The random misadventures of a (formerly)Single Super Mom

I grew up in a very small town in the Midwest...the population wasn't even 100,000 people.  I was insulated from a lot of the things the "world" had...but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Coming back home is always a double edged sword for me.  My ex husband and I are from same town, so driving through it always brings back bittersweet memories.  Now that my children are older, I can show them some of these things without pain.  I still am very angry at my ex, and I have a lot of animosity toward him for the father that he isn't, because he had the potential to be so much more; but I won't let that part of who he is now, taint the good memories that we had together.  I took my kids to see the 100 year old house I grew up in; and now the porch is different and painted a cheerful green, and it looks so much smaller than I remembered.  I remember swinging on the porch swing, looking for change for the ice cream man, and catching fireflies in the back ya...

Dear X, This letter has been a long time coming.  It really has.  I remember when we met, when I was a young and naive girl of 20 still living at home, and you were 18.  It was infatuation at first sight, then it quickly turned to love.  I'll never forget the first time you said those three little words.  I know I was too young to understand that what we had wasn't based on what "forever" should be, but you can't argue that when you're young.  I should have had my first inkling that something was wrong when another girl came to my job the week after we were married, and showed me a poem...it was the exact same poem that you'd written for me.  But, I was young.  And I was in love.  Thank you for making me believe that through the first four years of our marriage, through all of the separations courtesy of the US Military, that you thought that we were going to grow old together.  Thank you for making the day I told you that I was pregna...

Back when I was in school (you know, when Jesus was a baby), when teachers assigned projects they were scaled for the student's ability to complete.  Most things consisted of looking up things in my parents' burgundy and gold copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica that we'd gotten from a door to door salesman, or actually havng to go to the Library (can you believe that, of all places?) and researching things.  We had to learn the Dewey Decimal System and how to use a card catalog.  Now?  Well, now things are COMPLETELY different.  My 11 year old son came home with a project on nuclear energy.  Ok, one would think you would have to make a model of a neutron, maybe write a report on how nuclear fission or fusion works, and some illustrations for extra credit.  Instead, we get things like "come up with 10 questions that you can get at least 15 people to answer about radioactive materials, and when you complile all of the responses, write a newspaper edito...

Just the other day, I was talking with one of the older nurses I work with about this generation and their "sense of entitlement".   I realized, that in our quest to give them "everything we didn't have", we may have created a society of monsters.  I remember, as a child, being a latchkey kid.  I knew that both of my parents worked full time, and there was a set of expectations that I had from them, that were unwavering.  I knew that I wasn't responsible for the cooking, but I knew that when my mom came home from work, that the house had better be picked up.  There was no allowance, no trips to the mall, no extras..unless they were earned.  In my days as a stay at home mother, I did everything for my kids.  I cleaned their rooms, put away their laundry, almost waited on them hand and foot.  I felt it was my "duty" as a stay at home mom, since I didn't work outside the home anymore.  When I divorced and went back to work, the "single mom ...

Here it is, that time again, where we over indulge on not only food, but other things.  Black Friday used to be a traditional time to plan your "attack route" the days before, grab a couple of girlfriends to be line holders, and attempt to score the very best deals out there for Christmas.  The stores used to open around 5 am, giving you ample time to sleep off the gluttony of the night before, and then try to get the strongest coffee you could get your hands on before standing in line.  Now, stores are open earlier and earlier, with some of them not even closing on Thanksgiving day anymore.  Being a single mother, money is always at a minimum.  We are constantly looking for ways to save money, cutting coupons, bartering, doing online surveys, finding focus groups...you name it.  This year, however, there really wasn't any "one big thing" that would sway me out of my warm bed....standing in line behind hundreds of other hopefuls, trying to get the coveted i...

When I was growing up, I used to love hanging out in the kitchen with my mom.  I learned how to cook by watching her create things...and my parents were very adventurous eaters.  I grew up very poor, and we had to "make do with what we got" for a lot of meals.  We picked dandelion greens from the big field near our apartment, and mom would cook them with onions and whatever else we had on hand.  Mama would make a big pot of rice for dinner at night, and the next morning we'd have rice with milk, butter, and cereal for breakfast.  We never knew we were poor, all we knew is that we never went hungry.  My parents fed us stuff like monkfish, polenta, and we'd go to the Calumet Fisheries in Chicago and have little cartons of fried smelt.  We also had the more traditional beans and rice, collard greens and corn bread.  However we did NOT have a lot of the things that some people take for granted!  I never had a pork chop until I was married to my e...

My son was always the "young" one.  He made the cutoff to start kindergarten by about 2 weeks.  I considered holding him out, or "redshirting" him, but life got in the way.  I got the news that my then husband wanted  a divorce, and I needed to get a job.  My days as a stay at home mom were over.  I wouldn't have traded them for the world.  He started to struggle in school in first grade.  I attributed it to him being "immature".  By third grade, his self esteem had started to suffer.  My daughter is one of those "natural learners".  Things come so easily to her.  She was that straight A student without even trying.  I'd get so heartbroken when he'd come home and I'd ask him how he did on a spelling test, or a math test; and he'd get this huge grin on his face and tell me "I think I did good this time mom!".  And invariably, the test would come back with less than stellar results.  Report card da...