Get Those Guest Posts Started!

The relaunch of Momma Cum Laude is finally in the works!

It won’t be called Momma Cum Laude, though, because I want to make sure that I’m reaching out to all single parents students/young single parents. The title will be something generic, like “Single Parent Students” so that it will more easily appear in people’s searches.

Of course, I’m going to make sure there’s at least a little content on the site (with a lot more in the process of being created) before I really start advertising it. Even after I get content up, it’ll probably look pretty boring for a while until I find time to really mess around with the way it looks.

So, get writing if you want to contribute anything!

A guest post can really be about anything, but focusing on how you manage school and being a parent at the same time would be a good way to get started.

I’ll keep you all updated on the progress, but it shouldn’t take too long

Part of the Family

I come from a small family that is spread out over many states (and my parents, sister, and I are the only ones in Michigan). Because of this, I’ve been uncomfortable around the relatives on Anna’s dad’s side of the family. There are quite a few of them, and they all live nearby. It makes me feel weird and awkward.

But then along comes The Yooper, who has a gigantic family (His mom is one of eight, which translates to lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins.) I just made it through my second Yooper family gathering yesterday evening — 22 people… and that wasn’t even close to as many as there could have been. (Let’s just say, 10 relatives together would be a lot for my family.)

What amazed me about both of the times I’ve met The Yooper’s extended family is that I never felt weird, awkward, or uncomfortable. It was kind of fun to be part of it all.

It’s interesting to think about why I react so differently to two large, closely-knit families.  Maybe it’s because I like The Yooper and want to get to know his family. I’m choosing to get involved. With Anna’s paternal side of the family, I have no choice. I’m stuck. I am not personally part of the family by blood or marriage — and I never will be — and somehow that’s enough to keep me slightly aloof. (I guess I should add that I do get along with them, regardless of occasionally feeling awkward, and that they’re wonderful grandparents to Anna. Things could be a lot worse, for sure.)

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I’ve typed up and deleted several rants at this point in the post. I want to bitch about how much I hate being tied down to a family I don’t necessarily want to be associated with. I want to go on fantasizing about having a family for Anna that consists of both a mom and dad who are equally present in her life.

I want to go off on a million different tangents, but I’ll stop here.

So, the point of the story: big families are fun, not scary… especially when it’s your boyfriend’s family, not your baby daddy’s family.

Public letter to an anonymous person from the past

I was having one of those moments where I randomly flash back to what I was doing before I got pregnant, and there’s a certain incident that continues to come back to haunt me occasionally. I don’t have very thick skin at all, so this event still irritates me if I think about it too much. I figured I might as well publicly address this person on the Internet, and I hope that letting it out into the open makes me feel better (since I always feel better about an event after blogging about it).

_______________________________________________________

Dear amusement park guest,

I was working at _____ in May 2007, which is when we had our little incident. Your son was too short to ride, and I made sure I explained this to you and your family very well. I even stood him on the metal height measurer-thingy to show you that he was several inches under the minimum height requirement.

You understood, so your husband took your son down through the exit and waited there while the rest of your family was about to ride. You were sitting near the entrance to the ride, and you saw me let a girl on to the ride that was just tall enough to ride (and I really mean just — the top of her head was perfectly parallel to the minimum height line).

When you saw her get on, you angrily said something to the extent of “Oh no!”/”No way!” and immediately got off the ride. You thought the girl was the same height as your son, and you couldn’t believe that I had let her on the ride.

But then you started saying things that have still bothered me to this day. While you ranted your way to the exit, you made it clear that it was a race issue — your family was Black, this family with the little girl was White. In your mind, it was obvious that I had let the girl ride simply because she was White.

I walked down to the exit after you and calmly explained that there was a definite height difference between your son and this girl. I even offered to remeasure both children so you could see it with your own eyes.

You wouldn’t have any of it, though. You wouldn’t stop bitching long enough to hear me out. You ruined my experience at that amusement park, and I’m sure you allowed your day to be ruined by that incident as well.

I wasn’t being a racist; I was doing my job. The fact that you immediately pulled the race card and refused to see the situation as it really was is something that still bothers me to this day.

I am not racist.

________________________________________________

Whew. That felt good.

Decisions, a pap smear, and school

I have a mashup of things going through my head at the moment, so that’s how this post is going to look:

1. I need to get to work on my resume and cover letters pronto. I have a whole list of organizations that don’t necessarily have any open jobs but that I would like to work at, so I need to come up with some really convincing unsolicited cover letters.

2. This also means that I need to have a chat with The Yooper about how things are going to be after I graduate. I don’t want to exert a bunch of energy looking for jobs in his soon-to-be area of the country if he doesn’t think our relationship will get serious enough for that. (I feel like our relationship has that long-lasting potential, but I need to make sure we’re on the same page before I start making any drastic decisions.)

3. But, speaking of decisions, The Yooper let me in on his apartment hunting without me prompting him with any questions. I mean, he was telling me all kinds of details about the apartments he was looking at. I wanted to ask if he was implying anything (like me moving down there), but I wasn’t mentally ready for that kind of conversation anyway, so I avoided it.

4. One conversation I do need to have with him soon is that my pap smear (which I got last month) came back abnormal, and it could potentially affect him (since, you know, he occasionally spends time up there). There’s no definite answer to what’s going on, but I get to go back in a few weeks to be looked at in more detail.

5. My textbooks for the fall are finally up on my school’s bookstore website. I’ll be reading more than I thought — a LOT more than I thought. I did the math, and it looks like I’ll be reading the equivalent of 1.875 novels a week (that’s a total of 30 novels — I’m really hoping that I won’t have to read each one of those books cover to cover… maybe some of them are collections of stories that we’ll only read part of?). Fortunately, my best friend assured me that one of my classes will be fairly easy reading (since the class is focused around one author, and she’s read some novels by this author before). Oh, and one novel will overlap two classes, which will really help out a lot!

6. This weekend needs to be over so that I can get closer to next weekend. Anna will be with her paternal grandparents, and I’m stealing The Yooper away for a weekend since it’ll be our last weekend alone before he moves

Putting an end to co-sleeping

I’ve been letting Anna sleep in my bed since she was about 9 months old. I was about to get her back in her crib, but school + another teething episode was making me too exhausted. Being able to just turn over in bed to give her a pacifier, Orajel, whatever… it made life so much easier.

I was cleaning the basement yesterday, and I was looking at the little area where her crib and changing table are. I want her to be able to sleep in her own space. Like, now. I know it’s going to take plenty of time — and lots of screaming on her part — but it has to be done.

I also have to toss and turn for a little bit before I can fall asleep, and that’s finally starting to disrupt her sleep.

And then, there’s the future plans of us having our own place where she can get her own room. I want her out of my bed so the transition to her own room will be a little easier.

So, last night I went for it, and I only partially failed. She was finally asleep in her crib after 50 minutes of screaming off and on, but when she woke up around midnight… well… I brought her right into my bed. I’ll have to work on that second part tonight

One More Semester

My online summer classes finally ended this past weekend, and I’m officially 5 weeks away from the start of the fall semester — my final semester.

Just four more classes. All literature classes. It’s gonna suck, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make it through to the end.

Only 5 more months until I’m a college graduate.

On top of my last few classes, I’ll be busting my butt on finding/applying for jobs. Ideally, I’d like to have one lined up by the time I graduate, but… well… that may be very wishful thinking.

This also means that The Yooper and I need to have a little chat about what’s going to happen after I graduate. I’m all for moving down near him, and if we break up I know I’ll still be happy living in that city. It’s just so freaky to think that we’ll have to talk about that kind of stuff. It makes me feel really old all of a sudden.

I’ve been looking forward to this for so many years now. My first post-grad job. The chance to get out on my own and have my own place. The ability to finally support myself and Anna without any outside help.

Five months suddenly doesn’t seem like such a long time anymore. It’s really close. I better use these next 5 weeks to my advantage and get a leg up on the job hunt.

I wish I could crack… just a little bit

I like Anna’s paternal grandparents. Really. I do. But I’m amazed that I haven’t blown my fuse yet.

My goal is to be nice and considerate. As long as I’m living only 1 1/2 hours away from Anna’s dad’s side of the family, I don’t want to do anything to distance us. I want to have a good relationship with them, so I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I also try my best to keep from doing things that would distance me from Anna’s father, but that’s much harder to do, since he’s easily angered and very moody at times.

But, I’ve been doing really well at being the nice baby mommy. I have:

• Compromised with her first name so that her dad felt he had some bit of control during my pregnancy.
• Allowed him every-other-weekend/holiday visitation.
• Allowed his parents to exercise the above rights.
• Agreed to let his family take Anna on a road trip of nearly 1,000 miles so that he could see her for a week back in April.
• Allowed his family to see Anna more than every other weekend this summer, since his mom specifically asked for a little more time with her.
• Backed off on the sole legal custody issue, since he suddenly did a 180 and decided he was no longer OK with going through with it.

And recently, I have:

• Been asked by his parents if they could take Anna with them to Texas when her dad gets two weeks off sometime within the next year (because his girlfriend is more of a priority than his family).
• Been informed by his parents that he doesn’t want me to have any of his contact information while he’s overseas. I have no direct way of contacting him — it all has to go through his parents. (They did, however, say I could write a letter that they could send in the next care package they mail out, and he could decide from there if he wants to give up his contact info). And there’s nothing in our parenting agreement about having to keep each other updated on current contact info, because I obviously wasn’t thinking about this being such an issue in the future.

I also got to hear more about the new girlfriend today while I was picking up Anna from her weekend with the grandparents. There is also a photo of the happy couple up on the fridge. Oh joy.

All of this, and I still have to make joint decisions with a man I can’t get in contact with. I still have to get permission to move outside of a 100-mile radius from my current residence, while Anna’s dad is free to live wherever he wants and do whatever he wants with his life.

A couple hundred bucks a month in child support and Anna having insurance coverage — that’s all I get out of the deal. (Anna gets the extra bonus of that second set of loving grandparents, but that doesn’t make up for the lack of a decent father.)

I wish I could tell them to their faces how much their son has not done for us.

I wish I could counteract the stories about the girlfriend by bragging about the awesomeness of The Yooper.

I wish I weren’t so paranoid about how they might react when I have to tell them I need to move outside of my 100-mile radius (because, regardless of The Yooper and I working out long term, there is still a 99% chance that I will need to move outside of this area of MI).

I’m so tired of keeping up this front every time I’m around them, but I know that’s what I have to do for now. I just have to keep living my life and stay positive about the situation I’ve been put in.

I just have to ride this out for a while.

Stupid double standards

I talked to Anna’s paternal grandma today, and she always fills me in on the latest news with Anna’s dad. (I haven’t tried emailing him or anything since he deployed, which was the end of April.)

Anyway, they’re extending his deployment so that he’ll be gone for a whole year and not 10 months like the original plan. He’s going to get 10-14 days of vacation at some point in this year of deployment, and his plan is to spend that whole time in Texas with a girl he started dating just weeks before he deployed.

As soon as they know the days of his vacation, his parents are going to plan to spend a long weekend down there to be with him. They, of course, want to bring Anna along with them.

I told them it would probably be fine with me — Anna needs to see her dad any chance she can get — but in my mind, my very first reaction was, “…as long as she’s not introduced to his girlfriend!”

But yet Anna getting to know The Yooper is perfectly fine in my book.

I definitely stopped my double standard train of thought as soon and I could and tried to think positively (which meant reminding myself that a few days with some random stranger, a guy she may or may not remember, and a set of grandparents will not be damaging to her).

This is definitely making me wonder how Anna’s dad — as well as his whole family — feels about me having a boyfriend. They haven’t expressed any emotions about it (they only know about it because Anna’s grandma is friends with me on Facebook — darn you Facebook!), but I wonder if there’s any fear/worry that The Yooper and I will run off, get married, and completely push Anna’s dad out of the picture.

Regardless of how they feel, there’s really nothing I can do. I mean, I can garauntee that I will not be marrying Anna’s dad at any point in my life, so I would’ve had to deal with this situation some day anyway. (And maybe everything will go over smoothly when/if I ever get married and I’m just worrying about reactions that will never happen).

But you know what? At one point, Anna’s dad did request that I let him know when I get a serious boyfriend. I was going to wait until The Yooper and I had been dating longer, but since his family knows (hence, he knows as well), maybe it’s time that he hears/reads something from my own lips so he knows I’m not trying to push him out of the picture. (Although, at the same time, I’m pretty sure I wanted to know about girlfriends on his end, and I’ve heard about everything through his family…. but I really need to stop keeping score like this! ugh!)

How Anna met The Yooper

If there’s one thing I know about being a single mom blogger, it’s that dating and relationships are  hot topics. Over my 15+ months of being a single mom, I have read plenty an opinion on when it’s appropriate to take the risk of introducing your children to a significant other. I was never looking for a “right” answer — since none exists — but it was very beneficial to see how others have handled this situation.

Now, I feel like throwing my own experience out there for others to read so that someone could potentially benefit from it.

Anna technically met The Yooper before we started dating — heck, even before we started casually hanging out this summer!

If I want to be really cutesy, I could say that she first heard his voice when she was in the womb. I was 2-3 months pregnant and still living away from home near my college. The Yooper had come to my school for some event, and we hung out and talked for one hour when he had some down time.

Her first “real” encounter with him was when she was about 10 1/2 months old, because we ran into him twice while we were out and about town. At 14 months old, she met him for a third time. I invited him on a spontaneous trip to the beach, knowing that one short afternoon with a stranger wasn’t going to have an affect on Anna.

After that point, the period of unofficial dating began, and I didn’t bring Anna back into the mix. It just worked out that she was either gone with her grandparents or asleep when The Yooper and I hung out.

This week, though, things changed, and she got to spend time with The Yooper on two different occasions. Both were just casual get-togethers out in public, and I had such a fun time seeing them finally start to interact. Anna, like most 15-month-olds, is very shy around strangers and needs some time to warm up, but this past week was definitely the beginning of her warming up to The Yooper

And then, at the end of our second time together as a group this week, I kissed The Yooper goodbye right in front of Anna’s face — I experienced my own old-school Ms Single Mama moment. (Yes, my very first thought after it happened was “omg! I read about this in a blog post!”).

The Yooper and I have been officially dating for about a month now, and there are three main reasons behind my decision to let him interact more with Anna:

1. Trust. I need to trust that The Yooper will not suddenly turn into some douchebag and cause any emotional damage to me or Anna. We’re going on 8 years of knowing each other, and the time we’ve spent together so far this summer has shown me that he is the same person I knew all throughout high school. (The only thing college changed about him was make him even more like the person he already was.)
2. Anna’s age. If The Yooper and I broke up at any point in the next year or two, there would be a very good chance that Anna wouldn’t remember one bit of our entire relationship. We have almost no memories of our lives from ages 0-5 (there might be a vague memory or two, but that’s about it). Of course, a traumatic event could still cause damage to her in the long run, but that’s where my point about trust comes in.
3. The Yooper’s big move. He’s moving to a neighboring state next month, and I’ll be planning most of my visits to him over the weekends when Anna is with her paternal grandparents. His time with Anna will continue to be limited throughout the fall, and then… well… at this point I have no idea what comes next after I graduate in December. By the time he gets to see Anna on a more regular basis, I’ll have a better idea of how long-lasting our relationship will be.

And there you have it. The Yooper and Anna have met and are starting to get along. It’ll be exciting to see where things go from here

Washing away worries

I may be able to go on and on about how awesome it is to finally have a great boyfriend, but the one thing I don’t think I’ve talked much about is how worried I get at various times in this relationship.

I have a fear of rejection, a fear of someone thinking any negative thought about me, a fear of disappointing others… I do anything I can to avoid confrontation and the possibility of hurting others in any way.

These fears lead me to often be very conscious of the way I act, and that can lead to me worrying that I’m on the verge of doing something wrong.

So, my seemingly worry/conflict-free relationship (at the moment) has brought me plenty of worry.

The biggest example of this is the issue of being a clingy girlfriend. Before The Yooper and I were even unofficially dating, I remember him saying something about always ending up with really clingy girlfriends. I never knew his definition of “clingy,” and I never asked. But I started worrying. A LOT.

Is talking to him twice in one day considered clingy? Is initiating conversation with him two days in a row considered clingy? I didn’t know where he drew the line.

I finally brought it up in a casual conversation today, and it turns out I’m no where near clinginess. I know where that line is, and I never have to worry about whether or not I’m close to crossing it.

It eased my mind so much, and I need to learn that it’s OK to ask these sorts of questions!