I don’t know, what do you think? She looks pretty healthy to me.

This week is chaotic in both good and bad ways. The good is that Catie’s birthday is tomorrow, and my big girl is turning FIVE. YEARS. OLD. A fact which she gleefully tells anyone who’ll listen. So we’re having a party at one of those bounce house places, because I really don’t need her entire daycare class plus all of their parents in my house. She is ecstatic.

[Aside: Can I rant about parents who don't RSVP to birthday parties? I have 5 confirmed guests and about 11 others that have been given invitations, but I have no idea if they're coming or not. And the party is Saturday. Rudeness!]

The not-so-good chaos is that Dave is coming for a visit, which means working out details about visitation and dealing with lawyers (because that’s the only way we communicate these days), and all kinds of things that I’d rather not have to worry about.

So, yeah. That stuff. Boo on that.

I also started this new diet thing this week because I decided that my jeans were getting too tight and I’ve had quite enough of that, thankyouverymuch. I don’t really want to talk about it too much because it seems like every time I do, I jinx myself. But that’s another added layer of chaos to my life, just because it’s something new and different, and changes are difficult, yadda yadda.

Lots of ups and downs, clearly. But overall, things are good, I think. Even though I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m about to be the mother of a five year-old child. How the hell did that happen?

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The good thing about my birthday this year is that Greis was able to come visit for the long weekend, and it’s been a ton of fun having her here. Lucy is still in her all-mommy, all-the-time phase, but Catie only wants Greis to snuggle with her at bedtime, she doesn’t want me at all. Which, you know, is TOTALLY FINE with me. I don’t mind the rejection. Especially when it means I get the chance to do things like, oh, take a shower.

It’s been pretty mellow this weekend. We met up with my cousin Cat and took the kids bowling on Friday night, which was fun. And on Saturday, I got a baby-sitter and had a girls’ night out with Greis, Cat, Trish, Erin, and Amber. It was nice to have a night out with just adults. There were a couple of kids in the restaurant, and every time they acted up, I was just relieved that the shrieking voices didn’t belong to either of my kids, and I didn’t have to react or respond at all.

The one downside of the evening took place as we were leaving. I went to the ladies’ room, and a woman in front of me offered me her stall. I was like, “That’s ok, I’m just… waiting?” She gestured at my stomach and said, “Are you sure?” Realizing what she meant, I said, “Oh, I’m not pregnant.” She looked mortified, so to try to make her feel better (WHY do I feel the need to make HER feel better??), I said, “That’s ok, I just had a baby.” Which, uh, yeah. *cough*7monthsago*cough*

So. Perhaps it’s time to start working out again, methinks?

Anyway, here’s to 36. It’s going to be a year of first-time milestones (e.g., I am now the age I will be when I get divorced), and not all of them are happy ones, but hopefully the positive will far outweigh the negative. Here’s hoping.

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I could tell the minute she started to feel better, too, because suddenly she was driving me crazy. She was running all over the house, “Mommy? Hey Mommy! Watch me do this! Hey, Mommy, can you turn on another ‘Pocoyo’ please? Hey mommy! Can I have some more juice? And some toast? Hey, Mommy, I’m gonna pretend that I’m a baby triceratops so you have to be the mommy triceratops, ok?” And on and on and OH MY SWEET MERCIFUL GOD, CHILD, BE QUIET.

At one point, when I was picking up Lucy from daycare, I ran into Catie’s daycare teacher and mentioned how Catie was driving me batty (but still coughing too much to go back to daycare). Her teacher gave me some worksheets to keep her busy. Catie was all excited to have “homework” from her beloved Miss Germaine. (Seriously, she cried daily about how much she missed her teacher and her friends last week. It was exhausting.)

Needless to say, she’s back at daycare today.

———————————————————————————————–

Meanwhile, this one is still up to no good whatsoever.

She is working so hard on trying to crawl, and she’s almost got it down. She’s doing the same thing Catie did with scooting backwards, as well as rocking back and forth on all fours (occasionally she’ll pull a full-on yoga plank or downward-facing dog position, it’s pretty impressive). So, based on past experience, I’m pretty sure this means she’ll be full-on crawling in two weeks or less.

I guess that means I should probably work on, I don’t know, child-proofing? Maybe? I don’t even own any baby gates. Oh god.

———————————————————————————————–

Last night, my mom officially moved out of my house. My dad’s been living in their new house for a while, but mom stayed to help out while Catie was sick. It felt so weird when she left. She’s been living with me for the past 4 months. And I knew that she was only going to be less than two miles away at her house, and that I was going to see her twelve hours later when I dropped off Lucy at their house, but it felt like the end of a big milestone. (For the record, Lucy is staying with my folks two days a week and going to daycare for the other three days – I’m so grateful that they’re willing to take it on, because it’s saving me a few hundred dollars per month to cut Lucy down to part-time daycare.)

It was weird to be the one who had to turn off all the lights when I went to bed (my mom is a night owl and usually up long after I go to bed). And it was weird to not have a constant MS-NBC soundtrack in the background (my mom loves her some liberal television programming). Everything about it just felt weird and alien and new.

But it’s a good thing. Before I went to bed I kind of looked around and thought to myself that, yeah, this is MY house. And it’s going to be just me and my girls here. And that’s ok. We need to settle into our new routine, but I think this is going to end up being a really good thing for us.

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1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Got separated. Hired a divorce attorney. A lot of other things I’d rather not remember.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I just checked last year’s meme, and this was my resolution:

Sometime in late spring/early summer, I plan to deliver a happy, healthy, preferably human baby. Let’s see how it goes!

So, yeah. I did that. Yay me! I didn’t make any other resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
ME! Plus about a hundred or so other friends and family members.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes, my dad’s cousin (sort of like an uncle to me). He was a very sweet man, and he’ll be very missed.

5. What countries did you visit?
Huh. I’m not even sure if I left the state of North Carolina this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Stability. Calmness. Serenity. Less drama. Two kids who sleep through the night in their own damn beds. Little things.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 31st – Lucy was born.
August 9th – Dave and I separated.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I went from a temp employee at my job to a permanent employee in February. That was a pretty big deal at the time.

9. What was your biggest failure?
My marriage. Enough said.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major, no.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Technically my health insurance paid for it, but I’m going to say it was the epidural when I had Lucy.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My mom. I hope that my kids grow up and know that 35 years from now, if they need me, they can call me and I’ll drop everything to be there for them. If that ends up being true, I’ll consider myself a successful parent.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I refuse to answer this for legal purposes. If you know the inside scoop on my life, you can probably guess.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Daycare. Lawyers.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The arrival of Lucy. The sale of my house.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Most stuff by Bruno Mars. For this reason.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Most definitely sadder. But optimistic because I know it’s temporary.
b) thinner or fatter? Well, I’m not pregnant anymore, so I guess I’m thinner.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer. So much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveling. Reading books. Doing fun stuff with my girls.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Moping. Yelling. Crying.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At home with Catie, Lucy, my parents, and my siblings. It was really nice.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
No. Sort of the opposite, in fact.

Unless you count falling in love with your kids, because…

My god, yes. Them.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Not sure I had one. Probably Hoarders.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
See question 13 – no comment.

24. What was the best book you read?
I don’t think I finished a single book that I started this year.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Piano Guys. Who knew I’d ever have an obsession with the cello?

Click here to view the embedded video.

26. What did you want and get by year’s end?
My parents moved here. We sold our house. I found a rental house for me and the girls.

27. What did you want and not get by year’s end?
A sense of closure.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I’m suddenly completely blank. Did I see any movies this year that weren’t animated? I mean, I took Catie to see “Gnomeo and Juliet” and “Rio,” but those aren’t on my list of fine quality films, so… yeah. I don’t know.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 35. I don’t think we did anything since I was pregnant and miserable.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If my marriage hadn’t fallen apart, that would’ve been nice.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Total lack of fashion, all functional. I’m working on fixing that, though. I bought some cute boots as a Christmas gift to myself, and my goal is to try to take the time to make myself feel cute, because I feel a lot better about myself when I do.

32. What kept you sane?
It’s probably bad to answer this question with Lexapro, but… yes. Lexapro.

Also, my friends and family who let me vent whenever I needed to. Y’all know who you are. And you’re awesome.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I will admit that I have a huge crush on Matt Paxton, the extreme cleaning guy on Hoarders. Because I love the idea of a man who knows how to clean up after himself. That Corey dude isn’t too shabby either.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Probably the Amendment 26 vote in Mississippi. It’s my home state and I still get worked up about a lot of political issues there. This is one of the few times one of their elections turned out the way it should have.

35. Who did you miss?
I missed my Grandmother a lot this year. She’s Lucy’s namesake, and sometimes I look at my two girls and think about how much she would have adored them. She died 15 years ago, and I still miss her. My sister and I wore some of her jewelry to church on Christmas Eve this year.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
My new friend Tanya, another single mom at Catie’s daycare, who has been an invaluable resource to me over the past few months. It helps to have a friend who’s been through all of this stuff before, and survived to tell the tale.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Sometimes the people you thought you knew the best, turn out to be complete strangers to you.

Also, I can survive a lot more than I ever thought I could. Who knew?

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“Soap and water
Take the day from my hand,
Scrub the salt from my stinging skin,
Slip me loose of this wedding band.”
– Suzanne Vega, “Soap and Water”

(Yeah. I told you this was going to be depressing. Sorry.)

So, happy new year everybody. Let’s hope 2012 is far, far better than 2011.

New Year’s meme for 2011 is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.

Catie was so happy on Christmas morning. She got everything that was on her list for Santa, and then some.

At one point, she said, “This is the BEST! CHRISTMAS! EVERRRR!!!” Considering that I thought it would be the worst Christmas ever (the first one post-separation), I’ll take that as ridiculously high praise.

Lucy seemed a little confused by it all, but she had fun too.

Plus, you know, there was this. Which made me laugh until I cried.

I mean, it’s a Foofa hat. Come ON. That’s just funny.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas too.

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But, I have these two. And that’s all that matters.

So Merry Christmas. From our house to yours. Hope your holiday season is as bright as these two girls’ smiles. (And the glare on the photos because I took them with my iPhone. It’s Christmas. I’m not busting out the scanner.)

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1. Our house is officially sold. We signed the closing paperwork and handed over the keys this morning. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Mostly relief, because I’m glad to be done with it, but also a hell of a lot of sadness, because that was my dream house, and it’s gone. And yeah, I know we’ll make new memories in this new house and it will all turn out the way it’s supposed to be. But it’s hard.

2. Dave and his mom have come to visit. There was a lot of hubbub about it before they arrived (long story), but so far all of his visits with the kids have been low-key and drama-free, and I’m crossing my fingers that maybe we can maintain that from now on. I mean, I kind of doubt it, but I’m trying to maintain a tiny bit of cautious optimism. And that’s basically all I have to say on that particular subject.

3. My parents closed on their house here. Their moving truck arrives from Mississippi tomorrow. They’re going to be staying at my house for a few more days while they get things settled (they need to buy a refrigerator, that kind of thing), but it’s crazy to think that we’re going to be living less than two miles away from each other.

4. A personal Single Parent Milestone of mine: while hooking up the DVD player (which I did all by myself, boo-yah), a giant cockroach came scurrying out from behind the TV and was about an inch away from my hand. Since I had no husband to yell to come kill it, instead I grabbed my trusty Dyson with its loooong telescope handle and sucked that disgusting 6-legged bastard up.

(And this is where I tried to find a video of Delta Burke/Suzanne Sugarbaker on Designing Women doing her rant about, “I don’t care what anybody says, I think THE MAN SHOULD HAVE TO KILL THE BUG.” Alas, YouTube has failed me. Oh well, you get the idea.)

I’m sure that seems pathetic, but that was my own personal version of a major crisis (I have a phobia of roaches that I cannot even begin to explain), and I took care of it, so I was proud of myself.

5. This past Sunday, I took Catie to see Disney Princesses on Ice. She was SO excited.

The ice skaters for these shows are really amazing, and it’s definitely worth it if they come your way. Note that I am in no way sponsored to say that. I’m just saying, if you have a little girl in the Disney Princess-loving age range, you will make their week, if not their whole year, by taking them to that show. And it entertained me too, because I am a sucker for watching ice skaters do all kinds of graceful leaps and twirls that I could never do in a million years.

6. The girls had their school pictures taken for Christmas. It’s very hard to get a picture of Catie where she isn’t doing a hard “CHEESE!!” – it’s more like she’s baring her teeth than smiling. But Lucy. Oh my, y’all.

They also took pictures of the two girls together (which I couldn’t get a good picture of with my phone, since they don’t allow proofs to leave the premises, and I was sneaking pictures with my cell phone before the daycare director caught me). But needless to say, that photo company is about to get a whole lot of my money.

7. In the midst of unpacking, we managed to get our Christmas tree up, because I promised Catie I would do it as soon as we got to the new house. (Priorities. My clothes are still packed in wardrobe boxes, but we have the damn tree decorated.) I usually love to put Christmas lights outside, but I’m a little overwhelmed by everything this year, so we just stuck a wreath on the door and I’m calling it done.

8. I don’t usually get into all of the symbolism about new years being a fresh start, but let me tell you, 2011 is free to kiss my butt on its way out. I’m so looking forward to 2012 and the promise of new beginnings and clean slates. I already cannot wait for January 1st.

the mid-December update is a post from PooBou.com. If you see this content anywhere else, some jerk probably scraped my feed. Please contact me (poobou -at- gmail dot com) and let me know.