My Little (Evil) Princess

I wanted to write this post yesterday, but sadly life got in the way. Not in a bad way, it was a good day, but still I find it frustrating when I can’t accomplish all I planned because of unplanned events.

But on to the topic at hand, my younger child turned two yesterday. Such a sad moment, because in my mind you can still call them babies until they are no longer one. I guess I can’t call her my baby anymore.

KJ is the polar opposite of BB. She’s social, uninterested (for the most part) in technology, mischevious, and daring. She can be a terrible handful, and she’s scarily manipulative for her young age. She’s got that gift where she gets away with so much by being adorable and giving those sweet/devilish little grins.

Before she came along, and got old enough to get into things, our childproofing was minimal. BB is such a rule follower and he has anxiety problems so he strives to never do anything wrong. I can feel completely comfortable with dozing off and letting him play safely. I know I can trust him. Then I got this little girl who was so different and it came as a shock. She has an obsession with knives, she will make a horrid mess of anything she can get her hands on, and she will climb anything and everything to explore. Making sure that things are out of her reach has become a major priority in our house.

Originally I had wanted to have another child right after her, but she was such a handful that we realized we weren’t ready to add another. In addition to her intense personality, she also dealt with severe acid reflux and related respiratory issues as a child. She couldn’t put on weight and stayed at 12 pounds for most of her first year of life. Now she’s double that and a lot healthier, but it’s definitely made us realize that parenting is not always going to be the easy ride it was when we had BB. So for now we have two, and it’s really the perfect setup for us. Our quiet little BB and crazy little KJ give us experience in every kind of parenting challenge between the two of them.

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Calming Family Days

It’s days like these that constantly make me rethink my divorce considerations. They are the reason I think we could be okay (with a lot of work). Getting home from work to find that everyone is in a pretty good mood is unfortunately more rare than it should be, but when it happens it’s wonderful.

He’s been doing laundry all day, the kitchen isn’t trashed, and we happily worked together to get the yard cleaned up and mowed. Now he’s cooking pasta for dinner and the kids are being (mostly) well behaved. Nice relaxing nights like this are what I live for. They are a perfect picture of the family life I dreamed of when I decided that being a wife and mom was my future.

Now I know things can’t always be picture perfect. I know some days are going to be harder than others. I’ve been home with the kids all day by myself before too, I know it’s not always easy. The thing is regardless of how hard it is you should always try for the best. The effort unfortunately isn’t always there.

I feel wrong even writing anything bad right now, that’s how nice things are when everything’s going well. But the truth is that there’s just a high percentage of nights that go differently. Where I get home from work and he’s already left to go hang with friends or he’s about to leave. I’m tired from being at work for the past nine or ten hours, and he’s out the door leaving me to take care of every responsibility for the night, in addition to cleaning up after the messes they’ve made all day. And sometimes this’ll happen several days in a row until I feel like I’m about to snap with anger and frustration.

When I confront him and try to express my feelings on the situation he’ll get defensive and mean. He’ll say ugly things and it just won’t get anywhere productive.

Nothing’s wrong with going and hanging out with friends, having some guy time is important, definitely. But if you haven’t taken care of your responsibilities to your family first, then it becomes unfair in my opinion.

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Rich and Famous

When I was ten, basically I wanted to be Britney Spears. Well maybe not quite when I was ten, when I was ten I don’t think I had a clue what I wanted to be just yet. By the time I was twelve though, I definitely wanted to be an entertainer. Singing, dancing, rich, famous, celebrity, the whole package. I was a pretty big attention seeker, and the idea of being on stage performing and being a celebrity in general really was appealing to me. It helped that I was actually good at singing and dancing.

I actually worked hard towards that goal, perfected my skills and recorded a little demo with some cover songs. Then I met my first husband, fell head over heels in love and all of a sudden decided that I wanted to be a mom and a wife instead. Crazy hectic celebrity life didn’t seem so cool anymore.

Now at 25 I know that some of the aspects of the original career were things that I would always want. I need to be busy, and I need to be successful. Would I still love to have had that entertainment career? Yes, but I am happy with the road I ended up on, even though it’s drastically different.

I’m a bookkeeper for a medical billing company. Basically I handle incoming payments to doctors and hospitals, recording them to the patient accounts and making sure the numbers balance properly and I love it. I love numbers in that wierd way successful accounting professionals do, and I like having a ‘regular’ kind of job that lets me easily schedule time to be with my family. I do work a lot, often on Saturdays and long days during the week as well. It’s nice that I can be the workaholic I want to be, but it’s not insane like it would be if I were say, touring the world or something.

It’s probably a really good thing I didn’t become like Britney Spears anyway, you know?

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Mommy of a Four Year Old

Nothing in my life makes me feel like I’m getting old better than my kids. I thought I was tech savvy, I even have a little degree in InfoTech, but no. My little man, my BB, knows better than I do in a lot of ways, and today he turns four years old.

I noticed BB had a talent for electronics when he was around 18 months old. He would steal my Android smartphone and use it, competently. I’m not just saying this because I’m a proud mommy either, and I know lots of kids nowadays are good with the touchscreens and all but he was on a whole new level. He knew what he was doing, no joke.

So at age two I started letting him use my computer, it was an old desktop that I knew I’d need to replace soon anyway so I figured no big deal if he screwed it up right? Well he didn’t screw it up. In fact he learned how to use it so well that he amazed me and everyone one else who saw him use it. Daddy only had to show him how to drag and drop with the mouse once and he had it down. He learned all by himself how to create icons for his favorite games on the desktop. (And then he did this at Granny’s house on her computer when he realized that she was lacking an icon for Google Chrome.) He learned how to go to Youtube and watch My Little Pony videos despite not being able to read or spell. I’m really not sure how he did all this, but he could do it.

So I bought myself a new laptop, since he was completely monopolizing the desktop and I couldn’t do anything on it. No, I do not limit his computer time. He is brilliant on the machines, and he is learning well beyond his years on them so unless there is planned family activities I let him have free reign. He is on it a lot but he does honestly get tired of it and play with his little sister or his aunt or his toys for a decent amount of time each day.

After awhile the desktop wasn’t enough for him either. The technology was too outdated, and so he couldn’t do all the things he wanted to on it. So for Christmas last year he got a new Acer laptop. Nothing expensive, just one of the cheapest models, but he is now the only person in the house who is compentent with Windows 8 because of it. He is learning how to type and spell words thanks to his laptop, and he’s reading a little. I wonder if it’ll be common for kids in this era to have their first words that they read be things like “YouTube” because I’m pretty sure that was one of the first five or so words he recognized.

The first thing I ever read was “Are You My Mother”. Benji’s heard the story, but his version was narrated to him on the Nook with the book’s pictures cutely animated and little interactive games interjected throughout. Oh well, at least my daughter likes good old fashioned books made out of trees.

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He Gave Me a Donut

And that just about sums up what’s wrong with our relationship. Let me give you the backstory.

So three months ago I had surgery to correct a pinched nerve in my neck. I was out of work for seven weeks recovering and in bed for a lot of that. In addition to already being overweight I put on even more weight during that time.

So I went on a diet about two weeks ago. It’s been going great. Then he comes in with the donuts last night. Now that alone not too big a deal, I can always turn it down right? But then he acts kind of offended when I don’t really want it and all so i just take it.

I know it’s just one donut and it’s not going to kill me or my diet, but the point is that there are these moments a lot of the time. When I feel like he’s not necessarily backing me up and helping me out and respecting what I’m trying to do. Alternatively sometimes he’s also the most awesome husband you could imagine and he’d bend over backwards for me so what do I know.

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Wedding Obsession

So I have a huge obsession with weddings. Seriously, huge.

On my Pinterest I have boards full of inspiration for different styles of weddings, and I saved literally thousands of wedding images to my computer just in case I ever need them. (Why though?!) I want to get married again one day, and if I don’t have the opportunity then I want to have a full wedding for a vow renewal ceremony. I think when I’m really old and retired from my career I’ll probably want to work as a wedding planner.

Now I’ve been married twice, and my first wedding was definitely the better of the two, mostly because I had more money into it. Money really does wonders when it comes to a wedding. One thing I’ve learned though, while getting completely obsessed with wedding planning, is that there are lots of fantastic DIY alternatives. The key is that if you are going the DIY route, don’t do it all yourself, and don’t set it up on the day of the wedding even if that means you have to force your cousins to do it. You won’t feel like a bride if you do, and you might regret it. Don’t underestimate the importance the time before the wedding when you should be relaxing, getting pretty, and spending time with the girls in your life. Having that time was one of the biggest reasons my first wedding was better than my second.

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Decisions

Hard times lately with me and my husband. I don’t know if I’ve changed, or he’s changed. Maybe it’s just because the whole family dynamic has changed. Either way I have to admit I’m not so sure we can last to our old age anymore. Hell I can’t see us lasting five more years to be honest.

His friends are losers. I disagree with his priorities. I actually think our family should show some class and he… well he doesn’t.

Here’s what he’d say if I told him this. He’d say something about how I’m stuck up, have my nose in the air, etc…  He’s said things like this before when we would argue about issues regarding class and conduct. Sadly I think I married the wrong guy.

Looking towards the future I can’t see him acting properly as the family man and husband he needs to be. A husband I can’t bring to business functions or social gatherings, what’s the point? Then I keep thinking that I should wait it out, maybe he is capable of shaping up. How will I know? Will I have to be horribly embarassed to find out he can’t? There have already been minor embarassments, and I’ve actually wanted to unfriend my own husband on Facebook because of how he presents himself on the site.

We have two little kids and I don’t want to quit, but I also want what’s best for my family. I do love him, but I don’t love us as a family anymore. I’m going to have to decide soon.

image source: http://mimiandeunice.com

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