Frantic in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of HAPPINESS

I was just sitting here telling my boyfriend that I HAVE to write because I just feel so overwhelmed with information I’m holding onto. That was the WHOLE reason behind me ever starting out on Open Diary. I used it as my outlet for all of the STUFF that happens every day no matter how unimportant it was. Once I stopped writing every single day, I truly can see that I started to suffer mentally. Anyway, I guess that I’m getting at the fact that I am making a vow to start writing more. It doesn’t matter if something BIG happened or if my day was just BLAH!

On another note, this is my kids’ first week home since being at my moms for 2 WEEKS! EEK! Yep, it turned into 2 weeks because after 1 week, the kids still did not want to come home. My mom was in heaven having her youngest grandbabies with her. I swear, I called them every single day. The 1st week was the hardest! It made really question WHO I AM without my kids. I had this same issue for Spring Break, when I took a few days to myself and traveled solo. I am so used to doing things with my kids, that I don’t even know what I like to do outside of kids activities. While they were gone all that I could think about were the zoo, going to splash parks, shopping for clothes and toys for them, going swimming with them, going to endless kids events. I had the perfect opportunity to relax but instead, I sat around trying to figure out what it was that I even wanted to do. My boyfriend and I went out for dinner or lunch dates MANY times. We went shopping several times, I had lots of Margaritas and various Mikes Hard Lemonades. We smoked a lot of weed. We sat outside and people watched. We watched movies. Had LOTS of sex. Went for drives across town just because. I listened to Podcasts and even read an entire book. The second week was easier, but I was definitely ready for my babies to come home. The beginning of my kids being gone, it was truly rough between my boyfriend and I at certain points, but I think it was good for he and I to have had that time alone. I wouldn’t have had the time to talk through our issues the way that we did if the kids had been here. I really feel like I was able to make him HEAR me for once. Not only did he hear me, but I’ve noticed some significant changes. Mainly his acknowledgement to the fact that he is seeing things from my perspective. For example, just a few minutes ago when I was starting this entry, I asked my boyfriend to go and tell the kids to calm down (it’s 10pm they’re in bed, but it sounds like they’re hanging from the ceiling fan running around the walls with their feet! LOL. So he comes back and tells me they’re not being that wild. Then he said “I’m sorry for making you feel like you have to overreact to what they do, for me”. Because that’s one of the things that I felt. Like his patience had been so short that I react sooner to what the kids are doing in order to keep from hearing him bitching about it. My point is just that, those simple acknowledgements are definitely something he lacked before. I’m FINALLY being given the empathy that I deserved.

So anyway, I brought the kids home on Saturday, and we’ve been pretty low key. We’ve just been setting up the pool and swimming finally (Speaking of which, is there anyone that is knowledgeable in pool maintenance and chemicals? This is our first year having a pump and using chlorine, and I don’t know what I’m doing! I’ve tried google and youtube, and each site and each pool expert says different things. It’s like it’s own language, and I cannot follow. PLUS, my pool is a smaller pool, so sometimes the only instructions I can find are for larger inground pools.) I have my moments where I’m like “I’m so glad their home” and the next minute my son is chewing the buttons off of the remote and my daughter is giving me attitude. HAHA! We’ve been doing a lot of playing in the yard. My daughter decided to stay home with us instead of going to camp this week. To be honest, I am so proud of her. When she went to my moms she did not take her ADHD meds the ENTIRE time. I haven’t given them to her since she’s been home either. She truly has impressed me. I mean, but I’m also being sure to give her a little grace and intentionally be more patient. My son, is still on the potty training struggle bus! It’s just so hard because he truly has a disconnect especially when it comes to poop. He’ll take himself pee alllllllll day, but when it’s time to poop he’ll go in his underwear and then throw the underwear away, wipe his butt and go on about his day! He knows when he has to go and I have seen him take himself to go poop sometimes, but IF he has any bottoms on (pull up, underwear, swim trunks, shorts) then he’ll poop in that. If he’s completely bottomless, he’ll take himself to the potty. Anyone have any advice on this? It’s like a never ending battle! He’ll be 4 in October. Also, he has taken to chewing things! He chewed through 2 remotes and I found a remote battery chewed nearly open (I was so upset because if anything happened to my baby I couldn’t live with myself). It’s definitely something I might bring up with his doctor. My daughter is the same way, she chews on EVERYTHING (and her nails).

I’m going to wrap this entry up because marijuana makes me tired and I can barely keep my eyes open writing this. I PROMISE I WILL BE WRITING MORE FREQUENTLY! I’m actually excited about it.