Update on Cosette and Oliver

When I was a kid I thought of grandparents as the "little old lady" and "little old man" although, to be honest, I had one older grandma who was probably more traditional and one younger grandmother who is still living at the ripe, young age of 94. Now we live in an age where Granny is more likely to be called Mimi or Missy and ... things are just different.

My "babies" (as I still refer to them) are 3 and almost 3. Cosette just turned 3 on April 29 and Oliver will be 3 in July. I see Cosy a couple of times a week and I see Oliver once or twice a month. I talk to Oliver on Facetime once or twice a week so... we're in close contact, even if I don't see him as often as Cosette.

Because Cosette's parents have sort of a fluid, make it up as we go along, joint-ish custody arrangement, and because Cosette's dad lives here with me and doesn't yet drive, I have more responsibility for Cosette than I do for Oliver. I do a lot more actual parenting of Cosette where with Oliver I have more of a traditional Grandma relationship. Things with Cosette's mom are currently pretty good. We have had struggles in the past and when things are going well, I am relieved and appreciative and NEVER take it for granted. It's been a lot of emotional, frustrating work to get to this point. Cosy is shy and introverted and can be a bit more clingy than Oliver... who is a free spirit and (at least for me) rolls with the punches. Cosy though, is my girl. She loves watching me do my hair and makeup. She loves dresses and tights and hair bows (finally). She hangs out in the bathroom with me while I take my shower, watching videos on YouTube and chatting with me. We love to go to Dunkin Donuts and get "pink" donuts for her and coffee.

Cosy is still very attached to her pacifier, although we are trying to substitute chewing gum instead. She is no longer addicted to Frozen. Minnie Mouse is her ride or die chick now. She loves animals and flowers and her daddy. She is happiest when she's outside working with her dad in the yard. She is also a mommy's girl. If we've been gone for awhile she will ask to go to mommy's house (and whenever it's practical, I will take her home... I want her to feel that I support her relationship with both of her parents, they are both important). She is a girly girl who likes having her fingernails painted (by her dad, of course) and loves to watch me put on makeup and fix my hair. She loves anything pink or sparkly.

Potty training with Cosy has been... complicated. She goes through spells where she goes potty for me like a champ and other times she screams bloody murder if I try to sit her on the potty. I would say she is mostly in big girl undies when she's with me during the day but is one hundred percent in pullups at night and about 90% in pullups when we leave the house. She hates diapers and pullups and wants to wear "Minnie Mouse undies" all the time when she's with me but... she can be sketchy about cooperating going potty.

Despite the additional work involved with getting her to go potty... I absolutely love the time we spend together while she's on the potty. I have a little stool I sit on in front of her and we talk while we are waiting for something to happen. I have been taking her to the potty with me since she was a year and a half so... I'm used to her company in the bathroom. My latest trick with her is to suggest that she try to "toot" while she's on the potty. It seems to get her to relax more and engage the right muscles to get the teetee out too. And as my honey always says, "farts are just funny".

Oliver is ALL BOY! He is funny and likes to make people laugh. He loves sports (just like his dad) and Mickey Mouse and superheroes. He loves the Toy Story characters, Buzz Lightyear and Woody. He will say, "to uh-finity and beyond!" like Buzz does. He likes to run and climb and has never met a stranger. He sometimes gives his mom a hard time and he cries when it's time to leave my house (which breaks my heart). He has infinite patience for Cosy who can tend to have a harder time sharing toys (because she's used to being alone with me) and who doesn't like hugs (the whole introvert thing). He has the most gorgeous, long curly hair that his parents haven't been able to bear cutting. One day, eventually. Right now it's sort of his trademark although I do with him the same thing I do with Cosy which is, immediately pull it back out of his face so that he can play without hair in his eyes. He is started to go potty... they use a combination of English and Spanish with him so instead of "undies" like Cosy wears, he wears "chonies". He will also tell you body parts in Spanish and English and sometimes instead of "I love you" he says, "Te amo" which... melts MY HEART!

I knew that I would love being a grandmother but I was completely unprepared for how intensely I would love these tiny humans. I can not imagine a world where I don't see them as often or where I might not get to talk to them as much. They are my people... my reward for putting up with their dads... and they bring so much joy into my life. It breaks my heart that they will probably not remember my mom because she loved them so very much and every milestone with them is bittersweet because she's not here to share it. I just try to love them like she would and I just hope I'm even half the grandma that she was.

Tell me about your grandkids (if you have them)... your favorite things to do together and your experiences with potty training! Love and hugs, y'all!

Dating at Fifty

I have a list of things I want to blog about but I'm going to guess that the subject you're most interested in... at least the one I would find most interesting is dating, so I'll start there.

In the midst of all the exhausting, humbling, terrible time that was my mom's last few weeks on Earth, I got a text from a guy I had dated before. His nine year old son had died in a tragic, terrible accident the day before and he wanted to let me know. His son, Nick, died on August 16. My mom would die on August 18. I got the text from my fella on August 17. Those dates are relevant for you to understand the intense emotional circumstances he and I were experiencing.

Marvin and I had dated back in early 2009 but... both of us were still legally wed, although we were not living with our spouses. It didn't feel right and... in retrospect I realize now that I was in absolutely no condition to enter into a relationship. His son was an infant. My kids were not happy with the idea of me dating anyone so... it just didn't work.

We sparked up again at the end of 2010... started chatting, etc then on January 18, 2011, my world completely changed when I woke up with horrible back pain. That was the beginning of this nightmare of physical pain that would eventually force me to go on disability and change EVERYTHING in my life. He came to see me once after the pain started but... I just couldn't begin to understand how a relationship with anyone would work while I was dealing with my new normal. He was the last guy I kissed for... many, many years.

Over the years I would see him post pictures with women he was dating and... not gonna lie... I felt jealous. As far as I was concerned I would never, ever, ever date again. I could not imagine a situation where anyone would want to deal with the restrictions I live with on a daily basis... making plans that you have to cancel because of pain... being afraid to go more than twenty minutes from home in case the pain becomes to much to bear and I'm unable to get back home... avoiding anything and everything that could cause pain. I drew a very close circle around myself and shut pretty much everyone who wasn't family outside the circle. I didn't trust anyone to be able to deal with me and my pain.

So when Nick died, I had spent the past month- maybe month and a half- learning to grieve. I was ready. I knew a lot of stuff about grieving... the death of an older, sick person. Knowing that a perfectly healthy child went off on vacation and came home in a casket was beyond any level of pain I could possibly comprehend. My heart just broke for my fella (who was not my fella at that time, of course). I didn't have much to offer him but I did have time and so whereas normally I would not have responded to texts or answered phone calls, I made a point of being one hundred percent available to him. By helping him, I helped myself because I had someone who I could talk to who understood where I was in a tragically real way. We talked and texted a lot. He came to my mom's funeral which, honestly, was the most precious, selfless thing I could possibly imagine. He had Nick's funeral to attend the next day but he made the effort to be there for me. We weren't in a relationship, of course, at that point, so it was basically just a few minutes of chatting after the service and then I had the family stuff to do but just seeing him there... that was one person who was there purely out of concern for me... he had never even met my mom. It was such a precious thing to me.

I can't really say for certain at what point along the way I began to see us as a potential couple and not just two really broken people talking each other through a really painful time. We have tried to figure out what our "anniversary" is and the closest we can determine ... September 16th he came up to see me. We watched football and talked and... you know, hung out together... so it was somewhere between August 17th and September 16th that we decided we might like to spend time together. He came up again on September 30th and... same thing, basically.

I think it was the first or second week of October that I started going up on Tuesday nights for date night. Due to his work schedule, his weekend is basically Wednesday and Thursday so Tuesday night in his world = Friday night for most folks. He lives about 45 minutes away so... I can drive down and back in the same day if necessary but... we're grown ups so I usually stay overnight. I think we have kept that midweek date night fairly consistently ever since October. There have been a few exceptions where I came on Wednesday instead of Tuesday... and at some point it expanded from just Tuesday night to Tuesday and Wednesday night. Basically, though, that's the time I have set aside for my fella every single week and woe be unto any human who tries to come between me and "date night". It's essential for my mental stability.

**Disclaimer** I asked my fella if he wanted editorial control over any blogging I do about him, us, our relationship, etc and he said, "no.". He's a relatively private person and I would rather cut off my left arm (I'm left handed) than do or say anything to hurt him so believe me, blogging about our relationship has been something I've put a lot of thought into over the past few months. I do think that our relationship is unique for a lot of reasons that I'll go into in future blog posts and I think it might be interesting for those who might be entering the dating world as a more mature person... or a less-abled person... or a person who is dealing with grief and therefore a little more vulnerable than the average person. I think what we do, how it works for us, etc. is worth sharing and I'd like to do that if you're interested. I'd like to explore topics that are unique to more mature folks... and to explore the ways that dating is the same, no matter what your age!

For now, I'll just say that I'm having a great time and I really appreciate having a significant person in my life. He's a good man, he treats me well, he puts up with a lot and I think most of you would approve!

Welcome Back!

If you're reading this post it means that I have decided to start blogging again! Before I post this I want to have a few blog entries ready to go so... it may go up today (May 6th) or it may be significantly later! I updated a few things in the side bar but this page needs a drastic overhaul. It's going to take some time to get things fully up and running so lets just say we are currently under construction.

My blogging hiatus had a lot to do with the current political climate in our country (the United States, just in case you don't know exactly who I am or where I'm from). Things are so volatile and people take things so personally. There has been so much "people talking without listening" to quote the song, The Sound of Silence. There's a level of vitriol and a lack of empathy that doesn't jive with my non-confrontational personality. It became frightening for me to speak my heart openly because I felt like any strong opinion one way or another could be offensive to someone I love on one side of the argument or another. While my fella likes to "poke the monkey" (as he likes to say)... I don't. I'm a lover, not a fighter. I like to bring folks together and that just wasn't happening.

My blog style has always been sort of a daily mind dump... whatever was on my mind that I could share (without telling stories that weren't mine to share), that's what would make up the meat of my blog. Then all of a sudden I couldn't just say what I wanted to say... and I was also dealing with a brand new set of emotions as my mom's illness was progressing. Everyone wanted to argue about politics and I was in such a raw, vulnerable place emotionally that politics seemed trivial and ridiculous to me. I didn't have the emotional energy to have political discussion in the midst of things like making life or death decisions about mom's health. It was too much so I just shut down.

Once mom passed and that battle had ended, I just felt so stunned and ... alone. I didn't have words to describe life in those days and weeks. Fortunately, I had started talking to my fella and we both were in the same weird place of "what now?"and we were able to sort of fill in the blanks for each other. He was someone I could talk to without having to talk about things unless I wanted to and vice versa. We grew really close really fast and he is still the person I talk to about everything every day.

Losing my mom made me feel like I lost the one person on the planet who loved me unconditionally, who was there for me no matter what. I lost my safety net. As a woman without a life partner, my mom was the one who held me together when I was falling apart. Nobody else has the emotional investment, the inclination or the time to deal with "real Heather". My dad handles the financial stuff but not the emotional stuff - and he just doesn't get the pain and suffering involved in my life. Austin is good at the physical stuff like carrying in the groceries or taking out the trash but he will never have the magic cleaning and sorting powers my mom did. My sisters-in-law touch base with me periodically about how I am emotionally and that helps but they're both busy raising children and being career women and supporting my brothers. My fella is awesome at filling the empty hours. He is good company, he is a naturally positive (and funny!) person who is tender enough to shed a tear with me occasionally but he is also grieving and working and... not my mom. What I am is saying is there is no one who could ever take her place and there is still a big ol' hole in my heart that I don't think could ever go away.

I say all of that to say this: I'm not the girl I was before. Sometimes I'm more of a bitter brew than I used to be. I'm a bit rougher around the edges. I joke that my dad lost his filter when my mom died... but the truth is that I lost mine too. Some of the things I might not have said before because I ran everything through the filter of "what will my mom think about this"... I might just say now. She got a rotten deal there at the end and watching her suffer was the hardest thing I've ever lived through and I'm forever changed by it. In some ways I'm more sensitive to others than I could have ever been before and in other ways... I'm like, get OVER yourself!

I'm going to work on a few posts now so that you have a little something to look forward to. Once I know they're ready to go, I'll publish this bit. I'm going to need A LOT of encouragement! Let me hear from you... share my blog with people who you think might enjoy it. Ultimately, it's not worth it to me to expend the emotional energy of blogging if nobody sees it or responds or give a flying flip.

So here we go again!