Single Parenting, But Married

This Christmas season is going to be one for my book. I have worked hard for the checks I get and it seems I get no respect for it from the husband who doesn't work and likes to spend money. I usually end up arguing with him about money. The money is usually spent on food. You might think, well, food is important. Not when you have enough food in your house and what he wants will only add to the weight he claims he wants to lose. I feel very upset by that in particular because I plan out meals and a snack for each day of the month and when I cook, I expect that it be taken a bite out of at least  or you can go hungry. If you want to complain, contribute to the budget. Anyhow, this really isn't my topic but it is one of my peeves.

My topic is that I will be telling my husband who is visiting family in another city right now for a few days that the job he mentioned that was hiring, he should apply for. Granted I don't completely like the thought of being married but not having my husband here as I have seen my Mom go through this during the summer months. My step father works on helicopters and fights fires during the summer. The rest of the year when he is home he works 5AM to 5PM Monday through Friday. So he wakes up pretty early. At 3AM to be exact because he has to commute. Also, many other people in the country are having to work away from home for long periods of time and since I am a capitalist and believe in hard work and working for what you need, not always what you want, I guess I really shouldn't be too selfish about the fact that I would be a working Mom who is parenting two of the three kids by herself majority of the week. As I have mentioned in my last post about my 30's Crisis, I pretty much do everything myself anyway. My only issue with him working away from home is that I would have to find a sitter.

I have one for the next couple of days but I do understand that she is wanting to move back to her hometown. Since my father and step-mother don't really want to help me with watching the kids, I would have to get day care. Now, normally I would prefer a home setting. But with the list of sitters who have a home setting in this town I face several obstacles. One: I have a disabled Autistic 7-year girl who is not potty trained and also has a list of other limitations. I would have to have someone with a history of working with someone like my daughter. Two: I have a 2-year old boy who is typical but has a defiant mark in him. A characteristic of his father no doubt. Three: Most of the sitters with a home setting are hard to get into because they have a child limit and I have always had the bad luck of being on a waiting list. By the time I get to the top I, for some reason, don't need their assistance such as I am not working then. So, I would have to surcome to placing my kids in an actual day care. And many that are around here don't always have the best reviews and many, with the exception of one, don't have the means to help wit my Autistic daughter. Now the one that does have the ability to help has so many kids my head spins and I worry about my daughter because her social skills aren't age.... appropriate. Meaning she isn't at her social level for her age group. She acts more like she is 4 and social cues are not something she is good at. She can get teased and not understand that she is taunted, so as a result she will laugh along with other kids in this oblivious bliss. Also, she knows emotions but doesn't know how to respond to them coming from other people. Her cognitive understanding of conversation is even lacking. Questions are difficult for her to answer. This part of trying to be a good parent and do what is best for her is very difficult for me to do. Anyhow....

Beyond that, the kids really don't like listening to me as they should for a parent. I have been nice to them and I have been firm. I am trying to find a good ground to work with them on as they are both very different children. I can't even begin to describe this even as I type which is the best way for me to get everything out. I have been a single mother before. It was different then. My son wasn't thought of yet and I had both my daughters with me. The oldest was almost a text book version of the easy to raise child. My other daughter was as she is now. She needs lots  of help for any therapy you can think of. She had ten doctors and three therapists which now is that and a behavioral counselor. I am trying to keep on track on getting home assistance with her and possibly a tutor and additional therapy outside of what she gets now for her speech and physical. I have tried finding another occupational therapist but we live in a small town and there is only one and my daughter sees her already. She also needs a rigid schedule and I will be honest, I hate having a rigid schedule. She also has to have a GFCF Complex Carbohydrate diet low in sugar as she has high blood sugar and she takes 10 different meds each day that TG are chew-able I seemed to have this down pat when it was just me and the girls but now I feel like I have lost some of what I had that it took to be THAT Mom.

I don't get too much support outside the home that is family. Just a tad but not enough to help me feel sane. On top of the fact that I just don't want to do it alone, I know that it might be better in the long run. I know I need the extra income. I know it would stop my husband from spending money that he shouldn't and making to where I CAN'T do Christmas for two of the three kids. Or the fact that I have to play catch-up with bills. I have told myself to get over my qualms and just take it like a grown up woman. To do most of it by myself because after all my husband needs to stop mooching. He needs to start realizing that he CAN do it despite his back injury. He can work after all when he gets his disability just not full time and I believe there is a stipulation as to how much income he can have each month but I do have to double check that.

Well, I think I got most of that out. Thank you to those who have read this. I know I am not alone in this boat and should stop trying to not be in it or act like I am a victim of some sort. Not that I am. We do create our chains after all and if I am going to be writing articles about being responsible it would be arrogant of me to act like nothing of what I write applies to me.

The 30's Crisis

You hear about the mid-life crisis and you know about the teen age dilemma of trying to find out where you fit in society. You may also know of that childhood struggle as to how you can be more grown up then you are because you admire a few of the "big people". What I never understood was why women of certain age lied about their true age and why on one episode of 'Friends' all the members of the group had a break down of some sort when they realized that they were thirty. I have met a few people who, when they turned thirty, cried their eyes out for some reason or another. So, now that I am thirty, I have just recently, in the past few days, began to feel a depression that is much different what I have previously felt at various points in my life thus far. And it is not like anything I have read via the Internet. I don't necessarily feel at a crossroads and wonder if the life I am leading will amount to anything. I don't feel my biological clock ticking as I already have kids and unfortunately am already going through an early onset of perimenopause. In all honesty, while I don't feel that ominous fork in the road (I already felt that two years ago and it spurred me to finish my education which began as a major in English Education to Nuerological Psychiatry as inspired by my middle child who has a multitude of disabilities; one being Autism), I do feel that I am a bit hopeless as to trying to make it to the end result.

I know I have to go through the motions. This is where I hate being. I understand that the experience will be something I reflect on and will value. I just don't want to go through it. So, in some respect, as with some of the so-called symptoms, I want to get away from everything. This isn't possible. The one core belief I have is that you can't run from your responsibilities when you feel that if you do, then everything will fall apart and wont be as you would like it. So you have to do it yourself. That's the part driving me mad on a small slice of how I am feeling. I am the only one doing anything. I want the end result without going through everything, Especially on my own. Yet, I worry that I don't want it. I still don't feel that this a fork in the road for me. I don't feel that I have to choose. I simply feel like not walking.

One other aspect I feel now is that I wish I could go back and live my twenties the way I had originally planned it.and still get the same kids I have now, just later. My plan when I was 19 was to attend college for one year in BSU (Boise) then get transferred to Exeter University in Exeter, England  spend three years there and do a winter course in another European country. I thought of either Rome, Italy or St. Petersberg, Russia.  I would return to England finish my doctorate. I wanted to major in History to become an archaeology. From there on I wasn't sure if I would stay in Europe or return the America.

Life turned me to not enroll in college. I worked as a janitor at a mall, met my future ex-husband at an elevator, had kids starting at age 21 (I wouldn't actually buy alcohol until age 23), move in with my mother with the kids after two and one half years of marriage, only to move out and to another state because my ex was exhibiting characteristic behavior that was that of a stalker posing potential threat to my kids as well as to me. Things happened that I still have trouble being open about and hate talking about and am very sensitive to. I met my current husband for the third or fifth time in the landlords office of my old apartment complex, the relationship has been very rocky but still stands. I have a third child and attend school at Western Wyoming Community College. I have a trailer which is a one up from an apartment. The downside is that I still don't have an incredible amount of income as an Event Specialist ($13/hour). I have no car because the last one was beyond my financial resources to repair and I have not good enough credit to get a loan to put a down payment for a newer used vehicle nor enough income for auto dealerships' likings to make monthly payments. I do pretty much all of the housework, I take care of the kids (one of which lives with my parents in another state and that is a long story), I am the only one working and going back to school. I never have the chance to get out and have a drink or go tot he movies for a date night. My friends are nil and that doesn't exactly bother me as drama is something I stay away from now. Plus, I have the hard time trusting people and am picky about who is and isn't my friend.

So, how does this all lead to me missing what I used to have? I feel that I took for granted the livelihood of being in my early twenties. You are practically smothered in the face with the ostentatious-ness and vitality of the twenties with the movies. Just watching a preview to 'Noobs' or '21 and Over' had me thinking not only the stupidity of the things we do when we are in our twenties but how important they are in our growing being. We take so much for granted when we are that age and we totally ignore what older people tell us when they say, "You know, acting like that doesn't make you an adult." Which I find myself saying to many young people now. Which I guess is the point in some respects. Acting like the complete idiot you can be without full adult supervision and still saying, "But I'm not a kid anymore." I guess what I am trying to say is that I miss have less responsibilities and yet I am happy to have them and feel stuck between want and what is needed because of what I have created for myself. I'm also not excited about getting older and feel comfortable lying about my age now. Though for some odd reason people still think that I am not thirty. Some say 21 and others question if I am even legal. My response: WTF?

One way I feel like I am trying to make up for those years I missed out on is by dying my hair, getting an edgy no asymmetrical hair cut, piercings, and mature yet young clothing style. I want to feel like a Mom, act like a 21 year old, and look like a hard working citizen that is maybe 25. You can see where I don't want to walk and yet have to. Like I said, I don't feel like I have a choice to make with this. I just want to merge it together so I don't have to.

Which brings me to wanting end results and not wanting to experience the motions. I want to have a good life for my kids. Granted many my age have already achieved this. It's like I grew up but properly. I became a parent and a wife but I didn't first go through the stages of college and a good job before getting the position of a wife and mother. Which in all logic is the best way to go about it. Hell, I still don't have a licence. I can just hear you gasp now. Believe me I tried when I was sixteen. I had the check for payment in my hand but they decided to become booked for the class. I tried again when I was 17/18 but it was the wrong time of year and class had already begun. I tried again 6 years ago, paid $300 and got 12 hours in but still need work because I am blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. I also tried two years ago, I had my permit and a car, but the lessons are not affordable and you HAVE to take the class before getting lessons where I live now. I don't need the class and can't get the lessons. My husband didn't really teach me. He was too lazy to and no one else gave me the time. Just before I sold the car, I was driving a bit everyday. Besides this, back on the subject; One result I would like to have to get my Autistic daughter more help and to have her more self-sufficient. I know she wont be like everyone else her age socially or possibly mentally. I just want her to be able to do things herself. I want her to feel like she isn't different. She hasn't figured out that she will feel that way the older she gets. Thank God. It just tires me out to make everything routine. I can't break away from it. I know it is a good things and helps her progress. I just want the result now.You could say it's being selfish and you would be right. This is just one of the end results I want but don't want to go through the motions of achieving.

But this is allI can write for now. Life calls me and I had better get to it. I want to write more.