Self-Imposed Ickyness - Pressure To Not Fail

I absolutely adore my boyfriend’s family. It’s funny, since we dated in 7th grade I had some sort of view of them. I played softball on a team against the one that one of his sisters was on and his dad coached. I also was fairly intimidated by his mom who was on the same side as mine when it came to our first date to the movie theater. They very much insisted that we go on a group activity instead of just us two on a date. (Which I understand now, but as a 7th grade girl it was rather inconvenient to go and find friends that could go that I didn’t mind tagging along.) Then I moved and there is was a big gap, and now I have a completely different perspective of them.

We have family dinners with his two sisters and their families often. And I’ll talk to his mom on the phone now and then. And his dad and I are the only ones in the family that drink coffee… needless to say, I love being a part of his family now.

The thing though is that I feel a pressure whenever I’m with them. I don’t necessarily think that they’re trying to put it on me. I truly think that this pressure is self applied, but the fact is that I feel it. As said in a past post (The Vodka On Top Of The Fridge) I feel like such an outsider because of how I’ve lived my life and how they’ve lived theirs, but I feel this pressure that I have to prove that I’m fit to be a good parent, that I am a good parent to the boys to them. This pressure to prove that I’m fit to be a future good wife, that I am a good partner to their brother. I feel like they’re putting me side-by-side with Jane and comparing us, and damn, of all the people you’re going to compare me to, I really dislike, with a fierce passion, being compared to her.

I don’t usually ask details of life before me (unless its something that I need background info on, like how have you guys done “this” or “that” before). But his family throws them out now and then. Usually it’s starts with praise for me (usually from his mother) or a comment about how much better, how well, or how good the way things are run/handled concerning the boys are now. Then it's followed with some detail about how she did it (and it always disappoints me to hear how not great or selfish she is.) And trust me, it is so nice to get the pat on the back, but that being compared to Jane thing again … it just feels so slimy and uncomfortable.

It’s just I feel spotlighted sometimes, that now that I’ve been acknowledged that I’m doing so well, or so much better than Jane ever did, that I have to make sure that I don’t mess up, that I don’t slip. (It must be that hidden need to be perfect and the best at everything I do. Damn that impulse! That will be a future post.)

Am I making sense here? I’m not sure if I am, but it’s one of those icky and weird feelings that I feel that I don’t think I’ve quite figured completely out yet. Much less one I don’t know will ever go away, but there’s got to be a way to deal with it … To thin out the thickness of it.

I feel like the student that is being pressured by his parents to get straight A’s. Except their not saying “You had better be a good mom/partner or else…” I feel like my actions and how I deal with things, and the things I tell them are looked at and being compared (possibly) to what/how Jane used to do it. And I’m pretty sure I already mentioned this but I sure as hell don’t like being compared to Jane by anyone (although I know that really there is no way around it.)

As I said, it’s self applied, but I hate the feeling of it. And it’s just yet, another challenge (of self-imposed ickyness) that I need to work on balancing out.

But, I don’t let this stop me from hanging out with them and having a good time.

Introspection And Fun

Kweenmama did a book meme and left it open for others to do, so I thought that since it’d Friday and we have the boys I’d do something fun.

Here are the instructions:

• Grab the nearest book
• Open to pg. 56
• Find the fifth sentence
• Post the text of the sentence on your blog with these instructions
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, or the most intellectual one. It has to be the closest one.
  

So the closest book next to me would be some of my old college books on my bookshelf. I chose the one that is closest to my hand when I reach out since it’ supposed to be the closest one to you, and technically, it’s the closest one to me.

Book: Elements of Fiction Writing – Characters & Viewpoints by Orson Scott Card

Pg. 56, Fifth sentence: “Do you constantly find yourself exploring a character?”

Can you get any better than that? OK, maybe you can, but still. As much as I try not to explore Jane and why she makes the decisions she does, I find myself trying to rationalize her. Fortunately and unfortunately, I have the tools to do so. I about double majored in Sociology and Journalism. If I hadn’t been so burned out from college after six years, I probably would have stayed on an extra semester to finish up my Sociology major. But to the point, I have tools and the experience to explore and try to rationalize a person’s character.

I think the problem comes down to the fact that I really, really, really want Jane to be a good person. I really, really, really want her to be a good mother and to give the care to the boys that we do. But, I’m not trying to get too close to her. She has already shown her true colors on more than one occasion, and my conclusion is to stay away from her unless it’s a dire, real emergency. I would only be stirring the pot she so badly wants someone to stir. And I refuse to do so.

I also, obviously, have been exploring myself. Who I was, who I’ve become. What affects my own past experiences and choices make on the ones I make now. And how those experiences help me to choose which battle I’m going to fight and which ones I’m going to sit back and let glide over the surface.

And, I’ve currently been trying to work on not rationalizing too much because, man, that just stresses me out thinking too much. I need to work on having F-U-N. Something I’ve always needed to work on.

So, I know everyone is busy. So if you’d like to do the book meme, go for it! Oh, and you don’t have to do any introspection on it as I have. And I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

And I Changed Again

Apparently my humor has changed since I’ve moved up here. I’ve always tended to have a dry, sarcastic humor as it was. I’ve also been called mean because I give hard love and don’t sugar coat things. And sometimes I just don’t show emotion and this sometimes offends people or gives them the impression that I’m far too serious or far too much of a self-centered bitch to give a damn about any of them. And if you know me, none of that is true. These are all reasons why I work hard not to judge a person before getting to know them, as hard as it is because according to Keirsey I'm a judger.

As my story goes, a college friend of mine recently got engaged. The girl he’s engaged to called me up all upset one night (after they had broken up) at some point last year and was ranting on and on about what a major A-hole he was. She was totally stirring the pot and wanted it stirred. He said she was drama so she was going to give him drama. Regardless, I think she’s a nice girl. But still, it went on for a couple of hours. I’m talking multiple phone calls here of the same conversation. I told her to go to bed … easier said than done I know. But still, if you’re not going to be able to work and change something, then go to bed. Anyway, I congratulated him, told him I was happy for him if he was happy and added my splash of humor that I wasn’t going to be taking any late night phone calls of venting that he was an A-hole. I thought it was funny, he did not. And I had to send a message back kindly telling him that I truly was not trying to be a major bitch and reminding him, “Hey, you’ve known me long enough to know my humor so don’t stone me.” I’m taking it with a grain of salt, but it did make me take a step back to consider this.

I personally would have laughed if a friend had said something to me about it – mainly because I have many a times laughed at such statements in moments of congratulatory mentions or reminders of the crazy bad choices I've made.

But in my step back, I realized that I’ve been poking fun at myself about the bad times to help desensitize me to them. And by “poking fun at myself about the bad times” I mean “When we send the boys to Jane’s house I tend to remind myself of what happened the last time we sent them to Jane’s in a hearty, laughing kind of way to spark hopes of optimism that it won’t happen again.”

It’s a part of my “I’m not going to think negatively” campaign. Is this sugar coating? Possibly in a way, yes. It’s also, I hope, being the bigger person and giving her a chance to be their mother and not dwell on the fact that yes, I’m probably going to have to fix whatever it is she broke. Or maybe for once she won’t break something. I kind of view it as telling someone to break a leg before they go out to dance on stage. My ballet teacher used to do that all the time, she said it brought good luck.

But I’ve concluded, my humor has changed, a lot. If anything, it’s changed to help me cope with my new life. And it’s working for me, and I can try to be more gentle with friends that need it, but they’ll just have to accept me for who I have become because if I can’t laugh and poke fun at myself, then man, life will suck. And I can tell you now – my life doesn’t suck.

My Current Definition Of Happiness

Derek: Well, your son's lucky to have a mom that chose him over her career. I wasn't so lucky.
Haley: Yeah, I'm sorry. We all make different choices and we need different things. I think eventually we learn to define happiness for ourselves on our own terms in spite of the pain other people have caused us. You know?
-Even Fairy Tale Characters Would Be Jealous, One Tree Hill

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I am a One Tree Hill junky. The show sometimes makes me angry with bad storylines, but the quotes that I get from it are heavenly. I sometimes think that my life has been a mix of Peyton Sawyer’s and Brook Davis’ lives from the show – Only because I’ve actually experienced a lot of what they have. It’s weird to watch a storyline on a television show and think – I’ve lived that. Now if only one of them could experience being a step mom – although Brook is currently a foster mom so I guess that’s kind of close enough. Anyway, last week’s episode had the above snippet. It made me feel rather content.

I think my definition of happiness has had quite a makeover. It received the same treatment as The Plan. It was cut here, trimmed here, allowed to grow here and then shaved some more from over there. My definition of happiness has been through quite a lot, and I think that it might be a work in progress.

Reflecting back, I see that at first I thought happiness was landing my dream job. Happiness to me was being the busy, hard working career woman that I was. Around the end of 2007 I began to realize that my career wasn’t happiness. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I knew that living in an area that I didn’t like breaking my back performing a dream job that wasn’t exactly a dream was not happiness. No way was that true happiness.

And then the boyfriend walked back in. And that was happiness and it wasn’t happiness. It downright reminded me of the line from Shakespeare:

“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me
That I must love a loathèd enemy.”
-Romeo And Juliet (Act 1, Scene 5)

My love had three boys. And although I have come to dearly love those boys … the situation has brought me great heartache at times. If I stayed in this relationship I wasn’t going to get what I had earlier planned as a happy ending.

And here I am. It has been a little over two months since I’ve moved in. Jumping forward I see that my definition of happiness has a lot of room to grow and change and develop.

But for now happiness is…

• Being with my boyfriend and seeing the smile on his face
• Being able to live with all of my boys, and not have to drive from over 300 miles away to see them
• Having my family with me, and sharing my new family with my family
• Snuggling with my cats on the couch
• Seeing my orchid plant still in bloom (amazingly it is still alive)
• Getting a hug from the boys
• Hearing the boys tell me that they love me
• Hearing the boys tell me they missed me when they come home from Jane's house
• Seeing the confidence on Older Boys face last night when he told me that he won two of the matches at his martial arts lesson.
• Seeing the joy on Middle Boys face when he realized that he can read words on his own
• Seeing the smile on Younger Boys face as he learned how to finger paint yesterday

Happiness is going to be enjoying life, in spite of the frustration that Jane might bring. Happiness is enjoying the small things that make me feel alive and thankful that I have taken on this opportunity. Happiness is whatever I decide it will be, and only if I remember to allow myself to have it.

Letting The Anger Flow Out

I cannot change Jane. This I know as hard cold fact and truth. I wouldn’t dream of trying to change her. As much as I wish I could, I know that it would only be wasted time and effort. I am working on learning not to let her actions bother me, but I’m so rather upset right now that I just cannot sleep.

I just don’t understand, and I’m not going to try to. But just because I’m not going to try to make sense of her actions, just because I’m trying not to let her bother me doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt and make my heart absolutely ache.

Jane watched all three of the boys this weekend while the boyfriend and I went down to Southern California to clear out the rest of my storage unit. We had a little run in the with Orange County fires. Luckily, with my knowledge of the Los Angeles area and his ability to read maps we made it through another route and back to our hotel. Despite our brush with the fires this weekend really was so wonderful, with the exception of two instances.

The first instance happened on our drive down Saturday. It was evening and we were halfway down the long state of California when his phone rang. It was Jane. He put it on speakerphone. She asked where he was, and that alone told me that something was not right with the boys. The worst fears began to run through my mind. Turns out Middle Boy was throwing up – a lot.

It was more the disgusted tone of her voice when she realized that he wasn’t going to come and get him. The words that came out of her mouth about how the boyfriend just expects him to stay there with the other boys reflected something that left a bitter taste on my tongue. I can’t remember the exact words but it just brought anger. What the hell does she think we do when one of them throws up? And I’ve had two of them throwing up. Middle Boy has thrown up all night once. He was prepped college kid style with a garbage can to bring on his way to the bathroom in case he had to throw up and couldn’t wait. But we take care of it. We act like responsible parental figures and care for them. All of them no matter what's going on.

I kept my mouth shut. I closed my eyes. After he hung up a couple of frustrated phrases of disbelief came out, but then I shoved them back in and down to the pit of my soul. The problem was that I put up walls, and I hadn’t realized it. In the very act of trying to keep my temper down, to try and calm down, and not let her actions upset me – I pushed away the very person I loved with all my heart and shut out the rest of the world and drew inward.

I didn’t realize it until a bit later after we had stopped for gas and I had gotten a red bull. Something about that red bull allowed me to calm down. Perhaps it was the association with the taste … past college paper writing days and bar hopping adventures. Whatever it was, I let it all go. The boyfriend mentioned how I opened up and put my walls down. It was quite the transition apparently.

Back on topic, I couldn’t grasp why she couldn’t just be a responsible parent. It angered me that she actually expected the boyfriend to come and pick Middle Boy up after she knew we were heading down to Southern California. She's their mother. If she isn't willing to take care of the three kids she's already have, what the heck did she have another one for?

The second occurrence happened today. The boyfriend picked the boys up while I was grocery shopping. They met me in the check out line. We had a great dinner and then went and finished up our grocery shopping at another store. That’s when I noticed Younger Boy’s eczema was quite inflamed. He had patches all over his neck and arms, and his thumb was so red and cracked. The boyfriend actually pointed his thumb out, and when I took a closer look I felt my blood begin to boil again.

How could she not notice this? Seriously, his thumb was cracked, and red, and raw. He even said it hurt him. After they came home he was put in the bath (to wash off the marker all over his arms and legs) but I was more concerned in getting some lotion on him to help sooth the inflammation. I ended up having to put some stuff on his poor thumb. I felt so horrible because I had to sanitize and clean it, then put on some Neosporin and a band-aid. And I could tell that it hurt him a lot. I tried to comfort him a bit afterward to help sooth the pain. But I was just so angry. Who am I kidding, I’m still so angry.

Does she just not care? Was she seriously too busy to notice? Does she not know how sensitive his skin is? Didn’t she ever take the time to try and figure out how to deal with it? Is she really that self-centered and selfish? Is it possible to be that selfish that you can't see what's happening to your own child?

I figured out just how sensitive his skin was within the first month of moving in with them. I switched him around with different mild body and hair soaps until I found the perfect combination. The poor kid has sensitive skin and a dry scalp. I have to use a specific baby wash for his hair and a whole different one for his skin. And I always put lotion on him afterward because it seems to really help keep his skin from breaking out.

Now, I’ve been trying to calm myself in reminding myself that maybe the occurrence of his eczema is new. Maybe it started to really develop and bloom recently. And since they don’t live with her and she only sees them every other week or so … maybe she just hasn’t noticed it. But still … his sensitive skin will bloom red patches as soon as the wrong soap is applied. Maybe she's stressed from having a baby around. I'm sure no matter how many children a person has had, a baby crying and depending on you all the time can be stressful. But still! She's their mother!

I’m just so enraged…and so angry because I just don’t understand. And I know that I said that I wouldn’t even try to. And I’m still not going to. I guess just seeing him shudder from the pain of what could have been prevented made my temper just rise even more.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you for letting me vent, because I really hate to have non-productive posts. But I think that this post will help me today. I think I can sleep now (I hope).

3 Year Olds Have Feelings Too

I have been working to be proactive when it comes to Jane’s visits with the boys. And I mean that in the most positive and compassionate way. Before I came she hardly ever saw them – maybe once a month. I arrived and she had her baby, and she started calling more often. I took a weekend to read through the divorce papers so that I could understand legalities a bit better in their situation. They have joint legal custody, but he has sole physical custody.

I’ve had to come and think about things… a lot of things. Is this “sudden want” to see the boys:

• Because she’s on maternity leave and has time to see them (before she had the baby her available days were Thursday because that was her day off.)
• Because I’m here and she feels that she suddenly has competition
• Because perhaps, there’s a chance that she’s actually changed and WANTS to see them because she wants to. (And I say this because the way she’s presented taking them was as if she was doing us a favor by taking them off of our hands.)
  

My concerns with this “sudden want” to see the boys is, “Is it going to last?”

I suggested working trying to set up a schedule, and then the boyfriend brought up the whole maternity time off ending at some point. That terrified me. I don’t want to get the boys hopes up if it’s all going to end. I’ve already seen it happen once. And it broke my heart to have to tell them that they actually weren’t going to be seeing Jane that weekend.

So we’re just playing it week by week, month by month, holiday by holiday. I don’t know if she was going to ask for them for the Thanksgiving holiday. But I asked the boyfriend to find out if she would like them for a couple of days during their week off. And I guess she said yes, so I’m hoping that she won’t change her mind.

Back on topic, I have tried to be proactive about it. I’ve been trying to remind the boyfriend that I need to be made aware of what decisions have been made when it comes to them visiting her. I don’t want to make plans only to find out that plans were already made. [Refer to “And Then I Exploded.”] That is communication between us. However, this post refers to her lack in communication with us. She likes to drop things on us the day of.

Jane was supposed to take the boys this weekend. Come Friday, I find out she only wanted two of them. She said it was because she didn’t have room in her car for all of them to visit her father this weekend. However, after the boyfriend picked them up he said that she was talking about continuing only taking two at a time. Now, she did just have a baby and I understand that, but do the boys?

We chose to keep Younger Boy with us, since she didn’t say which two she preferred to have. We chose to keep him because he’s still potty training and the last time he stayed at her house he allegedly finger painted with his poop. (Which he has never done here, but I’m not going to say she’s a liar.)

All I can say is that it broke my heart when the boyfriend and Middle Boy went to go pick up Older Boy without him. He knew that he was supposed to go to her house. And (while we are working with him on this) Middle Boy isn’t very common sense smart yet when it comes to gloating about getting to do things others don’t/not teasing people about getting to do things others do. They walked out the door and Younger Boy sat there, on the ground with the saddest look on his face. Head looking down, hands clasped in his lap. And one lone tear trickled down his cheek.

It took a lot of strength not to cry myself. I beckoned to him and we sat there. I wiped his tear and told him I loved him. (And I know that I’m not replacing her, I never will and I don’t intend to. I like to hope that we can have a relationship of our own.) He was soon smiling, and that was important to me.

The boyfriend and I decided to make it a fun weekend for Younger Boy. We took him out to Pier 39 to see the sea lions and the big hit with him was the pigeons (the kitcheons). We all had donuts for breakfast in our bed and watched cartoons all morning.

I know that he’s only three, and he may or may not remember it. But I hope that he’ll remember that he is loved, and he is wanted, and that he had a good time with us. He has feelings too, and those feelings can be hurt while us adults are too busy trying to 1) figure life out, 2) thinking about ourselves and 3) make our life work the way we want it to.

Food Frustrations

I’ve been rather sad lately. There are these little things that just bring it all on. I’m hoping it’s a phase that I’ll eventually get past because I can’t stand it.

One of these little things has been meal time. Before I came the boys ate a lot of fast food. I don’t eat fast food, and really refuse to eat it unless we’re on a road trip. It’s been almost two months now and we’ve gone to fast food maybe a total of three times.

Anyway, I love cooking. My dad and neighbor taught me to cook. I’m one of those cooks who will take a recipe and makes it my own. I rarely ever use measuring tools (unless I’m baking…usually). Well, I’ve had to dumb down some of my recipes.

The boys always talk about how I make new foods. My boyfriend jokes (but seriously says) "I'm culturally challenged." I think the are convinced that I’m a food inventor of some kind. Older Boy told me “When I grow up, I want to make new foods like you Crys.” In fact, the boyfriend and Middle Boy had this convo one night:

MB: Crys makes a lot of new foods for us
BF: Have you ever thought that these are foods that we just haven’t tried yet?
MB: *Lost look of confusion followed by shoulder shrug*
Me: I used to eat Pizza Tortillas when I was a little girl. They’re new to you, but not to me.
MB: Oh *smiles*

Anyway, I come from a multi-ethnic household, as well as I learned how to mix and combine foods. I grew up with a lot of foods from my different cultures. I grew up with some great cooks in my family and neighborhood that taught me some tricks and secrets. Actually, I grew up with foods from all kinds of cultures. I love watching the food network. When I visit anywhere my favorite thing to do is to try the food. I can taste a sauce and tell you what I think it needs or what I can taste in it.

I decided to try and introduce some of the foods from my childhood - more specifically some Filipino foods. And man, they were not welcomed well by some of the boys.

It made me sad. Two fits were thrown at the dinner table. One of them was sent to bed early and the other was gently reminded that fits are not allowed in this household.

Basically, the point of this post is that it made me sad. The incident made me feel that I can’t enjoy my favorite foods from my cultures - from any other culture. It made me quite a bit upset that I felt that I can’t enjoy my favorite foods.

Now, I realize that things take time. I need much patience for them to get used to homemade meals and to slowly introduce them to foods from other cultures (so far older boy has been introduced to Hispanic foods, German foods and Thai foods). I realize this. But it doesn’t make me want (crave) these delicious food any less. And it is frustrating to me that I feel like I can’t make/cook/have them.

Positive Things (I’ve been told) that happen at meal time:
The TV gets turned off and we eat as a family at the dinner table
The boys get a more nutritious (as many food groups met) meal
The boys are encouraged to try new foods

And my favorite:
I can slowly start to stop dumbing down my recipes as they slowly learn to enjoy the different herbs, spices and vegetables I like to cook with.

Identifying the Poop Dance

So, Younger Boy indeed has been trained to go potty on the toilet. And the next step, training to go poop on the toilet, has indeed been more challenging.

True Life Poop Experience Story (Detailed – queasy stomachs should not enter)
I work from home, for my company down in Southern California. I do Internet stuff, thus still attend my weekly Internet meetings via the phone. Usually during Internet meetings (or any meetings) Younger Boy is sent into his room to play. During last week’s meeting I glance over into the room and see him, assuming the position of slightly bent leg, leaning against the bunk bed. The phone is on mute:

Me: What are you doing?
YB: I don’t know.
Me: Do you have to go potty?
YB: No
Me: Do you have to go poo poo?
YB: No

I walk in there and am met with the wonderful smell of fresh 3-year-old poop.

Since I have the phone in hand, I am unable to scoop him up and run him to the bathroom. Instead I have to rush him to the bathroom.

Little droplets of brown poo leak every other step onto my poor, poor carpet on the way to the bathroom. (From this alone I know it's going to be a winner.) We get there and I pull down his Thomas underwear to meet the sight of what looked like freshly created liquid and mushy mud.

Spectacular! *My most favorite sarcastic expression for displeasure*

He steps out of it and automatically gets handed the soiled underwear.

Me: Where do you go poo poo?
YB: I don’t know
Me: In the toilet. You go poo poo in the toilet. Put it in the toilet.

He really doesn’t want to touch the underwear. So my free hand and both of his hands have to work together to dump it in there. He then gets placed on the toilet in the chance there’s more to come. There isn’t, but the wonderful liquid and mush dribbled down on the step stool, the side of the toilet and smears onto the seat as he scoots off. He also takes this opportunity to start flicking and waving his hands around to get the liquid off. This spatters on the shower doors and the floor, yet amazingly none on me.

I am on the phone this entire time, listening to the meeting.

He then is placed into the shower. He dislikes showers, but is slowly learning that peeing and pooping on your self results in a shower.

Of course, this is the moment that I am asked, “Crys, do you have anything to report?”

‘Beep’ goes the mute button. “Why yes, I do. The Virtual Dogs blah, blah, blah.” I give my report from the hallway, as I glance down at the shower to Younger Boy motioning with my hands that he ought to be cleaning himself off. He does, at least, copy my motions and manages to get most of it off.

After I’m finished with my report, ‘Beep’ the mute button gets put back on and I resume in the cleaning up of the bathroom. [I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute and be thankful for Clorox wipes.] And then bust out the soap. Since he’s in the process of getting cleaned, he gets his hair shampooed also. The meeting finishes up just as I’m drying him off and handing him new, clean underwear.

I’ve just successfully attended a meeting and cleaned up a poopy 3 year old.
The End

Since then, I have become quite more observant, no matter what I’m doing, of his body language. Any pointed legs, shifted body positions while standing or sudden standing up accompanied by hand going to hold at butt results in this exact conversation.

Me: What are you doing?
YB: I don’t know.
Me: Then why don’t you try going poo poo on the toilet.
YB: *Runs off to the bathroom*

This has been 90% successful. The other 10% has resulted in not having to go. He hasn’t (knock on wood) had a repeat following that Thursday of pooping in his underwear. He has had smears as he takes his underwear off to get on the toilet. I’ll take the smears please.

My mission – Identify the poop dance and try to help him identify that the poop dance means he has to go poop. Hopefully, he’ll put it all together and run by me saying “I have to go poo poo!” and I won’t have to be quite as attentive to if he is dancing his Poop Dance.