To avoid any more gift getting-gift sending difficulties with my ex, I purchased a book for LM to give to his new cousin, even though it’s my ex’s sister-in-law who had the baby. I bought one of LM’s favorite picture books from when he was little, “Old Turtle” and waited for LM to come home from his dad’s to inscribe a short message to the new babe.

This morning, I spoke with LM about what might be appropriate to write inside the book cover; a note saying how much he had enjoyed this book when he was little and wanted to share it’s joy with little Ethan. He was writing in ink, so I stressed the importance of extreme neatness, reminding him that this would probably be kept for years and years. The first thing he does is write “Ea” and then says, “Mom, how do you spell Ethan?” He tries to make the ‘a’ into a ‘t’, and gives me a sorry look. When he finishes his inscription, I say, “Now, let’s date it for Ethan’s birth. What day was he born?” and we think back until we remember it was Friday morning. I go over to the calendar and say, “December 29th”. LM writes in the book and then hands it over to me for my approval. On the top of the inscription he has now written, “January 2, 2007”. I nearly lost my mind. I explained to him how we had JUST talked about putting down the DATE OF ETHAN’S BIRTH not TODAY’S DATE. And how I had even said, “DECEMBER 29th” ALOUD. Oh, he didn’t get that. So, under his name, I have hiim write Ethan’s full name and his birth date so it doesn’t look like we were complete morons.

Then I give LM the card that goes with the book. “Just write something nice to your aunt and uncle and little Ethan about what a blessing a new baby is or something,” I say. Apparently, I should have been more specific. “May God bless you and ease your burden. Happy New Year, Love, LM” is what he writes on the New Baby card. I lost it. I asked LM “What burden?” He replied, “You know, how tired Aunt M is going to be with the new baby and all.” Great, so we’ve implied on the new baby card that babies are a pain.in.the.neck. GREAT!!

I get out a blank and empty card form from my scrapbooking supplies, cut out the cute little baby things from this card that he just wrote on and glue them onto the card form. I hand this one to LM and say, “Can we try this again and this time say something POSITIVE about having a new baby?!” So he writes a nice little note, copying from what the pre-printed inscription had been on the old card. It reads much better than before, actually implying that we are glad Ethan has arrived.

I would hate to see what LM might write in a sympathy card.

Thanks to all of you who commented on my “364” post a few days ago. After posting, I felt badly for speaking ill of my ex and wanted to make sure I gave credit where credit is due.

My ex and I are very amicable. We have never argued finances. He has always paid his child support on time, in full and without question. When LM had ortho bills, we resolved easily who was to contribute what and we each paid our portion without complaint. My ex has LM two evenings a week and every other weekend. He is as involved as he knows how to be. In all the behind-the-scenes ways, my ex is a good dad.

It’s just in the ways that LM sees that I think his dad is lacking. Not calling on holidays, not trying to see him more, or putting off seeing him for things like shopping. When they are together, LM plays computer games and watches tv, he never has friends over, and rarely does anything outside the house (except go out to eat!)

My vent was not meant to shed a bad light on all the good things my ex does. I am so thankful for our amicable relationship. It was simply meant as a vent of my frustration that in the ways the LM spends time with his dad, I think his dad is sending an unintended message and LM is old enough he’s starting to pick up on it.

Perhaps, in any case, I should simply have a private conversation with my ex and explain my concerns so that he might see it from LM’s perspective. As much as my ex and I might disgree on some very fundamental issues, we are LM’s parents together, and to that end, I’d like to think we could still help each other recognize our weaknesses and aim towards improving our parenting together.

Thank you, again, for allowing me to vent with such honesty before, and for letting me clarify and give the full perspective now.

LM has a new cousin!! Ethan Simeon was welcomed into this world just a short while ago. Ethan’s mom, LM’s Aunt Mandy (on his dad’s side) is doing well, despite an emergency C-section.

We wish Mandy, her husband Jake and little Ethan all the best!

Perusing blogs this morning, I’m already seeing mention of “resolutions”. I have been thinking about this for awhile. I’m all about fresh starts and making changes (I just rearranged the living room last night) and the like, but this year, I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on ONE resolution and I want it to be something that is really meaningful to me. I hope to continue the other things that are important too, getting healthy, giving more than receiving, saving more money, making family a focus, blah, blah, blah. But, for me in 2007, it boils down to this:

I aim to only talk on the phone when I can focus all my attention on the caller.

There. Bold. Revolutionary. Original.

You see, with all of my family and friends scattered about and far away, there are many people in my life that I am very close to that I only speak with on the phone. But I talk while in the car, I talk while watching football, I talk while loading the dishwasher, I talk while fixing dinner, I talk but without giving the person my full attention and I think that’s impacted some of my relationships. I think I need to spend more time focused on the person I’m talking with and my conversations will surely be a) shorter, b) more interesting and c) I think I’ll walk away having felt like I had good fellowship with a person instead of just chit chat all the time. I’ve said before that I’m a “quality time” person, and I have started to feel as though the time I give to those I love isn’t very good “quality” anymore.

So, there it is. My one resolution. It may mean I answer my phone less. I may have to decline to talk until I can finish what I was doing and create a window of focused time, but I’m hoping the people on the other end of the line might notice the difference and might feel more cherished, more respected, certainly more important to me than I have perhaps demonstrated in the past.

If you’re one of my calls in 2007, I hope you’ll have a better sense of how important you are to me. Cause you are. Unless, of course, you’re trying to sell me something.

Today, while LM hung out with me at work, I realized his dad never called him on Christmas. It’s not a huge deal, I thought, he’ll see his dad Wednesday evening, but still, I can’t imagine not talking to my son on a major holiday. Within the hour, my cell phone rang and LM came to the office where I was, talking with his dad on the cell. They spoke for a few minutes and then he handed the phone to me. His dad had forgotten what arrangements we had made for swapping LM mid-week. I reminded him that I was bringing LM to work on Wednesday and my ex was picking him up from my office (which was a courtesy to my ex, since work is much closer to him than my house is). He asked if we could change that. He hadn’t realized his significant other was off work on Wednesday (I thought he was going to ask to have LM sooner) and so they’d like to do their Christmas shopping on Wednesday. I wasn’t certain what this translated into for my purposes until he said, “Could I just pick him up on Thursday instead?”

I told him that was fine, I have never had a problem with having more of LM’s time. Before I could put too much thought into the idea that my ex postphoned seeing his son over the holidays because he had SHOPPING to do, he asked if I would put LM back on the phone. “I’d like to ask him what he got from you yesterday,” he said. Well, that’d be a nice gesture, to actually ask LM how his Christmas was…but my ex continued, “so I don’t duplicate anything.”

In simple terms:

Despite being after Christmas, my ex postphoned getting his son for the holiday by an entire day so that he could get his Christmas shopping done, including the gifts he is getting for LM. (I made sure to tell him what I’ve already purchased for LM’s birthday in May (I’m not that prepared, it’s just extra from Christmas) just so he doesn’t go out and buy that.)

I should note that when I found out that LM hadn’t purchased ANYTHING for the people on my ex’s side of the family (despite the need to get the gifts shipped to Florida in time for the holiday) I helped him create a list of ideas for all seven people and together we purchased four of the gifts.

I guess I won’t hold my breath that LM’s presents will be wrapped.

Update: at 4:55pm, my ex called me while out shopping. “What size shoe does LM wear?” I could wager a guess, but I’m just not certain why I need to help his shopping at this point. “I think you’d want to have him with you to try them on,” I suggested. “Oh, okay, nevermind then. Thanks.” Christmas shoes, apparently, are all the rage with 10 year old boys.

In the parking lot of the post office today, I heard a song pouring out of a truck nearby and immediately found myself singing along, thinking, “wow, I haven’t heard this song in forever!” Tonight, as I set up an itunes account and plugged in my new ipod shuffle to charge, I found myself purchasing two songs from itunes that I knew I had to have. The first song to initiate my ipod experience, the one I heard in the parking lot that had been stuck in my head all day, “Love of a Lifetime” by Firehouse. The second, “Missing” by Everything But the Girl, a song I have loved for years but never wanted the whole album.

For those of you way ahead of me, who’ve had ipods for years now, or those new to the techno scene like me, what was the first song you downloaded to your ipod? For 2007, I thought I’d track what’s new on my ipod over on my sidebar. I’m always looking for recommendations!

Congratulations to Amy, the owner of AmysBoys. She is the company’s 2006 fantasy football champion.

Steven Jackson’s monster of a game (150 yds rushing, 102 yds receiving, 2 TDs) helped AmysBoys edge out M’s team. AmysBoys won the championship in quite a convincing fashion. First, she disposed of the Philadelphia Eagles… err S’s team, who was on quite a rebound after plummeting from 1st to 6th place. S stuck with the Eagles and finished 4th in the regular season. Next, AmysBoys faced the regular-season champion who completely dominated the league. R meticulously put together a winning team that was undefeated until the final week of the regular season. Finally, for the championship, AmysBoys faced M. M had the hottest team in the league coming into the championship game with a 9-game winning streak. In the end, Amy came out on top, beating the 4th, 2nd, and 1st seeds.

(As written by our fantasy football league manager.)

YIPPEE!!

Now I can go back to cheering for the team that matters most – GO PATRIOTS!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and that the true reason for the season is embraced and celebrated!! There is no gift greater than the gift God gave to the world on that first Christmas!

Merry CHRISTmas everyone!!

LM and I went out to dinner tonight. Our little holiday dinner without the crowds and before it got totally insane in the next week or two. As the waitress approached the table she looked at me and said, “I know you. How do I know you?” I looked at her and had no bells of recognition going off. I smiled and said I wasn’t sure. She was intent on figuring out who I was, but was polite enough about it. She took our drink order and came back asking if I had attended a local college, I told her no, I hadn’t. She kept saying she knew me somehow and it would bug her until she could figure it out. I told her I didn’t live in that town, we lived a couple over, and she just shook her head and said, “I know you somehow.” I didn’t recognize her name and she didn’t seem to recognize mine and I was content with moving on but she was bothered enough that she wanted to figure it out. LM and I had a good conversation as we waited for our dinner, talking about our days and the holidays coming up.

Our waitress came over ahead of the meals and said words I hadn’t heard in months, “You’re Gabe’s mom!” It took me a minute to figure out what she had even said and then all the lights went on. She owned a black lab, named slider, and we used to see each other frequently at the dog park. She said she hadn’t seen us there in a long while and I had to explain that we no longer owned Gabe. I had to listen as Jacob told about how we took him to a new family in Indiana and I realized that he never learned about the move Gabe made from that family to his new home in southern Ohio. We were thrilled to finally have resolution to the mystery and she showed us Christmas pictures she had taken with her dog.

As she left our table to get our dinners I wanted to cry. I fought it with all I could but I missed Gabe and the bark park and even Slider so much at that point I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through dinner. LM talked about how much he wishes we had a dog, a big dog, a ‘Gabe dog’. Just this morning at the post office, I had met a beautiful, old, golden retriever named Tim, who was at the post office with his owner helping out during the holiday rush. And now, to be thinking about Gabe, it was more than I could take today.

Now that I am home, and LM in tucked away in bed, I am snuggled up on the couch with tears streaming down my face as I think about how much I miss my dog. I could really go for those big brown eyes tonight.

I don’t particularly like our new guest pastor at church. He tries too hard to be funny. He makes assumptions about the congregation and then seems shocked when they are wrong (“How many farmers do we have today?” “None?! I thought this was the country!”) He acts as if we should replace our projection system because he can’t get the remote to work for his powerpoint presentation. He once stopped a sermon for two very long minutes while a woman tried desperately to turn off her two-way radio. She was the bus driver for the urban children’s group we had visiting us for the day. She was mortified and embarrassed and he made it 100% worse for her.

This was the first Sunday in two weeks we’ve been at church. I am still fighting this cold something awful and spent most of the Sunday School hour trying not to sniffle too much, but trying not to blow my nose too loudly, either. My pocketbook is full of tissues, old and new, and cough drops. I was grateful for the singing during the church service so I could blow my nose and save the people in front of me several long minutes of listening to me sniffle.

Just as the guest pastor, Dr. H., started his sermon, my cell phone rang. I normally turn it off for the service, and even if I forget, there’s normally a visual reminder before the service starts on the announcements they project. But there hadn’t been a reminder, and I had been so concerned with my cold and my sniffling that I had totally forgotten about my phone. The good news is that is was nestled in my pocketbook amongst all the tissues and such which kept is mostly muffled. The bad news is that being buried as such, it was nearly impossible to find to shut off quickly. I did finally find it in there amongst the Kleenex and shut it off. I am certain my face was crimson, although I tried to remain calm and collected. I’m fairly sure there were few in the congregation who even knew where the sound came from. As I regained my senses and looked ahead at Dr. H., I realized he had stopped speaking and was trying to figure out the sound. He said, “I guess that was someone’s cell phone?” and paused as if I would apologize in the middle of his sermon (I held my tongue; sorry as I was, I wasn’t about to speak during the sermon.) He went on with things, not knowing exactly where the disturbance had come from.

And at that moment, I silently said a prayer of gratitude for my choice in cell phone ring tones. However inappropriate to have it ring during the service, at least my phone played the “Hallelujah Chorus”.