Mom update

About 2 weeks ago I talked to my mother for the first time since I told her I was pregnant in December. Last night I had a dream in which I told her off for being a terrible mother. And this afternoon a friend from middle school sent me a facebook message saying "I was over at *mutual friend's house* and admiring his great challah cover, and he told me your mom had made it for him, so it made me think of you, and was just wondering how you are doing."

 So two weeks ago. My dad called me for his traditional "erev pesach" phone call, and I missed the call but I called him back a few minutes later. We talked for about 20 minutes and then he was like "here's mom" and handed her the phone (kind of like when I called him in December to tell him I was pregnant and he handed her the phone.)  We talked for maybe 15 minutes, mostly about being pregnant. She asked how I was feeling, she told me about how when I was a kid she made me handmade baby food in a food processor, and she said "EWWWW" several times loudly and obnoxiously when I told her about my plans to cloth diaper. She first asked if I was going to send them out to a diaper service, which I'm not- one of the big advantages (for me) of cloth diapering is all the money it saves vs. disposables, but sending them out to a diaper service defeats the purpose.

At one point she was like "I never got any acknowledgement that you got the shalach manot I sent you" and I shot back "Well I never got any acknowledgement about the 3 ultrasound emails I sent you."  First off re: the shalach manot- the address was written in my dad's handwriting, and had a card inside also in my dad's handwriting, so I called my dad to thank him for it. Apparently he didn't pass that on. Re: The ultrasound emails- my mom claims she never got them. She at first was like "you must have sent them to the wrong address" and I confirmed with her on the phone that the email address I had was correct (Which I know it was, because that's the same email she sent me her disowning email from, so it's in my address book).  Then she claims it must have gone to her spam folder, which I don't get, since she has emailed me from that email before, so my email should be in her address book and therefore my emails should not go to spam. So I don't know if she's lying, or if it actually went to her spam folder, or what. I suspect she was just lying, but there's no way to confirm that of course. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Either way I don't feel much better. I've stopped waking up crying about her, but I still had a dream last night where I told her off for not being there for me, telling her (in my dream) that you don't stop being a parent when your kids turn into adults that make different decisions than you, and that I still haven't forgiven her for disowning me and throwing me away like trash, and how could I forgive her when she wants to pretend like it never happened, has never apologized, and makes it seem like some big concession that she's even talking to me, never contacts me or responds to my emails and will only talk to me when my dad puts her on the phone. And where does she get off criticizing my decision to cloth diaper when she isn't exactly winning any awards for parent of the year, especially since she still has made no effort to get to know her son in law and you know, disowned me, didn't come to my wedding, and then didn't talk to me for 4 years.

It was a satisfying dream and I just wish there was some way to actually tell her that stuff in person. But I don't think it would do any good to do that, and don't see how I would go about bringing it up, especially since we never talk about anything real.

Then that old middle school friend emailed me this afternoon and it just made me kinda bitter again, because I know she made that challah cover for that guy for a wedding present, while for her own daughter she didn't get me a wedding present or even come to my wedding because god forbid she not put her religious beliefs above her own daughter. Argh. Still highly doubt my kid will be getting a baby quilt from her, although my dad said if I send them an invite they will do their best to come to the baby shower. But I know, just like with my phd graduation, that will be all him, while my mom will come along because she will be afraid of what my coworkers will think if my dad shows up without her. Cause she cares so much about appearances and what people will think, even people she doesn't know, so will always do the "public appearances" thing (Except at my wedding of course) even though she can't be bothered to actually try to have a relationship with me unless my dad puts her on the phone every 5 or 6 months.

Yeah, so the whole "accepting that my mother is never going to be the mom I want" thing is still a work in progress.  I've accepted it with the rational part of my brain, but the emotional part of my brain is still upset over it.

Pregnancy wise, I'm around 6 months pregnant (almost 25 weeks). I started wearing some maternity clothes last week but still also fit into most of my "Fat" work clothes- I lost around 25 pounds before I got pregnant and have only regained 10, all in my bellies, so most of my fat pants/shirts still fit, although the pants are starting to get a bit tight. Last week I wore one of my new maternity shirts- the ones that are designed to be super tight and show off all the bellies, and one of my coworkers/friends was commenting on how skinny I look from the back when I wear a shirt that tight (especially since I've been wearing my loose/fat clothes for the past few months). I'm still eating fairly healthily, and exercising mostly by gardening. I'm actually eating probably the healthiest I have in my life, since I'm going out of my way to have veggies and fruits every day, and not drinking soda, only water, juice and kefir, and mostly have been avoiding most processed food and junk food.    Although I have been having some chocolate every once in a while too. My daily breakfast is a whole grain bagel with an egg fresh from my coworker's farm - we have a deal where he delivers eggs to our department fridge for me and a few other profs every other week.  For lunch I usually have a giant serving of some kind of fruit and a big greek yogurt with some granola, and I've been eating a lot of salad for dinner along with whatever else I'm eating.

Gardening wise, I planted a blackberry bush (won't get blackberries until next year) and a new blueberry bush to replace the blueberry bush that didn't make it last year, and the other blueberry bush is flowering so hopefully I'll get some blueberries this year! I need to get some netting so birds don't eat all the blueberries.  One asparagus is poking out of the ground right now, and unlike last year when they were mostly matchstick to pencil size, this one is pretty fat- like edible size fat!  But it's only one right now, so I probably won't pick that one- I'm going to wait until a bunch are coming up all at once (which I bet will be in a few weeks) and pick enough for maybe one side dish, and that's all I'm picking this year.  Next year I will get a full harvest though. I also planted a bunch of leaf lettuce and romaine lettuce, which has all come up and I can probably will have enough leaf lettuce to make a whole salad by the end of this week, and my garlic and sugar snap peas are also growing. I planted some wildflowers flowers in pots on the porch which are turning into seedlings.  Also have some basil seedlings growing inside, 4 very small lemons which have been growing on my meyer lemon tree all winter (hoping they will get bigger before they ripen) and my perennial herbs outside- rosemary, sage, mint, oregano, thyme- are all starting to leaf out again (saffron flowers don't bloom until the Fall) along with the strawberry plant I have in a pot.

This weekend I ordered a bunch of creeping phlox (blue) to plant as groundcover out front- we have a big area under the 3 trees we have out front that the prior owners mulched, and last year I planted wildflowers there, but this year it's growing a bunch of weeds (Even though we mulched it with shredded leaves and grass from the lawnmower last fall and again this weekend), so I want to plant some groundcover so that I don't have to keep mulching/picking all the annoying weeds. Creeping phlox is an evergreen groundcover which blooms in the spring.  Here's a picture of one I found on the internet that's half in bloom so you can see the flowers and the groundcover (when it's completely in bloom it's a solid carpet of flowers)



The place I ordered the phlox from is going to send me some free Dahlia bulbs too which I plan to plant outside- those are not hardy in my growing zone (only zones 8-10- I'm in 7) so they will be an annual, although I hear if you deeply mulch them in our zone they sometimes live through the winter.  But I also heard that about the artichoke plant I planted last year and mulched, and that did not survive the winter - I think because we had an exceptionally cold winter this year