Dirty Little Boys

     Why is it that little boys enjoy being dirty?  My son will stay in the tub for an hour, playing with every action figure that he can get in there.  He will announce that he is getting out and when I ask if he washed up, he responds, "I already let the water out."  REALLY???  Of course, my response is, "BOY, put some more water in that tub and WASH your body!"
     It is amazing to me that boys could care less about personal hygiene.  They don't care how they look, what they wear and how they smell.  I have never understood why they get this look of utter amazement when you tell them that they smell like puppies and rush them into the tub.  One thing that I know for sure is that I will be glad when the day comes that I don't have to remind my son, to take a shower and put on deodorant!

Dr. Wack Job, the Delivery, the Drama & My Gift

    This past Monday, we celebrated TJ's 9th birthday.  It is amazing how fast times flies.  It seemed like yesterday, I was seeing my obstetrician and a high risk doctor and beyond ready to deliver my baby.  You see, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and can I just tell you that is the worse thing to have when you are pregnant.  Of course, there are worse things that can happen when you are pregnant but my point is that when you are pregnant, you want to eat whatever you want.  When you have gestational diabetes, you have to watch everything that you eat and on top of that I had to take insulin, as well.
    
 The Whack Job Doctor
    
     When I was about 2 weeks to my delivery date, my dumb ass high risk doctor gets the bright idea to want to do an amniocentesis to make sure that my son's heart was developed.  HUH?  2 weeks before I am due?  Really?  So, they give me these forms to fill out and all I see is "may cause death."  "This doctor must be crazy!  Who in the hell does an amniocentesis so late in a pregnancy," was all that I kept thinking.  I walk over to the desk and tell the receptionist that there is no way in HELL that I am signing these papers or having an amniocentesis at 36 weeks!!  "And oh, by the way," I said as I was walking out, "You can cancel my appointment for next week because it will be a cold day in hell before I let that whack job of a doctor touch me again!"
     I walked away thinking that even if my son's heart wasn't developed, here we are 2 weeks before he is supposed to come.  If I went into labor, there is not much that we can do to keep him in at 36 weeks, I turned it over to God and kept on moving.
     The next week I went to see my obstetrician and I informed him about what the high risk doctor wanted to do.  He thought that I was joking.  I quickly let him know that this was not a joke and that I was not going to see Dr. Whack Job again and further more, I was tired of being pregnant and I was ready to have this baby.  Now here's the problem. Memorial Day was coming and I was very adamant about not having my baby on or around Memorial Day. He wanted me to come in on Memorial Day.  There was no way that I was going to do that!  How would anyone be able to come to his parties because most people will be celebrating  with their families.  That would be an awful time to have a birthday, so, it was decided that if he did not come before, I would be induced a week after Memorial Day and that's how it all went down.

     THE DELIVERY 

     If you have been reading my blog, then you will know that I have been a Single Mom from day one.  When I went into the hospital to be induced, my brother went with me.  My doctor told me that the process would be a long one, so I figured, I didn't need a lot of people around me all day and my brother kept me company until my mom came later.
     Now, if you have never be induced, let me tell you that you are hungry as hell!  You can not eat after midnight the day before and all day while I was waiting for something to happen, I could only eat ice and jello. That was the worse!
     My brother and I are sitting around talking all day and every now and then our conversation would be interrupted by a woman screaming in labor.  "Damn!  Would these heifers shut the hell up!!"  Truth be told, it wasn't the noise of these women screaming in agony that was bothering me, it was the fear that those screams invoked in me that was bothering me.  I was silently praying every time that I heard those screams that I would not be that woman when it was my turn to give birth.
     So the day when on and nothing happened.  By 8 o'clock, my mother and brother had changed shifts and my mom was sitting in the corner with her Bible and my copy of "What to Expect When Your Expecting" reading through the chapter about labor.  My doctor finally comes in and checks me and tells me that I had barely dilated and he broke my water.  He said that they would start Pitocin to start my contractions and if I was not ready by the time he came back in the morning, they would have to do a C-Section.  "A C-Section?  You want me to have contractions ALL night and then do a C-Section?  You have got to be out of your damn mind!!"  My doctor said that he was leaving for the evening and the nurse went about the task of starting my IV with the Pitocin.
     About 30 minutes went by and my mom is reading what the next step is supposed to be in this labor process and all of a sudden I feel like someone took a Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat, wound it up and hit me in the stomach.  In an instant, I became that woman that I was complaining about all day but instead of a scream, I let out a, "OH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!"  My mom immediately told me to watch my mouth and my response was, "FUCK THAT SHIT!  THIS SHIT HURTS!!"  I guess at that point, all gloves were off because all I can remember is a slew of curse words spewing out of my mouth.
     By now I guess it's about 10 o'clock or so and I'm trying my best to deal with the pain.  After what seemed like forever but was actually about 45 minutes or so, I asked the nurse could I get any drugs.  Her response was that I had to be dilated at least 2 inches and I couldn't be that far along yet.  I asked her could she at least check but she was so insistent that I couldn't be dilated 2 yet that I screamed,  "Can you just fucking look?"  My mom gives me one of those looks, but today is not the day to be nice and polite.  Not when my stomach felt like someone was trying to rip out my guts.  I guess the nurse got the picture and checked me.  "Oh my goodness, you are at 2," she said from down there.  I wanted to take my foot and put it on her forehead and push her away!  "I know dumb ass," is what I was thinking but was relieved to know that she was gonna get me some drugs.
     Now by this time, I am absolutely starving and I am so over these contractions.  The nurse added whatever drug for pain to my IV but no sooner had she done that, I shouted, "I HAVE TO PUSH!!" Now my mom is quickly turning the pages in the book and shouts, "You aren't supposed to be at that stage yet.  You skipped something!"  I am looking at her like, "If you don't put that damn book down!"  The know-it-all-nurse is saying, "You can't have to push, you were just at 2!"  I am screaming that I need to push NOW!!  The nurse checks me and she looks up with this surprised look on her face and says that I am ready but I need to wait for the doctor.  I yell, "FUCK THAT DOCTOR!  SOMEBODY IN HERE KNOWS HOW TO DELIVER A BABYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"
My mom is packing up her stuff like she is going somewhere and the nurse asks her where she is going.  "To the delivery room,"  my mom responds and the nurse says to her, "We ARE in the delivery room." 
     Within seconds, it was like the changing of a scene in a play.  Nurses rushed in, the bed did some type of conversion, spotlights pointed down there were put in place and my doctor, who we thought was gone for the evening came rushing in.  I don't remember hearing him say, "Push!" All I know is that I pushed two times and my son was born!
     Now some mothers want their slimy new baby to be put on their chest and all that nasty shit...NOT ME!  They held him up so that I could see him and then they went about the business of cleaning him up before they put him in my arms.  Thank you Jesus!  I am glad that I didn't have that awkward conversation of them washing him off first.
     Now TJ was finally here.  Everyone is happy and I am so sure that my nurse was probably the happiest that I had the baby. I wonder if she knew that she would be verbally assaulted when she became a pediatric nurse?  I made sure that I apologized to her for my potty mouth and she responded that she had heard worse!  Whew, I can only imagine what that must have been like because I thought that I was pretty bad. 
     By now it is after midnight and I had not had any real food for 24 hours.  Once I got settled into my room, my nurse came in with the best cheeseburger and fries that I had ever had in my life.  I am not sure where she got it from at that time of night, but she was my best friend at that point.
      
     My Gift

     That night, I don't think that I got much sleep thanks to Mr. TJ!  I thought that they kept the babies in the nursery.  When I asked about that, the nurse told me that the babies are kept in the rooms with their mothers.  DAMN!  So much for getting a little rest!  That night I remember staring at my son and wondering what his life would be like?  What OUR life would be like? What was his personality going to be like?  What kind of person would he be?  What his voice would sound like when he started talking, etc. etc?
     Fast forward nine years and I amazed every day by this little boy.  He is so talented and intelligent. He believes in God and has so many questions about him and the Bible that I think that one day he may become a preacher.  He makes friends EVERYWHERE we go where there are kids.  His opening line is, "Hi, my name is TJ.  Do you want to be friends?"  How can you not love a kid like that?
      He keeps me laughing and the way that his mind works astonishes me.  One day we were passing a cemetery and he asks, "When you are buried, do you have clothes on?"  I responded , "Yes, they put ladies in a nice dress or men in a nice suit."  He said, "Then how can you rest in peace if you aren't wearing pajamas?"  I was laughing so hard that I was crying.  "You know that is a very good question.  I don't know how you can rest in peace without comfy pajamas on."
      It is times like this that I know that I am blessed to be the mother of such an amazing kid and although I had gestational diabetes, a whack job doctor and I have had to take this journey of parenthood all alone, I wouldn't change a thing because at the end, I got the best prize of all...TJ!

The Imaginary Kids That Lived In My House Growing Up!

     I am constantly reminded by my mother about the shit that we (my siblings and I) didn't do as a kid when the family is altogether.  Take for instance, our last family torture trip....excuse me, vacation, Memorial Day weekend to visit my brother in Vegas.  Now, let me start with this disclaimer, I LOVE MY MOTHER but DAMN, she can take me there like no other!
     So the kids are playing around with my brother, who they haven't seen since Christmas and TJ says something, (I don't even remember what he said. I am sure that I wasn't paying attention.) to his uncle and the next thing I heard was, "You guys NEVER would say something like that to your uncle!"  I look up and my brother and sister have looks on their faces, like, "What the hell is she talking about?"  I just shake my head and ignore it because it is usually better for me not to say anything or all hell will break out.  Next thing I know, she is going all in about what we didn't do as kids:  we didn't talk back to adults, we didn't leave our toys all over the place, we didn't question what we ate, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't..."  Now, I am not sure whose house these perfect kids lived in that never did any of those things but it sure as hell wasn't mine!
     Our parents lived in a time that "children were seen and not heard."  My child lives in a time where "he is seen and most definitely HEARD."  TJ makes so much noise that when I am on the phone, people think that there are 10 kids in my house.  That is just the way that he has always been.  Maybe it's an only child thing and they like to make it "sound" like they have a lot of siblings.  I am not sure but the child does make A LOT of noise.
     Now, I said all that to say this, I don't know about my siblings, but I don't want to hear about these imaginary kids that lived in my house growing up, that no one saw but my mother.  I don't want to hear that they ate everything on their plates, no matter what it was because they didn't buy the food and they ate what she bought...ALL THE TIME!  Which reminds me of a time when my little brother didn't want to eat his peas and my mother told him that there were kids starving in Africa.  My brother responded, "Then lets send them to Africa!"  I guess the imaginary "good" kids were on vacation or something that day.
     I don't want to hear about all the things that we didn't do because my mother had put the fear of God in us and would "knock us into the middle of next week" if we didn't do what she said.  Now let me state for the record, that I have been knocked into the middle of next week on several occasions and it was like Alice in Wonderland, trying to find my way back to the week that I had got knocked out of.  I wish those imaginary kids had been around to take my place on those days!!
     Simply put, I don't want to hear it!  My thing is this, my child is MY CHILD!  Let me raise him the way I want to raise him.  He is not disrespectful or an unruly child.  Does he have a sense of humor? Yes! Will he say things sometimes trying to be silly?  Yes, all kids do!  Does that warrant a whole speech about the imaginary kids?  NO!!!  I don't want to EVER hear about those damn perfect imaginary kids again!!!!
    

Single Motherhood? I GOT THIS!

     "Mom!!  Mom!! Can I go out side? "  "Mom!!  Mom!!  Can we go to the park?"  "Mom!! Mom!!  Can you play the Wii with me?"  "Mom!! Mom!! Can I get a dog?"  "MOM!  MOM! MOM!"  Oh my God!  Can I change my name already?  It is times like these that I wish that TJ's dad was around just so that I can get a break.  Sometimes, as easy as I make it seem and although I "look" like I have it altogether, I don't.  I know some of you, especially my friends are probably going to be surprised by that statement, but damn, I am not as perfect as I seem!
     They say that being a mother is the hardest job in the world but I beg to differ.  Being a SINGLE MOTHER is the hardest job in the world.  Now there is a difference.  There are some single moms who have the support of their children's father and there are some that don't.  I would fall into the the last category. Now, before you start feeling all sad for me and shit...DON'T!! This post is not about that.  Hell, I don't feel sorry for me.  I never have.  There is nothing to feel sorry about.  I have been fortunate enough to be able to financially care for my son myself, even when it involved $700 + a month in childcare expenses alone.  Thank the Lord for Dependent Care Flexible Spending!  I have never had utilities cut off or no food in the fridge.  My son has never went without what he needed,  He has always had more shoes than most girls, a closet full of clothes and everything that a child could want.  (I did speak about overcompensating in another blog).  I have, as a single mother, provided everything that a two parent household would provide for a child on my own. 
     Most women who become single mothers don't set out to be a single mom.  No one goes into motherhood thinking that they will be doing this by themselves.  Wait, let me correct myself.  There are single women who decide to go to sperm banks, etc. and have children.  Those women, of course, know that they are going to be doing it by themselves.  I, on the other hand, always said as a teen, that I was going to go to a sperm bank to have a kid, because I didn't want to have to deal with a guy and that child would be a boy.  Man, they weren't lying when they said that you can speak things into existence and who knew that some 15 or so years later, that is exactly what happened....minus the sperm bank! 
     I think that I have always known that I would be a single mom.  I have always known and accepted it.  When I got pregnant with TJ, I knew that I was going to do this by myself.  I knew from day one how the situation would play out and I was fine with that.  There weren't any hard feelings or nights that I cried myself to sleep.  None of that!  It was what it was and being that I always knew that I would have a son and raise him by myself, that's exactly what I have done. 
     A friend of mine told me when I was pregnant, "You are so strong.  I wouldn't be able to do this by myself."  My response was, "What else can I be but strong?"  I have never been a 'crier" or a "woe is me" type of woman.  I don't really let things trip me up.  I take the punches and roll with them.  Single motherhood was a punch that I had anticipated most of my life, so I braced myself for the punch and made sure that it wasn't a TKO and at the end of the fight, I was still standing and proudly holding my Single Mother Heavyweight Belt high above my head!  And although I am not as perfect as I seem, I think...No, I KNOW, that I have been doing a pretty damn good job raising my son by myself and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters to me!
    

It's Okay, Girl! Be By Yourself!

     I have never understood women who do not know how to be alone.  You know the type of woman that I am speaking of.  They jump from relationship to relationship without very much time in between,  all because they "don't want to be alone" or "need a man in their lives."  All the time, never getting to know "themselves" and often times make the same mistakes with the same type of men over and over again.
     I especially don't understand this of women who are single mothers.  I often find myself wondering what type of mindset does this woman have that would bring several men around her children?  Does she not understand the type of example that that she is showing to her children, especially her daughters or is their mindset that they deserve to be happy and it doesn't really matter what her children or anyone else thinks?  I can understand a woman's desire to be happy but at whose expense?  Her children's or her own? 
     I personally don't think that it is acceptable to parade men in and out of your house as a woman, PERIOD, single or not.  It just isn't a good look.  As a mother, you are your children's first teacher, their example of what a woman should be.  What a LADY should be. By bringing random men in and out of their lives, you are not only confusing them, showing them a poor example but you could potentially be putting your child at risk for a predator.
     So then, the question arises, "How long should I wait before I bring someone that I am interested in around my children?"  Personally, I think this should take a couple of months.  You should be sure that this person is someone that you are really interested in before introducing them to your children.  Every man that you date, should not meet you children.  Every man that you date, shouldn't even be picking you up from your house (but that's a blog for another day).  I think that single mothers need to use a lot of discretion when dating.  After all, it's not just about you anymore.  You are now responsible for someone else's well being.
      Women who have a man living with them, who do not contribute to the household, who don't work, who don't help with the kids and who run the streets while she goes to work and pays all the bill...GIVE ME A BREAK!  Really?  That concept has always baffled me.  Is the sex that good that it has made you an idiot?  Again, what kind of example are you setting for your sons and daughters?  If that man is helping with the kids, but not contributing to the household...NOT ACCEPTABLE!  A man needs to work, PERIOD! How do you live with a man, with your children and this is the example that you are showing? Spare me!!  You can do bad all by yourself!  That's a fact!
     Now let me take a moment to discuss this issue as it relates to mothers of daughters.  Daughters grow up to be mothers one day and the examples that you show them now are instilled in them.  When you parade different men in front of your daughters, they believe that it is okay to date several men and have several men coming in and out of their home around their children.  You are also teaching them that they need to have a man around, that it is not a good thing to be by yourself.  They are learning that their worth is based on having a man in their lives. Is that the type of example you want to set for your daughters?
     As a mother of a son, I don't want my son to see men coming in and out of my house because I don't want him to believe that this is what women do.  Again, I am the example for my son of what a woman should be.  I also don't bring people that I date around my son unless I am serious about them, or think that it may be serious because I don't want my son to become attached to someone who may not be around long. 
     I strongly believe that you need to learn how to be by yourself before you can be with anyone else.  You need to know YOU!  You need to be able to hold down your household without the help of anyone else, so that you don't depend on a man to do it or feel like you have to stay with someone that you don't want to be with because you can not support yourself or your children alone.  Never put yourself in that situation.  Remember that the examples that you show you children now will last a lifetime and rather your children ever voice it or not, those examples are how they will live their lives as adults.
     Wake up!!  It's okay to be by yourself until you get to know you and find the person that God intended you to be with.  Don't just settle because you don't want to be alone.  Being alone and being an excellent example to your children is much better than showing your children a bad example and having them repeat that cycle as adults.  THINK ABOUT IT!