leftovers. In fact, I’ve been eating meatloaf every day for the past week. Seriously, I can cook one meal a week and that’s enough for us

Roller coasters-Luckily, AR is small enough now that I can handle all the rides she likes for now. Once she gets older though, I have a feeling she’ll be a roller coaster riding machine and I’m not so sure I’ll be able to handle all that.

Milk-Here’s the irony… one of the biggest arguments we used to have would be over milk. Matt could drink a gallon of milk in a day and it would drive me nuts. Now that it’s just me and AR, we don’t even get through half a gallon before it expires.

Writing-Prior to the dissolution of our marriage, I was a writing machine, putting out a book every other month. Granted, I probably wrote as an outlet, but I'm very disappointed in myself that I haven't really found my "mojo" again. Sure, I've still wrote and published a few books but the drive isn't there any more. I don't want to hang it up because I have so many stories left untold so I just have to tell myself it's okay to just get to it when I get to it. I don't write for the money, I write for the stories so in due time, it'll all come out. 

It's funny how when life throws you a total curve ball, you only think about the "big" stuff that will change. I mean when we first decided to get divorced, one of the many thoughts that popped into my head was who will mow my yard, how do I take a mower to the store to get it maintained. I thought I would have all this free time to write after I put AR to bed at exactly 7PM. Then we have a night like tonight where we laid in bed, talking about our days and randomness then I look at the clock and it's already 8PM! We tend to forget about the small things, that add up to big things. Still, overall, I think it's safe to say all three of us are doing well, just learning as we go and adjusting to life like everyone does when things change but boy oh boy am I sick of meatloaf!

 

Thanksgiving 2016

Like many things this past year, yesterday was a first for me. It was my first Thanksgiving without AR. Like most of the time when she's gone, I did my best to stay busy and not just around thinking about how much I missed her. We Facetimed first thing in the morning and she made me get her stuffed monkey because she's thankful for her and needed to tell her that, silly girl!

For lunch, I made spaghetti with homemade meatballs then headed over to my friend Deven's. She was on call and stuck at home all weekend so we decided to binge on The Office, eat a "traditional" meal of spaghetti and meatballs, and then have some of her grandma's pumpkin rolls for dessert. I have to say, she's a much more talented cook than I am to make those pumpkin rolls and they were delicious! Her dog Charlie celebrated with us, too!

I headed home after lots of girl talk and pumpkin rolls to check on my Shadow dog who is currently wearing a cone. No worries, nothing major just majorly expensive!!! My friend Shannon texted me and said they were hitting up Target at 6 so I decided to brave my first ever Black Friday (but really it was Thursday). It wasn't bad at all at Target or Wal-Mart. I didn't get anything major, just marked some items off my list. I did get an Elsa castle that AR had been asking for but I have no idea if it's the right one or not so I've got to figure that out somehow...

Fun story from the night: When I was at Wal-Mart, there was a Tahoe parked in front of the store. There were lots of people and they all had lots of items. Parked behind them was a cop SUV and some of the people from the Tahoe were climbing in with items from the store. My best guess is that they ran out of room in their Tahoe so the cop was giving them a ride home???

After Target and Wal-Mart, I drove back to St. Peters because I had to pick up something at Kohl's that I'd ordered online. Um... yeah, Kohl's was not nearly as quick and easy as the other two stores. Deven and I waited in line for TWO HOURS to checkout!?! That's insane! And the crazy part is that we didn't even get any big ticket items but after we'd waited for 45 minutes, it was like Grey's Anatomy, and we were committed! So, whoever gets my gifts from Kohl's had better LOVE them!

So it was after 10PM by the time we left Kohl's. I came home and what did I do? I got online and did some more shopping for the Adopt-a-Family at work. I'd forgotten the list in my car so I picked up a few things for them. I finally went to bed around midnight but I slept awful because I was thinking about everything I needed to do today like wrap presents to take to my dad's tomorrow, hit up Penney's because I had a coupon, find craft supplies for ornaments we're making, etc... When morning time came around, I was lying in bed, too tired to get up for the day when I heard the trash truck. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my kitchen trash, and tried to open the door but it wouldn't open! The doorknob just turned and turned so needless to say, I missed the trash truck but I did get this blog post written! Hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving and thanks to Deven, Shannon, and her family for keeping me company yesterday!

Blue Hair, Don't Care!

Once the divorce was final, it was time to start taking care of me! I got my hair cut, touched up my gray, and even lost about 30 pounds this summer... damn winter hibernation and gaining some of it back! In July, I went to the local hair school and met an awesome lady who I've now gone back and seen three times... which is about three times more than I normally go in one year to the hairdresser! By my third visit, I was like I want to do something different, completely out of the box, something not me so... I got some blue peekaboo highlights!!!

I got them done right before we were supposed to go to FL but the weather changed our plans and we ended up not going. Since my hair is so dark, she had to bleach it first THEN put the blue over it so it was about a four hour process! Still, it turned out pretty awesome in my opinion!

I know, you're thinking, Alyssa, you're crazy, what if you hated it? Well, good thing that when my hair was down, you couldn't even see them at all!!!

Now that it's growing out, I'm kind of over it. It's once of those things that I can say I've been there, done that, and now it's out of my system. Awesome job, Gabby, thanks for giving me the encouragement to do something different!

The G-Fam Now

First off, thanks, everyone, for the warm welcome back! This is why I love you all so much. I know I kind of dropped a bomb on you with the whole divorce thing and you probably have like a million questions you want to know if you're anything like me aka nosey and want to know all the details. Let me start off by saying I won't be bashing or saying anything bad about any party involved so don't think I'm trying to act like we're perfect, I'm just trying to be respectful. Everything started in August 2015 and I have a couple blog posts that I started to write but they ended up being more of an emotional outlet for me instead. They were really raw and more about my feelings than the facts which is what I'm going to try to keep this to so here goes.

August 2015, Matt and I decided to get divorced. No big drama or event of what got us to this point, we'd both been feeling it for awhile so when he brought it up, I agreed. Matt stayed in the house with us until May 2016 when the divorce was finalized. AR and I stayed in our house and Matt moved about fifteen minutes away so it's nice that we're still pretty close location wise. My mom stayed with AR and I mid-May-mid-August which was a good transition for me and for AR.

As far as parenting plan goes, we trade every other weekend and Thursday nights plus she stays with her dad every Wednesday as well. I won't lie, it's been tough not being with my girl every night but I try to stay busy when she's not home. I've had an awesome support system of people who invite me on walks, let me come over and hang out, or go out dancing with. I definitely can't complain about that although I still have times that I sit at home and have a pity party every now and then but the good definitely outweigh the bad.

She played soccer this fall, Go Grapes! I went to all her practices even though they were on Wednesday nights. My philosophy is that I still attend practices/activities like I would have if we were still married. She did awesome and we made some really amazing friends! One of her teammates is having a Gingerbread House party in a couple weeks so AR is really excited to see everyone again.

Matt and I still struggle at times like we did when we were married. For both of us, we always try to put AR first and what's best for her. Matt and I may not be husband and wife anymore but we will always be her Mommy and Daddy so when she asked if Daddy could go trick or treating with us, the answer was of course yes.

It's been a long road to get to the point where we are now and it's going to continue to be until we get the hang of it. Even then, the only guarantee in life is that it's always going to change so we'll regroup and figure things out at that point again. And while we've had lots of changes in our world, AR seems to be handling it pretty well. I mean occasionally, she'll say something that breaks my heart and I think geez, she's really going to need therapy one day but take a look at that smile of hers? She's a pretty happy and blessed little girl. She's got a Mommy and Daddy that love her, some amazingly awesome friends, and a family that adores her. Our girl is strong willed and sassy and she doesn't hesitate to call us out when she needs to. Overall, we're still a family that's a work in progress.