Manic Multi-Tasking Mom

Saturday, November 22,2008

Today is the first day of my life as a “blogger”.

Please join me on my journey into insanity.

My hope for you, my reader and new friend, is you will find this a funny rambling journal you will want to visit often, if only to see if I survive. My hope for me, the quintessential ‘manic mom’, is that I will find it therapeutic and allow me to find the sense of humor in my crazy world so I don’t go completely ’round the bend’.  This is my only hope because I can’t afford even a BAD therapist.

I like to consider myself a quick study but I ask your patience here. As I said before this is the first day of my blogging life and I am sure, as with most things, some mistakes may be made early on in this process.

I hesitate a bit to even attempt to bring you up to date in my life as the mere act of bringing it forefront in my brain and explaining it to you may drive me to drink, and sadly I cannot afford the vodka or the hangover.

Here goes. I hope you are sitting down and you may want to pour a drink for yourself before you go any further.

I am the over stressed single mom of three children ranging from college to elementary age. I know….. what was I thinking? Don’t get me wrong, I love my children very much and they are quite good. That being said, they are also a handful. Although they are my main responsibility, a joy in my life and a stress factor, they are not nearly the main reason for my stressed out manic existence.

My former life consists of an abusive ex husband, married 13 years and together for 7 years prior, and a ‘please God soon, but not nearly ’soon enough’ to be, ex husband. He turned out to be a huge disappointment and apparently completely unable to keep a job.

I am now in a relationship with the MOST wonderful man I know. However, as another of God’s little jokes, he is terribly far away. Therefore, I am also trying to carry on a ‘long distance’ relationship, with all that entails, until his much anticipated arrival. We have begun the countdown now for that exciting day and you will be able to walk with me through that process. I am not sure yet if he is that brave or just crazy, willing to take me on as a package deal. Between us we will have six children ages 26,24,22,20,14,and 7, all boys but the youngest.

My mother once told me, when I had two sons and was lamenting the fact I would never have a daughter, that I should be thankful as daughters were harder to raise. Now, I will admit I was resentful as I am her only daughter of four children, and I thought perhaps she may be referring to me. I will further admit, begrudgingly (and please don’t tell her), that God help me, she was right.

As thankful as I am for my daughter, as much as I adore her and as cute as she is, she is going to be the one that kills me.

After my first marriage I was stalked, lost a house, had to pack and move from a house I had been in and raised my kids in for 16 years and had to find employment after being out of the work force for 15 years. Oh yea, not to mention having to get over Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome without benefit of a therapist, but that’s hardly worth mentioning.

Oh dear, did I forget to mention he owns his own business and sells guns?

I thought I was through increasing the size of my family, with two boys 10 and 5 at the time. Then I met and married a man that treated me like gold and made me feel worth while again.

Here comes the next joke, are you ready?

At age 39 I was told by a doctor that I was pregnant.

Upon regaining my ability to speak I said to this doctor he must be wrong and I was WAY too old for that. He proceeded to say to me,”Now, now, have a seat and let me explain. You are NOT too old for that. And nurse, would you please get her some water she’s looking pale.” The end of this joke is I now have my much desired daughter, born in July before I turned 40 in October.

I am now convinced the person that is often quoted as saying children will keep you young was either a man or someone without children. I am pretty sure the gray hair and worry and frown lines do nothing to make anyone think I am staying young.

You may want to refresh that drink you have at this point, before I go on.

While my daughter was still a nursing infant and her father was on the road as an over-the-road truck driver, he arrived home for the weekend and awoke the next day with a decided limp. In fact, he was actually dragging a leg, so off we go, husband, daughter and myself while the boys were in school, to the doctor. After being referred to a specialist and in an attempt to make a long and tangled story a bit shorter, we were told he had a mini-stroke, at age 40. Of course many tests were preformed, some of which were life threatening in and of themselves, and we were called back in for the results, three different times in fact.

The first two were misdiagnoses that ranged from an inoperable brain tumor in the front right lobe (the executive center) of the brain to Moya-moya.

NO, I’m not kidding and yes, I did have to look it up. Given the known fact that he was neither Japanese nor female, I thought that something may be amiss.

Further life threatening and dangerous tests were run and the diagnosis was changed again to cerebral vasculitis.

Committed to my relationship and still in love with my husband we dealt with everything together and continued down our life’s path hand in hand until other very serious issues crept in that I can’t bring myself to go into yet. That’s a story for another day.

The end of the sad story is that I lost my best friend, lover and husband all at the same time and then he proceeded to use our closeness as a weapon against me.

My lease ran out and unable to sign another one due to the impending divorce, and losing my Day Care business due to losing the location, I found myself in a spot.

Again unemployed and without a home, I found myself in the most horrible position of having to ask my mother to allow us, my two children and myself, to move into her house for a month while I regroup. She gave me ONE month,, in no uncertain terms.

My month ended yesterday, by the way, and NO things are NOT going well.

While I await the arrival of the love of my life and seek employment, I find myself in yet another untenable situation. This one consists of living in my mothers home along with the two children still living with me.

Yes, you heard me right. And no, neither my mother nor myself is going to survive this.

So now my days, for the last month and ONE DAY, consist of walking on eggshells to try to keep the peace and stress level down and trying to raise my children under the too close and unwelcome supervision of my mother. UGH!

I now spend 24/7 looking for employment. Also, as Mom, I have to run a taxi service, provide homework tutoring, attend PTA, manage and mediate two ex husbands both fathers (and I do use the term loosely) deal with a car that has a new problem every time I get one fixed, a mother that wants us out of here ALMOST as much as I want us out of here, and trying to keep two children well behaved and with something near as possible to the life they were used to.

Are we having fun yet? Ahhh….that’s what I thought too…..lol.

Now that I have provided too much information about myself, assuming you are still here with me, I welcome you to MY world.

In the days, months and years to come I will welcome all comments, hoping they are tempered with a sense of humor and some kindness, as well as any and all suggestions on how to get through this with my sanity and health in tact.

I will pass on any links or suggestions I have to other moms struggling with similar issues and am excited to get some feedback and words of wisdom regarding my situation.

Together we can do this, I know we can. No I don’t think the courts will accept justifiable homicide as a reason for murder. No I don’t think getting into the bathtub to slit our wrists will help. It won’t help the kids at least. Can you imagine who would be raising them then? And you know a mom wrote this because only a mom would think of the bathtub first, saving anyone else the mess to clean up.

Think of me as the child’s toy, the clown with the weighted bottom you can punch and it bounces back….IN YOUR FACE…..that is until someone puts a hole in it, deflating it entirely…..lol

Now, I am being yelled back into my reality, making me think perhaps bedtime for a 7 year old may be just around the corner.

Meet me back here tomorrow for a drink and another therapy session. SHHHH…don’t tell anyone where we are meeting, I will be hiding.

Till then, this is Kat signing out and going back to real life.

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