I am Thankful for...

* ...my cat Tweetie still being with me after a serious health scare. I cherish his purr and his attitude problem every day.

*...Gary, who loves me and puts up with me even on days I tell bad-but-funny-to-me jokes or get obsessive-compulsive about cleaning the house!

*...the kids being with us next week for Thanksgiving.

*...my new job; it still amazes me to come to a professional, respected setting each day and feel supported in what I do.

*...online shopping. Without it, no one would be getting any Christmas presents, no matter how good they have been!

*...the chilly mornings we've been having, though being snuggled up in a blanket with Gary makes it very, very difficult to get out of bed!

*...the smell of coffee, even though I can't stand to drink the stuff.

*...each time I see one of the kids smile or hear them laugh, after so many tears.

*...casual-day Fridays without the boss, and looking forward to a great weekend :)
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*"Grace" image courtesy of gracebyenstrom.com*

A painting of this picture hung in my grandparent's kitchen, and seeing it brings back so many memories!

The photographer, Eric Enstrom, has said of the photo on which this painting is based, "I wanted to take a picture that would show people that even though they had to do without many things because of the war they still had much to be thankful for."

Sylvester

This post has no point, rhyme, or reason, except that this picture of our lunatic fluffball, Sylvester, cracks me up. He always sits this way, legs spread wide, big belly shining, tail fluffed, with his perpetual dazed/stoned/"what-the...?" look on his face.

I want to prop him up on the sofa, tuck the TV remote into one paw and a beer can into the other, and flip the channels to some Nascar or professional wrestling.

Hicks, Livestock, and Lies

Scanning the crowd when we arrived at the kids’ soccer games last night, I searched for energetic, little blonde heads dashing toward us, and sure enough, along came Bear and Sunflower, nearly taking Gary off his feet as they rushed up to hug him. Wolverine soon followed, and one of his first questions was if we could take them to dinner after the game.

Instant awkward. The kids frequently ask for more time with their father, but we are constantly placed in the position of explaining why it is just as frequently denied.

Wolverine cried when he found out he couldn’t go to dinner with us, holding tight to Gary and hiding his face in Gary’s shirt. Sometimes the outburst of emotion takes me off guard, because after 3 years of this drama, I already knew dinner with us would be considered “extra” time with the kids and would never fly. I anticipated the predictable negative reaction. The kids retain such innocence, such hope for things to be different, and are disappointed nearly every time.

Spending any amount of time in the scintillating hayseed town the kids were whisked off to years ago, presumably to ensure less time with Gary, is always a treat…if you consider a town full of cornfed, inbred barnyard livestock who managed to totter on two legs long enough to be mistaken for homo sapiens a “treat”. I grew up in a small town and hold no affection for them, particularly like this one; small-minded wads of group-thinkers who can’t fathom a world outside of the perimeter of their own tiny walled-in box. It’s suffocating.

But the most interesting part of this particular hick town is that for 3 years, the same worn-out lies, legends, and tall tales have been churned out and repeated about Gary and me, to the point that local residents have come to expect a gun-slinging, beer-swigging, axe-toting barbarian coupled with a whip-swishing, leather-clad dominatrix panting lustily after every husband in town when Gary and I come around.

At the very least, they must be sorely disappointed when we show up and end up playing hide-and-seek with the kids between games, or when the kids pile into our laps or want us to pick them up. They must be stunned beyond belief when the kids actually cry when it is time to leave this father who is such a wife-beater, child-abuser, and violent drunk, or so the histrionic story goes.

At most, if I am even willing to give much of them this much credit for thought processes, they must have a dim inkling that at least some part of the horrific tales they have heard are, dare we say, not entirely true.

I remember my very first trip to this particular hick town, accompanying Gary one evening to take the kids to dinner. As we walked up to a restaurant with the kids, a woman seated outside turned so fast she nearly knocked herself out of her chair, gaping at me like I was strutting up to the building wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a swagger. I could already hear the conversation later, in hushed tones and a Larry-the-Cable-Guy-accent hissed around her chewed-up cigar: “Mabel, I saw her! I saw her! That husband-stealing hussy! She was here! Aww my gawd!”

And I also remember feeling like enough was enough. I wouldn’t be shamed or intimidated by absurd lies spread about us by an inutile coward.

I walked straight up to the woman, and her eyes got bigger and bigger the closer I got. I held out my hand, smiled, and said cheerily, “We must know each other, because you’ve been staring at me since I got out of the car.”

Her mouth worked for a few moments while she fought to get a grip, then she smiled back thinly and turned around quickly, burying her face in her plate.

I thought Gary was going to sprawl on the sidewalk, trying not to laugh, while Bear yelled out, “Hey, Smirking Cat, do you know her?”

I walked back over to Gary and the kids, took Gary’s hand, and said, “Apparently not.”

And we continued on to dinner.

Any Other Morning...

Any other morning, my cats will walk on me, stomp on me, headbutt me, body slam me, sit on me, and otherwise make complete pests of themselves until I get out of bed to feed them, preferably around 4 in the morning and long before I truly need to be coherent, let alone moving.

But the morning I need to get up extra early for work and the batteries in the alarm clock died and I really need their furry butts to wake me up?

Not. One. Cat. Woke. Me. Up.

They did it on purpose. I know they did. All three of them chuckled behind their fuzzy paws as they watched me oversleep by an hour and a half this morning, suddenly bursting out of bed like I was on fire when I realized how late it was, stumbling around to get ready as I yelled at them, "Any other morning you wouldn't let me sleep!" over and over.

Welcome to Monday morning.

"Best Mother"

Amid the raging three-ring circus of celebrity divorces and custody battles is Sandra Bullock and her husband, Jesse James. For many reasons, this one has caught my eye. One, Sandra Bullock is among my favorite actresses. Two, the case has so many parallels to stepmom stories I read on blogs and experience in my own life.

The quick background: Jesse James has custody of his five-year-old daughter, Sunny. His ex-wife, Janine Lindemulder, is seeking custody now that she has been sprung from prison for tax evasion.

Though Sunny is tossed about as an occasional token, the focus of this case derailed almost immediately from the child to the supposed scratch-and-claw battle between the ex and the new wife. *yawn* One headline cheered "Sandra Bullock Battles Porn Star Janine Lindemulder for Child Custody", as if the two were locked in a topless mud wrestling pit down at the local strip joint, where at least Lindemulder would feel right at home.

For her part, Lindemulder felt the need to appear on Good Morning America to make childish comments about Bullock. The comment that stood out most to me, once I dug past the unfounded insults, poor-me whining, and banal King-Kong-like grunting and uterus-thumping, was this one by Lindemulder:

"I am the best mother I can be."

I bet that she is. I believe that a lot of women and men are, indeed, the best parent they can be. The problem is when their best is not good enough to appropriately and properly care for a child who depends on them and needs to be able to trust them.

Custody battles bring out the worst in many people, and they get their ugly on in ways that cut the kids to bits. At the end of the day, if you have used your kids as weapons, lied to them, lied about them, refused to let them see their other parent, put down their other parent in front of them, manipulated them, and ultimately prioritized your own egotistical wants over their feelings and needs, well, then the best parent you can be is a pretty damn shitty one.

Two comments by Bullock also stayed with me. One is, "I seemed to have stepped in right when I needed to be there."

Gary told me once that I came along to pick up the pieces of five broken hearts (his, and four kids') and put them back together just when they needed it. It is my guess that many stepmoms, particularly those in a situation with a volative and selfish ex-wife, find themselves continually in the role of buffering and repairing the ongoing damage to the kids and to the father caused by reckless and self-serving actions on the part of a self-proclaimed Mommy of the Year.

Bullock also had this to say about being a stepmom: "I may never hear that word 'mom.' But being a parent is not about breeding. It's about caring."

Really, I have nothing to add to her comment; she summed it up perfectly all by herself, eh?

"Love Triangle", My Ass

If I strolled up to you at this very moment, clad in a disguise after following you across a dark parking lot, and I blasted you in the face with pepper spray yet claimed I just wanted to talk with you, I'm sure you would be sympathetic and understanding and would be perfectly fine if I strolled along with my life with no jail time and merely an order to apologize to you like I mean it, right?

Hey, works for Lisa Marie Nowak! I'm sure you remember the diaper-clad ex-astronaut who traveled 900 miles to attack Colleen Shipman in 2007. Yesterday a grossly irresponsible judge named Lubet dismissed Nowak's clearly malicious and dangerous behavior and sentenced her to a year probation with some community service tossed in, and oh yeah, she has to write a "sincere letter of apology" to Shipman within 10 days.

Well now, I'm sure that scrap of paper will make up for the fear and pain of being stalked and attacked, won't it?

I was infuriated but not surprised by the shrug of the shoulders and the smirkingly casual manner in which this case was handled. Headlines have watered down this attack as a "love triangle", dumbing down and trivializing this heinous attack on another human being. Aww, it's just a lover's quarrel! A cat fight! Let 'em tug each other's hair and slap each other with their high-heel shoes. They won't actually hurt each other. Hell, they're just girls, after all. And anyway, what did Shipman expect, dating this other woman's love interest?

How different would this story have been handled, and how different would the sentence be, if Nowak was a man? Or if Nowak attacked the male love interest instead? Or if Nowak pepper-sprayed a random stranger in that parking lot instead of a woman the media could write off as the other woman?

The condescending attitude appears to be that Nowak actually posed no harm to Shipman because (a) she is merely female, and (b) she was acting like a typical jealous woman, and even worse, that (c) perhaps Shipman deserved it because she entered a relationship with a man with whom Nowak still had romantic interest.

In no other situation could a person travel across the country to hunt someone down, follow that person across a parking lot, physically assault that person, then stand back and smile complacently and swear she was sorry, and can I go home and leave this pesky nonsense behind me now, Your Honor?

Nowak sat in a jail cell for a whole two days. Big deal. Shipman, for her part, was attacked first in the parking lot, then again in the courtroom by a negligent and cowardly judge. Perhaps she should receive a "sincere letter of apology" from Judge Lubet.

Tabloid

If I close my eyes tight, wish upon a star, click my heels together three times and repeat "There's no place like a tabloid-free world! There's no place like a tabloid-free world!" with all the magic my little heart can muster, does that mean I stand even a slim chance of never, ever hearing again about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, American Idol, Jessica Simpson's current weight, whether Brad and Angelina are sleeping in the same bed or not, Lindsay Lohan's recent illegal substance of choice, the Kardashian brats and who they have conned into marrying them lately, or the Gosselins' race for the most shameful, kid-destroying divorce and custody battle of the year?

Oh, come now...a whiny, bitchy, woe-is-me, victim-playing, bitter and jealous woman with ridiculously bad hair, using the kids as tools to gain leverage to her own benefit...

Hmmm.

Hell, I don't need tabloids to see that!

Her Daddy

I wasn’t there, six years ago today, when Sunflower was born. Six years ago, I had never met Gary, didn’t even know he and the kids existed, and I had no idea that a strong, beautiful baby girl being born that moment would someday challenge me, frustrate me, make me laugh, and ultimately run away with my heart.

Sunflower was 3 years old when I first met the kids. Of all the kids, I found her to be the most challenging; she was Daddy’s girl, through and through. Her life was completely upside down when I met her, too many upsetting changes for such a young child to comprehend or absorb, and here was yet another change, me, someone who was possibly a threat to her close relationship with her daddy.

I remember the first things all the kids said to me. For example, I remember Bear spontaneously bursting out with the excited announcement, “I like ice cream!” And I will always remember the scared yet defiant look in Sunflower’s eyes as she wrapped her arms tightly around Gary’s arm and told me sternly, “This is my Daddy.”

I read between the lines crystal clear. This is her daddy. Don’t take him away. Don’t even think about it.

There is no handbook, rule book, or step-by-step guide for weaving your life into your boyfriend’s kids’ lives, and there is no one-size-fits-all method for all of them. All four of the kids responded to me differently, and I have a unique relationship with each of them, since they are four separate, very different people with their own minds and their own expectations.

Sunflower was not cruel, rude, or even cold. She was simply scared. I understood and tried not to be too frustrated with a distance I felt with her but not with the other kids. I let her be, let her come to me if she wanted, let her keep her distance if she preferred that. I gave her time and space with Gary, reminding myself that I saw him every day; the kids saw him maybe every two weeks. They deserved to be bumped up the totem pole and given his full attention.

One day, we were relaxing at home, and I was curled up in the corner of the couch, watching the kids play on the floor with Gary. Sunflower was tucked into the opposite corner of the couch with her arms wrapped around her pillow, silently regarding me, the wheels turning almost audibly in her head.

She moved slowly, as if detection by me would cause her to self-destruct. One inch. Two inches. All the while, gazing at me with wide, cautious eyes, daring me to do anything to cause her to dash frantically back to her safe corner of the couch.

Then, she gently settled her pillow in my lap. And waited.

When I didn’t react in whatever horrible manner she imagined I may, she went for broke: she crawled into my lap, snuggled up with her pillow, and made herself comfy in my arms.

Gary didn’t say a word, but suddenly he appeared with a camera, snapped a quick shot of the two of us, and then returned to the wrestling match on the floor. Sunflower and I sat quietly, snuggling for the first time. Not for the last time, I was awed by the overwhelming emotion the kids could draw from deep inside of me.

Sorting through pictures not long ago, Gary pointed out that picture to me, Sunflower curled in my lap. Now, three years later, it’s not unusual for Sunflower to climb into my lap (though her strong preference is definitely still Gary’s lap!) One of my favorite sounds has become Sunflower’s wild, free laugh while she plays with her daddy, because her laugh is filled with love and smiles and joy.

Today I wish her a happy birthday. I wish her all the love, smiles, and joy in the world, so she never stops laughing. And I promise her, with all my heart, I will never, ever forget: that is her daddy.