Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day! My second in fact, but I don't really count last year, so this is my official first! :)

Last year I was in such a weird place. I was just barely through my first trimester, I still wasn't feeling that great, I had just made the trek from Florida back home, I was working as much as I could at my part time job...I hadn't really accepted that I was a mom just yet. It didn't mean anything to me. In fact due to lots of morning sickness and my body type in general I wasn't even showing yet so there were times that I would wake up and not remember I was pregnant and think life was totally normal. Things were far from normal at that point!

But this year I got to spend the day with my favorite little man. He even gave me a great mom's day present! He slept through the night for the first time in weeks, I was beyond excited when he woke me up to eat and I realized it was light out. It was wonderful to spend a day just reveling in the fact that I am a mom now. I got to spend an afternoon with my most favorite mom, my bff Jami and my godson Riley. Who by the way is the most wonderful big brother to Wyatt. Ry just adores him and spent the afternoon trying to make him laugh.

It is amazing how much I love my little booger. He is the very best part of my life. It's hard to believe we have made it through the first 6 months already, but there is so much to look forward to in the future.

So here's a little tribute so a few of my FAVORITE momma's...including a couple momma's to be.

Responsibility and Reward

I recently had a short conversation with Wyatt's dad. And per usual, I hung up the phone full of frustration and resentment.

Before going any fursther, I need to say that I in no way resent Wyatt. I made the choice to give birth to him and raise him on my own. I knew what I was getting into from the moment I saw those two pink lines. And I don't at all regret the decision, it's probably the best thing I have ever done.

My frustration comes from the fact that it seems so easy for guys to let women be the ones to deal with all the responsibility of children. This is by no means a sweeping sterotype, there are some guys who will step up, who want to be fathers. But it seems like a majority of men who end up in situations of accidental pregnancy are so willing and ready to just abandon the responsibility. Who want to act like they had no part in what happened and it can't possibly be up to them to help out.

This particular conversation was once again about Wyatt's father signing papers regarding custody. To give some back info, I never put this man's name on Wyatt's birth certificate partly for that reason, I don't want to be scared all my life that someone is going to come try and take my son away. He agreed that was fine and stated he had no intention of ever doing that. But to give myself insurance I asked him to have a document drawn up stating he is turning over all parental rights to me and will at no point in the future try to make any custody claims on Wyatt and he will not at any point contest and adoption by a future spouse of mine. I asked him to do this pretty much as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I told him if he was not interested in being a full time father he needed to have this document created and signed as soon as possible.

Needless to say, my pregnancy came and went, the day of Wyatt's birth came and went, as did his first 6 months now. So for over a year I have been contacting this person and hearing him tell me he'll get right on it and he's sorry, he totally dropped the ball, etc etc etc. And up till now I have continued to be nice and tell him to just keep me in the loop and call and email when he knows anything. I want to be able to be on good terms with this guy, he is Wy's dad and if he wants to get to know Wy at some point I would like to be able to be ok with that.

So when I talked to him the other night he PROMISED (again) that it would be done soon. And this time I plan to hold him to it. See part of the agreement was that I would refrain from asking him for money as long as he signed these papers for me. Well now a year later I'm a single mom, dealing with all the entails, mostly the fact that I am always going to be overworked and broke to make sure I can provide for my son. As far as Wy is concerned I really don't mind this. I would do anything for him, ANYTHING. But on the advice of several friends who understand my reasons for not trying to milk this guy for all he's worth, if I don't have these papers soon, I do plan to pursue legal action to get child support from him. Paternity test and all. I understand him not wanting to be involved, I have come to grips with that already. But to be so uninterested that he can't even be bothered to make his uninterest legal is past what I can handle.

One big part of my irritation is that he is off having a grand ole time, telling his friends and new girlfriend all about what happened and nobody seems to mind that he could care less about having a son. And I am now a single mom who has to work hard just to have a couple days of fun a week with my child. If that. Most of the time I am coming in for over time so I can continue to have a job. Jami actually had to remind me what a great reward I get though. I get to come home every day to a smiling happy wonderful baby who loves me every bit as much as I love him (until he's a teenager and it's all slamming doors and glares lol)

So I take on all this responsibility so I can have the wonderful reward of being a mom, a job that really I feel is the job I was made for. It's the most amazing thing I have ever done. And somehow in the middle of that, I have to find a way to not hate the man who didn't want to get to know this fantastic child. Not to mention prepare myself emotionally for the day he shows up out of the blue asking to meet Wyatt.

A lot of the time it feels like I got the short end of the stick, I get stuck with all the hard work, but I need to keep remembering that I got the good parts, I got Wyatt.

Dinos!!

Today my dad emailed me a reminder about the live show Walking with Dinosaurs! My best friend took her son to this show a couple years ago and they both loved it. Who wouldn't love giant mechanical dinosaurs on stage!!!!

Mostly though for me it's the excitement of being able to take Wyatt to something like that. By the time of the show he will be 8 months old and really able to enjoy and pay attention to some parts of it. I have no doubt he would love all the colors and lights and noise, he already loves those things. It feels like the beginning of all the awesome stuff we will be able to do together. I'm already considering signing up for swim lessons over the summer, I know I want him to learn to swim so why not start now when we can enjoy them together!

As a single mom I know I am going to have to make some extra effort to do things with him as he gets older. It's easy to get wrapped up in working saying it's so I can provide for him, but I feel like providing for him is more about the time we spend together and the memories we make than just about giving him material things. As long as he is clothed and fed and we are able to do fun things and experience the world together I will know I am providing for him.

And dinosaurs are going to be an important part of that. :)

Friendships Past

The past few days an ongoing issue has been bothering me more than usual for some reason. Well not for some reason, implying I don't know what that reason is. It's more like for reasons I understand but don't quite know why I am thinking about them at this point in time.

Over the last year or so I have seen two of my very closest friendships go up in smoke. Literally just disappear for no apparent reason that I can see. Now I have always been a believer that friends come and go, people are in your life for a season and a reason, blah blah blah. But these two friendships in particular I kind of felt were exempt from that rule.

The first was with someone who is/was one of my oldest friends. No, not old as in age, but old in how long we have been close friends. He was basically the other brother I never wanted. We looked out for each other in high school, helping one another navigate those crazy times. We swapped stories about who did what first through college as we started to explore the world away from our parents as pseudo adults. And we stayed close despite being across the country and on several occasions across the world from one another. We wrote letters and made short expensive phone calls, we were family. He attended holidays at my house when he was on the rocks with his family and was there with him those same holidays when he made the required drop by to his own family get together's. I sat with him at his sisters wedding, he held my hand while I cried over canceling my own wedding. He was the one who drove 3 hours in the REALLY early morning hours to bring me junk food for breakfast and force me out of bed after learning my parents were separating.

Clearly we have a long and involved history.

But as time moved on it seemed more and more like he didn't understand me like he used to. And then him answering my calls became more infrequent. Then it became non existent. The clincher was the birth of my son. This man has known how badly I wanted children the entire time he has known me. He knew how I would cry over the thought of not having my own if I didn't find the right relationship to have them in. He more than anyone always told me what a wonderful mom I would be and how he couldn't wait to be someones "uncle". So when I didn't get an RSVP for my baby shower (which he has deemed EXTREMELY important to him and the only thing that could keep him away was a work emergency) I got irritated. And then I chalked it up to preggo hormones. Yet, as my due date approached and I still didn't hear from him, I really began to question our friendship. He had called himself my best friend for a looooong time. Wouldn't you cross oceans to help celebrate the birth of your best friends first child? I know I would! If it had been at all possible for me to get to California in time to be there with Jami when Riley was born I would have done it in a heartbeat. I'm still sad I missed it.

Wyatt is now 5 months old, and this person who for so many years was my best friend has yet to meet him. He has only seen the few pictures that I sent him on the holidays from my cell phone. Pictures that were sent to pretty much everyone I knew. I had dinner with a mutual friend a couple days ago and one of her very first questions was "Have you talked to Tom lately?" And the second she saw the look on my face she knew the answer. I had to tell her that the last time I even kind of spoke to him was at Christmas, when he sent me a very canned text after receiving my picture of Wyatt and I. She was flabbergasted. In fact she let me know she has specifically asked him when he was in town recently if he was going to see us and his answer was "Of course!"

So what the heck do you do with all that? This person had been a huge part of my like for 13 years. Nearly half my life. And suddenly and without explanation they decide not to be part of it any more. There is not much else that will make you wonder what is wrong with you like that will.

The loss of the other important relationship kind of happened in tandem. It was again someone that I have/had been close to for a long time, who suddenly started acting like she was so much better than myself and the other girls in our little group. We had banded together while working at the same store during my college years. And even after the closing of the store we stayed tight. We were always there through each crisis, we all took turns comforting and supporting the one in need. These three women became my sisters. I didn't talk to them every day all the time, but when we needed each other we were there, no questions asked. And again suddenly we weren't good enough.

I knew she was having issues with another friend, but that didn't stop me from trying to maintain my friendship with her. But it got very strange and strained after I got pregnant. She seemed happy for me, she said happy things, she even took a few cute pictures of me after I had started to show a little bit. I was actually kind of worried, because she had the bad luck of having trouble getting pregnant, and finally she and her husband decided to adopt an amazing little girl. At the time they were even talking about maybe adopting a second child. So I decided not to worry about it and take what she said at face value. Again the returning of phone calls stopped and the times we did talk she never asked how I was or how the baby was. She hardly even told me anything personal about her own life. She too skipped out on my baby shower with only a facebook RSVP. Which is fine for most people, but not for someone you consider your sister. The final straw was knowing she opted out of coming to visit Wyatt and me in the hospital after he was born. Then hearing it was because that "just isn't the time to show up and pretend everything is ok." If you ask me, that is the perfect time. Make up and clear the slate over the celebration of a new life.

So I guess my big question now is how do I deal with this. How do I not get annoyed when I hear about these people from people who are still friends with both of us. How do I forgive people who I feel betrayed me in a very big way. I have done all the little things. I'm honestly not even that sad about it anymore. I have bigger and more important things to worry about. Maybe I'm just looking for a little closure...like after a bad breakup. I want to know that it's not my fault.

Daycare

It's an unfortunate part of being a working mom, single or not; dropping off your child at daycare every work morning. This has been a hard thing for me over the last 6 weeks. It's beginning to feel like someone else is raising my son! I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have such a great sitter and only work 4 days a week, but it's becoming really difficult to drop Wyatt off in the morning. Honestly he spends more waking hours with Anne than with me at this point.

This morning for the first time since I went back to work I cried as I pulled away from Anne's house. And it wasn't because I was worried for him or uncomfortable leaving him where I do, it was out of sheer frustration and jealousy. I am so jealous that Anne is getting to spend so much time with Wyatt, that they are creating a relationship. I'm thrilled this sitter I found in such a random way (a haphazard look at the front page of the classifieds one Sunday morning) cares for my son so much. It makes me know he will be safe and well taken care of each day. But at the same time everything in me is screaming in protest because I should be the one spending all this time with him! I should be strengthening my bond with my son and soaking up every second that he still wants to be with me (can you tell I'm already thinking ahead to the teen years?).

So how do I deal with these fairly irrational issues of jealousy? It's not like I'm worried our sitter is going to disappear with Wy one day, but I am starting to have a really hard time leaving him with someone else all day. Is it selfish on my part to want to monopolize my son's time? Shouldn't I be happy he is out and interacting with other people and will be able to grow into a well socialized kid who isn't afraid to meet new people like I was? Is my fear that one day he won't be excited to see me unfounded?

The Baby Bug

So I will start this post by saying I already know this must sound totally crazy and I have ZERO intention of acting on these feelings I am having right now. Ok. Glad we cleared that up. Moving on!

It seems like everyone I know is having babies right now! It is insane the number of people I know who are pregnant or just recently had a baby. In fact I know 2 who had them within the last week! I have mentioned before how much I always wanted children, how since I was about 5 years old I knew I wanted to be a mom. Seriously, I have been thinking about it that long. Who knew it would be 22 years before it happened. I have also always known that I wanted more than one child, I always hoped to have 3 actually. And just a side note, as long as I have been thinking about being a mom one day, I have known my first was going to be a boy. :)

And along came Wyatt. He really is the most amazing and wonderful little boy and I am so thankful for him every day. I cannot leave work fast enough to get home to him and spend those few moments with him before he drifts off to sleep for the night. I truly think he is everything I could ever ask for in a child and am anxious to see what kind of a person he will grow up to be.

But those of us who have always wanted kids know the feeling of the baby bug. Before you have kids it's a deep longing for the experience of pregnancy and childbirth and to have someone to care for and love in ways you can only imagine. I'm finding it works a little differently once you have had a child. Now the baby bug is not only a longing for the experience and the love you can only feel when you look at your newborn for the first time, but it's a missing and mourning because you are forever separate from that child now. For me at least, despite how awful my pregnancy was at times, I really miss it! I want to cuddle a tiny little baby again and feel the elation that comes with not being able to tear your eyes away from the amazing thing you made from nothing. I want to complain about my baby kicking me in the ribs all day and night again. I want to lay and watch my belly roll after I've laughed particularly hard at something.

Pregnancy and childbirth are such amazing things. And they are so worth all the throwing up and crazy cravings and mood swings. Being a mom has given me a mental and emotional peace I have been looking for for a lot of years. There has been nothing better than listening to Wyatt breathing through the monitor while I drift to sleep and seeing his smile when I get to the sitter's after a long work day. I honestly cannot wait for the day I get to take another pregnancy test and see those 2 pink lines. I don't want Wyatt to be my only child; I want him to have siblings obviously, but it's really a selfish thing, because I want to experience becoming a mom again.

It needs to be stated again, I have no intention of acting on these feelings and rushing the process. Wyatt will get a little brother or sister when the time is right, when I've found him someone who will love him and happily be his dad. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to look forward to the next one in the mean time. I know there is another little baby out in the universe for me, I just have to be patient and wait for the right time for them to show up.

And until then, I will cuddle and love on all the other babies in my life, including and most of all, my own.

Good Parent, Bad Child

I'm beginning to learn that a part of growing up is negotiating the space between being a "good child" and a "bad child", by which I mean that slim line between doing what is going to be best for yourself and what will make your parents happy. Since becoming a parent though I have found even shakier territory in trying to be a good parent by doing things that will cause your own parents to possibly consider you a bad child.

At this point in my life, there is nothing more important to me than being a good mom to Wyatt. If I fail at everything else in my life, I at least want to be able to say I have been the best parent I was able to be for him. Unfortunately this often means making some hard decisions.

My mother and I have never had the best relationship. Even when I was young I remember not wanting to go to her to talk about things I was having trouble with. She always seemed very unapproachable. And I distinctly remember times when I was accused of being "too much like your dad!" Things got marginally better when I went to college because I was out of the house and suddenly had the option to just not answer the phone if I didn't feel like talking to her. I was finding other people I felt like I could talk to and get advice from.

So when I found out I was pregnant in the middle of attempting to heal and salvage a tiny part of a relationship with my mother, I suddenly had some new things to think about. This only escalated as my pregnancy went on and became more real. I began to have concerns about some things that had happened and the kinds of people I wanted around my child. For one thing, I have never liked my mom's husband. He is NOT the kind of person I want around my child. But as my want for distance from my mom grew so did my guilt. This isn't how it's supposed to work right? You are supposed to be excited to have your mom around your kid right?

I also began to realize it was more than just my own issues with my mother that made me want to keep her away, it was the fact that I totally disagree with about 90% of her parenting advice and strategies. She has at times expressed ideas on parenting that I so vehemently disagree with that I was speechless. Do I really want to leave my child alone with someone like that? Someone who is going to try to impart "wisdom" and advice upon him that I disagree with, that I wouldn't teach him? And by wanting my child around positive people who are going to help reinforce my values to Wyatt, am I now a bad child?

My dad once told me something though that helped a little. He said to me "Now that you are a parent, it doesn't matter that you are someones child. Your focus now is to raise a happy healthy son. And when he eventually has kids, it won't matter that he is your kid, cause he'll be a parent"

I can appreciate that my parents went on the same journey with me that I am going on with Wyatt. But that doesn't mean I owe them anything now because of it. Their job as my parents is over, I am grown and have values and priorities, many of which they taught me. But now I have to jump in fully to the job of being someones parent. Now it's my job to pass on the values and traditions. And it's also my job to live what I speak, to set a good example with my actions and not just my words. It's my job to protect Wyatt from what I feel might be bad influences, so that when he is grown and moved out he can judge for himself what may or may not be a bad influence. At that point I will just have to trust that I raised a smart boy.

More than anything, I can't let guilt cause me to doubt myself. I can't let other people convince me that my instincts as a parent are wrong. I have no doubt I will make mistakes. Probably a lot of them given my track record of mistakes thus far. Something I say with a smile, knowing my mistakes helped me learn and without them I might not be where I am right now. I have to be confident in my convictions. Because it's not just for my well being anymore. It's for his too.

So I might be considered a "bad kid" sometimes for the choices I make, but I would rather be called a bad kid than a bad parent. And more than anything, I'm done being someones child, I'm someones parent now.