My Kindy

This is it. This is the night before Kindergarten! When the Heck did this happen?!! I mean, I get that I am no spring chicken. I get that, as the rule goes, I may even be one of the older moms around the classroom. But seriously, how is this possible?? How is my baby girl who I breastfed and slept with and nurtured and kissed and loved and took to the park and just loved more than anything in the whole world about to forge into this world that is her own, that is not a part of me?!

I am grateful that despite the tumultuous events of the first years of her life, she has grown already into such a brave, intelligent, gorgeous, sweet, amazing, friendly, beautiful girl.

I have no doubt that Bella Dauphine will kick Kindergarten ass, lol. 

The harder struggle is the fear of how Sarin will do. The little sister has always had the bigger sister to protect her. I feel like I am throwing a three year old to the wolves! Luckily she had her big sis at her new Oregon daycare for the first couple of weeks but I know it will be a very difficult adjustment. Bella had me all to herself the first three years of her life. Sarin had Bella. Now Sarin has to find her strength. I know she can do it though, I know she can rock it.

The lunch is packed, the new shoes are bought, the new first day of school dress is hanging (for both of them), the books have been read, the children are fast asleep. This is being a mommy. This is selfless love. All I want, all I care about, is that my babies are okay. That no one hurts their feelings too badly, that no one makes them cry, and if they do cry they come home and cry to me so I can fix it.

They have been prepared, they have been given extra love. Pretty sure their daddy has given them a billion more treats in the last month than they deserve!! We spent the weekend as a family, hiking, joking, loving, giving timeouts (hey, they are young and need them!!), and thanks to daddy, we found a place to move to so we can have our own space again soon and our family that we moved here for, whom we love so much can have their space back. 

My baby girl is starting school. Here’s hoping she is as much as a geek as I was……It’s way cooler these days. :)

Volunteer

My mom instilled in me the lesson of gratitude. No matter how bad you think you have it, there is someone out there starving, abused, unloved. No matter how bad you think you have it, someone has it worse. And I’ve always found it’s true. In my darkest moments, I’ve remembered that lesson and it has kept me going. 

I am fortunate to volunteer with my company on behalf of Veterans and every time I do, I end the day grateful, thoughtful, and emotional. Your stories remain in my heart and it warms my heart when Veterans we have helped before come back to complete forms they need and to finalize the issues they have at hand. I am so grateful I can help and I never escape any one of these volunteer days without crying. Your stories are important and they are carried within my heart. Thank you for sharing them and I hope, just by listening, I was able to help a fellow Veteran today.Thank You For Your SERVICE!!!

So You Get To Grow Up With a Real Dad

Watching my daughters interact with Derk the other day and it struck me, they have this amazing relationship with him. He’s their daddy. They trust him completely. They believe in him. Bella draws pictures of her “handsome daddy slaying the bad guys.” He is the example that they will judge their future boyfriend against and I couldn’t be happier. i am so grateful he loves them as his own. They will have the stability of a daddy’s love that I didn’t have growing up. It made me so happy, it made me cry. I am not sad for the way my childhood turned out, my mom way more than made up for the lack of a father in my life. But to see my girls thriving because of the love of this amazing man, I am just so happy because I know that there is the possibility of a happy secure childhood leading into better decisions for them in their lives than I made in mine. 

If they fall in love with a man like their daddy, they will be so happy.And I am so grateful that the events in my life led me to my soulmate.

My girls will grow up in a sense of security and love from a man that I never had. They will grow up to be better people, more well adjusted people. I have left a toxic abusive relationship and changed my life. I know I am worth a man as wonderful as Derk and he is the most wonderful gift I could give my children. He loves them so much. He plans for their future. He astonishes me with how much love he has for all of us. I guess, just watching them with him every day, I feel a little gypped, I feel like I missed out on the whole dad thing. I didn’t get a dad who cared about me until I was in my twenties. It’s fine. No biggie. Except that I waited so long to get married and have kids because I was worried I would get it wrong. And I got it wrong anyways

Yet, from all that learning of what is not right in a dad, I found the best dad ever for my kids. 

I’m so indescribably, unbelievably happy that I lucked out in finding the best daddy ever for my girls.

And just a little bit jealous.

I wonder what my life would have been like with that sense of security/ And I am so unbelievably happy my kids have it.

It’s going to be so very difficult to explain to them the difference between their biological father and their daddy someday. 

But I know Derk and I will handle it together.

The other day Derk talked about how we are going to handle our finances once we get married. With anyone other than my soulmate I would have run screaming, I let myself be so vulnerable before. But with Derk, I am safe, he is wise, and I am trusting.

Thank you so much that I was able to come out of such a terrible relationship and build myself up to the point that a man like Derk, a stallion among men, a prince among paupers, a gentleman among scoundrels, found his way to loving me. 

I love you Derk. You have no idea how much you are our super hero. :)

An Unbroken Man

Feeling reflective. I know why I have had Daddy issues, abandonment issues. I knew I picked the wrong men. i did. I’m no fool, my IQ I’m told is quite high and I lived on my own since the age of sixteen so I believe I have some common sense. Yet the ability to choose a man who would add to my life rather than be a drain on my life escaped me for 33 years. How can such a smart girl be so dumb for so long? My only answer, the heart takes a while to catch up with the brain. 

I recently had to speak with my ex-husband. And there is no anger there anymore, if anything, I am now recognizing I feel much the way I did when we first met. I feel like he needs saving…only this time it’s not my responsibility or call to save him. Lord knows I tried the six years we were together. It didn’t take. In recognizing that feeling of wanting to save someone who doesn’t try to save themselves though, it must have brought up old situations, because i have been re-hashing in my mind all the men I have thought I loved and every single one of them was damaged, starting with my dad. Does that necessarily make me damaged?  Or just dumb for not changing the pattern sooner?

Why did I feel the need to save? Lord knows I admire nurses but I could never be one! i help people in my career in Mass Tort and it’s like it found me…this career calling I didn’t even know I was looking for. I try to teach my children compassion, but really, most people are born with it, they just need coaching on how to use it. So for my daughters, I will teach them to help people, to save people who need saving, but to love unbroken men. Life is too hard and too short to not aspire to enjoy every second of it. I want happiness for them, I want also for them to know their value early on. I don’t want them to discover it in their thirties, like it took me. 

This is not a story to discourage helping others. In fact, despite everything I was put through by my ex, I wish I could show him how to find his value, how to be valuable in life. I have always helped the strays, from frostbitten kittens, to flea ridden dogs, to turmoil ridden men. But now I am unbelievably grateful for an unbroken man. I had to unbreak myself to find him. He had to be broken and then rebuild himself to find me, but now we have a love that is so unbreakable, I can not imagine how I ever settled for anything less.

Would our love be so amazing if we hadn’t had those trials, if we hadn’t learned those lessons? Probably not. Everything happens for a reason, something I firmly believe. But even if everything happens for a reason, you still have to be smart enough and strong enough to learn from it and apply those lessons. 

Here’s to loving an unbroken man….it’s amazing, may it be the only way my daughters ever learn to love. 

For all those making New Year’s Resolutions to Stop Looking

I call BS on the whole “you find love when you stop looking” rhetoric. I do. I’m calling it. It’s BS! Don’t fall for it! The truth is, you fall in love when you finally recognize your own worth, your values, and what you want to live with every single day for the rest of your life.

Truth: This sometimes takes a divorce to spur this kind of self-realization. It sucks, but you get over it.

I could go into the whole, “our generation doesn’t know what lasting love is because all our parents are divorced so we didn’t have a good example” whine. My answer to that….Don’t marry a guy whose mom cheated on his dad and abandoned him at an early age!!

Instead, work on yourself, make your education a priority, your happiness a priority, and when you meet a guy who is sweet, funny, and kind of a smart@$$ from North Dakota who makes your heart race every time you see him, every time!, and whose parents have been married for 40+ years….treat him the way he deserves to be treated. Love him the way you want to be loved. And if he loves you back the same way, continue loving him that way for the rest of your lives!

If there is one thing I have learned and want to teach my children it is to value themselves. Appreciate what a wonderful, unique, special, amazing, intelligent, beautiful human being you are. Realize that out there is a soul mate who will know your worth and his dream is to make you as happy as you make him. Realize that he or she is worth waiting for. I would wait another twenty years for my Derk if I had to, he is that incredibly worth it. He makes me realize that all I did was settle before him, all I did was try to help men become better. When you meet your soulmate, there is no effort required, you just make each other better,,,every day. And the best part, there is always laughter!!

So for all my beautiful amazing lonely girlfriends, my advice is this- Set your standards HIGHER!! You are worth it!! Love happens when you set expectations that reflect your soul’s needs. It may not happen right away but it will find you and it is so worth it.

I met the true love of my life after I took a year off of looking. My marriage ended and I purposely had nothing to do with men for a year. I had more important things to do. I had to nurse my newborn, play with my two-year-old and maintain a 4.0 in a Paralegal program so I could get a job that would provide benefits to support my children. Around a year after my marriage ended, I decided to start looking, but in a different way. I had no time or money for babysitters to simply go out with any guy that asked!

So I went on Match.com. I put up a picture of myself covered in mud from Run For Your Lives. I decided that if I was going to meet a guy, it would have to be on the most honest terms. I put up a couple pictures of myself with my kids. I “winked” at a couple guys. A lot of guys sent me messages. I was discerning, This one incredibly gorgeous guy made me laugh. Then we texted, then we texted a lot! After about a week of completely baring our souls through the phone, I decided he was worth the babysitter money. We went out and right now we are spending our New Year’s Eve on the couch together with what have become “our” kids sleeping soundly in the next room.

He is the guy for me. He is my soulmate. I was looking for him and I found him. Karma may actually be real.

I will teach my daughters to look for a guy like him. If they do, I can guarantee their happiness. :)

Happy New Year’s Everyone!!!

Don’t stop looking…just look within yourselves first and realize how amazing you are!!!

Moving and moving and moving…

Recently, Derk and I had the pleasure of being involved in a landlord disagreement. We advised that we wanted to extend our lease and they came back with “we want to sell the house and plan on showing it for the last four months of your lease but if that doesn’t work, we’ll consider extending your lease.” 

Hmmm.

Not only did we get a less than ideal answer, we signed a lease agreeing to vacate the premises if requested during showings….showings for four months!!?!!  (By the way, I take complete responsibility for this mistake, I am a Paralegal, I should have read that legally binding contract, disagreed with it, and had an addendum added from the start..oy vey!!!!)!

The reason I write about this, other than to caution others to always read any legally binding contract very very carefully and speak up if you disagree with Anything in it, is because the whole stressful situation made me so happy. Happy you say?! Yes, Happy! It was probably the most stressful situation Derk and I have gone through as a couple and it cemented my belief that we are soulmates and will grow so old, ugly, and fun together, lol. He leaned on me andI leaned on him. He used my strengths and I used his. As a team, we made those landlords our bitch. You know what it showed me. He has my back no matter what. And I know he feels the same. 

When my girls grow up and they go through the phase of dating the wrong men, and they will, most of us do, I know in the end they will end up with a great guy. Because I will tell them the story of how mommy and daddy were a team and we socked it to the landlords, because they will grow up with a daddy who treats their mommy with respect because he values her, because mommy will talk with admiration about how daddy used his intelligence and strength to make sure his family was taken care of. 

I am thankful for the things that test us because they only show my girls what a real true relationship of love can do. I am thankful for hardships because they make me love my man, my soulmate, and my best friend even more.

So thanks, jerky landlords…you just taught my children great lessons in teamwork and made me love my man even more. Slainte!!!

Safety in Giggles

I did everything on my own before I met Derk. Took care of myself, forged a life for myself, was raising two kids by myself. Then I met my soulmate. There’s a million and one reasons I know he is, for a fact, the man I am truly meant to be with forever. But just one came to mind tonight. I was thinking about our camping trip and how we got up to the top of the mountain to set up camp, got the tent set up, and it started to hail. He had me get the girls to safety while he stood out in it, keeping an eye on the storm in case we needed to run for serious shelter. What I felt, what my girls felt, at that moment, was complete trust. Trust, something that after the way my marriage ended in betrayal, one might never think I would be able to embrace again. One might think me crazy to, in fact. But trust we did, that Derk would keep us safe, and he did. And there was never any question in my mind that he was or is up to the task. He is the best man I have ever known. Because we trusted him, we felt safe. He gives me security in body, mind, and spirit such as I have never known.

I don’t know quite what it was. The week just spent 24/7 with Daddy or the way he made us feel safe when it was scary, but Bella has stopped calling him “Derky” and daddy. Now it’s just daddy, sometimes even dad, lol. Sarin knows no other daddy, She was too little when her biological father left. But Bella, in her brilliant age of four, knew things were a little different. Until now. She has decided. Even going so far as to tell Derk that “daddies are better than fathers you know.” (She refers to her biological dad as “father”), It makes me so happy to see her feel secure in the fact that she has a daddy who will protect her, love her, and be silly with her.

Derk and I put the kids to bed together every night. I read the books and sing Twinkle Star, he gives the rocket ships into bed and the calming back and leg rubs. He also plays with them before the bedtime ritual starts. That’s where the giggles come in. Is there anything better than an innocent child’s giggles. Giggles to me mean innocence, love, security, fun, playfulness, appreciation for the person making you laugh. You can’t fake a giggle, they escape your smiling laughing face in an eruption of gleefulness. And those giggles, they aren’t there when you don’t feel safe and secure and loved. Long Live the Giggles!!!! We always giggled before, but we giggled just us three girls within ourselves. Now daddy makes us giggle, every day, with all the love we have to give, given back to us.