Movin' on Up...

Well, she's moved out.
I wasn't there for the bulk of the festivities but apparently JJ didn't even try to get angry. He cried a lot and kept trying to hold on to her. I can imagine this scene - my calm sister (who shows evidence of emotion about as often as Bush shows evidence of rational thought) standing there with this huge sobbing man draped around her. She would have this sense of distance, this air of mere tolerance. Both moms and both dads and our brother just moving stuff out - the relationship repo-men. But both moms are tough women who have left bad relationships and I am frankly surprised that they didn't laugh at him or take him out. ("Well, he should have thought about 'sorry' before he treated her like crap consistently for three years"). The dads were just moving stuff, hoping to get tired enough to not take turns beating the crap out of him. ("Yeah, I bet he's sorry. Sorry he's losing his meal ticket").

I went over to the new place after my book club and helped move stuff in. They had to go back for one more load and the husband, in his quiet way, pulled me aside and said that neither of us needed to be anywhere near JJ. That we had responsibilities to ourselves and our child. He was really afraid that the sad from the first visit might have transformed to anger by the second. Also, he was worried that there might be anger later on and we shouldn't be associated in his mind with moving her out. I can see his point, but I am her sister. I will be associated with that move in his mind whether I'm there or not. I said, "She's my sister and they really need me to go over there too." He looked at me and said, "Just remember that Bean and I are your immediate family now."

So I went and got the baby and got her to sleep and waited for them to get back.

I got home after 1:00, made sure my alarm was set for 5:15 and went to sleep. And now I am tired. Tired like I'm at a breaking point. And it's only the first week of practicum. And classes haven't even started yet.
Must find time to learn time management and stress coping mechanisms. "Get 'r done" and "Pass the oreos" are probably not the healthiest methods. Oh, and stop going to bed less than 4 hours before I have to be up.

Bean and I went bra shopping. Ack. It was really strange - we found a few and went to the dressing room and my child was uncomfortable taking off her shirt with me in the dressing room. My child who used to run (naked) through the house yelling "Naked Baby!!" My child - who I MADE, whose body was part of mine. She didn't say anything but I could see her looking around at the mirrors, trying to figure out how to be modest. I looked at her and said, "I'll take them off the hanger and you put them on and once they're on I'll help you adjust them." As I adjusted the first one - and I didn't look until she said "okay" - I said that I remembered the first time I was shy in front of my mom, and that it was ok. Of course I remember. And my mom is a nurse - a body is just a body to her.
So we found a bra she could live with (gotta love Target, y'all) and then she asked if she could look at the toys.
She wants a Cabbage Patch Kid for her birthday.
(sigh)
This is the part that kills me... she is a full on "tween" - really too old for baby dolls but really too young for YM magazine (do they still publish YM?). I had a subscription to YM until I was thirteen, then Seventeen until I was seventeen and then Cosmo until I realized that it was a load of crap - sometime during my second year in college. (I still occasionally succumb to the numbing glossiness in the pages of Cosmo - but is anyone else tired of "The Top Ten New Sexual Positions for Great Orgasms Every Time" being a huge disappointment, not because they don't work, but because there is nothing *new* about them?) Is there still value in these kinds of magazines?? For me they were good for makeup tips and also proof that I wasn't a freak of nature. Articles on things like pimples and boys and "My Most embarrassing Day Ever" were comforting to me because I knew they wouldn't print them if the only people who had issues like them were not-skinny girls from the Midwest. Maybe I'll go to Barnes and Noble and check out the magazines there. Yup, in all of my free time I'll go hang out in a bookstore. (Stop it, my sides are hurting).

Time to work now. (I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep).
I am seriously going to bed tonight at 8.
Seriously.