second marriages

Being a Single Mom


"Under the horse chestnut tree", 1 p...

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I have never pretended that I ever wanted to parent on my own. As a matter of fact when I turned 31, I actually spent a few months comtemplating  single parenthood. Not because it was becoming a trendy thing, but because I really couldn’t imagine not having a child of my own. I came to the conclusion though that it was too daunting a task and much too unfair to a child to go it alone. 

 

Imagine my surprise when the fates went ahead and made a single mom of me anyway.

 

It isn’t that I am not good at it. I am commended right and left for what a wonderful child I have, but I often wonder if they are merely saying that and the unspoken part of the sentence is “for not having a father..” Because the truth is that my little girl is headstrong and spoiled. I have been too distracted and too tired and just too grief-stricken to hold the lines that needed holding as often as they should have been held.

 

Case in point is that she still sleeps with me. She has slept with me almost from the beginning. I am assured by other two parent families that children do sleep with their parents. It is more common than the majority let on and that eventually they all sleep on their own.

 

I feel like a failure nonetheless.

 

Neither I nor any of my siblings ever slept with our parents in their bed. Their bedroom as a matter of fact was strictly off-limits. I have memories of hovering in the doorway to their room and asking to be allowed in. Even in the middle of the night. Even if I was ill. I never even tried to broach the door if I had a bad dream. I would just pull the covers over my head and grip them tightly to prevent whatever monster I had dreamt of from gaining entry.

 

I bring this up only because I worry that this bad habit I have left to its own devices will become more of an issue once the summer comes and we are in Canada with Rob. He is patient when it comes to my parenting skills, but he is far and away the expert. It must take quite a toll on his inner Virgo to tactfully approach subjects concerning my daughter. 

 

We had a semi-conversation about sleeping arrangements tonight on the phone, and although he brought up nothing I hadn’t already thought about, I still felt bad afterwards because I know firsthand that no one was ever meant to do this by themselves.

 

I wonder more often than not who she would be if there had been two of us raising her.

The Details


Wedding Dress

Image by LollyKnit via Flickr

So, we have gone from a small ceremony with just ourselves and our daughters to planning a wedding on location and with guests no less. And it makes me smile to think about it really because I can remember us not long ago joking about theme weddings in Vegas.

It doesn’t matter really. As long it is us. Rob and I. Our girls.

I bought a bride’s magazine the other day. It felt like an odd thing to do. At my age. Looking at “princess” gowns like a teenager getting ready for prom.

When I married Will, it was in a dress that I didn’t really like, wearing accessories that were better suited to my sister DNOS, who had picked them out, than myself. The ceremony was written by the Catholic church and the songs prescribed by them as well. The reception was old school with a sit down dinner and dancing afterwards. All I had wanted was my toes in the sand, a flowing, slightly sexy gown and white cake with sickeningly sweet thick icing.

This time I will have the mountains, and I have come to love them more and more, a very exotic Canadian who fulfills the sexy requirement more than just slightly, and a ceremony written by the province of Alberta.

I don’t know if Tool has ever written a wedding appropriate song, and I can’t eat cake anymore without making myself sick. And I don’t think the gown will be white much less princess-like.

Details. It’s a good thing I am marrying a Virgo*

 

*Rob planned the entire wedding really, I picked out a dress for me and a flower girl dress for Dee. I also arranged for the few flowers we needed. Mostly though – it was Rob. Interesting my late husband, Will, was also keen on wedding planning, the mark of an enthusiastic to be wed man though Rob did tell me that when he married his late wife, Shelley, he couldn’t have been less interested. He was just nineteen though and as he tells it, whenever pressed into wedding planner mode, he was more than willing to oblige her. (see How Do You Know)

Something New


An engagement ring.

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I had a dentist appointment after school today. I loathe six month check ups. It is one of those left-over aversions from my teenage years when I couldn’t seem to go to the dentist without having to come back and have a cavity filled. I haven’t had a cavity in years. So many that I am tempted to say that I am probably in my second cavity-free decade now, but I still dread going. Just entering the office renders me nearly mute as I focus on stemming the tide of tension that builds slowly until the all clear is given after the final inspection of my not so pearly whites.

There was a new hygienist today. She  attempted to engage me in small talk which I still don’t understand really. Am I expected to reply, just nod, or make  sound effects?  Rob would find this line of thought amusing as he already thinks that I use sounds in place of real words so often anyway that why would I find the expectation of this cave person dialect an imposition?

She had a daughter who was 6’ 4”. I found this out after she commented on my height and wondered did I have a hard time finding pants that fit. I do. The world of trousers caters to the short(er). The conversation somehow wound it’s way to the daughter’s boyfriend, who is only 5’10”, and did I have a tall husband?

And I nearly said, “yes”.

Of course I don’t have a husband anymore, so I hesitated, stammered, and finally told the woman that my husband had died over a year ago. She apologized, as they always do, and then yammered on, but I had stopped paying attention for the moment. It was natural for this woman to assume I was married. I have a ring on my finger now. But, I thought of Rob first, not Will.

I had almost said, ‘Yes, my husband is nearly 6’ tall.”