More arbitration at our house...

Her: Mom, five more minutes of TV, PLEASE...
Me: You said that five minutes ago, we are done, turn off the TV
Her: I really mean it this time Mommy. Five more minutes, PLEASE...
Me: You didn't mean it last time, how can I trust...never mind, I refuse to debate this with you. You are five, I am the Mom, my word is law.

Off goes the TV.

Daughter: You are the meanest Mommy ever. All I wanted to do is watch five more minutes of TV and you never let me do anything I want to do.
Me: I let you watch TV in the first place. Shame on me!

At this point the girl starts crying to prove just how serious she is about watching TV. I get some foot stomps, a lot of arguing, some more begging and much more pleading.

I.am.a.rock...

I don't budge. This time, I don't reason with her either. Why in the heck would I think an over tired, TV zoned out five year old is capable of reasoning like a grown up? That would be at the suggestion of my mother. "You should reason with her dear. She just wants to be heard. Listen to her side of the argument". Yeah, right...I might as well try to debate with the devil himself.

In the end, she was grounded from TV for an entire day. She asked me why I couldn't just spank her or yell at her some more. Why did I have to ground her from the TV? Ding, ding, ding, ding...because yelling and spanking don't work and the grounding just got your attention. BINGO! I feel like a genius and decide to overlook the fact that I have not thought of trying this before.

This morning, the darling gets up for breakfast.

Her: Mom, will you turn on the TV for me please?
Me: Nope
Her: Why not?
Me: Because you are grounded from TV for an entire day
Her: Why does it have to start so early in the morning?
Me: Because that's when you get up. End of discussion
Her: But...
Me: Wanna lose another day?
Her: Nope...Good morning Mommy, how are you today? You look really pretty today...

It is a damn good thing I am immune to her cuteness!

Why doesn't God let us pick our families?

I had talked with my Dad and Step-Mom about watching my daughter while Hubby and I take our honeymoon vacation. "How long will you be gone" they ask? I said "2-3 days". They said "sure". Fiance makes the flight arrangements without talking to me first, and we now have a 5 day honeymoon. I sent an e-mail to the parents (knowing full well they would freak) and received a brief response stating basically that there was no way in hell they were going to stay at my house for 5 days without anything to do. Gee, thanks Dad...

I can understand being out of town and not knowing where anything is, but that's what the Internet is for. Find some stuff you have always wanted to do and go do it. The daughter will be in school and goes to an after school program. She will be gone 9 hours a day. Dallas is one of the hot spots of America. Figure out things you would like to do that you have never done and do them!! Not my parents... They are retired so do the same things every day. Get up, check the news, check the e-mail, surf the Internet for 2-3 hours, check the yard/house work that needs to be done, eat lunch, take a nap, check the news, eat dinner, get sauced and go to bed. Next day, lather, rinse and repeat.

Then you have my wonderful Mom that has an opinion for everything. She asks 'dear, what do you want to do with X'? I tell her my thoughts and then she proceeds to explain why my way is the worst possible way it could ever be done and I am a complete moron. It doesn't matter what X even is. She will always have a better way that it should be done.

My favorite part of merging families and getting married is her never ending series of questions about what am I going to do if ______ happens? In this blank she has inserted just about every situation that could possibly ever happen to anyone, ever. No, I am NOT exaggerating here. What if the kid gets sick while I am out of town and she is staying with Step-Dad? What if my kid and his kid get in a fight about something? What if Step-Dad has to discipline daughter? On and on and on... I finally told her that while we had discussed many aspects of joining our lives, it was simply not possible to discuss every situation and that we would figure out how to handle these events as they presented themselves....just like every other family out there in the world.

She was not amused.

Frankly, neither was I.

So, instead of freaking out today, I am going to take some deep breaths in and let them back out again. Swear a few times then regroup and go with plan B. The daughter will actually be way happier with plan B anyways. She absolutely adores the 15 year old daughter of one of my good friends who also happens to live in my neighborhood. They have already offered there assistance as they adore my daughter as much in return. They also have three small dogs that love to play dress up. Yes, heaven for the girl. Maybe then she will stop pouting about not being able to go with us on our honeymoon...

Juggling children...

When you are involved in a family that has been split, inevitably you end up juggling any children that were a result of that family. By juggling, I don't mean really tossing them up into the air (even as fun as that sounds), but I do mean deciding when they go to which family member on which holiday/weekend/events. The typical custody agreement used to be 1st, 3rd and 5th weekends plus Wednesday's, but I know very few people that now have that sort of agreement.

My agreement with the ex is along those lines; however, he has worked weekends as long as we have been divorced. With a child that was preschool age, it really wasn't all that hard to let him have her during the week. Now that school is ready to start and the ex has a new job - yes, finally a real job, things are all going to change.

He will have one day off during the week and every Sunday. This means he wants our daughter every weekend from Saturday night through Monday morning when he will drop her off at school. This really only gives him one full day a week with her, but it is really more time than he has now. During the week everyone has regular work so he only gets two nights with her. Once you get her picked up, fed and bathed, there is really only about an hour at most to actually get to spend with her.

I am THRILLED to have him finally taking her on weekends; however, my mother works Tuesday through Saturday and only gets to see her granddaughter on Saturday evenings/Sundays. As she is here locally, she has been used to getting to see us on a weekly basis. We have agreed that I will still have our daughter one weekend a month so that means Nonna will go from weekly visits to monthly visits.

Now comes the juggling. Nonna won't be happy with this arrangement. I can honestly say that I don't blame her. She plays a big part in our lives so going from weekly to monthly will be hard for everyone to deal with. On the other hand, I am hugely relieved that this opportunity will give me more time to have my own life. Having to plan around Nonna visiting EVERY Saturday has been difficult.

There have been many times feelings have been hurt because other things come up and we have to skip our Saturday. This can't be helped. There are too many lives involved and once my daughter gets involved in more activities, that will limit things as well.

I think my biggest obstacle to overcome in all of this is that I try so hard to spare everyone's feelings. I him and haw about how to tell everyone the changes and end up botching the delivery. I need to learn how to just say it like it is while not being mean or rude. Hmmm...looks like I have some work to do!!

Blending pains...

Whenever you add new family members to your existing family, there are always pains associated with the addition. By pains, I don't mean physical pains. Rather, the pains of having to change what you do each day and re-establish your routines, etc...

My daughter is 5 years old and it has been just the two of us for as long as she can remember. She was 3 when we moved into our new house and I got in the bad habit of letting her sleep in my bed at night. At first it was one night a week, usually on the weekend.

Then storm season rolled in and it turned into an almost every night situation. There are perks to having your kid right there when you have to make a run for the closet, but this was not good for either of us as she ended up getting to bed later than she should and I got kicked, hit or snored at on a nightly basis.

Rudy and I started dating over a year ago. When things started to get more serious between us, I thought about our future and the hopes that someday we would get married. I was pretty sure he wouldn't want to share the bed with my daughter every night. So, I started talking to my daughter about how 5 year old children sleep in their own beds. After her fifth birthday, she began sleeping in her own bed. We did really well the first couple of weeks until we had a long series of night time storms. Our progress was completely destroyed.

After that, we did battle almost nightly about why she should sleep in her own room. It is hard to tell that pitiful, sweet face that she has to stay upstairs, all alone, in Texas no less while I am in California. She said that to me one night. It was so funny. "Mom, when I am in my room upstairs, it feels like I am up here in Texas while you are WAY down there in California."

She really does love having Rudy around. She is happy to see him when he gets home from work. She likes to play in the yard with him. All around she is very glad that we are getting married. What she doesn't like is that she has to sleep in her own bed. Last night she asked if she could come down in the middle of the night and get me if there was an emergency. I told her yes, but decided we better go over just what exactly constitutes an emergency (after all, this is NOT my first rodeo).

We decided that the loss of a limb or excessive bleeding definitely qualified as an emergency. After that, she got a little creative and we ended up with a long list of things that are and things that are not an emergency. At the end, she was okay with staying in her bed. She managed to make it through till morning and when I came to wake her in her own bed this morning, I congratulated her for keeping all of her limbs and not bleeding excessively throughout the night.

For some reason she didn't think that was funny...

In the end, I know that we will all figure out a new routine and how to sleep in our own beds. I did reassure her that if it was storming really badly I would come get her and she could still sleep with us.

What to say...what to do...

I haven't blogged lately because everything in my world is totally focused on preparing for my wedding that will be here in about 2 months. I don't want to make everyone stick their finger down their throat and gag while I go on and on about which color invitations should I buy and how much should one really spend on wedding favors that nobody gives a rip about.

The WWW (Wide World of Weddings) has a million little pieces that are very expensive. 100 guests x 100 party favors times $3 per favor, that is $300 for useless crap. Here's some chocolate, you look like you need to bulk up a bit. LOL! Maybe I should fill the boxes with carrot sticks. That would make at least a few people scratch their heads.

Tulle, what else would I ever use it for? I can't see spending $50 in tulle to decorate something and throw it away when I am done. I wonder if I can wrap it back on the spool and return it when I am done? Maybe the flower girl basket and the pillow too? Hmmm...I think I am onto something here.

Unfortunately the basket and my living room is being bedazzled this afternoon by my 5 year old under the careful supervision of Nonna. What? You say you want to hang from the chandelier and bedazzle the ceiling, sure baby, whatever you want...

My work has suffered miserably because every five minutes I stop what I am doing to update my list of things to do for the wedding. For every item I cross off, there are four more to take its place. I have been married before, but it was a very low cost, low budget event. There were no favors, hardly any decorations and the food was a non-event.

This time, I am going to have the wedding of my dreams, even if it KILLS me... Maybe I am over thinking this a bit. Let's take a poll, does anyone on the planet care if you get a favor for attending? After all, we are going to feed you a fine dinner, some nice wine (or beer) and top you off with a lovely slice of cake. What more could a person want?

In three months time this will be a fond memory, in six it will be what we complain about as we are still paying the bills. LOL! At least I am not the only one that wants to do this right. The FG (Future Groom) has been assisting with ideas and tasks since day one. I couldn't have asked for a more willing participant. In the end, that's what really matters.

Then comes the gifts for everyone to thank them for participating. What can I give my dear friends that really says 'thank you for being by my side while I am going crazy and wearing that ugly dress that you will never wear again that makes me look great'?

Okay, so I said I wouldn't post about the wedding, and that's all I have in here for content. I guess I don't have anything else witty or comical to add. Sorry!

The Ring...

I was informed that blogging about receiving a ring and not posting a picture of it was just wrong so here it is.

I am trying very hard not to get frustrated with the people that work at the wedding venue locations. They probably are used to dealing with people that have a year or more on their hands and aren't really too worried about hearing back right away. Not me! I am frantically planning already.

At least I have the venues narrowed down to two choices. One has our date available and the other doesn't. I am waiting to hear back from the one that doesn't to see when they would have a date available so can't make my decision until then. UGH! I hate waiting.

Now it is off to find the dress. David's Bridal is an awesome store and I have helped many brides wade through their offerings. I am breaking convention and doing the first try on alone. I think that may be a better plan for me as I am pretty sure I will be trying on at least 100 dresses. My friends can thank me later. The other reason I am going alone is that I would have to wait until August for everyone to be there to watch this torture and I just don't have that kind of time. Especially if they have to order the dress which can take months to get it in. Crossing my fingers for the perfect dress to magically be at the store and in my size.

I still am trying to figure out why wedding dress makers cut their dresses smaller than the normal sizes. By that I mean a size 10 in normal clothes is a 14 in wedding dresses. Why not go the other way? The bride doesn't want to feel like a cow when she has to select that size of dress. I also want to know why most dresses are styled for women that are size 0. There are more size 16 dresses purchased than size 0, OOPS - that would be size 2 in WD sizes. Why not make them styled to enhance our beautiful curves rather than look like an overstuffed sausage casing?

Oh well, off I go for some torture. Wish me luck!

Relaxed and Romanced...

Just got back yesterday from an 8 day vacation. I know, who the heck can take an 8 day vacation. More importantly, who can survive one? Evidently I had more staying power than I knew because I made it with flying colors.

Went to Florida for the B.F.s 30 year high school reunion. Now before you do the math, it was his 30 year, not mine. :-D We left on Wednesday morning, flew directly to Orlando and were whisked away from the airport in a minivan belonging to his brother which also contained his three children. Five kids and three adults crammed into a sardine can and we were outnumbered by sticky fingered midgets.

Thursday we took B.F.s 10 year old and my 5 year old daughter's to Disney World. I had never been. My daughter had also never been. It truly is the most magical place on earth! Took the train in from the parking lot, hopped on the sky train over to the park and then began taking pictures like we were Asian tourists. We made it all of the way to Cinderella's castle when I noticed the B.F. was a little pale and shaky. I was worried he might be getting sick, when he put is arm around me and I could feel him quivering like jello . His daughter was poised to take our picture when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, blue box. Yes, he proposed to me in front of Cinderella's castle. How romantic! I was also very relieved that he wasn't sick, just nervous! His color picked up pretty quickly and the rest of the day was a lot more relaxed. Too funny!!

We are working on the venue but are going for the short engagement. Aiming for 9/10/11 just for grins. No, I am NOT pregnant. LOL!!!