Author Archives: Cindy

how to explain divorce to a 4 year-old

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I don’t know what to do about my Catie.

Catie girl in her new horsey pj's

She’s always been a cautious kid, from the time she was a baby. She doesn’t warm up to new things quickly. She takes her time, assessing the situation, until she decides it’s ok. She wouldn’t even get on the swings at the playground until this past year. She is just not the type of child to jump into the deep end and start splashing.

And you know what? That’s FINE. There’s nothing at all wrong with it. In fact, it’s made parenting her a lot easier. I’ve never had to worry about her pulling some daredevil stunt if I took my eyes off of her for two seconds, because she isn’t the type of kid to do something like that. Heck, I never even really had to childproof anything when she was a baby. I’d point to the cabinet full of breakable glass serving dishes and say, “Don’t touch that stuff.” And she wouldn’t! She’d go play with the tupperware instead.

Because of that, this (relatively sudden) separation has been unbelievably hard on her. When Dave was just a few miles away at a hotel, it wasn’t so bad. She spent the night with him there a couple of times, he picked her up in the morning to take her to daycare a few times, and they still saw each other on a fairly regular basis.

Grumpiest. Princess. Ever.

I haven’t really blogged about this, but in early September, Dave moved to Seattle for a new job. His plan is to be back and forth a lot so he can still see the girls, but… well. You can’t really explain long-term timetables to a four year-old. A week in her mind might as well be a year. Telling her that Daddy will be back next month? Yeah, it doesn’t help.

And my sweet baby, she is such a daddy’s girl, and it is heartbreaking to watch her grieve this loss. The last week or so has been particularly bad. She’ll start crying about something that seems particularly non-tear-worthy – like, say, I tell her to wait just a minute before I can get her a cup of milk – and then it escalates into this full-on, “I WANT MY DAAAAADDY!!!” sobbing.

You know that scene in “Hope Floats” where the little girl is standing in front of the house screaming for her father as he drives away? Yeah, it’s like that. Nightly. It physically hurts me to watch her like that.

A couple of nights ago, I lay down with her in her bed to snuggle with her before bedtime, and she started to cry again. I just held her and stroked her face and tried to talk her through it.

She said, “It used to be me, Mommy, Daddy, and Lucy, but we aren’t that kind of family anymore.” I agreed that no, we aren’t that kind of family anymore. It just made her cry more.

She asked when she was going to get a new daddy (I have no idea where the hell that came from – there’s a little girl at her daycare whose parents divorced & the dad moved far away, and the mom has a new boyfriend, so maybe that’s it). I quickly reassured her that there will be no new daddies. Her Daddy will always be her Daddy, and he will always love her very, very much. He just doesn’t live with us anymore, that’s the only thing that’s changed.

I also told her that it’s normal to have lots of feelings about this: we feel sad, hurt, confused, and angry, and it’s all ok.

She said, “I think, tomorrow, I’m going to be angry.” I thought that was kind of funny, but I didn’t show it on my face. I just said ok, that was fine, we just need to talk about why we feel angry, but that’s totally ok.

I told her that this is especially hard right now because it’s all new, and changes are scary. But someday this won’t feel so sad, it’ll just be normal.

And I told her that one day, when it was just me, her, and Lucy? We are gonna have us some fun. We’re going to go on adventures together, just us three girls, and it’s going to be great.

I don’t know if any of that really sunk in, and I’m sure I’ll need to repeat it quite a bit over the coming days and weeks.

Pony ride. The 4 year-old's day = MADE.

I know she’s going to be ok, I really do. I just need to figure out the best way to help her through this. I don’t want to accidentally say anything that will make it worse. This process of getting her from point A to point B is so unbelievably scary and hard.

happy birthday, Mimi

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My mom’s birthday was on Wednesday. I’m not sure if she’ll kill me for revealing her age on the Internet, so I should probably keep it to myself (cough*65*cough).

She mentioned that it was the first time in 41 years that she’s been away from my dad on her birthday. Which is kind of sad, but at the same time, I don’t remember the last time I was around my mom on her birthday, and her grandkids have never been around on her birthday, so we tried to make a big deal out of it. Which meant that Catie and I made a cake.

Happy birthday to Mimi!
(Catie is a little obsessed with Super Mario Brothers — specifically Yoshi the dinosaur — right now. Note t-shirt AND action figures on the counter.)
(Also, gratuitous de-clothed baby with her giant bald spot.)

Of course, even though it was Mimi’s cake, Catie had to do the candle-blowing and applause on her behalf.

Blowing out Mimi's candles for her

Hooray for blown-out birthday candles!

That’s what grandkids are for, right?

Mimi & her grandbabies on her birthday

It was a good day. Happy birthday, Mom. Sorry it took me 3 days to get the pictures online.

Listed

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house for sale

There’s a decorative, non-seasonal wreath on my front door, and a purple mum in the ceramic planter on the front step. Curb appeal, you know.

Our realtor said she wanted me to paint the front door, but I told her that was more than I could handle right now. I figure the wreath shows that I at least made an effort.

kitchen

The kitchen is cleaner than it’s been since we moved in.

All of the kids’ toys have been moved out of the living room and family room, and we’ve turned the bonus room upstairs (previously Dave’s office) into a giant playroom.

family room

living room

It’s done.

And now, we wait to see if somebody comes along who falls in love with this house as much as I did two years ago.

(And I am not telling them about the Bad Divorce Juju happening in this house, because, well, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t fall within disclosure requirements.)

Now I can go back to focusing on these two.

My Catie-bug
My sweet Catie-bug. She keeps having nightmares and waking up at 3 a.m. This transition is so hard on her, and I do my best to reassure her, but it’s not enough. I don’t know what to do for her, except to keep telling her that we’re going to be ok.

Captain bib-face.
Lucy is (thankfully) oblivious to all changes to her environment, so that makes life easier. Now I just need her to sleep through the damn night already.

Next on my to-do list: find a statue of Saint Joseph and bury him in the yard. I’ll take all the help I can get.

treading water

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Last week, a friend told me that I seem to be handling all of my recent life events in an unusually calm manner.

I laughed. I told her that she should take a look inside my head sometime. Apparently I’m pretty good at faking like I’m ok when I’m an absolute mess on the inside.

The truth is, I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m trying to juggle two kids, a full-time job, as well as the process of selling our house, all by myself. It would be panic-inducing on its own. Top it off with the fact that Lucy currently wakes up at least two times per night? The exhaustion factor means that I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m about to lose it.

Oh, and there’s the whole post-partum depression thing too. Let’s not even get into that. The timing of all of this could be a lot better.

I spend a lot of time wishing that I could crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there for at least a couple of weeks.

For better or worse, these two seem to make that impossible.

Catie (& alligator) snuggle on Lucy.

Freaking kids, man. They have all these needs.

So, yeah, I’m functioning because I don’t really have any other choice. Falling apart isn’t an option right now.

I’m incredibly grateful for all of the people who check in on me to see how I’m doing. Honestly, I’m so, so thankful for my support system.

Speaking of my support system, my brother came up this past weekend to help me rearrange furniture and start getting the house organized. We also hung out and watched movies, and he bonded with his new niece.

Lucy loves snuggling with her Uncle Chris

That was really nice, I needed that break.

And more of my support system is still on its way. Greis is coming for a visit this weekend. Her trip was planned months ago, and was supposed to be a fun girls’ weekend. Now it’s turned into a “hey, come stay at my house and hold my baby while I pack boxes” sort of visit. Which sucks, but I have a feeling we’ll still manage to sneak in at least one margarita at some point during the weekend.

Next week, my mom is coming up. She’s driving up rather than flying, so she can stay for an indefinite amount of time. She’s basically moving in for at least a couple of months, to help me get everything sorted out. I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am for that. My mom is my anchor, and I really need her right now.

So, I know I’m going to be ok, mainly because so many people around me are there to catch me if I fall. It’s a comforting thought, and it’s what’s keeping me afloat right now.

tell me my future

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Full disclosure up front: I don’t usually do these types of promotional blog posts, but I was offered the chance to get a free psychic reading, and if you’ve seen the last couple of blog posts about how my life is going these days? Then you know that I need all the help I can get right now.

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I’m generally iffy on psychics. I’ve been to a few. You know, the dude with the Tarot cards in the French Quarter in New Orleans. There are tons of them that set up their folding tables in Jackson Square, right in front of St. Louis Cathedral. I always thought it was odd, the way that the voodoo and Catholicism are juxtaposed so closely to each other.

I usually find that most psychics aren’t so much about predicting the future, they’re just really good at reading people, picking up cues, and telling things about themselves in a way that sounds… well, supernatural, I guess.

But I do believe that some people – a very select few – have genuine psychic abilities. When I was in college in Memphis, I heard about one lady who was supposed to be amazing. I went to see her, and she knew all kinds of things about me that nobody could pick up through social cues. Like, she knew that my grandmother died the day after Christmas the previous year, that kind of thing. It was really unnerving, all of the stuff she knew. It freaked me out.

Oh, and that same lady warned me about a guy who I had had a fling with on a recent vacation, and told me that I should stay away from him because he would show up several more times throughout my life, and he was nothing but trouble. I laughed it off, because, you know, it was a vacation fling and I didn’t think I’d ever see the guy again. Two weeks later, he called me. And I’ve seen him a few times since then, and let me tell you, BOY WAS SHE RIGHT. Dude really was nothing but trouble.

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SO! Getting to the point, which is the psychic reading I had today.

The main thing she told me, which I really needed to hear, is that my girls and I are going to be ok. She said that Catie and Lucy will “rise above” this divorce situation and go on to be successful adults. She said that Lucy will be a lawyer, and Catie could be either a diplomat or something to with the sciences or fine arts. (That’s kind of a wide spectrum, and I find the idea of career planning for a 3 month-old to be sort of hilarious. We’ll wait and see, I guess?)

She said that the girls and I are going to get involved in some hobbies that we all do together. She wasn’t sure what, but that it has something to do with ecology or nature. She said she saw Catie playing with tadpoles with some other little girls.

Now, if you know me, you know that I am so not a nature girl. But yeah, I can totally see Catie playing with anything that’s related to amphibians or reptiles, so she might be right on that part.

She also said that I’ll be remarried within two years, which made me laugh. She told me all kind of details about this alleged future husband (he works in stocks, he’s divorced with a couple of kids who live with their mother, etc.), and I seriously could not stop giggling the whole time she was telling me this. Because, well, NO.

I mean, I know that I shouldn’t speak in absolutes, but let me just say that right now? I totally understand the George Clooney approach to marriage. He was divorced once, and he says that’s why he’s never getting married again. I always thought that was silly, but now? I totally understand you, George.

Of course, if I end up marrying a stockbroker sometime in 2013, y’all can remind me of this post and point out just how wrong I was. I guess time will tell, right?

P.S. Unfortunately, she did not tell me that some previously-unknown billionaire relative is going to pass away and leave me all their money. Damn.