Reinforcements

Mommy, do you know how to drive that thing?

No

Mommy, do you know how to start that thing?

No

But Mommy... I think Grandpa said we can drive that thing.....
********************

We have called in the reinforcements. My father has arrived with his trackhoe in an effort to find the collapsed tile and stop the flooding in our basement.

Cross your fingers that this works. I'm tired of moping and pumping......

Flooding

On Tuesday at 1:00 I participated in a market research study about local radio stations. One in particular and their syndicated morning radio show. I almost didn't answer when my home phone rang on Monday night with a blocked number. However, my mom's number shows up that way so I picked it up.

The process was fairly short, 30 minutes, and pretty painless. They asked me some questions about the morning show and about things that I thought would or would not be good topics for that show. And for my trouble I was paid $75. Where do I sign up for the next one??

Yesterday morning I woke up late and stumbled down to the basement to check on the water situation (since it had rained 2" over night). As soon as I got about halfway down the stairs I saw the water. About half of the basement floor was already covered, any where from 1/16 inch to 1/4 inch of water, and it was slowly creeping towards the rest. I put my shoes on and headed for the pump.

I got the hose dragged outside to the sound of thunder and the feel of a few raindrops on my skin. Quickly I hurried back downstairs, plugged in the pump and listened gratefully to the whooshing sound as it started pumping all the water outside. I was just getting ready to head back upstairs to take a shower when it just stopped. No warning, just done and the water came rushing back in.

So I quickly unplugged the pump and flipped it over trying to locate the reason for it's lack of functioning. I think it's important to add here that I had no idea what I was looking for. None what so ever. It was the equivalent of my car breaking down and me opening the hood of my car and staring at the motor. It might look good but it is totally pointless.

So, I set the pump down... having deducted that it looked perfectly fine to me, and plugged it back in. Swish... the water started pumping again. Alright, I thought, just a fluke. I stepped off of the pallets to head for the door and once again it stopped. So, once again I unplugged it and walked over and picked the pump up. A pointless exercise but one I engaged in none the less. Having once again deducted that it looked perfectly fine to me, because of course I would know what I was looking for, I plugged it back in. Nothing. Not a sound... not a whir... nothing....

So, yesterday morning at 7:45 am I got to take my newly acquired $75 and buy a new pump for our basement.

Uggg....

The Slipping Slide

Last Sunday we bought Zack a slip and slide. Or as he refers to it... his slipping slide.

At first he was not really sure what to do with it.

Didn't quite fully understand the concept.....

So, Jim had to give him a lesson....

He was a baseball player so for him, sliding down this thing is no big deal. Just dive!!

After he went down the first (or possibly the second) time I started getting the look. The look that said... it is your turn now.

I am 30 years old. I have never (that I remember) been down a slip and slide. And I was wearing my clothes. Hadn't I been designated group photographer?

Yet, the next thing you know, my shoes and socks were off and I was standing in the grass looking at this thing wondering how did I get myself talked into this?

I have a mental block about throwing myself face first onto a hard surface so I ran... then I stopped...

Then I sort of hit all fours and fell onto the slip and slide. It wasn't pretty....

And I only made it about halfway down the first time.....

But it was fun!!

I looked at Jim after I was done and through the laughter I simply asked him, "Who are you and how is it that I let you talk me into this? This is not me... I am not the fun parent."

And yet, there I was in my jeans and tshirt (sans bra... I took it off... Jim said that completed the hick look) sliding down a slip and slide with my son and my boyfriend and loving every minute of it.

Sometimes, life catches up with you in unexpected ways and you realize that where you are now is 100% different, yet 100% more fun than you ever thought it would be!

Say what?

What's wrong with your shirt?

What?

Look right there.

Mommy, look, I have a hole in my shirt.

(Then he says in a volume that reminds people he is in fact my son, because I am nothing if not seriously volume challenged at times... )

Look Mr. Jim, you can stick your finger in the hole and touch my wood!

**blink, blink... crickets chirping**

Your what?

My wood. (He says while rubbing his arm....)

Skin Zackary. It is called skin. Trees have wood. People have skin.

***************

I may have laughed hard enough to almost shoot pop out of my nose and I had tears streaming down my face.

Children..... making the world a funnier place one innocently inappropriate comment at a time.

Yup... I'm an ass..

He came over tonight and while we were talking he told me that he had decided he was ready to live here.

And I laughed inside....

I couldn't help it. Because I knew I had to come here and admit to all of you that I am.... indead an ass....

Then I told him about the blog post and he laughed. Right before he told me I better get online an update my blog.

So he's moving. Not next week, obviously, but shortly there after. I'm thrilled. I'm pulling my foot out of my throat.... but thrilled just the same.

Who's Daddy?

Mr. Jim is coming to our house tonight.

I thought we decided we were just going to call him Jim.

No mommy... I thought we decided we were going to call him Daddy Jim.

Well you can call him Daddy Jim if you want to but I'm going to just call him Jim.

Why?

Because he's not my daddy.

But he's MY daddy!!

Yes, he is.

Mommy...... he can be your daddy if you want him to be.

No Zacky... no he can't......

Thursday Thoughts

I have been struggling this week/month with expectations. I told Jim a couple weeks ago that my goal in life is to try not to have expectations. That way when things don't happen as I expect I am not disappointed. In Al-anon we say that expectations are premeditated resentments. And for the most part, I think this is true.

However, as Jim reminded me... you have to have some expectations in life. Realistic expectations keep your life and your boundaries in check. There are people in the program who live with active alcoholism and addiction. I often hear these people talk in meetings and wonder if they have any expectations left at all. Some of them are struggling but some of them seem to be happy right where they are. I am not them. As much as I would like to not have expectations I very much think Jim is right. There are certain things I feel like you should be able to expect of your partner and when you live with active alcoholism and addiction you don't get those things.

Which brings us back to my expectations. Realistic expectations. Before I begin, #1) I asked Jim if he read my blog, he told me he was here a couple times after I gave him the link but has not been back in a month or so.... which is why I am posting this here. Which leads beautifully into #2) unlike the previous topics of discussion last week and this week, I have not talked about this with him. You'll understand why in a minute.

As I'm sure you have figured out from reading here, Jim and I are not engaged, nor does he live with me. He started telling me he was going to marry me at the beginning of February. For a long time he told me at least once, if not multiple times, every time he saw me. When I asked him why his answer was that he was 36 years old and had never said that to another woman. He liked saying it and he really wanted me to believe it and know how important it was to him.

Sometime in March, he started telling other people he was going to marry me. Casual conversations, talking about future plans, flat out questions to him by his friends & family, things of that nature. Somewhere between March and April I started forming an expectation in my mind. He talked about it so often and was so excited about it I just figured that it was something that would be happening sooner rather than later.

We had talked about him living with me and I had basically told him he was welcome any time after April 15th. Slowly April 15th kept getting closer and closer and there was no mention of Jim living with me. So, one night I asked him what the plan was. He seemed to skirt the issue any time I brought up him living with me and I was wondering how he could be so excited about marrying me but avoid the topic of living with me. That's when he admitted to me that he didn't plan to live with me until we were engaged and also not until we had been together a year.

In his mind all too often people move in together before they are engaged with the intention of getting engaged but it just doesn't happen. A week turns into a month and a month turns into six and before you know it you are settled into a routine and not yet engaged. In his mind he is only getting married once. He is only picking one person to say that to and that person is me. So if he has to wait a few more months to live with me than that's what he is going to do to make sure he does it the right way.

So... I adjusted my expectation. A few more weeks went by and one day we were at the mall with Zack and we passed a jewelry store. He wanted me to go in and look at rings, I almost passed out. At that point, he was convinced that I still didn't believe him and so he started telling me that he had been in stores, that he had been looking, that he had talked to sales people, etc. Sometime around the end of April he told me he had found the ring and that he had bought it (or put a down payment on it or something to make me believe that he had already picked it out and they were holding it for him).

It was at this point, like it or not that my expectations changed. I knew from discussions with him that he would not be giving it to me in May but somehow I just figured that once we made it to June we would be engaged and he would be moving in. I would tease him about not having it until 2012 and he would say to me it will be sooner than you think. During one conversation I told him I didn't care what date he picked but not to make it September 20th (my old anniversary) and his answer was you will have it by then. So, somehow I convinced myself that sooner rather than later meant June. I don't know why I got that in my head but I guess there was a part of me that didn't figure he would buy a ring at the end of April and then hold on to it for 4 months.

I was wrong.

It is now June 17th and from what I can tell the possibility of us becoming engaged before the middle of July is slim to none. See Jim sells iPhones and the preorder was on Tuesday and the new iPhone 4 launches next week. He will be working eight days straight starting Monday and will be lucky if it slows down before the first week in July.

And suddenly, there is a part of me that wishes he had never told me about the ring.

If I didn't know that he had looked, if I didn't know that he was thinking about it, if I didn't know that he was planning to ask me then there wouldn't be this part of me that continues to feel overwhelming disappointment as the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months.

I guess for me, it's not even the being engaged part so much as the living together part. When I redid the house the timing of it was because I thought he would be living there soon. This is the part where I explain to you why Jim and I haven't had this talk. We haven't had this talk because I don't want him to ask me to marry him and move in with me simply because he thinks I was expecting it or because I'm disappointed that he hasn't yet.

I didn't redo the house so that he WOULD move in sooner. I redid it because I thought he WAS moving in soon. Because my expectation was that he had a ring, he had a date he had picked and surely he would not wait until July or August to ask me since he had been saying it since February.

And now... I'm kinda kicking myself. I love the house, I love all of the remodeling. The new feel and the new design is just as much for me as it ever was for him but at the same time I'm disappointed. I sit alone usually 3 - 4 nights in this house that I want to share with him. Last night he was off work at 7:00 and he went back to his place on a technicality. And it drives me crazy.

He will be at our house tonight, he will stay until Monday morning which in my mind means that he might as well be living there but he won't. He won't "officially" move his things in until we are engaged and we won't be engaged until lord only knows when. I'm starting to think 2012 again.

And believe me when I tell you, I get it in the grand scheme of things. What is a month or two when I am going to be with him for the rest of my life? I am seeing him 3-4 nights out of 7, why can't I be patient and just let things work themselves out in their own time?

So, this is why I come here to tell you, oh great people of the Internet. Because I can't tell him. Because I can't tell this wonderful man who has been loving and supportive and who is trying his hardest to make sure he does this the right way for all of the right reasons that I'm disappointed or that I'm frustrated with how things are going. Because that's not fair to him. Because he loves me and he loves my son and he is just trying to make sure he does this right.

And really... in the grand scheme of things... what is another month or two or three.... however if it becomes six... we might have to revisit the expectation talk. :-)