Forever Young

I wanna be forever young! Man I love this song. The first time Adam went down to visit, a few months later I went to visit him, and this was the anthem of my trip down there. Blaring this whenever it came on when Adam and I were driving to places foreign to me. LOVE THIS SONG!

The lyrics ring true. I wanna be forever young. I'm painting you a portrait of young.

Let’s dance in style,
Let’s dance for a while,
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst,
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young or let us live forever,
We don’t have the power but we never say never,
Sitting in a sandpit,
Life is a short trip,
The music’s for the sad man,

[Chorus]
Forever young,
I wanna be forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever and ever
Forever young I wanna be
Forever young
Do you really want to live forever?
Forever, forever

[Jay-Z]
So we live a life like a video
When the sun is always out and you never get old
And the champagne’s always cold
And the music is always good
And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood
And they hop their pretty ass up on the hood of dat pretty ass car
Without a wrinkle in today
Cuz there is no tomorrow
Just some picture perfect day
To last a whole lifetime
And it never ends
Cos all we have to do is hit rewind
So lets just stay in the moment, smoke some weed,
Drink some wine,
Reminisce talk some shit forever young is in your mind
Leave a mark that can’t erase neither space nor time
So when the director yells cut,
I’ll be fine,
I’m forever young...

[Chorus]

[Jay-Z]
Fear not when, fear not why,
Fear not much while were alive,
Life is for living not living up tight,
See ya somewhere up in the sky,
Fear not die, I'll be alive for a million years, bye bye,
So not for legends, I'm forever young
My name shall survive
Through the darkest blocks, over kitchen stoves,
Over Pyrex pots, my name shall be passed down to generations
While debating up in barber shops, young slung, hung here,
Shorty, the nigga from here
With a little ambition just what we can become here,
And as the father passed his story down to his sons ears,
Younger kid, younger every year, yeah
So if you love me baby this is how you let me know.
Don’t ever let me go, thats how you let me know, baby,

[Chorus]

[Jay-Z]
Slamming Bentley doors,
Hopping out of Porsche’s,
Popping up on Forbes lists,
Gorgeous,
Hold up,
Niggas thought I lost it,
They be talking bullshit
I be talking more shit
They nauseous,
Hold up,
I'll be here forever
You know, I'm on my fall shit,
And I ain’t waiting for closure, I will never forfeit,
Less than four bars,
Guru bring the chorus in,
Did you get the picture yet,
I’m painting you a portrait of young...

[Chorus]

Trying Time Out

Today we are trying the time out method. Adam had plenty of bad boy behaviors today and I tried as patiently as I could to resolve all the unsolved backwash of reasons behind the bad behaviors. I thought we were ok. And there was a great half an hour of storied conversation and we shared a peach over King of the Hill. I taught him many times during this sharing that he can't just stick his hand into the thing that is being shared when HE thinks it's his turn.

Then it comes time for bed. This is probably the worst time of the entire night for any parent, hands down, between the time he is born to the time that he goes to college. He doesn't understand the meaning of "no more tv" so I took the remote from his hand and he kept diving for it. Like KEPT. So. I raised my voice and then I told him he is misbehaving and therefore he's going into time out. Then i physically carried him upstairs and put him in time out. Every time I heard him groan i added another minute to it. We are now on our eighth minute. He's been saying I'm sorry from his room but I will not address it until the time out is up, and I've told him as much. It helps that he hears me clacking away at the keyboard.

Well it's time to deal with the boy.

Not thankful for much today except this.

Yea it's too early to be abandoning the Thankful For... series. But I'm not thankful for much at the moment. I am so stressed out from discipline. Adam is not even 6 years old yet, and already I have to arrange him not so gently against the wall of his room and remind him with my voice raised and my arms on his shoulders that HE WILL LISTEN TO ME. And he suffers when he doesn't. He suffers from an exasperated mother who loses it quickly. He suffers from no stories at night, our daily and treasured ritual. He suffers from perfunctory showers. There is no win in this picture for either of us. No end in sight either, I feel. Today is only Monday. We've been going about this discipline hell hole since Thursday of last week, through the weekend, til today.

Inside, I'm glad that his father is taking him for a bit. Part of me feels like I've let a bit of the aggravation out on him because of this very fact. I'm not proud of this--nary an accomplishment can be prefaced by "I took it out on a child half my size." How will this play out in three months, two years, a decade? Will I be grey, aged twenty years, stressed to the point of breaking, unable to deduce a logical disciplinary scenario because I've used them ALL? Will my son hate me ? Will I feel the same reciprocally??

I'm not physically suffering from an ailment. But I may be suffering from something inside. I feel at an end of my patience constantly this week. I have not had one peaceful night with Adam. Perhaps it is of my own doing. I like to run constantly doing things in an efficient manner and trying to get double the things done in half the time. That's my personality, and perhaps it may come off as ADD, but I'm quite organized when I've got many tasks to overcome. Perhaps this logical deduction of time management is lost on a boy who's so little. What he does see is a mom rushing around, moving from place to place flitting as if there is a fire under her ass following her.  I may ignore his requests at times when we're out, because I've got to get this thing completed so we can move on to the next thing I gotta do. Perhaps this is the source of his adamant whining when he wants something, he has learned that he has to nag me until I snap out of my space and listen.

So I may have learned something just from deducing this on (virtual) paper. The lesson learned is I need to bring my perspective down to his size. I need to constantly be vigilant about how he sees my actions, what he will take away from it, how it can be calculated with his limited brain power at the moment. He knows only so much right now, and he will try to make sense of it all with the logic that a five year old has. Not mommy logic. Kiddeh logic.

Memory Lane

I went through my FB account today to conjure up some baby pictures of Adam that I had hidden somewhere. When I look at these photos I am brought back to a time in my life where I was most certainly happy, but happy with the fewer things I had in my life. I didn't have many ambitions or false hopes that my life was going to get a lot better but I was okay with that. And his baby smiles and cheeks and fat helped pad what should have been a terrible existence into an infinitely better one.

Last night I had dinner with a great college roommate of mine. During dinner we shared stories and had us several serious conversations about the things that have happened to us in life. Some of the things that have happened to me in my life, or the things that I've made happen in my life, have been great, while others have been because there was no other way. And boy I like to remember some of the dark alleys I've been through because I remember what I used to chase after and I look at myself now and think of how differently things have turned out. And I'm thankful for the friends who have spoken their piece to me when I needed to hear it whether I liked it or not at the time these pieces of advice made the difference.

I am thankful for a lot this year. I'm thankful that I've completed my financial plan for 2009, I'm thankful to have friends who I've had the wonderful chance to reconnect with (thanks Facebook!) and thankful for my wonderful sister and mother, without whose love and compassion I would not be here. I'm thankful for a relatively peaceful year with my ex-spouse. I hope we continue to be amicable. Lastly I'm grateful and thankful for my beautiful baby boy. Without him I would still be traveling down those dark alleyways, which surely by now would have engulfed me in its shadows.

My beautiful baby boy is back

...Say that 5 times fast!! What an unexpected and amazingly awesome way to end my beautiful trip to Miami. Adam flew home with me, and while i wasn't expecting this I am so glad to be primary for now. His dad and I have come to the conclusion that he needs me now for when he's little and growing up.

More updates soon.

Off to Miami

Having looked forward to this day for four weeks, I must say, 'night before' came  really quick. I now have a good perspective to say that the journey of waiting of a good thing may be just as good as doing the good thing. Anticipation raises seratonin levels and boy, since thursday morning, my seratonin levels have been off the charts!

Adams dad has been amenable to this trip, which I imagine could come as a relief for him since he's pretty much alone down there. I guess I could concede that he deserves time alone...oh I just threw up a little in my mouth...

Ok. Will post pictures!!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Skype - A week later, and Miami Trip!

I've used Skype in the past week over 10 times. I sit in front of the camera on my Mac and just stare at Adam's face. I am astounded that I haven't discovered this little itty bitty camera in my computer until now.

Love you, Skype!

Onto other news, I will be jetting to Miami to see Adam in 3 days! Superb!
I purposely have not made any concrete plans so I can let the time speak for itself as it always does when I'm with him. Some of the best times I've spent with Adam, and the most memorable, are the times when we are on an unscripted day, where we just let the wind take us where it may.

Love you, Adam!

My first experience with Skype

I was recently separated from Adam now that he is living with his dad down in Florida. For two whole months I struggled with not seeing his cute little face in the morning, his ways and means to get something he wants, and the daily talks we used to have about how his day was and the cute ways he would portray the stories that happened to him that day.

For two months I heard more goodbyes than any other word in the English dictionary from Adam on the phone, when there was always something more interesting to do than hold an electronic device to his ear. For kids it's all about "out of sight, out of mind" as far as I can tell, and to me this conversation medium always teetered on the edge of "this can't be enough".

A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend Mr. Dickens who also has a young son with a separation situation similar to my own. When I asked how he sees his son one word came out of his mouth, "Skype!" Every two weeks there's a scheduled "visit" where my friend reads a book that his child's momma holds up to the camera. For an hour every 2 weeks his son gets to interact on a more intimate level than a phone call.

I began to think this was a great idea, and I was right. Downloading skype to my Mac was superbly easy, the built in camera in my Powerbook hooked up right away, and after a brief technology-not-working-when-you-most-anticipate-it-to-work interlude, my son was on my screen waving and screaming "MOMMY ARE YOU ON INERNEDDD??"

Mine eyes did not deceive me. There he was. In his alligator pajamas, hair all a mess from sleeping, bright little eyes staring into the camera. The first words out of his mouth were "Mommyyy I MISS youuu!" For a blissful half hour past his bedtime, Adam went through show and tell about his toes, his mohawk, his new computer game, a picture he drew with glitter glue. He also left the camera twice, once when he announced "Mommy I need peepee" and the second when he whispered "uh oh Mommy I need go numa two." My eyes were hungry for his sweet cheeks after 2 months. My own cheeks were aching from smiling into the camera for  half an hour.

So to end this monologue, I must thank Skype for offering this service, and a grateful single parent has been able to bridge the distance gap between her and her beautiful child.