Archives for December 2009

Vulnerable

December 30, 2009 by Jen

As I mentioned in a recent post I haven’t had a boyfriend for some time. Being a sole parent for the last nine years including my pregnancy has made it that bit harder to get out there and meet someone that’s for sure. I also mentioned that I recently did put myself out there and meet someone to only have them tell me they ‘ just want to be friends’.

I remember when we were chatting prior to the ‘friends’ talk and I was quite honest with him about my feelings, ie how I felt comfortable with him and that I really liked him. At the time I’d put all my vulnerabilities aside to bare my soul to him and that was quite tough. He’d told me that he really liked me as well and then to come back and say that he just wanted to be friends was like a real kick in the guts. Nearly three weeks later it still hurts because I can’t figure out why the complete turnaround on his part. I may never know either.

I’ve thought a lot about it in these three weeks and wondered why it’s affected me so much. I wonder if it was because I bared my feelings to him – something I’ve not done for a very long time. I think as people we hide our vulnerabilities because they are really bloody hard to talk about. To be vulnerable is to be susceptible to physical or emotional injury and that’s hard to deal with. Who wants to be hurt?

But then to be hurt is part of being human. In my more logical thinking meeting this guy enabled me to hop back on the bike as it were and to feel like a woman, albeit very briefly. I’ve labelled him my stepping stone to something much better. Sometimes it’s hard to get past the feeling rejected phase though, but get past it I must.

I’ve never said this on this website, I’ve hinted at it, but I’ve never said it out loud. I would like to meet a man and fall in love with him as he falls in love with me. Someone that when he and I meet and get to know each other we will both know that we were meant to be together as lovers and partners. There. I’ve said it. It’s written down for prosperity now.

I want to put myself out there. It might make me vulnerable to being hurt again, but that’s all a learning experience right? Even writing it down here is a bit weird for me but maybe if I shout it to the rooftops someone that knows me and knows my future mate might introduce us someday because they know what I desire?

PS: Ms Single Mama has prompted me to write the above.

Christmas lights

December 24, 2009 by Jen

A town near Adelaide called Lobethal is really busy this time of year because many houses within the town decorate their houses and yards with Christmas themed lights. I’ve been meaning to go for a while but only got around to it a this week.

We went with a couple of friends and visited Melba’s Chocolate factory first off. I can’t believe I live this close to a chocolate factory and have never been there. But I live closer to Haigh’s and I’ve never been there either.

The boys had a great time. When I first saw this photo I thought JJ had his arm around his mate, but look a bit closer.

We continued to Lobethal and because it was a few hours until dark and light-up time we had dinner at the pub. I pity the couple nearby who were probably looking forward to a peaceful dinner as it wasn’t to be with foghorn leghorn (my son) and his noisy mate both trying to outdo each other.

There’s other things to do before the lights go on in Lobethal at this time of year like a market in the hall which we had a look at but there’s only so much to look at before the kids run amok.

So we took them to the playground at the oval to get rid of some energy. A heap of kids used this skate ramp as a slippery dip before the bigger kids came along with skateboards and scooters.

And then finally it got dark enough to enjoy the lights. We walked around for a bit before we got in the car and joined the other hoards to look at lights around the town.

We spoke to a man who’d been decorating his house for about 30 years and asked him how long the town had been doing it. He said that after World War II that it was a way for people to try and brighten things up around the place and to try and forget the war.

We walked in our door at home about 10.45pm absolutely worn out.

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas. We’re off to my family’s for Christmas day and will be watching the christmas parade tonight in the town where my parents live. It will probably be yet another late night for us.

Mum, you are the beast

December 17, 2009 by Jen

I had to share this Christmas card from JJ to me. His writing has improved a lot this year but he still needs a bit of work in the spelling area. While I’m mentioning improvements I have to say how overall, he improved in the last school term of the year.

He’d been falling into all his old patterns of naughtiness and detentions at school and it was really driving me and his teachers mad. On the first day of the last term JJ told me he’d been to the principal’s office after a kid’s parents had been to see her about JJ. He also told me that he was going back to see her on the Friday.

I rang the principal the next day to introduce myself and to talk about his behaviour. Even though I’d had numerous chats with his teacher and made it clear that I want to work with the school in regards to JJ this mustn’t have been relayed to the principal because she said she was glad that we’d had our chat and happy that I wanted to work with them to help JJ.

The upshot of the phone call was a meeting with a behaviour management person from the Department of Education, the pastoral care worker from school, a special ed teacher and JJ’s teacher. We sorted out a student development plan for JJ where we came up with three really simple goals that he could achieve quite easily and he would be rated by himself and his teacher three times per day with 1 being not very good and 5 being very good.

The goals (and aims) were: 1. Put up your hand for help (to allow yourself and others to work without distraction), 2. Stay in your seat and on task until you have finished your work (to get more learning done), and 3. Start work when the teacher asks (to get a good start with your learning).

If he got good ‘marks’ then he was able to have a reward and JJ and his teacher came up with a list of rewards like taking his DSi in, extra time on the computer – that sort of thing.

Looking back over the charts he hardly got any 1’s but mainly got 4’s annd 5’s. I bore the brunt of his being good at school because he was tired of that when he got home and we had some doozies of tantrums. I’d been kind of prepared for it though and was willing to go with it if it meant good behaviour at school. I was also pretty sure that it was just an adjustment phase for him and that things would settle down at home too.

During the term we had two or three follow up meetings with Department and the school, and JJ was involved this time too. He admitted that it was a long time to be good for not much time getting rewards, but as we told him the rewards were much more than just a bit of time playing his DSi at school.

And they were. The rewards for him were a boost in self-esteem and no detentions at all in the last term. I spoke to his teacher on the last day of term and she couldn’t say enough great stuff about him. Things like he’d become a role model for the other kids. He’d be first in line or first sitting down when asked to. She said she was going to tell his teacher for next year to not judge JJ on his previous record, but that the slate should be wiped clean and this was a brand new kid going to start grade 3.

Because JJ goes to out of school hours care we had to start something similar there too. At the beginning of the student development plan JJ had had a really good day at school and then at after school care was really really naughty. He’d even said to them that he’d been really good at school and didn’t need to be good afterwards. Needless to say once we started an after school care plan he was absolutely fine!

We’re going to continue the plan at the beginning of the next school year just to reinforce the good work that was done in the last term and fingers crossed it works.

Anyway, back to my Christmas card from JJ.

Handmade christmas card

It says, Dear mum. I love you. You are the best (not beast). It would be cool if we could fly ad look at the rainbow closer – silly. And have a happy Christmas.

Bless him. I’m sure that ‘you are the beast’ is not a Freudian slip!

Cause a girl needs retail therapy

December 16, 2009 by Jen

When I was in Melbourne I fell in love with these.

john_fluevog_Dollface

Or these type of shoes/heels. At around $400 per pair I was too scared to try them on because I knew that I would buy them. I regret it now because they don’t have a retail outlet in Adelaide. They’re John Fluevog shoes.

I don’t normally wear heels but these are supposed to be really comfortable. My friend tried them on and she found them really comfortable, and like me, she’s not a heels girl. We walked out of the shop saying how fantastic the shoes were and continued shopping.

The next shop we went into we were still talking about them and the shop keeper walked out from behind her counter wearing a pair and admitted to owning 17 pairs of these shoes. Wow, we thought, they must be good.

I still think about the shoes and plan on owning a pair one day. I could order online but I’d still like to try them on first.

But yesterday after taking JJ to see ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ I saw a pair of shoes that I ended up buying. They’re not quite in the same league as John Fluevog but will be a good practise run for me wearing heels. They were even on special and didn’t cost me that much.

At least I lost some weight

December 14, 2009 by Jen

I’ve been quiet around these parts and that’s because there’s been a lot happening in my life that I wasn’t ready to share on my blog until things panned out one way or the other. Things have panned out and now I’m ready to write about it all.

I’m 43 and haven’t had a boyfriend for a long time mainly, I think, because of the little boy in my life. When I became pregnant nine years ago it freaked me out, I was in denial for quite some time but then I had to face up to the fact that I was going to have a baby. He was born and the last thing on my mind was a romantic relationship. It wasn’t until he was about two or three that I even felt anywhere near ready and I started going out on some dates.

None of these worked out and I gave up on the whole thing and have instead been working on making my life more fulfilling in ways I can control by taking up ukulele playing, getting into photography a bit more, and this whole blogging thing takes up a bit of time too.

Then a few months ago I was introduced to someone I’d seen around at various parties off and on but had never met or talked to. A while later we saw each other at a friend’s gig and by his later observation and by my admission I came across as a bit shy and standoffish. I know I do this sometimes when I meet a single fella but I can’t help myself. Something to work on for me.

He invited me to be his Facebook friend not long after that and that’s how we started interacting a bit more. All of this progressed into something a bit more and I began to think that he was a bit special and that there might be something more in it for us.

I had started a bit post with a lot more details but I really don’t think it’s fair to go into those details here in a public forum so, sorry, I won’t share them all.

He had met my son a few times (they got on well) and I’d met his children once. We did sleep together numerous times, both platonically and otherwise and it was great to hop back on the wagon after some time off it.

But just when I thought it was our beginning he was thinking it was our end. He went away for a few days last week and on the first night there was communication between us but then it went completely quiet for the next few days. I was starting to really worry. Worry that he’d been in an accident and was lying incapacitated, or worse – dead, in a hospital somewhere. Deep in my heart though, I knew he was avoiding me.

Finally on Friday, he called and started chatting to me as if things were normal. I let things go along in this vein for a little while and then asked what was going on with us. This is when he told me that he only wanted to be friends. I don’t remember a heap of the conversation after that. The upshot is that he’s got quite a bit of baggage he needs to sort out from past relationships and we probably met at the wrong time. The other thing of course is that he’s just not that into me.

I don’t know how the whole friends thing will go, that remains to be seen. No doubt I will bump into him around the place as we have mutual friends. I’m upset with him that he wasn’t honest with me (and there’s some things that I haven’t mentioned that he wasn’t really honest about).

So what does one do when one has their heart broken? They turn to their girlfriends and mine have been bloody fabulous. A few of them knew many of the details of our relationship so it was easy to tell them the next part of the story, break into tears and it not matter to them.

I didn’t break down when he was on the phone doing the friends thing but I’ve certainly cried since then. My lovely wise friends told me that it’s not me, it’s him and I recognise that. I think I’ve got it pretty together and I was straight and honest through this whole thing with him.

What is it with men who say they want a relationship and that they fancy you, but then turn around and say and do something completely different? That really hurt because he’d gotten my hopes up that there was some potential when in fact there probably never was. I think I hurt more because of the possibilities of being in love with someone, more than I hurt over losing him.

It’s also helped me enormously to write about it. I’d had an earlier post which I won’t publish that had more details. I also wrote him a letter which will stay with me and won’t be sent to him and that was really cathartic.

So to try and look on the positive side of all of this? As mentioned above, he helped me break my drought. That’s made me feel fantastic and it wasn’t as hard (pardon the awful pun) as I thought it would be. In fact it was rather nice and I look forward to doing it again some time soon.

I’ve also lost some weight. I can fit into clothes that I haven’t worn for a couple of years and that’s not a bad thing.

So now? I’ve just started six weeks holidays while JJ is on school holidays. Luckily I hadn’t been relying on this man to help me fill my holiday days and I won’t be sitting around home moping for him – that would be absolutely pointless. I’m picking up the few pieces that I dropped, putting myself back together and moving on.

There’s something about Christmas

December 7, 2009 by Jen

When I was pregnant I was heavily into denial that it was happening because it was such a shock. The thing about denial is that it’s a state of mind and that’s it. When you’re pregnant you’re pregnant, unless something awful happens. Anyway I moved on from denial once I saw that baby wriggling around at my first ultrasound.

I’m also trying to deny Christmas. It feels like it only happened three weeks ago and it shouldn’t be time for it yet should it? It makes me sick how organised people are – some have even done all their Christmas shopping. Not I!

It doesn’t help that all the marketing emails I get or lots of websites I read are all banging on about Christmas and I’m sure it gets worse every year.

Just incase you want a Christmas present idea for a little person – 5-12 years – who likes building things, the Lego City Helicopter Transporter that we reviewed might be just the ticket.

Now, could you please give me some gift ideas for a hard to buy dad and/or sisters? Better still just go and do it for me will ya?

Lego City helicopter transporter review

We were recently sent a Lego City helicopter transporter to build and review.

It comes in three parts, ie the bike, the helicopter and the truck. JJ started off with the bike.

We received the last lot of Lego to review six months ago and I’ve already noticed a difference in how he was able to read the instructions and follow them pretty much on his own. It was only occasionally that I had to intervene because he got something back to front. He’s nearly eight and a half now.

Once he finished the bike he started on the helicopter.

And then onto the truck.

Lego City Transporter truck

Lego City Transporter Truck

I didn’t get a picture of the finished product because it was in pieces before I managed to do so. Lego is great to build and the instructions are really easy to follow for adults and kids but it’s also really easy to pull apart again.

Planning Queen’s kids built the same thing and she’s offering a giveaway. It would make a great Christmas present.

And for Christmas this year, LEGO has pulled together a website with all the retailers around the country (Australia) that stock the products (all you have to do is enter your postcode). It also recommends suitable gifts based on the ages of the children you are buying for.