My Ultimate Goal

Last night I started thinking of the purpose of this blog, and the purpose of my life really.

I want to raise healthy, addiction-free children.

All of my time and investment is in that. And at times I resent my husband and father-in-law, but I don't want that to cloud my true purpose.

It seems it is more important to them to demonize me and protect their money than to focus on these kids.

Next week, I will go back to work full-time. I have been gradually working towards that these last few weeks, but next week, both kids will be in school for 6-9 hours a day. My mother has once again stepped forward and offered to help in huge ways that I will never be able to repay her for.

It is going to be a huge adjustment for all of us, and at times I feel very sad and bitter about it. I don't want my 3-year-old in school all day. It seems way too young to me. But it seems there is no other option now.

My father-in-law pays my husband (and I believe his brother) more than $2,000 a month through his company just to fund a life insurance policy for him so he won't have to pay estate taxes when he dies. I imagine that's quite a policy. And quite a sum he feels he needs to protect.

I started thinking about that last night, and the fact that my father-in-law flippantly decided he didn't want to pay for my son's $2,000 a month school tuition.

He clearly has different values than me.

And while it does eat at me when I think about it, I really need to resist those moments and focus on my kids.

At the end of the day, if these kids end up with problems, I am always going to wonder what all of us could have done differently.

The Fishing Pole

I am starting to get that exhausted feeling from being upset and teary-eyed all day. I'm glad we did the camping trip but it brought a lot of things to light for me.

My husband didn't bring a bike. He doesn't have a bike. Neither do i. That seems just crazy to me. We have so many things that don't matter at all but no bikes to ride with our children.

My husband rented a 2010 motor home for the trip. Needless to say it was expensive and we argued about it. He said, if he had bought all new tents and camping equipment it would have been just as expensive. But I don't think so. Not to mention that we could have borrowed it from any number of people for free. But I don't think my husband could have managed in a tent. It became apparent when we were there that he has never camped. He said he has but I don't believe it.

The first night we wanted a fire. He insisted on making it. Instead of building a fire, he put some wood in and poured lighter fluid all over it. Then we made S'mores and they tasted funny. I thought it was just the lighter fluid but I looked in the pit and there was someone's old sponge in the bottom of the fire, which he had not noticed and left in there.

The next night, I said I would make the fire while he finished up the open AA meeting. Our kids had been at a carnival for most of it bit that was over and it was clear they would not sit through the rest of it.

So I built a huge fire from scratch all by myself and the kids were quite proud of me. Lots of other boys came by for S'mores and then lots of my husbands friends came by too and I made them all S'mores. Nearly every visitor mentioned the big fire and my son said, My mom made that! My husband was clearly irritated.

My son had been asking for a new Spiderman fishing pole and I had told him no. He already had a fishing pole that my grandfather had bought him for Christmas the year before he died. He had broke part of the reel but I told him and my husband that we could just fix it and that he didn't need a new rod. It is more important to my husband that our kids like him than for them to learn the value of taking care of things or handling money. So Sunday he bought our son the new rod and was a hero for a moment.

Later that night our son told me he didn't like the new rod all that much.