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When what I really want to do is just cry

Written on February 3, 2010 by Jennifer in hole-y matrimony, Little Monkeys, Men?, Mommydom

I lay awake for hours last night, my stomach in knots, my head spinning, as I contemplated the State of our Marriage. Tate and I seem to drift further and further apart, both of us in the wrong. Or at least that’s what I should say on my blog since he’s not here to defend himself.

As the minutes of the still night turned into hours of a panicked night, I grew angrier and angrier as Tate seemed to rest easily, completely unaware that there is even a crack in the State of our Marriage. Maybe it didn’t even matter that he was sleeping. Even when he’s awake I haven’t felt like we could really have a heart to heart conversation anyway. I am continually on a quest to improve myself, as a mother and a wife, trying to figure out ways to hold my tongue and not break every marriage confrontation rule in the book. And yet he slept, soundly and without worry while I carried the entire burden myself.

I always do.

***********

I woke up in a sleep deprived fog and mentally willed myself to put on a smiling face. Carson was, of course, in his true form, mouthy and argumentative from the moment I whispered, “good morning my sunshine boy,” in his ear.

I read somewhere online about choosing a word to strive for as your goal for the year. My word is calm. As Carson’s protests continued, I kept repeating my mantra. “Calm. Calm. Calm. Calm.”

Humor sometimes helps to ease the mood and repair rifts that develop between Carson and I. His humor can be as healing to me, even though it’s in no way his intent.

“My elbow hurts,” Carson whined, as he had whined about every single detail of the morning.

“Well you know what that means, don’t you?” I inquired, as seriously as I could. “It means that I’ll have to saw your arm off.”

Concerned, Carson protested. “But then I won’t be able to hug you and daddy and Ella!”

I hugged him and told him that mommy was making a joke and just wanted him to laugh.

“But mommy, I can’t laugh. I’m too tired. And I’m thirsty.” WHINE, WHINE, WHINE.

“What would you like to drink? How about some beer?” I jested, hoping he caught my joke.

“But MOM! Only people who are OLD year-olds can drink beer!” He giggled. “Chocolate milk. Please.”

Before we left for preschool drop off, I tried to get Carson to take some cough medicine. He was not having any of it, claiming he didn’t need it.

“GOING TO BED IS ANOTHER WAY TO TREAT A COUGH!” he screamed at me as I chased him with the dose of medicine that eventually spilled all over me, Carson, and the floor.

***********

I wish I could say that the burdens and worries of the State of our Marriage and the lack of sleep and dealing with Carson’s four years of difficult behavior didn’t finally trigger my switch.

Calm?

Not this time. I lost my cool. I yelled, in a way that could not be described as calm or using humor to diffuse the anger.

Now I have even more to lose sleep over tonight.

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Patients and patience

Written on January 29, 2010 by Jennifer in hole-y matrimony, Men?

Tate woke up at his usual time to leave for work the other day. Usually he’s quiet and respectful of my beauty sleep, unless he knows it’s Tuesday and that we usually don’t get out of bed until 8:30. Then he’s loud and does the whole slamming doors shut and turning on lights while pretending he can’t find his boxer shorts.

This particular day was Wednesday, though, and he was doing a lot of throat clearing and some ridiculously pitiful semi-moaning. After hearing him not so quietly closing closet doors and not so quietly rooting through his sock drawer, I peeked my head out from under the covers and asked him through clenched teeth, “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I’m sick. I feel terrible,” he managed to say weakly. Moan, moan, woe is me, woe is me, blah, blah, blah.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Feel better soon,” I replied flatly. I’m an asshole, okay? I’m 50% of the reason that our marriage isn’t perfect. (Tate is the other 50%, he is also an asshole.)

I closed my eyes and went back to sleep for the two minutes before my alarm sounded, got out of bed, and promptly forgot all about Tate’s complaint of being sick.

Now in all fairness, Tate can be a bit of a drama queen. It gets particularly noticeable when he’s sick and I, being an asshole AND a very weary mother of two small children, don’t have a lot of patience for his whining and his needs. He has a history of blowing little head colds and minor illnesses way out of proportion.

So I’d forgotten all about his “illness” until 5:00 when he called me from work to say, pitifully, that he was on his way home. I realize that calling at 5:00 doesn’t seem particularly significant, but OH YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Tate very rarely leaves work before 6:30 or 7, he might if it’s a Friday and things are running well, or he might if his family is coming into town, but he NEVER comes home early on a random Wednesday in the middle of the week.

I still wasn’t fully convinced that his illness was little more than a cough and a headache. I quickly updated Twitter (because that’s what you do in times of fake crisis).

Further evidence for my assholishness.

When he got home, his face was grimaced and he sounded weak. He slowly trudged to the bedroom and laid down on the bed. I felt his head and he seemed to actually have a fever, a really high fever.

“I’ll try not to complain too much,” he said as I gave him his Advil and glass of water.

The next day he went to work, but at 1:00 (1:00!!??!!) he called and said that he was on his way home because he was just so sick. He actually didn’t do his over the top, pitiful “Woe is me, I’m so sick” routine. He just really sounded like he was actually SICK.

Never in 11 1/2 years of his working life, had he come home that early due to illness. He immediately went to bed and slept for the whole afternoon.

I think that maybe, just maybe, Tate wasn’t exaggerating this time.

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Surprise grapefruit

Written on December 15, 2009 by Jennifer in hole-y matrimony, Little Monkeys, Men?, Quirky Me

Tate came home, vibrating with excitement.

“Hey kids! I got you a surprise for your breakfast tomorrow! Grapefruit!”

Grapefruit. (Imagine I’m saying that like Seinfeld used to say, “Newman.”)

“And how is it a surprise, ding dong, if you just told them about it?” I said this to myself, I’m not the type to have silly arguments with my husband.

(On a side note, he paid $40 for these surprise grapefruit. One of his coworker’s daughters was selling them as a fundraiser for her high school. I just have to say that had _I_ brought home a surprise $40 box of grapefruit, Tate would have thought I was nuts. Now, if I had bought $40 worth of Girl Scout Cookies (two boxes), he’d have jumped for joy! We didn’t even get ONE box of Girl Scout Cookies this year because when I tried to buy Samoas from the cute little chirping Girl Scouts at the Kroger, they were OUT. Frankly if I can’t have Samoas, I’ll just do without Girl Scout Cookies for the year.)

So where was I? Oh right! Grapefruit. (Newman.)

Of course, since Tate had mentioned this magical, surprise grapefruit right before Carson went to bed, there he stood at 7 AM at the side of my bed.

“G’morning, Mommy! I’ve been thinking about eating that special surprise grapefruit! Get up! Carson said, bounding out of my room and down the stairs. “I’ll go wake up Ella so we can eat!”

There’s a few things that could potentially go wrong with this whole surprise grapefruit scenarino, besides the fact that we are having to get up unnecessarily early. 1) I’m not sure that Carson or Ella really knows what grapefruit is. They could be thinking it’s a “grape”-like fruit and will be undesirably shocked to see that it’s a giant orange. And 2) I’m not so sure that my two children’s palates are sophisticated enough for grapefruit.

This was a (possible) giant fiasco just waiting to happen. “Thanks, TATE.” I thought to myself. “So glad you’re at work and are going to miss out on their ‘surprise’.”

I was torn as to whether I should try to make this a learning opportunity or just be nonchalant about it. I mean, if I made an even bigger deal out of these surprise grapefruits, I could pay dearly with my sanity. But maybe the educational lesson could be just the diversion enough to make the surprise grapefruits less of a disappointment.

Because I’m a pretty awesome mom and overall human being, I decided to go the educational route. We studied the no longer surprise grapefruit, inside and out. We talked about how they could roll, how they look a lot like oranges, how they have seeds, and how MUCH THEY WERE GOING TO LOVE EATING THEM.

My wager paid off, they did love eating them. They also loved the grapefruit juice that I squeezed fresh for them. (See? Pretty awesome mom and overall human being.) Tate is off the hook, for now. Well, at least until next week, when I’m sick of segmenting grapefruit and hand squeezing their juice.

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A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Written on November 15, 2009 by Jennifer in hole-y matrimony, Little Monkeys, Mommydom, my stream of consciousness, NaBloPoMo, ouch, Randomness

Phew. Betcha thought I forgot all about posting on this lazy NaBloPoMo Sunday, huh? No? You didn’t even notice? Well.

**Ella has this really red rash that started yesterday. By last night she was practically covered with it. I took her to a doc in the box this morning and the nurse practitioner thought that it she could be having an allergic reaction to her antibiotic that she’s been on for almost 10 days for an ear infection. So that lazy Sunday I mentioned in the first paragraph was not, in fact, lazy. It was filled with worry and tender kisses on itchy foreheads, calamine lotion, oatmeal baths, and holding and rocking a sweet baby girl. I fully embodied the spirit of Ma Ingalls.

**I came home from the doctor to my husband questioning me, which is completely different than asking me questions. “Why didn’t they do a histamine test?” “The doctor didn’t even know WHAT the rash was and was just giving a cop out answer that it’s a drug reaction, wasn’t she?” “You ARE going to call the REAL doctor in the morning, AREN’T YOU?”

In case you were wondering my husband does not actually earn a paycheck as a hard-nosed detective.

**There is a direct correlation between the number of sunny days and the amount of housework that gets completed. My house is a freaking disaster area. Can you guess the weather?!

**I never, ever (EVER) write reviews, but an opportunity to try out a Shabby Apple Dress came my way and wouldn’t you know, I wrote a review. You can check out my review here!

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Dates

Written on November 8, 2009 by Jennifer in hole-y matrimony, NaBloPoMo

I completely forgot that October 31 was the ten year anniversary of when Tate and I became engaged. Apparently he forgot, too.

I remembered on November 6, the eleventh anniversary of our first date. (Jesse James’ Hideout in Rolla, MO. Jealous much?) (I also puked the next morning right in front of him.) (Again. Jealous much?)

I can’t believe that neither of us even REMEMBERED that October 31 was the TEN YEAR anniversary of when we became engaged. How could we have both completely forgotten!?! Since I feel like he and I are having some blips on our marital radar, and I tend to overanalyze A LOT, it made me particularly sad and introspective to have forgotten.

I’ve been thinking about all of our special dates. We don’t celebrate any of these days except for our wedding anniversary anymore, but I remember those early days when we at least acknowledged (wink, wink) all those significant days.

December 29, 1998, This one is none of yo business
December 30, 1998, The first time we told each other we loved one another
May 17, 1999, The day we moved in together in Knoxville, the day after I graduated from graduate school.
July 14, 2001, Our wedding day

I miss those days when we celebrated that we’d been together a WHOLE MONTH! or a three months or eight months. When we got married, we decided that it would be too much to try and remember all the milestones. Celebrating our wedding anniversary would be plenty, we’d agreed.

Maybe we should reinstate celebrating those milestones. Maybe we should do what we did before.

Do you still celebrate those little days? Or do you only celebrate your anniversary?

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New! and Improved! Jennifer! It’s! Exhausting!

Written on November 3, 2009 by Jennifer in blogging, hole-y matrimony, Little Monkeys, my hawt body, my stream of consciousness, NaBloPoMo, Quirky Me

I drank two cups of coffee this morning and I don’t even drink coffee and I feel a leeeeetle bit like I might have just intravenously injected the caffeine because I feel a little bit loooooopy. This must be what it feels like to be high, high, high!

I needed the two cups because I got up VERY EARLY to go running.

I got up VERY EARLY to go running because I have big, beefy thighs and I’m tired of carrying around the jelly donut that’s strapped to my waist.

Not only am I motivated! to exercise!, I’m motivated! to improve ALL of myself! Why not start now!

Writing: I’m doing this whole NaBloPoMo thing to try and reset my love of writing and blogging.

My marriage: I don’t like Tate about 75% of the time and I’m trying to cut that number down to about only 10% so I’m reminding myself to stop being a dick to him. I’ve also been listening to Focus on the Family marriage related podcasts (while I’m running) (which are kinda weird to listen to, but also kinda good.)

Health: Did I mention I’ve been running? Well I have been! And I’ve been drinking more water, which is almost harder than running because I can’t ever remember to actually drink it.

Parenting: I’ve given up yelling for Lent. Who cares that Lent doesn’t start until February? I can give it up now. It’ll be good practice because it’s going to take that long for the not yelling to actually stick. Also I’ve been reading some parenting books on topics such as “how to keep your head from exploding when your child throws a tantrum in a busy restaurant” and “exorcising demons from toddlers.”

I know “experts” say that people are “supposed” to make small changes when trying to achieve their goals, but if I do that, I’ll be 350 lbs, divorced, dehydrated, hoarse, AND my blog will suck even harder by the time I get around to fixing all that needs fixing.

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Okay, fine, I know I’m being petty

Written on November 2, 2009 by Jennifer in Go Fly a Kite, hole-y matrimony, Men?, NaBloPoMo

I was home from the grocery store for less than an hour when I noticed Tate, his mouth stuffed full of newly purchased, thinly sliced ham.

“Tate, there better be enough of that ham left for the kids’ lunches this week,” I said in my well-practiced irritated voice.

His face registered shock and fear as both of our eyes looked down upon a nearly empty package of just purchased honey cured ham.

“TATE! I JUST bought that! It was supposed to last the WHOLE week!”

End scene.

Replace ham with any food that has been specially purchased for the children and has the potential to create MELTDOWNS! and HAVOC! if we were to run out. Despite my huffing and well-practiced irritated looks, Tate continues to leave ONE granola bar in the box, that of course I realize seconds after promising TWO children their own granola bar for snack. Or he’ll leave *just enough* orange juice for a flea. He’s even been known to eat the last two cheese sticks I’d promised our children for their snack.

“How was I supposed to know you were saving that?!” he’ll reply, while I stand behind him holding a fake knife, making stabbing motions.

Look. I know I’m being petty. Of course he has as much right as anyone in our family to eat. Poor wittle Tate, I don’t want him to go hungwy!

I just want him to be able to read my mind and realize that I have plans for certain foods and that his eating said foods will make me want rip out his toenails.

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