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My Little Coloring Contest Winner
I’m so proud today. Bug won her very first coloring contest.
I didn’t even know there was a contest. You’d think with something big like this she’d come home and tell me all about it. I mean, we LOVE coloring in this house. It’s our one big thing that we always do together, every day. You’d think maybe we could brain storm on ideas and practice on our own versions at home or something.
Nope. Not a peep from Bug. I did not know anything about it.
I do remember a few weeks ago at a movie night function that they hosted at school, one of the teachers mentioned that the t-shirt contestants had their t-shirt designs hung up in the library along with all the science projects and we were welcome to go look at them. Bug and I made our way over to the library. We looked at the science projects and even sat down and read a book together but not once did she mention the t-shirt coloring contest. I figured it was for the older grades and really didn’t even bother looking at them. I think there might have been some paper t-shirts hung in the window but nothing caught my eye.
So today when I’m picking Bug up from school and I overhear one of the teachers telling another parent that their child won third place in the t-shirt coloring contest, my ears perked up. A coloring contest? For kindergarteners? How did I not know about this? Such things are so very near and dear to my heart! In fact, all these years one of my biggest claims to fame is how I won the school-wide haunted house coloring contest in second grade!! I may have even used it as a bullet point on a resume or two.
I turned to Bug with question-mark-eyes popping out of my head.
“Oh,” she says matter-of-factly as she unzips her backpack and hands me a blue ribbon. “I won first place and they gave me a free book.”
Kids. Sheesh.
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State of the Disunion*
Naturally, I don’t like to talk about The Divorce much on this blog. It’s not that I don’t like to share. I do. I share too much. It’s just that my divorce is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you and I don’t know what is okay to talk about and what is not. Mostly, I just want to tread lightly so I don’t break anything else. Everything feels so fragile.
Over the last few months things had gotten out of balance between Toby and me. Nothing serious. We still both put Bug first and that’s the most important thing but I was feeling like the arrangements weren’t so very fair. I didn’t know how to tell him.
I had to talk to a lot of my friends, I had to write that Sister Forever Friend post and get a lot of kind comments and emails. I had to pray and get up the nerve. It took forever for me to get up the nerve. Finally I just called Toby up and told him what was bothering me.
And guess what? Toby completely agreed with me. He didn’t fight me at all. I was expecting World War Three and there was no fight. Not even one harsh word. I was so relieved.
So instead of our usual trek to the beach, Toby came out to visit us in the sticks. It was a huge lifesaver for me because I’ve had work coming out my ears, my car has been in the shop for some body work and I’ve just been tired. Too tired to clean the house. Too tired to get things done.
It was so nice to just stay home for the weekend for a change. I know this custody thing will always be hard. It’s the life a divorced person has to face but it was so wonderful to not have to give up Friday and Saturday for a change. Not that we’re changing our arrangement. I’ll probably go back to the usual trek. But Toby agreed that to make things fair he would come visit us once in a while instead. Bug still has ballet and gymnastics classes out in Orange County so we’ll probably just limp through the rest of this school year until we move back to the beach BUT it just felt so wonderful that he understood how hard it’s been on me. I guess I just needed that.
Toby made us a bird feeder while he was out here. We took a family trip to the hardware store and made a day of it. It was lovely.
Now I have this really lovely
birdhousefeeder tray thing to look at. The birds love it. The cats love it.
Bug loves it.
Three more months of this and then things will get easier. Maybe. But everybody is right. It does get better.
*Thank you Bethany for coining that phrase. I think we are going to have a State of the Disunion meeting every six months now.
