The Bad Thing - Part 2

Almost a month later, and I'm finally okay to write about what actually happened and move on with my life.

Ricky has never been a super physically aggressive boy. Since he was little, he was always apprehensive on the equipment at the park, and took his time with his bike, and isn't too comfy on the scooter. Mark and I are pretty laid-back people, and not really pushing Ricky to be a macho boy - we just let him do what he's comfy with - he's a kid afterall. Oh, and I was a little over-protective at times at the park too. I just didn't want my son to bust his skull...

Now that Ricky is 5, I am much less protective than I used to be when he was smaller. But for whatever reason, he is still a bit apprehensive on the equipment at the park, doesn't really like the big swings, and isn't rough.

Also, I am the kind of mom who does things for my kids at times because it feels right. If we are rushing out the door, even though Ricky knows how to put his jacket on, I will help him sometimes. If Ricky has trouble opening a snack bag, I will open it for him. Ricky knows how to brush his teeth, but I will still brush them after he brushes them - just to make sure all areas are covered - we have no dental insurance. I never stopped to think that I was hindering him in any way. I just didn't think it was a big deal.

So one day in April, my friend Mandy volunteered to take Ricky to a birthday party for me because I couldn't take him. The party was in the middle of the city, during rush hour, and my dad and stepmom were here - and unable to feed Teddy and put him to bed. Ricky has nut allergies and has to carry and epipen with him wherever he goes. Mandy is aware of this - and didn't understand the whole allergy and epipen thing as much as I thought she did. She was a first grade teacher afterall. Never thought I'd have to explain....

Well the following morning, Mandy called me. I thanked her for taking Ricky to the party and then she started to tell me off for an hour and a half. First told me that I was crazy and over protective for sending Ricky with an epipen to a birthday party (!!!!!), then went on with example after example about how I am over protective, and I am mentally ill because I am hindering my son's growth, etc.

I tried to interject, but she wouldn't listen and told me I was being defensive and not listening. So I was quiet and let her talk. I cried, and she thought it was ridiculous. It wasn't a conversation like, "hey, there's something I want to tell you...this is something I noticed and I think I want you to know." It was a "You are weird and crazy and you suck. And I don't want to be friends with you" conversation.

About 9 of her examples came from our mutual friend Elise - who had a playdate with me a few days before.

I cried for 3 days straight. And the worst part was that Ricky saw me that way and felt like it was his fault.

Looking back, not sure why I stayed on the phone to listen to that crap. But she was my friend for 4 years and I loved her. If you are my friend, I don't talk shit about you. If I do, that means that we shouldn't be friends.

The next few months after that were rocky to say the least. I see Mandy and Elise all the time. Our kids are in summer camp together and Ricky goes to the same school as Mandy's kids. Oh yeah - Mandy is pregnant with her 4th kid - and I'm guessing she was on a hormonal rage with me.

Pregnant or not, that is surely not a way to treat a friend. I could never talk to anyone like that - ever. Sometimes I wish I could...

I thought Junior High was over. I didn't know I was entering a new realm of ridiculousness.

The Bad Thing - Part 1

Funny how I wanted to blog more and didn't get to - for about a month. I think it was because I knew I would have to talk about the incident with my mean mommy friend, Mandy, and I just didn't want to think about it. Well I decided I'm going to start facing it - in bits and pieces - and move on already.

That "bad thing" that happened to me took place during the first week of April - when my dad was still here visiting me from the Philippines. Mind you, my dad only comes to visit once a year to pay his taxes - so he stays with me for a few weeks and that's all the time I get and my kids get with him to last us the entire year. So our time together is kind of important.

Ricky was invited to a swanky birthday party that was to take place in the city - during rush hour - and during dinner and bedtime for Teddy. I was kind of screwed. Teddy wasn't completely comfortable with my dad, and having my dad put him to bed for me would be disastrous for both of them. So my friend, Mandy, volunteered to take Ricky to the party for me so I could stay home and deal with Teddy's needs. Her daughter was going anyway, she said, and she wouldn't mind.

Ricky is allergic to all nuts, peanuts & tree nuts, dogs, cats, mold, pollen, you name it. Because of his nut allergy, he has to have an epipen with him at all times - just in case he has a bad reaction to any of his triggers and can't breathe. Usually I can give him a benadryl tablet and he's fine, but the doctor told me he needs to have his epipen with him. His teacher at school has one for him. I thought I told Mandy about his allergies, but either she forgot or wasn't listening. She used to be a second grade teacher before she quit to be a SAHM too, so I took it for granted that she would be knowledgeable about allergies in general. Wrong.

She comes to pick up Ricky and I give her the epipen - telling her that 99.9% chance she will NOT have to use it, but just in case, here it is and here is how you use it. She seemed surprised at first (of course since I forgot to warn her beforehand) but took it and they left.

Little did I know that it would be our last day of being friends.

Okay, I think that's enough for today. More later. Not to mention Teddy just woke up from his nap and I have to clean the house.

I'm a Recovering Dumpee

I haven't blogged - or read any of my usual blogs for several weeks because I was actually bullied and dumped by a mommy friend - who I had been friends with for 4 years. This took me completely by surprise and was devastating so I haven't been online, or doing any of the things I would normally do. I will blog about it in bits and pieces over time, but one thing that really stands out in my mind is that it was totally junior high all over again. And it really sucked.

The boys are doing well. Ricky started playing t-ball every Saturday morning and his team consists of the boys from his preschool class. It's really nice - and even nicer that the mommy friend who dumped me has a daughter and they do T-ball at a different park, in a different suburb, a few miles away.

Teddy is 15 months old now and is fully walking and kind of running. He started walking at 12 months. He is fond of climbing onto dressers, and any kind of furniture and leaping off with such joy. We just gave him his second haircut (which he hates) and Mark had to put him in a headlock in order to finish the job. We put it off so long because Teddy hates it so much - but we were forced once he started resembling Nicholas from Eight is Enough (for those who are old enough to know what show that was) with the meatball haircut.

We are starting to organize the renovation of the bathroom in the other house and hoping to put our house up for sale in the next month. It's kind of exciting. If we can sell our house we will start the plans on extending the other house (both floors). Anyway, I just thought of blogging today and trying to get back into my "normal" usual self stuff.

Random Stuff

Well the Gauge show was great. The evening would've been fine if I didn't do 2 stupid things:

1. Ate too many dried mangoes that day, so ended up with an upset stomach at the show. I was walking around like I had a potato chip stuck in my rear for fear of farting or what-not. REAL comfy!!

2. I drink wine now, and spent the last few years trying to get pregnant, have been pregnant, or nursing so I haven't been drinking much at all the last few years. I didn't want to drink beer so I asked Mark to get me a rum and coke. Halfway through, I realized I was having stomach cramps and remembered that rum and cokes give me stomachaches. DUH

I ran into a few old friends from college and I discovered that after the whole what-are-you-up-to-now questions have been answered, there really is nothing more to say. The person's not in your daily life and has no clue of anything else about you, so any more conversation is tough. Unless of course, you end up talking about mutual people you know and what happened to them. This also, comes to an eventual end. Sort of a let-down, but what can you do.

The really, really dumb part is that I only had one rum and coke and we got home at 3:45a.m. and I slept until 9:30 and I felt totally hung-over. It was nice to sleep straight without having to wake up and take care of little kids. Poor Mark was totally hungover and had to watch the boys when I went to work at 1 that day. I was totally dragging at work.

On another topic, Teddy has been walking all over the place - up to 10 steps in a row! He also is great at raising his leg up so he can climb onto the couch and proceed to jump on it and scare me to death. He and Ricky have been playing together more and more and it's nice to see. I think Ricky is finally used to his baby brother. He loves him so much.

I went to my annual ob-gyn appointment yesterday and my doctor gave me a script for my first mammogram that she wants me to have in April. UGH. My mom makes this test sound like complete torture. It doesn't sound like much fun. I guess with my aunt's history, it couldn't hurt.

The doctor also told me that my AF delay was because I just didn't ovulate - it wasn't a chemical pregnancy like what happened a few years ago. I still have the darn thing - I'm on day 17 and I am mighty sick of this pest!! She said that if my cycle is long again, she'll check my thyroid.

Well I wanted to post some pictures but never got around to it. Maybe next time. For now, I have to clean my house. It looks like a tornado hit in here and I'm hosting a play date tomorrow!

Date Night!! Date Night!! Gauge at the Bottom Lounge

Ricky and Teddy are having a sleepover at my mom's and Mark and I will be going to see Gauge's reunion show tonight at the Bottom Lounge. There will be a few people I used to party with there from college who I haven't seen since I left college - in 1995. Can't believe that was 15 years ago - where the hell did the time go anyway?

In college, there was a group of us who used to hang out together. Gauge band man Kevin was in our group - and he was roommates with my ex-boyfriend Stephen. A few years later, when I met my now husband Mark, it was discovered that he knew Kevin too - grew up with him in the Chicago suburbs. Neil was at my college too - he threw lots of good parties. Mark also knows him from high school.

We started hanging out with a work associate of Mark's named Jeremy and his wife. Their best friend Tina was dating this guy Gub and they are now married. He is also in Gauge.

I'm excited to have an evening out with a bunch of friends - and to see some friends I haven't seen in ages. Unfortunately, I am no longer the 105 pound girl they used to know. I hope their jaws don't drop too far when they see the meaty mother-of-two before them.

Mark worked tons of hours this week and has already alerted me that he plans on drinking heavily. I have been at home all week with the kids and I would like to drink heavily as well. I think we might splurge a little and cab it home. We don't have to pick up the boys til 11 a.m. tomorrow. I have to work at the library tomorrow at 1 so hopefully I won't get too shit-faced. I'm all about wine now not beer so I don't know what I'm going to drink there.....maybe I won't care.

Bloodroot by Amy Greene

In all the craziness, I was able to read Bloodroot by Amy Greene. Our copy of Entertainment Weekly gave it an "A" in its book review section and one of my favorite authors, Wally Lamb, wrote a plug for the book right on its front cover. Those were two compelling reasons for me to read this book.

I admit that I wasn't hooked until page 100. I usually give books til page 40 before I decide I will read it - and because the book received so many good reviews, I pushed through.

The book is pretty dark and depressing, but if you are like me and like that sort of thing once in a while - then this book is definitely for you. The book takes the perspective of different people within a family and it's pretty interesting. It addresses poverty, abuse, and loss. I did enjoy this book but wouldn't say it was a I-can't-put-this-down kind of read.

Knopf Publishing, 2010.

The Dreaded Guest List

Ricky turned 5 over the weekend and I still can't believe that MY BABY IS FIVE!! Anyways, we had 4 days of celebration - Thursday we had a party for him with all 15 boys from preschool at one of those jumpy places, he had a party at school Friday, a small celebration here at home Saturday with just us, and a big family party for him Sunday. We're all wiped out!! I think there's a Berenstain Bears book that should be called, "Too Much Birthday."

The weird part about his birthday was that he wanted to invite all the boys from preschool. We couldn't invite all the boys and girls - because that was too many kids for the jumpy place. So we didn't invite our other friends who have girls or boys, or boys who don't go to preschool with Ricky. We didn't invite a lot our friends and that felt wrong and very strange.

While adults were free at the jumpy place, our party was for 15 kids - and that's exactly how many we had. Each additional kid was $10. It was a drop off or stay party for the parents. There are a few friends we would have loved to invite but they live in the suburbs and would have had to bring the younger siblings along - which would have meant 12 additional kids to pay for that were just siblings. So we didn't even bother inviting them. It was hard to draw the line and I hope there are no hard feelings. If Ricky had a summer birthday, it would be great to just have a huge barbeque bash at a forest preserve and invite everyone.

I talked to some of my mommy friends about it and apologized for not inviting them and they all assured me that no offense was taken. My friends who have girls said that they plan on having all-girls parties - or all girls parties with only 4 girls invited. I have a friend whose kids are older - in 3rd and 4th grade - and she assured me that it's normal practice among all the kids and everyone usually understands. But even still, there's a part of me that can't help feeling bad.

There are so many parts of Ricky's birthday I want to blog about - I'll have to do it in bits and pieces.