Family Fun and Photo Ops: Take Two

Have I told you about my single mom friend? I feel like I sit down and start to blog about her then I get frustrated and have to turn away from my computer.

Brief History (feel free to skip this part): Homegirl and I went to high school together. We were friends, then we weren't friends, then we were kind of friends, then we graduated. I went to college, she threw away a full scholarship to DePaul for a boyfriend who was under house arrest. When she was 20 she had her first daughter, the guy got off house arrest, left her and she was a single mom until she met bachelor #2 who married her, adopted her baby, and joined the army. He went to Iraq, came home went a little nuts, and now they are getting divorced (after the first of the year because it is cheaper or something, which is a whole other story). In the time she was married, she had another little girl (coincidentally enough, born the same day as Abby), so now she is on her own with her two girls. In a million years I would never think that she and I would be in touch at this point in our lives, but we ran into each other at this reunion, and we have been talking ever since.
We have kids in common, and part of a shared history. I see a lot of what my mom struggled with- being a single mother with 2 kids- in her, and I am sympathetic. I can't tell if I enjoy her company- she is kind of white trash, she chain smokes wherever she goes, and I can't really deal with her kids. I try not to comment on other people's parenting, but her kids are unbelievable. Which leads me to.....

So last weekend Tim was in Detroit watching the Bears get beat by the Lions (this was my brilliant idea to send him and his buddy away for the weekend leaving me to have my one woman show run continuously for two weeks- another story for another time). When he is working on the weekend, or away like that I tend to call Homegirl and see if she and her kids want to get together. So I set it up with her to go to the Garfield Park Conservatory last Sunday to check out this mosaic exhibit I wanted to see.
This little excursion was beyond a disaster area. I seriously would have liked to have dental work done rather than deal with what I did. I saw some of the most God awful parenting (or lack of?) from this girl, and it took me 2 days to recover from it. I can't go into details because it just pisses me off. I have a picture that defines the day, but my new version of iPhoto won't let me post it. Just trust me on this that it was awful.

Despite how bad our first visit was, Abby really wanted to "show daddy the lady with the buckets", so we decided to head down there today armed with our experience from last weekend.
Can I tell you it rocked.
Despite the heat, and the weirdness going on with Tim and I, it was quite enjoyable.
I took a ton of pictures, that you really must go see.
You will also see a picture of me with Bridezilla and her groom, and my friend with the fertility issues, as well as some great shots of Nora being Nora and Abby going to a birthday party.
Man my kids are cute.