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oh life.

Moving yet again.I keep thinking that this job/housemate/idea will be the one that changes things for me, that makes life easier. But I’m often wrong. This past month, it’s been made all the more obvious that I was wrong yet again. I’ve realized that some people just won’t click, no matter how much I cheer from the sidelines: Please, can’t we all just get along?

They couldn’t and one hurt feeling led to another and that led to doing things to purposely upset the other. It’s no way to spend every evening, every weekend, playing referee. So I stopped. I forfeited the game, I guess.

The daughter and I are looking for a new place to call home. Somewhere we can stay awhile. A place where we can deal with the ups and downs of teenage years, together.

Despite the piles of boxes while we camp out at my son’s apartment, I’m still plotting new things to sew. First two on the list: camera bag and pea coat for my daughter’s upcoming birthday. I’ve got two weeks. Think I can do it?

xo!

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We Made It This Far

My son graduated from high school one week ago and I am remain awestruck by the passage of time, the morphing of our family dynamics, the possibilities that lie ahead of him.

So eager to start; September 1999
We all say it: Where did the time go? It doesn’t seem like twelve years since I snapped this photo of him, standing at the ready for his first day of first grade. We were still living with the kids’ father then; I was still married, but just barely. Our trio moved out just two weeks later. But you can’t see the stress of it on his face and that eases my mother-guilt, the worry that resides with me always, telling me that somehow I’m messing the kids up. He seems happy, though. Blissfully unaware that the Saturday after next, he’ll leave his father’s house and never sleep there again. He has no idea that his days with his father will become fewer and further between until the point that it will be weeks, then months and now years between visits. He’s so excited for the adventure of school. There’s no stopping the happy vibe emanating from him. It’s freakin’ adorable.
Continue reading “We Made It This Far”

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Pre-teen Trauma Drama

A. had spent the last hour moping around upstairs, sure that her beloved computer game was forever corrupted by her own barely considered and swiftly enacted change of her computer’s resolution. Click. Click. Black. It had happened too quickly for her to back out. Control-Z. Restart. Still black. It was at that point that she’d lost all touch on reality and the wailing started. Like the woman in mourning as her husband burns on the funeral pyre, A. reeled with grief, the tears and strained moans coming haphazardly. She had fallen into the black abyss and her brother came to save her.

Clicking, reconnecting, resetting, searching, coding, restarting and more clicking; S.’s patience was on display as he calmly sought a way to reset A.’s resolution to one that the monitor would recognize, one that would let her play her game again. And finally it worked.

“You just need to turn the monitor on when you want to play,” he told her as he walked past her, sitting chin in hand on the stairs.

She sighed heavy and low then stood to go into the living room.

“It’s not gonna work,” she said to no one. “There’s no way he could fix it.” Click.

And with that click she realized just how magical her brother really is. “OH.” She ran to his room, busting the door open to give him an uncomfortably long hug and a kiss which is almost always refused, but managed to sit stoicly through. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the best man in the house!”

Being the only man in the house, he wasn’t impressed.

“He’s the best big brother I know,” I shouted down to her.

“Yes! Yes! You’re the best big brother a kid could ever have! What can I do for you? I will do anything! Do you want a snack? A drink? A back massage? I’ll do anything!”

S. sat facing his own computer. “Anything?”

“Yes! Whatever.”

“Okay, then please just go away.”

And with that it was over. A. happily ran back to play and S. was back to being a typical teenage boy.

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Slowly But Surely

Having to deal with the rules regarding proof that the kids are mine alone has been more work than I figured it would be. I’ve visited the court house twice; the first time, the fellow there had no idea what I would need to provide proof. The second time was today and I knew what I needed. I stopped by the passport office at the Main Post Office and asked her exactly what I needed on Tuesday, then this morning I brought in my divorce papers to find out if it was actually what I needed. Yes, every single page, a copy for each kid and certified as authentic.

So, after dropping $23 at the courthouse for said papers, I was set.  I then set out to find a place to be fingerprinted. This was harder than the handy-dandy list provided by the sheriff made it seem. After two seedy buildings and  wandering dark hallways, I decided I would head to the place I’d seen on the way to school; it was run by a nice Russian lady and only cost me 8 bucks.

I’d brought along our birth certificates, passport applications, now had the certified proof of sole parental rights so after school we headed over to Walgreen’s to get our photos taken (the others had gone inexplicably wrong and I didn’t want to worry about it). Picture-taking wasn’t as easy as it should be: Audrey’s head was too small, then Stuart’s was slightly too small. Mine was do-able, but the kids’ had to be re-taken. Point-click. Oops. The media card wasn’t in the camera. Try it again and this time it worked just fine. At $8/2 photos, it racked up another $24 today.

We headed over to Fred Meyer to make photographic copies of the photos, but that didn’t work well (cut the sides off of the photos) so I said screw it and we’ll just go apply. Finally got back to the passport office to realize that they’d closed 20 minutes before. -sigh-

Thursday’s to-do list:
-apply for passports
-mail in fingerprints for background check
-send caramels to Ron
-send apron to Robin
-start working on new sewing job
-don’t forget homework (again)