Wedding obsessed child...

Do we have an intervention for this????

Personally, I blame Disney.  She was "you be the prince" before she was a flower girl.  NOW, however, it's exponentially worse.

That, you see, is the Demie Diva's favorite play.  She gives me marrying necklaces.  OR she's the mommy and I'm the sweetie...and she tells me I get to watch her wedding (projection, much) and she is going to marry Grandpa.  That's right, folks.

Mind you, the Diva Grandparents have been married for 46 years, and are sappy as all get out (I am so lucky!)...so when I asked the Demie Diva what her grandma was going to do while she was marrying her grandpa, she told me..."She will sit with you and watch."

You see, love takes many forms.  Love for us this summer also included the Diva Grandma coming down in time for the sixth (?!) birthday, then driving for THREE DAYS to the land of my birth, and making us welcome for a whole month.  It was glorious.   I'm sure there's a blog post there, but it's my selfish pleasure to cherish those memories close and not share them with the world - sorry, friends, but some things are just best left there.

And so, over the course of the month, the Demie Diva got to see the grandparents in action.  They are a unit.  They worked together - Diva Grandpa is a doctor, and Diva Grandma a nurse who worked with him when they met and fell in love...and again for many years prior to her retirement.  They finish each other's sentences.  It's actually adorable.  Seriously adorable.

BUT...I digress.

So the wedding obsessed child, of course, is going to marry the male role model who figures most in her world.  As do all little girls.  It got to a point while we were up North, however, where she was calling her grandpa "Daddy".  Sigh.

And the individual who should have that title?  She's royally pissed at him tonight.  He was on campus today - for 2 plus hours.  She saw his penismobile car.  She knew it.  And...he wasn't ever calling our house, or knocking on our door.  Asshat.  So, when I texted him to say "she wants to see you", and he was on his way to the fields...well, all six year old hell broke loose.

She pouted.  She used her sad voice.  She cried and sat in the car.  EVENTUALLY, the XH called...and the Demie Diva, in response to the ringing phone, announced "I'm not talking to him," and proceeded to state - so she could be heard - "I miss him.  I want him to come see me.  But.  I do NOT want to talk to him."

Somehow, he managed to find the time to come over and the Demie Diva told me I had to go to work so she and "my Dad" can play all alone.  I did.  They did.  And, the black mood was gone.

I couldn't make him understand the emotional depths of our birthdate when I was married to him.  All I can do now is keep telling the Demie Diva that she didn't do anything wrong.  She isn't naughty.  Her dad made a choice to do X instead of coming over.  She can't make his choices for him...only he can choose to do what he wants.

Usually, one kisses a frog and he turns into a prince.  My poor girl is discovering that it doesn't work that way in the real world.

What a lesson for a six year old.

Love...

I've been thinking about this a very great deal lately...

The Demie Diva was the greatest flower girl ever.  She "forgotted" to "sprinkle" the petals.  She kissed a wedding guest, aged nine, twice, and decreed that she would marry him.

Mostly, though, she showed everyone how much she loves her Rica and the new spouse.

Me, I was exhausted.  The venue got cleaned and decorated.  The bride got made up and hair done.  And zipped into her dress...and caterers got finessed, and photographers got clued in to really funky family dynamics.

And on the day, the beautiful bride deliberately faked a throw of her bouquet, spotted me in the mix - she insisted I get in the group - and threw that bouquet at me.

Love...those things are all love.  Love is doing for someone, without strings, and regardless of the cost to yourself because you can make something special even more so.  Love is hugging a beautiful young woman, who is the child I would have had if I'd started at 22, and crying at the beauty of her smile on her wedding day.  Love is looking at that child, when she keeps thanking you, and saying "pay it forward".

You see, my beautiful big girl is entering a two year commitment with Teach For America.  Her wonderful spouse is deferring his law school plans so that she can honor it.  Some day, she will be the one adult a child trusts.  She will watch that beautiful awkward adolescent become a confident adult who has learned that they are deserving of love.

If she is very lucky, she will sit on the lawn at an Ivy League school, and watch that child graduate cum laude, after putting him/herself through school.  And...she will know that in some tiny way, she helped them get to that point.

At the rehearsal dinner, the bride's father commented on the strange relationship of the faculty and students at "the Creek", and how wonderful, yet bittersweet such events must be for us. He isn't usually that insightful...  And he was right.  That's the beautiful thing about teaching...it does, really, become an act of love.

You see, the week I got back from the Ivy League school graduation, (yes, I'm braggin..) I went across the street from the school where I live and work...I went with two of my colleagues...and I sat with five of my former students and their parents at the funeral of an amazing mother.  And when it was time for the committal, I sat with a 21 year old and held her hand until she was ready to leave her mother.

Love takes many forms.  I'm always stunned and surprised when there are strings attached by others.  You see, for me, love is the one thing I give, knowing that I'm enriched more through giving than through receiving.

the week to come...

One day camp.

43 more student comments.

One PRINCETON GRADUATION...for my girl, Rica.

One funeral...for A's mom.

One riding lesson.

Oh...and that wedding...the one in which the Demie Diva is going to be a flower girl.  Yeah.  That one.  Rica's wedding.  TWO weeks from this coming Saturday.

Hang on my friends...I'm about to go ninety to nothin.

Mother's Day Musings

I'm so not at all sure where this is going to go....I've been thinking about my mother, and my daughter, and my daughter's birthmother.

Then there's the wonderful Rica, whose wedding is coming up.

And the beautiful A., who is losing her mother slowly inch by inch to a cancer that, from the sounds of things, didn't have to kill her this soon.

It's been a day of mothers and daughters.

As those of you in the adoption community know, the day before Mother's Day is referred to as Birthmother's Day.  Given that I haven't heard from the Demie Diva's BM of late, I figured it was time to do a little bit of Facebook exploring.  In so doing, I found that she'd delivered a stillborn baby a couple months ago.  Part of my heart broke for her.  Part of my heart was so profoundly grateful that she didn't have to deal with CFS coming into the picture.  Part of my heart was further grateful that the cycle of poverty and so forth wasn't perpetuated another generation.

I realized today how much that sums up my response to the Demie Diva's birthfamily.  They are very much a perpetuating cycle of poverty, pregnancy, and serial monogamy.  There is the potential for much more, but I realize that we as a society and an educational system do NOT do anything to help the least of these become more than the least of these unless they are, in fact extraordinary.

This brought my musings to my beautiful daughter of my heart.  She's getting married - in the place closest to her heart -  to a wonderful man she met in the Orange Bubble.  She's going to do Teach for America.  Her sister ... the cycle continues...but MY girl...wow.  The Demie Diva will be a flower girl.  She will, I'm sure, bow.  She will definitely drive me to a liver sling between now and the wedding.

The which, of course, brought me to my own mother.  The liver sling, I mean.  My partner in crime.  My best friend.  She has NO patience for what the XH's shenanigans do to the Demie Diva.  And, since there isn't any attachment on the latter's part, the shenanigans do a lot.   I had my last duty weekend of the year this weekend.  The Demie Diva does NOT like it when I have to work - I don't either, but, honey, it beats paying real rent.  Thank God for my mother.  The Diva Grandma is a goddess.  She heard this morning's sorrow at having to spend the day with her dad.  She messaged me tonight to ask why I was still up - and poured a stinger so that I wasn't drinking "alone" - and said everything about my XH and his lack of attachment to anything but a soccer ball that I can't say cause LORD knows what the Demie Diva hears in her sleep.

And, as I "chatted" to my own mommy, my thoughts turned to A., who is also an only child, of a PhD in English - whose mom is her best friend, as mine is, and, I suspect, as the Demie Diva will  one day be mine.  My heart broke a little bit.  A's mom has been battling breast cancer forever.  No follow-up PET scans meant bone mets.  Bone mets mean eventual death.  That time has come, and the angels of hospice have come.  A. is hustling  home from school on Wednesday.  Her FB status told her mom to hold on, and quoted Love you forever.  "As long as I'm living, my mommy you'll be"

Maybe that's the real message of a day that most of us, to quote my own pungent and pithy mother, want to "shove up Hallmark's a--".

Mother love is universal.  It is all-encompassing.  It means that when someone messes with your baby, you go (to quote another pungent and pithy woman in my life) "all mama bear on their a--".  It is fierce, it is primal, and it is ferocious.

Erma Bombeck (and now I'm showing my age) wrote a beautiful column once, about the day God created Mothers.    My own mother shared it with me.  Every single time I read it, I cry.

Tonight, it's for A., and for my beloved Rica, and for the Demie Diva, and for my own beautiful, amazing mother.

Happy Mother's Day.  

Where have I been????

About the only place I haven't been is here.

As those of you who are faithful readers of my disjointed musings know, this is the time of year where the possibility of employment in my native state rears its head.  And, this is the time of year where I throw my resume in the mix and hope for the best.  Again, this hasn't happened.  This has been tougher than usual this year, as I realize more than ever that going home is totally on my mind.

In part, I suppose that is because as the Demie Diva ages, she becomes more adept at articulating her wishes and desires.  In part, it's because I see the aging of the Diva Grandparents and I know that I need to be there before they age to inactivity.  In part, it's because I just plain LIKE my native state.  So, that's three parts.  Then, there's the elephant in the room...yep.  the XH.

He is what he is.  That's all I'm saying.  The Demie Diva needs more than she'll ever get, and the Diva Grandpa is without question better at providing that from a distance than her father (who she refers to by his given name) is while living down the interstate a couple miles.

That's the negative...

Now, for the positive.

Wow.  What a difference the year makes.  She is THRIVING at the Waldorf.  THRIVING, I tell you.  She has discovered the art of handwork.  She likes to sit and sew - we have a house full of craft thread and a basket full of felt to stitch into all sorts of shapes.  The Demie Diva, with my help,  has painted a whole family for her dollhouse.  Santa brought some in her stocking.  The Easter Bunny brought the rest.  They have pretty well evicted the dollhouse peeps.  She says "ehscuse me" to anyone she walks past.  Remembers, sometimes, to say "ehscuse me" when she's interrupting.  She continues to develop her very healthy sense of humor - and show compassion for everyone.  I hear all the stories she hears, and the old-style counting rhymes, and the folk songs.  It is soooo much fun.

Those of you who have followed the epilepsy coaster on its journey up and down the tracks will appreciate this next.  Her neurologist, at our last visit, informed me that "sometimes, we get a miracle" and she, apparently, is it.  SQUEE.  That's right, folks.  My girl is a miracle girl.    I know you knew that, but when a been there/ done that kind of guy who was really flipped out by an EEG uses the word miracle...you cry.  Just a little.

She's found, I think, the hobby that is her passion.  Of course she has.  It's expensive.  Riding.  Saddleseat Riding.  She sat up there on her first day like she knew what she was doing.  LOVED the joy in her face.  LOVE the fact that she still asks every day if it's time for her riding lesson.   Could do without the haul to the barn...but really?  For what it teaches her about patience, focus, and calm?  I'd drive to Alaska.

Now, if you'll ehscuse me, I'm going to go do my job.

Serenity

For many people, this comes through mediation.  Or through a bubble bath with a glass of wine.

When one is a single parent, one discovers very quickly that one steals these moments.  

It's found in a ritual at your child's school that celebrates the dark and light of winter.

It's found in the school concert that begins, year after year, with the women's chorus singing by candlelight.

It's found in the shriek of 'MOMMY" and the little arms that vice clamp around your neck.

For us, the holidays are Christmas -the birth of Christ is very much hand in hand with the arrival of Santa (and the departure of that damned Catriona Elf).  They are about sharing fellowship with family, with friends, and most of all with each other.

Usually, the holiday concert at the school where I teach is the start of my season of serenity.

This year, however, the Demie Diva started it with the Garden of Light at her school  The spiral of evergreen boughs is interspersed with candles in apples.  Each child is escorted into the spiral - at the center of which is a single candle - by a Guardian Angel (an older child) who takes him/her around the spiral, to an unlit candle, and from the apple candle to the center.   The apple candle is lit, the child takes it back to its place in the spiral, and the next child goes forward.  The kicker here, of course, is that a room full of kindergarteners do this in total silence.  It is beautiful, and spiritually enriching, as the darkened room becomes illumined.

The women's chorus simply strengthened the wonder of light in the darkness.  It was beautiful.  The Demie Diva loves being part of the lives of the big kids at Mommy's work.  We were VERY ready to head home and get to sleep.

Christmases the Demie Diva spends with the XH are always difficult.  BUT, the joy on her face on Christmas morning when she realized that MOMMY was there was tempered only by the sadness when she realized that she wasn't coming home that afternoon.  

We've been freezing our fannies off in the state of my birth for the last week.  While I'm ready to be home in my own space, neither the Demie Diva, the Diva Maman, or the Diva Chien are ready to head south.  The Demie Diva has discovered the joys of an indoor playground, sledding, and seeing her cousins.  Her mommy has discovered that, in fact, it's awfully nice NOT to have to think about meals!...and the Diva Chien?  Well, she and the Diva Grandparents' dog have been playing, racing, and generally being idiots.

Sometimes, serenity is found in laughing at the antics of schnauzers.