Proud of my Son

Today we went to homeschool group and then stopped at a forest preserve to take a short hike and visit the nature center. Kiddo wanted to make a craft, so the nature center people kindly told us to help ourselves to the supplies. We had noticed some taxidermied animals in the nature center, and Kiddo asked if they had been shot. I told him I didn't think so; the animals had likely been found dead from natural causes. But he was very adamant and concerned that nobody shoot animals in the forest preserve. So for his craft, he made a diamond-shaped sign with a picture of a gun with the red circle-slash over it, and the words NO SHOOTING written on. He got permission to tape it up in the window of the nature center.

As he was taping up his sign, he told the nature-center lady, "Nobody should shoot at the animals, because they are defenseless." He said it in such a cute, matter-of-fact way.

I love it that he cares so much for animals, and even bugs. This evening he made a temporary cage for a lady bug so that it would not fly up in the ceiling fan and get hurt. What a sweetheart. I have heard it said that the true character of a man shows in the way he treats animals. That says a lot for my son.

My little boy is not so little any more.

Kiddo turned 7 Saturday. We had a wonderful ice-skating party at the local rink, where he takes hockey lessons. All his cousins were there and his coach even dropped in for cake and gave him a hat with the ice-rink logo on it. A wonderful time was had by all.

My mom, in her sneaky way, told his cousins to ask him if he wanted to sleep over that night. Well, hey, it's his birthday, so why not? Only after they left did I realize, the next day was Easter, and I would not be there for the Easter baskets. I missed getting the Easter Bunny picture this year, through my own stupidity and the fact that someone broke my car window and it took it all week to get repaired. And now I missed seeing him get his Easter Bunny basket, too.

Ted reminded me that it's not that big a deal, after all, it's not Christmas. Of course he's right, but still . . . . Kiddo is growing up so fast. Who knows if next year he will even believe in the Easter Bunny? Or Santa Claus, for that matter. It's only a matter of time. I felt as if I had something stolen from me.

Of course, it's not just this one incident that has got me all bent out of shape. A year ago, I would have been fine with this arrangement, because I would have felt that there were plenty more Bunny-enriched Easter mornings left for future years. Kiddo has matured so much in the past year of so. He is much less a little boy, and much more a young man. He thinks differently now, and he questions everything, and it is only a matter of time until he works out that the world is not quite as magical as we have let him believe.

Only a matter of time.

Sometimes I feel like I have started this long, slow countdown clock, ticking away the moments until the magic ends. Only, I don't know where the stopping point is. Unlike a kitchen timer, which will tell you the exact number of minutes or even seconds until your casserole is done, this timer never reveals its end point. I only know that, every time I make it though a major event like Christmas or Easter or a Lost Tooth, and it seems like Santa or the Bunny or the Tooth Fairies have survived, I breathe a sigh of relief and figure I still have time until the next event. Whenever I field a question like, "How exactly do reindeer fly?" I notice that the clock is ticking, and am reminded that it will one day run out.

That's one more reason to home school. It helps me maximize the childhood time, this magic time.

PS: My friend Heather at My Supernatural Life has a little girl who shares a birthday with my boy. Heather wrote the most lovely post in honor of her daughter Riley turning 5. Be sure to check her out.

Jessica Junior

We got the box of new Jessicas the other day. Ted took one with him this morning, and then brought it home, telling Kiddo that the Mexican Restaurant had called and said they had found her.

Oh, the joy! I wish we had videotaped it. First he cradled her in his hands, and said, "Jessica???" as if he really couldn't believe it. Then his whole face lit up as he clutched her to his chest. He danced around the house with her. He made up little songs for her. He was unbelievably ecstatic. He held her in his hands while we were reading, and of course he took her (and her dog) off to bed with him.

The new Jessica is cleaner and a brighter green than the last one, which he attributes alternately to someone at the restaurant cleaning her up, and her having a good bath at her home on the Forbidden Planet (like in the movie.) The new one also has a few beans in the stuffing, which he says are there because she ate them at the Mexican restaurant.

Thank God for the resilience of young imaginations!

A day in the life

Here is a bunch of unrelated news:
Ted has been having secret meetings with the children's librarian. She thinks her daughter has a duplicate Jessica at home. If all else fails, she will help us order a sack of 50 of them from the wholesaler.

Kiddo is dealing with the loss very quietly. When it became apparent that we were not going to find her, Ted had the presence of mind to say, "Wow. She must have found a space ship and flew away." And I picked up on it right away, saying, "Yeah, but I wish she could have said goodbye first." Kiddo cried a little bit for her, but he comforts himself by imagining her fabulous life on the Forbidden Planet. I suggested he get re-acquainted with some of his other furry "friends," so now he has half a dozen other stuffed critters he is dragging all around the house. We have talked a little about grief and loss, but nothing too heavy duty. I hope to God we can find a new Jessica soon.

Kiddo had his first hockey lesson at the local ice arena. No more saturday trips to Orland Park! Yea! The new coach is very nice and suggested we put kiddo in the Saturday morning class, so he can have more one-on-one instruction.

My brother-whatever Mike called today to tell me my mom had called HIM to say she was having some kind of fluid-retention issue in her leg, and had been to the doctor. I called her to ask what was happening and why she had called Mike but not me, and she refused to answer. She is still pissed at me for something from last November of December. I don't know specifically why she has her knickers in a twist, but that was about the time I started laying down boundaries.

Kiddo wants to spend Saturday night at her house. He is ASKING to go. That just happens to be my birthday. Ted and I will discuss it later.

We have been discussing what we want to do about managing Kiddo's relationship with my mom. This is so hard because it is impossible for me to be objective where she is concerned. Ted's big issue was with the bathing and her puerile interest in seeing Kiddo in the buff. I think we have that under control. Mom really does not like that I have forbidden her to bathe my son, but I think she also understands that if she wants to see him, she will have to play by my rules.

My huge issue with my mom is that I don't want my kid to come home with his self esteem torn to shreds, with no greater sense of himself than as an object for other people to use. But I had an epiphany the other day--MY kid won't ever feel like that, because I am raising him. Every single day, I treat my child like the loved and adored kid he is--and I also make the effort to discipline him, to teach him right from wrong, to correct him when he messes up, and so forth. A few hours with a slightly batty old lady isn't going to change that. Not ever.

Many of my friends have told me that he should spend absolutely no time alone with her, but for some reason that just does not ring true with me. (Those same friends also tell me to trust my gut, which I am). The thing is, Kiddo is very open and honest. I have talked to him a few times about the odd ways his grandmother acts and why she sometimes says the things she does. He seems comfortable with "That's just Grandma." I think he gets, as far as he is able, that Grandma and I have very different opinions. I have taught him that he should respect other people's right to have their own opinion, without actually accepting that opinion himself.

I think I'll go ponder that while I drift off to sleep.

Ta-da! The cake!

Goodbye, Jessica

We really did it this time. Kiddo took Jessica into a Mexican Restaurant, and when it was time to go, she was gone. It was a fast-food kind of place, where you order you food at the counter and then take a tray to your table. We searched everywhere, even pulling out the trash cans and poking around. We left a sketch of her and my phone number with the staff, but I don't have much hope. It's a sad night here in central Illinois.

How could we let this happen?

I want this as a poster . . .

To put on my front door:

I love Doonesbury. It's the only comic strip I read. And this just so suits me.

Talking to strawberries

Tomorrow is the Cub Scout Banquet, and there is a father-son cake decorating contest. the guys are making a 14-inch round cake, with a Chinese checker board for decoration. The cake is French Vanilla, with fresh strawberries in between the layers, and M&Ms for checkers. I am NOT allowed to help, only to supervise. So I am hanging out in the office, fooling around on the computer and trying to stay out of the way.



Here are some of the conversations:

Ted: Oh, shit! Help! Help! Oh, oh man! ERIN! Help! HELP! Erin, really, come out here! HELP ME NOW!
Me: What's wrong, honey?
Ted: Oh, man! There's a big f'ing hole in this cake!
Me: Where?
Ted: Oh, never mind, I'll just stuff some strawberries in it. And frosting! Look! Frosting fixes everything!
Me: Yeah, frosting is just like Spackle.


Ted: Fuck! Fuck! You little shit, you fucking piece of shit!
Me: Ted! Cut that out!
Ted: It's OK, I bet everybody swears at their cake.

Ted: Stupid strawberry! I'll fix you! (apparently he eats the strawberry.)
Kiddo: What happened to the strawberry?
Ted: It's being punished, in my stomach. That's what it gets for not co-operating.

The fun part is figuring out how to make the Chinese checker board. It's 2 overlapping equilateral triangles, like a star of David. So how do you make the equilateral triangles? Well, here's what does not work:

• You can't draw them freehand.
• You can't use the steel yardstick you have been using on your train layout.
• You can't stand there and cuss at them, hoping they will get their shit together and become a star.

What do you do? You turn to Mom, who understands how to apply A^2 + b^2 = c^2.

Then you decide Mom's paper pattern doesn't work, scrap everything, break out the steel yardstick, and try to draw the damn things freehand, while attempting to cuss the cake into submission.

So I can sleep tonight

I have to get this out, so I will be able to sleep tonight.

My mother does not love me.

It dawned on me earlier today, as I was driving to work. (And yes, I've been reading more about narcissism lately.) She really doesn't love me. She does not act the way a loving mother acts. She never has.

This is a weird feeling. In a way, it's sort of liberating. I mean, look, I'm not crazy. I always sort of knew this, but I didn't really accept it because, well, who wants to accept a shitty thing like, My mother does not love me. And then, she always said she loved me. And she did a lot of surface stuff that seemed like stuff a loving mother would do. And mothers are supposed to love their daughters, for goodness sake. Who would have ever thought that an ordinary suburban mother who quit work to raise an adopted child, would provide the child with a clean pretty house and clean pretty clothes and and private school, would somehow fail to provide the child with love? It just makes no sense.

But there it is. She used me for her own purposes. She showed me off, and showed off what a great mother she was, but she never loved me. I was just a thing to show off. A possession. An object. I always knew it, and now I have my evidence. Narcissists use people. It's just what they do. I always knew it, and I was not crazy or deluded or selfishly looking after my own issues. I knew it, and I was right.

In a way, its a good thing to know that not only am I not nuts, I am also not character disordered, ungrateful, or hateful. I am not deficient in any daughterly virtue. There is absolutely nothing I can do to change the fact. The woman does not love me. She never has, and never will. She is unable.

She is the one who is deficient, not I.

It's her problem, her issue, her shame. It is she who is the pathetic, lazy, cowardly, selfish individual living in a fantasy world, not I. I bust my ass in the real world, attempting to make as real and genuine a life as I humanly can. I am not deluded in thinking that I am an honest and genuine person. She is the deluded one, thinking she is better than everyone else.

So it's kind of liberating, knowing that I am not nuts and I am not wrong, and there really is nothing I can do to make her love me, so now I can stop trying.

And it's kind of sad, too, knowing that, no matter what I do, my mother will never really love me. So depressing to think that she has made such an emotional cripple of herself, she will never be able to love her own child. She will never feel for me what I feel for my son. There is nothing left to try, to hope, or to dream. Nothing.

You just can't get love out of an empty shell.

So this is what's happening

This struck me:

For one thing, narcissists don't abuse anyone they fear retribution from. They typically go to great lengths to make a lover totally dependent on them, financially and emotionaly, isolating the victim from his or her family and former friends before the narcissist's mask comes off and the abuse begins. Count on it: narcissists are brave enough to abuse only someone they already have over a barrel.

This explains why, the first time I raised my arm to protect myself, the hitting and slapping abuse stopped, and manipulation became her main tool.

The narcissist Sam Vaknin says the same, though in an abstract way:

I compared Narcissistic Supply to drugs because of the almost involuntary and always-unrestrained nature of the pursuit involved in securing it. ...The narcissist rates people around him according to whether they can provide him with Narcissistic Supply or not. As far as the narcissist is concerned, those who fail this simple test do not exist. They are two-dimensional cartoon figures. Their feelings, needs and fears are of no interest or importance.

This explains the weird way she has been acting lately. She does not even speak to me unless she has to, usually to tell me to do something. Like, yesterday, she called me up to tell me that a family friend has just been diagnosed with cancer, and then she proceeded to tell me that I should send a card and I should call her and when I should do these things. Then she hung on the phone long enough to deliver a few more barbs, to ask me what I had been doing and then pointedly ignore all my news of work, home school, the science fair, etc. Finally she rung off with a simpery remark about how I probably had SO many other, better things to do than talk to her. I was left holding the phone and thinking, "Well, that was weird." But now I get it. She has apparently figured out that I am not going to play into her shit any more, and so now she has given up even the pretext that I have any inherent value as a person. I always suspectd that I did not matter to her. Now I guess I have my proof.

It's about control

I have been reading a lot of Anna Valerious over at Narcissists Suck. I agree with a lot of what she has written, except that I can't really relate to her experiences with her own mother because that woman is so different form my own narcissistic mom. Her mother was outwardly, overtly cruel. She was sadistic and not afraid to admit that to herself. Mother Valerious was out to hurt people. She got a thrill out of it.

My Mom, OTOH, is just the opposite. She is not, I think, out to really hurt any one per se. She really does not care one way or the other. Having no apparent genuine feelings or inner life, she is utterly unable to comprehend that other people do have feelings. Even if she did get that, she would not care. The only thing she wants, as far as I can tell, is to control people, to make them do what she wants. It doesn't seem to really matter what the outcome is half the time; she just wants to make people do stuff. Maybe she wants everybody to do her bidding so she can feel special, or maybe she is trying to establish her "specialness" in order to get her way. It's probably a chicken-and-egg thing by now.

This is how it works: Mom wants something. And, it never seems like what she says she wants is that big a deal, until you look at it carefully. For example, she says she wants to take Ted and me out to lunch. That seems nice. It seems altruistic. It would not take a rocket scientist to figure out that it is a way to get us to pay attention to her. But then, you have to start thinking of the hidden costs of this lunch. Say she wants to go out to lunch after church. This will involve a pokey-slow restaurant with a big crowd. It will take up most of the afternoon. Then there will be an invitation to come to her house, which will be hard to refuse since she did spring for lunch. There go a couple more hours. When it's time to leave, she will stonewall us with "one more thing," and then "one more thing" so that from the time I tell Kiddo to put his shoes on, to the time we leave, can be anything from an hour to two hours, depending. As soon as it's time to go, Mom starts guilt tripping us, talking about how afraid she is of her imaginary prowlers. Then she wants Ted to change some light bulbs, check the basement for prowlers (prowlers are the new boogie-man), and so on. Once we get out of the house, it takes more than an hour for us to drive home. Ted gets up early for work, and has to be in bed by 9 pm at the latest. So that is our entire Sunday, shot to hell.

Or, since we are on the subject of lunch, let's say I need her to watch my son for an afternoon while I work. I don't do this too often, since it is an hour or more out of the way, no matter where I work. In order to be dressed and on the floor at 4 pm, I need to leave her house by 2:30 AT THE LATEST. If I want to get to Mom's house by, say, 1 pm, I have to leave my home by 11: 30. All the lessons for the day have to be done, because Mom will not so much as help Kiddo finish a work sheet. I could take him to a sitter in my neighborhood for those couple of hours until Ted gets home, and it would only cost me $10, less than the extra gas I burn taking him to Mom's. So this is a lot of extra driving and pre-planning for me, which I was actually happy to do, so that Kiddo could have his Friday afternoons with Grandma.

Now, I am always dieting. I have no need or desire to eat in a restaurant more than once every couple of weeks. I would be totally happy to visit with Mom at her house for an hour and a half, drop off my kid, and split. I would be back to pick him up by 10 pm or so, and we could have coffee and visit for another hour then. Since I see my mom frequently (or at least I used to) I think this is fine. But we can't just have a light lunch at home and call it good. We have to go out to eat. Once again to a pokey-slow restaurant that has nothing fit for a dieter. Then it's a rush to eat our food and race back to the house to drop off Mom and Kiddo, so I can then break a land-speed record getting to work. This got to be such a problem that I was consistently late for a good Friday show, and consequently lost that account. (I am an independent traveling dancer, which means I get my own accounts and then am responsible for showing up to them on time.)

No matter what the activity is, Mom tries to structure the whole day so that it revolves around her, and I am actually unable to leave. She uses a whole arsenal of sneaky weapons. First she employs the the guilt-trip. ("Do you really have to go so soon? I hardly ever see you!") Then she plays the fear card, often in conjunction with the guilt trip. ("I hope I don't have any prowlers tonight. Oh, I'm just so sacred!") And then it's the helpless act. ("Can you please change the lightbulbs/sweep the walk/take these things downstairs/etc.? I can't do it by myself.") Sometimes she carries the helpless bit even farther by refusing to drive to meet us anywhere, like she did for Kiddo's talent show. Then of course it takes even more time from me, having to chauffeur her around. Before you know it, a couple of hours or more have slipped away. Sometimes she will pretend to be concerned for me. ("Oh, it's so late. Why don't you just spend the night here?") Then she has the nerve to pretend she is worried about my driving so late, when I could have left hours ago.

I don't get what exactly my Mom is trying to accomplish with this behavior. The obvious effect is, when I spend time with her, I have little control over my own time (can't leave when I plan to), my eating (a continuing battle between her and me), my work life, and my money (because I lose money when I am late for work). Frequently, the time I spend with her is time I could have spent with my husband, who I really don't see enough of. So, whatever she is attempting to do, the result is she has alienated me. (Oh, yeah, let's add to that, since she so adamantly disapproves of homeschooling, and of my working in a bar, I have almost nothing to say to her that won't quickly devolve into icy silence.)

The really sad thing her is, I would spend more time with her if I could do so without all the drama and manipulations. If I could drop off kiddo on Friday and know that he would get his work done, I would get to work on time, and we could have a pleasant visit, I would so do it. If I could have a relaxed Sunday luncheon with her and then go on with my day, I would do that. I used to invite her to my home all the time, but she won't come. (She does, however, spend up to two weeks with my foster brother and his family in Ohio, when she can sucker somebody into driving her.)

I keep wishing there was some way to remedy this. Every time I try to establish a boundary, it creates a problem. She called me today to tell me Kiddo was upset that she didn't watch the Super Bowl with us at Ted's Dad's house. The truth is, we didn't invite her because we didn't want to drive her home after the game. It would have added an extra hour to our drive. If she would just drive herself, she would be welcome to come. I think from now on, I will tell her "You are welcome to come, but you will have to drive yourself. We can't do it." She still won't drive herself, and therefore won't come, but at least the invitation is out there.

I'm feeling sad today because I wish things could be different. Although I know this is not my fault, I still regret that I can't make things right. I keep thinking I could do something to make things go more smoothly between us. The only thing I can think of is to continue setting boundaries so that we can have at least the framework of a normal relationship. *Sigh*

For now, I have given her enough control over my mind, by letting this problem prey on me for the last two days. I'm done for now. If anybody has any helpful advice, I'm glad to hear it. Peace, out.

Oh, this is jsut too weird . . . .

I absolutely adore Paris Love, Ex-Stripper. I read her blog all the time. I happen to know her form a professional stripper web site (yes, we have those) and I think she is one of the smartest, most beautiful women ever to get naked for money.

Anyway, I found this on her blog. It is a list of the top 100 weird bizarre things people have posted on Fundamentalist chat rooms. I know some of my friends from The Denim Jumper have issues with the fundies. I don't ever go there myself, (why go where my sluttish, wanton, sinful way of putting food on my table is not welcome?) so I was completely ignorant of the depth of ignorance, stupidity, and hatred people can spew. Here are some examples:

For hypocrisy:

[One Christian speaking to another]

You are banned. You are not a Christian for Christians don't accuse brothers and sisters in Christ of being non-Christian.

For just plain stupidity:

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie.

For completely missing the point of Christianity:

I honestly don't care about your rights. If it were up to me, all Atheists would be burnt at the stake and or cast into a river with weights tied to their ankles and or placed before the firing squad, etc etc etc.

For just plain meanness:

[about a girl being born with mental disabilities]

This girl is like a leper so what she needs to do is try and find god

if she really believes she can be healed from this state, she will be healed from this state

Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb. If she can repent for what she does god will embrace her and make her as human as you or me but if she chooses not to she'll always be like this

god tests every one of us [emphasis added at the FSTDT site]

For tragic intolerance:

Just recently my son Bobby came out to me. I had been worried for awhile. His teachers said most of his grades were slipping and he seemed depressed and withdrawn.

Bobby said he'd been hiding it for awhile because he was afraid I would reject him. I sat him down and told him that I loved him and that God loved him, but that his salvation was in danger if he did not resist his unnatural tempations. I told him how being gay would mean he would live a shorter life, and that if he couldnt change his orientation he could be celibate like most the ex-gays are. He started crying saying something along the lines of "I knew you wouldnt understand! You're just like everyone else!" before running to his room and slamming the door.

What did I do wrong? I dont want to lose my son, but I fear I already have. I talked it over with his therapist, who had the ludicrous idea that homosexuality was unchangable and that trying to repress could lead to lots of psychological damage (I've dropped him and will try to be finding another therapist with more moral beliefs). I wouldnt be surprised if he's the one who's feeding my son all the homosexual propaganda about how its 'ok' to be gay. That, or how homosexuality has engulfed the media, making it seem 'cool' and 'hip' and how they were just another oppressed minority. You didnt have to worry about seeing two men making out on tv at my age! I dont want to sound like a fanatic, but Im worried what other effects will come out of this increasingly secular, immoral society obsessed with filth.

Am I too late? Or is it possible to save my son


[Note: the boy eventually took his own life.]

And for complete lack of irony:

[Am I in discussion with a human who has a functioning brain?]

What does a functioning brain have to do with the Bible?

In a backwards sort of way, these guys are really a pretty good endorsement for Christianity. What other organization, peopled with morons such as these, could continue to function for 2000 years, unless God actually was on their side?

A blogging meme

I invited myself into this meme over on Like I Have Time For This. It looked like fun, so here goes:

How long have you been blogging?

I started keeping a work-related blog a couple of years ago as part of a work website. This is my first actually personal blog. I stared it in May, 2007.

What inspired you to start your blog, and who are your mentors?

I wanted a place where I could talk about both my work and personal life. For obvious reasons, I don't tell about my dieting, my Mom, my lesson plans, or other stuff like that on my work site. And I freak out on home school boards and lists and so on because I think that if people knew I am a stripper, they would never want to talk to me. So this is my little space on the web, where I can let me be me.

I don't know that I had any mentors as such. I liked My Supernatural World the first time I read it, and then started reading more and more. But really, I just jumped in on my own.

Are you trying to make money online, or are you doing this just for fun?

I wish my blog was interesting enough to generate money. But, no, this is just for me.

What 3 things do you love about being online?

1. There is an unlimited amount of information and stuff to read.
2. You can find out the answer to anything you want to, in just a few minutes.
3. I meet some of the most awesome people.

So there it is. I tag Fourmother, Heather at My Supernatural World, and Holly at And so it Goes.

I hope nobody tagged them already.

No good deed goes unpunished

Remember last summer when I was having all that car trouble? It started out as a simple trip to the mechanic because I knew we were going to go on vacation soon, and I wanted my van to be in tip-top shape for the trip. It turned out to be about $4,000 worth of work. My van isn't worth it, but since it was a little, and a little, and then a lot more, I got sucked into paying all that, bu dribs and drabs. And of course, when the van was in the shop (most of the summer) I was not working. Then we went on the Vacation from Hell, and then Ted's car (a 1986 Toyota) finally gave up the ghost.

Well, through all of this, my Mom wanted to give me money for car repairs and a new car for Ted. Since out savings was shot, I had to say yes. And I made it CLEAR that this was to be a loan, not a gift. Because I am grown. Because everybody needs a little help now and then, but I certainly did not want to be beholden to my mother or anybody else. Because I did not want her to be able to hold this over my head later.

Well, I knew she was not going to be happy about it when I told her I would pay her back. I told her on the phone, so I would not have to see the face I knew she was making. She refused to answer when I told her I would pay her back, so I told her again a few weeks later. She still refused to discuss it. She kept changing the subject. I set up a check to go out every month from my Disabled Veteran's Pension (I tore up my knees on those early morning runs the Army loves so much). I called her again once I knew a check should have been sent, and made sure the checks were coming. She got the check. All good.

Months passed. I saw where she had cashed the checks on a semi-regular basis and everything seemed fine. My credit union account that the VA deposits that check into is pretty low-maintenance. I have all my utility payments set up to come out automatically from that account. And since the monthly payments don't all add up to the monthly deposit, I always have a little money left over, and of course it accumulates.

Well, at the beginning of January, I looked at the account, saw that for the last couple of months every thing had come out like I thought it would, and that I had a little extra in the account. I used that money to pay a bill. Now mind you, I don't keep a regular check register for this account because everything comes out automatically, and it is pretty much the same every month. I have two paper checks sent out automatically. One is to my propane company, which always cashes it promptly, and the other to my Mom. I did not realize that the auto checks don't get debited from the account when they are sent. Just like any other paper check, they come out of the account when somebody presents them at the bank.

Well. Leave it to my Mom. I have avoided having too much to do with her after the Home School Group debacle. Earlier this month she asked if Kiddo could spend the night for a Cousin Sleepover on February 2. Unfortunately, that happened to be the day his Cub Scout Pack was going to see the Chicago Wolves, and we had already shelled out more than $50 for tickets and committed to riding on the bus. You can't do everything, right?

This was nothing but pure spitefulness. Apparently, she has been holding the checks from my account. (Although, she did cash ONE check in November and ONE in December, which is why I thought everything was OK. After I told her we would not be available for the sleep-over, she cashed two hundred dollars worth of checks on the same day. I got 3 overdrafts. Now I have to scramble to put more money in that account before something else clears.

Now, a kinder or more charitable person would probably chalk this up to an old woman making a silly mistake. But, she has done something like this before. And she didn't like me paying her back (being an adult) anyway. AND then there was the timing. I swear, that woman has nothing better to do than to try and hurt me.

I saw her at Church yesterday, and actually did go out for lunch with her and the cousins afterward, and stayed civil about it. But I can't imagine how I am going to cope with this for the rest of her life. Ever since Ted and I decided that enough's enough, and that we were going to stop allowing her to manipulate us, things have gotten worse. It always shocks me when she does something like this. Not because I don't think she will, but because the shit she does is so sneaky. It's always like, "Whoa, I didn't see that coming."

One more bit of magic gone

Yesterday, Kiddo announced to me that Thomas the Tank Engine is not a real engine; he's just a story somebody made up. So much for our yearly pilgrimage to Day Out with Thomas, and seeing Kiddo's eyes light up at the sight of the life-sized blue engine. So much for the Island of Sodor, where the engines are alive, and where engines and people work, play, argue, act childishly, get over themselves, and make up, all as a matter of course. So much for James, Percy, Gordon, and Edward.

All that magic gone in just one puff of logic.

Jessica come home.

This is Jessica:

She may look like a happy meal toy, but . . . this is no ordinary toy. This is my son's daughter.

Kiddo never, ever got so attached to a toy as he did to this one. When he was at that age where most kids glom onto one toy and cherish it above all things, we tried to find that one special toy for him to love. We was just not interested. Then, last summer, Jessica came into our lives via the library reading club. She arrived in a paper-plate-and-tin-foil space ship, a week or so before the Vacation from Hell. And she stole our hearts.

Connal adores his Jessica. He takes her every where. She sits on his desk during lessons and on the table at diner time. She rides in his pocket to hockey practice and Sunday school. He takes her to Cub scouts and Museums, and he holds her up so she can see things. He bought her a dog and made her a bed out of a mushroom box. We video taped Jessica putting her first ornament on the Christmas tree. The first thing he says every morning is, "Where's Jessica?"

Where, indeed?

Today, she slipped out of Ted's pocket. He told Kiddo to let him carry Jessica, to keep her safe. We didn't realize until we got home.

Tomorrow, of course, we will return to the restaurant and the forest preserve where we went today. Ted already called off work. We will search every inch of where we went today.

For now, there is nothing to do. The restaurant is closed, the forest is dark. Ted is pacing around, guilt-ridden and sad. He is feeling the pain of having betrayed his son's trust. For me, I am in tears and working on a very large glass of wine. I have a toy that I loved that much. I know how I would have felt to think my Leo was lost and alone somewhere, perhaps never to be found. Kiddo wandered off to mess with the new train layout. He is being very quiet.

For now, I will say a special prayer tonight and keep my fingers crossed.

Jessica, please come home.

----------------

Edited to add:

Just as I was about to post this, Ted had a flash of inspiration and searched Kiddo's coat pockets. All of a sudden I heard him say, "Oh my God!" Guess what he found.

Kiddo raced up the stairs when we called him, gave the found Jessica a big hug, and whisked her off to play trains with him. Ted collapsed into a chair. I am completely speechless. Wow. Just, wow.

In with the new

January is always a weird time for me. I don't really make resolutions, as such. But with the days growing longer and sunnier, I begin feeling more hopeful. I start thinking I may have some chance of reversing the complete muddle I have made of my life in the past year. And I get to thinking about what I did well and what I want to improve upon.

This process usually takes the whole month of January. First I have to recover form the holidays, which can take some time. Then I have to go back to work and get back in the swing of it. Then I have to re-engage my poor brain and start actually thinking again (ouch!).

All in all, 2007 was pretty good. Financially, it was a bit dicey, but we learned from that and have things better under control now. Otherwise, I did some amazing things. I turned big corners with my husband and my mother. I took my son out of school and brought him home where he belongs. We passed the first full year in our new house. I lost 20 pounds. and here are the things I want to better in 2008:

*I want to resume my workout program and also include PE in our school subjects. And Yes, I do consider Pole dancing a fit activity for PE, thank you.

*I made big progress on my kitchen this week. Now if only I can keep the trend going through the rest of the house.

* I really need to take better care of my hair and skin if I want to keep dancing for 5 more years. (Every year I say 5 more years. I've been saying it for 4 years already.) I also need to get serious about losing those last 15 or so pounds.

* I am working on changing up my work schedule so I have more time for school, and changing our school schedule so we can do more of the things we love.

*I am going to start saving money at the beginning of the week, instead of waiting until the end to see if there is any thing left over.


That is enough change for now. I'll let you know how it goes.

A sad and beautiful post on another blog

I have been weirdly busy lately. You might have seen on my Twitter that I had Car Drama, a Cold, a Kitchen Issue, some Homeschool Issues, and so on. I have started 3 or 4 entries lately, but not had time to finish any on them. But I did find this on The Organizing Junkie. It caught my eye because the floor of this room looks exactly like my son's room would look if he were into pirates instead of trains. Maybe I'm still a little bit sick, but this almost made me cry.

At any rate, I just subscribed to this girl's blog. I hope she writes more like this.

What are you doing after work?

That's one of my favoirtie things guys ask me. I know they are secretly wishing I would say, "Nothing more important that going over to your place . . . ."

Well. Today was supposed to be my "early" night. I was scheduled to get off at 8. At 7:40, a good friend and former extremely good regular customer dropped in to see me. Why do people like that always show up at the end of the shift? Where are they at 4:15, when there is nobody in the bar and I am dying for someone to talk to? Well, anyway, I had to sit and chat for a few minutes and then had to have a chat in the dressing room, too, and so didn't get out until almost 8:30.

Then I had errands to run. Yep. I do some of my best errand running after work. First I dropped by the discount liquor store to stock up on wine. Then I ran down to the grocery store to grab some groceries. I don't know that store well, ands the self-checkout thingie was freaked out by my reusable grocery bags, so that took almost 2 hours. Then I ran through a drive-through for coffee and a rather lousy facsimile of dinner (diet resumes Monday--I swear!) and dropped off what little remained of my earnings at the bank. Then when I finally got home at almost midnight (did I mention the snow all over the roads on the way home?) I found my house looked like an explosion in a Goodwill shop. SO I cleaned my kitchen, ran the dishwasher, left a message for the dishwasher repair guy, put away my groceries, and started a loaf of bread. Took out the compost and the trash. Fed the critters.

After that I took a break and read some of my friends' blogs.

Then I did 2 loads of laundry, folded some backed-up laundry that had been waiting for me to take care of it, hauled some stuff down to the freezer, and put a deep-cleansing oil treatment on my face. It is now 4:12 a.m. The only reason I am here at the computer is because I need to kill a little time and let the oil soak in before I go take a shower.

I have only been back to work 2 days, and I already remember why I needed a vacation!

More conforntation and boundaries

At first I was just going to make a scathing reply to this comment, but I have decided instead to give this a full treatment and the attention I think it deserves.

Anonymous said...

If you even suspect anything will happen with your son, he should never be alone with her.

No guilt over her feelings will ever outweigh your guilt over him being abused and suffering from it.

Better he live with limited exposure to her than a lifetime of the memory of what someone who was supposed to love him did. And that his mom 'let it happen'.

...This comment has annoyed me for the better part of a week. In the first place, I dislike anonymous comments like this on principle. It seems cowardly and/or paranoid that you can't even leave a screen name by which to identify yourself.

Besides that, thank you, whomever you are, for the additional load of guilt and shame. I really needed another reminder that no matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt. I had almost forgotten that.

In the black-and-white world we envision when we first get into therapy/discover or face our abuse/join Incest Survivors Anonymous or SNAP, it is very easy to say what you said. In fact, I said it, frequently and repeatedly, about my own mother. I screamed and cried and raged: How could she let me be abused? It is so easy to paint every abuser as a horned demon. We imagine our parents as omnipotent and able, if not willing, to protect us completely. We believe that insulating a child is the same thing as good parenting. And we lose perspective, imagining that every inappropriate gesture or look is the same as a violent rape.

Now I find myself in the position of a parent AND of a daughter. And nothing is clear like that anymore. In the first place, I do not believe my mother is actually doing anything to my son, in the way you imagine she is. What she is doing is subtle manipulation which is undermining me as a parent. She is putting him in a position where he has to divide his loyalties, and making me out to be the asshole.

Now it would be so nice if I could just sit her down and say, "Look, Mom, the things you are saying to my son are inappropriate. They are messing with him and as a side effect, are making my life hell." Her actions are childish and self-serving, but I really believe she can no more control them than she can control her own breathing. She is aware of very little, either internally or in world around her, and would probably not even know what I was talking about. My worst fear is that, telling her what effect her manipulative ways are having would simply confirm to her that she is doing it right. I am not really sure what her game is, except that it is about controlling me, and using my son to do it.

So it seems like it would be a no-brainer to simply cut all contact. No so. In the first place, my son loves his grandma. He does not seem at all uncomfortable in her presence, even with issues like bathing. He also has quite a few friends through her, grown-up friends who I think are good for him. I hesitate to disrupt relationships that are so important to him. And I certainly do not want to over-react, as my own mother did, and cut him off from so many good things in life, simply because of my own fears.

My mother, for all her faults, is not a demon. She is a sad and pathetic old woman, who has had more than her share of sorrow and misery in life, and is dealing with it the best she knows how. She could no more have protected me from my abusers (including her own father) than she could have protected me from a pride of hungry lions. I no longer have a need to punish her for what happened to me. I am not afraid of her and do not need to hide myself or my son from her.

What I am attempting to do is to exercise strength through kindness. I am seeking to help my son grow into a kind, loving, tolerant, and understanding person. It's not like he will never meet another demanding, manipulative person; I wish him to learn by example how to set boundaries with love. I believe it is the right thing to do, to honor and care for a woman who honestly did her best for me, even though her best was not all that great.

I am trying to figure out the best way to both protect my son and encourage both of them to form the best relationship they can manage.