Life as I know it

Most of this is stolen/paraphrased from emails I've sent to XH and N today… but I love it all so much that I figured this would be a good place to permanently record it.

 

The other night on the way home I had this conversation with BB:

BB: Mommy, I have good idea. I'm going to watch Thomas the Train while you make supper!

Me: No, honey. Supper won't take very long to make and besides, we don't watch TV on weeknights.

BB: NO MOMMY! IT'S NOT A BAD IDEA! IT'S A GOOD IDEA!

Me: I didn't say it was a bad idea, honey. I'm just saying that you're not watching TV.

 

Last night at bedtime BB was playing with BG's toy boat in the tub. He had it on the side of the tub and was splashing everywhere, and was crowding me while I was trying to bathe BG. I asked him to back off a few times and he didn't listen. Finally I lost my temper, grabbed the boat and threw it across the bathroom. He instantly started bawling. I mean BAWLING. And in between his sobs, he told me that I hurt his feelings. :( GAH. I felt like a piece of POOP. After his bath, as I was drying him off, I gave him a kiss. He said, "That made my feelings feel good." And then he went off to play with LWD. He came back into the bathroom as I was dressing BG and said, "LWD didn't hurt my feelings!" Apparently he's becoming very self-aware. That's my boy. :)

 

K & A gave BB a book called "Melvin Might" for his birthday. (It kind of sounds like "Melsha My" when he says the name of the book.) It's about Cement Mixer Melvin, and his friends Rescue Rita (an ambulance), Payloader Pete, and Jack Truck. Melvin worries about everything. A bridge is being built, but it isn't finished yet. Payloader Pete & Jack Truck decided to jump over the ravine-esque hole that the bridge is being built over. Melvin worries that he won't be able to make the jump, so he doesn't try. Rescue Rita tries to make the jump and falls in. Long story short, Melvin faces his fears and rescues Rita, saying "I can try!" the whole time.

 

BB LOVES this story. We've read it every night at bedtime since his birthday party. He sleeps with it every night and reads it at night as he's going to sleep and when he wakes up in the morning. Last night after BG went to bed, BB was lying on the couch reading it while I did some chores. And no word of a lie, he was READING IT. Word for word. In his sweet little voice, the words rolling off his tongue. I snuck up behind him to determine if what I thought I was hearing was really true, and yep, sure enough, he was saying all the words to the story. Obviously he wasn't actually reading the book, but he does have the entire thing memorized. A few times he actually pointed at the words while he was saying them. N came over for a visit a short while later and he read it to her as well.

 

After he read it the first time I said to him, "BB, I'm so proud of you!" And he responds with, "I'm proud of you too, Mommy!"

 

As I mentioned earlier this week, MB was away for work this week… his original plan had been to either come home last night after he finished work, or to wait and drive home today. He got sick on Monday, so Tuesday night he told me he was definitely waiting until today to come home, because he didn't want to be up all night driving while he felt so bad. Last night I worked around the house unpacking, etc. until about 11:30... at that point I was practically falling asleep on my feet. I still hadn't heard from him, so I figured he was out with some work people. I emailed him and asked him to call whenever he got back to the hotel, went to bed and instantly passed out. At 1:30, LWD started ruffing next to me in bed. I told him to be quiet. This went on for a few minutes. Then I heard footsteps upstairs and LWD flew off the bed and ran to the stairs barking his head off. I was freaking thinking that either a raccoon had somehow gotten into the house or that BB had gotten out of bed and was roaming around. I got up to check on things and when I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw that the kitchen light was on... I completely was panicking; knowing that neither BB nor a raccoon could reach the light switch, it HAD to be that someone had broken into the house. I was like, "Helloooo?" as I was going up the stairs... thinking that I should have brought along a weapon with me. (I have no idea what I would have used as a weapon though!) When I got to the top (and once I was brave enough to look), there was MB standing in the kitchen! :) No word of a lie, it never once occurred to me that it could be that he had come home early! Once I realized it was MB and that everything was fine, my whole body started shaking. I had seriously been freaking out. Definitely a good surprise though. Sooo in love. :)

 

Co-habitation

MB "officially" moved in last weekend. By officially, I mean we emptied out his house and moved it all into my house. I'm excited and feeling positive about the future we are working on building together. He had been at my house pretty much non-stop for a few weeks prior to the "official" move.

What has changed since the move? I feel like I have a real family for the first time ever. Not that XH, BB and I weren't a family, but it didn't have this feeling. The other thing that has changed is that for the first time since I've had my own place, my house feels like a home.

There are a lot of adjustments… I've never tried so hard at a relationship. Once upon a time I would have said that you shouldn't have to try at a relationship, but I feel differently now. Children throw a whole new dynamic into the whole thing. Compromises need to be made on everything from parenting styles to TV watching to the type of food we eat. Butter vs. margarine has become a debate that we joke about but yet it feels like we're both a bit sensitive about it.

Even though I know better, I have moments where I feel like I'm the one making all of the compromises, but then there's mornings like today and I'm reminded that no, he's making big ones too. The alarm went off at 6:00. I hit snooze at and it went off again at 6:09. I had to shower, get the kids up, dressed, and fed, make my lunch and be out the door in an hour. I told MB that we had to get up right away because we slept in later than we should have. He asked for just 15 minutes more of sleep because he had been awake since after 4:00… The baby monitor and my phone had kept him awake. (I forgot to turn off my phone last night and my mother was commenting on my FB pictures in the night and my phone kept notifying me of her comments.) Normally I would tell him to go ahead and stay in bed, but there was no way I would make it make it to work on time without his help, so I told him no, I needed him to get up. He seemed shocked and upset. It's hard to blame him since he has an all-day drive ahead of him today and being tired for it wouldn't be good. So when I saw he was upset, I told him fine, stay in bed, I'll just be late for work (if you know me, you'll know what a HUGE deal that would be. I've worked here for 13 years and I've probably only been late twice.) He said no, that he would get up. I headed upstairs to get the kids up and dressed, expecting that he probably would fall back to sleep and I really would be late for work. But no, by the time I had them dressed he was up and working on breakfast for me in the kitchen. He's used to sleeping in and getting up when he's rested… not being slammed into reality at 6am. In my world, it doesn't matter if I didn't sleep at all that night. If the kids are up, I need to be up. End of story. Throw work into the mix (I can't just walk in whenever I feel like it and make up the time later – that isn't type of culture we have) and I really have no choice but to get up and get moving.

He does so much for us… he prepares most of our meals. Even though he's going to be away this week, he prepared extra food last night for us to eat this week while he is away. I'm not used to having someone take care of me like this. He has encouraged me to strengthen my relationship with my parents… It had really deteriorated over the past few years. The past two weekends that I've had the kids, we've spent time with them on both days. I get a day to either sleep in or take a nap on the weekends that we have the kids. This is something I've never had before. Sure, I haven't really taken advantage of it, but that's my own fault. :) He will stay with the kids so I can run errands, and he's even become okay with changing BG's diaper so I can be away for longer. I can rely on him. He's there when I need him to be. This is huge.

BB & BG have really bonded with him – BG especially. This makes making it work seem even more important. I do not want to be the mother who brings men in and out of her children's lives. I can see now how easily it happens… everything is justified. You try to be positive that this one is the one.

I'm a bit sad that I won't have the same bond with MB's son. He's older than my kids, so it's too late to really form any sort of a parental bond with him. I'm finding it hard to get close to him, even though I desperately want to develop a connection with him. I don't want to push it though, so I kind of hang back… try to take opportunities when they arise. Sometimes I need a push from MB… a reminder that I need to try. MB claims that his son really likes me. I hope it's true. On the weekends that we have kids, we have all three of the kids. This past weekend though, we only had mine as his guy is away with his mom. It felt so weird not having him around… I really missed him. I think that's a good sign.

We're living in a period of adjustment right now. We're trying to get his stuff unpacked and our house settled. We're looking at having renovations done so that he and I have a proper bedroom and family room. We're learning and building a new life together. This is huge.