A DAY... YEA A DAY....

so today is the day huh? idk . heres the day so far. anthony is "indefinitely suspended" from work while an "investigation" is done concerning some he said she said bs....and im almost certain that is another way of saying "You're Fired."....so he went on the ride along for the 'new' job that hes interviewing for and we are praying with EVERYTHING left in our meager souls right now that the Lord is going to either let him get that job or i will get a phone call with a job offer. anyways so anthony was gone all night on that ride along, thankfully those wont be his hours if he does get the job, but either way he spent the day sleeping...haha. its ok me and mackenzie kinda had a rough one today. so this morning she woke me up at 530am and literally took the bowl part of her potty chair and threw it at me and laughed....covered in urine and feces, i calmly as possible went to take a shower and wash my clothes....again this was to avoid any possible child abuse that would have resulted in this incident cause come on seriously! how would YOU have reacted to being thrown human waste not even from a monkey at the zoo, but from your almost 4 year old child that you thought you adored and were teaching right?! so....after some intense scrutiny in that 30 minute shower....i realized that i may be teaching her right from wrong but one thing we have NOT taught her is that her actions have consequences. Now we may have tapped her butt once or twice or yelled quite a bit (yes i need to work on that and have been!) but we have never in the last almost 4 years EVER "punished" mackenzie for any of her many offenses. my walls are all 'decorated' my computer screen permanently etched with who knows what except that it was sharp enough to scratch the screen with some pretty deep gouges...and mackenzie is currently decorated with 4 day old permanent marker 'tattoos like mommy has' that wont come off no matter what soap i use. so today while watching Dog the Bounty Hunter on television, and watching anthony snore and trying to hold in my laughter while he talked nonsense in his sleep, i prayed. i prayed to the Lord to PLEASE open my heart and show me the way. because the path i am on is not the one i KNOW he wants me on. i graduated college 4 months ago today, and am still jobless even though i graduated with a 3.87 cumulative GPA out of a possible 4.0. i dont know where God wants me to be in life, but i know it isnt here. so while i was watching my netflix, i believe God did speak to me, and he opened my eyes and my heart. i only hope that i can seriously, seriously change my life and not let the devil in anymore. anyways so i went to check on the quiet mackenzie, who we all know by now, if shes quiet shes up to no good....so sure enough, her air mattress is deflated, (no biggie we have an air pump), but as i investigated further, i realized her potty chair was missing the 'bowl', located a few seconds later next to a naked from the waist down mackenzie who was informing me that her mattress was wet....upon more investigation, i realized mackenzie had pottied in her potty chair....and THEN instead of letting mommy or daddy know to empty it, she decided to dump it on the mattress. and it wasnt a small amount either...soooo again instead of any child abuse situation, i called my sleeping husband for some backup to the situation....well her mattress cannot be salvaged cause as of this point i have NO IDEA how to clean urine from a fabric and plastic air mattress, so whatever....more on that research later....i immediately unplugged her DVD player (her MOST prized possession) and took it out of her room. i informed her through seriously gritted teeth that she needed to go into the living room and sit and not move an eyelash....as i cleaned the other human waste i discovered upon MORE investigation....i know i should be a private investigator! im sooo good at it! ;) ANYWAYS so i went through the clean laundry that has yet to be folded, and found a pair of clean mackenzie underwear and some pajamas, and went into the living room. with tears in my eyes and quite a few yells to the ceiling aimed somewhere toward heaven, asking the Lord what i was doing wrong and to please send me a sign if he hears me cause i cannot do this anymore....i got mackenzie dressed and although it was waning, i was still quite angry with her and myself. i am failing her as a parent....it would almost be a blessing to her to let the state take her, but no i will NOT give up this time. i fought this last case and proved to myself and a couple disbelievers (haters!) that i AM straightening out my life and i AM being the best mom i can be to mackenzie, so i refuse to let them haters win again....so i told her that she didnt get her dvd player back until tomorrow because of what she did....you know what? that lil **** didnt even care! she laughed and ran off. so at this point anthonys sleeping again in his chair so im alone on this one, and i didnt hit her...i wanted to, oh man i wanted to just paddle that little butt and show her whos boss, but that doesnt work either ya know? so i calmly went into her room and told her she was on time out and she needed to sit on the couch until i said she could get down. so we watched two more episodes of Dog, and then anthony woke up and began to clean the living room. mackenzie slithered off the couch, no im literal, she went headfirst and slithered off the couch.... :) and began to help daddy clean....so i think it hit me right then. she needs rules. she NEEDS stability (yes pastor kate alll those things you have told me before :) it finally sunk in!) and i need to provide it. so after the living room was clean, she ran in her room and i could hear her asking daddy for her dvd player so she could watch her new dora dvd and take a rest...rest is code for nap around here haha....and daddy said no you need to talk to mommy about that, (kudos and BIG points to daddy!) and daddy and mackenzie come out to me, i was already sitting on the couch holding her dvd player. and i said well we need to have a talk mackenzie. so at this point i was silently praying the Lord to speak through me so that mackenzie would understand....and i have to tell you thats when the HALLELUJAH moment came....mackenzie was playing with something and i said mackenzie you have to put that down, come here and we will talk ok? and she put it down, turned around, and said " alright im coming, what?" and i looked down, hid my face and laughed out loud cause she DID understand me! all this time i have wondered if she really does understand when shes doing wrong and right and she DOES!! ok so now knowing the Lord has literally, loudly answered my call, i tell my baby girl with tears again in my eyes, mackenzie i love you, you were very naughty putting potty on the bed, and throwing it at me this morning. she says i know mama, im sorry. and then wipes my eyes and says no crying mama and throws her arms around me and says big huggs and she squeezed. so i told her (knowing she wouldnt understand everything i was saying now, but someday she hopefully will look back on this blog and know) as i hugged so tightly back with tears STREAMING down my face and looking into my husbands eyes, mackey baby mama loves you sooo much. DONT ever turn out like me EVER!!! you are so wonderful and God gave you to me to teach me so you and i, we are going to learn together ok kiddo? and i leaned back and she kissed me and said ok mama we will...and i said are you going to behave? she said yep, then i said go give daddy a hug and tell him sorry too, so she did....so shes now on probation and if shes naughty again she will get time out and the third timeout, she will lose her DVD player for a whooooole day, (her eyes got real big and shes shaking her head no) and so shes now laying in her room on a blanket makeshift bed watching her dora dvd....i think we both learned an important lesson today....and i have finally opened my heart to the Lord....anthony and i will sit down tonight and make some simple rules for mackenzie and we HAVE to abide by the consequences and teach our baby girl that her actions have them....we HAVE to teach her, as our parents taught us.....

and with that line, i have made a very difficult decision. i am very proud of what i have achieved in the last year, graduating college with HIGH HONORS, something noone else in my class did...and i am proud. I stayed up all night studying and doing homework and struggling when i didnt understand something, like how the heart worked and which valves did what and how the blood flowed where and when.... I did that, noone else....plenty of people helped along the way and i say thank you to them all the time, the biggest of which was my husband who even when he coulndt pronounce my medical terminology on the little study index cards i made, he would just sound it out and relentlessly quiz me almost every day so that i could get those 100 percents on my tests and final exams....and although i already received my diploma showing i completed something (finally for the first time in my life!) i will walk across the stage in a few weeks and (to me) "earn my stripes"...and you know what? i dont want toxicity in my life anymore. i dont want to be a bad person anymore, i dont want drama and i dont want it anymore....so i made the decision that i have made plenty of times before, but today i made the promise to myself and my daughter and my husband and our FAMILY that i will get better and we will succeed. in order to do that i have to leave the toxicity behind, and alot of you know that a large piece of toxicity is a family member who controls me in so many ways....so i called my brother and informed him of my decision and he decided he wanted to scream at me, so now he too is cut out of my life. i will not allow the negativity anymore...i just wont allow it. so now the guest list to my college graduation is down to my dad who i also spoke to and listened to what he had to say, anthony and mackenzie. i am still awaiting confirmation from pastor kate, who although she is exiting my life (more on that in another post, im too exhausted for that right now, but God is calling her life to take a path that means she will no longer be our pastor next year)....so thats that. whats your take????

Tina