Monday, January 4, 2016

EVERYthing is Mama's Business

When I rifled through the pockets of a jacket forgotten by Oz, it caused quite a debate with the Goofballs and raised some interesting questions!  In my defense I did not intentionally pick through his pockets.  I was cleaning and found a small, thin puffy jacket on my couch. I assumed it belonged to a child or a woman.  As I was guessing who it's owner could be it never occurred to me that it was Oz.  I held it up and felt something in one of the pockets and at the same time the children, aka The Goofballs, noticed what I was doing. They started saying, "that's Daddy's jacket."  When I proceeded to pull small items from the pockets it raised their attention and they came storming over. Immediately they repeated that it belonged to their father. Still disbelieving that such a tiny, thin jacket could belong to a man, I continued to look at the pocket items.  At that point, Isabella could not stand it any longer and said, "Stop going through the pockets! That jacket is Daddy's and it is his business!"

Excuse me small child that I gave life to???

I took that moment to gently remind The Goofballs that anything that was in my house is MY business including the humans I made and anyone or anything connected to them in any way.

They disagreed very much.  But, I reminded them that I had spent a decade of my life with Oz and created an entire family for him so his abandoned pockets and anything in them are also MY business.

I could not help laughing at their protection of Oz and his "business!"  FYI- the only things I found were a Dunkin Donuts gift card and chapstick. Not exactly state secrets. But, I appreciated their thoughtfulness in protecting his privacy. I only hope they will extend me the same curtesy if ever needed. Especially since they live with me and spend almost all of their time with me and therefore know much more of my "business" than their fathers.

The jacket search however, did raise some interesting questions. Cenzo immediately seized the opportunity to remind me that I had been married to Oz for quite some time and then he asked the dreaded question…."Why did you get divorced?"

We haven't really had that question in a long, long time.  The kids were little when we split up. The boys were 5 at the time and barely remember that fate changing day 3 years ago when Oz moved out and Bella was 2 and barely remembers him ever even living with us.

So it was interesting, in a gut wrenching and devastating way, to hear that question from my sweetest little guy.  Especially since it was the week of Christmas. The most dreaded of all holidays for their single Mama.

Since I was blindsided and ill prepared, I bravely faced the 3 children and told them "Life happened to us and we didn't make it through the difficult times together."

Then I waited for about 3 breathes until I could speak again and asked if anyone had any other questions. THANK GOD they all said no!!

If they had said yes, I was prepared to offer them Oz's chapstick and gift card as a bribe to get them to stop asking me heartbreaking questions!