Author Archives: Cindy

Almost happy*

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Warning: I’m totally scattered right now, so this post is going to be really disjointed and all over the place. I’ll throw in a bunch of cute kid photos to make it worth your while.

It appears that I am going to be moving in about, oh, a week and a half. I’m kind of in denial about it. My parents are running around the house throwing all of my stuff into boxes, while I focus on the kids or work or whatever, but la-la-la, I’m not thinking about packing. It seems to be working so far, since I haven’t freaked out yet.

(Oh, did I mention that my dad is here for Thanksgiving? He booked his flight before he knew that he’d be moving up here 3 weeks from now. We’re glad to have him. Even though he and my mom bicker like… well, like a couple that’s been married for almost 42 years, I guess. But Catie and Lucy both adore him, so it’s good to have him around. Most of the time. I’m personally getting a little tired of the “So hey, why DID your marriage fail, anyway?” inquisition. Sigh. Thanks for that, Dad.)

Ok, moving on! Other random stuff, which I shall number to make it seem more like an ordered list of events, and less like I’m in dire need of ADHD medication.

1. I’ve been sick for over two weeks now. I finally gave up and went to the doctor, where I found out that I have both a sinus and ear infection. So that’s fun. Hooray for antibiotics!

2. Lucy seemed to be coming down with the same crud that I have, and I freaked out at the thought of her being as sick as I am. Turns out she got something much milder than me. She was a little feverish for a day or so, and she seems to have a bad case of Drippy Nose, but other than that, she’s still her normal happy, cheerful self. Thank God for small favors. The Drippy Nose is gross, but it’s manageable.

Had to take a break from packing to take the (still drippy-nosed) baby for a walk.

See? She sure doesn’t LOOK sick.

3. Catie had her second appointment with a counselor. It was good. We took silly pictures of ourselves in the waiting room.

Making silly faces.

She seems to be doing pretty well. We’re working through it as best we can.

4. We’re having a ridiculously mild fall, and I have to admit that I’m loving it. I adore the in-between weather when the highs are in the 60s, it’s so nice. I’ve been taking Catie to the playground a lot lately, even though I’ve been sick and I’m sure I sound like I’m going to keel over and die of tuberculosis right next to the monkey bars. On Sunday, I had to take a break from all of the cleaning and packing and take both of my girls to the playground.

I didn’t get any pictures of Catie at the playground, because it’s impossible to take a non-blurry photo of a whirling dervish. That girl never stopped moving for a second. But while we were there, I thought I’d try Lucy out in the baby swing for the first time. I balled up my hoodie and stuffed it in the swing behind her to keep her from flopping around too much.

Lucy's first time in the swing.

She LOVED it. Like, I’ve never seen her laugh that hard for that long, ever. It was fantastic.

5. Also on the topic of Lucy’s first milestones, last night we gave her a taste of her first “real” (non-pureed) vegetable. It was my mom’s green beans, which are already really soft, and then I chopped them up into tiny, non-choke-able baby-size pieces.

Lucy, aka The Mess-Maker

She loved them, but hoo boy, what a mess. Still, it was pretty hilarious to watch her lean over and try to slurp the green beans off of the high chair tray. So overall? Totally worth it.

Lucy, aka The Mess-Maker

Yeah. Definitely worth it.

6. I just checked and verified that, yep, I am indeed moving in NINE DAYS. Ok, maybe I am starting to freak out a little.

* This is the name of the song that was playing on my iPod when I started typing this. It’s by a band called K’s Choice. Seemed appropriate.

a good Monday

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I don’t usually have nice things to say on Mondays. I especially don’t have nice things to say when I’m sick and have almost lost my voice entirely. But two very good things happened today:

1. I took Catie for her first appointment with a counselor. She was mostly interested in the fact that the therapist had toys in her office, but the two of them seemed to hit it off really well. I’m going to take it as a good sign that she cried when it was time to leave. We’re going back next week.

2. I have a house! I was really stressed about finding a rental house here, because they seem to get snatched up before I could even see one. But this house became available last week, and after I saw it, I immediately filled out an application to lease it.

If I was looking to buy a place, I would’ve been turned off by the powder blue siding. And a lot of the inside is dated (fruit-themed wallpaper in the kitchen, etc.). But it’s a rental, so I don’t care. Hell, maybe I need some pastel cheeriness in my life right now. It has all the spaces that I need – a playroom for the girls, an office for me, etc. It’s surrounded by enormous shade trees. It’s an area that’s full of little kids, and there’s a neighborhood playground within walking distance.

And, it’s exactly 1.6 miles from my parents’ new house.

So it’s perfect. I’m really excited to get us into our new space, and start working on setting up our new little life.

Call me the Haggler

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Yesterday, I successfully negotiated the sale of my house.

The buyers made a low offer. I countered. They countered. I countered again. We went back and forth several times.

I actually haggled, y’all. And I don’t haggle on anything. I felt like such a bad-ass.

And you know what?

MY HOUSE IS OFFICIALLY UNDER CONTRACT!!

I was euphoric about this for several hours, because man, I am so excited about starting over in a new (smaller) space, just me and my girls, and building our own little life, just the three of us.

Then the euphoria wore off when I realized: holy crap I have no place to live. And I have to plan a move in less than a month.

So, yeah. Now I’m panicking.

But hey, as long as I’ve got these two with me?

Sunday sister snuggles.

We can go live in a van down by the river for all I care. We’re gonna be just fine.

some good news

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I haven’t mentioned it here for fear of jinxing it, but my parents sold their house in Mississippi. It’s been on the market since the spring of 2010 (like, 6 months before I got pregnant with Lucy), so this has been a long time coming. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be closing on their house and moving to North Carolina on December 9th.

This means that before Christmas, both of my parents will be local. I can’t even tell you how excited I am about that.

And then, yesterday, I got an offer on our house. It’s kind of a low offer, so I countered back with what I thought was a reasonable amount, and I guess now I just have to wait and see if they’re willing to negotiate.

In their offer, they said they wanted to close on December 13th. So my parents and I would both be moving right around the same time. I may look for a rental house with a lease that starts on December 1st, just so I don’t have everything hit me in the same week.

So, cross your fingers. This could be really, really good for us.

Also, Catie has informed me that if we move before Christmas, I’ll have to write to Santa to make sure he knows where to bring her toys. I promised her that I’d take care of it.

finding my voice

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Last night, I had a dream that I was in labor with Lucy, and Dave had disappeared and nobody could find him. So I left the hospital – while still in labor – to go look for him.

Yeah. I hardly need Freud to show up and interpret that one for me.

I struggle a lot with how to maintain a balance online, trying to figure out what’s an appropriate amount of my life that I can share. This blog isn’t anonymous, and I try to be careful not to hurt anyone among my family or real-life friends who may read it. I also try to be careful when I think about what my kids might read someday. My usual rule is that if it affects more people than just myself, I don’t talk about it.

Last week, in a state of panic, I talked about a lot more online than I usually would have. And I got a hell of a lot of push-back for it. I was accused of airing my dirty laundry in public, showing a shocking lack of judgment, etc. An anonymous Twitter account was created to accuse me of “setting the stage” for the events that happened (which, if you think that anything that happened last week was fun for me? You’d be sadly mistaken). The account was later deleted – I’m guessing that the person knows me somehow, but I can’t fathom a guess as to who it was. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

The fact is, right now this divorce is an integral part of my life, and that’s probably what a lot of my blog posts are going to be about for a while. I have no intention of dragging Dave’s name through the mud. Yes, I’m hurt and I’m angry, but I know I’m not perfect either.

But I need to be able to talk about some of these things, because as Aunt Becky would say, I cannot live a [redacted] life.

I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness to admit that I could use some support from my online friends. But in order to get that support, I need to be able to talk openly about what’s been happening.

I might password-protect a few posts. I don’t know. I haven’t decided how I’m going to handle this. I’ll figure it out as I go, I guess. Just like the rest of my life.