Absentee

Wow...I am such a deliquent blogger...I am so sorry!I have actually really missed blogging, hearing words of wisdom and advice from all my fellow bloggers. I've also missed catching up on all of your blogs so expect to hear from me soon.

We had a TON going on in the month of September with the beginning of the school year and second grade. It seems that we started the routine back up this month and this didn't allow for much down time, unfortunately.

My car was broken into which was absolutely horrifc. We live in the suburbs in a safe, family friendly development so it had to be some kids looking for a phone or an iPod. I do need to mention that I am an idiot and left my car unlocked for the FIRST time in approximately 2 or 3 years. Literally. I grew up in the inner city...you automatically lock everything, everywhere you go. They took my company laptop, my make-up bag and my day planner which has my LIFE in it. Thank God they dumped everything in someone's yard down the street from us. I guess they realized they couldn't break into the laptop and everything else was of little value to anyone but me!!! I just felt so violated after that happened. It was a scary feeling.

All in all, it's been a crazy month but I have much to talk about with you ladies so I will be back soon...stay tuned and please forgive me for being MIA!

The term “Love Child” and other things that make me feel sick to my stomach

According to www.dictionary.com, a “love child” is defined as follows:

love child

— n
euphemistic an illegitimate child; bastard

My girl decided that Saturday night was a good a time as any to tell me that she was a “love child.” I was making applesauce and baby food in my kitchen with a good friend. We had spent the day talking and peeling and cutting and watching the kids swim. It was a great day until her 4 year old son had explosive diarrhea in my backyard and one of my dogs sniffed a little too close to it. I loved helping my friend, but I was at the end of my proverbial rope and needed a shower, a diet coke and my bed when my girl informs me of this “fact.”

I tried to conceal the stunned look on my face and told myself to breathe in and out. She started leaving the room and I gathered my wits and said:

“Wait a sec, where did you even hear that word”?

“Whatever. Forget it!”

“Oh no ya don’t, come here for a sec and tell me about what you were just saying.”

She said, in a small, small voice, ”but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

I told her that it wouldn’t hurt my feelings; that I just needed to know where she heard that word and why she thought it was applicable to her.

She had read it on the internet. Now I am really freaking out, thinking, what website was she ON at Gollum’s house?!?! But I calmly said to her, “well, we can talk more later but that’s not exactly what this situation is….” And I just sucked in my breath and bent down to put my arms around her and said, “my girl, both of your parents, ALL of your parents love you very much.

She said, ”I know but I don’t want you to be sad.” I said, “you being here could never make me sad. I can’t imagine my life without you and you are the biggest part of my life and I love you very much.”

With that, she smiled and went back to playing with her friends. I went back to cutting apples and had to take more than a few deep breaths. My friend, who grew up with 2 different stepmoms, thought that she thought I handled it well.

Later Big Papa told me he also heard what my girl had said to me. It was such a relief that he heard it, because usually my girl says such things to me when we are alone, just the two of us and when I relay it to Big Papa, he doesn’t want to believe it and sometimes suggests that I blow things out of proportion or assume to much about the things that she says.

I put my girl to bed and almost chickened out by not talking about it anymore. But I had promised earlier so I got up the courage and she said she didn’t want to talk about it because she didn’t want to break my heart. She said that so quietly and with so many pauses, I almost didn’t hear what she said.

I told her that she’s not breaking my heart because I love her very much and I know that Big Papa loves me more than anything and that he loves both of us very much. She admitted to me that Gollum had looked the word up on the internet, showed it to her and told her that she was a “love child.” It was almost a relief to hear that my girl wasn’t out surfing the internet and found this word and jumped to that conclusion herself.

But I was beyond livid that Gollum would say something like that to a SEVEN YEAR OLD. Let’s not skip over the fact that my girl was a complete and utter surprise to Big Papa. Of course, we can’t imagine our lives without her and love her to death and would never, ever say this to my girl but here’s the true story: Gollum’s birth control mysteriously didn’t work one day so this was not a love child situation where two parents create a child because they love each other sooo much and don’t care if they are married or not.

I know in my heart that this was how it was explained to my girl. Why else would she be so worried about hurting MY feelings? If it was explained to her as the definition above, that she is simply a child born out of wedlock, why was she so concerned about breaking my heart?

Big Papa literally did not know what hit him when he was told about Gollum’s pregnancy. I am told they were never happy together and broke up from week to week. All of Big Papa’s friends and family and Big Papa himself believe that this was pregnancy was planned by Gollum in a move to try to keep Big Papa and get him to marry her. I can’t say for certain; that’s between her and God.

When I went back in to shower and lay down and take deep breathes to calm my shaking hands, I explained to Big Papa what my girl had just told me. He is so incredibly pissed and hurt and beyond angry that he had planned to call Gollum this week to talk to her about this. His plan is to try to prevent her from saying these things to my girl and plans to tell her that she shouldn’t even tell my girl that he talked to Gollum about this topic. We are concerned that Gollum will go back to my girl and reprimand her for telling us and we don’t want to jeopardize my girl’s trust.

I don’t know if a phone call to Gollum will help anything. She is a liar (among other things) and probably won’t admit to explaining this euphemism to my girl and putting her in that category. It’s just so incredibly frustrating because I believe that these types of things are being said and done to underhandedly hurt Big Papa and I (much, much more on this topic in future posts). But she (unintentionally?) hurts my girl in the process. I want to protect her from these crazy rants and lies but don’t know how and I just feel so helpless….

The Tooth Fairy

I’m sure most kids believe in the tooth fairy until they are about 11 or 12, right? I think I believed it for all of 5 years and then asked my mom and she told me the truth. Thanks Mom. I’m sure I was freaked out thinking of some unknown fairy lady coming into my room in the middle of the night.

My girl lost a tooth this past Friday. She has lost about 6 already; all very exciting events. She has only lost one tooth at our house and I was so excited when she did so we could play tooth fairy and we got to see the excitement on her little face. It was the coolest thing and one of the fun parenting moments.

My girl gets dropped off by Gollum at our house on Friday and shows me a ziploc baggie with her tooth. She was happy about it but Gollum explained the dentist said this tooth was not supposed to come out just yet because of her age. Usually, this particular tooth comes out when a child is 9 or 10. Gollum mentioned laughingly that my girl thought the tooth fairy would bring $10 because of the size of the tooth and the fact that it shouldn’t have come out yet.

But then she said that maybe the tooth fairy will bring $5 because $10 seemed like a lot. Big Papa, having got done work early that day, had been napping on the couch when they arrived. My girl climbed up into his lap on the couch after saying hello to me. Big Papa made no effort whatsoever to speak with Gollum or acknowledge her in any way. Usually he will say hello but I guess he didn’t feel the need since I was there?? I jokingly mentioned it and he smirked, and chalked it up to being tired.

As she was saying goodbye to my girl and leaving, Gollum said to her, “make sure you call me tomorrow and tell me how you did with the tooth fairy!” Cue discreet eye roll from Big Papa to Big Mama.

For some reason we decided to give my girl $10 for that darn tooth. We both forgot as we drifted off to sleep and then I woke with a start and said “tooth fairy!” Big Papa groaned and asked me to get up to put the money under her pillow. We were cracking up thinking of what horrible parents we would be if we had indeed fallen asleep and forgotten to put the money under her pillow! I think we were both so tired and delusional that we thought $10 would be a good idea. In hindsight, no kid should ever get $10 for a tooth! I mean, I think I used to get $1 and that was a HUGE deal! Hopefully we can back track a little but we are on a slippery slope here.

My girl was excited to see the $10 but paraded around saying, “I told you. I told you she would bring $10!” which, by the way, totally made us both regret even more that we gave her the $10. We then went about our day. We had a lot planned with brunch with my family for my dad’s birthday and a shopping trip with my sisters for some fall wardrobe items for my girl.

I thought about being proactive and suggesting that my girl call Gollum about the tooth fairy visit. Honestly, as we went about our morning and early afternoon, I had forgotten about the demand. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, Gollum frequently asks my girl to call her and my girl usually doesn’t because she is just a kid and doesn’t remember such things.

Ten minutes into our shopping trip, I got a call from Big Papa. He tells me that Gollum had texted his phone asking that my girl call her to let her know how she did with the tooth fairy. He knew I was annoyed but we didn’t discuss it since my girl was with me.

After we left the first store, about a half hour later, I had her call Gollum. She tells Gollum how much money the tooth fairy brought and talked about it for a minute. Then Gollum proceeds to tell her that she was going to the beach that day and that Bilbo (Golllum’s boyfriend) and his son would possibly be there with the rest of her family. I could only tell this by my girl’s responses. My girl became a little whiny at this point saying “no fair! Everyone else is going!?” Gollum then said something to the effect that we should take her swimming in our pool. We were out shopping the whole day so that wouldn’t be happening.

All in all, the phone call was about 5 minutes long and left me pissed off. Apparently my girl didn’t think about it anymore because we had a great day shopping with my sisters and visiting family.

I spoke to Big Papa about it later and explained my point of view. I was annoyed that Gollum had, once again, inserted herself into my girl’s life with us, our time with her. I get that she wants to be a part of my girl’s life but the tooth fairy tale can wait until Sunday when she would see her next. I just feel like we have such limited time with my girl as it is, and Gollum tries to impose on that time whenever she can grasp on to an excuse to do so.

And on top of her shoving herself into our family life and limited time together, she is making sure my girl knows what she is missing in the other house. I know it happens a lot with birthmother’s and their jealousy but I am so angry that she would do this, especially when we are doing her a favor by having my girl call her. It’s just so immature and shows how insecure she is. How do we put a stop to this without jeopardizing the civil and polite relationship we have with Gollum now? I know I was hurt by this but my girl, though she didn’t say anything to me directly, was certainly hurt.

It truly amazes me what lows these birthmoms will stoop to; it amazes me how they don’t stop and think how much they are hurting their own child in the process.

Messing with her Childhood

I am writing this post based on a conversation I recently had with my girl and some of the things that I have been told by other adults in the past few months. I know I should probably write about my and Big Papa’s history first but that story is many posts long and this is on my mind now. I need to ask opinions and advice from my fellow stepmamas.

Gollum was/(is?) engaged to Bilbo. They got engaged 6 months after Big Papa proposed to me. They bought a house together about 2 months after the became engaged.

Gollum no longer wears her engagement ring and hasn’t for a few months now.
Bilbo has an eleven year old son, who stays at their house every other weekend and for a few weeks in the summer.

Gollum’s would-be in-laws live across the street from us. This, as I am told by Bilbo, is how Bilbo and Gollum became “close.” Gollum lived with Big Papa for a few months while she was pregnant and first had my girl. Bilbo was recently divorced and living with his parents. Bilbo told me himself that he noticed she was living across the street and he pursued her while she was living with Big Papa and had just had a child with him. To this day, my father-in-law will not forgive Gollum for taking my girl out of his arms and giving her to Bilbo, whom Gollum described as “a friend.” My FIL was so hurt because she flirted with Bilbo, in front of both families, while denying any kind of romantic relationship with him.

The cheating is not proven fact but it seems to be a common thought among Big Papa, his family and his friends. I cannot say for certain if Gollum was cheating on Big Papa, whether physically or emotionally or both. Big Papa was done with Gollum long before this but was trying to make it work, for my girl’s sake. He sensed that Gollum had developed a relationship with Bilbo and told her, in one of their many fights, that she should move out of his house (her name was never on the mortgage or deed and she never paid any bills in the house) if she wanted a relationship with Bilbo. She denied this relationship but moved out with her belongings a few days later.

They have been together since. And I don’t think happily. Last fall, Gollum was at my in-laws house for Halloween and had brought over my girl so we could see her costume. She seemed extra standoffish that day and I thought her eyes were red from crying but couldn’t be sure. My MIL later told me that Gollum was crying at her house saying, “Bilbo is a jerk.” My in-laws took pity on her and listened to her problems and throughout the conversation my MIL kept trying to interject that my girl should go to another room while they discussed the topic of Gollum and Bilbo’s relationship. Gollum told her no, that my girl knew “all about it.” My girl was 6½ at this time. This concerned all of us but we didn’t know quite what to do about it at that point.

Fast forward to last week. My girl and I are driving home from a friend’s house and she is telling me how she is not sure if Gollum and Bilbo are getting married still. Keep in mind that she brought up this topic on her own. I would never ask because I don’t want my girl to feel uncomfortable or feel like I am giving her the third degree like Gollum so often does.

My girl brings up that Bilbo’s son is mean to her and is super clean. Oddly, my girlfriend, who knows Gollum just as an acquaintance, had just mentioned to me earlier that day that Bilbo was a clean freak and Gollum is more “laid back” about cleanliness around their house and that this obsession had led to a few of their break-ups or fights. Apparently Bilbo’s son is also a clean freak and doesn’t let my girl in his room. He locks it when he is not in there. My girl tells me she got a spot of cheese on a game one time and he refused to continue playing.

She has repeatedly told me that Gollum and Bilbo fight a lot. When she was younger she told me, “I just wish they would stop all the racket. It’s too loud. Mommy yells at Bilbo but he speaks in a soft voice.” On this particular occasion, she slipped and said, “we fight a lot. I mean, mom fights a lot with Bilbo.” I have noticed she does this often; identifying ‘we’ as her and her mother only and saying a shirt or piece of clothing is “mom’s”, not from mom’s house.

Anyway, she proceeded to tell me was that Gollum was planning on breaking up with Bilbo and that they would live with Gollum’s mother until they (Gollum and my girl) could find a house they could afford. The saddest thing and most disturbing thing said was that Gollum was breaking up with Bilbo because Bilbo’s son is mean to my girl.

The fact that any mother would let her daughter believe that she is the direct or indirect reason for her break-up from her fiancé/boyfriend, when they clearly have issues with each other and their relationship, is astounding to me. I realized that Gollum is trying to create this co-dependent relationship between her and my girl where they only have each other to depend on and they discuss things (major life changes) that Gollum hasn’t even discussed with her significant other.

I don’t know if this is being done consciously or not. I think that Gollum wants my girl to feel like she can’t leave her mother because she’s all that she has or because Gollum needs her for emotional support. Gollum is almost trying to be a girlfriend to my girl. I don’t get it. It really has shaken me to my core that someone would do such a thing to a child. My girl, of course, doesn’t realize what is happening but how much pain will this cause her when she is older? Will it cause her any? I can only go off of my own personal feelings of how I would feel, if in the same situation. I can’t imagine the pain and guilt of being made to believe that she was the reason behind her mother’s break-up. The poor kid has already been made to be more mature than most kids her age, due to the blended family situation where she is shuttled back and forth between two sets of parents homes and 2 sets of grandparents homes on a regular basis.

Maybe Gollum wants my girl to believe that she sacrificed sooo much for her. I’m sure she has sacrificed many things, as all parents do. But I think that this is crossing the line. Am I the only one who sees it like this?

Laughter

Big Papa makes me laugh continuously and I am so thankful for him. I/We need to be able to laugh at life and the twists and turns it brings. My mom always tells me, "Choose to be happy. Every day you need to make a conscious decision to be happy in life." My late grandma, an amazingly insightful woman, always told me to "be happy and healthy." I hold this advice closely to my heart and try to remember these words of wisdom in the tough times especially.

It's easy for me to get sucked into the vortex that is largely composed of the negative aspects of our blended family/ex-girlfriend/crazy mother-in-law situation. Big Papa often helps me to put things into perspective and makes me laugh along the way. Here is a conversation we had this weekend while eating dinner in our living room, on our coffee table. Big Papa noticed I had a stack of books on the table that I am currently reading; some for fun, others for blended family advice.

Big Papa: What's that one book called? Joint Custody with a Jerk? WHAT? So now you think I'm a Jerk??

Big Mama: Whaaaa? I don't have joint custody with you, you big dope. WE have joint custody with Gollum who, we've already established, is a big jerk.

Big Papa: OH. Right. Makes sense.

And then he proceeds to smirk throughout the rest of our meal. I don't know what was funnier to him - the fact that I am reading a book with a name like that or that he thought I was reading it because I thought he was a jerk!

Good times...good times....

Vacation?

What a week it was. Between the air conditioning breaking, the tired meltdowns, my father’s appearance at the house and a threadbare, buggy mattress, it was quite the week. I honestly can say that I needed a vacation from my vacation. And this past week did not provide that whatsoever. After finally getting caught up on laundry a week later, I am still dealing with issues at my job which happened will I was out. Needless to say, I am one stressed out stepmomma!

I have so much to write about that I honestly don’t know where to begin. If this post is a little all over the place, I apologize! The vacation had some good points. We did have the beach to relax on, I was able to read a few chapters of my book, and we had the luxury and privilege of being able to sleep in a bit and not go to work every day. The vacation was with my immediate family – my mother, father, 4 siblings, in addition to me, Big Papa, my girl. It’s nice to go away with my family because my girl loves them to pieces and has so much fun with all her aunts, uncles and grandparents that it also provides Big Papa and I with some extra time to relax that we wouldn’t have gotten if we went away with just the three of us. I am so thankful for my family.

With that being said, I do have a rocky relationship with my dad and so does every single person in my family. It was tough to have him there but it would have been tougher to tell him that we did not want him there. It was so hard to have to deal with him and watch my mom deal with him. All the while, we were already dealing with (3 different) maintenance people for the HVAC system in the home we rented, along with the cleaning people showing up on our doorstep at 10:30PM to argue with us because we called the home owner when I found a dead bug in the corner of my mattress. Sadly, my sister couldn’t handle it all and left with my brother (who had planned to leave because of work) halfway through the week.

It just seemed as though not many things went right that week. But as I said, we were still able to find some positive aspects and I know my girl thoroughly enjoyed herself. I had her call Gollum three times while we were there. Saturday, the day we arrived, as Gollum specifically requested that my girl call her, to let her know that she got there safely. I later found out that Gollum, on that first phone call, requested that my girl call a few other members of her family to let them know that we had gotten there safely. My girl never called and never told me that she was asked to call them so it ended up being a non-issue. It still strikes me as odd that this request was made when Gollum could’ve done the calling herself.

Here’s another ingredient to add to the mix: Big Papa’s business is big in the summer. It’s when most of our money is made to carry us through the entire year. We used to take my girl on vacation in late September so we could spend the entire week together. When Gollum told us what week we should go on vacation the year my girl started kindergarten, we had to put an end to our September trip. We did not take the week Gollum specified we should and didn’t get to take a vacation week at all that year.

Last year, before my girl started first grade, we did a week with my family as we did this year. It worked out well with one catch. Big Papa could only stay half the week. He is the owner of his business and didn’t have anyone else he could rely on to keep the business running smoothly for the whole week. So my girl stayed with me and my family.

When we made this plan last year and again for this year, it wasn’t even a second though for us that my girl would stay and get to have a full week’s vacation. Another stepmom friend of mine thought I was crazy to “put up” with this arrangement and for caring for my girl without Big Papa nearby. I’m absolutely certain that Gollum HATED this arrangement but didn’t want to seem like the bad guy yet again by making a big stink about it.

Last year it happened last minute that Big Papa had to leave and didn’t feel it was necessary to notify Gollum that he was leaving. Some of you stepmoms out there might think that this was a bad idea not to notify her. I felt that we should let her know in some way, but Big Papa has a more laid back attitude and just wanted my girl to have a good time and didn’t want to cut her week of vacation short. He didn’t see a problem with my girl staying with me and my family because we are so close knit that we are HER family and there’s no distinction made there at all. I feel like I am trying to explain the course of action we took last year, of lack thereof, because looking back, perhaps we should’ve notified Gollum. We didn’t feel the need to then so I don’t know why I feel the need to explain myself now. Of course, Gollum found a way to let us all know that she knew that he wasn’t there for half the week but I was thankful that she let it be at that.

This year I did insist that, in the email where we notified Gollum of our vacation week with my girl, we let her know that Big Papa would be there for half the week. I felt better about this approach and this is why I had my girl call Gollum this week so Gollum wouldn’t go through calling Big Papa’s phone and then having to call my phone if Big Papa wasn’t there with us. I also think that Gollum likes to think that my girl asked to call on her own. I’m sure she would be disappointed if she knew that it was me telling my girl that she should go and call her mom a few times and handing her the phone with the number already dialed.

I guess I figure that Gollum is going to call and interrupt our vacation time anyway, why not let it be on my terms and keep the peace in the meantime. I did hear my girl answering questions from Gollum about where Big Papa was and telling her that he left on such and such a day. I also heard the same answers to similar questions when I had my girl call her grandmother (Gollum’s mother who was worrying that we wouldn’t watch her in the ocean). Gollum kept my girl on the phone for 12 minutes on Thursday – my girl first spoke with Gollum then she also spoke to her stepdad and his son. Then she spoke to Gollum again. Most of the conversation had to do with their new dog, which I’ll get into on a separate post very soon. I don’t know why the length of the call bothered me a bit. Perhaps because when Big Papa and I call, we can’t talk for longer than 5 minutes with all the noise in the background.

It was interesting to me that while my girl was on the phone with her mother, my own mother turned to me and said, “this is just so weird. I forget that she has another family when she’s with us because you are such a great mom to her.” It means a lot to me that my family has accepted my girl and our situation so unconditionally, and with open arms, and sometimes I do forget about Gollum and her hatred for me but then I snap back to reality. My reality is that although it was a tough week for me, my girl had a great time at the beach, the shops, and the dolphin cruise while getting hugs and kisses and lots of love from her extended family. And I am officially exhausted.

More Vacation Time

Tomorrow we’re off to a beach location on the gorgeous east coast. My stomach is in knots and I have butterflies because I literally have so much more to do at home and work to prepare for this trip. Yet I am blogging; hoping this will calm me down. So much has happened lately. I will take the time to sit and blog when I return next weekend. Between animals and earrings, I don’t know where to begin. I posted the beginning part of the earring situation on a discussion board on Stepchicks and I was so encouraged at the responses telling me I did the right thing. The advice and support I received just warmed by heart.


Part of the reason for the butterflies is also the anticipation of calls and instruction and such that we will receive when going away for the week with my girl. I already was asked by my girl’s maternal grandmother, “You watch her when she’s in the ocean, right? I mean really watch her because she goes out all the way to her neck and you know….”

I think I sputtered out an answer about how there will be about 6 adults in addition to Big Papa and I, so yes, we’ll be watching her when she’s in the ocean. I know the woman is a worrier but good gracious.

I’m taking a half day to go work out and try to get the car packed up. If I don’t have a panic attack first. This week will definitely be worth it though. Hope the bloggy world doesn’t miss me too much :)