What motherhood has done to me

Okay don't get me wrong I love being a mom, but let me tell you this past year of having an infant and raising teenagers is taking its toll on me. And now we are going to have another on...I MUST BE CRAZY! Is the loony bin on its way? Maybe it is just my hormones raging out of control, but the thought of me having four children is becoming quite scary. I love all my children, even though there are days when I wish they (Mainly the teens) would disappear; those days are far and few between. For the most part I could not imagine my life without them. Yet, I sit here and wonder what motherhood has done to me! I use to be able to go out and have a good time, I use to drink with the best of them and party with the best of them. Now my drink of choice has turned to water and my idea of a party usually consist of bounce houses or Chuckie Cheese! Oh and going out lets just say. "What is that?" In the mist of it all, I know that I have know other choice! To me there is no other options. Being a mom is one of my jobs; the most important job! The sad part here is that I do not always take it seriously. There are times when I feel that I am neglecting my motherhood duties and there are other times when I feel that I do to much as a mom. This weekend was one of the latter times. I spent this whole weekend doing things for my children and spending as much time with them as possible. I think the thing that makes me feel like I am neglectful is that I do not get anything in return for this sacrifice. Yeah, I get a thank you mom, but do you think that I get anything else; NO! Now I am not asking for materialistic things, all I would like is a little help now and then. As I sit here and type this, there is a sink full of dishes, there are toys all over the living room floor, the bathrooms need a desperate cleaning, the kitchen floor is a mess, should I continue because the list goes on and on and on! Mind you that we have company due to be here on Thursday and I have to get everything ready for that. Yes, Lloyd may help a little with dishes, but that will probably be the only thing he does. Yes, he will watch the boys on Monday night while I go to my Praying Wife group, but that will be all he does. When I get home I will still have a list of things that need to be done. It must have been nice for him to get to lay on the living room floor tonight and watch a movie while I cooked dinner, took care of the baby, put clothes away, gave the baby a bath, got the other two ready for bed, and now the only time I get is to sit here and type about what motherhood has done to me. I don't want Lloyd to sound like a bad guy, because he is not. He works very hard and provides very well for our family. All I am asking for here is for the other members of my household to step up and take some responsibility! There is going to have to be some changes with the new baby coming and the boys may not like it, but I cannot continue to do it all. Yes, motherhood is one of my jobs, but fortunately it is one that allows me to delegate! So, to answer my own question,this is what motherhood has done to me; I am never satisfied, overly happy, busy beyond belief, sometimes lazy, a little (ok a lot) neurotic, multitasking, always tired, OCD, crazy, disorganized, constantly worried, and just plain old boring, yet there is always something going on. That is my life!

A plee that may or may not be heard

I have been struggling with a heavy heart on a situation that has been going on for sometime. It has to do with Nathan and Alex's half sister. yes, they have a half sister who they love very much. However, do to the broken relationship between their father and her mother my boys have not seen their sister for close to two years. This is tearing them up inside and I have a feeling it is one of the roots to Alex's behavior issues. I recently had the chance to see their sister, unfortunately Nathan and Alex were not with me. Her mom pretended like we were long lost friends and said that after Easter (yes that is how long ago it was), she would call me and we would get the boys and their sister together. Well that never happened. This has been very hard on me because I don't know what to do. I have thought of legal action requesting visitation for my children to see their sister, but I do not know if there is such a right? I cannot afford to hire an attorney or private investigator to find her, so I resorted to the Internet. I had forgot about a website similar to Myspace called Bebo, and happen to stumble upon it tonight. It just so happens I have her as a friend, so I sent her a letter. Here is what I wrote:


I am not sure if you will get this or not because I had forgotten all about this site. I have tried really hard to stay nice and not cause a problem, but my boys are being hurt in the long run and I cannot do it anymore. They really miss their sister and it is tearing them up inside to the point that it is causing behavior issues. Alex lashes out at my husband because he is afraid that he is going to leave and take their baby brother away. He even voiced his concern to us that if we ever have a little girl he did not want another sister that he was not going to get to see. Now I can understand that you do not want anything to do with Greg, and I respect that more then you know. If it was not for the fact that I was married to him and my boys were older when we divorced I may have made the same decision, but unfortunately that is not an option for us anymore. My boys love their father for what ever reason, and I have to allow then to have the little bit of a relationship that they do have with him. I would really like to see them reunited with their sister. Please Joanne I am pleading with you mother to mother! Let’s, try to get them together! We can meet at a public place, your sister’s house, my house, anywhere that you feel comfortable. This has nothing to do with Greg, so please do not take out the anger and resentment you have towards him on my children. They miss her with all of their hearts and talk of her often. Please contact me at home as I am getting a new cell phone soon. My home number is (916) 729-5486. PLEASE leave a message if I do not answer leave your contact information and I will call you back. Or if you would rather email me at teacheroftwos@yahoo.com that is fine as well. Just please please please contact us, so that my boys can see their sister again!

I hope that she will hear my plee and that my children will be reunited with their little sister who they love and miss ohhh sooo much!

New Addition

Well, now that almost everyone in our family knows; I can post here! Lloyd and I found out on Sept. 14th that we are expecting again! Our new little one is due on May 22nd and although we are still in shock, we are happy. Everyone is saying maybe it will be a girl this time, but in all honesty I am not sure I want a girl. Of course I will be happy with whatever the Lord gives us! I just pray for a healthy stong baby! I will be posting a lot of update on how I am feeling and of course belly pictures as I get bigger! Please be praying for this new addition to our family!

Laundering Luke

Luke Loves to play in his laundry. He dumps the dirty ones out of his basket, he pulls the clean ones out of his drawer and he has even covered the cat with his laundry! He thinks it is the greatest thing to do. The great part about it is that when he is all done he will pick up after himself, so I guess I cannot complain!

Groucho Marks

Luke has developed quite the personality. He has a great sense of humor and will pretty much let us do whatever we want to him. Well that being said, we had a fake nose with a mustache so we put it on his face! Here are some pictures and one of Groucho Marks if you do not know who he is!

For granted Friendships

I want to take this time to thank two very dear friends of mine for coming through in my time of need! I, at times, take their friendship for granted because we do not get to hang out much. Despite that fact, we do keep in touch through text messages and Internet; ahhh the delights of modern technology! These two ladies have been such an inspiration to me in my Christian walk and have always been there for me in my time of need. I will never forget the time I asked one of them for pray for a situation; she stopped right in the middle of our work place, placed her arms around me and said a quick but powerful prayer! I had never experienced something like that before or ever again. Not to leave one out, the other has always been there for me as well. Sending her daughter to help me, calling me, texting me, always lifting me up. These women are very strong women of God and I know that they are and will continue to be blessed in there walk! I love you both!

You are Invited: To my Pity Party!

I am feeling like such a failure tonight. A failure as a mom, as a wife, as a friend! Alex has been having serious behavior issues for about two weeks now. This is a new challenge for us because we took a leap of faith and have had him off medication for over a month. I do not want to put him back on medication, but I am at a loss for what to do with him. It is getting to the point that I don't even want to be around him. It takes every ounce of my being for me to even admit that I love him. I know this all sounds horrible, but it is hard to love someone that treats you with such disrespect and hate. I am praying for this situation more then ever and have even been praying with him every morning. I don't know what else to do! The household responsibilities are getting done slowly but surely. I have to choose one section of the house each day and work on it. I have been focusing on the Kitchen, but the bathrooms need to be done too! I just cannot do it all. I am so overwhelmed with everything! I want to work more to provide for our family but I cannot see it happening. I have to be home for the boys! We cannot afford to put them in any kind of after school program and Alex would probably get kicked out anyway. All my friends have left me except one, but she is busy with her life so we do not get to talk or hang out much. I MISS EVERYONE!! I am depressed and lonely. Yes, I have my husband and we are good. We just don't get a lot of time either with his work schedule. I try as hard as I can to be a good mom, a good wife and a good friend, but I feel like I am failing.

Health care or Health Scare

I have never seen Michael Moore's movies let alone the one called "Sicko", but I am a little familiar with his concept. After my experience last night, I am tempted to become a fan! I spent five hours waiting in an emergency room just to get my son a cast. Now I know this is nothing compared to the 10+ hours some of the other patience had been there, but all we needed was a cast! To top it all off, we had been in the emergency room just the night before do to my son breaking his wrist and instead of giving him a cast then they splinted him up and sent us on our way with a referral for an Orthopedic Surgeon. Since when do they not put cast on in all emergency rooms? Now I would have never gone back to the emergency room just for a cast if I could have found an Orthopedic Surgeon that would have excepted our insurances. You see we have straight medical and Western Health Advantage through my boys' father. Now these insurances are fine with the PCP we see, but I could not find a specialist that took both insurances and could not afford to just use one. So I called my PCP and asked them if they could get me a referral; they had to wait for the emergency room to send them the xrays before they could do that and this is where the royal run around started. Finally, they informed me that my best bet would be to go to UCD Emergency room to get the cast. This was fine until we got there and I saw how the health care system in California works. There were people there that had been waiting 10+ hours to see a doctor! You had to wait in line to be triaged and then wait again for registration and then wait again to see a doctor and then wait again to get xrays (Again, we had already done this at during our first emergency room visit and yes I had the copies, but they were not good enough!) As if all the waiting was not long enough, it was all being done while my son and I were both hungry and thirsty, but my son was told he could not eat until he saw a doctor. I made a pack with him; if he could not eat or drink then I could not eat or drink. Well after about 3 hours of waiting we broke the rules and got a drink and then about an hour later got some peanuts. When low and behold our name was finally called to go in the back! Now usually you get a room, but we did not we were instructed to sit on a bed in a hallway. After he saw the doctor, I asked if he could please eat; we thought we were going to get to, but just as they placed the tray in my son's lap they took it away and said he had to you guess it WAIT! Well finally after a 5 hour wait my son got his cast and he was able to eat! Oh and did I mention I had to pay $6 to park! What is the deal with our health care system.

De Ja Vu

Last October on about the 25th, his birthday weekend, Alex fell out of the tree and broke both his wrist. The left one was put into a cast and the right one was left in a brace. Well as you can tell by the photos I used as my background he was in a cast well after Christmas. I believe he got the cast of right around the new year. Well it has been almost a year and unfortunately history decided to repeat itself. Although this time he did not fall out of a tree and thankfully it is not both wrist; he did break his left wrist again! This happened on Wednesday when he was practicing for football. We were checking it out because one of his friends plays and both Nathan and Alex have wanted to play now. So we go and honestly I was a little concerned. All the boys are like twice Nathan and Alex's size, and it is tackle football! Well I put my concerns aside because they really want to play. Neither one of them have been cleared to play by the doctor; they are suppose to have physicals! So honestly they should not have been playing, but it is just practice right. Well Alex's coach decided to put him in as a Defensive Back to block this kid that was twice his size. Mind you Alex is in street clothes and this other kid is in his full uniform! So, he pushes Alex around pretty good a couple of times knocking him on his butt pretty hard. Alex was a trooper and kept getting back up and kept trying to block this kid. Well on about the third knock down Alex fell on his wrist and was hurt. We ended up going home and I iced him up and gave him motrin. I kept an eye on it and put him in his brace for school on Thursday; the whole time debating on whether to take him in to have it Xrayed! Well finally on Friday after talking with the coach, I decided we better get it looked at. Sure enough he has a buckle fracture of his left wrist and will be getting another cast! It should take about 6-8 weeks to heal which will put him right around his birthday!