Hi Monkey. I miss you. You have been at your Daddy's house since yesterday morning. I dropped you off early yesterday so I could get some "cleaning" done here around the house. More on that in a little bit. I just want to let you know that this year I an vowing to be different than 2016. Mommy has been holding onto some emotions, that I know have not been good for me and I am pretty sure have transferred to you in some form or another, but no more Monk! I am hoping this weekend was the start of a new me, a new Mommy. Time will tell.
Our weekend started out not as I had thought it would have, but life is all about adjustments, I hope you have learned that by now. I took you to Peter Piper Pizza and thought that we were meeting w/ a friend of mine and her kids. When I showed up, I was surprised to find a plethora of people at her table. Totally fine, she was dealing w/ some things and felt she needed her tribe around her, I get that. I respect and understand that. I was just surprised. So you and I went and played some games while she visited w/ her friends. Her kids had such a blast running around and playing with all the other kids and that was awesome to see the smiles on all their faces. But.... Not only was I feeling a little awkward about being one of a million people at the table, there was something else that was bothering me. Reality has a funny way of finding the most inappropriate time to slap you in the face.
As the adults sat at the table and chatted and socialized, I noticed that all their kids were running around, playing with each other, playing video games, collecting tickets and running back to the table with such excitement on their faces to show their parents that they had collected 20 tickets from a machine! As I was there, just following you around from game to game, making sure you were not pushing your way in front of other kids while they played their game, making sure you were not bolting out the emergency exit at the back of the arcade area. I watched my friend's kids, and her friend's kids run around and play appropriately, while I hovered. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. You are not there YET socially where you can go off and play on your own. You can't be given a cup of tokens and be expected to know what to do with them, let alone not push all 20 tokens into one machine when it only needs 1 to play. You kinda of sort of grasp the concept of after you play the game, it spits out a ticket, but you have no understanding of the significance of that ticket or what to do with it other than hand it to me. But you had fun and that is what matters. You love the car racing games like this, that and skee-ball are your two favorite games. I think you like skee-ball more for watching the balls come down the ramp and almost hitting you in the face, but you still like it. It made me happy to see you happy.
So as the adults had their adult time, you and I had Mommy and Conor time and as disappointed as I was in the lack of adult time I didn't get w/ my friend, I was overjoyed with the amount of Mommy and Conor time I did have. You will get there one of these days Monkey. My first priority though is for you to get to a point where you don't seek out the exits and then where you understand it is appropriate to wait your turn at a game before pushing in front of someone. Understanding tokens and tickets will come, in time.
So Saturday was really the start of what I knew was going to be a long rough weekend. After I dropped you off at your father's house, I went and picked up a big U-Haul truck. Drove it home and started loading up junk. I went from room to room and closet to closet. I tossed out everything from broken dressers to memories of broken promises. I got rid of 14 bags of clothes and 2 big boxes of toys that I took to Goodwill. The rest.... it ALL got tossed into the big truck and taken to the dump. Can I just tell you something Monkey??? Mommy's body is hurting today!!!
Tossing all that stuff in the truck and then tossing it back out at the dump is probably the most exercise I have had in a long time (THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE TOO). My knee which I had already hurt a few weeks ago hurts even more today, but it is what it is. It was hard to go through all the memories. Opening drawers and finding things that I had buried both physically and mentally. But it needed to be done. Stuff had been piling up for years, then when your sissy moved out and then your father left, I just didn't want to deal w/ any of it. Then because for the past 4 years, it has just being you and me, I just didn't have time to deal w/ it. So I avoided it all, until this weekend. Even after filling the U-Haul truck, there was still plenty of stuff I could have gotten rid of, but I needed to get to the dump before they closed AND I was already an hour over my reservation time w/ the truck. Then there is the fact that I was just empty. My personal tank was depleted and I had nothing left in me to toss even one more piece of "junk" into that truck. But, I think I did a pretty good job of purging and I am hoping to continue to so a little more here and there over the coming weeks to finally get rid of everything else weighing me down.
That brings me to today. Today is your sissy's birthday. She is 28 years old today. She never used to like to celebrate her birthday. She always said, every year, "It's just another day" and I would get so upset w/ her. I would tell her "It's NOT just another day. It's the day she came into this world and had that not happened, she would not have been brought into my life, our life." Your sister may not be my child my blood, but she is my child in every way that counts. She was such a great big sister to you when she was here. She loved you so much and was always very protective of you and made you laugh. I hope that wherever she is today, she is somewhere being celebrated by people that make her happy. Today is NOT just another day, today is my daughter's birthday.
Well. Monk. That pretty much sums up my weekend. I can't wait for you to come home. I think maybe we will have some dinner and then go see a movie. Celebrate your sister's birthday and what I hope to be a happier future for me and for us.
I love you Monkey.
All my love forever,
Mommy
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