Family BlissLogs

Today is Divorce Day. . . I’ll be leaving for the court house in about 10 minutes. This whole process has gone very quickly. It seems like just yesterday that Brandy was sitting in the living room telling me she wanted to move out, but that she wanted to work on our marriage. I hope I’m done with her lies now that we will be divorced in an hour.

The boys start a new Summer Day Camp tomorrow and have to start taking a lunch every day. We were making tomorrows lunch when I realized how pathetic my fridge looks. Keep in mind, I went grocery shopping today and it still looks this pathetic. In my defense, the boys are only with me tonight, Monday and Tuesday night this week. The bachelor-esqe look of my fridge prompted me to do a little re-organization of it’s contents. Here is my before picture (forgive me for the picture quality as my phone takes horrible pictures):

After we finished making their lunch and me moving stuff out of drawers and onto shelves, here is what it looks like now:

There is stuff on the top shelf in both pictures, the glare from the lights is just cloaking them. The top shelf has eggs, butter, olives and onion. I’m sure it will look like the before picture again in a couple days, but this realization may prompt me to get more refridgerated items during my next grocery excursion.

So I was laying on the couch watching Wipeout while playing Zach in chess on my iPod when my phone rings. Caller id tells me that it is coming from my future ex-wifes house. I answer, not knowing if it will by Brandy or one of my kids calling. What I hear brings one of the biggest smiles to my face. “Dad, I just called to say goodnight.” I about melted when I heard Parker say that. I wanted to drive across town to give him a big bear hug but had to settle for our special handshake over the phone. Now, I’m laying on the couch with the window opened letting the cool breeze chill me. To fight the chill, I’m wrapped up in Parker’s favorite blanket. If I close my eyes, I can smell Parker in the blanket. Maybe I’ll dream about him tonight.

After 7 years and 8 months of marriage, it will be coming to an end in about 1 more month. According to my wife, it was completely over back in February; but will not be over till the judge signs the papers next month. Speaking of the divorce papers, we have agreed on everything and have each signed the papers at the lawyers office. I wanted to fight for more time with the kids, but realized that the only thing that would accomplish would be to make us both spend more money on lawyers. I most likely wouldn’t have gotten any more time than what she proposed and any lawyer she got would probably convinced her to get more money out of me. As far as divorces go, I suppose I’m lucky in that I won’t be paying any weekly child support or alimony.

My son asked me tonight why I was still wearing my wedding ring. My answer was that I was still married and would wear it on that finger till I wasn’t married any more. At this point, I don’t know that I’ll be ready to take it off even when the divorce is final. I’m considering wearing it on my right hand till I’m ready to remove it. I know that at this point I should move on and just remove it, but that infinity symbol on it still means forever to me. I may get over her at some point and allow myself to move on, but I am just not there yet and don’t know when I will be. I’ve had a few people tell me that I need to see a counselor, Brandy included. I did for a little while, but the person I was talking to wanted to focus on ways to “save” the marriage, which is exactly what I wanted to hear. Once Brandy convinced me that even if I changed everything about me and my life in a manner that would make her happier, the marriage was still over; I stopped speaking to the counselor. No point in talking about ways to save the marriage when the other person has no ambition to do so and is probably dating someone else already.

Normally, it would be a no brainer to pick between a noisy house or a quiet house. Most of you would pick the quiet house. I myself would have taken that option 4 months ago, but oh how times have changed. I’ve had the house to myself since Wednesday morning and the quietness was deafening. I spent a lot of time doing things around the house, but I didn’t realize how unhappy I was until I picked up my kids tonight. As soon as we got home, they both went off to play together. I didn’t join them, but I could hear them talking to each other and playing together. It was then that I realized that I was smiling for the first time all weekend. They went on playing and were running through the house; the racket they were making was therapeutic. It would have been the first time since Wednesday that I smiled, but I was able to see the boys Thursday and Friday. They had an awards ceremony at school on Thursday that I attended and Brandy brought them over Friday night so she could get more stuff from the house. I did smile both those times. Even now, the house is quiet; but I still have a smile on my face. I could walk upstairs at any point and just watch them sleep; which I may do a little later. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I would now pick a noisy house any time. Well, I’m rambling and I realize that I may not be making much sense in this post, so I think I will sign off.

Another update on my divorce proceedings coming soon.

To say that I’m not too handy is an understatement. I took the past 2 days off from work to take on a small project in the kids’ room. The twins are moving up to the bedroom upstairs by Seth, so we decided to give them a fort of sorts by creating a small “secret” passage joining their two closets. I must admit, it was fun taking a hammer and smashing a hole in the wall. It took me all of those 2 days, but I did eventually finish the job. The kicker is that when Brandy saw the completed job, she said; “It looks good”. That in itself isn’t the kicker part, but rather the tone in which she said it. It would have been nice if she didn’t say it in such a surprised tone.

I was sitting on the couch, folding laundry, being a good husband when my cell phone starts vibrating, vibrating NOT ringing. I start pulling it out of my belt clip to answer it, immediately thinking that something was broken at work. Before I get a chance to look at the caller id, Parker comes running down the stairs shouting at me to answer my phone. My first thought was, “How did you know my phone was ringing?”.

Flashback 1 month:
I decided that my kids should know our phone number. But which number should I teach them? I decided that the number that had the best chance of getting answered and for us to keep for quite a while was my cell phone. So I spend a few days quizzing them on it until they have it memorized.

Flashback to yesterday:
I look at my phone for caller id and on the display is: “Home”. “What, home is calling me?”; I think to myself. Then I look at Parker’s mischievous face and put 1 and 1 together. I wonder up to the upstairs phone, which I find lying on my desk, waiting for me to answer. I hung up that phone and chased Parker throughout the house to tickle him till he learns his lesson.

We’ll see if he did or not.

Since my post regarding the sex talk with a girl, I’ve received a similar link for a conversation with boys. Since turnabout is fair play, I thought I’d post the YouTube video: (Warning: Adult Content)

This post was originally made on January 31 in my blogspot blog, but I’ve had a request to repost it in one of my current blogs, so here ya go.

My son had his first hockey injury a couple days ago. That’s the short story. If you want details, well. . . I was watching Sports Center the other morning. My son saw the highlights for hockey and got excited. He started running toward the tv and tripped about 2 feet away from the tv. As he went down, his mouth hit the tv. His tooth is still there, it is just pushed up into his gums. He cried a lot less than I would have if it happened to me.

I’ll admit, I wouldn’t expect to read the word scrotum in a children’s book. I would however, prefer to read that as opposed to the other slang terms for that area of the male anatomy.

Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

There are librarians everywhere that have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools. I’m sure debate will ensue regarding acceptable language in children’s literature. I say, why ban the book? There are worse things that children could learn from books. I would rather have my children learn some anatomy from books in this way, rather than in a sexual manner. It would take quite a bit for me to recommend banning a book. Of all the controversies I’ve read regarding book content, I’ve never yet been convinced that banning it is the correct action.