Category Archives: Cate

taking a deep breath

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If you follow me on Twitter, you might have witnessed my tweeting of a major family crisis that happened. If you missed it, well… I’ve deleted everything about it, because I decided it was probably inappropriate to share online. I was in a state of panic, and I reached out for support. That’s what I use social media for; however, I also don’t want to cause any additional distress to my family. So that’s the last I’m going to say about it.

Except this: we are all ok. It was really bad and scary and awful for a while, but it’s starting to gradually get a little better, and I can see that things are going to turn out ok.

happy Catie on the merry-go-round

Baby jeggings!

I mean, come on. How could they not?

weekend recap

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This past weekend, my mom took Catie to Charlotte to visit with my brother and sister. Seeing as how my siblings are two of Catie’s favorite people on the planet (and my sister’s best friend was there too, who Catie also adores), we thought this sounded like something she’d enjoy. And she did, for the most part. They took her to a children’s museum, she got to meet my sister’s new kitten, and she was generally indulged in ways that would never happen if I was around (like being allowed to stay up WAY past her bedtime, eat junk food, etc.). Sounds like heaven for a four year-old, right?

But she also had a lot of meltdowns, in which she cried that she missed Mommy and Lucy. On the trip back home, she told my mom in the car that she never, ever wanted to go on a trip again.

Last night, when I was snuggling with her at bedtime, I said, “So, you had a lot of fun this weekend, didn’t you?”

She quietly said, “Not really.”

I said, “No? Why not?”

She said, “Because I missed you.” And burst into tears.

It got me thinking that even though she was around people she loves and doing fun stuff, it was probably too soon for her to be on an overnight trip away without me. I think she still feels like the ground is shifting underneath her after the separation, and it’s already hard on her to be away from Dave, so being away from me too was just too much for her. I feel bad that it didn’t even occur to me to consider that, before we planned this trip for her.

To help calm her down, I told her that no matter where she goes, she’ll always come home to me, and that I’ll always be here waiting for her.

And I said that maybe, in a few months, when Lucy is a little bit bigger and sleeping through the night, then we can all go to Charlotte together, and she wouldn’t miss me or Lucy, because we’d be there with her. She seemed to like that idea.

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On the other hand, Lucy and I had a pretty fabulous weekend. Compared to the usual craziness of having two kids in the house, having just one little baby to deal with felt like a breeze. (There’s the difference between kids #1 and #2 – with Catie, I was terrified to be left alone with the baby. Now, I’m like, “Just one baby? Pshaw!”)

Also, you know what’s great about only having a tiny baby in the house? You can watch R-rated movies and not worry about traumatizing them! I finally caught up on a few movies that have been sitting on my DVR for ages, which was great.

[Side note to George Clooney: I love you, but “The American” sucked. All scenes in which you were shirtless = WINNER. Everything else? Not so much.]

But it was a really nice weekend with my baby girl. We went to Target and Whole Foods, we went for a walk around the neighborhood, we experimented with solid food (she seems to like baby oatmeal), and we played. All in all, a very good weekend.

Lucy gets to 2nd base in her sleep.
(Check out the hand placement there. Nice one, kiddo.)

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.

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.

Recent random things that have made me laugh

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The past few days have been a little on the rough side. It’s all temporary stuff, I know, I’ve just been ridiculously insane a little hormonal, and it’s been hard. I’m calling my doctor to talk about changing my meds (or increasing the dosage) because I don’t feel like myself at all, so I’m being proactive and trying to fix it. Objectively, I know that my life is pretty awesome: great family and friends, two beautiful kids, everybody’s healthy, Dave & I both have good jobs, we have a nice house, etc. We’re the freaking American Dream over here. There’s no logical reason for me to feel so mopey, and I know that, so I’m going to get help for it.

And I also know that once I start getting a little more sleep on a consistent basis, and feeling a little more stable on the whole work/mom/wife front, things will get easier. Or they should.

But in the meantime, I thought I’d write down a few things that have cracked me up lately, because (a) y’all probably don’t want to read a bunch of depressing crap about my moodiness, and (b) I need to be reminded that The Funny is still here.

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1. A few nights ago, Lucy was being really fussy for no discernible reason (babies are like that sometimes, you know), and Dave was trying to calm her down while I took care of Catie’s bedtime routine. After she screamed her head off for a good long while, she finally collapsed from exhaustion. On Dave’s face.

She fell asleep. On his face.

Ok, mostly on his jaw, but still. That picture cracks me up.

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2. While changing Lucy’s diaper, she peed on the changing table, so while I was holding her in the air trying to clean it up (and she was diaper-less, of course), she peed again. And it got all over Catie’s backpack.

Catie’s reaction was to cry, “Lucy just PEES on everything and this is why we should send her to live with somebody else!”

I told her that I only have two babies and I plan on keeping both of them. Also, maybe she should stop leaving her stuff in her baby sister’s room, particularly right next to the changing table.

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3. The way Catie says “ridiculous.” She keeps telling me that stuff is “ri-dick-lee-ous.” Love it.

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4. I got this adorable monogrammed onesie as a baby gift from my aunt and uncle.

Monogrammed onesie from my aunt & uncle. Love it.

I called my mom and described it to her over the phone.

My mom: “Oh, I don’t like that.”

Me: “What? It’s cute! What do you mean?”

Mom: “I don’t think it’s safe for kids to have their names printed on their clothes like that.”

Me: “Mom, she’s 7 weeks old. You think someone’s going to call her name and she’s going to go running to them?”

Mom: “Huh. Good point.”

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5. A few nights ago, “Independence Day” was on TV and I was watching it while Catie played upstairs in her room. She came downstairs, I was about to change the channel (because, you know, it’s not exactly a kid-friendly movie), but before I could, she asked me what I was watching.

Me: “Oh, it’s just a movie about bad aliens that come to Earth. But it’s all silly make-believe stuff.” (I try to be very nonchalant about potentially scary stuff so she doesn’t get freaked out.)

Catie: [sees the shot of Air Force One in mid-flight] “Is that the aliens’ spaceship?”

Me: “No, that’s the President’s airplane. But see, in this pretend movie, they say that he [pointing at Bill Pullman] is the President. And you know that our President is Obama, right? And he doesn’t look anything like that, does he?”

Catie: “No, that’s silly! That’s not Obama! Obama has short hair just like Baby Sister!”

Looks like she's doing a little dance.

Yeah. I can totally see that. Lucy and Barack Obama are basically twins, aren’t they?