Don't talk to my kid. Seriously, don't even look at him like you might talk.

     I'm not even going to address the fact that it's been almost a year since my last post, I'm just going to let it go. ;-)
 
     It happened again, a lady yelled at my son the other day, and I yelled back at her, right there in the checkout lane in front of a good 15 people.
 
     My child was getting antsy, the line was taking forever, we needed a cart and the carts were eight, completely unobstructed, feet away from us. I said he could go grab one and push it back to where I was standing. I stood there, I watched him, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. On his way back to me with the cart, this lady isn't watching where she's walking and walks right in front of him. My eyes are glued to my kid. I see him panic, he instantly starts apologizing, I drop my crap and start to him.....only to hear her cut him off with "YOU STUPID, LITTLE S***!"
 
     My child was called something no child should ever hear. My child was shouted at by a lady, I really use that word loosely, so, so, so loosely. Obviously, I lost it. I was furious. I explained to her that she wasn't to speak to my son, under any circumstances and she absolutely was not going to yell at my child and say such deplorable things. She argued with me that he hurt her. I said I didn't care, that him accidentally walking into her didn't make it okay for her to speak to my son, to anyone's son that way. She said "I'M SORRY, BUT YOU NEED TO CONTROL YOUR ANIMALS!!!" I calmly looked at her and told her she needed to calm her mouth and stop speaking to or about my child, then I looked at him (and his friend that was spending the day with us) and said "I'm sorry you had to deal with a lady that was mean, when we leave would you like to go get some ice cream?"
 
     On a normal day, I definitely would have immediately dealt with him running into her, I would have explained to him that we watch where we walk, we keep our brakes on, always, incase someone carelessly and rudely walks out in front of us. Normally I would have apologized and asked her if there was anything I could do to help her. In those moments, I wanted to smack her.
 
     Instead I turned to the cashier, who stood there with her mouth open, I apologized, and asked if I could pay for my stuff or if I should just leave, and she said she was the one that was sorry, that she had just been to stunned to make the lady leave, but that she was furious for me. The people behind me were shaking their heads and murmuring, I still can't figure out what they were actually saying.
 
     What I learned from this, is that some old ladies are mean, really stinking mean. I also learned that my heart can break because a mean, old lady screams four hateful words at my son. I learned that when faced with an older lady screaming at my son, I will lose my manners, and tell her exactly how I feel about her mouth.
 
     What I hope everyone out in the world learns from this, is that I am not a Mom that will tolerate someone berating my child, I will not turn a blind eye to your bad behavior just because you are older than me. I also hope that you learn to watch where you are walking and do not expect a four year old to be able to stop on a dime because you were careless about where you placed your feet. In case that isn't a lesson you've learned, try and make sure you do learn not to yell at my child, because the next time I can't promise to be so kind.
 
     Just in case you find yourself getting ready to angry comment, I talked to my kiddo when we got to the car, I explained the importance of being careful about where we walk, that if people walk out in front of us, we stop and let them pass. I told him I loved him, and was sorry the lady wasn't nice, but that he absolutely should have been more careful. Then I got him and his friend some ice cream.
 

I am clearly the World's Greatest Blogger, be jealous.

Ladies, and most likely more Ladies,

Welcome to the greatest blog, ever, it is updated with regularity, has pictures, works well on all mobile devices, and is super fun to read. The days that it isn't brimming with humor, this blog is tugging on all of your heart strings.

Oh, wait, that's clearly someone else's blog, this one is barely even updated once a year. ;-)

I'm sure you have all been checking hourly to see if I've updated and I'm glad to say, I finally found time to get back at it, that and I am actively avoiding folding a pile of laundry that closely resembles a mountain.

I am about to have a four year old, like in 36 hours or so my sweet baby will turn four. I have no idea where the time has gone, it just went. My husband still drives me bananas, and makes me laugh, sometimes at the same time.

Life is good.

I make no promises to write to you every day, but, you never know, I may surprise you, so keep checking back. ;-)

It's been a while, a good, long while.

So much has changed since I last wrote to you all, I decided it was high time to start telling you about some of it, again.

My Husband and I managed to overcome the problems that drove us away from each other and remember why we fell in love to begin with, our family is back together and happily so.

Our Munchkin is TWO! How can it be that he is already TWO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! It feels like just yesterday I was putting him into the car to bring him home from the hospital and wondering what we were going to do once we were home and didn't have a doctor or nurse there to check on us or help me.

Right after he turned two, Pey and I went to NY and spent some time there with my family, it was such a magical nine days and went by entirely to fast. The feelings I felt watching my Dad hold my munchkin and watching my munchkin light up in his arms was something I will treasure forever. Pey was able to meet my brother and sister and a few other people that I love and miss dearly. His NY Nana made it such a special time for us, and made it so that we had lots of memories to be able to bring home and hold in our hearts. We went to the pumpkin farm, we had big family dinners, we carved pumpkins, spent evenings with my brother and his adorable little girls playing on the floor with a million toys everywhere. We hung out with my Dad, just hanging out.

 

 

We've been happy, things are good here. We spend a lot of time at the park playing and making new friends. Most recently my child has become an artist with a passion for marking our walls with graffiti art. ;-) Although, in his defense he doesn't use paint, yet, he uses crayons, pencils, or pens, whichever is easiest for him to sneak away from Mommy.

 

My photography business is going well, I'm so excited for the days when I'm just stuck working on pictures non-stop and the moments I get to spend capturing memories for others to be able to treasure. I learn something new all the time, and enjoy the challenges I've encountered along the way.

 

I like to think I will update you all regularly and stay on top of this blog, but sometimes life gets in the way, so, I wish you well and hope you're happy.

 

Love,

 

A Mommy that feels so Blessed.

To making your dreams come true......

I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so stinking excited! As many of you know I've been searching like a crazy person for a J-O-B, not such an easy feat for a girl that has been a stay-at-home-mommy. People aren't crazy about hiring someone they think just lounged on the couch all day, never getting out of her pj's. It didn't matter that my kiddo and I get dressed everyday (or nearly everyday, haha), and rarely ever do we sit home, it only mattered that I haven't had a "real" job in such a long time. Great, thanks, I'm so happy to know that staying home with my kiddo was such a crazy thing to do. ;-)

At any rate, none of this matters, one stinking bit. Why doesn't it matter that I can't find a job? It doesn't matter because I've decided that for once I am going to tell everyone telling me I can't do it to shut the heck up and watch me, because not only can I do it, I am going to do it, right now.

I've decided to stop daydreaming about doing photography professionly and just freaking do it, already. It gives me the chance to set my own hours, to do a lot of my work from home, enables me to FOLLOW MY DREAMS, supports my kid, and that doesn't even begin to explain the emotional satisfaction it gives me to finally be doing something that I love, to have finally stopped listening to the voice that's been telling me for so long this isn't a real job, it's a hobby, this isn't a profitable business.

If you're someone that doubts my ability to do this, please, keep reading, keep following my blog, this way I can show you, I can do this and I will do this. I will be very successful, I will work my butt off and will make my photography business into a something real, not just a dream.

I have a plan, a real business plan, I have goals, and I've taken action on every single one of those things.

I can't wait for tomorrow, tomorrow is beginning of new and great things for us. It feels so great to be in control of my life, to know that there won't be anyone standing in our way anymore and that this Mommy is about to do great things. I remember posting something I read a while back on facebook about how as parents we need to take care of ourselves and follow our own dreams if we expect our kids to do the same thing and it feels great to know that I am finally setting an example for my son I would be proud of him for following.

This is all for you, Munchkin. I love you to the moon and hope that when you're older you do everything ever dreamed of doing.

And I'm back.

For a moment I freaked, I thought maybe I've completely overshared with you all about the things going on in our lives, that maybe all of the things I'm putting out there for anyone and everyone to read are way to personal......and then I was asked why I stopped writing and told that this person liked reading my blog and knowing what was going on with Pey and myself. So, on that note, it's about to get really personal here! ;-)

Most recently we went north for the weekend, to my Grandparents house, Papa turned 70!

We spent a wonderful weekend with bonfires, marshmallow's, food fights, catching up and being together. It wasn't just that I went there and was with these people that I love so dearly, it was that if my husband and I were still together, I know I wouldn't have gone. I would have stayed home and missed out on my kiddo playing with his cousins, I would have missed hanging out with mine and reaffirming that life long bond we created when we were muchkins. That part was for you, Nonnie. We would have gone on with the normal things we do in life and missed out on a really good time with people we love, so much. I forgot, really forgot, how much these people all mean to me and how much my kid and I mean to them.

I've stopped looking for reasons to call my husband and started looking for reasons not to call him. If something comes up, I deal with it, without him knowing, giving me his opinion, judging mine, without having to listen to him tell me how that's wrong and I should do it this way or that way.

I miss him with so much of me still, but I've learned how to cope with missing him, with being sad over the way things have changed and learning to have new dreams and hopes. It isn't as hard now that I've shut him out of my life. If he texts, I give the very, very, very basic response, let him know Pey is fine, anything else just gets ignored.

It's like learning to breathe in water and I'm finally breathing, I've finally stopped drowning and started living. I can feel my feet beginning to touch solid ground, I can feel that our world has stopped spinning so fast.

I know we will still have bad days, we both miss him a ton, but I also know without a doubt that we have the strength to walk away now. I found my strength with my family this weekend, I found the courage I needed to say this is so scary but....there's been enough bad, and I can do this one day at a time.

On a much brighter note, this weekend Pey said "Love you!" for the very first time. Rusty was leaving and saying bye to everyone....I think.....and when he said love you, Pey said "Love you." SOOOOOOOOOOO ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This kid melts my heart every single day. Being his Mommy makes my life a million times better. OHHHH, I almost forgot, another first for my munchkin was when we were sitting at the bonfire Saturday night and he saw the frog that he began chasing and finally caught up to and reached down and started petting the stupid thing like it was a dog.



Sunday Funday

I know this week is likely to bring some big changes for us and that my kiddo is likely to spend a lot of his time with others.  I have a couple of interviews that both seem very promising and both require someone who can start immediately so I'm planning for the impending moment when I'm not a stay at home Mommy anymore because while I dread leaving him with someone else for even five minutes I am certain it's time to change chapters. With that in mind every moment we have left of me with him full time I wanted to spend HAVING FUN and getting us ready for spending the day with others.

So, the Kiddo and I woke up today and got dressed to go run some errands, while we were out running errands I decided we were going to get his hair cut, for the record....I LOVE his long hair and absolutely hated having it trimmed, which means that what happened next wasn't even remotely entertaining to me. The EVIL lady was only supposed to trim things up, make his bangs so they didn't hang in his eyes and trim up the rest so that it blended. Naturally, things didn't go as planned! She immediately went to his bangs and made a mess of them, then went away so she could pretend she hadn't just cut this HUGE chunk out of his bangs so that they would have to be ridiculously short. Eventually she finishes with the rest of his head, only to have to come back and finish his bangs and made it so much worse......It  isn't like he's a girl and needs bangs, it's more this hair is usually long, I'm not used to seeing it so short and now it just looks crazy to me. The line is completely uneven and in some places not even an inch long. Clearly this lady will never come near my kiddo with her scissors again. ;-)

(He's sleeping....but I just wanted to give you a visual of his hair, this is with it combed over so that it wouldn't be as obvious....at least I hoped it wouldn't be as obvious!)

After the haircut mess we came home, had lunch and this sweet boy took a two and a half hour nap and then we went to the park. Pey spent some time in his stroller so I could walk/run two miles and then we played like crazy at the playground. He was sooooo excited to be able to run around and do exactly what he wanted without mean Mommy telling him "No!" over and over. ;-)

My point with this whole rambling post is something an old friend said to me the other night....This is our new normal, this is our routine. It's time to accept that things have changed and stop waiting in Limbo for them to change again.

We didn't sit around waiting for the possiblity that he might call, we didn't need his permission to go out and live our lives and we absolutely didn't call and ask if he was comfortable with us moving on. I'm trying not to be angry, I'm just throwing myself into taking care of my kiddo and keeping a smile on his sweet face.

Now wish me luck that the lady hiring for a photographer calls me tomorrow and tells me to come work for her because EVERY SINGLE THING about that job is perfect for our life and it's the job I ABSOLUTELY want.

Goodnight, Friends! Thanks for reading!

It's a Brave New Day, the kind that offers Rainbows and Leprechauns.

I said I would tell you what's going on in our little world and share the important details with you, so here goes:

     I started making diaper cakes last month, I have them on facebook, craigslist, Etsy and now I'm telling you about them here. :-) I'm not entirely sure if I will keep making them or if I will make them full time like I considered at one point, but for now it's something I enjoy.

I'm looking for a job, a real job, the kind of job that offers stability, a regular paycheck, and a regular schedule......and I'm looking for every single way I can work from home and provide for my Kiddo, while still managing to support the two of us and not have to put his adorable, little self in daycare. This is the part of being a single Mommy that scares me. I know I can handle the rest.

Everyday I wake up, I see my kiddo and I know that even though for a few seconds it seems crazy we aren't with his Daddy, we will be okay, that this world might be a big scary place, but we really will make it and be happy. This Kiddo and I are going to be just fine!

We've spent a lot of time finding the magic in life. It stormed the other day, a lot of the day, the clouds were gray and we were all cranky, we had been out taking care of things when on the way home we spotted a double rainbow....so we did the only thing there is to do when you see a double rainbow. We followed it, we drove down several long winding roads with the windows down and the radio up (we were in the middle of a break in the rain) looking for the end of the rainbow and searching for little, green Leprechauns.

The rainbow kept moving, just out of reach so we weren't able to actually find the end and the Leprechauns, But WE KNOW THEY EXIST!