The Little Victories

Just re-read my previous post here. I get a tiny bit of satisfaction to note that things have gotten better. Vanessa has not tried to get out of bed since that night except on one or two occasions and even then, she only tried once before staying in her room. Nice to see the "mean Mommy" tactic works on occasion.

Hubby has been a bit more understanding lately. He was even feeling snuggly this morning which has been a rare thing for him over the past year or so. Usually I'm the one initiating the snuggling, but he did it this morning. It was nice.....would've liked more than snuggling, but we knew Vanessa would probably be getting up at any time. Ah well.

Xmas was good, but tiring. Not as much so as previous years since we didn't drive to mom's house on Xmas Eve. Vanessa and I went to the Xmas Eve service at the UU church. Not bad, though a bit too much like the usual Christian church service (aside from the teen trio singing John Lennon's "So This is Christmas (War is Over)"). And trying to manage a restless toddler wasn't much fun either (though she wasn't as bad as I thought she would be).

Got lots of good presents this year. Top of the list were an iPod Nano from my MIL and a bamboo bathtub caddy and bookstand from hubby. Oh...and can't forget the $1000 check from mom..though it's going for bills.

Signed up for Sparkpeople.com a couple of days ago. It's really neat. I can track my diet and exercise just like at the Weight Watchers site, but this is free! It's a good thing to keep me on track...I am constantly amazed at what I eat sometimes. I can't wait to go to the new gym that just opened down the street. Hopefully, I'll be able to workout more often now that it's not such a drive.

R-e-s-p-e-c-t....

...is the one thing I want, but can never sem to be able to get. Not from friends, family or co-workers. Not even from my own husband. Maybe he loves me, but I know he doesn't respect me...it's evident in everythig he says and does.

I find it ironic that after Vanessa was born, he would always say how he had been attracted to me because I had been a strong, independant woman, but I didn't seem to be anymore. Ironic because everytime I try to be the strong, independant woman he says that he loves, he tries to dismiss that independance. It seems that anytime I voice my opinion or take a stand on just about anything...from raising our child to politics to what's for dinner, he treats my opinion as worthless. At the very most, he'll condenscendingly go along with me, but always with the air of indulging a spoilt child in order to avoid a tantrum (which of course, is his method of "parenting" as well).

On the parenting subject, he rarely ever uses any form of discipline at all. Which I find strange, considering that he's this gung-ho ex-Marine who's all about the Marine way of honor, duty, and discipline. He indulges almost every whim of hers as long as it won't directly harm her. I'm constantly made out the be the "bad cop" because when I say no to something, I follow through with it and will not back down if she throws a tantrum. If I say it's naptime, then it's naptime, no matter how much she fusses and whines about not wanting to take a nap....unlike him who will just shrug and let her play, assuming that "she'll get tired sometime"...which she usually doesn't..she just gets super-grouchy, and I'm left to deal with her because he's out somewhere...again. Like yesterday....I get home a little after 2 from working my butt off at work and she still hasn't taken a nap (her usual naptime is around noon). As far as I can tell, he's made no real overtures to trying to get her to take a nap and never does for the 30 inute or so he's there before taking of to work on his mother's house. So, here I'm tired, hungry and working on a headache and I'm stuck dealing with a grouchy toddler who's 2 hours overdue for nap. Nice...

Then last night, I just *know* that she's going to get up 10 times again...like she's done the past 4 nights or so. So I decided to lay down the rule that she gets a book in bed if she stays in bed. If she gets up, she loses the book. So she agreed and laid down. But, as usual, after about 5 minutes, she's up and heading out of her room. So I took her book away. She screamed and pitched a fit, but I held my ground...well, until she found another book stashed under her pillow (sneaky girl). I relented and let her keep that one, but laid downthe same rule...get up, lose the book. Well, she got up again, so I took the book and put her back in bed. We can't lock her in her room because she's figured out how to unlock it from the inside...so I just stood outside her door and held it closed. I felt horrible for doing it because she was hysterically trying to get out, but I knew if I didn't we would be dealing with her getting up constantly every night. She did the same thing when I finally got her sleeping in her own bed and she only fussed for the first two nights and everytime after that she was fine. So I'm hoping that this will be the same way. But anyway, back to the husband issue. The whole time she was putting up a fuss, I assumed that Ron was downstairs, because usually he'll get up at some point and "take over for me" (a.k.a. shoo off mean ole Mommy so he can let her have her way), but when she finally calmed down and I heard her go to bed, I found him in the living room. I half-jokingly said that I was a mean Mommy and hated doing that. He just gave me this "no comment" look, so I said something like, "What? Or are you just doing the no comment thing?"...and he just shrugs and goes back to watching his football game. Argh...I was so mad!

Something he has yet to figure out is that when I'm crying, I'm not sad, I'm usually very angry. I cried in the bedroom for a few minutes and he comes in and snuggles up with me. Okay, I'm okay with that....but I figured he'd at least ask what was wrong, but he never said a word the whole time, he just lay there with me, then left after I'd stopped crying and went into the utter silent mode, hoping that he'd eventually care enough to want to know why I was upset...but he never did. And that made me even angrier. I mean, heck...does he not even care why I'm upset? Or is it another case of him thinking, "Oh look another one of her 'meltdowns'. I guess I just need to give her a hug and let her be." And that's one of the things that pisses me off most...the fact that anytime I get upset about something and dare to voice my opinion, he considers it a "meltdown" and implies that I need to get psychiatric help for my "depression". No, you fracking idiot, it's called being human with feelings that are being stomped on constantly and I'm bloody fracking sick of it!

Even now, he's probably upstairs, being resentful that I'm down here "blogging" (which is what he calls anything I do online....ignoring the fact that he spends plenty of time down here gaming), while he's watching Vanessa (also ignoring the fact that I've been up with her for the past 2 hours already while he stayed in bed). Not to mention he's probably going to take off sometime around her naptime (so I get to be the "bad cop Mommy" once again to get her to take a nap and he doesn't have to), to spend the entire day with his mother and not come home until after dinnertime. Oh yes, one other thing that pissed me off this morning. Last night, I made dinner for both of us (even though Vanessa and I ate before he got home after 7 because we were too hungry to wait that long). He tells me to leave his on the stove and he'll eat it in a little bit. Well, I went into the kitchen this morning and it's still sitting there, serving as breakfast for the bugs! What a waste! He couldn't even make the effort to put it in a bowl and stick it in the refrigerator...or even tell me that he didn't want it and let me do it. He just left it there like I was supposed to know that he wouldn't eat it! Argggghhhh! Why do I bother?!?

What a day!

Well, this was my last vacation day of the year and I got so much done!

First thing this morning after I dropped Vanessa off at daycare, I went to see the Air National Guard recruiter. Hubby and I have been talking about joining the Guard for some extra money on the weekends and, since we're both prior service, we can add the time towards our retirement. I'm really excited about this. Just going on-base and remembering when I was on active duty has really got me wanting to do this. I miss alot about miltary life. I'm just worried about having to go back to tech school again. Not only being away from home for so long, but also having to do PT. I am horribly out-of-shape and I had a rough time with the running when I was in the first time...when I was 18 and 95 pounds soaking wet. I can't imagine the hell it will be with me not having exercised in over 3 years and weighing 135. Looks like I have another good excuse to hit the gym hardcore between now and then.

Afterwards I headed home and tried, unsuccessfully, to find my DD214. But I did find alot of stuff while I was searching for it....the rest of my tarot cards, for one. I'm hoping that my "Mysteris of Isis" book is buried in the same box since it wasn't with the rest of my books. Also found the cute hat that my mom knitted for Vanessa last winter (actually, it was suppoed to be for me, but she made it way too small).

Went out to lunch with hubby, then went grocery shopping to pick up the ingredients for my orange-cranberry Chex mix. Ooooohhh...this is heaven! I could eat the whole batch by myself in one sitting. But no...have to lose weight and get in shape for the Guard.

Also got hubby's presents wrapped. And speaking of which....I won a prize! A local parenting board is having a contest where you can win something different every day. I went ahead and entered for a few of the prizes, not thinking I'd win since I only submit one entry and everyone else, it seems, is able to submit multiple entries. But I won on the very first day! It's a wrapping organizer filled with wrapping paper, tags, ribbons, bows, and such. How cool! Too bad I already have almost everything already wrapped now. But when mom's book comes in from Amazon, I can use the new stuff.

It's so cool how things seem to be just falling in my lap the past week or so since I setup my prosperity altar. Oh yes...and speaking of prosperity, the ANG will give me a $20,000 bonus when I join!!! Holy crap! We could pay off all kinds of bills with that! Heck, we could pay them ALL off (except the mortgage) and have money left over to spend. And if we both join...that's $40,000!!! I get palpatations just thinking about that. It looks like all kinds of prayers are going to be answered.

Best Santa Pics Yet!

We went to the mall this evening and Vanessa decided that she wanted to see Santa. I was rather wary because every other time we've taken her to see Santa, she either freaked out or just sat there, looking sullen. And initially, that's what she did this time too. In fact, as soon as the photographer started trying to get her to smile, she put on the meanest "Mean Girl" look she could muster. But as soon as the photographer started attacking Ron's hair with the duck puppet, Vanessa started cracking a smile. The first pic she was still looking sullen, the second she had a kind of crooked half-smile, but the third one...PERFECT!

Now if only Santa had been smiling. :P

Yesterday

Yesterday was a good day. I have two days of vacation time left, so my boss let me have yesterday off (yay! 3 day weekend!). So, I took Vanessa to daycare and came home to get some things done around the house.

I cleaned the bathtub and took a nice long bath (not as long as I would've liked since Ron called while I was in it), reading The Artist's Soul: Daily Nourishment to Support Creative Growth. It was nice to have gotten most of my books unpacked and on the bookshelf, finally. Afterwards, I did the dishes, cleaned the shower in the other bathroom and worked on my altar space/reading nook in the bedroom. The whole bedroom just feels more alive since I redid it. I found my Indian Sari tapestry and used it on the altar. It looks very pretty (see right and below).


I felt moved to do a small prosperity ritual with offerings to Isis (gods know we need it, being as broke as we are). It felt right...even moreso now that we're finally caught up on the daycare payments. And I found out later that evening that Ron's working something out with Wells Fargo. Between those, it feels like we're moving int he right direction and I want to make sure it keeps heading that way. I'll be so happy when we can finally keep up with the expenses. At least my car's finally going to be paid off in the coming year. That will be a big burden off of our shoulders.

We also got a small, but pleasant surprise that evening. Ron had been looking around the computer desk downstairs for something and found one of the opal and diamond earrings that he had bought for me two Xmases ago. I had thought that I had lost one down the shower not but a week after he'd given it to me and I had been so upset about it (I know he wasn't too happy either, but he didn't show it). We assumed that this one was the one I hadn't lost and Vanessa had somehow gotten it out of my jewelry box and brought it downstairs. But when I looked in my jewelry box the other one was still in there...so I finally have the pair again! We were both so happy. That had been such a special gift and I had been so heartbroken when I thought that it was lost.

I'm starting to feel so much more open to good things happening in my life. It's like a channel has been reopened to the Divine that had started to close. Hehe..and I'm getting this feeling of "It's about time!" from the Cosmic.

Dream this morning...

Had a interesting a vivid dream this morning right before little one came and woke me up.

I was camped in the woods along a trail that overlooked a beautiful waterfall that joined two lakes. The name of the waterfall and one of the lakes (I don't remember if it was the upper or lower lake) was something like Meridia. It looked something like a mini-Niagra. I remember that my aunt was there, though I never saw her except on video (more about that in a minute)...and my twin cousins (which I don't have...these were two girls and she has a boy and a girl who aren't twins). There was also someone who I "felt" was Jake and someone who I as very fond of that initially I "felt" was someone named Dave that I knew in my kung fu days. But later, after I woke up, I couldn't help but wonder if it was my father's younger Self because it looked alot like him. There was a aqua blue string of yarn hanging from a tree...and my mother came along and pointed it out as though it was something important that I should know and be wary of. Right before I woke up, it seemed there was a tag hanging from the yarn that said something, but I couldn't read it. My mother walked up a hill and a small cottage that was decorated for Christmas appeared. Dave/Dad went after her and I got a good feeling from that. Before that happened "Jake" came along with a video camera and showed me video of my aunt acting goofy and my twin "cousins" riding the waterfall (there was a term they used for this, but I don't remember it now)...they would try to swim against the current at the edge of the waterfall, then go over the edge, feet first, arms crossed. They were also using some kind of dust (I can't remember what it was called now) that made them float in mid-air. I remember joking about all the crazy things they were doing being an effect of "Too much _____ dust and too much idle time".

Even though there is so much potential symbology in this dream, I'm almost afraid to read too much into it. Maybe it was just an idyllic retreat for me on the astral. I'm not sure.

Here we go again...

Yay! Yet another blog to start...and probably never keep up with. Ah well..it's always worth a try.
Reading Robert Fulghum's books got me inspired to try and write again.
And why am I writing as though someone's reading this? I'm hoping this will be just me. But if someone else does read this...more power to 'em, I suppose. I'm not looking to throw all this out to the masses. So why not just create Word files or something? This is prettier, I guess. I don't know. And maybe on the off chance that someone does read any of this, they'll provide some helpful feedback.
Whatever...we'll see how this goes.