Monkey's Nest? I Don't Think So, But Happy New Year Anyway

So I've been led to believe that near the end of one's pregnancy, a nesting instinct - that is, the instinct to prepare one's home for the arrival of a new infant, overcomes many women. People keep asking me if this is the state that I am currently in. It's a reasonable question. I am currently 39 weeks and 3 days into this pregnancy - so pretty much, all the way there, and it seems like a fair question to ask at this point. The short answer is no. Here's the long answer:

Over the summer, I did my best to start preparing for the baby's arrival. Why? Because as any teacher knows, there is no time for a personal life, once school begins. And indeed, when school started up again in September, I was, like many of my colleagues, busting my ass to get things together for the semester. In addition to my regular prepping, teaching and marking duties, I also had the unfortunate task of clearing out my things in order to make space for whichever unfortunate soul took my place (that is, my work space) after I left. It's truly amazing how much crud one woman can collect over the course of eight years or so in one place.

I also had the responsibility of organizing things for the sub. The person who would be finishing my classes for the last weeks of the semester. As luck would have it (or perhaps not) I am good friends with the woman who will be taking over my classes. I am thrilled to know that all of my hard work with the kids up to this point will not be lost upon her arrival. However, the added pressure to pass over to her something that is not a total pile of crap, did add to my stress levels somewhat; and it is the reason why now, while on Christmas vacation, at nine months pregnant, I am endeavouring to mark the last 28 essays from my grade 10 class.

Add to this the responsibilities of a wife, daughter and step-mother at Christmas time and I'm sure you can imagine why the question of nesting seems like such a stupid idea right now. Have I been cleaning and cooking and shopping and preparing for a new person in the house? Of course I have! Everybody that celebrates the holidays has been doing that! Do I feel sorry for myself? Not too much, but I am awfully glad that Christmas is over. There are no more obligations to be somewhere with somebody at any time now and nobody needs to be invited over to my house either. Sounds grinchy, I know, but with these essays hanging over my head, I just don't have the time to entertain any more.

Moreover, there is the distinct possibility that, although I am firmly in denial that this baby will not come until I am good and ready for it to (read: till my essays are marked and I'm packed and ready to go to the hospital), that it will come at any moment now and I will have to leave my house and work in disarray to deliver this child. As a bit of a control freak, I have to admit that this does not appeal to me in the least.

So I guess the upshot of it is this. Am I nesting? Yeah, I'm nesting. I'm nesting like a friggin' maniac. Nesting and working and parenting and wifing and all the other crap that women around the world do all the time without much gratitude or thought. Am I looking forward to coming home with baby and enjoying motherhood and a little time off of work? I'd like to say yes, but somehow I'm just not convinced that it's going to be all that easy. After all, technically I'm on holidays right now!

But I suppose it could always be worse. And these holidays have brought to my attention just how lucky I really am. The obligations and entertaining have all been in relation to a (mostly) wonderful and extremely generous group of family and friends. The purchasing and preparing has been made possible by the great job I have, which I love and will, in fact, miss despite the holiday marking. And of course, the necessity for all of this - the little monkey waiting somewhat patiently to join our family - is a true joy.

So happy holidays to all out there who are as relieved as I am that the holidays are finally over. To the working women (mothers or not) who somehow manage to orchestrate not only their own lives (a task that seemed so difficult in and of itself when I was in my 20's) but those of the people around them as well, and do it with style and grace (or not!). And here's to a new year that doesn't include too much unnecessary nesting, but an appreciation for those that we do it for.

Happy New Year!

What a Difference Three Months Can Make!

So, last week I rounded out the end of my second trimester and have officially begun the last leg of this pregnancy. My friend Jennifer has been waiting patiently for photos of my giant belly and at last, I have something for her to see!

While at first glance, these may seem like before and after photos, in fact the first photo was taken three months after conception. It looks comparatively good to me these days. However, I'm not keen to repeat the nausea and heartburn that kept me from gaining any weight during those three months any time soon.

The second photo was taken about a week ago and is a fair representation of my status these days. I have officially reached the point at which I graze things with my belly without meaning to and strangers ask me when I'm due (amongst other things - like, will I be breast feeding, do I know the gender, do I have names picked, etcetera)

I was going to include the long list of possible side-effects (for lack of a better term) of this stage of pregnancy as outlined in What to Expect When You're Expecting but frankly some of them are a bit yucky and anyone who is interested can probably look it up on their own. In any case, I have been fairly fortunate thus far, in that I haven't suffered any of the positively gruesome and horrific things that can happen to a person when they are pregnant, and - touch wood - it will stay that way.

As for everything else, it all seems to be on hold. The furniture for the nursery has not yet arrived, though it has been ordered. We have not yet gone to register or even look at anything remotely useful for babies, such as a stroller, etc. though my sister-in-law is keenly intent on having us "shop" in their basement-full of kiddie crap before we go and get anything, so I'm not feeling nervous about any of it yet. I suppose the only thing we're really going to need is a car seat and a snow suit to bring the little monkey home in! Neither of which seems like a pressing issue with three months still to go.

I'm sure that I'm neglecting something obvious in the way of preparations, but for now, ignorance is bliss... and I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

Relaxation Tips for Angry Monkeys

There is a part of me that wants to keep track of every thing the Harpy does to piss me off. Every favour asked, every screw-up, every stupid thing she ever says. I suppose that's what the blog was originally about - venting these absurdities. But there is another part of me that knows that it is not only futile, but unhealthy to dwell on these things and so I try not to. But her audacity sometimes is just so amazing to me that I cannot help but think about it.

For instance, two weeks ago I was writing about this agreement and all the difficulties we were having and how I hoped that the whole thing would be over soon. Three nights ago, my husband is on the phone, explaining to her why he is unwilling to give up half of the Thanksgiving weekend with his daughter so that the Harpy can take her. I mean, didn't we just settle all of this? And to make matters worse, she, once again, tries to use Mojo as a weapon in her unrelenting war of manipulation. She actually has her call her Daddy to ask him why he won't let her go see her Nanny and Papa, because she really misses them and wants to see them. And it's not like it's the first time the Harpy has done this, she does it all the time!

I'm happy to report that it backfired somewhat, when Hubby explained to Mojo that she was going to see her maternal grandparents on a weekend before Thanksgiving, so that she wouldn't even have to wait that long to see them, and that she could even go and see them after Thanksgiving if her mother wanted to take her -- her response -- Oh! Okay!

Of course, two days later, by the time she shows up here for the weekend, her mother has been whining to her about it so much that the kid is confused again.

Why is it that some people have such a hard time understanding that kids are kids, not small adults, and that it's not appropriate to treat them like they're your buddy? I mean, I am all for respecting them as human beings and trying to help them understand things which are confusing to them and all, but come on! There are some things -- a lot of things in fact -- which are better kept to oneself.

And now, I've reached the part where I'm telling myself to just let this all go. I'm irritated over something that I can neither control nor change and so I need to just let it go -- I know this. But I stink at it. Any tips?

And Another Thing!

The content of this post is really just to make a point, and then I'm going to shut up about this whole agreement amendment.

As of the last post, the Harpy had agreed to the changes. Last night, at 9 o'clock, she phones and says that she has a problem. What with having to use the public transportation system to get to our house to pick up Mojo at 4:30 and then back down to the Go station downtown, not to mention having to stop at her house to pick up her luggage and then her parents having to meet her in Oshawa to drive them the rest of the way to Belleville, they wouldn't get there until almost 8pm and that's really just too much to expect of her, so couldn't we just drop Mojo off at her house at 4 o'clock on Good Friday?

Couldn't you just... It's like her favourite phrase.

I could hear her on the phone and before my Hubby got a chance to respond, I told him to just say yes. Which he did. But she doesn't listen, or maybe she just couldn't believe we folded so easily, and she carried on making excuses about why she couldn't possibly be expected to take responsibility for anything, but we just said yes, yes we'll do it and then I think that she shut up.

I am beyond tired of these negotiations. Not only did we have to give up every Easter for all eternity, but now we also have to do both pick ups and drop offs that weekend, all so that we can avoid the Harpy having to do anything for herself.

The really stupid thing is that I'm positive that at least once there will come a time when we will be driving up to Port Hope to see my mother-in-law for Easter on the Saturday and it will simply become easier for the Harpy to meet us there than for her to take her on the train and so forth. And all of this nit-picking will have been for nothing. And this says nothing about the noises she's been making lately about going back to school next September to study nursing (God help us!) -- either at Loyola College or Ryerson U -- either way, if she actually does it, it will mean changing everything again anyway.

And so the end result is that I'm not even relieved that this whole thing is over. Not that you can feel relieved at being taken advantage of anyway. Plus, with her, it's never over. The mere thought of her puts such a feeling of hatred in my heart that I can't even believe it's possible to hate somebody so much. She's not a murderer or anything, and yet I do hate her, more than I ever thought I could.

Plus, this morning, when 6 year old Mojo asked if either her father or I could share the duty of brushing her teeth with her, simply because she doesn't like to do it, I could not help but think of her mother's phone call of the previous evening, explaining why she didn't want to take care of her own responsibilities. The impact that parents have on their children is not always subtle. I will remember to always be on guard about that from now on, no matter how difficult it seems.

In any case, we took the new document over to her apartment this morning and waited while she laboriously read through it for the 5th time (yes, it's taken 5 tries to get this thing taken care of, starting July 27th, in case you're wondering) and I believe that the debacle has come to an end -- for now. I guess we'll have to wait and see how Mojo takes to the changes -- or rather, how her mother takes to the changes. As long as the Harpy is happy the village can live in peace.

And so for now....

The End.

Update

So, of course we made a mistake and put the whole thing in jeopardy. Turns out that Hubby doesn't have the holiday Monday, he's got the Friday. Why does this matter? Because now the Harpy won't be able to leave until Friday afternoon instead of Thursday night.

Short version: We informed her of the error yesterday. She kept us waiting until today when she decided that the change would "suit everybody's best interests." Now we just need to sign the damn thing....I sure hope this thing is over soon.

The Easter Bunny Rears His Ugly Head

So it's August and you may be wondering why I'm writing about the Easter Bunny -- believe me, I wish I wasn't.

With the start of this new school year, little step-monkey (Mojo) is starting the first grade! While it's true that for the past four years she has attended a variety of combinations of full day day care, Montessori and public school, this will be her first year of all day school in the same place. With that in mind, her parents set out to revamp the visitation schedule to avoid an excess of travel during the school week. Currently Mojo alternates between spending two school nights at Dad's house every other week and one school night and a weekend. The change was to increase the weekend time to include Sunday night and now a Wednesday night (that's only one school night -- see?)

When we contacted our lawyer, she told us that if the parties agree on the changes, then there's no need for a lawyer to get involved (thankfully!) so my hubby discussed the changes with the Harpy, came to an agreement, typed it up, and gave her a copy for her perusal. The idea being that the sooner we can get this thing signed, the sooner we can implement the changes so that step-monkey is used to the new schedule before school starts.

*Insert deep breath here*

Well, of course the Harpy takes forever with the damn thing, then agrees to the changes.

Then she changes her mind.

Sunday night, she calls and says that she wants to change the agreement so that long weekends like Easter and Thanksgiving are split between the two households (currently the agreement says that whoever has Mojo on the long weekend keeps her). We think that this is a stupid idea -- why? Well, because the whole point of the new arrangement is to cut down on travel -- not increase it! Besides which, the whole reason her nose is out of joint on the long weekend thing is because they've happened to fall on our weekends in recent years (which, by the way, has not stopped her from asking us to give up our time with the child so that she can drag her up to Belleville -- which, oddly we usually agree to). Would she give a crap if the weekends had been hers? Would she consider giving up some of her time and inconveniencing herself so that the child could spend some extra time with her dad?

I think we all know the answer to that.

I'll abbreviate the story somewhat, since I've gone on too long already. Harpy basically jeopardizes a summer's worth of negotiations and some expensive gymnastics lessons for some loose wording about splitting the Easter weekend. She is, in every aspect, totally unreasonable.

In the end, I suggest to my husband that we just give her what she wants. Easter is clearly a big deal to her (her family exchanges gifts as though it's Christmas -- they do not, however, attend church and couldn't care less about the resurrection of Jesus -- a capitalist family to the core!) and for us it's really about getting to spend the extra time with step-monkey. So in our efforts to keep the peace, we are forced to agree to the following:

Mojo will spend the weekend preceding Easter with her dad. She will spend Easter weekend with her mother and when she returns from Belleville, she will spend whatever is left of the holiday Monday with her dad. Every year from now till eternity.

I had no idea that the Easter Bunny was into sodomy.

I think what bugs me the most about the big stink she made is that she was willing to make things worse for her own child in order to get what she wanted. I don't know exactly how these changes are supposed to benefit step-monkey, but I hope that at least in the Harpy's mind they do somehow do just that.

One thing's for sure -- I'll never see Easter the same way again. It never ceases to amaze me how that woman can suck the joy out of everything that crosses her path -- even a long weekend!

One Smart Little Monkey

So this weekend we took the step-monkey to her first wedding (other than ours, of course) and needless to say, she had an excellent time. The bride was Italian-Canadian, the groom Macedonian-Portuguese, and so it's no surprise that the meal took 3 hours to eat (not including the sweets table or the midnight seafood buffet!) But this story isn't about the food. This story is about what smart cookie my little step-monkey is. I'll paint you the picture...

We're in the reception hall filled with hundreds of European-Canadians (I'll not comment on the array of tragic fashion statements made by these many guests, just know that there were more than a few!)

The dance floor is over-run with little girls, mostly in puffy white dresses and they are running themselves ragged. At the table next to ours is a little boy, probably about 4 or 5 years of age. His name is Andrew and he is in trouble pretty much from his arrival on. He is also out on the dance floor, terrorizing the girls with whom he clearly wants to play, but his manner is so rough that he simply cannot be abided. Step-monkey runs over to us at our table from the dance floor and professes that she "doesn't like that mean little boy!" He is trying to push around everybody that comes in his way. I am ready to push him around should he attempt to do the same with my step-daughter. However, I try I different tact instead. I tell step-monkey that she should let Andrew know that if he wants to play with them, he's going to have to be nice. She does, he does, and moments later, step-monkey comes back to the table to report that Andrew "has learned his lesson." Awesome.

The two proceed to amuse each other for most of the evening. At one point they come over to our table to ask if Andrew can come over for a sleep-over. Andrew gives me his phone number. I'm not kidding. My 6 year old picked up at a wedding! However, things took a turn for the worse as the evening wore on. It went something like this:

Andrew pushes the flower girl down, step-monkey scolds Andrew for this and he turns on her, trying to push her down (not likely by the way, she's about a half a head taller than this little Portuguese boy). Step monkey walks away from Andrew. She comes to the table and tells me that she does not want to call him or have him over for a sleep over. The romance is ended. She tells me, "I broke up with him."

She broke up with him!

Maybe it's just me, but I am both horrified at, amused by and proud of my little step-monkey's behaviour. I can't say that I want her to be making sleep-over plans with little boys that she's just met, but I am very glad to see that she's not the sort to let anybody push her around. Good thing for Andrew. I was ready to take him outside for a little chat!

Where to begin....

So, it seems that I was wrong about being able to write more often once school was over. What with it being August now and this being the first post. I suppose that it's because we've been very busy monkeys around here this summer. Where shall I begin?

I'll start with the fun news. Step-monkey lost her first tooth on June 15th and it was awesome! She was really nervous about it hurting when it came out, but of course, when her dad actually coaxed it out of her gums she didn't even notice. I was glad that the first one fell out at our place and not her mother's. Selfish, I know, but as luck would have it, there were two loose teeth and the second one fell out the next weekend at her mom's.

It's just such a rite of passage in my mind, the losing of baby teeth. And of course, she looks hilarious with a big gap in the middle of her mouth. I suspect that subsequent growing up changes won't be nearly as cute.

On a much less pleasant note, I learned via some standard pregnancy type tests that I had an infection for which I had to take antibiotics. They were mild and short in duration, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to be doing during my pregnancy. All the while I was fighting off the longest cold in human history. I caught a cold during the last month of my first trimester and I managed to hang on to it for more than five weeks!!!

Now I don't know about the rest of the world, but I've never had a cold last much longer than two weeks or so. I think I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, since I was just getting over the morning sickness/nausea. However, there was an upside to the illness. While it's true that I could not breathe, smell or taste anything, a happy side-effect was that I could go into not just my kitchen, but the refrigerator without gagging! Oh happy days! It was nice to be able to cook and eat again, although it was with a little less joy than usual. You just don't realize how closely connected the ability to smell is to the ability to taste until you lose it.

Sadly, I was not the only one suffering during this time. My poor hubby got bitten by some cruel insect and the bite got infected. Instead of picking strawberries at the farm with his wife and daughter, he spent the better part of 3 hours in the emergency at North York General with an I.V. dripping antibiotics into his arm. Worse yet, he had to keep it there for a week. Did you know that nurses will come to your house everyday to change your I.V. bag? Well they did, and then he had to finish out a round of oral antibiotics which ended the day before he went in to have all four of his wisdom teeth removed. Talk about a rough couple of weeks. In all honesty, I felt so bad for him that my difficulties didn't really register on the radar. Poor guy.

Touch wood, all of that seems to be over with now and we were able to spend a great weeks vacation with step-monkey this past week. It's funny how easy it is to get used to having her here every day. We were able to take her with us to the 18 week ultrasound appointment where she could see the baby, hear it's heartbeat and learn that it is going to be her little sister. She was very excited and pleased to learn that it would be a girl as she had hoped.

Now, if we can just get the house ready for this new little monkey, that will really be something to get excited about!

More Squirmy Peanut Than Monkey

So even though it was supposed to be another week until my first ultrasound, I got a call on Wednesday from the doctor's office asking me if I could come in today and of course, I did. The hubby and I arrived only slightly early for our 10 o'clock appointment and it was all very, very, very informative. Too informative? Maybe. I'm not sure that I remember half of what the nurse/doctor said. I'm glad that I wasn't alone for the visit. Although it was completely unobtrusive, I don't think that my brain could process everything that happened today, so it's good to have a back up copy!





The doctor (who recently skied off a cliff in Whistler and was so sadly broken in a number of places) talked to us for a while and then cracked out the goo and showed us our baby. It was clear and easy to see, but looked more like a squirmy peanut than a little monkey -- maybe it's because I couldn't stop giggling, but that thing sure was moving around a lot!



In any case, it's nice to finally have some tangible proof of life. We saw the picture, we heard the heartbeat and was it ever cool! I'm looking forward already to the next time we get to see the baby. Sadly (or not) even though I've been pregnant for over 11 weeks, there's just no real evidence that I'm not the only occupant of this vessel, so it was nice to get to spend some time actually looking at the baby.





And I think that the rest of the family is starting to get excited too. My mother has been relentlessly cleaning my house for the past two days and calling to check in on me more than she did when I was a stupid teenager (and she checked in on me A LOT). My father-in-law came by yesterday with two baby name books, which I thought was very thoughtful. It's strange, with the Internet so readily available, how nice it is to actually pick up and read through a book.

With all of this stuff going on I must admit, it is very difficult to remain focused on my school work. With things drawing to an end at work I can't afford to dawdle any longer...so I guess I'm off!

Truely A Monkey In Progress

So it has obviously been an embarrassingly long time since I've posted and mostly it's because it feels like things have been happening at such a break-neck speed lately that I just haven't had time to absorb it all, much less write about it.



Yes, there have been many, many run-ins with The Harpy, none of which I'm going to bother writing about since they're all passed now and because I feel that I need to record much more important news than random bitchings about her.



My husband and I are expecting our own little monkey this winter. I am approximately 10 weeks pregnant and am feeling, well, not that great. However, we are very happy about our new addition as we had been working on it for about 4 or 5 months and I was starting to get to the point where I was wondering if there might be something to worry about, but no. So far so good. Got my first obstetrician appointment in two weeks and I'm looking forward to it. Not only will it help to make the whole thing a little more real (not that the nausea and other side effects haven't done that) but it will also mark the almost end of the school year and so I should start my second trimester on vacation! So lovely!




Anyway, I won't blather on any longer, but thought I should probably make mention of our new monkey in progress before it, say, arrived. While I have been woefully neglectful of my blog, I suspect that it will be much easier to find the time to write once summer begins, and so until then...

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves!

We have an agreement. During weekday visits, I pick up the step-monkey in the afternoon and drop her off the next morning. For weekend visits, the Harpy drops her off and picks her up from our house.

I have a car. It took me a long time to pay for my car. I continue to pay gobs of money to keep my car running and operating in a safe manner.

The Harpy does not have a car. The Harpy seems to think that whenever it's too much trouble for her to haul her giant arse up to our house every other weekend, that I should do it instead.

Take this weekend for example. This weekend is a long weekend. That means that since Friday is a stat holiday, she is responsible for bringing the step-monkey up to our place on Thursday evening and picking her up on Sunday evening. Is there any chance that she just might do what she's supposed to do? Of course not.

It never fails that when a visitation falls on a long weekend, she will ask for my husband to give up at least half of his time with his daughter so that she can take her up to see her family in Belleville. (Note: I hate her fat, stupid, backward family -- and feel that the less time step-monkey spends with them, the better.)

Fine. We'll be in Port Hope on Saturday night, she can pick her up after dinner.

Then of course dropping her off becomes an issue. Harpy wants to go to Belleville on Thursday night and it will be too late for her to drop off step-monkey and make it back down to the train station, so naturally, she wants ME to take care of it. I cannot. I have made plans because she told us (bizarrely) that she would be fulfilling her responsibilities herself. My husband will not be able to pick her up until almost bedtime. That's no good. She will not budge. I hate her.

My husband and the Harpy make arrangements for him to pick the child up as soon as I get back with the car. Harpy wins again.

But wait, two days later, she calls back and says that her employer (don't get me started on how under-employed the woman is!) has changed her plans, so that she will now be able to drop step-monkey off at the regular time. Hoorah!

Here's the thing. I could probably have gone and picked step-monkey up and brought her home with me. It wouldn't have been that hard, and likely would have been more pleasant for her as well, but when I think about the two years we spent in court, coming to the agreement that we now have and that she disregards whenever it doesn't suit her purposes; when I think about the tens of thousands of dollars in debt we became because she was unwilling to be grown-up about the entire process, when I think about how f-ing lazy that stupid cow is and how she always expects us (read: ME) to pick up her slack, well, I just can't help but dig my heels in a bit.

I know that my stubborn behaviour does not and cannot improve the situation. I know this. I know that by being a Jack-hole to her, I am sucking up bad Karma like it's going out of style. I know that I become a worse person when I am unable to be the bigger person. But I also know that she will continue to take advantage of me, of us, for as long as we let her, and that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, we must put our collective foot down and demand that she be the responsible adult she should be.

The problem is, the Harpy is the kind of person who feels like the world owes her something. In particular, we owe her something. That because we work hard and try to be responsible adults, it is somehow our job to make up for her shortcomings (of which she has many, but will admit to none). She has set up a situation whereby we are better off to ask How high? when she demands that we jump; so that we may avoid unpleasant and unnecessary arguments. It's a vicious cycle. The more we do it, the more she expects and demands it.

How is it possible that evil can prevail in this way???

The result on these occasions is that morale is low. To console myself, I choose to believe that what goes around comes around. So in some way, my husband and I are reaping what we have sown. But at the same time, The Harpy's wicked ways will come back to haunt her. Whether she's smart enough to realize it or not will remain to be seen.

Evil, home wrecking step-monkey

So, yesterday I had the opportunity to pick my step-daughter up directly from school. Usually during the week her mother picks her up and then I have to meet up with them to bring her home with me. But yesterday, I happily had a little extra time and so I arranged to pick up the little monkey right from school.

It was lovely. She came out of the kindergarten door with her notices and her newsletters, her drawings and her coat all piled in her arms and she handed them off to me as the other children did to their mothers and nannies and she ran out to the playground where we had agreed she had time to play before heading home.

I watched her as she looked around for her friends and was delighted to see her happily playing hide and seek with a little boy, as though she was a totally well-adjusted and completely satisfied little kid.

And then she ran over to me where I was watching, holding all of her stuff, like many of the other parents and she requested just a little more time to play -- so we agreed and as she was about to run off she encountered a woman whom she clearly knew and although I was not close enough to participate in the conversation, I was close enough to hear this:

Little Monkey: That's my step-mom (pointing over to me)
Me: waving and smiling at the woman I do not know
Lady: waves and smiles back
Little Monkey: My Daddy broke up with my Mommy and now he's married to her and so she's my step-mom.
Lady: smiles awkwardly at Little Monkey, nodding
Me: standing stunned, as usual, not knowing what to say
Little Monkey: (walking over to me) I think I'm ready to go home now.

The good news? She wasn't in tears about the whole thing like she was a few weeks ago, when she told the same story to a complete stranger in a restaurant her mother took her to.

The moral of my story? Just when you're starting to feel like a normal human being, kids have a fantastic way of making you feel like an embarrassed heap of dirt. On the up side, Little Monkey is now referring to me in public as her step-mom and I feel like that is progress. Now that she's a little older (about five and a half) and has a basic understanding of our relationship it makes me feel a little more...I don't know, defined. Now if only Disney would come out with a movie where the step-mother isn't evil...

One Surprised Monkey

So, if you've read my first post, you know that I am new to blogging, and also that I had a kind of snotty attitude about bloggers, so you likely won't be surprised to learn that I have only recently started reading other people's blogs. I would like to say that after having spent (what seems to me) a great length of time this weekend meandering around blogdom, I am thrilled to learn that there are many wonderful, witty, intelligent and even insightful human beings out there! Maybe I was just being pessimistic, but I really thought that the majority would be dull, uninteresting and self-indulgent. And while they are all entirely self-indulgent, many were far from dull.

So thank-you. Thanks to all those intelligent and funny human beings out there who are sharing their thoughts and experiences with the rest of the world.

I, for one, appreciate it.

Monkeys Take Shelter

My husband and I met for the first time in high school (oh so long ago!). I was 16, he was 20 (a little old for high school admittedly, but back then there was a fifth year!). I wouldn't say that I married my high school sweetheart exactly, though we did date for a while, maybe a couple of months, and then we went our separate ways. He went back to the small town he came from and I went back to the boyfriend I was taking a break from. Never to cross paths again. Until my 2nd or 3rd year of university. Turns out he was attending a college in the same town and we ran into each other while we were there and kindled something of a friendship. Sadly, that is also where he met his first wife (who will heretofore be referred to as "the harpy" or some other such unpleasant title).

Again we went our separate ways and it wasn't until I was out in the real world (working - and having a nervous break down because of it) that we met up again. This time on purpose. To abbreviate the story somewhat, he looked me up after his marriage went down the tubes and we fell madly in love with each other. If you believe in it, it seems a little bit like Fate.

Since then, we have been weathering the storm of his first wife together. Hurricane harpy has left us soaked to the bone with resentment and frustration on more than one occasion, but I am happy to say that more often than not, our negative dealings with her make us feel all the more grateful that we have each other.

His ability to stay calm in a tense situation; to be civil in the face of incivility; to keep priorities straight when the world seems upside down amazes and inspires me. Despite the sometimes stormy weather of our life together, his consistency shelters me, us and our relationship. I hope that I offer him the same kind of solace as he does me.

The Birth of Blogger

There was a time, not so long ago, that I thought that blogging was self indulgent and only self involved ego-centric types did it. I'm not so sure that I was wrong, but I've discovered that I may actually fall into that category, and so here I am. The birth of a blogger.

What is it, you ask, that has prompted me - a person who barely knows what the origin of the word blog is - to publish my private thoughts on the internet? It is the realization of what I am and what it means that has pushed me to this bizarre act of both desperation and hope.

I am that most horrible creature of fairytales and myth. Breaker of homes and hearts. Seat of evil. Source of agony and despair. I am a step-mother.

I am a step-mother and so the need to get my feelings off my chest in a non-violent way, can sometimes overwhelm me, and yet, I feel as though my experiences are not unique and that maybe there might be someone out there who will feel comforted by my sometimes stupidly miserable stories. So I plan to share them here on this blog and hope that it will help both of us.

More to come soon....