Odd Week

It has been an odd week for me, holidays always make the week feel different but this week was particularly odd. The Rapscallion was sick and stayed home from school for 2 days, he was cranky most of the week. On Tuesday we had our lease walk-through, basically the Resident Manager, a wonderful woman named Margaret, comes to over to make sure we haven't destroyed the house. I shouldn't have been nervous, we are good renters, when we left or last rental after 4 years the house was so clean I got my security deposit back even though we had broken the garage door (I used the security deposit to fix the door for them) we pay on time, we don't have wild parties and while we do paint while we live in a place we will paint it back to white before we leave. Irregardless I stressed about this walk through for 3 days, I cleaned EVERYTHING in the house, I washed curtains and scrubbed the floors with a toothbrush. Of course everything went fine Margaret walked in and loved how I have decorated, she loved the colors I have painted the walls and basically told me we are free to make any improvements while we live here and we will not be asked to change anything back before we leave because she feels everything we have done has made our place better for them. I also found out that Cat Butt will be able to come live with us officially without me having to pay the $500 pet deposit.

During the walk through Margaret asked about any issues that may be going on, I have had Maintenance come out at least 6 times to fix things since I have lived here this year but even after that I still had 2 issues. #1 my bathtub does not drain quickly and the plug leaks #2 the fabric softener cup in the washing machine was broken. On Wednesday they came to fix these issues, all normal until later in the day I noticed my bottle of Shout was missing. I buy Shout by the gallon, seriously with a 7 year old boy and Dear Hubby in the house everything gets stains and nothing I have found gets them out like Shout.

Actually random segue I have found that OxyClean in combination with Shout will get almost ANYTHING out of the Rapscallions clothes, I have even gotten paint out of Dear Hubby's clothes but I caught that stain early. Paint is my laundry nemesis, if anyone had a way to get dry paint out of clothes let me know!

So back to my random week, my Shout is missing, I can't figure out where it went. I searched the house nada, did the maintenance guy take it? I doubt it but for now I am going to blame him. You know about my pedicure experience http://amburgular.blogspot.com/2009/05/we-have-ways-of-making-you-talk.html we had some drama with Bio Mom not including any of Dear Hubby's contact information on the Rapscallions school registration sheet, we would have never found out except the school returned the paperwork for an additional form to be filled out and it came home during our custodial week. Bio Mom also did not include me as an emergency contact this year, which is odd because I am a SAHsM and could easily go get him from school if something were to happen. Dear Hubby did talk with Bio Mom about this and it will be rectified, personally I know she filled the paperwork out while she was mad at me about some past drama. Oh the joys...

Last night we went to some friends house where I discovered that I am a Rock Band Singing sensation! I kicked major butt, I aced almost ever song while singing flat and tone deaf, I am awesome!

We Have Ways of Making You Talk

I was given a gift certificate for a pedicure from Dear Hubby and the Rapscallion for Stepmother's Day. Yesterday I redeemed it, I am now the proud new owner of sparkly blue toenails and soft heels. The woman who gave me the pedicure was, um, nice? She was very odd, she told me all about her abusive traumatic childhood, she spent a good portion of the pedicure talking with a coworker about how slow the salon was and trying to decide if they should cut out early to hang out at the pool, drinking and maybe getting high. I try hard not judge but this woman was in her mid 50's, she is my mother's age. Nothing she said or did really bothered me until she asked if I had kids.

This is always a hard question to answer for me. I usually answer "yes, my stepson, we share 50/50 custody" now maybe that isn't the best but it is my answer. I feel a little weird just saying yes, because I am a terrible liar and somehow I think they might know. Also I am proud of being a Stepmother, I chose to be a part of this life. So I gave my answer and she of course asked another odd question, she asked for Bio-Mom's name. While I may be willing to talk about my life for all the world to read, I try to respect those around me a little. Luckily I was saved from this question by her coworker who felt the need to chime in how bored she was and her desire to go home.

Her questioning wasn't over and she hit me with my next favorite Stepmom question "Are you going to have kids of your own?" I know this question isn't restricted only to stepmotherhood, somehow you reach a magical age where people find it perfectly ok to talk about the activities going on in your uterus, awesome.

As I previously stated I am horrible liar and completely non-confrontational, so I answered. Dear Hubby and I are in fact TTC, we are the first in our group of friends to actually TRY to have a child, in our group of friends there are 3 stepdaughters, 1 stepson and 1 baby who was a surprise to her now married parents. TTC hasn't been as easy as they make it look on television and while Dear Hubby and I want to try to have another child we also agree that if it is not meant to be we have a wonderful life. I am willing to have some medical help with TTC but I personally have drawn the line at anything I deem too invasive. I respect any woman's choice to seek medical help with her desire to have a baby, I am not against medical procedures like IVF but just not for me.

So when my pedicurist insisted, INSISTED (!) that I have a child no matter what (!) I was confused. This isn't her life to live and why was she getting so emotionally involved? We had never met before yesterday, it is my body and what is so wrong with not wanting to have kids? What if I had answered that I was Childfree by Choice? Why can't my involvement with the Rapscallion be enough, what about all my dear friends who can't have kids? Why is it that people think they get to have an opinion about my uterus and what I do with it?

But those are hard answered when someone has something sharp near your feet.

Quarantined

The Kidlet is sick again, whereas I thought it was allergies 2 weeks ago this time around it is a full on sickness. He has sniffles, coughing, wheezing and just loads of general crankiness. Yesterday he took a 4 hour nap. We have busted out with all the cold medicines and creature comforts that we engage during times of illness. My whole house smells like Vick's vapor rub, we are hand sanitizing fiends and he has had more baths with comforting vapor bath, I even let him eat a Popsicle in the bathtub because he has a sore throat.

Of course I woke up this morning feeling slightly under the weather but I don't have time to be sick, which of course means I will be sick by the end of this week. Nooooooo.... don't make me go!

Tools of the Trade

Since I was a kid I have often kept a notebook with me to write down things that happened so I wouldn't forget, I am a storyteller and this blog is my way to develop that part of my personality. I have a wonderful leather bound notebook that a wonderful friend gave me for Stepmother's Day, it came in a care package that she mailed from the UAE. Since receveing it I have carried it in my handbag everywhere I go. Before that I had a small 3 inch notebook, I often still use this one because it is easy to carry when I am not carring a purse, it fits in my pocket nicely. Rarely I will find myself without a notebook in a situation that is so overwhelming that I feel like I have to write down what is going on for future blog enteries. In these situations I try to find anything to write on. I have things written on the back of a junk mail envelope, on napkins that I accidently washed in my pocket and lost that story. Last night we went out to a karaoke bar, I had only brought a small clutch so there was no room for a notebook. Honestly I didn't think anything interesting would happen, boy oh boy was I wrong! I have 3 or 4 "song request" slips from the karaoke bar. I just jotted down small tidbits and as fast as I could write another character would cause a scene. I will fully describe everything for you guys once I have had a chance to descipher all my chicken scratched notes.

Hippie Trippy Bag Lady Chic

In some recent drama with Bio-Mom she expressed to Dear Hubby that she could not see why he was in a relationship with me because he "is not a hippie" implying that I am a hippie. Instead of letting this little jab get under my skin, I have decided to wear it like a badge of honor. I have been working hard to help my family eat more organic, I am trying to teach the rapscallion the importance of recycling and I recently changed my skin care routine to mostly natural products because I find them less irritating. I know Bio-Mom based her comments on a conversation she and I had earlier about my desire to try to eat more locally and not because of anything I do that could be construed as counter-culture hippie-movement.

This little jibe has become a joke in my house, everything is because I am a hippie. Tonight Dear Hubby picked me up from the house after he got off work because I had library books I needed to return and since it was 95 degrees outside I wanted to drive in his air-conditioned truck, not my crap-mobile, very un-hippie. I had my purse with me which is a tote bag filled with everything I could possible think I would ever need with a 7 year old and a husband. I also had a reusable grocery bag, it was holding the library books and some empty water bottles I planned to go fill at my parents house later that evening. Here I should mention that today I wore a "bohemian" skirt and tank top today.

When I got into the car I could tell Dear Hubby was laughing at me, "cute hippie or crazy old lady" I asked him about my look. "Crazy bag lady, but it isn't how you look, it is what you have inside those bags" he was referring to the empty water bottles, one of which, thought now would be a great time to fall out of the truck, thus confirming my crazy-bag-lady look.

I am apparently a few cats short of crazy-cat-bag-lady and that kids does not make me a hippie.

What Goes Around

I have tried to live my life simply, kindly and with much love. That has not always been easy, I am a stepmother to a 7 year old boy, we live 5 houses from bio-mom. While I have worked hard to get along with her and her family, it has not been easy. I worked for a soulless-retailer where I was taken advantage of and a coworker routinely lied about me.

One principle I have tried to honor is Karma, I put positive energy and love into my world in hopes that it will return to me. Tonight I got to see a glimmer of the Karma in my world. I got a phone call from an old coworker, this was after emails from old coworkers bursting to tell me that the negative coworker I had struggled so hard with was walked out of the store and fired. She apparently had been making racist comments and was overheard and reported by both coworkers and customers.

I never wished negativity on her but it was inevitable because of how she chooses to live her life, nothing is good enough, she can not let go of past hurt and forgive. She is spiteful, petty, shallow and hateful. I hope that she can learn to forgive, it is amazing how much forgiveness will change your life, if you don't Karma will catch up to you.

I don't believe that bad things only happen because of past negativity in my life, sometimes I need to be challenged and sometimes I need to be shown that I am not strong enough to get through things alone, but that is another blog about beliefs.

Much love!

From Wikipedia:

"Everything that we have ever thought, spoken, done or caused is Karma; as is also that which we think, speak or do this very moment. Actions performed consciously are weighted more heavily than those done unconsciously. But just as poison affects us if taken unknowingly, suffering caused unintentionally will also give appropriate karmic effect. We are in position to do something about our destiny by doing the right thing at the right time. Through positive actions, pure thoughts, prayer, mantra and meditation, we can resolve the influence of the karma in present life and turn the destiny for the better. A spiritual master knowing the sequence in which our Karma will bear fruit, can help us. As humans, we have the opportunity to speed up our spiritual progress with practice of good Karma. We produce negative karma because we lack knowledge and clarity"

Stepmother's Day

I have talked about the Munchkin all week, today is Stepmother's Day and so far has been everything I could have wanted. Dear Hubby took the rapscallion out this morning and they got me a "fun in the Sun" gift. Basically a new pool bag, a hula-hoop, a toy for the rapscallion, sunblock, a gossip magazine, some pool shorts and toe rings and anklets that the rapscallion picked out for me. They drew me a bunch of pictures of cats and Dear Hubby also bought me a gift certificate for a pedicure, which I am in desperate need.

This link to my friend AmyK says alot and I want to share it with you also:
http://ithenshalllive.blogspot.com/2009/05/stepmom-confessions-happy-stepmothers.html

Happy Stepmother's Day to all my dear friends and if you have a Stepmother let her know she is appreciated today!

The Rapscallion

So yesterday I wrote about how meeting the kidlet changed my life, today I thought I would let you get to know him a little more, since he is staying home from school sick.

He is 7 going on 23, we wear the same shoe size and recently he has discovered the joys of wearing boxer shorts. This last one has lead to many more discussions about underwear than I ever thought I needed to have. He watches Sports Center in hopes that he will learn how to defeat whatever team he playing during football or baseball. I haven't had the heart to tell him they aren't talking about the Las Vegas Raiders. He is overly opinionated and is often convinced that he knows how to fix whatever issues his dad and I may be dealing with, I can hear my mom laughing now, apparently this was one of my endearing traits as a child. He is a worrier and often needs reassurance that everything will be ok, most of all he worries about his mother and his sister.

He is just learning sarcasms, he has a very simple sense of humor, if it is potty humor he likes it. No matter how angry he is about something if I make a fart joke he will laugh. He is his fathers shadow and anything his dad says is law. I spent the better part of the morning trying to convince him that he couldn't go to school today, he has a croupy-type cough and while I know it is allergies I don't think the school would appreciate me sending a wheezing, sneezing kid to school amidst fears of killer-flu's. Once his dad got on the phone and told him no he was content to go lay in my bed and watch cartoons.

He is a Scorpio, he has smelly feet and he lies about brushing his teeth. He is learning to be conscientious about the environment and will eat almost anything put in front of him from hot dogs on white bread to quinoa with edamame. I am blessed to watch him grow, while I know things will always be a little different because I am not his biological parent, I would challenge anyone who says I do not love him and that his life has not been enriched because of that extra love.

Biology

To quote Their Wicked Stepmother:

"If you think it's hard raising your children, try raising someone Else's. "

At the end of this month I will have been with Dear Hubby for 6 years. We met at a concert (Good Charlotte, something he doesn't like to mention) he was on date with a girl he wasn't interested in and I wasn't going to let a good thing get away.

He was very honest about his son from the beginning, I met the rapscallion after we had been dating for about 3 weeks. He was 18 months old and he was hard not to fall for, I think he made Dear Hubby even more attractive to me. Here was this funny, kind man and he was a father. If I hadn't already had inklings that I was falling for him, I would think that I fell for him when I met the rapscallion.

I have never waivered in my feelings towards the Rapscallion, he is a wonderful addition to my life. He got his dad's looks, his mom's coloring and my sense of humor. We butt heads because we are so alike but I have never questioned my role in his life as his stepmother.

I have happily helped him make Mother's Day cards and gifts without expecting anything in return. I have washed underwear, jockstraps and hunted down baseball socks. I have held him while he threw up and cut his toenails every week without fail. I work on homework, make him eat his vegetables and try to impart a love of reading.

I am a better person because he is in my life and because of this I can honestly say biology is the least of what makes a woman a mother. We will celebrate Stepmother's Day on May 17th.

Not flesh of my flesh,

Nor bone of my bone,

But still miraculously my own.

Never forget for a single minute,

You didn't grow under my heart

- but in it

- Fleur Conkling Heylinger