Baby Boy #2
After moving in to the townhouse and getting settled, Girl continues to work and get the house in order. Boy continues to work and complain. Baby is born 2 weeks after Baby Boy #1’s birthday. Being 5 years old #1 thought that #2 was a great birthday present (this lasted until Christmas when #1 asked when Girl was going to take #2 back to the store!).
Before moving on, new names will be assigned to Baby Boy #1 – now called Bubba, and Baby Boy #2 will now be called Peanut – makes it easier for all of us – Girl, Boy, the Babies, the author and most importantly, YOU – the reader!
Next… the new family of four is living together in their new home. New babies are hard on a routine. Girl fractured her tailbone in delivery ( induced but ended up natural delivery after 12 hours in the hospital). It’s not easy to sit, laying down works best…not easy to stand or walk – but too bad – housekeeping, laundry and everything else needs to be done. Boy refuses to get out of bed to help with the baby at night. When he does, Girl is so worried that he will drop Peanut because Boy is half-asleep that she wakes and listens the whole time anyway. Routine develops, Bubba is in kindergarten and enjoying life with new kids, still spending lots of time with his grandparents. By the 6th month of maternity leave, Girl is missing work and wants to return.
Keeping in touch with Boss at work, Girl finds that she is also missed, and wants to continue to contribute and create a super atmosphere for the development of her boys. Why can’t she be mom, wife, leader and everything else she wants to be?
Because of Boy.
Rereading this, Girl knows now that the excuse of Boy not letting her was the building resentment and her own development moving her in new directions…without Boy as the main focus of the picture. It looks like this is where the shift happened…Girl decided to stick to being Girl as opposed to staying Girl-a-part-of-boy.
Girl: The Hero (or Heroine)
Interestingly enough, girl is now the hero of boy’s family and even boy’s Daddy can’t stop smiling when he is with his new grandson, the one who is ready to carry on the family name. When boy goes away, girl lives with baby and her parents for the year and learns a great deal about herself. More than anything girl learns that she is not defined by boy and can take care of herself. She becomes an independent person who can be a single mom with the help of her family. Baby grows and learns to be part of this new shape of family. And baby boy is very happy.
Lesson: sometimes it takes following life’s course to see what you are meant for – what you are made of – and how you make a contribution to the world around you.
Girl found that discovering herself this way opened her eyes to the opportunities around her, gave her energy to work, spend a huge amount of time with her son, reconnect with past relationships and start to think about a future for her family, different to what she envisioned before.
Must tell this story: Baby Boy was now 3 years old, running around the backyard at Nonne’s house wearing the awesome GapKids clothes that his mom (Girl) would always buy him. Baby boy was always trend forward and has grown up to love basketball, this all foreshadowed by the fact that his very baggy shorts always looked so cute on him. While running around, the adults – Girl and friends of Nonne’s were gathered on the deck. The adults were commenting on the long shorts, in fact, Nonne was giving Girl the gears because Baby boy should really be wearing short that look like shorts. Baby boy can hear everything! He runs over and loudly states “I like my slivers!!!” – not know what to call his long shorts. Lessons here:
- Baby Boy is very cute!
- Baby Boy will protect and stand up for Girl – his mom!
- Bonds between mothers and sons are forged very early in life and are extremely difficult to come in between.
Stay At Home Dad ?*#%$#!!!
Ok – I know this is now quite the norm and understandable in the ways of life….but the reasoning is what needs to be clear. This was purely an opportunity NOT TO WORK! No responsibility…and the same pattern repeats later too…just wait!
Boy quickly loses his job and decides that since we have a baby and I have a job still, he can take the time off to raise the child and I go back to work early. Not only that, eventually he decides that his calling in life is to be a chef – he needs to go to school. He no longer believes that he is meant to be a teacher (as his father called it, a ‘trunk-slammer’), or into computers (although girl and boy have every gadget known to man) or a porn-star (girl threw out his porn collection years ago). So girl is convinced, and because she wants boy to be happy and actually eventually contribute to their family and society girl agrees. So girl and boy do what they have to do, save money and then send him off to school, baby to daycare and girl to work and pay the bills. Boy picks up baby from daycare once and while, even does the odd bit of laundry. Experiments with the recipes he is learning in school once and a while..boy cooks too much at school so he should not have to do so at home (this becomes a common theme) Girl even decides to downsize the apartment to make it more financially feasible to live. And with girl’s determination, they did it – boy graduated and came up with the idea that he is so talented he should go to Europe for a year to get this magic seal that makes him super-chef! 
Guess what? By this time girl has changed jobs to grow with a new company asks for a transfer back to her home town so that boy can fly away to Europe for a year. Girl always wonders if she was a sucker or not….did Girl really believe in Boy or was it a great way to start an independent life and have time with just Girl and baby? Boy promises to bring home lots of money that he will save while he is away so that they can pay off their debts and buy a house, get settled into the city.
What do you think comes next??
Baby on the Way
Girl gets boy job at retailer. Girl graduates from university, gets promotion, company asks her to relocate across the country to build stores and develop career. Girl very excited, also a little nervous, but they take off. Girl gets to work, so does boy for a while at similar job. Boy buys giant 10 year old stick shift Volvo that girl needs to learn to drive. Girl becomes pregnant – and very excited about a baby. Nervous still, because family is so far away…but will be able to handle it. Even boy’s parents are happy.
Thankfully, mom came to stay with Girl and Boy for a few days during and after the birth of son. She even gave him his first bath. Boy does not like earning less than Girl and looks for another job. Finds one similar to pizza except now with subs. Job takes Boy on the road and to new city. Little family plans to move after birth of baby. Boy goes ahead and sends for Girl and baby on bus. (not travelling in style, do you think he could have spent and extra 2 hours to pick them up). Girl had to make sure all packing complete, movers loaded and ready to go. 
Did it…should have known then!
Amazing where you find your strength to do things which you never thought possible and at the same time, looking back thinking ‘what an idiot!’ That is how we learn.
Trying to Please Daddy
Things go along well despite not talking to his parents and it seems like love…if that’s what you call it at 20. Boy buys old volkswagen that spits blue smoke as transportation. Boy leaves university to pursue career – no degree in hand – tried philosophy major at big city university – ha! Gets decent job as pizza district manager while girl continues at university and holding a full time job. Boy works and lives in a hovel – girl at residence until they are married in her last year of university. Boy borrows money from girl’s grandmother to buy 25 year old volkswagen convertible for $10,000 – probably worth $2000. Of course, Daddy found car so this was boy’s way to get back in the good graces of daddy. Car breaks down and boy leaves it on the side of the road, removes the plates and buys a fancy new Honda sports car on lease. Boy and girl find apartment while both continue to work. Boy gets huge opportunity to make an impact on company and bails on the big day because he is too stressed – does not answer his giant cell phone and no longer returns to work with pizza. Boy can no longer pay for the car and returns it to the dealer. Girl should have known then!
Patterns tend to repeat themselves in life. The constant flow of trade-ins and switches, not because of anything other than having to deal with stress or actually work to get results and get through a tough spot should have been an indicator. Instead Girl was the steady one….and Boy was who he had always been raised to be…..everything on a platter and disposing of what is no longer useful, necessary or reflective of his own ego.
The Beginning
Let me tell you right now, you may laugh, you may cry, you may think I’m crazy (and really, I am used to that!) but more importantly there are lessons to learn…and applicable to more than the situations I will describe here. Please, please, please…..learn from me and avoid these mistakes along the way. ( I know that mistakes and lessons make us who we are and I wouldn’t trade a step on my journey, so if you have to repeat my mistakes, remember, you will survive!!)
Let’s go back to the beginning. This is where it begins… a typical boy meets girl story.
It all started in high school – where else? Boy meets girl in class. Girl dating other boy. Take school trip together including current boyfriend – boy takes girl away from other boy. Other boy not so much fun…new boy had good car, liked to dress well and wanted to tick off his parents dating someone outside of the norm. Boy and girl stay together through prom and graduation. Boy tries to start summer painting business and realizes that he actually has to do the work, does 2 jobs and quits – barely paying for the van he bought and equipment he borrowed to operate the business. Both go away to school after grad. Girl to big city, boy to smaller city. Boy’s father threatens boy that if he travels to see girl in big city he will cut him off.
Boy gets cut off by daddy!
Characters in the History
Every story needs characters. Check out the characters and you will get the gist (?) of how they will appear as the tale unwinds. Don’t forget your comments please.
D’uhh…a jackass has that look about him…almost like Homer Simpson, like “what’s going on??”
Dumb Jackass – sad and forlorn, like when you should just shake your head and keep on moving.
OMG! – symbolizing frustration and sometimes even crying out in physical pain.
You will see these characters over and over again throughout the story.
Would love to hear from you about yours!!!
The story begins with the next post…
Girlhappynow – For Real!
I wrote this post in November 2011…..and guess what. Like all human bloggers, I saved the draft instead of posting it.
Well, I am back at it. And in the last 169 days, there has been more progress in this story. I have finally received and paid the last of the legal bills and this is off my back and out of my mind and now I am working on releasing all the anger and hurt and sorrow that goes with this type of situation.
Now – 2224 days after the start of the most difficult 6 years of my life (I say difficult in one respect, lots of joy, happiness, growth and development in other respects) it is really over and I am feeling lighter.
In the meantime I have hopped on Twitter and gathered quite a few followers. I have already 66 posts in Speaking Jackass and the story is nowhere near complete. I am going to re-post each one so that my new friends can see what has happened and learn from my experiences along the way. (For my original followers, I hope this is not too repetitious, simply a reminder and a few laughs along the way). My goal is to have all the story told completely to find true closure and release.
The original November 2011 Post
So it has taken 2055 days to get to the end of the road where Girl can finally say, without a doubt, that the moniker ‘girlhappynow’ is truly in place – embedded for life.
Now Girl is not crazy enough to believe that happynow is a forever state, because life happens to take twists and turns- some unexpected, some created. Knowing this – through the last 43 years of life, it may seem that being consumed with a mission for almost 6 years is futile – not true. The mission has been accomplished, the lessons learned along the way many and even better, the outcome is exactly what needed to happen for the benefit of most.
There have been casualties along the way – this happens in life because of the reason, season, lifetime principle for people – in this case it is also true. The story is lengthy, already have posted 66 posts since March 2010…now it is time to finish it. For real.
If you are just joining us, go back and visit to find out about the reason, the characters, and some catch up notes along the way.
Get ready…it’s a long ride.
Getting Into the Nitty-Gritty
Time is not on scale in this story. Thought I would skip the routine details (the next year) and get to where things get very interesting and the speaking jackass part of the story really kicks in.
Just a reminder. Speaking Jackass has many meanings:
- Someone is saying something incredibily stupid
- Someone is acting stupid
- Someone is repeating a behavior that caused trouble in the past and it is not being acknowledged or corrected
- Anything that is really irritating or wrong
Speaking jackass doesn’t just apply to the jackass character. It can also apply to other people as you will see in the future.
In Case You Just Joined Me – Here’s the Update
In case you just stopped by and don’t want to go all the way to the beginning…in blogs, that would be the bottom…here is a quick overview:
Hello World – I tell you about me – this is a venting blog about my life – what I learned.
Speaking Jackass describes an event or occurence that I should have realized would be in indicator of future behaviour or patterns. Click this link to see the icons that will show up throughout your visits here: Jackass
This story will take you on an interesting and sometimes emotional tour of my life. I have been married, have 2 children, married again, moved to a few different cities, learned many things along the way. I have crossed the border of 40 and feel happy and free and able to tell my story. Let me tell you…I feel lighter every time I write. This blog is not about showing off or who is/was right, more about the lessons life can teach us if we pay attention.
Other parts of the story take you through how I met Boy, the struggles with having children, getting new jobs, taking on new roles. And then, getting divorced and the emotions that come with that.
At this point in the blog-story, (blog+history), we are divorced, on our way through our first full year where Boy already has someone else living in the house with him.
Looking forward to having you here! Please leave your comments and share your experiences, share the blog with people you know (any literary agents!!) come back often, or even better, subscribe!
Speaking Jackass 