Momma Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Douche Bags

A couple of weeks ago, when walking Cooper to school, hubby happened upon a wallet that had been dropped in the street.  Inspecting the contents, we figured that it belonged to a student at the high school up the street - driver's license, social security card, $300 worth of gift cards to various stores and restaurants*, a few senior pictures, and no cash.  There was no phone number anywhere in the wallet, but thanks to the power of Google, hubby was quickly able to find one that matched his last name and his address.  Being that it was the middle of the day, hubby didn't expect anyone to answer when he called, and figured that he would just leave a message.  Instead, the phone was answered by someone who identified himself as the wallet owner's brother:

Hubby:  I found your brother's wallet in the street in front of our house.

Brother:  Ummm . . . okay.

Hubby:  I would like to get it back to him.

Brother:  Ummm . . . okay.

Hubby:  Could I give you my name and number so that he can give me a call.

Brother:  Ummm . . . okay.

By the time hubby got off of the phone, he had a contact high from whatever the brother was smoking.  Nearly 24-hours later, we still had not heard anything from the wallet's owner.  Cooper was at school and the weather was gorgeous, so I loaded the girls in the jogger and took them on a long walk, swinging by the high school on our way back to drop the wallet off in the security office.  (That last sentence is another blog post all together - (1) because it has been awhile since I was in high school and (2) because said high school is the high school I graduated from . . . and the high school my kids will go to if we stay in our current home for the next 10+ years.  Yikes.)

At 9:00 that night, the phone rang.

Me:  Why the hell are you calling my house at 9:00 at night?!  Don't you know I have children who are sleeping?!  Hello?

Caller:  Ummm . . . this is Tyler F*****.  Ummm . . . my brother said you found my wallet.

Me (over the sound of Maren and Briar, both of whom were not pleased with having been woken up):  Oh, yes.  I dropped it off in the security office at the high school late this afternoon.  They said they would get it to you tomorrow.

Wallet Owner:  Ummm . . . okay.  *Click*

That was it.  Not a single thank you or even the slightest bit of relief expressed over knowing that his wallet was safe.  I certainly wasn't expecting a reward, but I thought for sure I would at least get a thank you!  Note to self:  continue to harp on children about the importance of politeness and manners in the hopes that they don't grow up to be little stoned-out douche bags.

*The wallet was fairly close to a house that seems to boast a steady stream of random cars and people.  Hubby figures the gift cards are his parents' way of giving him 'cash' without actually giving him money which he would probably just use to buy pot.  (Leave it to a former cop to figure that one out!)

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Sunday Snapshots: The Christmas Card Edition

I mentioned earlier in the week that I was on a mission to get a picture of all 3 kiddos together - smiling AND looking at the camera - to include in our annual holiday card and letter.  In the past, I have always stuck to ordering a photo card from Costco, which, while nice and inexpensive, didn't offer much in the way of variety - most notably, lacking the collage style that many of you mentioned.  A few clicks of the mouse later, I determined that the collage is truly the way to go, and have decided that the extra cost of ordering from an online provider is well worth the cost of my Type A sanity.

This morning I set out to get a nice picture of each child, and was able to capture the following:

Pleased with my success, I decided to go-for-broke, and give a shot of all 3 of them a try.  Color me SHOCKED that I was able to capture these:

Cooper is looking just a tad goofy in both pictures, but that is so much his personality that I am going to call it a win.  While I am a bit ashamed to admit that there was some bribery, some promises of a movie, and some yelling redirection in a firm voice, I am delighted to report that there were no tears (or alcohol!)  Well, other than the ones of joy I shed at having accomplished the impossible.

I am tempted to say that next year I will go all out and get them matching outfits, but I suspect that would require me to start trying to get the coveted shot in June.

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Friday Night Leftovers

I'm participating in Friday Night Leftovers courtesy of Sippy Cups Are Not For Starbucks

♥  Cooper and Maren got a clean bill of health from the dentist this afternoon, though we were told that both need to floss on a more regular basis.  One more thing I'll put on my To Do list.

♥  I caved and did a little holiday shopping this afternoon.  Cooper's school hosted a bookfair at the local bookstore, and 10% of any purchases made went to the school - I couldn't pass up the opportunity to give a little more to the school.  Pewb Mom was there on behalf of the PTO . . . hubby and I couldn't look each other in the eye without bursting into laughter.

♥  Dude.  Thanksgiving is next week.  Can someone tell me where November went?!

♥  In an obviously insane effort to get all 3 of my children to look in my general vicinity and smile AT THE SAME TIME so I can get a picture for our annual holiday card, I have started lining them up each morning and taking no less than 20 pictures.  Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' like a shot of Cooper squinting, Briar picking Maren's nose and Maren crying, right?  Note to self:  learn how to photoshop.

♥  My heart nearly exploded out of my chest earlier this week when I saw this:

I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to have my little family of 5 sitting at the kitchen table together!  (She doesn't sit up well enough to eat in the booster seat, but she sure got a kick out of sitting at the table with Mommy, Daddy, and the big kids and banging her teething ring on it!)

♥  Santa Claus lives across the street from me:

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Thought For Thursday: Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

One of the hardest things about becoming a mother was the way that it changed my relationships with other people.  More specifically, the way it changed my relationships with both my family and my husband's family.  The day I became 'Mommy' my mother and mother-in-law became 'Grandma', my father and father-in-law became 'Grandpa', and my sister and sister-in-law because 'Aunt A. and Aunt L.'  And then the real trouble began.

Shortly after Cooper was born, hubby and I were told by a member of his family that they did not agree with the way we were raising him, and that by not catering to every request made by his parents related to Cooper, we were destroying their dreams of being grandparents.  Umm . . . what?!  As irritating as I find it, I can overlook the opinions of others when it comes to how we choose to raise our kids - I am a breastfeeding, co-sleeping, babywearing, schedule keeping mom who has her own opinions about what is good and bad when it comes to little ones, and I know that they aren't for everyone.  What I cannot gloss over is the implication that anyone in my family or my husband's family is entitled to their position as a grandparent or an aunt.  As far as I am concerned, those titles are a bonus to hubby and I deciding to procreate, and I don't think they give anyone any more claim or stake in our lives than someone who isn't related to us by blood - my children have lots of 'Aunties' and 'Uncles' whom they see on a regular basis, who know them quite well, and who I would feel completely comfortable leaving them with.

So tell me this . . . is blood thicker than water?  Do your parents/sisters/brothers have a greater claim to your children than the people who are their 'Aunties' and 'Uncles'?  Whom do your children have better relationships with?  And were something to happen to you or your spouse, would you name a guardian outside of your family for your children?

(For the record:  I do not disillusion myself with the belief that I am an aunt despite the fact that my sister-in-law has a child.  I do not have a relationship with her little boy (which stands to reason since I don't have a relationship with her), and in conversation generally refer to him as "my sister-in-law's son".  That being said, I do fill the roll of 'auntie' to several of my friends' children . . . children whom I know and see on a regular basis and who I feel I have a connection to and with.)

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At Least The Turnip Has Nutritional Value

This past Monday was my first meeting with a therapist.  Knowing that I would create any excuse find a reason to cancel if I didn't get in quickly, I opted to meet with a student intern.  I point this out only because it speaks to the severity of my desperation to vomit my emotional guts out all over anyone who will listen - I am that bitch-of-a-woman who, after spending several years surrounded by medical students, interns, and residents, will only allow myself and my children to be seen by an attending physician.  The intern was quite nice, though clearly much younger, unmarried, and childless, and while it was hard, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and dove in headfirst.

Forty-eight hours later, I have to admit that I am feeling pretty ambivalent about my visit.  The exception being what I put out into the blogosphere, I am not one to spew my heart and soul out to anyone, let alone a complete stranger.  But spew I did.  You name it, we talked about it.  Me, hubby, my parents, his parents, my sister, his sister, his job, my life as a stay-at-home-mom, the kids, Quinn . . . I don't think there was a single component of my life that we didn't touch on - if only to get some background.  And yet, I don't feel like anything has changed.  Naively, I was hoping that I would walk out of there feeling lighter; less burdened by the things that are bothering me and ready to tackle it all.  Instead, I left with more questions, more uncertainties, and feeling mentally and physically drained.  None of what I am going to her for is going to be a 'quick-fix'.

The upside to all of this is the realization and clarity that has materialized in front of me.  By the time I made it to the mental health office on Monday, it was like a hundred lightbulbs had been turned on above my head, illuminating a healthy list of 'issues':

•  I have the self-esteem of a turnip.  While I know that everything that I do on a daily basis is important to my husband and my children, I have assigned no value whatsoever to myself as a person; I feel like I could be replaced by a babysitter, a maid, a laundress, an accountant, a chef, a chauffeur, etc., and no one would know the difference.

•  I have learned to minimalize everything that happens in my life - both good and bad - as past experiences have taught my time and time again that the people in my real life will always find a way to have it better or worse, and if they can't, they will find a way to instead draw every ounce of attention to themselves.  It took me a wedding and the birth of my first two children to figure this out, and Quinn's birth and death just solidified it.  Yeah for the entitled narsacism of family and (former) friends!

•  I have some fairly significant trust issues - though not without good reason.  I have gone so far as to Google "How do I help people earn my trust back" and have still not come up with an answer for this one.

•  I never allowed myself to grieve the loss of Quinn in a productive and healing manner.  Consequently, I seem to have what can only be likened to post-traumatic stress disorder . . . I have flashbacks, moments of intense and uncontrollable anger, and have aversions and try to avoid anything that reminds me of that time period.

•  There is a rather large discordance between what I say that I am entitled to and what I actually believe that I am entitled to.  So much so, that I do nothing to get what I deserve (ie., I don't put my foot down and demand time to myself after hubby has gone to get his haircut, gone to the gym, run a couple errands, and treated himself to lunch.)

•  I allow myself to be treated like a human doormat to avoid conflict and confrontation.  Rather than stand up and say no when I am asked (or expected, in some cases) to do something, I bend over backwards to complete the task, frequently putting my own needs last to accommodate the request.  More than once in the past my decision to look out for myself (or my children) has been written off as me being a bitch who is going out of my way to make others miserable or to deprive them of something that is rightfully theirs (my in-laws 'inviting' themselves to our house every weekend for the first 7 weekends of Cooper's life is a classic example of this . . . guess what happened when I put my foot down on the 8th weekend?  Adult temper tantrums are so not cute.)

My next appointment is the Monday after Thanksgiving - it appears I have a lot of work to do.

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Friday Night Leftovers

I am participating in Friday Night Leftovers courtesy of Sippy Cups Are Not For Starbucks

♥  Thank you all for your kind words and comments on this post.  The more I think about it, the more I think that it is not that the Zoloft isn't working for me, it's that I am finally ready to face (and fix) some issues that are not related to a chemical imbalance in my brain.

♥  Briar has started getting up on her hands and knees this week, and is throwing in a little rocking back-and-forth for good measure . . . I think I am going to have a crawler by Christmas!

♥  When told earlier this week that he needed to eat his vegetables to grow, Cooper informed me that he did not want to grow and that he wants to stay 4!  God help me.

♥  It is November 12th, and I have yet to hear any holiday music on the radio - the local adult contemporary station has usually started their 24-hour/day holiday rotation by now . . . does this mean the only place I am going to have the holidays shoved down my throat is the mall?!

♥  We are hosting a small open house tomorrow afternoon.  It will be nice to visit and see people, but I am really looking forward more to the leftover food.  Does that make me anti-social?

(It's not too late to get in on Friday Night Leftovers!  Head over to Sippy Cups Are Not For Starbucks to grab yourself a button and hook-up with Mr. Linky.)

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