This Blessed Mess » family

Everythings not about my boobs anymore.

Mrs. Messiness — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:54:10 +0000

Oh hai!

Um. I forgot I had a blog. It’ll never happen again. So ANYWAY.

Here, I’ll catch you up:

There was Halloween.

Bella & Veronica/Zombie Cheerleader & Cheeta Cat

Trevor & Billy/The Hobos

Jack/The Baby in Halloween Jammies

And then everyone in the house got disgustingly sick.

But Jack was the only one nice enough to let me take pictures of that part.

Then I got to go on a date with my husband, which happens like, once a year. Dinner and then to see Blue October play at Stubbs.. with NO KIDS which happens like, never.

We were sort of excited.

My handsome husband.

Fun was had by all *SQUEAL*

Then Jack turned one.

He's very good at cake.

Very very good.

We had Thanksgiving.. in which I did not have to cook anything because that’s how awesome my husband is.

Notice how you cannot see me anywhere near the food?

And then we found out we are expecting kid #6. Yes, 6. I’ll keep you updated on this one, I swear.

So now you know where the heck I’ve been. Where the heck have you been?

Crazy can’t save you from cancer.

Mrs. Messiness — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:46:29 +0000

There was no end to the excuses I would let my grandmother get away with. I would nod when she told me stories, nod when she got them backwards, nod when she called me by my mothers’ name.

I believed everything she said – every time she spoke, because she was an anomaly to me. She was fascinating and strong and beautiful. She was amazing and scary and strange and comfortable to me. There were days when she would tell me with great clarity of her love affair with my grandfather and days when she couldn’t remember his name.

When I was little and I would visit her, she would transform her entire house into yellow heaven. Yellow was my favorite color, so naturally, she would throw everything out that was anything but yellow. Soap, coffee cups, rugs, peas, toilet paper, bedspreads – every un-yellow thing had to go in the trash.

She ordered candy bars by the case. She called 800 numbers to see if someone named Ben would answer – because she wanted to talk to a Ben. She fed me cucumbers and chocolate syrup and Coca-Cola for lunch and orange-flavored cough medicine for desert. She kept a picture of Lee Majors hanging on her wall because she thought he looked like Jesus.

There was nothing on God’s earth that could have extinguished her like cancer did. It crept in unnoticed and unannounced and swept her away before she had a chance even to battle it. I held her cross when I got married and clutched her rosary when I was baptized last December, and I think about her when I see yellow in unexpected and unexplained places. She was my hero – cancer her villain.

My uncle – her son – was invincible. He was made out of pure steel – unbreakable and unsinkable. He fought in wars and in bars and was never afraid. He loved his wife madly from the minute they met until the minute he died and he never let her doubt it. There was simply nothing on earth that was strong enough to break him like cancer did. It was fast and violent and painful and we all deal with the guilt of thanking God for ending it when He did.

My grandfather wore his dress uniform to both funerals and saluted his son’s casket when it passed. I remember thinking that I’d never seen him look so handsome. I remember thinking that he looked so tired and so sad. Both times, I prayed that God would hold onto his heart and not loose all the pieces if it shattered. Both times I prayed that God would not make me see him cry. Both times I prayed that this time would be the last time that cancer stole from my family.

My mother and her twin have both seen the shadow of cancer on their doorstep and they both check and check and recheck to see that it’s really not standing there anymore. We’ve all been told we should check and check as well, and we do.

Today, though, it feels like no matter how vigilant we’ve become, no matter how many motes and canals we dig around our castle, or how many dragons and monsters we chain to our front door – cancer keeps finding a way in. The shadows all over my grandfathers’ lungs is cancer. His heart condition has progressed to the point that a pacemaker is a necessity, but the aggressive nature of the cancer treatment he’ll need will destroy it.

Well played cancer – you fucking win again.

The incredible exploding family

Mrs. Messiness — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:16:41 +0000

So, we took Billy to the airport last week to send him off to his father for the yearly summer visit. After fighting with the ex all year over the visitation schedule, decision making authorities and who pays for what, it was a trip we weren’t sure he would be making. In the end, though, our strange lawyer turned out to me a super-hero and kicked some deadbeat-dad-ass; the ex pays for all transportation, cannot drink any alcohol while our son is in his possession, and only gets 30 days in the summer as opposed to the previous 80-90. We got all that we asked for, and (in true douche bag fashion) the ex threw in a “FINE – It’s just not worth it anyway!” at the end like a kid losing at hopscotch and not a man fighting to see his child. Whatever. Ass.

Either way, I still have to send my son on a plane to stay with that ‘man’ for his time and I still have to smile and pretend like I’m glad he’s having a great time playing Mature and Not Yet Rated video games and watching R and NC17 movies – not going to church and hearing his father get laughs all around for calling people ‘fagots’. Although the ass gets a sorry tale to tell about how his ex-wife screwed him (I didn’t) and how he lost everything (he didn’t), it still feels like a slap in the face to send my son to him at all.

We had to send Trevor & Veronica back the day before Billy left so they could spend their month with their mom; loosing all three at the same time feels like having your family explode and scatter all over the globe – needless to say, it makes me feel a bit shell shocked. Bella and Jack are left now, Bella ever-careful of not mentioning how she doesn’t get one of those vacations, and Jack still too little to care. Ironic, since he’s the only one that can truly enjoy never having been named in a divorce or custody battle.

Having kids is hard.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Trees.

Mrs. Messiness — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:45:40 +0000

Stick families

Mrs. Messiness — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:54:26 +0000

I love Mother’s Day. I love the handmade, homemade cards with pictures of mommies with stick-person babies and round kids with too-long legs and too-short hair living in square houses and smiling half-circle smiles. I love the cards. I look forward to them every year and I save them all in a big jumbley stack.

Someday I will put them all in plastic notebook sleeves and even label them with kid-names and ages and put them all in order by kid, then year; but that day is far, far away because, well, I have kids. Lots and lots of kids.

When people ask me how many kids I have I say “We have five” without missing a beat. Every once in awhile, I will offer the explanation of how he had two and I had two and then we had another one, but that usually leads having to listen to all the reasons why they did or did not like Eight Is Enough and/or The Brady Bunch and inevitably, them saying “Hey! Now you just need one more so it can be two and two and two!!” because apparently families work best and are complete when they are mathematically balanced. More often than not, though, I say “We have five” and leave it at that.

I grew up in what felt like a giant pile of mismatched socks; people were always asking who belonged to whom, and why. I grew up with my mom and step-father, two older step-sisters and my adopted younger sister (whose biological mother was my oldest step-sister). My brother lived with my dad and I visited on the weekends. My step-sisters insisted that my mom and I lived in their house with their dad – that my brother and I were the ’other kids’. In conversations, I never ever let a ‘your dad’ go by uncorrected when used in reference to my step-father. I never let anyone call my step-sisters my ‘sisters’, but I insisted that no one ever call my little sister anything less that my sister. There was always separation and distinction. We identified ourselves with our differences; displayed our separateness before our similarities – and in the end, are in fact, all separate.

My mother and step-father have long since divorced and after an ugly custody battle; my step-father raised my sister and my mother left town. I never speak to the step-sisters or my step-father but my brother and sister and I are close. My sister is very close to her biological mother – my oldest step-sister – and calls her husband a step-dad. As you can imagine, I have a hard time mapping out this whole community when trying to tell childhood stories to my kids. To this day, I avoid “how many kids were in your family?” because it was just too confusing to recite all the rules.

I glow when asked how many kids I have. I beam. I swell. We have five. All five of them stack up perfectly. They all match. They’re made out of tiny pieces all of us and of each other and we’re all glued together (in our triangle dresses and orange yarn hair) and I thank God daily for every extra minute we get to share together.

Someday, I’ll sit with a giant, nicely-organized binder full of all my Construction Paper Mother’s Day cards in their pretty flat plastic sleeves (in order of kid and year, no less) and I’ll show them all off to all my hundreds of grandkids. I’ll pull each card out one by one and we will reattach each taped-on heart and glued-on button that didn’t make it through the years. I’ll tell them all the stories about their mommies and daddies that I promised never to tell and show them all the embarrassing haircut pictures that they think I threw away.

And eventually, I will make sure they all know how some families are built with construction paper and Elmer’s glue, and that even though our buttons might fall off and our yarn hair might get fuzzy – we absolutely must stay stuck to each other.

Happy late Mother’s Day, mommies – may your Popsicle sticks never be splintery.

Foreheads, Republicans & Singing Doctors

Mrs. Messiness — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:47:57 +0000

Where the hell have I been?

Hiring a lawyer: Yay for custody battles! This appears to be going ok-ish, although my Republican, Bush-loving, animal-heads-mounted-on-his-walls, nervous-twitch-having lawyer kept smacking himself on the ass and telling us that he has a birthmark “RIGHT.THERE” that matches the one on Jack’s forehead. I think he is on drugs. He is a very nice man.

At the doctors office: My poor, poor, pitiful Bella was in line, walking to the bus after school when her “legs tangled” and she fell, face-first onto the pavement. Apparently, her “arms were busy falling” (direct quote from her) so they weren’t able to catch her and she broke her defenseless, minding-it’s-own-business, perky little nose. She also bit through her upper lip, got a big purple goose-egg on her head, and skinned both knees and an elbow. Bruises are spreading across her nose and under both eyes, and her lip is turning yellow to match the hue of the lump in the middle of her forehead. We are sure to become the talk of the town (or at least the talk of the crazy ladies at the bus-stop). Bonus: The doctor sang an off-key “We Will Rock You” to Belle after she finished peroxide-ing her wounds and sopping blood and mud from her nose. I love our doctor.

Sleeping!!: Jack has graced us with 8 long hours of wonderful, uninterrupted, fabulous sleep every night!! This is a beautiful, beautiful thing and I have caught myself more than once almost waking him up to nuzzle and snuggle and thank the slobber right out of him.

And that’s about the size of it. Plus, I am working on putting my story together for MaggieDammit who is my new hero. Stay tuned, my loyal readers (all 1.5 of you).

I hope you read this.

Mrs. Messiness — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:38:50 +0000

What you are doing is not fair. I know – life is not fair – but what you are doing is just offensive to me as a mother and as a woman and it’s plain wrong.

I married you when I was a silly little girl - just doing what I was told - but divorcing you filled me with a furious need to never be ‘silly’ again. To never be disregarded or ignored or insignificant again. I have long since nullified my resentment of you because I am not sure I would like a person that hadn’t learned all those lessons you taught me. All the strength that leaving you brought me – the bull-headed determination that still stamps itself on my face when someone tells me that I can’t do something, or raises a hand to me, or dares to act as if I am ‘insignificant’.

But your absence from our son was never excused. Make no mistake; I have never, and will never, speak ill of you to him, but I will never lie to him, either. I waited and waited for you to start being his father. I knew that Washington had nothing left for me – but I stayed – just in case you would decide to be in his life. I put my world on hold and I did not move on or do anything for myself because I never ever wanted to give you another excuse for why you just couldn’t make him significant enough. I waited for 8 years for you to make just one move closer to him. One. And you didn’t. I all but begged you – no, I did beg you to be in his life – and you simply said ‘no’.

So I left. I left because while I was busy trying to force you to not make my son feel insignificant and unimportant – your behavior began to highlight that fact and make it throb. So I took him and we left to find a better life. And we did. We found a wonderful life filled with love and compassion and family and no one ever feels left out or small. He has brothers and sisters and a man in his life that would never hurt him or his mom. And he was healing. I know that no amount of a mothers love can ever fill up the hole that being abandoned by a father leaves – but he was healing, and the wounds that you left became only bruises and they didn’t bleed like they did when you simply said ‘no’.

And then, lo and behold, because you just can’t just let people heal, you showed back up. Talking about video games and cars and all the things that a boys his age think dads talk about. With no explanation of why your face was not familiar to him or why your voice did not sound like home to him. With no reasoning or apology or anything to explain why you refused to exist for so long – nothing but expensive electronics and promises of a car when he turns 16 and BAM! You are a hero – you can do no wrong.

My son is caring and loving and considerate – but when he comes home from your house, he is mean. My son would never hurt his mom’s feelings – he knows what struggles we went through -he remembers . But when he comes home from your house he makes fun of our life – he belittles our home and he tries to makes it seem insignificant. That is not ok.

And now – you think he belongs to you. Now you think that all if takes is your money and your lawyer and you big words and you can just take him away. You think that it’s ‘your turn’. You think that you can just make demands on me and my family and we have to just lie down -like before- and that you’ll get whatever you want because you are ‘the man’ and what you say goes but you are wrong in so many ways.

I will fight with you. I will play your stupid game. I will go to court and I will break your ‘rules’. I say whatever I need to say and I won’t smile pretty this time. Did your brother ever find out all those things you told his wife? Did your mom ever find out why you really spent that time in jail when we were married? How about your wife – is she aware of your how you feel about other men? Or does she just ignore that – like I wouldn’t?

I will fight you for my son and he will stay with me. And no, I will not be covering ‘all the costs’ you incurred because I moved out-of-state. I simply say ‘no’. And if you want to play dirty and remind me that life is not fair – then I will do that too. I am not above hitting below the belt – and you should know that, going in.

My son will not be insignificant or unimportant- and you are not allowed to use him to try to alleviate your insignificance and unimportance. I raised him. I cried for him when he hurt and held him when he cried for you. I answered the hard questions and none of them ever had anything to do when an X-Box or an IPod. I built my whole world around him not hurting – so you are not allowed to come in and try to push it all over.

You are not important. You are not significant. You are not a dad- you are just another struggle that he will remember having to go through – I know that, because I know you – and I know you can’t endure anything that is real – and you will disappear again. And I know that you will blame it on me for fighting with you- and that’s ok too.

Just go – I’ll play your stupid game, and I’ll pick up all the pieces and put him back together, I always do, just go.

Dear kid..

Mrs. Messiness — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:51:51 +0000

Billy-

We’ve been doing this for 12 years – can you believe it? You and me kid - we started this story 12 years ago today.

Thank you for being my rock and my strength and my soul. I would have never made it without you. Happy Birthday, baby.

-Mom

Bring it on.

Mrs. Messiness — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:30:54 +0000

I am not sure I have ever voiced this – but the beginnings have always terrified me; endings, not so much. I suppose I have always figured that endings are inevitable – usually sad, but inevitable, just the same. Obviously, the only way to avoid an ending is to avoid the beginnings.. thus my fear of starting things and probably the root of all my procrastination.

Being afraid of beginnings makes things like an impending January very uncomfortable.. and I just realized that at this time last year, I was a nervous wreck. Turns out (surprise!) it was all for naught.

This year has been better than I could have ever ask for:

I got to marry my best friend. In a perfect, very ‘us’ wedding – that was everything I had no idea I had always dreamed of. My family came together for the first time I can remember for me and was happy, simply because I was happy. People I hadn’t seen in years came from across the country because they love me and my family and wanted to be a part of my life and know who I am now.

And then.. everyone went home and the ‘good’ didn’t go away. I fall in love with my husband everyday, all over again. Who knew just being happy would be easy? No wonder I hadn’t gotten it right yet – ‘easy’ never came easy to me.

Our baby boy was born on November 26th; sealing a several-year-long relationship between me and that date that was ready to be laid to rest. 11/26 has been a very personal and private day of mourning for me for almost a decade; now it has a strong, amazing little life attached to it – and God gave me that. Amazingly, I feel free. I remain in awe of this everyday and thank God every morning for pulling me through to the ‘free’ side – the answer all along was so simple, yet seemed so out of reach – now it all seems so obvious. ‘Healing’ finally feels good.

We built a beautiful family. ‘We’ now consist of a family of seven. Something else I always wanted – but never thought I would have. We are seven pieces of a puzzle that finally feels complete.

Don’t get me wrong – this year has been painful too. Relapse and recovery became two very real terms in our house. They used to sneak out of the sides of our mouths like dirty words – scurrying away from conversation as quick as they were uttered. Now they seem to flow daily and aren’t so spine-wrenching. ‘Relapse’ lost some of it’s mysterious terror and ‘recovery’ started sounding real. It started sounding like a way of life as opposed to something just out of reach. It started sounding like a ‘family affair’, if you will, too. It has become very clear to me that I am not an innocent bystander or observer of ‘my husbands’ recovery’ – but someone who is in control of ‘my own recovery’ as well.

So I’ve decided that I won; and that beginnings are not going to scare me anymore.

I say – Bring it On – I am ready to see what the New Year will bring us. Goods and bads, ups and downs, sick kids and healthy ones, happy and sad days, gains and losses (big and small), bumped and bonked heads, first words and first anniversaries, I am ready – Bring it On.