All
is quiet on the co-parenting front, dare I say, all is calm, and all is bright?* Yes, with an asterisk. LOL.
Tomorrow,
DD2 will be performing in her school winter songfest, and in the spirit of the
holiday season, I invited her only living grandmother who is estranged from the
girls' dad. I also printed out and enlarged a picture I
took of her and the girls, bought a frame, and along with the Christmas goodies
we are going to bake next week, am planning to drop off to her with the girls
on Christmas Eve.
The
girls step-nana is also in town for the holiday season, so there’s lot of love
in our house this week! I’m working one
more day and then taking next week off from work and can’t wait to hang out
with the fam and just do all my favorite holiday things: baking, gift wrapping, hosting the girls
great-cookie-baking-for-santa sleepover—three friends for DD1 have come over
for the past seven years and at least one for DD2 for the last few, watching
how the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966 cartoon version, please) and Mickey’s
Christmas Carol. Then we pick a Christmas
feature movie to watch and then the girls settle into a long winter’s nap (likely
full of giggling and ipad/iphone games, lol, oh well). I’ll be sure to post pics of our baking
creations!
I
also convinced DD1 to speak at the Christmas Eve service—she’ll be narrating some
of the verses related to the birth of Baby Jesus, so adorable and cute, while
the little ones act out in the pageant!
And I’m hoping that will be incentive for DD2 to dress up as an angel
with the other kids her age. They grow
up so fast—DD1 would just roll her eyes if I asked her if she was going dress
up as an angel. Let’s hope DD2 can carry
it on for a while longer.
Last
minute Christmas shopping/food list:
Confectioner’s
sugar (icing)
Food
coloring (icing)
Rolled
oats
Brown
sugar
Sprinkles
Mini
pretzels
That
white bark that melts (from Walmart) to dip pretzels
Wax
paper
More
sprinkles
Call
the butcher for rib roast cut, rib roasts go on sale on Sunday, yippee!
Frozen
green beans
French’s
onions
Cream
of mushroom soup
Stuffing
supplies: onion, bread cubes, butter
Eggs
Bacon
(because
who doesn’t need eggs and bacon on a Christmas morning while opening presents)?
And
don’t forget the sprinkles!
Just
tucking in for the last stretch of holiday activity. I honestly love this time of year and all the
lights and the music and the songs. Last
year I really struggled, likely because the Christmas week the girls were with
their dad, and also because the loss of my mom in early 2018 still hit so
hard. I still feel that grief but it’s
not paralyzing like it was before. And
it’s fun to have family in the house all together.
My
Christmas wish is for peace and tranquility—amongst all the chaos going on in
the world, being still and letting the love shine through. Sometimes I feel like we are so tiny, our
problems so small in this big giant world, that it’s good to take a deep breath
and remember that in the grand scheme of the universe, our troubles can and
will pass. Be like water and let
ourselves flow on our path to healing.
*p.s.
after much back and forth with all the parties involved with our case—attorneys,
former attorneys, therapists, my trusted family and friends, I decided the best
course of action was to let the ex know that in the spirit of the holiday
season I had invited his mom to DD2’s school winter performance. I mentioned that
he may have heard that his mom came to a tennis match last month and the girls
enjoyed their afternoon with her and that I’m hoping to include her in the
future when it’s convenient for her. I
figure this is worded in a simple and kind way—and out of caution that he can’t
claim he didn’t know about it. Now I
hold my breath and hope he doesn’t rage and take it out on DD2 or DD1 when they
are with him this week end. Here’s to a Christmas
wish that they are protected from his negativity.
p.p.s.
Despite all of this struggle and psychological ‘warfare’ for lack of a better
word that I live with, I came to an epiphany the other day—that while the
divorce outcome didn’t result in harsher measures to keep the girls “safer,” I realized
that in the end, it did ensure their safety in ways that I couldn’t have
imagined earlier.
Because
he treasures his ‘face’ more than anything, he cannot physically hurt the
children (or me) anymore, because he would look bad. The world is watching, and even if he’s
faking his father of the year face, at the very least, being forced to behave well
is what’s the most important, way more important, than ‘winning’ a case. He dare not lay a finger on them, as he knows
the world is watching.
I
just wish there was a way to help him regulate his emotions and psychological
manipulations, whether purposeful or a side effect of his own traumas and
injuries, they impact the girls (and me) in ways I wish they wouldn’t.
This
is why I had that * at the beginning of the post.
----
Okay,
back to the drawing board.
As
the folks in Who-Ville say, welcome Christmas, come this way! Christmas Day is in our grasp, so long as we
have hands to clasp.
