The Daily Chai Needs to Go to Bed

Saturday. I can tell you where the Daily Chai is. That little fucker is still at Starbucks and it hasn't made an appearance. Thinks it's too good to be consumed by the likes of me I bet. Oh well, I could be a giraffe.

It's actually Friday night, but I can foresee that by the time I post this, I will not have a chai latte in my hand. 

To continue. I decided that my children are partly angelic little darlings and partly sadistic little monsters. Did you know they are both very sarcastic? I mean, Kate, she's almost nine, she's got the pre-teen (please don't ever call her a tween, I might vomit) attitude down pat. She cocks her head to one side and just looks at me, blinking her eyelids sarcastically. That is a feat, blinking sarcastically, but she's a pro. Then she says, "Mooooom!" in the most annoyed way possible. Like whatever I've said is just the most impossibly ridiculous thing she's ever heard. She may have a point as I wax philosophical about the chicken wing I just ate. And then she shushes me and continues on in her story about Minecraft vloggers. I expect this of her, she is right around the corner of teenagehood. She's got to practice now if she's going to get the angst-ridden, tortured soul routine fine-tuned in time for her 13th birthday. 

But Anna. My darling, sweet, little pumpkin of an Anna. She's turned on me and become a little terror of sarcasm overnight. She's four. How is that even possible? She actually ROLLED HER EYES at me today and mimicked her sister perfectly, "Moooooom!" She then put her little, adorably dimpled hand over my mouth and told me it was her turn to talk. But they'd both been talking FOR HOURS already. When is it my turn?

Today was my ex's birthday. Kind of crappy. I don't know, it felt weird not to spend his birthday with him, to not make a big deal out of it, to not make him a cake, or get him a present. I saw him at Kate's end of March Break camp play, we sat side by side and played nice. I saw someone I know and as I was talking to her, I referred to him as my husband, which I haven't done since the first month of our separation. It just sort of popped out because it was just too awkward to say, "my ex-husband" as I gestured to him sitting beside me, waiting for this bloody thing to start. I already felt awkward as fuck, no need to make EVERYONE feel acutely uncomfortable. Oh...I have an idea, let's get into how we're actually separated but trying to make things work for the sake of the children so here we are together, isn't it so very modern and fantastic of us? No, thank you. 

But he heard me say those words, "my husband and I" and I'm sure it made him feel like shit. On his birthday. I'm not a complete bitch, I may not want to be married anymore, but I don't want to unduly make him feel like crap on his fucking birthday. Ugh. This sucks. Amazing how four little words can wrack you with guilt all over again. 

And by the way, to the parents that brought bouquets of flowers for your children for their end of week 30 second skit for acting camp, get a grip. This is how you are making all other parents feel

The Daily Chai Misses Her Kids

Today's Chai Latte was fabulous. I'm surprised you're not drinking your own while reading this. They really are the bomb.

So this is where I have the most trouble with my separation: the sharing of my kids. I know, I know, I just said yesterday that solo weekends are awesome. But then the work week sets in, I haven't seen my kids in three days and miss them so much. How is it possible that I've gone three days without seeing my girls? At the very beginning of my separation, I would be a basketcase on Mondays, and it was my bestie that pointed out I was always more emotional that first day back after a busy weekend of catching up with friends. Because while I was busy and distracted and occupied, my kids were not at the forefront of my mind, but reality set in on Monday morning. I would sit at the breakfast table, staring out the window with my Cheerios uneaten and getting soggy while I wondered how I got here and if I was really doing the right thing. That if I continued with this crazy, stubborn, selfish plan, I would miss seeing my kids every day of their lives.

The day after Kate was born, I looked at her and thought, "What the fuck have I done?" I looked at that tiny, scrunchy red creature and started to panic about how I now had a human being dependant on me for her every need. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Holy shit. That's a hell of an epiphany I can tell you that and I didn't really think I was up for the challenge. 24 hours later, I would have fought tigers for her had I been called on to do so. That protective instinct and my love for her grew every day until it consumed me. I found out that I was really, really good at being a mother. For a person who has always been just smart enough to know that she is mediocre at best, the realization that I was finally amazing at something was deeply satisfying. I held on to it tightly and I wasn't going to give it up.

So when you feel that way about motherhood, dealing with the fact that you are no longer there to protect them and love them every day can be a bit traumatic. And let's face it, I'm a proven drama queen so I imagine the worst-case scenario about how this is all going to play out and I worry about my girls and how this will affect them long term. My worry is not baseless since you always hear horror stories about kids going off the rails because their parents split. My own life went off the deep end a bit when my dad left me at the age of 15 and I never really forgave him for it. I do, however, recognize that this is a different situation. When my dad left, he was done with us. I saw him irregularly at best because he wanted to screw his new girlfriend and he didn't want a sulky teenager who hated his girlfriend at his house every other weekend. The idea of joint custody and both parents actively raising the children after a divorce just wasn't his thing. I was also old enough and angry enough that I didn't want to see him very often. So I speak from personal experience when I tell you I worry for my girls and how this separation will ultimately affect them.

Obviously my ex and I have figured out a way to continue to be in our kids' lives regularly. We both agreed that if we were going to split up, the only important thing to figure out was how to make the kids feel as nurtured, loved and protected as they have always been. Everything else took second fiddle to that. There are going to be some changes, we are moving after all, but we're trying to make it exciting for them instead of scary. We reassure them that even when we aren't together, we're only a phone call away. And drama queen or not, I'm also eternally optimistic about life in general and I look for the good in the bad, I seek out the positive from the negative and see the beauty even in ugly things. So I might worry, but I also hope and expect everything to be okay.

It doesn't mean I don't miss them like crazy when I'm not with them. I haven't missed a moment of their lives since they were born except for the occasional weekend away. But just like with those weekends away, I feel guilty about looking forward to alone time. Because I really do. I revel in it. I write, I read, I do my nails, I watch movies, I see my friends. And I do all of it guilt free because I don't have to worry that I'm doing these things at the expense of not fulfilling someone else's needs. It doesn't seem like a very motherly sentiment to have, but I've always been the primary parent and having down time to recharge has made me a more balanced, patient and caring parent in many ways. And as good pal pointed out, it's ok to look forward to handing my kids over to my ex because I also really look forward to getting them back. It balances out.

The Daily Chai is Ambivalent

Today's Chai Latte is perfect. I have nothing else to say about it except that my entire day has been made because it started with the perfect drink. Sweet, simple things people, enjoy them all!

Mixed emotions last night as my real estate agent came to take pictures and measure rooms so she can list our matrimonial home. We've been here for six years and I never wanted to move again, but here I am, planning, once again, to move. Balls. God, I hate moving.

We bought this house sight unseen while we still lived in Germany. Lots of people went to look at it for us, but the first time we saw the house was on our final inspection right before we moved in. The bedrooms were a little smaller than I'd imagined, but all in all, I was happy with it. It's an old house in an old town and I loved it. It has some good character, like transom windows above the bedroom doors and some of the original trim has survived. There are windows everywhere and on sunny days it is filled with lovely light in every room. It has a finished attic family room just like the house I grew up in and a creepy old cellar with a working cistern that I have never been fully convinced does not house a crocodile. And I SWEAR I have heard children laughing and running when mine have been fast asleep. Maybe just a trick of the house creaking in its old age, but it doesn't bother me, it just reminds me this hundred year old house has history.

We will leave some of our own history here to carry on. There has been love and laughter in this house and it is the house I brought Anna home to when she was born. It is the house that Kate has grown up in and the only place she remembers as the memories of Germany faded for her. I spent almost two years here as a stay-at-home mom, raising my girls and the happiness of those memories will last me forever.

But it is also a house that has many sad memories for me and my family. By the very virtue of its age and character, it has caused us both stress and in someways, that stress played a part in destroying our marriage. Last spring, I thought if we moved to a new house, a house that we would both love, the stress would melt away, but that is like having a baby to save a marriage. It's a pretty big commitment for a bandaid solution. When I thought about buying something else with my ex and being as house poor as we were planning to be, I backed off the idea. It was yet another indication that my marriage was crumbling. People in a healthy partnership do not worry that buying a house is going to tie them more fully to the other person, they reveal in the happiness of the commitment.

And so, a chapter of my life comes to an end. I am excited about it as well as sad. Last week, I was having a few low moments and I asked a friend to remind why I was doing this again. To remind me the correct path is not always the easiest or the happiest. To remind me that sometimes the things of the greatest worth are the hardest to achieve. He came back with this:

So I, like everyone around me, weathers the storm. I'm even learning to enjoy the storm because I never know where it's going to take me next and I'm always up for an adventure.

The Daily Chai and Kids of Divorce, Part 2

The Daily Chai hates me. It has decided, in its existential crisis that because I didn't order it, it ceased to exist and now, just to spite me, it won't come back. This is what happens when hot drinks start questioning their reason for existence.

I wrote a couple days ago about how Kate is dealing with my separation and the essential splitting of her family as she knew it. Some of you asked, "But what about Anna?" Anna...is a different story. She's only four and she doesn't really understand what's happen or why it's happening. At this stage in her development, she is only beginning to understand cause and effect. Added to that, the world revolves around her and her wants and needs. She understands home and daycare, but her world is pretty small and therefore, fairly uncomplicated. The complexity of adult relationships is beyond her grasp of understanding and she only knows the close, affection bonds between herself and her sister, her mother and her father.  Bonds that have been tested harshly and, in the case of my ex and I, broken. She is striving for independence when she insists on picking her own clothes and getting herself dressed, but she still depends on both me and her dad for the majority of her other needs. She has three feelings: happy, sad and frustrated as fuck. So try explaining that while mommy and daddy don't want to be married anymore, that doesn't mean they don't love YOU! Yeah, right. Really? You guys used to love each other, what happened? Are you going to stop loving me one day? Why don't you love each other anymore? Why don't you live together anymore? Are you going to live together again? I want you to, so you better get on that.

The other night I went over to the house for a visit and Anna came out of the office with a woeful expression on her face and the sad tale of her mean sister Kate not drawing for her anymore because she was doing math. It set the tone for my entire visit, this tearful little face with the trembling chin. She got frustrated when I didn't draw the stick figure EXACTLY to her little dictator's unspoken expectations (I drew it with hands for the love of god, what the fuck was I THINKING??). Then it was time for bed and I do believe all parents will understand the extreme, frightening, nearly bloody tantrum that suddenly erupted at the words, "Okay my darling, bedtime!" Oh well. I carried her writhing, screaming body upstairs anyway and dumped her on my bed to get her undressed.

"But I didn't get to cuddle with you mommy! I want to cuddle!" She screamed in my face. Trying to stay calm, but needing to count to ten, I said, VERY sweetly, "Oh my darling, let's get your PJs on and then we will cuddle all you like!"

"I want to cuddle RIGHT NOW!"

"PJs first, cuddle after," I said, wondering why I had made that stupid stipulation. Now I had to stick to it or be disobeyed forever because my kids will never trust that I mean what I say if I back down one iota from "PJs first, cuddle after."  Why do we put that kind of pressure on ourselves as parents? Jesus.

Well. She started to cry and asked me again, probably for the 58th time since we split up, why don't I love Daddy anymore?

"I do love Daddy, darling, I always will. But it's complicated and sometimes grownups just can't be married anymore."

"Daddy says you don't love him." OH FUCK. Now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here because Anna has been known, frequently, to say that I said things or he said things that were completely and totally untrue. So let's just say he didn't say that to her and move on.

I took that little morsel of human existence into my lap and she wrapped her arms and legs around me like a monkey and lay her damp face on my shoulder while I held her tight and stroked her hair. "I think you may have misunderstood Daddy. We will always love each other. But what's really important my girl is that I love YOU.  You are smart and special and you will always be my girl. I will always, always love you and be there for you when you need me." As I said that last part, I choked a little because the hardest part about this is that I'm NOT always there for her when she needs me. One of us is, she always has one parent available when she needs us, but sometimes you just need your mother. And there are days where I'm no where to be found, so essentially, I just lied to my baby. In that split second, I pictured her, 14 and hooked on crack because she was abandoned by her mother at the age of four and never learned how to form lasting bonds with people which led to a life of crime. Yes, that is where my head goes.

Anyway, she calmed down and I put her to bed and lay down beside her in that tiny toddler bed and sang I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane at her insistence. Fuck, that is a sad song to sing to the baby I have to leave behind.

Later, after Kate and I had spent some time watching this incredibly cute Minecraft vlogger (she admitted that half the reason she watches him is because he is so cute and the other reason is because he has pugs), Anna was crying out to me again. I went to her room, "Anna, Anna, my darling, my love, what's wrong now? You need to go to sleep and you've kicked off your covers," I said as I leaned down to tuck her back in.

"I had a hard day today mummy," God, they know how to break your heart, don't they? So back I went into that tiny toddler bed where she "made a spot" for me and I sang Mockingbird to her. Told her she was my girl, that she was my favourite and don't tell Kate. (don't worry, I told Kate the exact same thing moments earlier, they're both aware of my duplicity).

I have no words of wisdom about how to handle this hard time except to say that I express my deep love for her whenever I see her. There is no point in explaining why mummy and daddy don't live together. She doesn't understand, nor should she be burdened with those reasons at her age. Maybe one day, if she is still interested, I will try to explain it to her. Right now,  I concentrate on developing our bond into something meaningful and unbreakable with the hope that it will be strong enough to keep her from losing her mind as a teenager and becoming a prostitute for drugs.

The Daily Chai and Kids of Divorce, Part 1

Today's grande Chai Latte came with the apocalyptic warning that they were running out of the chai mix and I might not be able to get my latte tomorrow. I better enjoy this one like it's the last one I will ever have. It's damn good too so at least I will have good memories. 

People ask me all the time, "How are the kids?" when I tell them my ex and I have separated. It's a tough question because I'd like to say they are awesome and resilient, but I can't see inside their heads. I don't REALLY know how they feel about this or how much they're holding inside. I told them both from the beginning that they can talk to me anytime about anything and it was okay to be sad. I thought that was important because we're always telling our kids, don't cry, it's okay, here's a cookie, but don't cry. Don't negatively express yourself, don't express anger or hurt or sadness, be happy and for the love of god, don't cry.

Well, fuck. This sucks, they SHOULD cry if they want to, this is possibly the shittiest thing that will ever happen to them. I know when my dad left, I thought my life was over. Everything changed. The circumstances of my separation are very different from my parents, but the effect is the same. Split houses, not seeing each parent every day. Not being a family in the sense that you have always understood family. So, my dear girls, cry if you need to because this sucks. Lord knows I've cried rivers since I made this decision.

I hope my girls feel they can talk to me when they're sad. The problem comes when they don't talk to me and they hold it in, for whatever reason. Maybe they don't want to make me feel bad, maybe they just can't express the reasons for their unhappiness. Maybe they are just tired of talking about it. Fuck, sometimes I feel like if I have to talk about it anymore, I might go crazy. Other times I can't stop talking about it. And the thing is, I can't force them to express every emotion they are having, no matter how badly I want to know what is going on inside their heads. However, there is one story about Kate that I can relate here that makes me think she's doing okay.

She was freaking out on me because she didn't want to have a bath. And I'm not talking refusal to have a bath, I'm talking full out hysterics because I told her she needed to wash her hair during her bath. We got into a screaming match about it and I had to leave the room because we were going nowhere and the mom guilt about yelling at her was settling in. Plus, I was losing my shit just a tiny bit too much over the bath war and I needed to back off. When I came back, she was in the bath, but hiccoughing and crying like a crazy girl. I knew there was more to this than a bath and thought it was maybe more about this being my last night before I handed the reins over to my ex for the week. I didn't want to make that suggestion though because I needed to hear it from her. For all I knew, she was upset because she'd had a fight with her best friend, or a boy had teased her or the teacher got mad at her. The minute I suggest it's about our family, she'd latch on to that and I'd be left wondering if that was really the problem.

After her bath, she was still crying a bit and I asked her again, "What is this really about? I know you don't like your bath, but for god's sake, you have one every other night, why is this a constant battle? I think there's more to this than you're telling me, but you gotta say it to me, you gotta tell me yourself what's up."

"I don't like baths and I don't like when you yell at me and I don't like...that...you and daddy aren't together anymore," the last word ending with a howl of anguish. My heart, hardened by the ridiculousness over the bath war, melted into a puddle and I gathered my girl up in my arms while she sobbed about us breaking up. Finally she started to talk and she said, "We won't go to the park together anymore, we won't go swimming or skating together as a family and we..won't....go to DISNEYLAND EVER." Thank fuck that kid has her priorities straight. I stroked her hair and I told her to talk and to cry and to be sad, that it was okay to be sad about this shitty thing that had happened. But then I thought, she needs to understand something...something vital about what is happening here.

"Kate, you need to listen to me. I know you are sad that we won't do stuff the four of us and that's true. There are things like dinner and stuff that we won't do as a family anymore, but I want you to really think about this. When have we ever really done anything the four of us? I'm the one that takes you to the park, I'm the one that goes skating with you, I'm the one that takes you swimming and shopping and to the movies. We've been the three musketeers since Anna was born and mummy and daddy splitting up isn't going to change that. I'm still going to do those things with you. The best part is, daddy is going to do those things with you now too. So now you have two parents that are going to take you places and play with you and do different things so that you get to have all sorts of fun and spend time with each of us."

It was like a lightbulb went off over Kate's head. Truly. She stopped crying and nodded her head. I could practically see the realization spreading across her face. Ever since then, she's been happy and looking forward to the future, looking forward to moving to a new house and starting at a new school. Don't get me wrong, not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. She still has her moments of doubt and sadness, but they don't last long and she carries on. As we all do. The best part is my ex told me tonight that he had them out tobogganing yesterday, so I know I spoke the truth to her that night.