Food. My New Best Friend.

My sister put me in charge of cookies for Thanksgiving.

I haven't stopped making them since.

When I make cookies, I have this image that hovers around my brain: Oh! The kids will be so excited!  And we'll enjoy cookies with milk after dinner!  And the kids will sing about how I'm the best mom in the world!  And we'll eat them and laugh and dance and be the cutest little family in the whole wide world (minus my John, which breaks my heart more than anyone could ever know).

But it never happens that way.  If I don't end up eating half of the batter, I'll just eat them when they come out of the oven, piping hot, gooey, dripping, chocolaty mess that they are.  Sometimes I'll shove a steaming hot cookie into my mouth, burn the roof of my mouth, curse myself, then shove another one in because I know I can cool it down with the remains of the first one.

And when the kids get home from school, there's no laughing and dancing and talking over cookies and milk!  There's homework, and there are tears because someone didn't eat all their dinner, so they don't even get a treat, and there's bath time, and pajama time, and cleaning up after dinner, and books to read, and clothes to get out for school in the morning, and of course making sure I've spent ample time talking to each one of them about how their day was, and if something special or not-so-special happened to them that day.

My relationship with food has certainly evolved over the last two years, since being separated from my husband.  I know I don't have to explain how hard it can be sometimes being a single parent with three children.  And it certainly isn't easy for my husband either, being 1600 miles away from his family.  But I had a revelation the last time my John was here: food has become the companion I lost in my John when we moved here without him.

On a typical night, after getting the kids into bed -- usually just before eight o'clock -- I empty the dishwasher then sit in front of the television.  Once I realize I'm bored out of my mind, I waltz into the kitchen to see what yummy treats await.  For the first month or so that I was here by myself, I made it a habit to not buy any extra-yummy snacks, simply for this reason.  Of course that went out the window right after Halloween, when the kids ran out of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

So when I attack those cookies at the end of the day -- or any time of the day -- I'm not looking to fulfill my desire for something chocolaty and decadent.  Most of the time I'm not even hungry!  I'm looking at these cookies as my companion; something to lean into while I'm anticipating the long nights of homework and baths and crying and exhaustion.  These cookies are sharing all that anxiety with me.  We revel in it, and together, we thrive on it.  I can't live without them, and they can't live without me.

But there's more: it's the least satisfying bit of food I consume.

And even after I've eaten three or four, I still go back for more.  Not because I'm hungry for more, but because I'm hungry for that companionship, some sort of adult connection.  And if I can't have an adult or my husband physically here to tread the waters of nighttime routines, I might as well treat myself to something special.  Something sweet.  Something rich.  Something chocolaty and peanut buttery.

My John needs to get home soon.  For the sake of my sanity.  If I start talking to these cookies, I'm in serious trouble.

Busy

Busy: A word that is entirely too common in our every day language.

My life can get very busy, just like everyone else's.  I have 3 kids, one of whom stays home with me for all but an hour and 15 minutes, 3 days a week.  I have a husband who is out of town.  I take care of baths, dinners, and making lunches for school.  I pay the bills and return the library books and make the dentist and doctor appointments.  I attend the kids' conferences, and take them to the birthday parties.  I make the curtains for the new house.  I clean (maybe a little obsessively).  I help with the homework and sign the tests.

'Busy' is a common occurrence.  But it seems as though the meaning of the word 'busy' has evolved.  Is that the case for everyone?  Or is it just me?  I found myself saying, "Oh, we've just been busy" to a neighbor of ours last week who mentioned she hadn't seen us around in awhile.  I certainly am busy, in the true sense of the word, but defining the 'busy-ness,' especially when someone mentions they haven't seen you in awhile can become tricky, especially if you're just using the word as an excuse.  When someone says, "Oh, I can't.  I'm busy," I don't truly think they can't.  I think they simply won't.  And unfortunately, that was the case when I responded to my neighbor.

The word 'busy' has become a general term to define everything we do in our lives as an excuse to not have to do other things that we may just not feel like doing.  And that is certainly okay.  I just wonder if it's starting to affect the way we communicate and interact with other adults, or even potential friends.

I want to use that word as seldom as possible.  Because if I start using that word as a way to describe how I'm living my life, my life is going to become a big jumble of events that I can't keep track of,  I have no recollection of, and I certainly am not enjoying.

Anyone too busy to stop by and chime in on this one?

Paranoia

Being the grown-up in our house has many advantages: I can eat the kids' Halloween candy after I've put them to bed; I can also let the kids watch movies all day!

There are also some disadvantages, the biggest of which I experienced last night: fear that someone will come into my house in the middle of the night and kill my kids and me.

I don't know if this is a mom thing or some kind of neurotic episode I was experiencing or what.  We live in a very safe and respectable area.  Earlier in the day, I saw a few creepy headlines about these bold criminals waltzing into people's houses and raping and/or killing its residents.  Well, I took it all to bed with me last night.

The images that went through my brain were some of the most horrific and unimaginable things that have ever crossed my mind.

Of course, I was hearing things in the house... things I hear all the time (the heater going on, cars passing by, neighbors' car doors opening and closing, airplanes, trains).  But all of those things somehow morphed into intruders.  Vicious, merciless, strong, armed intruders.  I began to make a plan in my head.  Exactly what would I do if someone were to come into the house?  Grab my phone?  Grab the kids?  Break the windows and start screaming for help?

Before my John had to go back to Texas after we moved into this house, he placed a metal baseball bat next to the front door, "just in case," he said.  Well, that bat has made its way into my room, and resides right beside my bed.  Safe, right?  Well, what if I tried to use it against an attacker in the middle of the night, and they somehow manage to wrestle the bat from my hands?  Bam.  I'm dead.

And don't even get me started on the awful things I'd thought about my precious babies.  They're still so young.  They wouldn't know what to do, where to start.  I've taught my six-year-old how to use my phone to call 911, and he knows my cell phone number and John's cell phone number, but would he remember what to do in a situation like that?  We don't have a land line, and we still don't have the phone numbers of any neighbors yet.

I'm bringing my pepper spray to bed with me from now on.  Hopefully that will be enough to -- at the very least -- calm my paranoia.

Does anyone else out there get like that?  Any singles moms?  Or single dads?  Or even happily married parents that get to go to bed together every night safely and soundly?

May God have mercy on the soul of any person who attempts to hurt my precious loves.  Because I won't.

"Look, Mom! He's Fat!"

During the summer, the kids and I frequented a local water ice place for a treat.

On one particular occasion, while we were standing in line, my middle child, who was only 4 at the time, pointed to a little boy in the next line, and said, "Look, Mom!  He's fat!"  I heard her, but pretended not to, in the hopes that she would drop it, and we would never talk about it again.  Unfortunately, my plan backfired when she shouted the same thing again, this time, loud enough for -- not the boy to hear her -- his mother to hear her.

Embarrassed doesn't even convey the feelings of humiliation I felt.  I had no idea what to say... to my daughter; to that poor mother (I don't think her son heard, THANK GOODNESS).

I immediately apologized to the mother.  Profusely.  Fortunately she was very understanding, and just let it go with a nod and a slight grin.  I bent down and said to my daughter that she shouldn't say things like that, and she apologized.  I even brought it up again on the way home, where she started crying and apologizing again.  I later resolved that I should have told his mother that I would talk to my daughter about those kinds of comments later.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it.  For a lot of reasons.  My daughter had no idea how insulting it was for her to identify that child as fat.  She might as well have said he was tall, or had brown hair, or was wearing a blue shirt.  It was simply an observation.  There was no malice or hatred behind her remark.

I later became annoyed that I felt so defensive about my daughter's remark.  We live in a society where we try to teach our children, more specifically, our daughters, that fat and thin don't mean anything; that beauty is on the inside.  Children are so easily influenced and I don't want mine to think that just because someone doesn't like they way the look, or they don't "fit" into some degree of "normal," that they're weird or ugly or fat.  I want my kids to accept themselves, and others, the way they are.  It doesn't matter what they look like.

I'm glad I apologized to the mother of that little boy.  But I wish I hadn't made my daughter feel so bad for something she didn't realize she had done.  She truly didn't know that she said a hurtful thing.

I wish fat wasn't such an insult.

Parent Fail of the Century

I don't know what made me think of this story, but I thought it'd be fun[ny] to share... no judging allowed.

Shortly after my youngest turned 1, the kids and I were getting ready to leave the house.  I'm a stay-at-home-mom, and hubs was at work.  We typically spent our mornings at the YMCA, where the kids played in Child Watch and I worked out.

The kids were dressed and ready, so I took my turn and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed.  When I went to check on them, I discovered that my youngest had gotten into the empty baby food jars I had stored on our baker's rack in the kitchen.  To my dismay, I discovered that one of the glass jars had broken and landed right where she was sitting.  So, with my toothbrush in my mouth, I picked her up and brought her into the living room with her brother and sister.  I checked to make sure she hadn't gotten cut or hurt (she hadn't), and finished my morning routine in my bedroom (we lived in a 1-story home, so I was just a few feet from each room).

When I came back into the living to corral the stinkers into their shoes, my littlest stinker had something in her mouth.  And she was chewing voraciously.  Any guesses as to what it was?  Hmmm?

It was glass.  My one-year-old daughter was chewing on glass.  Yep.  You read it here, folks.  My daughter was chewing on glass while she was unattended by me.

She's three now, so I'm guessing any residual effects would have reared their ugly heads by now.

*PHEW*

No glass in there this time!

Our Situation

My husband and I are originally from the northeast.  We had been living in Texas for almost 15 years.  Since we started having kids, we decided we'd prefer to live "closer to home."  In other words, we wanted to be closer to family.  We never really developed a taste for Texas.  Many wonderful things took place while we were there; it was just never home to us.

During the summer of 2014, my husband had an opportunity: the contract under which his company was working was about to end, thus ending his company altogether.  He was able to self-nominate to be laid off, and thus, get a big severance that could hold us over until he found a new job.  My sister offered her Maryland home to us until our family could get on our feet.  I was working on getting myself some part-time work in her area.  Everything was going according plan...

...Until we arrived in Maryland.  My husband received word that another company picked up the contract, and was absorbing not only his former company, but him as well.  His former company never informed him that his self-nomination had not been accepted.  At this point, if he were to quit, he would get no severance, and he wouldn't even be able to collect unemployment. 

There we were... the kids and me in Maryland, living with my sister and her family, and my husband back in Texas, living with his brother.  We couldn't just up and move back because at that point, my oldest had just started his first year of elementary school, and we had already paid for a year of pre-school for my daughter.  Plus, it's expensive to move!

My husband currently lives with his brother, sister-in-law, and niece.  It has been nothing short of a nightmare for him.  Me, on the other hand... well, I've been living as a single mom.  We have been working hard to figure out a way to make this work.  My John has been busting his ass, trying to find work in our area.  Being apart has been one of the hardest things we've ever had to do.  I adore my husband... we miss each other so much.

This has been our situation for the last 15 months.  Fortunately, the kids and I moved over the summer and are in a place of our own now.

Why not just go back to Texas, you ask?  Well.  Many reasons.  Ultimately we just don't want to be there.  We've missed so many family events in the last 15 years because we'd been so far away.  We just don't want to go through that again.  Also, we spent a fortune on our move last summer, then another fortune moving ourselves into our current place.  It would be make no sense, financially, to go back.  On top of that, John was able to make a few contacts that he seems to think will come through soon.  In addition to all that, we really love the area we live in now.  The kids love their new school!  Of the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania, our school is ranked number five.  NUMBER FIVE!  And that's really the bottom line, now that we have a first grader and a kindergartner.  Besides, it's Fall.  Our kids never really experienced Fall.  It's definitely my new favorite season.

It's sucky.  And hard.  But we're going to make it.  He's going to be here before we know it.  And that day will be the [fourth] best day of our lives [obviously, our wedding and the birth of our three babies will outrank most anything else :) ].