...or at the very least, make you giggle!
This year Gaby has been taking gymnastics at a studio outside of Schenectady that is taught by one of my closest friends, Kim. At the end of the year they put on a recital that consists of an absolutely ADORABLE little dance along with some tumbles or a cartwheel, or whatever the kids want to show off. Well, in the course of meeting other parents at the studio (they also teach several different dance classes including, tap, toe, hip-hop and jazz), we've been going to some of the competitions that the youth hip-hop team competes in (and usually wins every single time!), and that Kim's youngest daughter, Emma, competes in. There is also competitive cheer-leading competitions that are usually held at the same meets. Gaby is enthralled with the dance and cheer teams and has decided that she wants to join some of her friends this coming year on the Scotia Pirates Tinys cheer team. However, after watching this video, and seeing the crazy stuff she pulls together each and every day (where does she get the energy and can I have some? Please and thank you!), I think we have a hip-hop dance class in her near future as well.
Keep in mind that she is only five yet she "choreographed" the entire dance herself and has done the same one, over and over again!
I get the biggest kick out of watching her dance! Outside of the jumping and skipping, the girl has moves!
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I took a break from posting for a week for two reasons. First, I wanted to make sure my brain was in as good a place as it could be in order to continue telling the story of my journey towards becoming an absentee mother. I keep saying I have learned my lesson about stopping my antidepressant, but I think it's obvious that I haven't.
The second reason is that...and maybe I shouldn't even talk about this, but I'm going through hell right now with my older kids. There is no other way to put it. Nobody ever talks about the less attractive side of being a parent to adult children and the dilemmas and emotional nightmares it can cause, especially when you weren't present for nearly 8 years of those adult children's lives. Part of me wants to talk about it but the other part doesn't want to end up being the writer/blogger that everyone points to and then says, "Tsk tsk tsk....sharing your children's dirty laundry with the world!"
It's not so much sharing their dirty laundry as it is sharing a part of my relationship with these children that is never ever told by a non-custodial mother. We don't tell this side of the story because mothers everywhere are never supposed to have a negative thought in their head about their children, they're never supposed to look down on their children's choices and if they do dare to be disappointed in a choice their adult child has made, they'd better have enough sense to not admit it otherwise the poor special snowflakes might be damaged for life!
The really ugly part of this side of my never-ending nightmare? There's never any shortage of blame handed to me for how things turned out or why one of my children acts the way they do. There are days, several of them in fact, where I feel like nailing myself to cross and spilling my blood because it seems like it's going to be the only thing that will appease them and the only act that will pass as atonement for my sins as a mother.
You know what's even more screwed up? The fact that I feel guilty for taking so much pleasure and intense pride in that little girl in the video above. There is never any shortage of guilt that I feel over being present and available in her life and for wanting her to have every single happiness possible. I take the accusations that I get on a regular basis from one of my older children, that I favor Gaby and she's getting everything my older kids never got, and put them on my shoulders to rest with the rest of the guilt and other bullshit that's weighed me down for more than 20 years. I leave it there because maybe that's my punishment for not being there for my older kids.
My older children have paid for my issues and now, as I try to get my shit together, my youngest child is paying for it as well. This never ending circle of hell is getting really tiresome.
