Brain ramblings

Well Jason left until Saturday to get greened up on his controls before he goes back to work.  Basically it means he has to go drop bombs every so often so they know that he remembers how to do it.  I wish I could give him a few coordinates.

So whats on my mind.  Well I have another job interview Wednesday.  I really need to get a job or Christmas is going to be slim.  And I really need to get out of the house.  I love my kids to death but I need time away from them or I don't appreciate them.  The day to day mothering really isn't my thing.

Today was my moms birthday.  We Skyped.  I worry that she will get Alzheimer's like my grandma.  She doesn't keep her mind active.  And she says she hasn't gone anywhere or left the house in "I don't know when".  But I'm too far away to do anything about it.

Jason and I have been tossing around ideas on what to do when he retires from the military.  The ideas are 1) for him to get a government job doing training for the job he does now.  It would pay well and give him a second retirement if he does 20.  There is the possibility for him to do this in so many places.  Even Europe which we would both love.  2) Continue to go to school and get a Masters, collect the BAH and retirement and me supporting us the rest of the way.  I don't have a problem with me supporting us, lord knows he's done it, but I worry about what kind of life we will have.  I love to spoil my kids and I'm afraid of the lack of money in this scenario.  Jason deserves a break and he doesn't love his job, but again its the whole money thing.  3) We could move back to Missouri and my dad might be able to get him a job in a brew house with a friend of his.  This is Jason's dream job.  I wish we could do this.  Its not off the table but there are a lot of if's involved.  So closer to retirement we will see if those if's can become more solid.  So Europe is number one to me and then Missouri and then anywhere else.  I just hate uncertainty.

And then theres baby Bri and her Bob.  That's her baby's name.  Until she comes out and Brianne reveals the actual name she chose.  But I'm going to still call her Bob.  Which it's looking like sooner rather than later.  She's dilated to 3 and at -3 station.  Bob needs to stay put until Saturday.  Jason is gone and I cant just drag my three kids to the hospital to be with her.  And I HAVE to be with her.  So I have Cheryle on baby stand by and I'm going to ask Sandy if she could be too.  I'm also going to start interviewing sitters when Jason gets back.  This is going to be an interesting labor for her.  I'll be pushing drugs during labor and Tyler is going to be trying to get her to breath and relax and focus.  I'll be the mom from Terms Of Endearment "She's in PAAIINNN!!! GIVE HER THE DAMN DRUGS!"  And I have been through painful experiences with Bri before.  Not sure if Tyler has.  And I'm not sure if when he sees her in pain if his priority will be her or Bob.  Just so long as he's trying to help I'm not going to complain.  But I can't stand for any of my kids to be in pain.  But ya do what ya gotta and I'll try really hard to keep it together.  Oh and then that baby goes home with them.  LMAO!!! (I laugh at first time moms now.  Its funny to me)  But Bri will be a good mama.  She will be so attentive and make sure that baby knows who her mommy is.  And she's had some practice with my kids, she knows what to expect.  The tough part is going to be that she can't give it to me when she's had her fill. :)  And I will love that I get to squeeze on a baby that I don't have to keep!  I will eat her toes and munch on her fingers!!!!  I will love her and squeeze her and call her BOB!!  And when she's 2 I will think that all of the crap she pulls is just oh so cute!

Side note- Harry Potter must go home!  I'm listening to that movie and when I was talking about Bri that part came on.  She knows.

So here's my bitch for the night.  My sister.  Brianne's biological mother.  I wrote my first blog and as always I put Bri as my daughter.  Its just easier that way for most people.  Sure I was only 15 when she was born but it's easier for me to deal with that than for Bri to have to explain her mother and me to people.  That's how we have always done it.  My sister thought it would be a good idea to post a bitchy comment on my facebook about this.  Or what I assume was about the fact that I claim Bri as my own.  Now I wrote on my first blog that I am going to say whatever I want here.  If it offends you I really don't care.  Don't read it.
Danyel and I have always had a tenuous relationship.  I have tried really hard to keep my mouth shut.  Once or twice a few things have slipped out and Danyel's response is to cut me out of her life for years at a time.  I don't have much of a relationship with my other niece Katie because of these times.  But I am going to post here exactly what I think.  If she reads it then that's her problem.  But I feel I need to say it.  So the below is directed at my sister.

You let your child be taken from you.  I don't care what the circumstances surrounding the situation where.  I don't care if Jamie was underhanded, if dad was supposed to help you, if you couldn't afford representation.  You seem to conveniently forget or change the situation.  I was there.  I was going to take Bri while you went off to boot camp.  Dad had already okayed that she could come live with me at his house for the 6 weeks and he would support her as long as I watched her and didn't rely on his nanny.  Did you forget that?  Did you forget that we had set that up?  But then suddenly she was going to stay with Jamie while you went off to boot camp.  And when you came back you would take her back.  Remember that?  So I don't know what the truth is but I don't care.  You let her be taken.  And I think that's what you wanted.  Brianne was a mistake.  We all know that, she wasn't intended.  You had other big plans for your life but you got pregnant at 19 and that threw a huge wrench in all you were going to do.  So Jamie wanted her.  You could go off and do what you wanted. You knew she would be taken care of, Cecilia and Ed would see to that.  This I cannot understand.  There is no way on God's green earth I would let anyone take any of my children from me.  I would have shown up to that courtroom and begged the judge to not sign that divorce decree.  I would never have signed it.  Fuck it stay married till you can come to an agreement.  And once your divorce was final you were rid of that responsibility.  You didn't call, you didn't write, you didn't go see her.  You sure as shit didn't take any of your re-enlistment money over the years and get a lawyer to change the situation.  And you never paid a dime for her.  You never paid a dime.  If there is anything that makes me more angry it is that.  If you were in her life and were a mother and gave her guidance and advice-priceless.  What every kid needs.  But by your own admission, you didn't want to disrupt her life.  You didn't know how to re-enter it.  You are just as much of a dead beat as any man who doesn't pay child support. You never paid a dime of support.  For her clothes, her dental, her dance, her sports, her school supplies, her make-up, her proms, her food, her housing. You never sent her a card or a gift for her birthday or Christmas.  I even asked you once to send money for her and you chastised me saying all I ever wanted from you was money. You did nothing.  And you blamed everyone else.  "They wont let me."  Bullshit.  There is nothing that could come between me and one of my kids.  I don't care if I was court ordered to stay away from them.  I would go to jail just to see them.  And I picked up your slack and sent money for these things.  I provided for your child.  I made sure she had the things she needed and wanted.  It seems curious to me that they would let me do these things and not you.  

And when you had Katie and sent her off to be with Mickey and Linda when Ron went underway because "you didn't sign up to be a single parent" it made me furious.  I had always tried to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding Bri.  When you did that, I knew that you just weren't fit to be a mom.  And when you moved to Florida and left Katie in Iowa because that's what she wanted, I couldn't believe it.  Kids don't have a choice.  They go where their parents tell them.  But again you could go off and do as you liked.  I saw the pattern.  
I don't doubt that you love your girls.  I just don't think you know how to be a mother.  We grew up in the same house.  We were raised by the same mother.  You can't blame that.  You have such a warped memory it scares me.  It always suits your purposes.  So you have, over the years, twisted the facts to make people feel sorry for you.  "You poor thing.  I cant believe he did that to you."  I was there.  I have always been there.  I know the truth.  I called Brianne every Sunday.  For 12 years.  You could have done the same thing.  She spent her summer vacations with me, you could have called her then.  When she came to live with me, you could have re-entered her life.  I tried to get you to re-enter her life, several times.   Each time you promised her you would keep in touch.  And you didn't.  Who do you think had to deal with that?  You kept popping in every few years, fucking her head up and then leaving.  It was one of the most evil things you could have done.  

There is no excuse in the world that you can give that would satisfy me.  There is nothing you can say that will make me forgive you for this.  I have tried to be your sister and put this aside.  I have always told people that you are my sister and I love you.  Until Brianne was 18, I never said a bad word about you in front of her.  I have tried to have some semblance of a relationship with you.  You are always belligerent towards me, belittling me and my husband at times, poking fun in ways that aren't funny.  Not just to me but any of my friends that read it.  And through all this I still try to keep a smile on my face towards you.  You are my sister and I have prayed that you would find happiness within yourself for years in the hopes that it would help Brianne. I believe Steve has helped you. I think he is a very good person for you.  Before Steve you weren't talking to me or Brianne.  I think Steve knows what family is and as long as he's around I think you will actually talk to yours, although I'm the only one graced with your presence.  All your Christian lip service on Facebook really pisses me off.  I often wonder what stories you have told Steve and his family about Brianne, mom, dad, Sean or I. 

So here's the deal.  Stop saying how proud you are of your oldest daughter.  About how you are going to be a grandma.  You have to be a mother first.  You don't get to be proud over anything Brianne does.  I earned that right.  I was her mother.  I showed her how to be a mother and a woman.  You can be proud that she has life.  Because that's all you did for her.  You gave her life.  But being a mother is more than that.  You were the reason at 8 she went to her school psychologist to ask why mommy doesn't love her.  You were the reason that throughout her teen years she had a hard time getting close to people.  You are the reason she has trust issues.  Why don't you post to all your friends about how proud you are of that.  And why don't you think about this the next time you want to try to make me feel bad for saying Brianne is my daughter.  She is more my daughter than she will ever be yours.  You should be thankful that I love her so much, that I cared about her enough to pick up after you.  What might her alternatives have been?  I like to think I may have stopped some of the damage you might have done.  Who might she be if no one were there?  Instead of holding a grudge because I was there, just say thank you.  Tell me you appreciate the work I had to do.   The work I still do.  And here's a piece of advice for you.  Parenting doesn't end at 18.  Keep that in mind in a few years when Katie is there.  You don't just stop because they are old enough to face the consequences of their actions.  You still need to be there and guide them.  Not just let them flunk out of college and watch it happen.  It's being a parent, a lifelong job.

Backstory

Well the kiddos are in bed.  WooHoo!  So I'm going to give you all a brief history of me. I was born in St Louis Missouri and grew up south of there in Barnhart, Festus and Bloomsdale until I was 13. My dad was an attorney and I went to a private catholic school.  I was the youngest of three and spoiled rotten.  I did ballet up to 4 days a week and that was my life.

Then I moved to Arizona when my parents divorced. It was an ugly divorce that changed my life in ways I will never really know.  My dad married the girl he cheated with who was 19 to his 40 and my mom became a drunk.  Basically when I moved to AZ I was on my own.  I worked 2 jobs and gave the money to my mom who in turn drank it away.  We were evicted from 2 places before we ended up staying a a drug dealer friend of hers house.  Or at least I did.  She stayed at her boyfriends house a lot. I stayed at friends houses whenever I could.  Years later his house was busted by the cops and he is now dead from years of drug abuse.  I was enrolled in high school and as a freshman and tested in to junior classes.  The idiots put me in freshman classes anyway and I decided I wasn't going to do that again.  So I ditched school or just didn't go.  I had no supervision so I did what I liked.  I roamed the streets at night, not to get in trouble, just to be away.  I didn't do drugs like my friends but I drank and smoked. I worked at one place now and I always went to work, but now I kept some of the money for myself.

And then 1991 happened.  What a year.  My grandpa, the only one I ever really knew, died in February, my niece was born in May, my mom was in a drinking and driving car accident that ended with a kids death in June and my brother was in a drinking and driving accident that nearly killed him in December.  Needless to say I stopped drinking in 1991.

We knew my mom was going to go to prison so I called my sister who had moved to Iowa and asked her if she and her family would come back to AZ and help me get a place and basically just live.  The home that my mom had set up for me to live at fell through.  My sister came back to AZ with my niece and we found an apartment.  Her husband followed soon thereafter.  While we lived there I took care of Brianne during the day while Danyel worked and I worked at night.  This is when I fell in love with baby Bri.  She was the bright spot in my life full of darkness.  Things got messed up-I still don't know how- but we were evicted and I moved to Missouri again to stay with my dad.  That was a joke so at 17 I moved back to AZ and stayed with my grandma who finally let me stay with her.  At this point is when I feel like I got my shit kinda together.  I worked a retail job making decent money, bought my first car and went out with friends dancing.  I was having a good time.  And I met somebody and he asked me to marry him.  And I said yes.  It was 1994.

So I got married and I got panic attacks.  Like debilitating panic attacks.  At several times in my life they have been so bad that I couldn't leave the house.  I still worked, but I worked in places close to home.  I even got into property management and a perk was I could live where I worked.  Most of my 20's is marked with periods of panic attack ebbs.  I caught my husband cheating on me in 1999 and we divorced in 2000.  99 was another interesting year.  That's when Brianne came to AZ to visit me alone for the first time.  It was a hard year for her.  But that's another story.

And in 2002 I had my baby Gracie.  She changed my whole life.  She was the best gift I ever got.  She gave me a reason to try harder at life. And in 2004 she was diagnosed as autistic.  It was devastating and relieving all at once.  She would be different but now I knew.  And then at the end of the year I was diagnosed with cancer.  And she was literally my reason to live.  And I had Brianne move out to AZ with me, she had hit teen years and needed a mom.  And I was scared I wouldn't make it.

I had non-Hodgkin's follicular lymphoma stage 4. I had it, I beat it.

I dated a few men over the years.  Not going to name names or point fingers.  None of them worked out.  I gave up on having a relationship.  My life was Gracie and trying to take care of my mother.  I worked and made decent money, bought a house for us all to live in.

Just when you think you are comfortable life throws you a curve ball.  Its karma or Murphy's law or whatever you want to call it.  I was fired for the first time in my life.  And I couldn't find another job.   So I was one of millions in 2007 that filed for unemployment.  It was the strangest thing to me to not get up and go to work.  The only other time I didn't go to work since I was 13 was when I was pregnant with Gracie.  And at this point in my life and old friend found me.

My Jason. We knew each other in high-school, worked together after high school and both went off our separate ways.  He found me on Facebook and the rest is history.  We got married in 2010 and have two beautiful children together.  I was not supposed to be able to have kids after chemo but surprise!!  We live in Washington where he is stationed for 2 more years.  Then he gets to retire, and yes retire- 20 years.  He is amazing and makes me try to be a better person.  He drives me crazy sometimes but he is my soul mate.

That's my life. There is of coarse more to it, details.  But I may or may not get into them.  Depends on my mood.

Introductions

So Im going to try blogging.  Let me introduce the cast of characters.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Jenn- I'm the mom. I am currently a stay at home mom but I am looking for a job
Jason-He's my hubby. He is a master sergeant in the Air Force and he just got back from a 10 month deployment.  He also loves to brew beer.
Gracie- She's 10 and autistic.  She gets obsessed about things and right now its snow and Christmas.
Emma- She's 7.  She lives in Phoenix with her mother, Holly, Jasons ex-wife.  She is a diva.  And she loves horses.  But I think its because she thinks shes a princess and they are supposed to have horses.
Anja- She's 2.  Nuff said.
Andy-He's 6 months.  He takes up most of my time right now, when Im not chasing Anja to put clothes on her.
Brianne- Biologically she's my niece.  But I have been her mom since she was 8.  And I was there before that of coarse, but thats when I really felt like I should step in.  I'll fill ya in later on all that.

SUPPORTING CAST

Danna-   This is my mother
Patrick-   This is my father
Ron-       Step dad
Diane-    Step mom, deceased ;(
Cheryle- Mother in law
Anders-  Father in law
Danyel-  biological sister
Steve-     Her husband
Sean-      biological brother
Nils-       Brother in law
Amy-      his wife
Jamie-     Sister in law
Jeff-        her husband
Tyler-     Brianne's boyfriend

I think thats a good run down for now.  So the purpose of this blog is for me to say things I want to say without caring if I offend people.  These are my thoughts.  This is how I feel even if I don't tell you.  You have been warned.  I will also be talking about whats going on in my life, with the kids and hubby. The daily BS of life.