I'm a mom. I'm not the greatest mom, and sometimes I don't think I'm even a good mom. But I am a mom. I am 35 years old and the youngest of 4 kids. I guess we were a handful because the old mothers curse came true.. my kids are just like me.
I am active duty military married to another active duty military member. We've moved around a lot and that is a whole unique problem in itself, but here's how it all started: I was 18 and bored with school and got my heart broke by a guy I was dating and went into the military. (Funny, I don't even remember his name now.) I was assigned to a base in Spain where I met the man I thought I was going to be with the rest of my life. To make a really long and horrible story short, I was 19 when I got pregnant with my girl and 20 when I had her. She was 2 months old when I married my ex and she was 2 when I filed for divorce. When she was almost 3, she and I moved to a base in North Dakota, where I met my best friend.
My daughter was a complete twerp after the divorce and the ex was refusing to pay child support. It wasn't convenient for him, so he didn't. I wound up leaning on my best friend a lot for moral support. My daughter was a huge handful by now. One morning she decided to make herself breakfast (remember she's 3) and when I woke up at 6 am and she was gone out of her crib, I went racing down the stairs. To my surprise, when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I couldn't stop. I crashed, rear first, in the middle of the dining room floor in what remained of the contents of my refrigerator. She apparently decided that she would make herself something to eat much earlier in the morning, and spilled the milk. She tried to clean it up with paper towels and even toilet paper, leaving it to soak into the hard wood. Then she tried OJ, cold soup, and Lord knows what else. I crawled up out of this pile of STUFF and she was sleeping like a perfect angel on the couch. Kids....
Well, I married my best friend and we went back overseas.
When my girl was 5 and a half, we had the boy. The boy completes the curse. About the time we had the boy, our girl was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. She became more and more a handful as time went. Luckily, she adores her little brother. We came back stateside and went back into the cold. The girl finished Kindergarten, and went on through the 4th grade before we were shipped off, but this time to California. When she was in the third grade, near failing, and several really bad scares, we decided it was time to try Ritalin. She then excelled in the 5th grade and testing at the 6.2 grade level. The boy learned his letters and numbers and showed no sign of being ADHD, and he's really enjoyed Kindergarten.
The girl however had, over that year, given us quite a headache. The move to California was really hard on her and she was slowly making friends. For awhile, every time she got mad about anything, all she would say was "I hate you and I want to move back to Wyoming". Her best friend was there and she missed her fiercely, but she wouldn't talk to anyone about it.
I don't remember what the break through with her was, or how that fight started, but I remember it was a big one. We talked for several hours, no yelling from either of us, and did a little more bonding.
Now, she's a freshman in high school, another move under our belts, she's getting ready to drive, and recently diagnosed with Alopecia Areata. She's dealing with it better than I am. In short, it's genetic (thanks mom!) and her immune system doesn't think she needs all of her hair. We're lucky it's a mild case, and there are treatments.
Please visit www.naaf.org for more information.
In all this learning, with one child that gave me gray hair prematurely, and another who's just a silly nut (and a good student) who liked to pretend he's a dog (or any other animal he can think of) I think I might survive.
I realized this afternoon that I want my kids to act their ages, just not BE that old. |
