Oh Boy.

My baby boy has turned into a kid.

A rowdy one.

I blame preschool.

E goes to preschool 3 days a week, and there is a kid there who he calls his best friend. This kid's mother and I grew up in church together so we know each other pretty well. Our boys were attending a small Mother's Day Out program together and loving every minute of it. In December, we were informed that the program's funding had been cut and they were shutting it down. Because we wanted our boys to continue preschool together, we made sure to move them to the same new Mother's Day Out program on the same days.

Oh boy.

Other than being E's "best fwiend" he has taught my sweet baby boy the following:

*Candy can be shoved in your mouth up to the point that your lips no longer close and rainbow colored spit pours out the sides.

*Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, can be used to "shoot a deer." My sweet little boy now goes around aiming rolls of wrapping paper, remote controls, and dinner forks at the dog hollering, "I'm going to shoot a deer....chi, chi, BAM!"

The phrase "what the hell" is appropriate to say when the dog knocks over one of your trains. Obviously, the appropriate response after the aforementioned derailing of the train, is to pick up said train, aim it at the dog and yell "Chi, Chi, BAM!"

I guess it was too much to hope that he would simply learn to wipe himself and write his name.

I know everything he's experiencing right now is par for the course when you have a little boy. However, he's growing up WAY. TOO. FAST. While I'm excited about each new phase of development, I am finding myself missing the baby in him. He's all into wanting to help me, and he actually PLAYS now instead of just tossing toys about. He has his own little agenda, and when things don't go according to it, he responds with some form of loud protest. Everything about him now is a bit more pronounced than it once was: his love, his dismay, his frustration, his joy, his sense of humor, his sadness, his excitement, his energy, and his precious little spirit.

I miss him being a baby. I miss holding him and smelling his sweet little head. I miss rocking him to sleep at night while singing songs. I miss being able to lay him down on a blanket in the floor and leaving the room only to come back and him be in the same exact spot, smiling at me. I miss cuddling on the couch with him sleeping beside me. I miss my baby.

But I love this kid. I love grabbing him and hugging him tight as I smell the little boy smell from his hair. I love laying in bed with him and reading stories as he stops me mid sentence to count all of the bears in the picture. I love listening to him to sing songs in the car to the radio, only to get shy when he catches me looking at him in the rear view mirror. I love leaving the room with him watching tv and coming back in to an empty room and a little voice in the house hollering, "I bet you can't find me Momma!" I love laying with my son on the couch to watch cartoons while he throws the blanket over his head and says, "get under the tent wif me!"

Even if I never get to be the mommy of another baby, I get to be "Momma" to this precious kid.

Thank you, God, for picking me. Oh Boy.

A Therapy Blog

This morning I saw something that caught my attention. I had just dropped E off at the gas station for the weekly swap with his dad, and on my way back, I passed a BMW. It's not that strange to pass a BMW...people do it on a daily basis, I'm sure of it. But this one was different. This wasn't just any BMW.

This was a BMW with a Pizza Hut magnetic sign perched on top. Yeah, really.

My first thought after, ok...not something you see every day, was what kind of choices did that guy make to put himself in the position of BMW owner and pizza delivery guy in the same season of his life? I can't help but think that his story must be some kind of flirtation between "sometimes life hands you lemons" and "holy, sh*t...wish I hadn't done that."

Lately I've been sorting through a pile of choices in my life, trying to distinguish the good from the bad, the lucky from the unlucky, the "sometimes life hands you lemons" and the "holy sh*t...wish I hadn't done that." I'm on a personal quest to figure out why I do the things I do....a much bigger initiative than I'm actually comfortable with, because it requires me to dive into the dark corners of my psyche and air out whatever might have set up residence there. And so far, the only conclusion that I've come to is that these aforementioned shortcomings and inadequacies have been shoved into the dark corners for a good reason...they kind of suck.

But, in the spirit of "airing out", this is what I've uncovered so far:

I live life in victim mode. It's very easy for me to take any lemons life might hand me and hurl them in someone else's direction. I try very hard to never be "at fault"....not because I'm never actually a key player in whatever heartache may be going on....but because the admission of such a role would mean that I'm not perfect. And while I KNOW I'm not perfect, I have nearly 29 years invested in getting others to believe that I'm pretty darn close....even though, rationally, I know they never do. (A realization that only serves to make me even MORE disappointed in my inability to live up to my incredibly unrealistic expectations of myself.) Wow...it was exhausting just typing that....no wonder I'm so tired all the time.

I'm never quite as happy where I'm at as I need to be. It seems that I'm always looking for the NEXT thing in life to bring excitement or happiness. It's hard for me to just. settle. in. I used to think I did this because life is supposed to one of those "the sky's the limit, take the bull by the horns, ride like the wind" kind of experiences. But in the process of airing out the dark corners, I've realized that I do this because I have an unhealthy ideal that life should be perfect, happy, rosy, uplifting, satisfying, gratifying, and splendid ALL THE TIME. Obviously, a mindset like this leads a girl to a wealth of absolutely nothing but disappointment on semi-regular basis. I haven't quite figured out WHY I do this yet...just that I do it. Stay tuned for the details...I'm sure it will be a humdinger.

There's tons more...but we'll call it a night there.

Suddenly, for some reason, being a BMW Pizza Delivery driver doesn't seem so bad.

(For anyone still reading this thing...I promise to blog about something completely comical and free of therapeutic references as soon as possible. Fart blog, anyone???)

Well, crap.

Hello Blog. Remember me? I'm the girl who promised to love you forever and then just one day stopped typing. Sorry about that. I'm back now, because

A. I am a good blogger

B. I miss you.

and

C. When all this crazy is trapped in my head, life gets ugly. So I figured I'd return and release all the crazy back into the blogdom. Oh yes. You're welcome.

Here it comes...

I think I may have possibly said this before, but apparently it warrants repeating. I have issues. Not just the kind of issues that require the occasional threesome with Ben and Jerry, but REAL issues....the kind that call for serious processing and visits with my inner child and, ugh, honesty.

I wish that I could say that during my extended blog absence life has been all sunshine and roses. I wish I could say that I was the model of joy and happiness. I wish I could say that I had learned how to go all Bewitched on the things that haunt me. But I haven't. Life since marrying OS has had its ups and downs. We've done the expected laughing and crying, but recently found ourselves at a crossroads, probably the first of many, where a decision had to be made. It wasn't painless and it wasn't easy, but at the end of the day we found ourselves taking each other's hand and walking in the same direction. However, during this little journey, I looked at myself in a new light. Unfortunately, it was a cheap dressing room kind of light instead of an upscale salon light....and, well, let's just say it....all my crap was right there for the whole world to see.

The result of this experience has been me realizing that I am long overdue at dealing with my issues. So far in my life, it's been rather convenient to blame my shortcomings on others in my life. It's my parents fault, my sister's fault, my ex husband's fault, or OS's fault. Never mine though....never mine. Sadly, this isn't quite the case. I've realized that I have been experiencing the same problems over and over for years now, and this cross roads experience with OS has made me decide that it's time to tackle the things that haunt me like a ghostbuster with a new proton pack. I have a feeling it's not going to be an easy journey, but LUCKY YOU....you'll get to read about it...because guess what Blog....

I'm back.

Conversations with E

My son has been quite the little conversationalist lately. Most of the time it's too stinkin' cute. Like this one:

Setting the stage: On our way to a bounce house for him to celebrate his birthday with a friend who was also having a birthday. The bounce house is in the same general direction as the place where we got his halloween costume. We had just pulled off the exit when the conversation started:

E: Mommy...are we getting costume?

Me: Not today, Buddy...we're going to a bouncy house for you to play!

E: Will there be costumes there?

Me: No baby...we only wear costumes for halloween...now it's time for your birthday, so we're going to play!

E: My dirfday? I will be shree on my dirfday!

Me: I know! You're such a big boy!

E: After my dirfday will there be costumes?

Me: No...after your dirf...BIRTHday...there will be Christmas!

E: What's Christmas?

Me: Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birthday! It will be fun. You will get presents and we'll read stories about Jesus!

E: How old is Jesus going to be?

Me: Ummm....I don't know...but it's going to be fun!

E: What costume will Jesus wear?

Me: Jesus doesn't have a costume...costumes are just for Halloween.

E: Jesus is going to be a bat.

Me: A bat, huh?

E: yeah (nodding head enthusiastically). A bat. And he'll say "tricky-tricky" and we'll give him candy for his dirfday. And, and, and, and, Jesus will be "shree" too.

Me: (unable to figure out how to diffuse the confusion at this point) sounds good to me baby!

E: yeah.


And then there are conversations like this one that are just downright exhausting:

Setting the stage: I'm folding laundry. And then the fun began.

E: Mommy, whatcha doin?

Me: folding clothes.

E: why?

Me: So we'll have clean clothes to wear.

E: why?

Me: because we like to wear clean clothes.

E: why do we like cwean cwothes?

Me: we just do. (walking into the laundry room)

E: Now whatcha doin?

Me: washing some more clothes for us.

E: why?

Me: (because I said so!) we just have a lot of laundry

E: why?

Me: (Oh dear Lord...we just do!) we just do, baby.

E: but why?

Me: (OH MY GOD!) we just wear a lot of clothes.

E: Why we wear a wot of cwothes?

Me: I think Tom and Jerry is on! Want to watch it?

E: Tom and Jerry?! Why is Tom and Jerry on?

Me: come on! I'll turn it on for you!

After turning on the tv, I begin to walk out of the room...

E: whatcha doin mommy?

Me: going to finish laundry.

E: why?

Me: (because you're driving me crazy!) because you're driving me crazy!

E: I'm dwiving you cwazy?

Me: yes (feeling guilty)

E: why?

and it continued until bedtime.

I love this kid. Just don't ask why.

These Boots Were Made For Walkin

I had a few hours to kill yesterday since E's dad wanted to take him around to his family to show off his dalmation costume for Halloween, and since OS was at work, I made plans to meet up with my friend, The Musicmaker, at the mall. She was in search of boots and a white chocolate mocha although not necessarily in that order. We stopped by the coffee shop in the mall. She got the mocha beverage and I, since I don't like coffee, got some java chiller thing that had enough chocolate and cookie bits in it to cover up the coffee taste. These things should be illegal, by the way, because I could develop an addiction to them that may result in my appearance on that A&E show, Intervention.

Anyway, we strolled through the mall, beverages in hand, and laughed and joked, and made sideways glances at people who may or may not have been dressed up in piss poor excuses for halloween costumes. There were several people that the verdict is still out on. We wove ourselves in and out of shoe stores and she found several pairs of boots that were "almost it, but _____ is wrong." She knew exactly what she was looking for. I, also had a pair of boots in mind that I figured I would never find....a calf high, kitten healed, casual/dressy boot in a neutral shade of brown. The impossible search.

We made our way into Rack Room Shoes, and she grabbed a pair to try on. And then I spotted the perfect boot....a calf high, kitten healed, casual/dressy boot in "cognac." Impossible search over. I tried it on and it fit perfectly, and I checked the price....only $40! The store was having a "buy one get one 50% off" sale, so we tried really hard to find a pair of boots that would work for The Musicmaker, but still, nothing was quite what she wanted. So we made our way up to the counter with my perfect boots in hand, and while we waited in line behind another customer, I began to tell her the story of E's dalmation costume, complete with the sound effects of me barking like a dog.

Then something weird happened.

The guy in front of us in line turned around and said, "That was a great dog impression. I actually looked around for a dog." I responded with something casual like "yeah, I have a two year old...I do stuff like that a lot." He turned back around to finish his purchase and I went on with my story to my friend.

Then the guy turned back around and noticed the box of boots in my hand. "What are those," he asked. I was a little confused at this point about why he cared, so I said, "Boots," with a question mark on my face. He kind of nodded and then said, "Can I see them?" Again with the confusion. But I handed him the box and he took them and turned toward the counter.

At this point I look over at my friend, who looks just as confused as I do. I think I actually said out loud, "what just happened?" She shrugged and glanced around the guy to see what was taking place at the counter. "Maybe he's using your boots to get the half off thing?" she asked. I shrugged back. Then the guy turned toward me, gathered up his bags, and said "Pay it forward. Have a great day!" Then he quickly walked out of the store and disappeared.

We stood there shocked for a minute and the clerk asked, "Did you know that man?"

"No...not at all!" I said back. The clerk handed me a bag with my boots in them. "He paid for your boots." We walked out of the store, looking around for the man, but he was gone. Now I, thanks to OS, think I may have watched way too many episodes of Criminal Minds lately, because I immediately thought, "What if he's a serial killer and this is his M.O.!" But I think I just happened to encounter someone who wanted to make someones day better. And he did...with a pair of calf high, kitten healed, dressy/casual boots in the "goes with almost anything shade" of cognac and the simple request to pay it forward.

Something else happened to my while I was walking through the mall. This same time of year just a couple of years ago, I walked through the mall with the same friend. But I was a very different girl. My marriage had fallen apart literally just days before. Together, we walked, me with a broken spirit and a face still puffy from a lot of crying. I kept switching my wedding ring from finger to finger, trying to find it a new home. (It's weird how when you are faced with divorce one of the biggest dilemmas presented to you is what to do with your wedding ring. You'd think the focus would be elsewhere...but it's just there staring you in the face.) I was pretty much a zombie walking through the mall, trying to let go of the life I had been living and grasping at tiny little straws of the possibilities in front of me. I couldn't see that it would ever be better. I couldn't see that it would ever stop hurting. I couldn't see that I deserved a better life.

But she could. So she did the thing that God made best friends for, and she just walked with me that day.

And yesterday, while we walked through the mall, it hit me like a ton of bricks that we had been there before, only life looked so different then. So while we walked, her chit-chatting about work and boots and life, completely oblivious that I was having a moment, I silently thanked God for giving me a friend like her to walk with.

To the guy who asked me to pay it forward....thank you...and I will.

And to my friend, who has walked with me through the mall in the best of times and the worst of times,

I love you. Let's walk again soon.

Son Says...

In the past few months E's conversational skills have revved up quite a bit. He can now engage in an intellectual exchange on the phone with Mimi or Papa regarding what he's doing or what he ate for lunch that day. Granted, this is a conversation that is only riveting to a grandparent, but they must be fascinated with it, because they call my phone specifically to talk to him. I have officially been downgraded from "daughter" to "receptionist."

He's also much more excited about the world going on around him. He's learned to spell his name, and when he mastered that one I taught him that the red sign at the end of the street spells S-T-O-P, Stop! So I guess he's put two and two together (which he does a lot more than I realized) and now understands that when letters are strung together it "thpellths" things. Now he constantly asks stuff like, "Mama, what thpellths car? What thpellths truck? What thpellths BIG truck?" It makes me smile. And then, after about twenty words, it gets a little old. The spelling bees are usually interrupted by me turning up the radio and saying "Ooh...this is a good song, E! Let's sing!" (Just being honest!) But then he starts humming or singing in the backseat. And that makes me smile too. (Until I realize that my toddler is singing all the words to an extremely inappropriate Flo-Rida song...then I just feel like a terrible mother. Again with the honesty.)

The newest development in my sons language is a very pronounced stutter. I started noticing it out of the blue a couple of weeks ago. At first it was just a sentence here or there. Now it's pretty much the first word of every sentence out of his mouth. The Village has noticed it as well. Everyone who keeps my son at some point during the week has commented on it. "Did you notice he's stuttering?" they ask. You mean did I notice my son going, "Wha-Wha-Wha-What-What-What-What's that dog doing?" Yeah...I may have picked up on it once or twice. Maybe.

At first I kind of brushed it off as something that kids just do when they are developing. No big deal, right? But as everyone else commented on it, I began to think, "maybe this isn't a normal toddler thing. Maybe I should look into this a little more."

So I did the DUMBEST thing any mother could possibly do. I googled it.

And as it turns out, my child is either experiencing a perfectly normal part of language development that a kid here and there goes through.....OR he has an incurable neurological defect that will haunt him for life and cause him much pain and suffering on the playground. As luck would have it either way, only time will tell. And here I thought the next couple of months would be stress free days of holiday fun and good eats.

Damn you, Google! Damn you AND your easily accessed, overly informing website of terror!

Brace Yourself Limb, I'm Coming Out There...

The winds of change have blown in my direction again, and this time they are taking me out on my very own limb. My very own shaky, scary limb.

I'm starting my own business. Enough of this "working for everyone else, making everyone else all the money crap." If other people can go out on a limb and manage to dilly dally around out there without crashing to the ground, then by God, so can I.

This was the thought process at least when I filled out official forms at the courthouse this week and then proceeded to leave with my very own business license in hand. I'm currently in grad school to become a therapist...and I still intend to finish that journey and see where God takes me. But in the meantime....I had an idea. And what good is it to have an idea that you don't pursue? No good at all, I say. So I'm in red hot pursuit of this crazy, wacky, hair brained idea that begins with me getting a business license and ends with me being one of those women on Oprah talking about how she made millions by going out on her very own shaky, scary, limb.

Ok....so the last part's a stretch. But I'm in pursuit just the same.

I won't go into details just yet...there's still lots to be done. But if you'd like you can go visit my website. There's nothing there yet...just a little sign that proclaims that something is "coming soon"....but it's the beginning. And most of you have been around for all of the other beginnings I've blogged about...so why not this one? Check it out. http://www.shoptowntn.com.

I shared my crazy, wacky, hair brained idea with OS and asked if I had his support. His reply was simply, "Baby, with as many crazy ideas as you come up with, you're bound to hit on something sooner or later." : )

With support like that, how can I not go for it?

Stay Tuned...Something's Coming!

Worship, Interrupted

We've been looking for a church lately, and the past two weeks have attended one that I think we'll probably set up camp in. It's definitely not the church I would have picked if I was the only one to please, but for now, it seems to meet all of the immediate church related needs of our little family. The style is one that OS is comfortable with, the people are incredibly warm and friendly, the average age in the congregation is well under 75, and there are a lot of kids running around that look every bit as sweet and sour as E. All in all...I think we hit a home freakin' run! AND...the church is only a couple of years old...so it meets in a local elementary school...in the gymacafetorium.


So Sunday, when the words to a worship song that I knew popped up on the overhead projector, I allowed myself a moment to worship...something I don't think I've wholeheartedly done in ages. I closed my eyes, tilted my head up toward God, and allowed myself a moment to briefly be carried away in the thick harmonies of the congregation. And very quickly I remembered why I love worship. For a split second, it was just me and God in that room staring one another in the face. I was right there in the moment with Him...and He was right there in the moment with me. We were on the same page....breathing the same air...and once again He was a very real presence, one that I didn't have to try my hardest to have faith in because I just know it to be true....this time, I could FEEL it. I began to sink deeper into this warm hollow with God...just me and him....and


tap, tap tap....


Huh? Was someone tapping me on the shoulder....no, surely not. I'm just imagining things. Ok...back to the warm hollow....


TAP, TAP, TAP...


I turned around to see the lady in the row behind me tapping me on my right shoulder. "Excuse me," she said. "I have to holler at my daughter." She then proceeded to lean forward...right into the midst of my warm hollow....and hissed with sheer venom in the direction of the red headed tweenager in the row in front of me, "DELIA, STAND UP!" and she made an "up" motion with her arm that would have sliced through my face had I not done a bouncy little hop to the side.


And just like that my warm little hollow dissipated into the far corners of the gymacafetorium.

The rest of the congregation went on singing...and for a few seconds I flipped the coin of what had just happened in my mind. Did someone really just interrupt my worship to snarl at her daughter that she should be standing up to worship? Really? And then it struck me as funny, so I began to laugh. And I laughed. The kind of laugh where you can't let yourself make any noise, so your shoulders twitch and you appear to be a Touret's patient. And I laughed, and laughed. So much for the warm hollow of worship.

But I felt light hearted just the same. Maybe I needed to be reminded that worshipping God isn't always a warm hollow. Sometimes it's shoulder twitching laughter. Maybe I just needed a good hard laugh.

And maybe...just maybe, God knew that before I did.

That Woman

God has been relentlessly poking me on the shoulder lately in an attempt to get my attention about sin in my life. I always hate when God does this. I'd almost always rather just curl up in the corner with my sin and have a private little moment. But alas, God wants to go and better me in the name of Jesus. I have fought it as long as I can...and I dare say it was a valiant effort on my part. But here I am anyway...typing away about the things I need to give over to the Lord...so I can be a better version of myself...or something to that general effect.

Ugh. Personal growth. It's so much less exhausting to just be content to wallow in your own personal imperfections of character. Lord, I mean really....what do we have to do to catch a break down here?!?!

Ok...all dramasm (a little hot toddy of drama and sarcasm if you will) aside. God has been trying to get my attention. As I have put so much effort lately into the discipline of my child, God has revealed to me that He wouldn't mind seeing a little more structure in my life as well. This time, I'm the one who needs to be plopped down in a good solid time out. It's my turn to taste the bitter medicine of structure and boundaries, and EW! DISCIPLINE. It's not that I'm a horrible mess or anything. I'm not bankrupt...I'm not obese...I'm not living in squalor like those pitiful people on that show 'Hoarders' that find 35 cat skeletons in their garage upon cleaning it out (true story!). It's just that a lot of little "slackeryness" in my life has added up to me being much less neat and organized and motivated than I'd like to be. It's the sick, sad combination of not matching the tupperware tops to the tupperware bottoms and my unrelenting inability to actually throw out the lint that I scrape from the dryer's lint trap that have melded together to form a woman who is just a little less than the woman I think God would like for me to be.

It's become very clear to me that God wants me to start tidying up my life...and all the things that go with it. However, as simple as this sounds, it's not all that easy for me to do. It's just not natural for me to be one of those people that has it all together. Case in point: It's taken me a solid week to actually finish this post and hit the publish button...A WHOLE SOLID WEEK. So as fall hangs delicately outside my window, I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm putting the tupperware tops with the tupperware bottoms. I haven't left a pile of dryer lint in the laundry room in days now. DAYS! And...get this....as I type this the laundry is going, the dishes are clean, the bed is made, the checkbook is balanced, the crock pot is slow cooking, and the dog is fed. Miracles really do exist!

I know this stuff really doesn't matter and that God loves me in spite of me being a slacker on the homemaking front. But my desire is to be the best partner I can be to OS, and the best mom I can be to E. Lately, I feel like my haphazard approach to living life often serves as a toxin to that desire. I feel like God is poking and prodding me to take care of the little, mundane details so that the big, important things that actually matter.....my husband and my son....can have the wife and mother that they deserve. And it's not just for them. I want to be that woman...the one who has her shit together and whose tupperware doesn't fall out onto her head when she opens up the cabinet. I imagine that life is just a little bit easier on that woman. Maybe.

So here's to turning over a new leaf. Here's to accepting the challenges that God presents to you. Here's to turning around when He pokes and prods and relentlessly tries to get your attention and saying "I will" with a triumphant fist pump in the air instead of a sideways glance and a "Dude! What the hell?!?!"

Here's to being That Woman. That tupperware matching, lint throwing away, checkbook balancing woman.

And publish.

Parenting 101

Whoever said "It takes a village to raise a child" must have been talking about my family.

On any given week, my son spends time at 4 different homes with 4 different sets of people that love him...and 4 very different sets of rules and expectations. These rules vary from the extremes of "Eat what is cooked for dinner and when I say no, I mean no," to "King E is here...roll out the red carpet and lets all sniff his bottom...it smells like roses!" (Ok...maybe that last part was a bit much...but it's not unfair to say that often times, he rules the roost.)

As E gets older, this is a more difficult set up to not get frustrated with. It's hard enough that he gets shuffled back and forth between Mommy's house and Daddy's house. For the most part, Ex and I have done a good job at staying on the same page. But I have a lot of guilt...questions...worry...and what ifs over all the stuff that E's life will be sprinkled with as a result of our situation. And as he gets older and does more and understands more, differences in parenting are becoming more common.

I think any mom who is half a mother sometimes travels through the valley of the shadow of "Hi, my name is Mom, and I have failed my child." I think it's probably just part of the package...like stretch marks or the inability to hold all of your urine when you sneeze. It's just par for the course. But add divorce to that equation (or any situation that compromises your ability to be there for your child 100% of the time for that matter) and the sickness gets so much worse.

Obviously I'm struggling at the moment. "Hi, I'm the Village Idiot, and I have failed my child."

Everyone: Hi Village Idiot!

I feel like nothing I do is good enough...and lately it seems that everyone in this little village has a strong opinion about that. Maybe they've had these opinions all along...but blame it on the full moon...this week they are sharing.

"You're too easy on him."

"You're too hard on him."
"You correct him too much."

"You let him get away with too much."

"You don't have enough fun with him."

"He needs to know you love him."

"He needs you to be more firm."

Apparently I didn't get the memo...but it seems like everyone else was notified of all of the answers, and I know none of them. What I do know...what I happen to know for sure...is that I love my son with every breath I take. I have visions of a perfect life for him that he will never have, and hopes that upon his realization that life isn't perfect that he will respect me for being a source of love and consistency in his life. My desire is that when he is 28 and leading a life of his own that he will look back and associate me with plenty of "I love you's" and "she was always there for me's." Dear God, please and thank you.

I guess no mother ever feels like she's doing it exactly right. There's probably always going to be "I wish I had..." and "It would have been better if..." and a lot of "In hindsight..." And in my situation there will probably always be the rest of the village with an opinion of what I'm doing wrong and hopefully sometimes what I'm doing right. So in that case.....

Dear Lord, If it's not too much trouble, could you please speak up? It's noisy around here. Amen.

And now, if you will excuse me, nap time is over and this particular Village Idiot promised someone a play doh date. I may not have a clue about how to raise a child...

but I make a damn fine play doh pancake.