Stalker? Nah

The neighbor boy called me a stalker.  Makes you wonder what he is doing that he is worried about.  When I make my laps around the complex I see him all the time.  Can't be helped.  And I'm not going to look away just because it makes him nervous.  He is all of 11 years-old or so.  I think it is funny.  Unless he is truly doing something wrong like hitting a car with a baseball bat...I'm not observant enough to see it.
I try to be aware of people who aren't usual in the complex.  I always watch who is playing with my kids.  I watch my kids.  I pay a little attention to the big kids because the little kids think the big kids are so cool.  So far I haven't see anything that gets me up in arms except for Molly.  And she has every one up in arms.  Mostly the big kids are pretty tolerant of the little kids.
I try to always pay attention to where Josh is.  I like it best when he is holed up in his apartment.  And yes I see a lot of what he does and don't particularly care for it. But I just roll with it.  As long as he leaves me alone, I leave him alone.
So if the neighbor kid feels stalked I guess he will have to suck it up.  Nothing is changing until we move.

Wheels

Both of Connor's bikes are now without training wheels.  He had been riding Hunter's big boy bike without.  Hunter's seat was positioned for Hunter who is 10 years-old.  So Connor can ride his own bike much easier.
Then I repositioned the one training wheel on Audrie's bike to just off the ground and did the same to the one that was even with the ground.  So now she will have to start using some balancing.  I think she is ready, but she isn't so sure.  She did tell me she had dreamed she rode without training wheels.
I was pleasantly surprised that all the nuts used standard tools.  Didn't need John this time.  :P

Nighttime Walks

We have hit a couple of warm days.  Not outrageously hot, but warm and a little humid.  So we have done a couple of nighttime walks.  Yesterday was suppose to be a jammie walk, but then the littles opted to get dressed after their bath.  Then neither one wanted to walk.  They wanted to ride their bikes.  Made for a more productive walk for me.
Tonight they took their bikes and we went further.  Getting them ready for our bike rides on the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail.
I think tomorrow we take the training wheels off Connor's big boy bike and maybe we try Audrie and see if she is ready to attempt it.  She is only using one training wheel anyway.

Love of a House

I know no one but Dave and I love this house and this property.  We chose the house and I picked every thing about it.  Dave made his preferences known in the garage by being larger and having a drive thru door in the back.  I picked almost all of the landscaping and he made the rock wall that you can't see below the house through the grass and weeds.  He did the maintaining of the yard and did a wonderful job.
And then I moved and then he got sick.  The yard didn't get it's usual fall clean up.  And then Dave died and now the yard doesn't get anything.  It has been mowed twice earlier in the season.  It is so not loved and obviously not even taken care of minimally.  Amazingly enough no one has bothered it because even a chain across the driveway doesn't stop anyone from driving on up.
It should have been sold months ago to someone new who would love it as much as we did.  Someone who maybe would yank all the landscaping out and start over.  Wouldn't matter.  It would still be loved.

Broken Hearts

Had to take my mom to the pharmacy at Kaiser to pick up a prescription.  When we pulled up both kids got very excited.  They thought they were going to get to see Papa.  We had spent a lot of time at the doctor office and the lab  and the pharmacy with Papa.  So they associate the doctor office with him. Broke my heart and then their hearts were broken when they realized they weren't going to get to see Papa.
The smallest were definitely the most impacted by his death.  So again we talked about how much we miss him and have him in our hearts.  And obviously our hearts are still very much broken.

Mowing Wonder

Past time to mow Betty's yard again.  Managed to make all the stars align so it could be done.  Got about 2/3 of the way done and the mower overheated.  I had never even seen a riding lawn mower with a radiator before.  Turns out I didn't do anything to it.  It had done it before the last time Betty drove it.  Whew.  I thought my jinx of breaking lawn mowers was back again.

Hindsight

Dave and I had a pretty good life.  Even with all the ups and downs.  We loved each other.  And I have said time and time again if I had to go back and do my life over I would still choose him. And I would because I have never met another man like him in all the good ways.  And we take the bad with the good.
That said however.....if I knew then what I know now....things I would have done differently.  I would not have been so keen on his idea of getting custody of his children.  He was concerned about them and wanted them with him.  And circumstances presented themselves for it to happen.  So we did that.  That meant I was a full time parent of two school aged kids and all that entails. And we gave it all we had.  We went to soccer games and ballet lessons.  We did boy scouts and bluebirds.  We had family vacations and camping trips.  We did all those things that families do..
I had been warned before I got married to never marry a person with children and an ex-spouse.  Obviously I had not heeded that advice.  Living it I understood where it came from.  At the time I thought Joyce was making my life hard.  Hindsight said she really wasn't.  Well maybe a little sometimes, but not bad.  She could have been much worse.  My own attitudes colored a lot of what happened and was said.  And don't forget children learn early early (like 18 months) how to manipulate and they did. It is much easier to play parents off one another when they don't like each other.  One child kept that up into her 30's and didn't like it when her parents no longer disliked each other.
The thing about parenting that you learn when you actually do parenting is that we all do the best we can. Some are better than others but no one is perfect.  Most people don't set out to hurt or damage their children.  And bad things that happen are not your parents' fault if they didn't do it themselves.  Sometimes we all make choices that put someone in our lives that are not stellar.  I notice that all those non-stellar people from Joyce's life aren't there anymore. That says that she made better choices along the way.  Most of us learn as we go.  We do the best we can.
I have come a long way on my thinking of Joyce.  Way past the jealousy and anger that is associated with the first wife of the man you marry.  Hindsight says she would have done okay had she retained custody of her children.  Not perfect.  I was interjected into the mix and I certainly am not perfect.  I did the best I could as a stepparent with no authority.
I don't regret the life I had, but honestly I would not have put the effort, time and love into relationships that weren't what they seemed.  Although I am still pretty sure that the resentments that appeared were not there when we were all young.  I'm pretty sure they came when the children were adults.  It is much easier to blame the life choices and consequences on someone else and I make a pretty good scapegoat sometimes.  And that's all right.  As I say....karma baby.