Love is a battlefield…

What they don’t tell you is when you love someone, you may have to battle for them…

Hard…

and often.

As for me,

I’ve been battling for Ethan.

My precious little 6 year ole punkin pop.

It is wearing me out and wearing me down.

I am still unclear on what I can say and cannot say, regarding the case – but what you can know is that I still very much have Ethan, custody is not the issue – I have that.

Its other things that no mother should have to do, yet I find myself doing.

Attorneys, Courts, Motions, Petitions (excuse me can you repeat that word again?)

and piles and piles or paperwork …..

I just want my baby to be ok.

I feel that every day I wake up I am putting on full armor and going into war, and every night my enemy attacks me in my dreams.

Its like some version of hell.

Ethan suffers, I suffer, Hank suffers.

Yet we are not the ones who did anything wrong.

How can this be?

I think about starving children, I think about war torn countries, I think about
devastating fires, floods, accidents.

I think about losing it all.

Losing the very little person I fight for.

And I am calmed.

I am brought to my senses.

I have everything if I have my family.

…

..

.

I cry,

When Ethan has left me to clean to bathroom or water the plants…. Or now, to go to school.

I think about the story in the Bible when the two women were arguing over the baby and King Solomon order the child be cut in half so they might each have a share.

The real mother objected and said that the other woman may have the child so that he would live.

That is how I feel.

All these years, I have tried to save Ethan from a worse fate and even now, I am focusing on the child and not my past with this man who caused me so much pain.

I am interested in Ethan’s best, not in anything else.

Because I am the real parent.

I can barely sleep at night.

I am revisited by visions of BD and I standing in a hotel lobby when we did this the first time and he told me I would never see my son again.

The baby toddling about aimlessly without a care in the world, me shielding my eyes and trying to hold myself together.

“You better not come after me for child support…”

And still… this is what he thinks its about.

Money.

I don’t care about his money.

I care about Ethan.

The child he used to obtain ransom.

My baby.

I will suit up until the day he turns 18 – if that is what is takes for me to know he is safe.

I will.

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Can you believe its been a year?

Love my Hubby Hubster.... hes better than he was the day I married him.

Not for the Faint of Heart

In England they are showing this to High School Students – Preaching the dangers of texting while driving.

I for one was scared.

If they don’t come out with something better, I’ll be showing this to Ethan when he gets to be driving age.

Of course – many Americans think its too tough, to harsh, to real.

My Dad had a saying for that, I’m sure yours did too ;-)

Teeth and other things…

Yes….

Ethan’s tooth did come out.

At his Dads house.

(SIGH)

I missed it.

I see so much so I guess it ok that I missed that, but it just sucks because BD couldn’t care less.

He is such a bone head.

At least I got the tooth back.

Ethan brought it home in the little box I sent with him ‘just in case’

Life continues…

All is well at Camp Champion.

Hubby Hubster is working his creative fingers to the bone (GO BABY!) been a lot of late nights at the office, tis the sign of the season.

Still he is happy and every bit and much more, the man I married, nearly a year ago.

My how time flies.

My lil one is going to be a first grader on Monday.

WOW!

I can’t believe it.

He is really growing up too.

Still very much a little fire cracker and very much an image of me (as my brothers ruthlessly remind me) when I was young.

He never stops asking questions.

To me or anyone else, he will quiz on the whys and why nots of everything.

He has decided that he wants to be the inventor of everything,

But only if it hasn’t been invented yet.

All questions of this nature start out with, “Mommy have you ever heard of a (fill in the craziest blank you can imagine)”

To which I reply no.

“Well, do you think it’s possible to create one?”

To which I reply highly unlikely.

“Well then….. I’m going to be THE FIRST to build it!”

Then he will give me detailed step by step instructions on how this would be done.

It’s awesome.

And….

He might only be 6.

But.

He knows EVERYTHING.

More than you.

More than hankBert

Certainly more than me.

Yes, he is superior.

One day, you can aspire to be a great as he.

Well,

That is about all I have.

I’m tired.

I was just sitting here and thinking I should write and now I’ve done it so I feel my life is complete, as least for today.

Goodnight.

Baby Tooth

What is it about baby teeth?

I remember when Ethan got his first one.

I ooohed and aaahed over the barely there little hint of a white fleck in his mouth.

“Now who’s Mommy’s big boy?”

I cooed as I took pictures for MySpace and texted till my fingers burned,

OMG! Ethan’s FIRST TOOTH is coming in!!!!!

That blessed tooth was the highlight of every mommy conversation.

Sitting in the pediatricians office, we would pry open our children’s mouths, to revel that hint of tooth that someday would be.

Comparing stories of discovery,

“It’s so precious!”

Then Ethan got two teeth.

Two. Whole. Teeth.

We laugh and giggle over the stories,

“He bites me all the time! It’s so funny!”

Well Ethan is 6 now and he has a whole mouth full.

I didn’t see myself in this position then, but somehow I find myself a tooth stalker, now that one has come loose.

“How exciting Ethan! You’re getting to be a big boy!...... Let’s pull it out!”

My eyes gleam at this idea and I remember being tied to a string as a child, a door at the other end.

Waiting for the ready single from my mom, which never comes, the door just slams and out pops the tooth.

Every few hours I’m checking on Ethan,

“Sure you don’t want me to pull that out for you?”

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

He knows.

My Mom didn’t ask, she demanded.

Because as excited as a mom is to see that first tooth come in, you are three times more anxious for it to come out.

I see Ethan eating an apple,

“Don’t swallow that tooth!”

I’m convinced it will fall out and be lost then forever I will miss the opportunity to fill the keepsakes box with baby teeth.

It’s a weird thing really.

I’m sure there is something psychological behind it.

I remember one of my teeth coming out while I slept and my mother getting so upset,

“What if you swallowed it?”

I don’t know if this was for health reasons for because without that tooth, she would never have the full set.

It’s all very disturbing.

Still, I continue to stalk.

The little bugger is very wiggly today, I think it will be coming out soon.

I’m sure after the first one, it will lose its luster.

But the first baby tooth?

Coming or going, it’s exciting stuff.

My lil-punkin-head is growing up.

Karma is a Beast

Sometimes you have to wonder if Karma really does exist.

In some form, whether it be nature or God, I don’t know….

But something exists and I think it’s finally starting to catch up with my ex husband, you know him as BD.

In a surprising turn of events, he has been posted on a website that was created to serve as a database of lying and cheating, good for nothing men.

A warning to all women out there, to stay away….

www.womansavers.com

Not only has my ex husband been posted on here, but his profile has been commented on by some very angry women who tell it like it is.

I got a copy in an odd email in the place for all that is evil…. MySpace.

I can’t help but feel a little bit happy by this.

And a little hopeful, that maybe the next girl might have a fighting chance to get away before she gets taken in and taken advantage of.

I haven’t spoken about my ex husband in a long time, when in all reality we very much deal with him every day almost.

In the form explaining his lifestyle and endless coverups to Ethan.

It’s an uphill battle and he doest make it easy.

For any newbie’s who didn’t follow www.SingleMomLand.com

BD , my ex husband and Ethan’s Dad, basically put me through it for a good hard 3 years.

Off and on a little bit longer.

Severe drug and alcohol use, lying, cheating, abusing, anything you can think of pretty much until he finally walked out and left Ethan and I. Abandoned us at his mother’s house of all places to move in with another woman.

Well, BD has since been a poster dead beat dad.

Sure, I filed all the paperwork with the State of Florida to go after him for child support, but they “couldn’t find him”.

“Here’s an address where he is staying, this is his girlfriends’ house, and I can take you to it.”

“Its not where his license says he is at”

An overworked and disinterested social worker would reply,

My thoughts, well of course not – there are other women trying to hunt him down for the same thing, he doesn’t want to be “found”

No legal employer, no legal address and no help from the state.

After months of submitting paperwork and getting nowhere, it was case closed.

I asked BD directly for help and got the run around.

So while he drove around in a new truck and went off to play on his Jet Ski every weekend, I went to work my 3rd job.

I was too fatigued to become bitter.

Fast forward to about 2 months ago and I get a phone call from BD’s current girlfriend, whom I had never had a conversation with before in my life.

18 and pregnant with his 4th child.

She wants to know if the things Josh has been telling her are true….

What she told me just completely blew me away.

Lie after lie, each one more complex than the one before it.

My personal favorite, the one I have repeated over and over like a broken record because the audacity of it all simply knocks my socks off.

Are you ready for this?

When she asked him why he doesn’t pay child support for Ethan whom he sees about 3 days a month (if things are going well) he told her that

he decided to get a lawyer and fight me in court for full custody of Ethan, which he won. He and his girlfriend at the time (the woman he left me for) then went off to raise Ethan alone while I ran off to be a lesbian and party like crazy. After all these years, BD has only just let me have Ethan back so that I can rebuild my relationship with him.

I nearly choked to death when I heard this.

Sadly, it’s not the first time I’m heard some variation of this story from one girlfriend or another.

Though this one certainly took the cake on exaggeration.

I corrected BD’s girlfriend that, no – none of that happened. In fact, BD kidnapped Ethan for about a week and blackmailed me that if I went after him for child support he would get his lawyer and fight me in court.

Something he knew I could not afford, because while he lived lavishly in his girlfriend’s apartment, Ethan and I scraped by on ramen noodles in a crime infested ghetto.

BD’s girlfriend went on to tell me that BD had not stopped using drugs as he said, but had been doing both coke and crack cocaine in the past year.

“He never did it around Ethan though!”

I think to myself, this poor girl is too naive to know that she should not be telling me this stuff.

After some thought, I call my lawyer.

I can afford one now that I’m married and not scraping by.

Now that I’m not working my hands to the bone, I can possibly get BD to do what he should have done on his own.

I needed it then more than ever, but I’ll take it now.

Ethan does need to go to college, do something that his Dad made sure I didn’t.

I haven’t felt this way in a long time.

I’ve got some kind of righteous indignation.

I’m angry.

I’m angry at BD because after all I did, he disrespected me even to the last degree.

Even when I was gone, he smeared my name.

I raised his son and he had the audacity to take credit for it.

I will let him know that he can’t push me around anymore.

I am tired of being weak and afraid of a man who beats up girls and little children.

A child molester and a creep.

I am proud of all his exes who are coming out and speaking against him.

One girl said it simply,

“He is dirt”

Yes.

He is.


*** Yes, I know that SingleMomLand is currently down. Im trying to get it up and running. If you are a web person and can do it for cheap - Im interested.

For now, some archives are available on Jacksonville.com

Vacation pictures (edition #2) Key West

Ok, so I lied, it’s not the next day but day AFTER tomorrow isn’t bad considering how few and far between my posts have been…

During our keys trip, we of course had to go down to Key West.



Where Lizzy found a street named after her,



On the way to Duval, which was nothing like I expected, with their too-too shops with plenty of places where you could purchase a $5,000 handbag.

(Pocket change daaaling)



The irony was in the roosters walking in and out of these shops and restaurants.

The large feathered houseflies of Key West, no one paid them much mind.



There was definitely a lot of charm to the weathered little town, a strong feeling of old Florida,



And the best Mango ice cream I’ve ever had,



Of course, if you go to Key West, you can’t pass up having a drink in the famous Sloppy Joe's Bar



I think I’ll call it quits for now and finish up tomorrow (or the next day)

Ta ta

And now… for vacation pictures (edition #1)

You know a vacation is going to be good when day one ends with pie and alcohol.

Yeah….

AND I got to put my foot on the table which I would never be able to do at home which was pretty awesome.



We stayed in a very cool condo in Marathon Florida, my only complaint was despite the owners ensuring us of the perimeters safety, I lost my beloved Cannon Powershot Camera, it was stolen the 2nd day.

That SUCKED.

Moving right along.

Thankfully, we didn’t lose too many pictures and Hank had his camera with him so we still got plenty of great shots.

The condo was right on the water with a private beach, we used every day.



It was especially cool because we could snorkel right there too,



And look for seashells every day if we wanted (I waited till the last day when it stormed like crazy to get mine)



Also, there was the grand sport of shuffle board, which even further convinced us that Ethan is really a 75 year old man trapped in a 6 year olds body.



We took 2 snorkeling trips which were awesome.



The second one Ethan drove the boat for 15 minutes by himself. Kidding? No.



I’m not sure which he liked better, be a sea captain or a diver in the making,



I definitely enjoyed the water. I’ll never forget how surprised I was the first time I saw the huge reef and all those schools of gorgeous fish. I gasped so loud the captain yelled from the boat, “Whadda ya see?” It was awesome.



As for Hank, the world diver, he was happy as a clam, watching all of us. He got 3 dive trips while we were down there which was great.



Lizzy showed off some of that Jacksonville style,



And before we knew it, the week of snorkeling and diving were through. Here Ethan has Hank’s flippers which are about 2/3rds his length…




If you ever make it to Marathon, go snorkel or dive with Abyss – They took great care of us and instead of having 25 people on the dive boat, there were 6 – An awesome experience.

As for the rest of the vacation, I’ll post it tomorrow.

Its about pumpkin time here and I’m feeling mighty orange…