Single Parent Stories: Tech Savvy Butterfly

Stephanie Van Pelt is a single mom I met through Google+ (Seriously why aren’t you there yet? Connect with me!) who writes the blog Tech Savvy Butterfly. There she writes about technology, parenting, and how technology affects families for better or for worse. She also discusses these things on Google+ so if you’re new to the platform and interested in these topics, circling her is a must. This is her single parent story.

My journey to single parenthood was so exciting I decided to do it twice. I’m twice divorced with 2 sons, one from each marriage. The journey itself is full of bad decisions – my own and those of my exes. Low self esteem coming off of marriage #1 resulted in an even more disastrous second marriage. Let’s just say that no one was truly innocent in either of these matrimonies other than the children and move on.

This results in two very different single parent scenarios. My older son spends one week with me and then one week with his father. While we still bicker from time to time, we managed to keep our relationship cordial and later even friendly. I’m actually pretty happy about the fact that we’ve demonstrated to our son that even though we couldn’t live together as a couple, we have still been able to work together to raise our son.

My younger son hasn’t seen his father in more than three and a half years. At first this made me very, very angry. Now I’m grateful and to be honest, this is my preference. In his current state, ex #2 is not fit to be around children. He may never be. This leaves me as my second son’s sole parent, both more challenging and simpler in the same moment.

Who am I now? What is single parenting like for me today? It’s frustrating when my first ex doesn’t meet my expectations. But then again, that’s hard enough for married couples. While divorcing I think that’s the hardest thing to understand. Co-parenting is difficult in even the very best of relationships. We always have differences of opinions and those early angry days certainly compounded those differences. I have to remind myself that he also loves our son and is just doing things the best way he knows how….as am I.

By contrast, I don’t have to consult anyone when making decisions about my younger son. I also don’t have anyone else to help with the responsibility of raising him. That fact alone can be very wearying. Knowing that there’s no one else to tap out to – no one to call and say “Your son did XYZ!” I fear my younger son will not have appropriate role models or take on the absences of his father as his fault.

Through it all I’ve learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of achieving and I’ve grown into a better person. The key things I’ve learned:

• Develop a strong support system. It’s pretty much impossible to parent well completely solo. Develop a team of people to help you and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Meaningful relationships with your family, your ex’s family, other single parents and other whole families matter. When you have a sick child, there’s someone to lend a hand. When you have a win, there’s someone to celebrate it with. You don’t need a spouse/partner but you do need that village. And it provides you with a little welcome relief and sanity.
• You will be amazed at how strong you really are. I had no idea I was such a strong woman until I became a single mom. At the end of the day, the responsibility of my boys rests solely on my shoulders. You know what? I got through it – I even managed to do it a bit gracefully. You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish when push comes to shove and it’s your children at stake.
• I have three main responsibilities in life and only time to do two of them well. Family, work and home. The house can wait. I’d rather read bed-time stories to my kids. Work gives me something of my own, outside of my identity as Mom and provides me with the income to support my boys. The boys are the light of my life. I can have a clean house when they’re not there anymore. We have too much fun being messy right now.

If you enjoyed this story as much as I did, I hope you’ll read past contributions to this series. Single parents can, and do, create loving and healthy environments to raise wonderful, happy, and loved children in. Here’s more proof:

• Single Parent Story: The Brainy Babe
• Single Parent Story: Getting Us There
• Single Parent Story: Not Your Average Mama
• Single Parent Story: Mama and Her Drill

Life’s a beach

Welcome back from the weekend everyone! Here’s hoping you had a nice one.

Saturday was a very strange day for me. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I know this is every day for most people, but this Saturday was something different. My cell phone fell and the battery came out so I didn’t have any calls coming in. My grandmother came knocking on my door because my dad had been trying to contact me and I could barely speak to her.

After she left, insulted I was so “serious,” I just went and climbed back to bed, broken cell phone be damned. I did take enough time to make sure the kids had food and entertainment. But mostly, I just lay in bed.

It wasn’t nice. Honestly, it was a very dark feeling. I cried more than once and was thinking some pretty crazy stuff. I remember thinking, “This is depression.” I don’t know why it attacked me like that, I really don’t. But it did.

At some point, Baby came to me and he was just having a rough morning too. He climbed into bed and slept for hours with me. A really nice thunderstorm was our lullaby. When I woke up, it was 5:30 in the afternoon. I wasn’t feeling awesome but I wasn’t feeling badly either. I was ok. I got out of bed and started getting around the house fixing things up, teasing the kids, and playing with Mutant Kitty.

I found my phone, pieced it back together, and found a slew of messages. Figures that when you’re feeling depressed and unloved and you turn from the world because you think no one would notice, you get slammed with people reaching out to you. One of them was my Dad who’s the best Dad in the whole wide world. How awesome is he?

On Friday, he watched my kids for me so that I could go to the Parent’s Orientation at the school. My mom is a teacher there so she had to be there as well. When I came home, my Dad emptied out the dishwasher, reloaded it and set it running, and cleaned the kids’ bathroom. All three kids were happy and fed. And then on Saturday, he came after I emerged from my coma and took all three kids to his house to enjoy the pool for a little while.

As completely shocked as I was by what happened on Saturday, I can’t help but wonder if in some way, I just needed it. I slept horribly the night before and Baby ran in and woke up the whole world at 8:30 AM. I don’t know, I just couldn’t do it. When I woke up, it was just a matter of time before I was quickly back to normal and Saturday was nothing but a strange memory that almost seemed like a too-vivid dream and not actual reality.

I did some straightening up and cleaning. I did some reading and finished the Poisonwood Bible. I listened to some music and danced while I worked around the house. I was me again. For the record, this was a No-Spend day but this is not the way I like getting them thank you very much.

The next day, I made the kids chocolate chip banana pancakes and made a double batch so I could freeze some for breakfast this week. My parents came and picked up Eldest to accompany them to Church. This will become pretty standard this year. Eldest has his First Communion this year and from this point on, attendance at Church takes on a role of relative significance at the school and also socially.

But, I’m not into it. My parents are. So we think it’ll be good if he goes with them. We explained to the little ones they can go when they get to Second Grade too. And we’ll manage it that way. Unless of course I find God or something and start going to church every Sunday…

I read the newspaper, especially this article on taking back your weekends at my mom’s urging. I picked 24 more avocados from my tree including one giant one that is just gorgeous. I did some more laundry and more straightening up. I made a friendship bracelet with Daughter. I put everyone down for a nap and even I settled for a cat nap. After, I woke everyone up and we went to the beach for a couple of hours. We were so excited until we got to the beach and found these everywhere.

BAD Jellies!!!

So we took advantage of the marine biology lesson, I taught the kids how to find them in the low tide and keep an eye out for them in the water, and we played in the shore when the high tide washed away almost all of them. They dug holes, chased seagulls, ran down the shore, and enjoyed the breaking waves.

At home, after they washed up, I put on the DVD of old Speed Racer episodes I’d gotten from the library and made dinner. They ate up and I got them in bed and did some crocheting while I waited for the silence of sleeping children to fall into place.

Thinking back on the weekend and what was essentially a tale of two days, I have to wonder at what’s going on here.

The article I read wasn’t exactly targeted at me, yet it spoke to me. Maybe I’m not doing a really great job of disconnecting and really relaxing and enjoying things. At first, I’d always talk myself out of things because they “cost too much money.” But then it got to them being “too much of a hassle”.

I went through this after having each of my babies. I just never wanted to leave my house and would tell myself how hard it was to go anywhere with a newborn and would just stay shuttered inside.

Not healthy.

And I’m doing it again. Nine times out of ten, I get irritated when my kids and I are invited to go somewhere, anywhere for absolutely no reason at all. When doing their birthday parties I was equal parts excited and anxious.

I always feel badly asking someone if they want to do something because I feel like I’m butting into their lives and if they wanted to do something, they’d just reach out to me. But that’s not true. And there’s no excuse for me being a shut-in on the weekends I don’t have the kids. I should at least get out and do something one of the days.

Needless to say, this will definitely be something I’ll be thinking about as August ends and it becomes time to think about September. One of my favorite tips on the article was about planning mid-week. This weekend, I saw evidence of that fact.

I’d mentioned to the kids that I’d wanted to take them to the beach days ago. Well, they remembered and kept at me. On Saturday, I was off the hook because of the thunderstorms but there was no excuse on Sunday and they knew it. Lots to think about the next few days, that’s for sure.

Number One Lesson Learned from Being Robbed

 
“Jewelry Box” by andrea singarella, on Flickr

Three years ago this week, my house was broken into. Every piece of jewelry I owned (including heirloom pieces) and my laptop were whisked away in a pillowcase from my bed by a couple of jerks who were never caught. I never saw my things again and it hurt. Mostly because many of the pieces I did own were sentimental but also because it’s true– you feel completely violated. Unfortunately with hard economic times and the holiday season, tis the season for smash and grabs everywhere. So here is the most valuable lesson I learned from my experience that I wish to share with you.

Don’t make it easy.

You might be lucky and never have to experience this nastiness. But in the off-chance someone does break into your home, here are a few things you can do to minimize the damange.

1. If it means something to you, hide it. I have always been a big mess and that would’ve benefitted me greatly in this case except I had just received a beautiful, big, red jewelry box a few days before the robbery and had taken the time to go through my drawers and put all of my jewelry in a nice and easy container for thieves to throw into the pillowcase. The only jewelry that survived was what I was wearing and what was somewhere it didn’t belong like next to the bathroom sink or in the kitchen. I also left the laptop right on top of my bed next to its case. The thieves could not have had it any easier when they broke into my home. Forget drawers as hiding places and try avoiding the Master Bedroom in general. They open every single one of them and rustle through everything (gross).
2. Close the doors to all of the rooms every time you leave your house. This was a lesson learned from the police. Thieves want to hit the Master Bedroom right away. They don’t know your home so they don’t know where it is. Make them work to find it and close every door to every room. Try not to let the kids decorate the outside of their doors for this same reason. If every door looks the same from the outside, they’re going to have to try every single one. And if you ever come home and find a door open, immediately turn around and call the cops. This is a sure sign someone has been there and is immediately visible.
3. If you have small electronics like a laptop, email yourself the serial number. The police were so frustrated because that was their best lead– and I didn’t have it. Even if the thieves did dump everything, the cops were going to have a hard time reconnecting me with it.
4. If you care about it, inventory it and also email it to yourself. I rent and don’t have insurance so for me this wouldn’t have helped monetarily but I had a hard time identifying what was stolen in that very insane time. Not only that but photographing especially important items might help police as well.
5. The moment you realize you’ve been robbed, don’t touch anything. Leave your house right away and call the police. The more you touch, the more you mask the thieves.

I get a little freaked out every time around this year and get hypersensitive to sounds outside and things like that. I lightly block entryways so that it’s easy for me to get out in case of an emergency but if you’re breaking in, you’re in for a surprise and a tripping hazard. This year, I thought a good way to deal with my uneasiness would be to share with you. Maybe these tips will help someone out there. I wish I’d known them, that’s for sure. Every time I think of the beautiful charm bracelet my grandparents had given me for my fifteenth birthday I curse that stupid  jewelry box. If you simply must have a jewelry box in your home, I suggest using it to hold mementos and doodads instead of your favorite jewelry. Those pieces should be in dark corners.