You're gonna miss this....

That moment your child walks up to the free throw line completely focused and looks straight into your eyes looking for a little bit of confidence, because let's be honest, his shot is not pretty, you nod at him, he nods back, takes a breath, and sinks it.

Priceless....

The Un-Glamorous Life of a Blended Family

Our Blended Crew

This month marks the best/worst decision I've ever made...or was it the worst/best decision? Some days, like yesterday, I just don't know? Either way, it marks five years ago that I decided to give a relationship with the hubby a try. His ex had started steadily dating the accused felon she has had an on again off again, living together relationship with for the last five years. I was told they were going to get married, but I think they've broken up, but he was recently at my house with her to pick up the kids (an accused thief, at my house, AGAIN...I was not happy). But, whatever, that's not my business.

I know it marks five years of me alienating myself from people who want to remain friends with everyone (which is what I would want to do) because this tornado of bitterness has ruled my life for five years. When something like this is always in the forefront, it's hard to have a conversation that doesn't involve it. So, I distance myself...and I hate that, because I love people!!! In the last five years, I've been physically assaulted twice, been spoken poorly to too many times to count (from being called a white trash whore to a b@tcH at a tee ball game), been to court and had to explain that no, I did not attend OB appointments for Curly among other insane lies the judge was told (crazy, right??), my face has been cut out of pictures and posted on my step-children's refrigerator, my step children have been told I'm going to Hell and I'll drag them there with me if they are close to me, that we killed their kittens with knives, that I love Monster and Angel Baby more than I love them, that we only buy them things to beat others to it (so they better not tell us anything from vacation ideas to gift ideas), that I fix Curly's hair (whether it be up, braided, or straightened) to make her look ugly like me, that they can't mention the name of myself, the hubby or the boys, that they can't show us affection in public, and I've been told I can't get Curly's nails done or get her hair trimmed because I'm not the "mom" (Yet, who pays for their dental insurance? Me. Who makes all routine dental, shot, and doctor appointments? Oh yeah, me. Who trims their finger and toe nails? That's me. Who reads, plays, cuddles, and all those other "mom" things with them? Oh yeah, me again). ...and the list could continue for pages about all the junk we've been through.

And what is my BIGGEST flaw in all of this? I'm not saying I've not had moments of weakness when I've told certain people exactly what I think about them and how messed up it is, but by and large, I've kept my mouth shut and tried to remain positive. On New Years of this year, I sent an email pleading for peace between all of us and how five years is too long to live in such torment for anyone. The message was read, but not "received". Aside from that, the worst thing I do, and do all the time, is love the kids. If I could just treat them like less than human step-children, things would be better. But, I'm not that kind of person; I am that person who just loves kids. I don't care whose kids they are. If your kids are at my house, they're going to be call "honey", "sugar", and "babe". They're going to be hugged and made to feel like they're home...especially the little ones. They're going to be punished for misbehaving and praised for all the wonderfulness they are.

I have four kids. Two I gave birth two, and two I've adopted into my heart. You don't see adoptive parents saying "these are mine and those belong to someone else, I'm just raising them". No, just like an adoptive parent, I love all my kids. We've all been together for five years. You don't live with "someone else's kids" for four years (we didn't all move in together until 2010 after the hubby's deployment)...those kids belong to you too. the hubby had to correct the attorney when she asked him a question in court about his oldest child. She said, "Your oldest, you mean Little Man?" the hubby said, "No, we have four kids. My oldest is named "Monster"." (Ok, that seems really weird when you add fake names.  The lawyer rolled her eyes Little Man and Curly aren't allowed to call Monster and Angel Baby their "brothers". If they do, they are corrected to say "step-brothers". But, when you see Angel Baby and Little Man together and Monster and Curly...you see the love, the angst, the hate, and the bond that are siblings. Which is the only reason I am even writing this post...my Monster. God bless that strong boy.

In the last five years, Monster has been put through a lot. He's been questioned at school about what happens in our home, he's been treated poorly and singled out by certain teachers, his been painted a villain to Little Man, Curly and others, he's been spoken poorly to, he's been spoken poorly about, he's been ran off from playing with Curly, he's been threatened indirectly many times, and through all this, he has remained silent...although I think his piercing gaze says a lot. I know it hurts him. I know he hates to hear the things about himself he hears. I know it hurts him to not be able to play freely with Curly, who he adores. I know he wants to stand up for himself, but he's been directed to keep his mouth closed...that being treated poorly shows much more about the other person than you. If you react, it just gives them more fuel to be hateful. Yesterday, he was playing with his sister. He was helping her do cheer stunts, chasing her playing tag while she squealed and ran away...expecting him to follow, and hugged on her. There was another girl there doing the same thing with Curly, but that wasn't a problem. Monster was the problem. He dotes on her like a big brother should. Yet, Curly was told "If he keeps messing with you, I'm going to stop him." the hubby requested an apology for Monster. That was laughed at and the hubby was told, "I don't like how he touches her and makes her do things. I also don't like the dirty looks he gives me." the hubby explained they were PLAYING and if she didn't like the dirty looks, maybe she should treat him differently.

What sent this momma's blood boiling was the insinuation that Monster is inappropriate with Curly. Monster adores Curly...there is nothing inappropriate about that. To him, she is still a little girl and he likes to tickle her, carry her, chase her, and love on her. Little Man and Angel Baby are best buddies and Monster and Curly are two peas in a pod! We lead a pretty transparent life. We have nothing to hide, I know my shortcomings (like long Facebook posts when I'm fed up), but it makes me wonder what other people believe. I had a conversation with someone last year after court and she said, "I'm sorry this happened. I know you love Little Man and Curly. I've seen you with them. You can't just fake that." It wasn't until THAT moment that I realized some people believe my actions to be lies or not genuine...and it made me wonder who else may believe this and why they possibly would???

Yesterday I told Monster, as much as I didn't want to, "Son, you're just going to have to start standing up for yourself." Maybe if they know Monster will not stand for it and will make a scene they will stop...because I've tried to stand up for him and so has the hubby. It never gets anywhere. Little Man and Curly stand up for the kids, but it falls on deaf ears. Well, except Angel Baby. Angel Baby isn't talked about anymore because Little Man explained they are now "best buddies". I told Monster there is a respectful way to do it and he has the right to defend himself. There have been times he has been treated harshly by these petty adults when I can't see him (like games, swim meets, school, etc.). He just walks away and gets his feelings hurt...and comes to me. As much as I want to defend him...it will just start a fight and we choose to take the high road. But, after yesterday, when Curly was afraid to play with Monster because she didn't want him getting into trouble...I felt he deserved the permission to defend himself. It might not be the right parenting advice. I know another parent heard me and probably thinks I'm terrible for telling him to say something the next time it happens because it will make Monster look so disrespectful, but it's been five years of dealing with this for him too. I sent a text requesting if anyone has a problem with any of my children, rather than complaining to kids and indirectly threatening my child, they come to the adult instead and stop bullying my child. But, in five years that hasn't happened. In five years it's been tears shed by Little Man and Curly for all the crap they have to go through...and the hubby and I made a resolution that this year it ENDS!

Last week at piano lessons, Little Man went and laid down on the other side of the room from anyone while Curly did her lessons. He saw me watching him and I winked at him and he winked at me. After a couple minutes, I went over to him to tease him about sleeping. I said, "Are you turning into Angel Baby sleeping all the time?" The minute I opened my mouth, Little Man was getting yelled at to "Get over here, right now!!! Little Man, get over here!" Apparently he had been disrespectful because she had called for him and he didn't come immediately. They went outside and Little Man came back in bawling. He didn't speak to me or look at me for the rest of the lesson. My heart broke for him. I'm tired of MY kids being treated this way. You want to yell at Little Man because of his behavior, take his iPod, cell phone away (yes, he has a cell phone, no we did not buy him one), ground him or whatever...don't do it because he talks to me...which has happened several times. Don't do it because he tells us a crazy story about what has happened when he wasn't with us or what has been said about us. As we've explained time and time again, "Children are like wet cement, everything that falls on them makes an impression". What kind of impression is being left on him? How heavy his heart must be every day!!

I'm not writing all this to bash anyone. I'm writing this for any of you who are doing this currently to your children. Stop! Just stop!! Kids don't deserve this. I want you to see this affects more than just you. If someone is doing this to your children, stand up for them. Advocate for them. If you have friends doing this to their kids, but a true friend and tell them it's wrong. If your friend was doing drugs and killing their bodies, would you try to stop them? Can you imagine the damage this is doing to kids? I assure you, this is far worse than drugs because you can quit an addiction...emotional scars never go away. If you hate your ex, do it in private. If your ex is a terrible person, hate them on your own. If you know anything about this situation, pray for all of us. Pray for peace for our children. I've been told this is just "how people are" and "human nature". No it's not. It's how people choose to be. I choose better! I'm not perfect, but I don't make my problems my kids' problems. Unfortunately my kids are drug into it...but not by me. I'm a big girl, I can stand up for myself. Kids have enough things out there to screw them up...love them.

Finally, as I said, the hubby and I made a resolution to end all the madness we've been going through the last five years. We've decided that being silent got us no where so we will stand up. Court got us no where, well, I guess it did a little. Little Man and Curly are only allowed to be left with their grandparents for more than four hours if the hubby permits it. Based on their behavior, he has the right to go get them. We did not request this from the judge, but based on what he learned in court, he decided the kids deserved better and that was his starting place. If we go again because things have not improved, the sanctions will be worse. We know this strife has caused mountains to come between us and that isn't what we want. We are a family. If this unit we've created were to fall apart, it would devastate our children. We will unite for them. More posts will probably be written about similar topics because we won't be silent any longer. If you've been through something similar, give us advice! If you think we're wrong, tell us, give us a better solution! We are willing to take it. If you read this and feel sorry for ANYONE besides our children, delete us. Help us stand up for our children. They deserve better!

United!!!

My Chin Implant (Augmentation) Story

I wish I had a picture to show just how bad my chin was before, but I NEVER took pictures where I wasn't facing a camera.  If I saw a camera in a crowd of people, I would look directly at it and smile.  It didn't matter who had the camera, I wasn't going to have a profile picture taken if at all possible.

I found this picture of me on Facebook and asked for it to be removed because I hate how my chin looks.

I blame a fall in Kindergarten (a pretty bad one, broke the bone that holds your top teeth together, shoved my jaw backward, flattened my front teeth to the top of my mouth...all requiring surgery) and my mom says it's genetics...either way, I grew up have a very weak, almost non-existent chin.  When all my girlfriends complained about wanting new boobs, I could never relate to that.  I've got more than my fair share, but how I dreamed about having a chin.  I'm sure it seems like a very petty thing to wish for, and I agree it is, but we all have that one thing about ourselves we'd like to change...and this was mine.  At seventeen I paid for my own braces.  That was the first time I saw what I could look like had my chin been fixed.  The orthodontist showed what my profile would look like if he had his way...which was breaking my jaw to realign them and then straightening my teeth.  Although my parents weren't paying (another vanity issue of wanting/needing braces), my mom quickly told him "no way" after she found out how much it would cost.  Instead I had top teeth removed (which changed the shape of my face and made the lower fourth even more weak) and pulled them all back to match my bottom teeth.

Me hiding my chin in pictures.

My mom thought I was vain when I mentioned to her that I might get a chin implant.  After her reaction I told no one except the hubby.  My hubby went with me to the pre-op appointments and couldn't have been more supportive.  I had to take a week off work for it (luckily it snowed a lot and I didn't have to miss more than four days).  The surgery placed a medium sized implant in my chin and my doctor also did liposuction to my chin and tied back muscles. It would have been great had the surgery went great the first time.

It was an very painful experience.  I knew it would hurt, but I completely underestimated how badly.  My doctor had accidentally burned through my skin with his cauterizer and a muscles was stuck under the implant.  I told him several times in post-operative appointments that things were just not right and he agreed, but we decided to see how my body dealt with it rather than going through surgery again.  Of course, three months after the surgery was my wedding date.  I thought I'd have plenty of time to heal and the burn mark was still very apparent, but I did have a chin.  :)

In the weeks that passed after the surgery, I looked like a freak!!!  This is what my students saw when I got back to work:

That's after ten days of healing.  The burn on the left is from the inside of my neck all the way through the outside.  The rest is crazy bruising and marks from the liposuction.  The swelling on my right side is what always concerned me...and why I had to have surgery again.

But, I HAD A CHIN.  I couldn't raise my head all the way because of the muscle issue, it was swollen for a long time and I had no feeling in the lower quarter of my face, but I had a chin!!!

This is the first "non posed" picture I had seen of myself post-surgery.

After a year, things still were not great on my right side.  My doctor said a muscle had twisted and he would need to go back in and smooth it out.  I was expecting similar, painful, results as the previous surgery so I took a week off work, but it wasn't bad AT ALL.  I had surgery on a Thursday and called my sub on Friday telling her I'd be back on Monday.  I hate missing work and I was well enough to teach, as long as I took some Tylenol midway through the day.

Three years post the first surgery, I'm still not 100% happy with my results, but the scar on my neck has faded, the one from the implant incision is still pretty bold, but it's better than the alternative, which was no chin.  I still see profile pictures of myself now and cringe because I don't have a prominent chin, but if I wasn't complaining about that, I'd find something else to complain about.  The right side still isn't "right", but I'm living with it.  It's only times when I see pictures like the one below that I feel the vanity creeping back up because I paid for perfection, but then I realize, I have to accept that nothing is perfect.

Ok, maybe it's not just the chin.  This is a bad picture of me in general.  

My first husband could never understand why I hated my chin so much and agreed with my mom that I was vain to complain about it.  And, when you consider many people are dying from terrible diseases, yes, it is definitely vain of me to worry about my chin.  But, I had worked myself into a complex and to some degree I still drag it with me.  

I still smile at every camera I see, I still feel like my chin is weak, but in the end, none of that matters.  I'm happy, healthy, my kids are healthy, and life is good. :)  

~Beth

About Beth

Where do I begin, my journey into adolescence or adulthood...or motherhood?  

I am one of five children...ok, four a half, my dad had two children about a year apart with different women, and then had me less than a year after that.  I blame peace, love, and the 70's.  They just celebrated their 35th anniversary.  I am the only girl and I think being raised with all boys has made me less tolerant of women, especially weak and weepy women.  I do not cry...pretty much ever, except if you show me videos of people with cancer (I lost my Grammy almost a year ago to that terrible disease) or soldiers coming home.  That'll get me.  Also, pride in my children.  But, I'm not the type to get my feelings hurt and cry.  Not going to happen.

My brothers:

I married my high school sweetheart at seventeen a month before I graduated; no I wasn't pregnant.  My parents found out we had been doing things many seventeen year old's do and gave me an ultimatum...get married or break up.  We divorced ten years and two children later.  I have my ten year old, affectionately called my Monster and then I have my Angel Baby, who is eight.  I had, as I had done at seventeen, found physical pleasure in a place I shouldn't have and had a decision to make.  Stay in a marriage I was clearly unhappy in (and had made that clear about a year before my two weeks of stupidity...I didn't wear a wedding ring and was terribly unkind) or decide that living with just my boys and I was enough for me.  I chose the latter.  Forty-seven days later, I was divorced.  We agreed on joint custody, because although I didn't want to live with him, my children love and need their dad, and asked for no child support, didn't take the house, and tried to do everything I could to make sure my ex's life wasn't destroyed because he still had my boys to help me raise into amazing men.  He remarried a very nice woman less than a year later.  Did I mention I'm from a very, very very small town...so everyone knew, I got letters from people telling me how horrible I was, how ashamed of me my children would be, and I would die alone addicted to tanning beds and beauty parlors.  Nothing anyone could have said to me would have made me feel as terrible as I felt without their condemnation.  I was ashamed of my actions.  Luckily, six years later, my kids still love me and I have forgiven myself.  It was a long road.  My bosses, I'm a high school teacher, told me I would destroy my children and it would be hard for my students to "look up to me" because I was divorced.  I soon left that district, by choice, and work in a nearby town...and I LOVE IT.  :)

My ex came from a divorced family that was unable to keep him out of the conflict and fortunately, but unfortunately, he learned, first hand, that's not what he wanted for his children.  For that I am truly thankful.  He accepted early on that his actions contributed to our divorce and willingly admits to 50% of the blame.  We do not always agree nor see eye to eye, but we always put the boys first.  ALWAYS.  Sometimes I disagree with how he does things or his priorities, as I know he does mine also, but in the long run, it's about our boys and them being happy.  

I dated a few men off and on for about a year and a half after my divorce, but nothing serious.  I was perfectly content to just live my life with my boys and I.  We are quite a team.  They are my world and I didn't need anything else.  But, then my one indiscretion decided he could no longer live in a love-less, affair ridden marriage and moved out.  He came to me as a friend, and I told him to go back, work on his marriage, and it wasn't as easy as it appeared.  He had a baby at home and a two year old...he told me I didn't understand how much he didn't see his wife as a wife, but as a roommate instead and there were no loving feelings for her.  He said he had tried to leave in the past, but she made him feel guilty and would cry, so he stayed, but nothing changed.  Eventually she started dating and I told him he should too.  He should see what all was out there.  But, he only had eyes for me.  I'm not kidding when I say that was a terrible choice for him.  It has been constant conflict for the last five years for that decision.  We married two years after we started dating.

So, my life went from a traditional family of four, to a family of three, to a blended family of six.  There is the hubby, Little Man, and Curly added to the mix.  I'm sure many stories will be told relating to Little Man and Curly on my part of the blog, because they have another person who isn't in my home, but definitely in control of my life who hasn't been able to love her kids more than she hates us.  It's a never ending battle in court, outside of court, and we are always in a state of stress.  It's absolutely miserable.  Don't get me wrong, I love my life and I love ALL my kids, but I've never witness darkness in my life as I do now, almost daily.  That'll probably be written about often also.  

It seems like nowadays, everyone has a blog.  Most are happy and cheery, some are drama filled, and some are plain depressing.  This blog will be all over the place.  My best girlfriend and I decided maybe it would be fun to have two people posting to the same blog about REAL stuff.  Let's see how this goes....