The Friday Diary: The Haves and The Haven'ts

Happy Friday!

I love Friday.
I get to wear jeans and Chucks at work.
I get to come home and take as long of a post work nap as I want without worrying about being up too late afterward, because I can sleep in the next day.
I love Fridays so much, I stop giving a fuck on Thursday in celebration of the next day being Friday, a day on which no fucks are given, ever. 

...

I haven't been:

Smoking.

I haven't had a cigarette since last Thursday, May 31st.

That's not to say I haven't wanted one.

That's not to say I haven't REALLY wanted one.

On Saturday I came -this close- to buying cigarettes. I went to Circle K and got ice cream for me and the kids instead.

Small victories.
+

Eating fast food.

I cooked every night this week, Sunday through to today, and I will cook tonight too.

How's that going? You ask.

Real fucking hard.
I thought somehow that by not eating out I would be magically transformed into a '50's housewife with a gingham apron and perfect hair.
I forgot I would still be a working single mother who's dead tired when she gets home.

...

I have been:

Working out.

Honestly, I didn't work out at all during the weekend.

Not once.

And I consumed alcohol, which pretty much means I should've worked out twice a day every day of the weekend just to burn that shit off, but I didn't. BUT I have gotten at LEAST 20 minutes of exercise every day during the work week.
A girl at work told me my ass looked good in the skirt I wore to work on Wednesday.
I was so happy I almost wet myself.

...

Overheard This Week:
Jackson: When I was older and I had a job, I went to work every day.
Me: Oh yeah? You had a job? What happened to it?
Jackson: I can't work there anymore because I got little. I'll work there again when I get big again like you.
Me: What did you do at your work?
Jackson: People turned me into a plane and I flew all over da pwace. {read: the place}
Me: That sounds fun.
Jackson: Yeah, and when I gotted off work and picked up my kids I didn't tell them I was too tired to go get them ice cream from da store. Like you did.

Oh. Burn.

...

This time last year:
I had just come back from Vegas, the very first trip that Bill and I ever took together.
It was a very fun trip, and I still wish we would've taken some pictures.
But, I have the memories and I have a blog post, and that's part of what makes this blog so special.
I can always look back at where I was on this date, in some other year and read about what I did from the perspective I had at the time.
And besides, pictures or no pictures, I will never forget how upset poor drunk Bill was when our room service arrived and he realized he ordered a bacon cheeseburger.
Bill: Oh my God, I got a BACON CHEESEBURGER? Why would I do that?!
Me: What you don't like cheeseburgers?
Bill: No, I love cheeseburgers, but there's BACON  on it!
Me: You don't like bacon?
Bill: No, I do like bacon. But why did I order this?!
Me: Do you want me to eat the bacon for you?
Bill: But you got your own food...
Me: That has nothing to do with whether or not I can still eat all your bacon. I can. And I will.

We still don't know why he ordered that. Or why he was so upset about it.
Everybody loves bacon.
EVERYBODY.

...

Craft time

Lainie and I spent some time doing a little crafting this week. 

We made some pretty labels for her boxes of art supplies, and organized her craft closet.

And we've been working on making good choices, so we made a good choices jar. She gets a "drop" in her jar for every good choice, such as helping her brother, getting dressed in the morning without complaint, clearing her dinner dishes without being asked, etc.  Drops in her jar will be things like "coupons" that she can turn in for different stuff like picking what we have for dinner, or getting a sleepover with a friend, or whatever she's been asking to do lately, or sometimes money, or maybe little treats like pretty rocks {which she loves} or candy, or whatever. 

We'll see what effect this has on her choice making.

Spaghetti night

I love how little kids get spaghetti sauce like all over their body when they eat it. Especially on weird parts of their face, like their nose and forehead. It's just adorable to me. Watching my kids eat spaghetti is probably 90% of the reason why I make it.

...

Stuff We Tried:
Over the weekend Lainie and I attempted Fairies in a jar, which was supposed to look like this:

It did not look a damn thing like that when we were done.
That pin was bullshit.
But it was fun trying it anyway.

...

Well, that's our week.
Hope yours was awesome too.
Happy Friday.

Pre Vegas Freakout

So my trip to Vegas is coming up faster than I initially expected. We are leaving around 4ish on Saturday, which means I literally leave in like 42 hours and 32 minutes from right. now. To be honest, I'm starting to freak out a little for a couple different reasons.

1. I have never, ever been out of town with Batman before, and our relationship is still super new. Vacations with a new boyfriend always feel like a lot of pressure to me. I mean, who wants to keep dating someone who they can't have kick ass vacations with?! So it has to be an amazing time, without being too much pressure, and without being too exhausting, and it all gets to be so fucking overwhelming, it's like meeting their parents but more important. This is Vegas we're talking about here.

2. This being our first vacation together, AND this still being a new relationship, one can probably safely assume we have never spent more than like 1 day together. Possibly not even that. I mean, he works, I work, he has kids, I have kids, we're busy people. We have our ritual Saturday night date, and sometimes we have lunch together during the week, but as of right now, we don't get a ton of time together outside of that. This is the first time we will be together for an extended period of time, and I am kind of super nervous. What if I am like really sour candy that's fun in small doses, but after like hour 15, I start to make your tongue bleed?

3. There is a pool at the hotel, and I may or may not be expected to swim in it in Batman's presence. Let's get one thing perfectly straight here: I had Tiny at 16, which means my body bounced back like a fucking bungee jumper. I used to rock my awesome flat tummy and still slightly perky boobs, and I had NO CELLULITE mother fuckers. None. Now, Jedi was huge, my pregnancy with him was hard, and compounded with bedrest and a terrible relationship that caused me to eat my feelings of worthlessness daily, I looked like a fucking trainwreck when I was done being pregnant with him. And guess what? Since the day I delivered his chunkiness, I have lost 6 pounds. He's 3. Ya. Who's got the Xanax?!

4. I have been sort of sick the last few days with this weird swollen tonsil thing that is making it super duper painful every time I swallow anything, and generally bugging the crap out of me. I don't have a fever, and I'm not super tired anymore, so theoretically I can still go to Vegas, but my throat still does hurt, I have no idea if I'm contagious and getting shit faced wasted seems like it would probably make the situation worse. Plus, and not to be way too TMI here, I have absolutely no desire to give....mouth love....with this freakin egg in the side of my neck. How do you properly thank a person for an awesome vacation in Vegas without giving them mouth love?!

These are the biggest causes of my momentary, totally meaningless and completely unjustified freak out over going on vacation with my super cool boyfriend. I mean really, who gets freaked out over going on VACATION?! To Vegas of all places?! I am excited, really I am. But I am also a girl, my vagina still functions, my hormones still rage with the best of them, and I still have these moments of freakish insecurity that I could never show my boyfriend, so I word vomit them to the internet at large. That's way healthier, right?.....Right?

Single Mothers Have Gills

"I feel like I can't keep my head above water right now. I'm so overwhelmed, I can't get a breath." "Your breath will come. Don't worry. You're a single mother. You have fucking gills." -The Roomie

I just want to take a moment to rant a bit about.....everything. Before I begin this rant, I want to put a disclaimer out that I love my children. I love being a mother, and most of the time, I am pretty damn good at it. I would not trade my kids for all the stars in the sky, all the tea in China or anything else in the world. This is not about how much I love them, this about me being human, and having limits.

I am a single mother. Everyone knows that. I have been a single mother pretty much ever since I had Tiny, because The Jedi's dad was kind of always useless from the moment we found out I was expecting. So, Tiny being almost 8, that means for 8 years I have been raising kids by myself. Take a moment and try to wrap your head around that. 8 years. Being a single mom is hard. It is hard in ways I never imagined it could be hard. It's hard to the point that I sometimes believe it might be completely impossible to do it and come out even moderately sane.

Everything is on you. Everything. If I don't go to the grocery store on time, and get enough food for the week, we don't have dinner and we're left with mac and cheese or take out which I cannot afford and makes me feel like a shitty mom for feeding my kids CRAP. If I don't do the laundry, we all smell like dirty clothes and feet. If I don't make enough money for all 3 of us to survive, we live without something, like power or, oh I don't know, a HOUSE. If I don't wake up on time in the morning we're ALL late for school, preschool, work, etc. If I don't clean the house looks like a crack den. And the list goes on. Baths, bedtime stories, teeth brushing, pajama putting on, room organizing, question answering, playtime, homework help, it NEVER ENDS.

You are completely alone in your life of craziness. Not only is there no one else to pick up the slack or help out if you get sick or take on just some of the responsibility, but you drive around all day and have no one to talk to. I mean you have friends, sure, but no one to talk to about the daily life stuff. What will we have for dinner, what should we do with the kids this weekend, can you pick up some wine and sour cream at the store? Nope. You have those conversations by yourself.

At the end of the day, it's just you. For those of you that have kids, do you know those days where everything just goes so fucking wrong, it's almost retarded, and the kids won't stop crying and asking for stuff, and you're bone tired, and you can't catch a break, and all you want is to put the kids to bed so you can have some peace and quiet? Yeah, I have those too. But then you put the kids to bed, flop on the couch, and you're alone. No one to flop down with and sigh, and say "Oh my God, what a day. What do you wanna watch on T.V.?" No one to look over at and laugh with because neither of you can believe you survived the day, or cry to because you're overwhelmed and exhausted and all you want is a bath, some Starbucks and a freaking hug. You can call a friend on the phone, sure, but most of them don't get it. They either don't have kids or they have a husband or wife so they will never understand the overwhelming isolation that can come from doing this all by yourself.

And sometimes all you want is to have someone to call who gets it who will say "Awwww honey, I'm so sorry. I totally understand. What do you want from Starbucks, I'm coming over!" And they come hug you, and listen to you, and dispense tissues like magic, and wait with you until you're laughing at how silly it all is, and you remember how blessed you are to have the kids you have, husband/partner/involved other parent or not.

I don't mean to whine, I don't. But this shit gets hard. It gets exhausting and sometimes all you want is for someone to come through, and listen and be there, and make you feel like you're not in it all alone. Like in some small way, you are part of a team. You're in this together. Maybe someday I will have that, or maybe I will live the next 15 years as a single parent, and if that happened, I know I'd survive. I think my friends would just see me cry a lot more than they would like to, and I might seem like a whiny little bitch more than I would like to, but that's life. You do what you gotta do to survive. And sometimes, that's calling a friend, and crying it out.

Thank you to my friends that always answer your phone, and come over with coffee and hugs and love whenever you can, and are always there when I feel like my head is being held under water. Thank you for being there when it sucks, and laughing with me when it's good, and never telling me "I told you so" or "You chose to have these kids, what do you expect?" and for never judging me at all. I love you all more than bacon.