After the Hiatus

I took a year (well, 8 months) off of writing because a dear friend suggested that all of these personal revelations might look bad if/when/however I wind up in divorce court.  It's true, I suppose.  But I miss blogging about my kids.

Somehow writing about them for an audience makes me see the humor of everything more clearly and, paradoxically, putting my trials and tribulations into the public realm reduces them from "Monumental" to "Problems I Bet a Lot of People Have."

Starting afresh, what you need to know:  My children are now 8 and 6 and (ex)Husband and I share their care. I live with my Boy Friend (BF) in a big idiosyncratic apartment in an old building.  BF has kids too, and though I will write about them here I will not give their real names.  In fact I think I will start writing about us all in slightly encrypted ways.  There will be a new "cast list" (see below).  There's a new dog at the apartment, and there are three pet rats, one of whom has an enormous pituitary tumor and yet is still, somehow, always alive.

Life's pretty good.  Stable, mostly.  Calm.  Current dilemmas include trying to decide if the neighborhood pool is something we can afford for the summer (the real answer is "no," but BF and I are still thinking about it).  Almost mulberry season here.  And I'm trying to figure out if a LeapPad will provide adequate entertainment on the plane trip to see my parents in Vancouver in June.  How've you all been?

Cast List 

Adult Humans (between ages of 40 and 50):

Boyfriend
Ex-Husband (mine)
Ex-Wife (boyfriend's)
Me (aka Mummy, Mamma)

Juvenile Humans (all under age ten)

My kids:  The Voice (female) and Big Smiles (male)
Boyfriend's kids: Bow (female) and Wisp (female)

Pets

Oldest Rat, O.R., (Pink Eyed White, PEW)  This is the one with the tumor the size of a baseball.
Middle Rat, M.R. (brown)
Youngest Rat, Y.R. (PEW)

Dog, Neurotic.