Um, am I supposed to be playing tea party?

I was watching this TV show about a little girl who wished her teddy bear alive so she could have tea parties with him.  It made me think that I've never played tea party with Julianne.  It also made me realize that I've never played tea party at all.  I never played as a kid.  To be honest, I'm not so fond of tea.  I might have it once or twice a year if my mom makes it and puts sugar and milk in it.  Iced tea a bit more often, but I'm still not clamoring to get the Sunday paper to clip coupons for Lipton Tea Bags.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing all the mom things I'm supposed to be doing to nurture Julianne.  Do I need to be playing tea party with her so she becomes acquainted with the details of fine dining?  Am I supposed to be taking her to the child's art museum so she can be intellectually stimulated by the colors and shapes?  Should I be cooking different foods that I don't like so her palate can become acquainted with different tastes? 

Does anyone have the Mommy Rule Book that I can borrow?

It's just not fair

For the past week or so, I have been following the story of a 2-year-old little girl named Layla Grace. Her family has a blog (www.laygrace.org) and a twitter account (www.twitter.com/laylagrace). Layla began battling Stage IV neuroblastoma (read: really nasty cancer) ten months ago, when she wasn't even two years old. Over the past ten months, she's endured treatments and agonizing pain while dealing with this. When it became evident that Layla was not going to make it through the cancer, her family began doing everything they could to make her comfortable. For the past two weeks, Layla's parents have spent every waking moment with her. They have read to her, changed her, slept with her and generally been right there next to her as she's fought for her life every moment of every day. They have watched their youngest daughter - a tiny, precious, beautiful, innocent child - die a slow, painfully agonizing death, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Early this morning Layla went home to be with the Lord.

I have cried endless tears over this child that I have never met.  I have prayed as hard as I could that if the Lord was not going to heal her here on earth, that He take her to Heaven to be healed there.  As terrible as the death of a child is, it was almost a relief to hear that Layla had finally passed.  At least her suffering is over.

Not only have a cried and prayed for this girl, I have become much more tolerant of Julianne.  Every time I start to get frustrated with her for one reason or another, Layla pops into my brain and instead I hug my baby.  I lean over her crib at night while she sleeps and talk to her and tell her how much I love her, how precious and wonderful she is, and say a prayer over her.  When she falls asleep in my arms, instead of rushing to put her in the crib so I can get stuff done, I rock with her and gaze at her beautiful face.  I hug and kiss her more, I play with her more, I touch her face more.  I cannot imagine ever hearing someone tell me that my child is going to die.  The very thought of someone ever saying anything like that to me brings me to tears.  I cannot IMAGINE my life without Julianne.  As far as I'm concerned, if there is no Julianne in my life, I have no life.  I cannot go on without her.  It's only Julianne and I... it has been from the beginning.  There would be no husband to switch off shifts with me while caring for my child.  If anything were to ever happen to her, I would be left alone.  I would be ALONE.  Alone in this apartment.  Alone with Julianne's clothes.  Alone with her toys.  Alone with her books.  Alone with her pictures.  Alone with my thoughts, and my memories.  Alone with the unbearable knowledge that my child would never be coming back.

There would be no other children, no husband, no one to help, to experience the loss, and help me through it.  I would be faced with all of it alone.  I know these are all what-ifs, but I can't stand the thought of losing Julianne, and I can't stand the thought of being alone forever, without her.

My heart has broken for Layla's family.

No Time Off For Good Behavior

This afternoon started off rough.  When I went to get Julianne at Sammie's, she got mad because she didn't want to leave and started hitting me and threw her juice cup.  I had a feeling it was only going to get worse, and it did.

She threw a fit almost the whole way home.  She wanted my phone, she wanted cheese balls, she wanted out of the seat, she wanted to know the secrets of the universe, I don't know.  All I know is that I wish, just ONCE, I could drive home from work without her screaming in the backseat.  I know I've done that a couple times when she's gone with her dad, but what I really want is to leave work, drive home, and have her waiting there to meet me.  I really miss my quiet car rides home before she was born when I could decompress from the school day.  It's hard being the sole caretaker - I'm the ONLY one there is to pick her up and bring her home, so I can't rely on anyone else to do it for me, not even once in a while.

When we got home, we went to the playground for a bit, which was fun, but then I could smell pot smoke - I have no idea who was smoking it because I couldn't see anyone anywhere, even on patios - but the smell was definitely there so I scooped Julianne up to come home.  She was none too pleased.  She wanted to keep playing.  Once we got inside I just wanted to get some stuff done - tidying up, dishes, etc.  She had other plans - namely chasing after me, crying and whining to be held.  I was so frustrated. 

I am so jealous of my married friends - one parent to do the tidying, one to entertain the little one.  Even if there's no cleaning to be done, one parent can sit and just relax, which is what I'd really like to do sometimes when I come home.  I don't want to have to worry about dinner, I don't want to have to worry about getting the dishes done, I don't want to do anything but put my butt on the couch and watch a Law & Order re-run. 

No such luck when you're a single mom.

Shaking Things Up A Bit

I've decided to change the format of my blog.  Not the physical format, but the concept/contents of it.  Instead of making my blog a Dear Diary type of thing, I'm going to focus on life as a single mom.  It's a subject that I know very well, as I live it every day.  I have a lot to say on the matter, too.  I don't intend this to become a forum to complain about my daughter's father, herein known as J; rather, I'd like to use this as a type of therapy to help me sort my thoughts and feelings on the incredible difficulties and the unimaginable joys of single motherhood and all it encompasses.  This is the beginning of my Lenten journey- I plan to blog at least three days a week.  Fingers crossed! :-)

So buckle up... we may be in for a bumpy ride.  :-)

When it rains...

Julianne is SOOOO sick... except for the one morning she woke up and couldn't sit up or walk, this is the sickest she's ever been.  Her nose is completely blocked but it's leaking like crazy and it's all raw and red from when I wipe it.  She has this awful cough and I know her throat must hurt because every time she coughs she cries and then whimpers.  She's not sleeping well at all.  She did okay last night but the two nights before that she slept in my bed and neither one of us slept more than a couple of hours.  I put her to bed in her crib tonight but she is so miserable and I don't like the idea of her being in another room when she can't breathe, so when she woke up crying I brought her to my room and got her settled in "Mama's Big Bed," as we call it.  She's sleeping now, but I can tell she's having trouble breathing.  So I have a feeling it's going to be another long night.  I want to take her to the doctor, but she's not running a fever and I know the doctor's going to tell me there's nothing they can prescribe and to run hot showers and get the bathroom steamy, and use the saline drops and bulb syringe, yada yada - and quite frankly, I don't want to pay a $20 copay to hear something my mom has already told me.  But then I feel like a bad mom, like I should take her anyway.


My brother is getting married on Saturday and Julianne is a flower girl and even though I bought the dress for her, I'm just now finding out about all these other little pieces that I'm supposed to have, like IVORY shoes instead of white, a red sweater, ivory tights instead of white ankle socks, etc.  Normally I wouldn't care and just send Julianne with what I already had, but the bride's nieces (ages 3 and 23 months) are also flower girls and they'll be wearing identical stuff and I don't want Julianne to stand out.  So I called my future sister-in-law (whom I used to love, but ever since they got engaged she's decided she's too good to speak to me) to ask about the stuff and she told me that her sister bought it all at Target.  I've already looked at two Targets and didn't find any of the stuff.  So today I dragged my deathly ill child to yet ANOTHER Target and still didn't find a single little girl's shoe - not just in Julianne's size, but ANY size at all - in ivory.  Tons of white shoes; no ivory.  So now I don't know what to do.  Do I let her go in different stuff and be an individual and potentially iritate the bride?  Or do I keep going to different stores to see if I can find SOMETHING?

My high school best friend Michelle called me Monday to tell me she and her husband are expecting their third baby.  I'm ecstatic for them, especially because they tried for a year to get pregnant, but it was like a knife to the heart.  I want to be married.  I want to be having babies.  I am so jealous of her... but I would never tell her.

I wish Pete would get his act together... we both want the same things (at least, I think we do) but we want them on very different time schedules.  I want to get married and have more kids sooner rather than later, and he wants to get married and have kids WAAAAAAAAAAY later rather than sooner.  He is still carrying around so much baggage from his last relationship (ended more than 3 years ago) and can't let go of his ex.  I admit I come with a fair share of baggage too, but at least I don't lament to Pete how perfect my ex was for me, like he does about his ex.  Sigh.

And to top ALL of this off, my right arm is KILLING me!  The two nights Julianne slept with me, she slept propped up on my arm and I slept with it in some funky position, and now my arm is in so much pain, and the only thing I have with painkiller in it is Nyquil, which I don't need since I'm not sick!  Ugh!