Melissa Anne Cohen

Finally heard from Jessie’s teacher. I say finally because my husband finally got around to giving her the note I so painstakingly wrote three days ago – and she says that Jessica Mary is adjusting beautifully, participating in class, following directions, and completing assignments. I feel so much better – so much more relaxed about her going off every day with strangers.

She’s been going to school for a grand total of five full days and already – she’s had enough. She’s done… yesterday I dropped her off (usually Marc does it) and she was clingy and weepy when it was time to go inside. Today, she was flat out hysterical before I even got her out the door, crying that she never gets a day off, she just wanted to stay home today, etc. She was crying and crying… it was bad. I held it together until I got back inside and then called my mother and started sobbing into the phone about what a horrible mother I was to ship my poor baby girl off to school when she really doesn’t want to go.

I could homeschool. I totally could… I’ve got the time, the academic inclination, there’s no reason not to do it, except… everyone in my family who already thinks I’m a lunatic crazy parent for holding them all the time and nursing a 26 month old would yell at me. I also wanted her to be “normal” and go off to school and have friends and playdates and birthday parties. She really wanted to go to ‘big girl school’ and it just seemed to be so many reasons to send her that I conceded and shipped her off. But now that she’s miserable… I am rethinking everything.

Marc’s working today. On a Saturday. And I’m a little bitter, I miss him, my kids miss him, it feels as though we are being gipped (gypped??) in a major way. Especially (and I don’t mean to get all religious on you) because it’s Shabbos and that’s gradually become the highlight of my week. Friday, I make four loaves of challah, a big dinner, and we have this elaborate meal, sometimes with guests, sometimes not, then Marc and I put the kids to bed together and Saturday we just… are. We don’t watch television, we don’t type, we don’t do anything other than just hang out and spend time together. But last night, by the time dinner was ready, I was tired and worn out, and ended up letting the kids eat on the floor having a picnic and then put them to bed by watching CNN. It was still a lovely night, but it’s not Shabbos. And this morning, all is perfectly well – the kids are getting along well, and it’s a nice rainy day – but it’s not Shabbos.

Jess seems to be adjusting to kindergarten perfectly. She’s got a little group of friends, a friendship club, she calls it, and is dashing off happily each morning. She’s so grown up, all of a sudden. It’s amazing to watch, and just a tiny bit scary, because I feel like so much of her life is “hers” now, instead of mine. Normal, natural, the absolutely right way it’s supposed to be moving, but it happened so fast. I miss having her with me all the time, being intimately aware of her moods and thoughts and feelings. I’m so lucky that I can be home with her after school, and so glad that we had the past two years together full time.

And I’ve still got my Sammy – who’s so amazingly funny all the time. He’s a little chatter box, and so earnest. He’s realized that he can make people laugh, especially Harrison, and has developed several little routines he’ll do just to incite the laughter. He pretends to fall, which cracks Harrison up every time. He’ll also eat stuff, like pretend to eat the couch or the matchbox car… I guess you have to be here, but it’s really sweet and cute. And I love the hand gestures, when he’s really mad, he uses his hands to communicate – it’s wonderful to watch. I feel so blessed to have him. I know it sounds corny, but really – when I think about how many people struggle to get pregnant and how many people aren’t able to have kids – and as goofy as this sounds, the people who are stuck with kids who aren’t mine… I know every mom thinks this, but mine really are just the most amazing, funny, sweet, loving creatures.

I know they aren’t perfect, Sam likes to throw things around and still thinks whacking people is fun, Jessie is still prone to heart stopping screaming at the top of her lungs, and has developed an increasingly sarcastic little attitude (comes by it naturally). They don’t always share, sometimes they’re really rude and careless – but I do think that they are both exceptional human beings. My job is just to make sure they stay that way :-). Teach them kindness and self discipline and respect. I love my kids. I really, really do.

I know it’s not a popular thing to say – and I know that I’m happily married, with two healthy children and that I should count my blessings. But dammit, I’m just flat out lonely. I don’t have anyone to TALK to – not about converting to Judaism, not about this whole new weird conservative voting outlook that I’m adopting, not about anything. And it’s making me sad and depressed. Somehow I managed to alienate everyone that I used to consider a friend, leaving me with people who love me a lot, and people who like me, but nobody that I can just say anything to. I’ve got Marc, thank God, and he’s wonderful, but he’s sick of listening to me.

Maybe I’m just having a sucky night. Jessie started school two days ago, and it’s been hard on everyone. She’s loving it, and seems to be fine about going – but I’m still having trouble adjusting to not KNOWING what’s going on in her world. Who she’s talking to, what she’s doing, what her day is like. Maybe I’m just a weird overprotective mother, but this doesn’t seem at all normal to me to ship your child, a five year old child, off to spend the majority of her day with strangers. I get little bits and pieces of her day, when she remembers to tell me, but she’s only five, and just doesn’t have the ability to sum up everything she’s done in a neat little synopsis for me. Maybe there’s a kindergarten mom support group somewhere??

Jess and Sam are not adjusting well to being without each other, they are alternately madly in love with each other and playing perfectly well or screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. And whirling from one to the other in rapid succession and I can’t keep up.

It’s a really crappy night.

Onward and upward, I guess. They’re eating and vegging out in front of the television (I finally put it on when I couldn’t get them to stop yelling at each other) and I’m going to shoot for a very early bedtime tonight. Maybe if everyone got more sleep, we’d be happier.

I grew up in what used to be known as a ‘broken home.’ My mom was a single mom, not a divorced mom who co-parented and received copious amounts of child support, but an actual single mom. My dad was nowhere around, and when he was, I mostly wished he’d go away again. I am the oldest of four children, and my mom had four sisters and a brother. We were, I thought, a really close, loving extended family. I loved my family. All of them. My cousins were all adorable and sweet and I was the babysitter extraordinaire. I was the favorite niece, the bestest granddaughter and the daughter that my mother counted on. And I loved it. I loved my family.

My aunt just reported my husband to the Department of Homeland Security for threatening to … well, it’s a long story. I still love my mother, a bunch of my cousins, most of my aunts, but mostly… I’m good without them. I’m hurt and angry and feel ashamed and betrayed.

I don’t know why I loved them all so much for so long, if it was all for… this. If my aunt can do this – can accuse my husband and the father of my children of being a TERRORIST and everyone just thinks it’s funny, then I’ve wasted a lot of time and effort into trying to push them all into this picture of a loving close family that I guess I needed to believe that they were. There’s no loyalty. This is just being portrayed as one lunatic aunt and my own specific problem. Everyone is going to stay out of it – and I find myself more and more wanting to opt out of the whole mess. Pull everything in, talk to my mother and my sister and one of my cousins, and the rest of them can all go to hell.

I’m really so unbelievably angry, and I don’t see it changing. I don’t think I need to get past it, or I need to forgive and forget. I feel like if you want to have me and my children in your life, than there has to be a level of loyalty. This is not acceptable behavior on her part. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and allow it to continue. As of right now, she’s out of my family. Actually, as of about three months ago, she was out – but I was willing to let it just be me. Not anymore – you want to have her at family functions, then I, and my children, will not be attending. It’s just that simple. And if that means that I only talk to two or three members of what I always thought was such a loving, close extended family – then so be it.

Not technically, as Jess doesn’t start school until next Tuesday or Wednesday (should probably figure that out) but next Monday is Labor Day – so this is my last official Monday of the summer (defining summer as the three months that the kids are out of school). It’s been a GREAT summer. We’ve been unbelieveably broke, but it’s still been wicked fun. We did lots of outdoor stuff, Jessie got to go to swimming lessons and camp, and Sammy started talking all the time. We started doing Shabbos a lot more seriously this summer, with formal dinners and no television and computer. Jessie grew up a lot this summer, she’s reading. Slowly and not very much, but I can officially say that she was reading before she started kindergarten. Her hair is growing a lot longer and it feels as though her face is maturing as well. She just looks like a big girl now, not my tiny little Jess… Sam also matured a lot this summer. Not just with the talking, but also in his ability to fit in and play with the other kids. He’s not the baby anymore. I don’t have a baby anymore – I’ve got two kids. Which is wonderful and scary – I miss having a baby in my arms, and can see the end of it with Sam. He’s still nursing, but not for too much longer, I hope. I really want him to stop on his own, but am pushing him as fast as I can without making it horribly hard on both of us.

All in all, I have to say that this may well have been one of the best summers ever. I got to really focus on my cherubs, spent lots of time running around the park and playing with them. Marc really got to enjoy Sam as a boy this year, playing ball and wrestling. It’s been really nice.

And now I have to get ready to send my girl off to kindergarten… the first step. First kindergarten, then middle school, then college… it’s all right there, in front of me, and I feel like I’m preparing to push her out of the nest. She’ll be on her own at school, no hiding behind my legs or running to me for comfort. She’ll develop her own personality, her own relationships, her own life, independent of me. Can you tell that I’m not ready?

End of the summer – and there’s just not that much going on… we’re counting down the days until Jessie starts kindergarten, and trying to work out transportation and Hebrew School issues. Marc is tired, of course, and overworked and under exercised. I’m happy and content as could be… Sam is getting bigger and bigger, becoming more and more of a huge presence in the family…

Much going on in my little world of child raising… we’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to get Jess to stay dry at night – to the point where the poor kid was trying so hard and waking up soggy every morning. I’ve been getting up in the middle of the night to bring her to the potty, saying no drinks anytime after four o’clock… it was getting crazy… and nothing was working. So I called the pediatrician and spoke with a nurse there – I LOVE my pediatrician. The whole office is so wonderful, so helpful and supportive, and the nurse I spoke with told me that it was perfectly normal, not only is it totally okay that she’s still wetting the bed – BUT THAT NOT LETTING HER DRINK AND HAULING HER POOR SCRAWNY BODY TO THE POTTY WON’T WORK AT ALL. I feel so much better. So Jess and I had a long talk, and we’re not going back to pull ups, we’re going to use “big girl pull ups,” not the baby ones she was using and let her body grow up on her own.

Sam has fallen a little bit in love with Swiper. Seriously. (speaking of seriously – Jess has started saying it all the time – it’s like living with Meredith Grey). And he screams “Oh Man” all the time now – it’s so cute 🙂

And am I lame because I have? I made myself a hot dog last night (PMS – I was eating everything that wasn’t nailed down). And with nothing else to do for a few minutes, kids and husband all asleep, I stood there and watched the pot of water. It’s magical, really it is. It’s so cool… it happens really gradually and there’s nothing in it, just the heat below making the bubbles start to form and then they start to rise to the top and it happens faster, faster, until all of a sudden, you’ve got this water that’s steaming and bubbling and making all kinds of noise. It was great ;-).

Still struggling with bedwetting… today, I’m going to try no drinks after 4:00. I’m going to make sure she gets enough to drink the rest of the day, I’m afraid she’ll get dehydrated 😉

Not too much going on today, for a Monday. No Harrison still, so I’m just hanging with my two cherubs. Sam’s asleep and Jessie’s busy in her room. I’m loving that Jess can play for so long by herself, I think it’s adorable.