I was just thinking about something. I have now moved to the town I grew up in. It’s been 8 years since I graduated high school. And I still have school spirit. I realized this when I was thinking about fireworks tomorrow. You see, to really see good fireworks, we’ll need to go to our high school rivals, the Falcons (we were the Spartans). I feel like a traitor. Not only that, my mouth actually curled up in discust. I can’t believe my reaction. I mean it was high school for goodness sakes. Sigh. I will just have to buck up. I want my little boy to see fireworks.

Not much is going on in my life. Jay’s knee has really been bothering him. He went to a new doctor (since the move, we have new insurance). He loved it. You see, we’ve always been used to being treated like cattle with Kaiser. Before I had Kaiser, I had Medical. I was considered an abandoned child, and so the state of California paid for my medical care. Many Medical patients are also welfare recipients. When I would go to the doctor, I was treated with distaste and snobbishness. I feel truly sorry for those on welfare (legitimately, not trying to cheat the system), because I got a glimpse of how they were treated. So when Jay went to a regular doctor’s office (we’re now on a PPO), and we live in an affluent area, so there are very affluent patients there, he was treated like a real human being. He was treated like a man should be when he has an injury. Anyway, he was referred to an osteopath. So I have to make him another appointment so that a “knee guy” can take a look at him. I hope there isn’t surgery in his future.

My son decided that it was necessary to be a brat today. He isn’t a brat at my parents house so I ran him over there to walk around to give myself a break. When I tried it a second time (the change in scenery seems to help), my mother said, “Just go get the playpen, I’ll take him for a little while”. I love my mother. I never feel guilty when she watches him. She doesn’t make me feel that way. And she says no when she can’t or doesn’t feel like it. I don’t feel like I’m being a burden, or pawning off my son. It really gives me a break, I can do things around the house with nary a whine.

I’ve been a little at a loss with Joseph. I think the next time I go to Gymboree, I’m going to buy a book I saw. It’s different activities and stuff by age group. He’s too young for things like fingerpainting, but he’s too old just to stay in one place and be fascinated. I’m at an in-between place that I don’t know what to do with him. That’s one of the reasons I started taking him to gymboree. But I certainly need some ideas.

My son has a new skill. Today, he managed to undo his diaper, take it off, and throw it out of the playpen at me. He was quite proud of himself.

I have come to understand something. Mothers and housewives are not appreciated. I feel totally unappreciated. I will be doing laundry, and dishes, and feeding slimy baby food to little people for the rest of my life. At least it feels that way. After Joseph whined at me for the 1,352,655th time today, I kind of just went and laid on the bed an didn’t move. Jay looked at me like I was nuts. Jay said that Joseph was calling for me. Duh. Why don’t you go get him? I have to go to work, he answers. Sigh. And so I went to answer the 1,352,656th whine.

This is what my life has become. And what’s more, I’ve become obsessed with keeping my house picked up. When I was working, I couldn’t have cared less. Probably due to the fact that it was quite a feat to last the day on the amount of sleep I was getting. Now, I’m obsessed.

I finished decorating the bathroom. It exeeds my expectations. I think I’ll do something small and simple next, like the hallway. Yes, I even have plans for our hallway. I told you. Obsessed.

Joseph went to Gymboree today. Again, he refused to participate in the singing circle. Of course he was the only one. I again got weird looks. He was beat up by other little 2 1/2 footers, too. But I didn’t get upset, since the parents of those children disciplined them as necessary. He just looked at them all funny, but he didn’t even peep. Maybe playing rough has it’s merits. He seems to think they were playing. At least he didn’t hit them back… He only reserves that for mommy it seems. He’s still terrified of the parachute game. Big tears. It scares him. I was hoping that fear would diminish, and he loves hiding under blankets and such, but it seems to be getting worse. Ahhh well. I don’t really care. I just pick him up, hitch him on my hip, and participate with the other parents. He head nuzzled a little girl today. She was only after him for his bean bag though. Poor boy. Being used by the girls already 🙂

Hello all! Lots of stuff has been happening.

Let’s see, we’ll start with Joseph. He’s walking!!!! My little boy has learned how to walk. He’s very tall for his age, as well as being heavy weight wise (to match his height). He was having trouble with his balance. Well he’s walking now. Last Saturday I took him to his first session of Gymboree. He loved it. Except he’s not a nice little kid who does everything the way all the stuffy little moms want it. In other words, there’s this section where the leader brings “Gym” out (a cute huge clown) and sings songs. Well, Joseph refuses to sit in my lap and do the hand motions with me. No. He gets up and toddles over to the leader and puts his hand on her shoulder and sits there while she sings. The other mothers kind of watched me with daggers. Instead of sitting quietly with his mommy watching the bubbles, he crawls around and rubs his head on the other kids. These are his “kisses”. He gently rubs his forehead on yours. It’s kind of like eskimo kisses. Then when we were in a circle playing, he found another mommy he liked, went up to her, rubbed his head on hers, and then kind of leaned in to her and layed his head on her shoulder. That mommy’s little boy freaked out, ’cause his mommy was giving out love. It was a very interesting outing. The mothers were looking at me like I couldn’t control my son. When the truth is, how and I supposed to keep in on my lap singing “the wheels on the bus” when there’s a perfectly wonderful clown to dance with? How can I keep him from giving out his love to all those wonderful little people he’s so in love with? And excuse me if my son is terrified of the huge parachute that’s 1000 times his size flying up and down making mommy dissappear. Like I said it was an interesting outing. Anyway. He’s also using a sippy cup. Of course there is only ONE CUP he’ll let near his mouth. We had our first full body spaghetti experience. We are now in a biting phase. He doesn’t bite people like other children. He bites people like mommies that are trying to put PJs on a child that doesn’t want to go to bed. He’s eating more big people food. I’m a little worried though. He took a fall off a step in my parents house. He’s now favoring one of his legs when he walks. I couldn’t find anything that hurt, or seemed swollen, or bruised, or broken. So, I’m waiting to til tomorrow to see if he still favoring it after a night of rest. If he is, I’m going to have to take him to the doctor ’cause that’s just not right.

I think I’m finally getting the hang of this stay at home thing. I’ve got the house to a point where I can just take a little time in the morning to clean up, and then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day. For right now, that means decorating the house. Later it will mean my school work. I’m currently on the bathroom. There was much cursing to be heard from that particular room yesterday. I was attempting to put up a 78″ border yesterday. It didn’t work. It didn’t work at all. I’m hoping that since Jay doesn’t work tomorrow night he can help me tomorrow during the day. If the border will go up, the bathroom is going to turn out EXACTLY as I pictured it.

There are certain things that are hard. If Joseph is having a bratty day, then it rubs off on me. I have certainly had my fill of whine on some days, where I just want to hand him to Joseph and say “Here. He’s YOUR son.” For example, tonight I had to call Jay into the bathroom to get the child to open his mouth up to brush his teeth. He doesn’t listen to me. Is it always this way? The child is only 14 months old. How does he know all this stuff. Things like: You can yell in mommy’s face, bite, smack, screw your face up in discust at sippy cup/food/toy/cracker/toothbrush/kisses – however the instant you hear “Jooooosssseeeepphhhh…. You mind your mother” from the other room, you must cease and desist. Why can’t he just stop when I give him the firm, no nonsense “no” the child rearing books say?

I think I need another book. I’m now to a point where I am kind of out of my league. He’s starting to do things I’m not so sure of. For example, The child won’t eat any grown up food put in front of him. But darned if he doesn’t try for our food, on our plates. With these HUUUUUGE puppy dog eyes like we starve him. But he’ll eat his baby food. How in the world do I get him to eat what we give him? I need a manual.

I’m Back!!!! You’ll notice that this is almost 7 months later. Let’s recap. The short version is this. We were in debt. Not much, but it was hanging over our head. The problem was that we were living in Silicon Valley. A two income family, and we couldn’t pay anything but living expenses. We couldn’t pay rent. My in-laws came to the rescue, and gave us an offer to live with them rent free, so we could pay off our debts, save some money, and figure out what we wanted to do. The time limit was 6 months, per agreement with their landlord. A temporary situation. We did that. We moved in and one of their rules was no computer. I won’t go into the reasons for that, because I don’t want to turn this entry into a rant. We paid off our debts, and saved a little money. We also ended up buying a car, ’cause our old one died an excrutiatingly painful (and expensive) death. And I had an epiphany. I wanted to stay home. Our current arrangement was, I worked days, Jay worked nights, and he watched the baby during the day, I watched him at night. We saw each other about 1/2 hour a day total. It was awful. But I had to work. There was no way out of that one. I knew what I wanted however, so it was a matter of making it happen. So I talked to Jay. He backed me up completely. He felt that while this situation was working (not hapilly, but working), it wasn’t how it was meant to be. He and I both decided that Joseph needs me at home. For example, When we would try and get Joseph to say “Mama”, he said “bye bye” and waved instead. Heartbreaking. So, we branstormed. We determined that I would continue to work the 6 months at my in-laws so we could save that money. I gave 4 months notice at my job. Now, we had to figure out where we would go. We had an option open to us that I promised myself I would never do. But you see, living with my in-laws was pure hell. I realized that now that I have done that, I can do anything. I called my parents. They had a house next door to them that they rented. I told them my plan. I asked if it would be a possibility to move there. Why you might ask? Cheap rent. Really cheap rent. About $350 a month less than our apartment, for a 2 bedroom house, yard, fireplace, in a nice neighborhood. As opposed to a very small, nothing works, no one fixes anything, expensive 1 bedroom, in a terrible neighborhood, with gang bangers living in the apartment above us. My parents said yes. In fact it was an ecstatic yes. When they said yes, they went bonkers. They gave the current tennant proper notice. Then they started working on the house. New bathrub, toilet, sinks, carpet, paint, and repairs all through the house. And they gave us even cheaper rent than their previous tennant. My parents are great landlords, BTW. The previous tennant lived here for 10 years. They raised the rent once, $50. That’s it. And I know they fix things promptly. However, the previous tennant never mentioned any problems when asked, and so my father had a lot of repairs to make, 10 years worth. Anyway, now, Jay had to get a job down there. Not so easy when your new place is 350 miles away. So, we went down south to visit my parents, and Jay went job hunting. Then he contacted his union. They got him transferred. The next question would be, does Michele have to get a job again? We had to buy that used car (fairly new actually, a ’99). My mother however, cashed in an investment, and paid it off for us. We owe her the money now, without interest. She said we can make payments monthly of any amount we can afford. This means, I don’t have to work.

So, we moved. We now live next door to my parents. all the things I was dreading to happen haven’t. My mom told me that they wanted to help us. We couldn’t afford where we were, Joseph needs me, and Jay is wonderful to me. He a hard worker, and they love him too. She also knows, since I talked to her, how hard it was for me and my in-laws, and eventually Jay and his parents. She thinks That they were wrong about some things, and wanted to help us do what WE wanted to do. To top off the move, when Jay transferred, he was promoted. Yay!!!

Life is now really good. My parents are great about Joseph. THey love to just hang out with him to give me a break. They don’t make me feel guilty in the slightest. If anything, they almost feel priviledged. That’s a wonderful feeling. I’ve got a great little house, that I’m slowly turning into a home. Jay LOVES his job. We actually have a social life with some of my old friends, and Jay has really hit it off with one of my friend’s boyfriend.

Life is really good right now. I’m finally happy. I haven’t been for a long time. I actually was going to the chiropractor ’cause the stress was too much for my back. I’m relaxed now. It’s a truly wonderful feeling.

I’m back to doing my journal. Hopefully for the long run. It’s good to be back to what I know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well. This will be my final regular entry to the journal. From now on, til we move to a different place, I will be making email entries to my notify list. Feel free to join if you’d like to continue receiving entries. I will post them as archives when I have FTP access again. I will still have email though, so feel free to drop a note.

We went to the regular Thanksgiving thing at Jay’s grandparents house. It was the usual stuff that goes on there. One aunt is a gossip monger. Another aunt and uncle are considering divorce… My wasn’t that a chilly little couple. Of course, My mother-in-law questioned everything I did with my boy. These are the Christians! Imagine a weekend with the non-Christian side of the family. We left feeling exhausted emotionally and physically, as usual.

This is the reason Jay and I want to leave the area completely. It’s time to make our own way, our own traditions, apart from the family. We’re too close to them. We (yes, both of us) feel stifled and pressured. It’s no way to live. Of course the family (dummm dee dum dum) is fighting us tooth and nail on that little endeavor.

You know how people hold stress and pressure in different parts of the body. Some may get headaches, some may get heartburn… I have the spot between my head and shoulder. Usually, if you give someone a backrub there, and they are realxed, it’ll feel all squishy. Me? I’m perpetually rock hard there. I’m always feeling tense or pressured from someone, somewhere. Whether at work, or at home, or by family, or by money, the list goes on. I don’t know how to get rid of it. I’ve tried giving things to God… But it doesn’t work. I still worry. I don’t know how to control it. As a result, I turn into a control freak, and must do everything myself. Why? ‘Cause usually if something goes wrong, I have to take the fall, or fix it. Or both. So, why bother. Just do it myself, and then if it goes wrong, it’s right for me to take the fall. I’m the one who screwed up. Of course, in real life, things don’t work this way, and people need to help each other. However, I fail to actually do that, and I end up with too much, and too little time to do it in. Everything falls apart. I know this in my brain… But I don’t know how to fix it. If you’ve ever seen 28 days (with Sandra Bullock), as a therapy tool, she has to wear a sign around her neck that says, “Confront me if I don’t ask for help”. I’m thinking I need to buy stock.

Tomorrow is the major yucky, how are we going to do this, this is our life? packing day. Saturday is the actual move day. Sunday is the clean day. And our in-laws won’t take Joseph for any of those days, so we’re trying to figure out how to do this together (or we won’t accomplish it) and still take care of our son. I don’t know what to do. We’re just going to have to do this in shifts. Uggg.

I’m so sad about this. I know we’re moving on, but still… This was our first home together. This is where we spent our wedding night. This is where we conceived our son. This is where we learned who the other person was. This was where we made our marriage. And we’re leaving it. Crummy as it may be, it was ours. We made it a home instead of and apartment. We gave and received a lot of love here. And now we just leave it as we came to it? Big white blank walls? Won’t the people who come after us know how much love there is here? Will they love each other well too? I’m tempted to mark the place somehow. We were here. Whenever I would walk through the courtyard to our number 6, I knew what was waiting for me. A loving husband. A few loving cats. A sink full of dishes. Then a child born of love. Now what? Going on borrowed time to a home where I don’t know my place. Going to where I’m constantly reminded I am the outsider by marrying into this family. Going somewhere else, with someone else’s family again. I constantly feel as if I don’t belong anywhere around here, except for being by Jay. He’s my family. But no matter how much I don’t want it to, the other people matter too. I want to have a large loving family to have holiday meals with, without all these imposing undercurrents around. There were 4 generations at the gathering today. I felt that I was loved by two people. Jay & Joseph. I made this apartment a place that held my precious family. And now I have to box it up. It makes me feel empty, and lonely, and shifting, and terribly sad, and as if a chapter is ending in my life. The problem is, I don’t know what the next chapter holds.