Has it really been almost a year since I've wrote on this blog? I know that I posted my farewell to the Atascadero Fire Department back in March, but the last post before that occurred all the way back to last summer...yikes! So this is how blogs just fade away... Life is busy. Between all the duties that come along with being a wife and a mom, as well as my responsibilities outside of the home, I'm just exhausted at the end of the day. And truth be told, being a mother these days has not been fun, so I really haven't wanted to write about it. Benjamin is hard. Really hard. As in, I usually cry at least a few times a week, if not daily, from sheer frustration with him. You've heard of the term "strong willed child?" Ben could be the poster child for that book. The two of us are so much alike. We both fight for control and power and we do it poorly, in the form of threats, screams, and hands thrown up in exasperation. On one particular night, the defian
He took a box to work today. When I asked what for, he said, “So I can clean out my locker.” Oh. That . The next day, we stopped by the station to visit. “Hey, Benjamin, I’ve got a job for you! Come help me clean the engine,” the engineer called to our oldest child. As Ben helped Jason hose the fire engine down, the one his daddy has driven his entire career, I snapped a picture with my phone thinking “This is the last time he will get to do this here.” “I turned in my resignation letter today,” he quietly told me later, as the boys played in the ladder truck. I looked at my husband, watching for signs of sadness, regret, hoping he didn’t see it in my own eyes. Only one of us can mourn at a time, in order to boost the other up. We are a team, so I try to keep my heartache in check until I can read my husband’s emotions. He always gets first dibs, considering that it is he that is leaving a job of fourteen years, not me. At his going-away party last weekend, I was overwhelmed wit