I'm sitting here staring at a blinking cursor. There are a million things I want to post about...Evany's three month pictures, the new toy storage system we're putting into play, a funny post about how I accidentally make up words on twitter when I don't pay attention when I'm typing.

But I can't.

Because all I can think about , all I can write about, is the fact that around 9:15 tomorrow morning, some random judge will declare my marriage over. He'll put his signature on a piece of paper that lists our marriage in cold, hard, black and white facts, and then, just like that...

I'll be divorced.

I have almost exactly twelve hours of my marriage left.

My stomach is tied up in knots. I have been emotional all day. Last night John had a tough night with the kids and I felt like he was being short with me, as though it was my fault they weren't behaving. When he got ready to leave, I asked if he realized that the next time we saw each other, we wouldn't be married anymore.

He said it wouldn't change anything between us, but that he wasn't happy about it, that it sucked, but that it was still going to happen, and then he took the trash out.

And I cried.

It was somehow incredibly ironic that the last thing my husband was going to do for me as my husband was take out the trash.

Then, today, he texted me to see how the kids and I were doing, and right after that, I got a text saying that he bought a new trash can for me. A big 50 gallon one, with wheels and a lid.

Which is pretty exciting, since some of you may remember that someone stole our trash can a while back and I've just been putting the bags out and animals have been wreaking havoc and the neighbor lady yelled at me for creating a health hazard and she made me cry.

So I was pretty stoked. And he said he'd bring it tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when we won't be married anymore.

How can our marriage be over? He just bought me a trash can. Which with the week I've had, is kind of amazingly romantic. Yes, I find trash cans romantic. Because there is something wrong with me.

This must be some kind of mix up. I was positive that at some point, one of would say "Psych! Just kidding! Of course we're not getting divorced. That would be the craziest thing ever."

But no one did.

God, this sucks.

Strong? Not so much.

So I'm going to tell you why it bugs me a little when people tell me how I'm so strong or they don't know how I do it. You know, the whole alone with four kids thing. The whole holding your baby in your arms after he's gone. The whole talking talking talking talking nonstop all day every day to get words to your deaf toddler so he can stay on track, because even with implants, other kids who hear and learn more easily, more naturally than he does.

I'll tell you the big secret...you just do it. 

What are the other options? I didn't ask to be strong...I'd love to be in a position where I could be more dependent and let someone else take care of everything. And yet those aren't the cards I was dealt. It's been hard, the last few years, trying to come to terms with why Eli died. It's been hard, wondering if it's my fault that he's gone, my fault that Seth's deaf. It's been hard wondering how much of John leaving was my fault. It's been hard wondering, wanting to cry all the time or sleep the days away. It's been hard, wanting to be selfish but not being able to. 

There was a night after John left...our wedding anniversary, when I had to see him. I called him, and it went to voicemail. I called again. Same result. I called again and again and again, and each time I heard his voicemail pick up, I got a little more desperate and I found myself gasping for air. Every time I heard his voice, bright and cheery, on the phone line, I fell apart a little more. 

I probably called him seventeen times, leaving messages, telling him I needed him, needed to talk to him, that we had to see each other. This was less than forty eight hours after I'd found out about her, after my best friend and I had sat in my living room flipping through page after page of phone records I had never bothered to check, seeing a number I'd never seen over and over.  Somehow I knew what I would hear when I picked up the phone, hands shaking, and called it myself. Voicemail. Young, bright. Phone calls in the morning. In the middle of the day. In the middle of the night. Calls. I felt like the biggest fool in the world. 

And two days later I was dialing his number desperately, thinking if I could see him we could fix it. But he never answered, and all at once, I was completely overwhelmed. I left him messages saying that I didn't want to hurt myself, but I was afraid that I might, because I couldn't do this. I didn't know how to do life when the man I was married to wouldn't even answer my calls. I didn't want to be alive anymore feeling like that. In the midst of it I managed to call my best friends and neighbors and in moments they were there, on either side of me, while I rocked back and forth on the floor and cried big, ugly, heaving sobs mixed with a healthy dose of panic and Tommy literally held me down on one side praying continuously over me while Mara sat with her arm around me on the opposite side. 

It was what you might call a break down of sorts, a breakdown that left me literally lying broken on my floor, wondering how I could possibly survive losing one more thing I loved, survive being pregnant and alone.

Tommy got ahold of John that night, and he did eventually show up. He told me later that after he listened to my messages he was convinced he would show up to find me dead on the floor. Of course, that didn't stop him from trying to put me back together with figurative bandaids, telling me whatever I wanted to hear, and taking off as soon as possible. 

I came closer that night to losing myself than I ever have before or since. Losing my husband has been, in many ways, worse than losing my son, because I do it all over again every day, every time I see him. That night, though, I literally thought I couldn't survive. 

And yet. 

Morning came, and Seth woke up, and Ava and Jace came shuffling out of their room. I fed them cereal. We played on the same floor I had lost control on the night before. We put on clothes, we went to the park. 

We went on. 

But it wasn't because I was strong, it was because it was what I had to do. Because when it came down to it, no matter how hopeless I felt, I would never take hope away from them, I would never take their life as they knew it away from them. I would never take me, the mom they're stuck with for better or worse, away from them.  

That doesn't make me a perfect mom. I'm a typical mom, a mom who is subpar lots of days, who yells more than I want to. I always forget to put notes in the kids lunches and most days you'll find us all eating frozen waffles as we rush out the door, fifteen minutes late. I will never be the mom who has it all together, polished and perfect, but I will be the mom who tries her hardest to keep her family together. 

That's why, eight months after that night I laid on my floor wishing I could die, I am instead writing you this. Even when it feels like the night will never be over, the morning does come. And when it does, there will be hugs and parks and cereal. There will be people who show up with meals so that you can think about one less thing, people who wrap their arms around you and tell you they love you, and then, because they know you're not hearing them, they tell you again and again until you do. They will be God with skin on, little tiny rays of sunshine slicing through the darkness when you least expect them, reminding you that life is still out there, if you can just bring yourself to live it. 

So you do, because what else are you supposed to do, really?

Finally some sun...

So finally, the sun came out after weeks and weeks of feeling like we'd been transplanted to some other state.

So we had to celebrate, right? The kids and I packed up and headed out to Busch Gardens.

At first, it looked like we'd made a big mistake.

Luckily after the kids saw this Lion they cheered up. Ava said whoever made it was very talented.

Thank goodness we borrowed this leash for Seth (something that, for the record) I said I'd never use), because he wanted nothing to do with the stroller. At all. So we traveled at about 1 mile per hour.

We headed up to see Katonga, our favorite show, and everyone kept flipping out about the fact that I had all four kids out by myself. I guess we should lock ourselves in the house for a couple of years or something.

I left my phone in the theater, which was unfortunate, and it took an hour of shenanigans to get it back. Ava ended up laying on the ground on her stomach because she was starving to death while we waited for someone who knew what they were doing. It took a while.

Speaking of my phone, all these pictures were taken on it. We were traveling light, not even a diaper bag. Well, as light as you can with four kids.

We did have a pretty hefty supply of granola bars with us, which Seth basically devoured. But Katonga was amazing. Even Vivi watched it and Seth applauded continuously through the whole thing, so I think he was a fan. Ava and Jace were on the edges of their seats and they were seeing it for the 100th time.

We got to see some doo wop band perform, and Jace couldn't stop dancing. He kept yelling out "I just can't stop, I have to dance! The music rocks!" Then they ran around telling each other "Now sing Row Row Row Your Boat like a rock song, GO! Okay, now do Hey Diddle Diddle!"

Seth was a pretty happy camper, too. You can't get much cuter than this kid. He's kind of painfully cute. He was a pretty big fan of the animals. He barked at the lions like they were dogs.

Evany, however, kind of slept through the trip. Or screamed. One or the other, Screaming, sleeping, it's what she does.

When I think about it, we didn't do much but wander around. We didn't ride a single ride. We just shuffled around and got in people's way and made up silly names for all the animals who, strangely enough, were all friends of Ava's.

I got to meet Who Who the Monkey, Liger the Tiger, and DaisyCakes the Flamingo. They were all close personal friends.

The best part was that I went out of my way not to rush them, to let them do what they wanted, to say yes to everything they asked to do. They thought they had died and gone to heaven. Ava said "Mom! Thanks SO much for bringing us here!"

If you'd told me a few years back I would venture out to a theme park on a Saturday with four kids by myself, I would have laughed at you. And yet we did it. We stayed all day, until the park closed, and then I drove four passed out kids home and had to carry every single one of them into the house. Then I passed out myself.

And it was a good day.

Ten Years?!

So you know how I threw in at the end of my last post that little comment about my ten year reunion coming up?

I feel a little annoyed by it. I've been looking forward to my ten year reunion for, well, years.

John and I would walk in, looking all great and stuff, and we'd flash pictures of our kids when people asked, smile and laugh knowingly as comparatively seasoned parents and spouses in my class (lots of people just got married in the last couple years) and I would finally not be that girl I was in high school...the one who felt insecure and gangly and shy and super loud to cover up being shy. The one who was always looking around to see what was happening next and forgetting to enjoy anything that was actually going on.

This reunion was supposed to be a celebration of how many things I'd accomplished in ten years. Marriage, a family, kids. In high school you always think that by your ten year reunion you'll have made it, whatever "making it" is in your head...career, family, back packing through Europe...I'm sure it's different for everyone.

I just didn't think that I would achieve everything I'd wanted and then lose it within those ten years.

Selfishly, when I'm feeling super self absorbed, I wish I could have had my ten year reunion either before John left or after I'd figured out my life again. I feel all discombobulated, like if someone asked me what I've been up to I'll spill every detail in thirty seconds and leave them wishing they could escape and me wishing there was a hole in the floor I could disappear into.

I guess the only upside is that lots of people I went to school with read this blog, so they probably already know all details of this life I did not plan for. My life is like a huge "Don't let this happen to you" public service announcement. It's still not super fun to relive over and over.

On the other hand, I know I'd have fun. I'm what you might call a social person, so I would probably end up having a blast. But...goodness, how corny to go to your high school reunion single. Maybe I should hire a date like in that one movie with Amanda Peet. I think it was with Amanda Peet. Although I guess if I was going to do that I probably shouldn't have blogged about it.

So spill, friends. What reunions have you been to, and have they been what you expected? Better? Worse? Did anyone make a fool of themselves? Dish.

You'll be dumber for reading this

So I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone the other night and they said "I think you have the weirdest stories I've ever heard."

Um, thanks.

But then I started thinking about it, and...it's kind of true. Or maybe I just tell them in a colorful way. I don't know, but the other day I was driving down the road and I was momentarily completely convinced that I was in my own version of The Truman Show and if I kept driving outside my normal circuit I would run straight into a wall with a fake sky painted on it.

In all actuality, I do know that there is no fake world revolving around me...the crazy stuff that happens to me just makes me question that sometimes. This week has been intense. Frustrating. Funny.

I do know that I'm staring at Evany's skinny-but-getting-chubbier-by-the-day legs all curled up in her bouncy seat, the blue cloth diaper that she's wearing for the very first time, her hands folded together as she sleeps, the weird faces she's making in her sleep...and that she feels larger than life to me.

For anyone who was wondering, John didn't get mad at me for last night's post. Progress! I was all forward thinking and I texted him about it before I even posted and for once he didn't even care. So now I guess I don't have to stress so much about it. That feels good.

If you haven't picked up on it yet, this post is about nothing at all, really. My brain is too fried to put together a coherent intelligent post so I'm just typing. Seth grabbed a diaper tonight and brought it to me, then he took off his pants and laid down on the floor. When I didn't immediately change his diaper he started yelling at me.

You could say he's a little spoiled.

I'm eating cake right now and as cake goes, it's not great. But it is cake, so...I'm eating it. I've been going to the gym again and for the first time I'm at a gym with boys and man you would think I was a twelve year old who'd never seen a guy. I'm super self conscious. I miss my girl's gym. They didn't care how I looked. Plus all the machines are in the wrong place. They should let me rearrange it all the way I want it.

I just got skpe set up because my new computer has a webcam. This is super exciting to me because my cousin is in Brazil for six months and she's one of Seth's godmothers...now we can see each other! Plus she's super sarcastic like me and I miss talking to her. Like a lot. A lot a lot.

So there was this American Girl party tonight at the library and I didn't sign Ava up because I didn't think she'd care. But they talked about it at school and she was heartbroken when I told her she couldn't go. So heartbroken she cried and cried even though her American Girl Doll has been in a garbage bag in the bathroom for like, three months because she won't keep her room clean.

Speaking of Ava, John asked what she wanted because he was picking up dinner for us at the restaurant he works at. I asked her what she wanted and she got all excited. "Mom, they have the best quesadillas! The cheese is amazing! It's this bright yellow color and it oozes out of the tortilla and there's all kinds of other stuff in there. I love them!" So given the glowing review, I assumed that she wanted a quesadilla. But when I asked her that, she just gave me this blank stare and said "No, I don't want a quesadilla. I was just telling you about them. What made you think I wanted one?"

Also, my ten year high school reunion is coming up. How crazy is that?

Aaand now I'm going to go watch Days of Our Lives.

Who wants a pedicure?

So right after I promised you guys I wouldn't disappear on you again, what did I go and do?

Disappear. 

I know, right? Super annoying. 

The truth is, I've just been down. Ish. Not sad, exactly, but frustrated. Kind of ticked. It's March, and I'm sad and I'm remembering New York last year and how much fun I  had there with my family, and that made me think of the phone records I have showing that John talked to his current girlfriend several times on Eli's birthday last year, in New York. On our family vacation. Which kind of ruins my memories of the whole trip, and then I catch myself wondering when he talked to her, what he told me he was doing when he snuck away to speak to her. Kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth, and no matter how well I am doing today, I still hate that his birthday was tainted that way. 

I was reading a friend's blog, one I haven't been able to catch up on in a while, and it turns out she is going through a divorce, too. I was totally sucked in and reading and feeling terrible for not knowing, and as I read the thing that hit me the hardest and made me strangely jealous is that she very openly writes about how she feels and the marriage and the divorce and it seems to help her.

I'm guessing her ex-husband and his girlfriend don't read her blog on a daily basis. Okay, I don't think her ex has a girlfriend, but still. Just saying. It's pretty awesome that she can actually write whatever she wants. When I write about anything pertaining to...well, pretty much anything, I have to write knowing that every word I say is going to be picked apart and read into and then complained about, not to mention the fact that it's always, always misunderstood. 

Last week I got questioned because in my post about Haiti I referred to John as my husband. One freaking sentence in a post that was about much bigger things, and that's what got latched onto. A lot of times, as much as I'd like to share what I'm actually feeling or thinking I don't do it in the way I want to because it seriously messes with my head that someone who is sleeping with my husband insists on reading what I write. 

Oops. That's not going to go over well. 

But seriously. 

On the one hand, I'm mad at myself for letting it get to me enough to water down my posts. On the other hand, it boggles my mind that someone would want to read the blog of their boyfriend's not quite ex wife and who has the audacity to get offended when the people who comment on that blog don't think she's awesome. 

I'm probably so up in arms because when I get mad at John, I tell him. We talk through it. We've worked through an insane amount of issues in the past eight months, and I'm not mad at him anymore. I'm disappointed in him, I'm frustrated with him. But this girl, I've never met her aside from one email exchange and I am mad at her. I'm mad at her, yet I feel sorry for her, both in equal measure. I can say without a doubt that every time I have prayed for John since the day he left I have also prayed for this girl. 

Because the thing is I think that everyone is redeemable. I think everyone deserves a second chance, no matter how hard it might be to forgive them and try again. Just like I believed so strongly that John and I could rebuild our marriage and make it something better and fuller than it was before,  for ourselves and our kids, I actually believe this girl deserves a chance to be someone who didn't help end a marriage and a family, someone who gets the privilege of being with a man who is doing everything with her for the first time, who is going to be as into weddings and morning sickness and babies as she is She deserves to be with someone she won't have to second guess, who she won't always think could be cheating on her. She's just starting her life...she's the same age I was when I married John, and when I think of how young I really was then, despite how much I thought I knew...

It's just sad. For all of us.  Me, John, her, her ex fiance. All four kids. Our families. We can move on, survive, maybe even thrive, but it won't change the fact that this shouldn't be happening, that there was a better solution for every one of us in this situation and no one was strong or brave enough to follow through on it. 

My friends just went to the Focus on the Family marriage conference, and someone, Jen I think, quoted that every marriage has an ebb and flow, and that getting divorced during a hard time is like cutting off your foot because you have a hangnail. 

And no matter how much I recover, how much I know that I may very well be better off, at my core I still believe that we're cutting off our foot instead of going for a pedicure.

Say Hi for me

So today my kids didn't cut anything up.

That pretty much made it a good day right there.

And I found out it'll be relatively cheap to get Baby Finn rewigged.

So that made it awesome.

It's officially March...and for the first time, a trip to NYC is not on the agenda. I'm wondering if the priest at the Cathedral we visit every year will wonder where we are when we don't show up on his Eli's birthday, or if he'll notice at all. Probably not. Maybe, though. He remembered us last year.

I'm wondering if those benches we sit on every year facing Central Park and eating Starbucks' Perfect Oatmeal will miss us, whether the walls the kids balance and walk on will know we're not there.

Will the restaurant, Landmarc, which we visit every year in Columbus Circle despite it's high prices and fancy long wait just because of their free cotton candy for dessert and the incredible view, realize there is one less stroller parked outside it's front doors?

Will the aliens at Mars 2112 miss a table of screaming kids who won't make it there this year? What about the Dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural history?

Will the doorman at FAO Schwarz miss Ava and Jace trying their hardest to make him laugh?

I wonder if all the corner almond sellers will realize they have an overabundance of nuts in the last weekend in March since I won't be there to buy another bag at each corner? Will the bakery we buy Eli's cupcakes at each year wonder were we are?

Maybe the Statue of Liberty (or Liverty, according to my kids), will realize there are two less kids hanging out the windows of the South Ferry to better see Her face, and maybe it will make her sad.

The portrait artist who has drawn our family three times now...will he miss us? The horses we've fed carrots to and cabbies we have chatted with, will they?

I mean, of course I know that the people and inanimate objects of New York City won't miss us, or even notice were were there to begin with.

But man, will I miss them. In so many ways, Eli is New York to me. I feel closer to him there than anywhere else, and while I know this year will be okay, that we'll find a way to celebrate him, I'll still miss our special spots in New York that exude Eli.

So if you're in New York, say hi for me.