Tag Archives: Family

Child Support Court

21 Oct

Single Mom here, checking in again. 

It’s now 2:08am and I am still awake watching TV and playing a game of Texas Hold ’em Poker on my cell phone.  I am not always totally in touch with my feelings.  Often times I need to take some time to digest what happened, then analyze what I’m feeling. 

Yesterday, Tyler’s father and I were scheduled to appear in Family Court a.k.a. Child Support Court for an enforcement hearing.  I was there but he didn’t bother to show up.  That has been the story of Tyler’s life…. I’m there and his father is not.  The only thing that I can say to the man’s credit is that, after being totally absent since Tyler’s 2nd birthday, he called and has been seeing Tyler since some time in September.  Either two or three times Tyler has spent the night with him.   One night, not the weekend.  Really sad to have to say that he lives with his mom. 

Without delving too deep into all the things that has pissed me off about that man, elaborating more about all the crappy details of his life, explaining how having such a loser as my sons’ father is, citing the billions of incidents where Tyler and I would be better off if his father did help financially, that he did have a job when I dated him, or exactly how I feel now,  I somehow think that you know just what I mean. 

Other single parents with absent co-parents personally know all the issues we handle alone, least of all the issue of balancing time and money.  Single parents with a co-parent and couples personally feel some of it, but, I am sure that since you know all the things a parent is responsible for, you can imagine if the burden rested solely on your shoulders.  My child is not a burden but worrying about finding a job to make enough money to support us because I probably won’t ever have reliable help,  school clothes, winter coat, boots, a roof over our head, food on the table, keeping the house clean, clothes washed, cable, telephone, gas, electric, a vehicle maintained in good condition, auto insurance, extra curricular activities, stressing education… all of those things add a huge weight to my shoulders.  The weight is so much heavier than when I was single because now my sons’ life depends on it. 

Tuesday night when we were doing our normal routine of reading books before bedtime, Tyler said the most amazingly intuitive thing.  He’s only three but he understands on his level.  At the last pages of the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears where it says that Goldilocks was so scared she ran all the way home, it shows the three bears standing in the living room by their front door.  Flanking the door are family pictures.  Tyler likes to say who is in each picture.  He says that he is Baby Bear.  Of course I am Mama Bear.  But Tuesday night, my intuitive little three year old pointed to Mama Bear and said that’s you, then pointed to Papa bear and told me that was me too. 

in·tu·i·tive  [in-too-i-tiv, –tyoo–]   –adjective

1. perceiving by intuition, as a person or the mind.
2. perceived by, resulting from, or involving intuition: intuitive knowledge.
3. having or possessing intuition: an intuitive person.
4. capable of being perceived or known by intuition.
 

in·tu·i·tion  [in-too-ish–uhn, -tyoo-]    noun

1.  direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
2.  a fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way.
3.  a keen and quick insight.
4.  the quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight.
5. Philosophy .
a. an immediate cognition of an object not inferred or determined by a previous cognition of the same object.
b. any object or truth so discerned.
c. pure, untaught, noninferential knowledge.
6. Linguistics . the ability of the native speaker to make linguistic judgments, as of the grammaticality, ambiguity, equivalence, or nonequivalence of sentences, deriving from the speaker’s native-language competence.

 

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Spanking??? How do you discipline your kid(s)?

10 Oct

Single Mom here, checking in again.

I will be the first to admit that I have no clue about what I am doing when it comes to raising my son.  Rolling with the punches, taking it as it comes, and playing it by ear have become my favorite sayings.  I know the goal – raising him to be smart, self-confident, well-rounded, and successful.  However, I am taking it by day and just trying to make the best decision I can at each turn in the road.  Of course there’s no handbook and other experienced parents tell me that it is different for each child…. okaaayyy, that’s a lot of help! 

Today, I come downstairs and Tyler is no where in sight.  I go into the kitchen and there he stands on top of a large, upside down bucket with an overfilled cup of milk in front of him and the open milk jug by his side.  Then I notice that the entire counter top is wet including my camera!  I said, “Tyler, what did you do???”  He showed me that he spilled my entire oversized mug of coffee.  Uuuugggh!  Then he said, “I’m sorry mommy”.  Annoyed as I was, I didn’t yell or scream, I didn’t even spank him.  I just told him to get down so I could clean up the mess he had made and to let me help him next time. 

I’m sure that some people’s opinion would be that I should have been more harsh about it.  However, I was totally pleased because he told me the truth.  He didn’t run, hide, and wait for me to notice it later.  He stayed there, told me what happened and apologized for the accident.  That is so important to me.  I know that I will value his honesty even more when he becomes a teenager.  After an incident on Friday night, I realize that some people’s kids start lying at very young ages!  3 and 6 year olds lying???  Whaaattt?  I’d really like to see what happens when those little fibbers turn into big, thinking their grown, ready to date, teenagers.  I hate to even think about when my baby is dating.  In my visions I usually skip the high school and college years, and jump straight to picturing when he’s grown.  I always stay mindful of goal – when he’s in his 20’s, finished college, starting a successful career, happy, respectful, upstanding young man. 

Just the other day, Tyler spilled his juice on the couch while I was upstairs getting his clothes together.  When I came downstairs he was sitting on the couch with a few blankets piled up under him.  He said, “Tyler was bad.”  I asked, “what happened?”  He told me that he spilled his juice.  I asked “Where?”  He shyly responded, “on the couch”.  I simply asked, “was it an accident”.  He said, “yes, I’m sorry”.  I was annoyed but I didn’t yell, scream, or spank him.  His body language told me that he really was sorry and that it was hard for him to tell me, but he admitted it anyway.   For the honesty, for knowing that a 3-year-old is going to spill things from time to time, I simply told him that he had to let me see so I could clean it up.  No spanking, no yelling.

He is a smart child that does not do bad things on purpose.  Yes, there has been times where the 3-year-old has tried to challenge my authority.  He does sometimes think he’s 23 instead of 3.  Other than the normal, teaching a kid their boundaries type things, we don’t have any problems.  He has not had a spanking-free life BUT spanking is not something I do often.  I can usually resolve an issue other ways. 

I am one who considers what stage a child is at and what you can expect of them in each stage.  For example, when he was 2 years old, I knew that the limit for him sitting still was about an hour.  So if the doctor or dentist’s office had us waiting for a long time, I’d take him for a short walk around the waiting room or out to the parking lot.  Long shopping trips are taboo, unless I want to deal with a tired, unruly child.  One mother told me that it is just what you teach them and that her kids ‘knew better’ and were ‘good’ regardless of how long she was out shopping.  Then another mother who saw Tyler and I in the mall with Tyler sprinting 5-6 steps ahead of me told me that 2 of her 4 sons were the “lively type” like Tyler. 

So, once again, it just depends on what works for your kid.  AAANNNDDD… every child is different.  

Is my child spoiled?  There are lots of articles on disciple and spanking.  I know what they think, what do you think?

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Only THREEEEE!!!

24 Sep

Single mom here, checking in again.

Today I picked up my son, Tyler, from school at the normal time.  He’s not usually a “crier” but on that day he was a little whiney and fussy although he wasn’t sick and didn’t seem tired. 

Once we had gotten home, parked and I went to his side of the car, the back seat passenger’s side, I had to get off the phone with my mother because he was trying to make a quick getaway to the front seat of the car.  Not quicker than I could get ahold of him and insist that we get out the car.  He was upset and proceeded to hit me in my stomach!!!  Whaaat???  My kid just hit me.  I slapped his bottom and sternly told him that you don’t hit mommy. 

Ok, we get past that one.  He’s walking down the sidewalk when he informs me that he is going to ring our neighbor, Pat’s doorbell.  That is fine with me… no problemo.  It’s common for him to want to stop and say hello.  I think Pat is flattered that my child likes her and wants to come see her.  I opened our townhouse door and set down the bags I was carrying.  Pat answered the door and came outside to talk.  As we talked, my son went in and got his favorite toys, two balls, then comes back outside too.  No problem there either.  He threw the balls in the air.  He gave one of the balls to Pat’s 20 something year old autistic son.  Somewhere around then, Tyler noticed Pat and Frankie’s bikes and decides to go get his bike too.  No problem.  He got his batman themed big wheel, carried it down two stairs, placed it on the ground, then sets out riding down the sidewalk.  When he got to where the sidewalk meets the parking lot, I yell to him to come back this way.  My kid looked at me and kept on going.  Whaaattt?  I watched him go between the cars, then he was out of sight.  At that point, I set out quickly following him.  When I got beyond the parked cars, my kid was a good 50 feet away.  I let out what I thought was an authoritative yell to him, “Tyler, get back here NOW!” but he just turned, looked at me and kept going.  OMG!  I went to run after him, then remembered that my front door was wide open.  I asked Pat to follow him for a second while I went to shut my door.  In the few seconds it took me to go to the door and come back, my kid had pushed the bike to the top of the hill at the end of the development, zoomed down, and it appeared as though he was just going to keep going for a ride around the rest of the neighborhood.  Thank God for the kids that were playing basketball in the street.  Pat who had followed him barefoot, yelled to them and they stopped him.  If they weren’t there I would have had to sprint after him and, let me tell ya, I am in the worst shape I have ever been in in my entire life.  Over weight and in no condition to sprint for more than a block or so.  When I got to him, he ‘got it’, probably worse than he has ever ‘gotten it’ in his short life.  I also yelled and screamed like I usually try not to do.  He was crying his eyes out as he rode home with me walking behind him, and every now and then, giving him a push to keep him going as I continued my rant.  “you can’t just ride off on your own!”; “you heard me tell you to come back!”; “GO HOME…. NOW!”; “keep riding!”.  My adrenaline was running high and I was wound UP!  He was wound up too.  When we got to the door, I had to pick him up off that bike and place him in the living room floor before I could get the big wheel in the door.  As he sat in that same spot crying his eyes out, I sat on the couch huffin’ mad thinking about how he could have gotten run over by a car or taken by some pedophile.  A few minutes went by before he spoke though the tears, “mommy. my nose is running”.  I told him to get a napkin off of the table that was right behind him.  He had nerve to tell me, “you get it!”.  Whaaatttt???  I told him, “noooo, you get it”.  He doesn’t talk all that well but proceeded to try to tell me off!  He emotionally stated, mumble mumble mumble AND I’M ONLY THREE mumble mumble mumble, as he motioned with three fingers.  I halfway wanted to laugh.  If I wasn’t so mad I might have.  He has some nerve.  That got me started on a new rant.  I told him, yeah your only three and that’s why you can’t just ride off on your bike without mommy and not come back when I tell you to.  He cried even more.  Normally, when I’m not so mad, I hate to hear him cry because it means he is hurting.  Normally, I’d hug him up and love him up and tell him “mommy’s here”, and it’s OK.  But it wasn’t OK.  After a few more minutes had passed he finally moved from the spot he had been frozen in.  He came over to me.  I picked him up and sat him on my leg.  He told me, “Tyler’s sad and mommy’s happy and it’s not right”.  He also told me that I had hurt his butt.  A three-year old talking about it’s not right.  I told him mommy is NOT happy, mommy is mad.  And I hurt his but because he did something really bad.  I, now in a calmer tone, explained to him that it was really bad for him to ride off without me and to disobey my instruction.  Of course I instructed him to never do that again.  When I finished, he said, “sorry mommy”.  With that we hugged and made up.  I was glad that we talked about it, that he was able to express himself and understand what I was explaining. 

When bedtime came, once again, very uncharacteristic of him, Tyler cried and fussed.  Geeezzz.  I wondered who that bad kid was because he wasn’t my normally well-mannered child.  My only rationale was that it was a full moon that night because when we woke up in the morning, my loving, wonderful kid had returned!

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Spare whaaatt????

22 Jul

Single Mom here, checking in again.

I am a regular.  Where am I a regular, you ask?  Sadly, I am a regular at the dentists’ office.  I have been there once a week, usually Thursday mornings, since I was fired from my job and next week will be no different. 

Why, you ask?  The answer is, because my almost 40 year old teeth are a mess and because Realtors have no medical nor dental insurance plans.  Before Tyler (B.T.), I had checked into paying for my own coverage but it would have cost me about $500-600 per month!  That was nearly as much as my mortgage and, therefore, cost prohibitive.  A relatively healthy young woman who usually only goes to the doctor for annual check ups would pay more for an insurance plan than she would if she just paid for each visit out of pocket.  However, when I got pregnant with Tyler I became eligible for Medicaid. 

Go figure.  I found myself in the OB/GYN office with a room full of mostly Mexicans who had probably come here illegally because of all of the benefits America provides to low income folks, illegal immigrants, and the disabled.  Think about it, all I had to do to get affordable or free medical coverage was have a kid.  Imagine if you were living a hard life in another country…. couldn’t afford medical care for your kids, couldn’t afford to feed your family, and living in substandard conditions.  What would you do? Imagine if you knew that you could move mere miles away from where you sat impoverished and, by doing nothing beyond getting there and filling out applications you could have secure housing, your kids would have good medical care, your family would be fed, and your kids would receive a good education.  What would you do?  B.T., I may not have understood and internalized the feelings that fuel a mother to do any and every thing she can to care for and protect her children, but now I do.  My focus in life changed during my pregnancy.  I went from a workaholic Realtor primarily concerned with growing my business to a mother primarily concerned with finding a good job that provides medical coverage, has a schedule that allows me to spend the maximum amount of time with Tyler, enables some way to manage during the ridiculous amount of days the school is closed, and pays a salary that will afford us more than just the primary needs in life.  My job search parameters and their illegally entering America have something in common.  They both stem from a mother’s love for her child(ren).  So, answer the question, what would you do?  I am not promoting illegal immigration, merely stating that the grass on the other side of the border for some is waaayy greener and I would probably put myself in the same position if it was the only way I could take care of Tyler.  I can blame America for making the grass soo green on this side of the border but I can’t blame any mother for harboring the same feelings I hold so dearly within me.  

Anyhow, after I finally put Tyler into daycare which afforded me a little time for myself, I visited the local clinic’s dentist.  That dentist told me that I had no real problems.  Thank the lord that something changed about the Medicaid plan which allowed me to go to a regular dentist outside of the clinic when my mouth started hurting in November/December 2009.  That dentist found that I needed a few root canals.  Medicaid is good because I can get the work done without a co-pay.  Having been in the working world most of my life, I realize that with any other plan there would have been some hefty co-payment.  January/February 2010, I got the root canals done.  After starting my new, full-time job in March 2010, I found it really difficult to get to the dentist to complete the remaining work.  Saturday was the only day I could schedule appointments because I couldn’t take time off from work yet.  My mom and sister helped by watching Tyler when I had those Saturday dentist’s appointments.  Now, unemployed again, I am taking advantage of my free time.  Surely there are lots of things I could do that are lots more fun BUT I have to get it in when I can fit it in.  Spare time is a rare commodity for a single mom. 

Now if I could only figure out how to have enough time to start dating again….

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My first hello

17 Jul

Single mom here.

When I finally watched Julie and Julia on Friday, July 16th, 2010, I made the decision to start my blog.  I, like Julie, have no expectations.  Unlike Julie, I am not a writer.  My career has been focused within the real estate industry.  My writing style is simple and for this blog, I am not going to worry about grammatical correctness because I’d rather tell it the way it comes to me, which is not always in perfect sentences. 

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, probably since my son was born.  What stopped me up until now was that I was afraid to put my fears, hopes and dreams in writing.  What has changed is that, at this point, I just plan to write but I am not inviting all of my friends and family to read it.  It seems easier to think that this will be somewhat anonymous.  I think it will be good for me to get some of my feelings out while getting a chance to document some of my son’s life.  AND, maybe, just maybe, some other single mothers will identify with me, and maybe some youngsters thinking of having babies will postpone that life changing event after truly understanding what I mean by “Single Mom vs. Life” and, possibly some couples may appreciate their partner a little more after realizing how much all of those little things would mean if they were forced to do it all alone. 

Sooo… hello everyone (although probably no one).  Welcome to “Single Mom vs.. Life”.

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