The Dining Room Table

It has been two long months since I have last had the time to sit down and purge my feelings out on the keyboard of my computer. Life planted its feet in my path and would not get out of the way long enough for me to find one moment of peace for myself...and when I say "life", you should know by now that that actually means school. But I am happy to say that my semester is finally complete and here I am, still standing. My children have said to me more than once in the past week that they are happy that I am done with school now so that I can get off the computer and play with them. It makes me sad the way my children miss me, even though I am right here. It is bad enough that I watch them miss their father every day, but to miss me when I am in the same room... I just keep telling myself, "this too shall pass". So I have waited for an opportunity to write when it would not take away from my time with the kids because even though I have been feeling a desperate need to write, my children's need for time with their mother was more important.

This lack of time, this busyness, and sometimes chaos, now seem to be what symbolize my life. It is what my life has become. Always running around, putting out fires, and trying to find the time to get everything done that needs to be done while, at the same time, trying to continue to do the things that I want to do as a mother. I will be glad when this part of my life is over and I can start to move forward again. Right now, I feel like I have just come to another dead end and I am waiting for...well, I am not sure what I am waiting for. I guess I am just trying to figure out what road I should take next. Hopefully I can find a road that will bring me some peace, because more and more I am feeling a need for it.

Something else that symbolizes my life...my dining room table. You know, you can tell a lot about a person by their dining room or kitchen table. Is it big? Is it small? Is it piled to the ceiling with papers and other things? Is it trimmed beautifully with an elegant centerpiece, place settings, and fine china? Is it simple, decorated only by a small centerpiece? And then at dinnertime, is it empty or full? My dining room table is one of the very few quality pieces of furniture that my husband and I chose to spend what little money we had on. I love it...or I did once. It is a large table that can be made even larger with the built-in leaf. We bought it with our family and friends in mind. We thought of the Thanksgivings and Christmases in the years to come that would be spent at this table and knew that it was perfect for us. At dinnertime, we would shut off the TV and gather our family around the table. The room was filled with laughter and conversation, me sitting at one end of the table and him at the other with our three small children in between. Every day I felt like I was giving a gift to my family. I looked forward to planning and preparing our meals so that we could spend that time together.

A few weeks ago, as the kids and I were eating our dinner around the coffee table in the living room in front of the TV, one of them asked me why we don't ever eat at the table anymore. This was followed by the other two chiming in with the same question and all three of them telling me how they miss eating at the dining room table. After dinner I got the kids tucked into bed, came back downstairs to my dining room table, and cried. I sat there, reflecting on the dinners that I have shared with the kids since their father left. After he left, I gradually lost that joy that I got from planning and preparing meals. This mostly had to do with the fact that my kids wouldn't eat half of the stuff I prepared and now there was no one there to eat it with me. Dinnertime became more of a frustration for me, trying to get the kids to eat was a battle every night. And then there was the empty chair. Every night a reminder; a slap in the face. It quickly became less painful for me to throw together something that I knew the kids would eat and drop it down on the coffee table. But the saddest part is that there are some days that I don't even eat with them. I use it as my break or my chance to get a few things done before I have to put them to bed. I am embarrassed to admit this and can't tell you how sad it makes me. But still, I cannot seem to bring myself to sit at the dining room table.

My dining room table is beautiful, but it is empty and lonely. It is simply set, with nothing more than a small centerpiece in the middle, just as it was when my husband left. My family is broken now and I can't change that, but I think I owe it to my children to sit back down in my chair. Consider this my first New Year's resolution.

TUTUS!!!!

I have been so busy. Over the past month, my PTA duties have kicked into full gear and now school has finally caught up with me, which I knew that it would, and I have been trying to keep up with all of the different assignments. More and more, I feel like the information of value that I am getting from these graduate courses is at a minimum. For the most part they are just a lot of busy work. Yes, there are a few exceptions to this statement but for the most part, that is just the way it is. Between school and the other frustrations in my life (yes, I am still struggling with that), I have just felt like I am in this terrible funk that I can't seem to pull myself out of. I am stressed, tired all the time, and probably pretty miserable to be around. I realize that I have not had a lot of time for myself lately and certainly haven't had any time to do something fun for me, which probably has a lot to do with my current mood. So I decided that maybe I needed to get my creative juices flowing and do something that I could have fun doing. In an ideal world, I would have all kinds of time and money available to do the crafty and creative things that I really enjoy doing, but the reality is that my scrapbooking room has been collecting dust for the past year and a half. It's depressing.

The girls informed me about a month ago that they wanted to be bumble bees for Halloween and so, with the thought of trying to save some money, I started looking online for costume ideas. Low and behold, I stumbled across a super cute picture of a little girl in a tutu and dressed as a bumble bee. Having seen some handmade tutus recently, I immediately thought this might be something that I could actually do...and boy, was I right!!! I have had so much fun figuring out how to make these tutus and accessorize them and now have tons more ideas for future tutus. This has been a great release for me and the best part is, the girls LOVE them!

My Sweet Girl

If I have said it once, I have said it a million times. My kids have NOT handled this divorce well. I don't think that there is ever anything that could have possibly prepared them for what our life has become, just as nothing could have prepared me. And although I do everything I possibly can to make all of this easier for them, it just seems that it will never be enough. So, everyday I worry. I think about how all of this will affect each of them as they grow into adulthood. I wonder about the things that I might be doing wrong. I see them struggling and I ask myself when this will ever get better.

When Camille was born, she gave me the most wonderful gift that I have ever received. Something that I had ached for since having Quentin a year and a half before. You see, after all of the waiting during my labor with Quentin, my doctor inevitably decided that the best thing to do was to have a cesarean section. At that moment, everything was happening so fast that all we cared about was making sure our baby was okay. I never had time to think about what was about to happen. A mother spends nine months nurturing and loving this baby inside of her, preparing for childbirth and all of the wonderful emotions that go along with it. In an instant that was all taken away and once it was over, I was sad. I wasn't the first person to hold my baby. I didn't get to spend his first moments bonding with him. I wasn't even there when my family met my first born child; their first grandchild and nephew. Everyone was there but me. But on that cold and snowy day in March (that's New York for you), Camille came into our lives with complete grace and my birth experience exceeded my expectations. It was the most intimate of experiences with only my husband, mom, doctor and nurse in the room. The room was quiet and dark, with only a small light for the doctor to see, and within five minutes Camille was born. She was instantly placed on my chest and before they took her away to get her all cleaned up, the doctor and nurse left the room to give us some time alone. It was so special and I will never forget that gift that she gave me. I will never forget laying in that dark and quiet room, holding my baby girl for the first time.

Camille was talked about throughout the hospital as "the baby with the hair". The girl was born with a full head of it...so much that it really looked almost like a toupee. Nurses would come by my room just to see her. She was as beautiful then as she is now. I love telling Camille these stories now because she is a shy little girl who seems to be somewhat insecure about herself, but when I tell her about the day she was born her whole face lights up. And when I tell her about how everyone came to see the prettiest baby in the hospital, she giggles. I love Camille's giggle and the way that she scrunches her nose up when she does it.

Unfortunately, Camille doesn't giggle as much as she used to anymore. Over the past couple of months I have noticed her giggle fading away. She has always been an extremely emotional child and for that reason alone I have worried about the effects that her father leaving would have on her. Temper tantrums, hitting, and crying were things that Camille did very well as a toddler. But now it's different. Camille cries. She cries about everything (or at least that's what it feels like these days)and she has started to withdraw at home. I have noticed her laying around the house more, sometimes on the couch or sometimes even going up to her room and just laying in her bed. There are other things too, details that I won't completely go into, but definite causes for concern. So I worry...more. On top of that, I get angry. What has my ex done to our baby girl? I just want her to be better. I want her to be happy. I want her to giggle.

It's an overwhelming thought, the idea that my ability or inability to handle these problems now will undoubtedly mold Camille into the woman that she will become and effect future relationships that she will have in her life. I can't screw this up! So we have started our journey to wellness. The first stop was the family physician, where we checked everything out to make sure that there were no medical causes for the problems that she is having. The physician sent us on for an xray and then also referred us to a GI doctor in Kansas City (I guess I should mention that she has been having accidents). Along with this, she also referred us to a psychologist. So far we haven't found anything major. The doctor's office found nothing unusual in her blood work, but the xray did show that she is completely backed up. It does feel good to have a little something to go on I guess. So now we will wait for the rest of these appointments and in the meantime I will continue my search for a good therapist for her. This is going to be a real journey, but if it ends in a happy place and helps my sweet girl get her giggle back then you will not hear me complain.

There's that giggle...

She's always marched to the beat of her own drummer...

And if I ever get her to stop sucking her fingers, it will be a miracle...

Deep Breaths...

I am frustrated...and living a life of frustration is exhausting. Add to that the fact that I have been feeling overwhelmed...this is exhausting too. Bottom line, I guess, would be that I am exhausted. Yep, I would say that that pretty accurately sums it all up for me.

So, why am I frustrated? Well, I would have blogged about it sooner, but I just haven't even had the time to sit and blog...frustrating!! There are so many things that I have been feeling frustrated about over the past month. Things just don't seem to be going my way and that frustrates me. I am a planner; if I don't have a plan, then I feel like I don't have control. And these days, I feel this serious need to be in control. I think that comes from everything that has happened over the past couple of years. I gave up some of that control and I got screwed, so now I am all about being in complete control. The problem is, when you are trying to get your life back on track, control can be a hard thing to come by. So I spent a lot of time over the summer trying to put a new plan in place for my family. A fresh start for us feels both necessary and terrifying all at once, but mostly necessary. By the end of the summer I was feeling pretty good about the plan that I had come up with but by the beginning of September the plan started to fall apart...frustrating. It frustrates me that I have this idea about what is best for my family and I can't do anything about it. The bottom line is, I don't want to live here anymore. I love my home, I love my friends, and I love having my family close, but I just don't want to be here anymore. I hate the stress that my ex puts on us and with all of the disappointments that the kids had to deal with over the summer, I know that that was just the beginning of what is to come.

This brings me to feeling overwhelmed. Oh my poor babies. It is just a constant struggle around here for them. Just when I think that maybe we are finding ourselves on solid ground, one of them proves me wrong. It is a vicious cycle. I think my ex is actually finally starting to believe me when I say that they are not okay, but I really have no time for his concern. After all, we wouldn't even be having these problems if it wasn't for him! My children are so broken and I just can't fix them. Trying to deal with these behaviors that surface in an understanding, patient, and compassionate way is hard and I see so many problems...it's overwhelming. And, have I complained about school yet?? Well, I think we all know how I feel about that. School actually isn't too bad right now, but I am sure that won't last. I will be overwhelmed with that too before I know it. I know that sounds very pessimistic of me, but...whatever. Sometimes that is just life, right??

Don't get me wrong, things aren't ALL bad. In between all of this rotten stuff, we have managed to find some fun.
We've been to the zoo...

Camping and fishing...

And apple picking...


I see these pictures and I am so grateful for the time that I have to share with my kids and the experiences that I am able to give them. I do know that things will get better. It just might take some time, maybe even more than I would like. In the meantime, I will just continue to take these deep breaths...

Sick and Single

I had been planning for this weekend throughout the week. School started again for me on Monday, but the first week turned out to be just a lot of introductory stuff and no major assignments to do. The hard work is yet to come...I am sure of it. So between that, my ex taking the kids for the weekend, and a forecast of picture perfect fall-like weather, I decided that this would be a great weekend for me to get underway with phase two of my backyard landscaping. I figured that I could get started with my work on Friday, with just Zoe at home, and then get everything done that I needed to before the kids returned on Monday.

Now, phase two is no simple task. This phase consists of some major weed removal, stone and boulder removal, removing and re-setting a stone staircase, and lots of shoveling. All of this so that I can move onto phase three, my favorite phase, planting! To backtrack a little, let me explain...when we first moved into this house five years ago, one of the projects that I gladly took on was the landscaping. Off the back of the house was a hill with a set of stone steps to the side, leading down to the flat part of the yard. The hill was completely overgrown with all sorts of weeds. It was obvious that there had been some sort of garden there before, but everything was so overgrown that it was impossible to see what was supposed to be there and what wasn't. I decided then that I would dig out everything on that hill and start over with a brand new garden. This became much more of a task than I could have ever imagined and I really could have never completed it without the help of my sister and mom. As we began digging out the hill, we began uncovering boulder after boulder. Not only did we uncover boulders throughout the hill, but we also found a stone path at the bottom of the hill. Once completed, I loved my back hill. It did not take me long, however, to see what had happened to the original hillside garden...erosion. As much as I tried, I could not completely stop some of the hill from washing away. So my strategy over the years has been to maintain as much of the garden as possible until I could really do what I needed to do to save the garden. Finally, this spring I was able to have a retaining wall put in across the top of the garden and I am hoping that is all it will take to reclaim my hill. I was so excited to see that wall go in, but at the same time, I suddenly realized how much more work this was going to mean for me. Adding the wall added a good couple of feet of garden all the way across the top of the hill...among other things. Let the work begin!

This brings me back to this weekend. Thursday night, the night before the kids are supposed to leave to go to their Dad's for the weekend, I get sick. I mean SICK, like I don't even know how I made it up the steps. Like I spent a portion of the night sleeping on the toilet, sick. And as I lay there on the toilet, the room spinning as though I had just gotten off that amusement park ride where it spins so fast that you stick to the wall while the floor drops out from under you, I again found myself realizing what it means to be alone. As I laid there, unable to move because I got sick every time I even raised my head, I felt so helpless that I could do nothing else but cry. I just wanted some water and had no way to get it. No one to call for. Would it be wrong for me to wake Camille up? If I laid there long enough, would one of the kids get up to use the restroom and then help me? Could I make it to the bath tub and get a drink there? In the end, that is what I did and do you know how nasty water tastes coming out of the bath tub?!?!

The next morning, when the kids discovered that I was sick, they were all very concerned about me. I often think it is interesting to observe the different ways that my kids respond to different situations. I remember a conversation I shared with my mom about how funny it was for her to watch each of us girls as parents because she could see some of the mannerisms that we showed as children now as parents. For example, when my sisters were babies, I would want to hold them and even if they were screaming and crying, I would just sit there and hold them. Completely unfazed by the screaming and crying. Twenty-five years later as a parent, I was the same way with my own children. Very laid back and relatively unfazed by the screaming and crying. Each one of us was different as children and, likewise, different as mothers. Since that conversation with my mom, I often find myself observing the mannerisms of my kids and wondering if they will carry over for them into their adulthood. Case in point...as I lay sick and unable to move on the couch, Zoe says to her brother and sister more than once that she is really worried because Mommy is sick and later proceeds to put a movie in and curl up with me on the couch. She doesn't leave my side all morning, watching more than one movie and occasionally asking me if I am okay. Camille, on the other hand, starts out the morning by bringing me a stuffed animal and telling me that her puppy wants to lay with me. Later, when she comes home from school, she asks me if I am still sick and then proceeds to get her papers out of her backpack for me and explains to me that she will just hold the papers up for me because she doesn't want to hand them to me and get my sick germs...wow. She then leaves the room, only coming back occasionally to set get well cards on the coffee table in front of me that she is busy drawing in the other room (as to not get my sick germs, I'm sure). Quentin, the typical guy, after asking about my symptoms he is off doing his own thing. Eager to help when asked, but otherwise not to be bothered by the whole thing. Only time will tell I guess, but I am interested to see how these behaviors will carry over as they grow older.

Anyway, I spent the next 24 hours being sick. Not exactly how I had planned to spend my weekend. By Saturday morning I still was not feeling well, but I was determined to get my hill done. I went out and actually did quite a bit of work before I decided I needed to just lay down again and that was my weekend, gardening and laying down. I still am not feeling 100%, but I do feel good about all that I was able to accomplish on my hill.

Here are some "before" pictures of my hill after my retaining wall was put in:

The first time we did the hill, we put these stone-stacked steps in as an ending point to the garden. Now they just look awkward with the wall right there.


LOTS of weeding to do...this is the side of the garden that had the most erosion.


This is actually a great illustration of just how much erosion has occured, as the new wall is pretty close to where the garden originally started. The stones at the bottom of the picture show where the garden now starts. This new wall actually sits a few feet underground.

Will It Ever End??

So since our return from what my kids like to refer to as "the longest vacation ever", we have been quite busy. This is my feeble attempt at excusing my lack of writing...is it working?? But in all seriousness, I just haven't had the time.

To begin with, our return from vacation left us with less than a week of summer before the kids would return to school. Our favorite summer activity this year was spending the day at the local water park. With school starting, the water park would close and so my mission for the five days that remained was simple. Go to the water park every day...no matter what and no matter how long. We had a pool pass to use up and I was determined to do so! In addition to spending our days at the water park, we also had lots of other things to get done. We returned to a house with no food and also still needed to go get all of Quentin and Camille's school supplies. Between all of these things, well, that whole week is pretty much a blur.

Add to all of this, transition. Something that my kids have never really been very good at. Trying to get them back into a reasonable schedule for school is not an easy task, it never has been. Camille definitely struggles the most with it, but overall it is just hard on all three of them. This year, Quentin started 3rd grade and Camille started 1st...can that be right?? Man, they are just growing up so fast! So far, they are both very happy with school. They have always enjoyed school and I hope that is something that will never change. School actually seems to have become the constant in their life that grounds them when everything else in life is too much to handle. I really hate that because I so badly want that constant to be me, but with the turn that our life has taken, I have accepted it. And really, there are worse things...right? My time will come, but right now I think that they associate me with some of the bad stuff that has happened to them and so I can't be that constant. Not that they ONLY associate me with the bad stuff, but I am a part of it.

Bad stuff, oh yes, the bad stuff. That stuff that never seems to go away...all of the drama. I am so sick of it! So, another thing that has always made this time of year difficult for my kids is the fact that it marks the beginning of the football season. For them, this means the disappearance of their father. This is not something that they handle very well. Each year I think that it will get a little easier, but it never really does. In fact, since He left, it actually seems to have gotten worse. Last year was the first summer that He was gone and although he didn't see them much, he did manage to make time for them here and there during training camp. Some days he might pick them up for a quick lunch and other days he might have a couple of free hours that he would spend with them. This year, however, they didn't see Him at all. In fact, between the first of the month when we left for our vacation and the 23rd, the kids saw their dad ONE time. That was when he came to walk them to school for their first day. Once, that's it. For me this was a nice break, but it also meant a constant fielding of the "when will I see my daddy" questions...to which I have no answer. When we were married and the kids had these questions, I always had an answer for them. I was very good at making excuses for Him and making them think that it was okay for their daddy to be gone all the time. But I am not his wife anymore and that is not my responsibility. So I did not talk to Him during this time and I decided that this is something that he will need to figure out on his own and if he fails, then so be it. This all came to an end, however, after Quentin came to me one night with a letter. A letter to me with instructions telling me to read and practice the words that he had written before the next time that they saw their dad. According to this letter, I was supposed to ask my ex to marry me again and then proceed to kiss him and hug him. What ensued after the reading of my letter very much resembled that night that I remember so well when I first told Quentin and the girls that their dad was not going to live with us anymore. There were a lot of questions, a lot of begging, a lot of explaining, and a lot of crying. I was totally caught off guard and I knew that this would also mean that I was going to have to finally say something to Him about his absence. And what did this mean for me? Yep, more drama.

The following day we had a conversation. Not a friendly one, but effective none the less. Sometimes people just need to be told when they are failing miserably at something, even though it isn't what they want to hear. I left the conversation feeling very satisfied. I just can't speak enough to the importance of speaking your mind and standing up for yourself. The feeling of empowerment that that gives me is part of what gets me through all of this mess. But still I wonder, will it ever end? Will there ever come a day when we can live a "normal" life without all of this drama? I certainly hope so. I long for that day and rely on the belief that it will come to get me through.

Some Water Park Fun...



Quentin and Camille's First Day of School...

We Are Family

Well, it has been a total whirlwind since we arrived home from our vacation. I have been wanting to blog, but just have not been able to find the time. And by the time I do, I can't find the energy. It is enough to make me wish that we were still on vacation!!

Since returning from our trip, I have found myself doing a lot of reflecting. Thinking about family and its many meanings. What a family looks like and what makes a family a family. There are many definitions for the word and not one of them is similar in any way, but when it comes down to it, I guess that is the best thing about family. A family has no boundaries and cannot be easily defined by a bloodline. I feel blessed that my kids had the opportunity to see this first-hand during our vacation and, more than that, they recognized it.

My kids have always been very aware of different skin colors. I don't know if this is normal for children who grow up in a bi-racial family, but it has always been normal for us. Daddy is dark brown and they are light brown and Mommy is white. Because this is something that they have always seemed intrigued by, I have embraced it and have always tried to use it as a teaching tool. So, it was no surprise to me when the kids pointed out, more than once, that I didn't "fit in" while we were in Louisiana. These moments made for great conversations between us and by the end of our time in Louisiana, the kids began pointing out moments that we shared that made them feel like we were a part of the family instead. The family that we now affectionately refer to as our "Louisiana Family". By the end of our vacation, the kids were explaining to me the fact that skin color has nothing to do with being a family. They could actually SEE the love that this family had for us, making them feel like we belonged regardless of our differences and the fact that we aren't even related. I loved watching this evolution of understanding for them.

When all was said and done, our vacation was a complete success. I couldn't have asked for more. The kids did great in the car throughout our combined 30 hours of driving, which means that the fighting was kept to a minimum and so was my yelling (yes, I am a yeller). This trip was exactly what we needed. A break from the norm and time for us to connect as a family. I think it is safe to say that a good time was had by all of us. We had fun, were surrounded by family, and learned a little along the way. So what is a family? A family is love.

"The love of a family is life's greatest blessing."-anonymous

___Quentin begins his NFL stadium tour at Cowboy's Stadium__

_____________Fort Worth Texas Stockyards_____________

_______Stadium Stop #2...The Superdome in New Orleans_____

_______________New Orleans with the Family____________

___________________Jackie and the Kids________________