Blue Christmas?

The kids and I had the last few days to ourselves and it has proven to be quit a wake up call to what our lives might look like once we are living on our own. It.is.pretty.lonely. I have tried to keep busy the first few days going to a hands on museum and spending time at my sisters, but it is hard to lug 2 sleeping babies into a very dark and quiet house late at night all by yourself. So yesterday and today we have stayed inside and there is not much conversation going on. Obviously B is talking way more than he was just a few short months ago, but it is nothing like an adult conversation and P just babbles, so I have been left with my own thoughts and feelings and I have come to a conclusion on everything as, it sucks! It sucks huuuugggee to be a single parent around the holidays' but what I have learned about their dad in the last few months, I know we are in the right place for now. It may be too quiet but there is no arguing. There is no passive aggressive behavior and there is no lying. So as hard as it is to realize that things will be very different from now on, I know my kids are getting a healthier life emotionally. With that being said, I have busied myself getting Christmas decorations up and I have had fun doing it on my own a bit. It is overwhelming so I am taking it one tote at a time, but I think it will look great once I am done. I decided to not do our own personal tree this year. We have my parents huge tree to decorate and put presents under so it isn't like the kids won't have one at all, but I just can't handle the emotions attached to each ornament that is hiding in a bin right now. I have tried so hard to deal with each and every situations head on and work through the hurt as I go, but Christmas is going to already be the hardest holiday of them all and I think I will be better healed next year to go through all of that.

Hard to see through the tears

trying to hold on to everything that is important and letting go of things that are not worth keeping around at this moment. B is having some really good days recently. He actually tells her he is 3 when you ask him how old he is. He is starting to try to communicate to others even though he sometimes misses the mark. The point is that he is trying! P is really starting to walk:) She is so completely adorable and perfect, it makes my heart break knowing how much her dad is missing out on. We are up to 8 days of zero communication from him and it gets really hard especially in the evenings to not say something but I need to keep my mouth shut at this time. That is one thing I am learning is that not everything I feel needs to be said. There are some things that need to be kept to myself. I have been working really hard on my relationship with God. I have been asking for him to reveal to me what I need to work on and it has been quit a list! I am trying hard to keep my focus on the kids and live moment to moment. I know I will need to make some decisions regarding my situations with their dad and I am going back and forth with it all. So tonight as I am crying and my tears are blurring my view, I need to keep the focus on how amazing my kids are and being strong for them.

I don't want to talk about my feelings!

I have been shying away from writing here because I honestly do not want to face my thoughts and feelings. With the first major holiday coming up, I have been having a really really hard time dealing with everything. Their dad has made zero contact in 6 days and it is killing me. I can't stand that he doesn't care enough to text/call/skype with the kids. It is also hard because everything that the kids require is coming out of my pocket and I don't have much money to begin with. Since I hadn't worked for over a 1 1/2 years to tend to B and right now he still needs me here with him, I don't know exactly where to go with that. I have some ideas of things I want to be when "I grow up" but they are new ideas since I never thought I would be left to take care of the kids myself. So this week has been on reflecting. I have found out more info that their dad was hiding from me and it all just makes me wonder what was truth in our marriage. I know my feelings were truth, but were his? Did he ever really care? After what I've found out this week, I can honestly say, I do not know. You don't do the things he has done if you honestly love and care about your spouse. I am trying hard to figure out what my next move is going to be. Trying to see what my options are and if they work for all 3 of us. B needs me home. Whatever job I get, I have to be able to see him a lot. I can't make him go to school then ship him to daycare. He needs down time after school. He needs to be able to relax after working so hard during school. He just unfolds most days afterwards and after meeting with his teachers last week, I know that he really does a ton of work while he is there. P is much more easy going and would most likely go with the flow with whatever I chose, so B is the one I have to really consider at this time. So as much as I have tried to stay Thankful this whole month, I am definitely starting to feel down about it all. Most of my family will be out of town next week, so it is even more noticeable that things are totally not the same as they usually are. The only good thing is that neither kid remembers any traditions so we can start fresh and make our own starting now.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I have taken a little break from writing for a bit just to clear my own head. I have been extremely busy with everything kid related. So now that I have decluttered physically and mentally, I feel like I can sit down and write. Things are going really really well for B. His school parent/teacher conference went really well and I was so encouraged when I left. It was so very hard to be doing something like that without my husband and it was just one more thing to check off my list that I have done on my own. B is doing a lot of things in school that he was not doing when he started. He is truly growing so much and I am so incredibly proud of him. It has to be very hard on him physically and emotionally to perform all these tasks every day and keep himself grounded and stable. He still has a lot to work on, but I know that he will someday hit all the mile marks. The other day he said one of his first 4 word sentences. He was basically letting me know that not having candy would make him cry, then he said "please make me happy". I kept my ground on no candy before dinner, but after he was in bed my mom and I did a little happy dance. We both can NOT believe how far his speech has come in just a few short months. So even though things can be hectic and overwhelming, I do try to keep my focus on the kids and how incredibly blessed I am to care for them.

whirlwind days

It has been a huge whirlwind few days. I left with a good friend to go and retrieve all of the kids and I's stuff. It was a pretty good trip til we hit the border of my old state and the memories started to flood back. it was a hard few hours and I was anxious just to get there and see it. The house was lonely. He didn't want to be there for his reasons, even tho it pained me to see that he didn't stay to see me. I wanted a hug and a hello from him so bad. I drove all that way and I wasn't worth sticking around for. I melted down a few times having to go through all the boxes of things that we used to share. All the wedding pictures, family photos and such. I yelled a lot and cried hard but I knew I needed to do all of these things here in that place. My friend was amazing. She took charge and worked around my sobbing mess a few times. I could not have done it without her. It was hard to know that would be the last time I would most likely be there. That is the house we brought P home to. The ride home was hard. There were a lot of tears shed for my non existent future with him. Lots of whys and ifs. I learned a lot about the "place" he is in at this time and I pray so hard that he will be able to recover and become a much better dad to our kids, but only time will tell. The kids were sleeping when we pulled in but they were so excited to see me in the morning and getting lots of hugs and kisses helped numb some of the pain that had sprang a leak within. Pain that I honestly thought I had worked through and I had dealt with. Pain that I thought wasn't there anymore, but obviously was just hiding for a few months. B was happy to see a lot more of his toys arrive and it helped make what I did worth it. Now that another thing has been done to make this separation more permanent, I have to keep telling my heart that he is done. I just wish my heart believed it.

Thankful for...

I am so thankful today for my daughter. The timing around when she was conceived was absolutely God. He knew that things would be like this right now and knew that the time she came to be was the exact perfect moment. I was so nervous about having a daughter, in fact after I found out I had really bad anxiety. I was afraid that I would do some of the things from my childhood that really put me down. I was afraid she would be anything like me. Now she is here and I could NOT imagine my life without her. She is such a girly girl already and I am so blessed.
I leave tomorrow to go and get the rest of my stuff. A girlfriend of mine is driving with me and it will be the longest 36 hours. I am so anxious just to get there and see the place. I haven't had to look at all the memories like that in over 3 months. I haven't seen my husband in person in that long, and I'm nervous to see him. He doesn't want to be there when I get there. He doesn't want to see me. It hurts because I think it would do him some good to actually see who he calls all these names. Today he started in on everything and I just said that I wasn't going to waste another breath trying to get him to realize that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. He said that it took two people to get into a bad marriage, and while I agree, I informed him that no marriage was perfect. You have to make a conscious effort everyday to make it better and there was no excuse for cheating. It doesn't matter what your spouse did/does, nothing makes that right. He scoffed at this, claiming I was just perfect and I told him I wasn't. I mentioned his siblings, saying you know that their marriages are not perfect. They each have their own set of difficulties within, but they are all still together. They chose to work past things and my husband has decided he doesn't want to work at it. He doesn't want to make all of this better. It pains me that he has done this, but at this point, all I can do is get my "stuff" and move forward however slow.

Thanksgiving Month

First off, Halloween was amazing! B had such an amazing time and I'll write about that sometime this week. I want to dedicate this month to giving thanks for what I do have. There are a lot of things that I don't have, people I wish were in my life and I could go on and on about it, BUT I want to turn my heart into one that gives thanks. I think that if you make an effort to look for the good, it changes your perspective and I could definitely use a shake up.
November 1st, I am thankful for my son's words. Oh I had some and then they were taken from me. I waited so long for him to express himself and I have finally gotten them! To hear his version of "i love you", I you, Mama is the most precious words. I get choked up thinking about when I would cry myself to sleep asking God to hear those words again. I didn't know if they would come back or when.
Yes, I do have a hard time listening to parents complain that their kids ask "why" way too much or have way too much of an opinion on everything and I just think to myself  "you have no idea how amazing that is. How "normal" it is and how much I long for it" So when I am about to tell B that he is talking too much, I catch myself and laugh. I am so grateful for those words that are starting to come off the tongue like they never left. I know it will be hard the closer it gets to Thanksgiving to name the things I am so thankful for in my life but I think I really need it. The year is almost done and the biggest of blessings are coming!