Thank you

I tend to go back and forth over being ok with and  beating myself up over "choosing" the father for my son, to not forgiving myself and to think of it as a huge mistake on my part (on the choice of fathers, not my son).  Well, a good dear friend of mind just pointed out "he wouldn't be Zander with any other Father".  Deep down I always knew this, I've told myself this before.  But it's such a good reminder.  No, Zander wouldn't be who he is without the father I chose.  He wouldn't be the mischievous, joking, smart, brilliant, happy, smiley, bubbly, goofy wonderful little being that his is with out that particular father.  So for that I must actually say, Thank you bio dad.  You have truly given me the best gift I could ever receive, thank you.

Whirlwind

So many things running around my mind.  Things I have no control of, things I do, things I want to get done, trying to find the motivation to actually start them, on and on and on my mind goes.  Ugh, I can't even stay on one subject long enough to accomplish anything, except more thoughts. 

I do want to say, for some unknown reason, that I've never considered myself a "single" mom.  I am Zander's mom, and regardless of if I would still be married (still not all the way divorced, soon) or not, this is what my life would be like.  I would have been sole caretaker of Zander anyways.  And it seems completely natural.  Now, if you were to ask me if I would have ever thought I'd be raising a child on my own a few years ago, my answer would have been no.  But now, it became what it was always meant to be, I think.  Weird how life does that. 

With that said (again, I'm not sure why) I've started watching a show on VH1, Dad bootcamp or something.  I shouldn't have started watching it.  Even as right as my life, and Zander's is, this show makes me rethink bio dad's absence.  I don't think I will ever get rid of those conflicting thoughts.  Yes, not having to go between two very different houses is wonderful and letting Zander have a stable home and stable parent is by far the best choice, so thanks Bio Dad for that.  BUT, what harm will it do to my little boy as he grows up without a father?  I in no way am looking for a replacement "dad" in any near or distant future I can see.  Is that too something I may regret?  Not having a substantial male influence every day for Z?  There is no RIGHT answer for this, all of these choices are good and bad in their own ways, but only at the expense of my son..and for that, I will never forgive myself for.  I will always do whatever it takes for him to be happy, and strong, and the wonderful little guy that he is, but I will never be able to give him the father he should have had...he has to live with the poor choice I made the rest of his life.  It's not fair to him, and for this I am sorry a million times over.

Sigh, well, my mind has slowed down a little...

I have a TWO year old

Well, now I can officially say I'm the mother of a 2 year old. I still can't quite wrap my head around that, but at the same time, my little baby has grown into a little boy just these past few weeks. Singing along to songs, doing the hands gestures, trying out the potty (nothing happening yet), having an opinion on food and clothes and letting me know it. I just can't believe how much and how FAST he's grown. How far we have both come in only 2 years. Amazing.

On the plus side, he got some cool things for his birthday. We are both having a total blast with his Geo Trax . Very awesome toy. Thanks Grammy for getting the plane! 

First time at the park

Zander's first day at the park was yesterday. I'm going to have to say I'm not a big fan for children his age at the park. While he loved it and could climb up on the climbers, I was terrified he'd fall through the stairs down, or the hole at the fire man pole down. OMG, was a bit too overstimulating for both of us. Though Zander did enjoy himself. I'm just bummed I did this adventure on my own and wasn't able to capture any pictures. Note to self, take the camera out BEFORE you take your kid out of the stroller, lol. We came across some older boys, more or less his cousin's ages, and he thought that of course they'd want to play with him. It was pretty cute, he picked a stick up and handed it to the oldest boy. Then ran circles around the bench they were sitting on (they were in a "time out" for something). Once they were able to get off the bench they started a game of tag with another boy. Zander ran in their direction in awe. It was pretty funny. Then the older boy tagged Zander and said, "Zander, you're it." and ran away. I laughed and Zander had no idea what tag or being "it" meant, but he followed them so the boys didn't really understand he didn't know. Then one boy came and said, "Zander! Tag me! Tag me!". Zander looked to him with the biggest smile and just stood there. I took Zander's hand and tagged the boy. Zander was it once again and the second time I helped him tag he kind of got it and went around trying to tag just that one boy. It was pretty funny watching him try to figure out what was going on, then try to figure out how to keep up with them. Eventually he moved on to the swings. There was another little girl and mommy swinging and the little girl kept moving swings, so Zander had to keep moving swings, lol. He's really too much sometimes =) Overall we had fun, but I think I'll wait a little while to take him back, until he's ready to do the climber without me walking around behind him.

A Productive Day

Today was a productive day. The house is clean, well, of course not! =P But Zander had a blast playing out on the porch and even decided to through some things down the stairs. I really need to get the screen I want around the porch so that can't happen. He masted getting onto the chairs and found some ants. Oh he was so excited about the ants crawling on his hands. It was pretty comical to see. He started yelling excitedly for me. We made banana bread. And by "we" I mean I shooed him out of the kitchen anytime I had to open the oven, and he just played with his toys. He couldn't wait to eat it though, it came out alright, a little dry, but good nonetheless. He helped load the dryer and tried to throw things, anything, into the washer. We danced around the house and had a tickle war. We went for a walk to get our groceries and stopped by McDonalds because they have Star Wars toys in their Happy Meal =) He even helped me try to fix the old computer. And by help I mean that he climbed on the chair (such a new achievement for him) and started to push the buttons on the keyboard and move the mouse around trying to get it to work, lol. We had a little struggle about who could push what =P This is my idea of a productive day...

Debt free? Me? Not quite....

I did get a decent return this year and was able to cut my credit cards in half, finally! My split with Mike left me with 2 maxed out cards and the doctor and hospital bills from having Zander. I've been keeping up with the minimum payments on the cards, but haven't been able to pay much to the hospital and doctor bills. So yay, got the credit cards down by half and the doctor/hospital bill down to about 25% left. Go me! And I saved a little on the side to pay for the filing fees for the divorce and to get a cheap new computer since mine is slowly dying and things aren't working on it. I can't wait until I'm not in debt. I don't even remember how that feels, to actually SAVE money. I'm so close and can actually see sunlight in my debt hole. I'm so super excited to see an end date! Of course this isn't counting the loan for my house, that I don't see any bit of light for =P I'm so happy and so very proud of myself. Go ME!!!!

Things that make you go hmmm...

People that see a woman with a stroller in the rain and not stopping to let her cross at the crosswalk but I had no problems when I was pregnant, rain or no rain.

Parents believing the negative things their 2 year old is telling them (Mary hit me, which didn't happen) and not actually listening to what they really need or want (shaking head no when offered to eat, then forcing them to sit and eat) My job is fun =P

Running into someone you briefly knew a year later, and he still remembers your son's name and yours. (Though Zander is pretty different, as is mine, and that could be why)

Drivers slamming on their brakes when they see a cop.

And my favorite: If he cheated on me with you, why would you think he'd be faithful to you?

Alrighty, I'm a tired momma...

Wow, sleep...did I? I'm not even sure. Zander was up several times last night. Not sure the first few times around 10:30pm (when I finally got INTO bed). Then a cough woke him up, and I could tell he was stuffy around midnight. I was so tired I brought him to my bed for a bit. He finally fell asleep and I put him back into his bed around 1am. He woke back up coughing/stuffy nose at 2am. I brought him back and he just kept talking, sitting up, crawling around, kicking his legs. He was WIRED. I could only laugh. But he was itchy also, scratching his hands pretty badly. So I creamed him up and told him, sorry dude, but I need to sleep for a little bit, you'll just have to talk and move around in your bed. I'm not sure I ever really fell asleep after that. I kept hearing him talking. It was kind of funny. Then when my alarm went off at 4:30am I heard him talking again..lol. So I'm not sure he went back to sleep either. Wow, I am pretty tired. Thinking about hitting the bed shortly after Zander tonight and hoping for a more restful night. Suprisingly he was in a delightful mood all day and only took an hour nap. I'm shocked, usually he's a little grumpy with not enough sleep =P

Soon to be Ex

Yay! I finally have the money to file for a divorce. Never knew how expensive it was, geez. So now I will have the joy of filling out the paper work, setting up mediation, and figuring out how to serve him with the papers. I did find out some rather interesting things about him this past week, and as much as I thought I was "over" him, for some annoying reason I still care a little bit about him. Go figure. He has some kind of growth and has been in the hospital multiple times the past few months. It could be cancer, which is scary. I feel bad that he and the kids have to go through this, but at the same time, all I can think is; You've done this to yourself. Which isn't really true, I don't think you can give yourself cancer, but he's never been totally honest with any of his doctors among other things. I did find out something today that makes me laugh every time I think about it. He got a fairly large tattoo of the girls name. Wow, really man? Guess she thinks that's her security that he won't leave her? LOL, I can't believe he did that, simply because he always told me he would never get the name of a girl tattooed for fear if something happened and it ended it would always be there. LMAO, seriously, LMAO. And to this day he has not tried to see his son since he left, over 1 and 1/2 years ago. He's missing so much, but at least my son's life is peaceful and there is no going back and forth right now. I really have no idea if he'll ever want a relationship with my son, and I will feel bad the day my son has to be torn between two homes. Divorce sucks when there are children involved.

Something to remember...

“You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

18 Months and growing

Zander had his 18 month check up today. Geez, is he really 18 months already?! I don't like how quickly time is passing by. I feel like I've done horrible at actually writting down all his monumentous accomplishments in life thus far. Just little blurbs on a calendar, but I guess that's better than nothing and gives me something to look back to and actually write down nicely for him someday.

He is doing prefect and finally reached the 5oth percentile for height at 31.5 inches!!! Go Zander! Although his legs are still a little too short for 18 month pants, but he's getting there. And he's a whopping 24 pounds 5 ounces! And his hair just gets curlier by the day.

Gotta love my baby boy!

Letting Go

I got this in an e-mail today and would like to share it:

By T. D. Jakes

There are people who can walk away from you.

And hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk away from you: let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone.

When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left.

The bible said that, they came out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. [1 John 2:19]

People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can't make them stay.

Let them go.

And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when people's part in your story is over so that you don't keep trying to raise the dead.. You've got to know when it's dead.

You've got to know when it's over.. Let me tell you something.. I've got the gift of good-bye. It's the tenth spiritual gift, I believe in good-bye.. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I'm faithful, and I know whatever God means for me to have He'll give it to me. And if it takes too much sweat I don't need it. Stop begging people to stay.

Let them go!!

If you are holding on to something that doesn't belong to you and was never intended for your life, then you need to.......

LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to past hurts and pains .......

LET IT GO!!!

If someone can't treat you right, love you back, and see your worth......

LET IT GO!!!

If someone has angered you.

LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to some thoughts of evil and revenge.....

LET IT GO!!!

If you are involved in a wrong relationship or addiction... ..

LET IT GO!!!

If you are holding on to a job that no longer meets your needs or talents

LET IT GO!!!

If you have a bad attitude.... ....

LET IT GO!!!

If you keep judging others to make yourself feel better......

LET IT GO!!!

If you're stuck in the past and God is trying to take you to a new level in Him.........

LET IT GO!!!

If you are struggling with the healing of a broken relationship. ....

LET IT GO!!!

If you keep trying to help someone who won't even try to help themselves.. ....

LET IT GO!!!

If you're feeling depressed and stressed .............

LET IT GO!!!

If there is a particular situation that you are so used to handling yourself and God is saying 'take your hands off of it,' then you need to.......

LET IT GO!!!

'The Battle is the Lord's!'

During the next 60 seconds, Stop whatever you are doing, and take this opportunity...

(Literally it is only ONE minute!)

All you have to do is the following:

You simply say 'The Lords Prayer' for the person that sent you this message:

The Lords Prayer

Our Father, who are in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever.

Amen.

Yeah, OK

I think what my problem is, is that I just don't know how to start. Or really, where to start, on one of these. Then once I start, how do I keep it going. I have so much to say, about anything really. I can be a very opinonated gal, but does it really matter? Do people just blog over little bits of their lives? Over the exciting parts? Pondering moments? All of the above maybe. Well, I'm not sure anyone would be interested in reading about my life, but maybe it would be fun to put it into something to look back at anyways. I need to be more disciplined about writing little things down everyday, think of how fun it will be to reread in one, five, 10 years from now! Nothing exciting goes on, but Zander's little precious moments would be forever kept. I should have started doing this a long, long time ago...