When I talk to other mothers I frequently hear that one or more of their children strongly prefers daddy. Often to the point where mom is refused–sometimes with venom. I listen to these stories and think, “Huh. How did that happen?”

My kids have had individual minutes where they want their dad more than me. They are thrilled when they get to spend a day with him. But they want me there. Always me. Mommy mommy mommy. We are the all-mommy-all-the-time channel. Sometimes I feel a weird mixture of pride and pain. Am I fucking my kids up? Am I too naked in my desperation for their love so they can’t feel safe stating a preference for their father? Do I not allow him enough time with them? And yet there is a part of me that feels so very relieved that at least for a few years of my life I get to find out what it feels like to be cherished and adored. I am the favorite. I am Noah’s favorite. I am Shanna’s favorite. I am Calli’s favorite. And my heart explodes with joy.

I adamantly refuse to pick a favorite. I say Noah is my favorite boy and I can’t pick a favorite girl because they are each wonderful in different ways and I couldn’t do without either of them. I need the whole set. NEED NEED the whole set. All of them. I don’t have a single favorite.

I need to be part of this team. I need to have a group where I actually feel wanted and included and like I am important. I need this so much.

Sometimes I feel a little sad that maybe my kids know that I need them and I am going to damage them because that is too much pressure.

I counter my fierce need with telling them that they have to live their own lives and have adventures without me–just come back and tell me stories. I will probably always be the most appreciative audience you ever have.

You really and truly know how I feel about you. I don’t hold back. I tell you how I really feel. When I have a problem with my children’s behavior I am very specific “I love you but right now I’m really upset that you are doing _____. I don’t think it is a good idea because ______.” Sometimes the because is “I am on my last nerve and I’m about to start screaming and not be able to stop–seriously you need to stop making that noise.”

I tell my kids a lot that dealing with people is weird. Everyone has a long list of little ways they need to be accommodated and depending on how good of support they have from people in their life, they may not even know they are getting the accommodation. They might have no idea that they are really weird and the way they want to be treated is downright odd. The people who know them are used to it and don’t question it so for them it is normal.

I can be hard to live with. I have a lot of rules. I have a lot of preferences and nit picky crap I care about way too much. The best I can say is I’m sorry, but at least I can tell you the details about what I want instead of just exploding with inarticulate rage. I’ve lived with that and it sucks.

More than 70% of parents think it is ok to spank. I think that if I have to hit my kids I have failed to teach them. Hitting is a mark of *my* failure–not theirs. First I failed to teach in the first place. Then I went on to fail in modeling how to fix mistakes. When you hit your child you teach them that the right thing to happen when they make a mistake is the person they love most in the world should hurt them.

Nope. Not in my house. No matter how nutty they drive me. I worry about the screaming though. I haven’t been documenting it lately because I haven’t been typing. My arms hurt quite a bit. The screaming hasn’t been daily or even weekly. Not super nasty, either. But I’ve threatened too much in the last few weeks.

I don’t want to be that kind of person. I think it is chicken shit to do it and then apologize and act like that makes it all ok. It doesn’t.

I’m kind of glad that I get to go through a famine period of not spending money. Staying home sounds like a smart idea. We need to get used to each other again. We’ve been spending a lot of time out in the world bouncing off other people and their boundaries. It makes it harder for the kids and I to really see one another. We are all constantly changing. If we stop staring we miss important stuff.

I always thought I would change less quickly once I became an adult. Not so much.

I go through periods of screaming when I’ve been running (metaphorically) too hard and too long and I have no more patience left. I’m not being proactive enough about limiting my activities. I have such a hard time telling people no. If someone wants a relationship with me the answer is yes. But I don’t actually have time.

This is why we aren’t poly. I don’t have any energy going spare. Sure, I have needs like crazy. I don’t have any energy to give. And every outside relationship requires energy. I would have to steal it away from other parts of my life: Noah, the kids, writing, gardening, etc.

I don’t want to waste all of the energy of my life pursuing people to fuck. I’ve done that. Lots of it. I’ve fucked orders of magnitude more people than most ever do in a lifetime. Meh. It was alright. It was fun while I was doing it. I don’t regret it. I can foresee futures where such behavior could be appealing again. But right now it would be theft and it would be destructive to the three relationships I care the most about.

It is pragmatic and self-serving. But man any time I go somewhere alone I manage to find a likely target. Hunting is so innate. And I know which smiles are likely to be followed up on. It took being told no a few hundred times to learn which smile means, “Ask.” I’m feeling antsy. I miss feeling exciting.

I feel like a work horse and I miss being a race horse. I used to pull chariots; sometimes literally while doing pony play.

I get random flashes of memories of things I’ve done sometimes. Like when I’m out running I will notice that I’m moving through my *ahem* paces. I usually laugh at myself and try to consciously get back to more of a “running” gate. I’m not entering any pony competitions any year soon here. Doesn’t matter if my trot is fine.

Sometimes it feels very weird to look at this vanilla, monogamous life and think “What in the hell made me think I want this?!”

I’m having trouble sleeping. I’ve had a lot of time to think and I haven’t been typing lately. Lots of thoughts churning.

I do want this, though. I want this so much that I stop every day to specifically be grateful for what I have. I have Noah and Shanna and Calli. And they all love me. I get to be their favorite, at least for now. I understand that someday Shanna and Calli will go find somebody to snuggle who is uhm more snuggly with them than I am. (I have boundaries around snuggling with them. Whoo boy.) I get this precious time.

The home school tea party for today was cancelled due to low attendance. I’m not up for putting together a big party for three kids who aren’t mine. We will try again on another date/time to see if we can make it actually work. I will figure something out for the Friday Funhouse tonight. It’ll work out..

The girls are watching Harry Potter 2. I won’t let them watch 3 yet. Honestly I don’t think I will let them watch more movies in the series until they have read the books. Incentive. I sorta wonder sometime when Shanna will decide to read. I try not to harp on it but she probably notices that I have feelings. She’s like that. She notices me.

Today on the bike ride she yelled at me not to hover. So I rode on side streets and added loops to give her time to do each block before I watched her carefully check both ways before crossing the street. I didn’t stand near her though. She wanted space and she was being careful.

This growing apart business is hard. But learning how to do this is what we are doing right now. Gotta just do it.