Can you tell that I am crazy about this guy? I mean, right from the first time I met him in person (since we had talked online, due to family circumstances and schedules, for a month before we met, and I had already really clicked with him that way so I knew that at the VERY least we’d be friends… and I am glad that we are friends and MORE now), and we clicked right from the start. I have been so much happier with everything since I met him, and now that I think that we are committed to only seeing each other I feel so much more relaxed in my life too — I like who I am now, and I like it that RGG (seems to) like me for me as well. I don’t feel the all consuming anxiety that comes from going out on dates and always wondering what it is that the other person wants from this process… are they there for sexual gratification, are they looking just to get out for a bit, do they want a relationship, are they looking for a life-mate? First dates (and even consequential dates) start to feel a LOT like being on an ever revolving job interview, if you ask me…

 

Not that it wasn’t FUN. There was a certain level of excitement at being paid attention to, at being “popular” — whether it was merely because of a picture, a profile, the fact that I was of an age which was under represented for women (but over represented for males?), or because there was actual attraction there — on these sites. But there was an awful lot of spiritual and emotional loneliness there too.

 

What is the spice of life? I mean, they always say “variety”, but I think that there is as much value in finding someone that you are comfortable with, that you can have variety WITH, where you have so much together that you can seek adventure together. Sure, having exciting dates, being told you are sexy, and feeling like your social calendar is always full is great… but it is also very EMPTY. And how many times CAN you go out with a guy who forgot your name about 2 minutes after you told it to him, instead resorting to calling you “sexy”, not only because they want to have you in bed, but because they don’t want to admit that they don’t KNOW YOUR NAME.

 

Yes, they do!

 

And so I have been pretty HAPPY meeting and dating RGG. It’s been exciting and comfortable… and just amazing. My only concerns have been not really knowing how he views things, especially given his desire for a son of his own (that I can’t produce)… not that that is necessarily a deal breaker for him, and its pretty early in the relationship to even THINK of adding children, but still there is that worry that I can’t live up to what he might ultimately be looking for. I’m sure he has some concerns about me as well… and I think that that is natural, at least this early in the game…

 

But, yeah, HAPPY. Waiting (happily) to see where this might go… And just in case this is going somewhere with RGG I decided that I wanted him to meet my kids.

 

As a “friend”. And I figured, what better way to let them meet RGG, than to meet him and his kids.

 

Maybe that was optimistic, but I figured they would all like to go swimming, they all like pizza, they all like to watch movies… so what could be better than for all the kids to meet each other AND have my kids meet RGG at the same time?

 

So… I had ordered pizza at 6:30pm and was told it would be there by 7:30pm. And the kids and I and G settled in to wait for RGG and his girls.

 

RGG and his daughters arrived at the hotel room at around 7:30, and everyone got introduced to everyone else. BoyChild jumped right into it with RGG and the girls, his usual chattery self, but GirlChild was a lot more reluctant, choosing to hide behind me and observe and not talk to anyone for at least 20 mins (until RGG and his younger daughter decided to have a tickle fight with me and GirlChild decided that that looked like fun and joined in. I mean, the kid didn’t even DEFEND her poor innocent mother while she was being picked on by 2 new people! She decided to tickle me TOO!! MEAN MEAN).

 

By 8pm I started to get annoyed that the pizza hadn’t arrived. We had 4 kids (and G) complaining of being hungry and drinking Coke (because RGG and G only drink Coke products, so that is what we had with us… and this will become significant because my kids are only allowed a LITTLE bit of Coke and RGG’s girls rarely drink pop of any kind). So I screwed up all my nerve and I called the pizza place back to find out what happened to the pizzas we ordered 1.5 hours ago.

 

And it rang…

and somone picked up…

and then the phone went dead.

So I called back.

And it rang.

And it went <click>

 

And I tried again.

Ditto.

 

And I started to get a bit peeved that someone was hanging up on me. So RGG let me use HIS phone (in case it was my phone dropping calls, something which it never does, even in my tin-can of an office my phone is the only one that doesn’t constantly drop). And I called again.

 

And I politely asked the man on the other end of the phone the status of our order, which we had been told would take an hour… but that was over 90 minutes ago. I never screamed or yelled or demanded anything, I just wanted to know if our order was on its way. And the phone person was a bit rude, and he told me “its on its way, should be there any minute now” and HUNG UP ON ME.

 

so I figured, any time the pizza man would show up. All we had to do was entertain the kids (who, by this time were LOADED up with Coke and were pissing G off just by their very prescence)… one kid (GirlChild) escaped the room with the idea that she could find the pizza delivery man, and that started a great game of “escape the parents” in which one or more of them would run out into the hallway and run up and down in the hallway, usually being chased by one or more of the OTHER kids and at least one parent (usually me) trying in vain to round them up and get them (quietly) into the room… which would last for a maximum of 5 minutes before the game would start again. G peppered this game with her ascerbic comments on how people in other rooms were probably trying to sleep or how rude children were, and listing off some of her theories on kids and why she was ‘right to never want to deal with this kind of thing’ and other derisive facial expressions and comments on how RGG and I were parenting our particular children. Thankfully RGG was very good at filtering out her comments and ignoring the things that she was saying about the kids…

 

By 8:30pm I was VERY annoyed that the pizza still hadn’t come. Seeing my frustration RGG took it upon himself to call the pizza place and talk to them regarding the fact that the pizza was now over an hour late, that we had called 30 minutes ago and had been told that the pizza would be there “any minute”, that this likely meant that our order had been sitting in someone’s car for over an hour getting cold (which was HIGHLY likely, given that it was -30C without the wind), and that we had been waiting for 2 hours and had 4 very hungry children waiting (no one mentioned a hungry, crabby, friend sitting in the corner pouting because the pizza was late, much later than she had bargained for and she figured, somehow, that I should have known it was going to be 2 hours wait and ordered earlier (and, knowing my luck, THEN it would have come too early))… and without even being irate at all, the manager at the pizza place  discounted our order by 50%. I don’t know how he did it… I think he just KNOWS these things… or I’m just a push over.

 

So we continued to wait… the pizza finally arrived at 8:45pm and  everyone gathered around to dig in. I set up plates and utensils and we thought that everyone should line up (youngest children first and no shoving)… but G just snorted and commented on how she didn’t think it was fair for the little kids to go first and she just took what she wanted before anyone else. I let it go, knowing that there was no use arguing with her, and being well aware that she was likely to leave immediately after supper was done ANYWAY. Of course everything was cold, and they had made one pizza a large instead of an extra large, but everyone seemed happy enough to actually have FOOD finally (except G, who complained) that there was very little talking or arguing… and of course we all seemed to have lost track of how much of the coke the kids (particularly the LITTLE girls — 4 and 5 years old) had been drinking….

 

 

So… we settled in the room for a bit. Since i had spent 2 days wandering the city and not managing to hit either a Tim Hortons OR a Starbucks (even though I waited for my parents outside Tim’s for 15 mins!) G and I decided to make coffee while we got everything in order. I realized, pretty quickly, that I had forgotten GirlChild’s bathing suit at home… along with the toothbrushes and toothpaste and hairbrushes… and my contact things… so I turned on the tv for the kids, found a kid show, and trundled off into the absolutely terrifyingly COLD weather to pick up the remaining stuff from my house.

 

I grabbed everything I thought I could possibly need and might have forgotten… and ran back to the hotel. Meanwhile, apparently, my 5 year old thought that she NEEDED almost minutely status reports from G (call my mother, my brother did X, where is my mother, is she at the house, did she get to the house, is she on her way back, is she here yet…) which was driving G nuts (because, yes, GirlChild DOES apparently need to know what is going on every minute of the day).

 

So when I got back to the hotel I realized that if I had remembered to bring an extension cord I could have plugged my car in (which, yes, when it is -30 to -45C during the night, you NEED to do if you want your car to start in the morning… for example of what will happen if you don’t, note the FROZEN battery that RGG suffered from for the weekend)… but I didn’t want to go all the way home again, waste more gas, and drag my 50′ extension cord to the hotel for the night… and I didn’t have a short convienient cord in my trunk (where, you think, I should have these types of things)… so I parked as close to one of the entrances as possible with the intention of coming out a few times during the evening and night to start the car and let it run so that it wouldn’t freeze up.

 

Seriously. We do these things. Ask anyone else crazy enough to exist in this province… and I have to ask myself (at least once a year, if not more often)… WHY do I still live here???

 

Anyway… I wandered back to the hotel room, suited up the kids and myself, checked my phone to see if RGG had texted any update on his frozen battery situation, and then the 4 of us wandered off to one of the pools to swim. BoyChild had a great time swimming around in the shallow pool, jumping around and splashing and diving and ducking under the water. GirlChild clung and hovered close to me as I sat in the hot tub (which was HOT) and as I sat beside the cool shallow pool. She’s not as adventerous as her big bro is… she’s always been cautious and fearful of new things (except sushi) and since she doesn’t know, yet, how to swim she is fearful of being in the pools without at least one adult beside her. And… I have found that I have outgrown my love of swimming that I used to have (I was practically a mermaid from age 10-18 during the summer seasons (which is as painfully SHORT as our “winters” are PAINFULLY cold and long)) and have no desire to paddle around in the cold water…

 

We swam around and sat in the hot tub while G knit on th scarf pattern I gave her for Yule (something that looked complicated in a stitch called “heringbone” which involved slipping stitches and double knitting or purling…. the pattern is call “my so called scarf”) with the fancy hand spun wool (made out of real SHEEP). We splished and splashed, but at 5pm I decided that we had had enough, and that we needed to get back to the hotel room and settle down a bit before we thought about eating.

 

Now… here is what the plan was: check with RGG to see if he and his daughters would make it into the city, if they were planning on joining us for supper and a movie (and potentially staying in the hotel with us for the evening) and then determining where we would order pizza from and order things for delivery. And the plan seemed to be going well… 

 

RGG texted me as we came back to the room, letting us know that his father had come out to his town and they had managed to get his absolutely frozen car started, and that he thought that he and his girls would, in fact, be able to make it to the Yule celebration with us in about an hour or so. I texted back to see if pizza was acceptable (which is a silly silly thing, since RGG seems to like pizza, worked in pizza places, and is actually considering openning up his own pizzaria in his small town (due, I think, in part with the frustration of not having anything out there)) and if so what kinds his girls liked.  And that was that… 

 

I decided that I would wait for him to message me that he was in the city, so as not to have to have everyone (GirlChild, BoyChild, and G) eat before our guests arrived… or to not have the pizza arrive before RGG and his girls… and to minimize waiting for everyone. So I told him to text me when he was at the edge of the city, so that I coudl phone and order while he was at his parents’ unloading things and getting ready, which should give the pizza enough time to be delivered… 

 

Meanwhile we openned presents from G and her parents… as G had already gotten her gift from me (wool and the pattern, keep up, eh?). The kids were occupied with their new things, and G and I spent some quality time knitting (G on the scarf, which I think is turning out beautifully, and I am working on socks for GirlChild) and we spent the time waiting for RGG to text saying they had made it in. There were christmas specials on tv, and the kids were relatively quiet and occupied.

 

RGG texted me at 6:30 and let me know they were in and would be over in a bit. I phoned the pizza place (at 6:34) and ordered 2 EXTRA Large pizzas and wings to be delivered. I had an ETA from the shop of 1 hour, which was pushing it a bit (since we almost always eat at 6pm at our place) but I figured that we had some snacks hanging about and it wouldn’t be too bad just this once…

 

And this was about the time that G started her fussing.

 

Again, G is particular. She doesn’t like things not to go exactly as planned. And she did NOT plan on having until almost 8pm to eat supper (heck, my kids usually got to BED at and she hadn’t had lunch (again, I hadn’t even had breakfast, I had a handful of poppycock popcorn and a mediocre cup of hotel room coffee), and had figured that I should have ordered food for US at 5pm and not waited until RGG and his daughters came, so she was starting to get surly. Added to that was the fact that my kids, already hungry, were getting keyed up, and I was nervous abou the prospect of RGG meeting my kids (and G, which in itself is completely nerve wracking because what if she doesn’t BEHAVE?) and what to say to them and how to introduce them to him and what if the kids didn’t get along and what if G said something nasty and… and… and…

But at least I am not going to talk about men and what I want in a dating relationship.

No…

Not right now.

So… a few days ago (Tuesday) I had to go to meet with my son’s educational psychologist at his school. My son has had unidentified “issues” with school environments since kindergarten. I had hoped that he would have outgrown it, but as teacher after teacher signaled him out as having something “wrong” with him, I grew more and more concerned… and, of course, I blamed myself for the difficulties. Oh, there were many reasons that this was MY fault:

*I didn’t know I was pregnant with him until I was 3 months along. During that time, although I didn’t smoke (never do) or drink alcohol (I don’t do that often either and even LESS back then) or do drugs of any kind (never have) I did drink coffee and tea, and I didn’t eat very well or take very good care of myself. I worry that something happened in the first few months or weeks that I was pregnant. I was going to school full time, I was dealing with, what I thought at the time, was health issues ON MY OWN, I was dealing with intense feelings of abandonment because my HUSBAND had just told me that his week in/week out schedule was going to be permanent and that he had no interest in changing that. And I was stressed and I wasn’t eating or sleeping well… and I worry that this affected my baby before I knew he was there.

*I had a stressful pregnancy after I found out. My husband wasn’t really engaged in the whole thing, despite my trying to get him interested in what was going on. I felt very isolated from him, as he didn’t want to do any of the baby related stuff — didn’t want to pick out clothes or discuss names or come to my doctor’s appointments (especially after the ONE ultrasound he did come to me with where I was in so much pain I didn’t ask to determine the sex of the baby), didn’t want to take pictures, didn’t want to design the nursery — basically he checked out while I was pregnant and never came “back” to us. This disconnection made me less sure of my ability to mother this child.

*I was very depressed after BoyChild was born. Not enough to need medication, but I did feel completely and TOTALLY isolated now that I was housebound with a newborn, my mother lived 45 mins away and didn’t really WANT to help, my MIL would help, but I never felt comfortable with her, and my child knew I was unsure… he was fussy and unsettled and refused to thrive off my milk. I worried CONSTANTLY that he wasn’t gaining, that he was noisy and disturbing his father…

*I had to return to school when BoyChild was only 4 weeks old. I went full time to complete a degree. Why? Because my husband did not see a child as a reason to put off my education because we had bills and I needed to gain better earning potential, after all, I had failed to wait until I had been working and could get my 6 months of mat leave paid (and he had NO intention of taking ANY time to help us either, because he had racked up so many bills that we NEEDED his full income). I didn’t have as much time or energy to devote to playing with him as I should have.

In the end, I know I tried as best as I could. I loved him, I still LOVE him fiercely, and I tried my best to be a parent to him. I shielded him, as much as I could, from the disappointment that came from my in-laws and husband. But I couldn’t always do it. And there were times I was harder than necessary on him.

I know I should have left his father when he was younger. After BoyChild was born I hated being with STBX. I had been well and truely abandoned by my husband for his work when I needed him the most… adn I never forgave him for choosing his job over his family. And I was so distracted by sadness and anger and school work that I didn’t do as much and spend as much time with BoyChild as I should have.

But I know that it really isn’t all my fault. Sometimes even the parents who do everything “right” right from the minute they THINK of having a child have a child who is “special”.

And that is what BoyChild is… he is SPECIAL. And yet, he isn’t… not in the traditional sense of the term.

BoyChild is wickedly intelligent, but he can’t learn as easily as other kids his age. He has a slightly above average IQ (as much as I don’t really believe in that for young children) as tested by the ed psych, but he cannot focus to learn and he cannot easily RETAIN information. And for some reason BoyChild does not easily read body language, he can tell when I am happy or sad or angry, but he can’t generalize from me to another person (and it doesn’t help that his father has absolutely FLAT affect, so he likely never learned to read from that)…

BoyChild shows signs of dyslexia. He has an extremely difficult time holding a pencil to print. At grade 3 level he has so much trouble writing that his printing looks much liket that of his 5 year old sister who is just learning to write her name. He does not have the fine motor skills, and he was never taught correctly when he started writing (and we were discouraged from going over and over and over things with him to help him learn, which exacerbated the issue rather than helped it, as that, his teacher felt, would stress him out more) and so he makes the letters the way they look to him, rather than how they need to be made to make them flow together normally.

BoyChild has trouble reading, but not all the time. His eyes have trouble focusing on black print on white pages, but they feel that by printing on green pages he will do better (and has so far). He has a hard time writing on white.

Most difficult to understand is that BoyChild has a hard time with memory, and this is the part I don’t know where it comes from. BoyChild has short term memory issues, in that he cannot readily commit things to his short term memory. I really don’t know what could have caused this. He’s never had any head traumas that I am aware of, nothing other than falling or bumping into things that every other child has gone through, that could have caused damage. I didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs (illegal OR prescription) when I was pregnant or nursing him. He is a picky eater, so it could be that some of the things I cannot get him to eat were essential to brain development… but he has always taken supplements…

Whereas it usually takes an average person 10-15 repeats of something to commit it to their short term memory, Boychild requires 60-70 repeats… more than he, I, his father, or his previous teachers were able to achieve without frustrations boiling over. He gets easily frustrated, and when that happens he just pulls back and tunes out. Funny thing is that I wondered about these things when he was an infant, and everyone told me that I was making things up. And everyone shot me down when I tried to do the flash card things with him… and now here they are REQUESTING we do just that.

He has social issues, because he can’t read body language cues, and he doesn’t generalize between people. He cries when he gets frustrated, which bothers other kids, and so he feels alone. They have requested that he join some social activities outside of school so he can make friends that don’t share his school experience so he isn’t the “weird” kid that gets frustrated and cries. But he’s a caring, loving little boy…

It’s very hard to get past the maternal guilt. I know, in a lot of ways, that STBX blames ME for the issues that BoyChild has (because, HE certainly never had those problems, so it must either be all MY fault, or BoyChild isn’t really his (fucker)) — partially it has to be my genes, partially it has to be my parenting (because he’s freaking perfect), and partially it is blamed on my splitting the family up when HE didn’t want that. I feel that STBX has a LOT to do with this, whether he wants to admit it or not. Whether he wants to believe it or not, BoyChild is HIS son, and HIS genes are half of that child… and the issue that are there could very well be from his family tree too. HE never worked with the child, he never really played with either of the kids until the marriage completely failed, and has never mirrored emotions of ANY kind (living with him was like being alone with a rock that blamed everything on you).

And so I am left with this feeling that there is HOPE… but that I am still being blamed (even the ed psych pushed the idea of having STBX more involved in my life with the kids) for not working hard enough with BoyChild and STBX (who is glorying in his new role as “world’s most long suffering father” because I don’t want to work with his plans of taking on his debts).

I want to get BoyChild counselling to work out issues that he’s having with the dissolution of our marriage, because I see him blaming himself.

I need to get him into social activitites (Soccer, Beavers, Swimming) and I know I will have to pay 100% of it because STBX is whining about lack of money AGAIN (every month… and then he will take his “friend” out for suppers or buy her a fancy gift or take her on a vacation… but doesn’t connect the fact that he does that as a reason as to why he’s short on cash (oh, that and the NEVER PAYING off the overdraft… fucking retard))…

I need to get him educational software to learn to type things. I think that if he can learn to type he can finally use words like he desperately wants to. He needs more time on the computer and less time on the DS or GameCube.

I need to work with him doing rote memorization of his addition under 10… “1+1 is 2, 1+2 is 3…” and keep going over it all the time.

I need to post instructions for him in the house in places that he can refer back to easily (his door, the fridge)… so I bought GIANT post-it notes so I can easily do this.

As well, the Educational Psychologist (who used to be a mediator) also suggested trying a 2 week rotation for visitation, rather than a 1 week rotation. She felt, and I agree, that this would give the kids a LOT more stability because they would get a WHOLE weekend with each parent without having to ‘move’ house, which is disruptive to their little lives. I know STBX feels that this would be easier if he lived in the city, but I don’t think that we can wait for that. I have suggested to STBX that we test out this arrangement for a few months starting January 5 (when Christmas holidays are over) and see how it works for all of us. And he seems to have agreed.

I am going to learn to help BoyChild, because he is my special little boy… And I love him no matter what is “wrong” with him…

Because the Gods don’t make mistakes, they make opportunities