#thejohnblog

[artists-table]

'Belcher Family Portrait', Justin Forbes, Oil/Canvas, 2015 via /r/Art https://ift.tt/2yWA3vR by thejohnblog

[chaoticbeautifullife]

Hey guys, check out Dominic, hes 5! Do you think he gets it? We will see if he has the most likes by August 31, 2014!!! Gook luck Dominic! GATES GETS IT!

Okay, so I normally NEVER post things like this, but I need all the help that I can get.  My child with the huge personality, who has ADHD, a sensory processing disorder and who has over an Apraxia diagnosis, has decided that he wanted to do a contest to win a spot in a local commercial (and also $1000...that can buy a lot of dinosaurs, you know...LOLOL)  If this contest were based on actual talent, my son would win it, hands down.  However, it's based on "likes"  UGH.  He is about 93 votes from first place with a week and a half left.  I'm asking everyone...EVERYONE to signal boost this for me, to click the link and also "like" his video.  Help my little man achieve this.  His video is pretty freaking awesome, I'm just saying!!  Thanks everyone!!!!

[dorothydoeslife]

[chaoticbeautifullife]

FOUR YEARS

Today is my four year anniversary on Tumblr. I can't believe all of the changes that I've seen in four years, from writing about being a Navy family, to divorce, to having a child with special considerations to finding peace and joy and strength in myself, to profound grief and learning how to heal. It's been a wild, wild ride. For those who've been with me from the beginning, notably Ash, Cari, Kim and John....thank you.

[chaoticbeautifullife]

Wow

I received an email today from someone that I haven't spoken to in awhile.  I was never really sure why we stopped talking, we just kind of did and it was a little sad.  She is also a single mom and I just kinda thought that we would stick together. 

In her email, she told me that the reason she backed away and started to act bitter is because she is envious of me, a bit in awe of me and quite a lot intimidated.

Why, you ask?  (Because in my own brain, I was asking and very confused.)

Because while I'm a single mom, like her, apparently I'm a Super Mom that is hard to compete with.  (I wasn't aware that it was a competition!)

She said "How does someone compete with a woman who was knocked down as low as you were and not only have you moved up in the career world (and continue to do so as you ACTUALLY want to have it all, I don't understand that, but whatever), you've sacrificed yourself and work an unGodly shift just so you can be the one who does all of the main caregiving for your son, you even coached his t-ball team.  You serve on two teams for your church that you don't get paid for spending that time on and even though you only have two days off and should be sleeping, you now volunteer at his school too, and you've become one of PTO mom's?  And everytime I turn around, I see some new activity you are doing with your son.  When do you sleep?  How do you find the energy to do it?  or the will? His needs always come first.  How do you do that?  Don't you ever get tired of it?  Or want an actual life?  You make other single mom's look bad....Hell, you make most moms, period, look bad.  It's ok to not do it all, you know.  It's ok to want time away from your kid or be happy that someone else watches them.  I'm sorry that I haven't talked to you, I think of you and wish you well, but I just feel like a shadow next to you and I think I need to do some soul searching and maybe find myself a bit more."

While the letter is flattering (and I didn't even realize I was doing as much as she said until I read it, but I guess I just assumed it's what single parents do.), what's sad is that her "finding herself" has been pretty much living off of welfare, not having any real goals except to find the nearest person to drop her kid off to so that she can go to this karaoke bar or that one.  Her needs always come before that of her child.  She's actually a selfish person.  I had hoped, when our paths originally crossed, that maybe I could be a good influence on her the way that my friend, Mandy had encouraged me through the roughest of times and was willing to get me information and whatever I needed to make some good decisions.  As Mandy once told me when I thanked her, though, "I" did the work.  I made the decision to take the information she gave me and do something with it.  This other friend?  She wanted nothing to do with it, except to find out how the government could help her to not work so that she had more time to do whatever she wants.

I suppose next to that, I would seem like a Super Mom.  To myself, I always feel like I'm lacking, like I could be doing more.  I mean, yeah...I do volunteer at the school, but it's only one of my days off for a few hours because they need the help and yeah, I take him to the park everyday and try really hard to do one "fun" activity with him on the weekends, but that's really to run his energy out so he will let me take a nap. (Ok...and it's so he doesn't feel gypped that his mom is tired all the time). And of course, I wish that I had more "evening time" with my friends once in awhile, although it's been nice that since Monkey is in school, I have regular Friday breakfast dates with a couple of my girls and I'm able to do lunch dates two days a week and that has really helped to ground me mentally and feel like I can breathe for ME for a few seconds.  I also am in a small women's group on Thursday nights, so I DO have a life.  It just doesn't involve bars or clubs or heavy drinking or sleeping around.

And it's not a competition!  Cheese and rice on toast!  Why do mom's always feel like they are in competition with each other??  We should be supportive of each other.  Single mom's have a hard enough job as it is without comparing ourselves to other people.   It's so frustrating.  And sad.  Right now, I feel nothing but sad after reading her email because I feel like I lost a friend solely because she couldn't stop comparing herself to the way I parent. 

I wish she knew the truth.  That even though I do everything she pointed out, there are so many days when I just wish that I could do absolutely nothing for weeks.  That I wish I had a man, a partner, a second pair of hands.  There are days when I ask myself what the hell I'm doing.  I feel so exhausted and run down and if I can make it through a week without crying over the stress, it's been a good week.  I keep doing it because I look at my child's face and I want the world for him.  He was dealt a crappy hand as far as his father goes and I want him to know that despite that, he is supported. 

I'm no super woman.  I'm just a mom who loves her kid.