My blog = my soapbox today

Our holiday decorating is coming together nicely and we hope to have that as well as all of our shopping completed by this weekend. Scooter has really gotten into it this year and came up with some of his own ideas, which I love! The pic above is one of them. I had that berry garland from last year and really couldn't remember how I used it. So Scooter took it and made a wreath out of our clock with it. Fantastic idea, right?!!? I then turned him loose on the fireplace mantel...ummm, needs a little something else, but at least he's on the right track with the candles, etc. I'm liking it, and that's all that matters!

Yesterday, I did some more shopping and I knew better than to get the first thing on our grandchildren's lists they made for us last month. I was working on my youngest daughter's children for the day, so I knew it would be a good idea to call her and find out if anything had changed. She has been doing a lot of sewing lately, so now her 9 1/2 year old daughter wants a sewing machine. This just tickles me every which way to Sunday! Along with all of the other needlecrafts out there, I'm also a sewer/seamstress, and I'm just so happy that my kids and now their kids, want to sew! I'm not sure this grandmother could be anymore proud of them. So, I found and bought the perfect machine...the small Singers machine, just to see if it's really what she wants to do before I invest in a more durable one maybe for her birthday in March.

As the holidays are upon us now, Scooter begins thinking about ways to keep in touch with his children and grandchildren more frequently. I love that about him. No matter what their faults, he realizes the importance, both to him, as well as them and their children. It shows me what kind of a man he is and that's the only way I would ever want him. My heart truly aches for all the kids whose fathers have bailed out of their lives, especially this time of year, mine included. My kids have gone to therapy to do the best they can to deal with the fact that their father has allowed another person to control him the way his new wife does. She has convinced him that they are evil people and he shouldn't have them in his life, but we know that is just her insecurity and jealousy of our children. It seems to me, if you're as good a Christian woman as she claims to be, she would be doing everything possible to not judge his children for mistakes they've made in the past, and to help him keep his children in his life. It's apparent that that was never her intent though, and she obviously lives according to her own fantasy religion. Funny, he had a good relationship with all of them before she came into his life. Yes, our youngest daughter introduced them, and now she tells us all the time how much she regrets that day! Sad, isn't it? I know that man better than anybody out there (how could I not after spending more than half our lives together?), and I know if she weren't in his life manipulating him to the core, he would've never walked out on his kids and grandchildren. I know what he is thinking, and it's sad that he feels he is trapped. He has done it to himself though. Somewhere along the way, he has lost his backbone, and now my kids and grandchildren have to pay the price for it. You divorce your wife, not your children and grandchildren!! Like my friends who are therapists tell me, why would you want someone that could be like that in your life anyway? The trust is gone. Even still, I know my kids and grandchildren think about this a little more this time of year. Our oldest daughter cross stitched him a piece for Father's Day one year that said "My dad hung the moon", and in her eyes, that said it all for her. Her dad meant the world to her. She received the piece in the mail cut up in little pieces. I know her dad knows nothing about it. They were moving at about the same time, and I know she has him believing it probably got lost in the move. What kind of a person does this and then claims to be a Christian? What kind of a person wants people to believe that her only daughter from one of her other 2 or 3 (not sure how many) marriages, belongs to my kid's father, and that her grandchildren are also his biological grandchildren? No matter how you try to justify that one, the bottom line begs the question, why would she think her child is any better of a person than her husband's children and has earned the right to call him "dad", rather than his own? She loves to send me ugly messages referring to which "boyfriend" my children are from. Not that I have to prove anything to her, but my ex husband knows with all certainty that we conceived and bore those three kids together. Scooter and I don't try to pretend that he is my kids' father and grandchildren's grandfather. I suggested DNA tests in case she managed to put a seed of doubt in my kids' father's mind, and I never got a response to that one. Our kids are now 38, 36, and 33 years old. He helped conceive them and he was there for everyone of their births. It amazes me how he would entangle himself with a person capable of that much cruelty.

I'll be jumping off my soapbox now, but in closing, I'd like to say how much my heart breaks for my kids and grandchildren. Even still, we will have a wonderful holiday season and Scooter and I will wrap our arms around all of them to let them know how much they mean to us and how much we love them! We will recognize the fact that we have been blessed with the greatest gift of all...the love of my children and grandchildren and there is no better gift than that!!!

Happy Holidays!