Divorce, children and making decisions

So, one of the hardest things about divorce and sharing children is deciding where to live.  If you are lucky like me, your ex will be accommodating and you will have an easy working relationship. I know this is not always the case though.  Unfortunately, even if you do have a great working relationship it is not that easy.  Options become very limited in where you can live depending on how often you actually want to see the child. 

If you live in the same city as the child's other parent, you are able to see them more.  Take our arrangement, I have my daughter the first half of the week, my ex has her the second half.  Been this way since she was little.

But then if i were to move further away it could put a serious crimp in my ability to see her as much as I would like.  Depending on where she decided to go to school, I could end up only seeing her on weekends.  If I am too far, it may be less than that. 

Would I be able to live with that?  No, she is my baby and I don't think I could survive not watching her growing up.  So that leaves me with only one choice.

So now I put this question out there.  What would you be willing to do in this situation?  Would you be willing to risk losing your child to live somewhere else or would you stay close to them so you can hold on?

Play Dates

Why did someone invent this idea? I mean the thought of getting together and being social with people I don't know and probably have nothing in common with while our children play does not appeal to me in any way. I'm not even really into long term socializing with people I like, so the idea of doing it with a complete stranger doesn't appeal to me.

The idea of dropping my kids off at someones home I don't know is even less appealing. Yes, I am jaded, yes I don't trust humanity but you know what, I have reason not to! I've seen the dark side of humanity too many times to NOT be jaded. I've watched kids abuse each other, I've watched parents abuse kids, I've seen what happens on the playground. Do I really want my kids possibly being exposed to more of that? No.

I do not understand why I have to be made to feel like a bad or neglectful parent because I don't like the idea of just dropping my child off with people I don't know. Will I end up doing it, yes. Why? Because it's the "norm" and if I don't then I am a horrible parent. I will hate it, but everyone else will be happy, until something happens to one of our children. Somehow I would probably still be the bad parent though, because I left my kid with someone I didn't know. Modern social ideas for children really suck.

Temper Tantrums

Honestly I never understood the concept of temper tantrums. When I was a kid my stepsister would throw them and I would be embarrassed for her because she looked ridiculous and was acting like a brat.

Right this moment my youngest (turns 7 next month) is cleaning up the mess he made during an extend tantrum. The tantrum started down here when he misbehaved, was put in time out, misbehaved in time out, got a privilege taken away, threw even more of a fit and was sent to his room. From there he proceeded to destroy his bedroom. He is a highly intelligent child, he was told that his punishment was because he was misbehaving but yet he continued. I can not understand what would posses a child to basically continue to make their punishment worse on purpose. It's baffling!

So now he has been left to his room until he cleans up the mess he has made, even if it means spending the rest of the day up there doing it instead of having fun with his family on his day off from school.

kids should be kids

So, after returning from what should have been an awesome vacation, but instead was one of the most stressful I have had yet, I came to a conclusion. Certain people should just not be around children. I say this because even though I joke my kids are demons, I know that if they are allowed to be kids they are actually well behaved in a camp situation. Take into account these 2 different situations.

1. We took the kids camping and camped with some people that normally don't choose to be around young children. The kids were given their boundaries but allowed to play and be kids in the larger area. There were no incidences and the kids were well behaved and happy.

2. We took the kids for a longer camping event. We camped in what we thought was a family friendly place. The kids were told to be quiet constantly, couldn't run around and play and be kids. There were many incidents, lots of yelling and very unhappy kids and parents.

What did I learn? That the friends I thought would help and be there for me couldn't handle the kids and expected them to be like the adults (even though they are 5 and 7) and the ones I expect to be yelling at them and miserable actually got along with them. So now I am faced with the question, what do I do next year? Honestly I don't know. I love the friends I camped with but the way they behaved seriously hurt me. Now keep in mind it wasn't all of them, some were very affectionate toward the kids, but it only takes one to make a situation go out of control. If it were up to me I would just not attend again, but then I am over-reacting because it's still hurting pretty bad, although if I do go I am not so sure I want to camp with the same group of people.

Is this what being a Mom really is???

7:00am Wake up and get dresses, go to the bathroom, brush teeth
7:00am Deal with kid that woke up early, woke up siblings and climed over gate to get downstairs and into mischief
7:15am Make lunches and feed kids breakfast
7:20am Stop an argument between 2 kids, scream at top of lungs to be heard, tell one child (for the 5th time) to put something away
7:30am Shovel front porch, stairs and walk path to street for kids to go to the bus
7:45am Come back in to an argument, break it up and tell them to get ready for school
8:00am Short break (with no time to rest)
8:05am Get kids ready for bus and start watching for it.
8:15am Bus is running late thanks to snow, spent past 10 minutes listening to kids arguing and fighting.
8:20am Bus still not here. Middle child picking on youngest. Oldest complaining about having to wait.
8:45am Bus finally arrives after 25 minutes of arguing kids. I finally get to sit and rest while youngest watched a show.