What’s Good, and What’s Not Broken July 12, 2012

And now I have to focus on what’s good, not what is broken.

So I’ve kept rather quiet about all of this for over a month, I’m not sure why. Maybe I was trying to protect myself, maybe I didn’t want it to seem like my whole world is caving in. I don’t want to be seen as a failure…so many different things I guess.

My 9 year marriage is ending. Suck Ass. It’s been a long time coming, it’s just the time is now. Not perfect timing, but the cancer stuff happened after the decision to end things.

Shaughn and I are two very different  people. For the last few years, we have drifted further and further apart, this last year with him at school has just exacerbated many of the issues that have always been there.

We are still friends, and I hope that we can always remain friends. This marriage took two people to make, and it’s taken two people to break it. We are ending things now so that we can still be friends, so we can leave not angry or too hurt.

We are both committed to being the best parents to our lovely Paisley that we can be, and to do that, we need to be committed to being friends, to communicating, and to still remaining as much of a family as we can be.

So now I’m looking at being a single Mum with Cancer…FML.

Really though, as much as all of this hurts, I’m excited about my future again, I’m looking forward to finding who I am, who I’ve lost over the last 12 years. I think a part of me has been hidden away. I did that because I thought that I would never find someone who loved me, I put my own feelings aside because I was in love. I chose to alter myself, my needs and wants to stay in this relationship because I was too afraid to do it on my own. This was unfair to myself, but equally as unfair to Shaughn. This last year has taught me that I CAN do it on my own, and that I know I can do a good job of it.

While I am excited, a part of me is scared. Pais is not going to do well initially, I know that, and I am going to be the one who will have to pick up most of the pieces of her crumbling world. I’m scared that I won’t have time to do it all. Shaughn has always done certain things; taken out the trash, cleaned the cat litter, he sets the dishwasher and unloads it everyday, he looks after the yard work. I wonder when exactly I’m going to get it all done. on top of being a Mum, having a full-time job, doing my volunteer work, and having a minute social life. He even makes my coffee for me every morning…now after a few trials and errors, I have figured that out, and when I say errors, ooh man I mean errors!!!!!

So yeah, the ride gets bumpier and has some crazy twists, but I’m doing ok. I am going to be great. We are going to be awesome parents to our girl. We are determined. This is totally sad and sucky, but it’s going to be ok. We all deserve to be happy, Paisley, Shaughn and I, it’s just unfortunate we can’t all be happy together.

Live and Learn my friends, Live and Learn.

The 5 Best Things About Being Paisley’s Mummy April 28, 2012

April 2012

This is Paisley. Paisley is 4 years old. She is crazy, fun, and has a flair for the dramatic. The following are the five things I like best about being her Mum.

5) I love that she cares so much about other people. She is usually quite selfless and I often wonder if I have a mini humanitarian in the making. She loves to make people smile, and laugh. She also love to give her time to things. If someone needs help with something, Pais will happily volunteer to lend a hand. I love that about her. I know one day when she is old enough she will be the kid who spends her saturday mornings working at the animal shelter down the road.

4) Paisley sleeps in. Now that might not seem like much, but when you’re a sleep deprived Mum, it means everything in the world to get just an extra half an hour on a Sunday morning. When Pais was born she had colic for the first 5 months. Shaughn and I would split up our nights to deal with her. She screamed from 7pm almost 4am. It was 6:59 and we had a happy baby, but at 7, BAM! Screamy, squirmy, red-faced angry Paisley came out. Shaughn would send me to bed at 7, and let me sleep till 1 or 2, then I would get up so he could sleep till 8 to be to work for 9. It was a rough time. At 5 months someone flipped a switch and suddenly my devil possessed, tense, high-strung baby turned into a sleeping miracle kid. She will sleep often on the weekends till 8:30, after going to bed at 7:30…that’s right YO! 13 Hours!!!! That’s MY kid!

3) I think that Paisley has an amazing imagination, and I love to listen to her make up stories, and songs, scenes that she acts out. It’s incredible. I am always amazed at all the new things that come so freely out of her mouth. Sometimes she is a fire fighter, or a princess, last night she was a king. She loves music and will bust a move as we clean or cook!

2) Paisley is energised by learning. She loves to practice her letters, learn about space, animals, and how numbers work. She is always asking questions and really listens to the answer. God help me if I don’t have it, yesterday she asked me to “Google it”….good gracious, she’s only 4!!!!! When I think about myself at her age, I know I was the same, and I still am. I love to learn, to read, and am constantly ‘googling’ things to find the answer. She seeks out knowledge, and with each new subject she finds new and different ways of looking at things. She often will start at topic A, and end somewhere around Q….She loves to ask ‘What if’….What if I did this, or if I did this, what will happen. It’s amazing.

1) My daughter keeps me young. She constantly makes me reevaluate why and how I do things. She makes me want to be a better mother. She encourages me to continue my own self learning, and keeps me grounded. She reminds me that sometimes it’s the littlest things that are important. I can’t go on a walk with her without stopping to smell the flowers, it’s impossible. And I think sometimes, we ALL need to stop and smell the flowers, otherwise life just passes us by too quickly, and how sad is that?

 

What are the top 5 things you love about your child?