Category Archives: Cate

Heading to The Queen City

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Today is kind of a big deal at our house. We’re packing up and driving to Charlotte for the weekend.

And yeah, I know, Charlotte is a measly 150 miles from us, so it’s really not that big a deal. Normally I’d agree with you. But this is the first time I’ve undertaken a road trip with both a 5 year-old and a 1 year-old. In fact, it’s Lucy’s first road trip ever. She’s never gone more than about 15 miles in a car.

So, yeah, I’m nervous, is what I’m saying.

The reason we’re going is because both of my siblings live in Charlotte, and I haven’t been there to visit them since before I got pregnant with Lucy. My brother actually bought a house since the last time I was there. It’s been too long.

Also, my sister has hired a baby-sitter for Lucy and bought tickets for us to take Catie to see Beauty and the Beast on stage. She is so excited. (Ok, I am too.)

My parents are coming with us, we’re all driving over together in my mom’s mini-van. Hopefully the fact that I’ll have a higher adult-to-child ratio will make the road trip part easier to manage.

Day 12: My girls from a low angle #photoadayjune . (I was on the floor, they were on the bed.)

Yeah, I know they look all sweet, but I’m still nervous.

Catie will most likely be fine. She woke up today so excited, yelling, “It’s Tracy day!!!” (She adores my sister.) The only thing that worries me is that she tends to get carsick, but I have some chewable children’s Dramamine, which will hopefully keep that under control.

And we’re carefully timing our departure to coincide with Lucy’s naptime, so hopefully that will work to our advantage. Cross your fingers for us.

But other than worrying about the drive over (and oh lord, please let Lucy sleep ok in the pack & play), I’m really excited to go. It’s been ages since I’ve gone out of town for a weekend. I think a change of scenery will be good for all of us.

On anger

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It’s 11:30 at night, the girls are asleep, the dishwasher is running, clothes are folded and put away, daycare bags for tomorrow are packed. I should be sleeping right now.

Yet all I can think about is this rage I feel swirling around in my head, and I don’t know what to do with it.

I’m not generally an angry person. I don’t like to hold grudges. That’s not how I want to live my life. I don’t want to be one of those angry, bitter people. (You know the people I’m talking about. Everyone knows at least a handful of them.)

Lately all of my anger is aimed at Dave. Other than the obvious reasons, I can’t exactly pinpoint why. Generally we’ve been ok with each other lately. We’re civil, anyway.

But then I have a day like Monday – and of course, even though I texted Dave to let him know we were at the ER, I still had a lot of that resentment, that “your kid is sick, you should be here right now; or at the very least, you should be taking care of your other kid while I take care of the sick one” feeling.

I’ve also felt that way a lot over the past couple of weeks, when I’ve been having problems getting Lucy to sleep. Because yes, as it turns out, I do kind of need another adult in the house who can take over at 4 a.m. when I’m at the end of my rope.

I’m guessing it’s natural to feel that way when the father of your children lives 3,000 miles away, and is no longer a regular physical presence in their lives.

But it really hit me hard this past Saturday. Why Saturday? Because I spent all day with the girls, just me and them. And yes, it was exhausting (my god, was it ever), but there were so many good moments.

And I just stop and think, god damn you, you’re missing everything.

He doesn’t know how Lucy asks for her bottle, what words she knows, her favorite foods, who her favorite person is (hint: my dad), or the little “jokes” she tells. (Slapping her forehead and saying, “D’oh!” is one guaranteed to make me smile every time.)

He doesn’t see the way Lucy’s face lights up every morning when she sees her big sister for the first time.

He doesn’t get to look in his rearview mirror and see the two of them in the backseat, and catch a glimpse of Catie reaching over to tickle Lucy to make her laugh.

He doesn’t know what Catie’s favorite bedtime book is this week. He doesn’t know the songs she sings along with on the radio.

He misses the bad stuff, sure – he never has to do the grunt work of changing diapers or reminding Catie again that she needs to pick up her toys. But he misses all of those amazing and precious moments too. It makes me so angry FOR THEM. They won’t get to have memories of their childhood that involve their dad. At best, those memories will be sporadic and fleeting.

We have a lot of mutual friends on Facebook (obviously, we de-friended each other a LONG time ago), so I hear things about how he talks about the kids. He makes it sound like he’s this super-involved and loving dad. I guess that’s what he wants his friends and family to think, because the reality of it is just so unbelievably shitty.

And he brought it all on himself. He chose to leave. There’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t force him to stay in North Carolina and be a present figure in his children’s lives.

I’ve dated/am dating guys who are divorced with kids. So far, all of them have joint custody and see their children on a 50-50 basis with their exes. I’m jealous of that. I mean, sure, I’m jealous that their ex-wives get a break, some “free” nights off here and there. But I’m mainly jealous that their kids will grow up with their fathers in their lives. I wish to God I could make that happen for my girls.

I can’t fix this. I can’t change what it is. I just have to figure out some way to work around this anger that I can’t seem to get out of my head right now.

Monday at the ER

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Monday started off like a normal day. Dropped Catie off at daycare, and Lucy at my parents’ house. Did my work stuff, went to daycare to pick up Catie, then went to my parents’ house and had dinner with them.

At some point while we were at my parents’ house, Catie went to the bathroom, and she started crying. I went to check on her, and she said it hurt when she peed. Obviously that was a major red flag, but I also know that she has a tendency to hold it for a really long time. Since she had no other symptoms (no fever, otherwise acting like her normal happy self), I wrote it off as a fluke. She’s never had a bladder infection before, so it seemed unlikely.

When we got home, I took the girls upstairs to give them a bath. Catie said she needed to pee again (red flag #2, she had just gone less than an hour before, and she normally pees maybe 3 times a day tops, because her bladder is the opposite of mine). She got on the toilet and started screaming that it hurt.

Right. Ok then. Time to go to Urgent Care!

I called my parents, they came over to take care of Lucy so I wouldn’t have to bring her along.

Unfortunately, all Urgent Care offices here close at 8 p.m., and it was 7:55 when we left the house. Change of plans: off to the ER!

The triage nurse called us back and asked a bunch of questions. Catie impressed me by being able to answer the questions about her symptoms herself. Sometimes it still stuns me that she isn’t a toddler who only I can understand.

Then we had to wait for a bed. The hospital has a separate pediatric waiting room, which is really just a little nook with some ottomans to sit on, and a TV showing Nick Junior.

I’ve never been so grateful to see Dora the Explorer in my life.

Thankful for the pediatric waiting room at the ER showing Nick Junior. It appears that Team Umizoomi helps.

We finally got a bed, and, as Catie put it, “They let me pee in a cup!” (Gee, that sure was nice of them, wasn’t it?) Found out that yes, she does indeed have a UTI. They sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics and a list of instructions for things to be careful about from now on.

We got home after 10:30 p.m. (Again, SO THANKFUL I didn’t have to lug Lucy along with me through all of this.) I insisted that Catie had to take a bath, because, eww, ER germs. She finally crashed after 11. I crawled into bed soon afterward.

Then, of course, Lucy had me up from 4 to 6 a.m., so I basically feel like death today. (Tired, grumpy, headache-y death.) And I have a ton of work to do today, which is going to be a challenge.

But Catie is starting to feel a little better, so I’m thankful for that. And she was excited that she would have the most exciting story at Show & Tell today. So, you know, there’s that. Priorities.

The good news is that we’re halfway through 2012 and this was our first ER trip this year. Fingers crossed that it’s also the last.

Pre-K graduation

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Last Friday, Catie graduated from her pre-K class at daycare.

Catie and her pre-K graduating class (she's 3rd from the right)
She’s 3rd from the right if you’re doing a “Where’s Waldo?” of the teeny-tiny caps & gowns.

I also love this picture, mainly because it captures exactly how bored all of the kids were precisely two minutes into the program.
The pre-K crowd isn't exactly known for their long attention spans.

But then there was this, which I loved.

(It seems that I am incapable of filming a non-jiggly video. Sorry about that.)

And this, which… y’all.
My pre-K graduate.

I’m generally pretty good about staying stoic through these types of things. I don’t cry at every “oh my baby is growing up” milestone. But yeah. Catie’s teacher cried, and then I almost lost it.

(The way to cope with this, by the way, is to stealthily text your other single mom friend in the room about how skanky her ex-husband’s new girlfriend is. Especially when the new girlfriend is sitting less than 3 feet away from you, and OMG honey, it’s a bunch of freaking 5 year-olds in here, do you really need to wear a dress so low cut that we can almost see your areolas?)

(Moral of the story: keep it bitchy and you won’t cry in public. Yay feminism!)

I tried to explain the concept of graduation to Catie. I told her to think about all of the things she couldn’t do a year ago that she can do now – she knows how to write all of her letters in upper and lower case, she can count to 100 & do basic math, she knows more Spanish than I do, and she’s really good at coloring inside the lines. I told her that graduation is when we celebrate all of those things she’s learned, before she moves on to the next thing, which is kindergarten. She seemed to get that.

As for kindergarten, Catie is signed up for year-round schools here. For those of you not familiar with Wake county, that means the kids go to school for 9 weeks, then have 3 weeks off after each term. (It works out well for taking off-season vacations, and makes visitation issues with Dave easier.)

It also means that kindergarten starts two weeks from today. HOLY CRAP.

The good news is that Catie is so excited about kindergarten, she asks every day if it’s time to go yet. I love that she’s so psyched about it.

My nervousness, on the other hand, mainly revolves around preparation. I’m in a tizzy worrying about school supply lists, trying to figure out what to pack in her lunchbox, figuring out the logistics of getting her there on time and then getting Lucy to daycare, etc. It’s… a lot. I think I need some to-do lists.

Oh, one last thing about pre-K graduation? Each kid was given a little book full of artwork they’ve done throughout the year, some photos that the teachers snapped of them, and then they all had certificates saying they were Most [whatever]. Catie won Most Inquisitive. Which is no surprise to anyone who’s had to listen to her ask “Why?” a million times. Or anyone who was in the car with us last night when she out of the blue (the radio was off) started singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It,” and then asked what “sexy” means. (Try answering THAT one with the grandparents in the car! AWKWARD.)

So, yeah. My Catie is a pre-K graduate. Time is a-flyin’, I tell ya.

catching up

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So! My website was down for a few days because apparently spammers have nothing better to do than take over my measly little blog.

(Don’t ask me, I don’t get it either.)

Random stuff from this past week:

1. The yard sale last Saturday was good. We had a pretty impressive turn-out of people, made a few hundred bucks, and the rest went to Goodwill. All in all, a success.

During the yard sale, I set up a couple of beach towels on the front yard (picnic-style), and set Lucy down so she could stay happy watching all of the people come and go. (When she got bored & fussy, my dad walked her around.) A few people asked me how much I was asking for the baby. I told them to come back at 3 a.m. and I’d make them a really good deal.

Lucy models Mommy's headband.

Really. There are some days that I’d be totally willing to listen to anyone who’d make me an offer.

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2. I had lunch with The Guy last week. We generally take turns paying for meals, because you know, I’m a liberated woman and all of that. He picked up the check for this one, and paid with his credit card.

When the waiter brought the check back to the table, he said, “Thanks for coming in today, Mr. and Mrs. [his last name].” He and I both choked on our beverages.

Moral of the story: CHECK FOR A RING, Y’ALL. It takes two seconds and spares everyone involved in a whoooole lotta awkward.

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3. Is there anything else going on that I need to tell you? There’s a couple of things that are not bloggable (don’t ask), and other stuff which just sounds whiny and y’all don’t care, so let’s skip over that.

Really, who wants to listen to me moan about how much my kids wear me out?

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4. Alright, they’re cute sometimes.

My girls are apparently riveted by The Fresh Beat Band.

They even make watching the Fresh Beat Band tolerable.

9 things for Friday

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I didn’t mean to leave that really depressing post up at the top for so long. Sorry about that.

So! After a really awful week, here are some things that I am thankful for today:

1. It’s Friday.

2. After a hellish week of no sleep and being woken up at least three times a night, Lucy finally slept through the night last night. Thank you God and the makers of Benadryl. (Yes, I drugged her. I was desperate. Judge not lest ye be and all that.)

Someone is faking that she's asleep.
Yeah, ok, fine. She can be cute sometimes, I admit it.

3. Catie has been awesomely delightful this week. I think 5 is my favorite age so far. She still challenges me, but for the most part, she’s just so damn fun right now.

Day 6: hat, big pimpin' style. #photoadayjune
Pimp hats FTW!

And also this:
Day 8: Not long after 6:00. #photoadayjune

That picture makes me laugh every time I see it.

4. I get to have lunch with The Guy today.

5. My mom and I are doing a combo yard sale tomorrow, and I’m surprisingly not stressed about it. Normally I get all obsessive about pricing and organizing and all that. This time I’m basically just throwing my crap out in the yard and letting people make me an offer. Whatever doesn’t sell is going to Goodwill, so I really don’t care.

6. My belated Mother’s Day gift to myself is today. I had a Groupon deal for a facial and massage, and I’m finally redeeming it this afternoon. The last time I had a massage, I was pregnant with Lucy. And I can’t even remember the last time I had a facial, but it was before we moved to North Carolina (in 2008), so it’s WAY overdue. I’m so excited.

7. My brother is coming to town this weekend to help out with the yard sale. Which is, I guess, not such a HUGE deal, because I see him fairly often these days. But still, I like my brother, so it’s fun to have him around.

Lucy & her uncle Chris

8. Highs in the upper 70s in June. Damn, I love North Carolina.

9. Did I mention that it’s almost the weekend? Because yeah, that.

single parenting suckage

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Ok, here comes one of those confessional type blog posts that I don’t normally write.

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I’ve been on Lexapro since last year. If you were reading my blog when I was pregnant, I blamed most of my anxiety on the house break-in, but the vast majority of it was that my marriage was falling apart while I was pregnant.

I would go to my OB appointments and see all of these happy glowing pregnant ladies in the waiting room, and when they called me back to an exam room and asked how I was doing, I would cry. I felt awful because there was no sense of excitement or joy about my baby’s arrival. It felt like my due date was just going to kick off the countdown to the end of my marriage.

(And clearly I was right about that, since Dave and I split ten weeks after Lucy’s birth.)

So, yeah, I’ve been on an anti-depressant ever since then. I think for me, this whole depression/anxiety thing is situational and not physiological. There are occasional times when I feel like I probably don’t need it anymore, but since it’s not hurting anything, I’ve decided that I’m staying on it at least until my divorce is finalized.

Honestly, the idea of not taking it scares me, because I have no idea how I’d cope without it. Maybe I’d be fine, but god, what if I’m not?

And really, there’s only one unpleasant side effect of Lexapro: I can’t cry. Or, rarely, anyway. Sometimes it’s awful, because something will happen and I really want to cry, and I can’t. I get a lump in my throat and the stinging in my eyes, but it never breaks through. I’ll get a headache because I just can’t get that release to get it out of my system.

The closest thing I can think to compare it to (be warned, this is not G-rated) is the feeling like when you’re juuuuust about to have an orgasm and for some reason, you can’t get there. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

(Btw, I used this analogy to explain it to the guy I’m dating. His response was, “I understand that there are words coming out of your mouth, but they make no sense.” Typical dude, I’m thinking. He also said that if he had to choose between not being able to cry and not being able to have an orgasm, he’d be fine with never crying again. I’m guessing 99.9% of the males on earth would agree with him.)

So, it’s a bad side-effect, and an annoying one, but most of the time, I can live with it.

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And then I have days like yesterday.

My weekend started off ok. I had a baby-sitter planned for Saturday night, but my date got canceled (emergency came up with his ex-wife and he had to take his kids; it happens, not a big deal). Catie was so excited about the baby-sitter coming over that I decided not to cancel, and instead, I went to the movies by myself.

(I finally saw the Hunger Games. I haven’t read the books, but I was curious about it. And I liked the movie, although I thought a lot of it was extremely disturbing. But I guess that’s the point.)

Sunday morning, when we woke up, Catie asked if we could go get pancakes. It’s rare that she asks me for something that I can say “yes” to, but that sounded do-able. We got dressed and went to IHOP.

While we were sitting at IHOP, Catie just very matter-of-factly blurted out, “Mommy, you love Lucy more than me.”

*RECORD SCRATCH*

WHAT?

I said, “Sweetie, that’s not true. Why would you think that?”

She said, “Well, Lucy’s cuter than me.”

I told her that was absolutely not true, that they were both beautiful and that I loved them both.

It bothered me, and I repeated it to her again later. Just sort of, “Hey, remember when you said that? Y’all are both my girls, and you are both beautiful, and I love you both the same.” She seemed to accept it, but man, that whole thing rattled me.

Really, if I look at it from a 5 year-old’s perspective? I get why she thinks that. I am constantly fussing at Catie to be gentle with the baby, share her toys with the baby, stop being mean to the baby, yadda yadda. But I don’t ever yell at Lucy, because, you know… she’s a baby.

And Lucy gets a lot more of my attention, because, again: she’s a baby. Catie is five and doesn’t need me to constantly watch her every move to make sure she doesn’t shove a choking hazard in her mouth or go tumbling down the stairs.

I don’t know how to fix that. It just is what it is.

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Sunday afternoon, we hung out at my parents’ house for a while. Then I took the kids to the playground, and we came home to do the whole dinner/bath/bedtime thing.

Oh! Big milestone here! During all of that, Lucy took 4 steps on her own. Left, right, left, right, then she fell on her tush. She was so proud of herself, and afterward, she kept standing up on her own with this look on her face, like, “Hey, look at this new trick I learned!” So far, I think 4 steps is her record, but she took 1 or 2 steps a lot last night.

And of course, it’s been 4 1/2 years since the last time I dealt with this, so I forgot how every new developmental milestone totally screws up their sleep schedules.

So bedtime rolls around, and Lucy is nowhere near sleepy. I let her stay up a little later than usual, hoping that she’d burn herself out and eventually go to bed easily.

That didn’t happen. What happened is that I let her stay up just a little too long, and she freaking lost it. She was so past the point of exhaustion, she didn’t know what to do with herself. So she screamed. And screamed.

I tried everything to comfort her. For an hour. Finally I gave up and put her in her crib and figured she’d eventually settle herself down to sleep.

She didn’t.

[Aside: Somewhere during the screaming, I got a, “Hey, how’s your evening going?” text from The Guy.
I texted back: “Teenagers should be forced to come to my house right now as an on-site demo of why they need to use birth control.”
Him: “Oooh, that good, huh?”]

After listening to Lucy scream for another half-hour (so, 90 minutes of screaming total), I called my mom. Both of my parents came over.

Catie was still awake, because it’s impossible to put her to bed while Lucy is up (plus, how could I expect her to sleep with ALL OF THE SCREAMING in the house?). So my parents showed up, and my mom put Catie to bed, while my dad paced Lucy around the house until she fell asleep.

(And yes, I had tried that exact pacing trick myself, and it had not worked for me. But my dad is the only person that Lucy wants right now.)

I took a shower while my parents put my kids to bed, then I came downstairs, sat on the couch, and burst into tears.

So, apparently when things are bad enough, even the Lexapro can’t hold the tears back.

I just felt like the most epic failure of a single parent. My 5 year-old thinks that I don’t love her, and I can’t even comfort my own baby to sleep.

I don’t know if I have made it through an entire weekend, ever, without calling in backup to some extent, and it’s usually my parents. I feel like I dump my kids on them all the time, and even though I know that’s not really true, and hell, they moved up here for the express purpose of helping me with the kids, it still feels shitty.

So many people tell me that they admire how I’m handling being a single mom, or that I kick ass at this, or whatever, and I just don’t see it. My ex-husband moved 3,000 miles away. What choice did I have in the matter except to deal with it? It’s not admirable, it’s just basic survival. I feel like I’m half-assing it at best, and on days like yesterday, I’m white-knuckling it until bedtime.

I try not to use the f-word on my blog, but really? I fucking hate it. There are two of them and only one of me, I feel like I will never be able to be “enough” for both of them. I keep hoping it will get easier when they get older, but I also know that just presents a whole different set of issues, and I’m not prepared for any of it.

It sucks, basically, is what I’m saying.

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I tweeted about it last night, and I got a lot of awesome responses because I have a fantastic online support system, and I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for that. Really, you guys rock.

The Guy offered to come over and rub my feet, which was very sweet, but he lives a half-hour away, and no way was I staying awake that long.

I thought, oh, you know, it’ll all be better tomorrow after I get some sleep.

Then Lucy woke up 3 times last night.

Sigh.

I wish I had some cute, funny way to tie this up, but I don’t. I’m exhausted and I feel like hell.

I know it’ll be ok eventually. I know this. But for now, I’m bracing myself for another half-assed day at this whole single parenting thing.