Dear Roger,Control Freak?Whats Wrong With That?

Rog,being an artist yourself, you understood my control freak tendencies because you had them yourself, and in fact I probably inherited mine from you,and I have to say that if you were around in todays times, you would probably be like me, loving and hating the hold that technology has taken on the arts! Now, I can remember when,"A Nightmare Before Christmas" first came out,(Ali,I am sorry to say remembers it well too,and is still traumatized but how the hell was I to know a child would be terrified of the ghost dog?)and I was absolutely enchanted and in love with the stop action animation, and I decided that I wanted to do whatever it took to be able to do that kind of work.I loved the possibilities and all the artistry involved in bringing the creatures to life, and in all the horror movies of my youth, everything was craftwork and skill, not computers and pixels and mindless digital manipulation. Photography, my art, was the same way, I used my clunky old Pentax K1000 with all the manual lenses and I did all my developing by hand and I CONTROLLED EVERTHING, but now its a different world, HELL, you cannot even hardly find the film anymore and everyfreakingthing is digital this and digital that and,"Photoshopped" and manipulated by computer until even a 6 year old can take crap pictures and make them look decent. I spent the day photographing some of my ex-husbands jewelry and metal-smithing work so that he could get it ready to sell, and I spent more than half my time fighting with the damn camera I have, trying to get it to quit making decisions for me and turning on the damn flash when I didnt want flash, or just going weird. I set up my own lighting and shadowing and tried to get things to work, but shiny,silver jewelry with all kinds of different shadows to deal with as well as limited time, made the whole affair very frustrating, but I did finally manage to get a few shots to turn out for him, and hopefully they will work.I also borrowed a few pieces of his stuff to wear for my trip out of town, because even though I was never much of jewelry wearer in the past,I find myself enjoying wearing certain pieces,and even though he frustrates and occasionally stresses me out and sends my anxiety and even anger levels to the point of me needing to either go and hide in my room and decompress or just leave all together, we are both trying to make peace for the sake of the children and the kids are much happier when he is able to come by and see them without me making it difficult.I know I hold the cards,and I have women that think I am insane for being so accomodating after all that has gone on, but they are not living our lives and they dont see my 6 year old daughter who worships her daddy, and vice/versa. He has been punished, he lost it all, and I am a beliver in restorative justice and atonement, he has done his time, he has apologized to me, he is working on atoning to me for what happened, and we have an uneasy peace, I will achieve nothing by destroying his relationship with his children.He is a gifted artist and I hope that by helping him he will someday find the ability to support himself and eventually be able to help support the children, but until then I just keep on keeping on as best I can without expectation other than he try.
Coming from two parents who have artistic temperments,and with artists running so strongly in the background of the family, I realize that my kids are somewhat screwed in their career options. I would dearly love to have a "doctor" or "engineer" or something practical come our of my childrens mouths when they are asked what they want to be when they grow up, but NOOOOOOO, of course not, not my kids, so far I have produced a brilliant elder daughter that also wants to be a writer, my eldest son that want to be an actor/musician, another son that wants to be a professional sports soccer star,(if he ever stops peeing on the field),another son that wants to play video games professionally, and small daughter that wants to be an artist/actress, so while I have faith and love of my children, I also realize that you pretty much have to be born into the glitterati nowdays, and my kids are light years away from that life,(THANK GOD), and I try to encourage them to have contingency plans such as medical school or engineering school or something to keep them out of the unemployment lines as they get older, but its also kind of funny at times navigating all the high tone personalities.
The "Stinky Princess" or small daughther is like an elf, she is tiny and etheral, with her long, blonde, curly hair that hangs to her waist and her dimples that seem to constantly show, even when she is enraged at her brothers or me for some slight.She is constantly amazing me with her grace and the way she moves and pirouettes around the house, and she seems to always be dancing about or singing, and she is the most opinionated child I have ever known!Her clothes have to be just SO, and she wears dresses and skirts and fancy dress up wear every day, and if I dont get her hair just right, its as if the world has ended, and her frustration with me is neverending.She has even made fun of me and harassed me into getting rid of a pair of my jeans, telling me that they made my ass look huge!What kind of 6 year old tells a mom that jeans make their ass look huge? She alo hates my boots, but she knows thats a losing battle.She designs all kinds of books and stories and she watched Romeo and Juliet with me and got the story and even cried at the end, and she sits and looks pictures with me on my computer as I read the news and she makes comments about men,some mature for her age referring to some as ,"Really cute" or even,"really pretty, he must be an angel" prompting a talk about how good looks dont always mean nice, but I dont know the guy I just wanted her to have a heads up early, pretty guys arent always nice guys, OH Lord do I know!,but she is smart and she will figure it out really quick I am sure.
All the artistic personalities make for lots of temper fits and demands on my time and refereeing, and with my oldest son coming home in a month, I have a feeling its going to get even more dramatic, because he is at the age where he walking hormones and add that into the fact is he a huge jock, and wants to be an actor and he has girls crawling all over him due to his curly hair, dimples, blue eyes and eyelashes and cheekbones that most women would kill for, I have a feeling that my phone is never going to be seen again, and I am going to finally go totally grey. I am hoping that between either lacross,rugby,football,or some form of sports,as well as the local theater troop and his bagpipe and guitar lessons, he will stay so damn busy that he wont have time to get into any shenanigans, but just in case I have plans to try and keep him pretty closely supervised for his own safety because he already has no less than 5 girls back here eagerly awaiting his arrival, and I shudder to think the amount of women he has dated back in Texas!I wonder if I can still take him down, when he left I could still pin him and almost outrun him, but now hes bigger than me and I have no doubt he could outrun me.I just hope that the doctor that assessed him when he was a baby was wrong, because while he is a reasonable size now at 5'9 and 150 with size 12 shoes, he is already complaining about being hungry all the time and achy, and if the growth spurt I was told to expect, hits him, I will be trying to feed and deal with an over 6'6 teen thats a bit of a diva by the time hes 16, and I dont even know where to find shoes to fit monsters that big, so one of my kids better hit it big, and not just in size.