Farewell Blogging World

I have shared my world for about seven years with complete strangers.  I started this blog when I decided to be a SMC while I questioned everything and went through the process of even seeing if my body was capable of conceiving a child. I blogged during seven failed IUIs until the eighth one finally stuck. I've documented Sidekick's life over the years.  I have shared my hopes, dreams, happiness, sadness, uncertainties, loneliness, excitement, frustration, etc. and have been open and honest along the way without caring what anyone thought about what I had to say.  Sidekick recently turned five and started kindergarten last week, and I think with that comes the decision to end my blog. It's been a great way to document things and has been a great outlet for me, and one day I will share everything with Sidekick, but for now, I am saying farewell to my blog and to my readers, whoever and wherever you may be. This is a little harder than I thought it would be...

 

Changes

This has been a very emotional month for me and Sidekick, and we've had a lot going on.  There's been so much happening that I'm barely keeping it together.  Here's a quick synopsis of the emotional roller coaster I feel like I've been riding:

1.  Sidekick graduated from PreK, and that's hard for me.
2.  Grandma came in town for a week.
3.  Sidekick had an early 5th birthday party (his birthday is next month). Since most of his PreK/daycare friends left school to attend summer camps right after graduation, I wanted one last hurrah with these kids he's known his entire life.
4.  Sidekick got his front tooth pulled because he fell last fall, it turned brown, and started getting infected.
5.  I went out of town for work for three days and for the first time ever, I had a babysitter take care of Sidekick since my mom was unavailable.
6.  Sidekick's last day of school/daycare is today and the thought of it is really sad.
7.  We leave tomorrow to visit my Mom for a week or so.
8.  When we get back, Sidekick will start summer camp at his elementary school and a month later, he will start kindergarten.

Phew!  It probably doesn't sound like a lot to most people, but to me, it's chaos in our very simple, calm life that we typically have. 

I'm still so on the fence about him going to kindergarten.  He's a very smart boy, and I've been told by the person who did his four year old screening at the school district and the director and teachers at Prek/daycare, that he's ready.  But he's young... so young and I see that when he's around the older kids.  He will be one of (if not THE) youngest in his kindergarten class.  He just doesn't have the maturity yet, but I have no Plan B for him if he doesn't go.  I don't know what I would do with him because he already knows so much more than he needs to know going to kindergarten, so he would be so bored if I held him back. If he wasn't so smart, this wouldn't be keeping me awake a night.  Haha.  So I worry, and truthfully, I've worried since I finally got pregnant. Being in the education field, I know a lot... maybe too much.

So I'm hoping going on vacation for a week will allow us to reset and that Sidekick grows at least six months maturity-wise during this time.  Haha.  But once we get back, all the newness begins.  It's like our life is starting over like it did when I took him to daycare the very first time.  I'm trusting people I don't know to love my son and take good care of him.  After four short weeks, I'll do it all over again when he starts kindergarten, and together we will navigate this new chapter together. 

Change... it can be so good, but it can be so hard.  As Sidekick keeps telling me, he's "happy sad" about everything that is happening to him.  Wise little boy because I, too, am happy sad. 

"Strong Like Mom"

Mother's Day weekend...  when you are a SMC with an almost five year old, it's just another weekend.  There's no one to plan anything special.  There's no one to help around the house.  There's no one to make me breakfast.  There's no one!  But you know what?  I don't care. I celebrate Sidekick this weekend!  What more could I possibly want/ask for than him?  He's better than any present, breakfast, great plans, etc. 
 
Sidekick proudly wore this t-shirt for his Mother's Day tea at school and then again when we went to church. He knew what it said and he was proud to wear it.

 

When I put Sidekick to bed on Saturday night, he told me that he was excited to celebrate "us" on Mother's Day.  And he's right.  It's not a day about me.  It's a day about him/us.  I am grateful and blessed to have this amazing boy in my life.  For Valentine's Day, I put hearts on his door and wrote him sweet messages on each heart about what I love about him. (I haven't taken them down.)  When he was supposed to be in bed and while I was downstairs, he took all of the hearts off his door and put them on mine.  Seriously, he is the sweetest kid ever!  The next morning, he was so excited that he had done that for me and ran into my room to wish me a Happy Mother's Day.

 

For the fourth year in a row, we bought tomato plants and flowers and worked in our garden.  Sidekick loves doing this and it's an activity I enjoy doing with him. He takes his job very seriously and spends the hours by my side helping me.  He's patient, gentle, and proud of his work. 

 

After our hard work, Sidekick played with some of the older neighborhood boys, we both took showers, went to Red Box to get a movie, curled up together on the sofa, and had pizza for dinner, followed by a 6:45 bedtime.  It was a good day.  It was a day about us.  It was not a day where I needed any fanfare.  It was a perfect day.

 

 

 

Ending my Blog????

I've been writing this blog for over six years.  It started when I decided 100% that I was ready to take the plunge and be a Single Mother by Choice. It has taken me from the many IUIs I had to do to the approach of Sidekick's 5th birthday.  I'm thinking that it might be time to end my blogging endeavor.  This has been a private blog which means family and friends don't know about it.  I wanted it this way so that I can be 100% honest and not worry about people judging me.  While they probably "judge" me, I don't really care because I don't know any of these people. 

I've "met" some great people along the way. I've had support from people all around the world.  I've used this as my outlet.  I've been open and have written whatever I have felt at various times in my life. I have shared my life and my son's life with people all around the world.  It might be time to just let this blog die while I have at least have 6+ years of memories to read about for many years to come. 

I'm going to really ponder this and decide if I am going to keep blogging, and if so, why keep going?  So bear with me as I make this decision.  Maybe I'll end my blog with Sidekick's 5th birthday or maybe his first day of kindergarten or maybe ten years from now.  : ) 

Stay tuned...

Video: How to be a Good Person "Pledge"

I adore this video of Sidekick for so many reasons. I can think of many adults who need to say this Pledge every day also...

Kindergarten???

Sidekick has been in quite a PITA lately, and we have just not been jiving together, if that makes sense.  For the past several weeks, he's been having some issues at school with listening, staying on task, etc. Every day I would get a bad report about him which would just piss me off and lead me to getting frustrated with him. His behavior made me question sending him to kindergarten in fall. He'll be five in July, and the cutoff for going to kindergarten is August 1st, so he will be one of the youngest in his class. Academically, he scores way above where he needs to, but his behavior at school reinforces that he is just young, maybe too young to go to kindergarten.  I've questioned the kindergarten thing ever since I got pregnant with him (truth!), probably because I'm in the education field, so I know the challenges of a young kid vs. an older kid.  So my struggle has been this:

Do I hold him back because he's young and with "youngness" comes behavior problems even though academically he is more than ready?

OR

 

Do I send him because he is academically ready, and cross my fingers that he has a good teacher who will work with him?

 

 

This shit keeps me awake at night.  I feel like this one decision will set him up for success or failure for the rest of his educational career. I worry that holding him back will create more/different issues because he'll be so darn bored, and that will cause additional problems.

 

Last week, he did a 180!  He just turned into this different, lovely kid.  His reports from school were amazing.  His behavior at home was perfect.  I yelled less, got frustrated less, and truly enjoyed being with him every single day.  What happened to him?  I don't think I yelled at him one time this past weekend. I enjoyed every minute with him.  I loved that he was so good and helpful while we ran errands, cleaned, did laundry, etc.  He was a dream.  He was my sweet boy who I adored more than ever.  Of course I loved him while he was being a PITA, but there were plenty of times that I didn't like him.

 

If THAT kid stays around, I am 100% confident that he will be ready for and will be successful in kindergarten. But I'm pretty sure that I have jinxed myself by putting all of that in writing, and he'll do a 180 again in the wrong direction. That's just the way my luck is.  But then I look at this cute face, and I remind myself that it's possible he can continue being the awesome kid he's been!

 

 



Disney World-- It's not REALLY the Happiest Place, is it?

Last weekend we got back from our whirlwind trip to Disney World, and I can't understand why people go there more than once in their lifetime.  Really, I can't.  While I loved seeing such joy and excitement in Sidekick's face, it's certainly not a place I'd like to go again.  It's kind of a rite of passage, and I'm glad we went, but as he said the day we left, "Goodbye, hotel room.  I'll see you again when I get old like my Momma."  He's right.  He can take his kids while I am happily hanging out in my retirement home. 

The trip was exhausting, which I total expected.  The entire place is like a well oiled machine which makes the trip so much easier.  The meal plans, transportation, Fast Passes, etc. are all there to make the trip more enjoyable.  We went to Magic Kingdom for 2 1/2 days, and Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios one day each.  We rode a lot of rides, got signatures from a bunch of characters, he did Jedi training, he wiped out big time and got a goose egg on his forehead, ate at some cool places with characters, swam, and I had to reign him in during all of it.  He was crazy!  His listening was less than good which made me completely crazy (and I know it made our friends bonkers), but sometimes it's hard to reel him in amongst all of the stimulation and excitement.   

But is it magical???  Sure... if you are a kid or one of those crazy adult Disney fanatics.

I was so worried we'd get sick right before or during our vacation.  I was wrong. We got sick right afterwards.  I have what I'm pretty sure is influenza.  I'm now on day five and feel a little better today than any other day.  Along with my cough, runny nose, and sneezing, my body has been so achy, and no matter what kids of meds I take, nothing took away the achy muscles and joints.  I've had to sleep with a heating pad on my legs because I have been in so much pain. I seriously don't know the last time I have been so sick. 

Then on Tuesday, I got a call from school that Sidekick had a fever, so he has a much milder version of what I have.  His fever finally broke last night, but he's home again today.  I'm hoping that the fever stays away so he can at least go to school tomorrow.  We've had a little too much bonding time over the past almost two weeks.  Haha.

Here are some pics from our vacation:

 

                               

                                 

 

                            

Plugging Along in Life and Total BS

I've been quite unmotivated lately... I mean really unmotivated.  I feel like I suck at being a Mom right now because I just want to curl up in my bed for the day and hide.  I registered Sidekick for kindergarten last night, and I'm still so on the fence about sending him. Academically he's beyond ready-- he is working at a 6 1/2 year old level when he's only 4 1/2.  BUT, he's young and will be almost the youngest boy in his class.  Along with being young comes immaturity, and he's still having issues at school with focusing, keeping his hands to himself, wanting to be the class clown, etc.  Those are the reasons to hold him back, but the experts in the district think that holding him back will result in additional problems such as boredom, which will then cause additional problems.  So, right now, I'm going to send him, with the realization that I can decide at any moment that he isn't going to go. I feel like this decision is going to set him up for success or failure for the next 20 years!
 
I ended my 2016 sales year on an amazing high note, closing a $2 million sale in December.  It's never happened before, and it put me over my sales goal.  Without explaining how/why because it's too confusing and complicated, they are not paying me a HUGE chunk of my bonus!!!!  I am so f'ing pissed and am kind of on strike right now.  I pretty much worked one hour today, and I didn't give one flying f***!  Why would I work my ass off when they screwed me?  I'm not talking about a few thousand dollars.  I'm talking about a hell of a lot more than that, and I am so upset about it.  My manager is fighting it because it affects his bonus as well and it's WRONG, and we have upper management on our side, but I and my bonus are at the mercy of someone (no idea who that is).  I will appeal, fight, sue, whatever to get my money that I worked so hard for.  It makes me sick that they would do this to me.  I've been with my company for almost 18 years, and they pull this shit.  Why would I kill myself this year like I did last year when they screwed me over?  How unmotivating is that?  I am hoping whoever that someone is will change his/her mind, but it's not looking promising.  It's disgusting, and it makes me so angry thinking about it.

We are about 12 days away from our vacation in hell.  I mean Disney. I'm not looking forward to it because it's way too scheduled (not my kind of vacation), but I know Sidekick will have an amazing time, amongst several breakdowns from exhaustion.  Nothing like throwing a pretty scheduled kid who loves to sleep into a burning fire and think that all will be well.  It would be silly if I believed that.  Attitude adjustment needed please.

Oh yeah!  Happy Singles Awareness Day. I sure love my boy, and don't care about this stupid day. 

Chaos

In the midst of complete chaos in my life, last month a fellow SMC friend asked me and Sidekick to join her and her son in Disney World next month.  It's a trip I've wanted to take and if Sidekick goes to kindergarten this year instead of holding him back, our time to do this without working around a school calendar is now!  Plus, I think it'll be more fun for the boys to have a buddy to hang with and for the moms to keep each other going when we want to kill our sons.  Ha!  This SMC and I met on some SMC chat board, but I can't even remember which one.  We live in different states, so we've really only gotten together two times since our boys were born.  It'll be a little strange since we are more acquaintances than friends, but regardless, the whole trip will be more fun (and less lonely)with someone else.  This is the most UN-relaxing vacation I will have ever taken!  Everything is scheduled:  Fast passes, character meals, and plain old sit down meals. I'm going to need a vacation when I get back from my vacation.

Back to the chaos... I ended my 2016 sales year with a bang.  At the 11th hour, I brought in an unheard of $2M sale. It put me over my sales goal, one that was really unattainable when it was handed to me in January of 2016.  A $2M account has never happened to me in the almost 14 years I've been doing this, and it'll never happen again. Usually around the holidays, work is slow and I get some downtime.  It's nice.  It gives me time to recuperate.  It gives me time to just build up for the next sales year.  I didn't get that downtime, and I was immediately thrown into a new sales year that is already out of control and it's only January.

Did I mention my vacation next month?  So whoever decided that February would be a great time to go on vacation clearly didn't know what early 2017 had in store for her.  I have a total of $3M in various accounts being decided by mid-March.  So, let's throw a week's vacation during a horrible time careerwise right at the time when decisions will start to be made. I've already had two requests for a sales presentation during my vacation, and the sales presentations will have to be entrusted to someone else because I can't be there.  Shit! 

So the next six weeks are complete chaos!  I had super early appointments and longer than normal work days this week. Sidekick's schedule was definitely thrown off as he was going to school about 1 1/2 hours earlier than normal, and he made it a point to tell me every morning that the moon was still up when we pulled out of the driveway.  I am very thankful that he just goes with the flow and knows when he Momma is working extra hard to "get the big dollars" (love him).  Nonetheless, I feel the stress more than normal.  And to top it all off, he was a complete asshole at school this week. He slapped a kid, hit a kit, and hit a teacher.  He spend three nights in a row writing apology notes and drawing pictures.  Sidekick is not a hitter (and never has been), so I have no idea what is up with him this week!  I don't want to make our busy, insane week an excuse, but I sure am hoping that we'll get back to normal next week. 

I think I may have written about my friend/colleague and the fact that I "ended" our friendship in December because she wasn't there for me when I needed her despite the fact that I was always there for her for everything.  For some reason, I struggled with this day after day because I missed her.  I didn't want to be friends with her because I didn't know how/if I could trust her, but at the same time, I wanted to be friends with her. So amongst the chaos in my life, I was realizing how much what happened to our friendship was bringing me down in my already feeling down world.  We had a long talk last week. I'm not sure if she can and will be the friend that I need and can be to her, but as I have talked to her about people in my life being in "buckets", she may need to be in a different bucket than I thought she could/would be in. 

Buckets?  What do I mean by that?  Everyone in my life has a purpose: the ones I can talk to about personal things, the ones who have been around forever and know me like no one else, the ones who are my friends because Sidekick is friends with their kids, the ones who are colleagues, the ones who are colleagues and a friend, etc. Each person kind of has a role in my life and I know what to expect from each of them and who I can go to for what.  And people can move into different buckets as relationships change for the better or worse.  Now, that may sound trite or crazy, but it helps me know where everyone fits.

Back to my friend... she's the kind of person who will have what I call "diarrhea of the mouth".  She has the amazing ability to just open up, be vulnerable, and tell me whatever she needs/wants to about what is troubling her.  I am truly amazed by her special power and wish I could be a fraction of that, but for whatever reason, I'm just not. This blog tends to be my outlet since my readers are a bunch of people who don't know me, and I don't care what I write/say.  And after we hashed things out (I think) and decided that we did in fact what to be friends (I think), I had "diarrhea of the mouth" and for the first time since I've been in a bad place the past few months, I opened up to someone (her) and told her I just can't keep going.  I can't keep my head above water.  I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning because that means I have to face another day. I can't be the Momma Sidekick deserves.  l actually hate being a mom right now (even though I love Sidekick so much).  What's scary is that I don't know why.  There's so much stress and chaos in my life right now, and I've usually been able to not let it completely ruin me, but I think I am in so deep that I can't get out. 

She really encouraged me to meet/talk with my doctor and talk about possibly taking meds. I struggle with that suggestion.  While I think she is probably right, I can't get past the fact that in my head, resorting to meds makes me weak, incompetent, etc. That means I'm a failure.  Truthfully, I can't function. I have zero balance in my life. I keep thinking that my body will somehow "reset" itself, but I think it's not going to happen that easily especially since I cried while reading "A Fish out of Water" to Sidekick last night.  The book is obviously not sad, but I think after hearing that he was so horrible at school from his teacher who took him home because I couldn't pick him up in time, I just hit that proverbial wall.  I felt like a failure of a Mom who is incapable of raising a well natured child which literally brought me to tears. 

So here we are on a Friday, and I have a weekend ahead of us. It's a weekend where I'd prefer to not be an adult (or at least one without responsibilities) and just watch TV and read a book all weekend.  I am hoping that Sidekick has better behavior this weekend than he has all week because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to handle my kid being a complete asshole.  Right now, I'm just needing to take one hour at a time because that seems to be about all I can handle at the moment.  Hopefully we'll come out on the other side feeling like we are back on track. 

Christmas Wrap-up

I've mentioned it several times that I am not a fan of the holidays.  I just don't have the best memories of them growing up.  Now that I am an adult with a child, I am bound and determined for Sidekick to not feel the same way.  I've decided that holidays, especially Christmas, will be stress free, calm, and relaxing.  When I was/am with my family, it doesn't feel like that at all which is why I have chosen to not go out of town to my sister's. This year my mom spent Christmas with my sister and her family (she alternates between us), so it was just me and Sidekick.

Ugly Sweater Day at School

The Magic of Christmas

In the past, I have found the holidays to be a little sad and lonely.  This year was different.  This year felt good.  Sidekick and I made a lasagna the morning of Christmas Eve while listening to Christmas music and singing loudly. Sidekick LOVES to cook and it's fun to have him help me. I now trust him with a sharp knife and he does a great job cutting things.  Later that day, we went to church... Sidekick to Kids Ministry and I to the big church.  It felt good, and I was happy. 

We came home, cooked our amazing lasagna, and ate our Christmas dinner in our Christmas PJs instead of our church clothes.  It was Sidekick's suggestion, so why not?  Who says we have to dress up for Christmas dinner?  I read "'Twas the Night before Christmas" to him after eating chocolate pie, and he was sound asleep before 7:30. 

Christmas morning with Sidekick was special and calm. Sidekick was appreciative and excited about each gift and Santa gave him what he wanted.  My sister texted at 11:00 wondering what we were up to. I told her we could skype then.  She responded "in a bit" (apparently her husband wasn't home right then???).  Two hours later, I was still waiting. I kept trying to hold off putting together presents, starting a project, etc. because I kept telling Sidekick we will skype "in a bit".  I was annoyed and texted my sister only to find that her boys were outside playing!  WTF?!?  We had been waiting.. apparently "in a bit" means several f'ing hours! I asked two separate times what time we could skype and never got a response.

Sidekick and old Dog

 By the time they were ready to skype, Sidekick was watching a movie he got for Christmas and I wasn't about to interrupt it. Besides, at that point, their dinner was going to be ready in 30 minutes, so opening presents would have been rushed.  Their two hour dinner finally ended at the time when our dinner was beginning, and Sidekick was exhausted and I had a migraine.  I texted that we would have to skype the next day (apparently not convenient for them, but I didn't care).  Sidekick didn't care at that point about opening more presents, and his disappointment was finally over.

My mom called me that night and couldn't understand why I was irritated.  That conversation ended quickly. It was the first time I had heard from my mom all day.  Merry f'ing Christmas. 

Sidekick wanted this ugly ass robot monkey from Santa.  I found it on sale and had a gift card for him, so I got it for him.  It's plastic and heavy, and he insisted on sleeping with it!  At 1:55 AM he came into my room to tell me that the monkey was scaring him. Of course it was!  He's ugly and terrifying.  I walked him back to his room and put the monkey on the floor at the other end of his room.  He immediately wanted to play with it in the morning.

 

The next morning my mom texted me and a text argument commenced.  I told her that Skyping with the her family should have happened before my brother-in-law went somewhere and before the boys went outside to play. I felt like we were an afterthought.  I explained that that will not happen again.  My calm, stress-free Christmas was not that anymore because I was so irritated and annoyed with waiting for them. I made it clear that I will NOT do that again! 

A couple hours later we skyped my family and opened presents.  I didn't care at that point because I was still annoyed.  I felt like they let my son down.  He was just so wrapped up in the magic and excitement of Christmas and then had to see a bunch of unwrapped presents under the Christmas tree all because of one excuse after another. 

Buh-bye Christmas! See you again next year...  hopefully with zero chaos and stress!