Sunshine Award

Aw! I won an award. There is a whole tag thing I need to do and I will update this post when I have time, but I wanted to thank Heather for the award. You are pretty awesome too!

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You are so strong! – a rant

Oh give me a break. What choice do I have? Yes I live apart from my husband and seem to spend my life driving the I-87, but it isn’t indefinite. VERY SOON (you hear that Uncle Sam?!) we will have our visas and be together. Being strong ain’t got nothing to do with it. You deal with whatever the world throws at you. What am I supposed to do? Lie down and play dead because it’s so hard to deal with? Throw a tantrum because I didn’t get what I wanted when I wanted it?? Ignore everything else that’s good in my life and focus on the one thing I don’t have right now?

Being strong is for people that are fighting bigger fights – cancer, custody battles, terrible life threatening circumstances. What I am going through is not fun but anybody would manage the same issues the same. You keep on keeping on because you know there is that light at the end of the tunnel. You know there is an end in sight. Being strong – that’s when you hope there might be a light, but you aren’t quite sure. Being strong – that’s when all you have left is hope and faith and not much else. Don’t put me up on a freaking pedestal as the strong woman. I am just a flesh and blood person who is trying to do her best with each blessed day she is given. Don’t tell me when you grow up you want to be like me, because, lady, I am so far from perfect it isn’t even funny.

If there is one thing you CAN admire me for, then admire me for the love I have for my God, my boys and my husband. There is nothing on this earth that would shake that. Nothing. Love your kids and your husband the same way I do, lady, as if they are your every breath. Let them be the centre of your universe. You do that, you focus just on them, you will find that that love gives you energy and vigor to do what you need to do no matter the circumstances. That love will give you a perspective on every new day that you never had before. That each new day is a gift to be shared with those around you.

So many times I hear people, specifically women, say that they wouldn’t be able to cope with being apart from their husband for a year, and deal with all that entails. Next time someone says that to me, I shall ask them what they see as an alternative. Seriously. In the end we will be together. Am I supposed to just give up and file for divorce (God Forbid) because it’s so hard? Should I not have married him because we knew it would be tough? Think things through people. At least I see him for two weekends a month. Imagine how awful it would be if we didn’t even have that.

I know people care, I know they just want to connect with me sometimes on a less superficial level, but for some reason this being strong business just gets up my nose.

Pass the Grumpitol. I am obviously in dire need.

Mornings with kids

I recently had a conversation with an older gentleman who is a school teacher who lives in my apartment building. He sometimes sees my boys in the elevator when they leave for school. He makes a point to search me out to tell me something they did for him that was considerate, even if it was just saying a chirpy “Good Morning” to him.

He was telling me that some of his elementary students don’t see their parents in the morning. That the children get themselves up out of bed, pack their lunch, and eat breakfast (or don’t), while the parents are still asleep. They get themselves ready and are responsible for getting themselves to the bus / to school on time.

I am not the type of mother that fusses around her kids in the morning. I am not a morning person and the biggest mug of coffee will still not make me that way. But however, I do think it’s an important part of a child’s morning to be sent off to school with a full belly and a warm hug and a kiss. I don’t hover. I can’t abide hoveration and I think the kids would soon complain. They complain enough about the kissing! Euw Ima!! But I am around and there for them. I cannot understand kids as young as nine letting themselves out of the house for school without a parent at the door seeing him off.

What are your thoughts?

Wednesday’s Wacky Signs