…
Finishing Out Summer Fitness Plan
I need a new fitness plan. After thinking on it for quite a while, I came up with the one linked here. I’m testing in with my sit ups, pushups, and squats tonight and will kick that training off on Saturday. I’m running up until then and am logging as of this week. In case you’re interested, you can check it out, but don’t feel like you need to. 🙂
Happy 4th Weekend!
We had a darn good weekend! Hottie had Friday off so we kicked off our Independence Day festivities a day early. The weather was perfect and the kids were on their best behavior (until they weren’t, but that was rare), so we really maximized the outdoor family time.
On Friday, Matthew had camp and Bryson had a strange rash, so Hottie dropped Bryson and me off at the pediatrician on his way to drop Matthew off at camp. I took the running stroller with me and dressed appropriately to just run home from there, but I felt guilty about ditching Hottie on his day off when I know he loves nothing more than getting a coffee together 😉 The doctor was super efficient for walk-in hours (grass mites – who knew?) and we were done before Hottie was back. We ran a bit while we waited for him to pick us up. We ended up getting drive-thru coffee and some donut holes for Bryson and then Hottie drove us to a trailhead and we ran home from there. Our community does an amazing job with linking up all suburban trail systems, so I was able to run 5 miles back to our house without having to cross busy street without an overpass or underground tunnel. It was a beautiful run!
We picked Matthew up with Ji.mmy Joh.ns in the car waiting for him and headed to the park. The kids played, we stood and ate, and I got some super cute pictures of them in the covered bridge and along the creek. It was a great way to spend the morning before naps! Naps HAPPENED for 2+ hours so I mowed the lawn and Hottie washed our cars. We had our favorite dinner as a family (curry bison burgers which Bryson gobbled his up while Matthew ate leftover salmon from the night before) and then we went out for ice cream. Baths happened on time and Bryson was in bed by 8:20. Matthew and Hottie camped out in the backyard, leaving me to myself to make this AMAZING brussels sprout salad and this sparkler cake for the next day. I finally dyed cake batter, which I’ve never done before, and it was super cute. I did not take a single picture of my cake, but it looked just like the one below without the thin sliced strawberries on top. The layers were blue, red, and blue and I added fresh blueberries to the frosting between the bottom and middle layers, and fresh strawberries to the frosting between the middle and top layers. I’ll be making it again next year! I’ll be making the brussels sprouts salad again next week! After cooking, I sat in bed and spent some much needed alone-time while everyone slept – it was wonderful!
Saturday started EARLY… at 3:45 AM. HA! I woke to the sound of a door opening and a bunch of “Shhhh.. they’re sleeping.” It got too cold outside for the boys so they headed inside to sleep in Matthew’s bed together. CUTENESS! Bryson then woke up at 6:05 and snuggled into bed with me for his morning “Ogurt.” I gave the boys until 7:00 to wake up but no luck, so Bryson and I went for a nice 5 mile run. We arrived home about 5 minutes after the guys woke up so we all got ready together and headed for the parade. WHAT FUN THAT WAS! I was the official candy collector (of the candy that didn’t get picked by the kids = tootsie rolls) and Bryson was the official candy taster. We saw lots of politicians due to Iowa being the first state in the nation to vote in the primaries (ick) and a lot of fun trucks. Success! The candy was mostly mediocre and that reminds me I need to toss it out now that everyone’s asleep. HA!
We had lunch and then naps… well, Bryson had a nap. Matthew tried to sleep but couldn’t, so he got to help me finish prepping food for our dinner family playdate with some new friends. The cake was a hit (the twin boys kept tasting the frosting and put the cutest finger prints in the side of the cake – making it obvious that Landon is the lefty and Andrew is the righty!), we learned that children need to be taught not to hold their friends under water (I shudder when I think of all the times we’ve stepped out of the bathroom with the boys in the tub together – they don’t understand that dunking is not a good idea even if the other kid likes it), and Matthew had a really great time with one of the boys. Bryson kept to himself but came out of his shell when he got in the pool (clothes on) and hit it off with Landon who is more docile than Matthew and Andrew. HA!
We headed home to grab some things for fireworks and headed to the park by 8:30. This is when our day went from great to horrible in an instant. We got tickets for the bounce house and let both boys go in. We kept checking on them, keeping a close eye on the exit. I saw Matthew at one end so I headed back to the exit where I met up with Hottie who had just seen Bryson on the other end of the bounce house. Hottie asked where Matthew was, I said just on the other end, he looked, and… no Matthew. He was gone. I wasn’t too concerned at first – there’s no way he could have gotten far. Wrong. He was nowhere in sight. NOWHERE. Hottie took off to look for him as I loaded Bryson in the wagon and asked some moms to keep an eye out for him. As I panned the area over and over again, I started to panic. This hadn’t happened before – not like this. There was a sea of people and Matthew was not amongst any of them. When I realized that he was not in the section of the park that I was in, I looked for a city festival worker to help me. When he asked me what Matthew was wearing, I fell apart. I mean – I sobbed, started to hyperventilate, and then almost threw up. The guy called the police right away to help and I heard him put out the alert on the walkie talkie that a 4 year old boy named Matthew was missing. JESUS. He assured me that this had happened many times earlier in the day and that the kids are always found. I nodded, fighting back tears (I remember blinking back tears, trying to nod confidently, and biting my lower lip.. oh, the lower lip is my tell), but it was getting dark. This was different. He told me to come back to where we were after a bit of looking and he was off like a shot rounding people up to look for him. I decided to cross the road into the other part of the park (the bigger, scarier, too-close-to-the-road part of the park) when I heard Brian yelling for me. He had him. He had him in his arms. Matthew had slipped out of the bounce house, thought that WE were lost because we weren’t there, and decided to find us.
“I got out of the bounce house and you were lost. I went to find you because you were lost. I found another Mommy (this is what we’ve taught him to do – yay!) and said, “I can’t find my daddy, he’s lost. Do you know where he is? I need help.” She picked me up and held me until daddy came. She was nice. She had on green (correct) and was eating popcorn.”
I don’t think I’ve cried happy tears like I did last night – total relief! Seriously, at one point, I thought to myself, “he’s gone. GONE. He is GONE!” He asked if I was mad and of course I wasn’t. I then had to call off the search, thank everyone for their help, and go and meet this woman who picked up my kid and kept him safe for us until we found him. All of that was done through tears and nervous smiles. The festival guy said, “this is the 10th one today, and we’re still 100%. I know it’s scary, but it will happen again.” He was a rock – he was just the right person for me at that time. Amazingly, this all only lasted between 5 and 10 minutes. It felt like a lifetime.
With the drama behind us, we went “back to the car where we will wait for fireworks” (Hottie’s words). Hottie came prepared with a picnic blanket, camp chairs, bubble blowers, glow sticks, etc. so there was no shortage of things to do. Matthew stayed right next to one of us at all times – he had to be touching us at all times once we were back at the picnic blanket. We obliged, and quite happily. Fireworks started, they went on forever, Bryson and I packed up our stuff (he lost interest in the fireworks quickly), and we were out of there. The kids fell asleep on the way home and transferred into bed without a peep. Hottie and I sat up together, equally relieved and happy to be home with both boys safely in their beds, and watched a movie until 1:00 AM. It was… perfect!
Today, Sunday, was another beautiful day but I didn’t run. Instead, Hottie got up with Bryson 6:05 (AGAIN) and I went into Matthew’s room to sleep in with him – we got up at 8:00 (that is WAY late for me!). We tooled around the house, made breakfast hot dogs for the kids, and took a family shower before we went out for a late breakfast/brunch. Bryson fell asleep on the way home with his sunnies on his forehead and was tossed in the crib while Hottie and Matthew did some “house projects” together for a little bit (sanding and re-staining wood windows). At 1:50, I called it nap time and I crawled into bed with Matthew and slept with him until 4:15. It was …. wonderful. Hottie got more windows done while we all slept and then he made the boys’ favorite dinner, which Matthew thanked him for over and over and over again! We went out for ice cream (again) and then the boys had baths and went to bed. My first order of business was to order these disposable ID wrist bands and Road ID tags for the boys’ shoes. Done and done. And here I am, with a sleeping Hottie beside me and my laptop right where it belongs before heading off to bed myself.
Great weekend – even with the scare of our lives!
“A Lot Can Change in…”
These last 5 weeks have been… devastating, challenging, shocking, momentous, active, exhilarating, and emotional.
****
Five weeks ago today, at around 9:30 AM, my family’s life changed for what we thought would be forever. My youngest cousin’s badly broken leg turned into the fight of (and for) his life. We waited, prayed, and cried as Sam stayed in a coma for 8 days (a coma we were told to expect to last 2 weeks to 2 months). I never believed that Sam would not get back to his normal easy-going self eventually, but I did think it would take a very long time – the doctors said “months” until any kind of improvement would be seen. He defied the odds and woke up within 8 days, started responding and speaking almost immediately upon emerging from his coma, and then soared through inpatient therapy after therapy until he was released to go home this past Wednesday. At one point before he woke up, we were told that there was no hope and that he would be a very slight version of himself for the rest of his life. I have never fallen apart so badly in my life, not even when my niece was comatose for 6 weeks when she was one year old (I always believed she would be fine, and because my sister needed us daily, hourly – I could not allow myself to fall apart. That niece, who I was called at work to come say goodbyes to 10 years ago, turned 11 this past January). My lowest low, my saddest moment, my most fearful experience almost 4 weeks ago turned around the next day when Sam woke up, and we’ve all be on cloud 9 ever since!
****
A week and a half ago, the confederate flag was removed from South Carolina’s state capital grounds. Immediately following that decision, major retailers announced they would stop selling merchandise with the image of the confederate flag, and Ebay quickly followed suit. No matter how you feel about the confederate flag or how you interpret its meaning, it cannot be denied that this event is very significant for our country. This event is historical and will likely start a domino effect. I welcome that idea!
****
On June 25th, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld Obam.acare. Now, I’m not a fan of Obam.acare and I don’t believe that it was implemented in the correct (or best) way, but I still find this ruling to be very exciting for this reason: Republican-leaning justices looked past their politics and interpreted the law the best way they saw fit, and ended up crossing party lines. That’s a big deal to me, especially over something as polarizing as Obam.acare.
****
A week ago today, on June 26th, SCOTUS ruled that all marriages (between 2 people) must be allowed and recognized by all 50 states, and not just the marriages between a man and a woman. This decision is momentous to me – I never thought this would happen on a national level in my lifetime. Even a week later, I get emotional just thinking about how this decision has changed, and will continue to change, our country for the better. I believe in the same civil rights for all human beings, and last Friday got us one major step closer to all being viewed equally by the federal government. AND, the best part of this, in my opinion, is that the populous seems to be accepting this change rather well. For all of the hullabaloo over gay marriage leading up to this decision, I truly wonder if we were really all that divided or if the PAID lobbyists were just that good at telling us all that the nation was polarized on “the issue of gay marriage.” When Iowa was making this decision 6 years ago, it was paid lobbyists from outside of our state that came in and swayed voters to retaliate against the judges who opened up marriage equality to every Iowa citizen. Having been through this before but on a smaller scale, I truly believe that the majority of Americans are much more open-minded than the religious right (who foots the bill of the lobbyists) wants us to believe. Yay, America, for not falling for the paid rhetoric!
****
On July 31st, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma ruled that “the state must remove a 6-foot tall granite monument of the Ten Commandments from its capitol because it violates the state’s constitutional ban against the use of public funds or property to benefit a religion.” I like this so very much. Not because I have something against organized religion (I don’t – it’s just not for me even though I am a spiritual person who believes in a god of some kind, and that’s all I really need), but because I am a staunch believer in the separation of church and state as it is part of our nation’s foundation. This fight had both Stan.ists and a Bapt.ist minister on the same side. How often do you see that happen?
****
A lot can happen in 5 weeks – a lot of good, and not so good things (depending on how you feel about these issues). Changes that will have a ripple effect for years to come. Changes that will get more conversations going on how we treat one another. Changes that will encourage some of us to modify how we behave (Sam, pay attention when you drive!). Changes that will never be forgotten. Changes that will hold a special place in our hearts forever.
****
Happy Independence Day Weekend, everyone! This one is going to be my favorite one ever!
He’s Home!
Sammy went home yesterday! After 4.5 weeks of a coma, then “emerging,” and then in-patient therapy here in DSM, he went home.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I heard doctors tell us not to get our hopes up, not to expect rapid recovery, to keep expectations low.
When this all happened, the doctors told Uncle D that Sam would be in a coma anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. I saw Uncle D yesterday as we loaded his car with all of Sam’s things, and he said, “can you believe this? It’s like a movie ending. Not even 5 weeks ago I was told that my son would probably need 8 weeks to wake up, and right now, he’s being discharged. I thought to myself back then, ‘I can wait 60 days to see my son’s eyes again,’ but here we are. And when this all happened, I was told to not hope for much, and all I hoped for was for my son to be able to communicate with me again, in some way, even if it was minimal for the rest of his life.”
WOW.
As Hottie and I walked back to our car, I cried. I cried because as hopeful as I was (I NEVER thought for a minute that Sammy wouldn’t fully recover), I did not expect to be sending him home so soon. I was ready for 8 weeks of “sleeping.” I was ready for lots of in-patient therapy (we were told “months”). I was ready for a very long road. I wasn’t ready for such a quick turn-around, and neither were his therapists. As we said our goodbyes in Sam’s room, I asked one of his therapists, “is this normal?” She said no. She said that everyone is stunned by how quickly he recovered and that, “his young age is on his side.”
Sam truly is… amazing! He defied every single odd when it came to coming down with FES in the first place, and he defied all the odds in his lightning-fast recovery. My cousin posted on FB, “Can everyone please say, ‘BEST CASE SCENARIO?'” But this is better than the best case scenario. Although there is work to be done to get all of Sam’s functions “back to normal,” the best case scenario told us months before we’d see much improvement at all, and that the road would be very long. All things considered, the road has been quite short so far, and the road ahead will be much more pleasant than we were told it would be.
My Marathons for Sammy is complete – he’s home! I am finishing out this week and I owe him 0.3 miles to complete 4 marathons for him (why I didn’t finish those this morning… ugh! I had no idea!). I ran 104.8 miles in the time it took him to recover. I’m so glad he cut this challenge short for me 🙂
Communication
A few months ago, Hottie’s sister texted him asking for advice on how to communicate with her husband. She said that she specifically wanted to hear about how he and I communicate and see if she can use any of it to help fix her marriage. Her husband told her the night before that he wanted a divorce. Hottie met with her the next day to talk about everything, and we both felt that she had very little time to remedy things – her husband had never mentioned divorce in the past. We thought he was serious and steps needed to be taken immediately to try to repair things.
****
A few days ago, Hottie got up with Bryson AFTER I’d rocked him for 25 minutes prior (while Hottie slept – he didn’t even know I was up with him). Because Bryson wanted him, I went back to sleep. I have never thought that if one parent is up, that they both must be up. No way! Once I was up (38 minutes later) and we were getting ready, Hottie said, “I missed you this morning…” and he continued to look at me. I was waiting for it… waiting for it… waiting… “I didn’t know if you were back here in bed or on FB.” THERE IT WAS! The comment. The POINT. The goddamn passive aggressive behavior he learned from his mother.
I was furious.
I didn’t say much because I knew he would not hear me, that he was too preoccupied with his own perception to hear anything I had to say. I quickly quipped, “As if it matters what I was doing, I was back here sleeping.”
We both started the day angry.
The minute he left for work, I sent the following email to his personal account (we’ve agreed that these should not go to his work email) with the subject line of “Continuing”:
Hi there,
I feel like we were not talking on the same level this morning, and there are some things I’m feeling that need to be shared, that were brought up within me when you made your comment about “whether you were sleeping or on Facebook” this morning. (And that wasn’t a glare, like you like to say, it was pure anticipation of, and then confusion with, your comment.)
I feel like when we are in the same space together (weekends, mornings, nights) that I need to be doing something you “approve” of at all times. I feel like I cannot do anything without it being OK with you, and that isn’t right and it isn’t fair. I even feel like I need to “get permission” first by mentioning what I’m going to do before I do it so that you don’t get mad or wonder what it is I’m doing. This is all because of the comments you make, like the one you made this morning. You conditionalize my activities, or just simple resting, based on the value it is to you. You take it personally if I don’t want to do EVERYTHING together, with you or as a family, when you’re home.
I spend every waking moment with kids who need me. I can’t carry a thought in a bucket (you have no idea how long it is took me to bang out that first paragraph above) until they’re asleep, and even then, I’m distracted with them getting out of bed, or waking up too early (too early for them, not for me), etc. We do not have to do everything together. This has been a thing with us from the beginning – me needing just a little space and alone time and you wanting to do everything together. I don’t require much alone time, but when I know that you want to do everything together, it makes the very little alone time I do get stressful because I know you’d rather we be doing things together.
There is no reason for us both to always have to be up just because the other one is. I think it’s great that you do get up and play with the kids in the morning because it gives me a much needed break and delay to the push and pull I get all.day.long with them. If I’m up with you and Bryson, he only wants me, and my day of holding and consoling a toddler starts just that much earlier. You always say you don’t get enough time with them, but when you do have your own time (like this morning), you’re upset that I’m not up sharing in the fun – and it was only 38 minutes. It makes no sense. I got up with Bryson at 6:24 so that you could keep sleeping and rocked him until 6:50, laid back down because he WANTED you, and was back out there at 7:28. (I think it’s sad that I even know the exact times, but I know I have to note them so that I don’t feel TOO guilty for taking a LITTLE time for myself.)
The comments – we’ve talked about those over and over again. Your mention of missing me this morning would have been just fine, but honestly, I stood there waiting for the comment. I KNEW it was coming. I knew you couldn’t help yourself. I recognize that this is a learned behavior from your mom, and that’s why I don’t lose my mind over it every time it happens, but it’s gotten bad again. There doesn’t always have to be a comment to make me fully aware that you don’t approve of the things I am (or am not) doing when you’re with the kids on your own. There doesn’t always need to be a point behind everything, but your comments are just that – a point to make about something you’re upset about that I’m doing. Please think about how you feel when your mom does that to you (us). That is what you’re doing to me.
I love you, I want to spend time with you, and I truly miss you all day long when you’re gone. That is precisely why I’m trying to roll back naps and bed times – so that we can spend time together at a decent time each night. 6:30 AM is not the time that I want to spend the time together (and it’s not really “together” because at least Bryson, and often times Matthew, are up) – it just isn’t. I appreciate the break. I’m sorry – but I’m being honest here. I am on and playing with these kids from 8:00 – 5:30 (or later depending on traffic) every single day – that’s 9.5 hours of no break (unless they nap at the same time, which is not looking great). So yes, if I can get a little extra sleep in the morning while you play with them, or god forbid, I get to read a quick article or even two while you play with them, then I really appreciate that! It’s no different from our parents reading the paper in the morning when we were kids.
I wish you would understand this. Please think about this from my perspective. I will think about it from your perspective, and maybe we can find a middle ground where we can both feel satisfied and loved. But please know that I love you more than anything.
Hottie wrote back within an hour: “Thanks for the email. I read it and recognize your concerns. I do love you and don’t want you to feel the way you describe below. I don’t have time for a full response right now, but I’ll work on one later.” When he came home that night, we were happy, and calm, and loving. We never spoke of this again, because what needed to be said was said, and it was said uninterrupted. Our actions towards each other have improved since this email exchange and the weekend was terrific… and I got some alone time and he got some “just us” time!
****
Money. Oh God, must we have “the money talk” again? Well, yes we must, because some mistakes were made and we’re feeling the pain now as the fiscal year is ending.
Hottie’s pay plan changed drastically in July of last year. He gets two different bonuses quarterly that are quite substantial and yes, we live off of them a bit. His employer decided to delay one of the bonuses until year-end (paid out this September 15) and that was a huge hit to us. This all happened after we bought our third car, a sports car that Hottie has wanted for a very long time. Had the pay change happened prior to buying the car, we would have paid for it differently by getting a loan, but things didn’t happen that way. And then, to add more pain to the situation, Hottie’s company offers an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) that he signed up for to the tune of a LOT of money each month. I told him that it wasn’t the best idea due to the pay change, but that we could try it and re-evaluate later. We never re-evaluated it because I do the finances and I KNEW we’d get by, but that it would be tough. What we didn’t think about with the ESPP is that the money was held until a quarterly purchase window, and then those stock purchases had to be held for 12 months to avoid short term taxes (why we didn’t think about this, I have no idea). Essentially, the money we were putting into the ESPP was frozen and unusable for 15 months! Well, when you then add in our WEEKLY date nights ($40-$50 for the sitter, $100 for dinner), we were not even coming close to playing it safe.
When I started feeling the pain a few months ago when I paid the bills, I approached Hottie and said that the ESPP had to stop for now because of the pay change and the cash paid for the car. He hadn’t realized how cumulative the effects of everything were, and when I put it down on paper, he agreed. He almost died, being perfectly honest, when he realized that all of those things (car, ESPP, pay change) in addition to the date nights were adding up to the same amount we’d spend on one of our credit cards each month (we use our cards for everything and pay in full each month, and yes, we do spend more money than most eating out and on our groceries that are all fresh and never processed). It was a colossal disaster just waiting to happen.
I’d move money from savings to checking, from one bank to the other, and used all of my FB sales money to pay things off in full, but money was being depleted quickly. The ESPP was halted but it took two pay cycles for them to stop taking money out of the checks, so that was painful. Date nights came to an end for the near future. I KNEW we’d get to one bonus payout in August that would then get us to September for the big annual bonus (and the one they held for the entire damn year) that would restock the savings account in full, but it was going to be tight. I knew all of this, but I didn’t want to have “the money talk,” (we have it 2-4 times a year, which isn’t bad but is always stressful) so I just kept paying bills, moving money from one place to the other, and didn’t mention it after we’d had that one talk about halting the ESPP and date nights.
Well, Hottie asked about it the other day and said it was causing him stress. I said it was causing me stress too, but that we’d be OK. I immediately tried to figure out exactly what would be left in savings before the bonus re-load in September, but I just didn’t have the time to focus on it without kids bugging me.
The next morning, I got an email from Hottie, who had been up since 4:00, with the subject line of “Finances.” Ugh. Well, he’d done the analysis I was trying so hard to find the time to do, and came to the same conclusions that I knew in my head. His email was not accusing, it was factual. He was more panicked than I was and suggested a few immediate changes that I didn’t think we necessary, so I wrote back:
Looks like you did the same analysis I was trying to do yesterday.
We will get to August without the scottrade $. It’s tight, it’s no fun, but we can do it. Is that cash that you’re transferring or are you selling stock?
The 401k drop is ok only because you max out in September anyway, but what was it at? I bet X%. I’d take it down to X% at the least. We still want to max it out this year without a doubt. This is something to consider for long term though, if we set out at X% (our whatever) per check, will we still max out each year? By September, you’re no longer contributing because you’ve reached the max, so can we change it to spread that out to December and have more take home each month? I can’t believe I haven’t thought of that before. I’m sorry.
My biggest hits are groceries, gas, and… Lunches. I buy nothing for me (besides painting every other month) and the kids clothes are minimal. My dad gave us $300 to spend on their clothes in preparation for school, so that’s good. I need to figure out how to lunch at home too. I’m worried we’ll fall into hot dogs. I don’t want to be cooking 2 meals a day and the way the kids really makes lunch at home hard.
This would not have happened if we hadn’t done the ESPP or bought the car. I’m not regretting the car, just saying that that cushion was used that we use every year before savings load in September. The combo of those two things and the pay plan change and we were doomed. Our spending has NOT changed. The paychecks did. The bonus change was, essentially, $X (pre tax) per MONTH ($X quarterly) and the ESPP was $X per month, so combined that’s $X per MONTH we didn’t have that we had all other years. That is significant.
Not an excuse, but that is the reason. I don’t want you thinking I’m off spending money with abandon this year.
No need to sell company stock.
Saving more is always good, so I like your thoughts in the email.
I came out and told him I’d responded to his email. He then read it, and responded to me. “401k contributions were at X%. Totally agree with your plan below. Let’s keep at X% for now and reevaluate once savings balance is higher. I don’t think you’re spending money with abandon. If anything I am – on lunches.”
We were on the same page, we both felt better about the situation, and we did not speak of it again. We will get to August, and then September, with money in savings and then we’ll reload savings, and we’re going to decrease our monthly spending because it’s the right thing to do. Done. (And I know this is not easy for everyone to do – we are just both very aware of spending and love saving money, so we really take it seriously and know that we’re fortunate enough to be able to fix the problems by lowering our monthly spend.)
****
I sometimes think that the way we communicate when the topic is incredibly unpleasant is ridiculous. Email? We send each other emails? But yes, we do send each other emails. We send them, and then we tell the other one, “I sent you an email about XYZ. Please let me know when you’ve read it.” This sounds so crazy as I write it out, but it works for us. And that’s what matters.
When Hottie’s sister asked him for tips on how to communicate, I asked, “did you tell her that we send emails when the topic is too hard to talk about without interrupting each other?” He did tell her that. He also told her that she can’t be passive-aggressive or wait for her husband to bring things up that are bothering him. If he seems bothered, ASK him what is upsetting him. If there is a giant elephant in the room, send an email and get your thoughts out cleanly, respectfully, and COMPLETELY. We both think that the most important thing when discussing hard things is to get your thoughts out completely without being interrupted. We’re both TERRIBLE at interrupting each other, especially during an argument, so when the topic is really hard, we step back and use email.
We’re not perfect, and some therapists would probably think we have big problems if this is how we communicate, but doing it this way helps to keep our verbal communications pleasant and respectful.
****
Sadly, Hottie’s sister’s husband filed for divorce last week. We all saw it coming because neither of them was trying to make a change. Another marriage broken because of communication problems (and other problems, of course, but his sister says this was their biggest problem). If we ever get divorced (of course we won’t, said every married couple!), it won’t be because we don’t communicate (notice I didn’t say, “communicate correctly”!!!).
Momentous
I can hardly read or talk about today’s Supreme Court decision without tearing up. I honestly cannot believe it. Gay marriage has been legal in my lovely state for over 6 years now (what a proud day that was – our conservative little state granted rights to a minority group before they were told by the federal government they had to do so!), but I truly wondered if I would ever see this day, when all Americans are free to marry the person they love regardless of their sexual orientation.
As I was driving the boys home from the neighbor’s today, I told Matthew that this was a very important day because, “mommies can now marry mommies, and daddies can now marry daddies, like your mommy married your daddy.” He does not understand this at all (and of course you don’t have to be parents to get married – duh!), but I felt the need to tell him how important this day is. Because it is. My children and I have both witnessed a very important piece of history in our shared lifetimes together. I will tell them about this one day, and will tell them where we were when we heard the news. What is interesting to me is that they will never know anything different.
Isn’t that amazing? Our children will never know what it’s like to be told that they can only get married if they marry someone of the opposite sex. This amazes me in the same way that I’m awed by the fact that they will never know what a real dial tone sounds like, or know how to use computers without touch screens. It’s just… weird.
And it’s awesome!
Happy 2 & 4!
Yesterday and today are all about birthdays! Matthew turned 4 yesterday at 11:54 AM as we ate lunch with Hottie, and Bryson turned 2 today at 8:03 as we decorated his cake!
These boys are full of spunk and energy and I think the next year is going to be exhausting! But I KNOW it’s going to be great!!!
Happy birthday, sweet (and naughty 😈) boys of mine! We love you both so very much!!!
Cheaters All Around
About a year ago, my younger sister (L) called me with some disturbing news. She told me that my older sister, H, would likely be calling me to tell me about an affair she’d been having. L had just hung up from listening to H tell her about an affair she’d been carrying on for months with a guy in her running club, a guy she was now in love with. She went on and on to L about how in love she was, how happy she was, etc. and all L could do was keep herself from throwing up.
I didn’t wait for H to call me. I called her immediately and asked what she had to tell me.
Same story, same enthusiasm, same nauseating love story about how her husband no longer “gets her” and that this new guys does (of course he does). She had no shame. She wanted me to be… happy for her. After all, “I supported you when you got messed up with that guy 14 years ago who was married.” A – he said he was in the middle of a divorce (a lie), B – I was 24 and it was 14 YEARS ago and I was in a rather severe bout of depression, and C – “you should never have supported me in that.” Just because she supported me 14 years ago in the biggest mistake of my life (when I had no husband, no kids of my own) did not mean I had to support her tearing her own family apart.
No way.
Her husband knew about it because he’s a web security professional and knew how to intercept her emails when he suspected something was going on, and she was INFURIATED by his betrayal. HIS BETRAYAL. How dare he betray HER like that! Holy hell, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She was ready to move out and leave the kids with him, and a few weeks later, that’s exactly what she did.
My sister left her children to be with a man who then denied the affair to his own wife. He denied it at first, but then blamed my sister for it because she “pushed him into it” (of course she did. Good god, man!). My BIL got involved and shared the emails with the other wife and to prove that they were both very willing, active participants in the affair. What a hot mess.
My sister eventually moved back home because life without my BIL was rough (that’s what we all think, anyway. He filed legal docs to prepare for divorce and locked her out of his inheritance, his life insurance, his retirement from that moment forward, etc.). My BIL did the right thing – he kept the house (on my dad’s legal advice) and the kids and kept life going for everyone while she got her shit together and figured out where she wanted to be. He’s a patient man, my BIL. I don’t know that I could have done what he did. I always say that people make mistakes and I’d do anything to save my marriage, but man alive, that man paid dearly to keep his marriage.
During this entire time, my sister kept saying, “I deserve to be happy. I deserve to have the life I want.”
****
My next door neighbors are newly separated. She kicked him out after lots of counseling and when he said the one thing he needed from her was to stop putting him down. She kicked him out almost immediately after that marriage counseling session. Now, we don’t know what all goes on in their marriage, but we do know that she’s frosty and always acts annoyed by everyone around her, including our kids. We do know that her husband would do anything for anybody (and has helped us out quite a bit in a pinch) and is a friendly, genuine guy.
We didn’t know about the separation until our other neighbor told us, but I did wonder what in the world was going on over there. He would swing by during the day quickly to mow the lawn, which made no sense, or stop by to let the dogs out and then go back to work. I didn’t think anything of it beyond the fleeting thought that it was strange and I certainly didn’t mention it to Hottie. But I did see something from her that made me raise an eyebrow, but then I dismissed it because I figured I had to be wrong.
Hottie came home a couple of months ago from visiting with the neighbor across the street. “Have you heard about W and A?” he asked. I said no, because I hadn’t. He filled me in on the separation and asked if I had any clue. I told him that I saw something from her just one week earlier that raised suspicions, but I wrote it off because it wasn’t my business and I could easily be reading into things. I had seen her come home in some guy’s car, into her garage, and unload her bike from his bike trailer and flirt back and forth with him a bit. I figured it could be a coworker or something perfectly innocent, so I brushed it off. I didn’t even tell Hottie about it until he asked me that night. He was stunned that I had seen this and not mentioned it, and that I’d seen her husband stop by to mow and let the dogs out during the days, but never said anything to him about it. I know he doesn’t like it when I gossip and I figured he wouldn’t want to know about it, so I didn’t mention it.
Since then, she has had this man, and other men, coming and going from her house in the broad daylight. She sometimes acts weird when we’re outside and they come and go, but mostly, she acts like it’s OK. Our neighbor across the street keeps in touch with her husband and said that he does know about the guy(s) and is devastated by everything. While W lives with his parents, devastated by his ending marriage, his wife A is out and about dating very openly. She is bringing men into her husband’s house. It is so strange to me.
****
There’s been a lot of cheating going on around me in the last 1-2 years. People I know being badly hurt by it, the cheaters expecting me to keep their secrets, kids losing the family life they grew up with. I don’t understand it. Every single time, it’s cheating that is justified by the cheater because, “they deserve to be happy.” My question to my sister was, “what makes you so entitled to your fleeting definition of happiness, but your kids and husband don’t deserve that same entitlement?” My own MIL defended my sister with, “she deserves to be happy in the way she wants to be happy.” (My MIL is a man-hater, by the way. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned that before. If I would cheat on Hottie, we’re pretty certain she’d probably say that I deserved to be happy and it was his failures that drove me to do it.)
Why are people so shameless with their cheating these days, when it wasn’t like this 10, 20, 30 years ago? Why is the quest for individual happiness more important than family happiness? When did people become so selfish, willing to risk their family’s embarrassment and humiliation for their own open happiness?
I just don’t get it.
Birthday Party 2015!
The party is over.
Whew!
It was a busy day starting with lawn and yard work at 7:00 sharp before a quick shower and errands. I love a freshly mowed lawn, especially for the kids to play in! Everything was tip top in the yard by 8:15 and I had 45 minutes to shower and dress before picking up cupcakes. Hottie fixed the shower heads so I took my time, enjoying his hard work to make my showers relaxing (rather than painful from too much pressure). I love my rare showers without kids in there with me. 😁
Hottie took the kids to the store for buns, and to just get them out of my hair so I could wrap everything up the way I wanted them. He knows me so well! The cupcakes were ready on time so I got home quickly to construct the cake.
Decorating the cake was, in a word, FUN! It turned out just as I wanted and I finished it right before the boys walked in. They loved it! And then they asked for their donuts. Ha!
We got all of the serving dishes out last night so we were really in a good place by 10:00. The cupcake toppers were on and the cupcakes were on their serving plates and platters, the cake was ready and safe from little fingers, and the banner and door sign were hung. We just needed the food to arrive.
10:30 came, and 10:30 went, and we had no food. No one was answering their phones so I was a bit panicked. Did I forget to verify the date on the quote? A quick check confirmed the date was correct. Whew! At 10:50, they called to say they were close. They arrived at 11:05. The party started at 11:00. But they were very efficient at setting it up and the food was ready by 11:10. Not bad considering the 35 minute delay!
Everyone but one family came, so we had 33 people including us. That’s small for us… Most of those people were family. It was a really good sized group. Manageable. The bounce house was setup out back, t-ball was ready in one part of the yard, basketballs were out by the court, and a water table was fresh and clean in the adult seating section. It was an outdoor haven for the kids. Inside, the kids played in the cool (I mean temperature!) basement and left the adults upstairs to eat and visit. Over half of the food was consumed and only two bottles of wine were drunk (and no beer… that surprised me).
The birthday song was sung at 12:05 (goal was noon) and the house was empty by 1:06 (goal was 1:00). The house was clean by 2:45 and the kids were napping by 3:00. And then I headed off to a friend’s son’s birthday… Because one party wasn’t enough for me. Ha!
The only pictures I took are here. We have some of the boys blowing out candles on the SLR, but they’re not that great. Ugh!
It was fun, but I’m glad it’s done!
All the Sun For You 