Just when you think it's safe to smile...

something happens that just knocks the wind out of your sails.

Four hours ago, I was the happiest woman alive. My husband is home from California. My son is here. My daughter stopped by to visit with my two beautiful grandchildren. We laughed, had dinner together as a family; something we haven't been able to do much of since my daughter moved to her own home a few months ago.

I remember the absolute angst that I felt the day she moved out of my home with her husband and her daughter. Sure, they were only moving one town away, but never in 22 years have my daughter and I not lived under the same roof. When she left, the house dynamic changed. It lost a lot of life. My daughter is my shining star and that beautiful little girl she brought into my life only made my daughter that much more of an indelible force in my world. Now we are both mothers, together. Just another bond that keeps us close. Yes, I have an amazing son. He's bright, funny and a really good kid. I love him like mad. But, ask most mothers and usually they can all agree on one thing:

The bond you have with your daughter is like no other.

So, imagine my surprise, when after dinner my daughter informs me that her husband is getting a promotion. A big promotion. One that means they are going to have to relocate.

To New York. New York. 1200 miles away.

It might as well be another planet.

I drew in a breath as though I had been kicked in the gut. Things in my body that I never knew existed started to ache. Pain. Pain that I have not felt before in my life literally surged through me. My baby girl is leaving me in Florida while she and her family move to New York. Her family. MY family. My grandbabies. My precious, beautiful grandbabies are no longer a fifteen minute drive away. There will be no more cuddling on demand. No more kisses goodnight. No more picking up my granddaughter from daycare, watching with absolute joy as she runs towards me with her arms outstretched, reaching for me.

And my grandson. Dear God, my grandson. Not even two weeks old yet. He will never know me from anything other than a photograph. I will be a stranger to him when I go to visit. I'll miss Liam's first words. His first steps. His first everything.

I won't be there for Sadie's first day of pre-school. Dance recitals.

My head is absolutely reeling right now. I feel numb, dead inside. I am walking around like a zombie. I can't wrap my head around the fact that my children are going to be in New York while I am in Florida. I can't fathom it.

And there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Nothing.

I thought that in my 42 years on this planet, that I have experienced heartbreak. I was wrong. Nothing has felt like this. Not even the loss of my son 14 years ago felt like this. Does that sound melodramatic? Perhaps to some, it might. But right now, I feel like I am losing my daughter. Losing her. Losing Sadie. Losing Liam. They won't be here for holidays. For birthdays. She will not just "drop by" after work anymore. Our entire mother/daughter experience will rely on phone calls and emails. They will probably come rapid fire at first...and then, with time, they will probably whittle down to weekly. She will be busy with her babies and her husband making their new life in New York. She won't have time for dear old mom anymore.

My grandchildren won't know me. I'll be a photograph hanging from a refrigerator magnet, just like my mother is on mine.

My first knee jerk reaction was to tell her how selfish this was. How can you take my babies away from me? How can you just leave like that after living in my home with your husband for three years? I felt betrayed. I felt used. And then, I felt the anger turn to pain. Then, pain into sorrow.

I want the best for my daughter and her husband. I want them to have opportunities that my husband and I have not had. What parent doesn't want better for their children? I apologized to her for my initial reaction. I told her it came from a place of fear, not anger. The fear that I was being left behind. They don't need me anymore. They are branching out on their own, leaving the proverbial nest. I should feel some joy knowing that I have prepared her well for this...but all I can feel is sadness.

Watching my granddaughter playing in my living room tonight was painful. I won't have this anymore. Liam was curled up in his baby bouncer. Sadie came over to him and patted his head gently. She gave him a kiss. She said "Hi Baby" and then threw her arms around me for a big hug.

And I just broke down in hysterics. Literally heaving sobs.

My babies are leaving me and I don't know what to do. I simply don't know what to do. How can I just stand here and watch them leave?

My daughter. My first born. My heart and soul.

I don't even have the words to tie this post up into a neat little package. My world completely flipped upside down in the course of an hour.

How do you say goodbye to the very thing that makes you want to live?

Welcome to the World, Liam Edward...

This little piece of gorgeous is my new grandson, Liam Edward. He was born on January 25, 2010. He weighed 7.11 at birth and is 21 pounds, much different than his sister, Sadie who only weighed 4.14. My daughter, by no want of her own, had him naturally when the nurses decided she was too far along to have an epidural. So, she troopered through it as women have for all the centuries on earth. Sweetest mother/daughter moment came when my beautiful daughter held my hand, looked deeply into my eyes as she was pushing and said:

"Mom??? Did I just SHIT on the table???"

"Um, no, Sam. That was your son that just came out."

I know I shouldn't have been laughing as hard as I was, but it was really a defining moment for my daughter and I. We're not exactly delicate flowers...but she is very shy and reserved so for her to blurt that out during delivery cracked me up to no end.

My family is growing. I am now a grandmother to TWO beautiful little ones.



Happy New Year to my grandbabies. May all your hopes and dreams come true.

I love you both.

I am a Mommy. I am a Blogger. But...

I am not a "MommyBlogger". I have to admit that mommy bloggers make me want to eat my own eyes out of my skull. No, I do not think that every single thing my children do are precious. Frankly, they annoy the piss out of me on a daily basis. I come from the Roseanne Barr school of mothering. I gave you life...what the fuck more do you want from me. If by the end of the day, you aren't dead...then I did my job.

I really tried to get into the Mommy Blogger community, but apparently, if you have teenage children or worse yet, adult children who are married and on their own, they have no use for you. You can't compare diapering tips on a 14 year old who had died in Xbox heaven. And, you certainly won't get any compassion if your 22 year old is on her second baby in the course of her three year marriage.

So, I tried Granny Bloggers. Well, most of them are too old. They knit shit and bake cookies shaped like little pine trees with green Christmas sprinkles. I buy the pre made dough and then eat most of it before the cookies even hit the oven.

I got to wondering...does this mean I am doing a shitty job with my kids. And I am here, now, on no sleep for a day and a half to say this:

I am a pretty righteous fucking mom and a cool ass grandmother to boot.

My kids talk to me about drug use, abortion, politics, birth control (though my daughter keeps kind of missing the mark on that one) and all kinds of other bullshit that most kids don't talk to their moms about. I'm friends with my kids on facebook mainly because their friends find me a huge source of entertainment. Yeah, I talk about blow jobs and lube and spicing up the old marital bed. And you know what? They laugh at me. They think I'm funny. Their friends think I'm the cool mom and say "man, I wish I had a mom like yours".

So, fuck mommy bloggers who don't accept me because I don't fall into the Betty Crocker book of how to be a mom. And fuck granny bloggers who don't feel that a one year old grandchild possibly qualifies me as an experienced grandmother.

No one in my house is going to Harvard, but both my babies are/have gone to college. My daughter made it to 17 before losing her virginity to the boy she was dating for two years. Her next great love of her life...she married. She's Pro Life, much to my dismay...but someday, her own daughter may give her a lesson that changes her mind. And my son? He's a democrat in the making. Average grades. Great musical talent...rocks the fucking guitar like no ones business and all self-taught.

Basically, for a mother who has done absolutely nothing to nurture her kids, my children are Fan fucking tastic. People tell me "CP, you must have done SOMETHING right". And maybe I did...just by always being honest with them. I never made them believe in Santa or the fucking tooth fairy. I give them their Channukah presents unwrapped with the tags still on them in case they want to take shit back.

So no, I have no clue about the best kindergartens to send your little prodigies to. I have no idea how to make cupcakes for Spirit Day. I let my son dress up as a serial killer for Halloween because it was fucking hysterical. My daughter had more make up at age 14 than I have ever had in my 43 years of life. I just loved buying her girly shit.

But my kids are LOVED. I mean, LOVED. Like, I can't get through a day without them hugging me or kissing me or at very least texting me. They definitely got the raw end of the deal with me for a mother. But I taught them how NOT to be...and that in itself is a lesson learned.

I shall leave this off with my favorite quote from Roseanne, Domestic Goddess who taught me all I know about mothering Jewish children:

“They're all mine. . . . Of course, I'd trade any one of them for a dishwasher.”

Or a nice set of Louis Vuitton luggage.

I am still a Jewish Princess, after all.

So here we are...2010.

I notice that as the blog years roll by, I have less and less to say. Sometimes it is because I am so happy that I really don't have anything to write about. Other times, I am so depressed that I can barely trudge over to the keyboard.

2009, in a nutshell, was a sack full of suckage.

Financially, things were a mess. Our problem with where we will be living still continues. I am still unemployed, albeit by choice. Things are just not as they should be. But, admittedly, there have been years that were far worse.

My husband is optimistic that 2010 is going to be "our" year. He thinks that the housing situation will resolve itself and that things will magically repair themselves. He is making strides to see this dream of his come to fruition. He is good that way. Definitely the rational optimist to my irrational pessimist.

But...I am willing to put on my rose colored glasses for him. After all, no one died (okay, a lot of celebrities did, but no one who is related to us). No one has any fatal illness. Everyone has a home to live in. No one lost their jobs. Everyone is healthy and safe. For that, I am grateful.

2010 is bringing me a new grandson. It is bringing us a lot of uncertainty as far as where we will be living...but there is a lot of excitement there too. Our 14 year old is a happy, well adjusted kid. Our 22 year old is happily married, the mom of a beautiful one year old who is the light of our lives. Her husband is a good guy and treats her with the utmost of respect. And the hotband and I? We're amazing. We are over the moon happy despite the crazy curve balls that have been thrown in our direction over the past year. I can honestly say that when it feels like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, I can look at him and know that everything is going to be alright.

I generally don't do resolutions, or if I do, they are half hearted. But, what I DO is make at least one promise to remove something from my life that negatively affected the year prior. This year, I am letting go of anxiety. I am not going to dwell on things that I have no control over. Let go and let God...as cheesy as that sounds.

So, bring on 2010. I know my little family is ready for it. We will always get by so long as we have one another. Nothing else matters.

Hold that Tiger...

Lots in the news lately about Tiger Woods and his *cough* alleged infidelity with several mistresses. He is calling them "indiscretions". I call that a fancy word for "FUCKING CHEATER". Certainly, Tiger is not the first celebrity to have gotten caught with his pants around his ankles, and sadly, he won't be the last. However, the world seems to have taken this one a little hard. Apparently, Tiger was the poster boy of what a good man should be. Young, handsome, successful, family-oriented and devoted to his wife of five years, Elin.

But, if we heed the whispers of the women he has screwed, he was unhappily married and naturally, his poor wife just didn't understand him. This of course is the typical excuse used by married men to justify their cheating. We wives just don't seem to understand our husbands whenever hot twenty somethings are around our husbands.

Why would that be?

I spend a lot of time reading the news over at the Huffington Post. According to the many men at that website, women who are married to celebrities or world class athletes should understand that cheating is part of the territory. They should simply accept that sort of behavior because it is part of the social norm for that class of creature.

My thought is this. If you don't think you can remain faithful...

Don't. Get. Married.

It's really that simple. Marriage, no matter how archaic the institution may seem to some, is a promise of fidelity. You are pledging yourself unto the person you love, for better or for worse. And it seems to me that if you are truly in love with someone, you couldn't possibly bring yourself to cheat on them.

Case in point? Me. I am a serial infidel. I can think of only two men in my life that I never cheated on. One was largely due to fear of repercussion. The other is the hotband. 10 years faithful (with him) is my record. I honestly feel like I couldn't bring myself to be unfaithful with him. It's not in my physical or emotional make up to do so. I am so insanely in love with this man that the thought of being with anyone else is honestly nothing less than repulsive.

I truly believe that any other penis near my body would cause me to vomit. Hard.

This is not to say that you aren't entitled to fantasize or shop the menu. You're married, not dead. But, when it comes to actually doing the deed? Nope. Couldn't do it. This man means everything to me. I respect him far too much as a human being to ever malign him in that fashion. I also understand that if it ever got to the point where I did feel I could cheat on him, I would do him the service of splitting up with him first. It would be the only fair thing to do for someone that you respect as a person first and foremost.

So, while I wish Tiger well in his attempt to reconcile his marriage, I don't hold any high hopes up for him and his wife. They say people can overcome infidelity in their marriage. I wouldn't know, but to me, it seems that this would be nearly impossible. All trust would be shot to shit. Trust is the foundation of any marriage. It has to be there, or it would simply cease to exist. It would take a lot more than a "Kobe Bryant special" on my ring finger to get me past something like that.

Although, with some persuasion, I might be able to be bought with a five bedroom house on the ocean...maybe.

Today is World AIDS Day

Make sure that you wear a red ribbon in support of those who are living with HIV/AIDS. This portion of our population is heavily discriminated against due to myths that still exist about this disease. How well do you understand HIV/AIDS?

Do you think you could pass a quiz?

Take one here.

Take this opportunity to raise awareness and educate others with regard to this illness. Watch a video with regard to universal healthcare access.

Get involved at any of these organizations.

Do what you can to help support those who are living with this disease. Kindness and compassion go a long way.

"Hello, Ex-Nurse!"

The first time I heard these words, I almost shook with fright.

What am I to be if not a nurse? Where do I go from here?

I made a decision during my 12 weeks of intensive outpatient therapy. I opted not to reinstate my nursing license. After a lot of soul searching and mulling the process over, I decided that nursing was no longer going to be a part of my future.

When I received my contract from the nursing board, they made some extraordinary demands of me; demands that I know I would never be able to comply with while attempting to get out into the workforce again. I thought long and hard about this decision and I decided that it would be in my best interest to let it go. The past 12 weeks in IOP taught me a lot about myself and the things I want to do with my future.

That's when I came to realize that nursing was not a part of what I wanted to do with my life.

I called my counselor and told him this. He said he wasn't really surprised, as this wasn't the first time he heard me allude to this.

"It's not in my heart any longer," I told him.

And you know what? That's okay. A long time ago, I had a first love. That first love was writing. It always has been. It always will be. While nursing was a challenge, it never fulfilled me the way my writing did. I have been published a number of times. When I walked away from that to pursue a career in nursing, I felt like I put a part of my soul away.

I am 43 years old. It is getting late in life not to pursue dreams.

With that said, I am going back to my dreams of writing for a newspaper. I have written editorials for magazines before. I have a vast collection of work that I have done over the years, work that I am very proud of. When I went to college a million years ago, my major was journalism.

With the support of my husband, I am going to pursue this dream of mine.

I realize that newspapers are a dying breed, so more than likely, it will mean writing for online news journals, but I am ready to take on this challenge. In the interim, I will probably work as a medical assistant in a doctors office, as I will no longer be able to represent myself as a nurse. But, having nights and weekends off will allow me to pursue this dream of mine. The flexibility will allow me to write creatively once more.

I am 97 days sober and I have never seen anything more clearly in my entire life. I am ready for this next stage, this next step. Careers are one thing, passions are quite another. I am ready to forgo my career and let my passion run rampant once again. It will be a dream come true to parlay my passion into a new career.

I don't know if it is smart to start my life over at this juncture, but I can't allow myself to look back and know I never tried.

One door closes. Another opens.

I am ready to step through this new door. It's time.

Down to the wire...

At this moment, I am 72 days, 13 hours and 53 minutes sober.

Had I not had that unfortunate slip up (read:relapse) back in August, it would have been 174 days, 13 hours and 53 minutes.

Oh well. Can't look backwards. Must keep forging ahead.

This is week 11 of my 12 week intensive outpatient program. I remember at week one that I scarcely knew how I would get through it. I walked in there angry at having to be there. I felt like I was being punished heavily. And, in some aspects, I have a right to feel that way. But, I Have since let that go. I have gained a lot from these classes.

So much so, that I think I will continue attending a few of them even after graduation. I doubt I will go five days a week like I am doing right now, but once or twice a week? Definately. It's keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Finishing up next week now leads me to a whole new area to ponder. What's on the horizon next? The Nursing Board mandates that I finish this program successfully. By next week, I will have accomplished that. After this, they send you out a contract that will state how long I must continue to be monitored. Sometimes it's a year. Sometimes, three. I've also heard they go as long as five. I will get my license back, but there will probably be some restrictions like the inability to dispense narcotics for a set period of time. This is going to make finding a job very difficult.

You also have to disclose to your prospective employer that you are being monitored by the program. I don't know too many places that will want to take on a nurse in recovery. There will be mandatory random drug tests at 3-5 tests a month. They also limit where you can and cannot work. No home health. No night shifts. No surgery centers, which is upsetting to me since surgery is my specialty.

A whole new set of challenges ahead of me. But, I can get through them.

I'm a little bit stronger than I once thought.

Celebrating Nicholas.

Let me start by saying how much I love my daughter, Samantha. She's an amazing girl. She's smart, cute, funny and embodies the personification of a loving human being. She's a really good girl. I was very blessed with this child. She was the perfect pregnancy and then, the perfect child. We are close and with the birth of my grandaughter Sadie and the imminent birth of my grandson Liam in January, we have only become closer. Sharing motherhood is a bond between mother and daughter that cannot be described.

That said, let me tell you about Nicholas. He turned 14 yesterday, on Halloween. When Nick was born, he had massive heart and lung defects. He wasn't expected to live let alone thrive the way he has. An open heart surgery later, after months of being on a heart monitor and sleep apnea machine, he has not only grown but has thrived, turning into a strapping young man who is healthy in every way.

Nick and I are abnormally close. I say abnormally because most mothers and sons do not talk about every aspect of their lives the way Nick and I do. We bond over music especially. We are both musicians. He plays the clarinet, guitar and drums. I am a classically trained pianist and oboe player. Music is our joy and we spend most of our time hanging out, listening to various artists. He has gotten me to appreciate Metallica and Slipknot. I have introduced him to classic rock such as Aerosmith and Pink Floyd.

We hang out all the time. Just...hang out. We find many of the same things to be "cool". He has no problem introducing me to his friends and telling them how awesome I am. I let him hang out with me and my adult friends because the kid really knows how to have fun. We talk politics. He is a staunch Democrat and of course, being the liberal (leaning toward liberatarian) that I am, I appreciate his candor and knowledge.

Basically, he is the coolest kid I have ever known. He is a little mini-me. Most of all, we share the mutual love of tormenting his father, my ex husband. We don't bash the man of course, because that would be wrong, but we both kind of agree that he isn't as "cool" as we are. He tries...but it just doesn't come together for him.

Nick got his first kiss ever at his school's Halloween dance this past weekend. And, where most boys wouldn't discuss it with their mothers, we talked about it in detail, right up to the moment where he and his little girlfriend, Kristi, counted down 3...2...1...KISS! It cracked me up and he enjoyed seeing me laugh about this awkward time for him.

At night, I go into his room, smooth back his mop of curls and kiss his forehead. When he's asleep, he's back to being my baby; the little one curled up in his crib with all the tubes and wires attached to him to make sure he gets through the night still breathing. We've gotten through everything from divorce to swine flu together. And when he is sleeping, I remember the days that the doctors told me not to be hopeful about his survival.

I couldn't imagine my life without Nicholas in it. He's the reason I spend most of my days laughing even when there is nothing much to smile about. He's the sanity in my life and the reason, somedays, I have the strength to get out of bed and go on.

Happy birthday, Nicholas. Many, many more to come, for us to share...

Mommy loves you.

And yes, I know you read my blog, you little shit. Mind your own business.

Don't you have some homework to do?

The History of Halloween and Five Fun Facts

(Stolen from The Huffington Post). Enjoy!

Americans love Halloween. We as a country spend over $5 billion a year celebrating it. But where did the holiday come from? And how did traditions like asking strangers for food and dressing up as ghosts develop?

Halloween has its roots in Samhain (pronounced sow-in), an ancient harvest festival held at the end of the Celtic year. The festival marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark wintertime. It was believed the spirits of the dead returned on this eve to damage crops and play tricks on the living. It was also believed that the Celtic priests, or Druids, were able to make predictions about the future, which they did during large bonfire celebrations where they wore animal skins and sacrificed crops and animals to the spirits.

In early A.D., Romans came to the Celtic territories of modern day England, Scotland and Northern France, and were the first people to influence the celebration of Samhain. They brought their own holidays: Feralia, the Roman day to honor the dead in late October, as well as another holiday to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. It is possible that this Roman influence is the reason apples are given out and bobbed for on Halloween.

By 800 A.D., Christianity spread to the Celtic Territories and brought with it another holiday, "All Saints Day." Pope Boniface IV, the designator of All Saints Day, was likely trying to replace Samhain with a similar but holier holiday meant to honor saints and martyrs. Later on, All Saints Day was renamed "All Hallows" and thus the day of Samhain (Oct. 31st) began to be called "All Hallows Eve," and eventually shortened to "Hallowe'en."

All of the holidays that were melded together to create our modern version of Halloween involved dressing up in one way or another. The celebrators of Samhain wore animal skins at their bonfire celebrations and those that observed "All Saints Day" often dressed as saints or angels. Later on men in Scotland would impersonate the dead on the day, explaining the ghoulish tradition we still observe.

During the mid 1800's, Irish and English immigrants flooded the United States and brought Halloween with them. From these immigrants we received the Halloween traditions we recognize today, however skewed they are now. For instance, the first trick-or-treaters were far from today's smiling children with commercialized costumes. They lived in Medieval England, and practiced "souling," in which poor people would beg for sweet breads, in return for praying for the families' souls. Later, the immigrants who brought Halloween to America would develop their own version of trick-or-treating, but it didn't become popular here until the 1930s.

1) Halloween Is The Second Highest Grossing Commercial Holiday After Christmas

What used to be just a singular holiday with minimal things to purchase has turned into an entire "Halloween Season." Between decorative lights and lawn ornaments, elaborate costumes and loads of candy, the average American spends a pretty penny on this fall holiday. However popular Halloween has become, the recession has affected spending for this year's spooky night. Spending is down, according the the National Retail Federation. Shoppers will spend an average of $56.31 on the holiday compared to $66.54 in 2008. Some ways people are cutting down include making homemade costumes, using last year's decorations and buying less expensive candies. For the children's sake, let's hope everyone doesn't resort to giving out apples and pennies. Didn't you just hate that as a kid?

2) Harry Houdini Died On October 31, 1926

The famous magician was killed (accidentally) by a McGill University student named J. Gordon Whitehead who was hitting him in the stomach repeatedly as part of a stunt. A week later he died of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. Despite acute appendicitis, Houdini refused to seek medical treatment.

3) There's A Phobia For That

Samhainophobia is an intense and persistent fear of Halloween that can cause panic attacks in sufferers. Other relevant phobias for this time of year: wiccaphobia (fear of witches), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), and coimetrophobia (fear of cemeteries).

4) The First Jack-O-Lanterns Weren't Made Out Of Pumpkins

They were originally hollowed-out turnips. The modern practiced mutated from the Irish tradition of carving faces of the the dead onto the gourds and putting candles inside to make them glow. These days your Jack-O-Lantern is most made out of a pumpkin, which most likely came from Illinois--a state that grew 542 million pounds of pumpkin in 2007.

5) One Quarter Of All The Candy Sold Annually Is For Halloween Night

Yes, no matter how much we eat for Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween has corned the market on candy. As a country we consume 20 million pounds of candy corn a year. Handing out Halloween treats is the perfect excuse to eat some too, as four-in-ten (41%) adults admit that they sneak sweets from their own candy bowl. And if you're a kid, hang on to your basket, because home is where the candy thief is as 90% of parents admit to sneaking goodies from their kids' Halloween trick-or-treat bags. But whether your stealing some, handing out some or having yours stolen, chances are you'll get your hands (or miss getting your hands) on a Snickers bar, it has been the number 1 Halloween candy for years.

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Happy 14th Birthday to my Halloweenie, Nicholas.