Well, that's it.

Here's what's up in the life of we three...

I have the preschool cold. Argh. It is one of those cough your lungs out, blow your nose a million times, not be able to think straight, drag your feet, I have no patience kind of colds. Sad news is little Z has it too. His coughs make you want to cry they're just so pitiful. Poor guy. Yet, despite how crappy he feels, he is STILL his happy little wonderful self. Just talk to him or kiss him and he's all smiles and goos, coos, and ga's.

The papers are signed, things are official. I guess things are really over, we are really moving, and I am officially poor for it. It is a very bitter-sweet prospect. I will get the help I need but it means that I (and Odin) have to leave our lovely friends that are just wonderful, our fabulous family and their great kids, our sweet little house that I just adore, our town that is SO toddler friendly but would NOT be school age-kid friendly, our current life as Odin & I know it, all the dreams of a future that I had before all this happened and all the effort I put into keeping it all going before this all happened. I'm totally freaked by the prospect of moving. I have no idea what we will do when we get back East. All of you are so scattered, I wish there was a magical place where you all lived that I could be welcomed home to. We could all be neighbors and raise our kids (and friends' kids) together. Ah, I digress. Lately, I have so many daydreams of how I wish things were...delusions of an easier way. It's hard to want to stay in reality when what the future brings is so uncertain and when the present is so sad. I look at the kids and they are just wonderful and I keep thinking that some day I will look back and realize that I missed this wonderful time in their lives because I just couldn't be entirely present for them with all that I was going through myself. Little Z is in that wonderful "I want to stop time" baby phase where you just breathe in his scent and hold him cuddled up against your body and think, "I have to do this again someday." I keep thinking, what if this is that last time I have a baby and I missed it because I was so upset and in my own selfish hurt phase where all I could do was focus on healing myself and making it through? I also worry about uprooting Odin right now from everything he knows. The only saving grace is that he ADORES his Grammie & Grandpa and will still be seeing them daily so I keep thinking he's gaining a big part of his life, and losing some smaller parts. He will also be closer to his cousins Alexandra and Nicholas whom he really likes so hopefully that will make up for him losing his best friend and his cousins that he absolutely adores here. It's also hard knowing that I am moving but will not have my own space again for a long time. Being a grown up and having my own life is a hard thing to give up especially when I don't know when I will get that back again. I don't know when the market will recover, when my house will sell, etc. Anyways, enough of that.

We had a Christmas party last night with our married friend couples and their kids here and it was just wonderful. The kids were so grown up! They decorated a gingerbread house, cut out and decorated sugar cookies, and played together while we all chatted. Little Z actually slept through the whole thing, not sure how! It was a little sad because a lot of good friends couldn't come due to various winter toddler illnesses but those of us with the "preschool cold" just gave in and shared our germs amongst all the little runny nose coughing kids. I had SUCH a good time though. I like all my friends' spouses almost as much as I like my friends and since we've all been friends since the kids were born, we all know each other's kids really well too. It was so nice to be amongst such wonderful people and to stand there on my own two feet, instead of as half a pair where the other half is ALWAYS missing. It's always been so wierd in the past that all of their significant others come to everything and mine never did. It was nice to just not have to answer that question and for me to be enough all by myself and know that they were all here because they enjoy my company and mine alone. It will be so sad to leave them. Funny story, Odin and one of his girlfriends, Taryn were in his bedroom with the door closed. My friend went to check what they were doing and they were standing next to each other with a bottle of cookie sprinkles. Taryn blurted out, "I was just cleaning!" It was too funny to hear the random excuse she came up with for something that she deems as preferably acceptable behavior in her mom's eyes. The kids also all went out and looked at my Christmas lights all of their own interest and that made all the decorating worth it :) Here are some videos:





Anyways, thanks for "listening." I'm sure there will be many more totally freaked out entries before this is all over with. It's going to be really hard to let go of everything I've known for the past 5 years. I can only try to hold out hope that the future will be brighter than the "hoping it will get better" past and present. Everyone tells me that things will get better and that there's that perfect someone out there that will accept me, baggage, kids, and all and that I won't spend the rest of my life living with my parents, a lonely mom of two. I'm really really trying to believe that and hoping that the period before this magical "no way in hell that person exists based on my life experience" person comes along will be manageably lonely in an ok kind of way and that some day soon I will feel like I am again standing on my own two feet.