JustLisa

This is C's dads weekend to have him but according to the court papers, it's my holiday since it's mother's day. I am not a fan of this commercialized holiday so I told his dad to just go ahead and keep him. He gets him four days a month. I am his mother 365 days a year. My blase' attitude seems to rub some the wrong way but really, I've always thought who needs a date picked out on a calendar to celebrate mothers? They should be celebrated in some way every day.

Tonight I started thinking about it and wondered who did pick this particular Sunday in May and why. Turns out, the day was originally about mothers for peace. Did you know that? I sure didn't. There's a whole website dedicated to bringing back the original meaning. A woman named Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870 (following the civil war), as a call for peace and disarmament.

According to the wikipedia entry, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day and it was intended to honor mothers who lost sons in war. That's a far cry from buying mom a bouquet of flowers and a Hallmark card, eh?

My baby boy is fourteen today. 14!! I don't have time to write anything real meaningful other than to say he's suddenly looking much bigger and older and stronger and he took three girls to lunch yesterday. Granted, one was his sister but still...

We are now in the age of learning to drive, going to high school, and the girls are no longer "a bunch of freakin' retards". Well, some of them are still I guess. Anyway, please read back to last year's story of his birth if you want the details of how we got him here. I left out one detail and for the life of me I cannot remember why. A lot of times here I will leave out minor details that don't really affect the story and are no one's business. For some reason in that particular story I said I was on the phone with "a friend". Well yeah, I guess. Friend being ex-husband AKA the man who taught me how to get divorced. Weird, huh? Sometimes we are friendly and I was certainly glad he was on the other end of the line for me that night because I was FREAKING and after 8 or so years of marriage, he was pretty skilled at calming me down. He's also skilled at winding me up but that is a story for another day.

Happy birthday little man. I'm pretty sure you broke 5' tall today.

This morning I sat to read cnn.com and saw the link on how to reclaim your weeknights. The story recaps how three women manage to get all the evenings activities done, dinner on the table, and still have time for themselves. Problem is that two of them work part-time and one is a full-time mom.

Someone still needs to write the article or book for moms who work full-time (and then some) with less than helpful spouses and sports-minded kids who are involved in lots of activities. This needs to be written for those of us who aren't comfortable flinging their kids out into the world to manage on their own while mom sits back and watches her favorite TV show.

I'd write the article but I haven't figured it out yet. I was doing great to crunch my schedule up more so that I can take golf lessons with the boy. If I did write it, it would have a whole helluva lot to do with taking cattle prods to men who think their day is done when they hit the door in the evening...

Guess who is all done with school shopping? Yup! I am. All school clothes and supplies are ready to go. I also got all the laundry done and put away after a week long boy scout camp. That camp smell is so disgusting. Swamp feet - blech. I'm totally exhausted but in really good shape going into a new week. There is an issue with my cable modem but they will replace it tomorrow. I'm going to try to knock off at noon the next couple of weeks to spend time with the kids before school starts on the 23rd. This summer has gone way too fast. I haven't even been to the pool yet!

Tuesday night is another meeting with Barack Obama's people. I'm pumped! The more negativity I hear about him, the more excited I get. He's got people talking and thinking and that is good.

The theme of today is 14. Emily turned 14 years old (and got her driving permit!!) and Eva is 14 wks pregnant today. CrAzY!!!!

I wander into this space of mine to trumpet the wondrous joys of being where I am but I don't discuss the difficulties. There are many of those and some days it's so annoying I want to scream. Like this evening... I just want to talk to my kid. Not having instant access to him is the hardest thing ever. I can't just wander into his room and talk to him. I'm at the mercy of everyone's schedule in Iowa and can do nothing but sit and wait for someone to get my freakin text messages and have him call me. It makes me sad and it makes me cry and it PISSES ME OFF!!! It makes me want to get into my car, drive the 620 miles and grab ahold of him and never let go.

I had a similar discussion with his dad not long ago. He told me that it was like that for him when C. lived with me and he saw him on weekends. Sure, if you subtract 600 miles from the distance and top it off with the fact that he got a weekly phone call and someone got back to him within minutes, not hours. Just sitting here not knowing if my baby is okay is torture. I will never be convinced that the paternal connection to a child is as strong as the maternal. No way.

Anyway, Ben and Em are the other difficult part of this equation. I wasn't home for Em's 14th birthday. First birthday I've missed since her 6th I believe. I did make sure she scored a purple ipod nano with a birthday inscription but still... I wish I'd have been there. Ben is reading a whole lot better this year and I wish I could do the weekly reading night at our house with him.

Yes, I miss the rest of the family and those stupid dogs but I miss the kids the most. We did so much together and they filled up every second of my time away from work. Now weekends pretty much suck. I just want to hug them all and get loud and crazy like we used to.

I still love the job and the people here though. I would step outside to the flight line and look at my jets and take a deep breath and remember why I'm here but just as soon as I did that, I'd miss the kids phone call I bet. GRRR!

I miss the craziness of having three kids with ten places to go on the weekends. Here, I have nothing but time which is okay if I have money and can do something. I hate feeling sorry for myself, especially when this is just a natural part of a decision I made. Even good decisions have moments that leave you wondering. Anyway, I just read an amazing story about a dog in Iowa and thought I'd share. Animals are resilient. People are too if we allow ourselves to be.