My sweet little boy is getting a teensy bit aggressive these days and suddenly I find that I am being bombarded with all sorts of advice that I don't want to accept.

For example, Adrian has started pulling hair. But not any hair, just my hair, and it hurts! He'll yank my hair — hard — and when I shout "Ouch!" he laughs and laughs and laughs. It has been suggested that I pull his hair in retaliation, "show him what it feels like," they say. Ummmm, no thank you.

One of Adrian's other favorite things to do to me is to bite. Again, he'll just come over to me, bite me, and laugh like crazy when I say "Ouch!" And those new teeth are sharp! It has been suggested that I bite him back. "Only way to stop a biter," they say.

And yet another one of his "new tricks" is smacking me. This one doesn't happen as often and usually only when I'm sleeping, but still....

I took him to the doctor last week for a physical. The doctor that we usually see was out, so we had to see the physician's assistant. While we were there he asked me if there had been any changes in his behavior. I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, there has," and told him what I just told you all.

He said that I need to put him in a time-out chair whenever he does any of these things. I explained that I had tried that but that Adrian will just get up; he doesn't understand that he is supposed to stay there — he's only 16 months old. I told him that rather than using the chair, I use the playpen.

Somebody made a comment on one of my blog posts yesterday that said, "Faith, can you please make up your mind...Are you in or out of this whole thing? Get a life and move on or stay in the blog and be miserable."

Of course, this comment was meant to be nasty and hurtful, and of course just like every other comment of its kind, it was signed by a "guest." I have a feeling said "guest" is Levi, or his other ex, or one of his other minions. In any case, that doesn't matter. What got me thinking was the subject line of the comment: "Making me dizzy."

Exactly.

I feel dizzy, all the time. I feel like I've been running in circles for the last year and a half. I feel dizzy with stress, dizzy with anger, dizzy with sadness, and dizzy with disappointment.

I don't want any of this.

I would love for things to be normal, for things to be better. I would be overjoyed if Levi would take responsibility as far as his son is concerned. I would love it if we didn't have to go to court. Hey, maybe then I could even get one of those "lives" you speak of!

And I did run circles around that decision. I actually have quite a few issues with the family court system that make me not want to take any part in it.

To start with, I don't agree with pumping my money into a system that doesn't have my best interest in mind. I feel that they actually hope that people won't do the right thing. Why? Because if we all did the right thing, they wouldn't have jobs. If everyone paid their child support there would be no need for child support enforcement. There would be no need for family court judges, family court lawyers, etc.

"Rake over there!" My ex pointed to a patch about 100 feet from where I'd decided to amuse myself with old leaves. I bristled almost immediately.

"I'll rake where I please," I answered, lifting my chin a little.

It's a backlash effect, a reaction to the way things used to be. There was no reason for me to be upset. My daughter and I had come to the country to have a nice day in the sun with Dad, and we were all in a good mood. My ex hadn't meant for it to sound like an order; he was just telling me which area needed raking the most.

But I can't stand being told what to do. The last eight years of our relationship were full of control and possession, and I'm afraid I wasn't the one running the show.

My ex was extremely controlling. He told me who I could see and when. He would time my outings down to the last minute and explode if I was home late — even when it was just a grocery run or I'd been held up by a slow tractor on the road.

I don't blame him. He operated out of fear of losing control. He knew things were rocky. He loved me, I loved him, but we were so mentally separated from each other that he felt he had no other way to hang onto me.

So he'd rule with an iron fist (thank god not literally) and I would comply to his every wish in the hopes of accomplishing peace and affection. I dropped all my friends. I did what he wanted. I went where he told me. After a while, it became too much trouble to even go out.

For a long time, I lived in fear. He scared me. I felt worn down and beaten. I was tired. I was afraid to leave and needed to leave like the desert needs rain. I thought if I told him I wanted out that he would hurt me.

But I did it and he didn't do it.

Now, we live apart and love together. We're a couple under two roofs. We have our bad times still, but we have good times more often — enough to make it worth it.

I used to think that I had something to prove. That by not pursuing child support from Levi, I was proving to him and to his family that we didn't need them. At the very end of our relationship, they all tried to push me, hard, to put Adrian up for adoption. Since Adrian's birth, whenever the subject of child support has come up, Levi and his mother both said to me, "If you can't hack it, put him up for adoption." I felt like I needed to prove to them that I had made the right choice.

I keep talking about how much time has helped change my perspective on things, and I guess, for now, I will continue to do so, because it really has.

I have grown tremendously as a person from this experience. I feel like I was stripped down to my bare bones, and given the opportunity to start over. I feel like a new person.

As a result, I no longer feel that I have something to prove to them. Their opinion doesn't matter to me. It ceased to matter, when I realized that my son never began to matter to any of them.

That doesn't mean that this sucks any less, though. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to be able to do it all on my own. I simply cannot. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which finances are a necessity. It costs a lot to raise a child, and now, the only person I have to prove anything to is him.

I've made it through another day of this, and moving forward, what strikes me the most, is that I feel stronger. I feel like I can make it through this.

Finally. After years of prevention and being careful, after all this time managing to squeak through unscathed, it's happened: lice.

My toddler's daycare reported an outbreak and sure enough, the little buggers were taking up residence in my little girl's beautiful halo of curly hair. They also chose to camp out in my teen's crowning glory as well — the whole two-foot length of reddish curls.

I spent that first day giving chemical treatments that choked my lungs while consoling my shame-ridden teen and rolling my eyes at my toddler. She bounced around the house announcing, "I have BUGS in my HAIR. Do YOU?"

No, thank god.

The beds have been stripped and sheets were washed in near-boiling water. The house is vacuumed daily. All plushy toys were either disinfected or sent into quarantine. Heads were picked through multiple times. We've done all we can. The electricity bill will be sky high this month and I'm exhausted, but that's alright. Bugs, be gone.

But forgive me. I couldn't suppress the dirty look I gave my teen's father when he sauntered in for a visit the other day and chuckled when he heard the news. I couldn't help the smart remark that escaped me when my toddler's father said, "The house looks like a wreck."

Yes. Yes it does. Singlehandedly and with no prize from anyone, I've managed to pull myself together to play Supermom for a week. I've put aside all my other obligations and responsibilities, I've forgotten my worries and concerns, and I've focused 100% on my kids.

Alone. With no help. One would think that being a father meant that you pitched in to help your kids when they needed it, but it seems not. Whoever holds the custody is the one to drop it all and come to the rescue, come hell or high water.

"I never wanted you to leave," one of my exes said thoughtfully. "You wanted this. Now deal."

This is the question I face. My second ex, the one I'm trying to continue to have a relationship with despite not living in the same household, announced bad news recently. His doctor told him that he's teetering on the brink of cirrhosis of the liver. It's almost shot, just hanging on by a thread.

It wasn't really surprising news for either of us. My ex has struggled with alcohol for many years. His whole family has. Out of 13 children, only two aren't heavy drinkers.

He's one of those functional alcoholics. Admittedly caught in the cycle of needing drink and hating it, he manages to hold down a good job, bring in a steady income, and be relatively normal most of the time.

Sometimes he binges. Mostly he just tries to keep his drinking to something passably acceptable — and doesn't seem to quite make it.

If he keeps it up, he'll die.

I couldn't help but think to myself how stupid we all can be, fighting over petty things that don't matter and battering each other emotionally because of unfulfilled needs and misunderstandings. Personalities clash, arguments happen, and they're punctuated with the poignant irony of two people who still love each other.

We just can't get along. How silly is that?

I want to say that some big miracle happened, that my ex foreswore all alcohol and turned a new leaf so we could focus on what truly matters, but things like that only happen in the movies. There was no huge revelation or monumental change.

So I find myself wondering, what now? I guess everything stays the same and we all try to continue living with the monkeys on our back, each in our own way.