the things that define me the most and mean the most to me in my life- I'm mom to 2, my little princess and my little man <3 wife to the love of my life, the daughter of a father of 6, the big sister to 5, a godmother, an aunt and a best friend :)
All of these roles and people play a large part in my life and my life wouldn't be the same without any of them..
Today just so happens to be my husbands birthday... the love of my life is 25 today :) halfway to 50 is what I've been telling him haha...and what makes this day even more special is that we get to celebrate it together! You might think that sounds crazy... you get to celebrate your husbands birthday with him.. well of course thats how it should be but it hasn't been like that for us. Sean and I have been together since he was 19. Birthday 20, 21, 23, and 24 he was deployed for so being home for the big TWO FIVE is just another reason to celebrate!! :)
My 4 year old LOVES birthday's! She gets sooo excited when she hears about someone's birthday that she wants to plan a party, go shopping for presents, make cake. etc... she wants anything and everything that is birthday related. This morning as soon as she woke up she came into my room yelling mom today its daddy's birthday we have to get things started. So we started out by making Sean a surprise breakfast. He had physical therapy class this morning so would be coming home first before having to go back to work. As daddy got home breakfast was served along with a card, Chloe made for daddy :)
The rest of this day is filled with other surprises. Chloe helped me to wrap the presents, bake a special canolli cake which I pray comes out perfectly! I've never made it before but Sean requested this for his bday cake and he claims that he hasn't had cannoli cake since before he came into the Army so I sure hope it tastes good!! We will see...
Along with birthdays come the mail... birthday cards from family. My gram, who is my grandmother on my mother's side of the family sent a package which we received in the mail yesterday. It included a birthday card for Sean from her but also a birthday card and letter to him from my mother and a letter for me. Not many people know about my mom or ever hear me talk about her. She has done so much wrong in my life and in hers that I havent seen her in about 6 years due to the awful things that she has done to me m my family and herself that then put her in jail. the majority of memories I have of my mom are bad. She left when I was 6 years old. After she left it was just my dad, me, my 2 sisters and my brother. It was hard. Growing up at times was very miserable. And luckily we had mommom and poppop (dads parents) less then 5 minutes away!
Every time mom showed up it was brief and it was great until it got bad and then she was gone. Or she would say she was going to take us for the weekend and we'd be waiting out in the front yard riding bikes and playing and she would never show. It was hard for my dad to raise us on his own esp with no financial support from her, it was hard for all of us to not have a mom around and when she was around things always turned out bad. It was even harder having to grow up earlier than anyone else I know, and help take care of my younger siblings at age 6.
After things got really bad we all stopped calling her mom and referred to her as Donna. Donna has been in prison so many times that at this point I've lost count. They were mostly minor things, like not paying child support and not showing up to court.. One time she ran off to FL and lived there with one of her bf's and when she came back she went in. Things got worse as time when on. She went in when I was 16 because while she taught me to drive she stole my debit card, deposited empty envelopes into the account and then made withdrawls. By the time I found out and the bank caught wind of what was going on, there were thousands of dollars negative. I had to press charges against my mom in order to fix it all otherwise I would have been held responsible for it all. She didn't stay in long because although she was charged with over 60 accounts of fraud, it was her first offense and she was let out on time served. After that I didn't see or hear much about her until July 2005.
July 1st, 2005 Sean and I were married... about a week later I moved to NC and a few days after that I sent my husband off on our first deployment to Afghanistan. A few weeks later my sister calls and tell me to check out the local news website back home and sure enough my mom is one of the top stories. Again she is in trouble and this time it's even worse and now she is in prison and has been there ever since. Each time she is there she's always written letters and each time they seem to say the same thing over and over again.. she's sorry, she will change things and make things better next time... almost 20 years of apologies and I can't find myself to forgive her yet. Her letters seem so fake to me. I want the truth I want to know what's real! I don't want to hear that you love me and your sorry and you think about me all the time.
But you know I do hope that she thinks about me all the time. I hope that she thinks about all of us all the time. I hope she thinks about how she missed out on all 4 of her children's high school prom's and graduation. I hope she thinks about how she missed out on her first child's wedding, the birth and enjoyment of her 4 grandchildren, her first child's college graduation, her only son's basic training graduation and so much more! I hope that she realizes that because of the mistakes that she made and the choices she's made in her life that at this time none of us can ever see having a future with her. There was one time in the past 5 years that I really wished she was different and it was as I laid in the hospital the day after the birth of my beautiful baby girl. I just laid there alone looking at my baby. It was hard, my husband was in Iraq and I was all alone. I had the support of some friends during labor but after that it was just me and miss Chloe. That was a time where I thought I wish I had my mom. And not the mom that I have but the mom I remember. The mom she use to be when I was little. That read me storied and tucked me in at night. The mom that showed her love and didn't destroy everything. My sister and I each have 2 children, which now makes her the grandmother to 1 girl and 3 boys. And we are completely unsure of how to go about the explanation of their grandmother.
My daughter asked me last year if I had a mommy. She said to me, "mommy I love you so much and I love grandma so much and grandma is daddy's mommy so do you have a mommy too?" it broke my heart to hear that question and wonder what to say. I told her the partial truth for now. Or the truth that she could understand at the time. I told her I did have a mommy but she did some bad things so the cops put her in jail. And she said to me, "momma thats terrible, I hope she is a good mommy one day" I always hoped for that too. There were many times that even though I knew I had a pretty sucky mom I just hoped and prayed that one day she would straighten her life out and we could be a family... I don't know if we'll ever get to that point.. and I'm not sure that I even want to. My husband thinks that some day it might be a possibility. He knows that I have a big heart but I'm not sure if its big enough to let all that hurt in again. I've had my guard up with her and I think I always will.
This is the first time in a long time that I have thought about all of this and talked about it all. I think the new letter from her just brought everything back to me again. And I even considered writing to her. I don't know where I would begin but I've really considered it and still am... all because of a birthday card and a letter...sure makes you think.
Well I suppose that is all for my first blog esp now that I hear my son is up from his nap and its time to frost the cannoli cake... there is much more to come and I really hope to keep up with this!
I have a few new projects I am working on, my new blog included
1. Chloe and Liam's baby books
2. "That's What She Said"- a collection of Chloe's phrases from the next year
3. 2011 Yeakley Family Calendar
4. 101 in 1001 list.... was inspired but someone I know that is doing it too
all of these on top of working on my Christmas shopping
and being a Thirty-One Gifts consultant
Wish me luck!
My 4 year old LOVES birthday's! She gets sooo excited when she hears about someone's birthday that she wants to plan a party, go shopping for presents, make cake. etc... she wants anything and everything that is birthday related. This morning as soon as she woke up she came into my room yelling mom today its daddy's birthday we have to get things started. So we started out by making Sean a surprise breakfast. He had physical therapy class this morning so would be coming home first before having to go back to work. As daddy got home breakfast was served along with a card, Chloe made for daddy :)
The rest of this day is filled with other surprises. Chloe helped me to wrap the presents, bake a special canolli cake which I pray comes out perfectly! I've never made it before but Sean requested this for his bday cake and he claims that he hasn't had cannoli cake since before he came into the Army so I sure hope it tastes good!! We will see...
Along with birthdays come the mail... birthday cards from family. My gram, who is my grandmother on my mother's side of the family sent a package which we received in the mail yesterday. It included a birthday card for Sean from her but also a birthday card and letter to him from my mother and a letter for me. Not many people know about my mom or ever hear me talk about her. She has done so much wrong in my life and in hers that I havent seen her in about 6 years due to the awful things that she has done to me m my family and herself that then put her in jail. the majority of memories I have of my mom are bad. She left when I was 6 years old. After she left it was just my dad, me, my 2 sisters and my brother. It was hard. Growing up at times was very miserable. And luckily we had mommom and poppop (dads parents) less then 5 minutes away!
Every time mom showed up it was brief and it was great until it got bad and then she was gone. Or she would say she was going to take us for the weekend and we'd be waiting out in the front yard riding bikes and playing and she would never show. It was hard for my dad to raise us on his own esp with no financial support from her, it was hard for all of us to not have a mom around and when she was around things always turned out bad. It was even harder having to grow up earlier than anyone else I know, and help take care of my younger siblings at age 6.
After things got really bad we all stopped calling her mom and referred to her as Donna. Donna has been in prison so many times that at this point I've lost count. They were mostly minor things, like not paying child support and not showing up to court.. One time she ran off to FL and lived there with one of her bf's and when she came back she went in. Things got worse as time when on. She went in when I was 16 because while she taught me to drive she stole my debit card, deposited empty envelopes into the account and then made withdrawls. By the time I found out and the bank caught wind of what was going on, there were thousands of dollars negative. I had to press charges against my mom in order to fix it all otherwise I would have been held responsible for it all. She didn't stay in long because although she was charged with over 60 accounts of fraud, it was her first offense and she was let out on time served. After that I didn't see or hear much about her until July 2005.
July 1st, 2005 Sean and I were married... about a week later I moved to NC and a few days after that I sent my husband off on our first deployment to Afghanistan. A few weeks later my sister calls and tell me to check out the local news website back home and sure enough my mom is one of the top stories. Again she is in trouble and this time it's even worse and now she is in prison and has been there ever since. Each time she is there she's always written letters and each time they seem to say the same thing over and over again.. she's sorry, she will change things and make things better next time... almost 20 years of apologies and I can't find myself to forgive her yet. Her letters seem so fake to me. I want the truth I want to know what's real! I don't want to hear that you love me and your sorry and you think about me all the time.
But you know I do hope that she thinks about me all the time. I hope that she thinks about all of us all the time. I hope she thinks about how she missed out on all 4 of her children's high school prom's and graduation. I hope she thinks about how she missed out on her first child's wedding, the birth and enjoyment of her 4 grandchildren, her first child's college graduation, her only son's basic training graduation and so much more! I hope that she realizes that because of the mistakes that she made and the choices she's made in her life that at this time none of us can ever see having a future with her. There was one time in the past 5 years that I really wished she was different and it was as I laid in the hospital the day after the birth of my beautiful baby girl. I just laid there alone looking at my baby. It was hard, my husband was in Iraq and I was all alone. I had the support of some friends during labor but after that it was just me and miss Chloe. That was a time where I thought I wish I had my mom. And not the mom that I have but the mom I remember. The mom she use to be when I was little. That read me storied and tucked me in at night. The mom that showed her love and didn't destroy everything. My sister and I each have 2 children, which now makes her the grandmother to 1 girl and 3 boys. And we are completely unsure of how to go about the explanation of their grandmother.
My daughter asked me last year if I had a mommy. She said to me, "mommy I love you so much and I love grandma so much and grandma is daddy's mommy so do you have a mommy too?" it broke my heart to hear that question and wonder what to say. I told her the partial truth for now. Or the truth that she could understand at the time. I told her I did have a mommy but she did some bad things so the cops put her in jail. And she said to me, "momma thats terrible, I hope she is a good mommy one day" I always hoped for that too. There were many times that even though I knew I had a pretty sucky mom I just hoped and prayed that one day she would straighten her life out and we could be a family... I don't know if we'll ever get to that point.. and I'm not sure that I even want to. My husband thinks that some day it might be a possibility. He knows that I have a big heart but I'm not sure if its big enough to let all that hurt in again. I've had my guard up with her and I think I always will.
This is the first time in a long time that I have thought about all of this and talked about it all. I think the new letter from her just brought everything back to me again. And I even considered writing to her. I don't know where I would begin but I've really considered it and still am... all because of a birthday card and a letter...sure makes you think.
Well I suppose that is all for my first blog esp now that I hear my son is up from his nap and its time to frost the cannoli cake... there is much more to come and I really hope to keep up with this!
I have a few new projects I am working on, my new blog included
1. Chloe and Liam's baby books
2. "That's What She Said"- a collection of Chloe's phrases from the next year
3. 2011 Yeakley Family Calendar
4. 101 in 1001 list.... was inspired but someone I know that is doing it too
all of these on top of working on my Christmas shopping
and being a Thirty-One Gifts consultant
Wish me luck!
Ohh BFF! I love this! Even though I already know all your mom stories, it still upsets me that she put you through everything she did! Like you said, you have a huge heart and it could be a possibility. I will be there for you every step of the way! I love you BFF!!
ReplyDeleteI can wait to read more!
Tanya :)
Kiss my godbaby for me!
Glad you shared this, it is defintely something that is good to talk about your feelings. Pregnancy hormones kicked in and I cried, you are a very strong woman Liz and I admire you. I miss you!
ReplyDeletei think you could send her this blog! it shows her how amazing you are and how far you have come without her and maybe, just maybe, it will mean something to her.
ReplyDeletei cried towards the end, as i know the story but i havent heard it directly from you liz. it took guts to share and im sure it was therapeutic for you to do so as well.
love you guys! miss you!
-Kirsten
I'm so happy you started a blog, Liz! :) I like reading, so I added you to my blog list.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is in a similar situation with his mother, except not entirely. She was never in jail or anything, but she's been absent a majority of his life. He's tried to let her in, but hasn't been able to do it entirely yet, and we haven't talked to her since 2007. I actually contacted her yesterday because I am interested in hearing her side of things, and I would love for our son to not have to ask those kinds of questions. I don't know where it will take us, but I'm meeting with her this Sunday night, and I'm hoping it goes well. I hope somewhere down the road you can have your mom back, too...the way you remember when things were good.