The rest of the day...

....didn't get any better. Once the 5 year old went to preschool for the afternoon, Sir Poopsalot and I laid down for a little bit and took a nap while the 6 year old (who really wasn't sick) amused himself and played quietly. I didn't get much sleep, but I felt a little bit better. By the time everyone got home from school, I had made yet another executive decision and announced that we were going to walk to McDonald's to get food. The little one seemed to be doing better, and he *wanted* to go, so I took that as a good sign.

While we were walking there (it's less than a block away - dangerous for a fast food junkie like myself) I happened to look down and lo and behold, there was a $20 on the ground! Woot! That just about covered supper for all of us! Bonus! Anyway, we got our food, came back home, ate, and then went outside to play. While we were out there I scoped out the back yard trying to figure out exactly how I am going to fence it in to meet daycare regulations. I really need to talk to the landlord and see if he will work with me on it - then I can put up something decent. If he doesn't, it's going to be cheap and ugly. But we played, we threw a football around and then we came inside to get ready for bed.

Once we got inside, the little one crawled up onto the couch and fell asleep again. I started baths for the others and then of course, he got sick (think Exorcist) again. I stripped him on the couch and carried him at arm's length to the bathtub. Once I got him in the water and cleaned up, I stripped the covers off of the couch cushions and threw those, the throw pillows, and his clothes in the washer.

More baths, more cleaning, more homework...bedtime drama...once I got them all into bed I sat down to relax a little bit and then mopped the worst of the floors, so now I am sitting here inhaling all sorts of *ahem* lovely smells from my house.

I talked to a friend for a while on the phone, and realized that I haven't spoken to her since my ex passed away. Honestly, I haven't spoken to a lot of my friends. I've been in my own little world, dealing with my own drama, trying not to dump it on anyone else (other than here, but you can make the choice whether or not to read it). My life has changed dramatically in so many ways in the 15 days since he died. I realized that I no longer have to live in fear of him coming back and causing problems for me or our son. I don't have to live in hiding like I have been doing. I don't have to constantly look over my shoulder anymore. I don't think that a lot of people realized how much I feared something happening if he showed up here again. But at the same time, I realized that in a way, I did still love him. I knew realistically that he would probably never sober up and be a decent father, but I still hoped that he would have. As I've looked at old pictures over the past 2 weeks, I've smiled thinking about the good times that we had - but I have also shed more tears over the bad times. I have gone through every emotion imaginable, and I feel like maybe I am starting to come to grips with it all. I feel like I am finally starting to handle things better, and I feel like in the grand scheme of things, we are going to be ok.

And that's a good feeling to have.