Mixed Bag

Let's start with the good, the all good. Today we celebrated, as a family, I.'s 4th birthday and she had a blast. Her sisters weren't able to come but her grandparents, uncle, daddy and mommy were there so it was still good. I. and I decorated together for the party and then we got her into her special party girl dress. She looked beautiful but a little unsure as to what was to come:



I love how she is not spoiled - she is tickled pink when she sees presents that she knows are for her, even if it's just a few. She was so happy to see her momma's homemade cake even though it wasn't anything spectacular, though full of love.



It was a great day all around, even the weather cooperated with some nice, cool fall weather.

Tomorrow, we're (my parents, V., I., and I) are going to go to Legoland for her big birthday present and I am really excited. This will be her very first amusement park experience and I plan on capturing as much of it as possible because I know she is going to be blown away. So many of her friends have been to Disneyland multiple times already but I wanted to wait until she was ready and able to appreciate and remember this exciting experience. This will be the first year that she will be tall enough to enjoy almost all of Legoland's rides and she will definitely remember it. I'm so thankful that I can see her experience this first moment (compared to the first year, the "firsts" are few and far between).

On another positive note, V. and I attended I.'s very first parent/teacher conference. Who would have thought 8 years ago when we first got together that we would be attending our child's parent/teacher conference? Pretty funny! The news was really good - despite I. being the youngest of all 16 of the kids, she's doing great on all fronts. She listens, participates, speaks up, is kind and thoughtful, and is socially active. She is SO past where I was in kindergarten. Her teachers were impressed because she's doing so well AND she's the youngest. She really is something else and I'm so proud to be her momma!

The only downside of this week was an underlying feeling of something not being "quite right" with V. and I but not knowing what it was. Part of it was that V. was having a hard time getting into our time zone. I mentally understand and sympathize, since I would fair MUCH worse on the time change, but it just seems that when he is forced to start working quickly, he acclimates much more quickly. If it's just "us" at home, then he sleeps from 6pm-11pm, is up all night and ready for bed at 9am. If it was just us, two adults, fine but try explaining that to a 3 year old who wants nothing more than to spend time with her daddy who has been gone for 3-4 weeks.

Last night brought things to a head since this morning I had already been thinking while on the treadmill, that while V. was physically here, we were still essentially living separate lives and that was not okay with me. V. sealed his fate last night by first trying to assert "his schedule" on top of I.'s birthday weekend schedule. He began inquiring what the birthday schedule was this weekend so that he could start thrusting his haircut and gym schedule on top of it. So as the Mama Bear, I told him that this weekend was about I. not him and that his schedule for once was going to fit around hers. He took offense to my comment that "it wasn't all about him this weekend, it was all about her". Later this same night he informed me that he was planning on taking the girls to Puerto Rico for their graduation present next year and that I. was optional as determined by me since this would be her first HUGE time change vacation. Since this was the first I'd heard of this, I asked when he had thought about this and he said 6 months ago which led to the "discussion" that I was tired of him acting as though he was an independent agent, making decisions and living his life as though we needed to "fit into" his schedule rather than him acclimating into our family life. This is the whole issue with us lately it seems. He lives on his own over there for a month at a time, comes home for a week or so, and then goes back to being a work android. Well, that's not good enough - while he's there I still have to be the momma, the disciplinarian, the wife and financial advisor. When he's there, he has to be the worker and about a tenth of a husband. We've got to work this out better because between the attitude and the jet lag, even while V. is here, we're living separate lives.