What country are we living in?

Last night I checked my messages around 11:00 pm, and found that my ex husband had called asking if I could drop my son off this morning at 10:00 a.m. Sure, I mean I have nothing else to do. It's not like I spent the last week cramming for a Calc II test that I was supposed to take at 10:00 this morning.

Now if this were a one time occurence I wouldn't make such a big deal about it, but it's not. It happens just about every week. So I sent an e-mail once again reminding him hat we had agreed on giving a week's notice for changes in parenting time and that I was actually doing him a favor by dropping our son off at all, since he was really supposed to pick him up at school.

The response I got? OK, seriously, this is an exact quote from the e-mail:

"you are not my HUSBAND to control me...........means you are woman ...so remain a lady or marry some guy remain a wife................otherwise you will have no life.............."

Some of you reading this may notice that this comment has nothing to do with our conversation, but that's rather typical of his responses. But seriously? So I'm expected to drive half an hour out of my way twice a week because I'm a woman? Yeah, we'll see how often I make that trip again.

Really though, he does have a point. Maybe I do need to find a husband in order for my life to be worthwhile. Since I want to make sure to find the right man I've adopted a new look for me and my son.

Calculus II

I went into my first Calculus II class feeling pretty confident. I knew the material fairly well and thought I would do alright. I guess I would score around a B. Hahahahaha! I got my grade back on Friday with a score of 70%. That's literally the lowest possible grade I can get in this class and still graduate. Then today I went to class and got another three assignment (all in Calc. II) due by Wednesday. I've realized that my only hope is to spent 2-3 hours a day doing homework - a task that would be easily completed by someone 18 with no children to take care of. So today I went back to letting my son veg out in front of the t.v. since we've been home. Kind of sad, but I'm not sure what else to do. ...

The Big Hearing

Well, as of today there's officially a court order that I should start receiving child support. Yep, my son's dad will now start paying a whopping fifty dollars a month. Woo-hoo! I'll be livin' large now! So now that I'm rolling in all this extra cash I just have to figure out how to spent it. I figure I'll start by installing an underground pool, send my son to one of those upper class private schools, and with the change I'll invest in a high interest college savings account.

Seriously though, I don't particularly care about any of those things, but it would be nice if the child support would at least cover the gas I use to drive my son to pre-school. Anyway I've learned not to expect too much. I'm grateful that we have everything we need and though we may not be rich we are certainly getting by.

Never Let a Man Touch Your Computer...

I realize there are men in this world who know a lot about computers. Generally they have degrees and/or have jobs in the field. The rest of them don't really know a lot about computers but like to think that they do. The lesson I've learned over time is to never let the latter touch your computer, no matter what they claim they can do to it. These men are full of delusions that they will re-configure your entire system so that it acts like a brand new machine, however, that is seldom the case.

The man I was dating some months back had just such delusions. My computer's a little old and a little slow. He convinced me that I should let him delete Microsoft Office (of all things) to put a program with less memory in, swearing all the while that I would be able to do all of the things I need to do on it. Ha ha ha ha ha! With age comes wisdom and I now know not to believe that again. The new program I use has all of two Power Point templates! Ooooh! Aaaah! And I can even change the color if I need to! There's a big plus.

So out of total frustration I did my Power Point on a school computer, thinking that the program I had at home would at least be able to read it and I could edit it later. Nope. Now Microsoft Office is deleted and I would actually have to pay if I wanted it installed again. Kind of frustrating. So my advice to women everywhere lies in the title of this entry. The truth is a lot of times we know just as much about computers as the guys do, and we are better off taking managing our systems ourselves.

Playing the Role of Dad

While my ex-husband is involved in our son's life to some extent, he's not exactly your typical father. He's not the outdoors type that likes to camp. He's not the sports type. He's not the intellectual type. He's the religious fanatic type that feels he only needs to teach his son about God. While I agree that spirituality is important, I believe that it also needs to be balanced with other things. For that reason I've found myself often trying to fill in the role that might normally be filled in by a dad.

For example, I've tried to teach my son about sports. The only thing is I don't know much about them myself, not guy sports anyway. When I was younger my only sports were gymnastics and cheerleading. So I've tried to bring my son to a softball game, or show him football on tv, the only thing is I don't know much more about it than he does. Luckily he's still at the age where the basics are good enough. I can say, "that guy's supposed to hit the ball and then he runs to the bases" and I sound like I know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure what I'm going to do once he wants to know more details.

A friend of mine recently suggested that a good boy activity would be to catch tadpoles with him and let him watch them turn into frogs. A great suggestion! Only one little problem...being a girl from the suburbs, I wouldn't recognize a tadpole if it were swimming in my lemonade, much less floating somewhere in the wild. I'm sure by the time I figure it out they will already be full grown frogs. Maybe it's a project I can research for next year....

What really matters:

Recently I ended a relationship with someone I had been dating for a few months. There were several reasons, but right at the top of the list was that I didn't like the way he was dealing with my child. Since then I've been thinking about what I really want in a relationship and how much what I'm looking for has changed since I've become a mom. For example, when I was younger I might have wanted someone that was fun and spontaneous, now I want someone that's a little uptight and really into safety standards :) Yep, those geeky types are looking a lot better now that I've grown up a little. Seriously though, I've realized that probably the most important thing I'm looking for is how a person treats my son and myself. Interests might be different, or might change over time, but a man's personality and the way he treats you will generally remain the same.

Mennonite Moms

Today I spent the day hanging out with Mennonites. It was quite a fascinating experience. I had recently met one at my school who has three boys similar to my son's age. They invited me over for lunch and to attend a service. I've always been fascinated by sub-cultures and couldn't resist the opportunity to learn more about them.
While their dress may make them look overly conservative or unapproachable they were actually one of the friendliest groups of people I've met. The thing that I liked the most was how kid-friendly their entire setup was. Since Mennonites tend to have large families the place was flooded with kids. No one minded if my son blurted out or rustled around in his seat a little. It was quite a welcome change to be somewhere that kids were able to be kids.