Jon and Kate – My opinion

Last nights show was interesting.  I have read all the blogs I usually read, and I think the comments are kinda mean.  I am not a Kate fan by any means, but I do try to keep an open mind.  Here is what I saw: a woman who has been slapped across the face with a severe reality check.

The “we will never break up, I can talk to my husband any way I want to and he will take it, queen of motherhood, celebrity seeking, money is all I need, I don’t have to treat my kids well, nothing will ever happen to me” attitude was way subdued last night.  She was a different Kate.  And I do not mean the PR produced “be nice to the boys in this episode because the bloggers are talking” nice.  This was a woman whose world has been rocked.  Whose security is seriously in jeapordy.  She has had a dose of real world, and I think she has lived in this bubble of protection for so long that she just didn’t see it coming.

As for Jon, he is done.  Done done.  He is talking about how they need to be friends for their kids, yah, he’s done with her.  He hates her.  He has taken so much shit for so long, he has built up this wall.  I have seen it happen so many times and even had it happen to myself.  You take so much for so long, and once you get past that hill, and you seriously honestly do not care anymore, you begin to hate the person, and once that happens it’s just over.  They needed help a year or so ago.  And I honestly believe Jon was asking her for it and she was just ignoring it and not caring that she was stepping right over her marriage to get to the top.  That is my humble opinion on the matter.

It will be an interesting season.  I can see a lot of how it was last night.  Seperate interviews, seperate time with each of them and the kids.  It is sad to watch the old episodes.  You can literally see it happening in front of your eyes.  You can see the contempt between them grow, you can see Jon sinking back more, sitting further away from her, rolling his eyes as she talks, saying less and less and less and then just not saying anything.  Kate got bigger and Jon got smaller.  Now she is as large as life and he is, well, gone. 

Take care of your relationships people.  Take CARE of them.  When you have relationship issues, it seeps into every inch of your life.  You must take care of your significant other.  Learn from Kate!  It can happen to anyone, and the people who think it will never happen to them are the most likely to have it happen to them.  Love. your. partner.  Show them, don’t just tell them.  It is so important.

My gift

I just love my husband.  Here is what he got me for our anniversary:

The new "Leah" bag from Coach's new signature collection.

 

Isn’t he sweet?  I just love this new signature collection, and Chris doesn’t, but he knows that I really wanted it, and totally coveted Dylan’s new behaviorist’s bag, so he bought it for me.  And I just love it!  I love it so very much that I bought the matching wristlet to be my “to-go” make-up bag.  This is the bag where I hold my necessities, such as powder and lipstick and chapsitck, it goes in my purse, and I got an amazing deal on it! 

I’m gonna upload pics from our anniversary weekend and post them momentarily.

Meant to be?

I usually don’t do this.  Count mychickens before they’re hatched.  I never announce something until it is absolutly for certain sure that is it going to happen.  But I have such a good feeling about this.  A really good one.  Things are going in the right direction, and we sign the contract next week.  I should wait until next week to make this public.  I really should.  But I am so excited!  I have to talk about it!

We are might be moving!  Into a house we fit in!  Ashton will finally get out of our room!  And into his very own room!  I get to do a nursery!!!!  This house is perfect – 5 bedrooms, plus an office with beautiful glass doors that close for quiet and privacy (for me going into grad school in Sept this is a huge need!), there is a fireplace in the master bedroom that is double sided and the other side is directly over the jacuzzi bathtub, it is just gorgeous and perfect.  It is in the 2nd most desired neighborhood in our town, the 1st being the gated community of million-plus-dollar homes on the golf course, which is directly behind this house and all of those houses are less than a mile from our house where we might move.

So….here is a picture of it.  And this is the last time I will talk about until I am actually living in it.  Fingers crossed!  This will be so wonderful for our family!

Beautiful Words

I don’t normally share things like this, but this card moved me so I want to preserve it for all time, and share it with you, my friends and readers.  Chris is not a big “card” guy – he feels we say things like this to each other all the time so why the need to waste four bucks on a card that will be thrown away?  I love cards, never ever throw them away, and I think it is precious that he spent time reading through cards to find the perfect one for me.  Here is what it says:

Outside:
Although our anniversary is a very special day, what I’m really celebrating is the way our love makes every day special.  It’s not the big occasions that matter so much as the constant support, comfort, and warm companionship we find in each other.  Day-to-day love is really about the little things – a few words spoken, a quick kiss, the way we can tell what the other is thinking.  We are connected in thousands of beautiful ways that I can’t even fully understand.

Inside:
But what I do know is that daily life is never boring for me because you’re always finding ways to add a little excieement…  So happy anniversary love of my life!  Let’s celebrate the many ways that make every day a special day for us.

He wrote:
Misty,
The day I met you May 20, 2000 was the day my life started.  You are my life, I love you.  I couldn’t be happier!

After 9 years, we have given each other so many cards, for anniversarys, birthdays, mothers and fathers day, valentines day, it is hard to keep finding cards and writing things in them that say something different from the hundreds of other cards we have exchanged.  This card does say a lot about how Chris and I love each other –  our lives really did begin with each other.  I feel so blessed to have such a happy marriage, that we are both completely committed to getting through the hard times, to fully enjoying the good times, and that we are so content with our lives and our relationship. 

Chris is my world – and we have not had an easy road.  It has been 9 years full of court battles, custody battles, all kinds of horrible things done to us and said about us, people not wanting us to make it, money problems, and so on.  We have both completed college, we raise his very complicated mentally handicapped son, we went through IVF and had a baby, but through it all we have remained in the same community and given our children the gift of going to the same school their entire lives (a huge gift I never had… it is very important to me that my kids do), we own our home, he has a fabulous (recession proof) job, we retained custody of his handicapped son despite countless CPS reports from the bio-mother, we got custody of his other children, I have been able to stay home and raise our kids while working on my degrees, our kids are honor roll students and my precious Alex has been accepted in a collegiate preparatory school for 7th through 12th grades, all in all these trials and tribulations have made our marriage SO much stronger.  We are a team, always have been, it has been us against the world since day 1. 

I feel so lucky to have what I do, in my marriage, my kids, and my life.  I truly do have a wonderful life!

9 years and….

Today is our 9 year anniversary.  9 years ago today we met for the first time and fell so hard for each other, and we have talked every single day since then with the exception of a 3 day period where he thought he might want to go back to his then-wife and work on his then-marriage.  I freely gave him the space to do that and did not call or contact him or try to get him to come back to me or talk him into leaving her.  I knew in my young 22-year-old wisdom that he needed to make his very own choices by his very own self.  It took 3 days and I remember still to this day where I was when my cell phone rang and his number was on the screen.  I was drivng in my car turning left from Old Auburn onto Wachtel.  I looked down, and there was his number, and I answered, and he sang me that song by Shaggy “Girl your my angel, your my darlin angel, closer than my peeps you are to me, baby……..”  LOL – that night he had school and he asked me if I would come down and have coffee with him at the pavillions so we could talk.  I did.  I had lost some weight from being upset about our break-up and I remember he asked me if I was eating enough.  I said I was.  Then my phone rang and it was this guy I had gone out with a couple of times before I met Chris, he called me and I just quietly said “I can’t talk now I’ll call ya in a bit” – then my phone rang some more and it bothered Chris because I totally had this “I don’t care that we aren’t talking” attitude.  Anyway, I ended up turning my phone off and he told me he hated his wife, his life, his situation, that he was miserable there and all he thought about was me, and that time away from me was all he needed to make him certain that I was the one he wanted to be with forever.  It was one of the greatest things I had ever heard.  So instead of him going back to school we went back to my apartment and bumped em all night.  He moved into an apartment the next day and I came to live with him that month. 

The rest, is clearly, history.  I would probably change some things now if I could, but God, I just remember being so dang in love with him, I was so blinded by that.  I was not clearly rationalizing to myself “this man is still married and he needs to make a break away from that before I get involved” – I was already so involved just in my own head.  He was so beautiful, so funny, so sweet, so great with my kids, such an amazing daddy to his own, and did I mention the hotness factor?  YUM!!!!  Anyway, 9 years later and I still feel the exact same.  We truly were meant to be and I realize now why that attraction was so strong and undeniable.  S.o.u.l M.a.t.e.s.  !!!!!

Gosselin Drama

Poor Jon and Kate.  Poor Jon?  Poor Kate?  Hmmm.  These 2…  Wow.

If you have AOL I’m sure you saw that they are one of the top stories.  She will be on the cover of People this Friday.  There is an article on people.com now - here is a snipet:

“I don’t know that we’re in the same place anymore, that we want the same thing,” she says quietly. “I’ve been struggling with the question of ‘Who is this person?’ for a while. I remember where I was the first time I heard her name. It’s one of those things where you can try to make it go away, but there’s blaring, red flashing lights.”

The name to which Kate refers belongs to 23-year-old Deanna Hummel, whose brother later claimed she’d been having a months-long affair with Jon. “

It’s too bad – ya know – all of the viewing public has been able to clearly see their problems for a long time.  Many many times I have read about how blaringly obvious their marital troubles were, and I have commented myself many times.  My husband can’t stand her because of the way she treated Jon, and even my 12 year old son notices and says “they don’t like each other very much, do they mom?” 

So we all noticed, and constantly commented, and they constantly denied denied denied that there was any problem or trouble, even going through with that so obviously staged vow renewal ceromony that’s sole purpose was to let their children know that their mommy and daddy would “be together forever” – wow.  I mean yah, shit happens, but this was so obvious.  So clear.  So, I don’t know, OBVIOUS!  And if we saw it then what must it have been like living it?

I don’t like to be considered an idiot, I really don’t.  I think they treat their audience like gulible morons.  Even when the allegations first came out, and Kate went on TV saying “I’m heistant to believe anything” and “people are being paid to talk” yet in this article she says she has wondered “who this person was for a while now” which means she WAS lying just a few days ago.  I can understand the humiliation.  I mean here she has gone on for years as the perfect mom and wife, the one doling out advice, the one who had it figured out, and her husband cheated on her.  I get that the knee jerk reaction would be to lie.  But it’s just that this was so clearly obvious with pictures and vidoes and all that stuff. 

It will certainly be interesting to see what transpires between now and their season premier May 25, if they go on with the 5th season, if they are honest, if Jon is really living in the garage, if they show it, etc.  I bet they have absolute record turnout – and what irony, huh?  All she wanted was riches and fame, and in order to get the best viewing audience of her life, she is going to lose what she held most sacred – her life partner and husband.

Tough lesson.

Ashton Taylor – 13 months

Ashton turned 13 months yesterday.  What an amazing little boy he is!  He is becoming so independent, always wanting to walk by himself, feed himself, do it himself.  He has been walking since he was 9.5 months old, so by now he is basically running everywhere.  He is in the 95th percentile for his height, so he is a tall boy, and since he walks so well everyone thinks he is 18 months old. 

He points to his toes, nose, eyes, and mouth, and if you ask him where his tounge is he sticks it out.  If I ask him for a kiss, he makes me fake cry first, he does it and wants me to copy him, and then as soon as I fake cry he gives me a big kiss.  It is so damn cute.  He knows so many words, probably 20 or so, that he says clearly.  He copies everything other people say.  If you ask him what a kitty says, he says “meow” and it is the cutest sound.  He also points to birds and says “brrrrrrrrr”, and signs for milk, eat, more, all gone or all done, and please.

He also loves nursing still.  It is funny because I follow some other mommy blogs of women who were pregnant when I was, who now have babies Ashy’s age, who are writing their one year old blog posts and making comments like “weaning at 1 year, HA!”  – Ashton, like some of his unknown-blog-cohorts, enjoys nursing now more than he did when we spent over half of our lives doing it!  He only nurses at night and for his morning nap, but the best part of life right now is after we have gotten all the other kids up, ready for school, and dropped off, and we come home just the 2 of us, settle in to our favorite spot on the couch, and cuddle.  He nurses, I read, it is quiet, we are together, it is pure bliss.  That is our special time and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Mother’s Day, etc.

One of the best things about being a mommy is, of course, Mother’s Day.  I love it.  Just the being able to say “but it’s MY day!” is wonderful in and of itself.  But my kids are catching on too.  Now they beat me to it, refusing to allow me to do anything, constantly stating “mom, it’s your day, I”ll do it!”  Wonderful.  Simply wonderful.

Our weekend was great.  It was just Chris, me and my three kiddos for the weekend, which I do love.  I think that Mother’s Day is arranged perfectly because I get to have just my three biological kids for the whole weekend while Dylan and Zachary go to their bio-mom’s every Mother’s Day weekend, but we pick them up at 6 p.m. on Mother’s Day (always a Sunday) and go out to dinner, so I get to still celebrate with them also.  I just love it.

Anyway – we spent Saturday at Great America which was so much fun because Ashton went on all of the kiddie rides and his expressions and excitement were just too cute.  Lincoln Brewester was doing a concert as part of a Spring Concert with some other Christian groups, so in the late afternoon we went and watched that.  Ashton was ready to go, and so was daddy! at around 7, so we went and purchased our pictures that they take at the front when you walk in, they were too too too cute!  We proceeded to our hotel, the same one we stay in whenever we go there and got our perfect room with the amazing view of the 8-hole putting green and the pool, and had dinner there.  They messed up Alex’s meal and Asthon was tired so I took him back to the room while Chris, Tay, and Al stayed and finished up their dinner.  Ashy and I played a little then I nursed him to sleep and read in the glorius silence for about a half hour.  Then the rest of my brood came back with candy for me (I love sweets after dinner) and we all cuddled in and watched HBO until we all fell asleep from our long day of walking. 

Sunday morning we slept in a lot – until about 10, which was just wonderful.  We woke up, got ready, I opened my gifts, and then we took some pictures of us in the beautiful court yard, and went to Starbucks.  We asked the very nice and helpful barista where we could go to shop and see the ocean, and he directed us to some amazing places.  So we shopped on Saville Row, then went to Capitola, walked on the beach and the pier, had lunch, got some amazing cherries and strawberries, and headed home.  On the way we stopped so I could get another gift, and I found the most beautiful DKNY watch which I bought.  Then we went to get my other 2 babies, Dylan and Zach, and went to dinner as a family where they brought me a sunday with a candle in it.  Dylan and Zach both brought me things that they made me in school, Alex as well but he gave it to me Friday, and Taylor had got me a bracelet.  I came home to a beautiful card from Andrew which was very special.    We then cuddled again and watched the beginning of Benjamin Button and were all falling asleep by 9:45, so we went to bed.  What a great and perfect weekend, huh?!?

One observation I had thought to myself was how hard it is not to do everything.  When you are a mommy, especially to a lot of kids, you really do everything and you put yourself last.  I put myself and my needs behind those of my husband and my kids, so it is hard for just one day to not to that.  Chris and the kids constantly have to remind me to let them do it, let them help, or ask me what I want to eat or what I want to do.  I guess I don’t notice it so much until I have to make an effort not to do it. 

What did you do for Mother’s Day?

So much to say, so little time to say it

Life is busy.  It is too busy for me to post regularly.  I hate it, I feel guilty about it, but it is what it is.  Im posting now!

 Our cruise was amazing.  So much fun! It was a little challenging with the baby, he got bored of either being in a stroller or high chair, but there was not really a good place for him to just be.  He has so much freedom at the house because it is so child proofed, but on the ship it wasnt that way.  But he was a very good boy and so patient for all of it.  We had a wonderful sitter come in every night at 7:30 to take care of him and she had him asleep in her arms within an hour usually.  It gave Chris and I some time to be together and have a drink and catch the shows and stuff.  Some nice time away.

Getting back home life was waiting tho!  Nothing like jumping right back into it.  Dylan was with Alison for the week and we brought him home Sunday night.  Well when Chris put him to bed he forgot to put a t-shirt on over his long zipped jammies, and Dylan had a nice big surprise for me when I went to get him up Monday morning.  He stripped his pajamas off, shit, and covered himself and his bed in it.  This is the 2nd time he has done this (hence the t-shirt over his jammies that is supposed to be put on him everynight) and I really hate it.  I mean this puts me in the absolute worst mood you could imagine.  So in the shower he goes, scrub scrub, oh the joys of taking care of a mentally retarded teenager.  Where do I resign???

I am actually going to be brutally honest with you right now – I am starting therapy this Friday to deal with some repressed issues I have with Dylan and taking care of him.  I have been the only one doing shit  primary care giver of him for almost 9 years now and to be quite honest I do it without a lot of appreciation and thank you’s.  From the mom I mostly get “you are not his mother” which has gotten much better but still there is a lot of why do you do that he is the way he is stop trying this and that.  Dylan will never know what I do for him, will never appreciate it, will never thank me, and in fact the more one does for Dylan the more they have to do because he gets used to it and then requires it or has a tantrum the size of an egyptian pyramid.  Chris is on the side lines letting me make decisions and choices, but the annoying and non-supportive thing he does is not follow the plan.  Dylan has certain rules he must abide by until daddy gets home then Dylan rules the roost because I am done arguing with Chris about why he is wrong so I just let those 2 do whatever they do, which Dylan knows.  So he will follow the rules until Chris walks through the door at which time he breaks each rule while looking for me and saying “woo hoo look at me” – yes lovely parenting but as they say you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.    So between the belittling from the mother, the non-compliance from the father, and the stagnation of progress from the child, this step mother says give me some therapy or I might lose it!

It’s lovely to be a step mother, I do enjoy it.  I am in the odd position of having a husband who is a custodial parent, and also in the position of being a one income family where I am the stay at home mom, which makes me the stay at home mom of my step kids.  This is probably another post entirely, but basically if step mothers are the evil hated creatures of the fairy tales, imagine the stay at home step mother.  The one who gives out chores, makes sure homework gets done, referees fights, hands out punishments, enforces rules, you know, the REALLY popular and very liked parent!  HA!  I think I love my step kids about as much as a step parent can.  I treat them just as I do my own kids, and that is the absolute and honest truth.  That is good and bad.  They get lots of love, hugs and kisses, things bought for them, I attend every conference, event, sports game, etc., but I also get mad, punish, ground, give chores to, etc.  I do treat them the same.

That does not mean I love them the same.  I had a conversation with their mother a couple months ago about one of my stepsons and she wanted to be clear that he did not love me as much as he loved her.  Yes, I know.  And I am ok with that.  I told her what I told him – that I don’t WANT him to love me more than he loves his mother.  The truth is, I know what it is like, because not only is he a stepchild, I am a step mother.  I actually have my own biological kids just like he has a biological mother.  And truth be told, if it is ugly then that’s life, I love my own kids differently than I love my step kids, just as my step kids love their own mother differently than they love me.  And if my stepson had to choose to spend the day with me or with his real mom, I would hope he chooses his real mom.  Just as if I had the choice to spend the day with my step son it my real son, I’d choose my real son.  There is that bond there, that comfortablness, that thing that parents and kids have.  I have it as much as one can with kids who are not theirs. 

This isn’t something I would ever tell my stepsons, and I don’t think it really matters.  It certainly doesn’t change how I treat them.  But it just means that I do know how it feels, how they feel.  I am human.  And too many step mothers don’t have a voice of someone to speak for them and tell them that it is ok to feel that way.  To look at your step kids sometimes and think to yourself “God I wish you lived with your mom right now” just like they think to themselves “God I wish I lived with my mom right now.”  It is ok ladies!  Sometimes I really do wonder what my life might be like if my step sons had lived with their mom all these years.  But my husband wanted his kids, and his ex wife didn’t or couldn’t, so I got them.  I wouldn’t change it for the world, but sometimes I wonder.  It reminds me of that old Wynonna Judd song:

Is there life out there
So much she hasn’t done
Is there life beyond
Her family and her home
She does what she should
Should she do what she dares
She doesn’t want to leave
She just wonders
Is there life out there

Being a step mom is probably the hardest job in the world.  It is hard because you don’t know your place, and you give so much of yourself to kids who, if something ever happened to your husband, you would never see again.  For me, it is doubly hard, because I am their primary care giver AND I have a step son like Dylan who is severly mentally retarded and had severe behavior issues. 

Ok.  That was on my mind today and I guess I needed to write about it.  Therapy should be fun and I will try to let you know how it goes.  I have never in my 32 years gone to any kind of therapy ever so we’ll see if I like it.  I liked the lady, and I think it will be a nice relief to get some things off of my chest that have been there festering for quite some time.

Comments are welcome if anyone wants to talk about it.

Talky talky!!!

Ashton is really talking these days!!  This is the new thing I think he is focusing on.  He has got the walking down like a champ – I swear he will be running in the next week or two!  So now all he does is talk, talk, talk.  He jabbers a lot like he is actually telling you stuff and conversing, but he is saying a bunch of words as well and repeating things we say.  So for posperity I want to get down here the words he is saying as of now (11 months 3, 2 weeks ,3 days old.  He says:

Momma
Dadda
Ball
This
Doggy
Uh Oh
Sissy
Buh-buh (brother)
Bite
More
Diaper
Bat

He is also signing for milk, all done (or all gone), more, and blowing kisses.  He also gives kisses, and abolutly LOVES other babies!  Yesterday we were in the waiting room of Dylan’s nerologist and he climbed into, yes, into, another baby’s car seat.  That baby was 14 months old and not walking or saying any words.  Ash could not get enough of her.  he would climb into the seat on top of the girl and give her kisses.  I got video of it if only I could figure out how to tramsfer vidoes here.  Maybe tomorrow.

It absolutly boggles my mind how amazingly fast the time is going!