my husband and I have played this game since we first got together. It’s cynical and totally sarcastic, but it’s kinda fun to play every now and again. It plays on people who see things as signs that they were “meant to do something” or in our case, “meant to be together.”

Let me rewind:

When Superdad and I were together, I used to find things all over that were little signs to me that we were meant to be together. There were all sorts of things. For instance:

-His initials were my astrological sign
-We met in the same place at the same age as my parents met
-He has a scar on his hand from a “smiley” lighter burn, that didn’t scar right, and it was the same way I used to sign all of my letters before I met him.
-His first real long-term serious job was the same place my dad got his first real job.

And I’m sure I could go on, but now thinking of this list makes me want to vomit. I’ve come to believe that you can find “meant to be’s” in anything, if you really dig hard enough.

So this is what my husband and I do for fun, only it’s totally dripping with sarcasm. We’ve come up with some really good ones, but I can’t think of any of the GREAT ones as I sit and write this. His Grandma’s name is my Grandma’s best friend’s name (not a very common name); Both of our dads are truckdrivers, etc etc… though I know there’s been many other ones that were way better. Anyway, you get the point…

So fast forward… tonight I was looking at some amazing wedding cakes, and one of them was called something like corset and pearls or something. And pearls immediately make me think of my grandma. She’s the only one I’ve ever known in my life to really have an attachment to pearls. Pearls and Rubies (her birthstone) were the two big things she liked to wear. I mean she wore some other gems, but she’s really the only woman in my life I can remember who actually desired pearls. Couple this Pearl cake, with the fact that I’m really torn up about the fact that my grandma can’t be with us during my pregnancy, or the arrival of Poppy, and it just made me start thinking.

I got pregnant right after she passed. Like literally weeks after the funeral. I can’t remember who I was talking to, but the conversation went something along the lines of “maybe the baby will be born with your grandmother’s soul… her way of staying with you thru your life…” I kinda shook that off and put it aside, cuz honestly, the thought of being pregnant with “my grandma” kinda creeps me out. But it is an interesting idea for someone who believes in reincarnation, it could be very plausible that my grandma could survive as one of my offspring. Still, can’t get past the creepy factor (I apologize to anyone who whole-heartedly believes in reincarnation- I’m not trying to be offensive at all).

Anyway, it made me think of a few of the other uncanny things about this pregnancy, and this child. Let me name a few:

-I got pregnant the same month as her death
-The birthstone for the month Poppy will be born in is Pearl
-Her due date is the same number that was my grandma’s Bday (June 15th vs July 15th)

I’m sure I could think of more if I could think clearly, and not thru all of this funk. I’m sick and I feel awful. I think I might go to bed early tonight. I’ve been cooking a TON of food to freeze for when Poppy is born so I don’t have to cook on nights I’m totally exhausted. We will see how well that works out for us though LOL.

So yesterday, I had planned to do all of these things. I had a doc appt in the morning, and then I was going to run errands all afternoon until we had to pick Lex up from school. I made River an appointment to get his hair cut… and I was just generally excited about not being in the house.

Aside from almost oversleeping, I got ready and ran out the door to my doc appt. He was running late, so I waited forever, and I was tired and annoyed. But when he finally came in he told me I was full term, baby’s head was down, and he even mentioned that she was pretty big- so if I wanted to schedule an induction in a couple weeks time (if my body was presenting itself as ready to go into labor) that I could do that as well. I was totally stoked. We got to hear the heartbeat, and I was sent on my merry way. I’m down to the wire- weekly appointments from here on out until she’s born. Did I mention how excited I am to meet her?? OMG Seriously… I could just cry thinking about it LOL!!

So, I come home from the doc office, and I try to wake River up to get him ready for his haircut. He wasn’t having it. He’d been up all night (which was why *I* didn’t get any sleep either), and he was crabby, and I just knew he wouldn’t behave at the salon, so I called ahead and asked to have them change the appointment from a child’s haircut, to a cut and a dye for ME :D I got ready and headed out.

Aside from being excited about getting my hair done for the first time in almost a year, I was super excited about going in because I had made the appointment with an old friend I’d lost contact with for about 10 years… and I found out he was a hair stylist at a place close to my house, so I totally jumped on the chance to go in and have him do my hair. It was soooo much fun catching up. I told him I wanted to do my hair burgundy, and other than that, do whatever he thought would look good. I think he did a FAB job… I was over the moon excited about it.

Coloring it took longer than I thought, so I had to cut my errands short so I could pick Lex up, but I figured we could go to the partk or something after I got back from the school. I was in a really good mood, and it was a really nice day out. Breezy and warm.

I got home and woke Christopher up. He was completely shocked and did a double take of my hair. I couldn’t tell if it was cuz he just woke up, or cuz he was blown away LOL!! Later, he mentioned that we should go out to dinner. So, we got the kids ready for dinner, and we were out the door.

We were just pulling out to leave, and one of his friends pulls up. They both roll down windows to see what he was doing at our house… and he reaches over to the passenger seat and pulled out a cute pink gift bag, and says “Here! It’s for the baby!!” I was shocked. So I started rifling thru it all and they got Poppy the most adorably sweet, super cute outfits, and a little baby blanket, which I REALLY needed. We didn’t have ANY cute little baby blankets leftover from River that I thought would be suitable to wrap up a cute little girl in. Everything I have left over is like camo colored, or has trucks on it. I want something cute and dainty for her LOL!!

I was seriously on like cloud nine. Nice haircut, got to catch up with an old friend, people brought the baby gifts… We invited them to join us for dinner. And we all went out and had an AWESOME time chatting and just generally hanging out. I think we were done eating for almost a good hour before we actually got in our cars and drove off. It was a good time.

I wish I could have more days like this LOL!

I got the call the day after the kids got back from their dad’s house. When I heard the ring on my phone I was instantly annoyed. I have a special ringer for Superdad’s number, so I know right away when he calls.

I answered the phone like any other day… slightly annoyed, but cordial.

“Hello?”
“I have a slight problem with visitation…”

The first thing I thought was WHAT THE FUCK NOW? Seriously, he’s had the kids shuffle their visitation days back and forth and this and that way for the last few months. It’s becoming a bit more than annoying, and I’m sick of living on his schedule. I try to take it all in stride because honestly, I can’t change it… so why sit and be pissy about it.

“Which is….” I’m sure he could tell I was annoyed…
“My house just burned down.”
(more…)

I went in the first day of Spring Break to have my test done. I couldn’t believe how busy it was. Was i really going to have to sit here amongst all of these people and pretend like I wasn’t sick for THREE WHOLE HOURS? I dreaded the idea. Not to mention, there was ONE chair that looked comfortable in the whole waiting area– and it had been taken (by someone ELSE who was also doing the 3-hour). Just my luck. There were so many kids in the lobby, and normally I wouldn’t have been bothered, but I was on edge because of the test and what it might mean for me. Their gameboys were so freaking loud… I kept thinking to myself “this isn’t an arcade, you woulda thought their mom coulda asked them to turn it down really low, or mute it altogether.” but no… they kept on.

Then the boys got sick of the gameboys, and moved on to trading barbs on how they could kill one another. Oh… The… Joy…

“Well I’ll send you to the sun, with magnetic boots on… you won’t escape that!!”
“Yeah, well I’ll put my rocket boosters on the back of my boots, and I’ll fly off the sun quicker than you put me there…”

Did I mention I was really annoyed by this time… and I’d found out these children didn’t even NEED to be in the lobby? They had come to visit the other girl who was doing HER 3-hour.

WHAT THE HELL?

Who takes 4 kids to go VISIT the testing clinic place? If you seriously can’t live without seeing your mom, sister, aunt, grandma, friend, etc etc for 3 whole hours, you seriously have some issues, and SHOULD NOT be having a baby in the first place.

Anyway, so they called my name, and I went back for my first blood draw, and then they gave me “the drink” and told me I had 5 mins to get it all down. I seriously thought I’d die. I don’t even think I focused on the first blood draw because I was so focused on the fact that that orange syrupy concoction is so vile that I didn’t know HOW I’d get all that down in 5 mins time.

Back in the lobby with the 4 kids who were BEGGING their mom to leave by now, I started to take as big as swallows as I could. First, they were long draws. I figured the more at once, the better. But then I almost gagged, and I didn’t want to puke in front of 20 strangers, so I started taking itty bitty sips. More like wetting my tongue. I seriously didn’t think I’d be able to get it down. I did everything to try to get myself to drink it.

“Pretend it’s just Water”
“Mmmm, this is yummy Orange Koolaid” (which I hate in the first place)

My thoughts would drift into things like “OMG I’m seriously going to wretch all over the floor” or “OMG this burns my throat it’s so sweet…”

But I continued.

“Imagine coooolllllld water.”
“You can do this… yer a strong woman.”
“It will all be over as soon as it started.”

And the self-affirmations continued until I had about half a shotglass worth of ickyness in the bottom of the bottle, and then I seriously thought I was going to throw up. I got the worst hotflash I’d had in forever, and my head started to spin a bit. I seriously thought I was going to have to forfeit the test, all because I couldn’t swallow the LAST few drops. I almost started crying.

“SUCK IT UP, WEINERFACE!! DRINK IT!! YOU DIDN’T SUFFER THRU THAT WHOLE BOTTLE TO FAIL AT THE VERY END!!”

And with that I tipped the bottom up, and PRAYED I didn’t spray orange gooey vomit all over the people sitting across from me.

Then I sat and waited. I brought some Penny Press Variety Puzzles, but I couldn’t concentrate on them because I was so lightheaded. The nurse had told me the first hour was the worst, and if I needed a fan, to let them know… it I needed to puke, here was the bathroom, if I felt like passing out, let them know so they could lay me out flat. All very reassuring things I thought to myself. I wonder how many women had done all of those things, and how many times they’d had to run out of the lobby to rescue a poor woman whose body had told them to screw themselves, and that it was NOT going to tolerate that orange vile nastiness.

The woman doing her 3-hour left about 45 mins after I got there, and I swooped in on the comfy chair, and tried desperately not to fall asleep. The lobby started to clear out and after awhile there were only 2 or 3 people in at a time. One woman with her 6-week old preemie who was still only 4 lbs came in. I couldn’t help but to think that all of this suffering I’d been put thru would result in my own itty bitty all dressed in pink. I almost started crying I was so happy. And I probably would have if I didn’t feel so asstastic.

All in all I had 4 draws, 6 pokes, and two of which they had to dig in my arm to get a vein to puncture. I was miserable, and my arms hurt really bad at the end. Surprisingly though, when they told me I could leave, food was the last thing on my mind… even though it was now about 1:30pm, and I’d not eaten anything since 9pm the day before. I drove home wondering if the whole day would be riddled with this awful dull headache and ickyness I’d been experiencing.

I called my doctor’s office to see when I’d hear the results of the test, and how long I’d have to wait. They told me they’d call me the next day whether I failed or not, and then I’d know for sure.

That night I got sick twice with shakiness and felt like vomitting for about 3 hours. I was sure it was because I was diabetic now, and I was really starting to get down on myself. I didn’t feel this awful this long after my 1-hour test. And the next 3 things I’d eaten after the 3-hour made me sick to my stomach, and gave me hotflashes. The headache didn’t go away until sometime while I was sleeping I guess, because when I woke up the next morning, it was gone.

I heard the phone ring some time early afternoon, but the kids didn’t run it into my bedroom until it had already kicked to voicemail. It was my doctor’s office. I nervously called them back, my stomach in knots and doing flips. I told the receptionist who I was, and she put me on hold to get the Phone Nurse. The wait was soooooooooooo long, even though I bet in reality it was only a minute or so. When I heard her pick up, I held my breath. This was it. Either I was or wasn’t. Couldn’t go back now.

I passed my 3-hour glucose test.

I asked her if she was sure, to which she kinda laughed and said yes. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I thanked her for such wonderful news. The rest of the day I was on cloud nine and couldn’t help but to tell everyone I knew that I’d passed. It was amazing.

Life is good.

I just checked in on one of the birth forums I joined awhile ago (before River was born), and I realized that some of the May babies are already making their big appearances. MAY BABIES!!! I’m having a JUNE baby and that’s like right after May. I’ve suddenly experienced stage fright.

How… stupid… is… that??

I have all of these worries. Will she flip on time, will I have to have a Version like last time… will it be a smooth delivery, will I have to have a c-section. I’m mortified of a c-section. MORTIFIED.

Tomorrow I go for my 3-hour glucose test because I failed mine last week. I seriously cried all day that day. It was absolutely miserable. And the strangest thing happened while I was so upset about the idea of being diabetic– I longed for my grandmother. Most of the day I don’t know if I was crying for fear of being diabetic, or crying in mourning because I missed her so much. I didn’t let anyone know that though… I didn’t want anyone to think they had to comfort me even more. I was very upset.

I fasted before the test, dreaded going in, and then failed anyway. I asked Christopher to bring me something to eat so I could have something on the ride home since I’m often sick if I don’t eat often enough. And if I hadn’t been sobbing when I left the doctor’s office, everything would have been fine. But when I got in the car, he was in a dreadful mood because the kids hadn’t behaved… and he handed me a cadbury egg and a box of dots.

“I got you some of your favorites.”

I just wanted to throw them out the window. My Favorites… seriously, after being told sugar could kill me, eating a box of dots and a cadbury egg was the last thing on my mind. I got frustrated, and then he got pissed cuz I wasn’t happy about what he’d gotten me, so I got even more angry and beligerantly gobbled down a handful of dots and the cream egg. He stole the box of dots from me before i could shove the rest of them down my throat.

“There!! Are you happy?? I gobbled down all of the sugar you brought me. Is that what you wanted?”

We fought for the better part of the next two hours. I think he was just frustrated because he couldn’t control the circumstances, and I was frustrated that he didn’t coddle me, hold me, and tell me everything would be okay. It was as if the whole thing was about him. The nerve…

I’ve been frantically nervous about this whole pregnancy. My husband says I worry too much. Every pregnancy I’ve ever had has presented new difficulties, and I constantly say, “I wonder what’s going to happen this time.” I think my husband thinks I willed myself into being a Gestational Diabetic or something? Either way though, this pregnancy has left me absolutely drained of energy and so sick. I’ve never been this sick before. It’s frustrating. I’m sure it has to be frustrating for everyone else around me as well. They have to put up with a crabby bitchy pregnant woman who seriously can barely move anymore. I think if I never asked my kids to rub my feet again, it would be too soon. And I can’t bend over to save my life.

Did I mention that I have a little less than 3 mos left?

And that this TERRIFIES ME??

On a positive note though, we DO have a baby name. The earliest we’ve ever conjured one up. And I’m in love with it. He says he likes it as well- but I hope he’s not just humoring me. I thought of it while I was watching TV one night… and instantly thought it was perfect.

So what is this name, you ask?

Poppy Marialta

Marialta, you say? How do you pronounce that, you say? How did come up with THAT name, you say?

My grandmother’s name was Mary Ellen. My sister already used Ellen for my adorable niece’s middle name. Christopher’s grandmother passed away a few months ago, and her middle name was Alta. So…

Mary+Alta= Marialta

We dropped the Y and changed it to an I to make it flow better. I love that her name is totally unique, and special. And even MORE special since she honors two wonderful women who graced our lives. I hope she cherishes it as much as I do.

If yer not on board with her name, it’s okay… you aren’t the first one. On several occasions I’ve heard something to the tone of “aren’t you afraid she will HATE her name?” And my reply to that is:

Madison hates her name as well- and it’s about as common as you can get. Go figure, right?

So here’s hoping for a happy uneventful next few months. Hopefully everything goes smooth and I’m just panicking for nothing. Right?

It’s amazing how much a child absorbs.

A couple of weeks ago my husband thought it would be fun to revisit some of the old video games he’s not played in forever. God of War II was one, and another was some Dragonball Z game. Both of which I hate, BTW.

Christopher and I play video games for 2 very different reasons. I play to have fun, complete tasks, whatever it may be. I use it as a relaxation tool to get away from everyday normal stresses and decompress. Sure I might get frustrated because maybe I can’t figure a puzzle out or something like that, but NOTHING like Christopher.

Christopher likes to play video games that have him screaming his brains out and/or throwing the controller down at the ground in utter disgust. He’s very rarely EVER happy when playing video games, and he’s always bitching about one thing or another. There have been several games he’s played over the years that I’ve flatout told him he can’t play til the kids go to sleep. Mostly they are too gory (Legacy of Kain series) and I don’t want the children walking around talking about bashing heads open or sucking blood. I’m about to tell him he can’t play ANY games at all, unless he shapes up and stops yelling at the TV. Christopher knows how crazy he acts, because he’s actually made comments before like, “Yeah, I know… I figured if I hit the new TV with the controller, you’d make me unhook it all, and I’d never be able to play again.” He’s right too. I’d be furious.

Okay, sooo… fast forward a week or so later after he’s had many nightly tirades with Kronos.

River is playing Turtle Odyssey…

He’s sitting at the computer, and if you’ve ever played the game- it’s a little kids game where a bouncing, jumping turtle collects coins and jumps on monsters he may encounter along the way. River isn’t good with operating the mouse AND clicking the spacebar at the same time just yet, so he gets frustrated sometimes.

He’d finally HAD IT!!

“HATE THIS GAME!!!!” flew outta his little 2yo mouth, followed by a really angry, “DAMMIT!!!!”

WHAT?!?!?!! Did he REALLY just say that? I knew right away where it’d come from, because Christopher says it alla the time. I texted him to tell him what wonderful words of wisdom our son had to share… but he didn’t believe me.

Until he said it the next day when my husband was around LOL!!

And now… he says it ALL of the time.

And here my husband thought I was just being a nagging wife who tries to make him feel guilty about doing stuff around the kids… just so I can justify not hearing it for myself.

Is this where I place an “I told you so?”

I’m moving hosts, and redoing my layout… so if you visit while everything looks half finished… this is why :) Gimme a day or so, and it should all look spiffy for everyone to see :)

My kids always complain they’ve never stayed in a hotel, and we’ve never taken them anywhere “cool.” But I think after this last weekend, they won’t be able to say that anymore.

With part of our Tax Money we got back this year, I planned for an awesome trip to Coco Key Water Resort and then the next day we would go to Build a Bear and stuff our own animals. I had to make the reservations for our Poolside Suite 3 weeks in advance, and lemme tell you… they counted down EVERY SINGLE DAY until it was time to pack and leave. Talk about excited. It was so cute watching them get all giddy and wonder what it was going to be like. It was a small fortune, but honestly, I think it was totally worth the experience we had. My husband on the other hand, was far from sane at the end of the trip, and told me not to ask him to do ANYTHING for a long long time. Poor guy.
(more…)

Are you surprised? LOL It was the same way with Lexie’s name, and with River’s… but it still drives me up the wall

I’m 24 weeks now, if you go by my due date. I’ve been having a lot of complications lately, but finding out we are having a little girl has seriously lit up my life. I have NEVER been so happy to find out I could buy pink again in my whole life LOL!! I guess after Spiderman, Transformers, and Cars, I’m all boyed out. Not to mention River is so naughty and keeps me on my toes… I dunno if I could handle another boy like him LOL! He’s into everything, and with his devlish grin, and beautiful eyes, he just flashes a smile, and gets in trouble for NOTHING LOL!! My luck, we will get a naughty GIRL instead. Teach us to wish for one sex over the other I guess.

Another reason I wanted to have a girl was because I’m desperate to honor my grandmother with the name we choose. It’s so hard choosing something, and I’ve often thought to myself “I wish my Grandmother was here so she could just TELL me if she liked the name or not.” It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Before we found out we were having a girl, I’d thought up some good BOY names… but Christopher nixed pretty much all of them. Some of them that went by the wayside were:

Alexavier Darwin
Castien Darwin
Nolan Darwin

Darwin was going to be the middle name no matter what… we just had to find something strong enough to go with it. Christopher desperately wanted a junior, but I believe every baby should have their OWN name, so I asked him which part of his name he’d like to pass onto the baby, and he chose his middle name. Now I guess that doesn’t matter much, since we are having a girl.

I thought we might have actually HAD a girl’s name picked out before we found out the sex, but then I found out the only reason he said he liked Ireland is that he was DEAD CERTAIN that we were having a boy, so he just said he liked whatever I said to make me shut up basically. Nice, eh? LOL Gotta love men. So, just to be fair, since I posted some names for boys we’d thrown to the wayside, here are some of the girls names we’ve cycled thru:

Ireland Elayna
Ireland Noelani

And now we are in discussions about Poppy.

Christopher and I watch a show called Without a Trace, and one of the lead characters on that show is played by a woman named Poppy Montgomery. I remember watching the credits one day, and Christopher mentioned that he really liked the name Poppy. And the other day, after I was searching baby name sites, I remembered that conversation, and mentioned it to him. He said he liked it still, but I am not sure if he is in LOVE with it. I have to find a middle name that: 1. honors my grandmother and 2. doesn’t drown beside such a strong name as Poppy. It’s going to be hard. I think I’m going to try a little while today.

I also like Poppy because Poppy happens to be what I called my Grandpa all thru my childhood. Until he died I pretty much exclusively called him Poppy and NEVER referred to him as Grandpa, and that was a name *I* gave him when I was little and couldn’t say Grandpa. When he passed away, there was a ribbon on his spray that said Poppy that they made up just for me. I got to keep it along with one of the long stem roses that were in the spray. I know it’s not very conventional to name a girl after a man, but the fact that Christopher likes the name Poppy, coupled with it’s sentimental meaning in my heart… I just really hope it works out.

So anyway, here’s to hoping we don’t have to play the Name Game too much longer. I just don’t know how many names like Sarah, Jane, Emily, and Bella I can wade thru before I feel like I’m drowning in them all. Wish us luck :)

I don’t even know where to start.

I kinda got so busy, I forgot to blog– and then I got so behind, I didn’t know where to start to catch up on blogging… it’s a vicious circle I tell ya.

As I get older, a lot of things escape me. My short term memory has pretty much been shot after Lexie was about a year old… it never came back, and I don’t know why. My blog helps me remember the stuff I might otherwise forget. I love my blog almost as much as I love the family I live with. It helps me vent when I have no one to vent to. It helps me share accomplishments I can read back on later. I looked into making myself a printed book of alla my favorite posts- but then, there were too many and the book would have been an outrageous cost to print. So meh, it’s back to the Internet.

Christmas brings many emotions in our household. It’s exciting to see the kids get so wound up about it, it’s stressful to try to make it all work out, it’s frustrating waiting on other people’s schedules to make things happen, it’s fun to try to pick and choose who gets what present, and who would like this that or the other thing. I love giving gifts. This year has just been a bit hard. I don’t know if it’s the economy, or my lack of planning, but we barely got the presents we needed to buy. And the only reason we did get them was because of Black Friday. Reagan and I went at 4am, and we hit up 4 or 5 stores, and I spent about $300 we had set back from Christopher’s student loan. Without Black Friday, we wouldn’t be having Christmas.

My dad came in on the 20th to drop off presents for everyone. He was a little early this year, usually they come in on the 23rd, or even Christmas Eve. And because of several mishaps with baking cookies- I just decided to say screw it, I’m not making baskets this year. These are usually what we give for gifts, but after you burn 2 batches of cookies, and fuck up your favorite kind of fudge, it ends up being more than the stupid chocolate chips that are burned… my ego took a bit of a beating as well. Needless to say, I didn’t have any gifts to exchange with my dad, though honestly I don’t think we had any last year either. I can’t remember though.

I bring this up, because I called my parents the next day to tell them my phone was working again (River threw it in the toilet the day before. I dried it out as best I could, but it still wouldn’t turn on. I stuck it in a bowl of rice for a few hours, and sure enough, it welcomed me back with open arms. I don’t know if it was time or the rice… but I will definitely be trying it again if it happens again.) My dad answered the phone, which rarely happens. He told me my mom was busy, and couldn’t talk, but I told him that was okay- I just wanted to let them know my phone was back on. He proceeded with the most fucked up conversation I think I’ve ever witnessed in my life. It went something like this:

“How’s come you didn’t buy your mom a present this year?”
“I could barely buy my OWN KIDS presents this year. And you came early this year, so I didn’t have my goodie baskets done.”
“Well, your mom should be at the top of the list for who to buy for on Christmas.”
“I would have to say my kids would beg to differ.”
“She deserves to be the first one you buy for.”
“…” Did I seriously just hear that right?
“Well, your mom brought you into this world, and without her you wouldn’t be here.”
“Well I don’t know what to say. It’s tight around here, and I could barely pull off Xmas for my own children. I’m sorry.”
“Well, your mom’s feelings are hurt she didn’t get a present from you.”

and then he went into this diatribe about how my mom spends all of this effort on Christmas each year, and it’s all for nothing. And this year she pulled out 4 totes full of decorations to decorate a house that no one cares about, and that this year was an extremely hard Xmas for her. This was the first year she didn’t have her mom or her daddy for Xmas.

Did he really just say that? This is a woman who called off all holidays when Poppy died because it wouldn’t be right to celebrate them without him. She never went down to visit her. She basically forgot about her after Poppy’s funeral, until Grandma fell, and she HAD to pay attention to her. And even in that capacity, my mom and grandma couldn’t get along, and eventually my Grandma was so fed up with my mom she chose to live back on the other side of the state away from my mom, so she could be left alone. One could definitely say, that they didn’t have the best of relationships. And one could also draw the conclusion that if they WEREN’T related, my mom and grandma would have had NOTHING to do with one another.

I don’t know what burned my ass more. The comment about my mom being more important than my kids on Christmas, or the fact that my dad just assumed that this Christmas isn’t equally if not MORE depressing for me than my mom. They so quickly forget that my Grandma was my best friend. And unlike them, I didn’t have to be FORCED to have a relationship with her. I yearned for that relationship, and nurtured it very very carefully. Aside from my children, I would venture to say my Grandma was probably the most important person in my life. She seriously was my everything. He seriously has some nerve to insinuate I don’t miss her or wish she was here for Christmas.

After I heard him say that, I just sat there and stewed while he went on and on about why this Christmas is so awful for my mom. I was seriously only half listening though because I kept asking myself what type of grandparents are so selfish to demand gifts over their own grandchildren. And what type of grandparents are so selfish they would want their grandchildren to go without so that they could receive a gift.

Apparently it’s really depressing right now because her cat went missing, and they think he might have froze to death.

Apparently Christmas is hard on her this year because she’s going thru Menopause.

Apparently the world is supposed to stop because my mom has issues and even AFTER my grandma passed away, she hasn’t changed a bit… and the whole world has to pay for her unhappiness. I guess it is a bit of karma that she cut my grandma out of her life, and now she has to live with the consequences of her actions for the rest of her days. I hope it makes her even more of a miserable bitch than she already is.

I seriously can’t believe my parents. I know it’s true that you can’t choose your family… but it’s times like these I wish they would forget my phone number and never contact me again.

On a lighter note, the funeral home made this beautiful angel out of a starched doily. It has two wooden hearts on the front. One with my grandmother’s name on it, and one with the years she was born, and passed. I think it was made to be an ornament for the tree, because it has a little satin loop attached to the back, but it was so pretty I put it on as our tree topper. After I sat it atop our tree, and stepped off the chair, I stared at it while tears streamed down my face. Even in death, my grandma’s presence is truly beautiful. I guess this is some small way to incorporate her into our Christmas festivities. Atop the tree she sits, to watch everyone on Christmas morning.

Gawd, I’ve never missed anyone so much in my life. Words can’t ever express my undying gratitude and love for her. She will forever be missed.