The Sadist Day

I made probably the most difficult decision of my entire life recently. To end my marriage. Making this decision was so difficult that the only situation I can compare it to would be having a loved one in the hospital and having to be the one to make the decision to have them taken off life support. This decision was immensely heart wrenching, but it had to be done.

My husband is looking for the least expensive way to end our marriage and provide support. Because I have to look out for the needs of both my son as well as myself, I couldn’t afford to go the least expensive route. I chose to go through the much more grueling, difficult way. But it had to be done for the sake of my son and myself.

I also had to do it because my husband and I don’t have any semblance of life together anymore. And I grieve and hurt over this just about every single day. I have tried so hard to keep our family intact. My husband, however, keeps pulling farther and farther away. He has absolutely no interest in rectifying our marriage or family.

My own health has deteriorated significantly as well. I’ve lost 60 pounds due to stress induced irritable bowel syndrome. I can hardly eat liquids at this point and keep them in my digestive tract. My doctors have had to increase my anti-anxiety meds to a point where I think my brain is going to implode. I am weak, often dehydrated, often dizzy, and almost always nauseous. My body cannot afford to go on like this. Especially crying myself to sleep every night. I had to “pull the plug.” For the sake of my own health.

My biggest fear, besides my health, is my son. He will be devastated. And I am sure that this will impact his schooling. Since my husband is hardly around anyway, I constantly reassure my son that I will always be here for him. And I will never leave him, no matter what. He will forever be my number one priority. As it is now, we have established our own comfortable routine together. At least that will remain consistent for him.

The most difficult part of all will be telling our son that Mommy and Daddy will no longer be living together. I’ve been reading up on how to tell a young child that his parents will be divorcing. The most important emphasis from everything I’ve read is that both parents need to remain calm and unemotional when discussing a divorce with a child. I absolutely don’t think I can do it. I get teary-eyed just thinking of telling our son. But I want to hear what my husband says to our son, so I have to be present. I’m just going to have to take a few xanaxes before we sit down with him and try to hold back the tears. I honestly don’t know how I am going to get through it.

My husband and I had a child because we wanted to share the love we had for each other exponentially towards our child. The love for our child hasn’t changed, but I still continue to wonder where the love my husband and I had for each other went. And I still don’t understand how you can know a person intimately for 20 years and be married for 15 years, and have that love dissipate practically overnight. I guess I never will know the answer.

All I ever wanted was a happy little family who enjoyed spending time with one another and enjoying life’s experiences together. From last week’s blog, you could tell that I experienced my son’s first camping trip second hand, through texts and photos sent from my husband. And when my son and I leave for the Bahamas tomorrow, my husband will have to live our cruise experience, along with a stop at Disney on the way back, through scattered phone calls and shared photos. It is so utterly sad.

When my husband received the divorce letter, he was visibly shaken and shocked. Since then, however, he has failed to discuss it. All he said about the letter was, “I don’t know what to say.” I thought to myself, “For an intelligent man, you don’t seem to know much about anything concerning our relationship.” He is acting more and more like a bachelor, is giving up more and more time that he could be spending with his son, instead choosing to spend it with his friends or doing a physical activity. It is beyond sad. For my birthday, he gave me a gift, “from my son,” which was completely self-serving and did not take my son nor I into consideration at all. He had a bike race to go to this past Saturday with a barbecue to go to afterwards. He gave me tickets to go to see the play, The Lion King, at a theater in New York City. He specifically chose the day of his bike race as the date for the tickets, so that my son and I would be occupied. Firstly, my son hates the Lion King movie. I have offered to watch it with him over the years, and as soon as it starts, my son starts screaming, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” Why would I take my son to a play when he won’t even watch the movie it is based on!! Secondly, knowing my son would not like the play; he would be asking to leave every 15 minutes. And with his ADD, he would not be able to sit for that length of time anyway. It would be a horrible, aggravating, miserable experience for both of us. So I gave the tickets away. And my son and I spent a quiet, relaxing, productive day at home. I think we both much preferred that.

My husband’s attorney has up to 60 days to respond to my letter, so we shall see how long he puts off responding to it. In the meantime, I am learning a crash course in how to be a single parent, taking care of a high maintenance child and two high maintenance dogs. I’m not doing the greatest job, so far. But as they say, with practice makes perfect, which I don’t expect to aspire to! I think “staying afloat” is a much more reasonable goal for right now! Time will only tell...

My Little Camper!

My son went camping for the first time this past weekend. His father bought a spacious tent and invited one of my son’s friends and his father to join them. As told to me by my husband, my son, who was quite trepadatious at first, ended up having a terrific time!

The day before they left, I presented to my son some cute camping items I thought he might like to take with him. I bought him a children’s lantern which also had a base that served as a night light, emitting a soft, orange glow. He received a bug catching container for his birthday, so I packed that so that he could catch fireflies. And the most exciting item was a shark patterned, child’s sleeping bag (my son loves sharks!) to sleep in! My son took one look at the sleeping bag and pronounced that he had to take ALL (and I do mean ALL) of his stuffed animals to help him feel less scared.

The next day, my son was up and dressed at the crack of dawn! With ALL of his stuffed animals in the sleeping bag! I thought his father would object, but my son was so insistent, that the “animal sleeping bag” went camping along with everyone else!

Once at the campsite, everyone set up the tent. 

Then the boys found frogs (yes, boys love frogs), 

and even had a ride on the camp fire truck!

The campsite happened to be family friendly, so the boys got to swim in the pool and play games that were available! My son made more friends to play tag around the campground with and showed his new “friends” how to use the bug catcher container once the fireflies appeared at dusk!

Once it was dark, my son helped build a fire for roasting marshmallows and began roasting marshmallows for everyone since he does like roasting marshmallows but doesn’t like to eat them! 

After the marshmallow roast at the campfire, the camp had Disco Night! It is hard to believe that these kids had the energy to “do the hustle,” but hustle they did!

The day finally came to an end. My son crawled into his sleeping bag with ALL of the stuffed animals and put on his lantern night light until he fell asleep.

The next morning, my son was still tucked inside his sleeping bag, but the animals seemed to have “escaped.”

Once everyone was awake, the campsite set out a “Camper’s Breakfast” of pancakes and other assorted items. Then it was back to the tent to pack up and spend a day at Splish Splash water park!

For a boy who was so afraid to go camping and sleep outside (and have to bring ALL of his stuffed animals!), it seems that he fared very well! He said that he would go camping again...but that he STILL might need to bring SOME of his stuffed animals!

Let’s hope he doesn’t need to bring all of these animals on our cruise!!

You are Invited to Attend

My son’s birthday was this past Friday. We had his birthday celebration on Saturday, which happened to also be MY birthday! It was at a gorgeous local pool, and the weather was the best we have had in weeks! Warm enough to swim; cool enough to relax in the shade, and no humidity! We had a perfect birthday on a perfect day!

What irks me, though, is that I have found that year after year, I always have to hunt down parents who fail to respond to the invitations I send out. I always send them out about a month before the party date, because I know families are busy during the summer months, or go away. I additionally put not only my phone number, but also my e-mail address on the invite so that for someone like me, who has limited time to chitchat, the parent can send out a quick e-mail message indicating whether their child can attend or not.

This year was the worst. Not only did I have to make multiple calls during the week before the party, the parents whom I did get in touch with gave me some of the most ridiculous responses. For instance, one Mom said that she would have to get back to me closer to the day of the party because if the weather was nice. She wanted to take the family to the beach. When I mentioned that adults were welcome to swim at the pool and that her son could even bring his brother along, she said she still was not sure. She ended up e-mailing me late the night before the party to say that her son couldn’t come.

Then there was the Mom who said that her daughter had a party to go to on the same day and that if her daughter wasn’t having fun at the first party, she would leave that party and come to my son’s. She never showed so I assume her daughter was having a good time at the other party.

And finally, one mother wanted to know if another particular child was going. She said that she would not let her son go if the other boy would be attending, because the two boys don’t like each other. When I said that the other boy’s parents hadn’t responded yet, she said to give her a call when they do, and that if the other boy was not coming, she would let her son come. (Incidentally, neither boy came because I never heard back from the first one, so I didn’t have any information to give the second one.)

There were also the no-shows. Mom’s who said that their sons would definitely be there but ended up MIA. And there were no follow-up calls indicating why the boys didn't come! To make this particular incident even more outrageous, one family happens to live six houses from the pool!! I just don’t get it.

Has the world become so bogged down with so much to keep track of that they can’t leave a simple message on the phone or through e-mail? I will give one Mom a little credit. She called me back very quickly after I called her home to see whether her daughter would be coming to the party. She apologized profusely and said that she had the party invitation in her pocketbook with the intent to RSVP, but the invitation got swallowed up inside her bag. At least she was carrying the invite around with her!

Until I can figure out a system that will work better, so that I am not scrambling to put goody bags together at the last minute with an undetermined head count, I guess I’ll be flying around, flapping my wings to make sure that I have everything ready, no matter who shows up or not. And I do want to thank those parents who actually did RSVP in a timely manner! One Mom even offered to come early and help set up! Two thumbs up for that Mom! Although I did decline her generous offer.

In the end, as stressful as putting a party together can be, the most important thing is that the kids had a great time! My son was ecstatic, and I had a terrific birthday, chatting with many of the Moms who are also my friends, while basking in the glow of my son’s happiness!

What more could I ask for on my birthday??

My Son is Turning Seven!

It all began 7 years ago, on a Tuesday evening at exactly 9:20 pm - according to my watch next to my bedside. I was reading a book, a Harry Potter book in fact, thinking, “It’s okay if I start this book now, I’ll have plenty of time during maternity leave to read the rest of it while the baby sleeps.” Well, my baby had other plans. And Harry’s story was left unread.

I had a relatively uneventful pregnancy. Especially considering that I was an “older” maternity patient at 39 with my first pregnancy. I saw my high-risk doctors regularly. I never developed gestational diabetes, which they all thought I was doomed to get. They also thought I was headed for pre-eclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure in a pregnant woman) since my blood pressure was slightly elevated at the start of my pregnancy. Never happened. In fact, about the only significant thing about my pregnancy (except for periodic night legs cramps which make you want to scream bloody murder at the top of your lungs as you massage the cramp out), was that I had real, but random, contractions, starting at 34 weeks gestation. The doctors wanted me to reach 37 weeks gestation so that the baby’s lungs would be fully mature, so I was placed on “modified bed rest” and went to the doctor’s office every other day to undergo fetal monitoring.

I met their goal of 37 weeks, but I wanted my son to be born closer to 40 weeks. See, his due date was 2 days before my 40th birthday. I wanted him to be my 40th birthday present. I would never need another present again for my birthday for the rest of my life! I wanted him to be IT! However, I also didn’t want him to be born ON my birthday. I wanted his birthday to be his and his alone. I didn’t want him to feel that he had to “share” his special day, even with his mother. I prayed that he was not born after me, because then the excitement of celebrating Mommy’s birthday may overshadow his own, especially at the age he is now - the grade school years. When birthdays are magical and completely eventful and young children want it to be THEIRS, and theirs alone!

My daily prayers were finally going to be answered that fateful Tuesday evening, August 5th, 2003. My own 40th birthday was 2 days away. At 9:20pm, the first of many contractions began. I didn’t wake my husband because I knew he needed the rest for the long day ahead. So I monitored, and practiced my labor breathing techniques all night long. Finally, around 5:30 am, the contractions were 5 minutes apart and I needed my husband to call the doctor. Our son was ready to be born! Oh how I prayed he would be born that day, Wednesday, August 6th!

After 23 hours of labor, 3:45 minutes before my 40th birthday, at 8:15 pm, my gift arrived! A gift like no other I have ever had or ever will have! And he came on the best day possible, the day before MY birthday!

Every year since, when I celebrate my son’s birthday, it is as if I am celebrating my own! The planning of his parties, the invitations, the party favors, the balloons!! I have not one ounce of resentment nor care that my own birthday is the one overshadowed or overlooked! This is EXACTLY what I wanted! So…to my son who will be celebrating his 7th birthday this Friday, Happy Birthday, my precious, beautiful, amazing boy!! I love you with all my heart, and much more! My gift!

If I Wanted to be a Single Mom...

I’m having a hard time thinking of how I would complete that sentence.
I have been finding myself playing the role of “married, single Mom” now more and more.

I adore my son...I would give up my life for him. I truly put my own needs aside to meet his. But when my husband and I discussed having a child, we knew that there might be some complications both during pregnancy and afterwards. I have a chronic pain condition that rears it’s ugly head every so often. I felt confident that I would have a partner who would be able to chip in when I wasn’t feeling my best. And through the years I accumulated more medical conditions. But still, I felt that I had someone to help “carry the load,” especially with the addition of two dogs.

But now I feel completely drained. It could be my hypothyroidism, but I don’t think it is. I am drained of being the resource for a very needy child. My son needs his “emotional tank” filled to the brim every day. I am drained of his continuous high energy, and schlepping him from place to place to burn off that energy.

I am drained of two wonderful dogs that are a real part of our family. But their needs are rising as they are getting on in age. And two fish that are relatively maintenance free, but do need to be fed and have their tanks cleaned regularly.

I no longer have that partner who made a promise to me that he would be there for me if raising a child were too much for me to handle on certain days. I feel cheated. And at the same time I admire all of the amazing single Moms who willingly chose to become single Moms. My best friend is a single Mom. She always sounds frazzled. She also schleps her son from one activity to another. And she also has an aging dog. I continually wonder how she does it. She DOES have her parents to chip in when she needs a break. And a slew of close friends who are more than willing to watch her son when she needs time for herself. I have none of that. Which makes me even more resentful that my husband is bailing out of his promise to me.

So I have to ask myself: If I wanted to voluntarily be a Single Mom, under my same medical circumstances and lack of resources to help out when I need a break, would I still want to be a one? I honestly don’t know. I can’t imagine life without my son. But I feel as if I am getting older exponentially at the same time.

My son is getting more mature and is taking on more responsibility. In a few years, he won’t want to even acknowledge that I even exist! And I desperately want to see him mature into an adult. But right now he is so sensitive that he needs to know my every move, my every step. I guess instead of wondering, “what if,” I should slow down and try to capture each small moment with him.

He lost his third baby tooth a few days ago. And since my husband was on a business trip, I thought that the excitement of losing his tooth (at the Bronx Zoo of all places!) would be diminished without his father here. It wasn’t. At all. He squealed with excitement at what the Tooth Fairy brought him. His Tooth Fairy is named Nute and is a Surfer Dude. We sent an e-mail to Nute, apprising him of the situation! And that whole night was filled with excitement, even as drained as I was from the day!

I guess I can now assuredly place an ending onto my opening sentence. If I wanted to be a Single Mom, I would definitely want to be one! Gladly! Otherwise, I would go through life with regrets. And that’s the last thing I want. And this childhood phase is passing so quickly! I better hold on with two hands, because I am going to be going on the ride of my life! Together, with my beautiful son! Being the best Single Mom I can be!

The Conundrum Over Wine Glasses

I am currently in the midst of a heated debate regarding a set of wine glasses I gave to a close friend recently. I first saw them on a Facebook group site called,

“OMG, I so need a glass of wine, or I’m gonna sell my kids!!”

This group has a following of 109,646 fans. So I am obviously not the only one who can relate to this group! I bought a pair of these glasses with the full group tag imprinted on the wine glasses for myself, as well as a pair that just said, “OMG, I so need a glass of wine!” A friend saw these and LOVED them, so I bought her a set, with the complete logo as a gift, and she frequently calls or texts me that she is pulling out those glasses after the kids are asleep!

Enter one of my other close friends. She typically has bottles of wine and wine coolers lined up on top of her refrigerator. And she frequently mentions that as soon as her son goes to bed, she is having a tall glass of wine. Well, I thought that these “OMG” wine glasses would be great for her to have too! I even bought her the ones that just said,”OMG, I so need a glass of wine,” just in case she didn’t want to use the ones with the reference towards selling your kids with certain company. Well, as it turned out, she was appalled. And she needed to mention that not only was SHE appalled, she showed the glasses to her family and fiends and they were appalled as well! I apologized for offending her and offered to take the glasses back or suggest that she give them away or even throw them out if they offended her so much. She said that she wanted to keep them (?).

I was then forwarded an article by one of our other Motherhood Later bloggers regarding the issue of Mom’s needing a drink at the end of the day to take the edge off,

“All Joy and No Fun...Why Parents Hate Parenting,”

from New York Magazine. This article quotes a Mom who states, “The Children’s Museum of Manhattan - a nice place, but what it really needs is a bar.” This is just not a select group of Moms who fall into this category. There are Parenting Podcasts where the hosts readily admit to needing a drink of wine at the end of the day. There are Parenting Forums where literally hundreds of Moms admit that parenting is far from easy and that a drink at the end of the day helps them to unwind.

I need to add that I am not at all pro-drinking. In fact, I rarely drink at all due to the plethora of medications I take. And I am definitely not advocating drinking to such excess that it begins to impair your life or you need it to get through each day. But a glass of wine now and then, or socially, I believe is perfectly acceptable. Especially when you come home at the end of the day and find a myriad of toys strewn around, crayon marks on the walls, a bathroom that is drenched from you child wanting to give their stuffed animals a bath (and end up wrapped in your child’s sheets to “dry off,” i.e. remake bed). I can see wanting to grab something to relax you before you try to calmly deal with each of these issues.

So back to my wine glasses. What do you think? I gave them to one friend who adores them and one friend who is horrified by them. I guess having glasses that indicate that you would want to sell your kids is a bit much. And I don’t think I will be giving them as gifts to any other friends, unless upon specific request. But considering the circumstances, was I reading into my appalled friend a little too much, and subtly indicating that she has a drinking problem (which I certainly was not), or was she over reacting to what I considered a humorous, harmless gift?

Please give me your feedback. I am interested to know what you think.

After the Wrath

All totaled, we were without power for five days. No refrigerated food. No air conditioning. And the constant buzzing of tree grinding that I am listening to as I write. Which has been ongoing now for over a week. Which also, incidentally, is getting on my nerves. At least they stop cutting trees at around 8pm now and resume at 9am. They had been cutting around the clock, 24/7.

I restocked my refrigerator. I found it coincidental that almost all condiments were on sale at my local grocery store. Yes, I’m sure it was in preparation for the 4th of July weekend. But I found it interesting because those were also items our community needed to stock up on. Our local newspaper, The Great Neck News, was quoted saying that, “Some 1,000 trees were downed, causing $10 - 15 million worth of damage. Some 25,000 customers in Nassau County, the majority in Great Neck, were without power.” As if we were not already aware of that. But that’s beside the point.

During those five days, in order to cool down and recharge my cell phone, cell phone battery charger, and computer, I would pack up my things (along with a multiplug adapter), and trek off to spend a couple hours at one of our local Starbucks. I would set myself up for the afternoon. The store was packed with locals who were doing the same thing. In fact, when I pulled out my multiplug, and offered those who were waiting for outlets to free up, to use the multiplug outlets I wasn't in need of, I made quite a few friends!

I came to anticipate those five days at Starbucks. I heard horror stories of damages to people’s homes. One family was desperately trying to find one room at ANY hotel on Long Island to go to, without any success. There was a gathering of the “lost souls” at Starbucks who had nowhere to go. We chatted. Got to know each other. And in a community that is known for it’s haughtiness, we were suddenly all equals. It didn’t matter who had a bigger home or a fancier car. We all were in the same boat...no power, no food, and no means of communication other than our cell phones, which we were all charging. And together we “let our hair down.” No one came “dressed to impress.” We just wanted a cool place to charge our cell phones and other technology. And get a cool drink!

Which brought me to my next observation. Americans are attached to our technology. I’ve gone on trips where I wasn’t able to use my cell phone or laptop. And I was well aware that I would come home to 100+ e-mails and 250+ junk e-mails. But when your only means of communication is your cell phone, for an undetermined amount of time, cell phones come close to brushing your teeth! And when going on the Internet for a couple hours to connect with the world in other ways, your laptop really, truly becomes your luxury. That is what my comrades in Starbucks all felt like. We were stripped of everything except our technology. And with that we were all on equal ground.

The last day that I spent at Starbucks, their Internet system was down. We were able to charge our items, but no one was able to log on to the Internet. Many of us had Apple laptops, as did I. As soon as all of our peripherals were fully charged, the Apple consumers came up with a great idea! Let’s go to the Apple Store a mile down the road and use their Internet service! We all scrambled to pack up and drove down the road. The store was so inundated with customers, there was not enough staff to assist the people who wanted to purchase things. I found a nice Mac Book Pro in a remote area of the store, sat down, and surfed the web. It was not as nice as being among the “lost souls” at Starbucks. But hey, a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do!