Boy, I wish I could go on all those nature walks! There are days when I regret coming back east of the Mississippi. And the Continental Divide, for that matter.
But... here I am, south of the Mason-Dixon line. Ah well. At least I have popcorn. Someday I'll have a beautiful bed & breakfast to keep me busy, too.
For now, well, there's lots of other stuff going on in my world. There are big stressful things at work (attorneys involved stressful, which is never fun).
And there's HoFS' world. Sigh. For about half the really big stuff, I can't say anything about it, because it's private. But for those who are willing, you might say a few words to God on his behalf.
The other half of the really big stuff is that his mom took a bad fall and broke her leg and arm at the sockets of the associated joints. And then she had surgery to try to do repairs. And THEN she had a major heart attack and nearly died. She was on a ventilator for three days, and sometime in that she got a nasty infection. Because of that, her temperature, pulse, and blood pressure were all over the place, and things were really dicey (err, okay, they were dicey even before that) for a few days.
The good news is that they managed to control the infection and that doesn't seem to be a threat anymore. So now the "only" problems are the severely damaged heart... oh, and those broken bones that have become rather minor problems, by comparison.
They've been waiting to do a heart catheterization for the past ten days. She needed to be able to sit up in a chair by herself before they would do it, and she hasn't been strong enough for that (she's been in the ICU since the heart attack). Oh, and she's got a feeding tube, because she failed the "cookie test," which is where they try to see if you can swallow little bits of food or not.
So anyway, the heart catheterization is tomorrow, and we'll know more then. It's been a pretty stressful time for HoFS, as I'm sure y'all can imagine.
So back to my world. Here's a bit of an e-mail from my ex:
"...the relationship DD and [new husband] have with each other doesn't have to be any different than if he
were her dad. And it is their relationship, which should be allowed to develop as it will. If she grows up feeling that [new husband] is one of her parents, even to the point of wanting to call him Dad, that's great for both of them and does no harm to anyone else."
Uhm. Right. Except that he's not her dad and lying to our kid is not exactly cool with me. Besides, legally speaking, DD HAS a father. Who is not her husband. For that matter, if we want to be accurate about it, I'm not DD's legal parent. I am a 'de facto' parent. The rights and responsibilities are different, as the rights and responsibilities of a step-parent from a legal parent.
Which makes the next sentence of my ex's e-mail particularly interesting:
"Causing DD to view him as having second-class status, by influencing the name she calls him or in any other way, is a huge dis-service to her."
Uhm. Right. That is the point at which I forwarded the whole thing to my attorney, because honestly, he and I are both second-class citizens, and my ex has been quite happy with that state of affairs for some time.
Oh, and one more bit of stuff out of my ex's e-mail, and then I'll go on to the really interesting news about her:
"How DD refers to [new husband] now is really up to her, and she should be free to choose without interference or being corrected."
I literally giggled out loud at this part. Here we have a 4 year old girl who's being given the option to call someone whatever she wants? Oh, sure, today it'll be Daddy. Tomorrow, though? "Poopoohead" is pretty likely. Want to take bets on how long this particular injunction lasts? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
More seriously, a 4 yo is not the right age to get to pick names for people. If she were 8 or 10? Sure, maybe. But at 4, well, it's very unlikely that she can make a free and informed choice about the matter, and she'll surely be influenced by what her parents call him. (So I never, ever refer to him by anything other than his given name. No matter how tempting "poopoohead" is sometimes.)
So, ready for the really interesting news?
My ex and her new husband are expecting a baby!
DD is absolutely thrilled about it. The other day, she woke up and, before saying anything else, asked me, "Mama, what books did I like when I was a baby? I want to take them to Mommy's house to read them to the new baby." She's sooooo looking forward to being a big sister. It's really pretty adorable.
Interestingly enough, I'm quite happy for her and for my ex. I'd thought I might be upset or sad, but I'm not at all. DD really needs to have a sibling, and I think it'll take some of the pressure off of her. And she won't be the center of attention anymore, which is also a good thing, I think.
Let's see. Other bits of news in my world. My parents were here for a week. They left on Friday, and on their way back to Wisconsin they stopped in Ohio (I went along) to see HoFS. They, HoFS and I, and HoFS' 3 boys all had dinner together. The boys were extraordinarily well behaved and my parents were quite taken with them. All in all, it went about as well as one could possibly hope. HoFS' oldest even made a CD of music that they liked for my parents (he played it during dinner and burned the CD when they said they liked it), which tickled them to no end.
They were very complimentary about the boys afterwards, which was really nice to hear.
Oh, and I finally finished every bit of the external repairs from last year's flood. All the stones are in, the planting is done, and now I'm left to try to keep them alive through these hot, dry spells we seem to be having. My brother is moving out of my basement (he's lived here for four years) next month, and once he moves out, then I'll really assess the basement and see what needs to be done down there. I'm hoping it's mostly cleanup and drywall repairs, but it's hard to tell for sure.
My internal world remains amazingly quiet, through all this turbulence. I spend time meditating and walking and praying. It's hard when HoFS is away or his life is stressful, but I can manage it. DD and I have wonderful quiet days when no one else is around, and my life is full and very happy.
And that's the news from Lake Maryland, where the women are strong, the men are sexy, and all the children are above average. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
