Everything Is Coming Up Roses Baby

Okay. Not really.

No roses here at The White House.

Okay, actually, I do have some roses that were a wonderful gift from my Aunt-in-Law, but technically everything else isn't roses.

Today, I took my son to be x-rayed. No broken leg, but the muscle is so badly bruised from the knee to ankle that his leg is swollen and he can't walk. With ice and rest it should heal and he should be back up and running soon.

I also took another son to get contacts and get fitted for badly needed glasses.

And I took the little ones to soccer practice.

There was also some other stuff like planting, cooking and movie watching, but none of that really matters.

What matters is that it isn't all roses here at The White House.



Tomorrow I will sit in an interview with the Child Custody Investigator for two hours to talk about my parenting and why my son who has lived with me for the last 3.5 years exclusively should continue to do so. And then my life and his will sit in the hands of a stranger.

Do you see the irony in this? A man that I have know for 20.5 years, nearly half of my life, will no longer speak to me about the children that we brought into this world together. He finds it to be more productive to put our personal matters in the hands of strangers. Of a flawed court system. To keep it impersonal.

And what have I done? Well, I've kept raising kids. I've been to meetings. I've driven them here and there. I have shopped. Fed. Washed clothes. Made beds. Seen doctors. Talked. Hugged. Laughed and cried. I have continued to do what I have done since getting pregnant 19 years ago. I've just kept taking care of my family.

Should I have spent the day putting my ducks in a row? Gathering my paperwork? Making a case? Maybe. But that isn't who I am, nor who I want to be, nor who I am going to be. If their father feels the best way to rebuild a broken relationship with his children is through courts and strangers and paperwork and expenses, that is his choice. I have my relationship with those kids and I am not going to let all the aforementioned items destroy that. It is what it is. It will be what it will be. My son has an opportunity to  break the ugly cycle of his grandfather and father and if a judge, who does not know him, feels fit to let that cycle continue then it is what it is.

Personally, I would have rather just talked with a man that I know almost as well as he knows himself about the babies we gave breath to than sling mud that splatters everyone with miles. That seems to make more sense to me. But I guess that I am wrong because tomorrow I am expected to go and sling mud.

And when the meeting is done what will I do? I will go back to feeding kids, coaching soccer, cheering my son on, putting kids to bed. I will continue to do what I have done for the last 18.5 years that I have had the privilege of being a mom. And I suppose he will go home and gloat that he put me through hell.

But it doesn't seem like there is a whole lot to feel good about when children are suffering.