Yours v. Mine, There is No Ours

I worked hard to put myself in a position to be able to do well for my future children.  And now I’m told that if my future children have one single perk above what their half-siblings have that I’m a bad person and am being cruel to my step-children. 

 

Tiffany Twisted and I have extreme differences in taste, morals, educational values, EVERYTHING.  So because she doesn’t do certain things with her kids, I can’t either with my own?

 

Case in point, the Sassy Brat’s grades are poor.  That’s what really got me to thinking about this.  At dinner this weekend, I asked the Sassy Brat how her grades were.   She laughed while telling me that she had failed both of her Friday tests.  When I asked why she failed, she shrugged and said she lost her vocabulary words and math was dumb.  While I disliked math in school also and can totally agree that some math can be dumb, I work at a CPA firm and being able to add is a rather important skill in this profession.  I can see where it’s important to her future.  It is a life skill that she needs whether she realizes it now or not.

 

What stopped the presses for me was “I lost my vocabulary words” as an excuse for failing a test.  Why didn’t Tiffany Twisted know that the words in question were lost?  Why didn’t anyone try to get a copy of the words to study?  Was there not a teacher or classmate that could be contacted?

 

I do not understand the Laissez-faire attitude towards education.  This is important!! This is the foundation of the child’s future!

 

So if I emphasize education and good grades, am I giving my children an advantage that my stepchildren are not privy to and therefore harming them?  I refuse to not do for my children just because Tiffany Twisted doesn’t do the same for her own. 

 

Seeing as how Monkey Butt refuses to discuss anything, ANYTHING, with me anymore, I foresee myself making all decisions regarding my children without him.  My children will not be failures.  Although I am terrified that I will turn my children into “I told you so” experiments. 

 

I can encourage the kids on the weekends.  I try to make every activity a learning activity.  In the grocery store, I make Bubba tell me how many days are in a week.  Ok, well if there are 7 days in a week and you don’t go to school on 2 then how many Lean Cuisines do I need for my lunch?  When Monkey Butt traveled the majority of the month at his old job, I took out maps and showed the kids where he was at, how far that was from our home in Podunk.  I try to teach them that education is important.  Are my little impromptu lessons going to be effective when they are not encouraged at  homework time?  Wouldn’t asking to come sit at Tiffany Twisted’s kitchen table to help with homework be considered overstepping some boundary somewhere?

 

Irreconcilable Differences

Monkey Butt has a theory that once you utter the word “divorce” it becomes inevitable.  Once that little inkling of doubt seeps into your mind; it will spread to your heart.  I don’t know about inevitable but I know it doesn’t go away easy. 

 

There are so many things that I wish that I had known or thought about in depth before I got married.   I’m not saying that the outcome might differ but I wish that I could have discussed some things with him while I still had his attention.  Those long conversations about everything under the sun ceased once “I do” was said.  Now questions are answered in grunts and “I don’t know.”

 

Everything changed once we got married.  I mentioned that we no longer talk like we used to but also we no longer spend time together like we used to.  I’ve tried to explain to him that I don’t think the wedding is the cut off for quality time together.  He grunts.

 

For one, I didn’t realize how little a part of his life I would be.  Tiffany Twisted and the kids have staked claim on at least 75% on the territory.  While I knew that I wouldn’t have sole ownership, I didn’t realize that the majority interests were already taken. 

 

I also didn’t realize that my every move would be compared to Tiffany Twisted.  I didn’t realize that I would be so helpless when it came to the children.  I didn’t realize that my hands would be tied on so much.  I didn’t realize that her actions could possibly affect how I raise my future children.

 

I didn’t realize that Monkey Butt’s record would keep me from being eligible to be a foster parent or adopting if I am unable to conceive. 

 

Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

Tiffany Twisted

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she
got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty
boys, that she calls friends

And now you know where HER alias came from.

My Yankee Grandmother

She is actually my godfather’s mother but she always treated me like one of her grandchildren. Even thought I was in college when I met her, I always called her Grandmother.

Grandmother had a very dry and sarcastic wit about her that I loved. She always referred to me as “the one with the hair” first and by name second.

When on a road trip, if Grandmother was hungry, she would begin naming every resturant we passed until my godfather finally stopped to feed her.

Even after living in the South for decades, she drank hot tea and eyed iced tea with suspicion.

Before her stroke, the harshes language I ever heard her use was “Holy Mackinaw Bridge.” After the stroke, she would surprise you by adding some “color” to her speech.

One night my godfather came home and was furiously bereted by Grandmother for not telling her it was Halloween. “I had trick-or-treaters and no candy! I had to give them crackers!” It was spring. The next day, the mail man handed my godfather a pack of Ritz along with the TV Guide and the utility bills.

After her stroke, Grandmother watched quite a bit of television. Her preferences were “Cops” and “Repo men: Stealing for a Living.” She pointed to a blurred area of a man’s anatomy during a “Cops” episode and asked if that meant he was naked. With his lack of attire confirmed, Grandmother inquired, “Well, why did they cover it up? I might have wanted to see what he was packing”

Post stroke Grandmother also acquired the nasty habit of spitting. Something that she would have never done previously, now delighted her. She would sit in her wheelchair and see how far she could spit. When my godfather and godmother began lining the floor surrounding her chair with newspaper, she looked up, grinned, and said, “Bet I can still hit the carpet!”

Without a word, this woman accepted me into her family as the only “daughter” of her only son. Her acceptance meant the world to me. I may not have her blood but I am truly honored to be a member of her family.

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

My uncle Jerry is my grandfather’s baby brother. I went to help my aunt makes pies today because the dumb blonde doesn’t know how to make pie. Now, someone tell me what kind of self-respecting southern woman doesn’t know how to make pie? Come on! She couldn’t even make meringue! Her kid is adorable though and she made the drive and the time in the kitchen with Julia Blonde worth it.

You ever hear the story of the old woman in shoe, had so many children, she didn’t know what to do? That’s my Uncle Jerry! Let’s see, Rita is almost my dad’s age, then there’s Sammy, Scooter, Angela is a couple years younger than me, Raquel, Paul, and… I can never remember the latest little girl’s name but they call her “Baby.” No-one ever calls the poor kid by her name, just Baby. She’s like two. Uncle Jerry’s new wife, as I call her because come to think of it I’m not sure that I remember her name either, has a little Dirty Dancing obsession.  CRAZY!! Uncle Jerry reproduces faster than Kudzu….

I really need to attempt to curb my attitude. Perhaps that whole “think before you speak” thing that my momma has been trying to stuff down my throat for almost 30 years isn’t the BULLSHIT that I have always told her it was. Perhaps it doesn’t make you the “WEAK IDIOT WHITE TRASH DOORMAT OF A WOMAN” that I have always told her it would.

It is like a chemical reaction or something. Now, I am not very good at or interested in chemistry but what I did always like was making things go BOOM! Take me (base chemical imbalanced as it may be)… add any innocent remark of any innocent family member… BOOM! “Your cousin Angie got married this summer, Jess!” “Oh, really, has she been picking up guys at the family reunion again?” BOOM! “You remember Kelly? He’s working on his masters! He’ll graduate next month!” “I don’t care! I never did care! If he was working on getting gravity to release its hold on him so his little bobble head could just float right on off to outer space…. I still wouldn’t care!” BOOM! “Now, Baby, you gotta eat your vegetables so you can grow up and be beautiful and marry a handsome Dr. that will take care of you so that you won’t have to work!” “That’s right, Baby, and vegetables also make you strong so that when your Dr. husband leaves you for the secretary he’s been screwing for the last two years, you’ll be strong enough to work two minimum wage jobs because you got married instead of going to college and raise the five kids he left you custody of so that he could take his blonde bimbo off to Jamaica! Eat up! MMMMMMM…. squash is good!!” REALLY REALLY BIG BOOM! I have really got to shut my mouth!

Oh, well, my pie was good!

Cleanest Floor in the County

My grandma once had a fling with the rainbow vacuum cleaner man. You know how the salesman goes door to door and cleans one little square tile of your floor. Then you have one real clean white square and the rest of the floor is dingy.  The point is to make you feel compelled to buy the damn vacuum to get the rest of your floor the same color. Except where I live, there are a lot of cheap little old ladies with one white square right in the middle of the kitchen linoleum. Some will even try to convince you that it’s just part of the design.

Well, my grandma’s got the cleanest kitchen floor in the county. And she AIN’T bought that vacuum.

I found this out one day when I went over after school. I ring the doorbell and grandma purrs “It’s open!” so I swing the door wide and there’s grandma buck nekkid in her medilift chair. I scream, she screams, and she pulls the lap blanket out from under her boobs and covers herself. “I thought you were that rainbow vacuum cleaner man! He always comes on Tuesdays!!”

That’s when it dawns on me why her kitchen floors are spotless. And here I thought she was just using that new Pine-Sol.

When I said that she’d have to end it soon because her kitchen floor was so clean that he wouldn’t have a good excuse to come by every week anymore, she said that she’d been considering ripping her carpet up and having linoleum laid throughout the house.

Curl Up & Dye

My great aunt died in the chair at the beauty shop. She was my grandfather’s older sister.  She lived with and cared for my great grandmother for almost twenty years.  When my great grandmother died, it seemed as if my aunt didn’t know what to do with herself.  She was in good health.  She was in her 70’s; my great grandmother having lived well into her 90’s. 

However, for some reason, in the midst of her bi-monthly permanent wave she closed her eyes never to reopen.  The beautician fussed at her to hold her head up straight but finished her hair before realized that Aunt Etoyle was no longer going to be keeping her Wednesday appointments.

 

Johnboy

I’m never really sure what to call Johnboy.  Technically, he’s not my stepchild, although I usually just lump him in with the ones that are.  Johnboy was Monkeybutt’s stepson during his first marriage.  When Monkeybutt picked up Bubba and the Sassy Brat, he would get Johnboy too.  SO, where that puts my relationship with Johnboy, who knows. 

I call him Johnboy because he has a habit of trying to stay awake longer by calling out goodnights to the entire house after lights out.  Goodnight, Roxie the terrier.  Goodnight, Reno the hellhound.  Goodnight, Daddy.  etc etc etc

The Fruit of the Vine

MY family!  I haven’t told you about my family yet!

Monkey butt…. Once upon a time I dated this man who cleaned house, did laundry, and made plans for “our” future.   Six weeks later, I married him and he turned into Al Bundy.  I think I’d have preferred the frog.

The Sassy Brat…. My step daughter is 7 going on 18.  And don’t make her put her high heels on and be a sassy brat.

Bubba…. My step son is all boy.  From heelys on the roof to the dirt behind his ears, that boy is 100% american-made-trouble.  But he’s so darn cute!  He’s just such a Bubba.

Momma….. the LAW…. Large Angry Woman…… whoever said the only thing you have to fear is fear itself, obviously never met my momma!

Daddy…. the original Simple Man.  Give him a lapdog, a black and white western on tv, and some iced tea, he’s pleased as punch.

They drive me crazy.   They have the power to make me fighting mad.  And for some silly reason, I love them for it.