As I was laying in bed last night, back turned to the N-Man, mentally running though the things I needed to accomplish very early in the morning, I suddenly felt him jump up. I rolled over to discover the N-Man folded in half, semi standing on his head.   I blinked.

WHAT are you doing?  The N-Man giggled as he stood there, butt end up,  and whispered, Down doggie.

::blink-blink, blink-blink::

He lifted up an awkward, off balance, not so graceful leg and grinned.

I turned on the light, in utter disbelief.  Mind you it was 10:30, waaaaay past his bed time, but who’s going to interrupt a show like this? He stood up, raised his hands above his head slowly, placed his palms together and slowly brought them to his chest, breathing deeply (and loudly)  before raising one foot up and placing it on his thigh (using the headboard for balance).  He then lifted his hands up and gleefully squealed,  Pick the apples off the tree!

He ran through his routine three times before finally falling over.  He beamed and  laughed uncontrolably, then lay back down on his pillow and closed his eyes. I stared at him, speechless,  as he lay there,  in awe of all of yet another random, priceless, beautiful moment brought to me courtesy or motherhood and, finally, turned off the lights again.  A little hand reached out and took hold of my finger and a tiny voice whispered into the darkness.  Mommy?     Yes, Baby?    I like yogurt!

 I finally replaced my broken camera so I promise to follow up with video and pictures sooner than later.

It’s crazy how our minds can grab hold of a detail and start to run away with it.  Really, as a general species, we are quite an ego centric bunch, no?    Most times I’m able to catch myself when my brain runs away with my logic, but I can get just as caught up in it as the next person sometimes.  Let me assure my readership, what’s left of it after my hiatus and incredibly sporadic thoughts, that if you ever see a vent on here and wonder if it’s directed towards you, it’s most definitely not.  If I have something specific so say to any one person, I promise I’ll just talk to you.  Unless you’re not someone I talk to or want to talk to, in which case you probably don’t know my blog even exists, and also  in which case, if it’s even relevant or worth my efforts, I’ll just hang the laundry out there to flap in the breeze.  

Anyway,  the  group I mentioned in my pity party post who left me out of an event was not anyone who reads this blog  and it wasn’t worth going into.  But since  four people have emailed me, convinced and thinking it was directed at them, allow me.   It was just a group that went hand in hand with my shiny, happy, perfect family frustrations: a neighborhood group of moms and kids the same age as the N-Man with whom I had started getting together so he could have friends near by. 

And while it’s really not worth my energy spending a lot of time on and I’m just moving on, I do have this to say to the wannabe Stepford wives that decided the single mom should not bring her gonna-grow-up-to-be-a-terroist-because-Ann-Coulter-said-so son  to the playgroup Halloween party.  Statistically speaking, half you are going to end up single parents as well some day.   And what are you going to do with yourselves  then?  Sadly, when it happens, I’ll probably be willing to lend a hand because that’s the kind of person I am and  I whole heartedly believe parents, single or otherwise, really need to be there to respect and support each other, not judge, for the sake of all of our children.  So you  just let me know how things work out for you when the time comes and we’ll chat again when I don’t have to yell so you can hear me way up there on that high horse.

I’m over it.  Pity party done.  Shit happens.  It’s happened before and it will happen again and the world will keep spinning.  I actually got over it about an hour after my last post but have been too busy to come back and assure everyone that I am not, indeed, hiding under a black  shroud sobbing hysterically.

I got up early the next day and headed out to the barn to pack up and move the hoofed one.  No. He’s not sold.  But my trainer, who has been a dear friend for the past two years, took a job out of state (contributing to my Friday sadness and anxiety) so we also packed up to start our own new adventure.  We are now official residents of the Colorado Horse Park and after just 48 hours I’m loving it.  As in loving it enough that I’m toying the the idea of NOT selling him after all.  It’s been a long time since I boarded at a full service barn, complete with a grooming staff that pampers the horses in the owner’s absence.  My guilt over not having as much time for the hoofed one, in lieu of my two legged baby needing me, may be alleviated.   All I know is that the possibility has re-lit a little flicker of fire in me.  I need my horse time.  It is my therapy.  I wanted to sell him for very valid reasons, but perhaps it’s not the best idea in the grand scheme of things.  We shall see. 

The N-Man went as an elephant for Halloween this year.  Ridiculously adorable.  Alas, my camera is broken (ahem, Santa?) so there are no pictures to memorialize the holiday this year.  But there was plenty of sugar high and giggles to be had.  Perhaps I’ll dress him up again at Thanksgiving and make him pose for a late photo op. Who’s going to know the difference?

And what to do on a Sunday afternoon with lingering blues and a child away with his father?  Go to Home Depot and go hog wild.   I know I’m not looking right now, but some how Home Depot always builds my confidence.  I always ALWAYS have encounters with the nicest men, non employee men,  when I’m there.  And more importantly, there’s nothing better for your ego  than launching a plan, putting into action, and seeing it through to the end yourself.  I love decorating and home improvement.   Sunday’s mission… take down the crappy, broken vertical blinds, repaint the dining room, and hang a new light fixture.   Amazing what a coat of fresh color can do for a room and your soul.  Again… no camera.  CRAP!  But that’s ok, because it’s not  finished yet  anyway.  I need to call my handy man to come put in the chair rail and crown moulding and wait for the new window treatments and art work that I ordered to arrive. But still, I love it.  LOVE  IT!   I would rather sit here in my pajamas all day admiring my masterpiece in progress than go to work, but life is calling.

That said, time to head up so I can head out.

It’s funny how you can be crusin’ along, having a great day and then suddenly, in the course of two short hours have the brakes unexpectedly slammed on, causing you to screech to a halt. 

I took the N-Man to his preschool’s Halloween party and was, out of the over one hundred families there, the only single parent.  Despite my efforts to talk to the parents of the other kids in his class, kids that he loves to play with and talk about, everywhere I turned I was greeted with suspicion and stand offish attitudes.  The same parents would then quickly turn to other parents they didn’t know, families  like them, make an introduction, more than willing to cozy up.  Never mind the single, pariah freak standing over there. 

I’m just generally over society’s attitude that you are only half a person if you are single and, in order to be a whole, respectable, included part of the world, you better couple up.  Been there. Done that.  Not my cup of tea.  How does that make me broken?    And seriously, ma’am.  I do not want to steal your husband so there’s no need to stare down you nose at me and step so obviously between me and him as I’m talking to him about our children and steer him elsewhere.  (And no,  just in case you assume I must have the big, scary gay because I’m a woman, a mom, and enjoy being single, I don’t want to steal you away from your husband.)  I’m. just. over it.  I ushered the N-Man half heartedly and as quickly as possible through the sea of perfect, shiny, happy, coupled families then got the hell out of there.

I then came home and  found out that a group of folks with whom I regularly get together had planned yet another outing similar to the ones I would have attended with them in the past, one  for Halloween, and I had not been invited.  Innocuous?  Probably.  Something worth really being upset about?   Absolutely not.  After all, it’s seriously not all about me.   But at the moment, it was just salt in a wound.   

I’m presently sitting at watching the N-Man bounce gleefully from wall to wall, waiting for the high from three frosted cookies, two cup cakes, a package of M&Ms, and one lollipop to wear off so I stand even the slightest chance of successfully putting him to bed, and then I’m headed to the bath tub, glass of wine in hand, to give in.   True to form, I’ll give myself exactly one hour to wallow.  Then I’ll pull it  together, remind myself that I am strong and don’t need anyone but me to be happy and that I AM happy, and convince myself yet again that I am actually better off alone because, after all when you’re guarded and alone no one can get to you and you don’t end up crying on the sofa at 8:30 pm on a Friday night.   

Or do you?

I’m obsessed with floor plans, carpet samples and day dreaming about being in my dream home.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  Last night as I was pouring over blue prints and pondering the pros and cons of various builders…  sacrifice yard space for the perfect house vs. a good yard outside a house I’m not in love with vs. paying $70k more to get it all… the N-Man appeared.  What is mommy doing?  I told him I was looking at houses.  Did he want to see?  Oh YES!  And as I explained the designs and pictues to him I asked, Would the N-Man like to go live in a new house?   He responded with an enthusistic YES followed by an impromptu, joyous dance.  When I asked him which one he wanted to live in, he backhanded my ego by emphatically declaring, I want to go live at Grandma’s House!!

1. The hoofed on is officially for sale.  I’m sad.  I’m ok with it.  I feel guilty.  I don’t want him to go.  I hope it happens fast.   When I bought him, I knew he wasn’t my forever horse.  He was largely an investment.  And as with any investment, you have to know when it’s time to sell.  And it’s time.  For a variety of horse business reasons, and even more personal ones.  The N-Man is about to turn 3.  (Excuse me for a moment, but how the @%@)&^(&#$ is he about to be THREE years old???)   And every parent knows that 3 is a magic number when it comes to activities.  Soccer, karate, suzuki violin… they all open their doors at three.  And suddenly, come spring, my time will be in demand for other things that are not all about me.  It makes no financial sense for me to own a horse I can only see two times a week when I can just take lessons on someone else’s.  And so, it is official.

2.  X.  He’ll never change.  He’ll never grow up.   Long ago he said he wanted to take the N-Man to visit relatives for Thanksgiving this year.  I was open to it.  Then he told me no, he couldn’t afford it.  I started making different mental plans for my holiday.  Then last week he told me that his father offered to pay for the plane tickets and wanted to know if I was ok with the N-Man going.  My biggest sticking point was making sure we balanced out his complete absences from my major holiday by ensuring he could spend Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day here.  X’s immediate reaction to that suggestion was to invite himself over for Christmas dinner.

I just got off the phone with him and in discussing it again he once again announce that he would be coming for dinner.  I told him no and,  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”">suprise suprise “>suprise suprise, he argued with me.  Apparently because it’s HIS son he can do what he wants.  I offered to bring the N-Man to him later in the evening and he told me that wasn’t acceptable so he would be coming for dinner.  God help me for what I said next.   With no warning to me, my mouth suddenly blurted out  Look, I don’t think my boyfriend is going to be comfortable with my X husband having holiday dinner with us.  

No, you haven’t missed anything.  Yes, I just lied and told my X that I’m involved when I”m not.  But I swear it wasn’t a tactic for promoting jealousy or playing games.  I’m just at my wits end for how to deal with his bullying.  It happens less and less but when it does it’s still unbearable and it seems nothing I do even remotely works.  He just bulldozes me emotionally until I give in and do what he wants, because it’s easier than continuing to fight with him.  But I”ll tell you one thing.  I am NOT having him over for the holidays again. I did it last year and was miserable.  I”m not doing it again.  And blurting out what I did served it’s purpose.  So, to that extent, I make no apologies.

X’s immediate reaction to my non existant news was to tell me that he had to approve the people HIS son spends time with and he would take me to court to prevent ”this man”  from coming to my house for dinner.  Then he asked me how I would feel if he had a  girlfriend and had her over for the holidays instead of me.  Honestly, whatever.  It’s not my place to tell him who he can and cannot have in his life.    I don’t want to have a pretend family dinner with him.  Does he seriously believe that just because we were once married we are still so entwined?  I just can’t wrap my brain around his though process at all.

3.  Aside from his ultimatum that I never date again, X also told me that if he takes the N-Man for Thanksgiving, I have to take them both to the airport.  I told him no on that point too and again he argued.  I have a car seat in the car.  Um, so does he last time I checked.  He needs help in the airport with the N-Man.  Um, so maybe you shouldn’t be traveling with him if you can’t handle it.  He doesn’t want to pay to park his car.  Not my problem.  He finally told me we’d discuss it later and I just reminded him that, no, the issue was resolved. 

It just never changes and it never will.   So long as he gets his way he’s happy.  If he has to compromise anything his mission is to make the entire world a living hell until he does get his way.  I absolutely hate that I have to share my child with this person.

4.  On a more positive note, I’m in love.  Not with a person, but with a house.  And the timing may be perfect.  I love the house that I’ve been renting the past two years, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not our forever home.  As much as I love dating this house, I do not want to marry it.   One mile northwest of us though, there is one that I’m falling for…hard.  New construction in a darling little bungalow style community.  All the same school districts.  Almost exactly the same amenities as my current house, only with bigger rooms, a mud room entry perfect for exploding children, and a full basement to grow into (ie a full basement to lock screaming boys in when the N-Man is older and wants to have friends over to sleep.)  I’ve even picked out the lot I want.     End of the row with green belt open space on one side, backs up to a community playground, only one physical neighbor.  And it won’t likely be released for sale until late spring/early summer.  Exactly the time I’ll be serious about writing a contract.  But don’t hold me to committing.  I reserve the right to change my mind 1,001 times between now and then.

I’ve had plenty of other things to help keep my mind off of X.  Today the hoofed one and I rocked the house.  Unfortunately for me, I’m very superstitious and winning the practice round does not bode well for the real deal.  Better to tank first, instead of peaking right before the big event.  Hopefully, I’ll be proven wrong on Saturday and Sunday when state medal finals kick off.

The social worker called me late this afternoon to let me know she had met with X and his mother and to tell me we can resume our regular visitation schedule.  In other words, I get to send the N-Man over there tomorrow and wait 34 long hours for him to come home, hoping and trusting that really, everything is actually ok over there. 

I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I wanted X to be found undeniably guilty of something atrocious,  but oh goody.   His reaction to the news of what the N-Man said was “appropriate” and the SW assured me that X and his mother have worked out a “safety plan” where by she will be the one responsible for all diaper changes and baths.  Apparently, he did say that when he changes the N-Man, he cries a lot when his bottom is wiped.  Other than that,  case closed as unfounded/inconclusive and we can go back to normal.  Or can I? Is that really so realisitc?   I suppose, in time, perhaps it is, but not over night. Not just because one week later someone who has known my family for a total of two face to face hours says so.  Excuse me for thinking that’s just a wee bit too much to ask.  But I’ll try. I really will.

All I know is thank God tonight is the monthly single mom’s meeting at my church.  It’s been a while since I went but if ever I needed some fellowship, support and prayer, tonight is it.