Making Decisions

LAX Diva is my biological daughter and Daddy D's adopted daughter, she has never met her biological father even though she is very aware that he exists. I have never said anything bad about him except that he wasn't ready to be a father. He was the type of guy that had been in trouble with the law for petty stuff and didn't want to have to fight for visitations or custody. He especially didn't want to try and do it in my hometown where my family was well known and he was an outsider. His idea of being a part of LAX Diva's life was to drop off diapers on occasion and take her for the weekend. Of course none of this ever happened because I told him I wasn't going to do it, he could either get visitation rights or custody. I wasn't going to play games with my child and therefore I wasn't willing to let him come and go in her life as he pleased.

So when I was pregnant he called me from jail several times to talk over the pregnancy. I was honest with him the whole time and told him I wasn't willing to live like that and that he would have to make the changes. The last time I heard from him he had sent me a letter telling me not to shut him out and that he wanted us to be together again. I never heard from him again.

I really wish that he had been able to be a part of LAX Diva's life because he wasn't a bad person he was just a kid who didn't have anyone to give him any guidance. I was able to keep him from getting into too much trouble when we were together but I was never able to get him to change. Probably because he was too young and so was I but in the end I knew that no matter what I did he was not going to grow up and do the right thing. I found out later that he was doing steroids and possibly some drugs while we were together which was most likely a big factor in our breaking up.

Long story short LAX Diva asked me for the letter to read tonight. I had told her years ago that she could read it when she was older. Daddy D had never read it and I let him read it tonight so that he wouldn't be broadsided by anything later on. She is reading it now and I am typing this to keep my sanity in case she turns it on me later. I don't know if I will ever know what is right but she will be 15 in a few weeks and she deserves to have at least a small part of her father. I have told her when she is 18 and old enough to handle it I will help her track him down if she wants.

How will I ever know if I am doing the right thing with this?

Torture

Daddy D is in the army and we have been married for 11 years. During the entire time we have only been stationed in two states. Now don't get me wrong it makes it a lot easier when we move because we generally have an idea how to get there and what the name of the local cable company is but....I married a man in the military to see the world! So yesterday after weeks of waiting and being told that we were finally moving to Colorado or Washington State we got orders sending us right back to the same state we just left.

I am so pissed! Daddy D has been busting his hump to get us somewhere different and I think he may have pissed off the guy who makes the decision but poor thing he was just trying to get us somewhere new. We have to provide the military with a list of the top 4 places we would like to go so we knew when we put the old place on the list it was a possibility. But it was number 4 on the list and we had been told the top two were a shoe in so we only put it down because we had to complete the list. Since it was such a remote possibility we thought of it almost like a joke.

Well as normal the joke is on us. We are moving back to the same damn state once again and to top it off they don't have a lacrosse program. Maybe you guys remember LAX Diva and her love of only one thing! I know she is young and she can find something else to do but being a military family you have to give up so much that it seems cruel to ask her to give up the one thing her 14 year old hormones still allow her to love. Right now it is looking like the closet LAX team is over 30 miles away and mostly at private Catholic girls schools that I highly doubt we could afford even if we are willing to commute it.

Top all this off with the great news that we will be in a beautiful country area, I will be able to keep my job, and it is close to both sets of in laws. If it weren't for LAX Diva's sport and my desire to see the world we would be excited.

So now I am torturing myself trying to figure out how to make all this work. Should I kill myself commuting an hour each morning to get LAX Diva to a lacrosse team or should I say this is just one of those things she is going to have to live through?

Dissapointment

Sometimes I wonder if I am a really bad parent. I mean I love my children and I am proud of all their accomplishments but how do you ignore it when you see your child doing something you aren't proud of?

Let me start by saying that about a year ago we instituted a family policy that each child would do something aerobic all year round just to try to help them stay healthy. The kids are allowed to pick what they want to do and it can be anything from swimming lessons to full on contact sports. We don't force them to play a sport hell they can chose to walk the dogs for 30 minutes a day just as long as they are active. Our only rule about this is that once you sign up for a team sport you are not allowed to quit, you must play the entire season.

LAX Diva came home one day a little over a year ago busting at the seams about a game called lacrosse so we signed her up and she has been playing lacrosse for a little over a year. When she started she had never played a sport and had to learn everything from scratch. So we spent the first season watching her grow and being so proud of the improvements she made. This year we were hoping to watch her continue to grow but it has not happened. She thinks she is the best player on the field, and she probably is, but she is not putting in half the effort of the other players.

I have tried to be as supportive as possible and not say anything about her lack of intensity. I mean I don't want to be one of THOSE mothers who is constantly fussing at their kid if they don't score the winning goal. BUT a few games ago the whole team played poorly and they lost again. LAX Diva comes off the field bawling and proceeds to ignore us and give her sister dirty looks when we try to tell her good game. I have never been so embarrassed in my life!!! I know I have taught her better than that. Here I am sitting in the stands cheering her on and she is acting like a 4 year old. Hell she cant even be bothered to be a good sport and congratulate the other team decently.

Bug on the other hand has no athletic ambitions. She is a couch potato and has picked up my families genetic tendency towards having a bit of a gut. So we asked her what she wanted type of activity she wanted to do and she picked lacrosse for this season. I wondered why since she hates going to her sisters game but I bit the bullet and signed her up anyway.

Well guess what? We have to drag her to every practice/game kicking and crying. Daddy D hates it and so do I but I refuse to let her quit especially since I am the team parent and expected to help throughout the season. Needless to say she is not an enthusiastic participant and the team would probably be better off without her. She spends most of her time trying to make friends with the other team. HAHAHA

I think I am living through the season from hell!!! Both girls are putting as little effort as they can into it and I am busting my ass trying to make it to games and coordinate parent volunteers. At least Bug doesn't act like an ass when her team loses. Of course it might help if she actually payed enough attention to know whether they won or not. LOL

Its Amazing what goes on in a parking lot

Tonight Daddy D and I stopped off at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some beer. Normally this would be a boring little snippet of my day and not worth mentioning but tonight while I was sitting in the truck waiting for him to return I noticed something a little unusual. No it wasn't the homeless lady that always sleeps in the bushes or some wild kid running around in his karate uniform. A lady was sitting in her car directly in front of me drinking small bottles of liquor. This was especially disturbing since she was sitting in the drivers seat having an emotional breakdown.

I hate to say it but since she was screaming at the younger lady next to her and obviously having an emotional moment I called 911. They asked me to identify her and to give them all kinds of information so I did. Then the 911 operator says "how do you know she did this?" I said I am sitting here watching her. I was literally 10 feet away just talking on the phone in the car and trying not to stare at her. She then proceeded to get out and go into the grocery fussing all the way so I got out and gave them her license plate number.

Now I am just hoping I don't get called to court as an eye witness or anything. I have never called 911 before and know I should have called the police instead but I didn't know if I would have time to look up the number before she left and possibly killed someone driving in that state. Talk about turning a boring little trip to the grocery store into a major event.

Annoying Coworker's

OK so I know we have all had one, but how do you deal with them? Right now I am working in a job that is basically a temporary position. I am not a temporary employ but I am a contractor and I was transfered to a contract that ends in September. Now I am due to PCS (military speak for move to another state) around July so it is highly doubtful I will be here long. Needless to say it has been hard for me to break the short timers attitude and really want to dig deep for this position. Unfortunately my coworker has short timers attitude much worse than I do and she is driving me nuts.

First off she comes to work late and leaves early. Second she doesnt do shit because she is too busy building her new house in Kentucky. Third she just flat has an attitude about doing any work she doesnt think is important enough for her attention. Fourth she has slacked on so many projects we basically just leave her off the list of people to do things. Fifth she is smart as hell and could be a huge help but drives us nuts by using her knowledge like a weapon instead of a tool. Sixth she isnt afraid of losing her job because of the short time she has left (less than a month) and therefore is pulling shit left and right. Seventh she magically has a few days a week were someone is sick, was in a car accident, the daycare is closed, or some other shit comes up that is moronic and she has to work from home. Eighth how the hell do you not know that your daycare is closing for the entire week of spring break and then are unable to find anyone to watch your kid for even a single day so you could come to work.

All of this should be enough to drive an anal rententive worker like myself to tears but top it all off with the fact that I am at work listening to salsa music through the cubicle walls and I am about to scream. Pour an extra helping of constantly being on the phone arguing with her building contractor is spanish and I am about to jump out of the 9th floor window. Now dont get me wrong I have nothing against Peurto Rican/Hispanic people but I try to be respectful of others and keep my music down and not spend the whole day yapping on the phone. We work in tiny cubicles people! I can hear everything everyone around me says and does. Speaking in a foreign language doesnt hide the fact that you just spent two hours discussing 'mi casa' while I have been busting my ass covering for your lack of work.

OK I feel a little better now that I have blown off some steam! LMAO

Monday Madness

I really hate Monday's! I hate getting up in the morning and having to put on dress clothes for work. I hate having to fix my hair and wear makeup. I hate having to wake up Bug and get her moving. I hate paying to eat breakfast at work when it is cheaper at home (I am still to lazy to make it). I hate having to sit at a desk all day and stare at a computer and last but not least I really hate MONDAY'S!!!!!

No nothing is notably worse on Monday than any other day of the week, it is the simple fact that I can't sleep in and not fix my hair. To top it off I have to wear fancy schmantzy clothes and shoes. ARGH! Some days I wish I worked in a pharmacy again so I could wear scrubs all day every day. OH yeah and tennis shoes! OH how I miss wearing tennis shoes to work. I think I could write a sonnet about the joys of wearing tennis shoes to work everyday.

The absolute worst part about Monday's is waking up Bug. She hates mornings and no matter what you do at some point you have to stop playing nice and get her moving. Then it really hits the fan. She is the kind of kid that you have to wake up slowly by rubbing her back or snuggling her and talking to her. Lord forbid you have less than 10 minutes to get her out of bed.

Here is a sample of how the mornings are with Bug.
1. 630AM spend 10 minutes rubbing, talking, and coaxing
2. 640AM she enters the shower and lays in tub sleeping
3. 650AM I go in and tell her to get a move on and actually wash a body part or two
4. 700AM I make sure she washed and is finally out of the tub.
5. 705AM she is laying in bed soaking wet wrapped in a towel sleeping AGAIN!
6. 710AM I start asking her nicely to get dressed about every 5 minutes.
7. 730AM I stop asking her nicely to get dressed and start getting a little more forceful about it.
8. 735AM I stop being forceful and start threatening
9. 740AM I lose all semblance of sanity and tell Daddy D to deal with it
10. 741AM Daddy D loses all patience and the fight begins for real
11. 745AM Bug is in tears and screaming
12. 750AM Daddy D is threatening to make her walk to school if she isn't ready in 5 minutes.
13. 755AM Bug is still in tears and screaming and Daddy D is two steps away from completely losing it.
14. 759AM Bug remembers to ask us to sign some type of paper for school
15. 800AM Daddy D and Bug are out the door, in the car, and on the way
16. 801AM optional stop at McDonalds if steps 10-13 dont occur.

Needless to say I don't think Bug likes Monday's either! LOL

Almost a family outing

Yesterday we ventured out of town to an aquarium I visited as a child and thought was pretty cool. Of course LAX Diva did not want to go because she had a sleepover planned for that night. We would have been home on time but as usual if she couldn't get there the minute she wanted she would just DIE! LOL So we took a friend of Bug's who I will call Loud Mouth. Now let me just say that I love Loud Mouth and have a lot of sympathy for her needing attention at home. She has a sister with some major medical issues and I always try to give her a little extra attention at my house to help make up for the lack of focus at home. I just wish she would realize that getting attention at my house doesn't require talking at sound decibels that break glass.

Needless to say the day started off on a sour note. I had a migraine, LAX Diva wasn't participating, and Loud Mouth and Bug were breaking my skull apart talking in the car. They weren't really being that loud but in an enclosed space with a migraine I was about to throw them into oncoming traffic. Top that off by the fact that we missed the turnoff to go eat so we decided to drive the rest of the hour to the aquarium before eating. I DO NOT DO WELL WHEN I AM VERY HUNGRY!!!!! I get mean and pissy and just downright evil. So by the time we arrived I was RIPE! Thank God we were able to get some food in a reasonable amount of time and even though I was in such a bad mood the only problem we had once we reached the aquarium we me spilling a drink because the lids were under lock and key? Why would they need to protect the drink lids?

The Bug and Loud Mouth had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. I only had to fuss at them a couple of time and tell them to stop running off. For the two of them that is a major accomplishment, it may just be sinking in for Loud Mouth that I only go so far before pushing back. I gave them both 20 bucks and let them lose in the gift shop where they bought a ton of junk just like I knew they would. On the upside I got a really pretty glass starfish necklace and a glass bowl for display.

Daddy D wanted seafood for dinner (how ironic) but Loud Mouth doesn't eat fish so the girls picked Hard Rock Cafe. I find the food to be overpriced and not that great but it is a pretty cool place. We got LAX Diva a shirt there and Bug and Loud Mouth picked out a Best Friends necklace to share. All in all it was fun but considering I was still recovering from a migraine I could have done with a little less rock and roll.

So the day went from bad to good so what else can a mom ask for? A teenage daughter who comes with us.........