Family. That is what holidays have traditionally been about. Father helps children celebrate Mother's Day by purchasing a card or two, flowers, a gift.

Maybe he helps your son and daughter prepare a breakfast complete with your favorite French toast, bacon, and eggs.

Today, moving beyond divorce, holidays have changed. This Mother's Day begins with getting out of bed and feeding the cat and the six little kittens now crying for their kitty food, walking the dog, making my bed, starting another load of endless laundry, and watching the weather channel. I watch the weather channel the way some people listen to the news or radio.

I turn the oven on to broil and I grab some Lenders bagels out of the fridge and split them with my fingers. I place them on my mother's 50-year-old pizza pan and slide the pan into the oven. I wait.

I open the fridge to look for my caffeine fix of sweet tea, and the pitcher is empty of anything except a single swallow. I grab my second choice, the kids' Pepsi. I turn and kick the door shut with my right foot. I pull the bagels out of the oven. I yell, "Breakfast!"

Happy Mother's Day to me.

There is no answer. I yell again, "Breakfast!"

I hear shuffling and laughter.

"Mom!"

"What?" I say. "Breakfast!" My frustration and self pity increasing.

My daughter calls me to her room. I stomp back to the hall muttering to myself about ungrateful children and my life without a spouse and no support, and then I open the bedroom door.

Her eyes wide and sparkling. My son stands beside her barely able to contain his laughter.

They pull their hands out from behind their back. She extends a large pink construction paper creation in front of me with pink paper roses glued to it. She has made a card. It is beautiful. My son has made me three Lego puppies.

Since the divorce (two and a half years ago) and in the last year, I have discovered something quite wonderful. It is that each and everything that we do is important. So, consequently, I am no longer in a rush. Seems I spent 12 years rushing, rushing, rushing to please, to prepare, to arrive on time, to make sure "they" were on time, to get things done. And it nearly killed me.

Today, I take pleasure in the smallest of things. I simply look at the job at hand and begin. I cut linings for my friend's drawers today. I did not over think it. I did not look at all the drawers and think, "Oh, my God, there are so many of them."

She gave me the assignment, and I poured myself into it. I sat in the sun at my "work" station, which was a bench on her deck. I sat on a cooler with wheels, and I had a razor blade and a block of wood, an ink pen and a tape measure to complete my work.

I sat and drank a Smirnoff lemonade thing and began the task at hand. I did not care if there were rolls and rolls of this shelf liner that needed to be measured and cut and that the dimensions had to be 19 ¼ for some and 8 ¾ for others. I spread the material and measured and marked and cut using a quarter round to hold down the liner. I ran my blade as close to the quarter round as I could, paying attention to the fact that I wanted the edges to be smooth and not ragged.

I accomplished my task.

When the kids spill Pepsi or milk. When my dog gets sick and throws upon my floor or when the kitchen pipe under the sink leaks and I have to stop my current task or effort to relax and must stoop, bend, twist, unscrew, wipe, I do it willingly and almost happily.

I am a grateful Samurai, today. A soldier with Krud Kutter and Lysol as my weapons.

Have you ever planted a garden and followed all the garden etiquette and made sure that the soil was fertilized and softened to encourage the growth of the new seed or tiny seedling? Have you pulled your children out from their warm beds to rush barefooted and still in their PJs to see the first tiny tomato bursting forth before all the others?

What is it to grow a garden? To till the soil and fight the rocky ground and force the it to make something grow from next to nothing?

As I came into the spring of my first year away from my crazy ex, I decided that the children and I must grow a garden. I took them to the farmer's co-op and together we selected our tiny plants that would entrust their miniscule lives to us for the next several months.

We chose Big Boys (I'd heard they were very good tomatoes) and Earlies and Tommie Toes (what we called them when I was a child). We picked peppers and cucumbers and squash. I let my children decide.

Caty and Joe became excited and began to pick flowers and leafy green things that would help make our tiny house a home. And...I let them. \No rational evaluation of what would or would not grow. They picked their flowers and their vegetables and together we took our bounty to the check out stand.

And when the total came to well over a hundred dollars, I paid the bill with a smile on my face. We were putting our hands in rich dirt and fingering green leaves of various plants. And it all felt so good.

In Middle Tennessee, the ground is filled with rocks. We sit on top of limestone, I think, and the first few inches of soil usually yield a dead end in the form of hard, impenetrable bedrock.

Parenting is tough, but parenting alone is nearly impossible. Unfortunately, we can't give up. I mean I guess we could, and obviously some parents do. But the bottom line is that, once divorced, we have to keep on parenting. And it is definitely a job better shared by two.

My daughter flipped out on me. She is almost 13, and she has simply gone over the deep end. What went wrong? Don't know. Hell, she's just a kid. But she has gotten an idea in her head that she's in charge of her life and that I do not have any right to tell her what to do.

How does this happen?

You give and you give and you give of your time, your love, your compassion, your understanding. You try to give them most of what they need and some of what they want. But somehow they still feel deprived. Somehow they are completely convinced that you have ruined their happiness.

Ah, there's the rub.

And how do you change this?

She threw her brother's $400 Wii on the ground (twice) to prove to him what it feels like to lose something you love. In her case, it was DirecTV. But she'd been behaving so badly that I had to take away something for punishment. The following morning she was acting like someone who was demonically possessed and was refusing to go to school. She was practically foaming at the mouth. No, I'm serious.

I can't exactly manhandle her; she's my child. But I did threaten to spank her (something that almost never happens), and eventually I did. I got "the belt" and I popped her a few times. She was still uncooperative, so I called the school and she ended up talking to the counselor. The counselor told her she didn't have to go to school, but would need to return tomorrow.

So the school counselor helped her get what she wanted. And worse, when she went to school the following day, they asked her about her spanking and whether or not she had any marks. Good God!

That seems to be what it's going to be for awhile. It sucks, to go to bat with someone who knows you so well. Someone you've shared your deepest self with, someone who really knows how to push your buttons.

Levi knows me better than most people know me. He knows how I feel about arguments, knows that usually I will avoid them at all costs. I'm the kind of person who can't deal with yelling. I don't know why, but whenever someone starts to raise their voice to me, I just shut down. I can't comprehend what they're saying; it's like I go into "safe" mode. Yelling scares me, so I try to avoid it. Which is why, I think, he's doing so much of it lately.

He also knows how much I love my son. My son, I've said, "is my heart walking around outside of my body." He knows that his threats of taking him away from me, stealing him away from me, are crushing to me.

He also knows that I am inherently a good person (why not toot my own horn here?) and will generally forgive quite easily. I honestly think that it's this knowledge that makes him feel so free to be so selfish. The knowledge that one day, I will probably forgive him, and then he gets what he wants. Levi is the kind of guy that always has his cake and eats it too.

He left me a message earlier. Today's threat was this: "If you continue to take me to court, and I'm ordered to pay, that's all I'll ever do. I'll only pay. I'll never have anything to do with him, EVER."

He's said this before, and it used to really upset me. It doesn't anymore. I've come to the conclusion that his relationship, or lack thereof, with Adrian, is up to him. It's not on me to facilitate that. Do you think I'm right?

In this very sensitive-to-spaying-and-neutering world and in view of all the unwanted dogs and cats in the world, I must beg your forgiveness - I let my cat get pregnant. She wasn't supposed to be in heat, but I shouldn't have let her out. But I did and she is.

But, oh, the sweetness of it all. It is an indulgence that I have let myself experience. In my life of so many losses, I have allowed my cat to grow new lives inside her belly. I have allowed myself to put my hands on her stomach and feel the growing life inside and then as the weeks passed to feel those lives move and kick. One, two, three ... I think I count four.

I have allowed myself to leave work early a few days ago because I sensed that her time was near, and was glad to know I was right as I lifted the tiny lives from my bed (yes, my bed) and the floor and moved them to the box I had carefully prepared for this event. And I gave in to the luxury of the celebration of life and called my best friend to say, "they're here -- they've been born."

And I was delighted when she, too, left her job and rushed to see the new lives that had come to live on Kenneth Avenue with my children and a dog named Brittney, a now mother cat and some sea monkeys.

I sterilized the knife and cut their cords and their birth sacks and helped mama cat adjust as this was a new world for her too, and I smiled as her instincts took over and she cleaned and nursed and settled into her new role as a mother.

They sleep by my bed in their box with a heating pad underneath to keep them extra warm, and I hear the mother gently coo and encourage her new babies to eat and cuddle and finally sleep. I hear her purr. I hear the tiniest of mews coming from the so-very-small mouths of the six new lives that have come into our world.

I went to family court a few days ago and filed a petition for child support. I think they recognize me now, and it's almost embarrassing at this point.  I keep thinking that they're thinking, 'Okay, is she really going to do it this time?'

I have an overwhelming urge to explain to them why it is that I keep backing out.  But I don't. I'm sure they don't care, and I'm sure they see this all the time.

The papers are easy. It's two pages of fill in the blanks: my name, his name, our addresses and Social Security numbers, Adrian's name and birthday, and that's it.

The last page is labeled "Court Information," and it asks pretty much the same questions as the prior two pages, except that it also asks, height, weight, eye and hair color.  I must admit that writing "bald" for Levi's hair color gave me a little laugh.

I just can't believe it's come down to this. I really can't. I mean, I know this sounds nuts, what with all of the other crap that he's pulled, but I somehow still can't get it into my head that Levi is this much of an asshole.

I still can't believe that he doesn't care. But his actions have proven it. This behavior that he's been exhibiting over the last two years is not the Levi that I know, or rather, knew.

This is not somebody I would have ever associated with. I still can't believe that this is the new Levi. I sometimes wonder what exactly is going on in that head of his.

In any case, the papers are filed. I'm more nervous now than I was when I was filing them. I'm sure that he'll receive them in the mail within the next few days, and then, once again, all hell will break loose. I'm going to try my best to be prepared and not to let it affect me this time. 

My brother thinks I'm too lenient with my children. I love him, but he and his wife never had kids. They've been married 28 years. Each has had the same job for nearly 20 years. They live in a home where you can see where the vacuum cleaner made its last stroke.

This is not the real world.

I live in a world filled with a dining table that serves as a place to put everything — bills, toys, drawings, reading glasses, books, clothes. My floor by the front door has a litter of shoes on both sides: tennis shoes, a pair of high heels, sandals, and flip-flops in sizes 7, 8, and 9.

My wooden floors are scuffed.

There is always some sort of sheet covering two of the three cushions of the only new purchase I have made since moving here after Hurricane Katrina — my lovely, comfy couch. The sheet protects my sofa from my dog Brittney's claws and hair and doggy smell, or so I think.

(Oh, and as a matter of reference, the dog came with her name — I rescued her from an abusive 26-year-old male neighbor — and that was the name she'd had for a year and a half.)

We run out of milk. There is often no bread, and we've actually had Edy's Rich & Creamy mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner. Yep. That's the truth.

And when my son got in trouble for threatening to hurt another boy that he's been in and out of fights with since the beginning of school and got two days of suspension, I punished him with five licks, (not in anger), and no supper.

I felt bad for him because I know that the boy in question is a pain in the ass and has been for my son all year. But, my 11-year-old son has to learn to live within the confines of society, and there is a zero tolerance in schools for hitting or threatening to hit.

I am taking Levi back to court for child support. It's been quite awhile since I've talked about this, and truth be told, its been quite awhile since I've felt anywhere near strong enough to deal with this again.

Adrian is now a year and a half old, and Levi has paid practically nothing. I have to say practically nothing because he did send me that two hundred dollars, remember?

Not only has he not contributed financially, he hasn't bought Adrian anything. No clothes, no toys, diapers, car seats, cribs, NOTHING.

I was pursuing him for child support before, but I gave up when he and his family started, and continued, threatening me. Threats like, "I'm going to take him from you." Or, "I'll drag this out so long in court that it will make you crazy." Or, my personal favorite, "We're a very well connected family; keep it up, and you'll wind up in jail wishing you were dead." Right, umm..

Did I just step into an episode of the Sopranos? These people are crazy. I was still far too emotionally involved to realize that before. Now, though, that I'm a year and a half removed from the madness, I can see it for what it is.

The simple fact of the matter is this: I am right, and he (they) are wrong.

So, I'm going today to file the papers.

I know this isn't going to be easy. This isn't your classic run of the mill child support case. Levi makes a decent living, and his parents help him hide it.
He's driving a Land Rover, talking on a cell phone, sitting outside of a coffee shop, playing on his laptop — yet, he claims to be broke and homeless.

It's going to be my job, in court, to prove that he is not broke and homeless, that he does in fact make quite a bit of money, and that his parents are hiding it for him.

I'm nervous to get back into this, but I feel stronger than I did before.

I will always know when it's Ivana Trump's new wedding anniversary, because I got married on the same day — April 12th. Difference is, I'm no longer married — thus the date no longer applies to me.

But the date does still exist, and every year all the faded, happy wedding day memories rush back and linger for 24hrs, along with a feeling that makes me a little queasy. It's kind of like the feeling you get on the birthday of someone you once loved who is dead. The wedding anniversary that no longer exists. A surreal event that you and your ex remember silently, privately, in separate new worlds on that day every year... Gone... Poof!... except for the wedding photo album which you have stashed away — somewhere.

So, while Ivana was getting married to her scandalously young fourth husband in Palm Beach (gotta love her), I celebrated Her/Our anniversary with my brother's kids at a Japanese restaurant, followed by a big sleepover at my house. My daughter (who was out with her boyfriend) came home late and woke me up off the floor where I fell asleep, discussing the meaning of life with a 9 year-old.