My Girls….

I often talk about my kids here in the crazy world of Facebook and more often than not, I'm complaining about how they are driving me insane.  Yes it is true that they don't always get along and there's a lot of fighting and crying and High Drama in the Thompson household on a daily basis and that I often dream of running away with Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston to an undisclosed location far, far away.  But I realized that I don't very often sing the praises of my amazing girls and that isn't because I cannot sing but it's because I've become so wrapped up in the shit they do that pisses me off that I forget the great things they do.  And I want to share the great things about them with everyone.  We stressed out moms who live on 4-5 hours of sleep a night and gallons of coffee a day are often overwhelmed by having more than one child and need to stick together.  I'm not justifying my stress but it doesn't help me any when I have a husband who is hardly ever home.  I think I've seen him a total of 2 days in the last 2 weeks.  So I get to deal with the daily joy of Tween/Teen Girl Drama.  

My oldest is Taylor, she just turned 14.  She is a sweet girl, sometimes quiet and awkward but with the right people she really opens up and you see who she is…funny, creative, smart.  She is a loyal friend, thoughtful, kind, helpful. Taylor is the only kid that looks like me.  She has my hazel eyes, my olive skin and my height.  She draws and her "anime-style" art is quite fabulous. She will happily draw a Tardis for me if I ask and we share the same sense of humor. She plays the clarinet and is really good and I am thrilled that she wants to continue into high school and be in the marching band.  She has learned not to get caught up in the Girl Drama at school and has a great group of friends who are all headed in the right direction to being amazing young women.  Taylor loves to boss her sisters around and totally acts as if she hates them and they are the scourge of the Earth.  When Emma recently made a visit to the cardiologist for a heart check-up, Taylor asked if Emma would be okay and I could hear the crack in her voice and the concern.  When Emma smashed her finger in the car door and there was blood everywhere and her mom almost passed out, Taylor went into action and held her freaked-out sister and reassured her that she would be just fine.  She acts like she hates her family but that's all it is…just an act.  She is a very loving young woman and it makes me so sad to see her growing up so fast, knowing that her time with me at home grows shorter each day.  She will always be my baby.

Emma is the middle child, she is 10 1/2.  She is extremely energetic and scatterbrained. The official diagnosis would be ADHD, with mild emphasis on the H lol.  She has always been a "I do what I want" kind of child.  Fearless and inquisitive. Headstrong and stubborn.   She has always been self-conscious of the fact that she learns differently than others in her grade.  Always worried that classmates would tease her because she worked  with a separate teacher who helped her to focus and channel her energy in positive ways.  Now in 5th grade, Emma is coming into her own.  She isn't as concerned about what others think.  She has a small group of the sweetest friends.  Two of them are mellow-going and level-headed and the other is a pistol like herself.  They are a fierce group who stick up for each other and really love each other.  It does my heart a world of good to listen Emma talk about her friends and the things they do.  Emma has a very sensitive heart and when someone is hurting or sad, she will often do things to make that person feel better.  She will pack up a friends backpack after school, she will draw a beautiful picture, she will do something for me so that I can have a few minutes of quiet to myself.  It's easy to get frustrated with her when she gets into one of her headstrong moods but it's hard not to love her when you realize she is standing her ground and fighting for what she wants.  She also plays a mean Hot Cross Buns on trumpet and her band teacher has said she has "great potential."  Emma is definitely a mix of my features and my husbands.  She has beautiful blue-grey eyes and skin that tans in the summer.  I don't normally pick one child over the other but she is a gorgeous young girl and I'm so happy my husband has a shotgun lol.

And last but certainly not least is my youngest, Zoë.  She will be 9 in just a couple of months.  Zoë is my surprise child, my "oops!" baby.  I swear to you I thought I had an ulcer and refused to see a doctor until I got so sick I had no choice.  By the time I got around to seeing my OB, I was already 14 weeks along. I was in complete denial throughout my entire pregnancy and was hesitant to look at her when the nurse lifted her up to me but once I held her in my arms I knew she was the best surprise ever.   Zoë has always been a happy child, always laughing.  She's very much a "go with the flow" kind of kid, happy to do what others are doing.  She likes to read and is definitely taking after me in the fact that she loves dragons, loves science, will talk to me about Doctor Who seriously and won't give me shit about the fact that yes, I am watching Star Trek or The Hobbit for the 400th time.  Zoë is an animal lover and has said she might like to be a veterinarian when she grows up.  She is a snuggle-bunny and a hand-holder who just wants to be cozy with me or her dad.  She's a hard worker at school once pointed in the right direction.  She writes awesome stories about dragons and can draw beautiful ones too.  Zoë also loves dinosaurs.  Like her sisters, she also has a very sensitive heart and will burst into tears if she thinks you are criticizing her about anything.  This girl will catch frogs with her bare hands and carry them around until the frog makes its escape.  She loves fishing and doesn't have issues with removing the hook from the mouth of the fish she has just caught (as long as it's a barbless hook).  She loves playing with the boys in her class because she says they are more interesting and like to do stuff whereas the girls mostly stand around and talk during recess and she isn't interested in that.  Miss Zoë looks nothing like me.  She is all Irish-Scottish with her porcelain skin and gorgeous blue eyes.  You would never know that she has any Asian blood in her lol.

I absolutely love my girls.  I feel horrible that I actually need to be reminded about how amazing they are.

Ahhhh, almost 2 years has gone by….

since I last wrote in this blog.  The only reason it even crossed my mind is because my friend, Christina, sent me a message via Google+ saying we should start using it again and it triggered a memory that hey, I have a blog floating around out on the Inter-Web.  Dammit…!!

What has happened in the last 2 years…..

Sold the house, moved out.  Moved into an apartment for a year.  Moved out of the apartment and into a townhouse.  Still in townhouse.  In the process of building a house in Dexter, but not where we originally planned.  This is in a neighborhood across of Jenny's Farm Market.  It's a modest neighborhood full of families and normal people.  This is where we should have been from the very start but I won't go into that because it's just not relevant anymore.

Lots has happened, really.  I just can't be bothered to recall all of it and write it here.  I wrote a great "note" on Facebook the other day about my girls that I think I will copy & paste here.  I still don't know why I continue with this blog since I don't believe it's public and I've not shared it with anyone.

Funny, I just read through all of the previous posts and I can see some of my witty banter from my younger years shining through.  I think if I were given a daily topic to write about I could be spurred to action… Coming up with things to write about has been daunting.  It would be nice to try again.  I just wish my brain would cooperate with me.  Ha…there was a week a month or two ago when the strangest thing happened.  I woke up one morning and my brain would not stopping thinking.  Seriously.  I could not get a moments peace from random thoughts streaking across my brain.  It was constant.  It was 24/7 for days and days.  My brain thought it would be loads of fun to recall things that happened to me in high school and problems with my boyfriend.  It dwelled on his infidelities and self-esteem issues I developed from his harping on me about my weight and how he would break up with me if I got fat.  It's no wonder I'm fat now!!!   Then once it was done with the high school years it moved to college and while it didn't focus on any problems it brought things to light that I wish it hadn't.  This went on for almost a week.  My head was throbbing.  It was all I could do to get to sleep at night.  As soon as my head hit the pillow, my brain would say to me, "Pssst….remember that time that….." and I would be awake for hours.   I think I started reading again as a way to escape my brain. I have been reading for an hour or two each night since.  Much better than incessant brain chatter.

My good friend is going to divorce her husband.  This will be the second of my good friends to go through a divorce in a couple of years.  There have only been a handful of times that I've thought maybe divorce would be my best option.  Thinking back to when I chose to marry Phil, I told myself that divorce wouldn't be an option.  My parents divorced when I was 10 and it totally sucked ass.  I never wanted to put my kids through that.  We have had some rough times and bumps in our marriage but we've been able to weather them and come out better for it.  Right now we aren't going through a rough time between each other.  Our lives are still pretty stressed out and things aren't where we would like them to be but we are moving forward and there is definitely a light at the end that we can both see and almost reach.  Unfortunately when he gets stressed he doesn't pay much attention to me emotionally or physically.  He ends up dumping all the stress and issues on me because really, I am the only one he has to talk to about these things.  Men don't tend to have the close friendships that women have, they don't have a confidante to tell their secrets to like we do.  I would go CRAZY without my girlfriends.  There are only a few that I trust enough to let know what's really been happening with me. Everyone else sees the "brave face" that I wear everyday.  Sure they see stress and my gray hairs but they don't KNOW what's going on and I have made those select few friends swear to keep their mouths shut ;-)

Oh and I'm madly in love with Benedict Cumberbatch.  I've said that I'm done having babies but I would have his in a heartbeat.  I won't go into the reasons why I love him.  Just know that I do.

Okay, that's enough mindless rambling for one night.  I need to start some laundry and get to sleep.

Blogging is hard work!!

I don't know how people do this on a daily, regular basis. I can't even remember why I came into a room by the time I get there. I only now published that last entry, which I think was from last week and was sitting in the draft folder all this time. I didn't even finish it.

I've had lot on my mind since that trip. One thing's certain, Phil and I are definitely drifting apart again. At least that's how I'm seeing it. He never sees things in our relationship the way they are. I wonder if he wonders why I don't want to be around him as much anymore, why I'm more quiet around him. I just don't feel like sharing anything with him anymore. I'm emotionally tapped out. There's a line in a Beatles song "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." You get back what you give. And I've given and given of myself to him yet it's like pulling teeth to get any reaction from him. If he would have a tiny bit of the passion he has for cars and other things and focus that tiny bit of passion on our marriage, I think it would work out. At this point I'm so heartbroken. I feel like I want to leave, but I can't leave the kids, can't leave my life. I'm too invested in my life here. If we didn't have kids I honestly think I would have left a long time ago. I don't even know if I would have married him. Of course I'm upset and angry and bitter so I'm saying these things without really thinking and being calm.

And now I'm going to save this to drafts like I did the other post and forget about it for a week or so. I suck.

Man I suck at this blog thing...

I don't know how some people do it.  They're able to get on every single day and write oodles about their day and all the exciting things they accomplished.  Here I am just trying to figure out if I have enough clean socks for the kids to wear to school that morning.

So a lot has happened since I last wrote in January.  We were able to pull it together in the end and get the house listed and accepted an offer in the first few days.  We are closing on the 23rd of May and moving in an apartment on the 19th.  More packing and more moving.  But I'm actually looking forward to getting in to the apartment and having less stuff.  It's going to be a rough 10 months but we'll be saving money and right now I'm all about compromise.

Ugh this always happens to me...I get started writing then I get distracted and when I come back I just don't want to write anymore....

So I guess you'll just have to wait until I get my shit together.  You might be waiting a long time LOL

Kinda late but Happy New Year!!

I'm still not used to writing something everyday. I actually forget that I started this blog/journal. With it being a new year and all, I guess the thing to do is say that I'll promise to be better at writing, blah blah blah.

Not gonna happen.

Not now anyway.

As it is, I probably won't have much time to think about writing, much less actually do it.

We are in the process of repairs, massive decluttering and packing up the house in order to get it on the market to sell. We have just a few weeks to go before we have it listed and I'm beginning to think we won't get everything done. It's overwhelming. Monumental. We have SO much crap. My plan is to take it room by room. My friend Gwen is coming over on Saturday for a few hours to help me go through stuff and get Emma and Zoe's rooms taken care of. Hope we can do them both.

I finally went to a GI specialist and was told I'm not dying. It's the stress of the last 2+ years that is tearing my insides apart and making me feel like this. It was a relief to know that it wasn't anything serious and that I can make things better by making some changes in my life. Easier said than done...but I have to give it a go at some point.

Anyway...no promises but I'll try to write more often. And learn how to post pictures.

Life and other things

So the weekend up North was fun. I laid down the Ground Rules shortly after we left the house: no talking about work, the house, the lawsuit, etc. and he was actually really good about following them. The drive up was long and we got pulled over for speeding but the officer was super nice and let us go with just a warning.

Fall colors were at their peak and the Traverse City area was absolutely beautiful. We came up over a hill to see Torch Lake with the colorful trees and blue lake and afternoon sun shining on it all and it was breathtaking.

A friend graciously let us stay at her condo in Glen Arbor and we arrived around 7pm and then went out for dinner. Our friends who were meeting us there didn't arrive until close to midnight and I just couldn't stay up so I went to bed around 11. The next morning we had breakfast and then headed out to the Leelanau Peninsula and then to the Old Mission Peninsula to visit the wineries. We even stopped at the Grand Traverse Distillery and got a tour and sampled some vodka. The wineries were a lot of fun and we enjoyed some wonderful wines along the way. That night we had dinner in Traverse City, after a 2 hour wait for a table at most restaurants. It was super busy but the main street had lots of fabulous shops to browse through. Sunday morning we packed up and headed back into Traverse City for breakfast and a little shopping before heading home. We got home right around 5pm and the kids were thrilled to see us.

A much needed weekend away...

Phil and I are leaving tomorrow after lunch to go up North. A friend has a house in Glen Arbor at the Homestead and she is letting us stay there for the weekend! This will be our first weekend away without children in over 10 years. Yes. Ten years. I can hardly believe it either. It's been difficult for us without family up here to help and we've finally found a sitter that everyone likes and we trust.

We will be doing a weekend of wine tasting and winery touring. I cannot wait!! I have ground rules for the weekend though, and I will make them known at the beginning of the long drive up there. There is to be NO talk of work, the lawsuit, the gas station, the house, my health, or anything else that has caused us stress over the last 2 years. We are lucky that our marriage has been strong enough to weather the storms but the stress has definitely taken its toll and we both know that we've drifted apart a little. I'm ready to focus on just us. I hope he is too but I know I'm going to be let down because I have certain emotional expectations and I know from experience that he's not going to be able to live up to them. They're not even high expectations! He just needs to relax and not be so uptight around me.

I'll let you know how it goes. We are going up with another couple so he won't be so pressured the entire weekend LOL.

In other news, progress reports came home yesterday and Emma's teacher wants to set up a meeting with us to discuss her adjustment to third grade. I'm worried she's going to say that Emma needs to repeat 2nd grade, even though in my heart I know that's probably the best thing for her. She had a crappy 1st grade year and didn't learn what she needed to go forward. I talked to her about it last night and she was a wreck. I had to keep telling her it isn't because she's NOT smart, because I think she is. I said it's because she's just not ready yet for how fast third grade is. She even agreed that the work is really hard for her. I really should have had her repeat 1st grade, I don't know why I didn't think of it then or why no one suggested it. She would be doing great now if we had done that. This is just one more way I'm messing her up. We're going to meet with the teacher on Tuesday and see what she has to say and I will, of course, keep you posted on that too!!

Gotta round up the kids, fold some laundry, make some dinner, do some dishes, clean up a bit and pack my overnight bag!! Yippeeeeeeeeeee!!