Continued Part two of two

 

Hmm, good clean break.  Talked on-line to a friend for a few moments and found ourselves ready to start dinner on time.  We are going to have the steak filets too, but they are very small.  So, I decided on serving a full dinner of pork tenderloins and vegetables.  I love to make this combination of veggies.  I start with the slo-cooker and its little grill.  Add the meat and quartered potatoes then season.  Next, goes the round sliced onions, baby carrots, celery and lastly alternating rings of red and green peppers.  A half hour before it is finished I will add the whole little mushrooms.  It is going to be great come some six hours later and should make me look like a pro!

Hehehe ... He did say he would like to eat healthy after mentioning I got required chips.  He said, “That’s not all your going to serve me, is it?”  Good boy.  By now he is starting off his karate tests, or warmin-up.  Third level brown belt, YAYYY.  Hehe yesterday I went to the web site he is creating for his Sensai.  There are pictures of 8 and 12 year olds breaking boards.  Heaven knows what levels that many up are capable of.  I would have gone, but the ex had already decided he and his wife would go.  Nothing short of a wedding would put me in the same space as them.  Give me nightmares!

Ok, moving on ... just another peek at the master schedule?  I’ve been trying to limit my writing to just the morning.  We’re already at 14 pages and we’ve got 45 minutes to noon.  Eh, just a little more of something!  Better set my timer for something.  I’ve been picking up as I go, so beside vacuuming, wiping down tops of things, and sorting mail, we’re about done.  Maybe what we’ll do is set the timer for those last 45, then ... wait, hold on?  Vacuumin before noon shower?  Oh dear ... this is going to create a writing quagmire!  Ok, how about ... we do the other things in 20 minutes, vacuuming about 12 and shower at 12:30?  That gives hair hour and a half to dry, so we can tie it up while driving to Jacobs with the windows down.  YAYYY, we got a plan ... set the timer.  This might seem like a womanly detail, but everything needs planning, cuz, This is our happy Jacob day!

There is one problem to him being over ... We both have terrible computer consumption needs.  Jacob doesn’t watch toomuch TV either.  Though, instead of being a writer/student, he’s a Games/Student.  Ahh, he makes me feel so proud!  Studying psychology too?  Did we boast that direction already??  Ok, just thought we’d slip it in there.  I think unconsciously, we’ve tried to overwhelm our fingers, so that by this afternoon/evening we will be ready to give them a break.  Rules of the house is that you do whatever most pleases the guest.  Even with the son that comes over more often, I still consider he and the other boys guests.  After so many years rarely in touch, I swear to God, if I ever, will I never take them for granite!

There are two things I look forward to doing with Jacob.  The first thing is finding out that he likes at least some of those vegetables, we have got cooking.  Maybe, I should be embarrassed as a mother not to know what her child will or will not eat.  BUT, Jacob hasn’t lived with me for eight years now.  That would have made him 13 when he went to live with his father.  Man, how long ago that was, although the years living with him still fill my mind with happiness as if they were yesterday.  Needless to say, after eight years his eating habits have changed.  Every year since the boys have left, I have eaten with them, but nearly 95% of the time, I didn’t cook.  Because, I’ve never figured out how to manage food after the boys left, and because they weren’t interested in coming to where and the circumstances I live, it has always been that we eat out.  The only thing the boys remember me cooking after all those years being married was a specialty of Swedish meatballs.  I remember doing something while married with a wok and I have a general sense of knowing I cooked throughout marriage, because I can recall $400 grocery shopping trips.  I am guessing this has something to do with dissociation Identity disorder.  It’s just been recently through the help of my friend and V, that I’ve felt encouraged even to have meat in the house.  Pretty goofy of me, I guess.  So, all that said ... tonight is bigger than most in my life for several reasons. 

The first also relates to eating and talking.  I believe the boys are more like me, except Mcadam, because he’s married, but I’ve adapted most of my meals, except with friend to being ate in front of the computer.  I’m fairlycertain Tanner and jacob are the same, and if Lee were out, Macadam most likely eats in front of a sports show on TV.  That was a good majority my fault.  When we were married, we ate at the dining room table, but afterward, the next five years, most of the boys and my dinners were not at the table.  The last three years, I can recall coming home from work (on the better days at dinner time).  I would make something in the small kitchen in the house we owned at the time, and I would serve out four plates, pour the milk, and call the boys to come get their dinner.  They were either on the computer, or the game systems down stairs in the family room.  The next thing I remember is the movies, unless their was a show, like the Simpson’s on that they wanted to watch.  They had hornswaggled me into believing that every kid in america needed to watch the Simpson’s about that time of day. 

If it was after that, they would have a movie that they wanted to see.  Those days, we were at Blockbuster often.  Just like choosing TV shows, the boys were also adamant about their movies.  I could drive them to the video store and look at the pretty boxes, but most often I didn’t choose.  It was the same thing with their father when we were married.  The boys knew without a doubt, that I was incapable of choosing movies.  They would say things like, “Awe Mom, don’t get goofy here!”  They were very protective of me and what I could view.  They censored out the movies with too much blood, gore, or vile language.  We all ate with our plates in hand.  After dinner the room would be darkened and there would be a three-way combination battle over who got to sit next to Mom after I’d finished my after dinner smoke.  The room was set up for the four of us.  I had a couch with two feet recliners and a recliner chair so everyone could put their feet up.  Along with pajamas for me, I would have in hand my stuffed dog.  We couldn’t sit down without him.  If and when I fell asleep watching, one of the boys would drag me up and push me toward the bedroom.  I loved falling asleep with them in my midst, but I was told I am a horrible snorer. *Sigh*

One of the things you may have noticed by now, is that beside the fact I paid for everything through work with the exception of $600 monthly for child support, and making dinner, I really wasn’t the adult in my household, unlessit was called for specifically.  I could be asked as an adult for a sleep over or to order pizza.  Rightor wrong ... it was the side-effect of having been a multiple that much further back in time.  There were many long nights, including necessary over-time at work, and the psychiatry appointments, where the boys were left to making their own dinner and putting themselves to sleep.  I will never get over the guilt of having put so much responsibility on them.  But, they did in fact learn to be very responsible for themselves.

On some of the nights, the boys came down to work to meet me.  This was a big deal.  Our town was about a half hour outside Chicago Union Station.  The boys 13, 14, & 16 would walk the 2 ½ blocks to the station, board themselves (I had given them pre-passes), and then in Chicago, would walk the two blocks to my work.  After things settled down, we would go back to Union station to pick up McDonald’s.  The boys had a lot to do at work, because I worked as a production coordinator for a big disabled peoples workshop.  It was my responsibility to run the floor.  By the time the boys had gotten there, there were no clients, just 8-12 little jobs on the floor that they could do, or on the other half the floor, they would play tag over the seven foot tall bundles of items on skids.  I also taught them how to run the two lifts, so supervised they could drive/take rides from me around the shop.  It was very exciting for them.  I had no car at the time, but the train was convenient I can still remember their excitement coming home late at night.  They were such quick walkers and would hold my hand so I didn’t get confused crossing streets.   It was a grand time though ... I just couldn't love the boys enough.

I very rarely talk, nor do the boys ask much questions about their childhood, although each come in and look at the hallway where I have about a hundred pictures of them growing up.  They ask, is this one me or my brother?  Very little time over the last how many years, do we have conversations about myself.  I believe each of the boys know the basics.  Mom lives by herself, works with people with mental retardation in Chicago and has a mean boss.  She has a couple friends and she’s a multiple and she’s got “stuff wrong physically.”  That’s about it.  9/10's and ½ of the conversation revolves around them.  I am like a sponge absorbing anything they can rememberor think of that might be important for meto know about their lives.  With each it’s a little different, but the one factor thatis the same, I ask each about the other two.  So, I have a pretty good perspective to know how my family most often relates without me.  A good majority of the stories I hear relate and revolve around my ex and his family.  But, now there is more with the boys school, work, friends, games, etc. 

I am pretty sure we share an odd existence.  The older two I can contact and see on-line most of the time.  So, they are only an IM or email away.  (We still don’t have a home phone or cell).  The middle son is more distant.  He’s also on the computer, but its to be known I don’t have access to his on-line being, nor would I ask the other two brothers for it.  In an emergency, I have tanner’s cell phone.  I use it sparingly, because it gets him all confused.  The brothers keep us both in touch.  Just seems to be how it is for the time being.  I miss Tanner terribly.  

The sharing of the computer should be a good thing, because the second thing I look forward to is watching Jacob deftly utilize whatever I have electronic to be playing his game/explaining his game to me at the same time.  It’s as exciting as watching a surfer ride the waves, but you are within interviewing distance.  We’ll save other conversations for dinner time and maybe after dinner smoothies out on the balcony, if he will allow.  His mind is so incredibly fast, he needs the computer so as to think fluidly.  I really think that’s the case with the boys.  They trip out on it.  With all this enthusiasm, placed into one life aspect, I can only be too happy that none of the boys played around with drinking, drugs, or smoking.  They are addicted though to the computer like me. 

Hopefully, he will remember to bring the paperwork, for his school loan application.  I figure we can knock that out in no time.  We have our financial papers ready.  He’s using my income, because obviously I’ve the lesser of his parents moneywise.  I am not fearing the difficulties, because I’ve gotten through the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 financial aid papers for my own school.  YAYYYY!  Smart Mom!  This is the first year Jacob has had to doa school loan because the prior three years he had support from Tanner, or my father's estate.  I think the ex and his wealthy parents contribute a couple thousand.  Damned if I could ever meet a set of people less responsible for education!

Well, I’ve crossed the 20 page self-limitgiven to myself and it’s about a quarter past 12.  This last trip down memorylane was unexpected, but seems to have calmed me somewhat.  Just a couple hours now.  We’ll skip the vacuumin and head toward the shower.  Pretty soon, Jacob’s coming!!!!!!!  I've a long time in coming to the making of a new home.