an update on me losing my mind

Our cat came back last night, which reduces my stress somewhat. I'm assuming he took shelter in a neighbor's garage during our massive storms the last few days, and finally found himself free late last night.

Unfortunately that stress has been replaced with fears that my husband will divorce me if we don't get rid of our dog, who refuses to "go potty" before bed and then wakes up multiple times/night crying to be let out. Would I miss the dog if he were gone? Hell no. But did I make a lifelong commitment to this stupid dog and therefore would I be setting a terrible example for my children if we throw in the towel? Oh, yes!

a comprehensive list...

...of the events causing me to lose my shit, in no particular order.

Let me preface this by saying that the week of March 4-9 Jason was traveling for work and I expected that to be terrible, but I actually had everything well under control and felt like I was very on top of things, for that week. Since March 10th, all bets have been off.

1) This event gets a special mention rather than just a list item, because it is shaping all other events. One of Miss A's kindergarten classmates, the daughter of one of my friends, died 2 weeks ago at age 9 after a 4.5 year battle with cancer. If I stop and sit for more than a minute I am boiling over with anger.
2) I am organizing the providing of meals to my friend's family and am in constant fear that I am somehow doing this wrong, due to a handful of awkward social encounters in the few days since I slapped this together.
3) It is tech week for Miss A's play, which means she has rehearsal every freaking night from 5-10.
4) I volunteered to help at these things because there is a volunteering requirement but I volunteered for the last part of every evening because no one else signed up to help control the kids, and because I can't volunteer during most of the practices bc of Jason's work schedule.
5) Earlier this week one of the people in charge at the theater asked me if I had any misgivings about this one young adult volunteer, about whom I do have some misgivings, because of the unusual amount of attention he gives my 10 year old. She was asking because someone had seen him sitting alone with my daughter with his hand on her mid-back area and the person was uncomfortable and upset over it.
6) As if that were not enough, last night I was called back over there because my daughter and one of her friends were "touched inappropriately" in the chest area by another 10 year old boy who had been harrassing them and saying they thought he was "sexy" for part of Tuesday's rehearsal. A slightly older girl saw part of it and was upset enough that she couldn't tell her mom, but wrote her a note.
7) This was handled in a really disorganized way by the people in charge at the theater and because if a few things I don't trust that they will take steps to make sure the kids are better supervised so things like this can't happen.
8) Miss A LOVES this program and I don't want to respond in a way that she could perceive as being a punishment, so I am motivated to put effort into fixing this... but at the moment I am really limited in what I have energy for.
9) I have barely made school plans for the kids since the week J was gone. They were already way ahead and have continued to make progress but I am half-assing it.
10) Work has been busier than it's been for about a year, which is good but also adds some stress.
11) I missed part of a planned family gathering last Friday night so I could attend the visitation for my friend's daughter. This combined with my siblings also running late for various reasons led to my parents freaking out on us about how we don't make family a priority. Which led to a massive family "discussion" and I'm not built for that kind of conflict, nor is anyone in my family except maybe my brother, and it was emotionally exhausting. Physically exhausting too, as it ran until almost 3 a.m.
12) Our cat is missing. Seriously?? We can't remember when we last saw him but he never stays gone longer than overnight. He isn't at the animal shelter. Bleh.
13) I discovered that apparently all that stands between my family and the yawning abyss of chaos is Sunday afternoon. One football camp, one play practice, one weekend away, etc., is all that stands between me having basic control over my life and everything being totally a disaster. I use Sunday afternoon to make the kids' school plans, make a menu and shopping list, and do the grocery shopping. I haven't had a normal Sunday afternoon in a month and I won't have one until maybe the 28th.
14) At speech they tested the boys' oral motor strength or something and they both are very weak, especially G. He could barely move his tongue independently from his lower jaw. P was only a bit better. This isn't horrible and they can work to strengthen their tongues and jaws but I HAVE BEEN ASKING IF IT COULD BE A STRENGTH ISSUE FOR 3 YEARS NOW. Oh my hell, people, do your freaking jobs!!! I don't understand how this is okay. They are saying G probably gets really tired when he talks so eventually if he's been talking much he'll just get quiet... um YEAH. Do you think that could have been a problem at school?! But he didn't qualify for an IEP. What is wrong with these people and why is it that my boys have been let down at every turn from the moment their pediatrician suggested their speech was behind where it should be?
15) P has had a fever since Monday morning and this morning when I took him to the dr. we had to wait an hour and then he was asleep on the table when the dr came in and she was kind of a jerk to him. His fever was 103.9 and he was really miserable... but the rapid strep was negative so he just has to soldier on. When he's sick with fevers this high he wakes several times/night screaming at the top of his lungs because his head hurts so bad.
16) I haven't slept well in a month because I was initially worrying so much about my friend and her daughter, and now am just worrying about my friend, and I've probably gotten myself into a cycle of insomnia or something because my sleep is all weird and I'm just always tired. But that's really the least of my problems right now.

The cat coming up missing tonight was the last straw. Do I miss the cat? Not a bit. But do I want to listen to my kids cry about the cat, displacing their fear and sadness over the death of a family friend their age and pouring it into their worry and grief over this missing cat? Hell to the no. Have I neglected my kids this last month? Yes, and I feel bad about it but also felt like I was supposed to support my friend and sit with her daughter when she needed someone... but I felt bad that then my kids were alone, and they seemed fine, but they shouldn't have to deal with stuff like this at all.

I miss writing, and I miss smoking, for the first time in a very long while.

designer toilet snakes coming soon to the target home collection

When the boys were 2-3 months old and Miss A was 2, I had a notebook I used to keep track of when the boys ate, slept, pooped, had medicine, etc. I started out with a dry erase board in the boys' room but one day during her nap time Miss A went into their room and erased the board and colored all over her walls and furniture with the marker, so that was the end of the dry erase board.

Anyway, I used the notebook to keep track of medical stuff if they were sick or fussy, but sometimes I also used it to keep me sane. As in, I felt like someone was always crying. Was that the case? Well, after a day of tracking what each kid was doing at any time, I was able to confirm that no, I wasn't going crazy because yes, someone was crying for all but 20 non-consecutive minutes of that day.

At some point I put the notebook away and then rediscovered it after we moved. I found that on one day I'd tracked meticulously every nap, feeding, diaper change, and session of fussing, until an 80 minute long gap of time in mid-afternoon. For that time I'd simply scrawled, "Shitstorm."

And I sort of remember trying to change a baby's diaper and him pooping again on the changing table and his outfit, then I couldn't get the outfit off except over his head, but we were poor and the outfit was probably part of a matched set so I didn't want to cut the outfit off him, and in the meantime the other baby was crying and Miss A had pooped too, and as it turned out I spent nearly an hour and a half doing nothing but cleaning up three people's poop while a minimum of two people screamed at the top of their lungs. And afterwards I went to record what had happened in my tracking notebook, but there was just So. Much. Poop. And so much crying.

This fond memory came to mind today as I discovered Haney crying in the bathroom, having seriously pooed her pants, then having attempted to clean it up with an entire roll of toilet paper. She used so much toilet paper that the summit of Toilet Paper Mountain -- rising out of the Bowl of Doom -- was still completely dry. And there was poo everywhere.

Well, blogworld, suffice it to say that I stooped to new levels of disgusting today, because as far as I know Target does not sell a salad tongs-like utensil for removing a bushel of used toilet paper from a toilet bowl, but they should. It should come with a stylish plunger, a stylish toilet brush with replaceable heads, and a stylish holder/sterilizer for all three tools. If only I were a product designer.

you people are killing me

I realize I have posted approximately 5 times/month for the last year. Actually, I am pretty impressed that it was that much! And I realize my stories are not what most would call earth-shattering, insightful, poignant, humorous, or even interesting. But you people are killing me with your lack of comments!

If I am writing this only for myself, my posts will get even more boring. I can promise you that. Here is my post for myself:

Dear Blog,

Today it was really cold outside. I planned to work for a bit but then Jason realized he had a camera a coworker needed so he had to rush off to work very early. I was excited, because that meant I got to work on school stuff with the kids early in the day rather than waiting til after lunch.

School went well and the kids worked quickly until 10:30, when it was their break time. I planned to have a shower during this time, and I did, but then Jason texted to remind me to tune into the inauguration ceremonies. In my bathrobe, with wet and uncombed hair, I raced downstairs to assemble the children in front of the tv. Unfortunately, the inauguration was much like the royal wedding, with what seemed like hours of coverage of motorcades and people walking around, and I squandered the kids' limited time of caring on pre-ceremony coverage. 

By the time the President arrived on the scene, no one cared about anything except when the national anthem would be played. They asked me every few minutes, as though I was in the midst of a text conversation with the person who'd planned the inauguration ceremony. Then once President Obama started talking, P started literally crying about how hungry he was, and Haney joined in.

So instead of watching festivities and listening to his speech, I went into the kitchen and made peanut butter and jelly. Then I got dressed. My hair dried in its uncombed, fresh from the shower state, though, so despite bathing I looked like I hadn't attended to personal hygiene in quite some time.

The kids finished school peacefully and I had a long talk with Miss A about rules and boundaries for iPod use and friends and other stuff that makes it suck to be a parent. She took it rather well, and I was impressed.

It started to snow harder so I scooped dog poop from the yard and cursed myself for getting a dog. I built a fire in the fireplace and tried to make the dog a cozy spot in front of it, thinking that if I am nice to him maybe I will love him more and care less about how much he sucks. 

I made chicken Parisienne for dinner, and intended to serve wild rice with it, then was disappointed to discover we only had Zataran's New Orleans style rice, which is all spicy and gross looking. As it turned out, you couldn't taste the New Orleans for all the Parisienne.

Jason came home early and we ate dinner as a family, which is a rare treat. Then I made cookies, as well as twice baked potatoes for later in the week because I am so sick of eating soup that I'm back on a kick of making real meals the children do not appreciate. 

Then the kids went to bed and Jason played Skyrim and I blogged.

Until tomorrow, Blog, I remain,

Your friend,

Jen

when you work as hard as i do, it's important to take time off

Earlier this week, on Facebook, someone linked to an article about the importance of a day of rest or a day of downtime or something. Naturally this resonated with me because:
1) I'm way lazy, and
2) I just spent a few minutes trying to figure out when we last had a free Saturday, and I am not sure when that was.

I would like to note that Sundays don't count as free days or days of rest if we go to church. Not that we've gone to church anytime recently. But the work of getting everyone dressed and out the door, and of painstakingly chipping weeks of dried boogers off their faces, and of arguing over whether filthy mismatched Crocs and sweatpants are appropriate church attire if paired with a sweater, is way too much for Sunday to be considered a day of rest.

Also, church takes half the day. By the time we are home it is 12:30 or later, and then I need to crank out lessons plans and usually take Miss A to some sort of rehearsal and next thing I know it's 9:30 and my day is all gone.

So, back to a day of rest. This article was all about how you need to plan in advance so you can have a day or rest, and get your work done early, and whatnot. So this week I declared Saturday would be my day of nothing, and I sort of thought about planning in advance. I mean, I thought I *did* plan so I could take a day off with a clear conscience, but right now any actual action I took escapes me.

Except menu planning. We are making crockpot oatmeal to be ready for breakfast tomorrow, which the kids will despise, and and they will cry about how they are starving but they hate oatmeal and there's nothing to eat, and Jason and I will be sucked into their misery. Then I made a menu that calls for a hearty but low-maintenance lunch for tomorrow... but we don't have all the ingredients so Jason will have to go to the grocery store first thing. Then for dinner, we have a free pizza coming our way.

Tomorrow, my plan is to drink coffee, read, shower, get dressed, eat lunch, read, eat dinner, and read some more. Meanwhile, poor Jason will spend the entire day grocery shopping (to be nice) and doing laundry (because he can't stop himself) and telling the kids to leave me alone because it's my day off. Then he has to work Sunday, while I sit at home slaving over lesson plans or maybe putting in some time on a work project due Monday from the safety and comfort of my bed. I might even have to bake some cookies. But do not pity me, for after a day of recharging I will be equipped to handle the demands placed upon me, from collecting data and making notes about my children, to making cookies, to working in bed.

drama begets drama

Last weekend were auditions for a local youth theater production. Miss A, naturally, was going to try out. G and Haney decided to as well. They prepared and practiced and it was so cute and awful, because the pain of worrying about their feelings is great.

P didn't want to audition because he is going to be a chef and has no interest in wasting his time acting.

They each went, alone, into a room of 5 adults and read a line, and sang a song. Then they each got up on stage in front of hundreds of people and learned a dance and did dance auditions in groups of 4 in front of hundreds of strangers.

At midnight, the cast list was finally posted and by that time I'd come to terms with what I'd expected would happen. Haney and G didn't make it. Miss A was cast as a chorus member and as an understudy for a larger part.

The next morning, I broke the news. Haney said, "Oh well, I'll just be a fishy at home!" G cried a little. Miss A was excited about being an understudy, and I was proud of her because I'd seen the reactions of the older actors as they were sent home from callbacks, and their disappointment levels were a lot higher.

On Tuesday, the kids' homeschool musical thee-ah-tuh program started up again, and they had to audition again there. At the last minute, P decided to audition as well. Because apparently the universe is teaching G a very intense lesson in disappointment, P was cast in a speaking role and G as his understudy. And they don't really do understudies in this program, so it was just sort of a nod to their being twins. Miss A and Haney also got speaking roles, but smaller ones. Haney was excited. Miss A was excited too, until she read the script and saw that she has a one-word line and Haney has a few longer lines. Nonetheless, she got over it quickly. G was sad.

The twin-related awkwardness of this story is best suited to the twins blog, so I will try to craft a post on it later. But the overarching theme here is that I watched a lot of kids deal with disappointment this week, and was pleased with the way the kids dealt with theirs.

One of the other thee-ah-tuh moms was talking to me about her daughter's reaction to being cast in the chorus only, and she was excited and animated as she talked about what a great experience it is for her daughter to be disappointed and to feel the whole range of emotions, and then collect herself and come out the other side of it. She was passionate about it and it gave me fresh perspective. I'd been looking at the audition as a good experience either way, but I hadn't been embracing the opportunity for my kids to feel something negative and deal with that experience in the safety of home, and practice regulating their emotions and coming out content and strong on the other side.

So, now I am trying to embrace all of the negative experiences and feelings the kids have. Surely they will feel disappointed and rejected more often than they will feel on top of the world. I hope they're always able to dust themselves off and get back up so quickly.

contrary to my assumptions, disney does not bring out the best in everyone

Last year, the girls and I went to see Disney On Ice and I was affronted by the hairstyle of the woman in front of me.

Point of etiquette #1: A children's show is not the place for a teased or otherwise large hairstyle.

Tonight, we had yet another opportunity to watch Disney characters strut their stuff, and I learned an important lesson:

You cannot buy the very cheapest seats to a Disney On Ice show and have any expectation for the standard of behavior of the people in the seats around yours.

Because we are awesome, we arrived an hour early and had plenty of time to get food, find our seats, and eat before the show started. I realize not everyone can be this awesome, since most people there had children younger than mine. Getting places on time is much harder when you are packing a diaper bag and carrying half your brood in your arms. But once the show is well underway, I expect people to be quiet when they enter late, and to sit down quickly and keep conversation to a minimum. That is reasonable, right? I mean, I did pay $11 for this experience.

Point of etiquette #2: If you arrive late, take your seat quickly and quietly.

About 15 minutes after the show had started, three adults and three little kids entered the row behind mine. They were very loud. For a really long time. Eventually the mom smacked me in the head with her bag, so hard that for a moment I was confused. It annoyed me. For one thing, I don't carry bags that have a wide swing radius, because why? For another thing, when I bump someone with my bag, I can feel that. And I apologize profusely. And when I am carrying a bag in a crowded place, I clutch it close to my body so I avoid smacking people in the head. This mom had also brought little kid rolling suitcases for her kids to use as booster seats, and smacked one of them down on top of Haney's seat so hard that, again, I expected an apology. Again, none was forthcoming, but luckily Haney was in my lap and out of harm's way.

Point of etiquette #3: Carry a bag that stays close to your body. Maintain control of your luggage at all times. Apologize if you hit or nearly hit someone with your bag.

Then the mom went bananas on her mom, who had offered her child some crappy food that was forbidden because it had trans fats and she can smell trans fats a mile away. The mom berated the grandma for a while, loudly, and then turned to the grandpa and talked for 5 minutes or so about how much she hates the grandma and the grandma is trying to kill her kids and stuff. Now, I get needing to control your kid's diet, and I get how frustrating it is when family does not respect that. I do. But I guess I would solve this problem in one of several ways:

1) Do not allow the grandma access to the child when food might be involved. Judging by this mom's rage level, this is an ongoing problem so if the grandma just straight up can't respect the kid's needs, I would not be going someplace with my mom where she might have the chance to feed my kid something he shouldn't have.

2) Take it outside, or shut up. If I desperately needed to yell at my mom that instant for being stupid and trying to kill my kid with trans fats, I might invite her to the hall. Or I might not spend the rest of the show berating my mom to my dad.

Point of etiquette #4: Do not attend events with people whom you cannot count on to control themselves. (This would be why my children did not attend events like this for many years.)

As the very loud conversation continued, I finally turned around and said, "I don't know if you realize how loud you are being." To which she said,

"No. We don't. Deaf, deaf, deaf," as she pointed to her father, one of her sons, and someone else but I couldn't tell who. "So we don't know. We read lips."

"That's okay," I said. And I wondered why lip reading has to be so loud, as she continued to talk very loudly about her stupid mom and about her daughter needing to take off her coat and how she doesn't know the names of the princesses and stuff.

Point of etiquette #5: While you may be deaf, others may not be. This is not a TV show in your living room. Chit-chat in sign language or wait til intermission, like the rest of us.

At intermission, as the girls and I returned from the bathroom, the mom was complaining to her dad about her mom wanting to buy her kids some "F-U-C-K-I-N-G toy." She spelled it, which was very considerate except that Miss A can spell. And had this lady not been so rude the entire rest of the performance, I wouldn't have said anything. But as it was, I was frustrated.

"My kid can spell, so if you could please not spell-swear, that would be great. Please," I said.

Her dad laughed like we were sharing a joke (maybe he couldn't hear me?) and she stared at me blankly.

I turned forward, and texted Jason, "The lady behind me is spelling swear words, because she has toddlers. Awesome."

Then the lady behind me leaned forward and said, "You know how they say when one sense is weak others are heightened? Yeah, because he just read what you wrote." Except she didn't say it exactly like that. She was slurring words and substituting the wrong ones and then finding the right one after a while, and her breath smelled like alcohol.

"That you were spelling swear words?" I said. Then she started talking to me about how she was spelling it because her kids are too little to sign.

Let's break this down.

• You were talking to your dad...
• ...who you said is deaf...
• ...but your excuse is that your kids are too little to sign...
• ...and they appear to be about 4...
• ...and are doing plenty of talking and articulate better than my 8-year-olds...
• ...but had you been able to, you'd have signed  to your 4-year-olds that their grandma wanted to buy them a "F-U-C-K-I-N-G toy..."
• ...rather than spelling it out loud to your dad.

Somehow this smells like an avalanche of BS, and like you would like me to believe your hearing problems are the cause of your rudeness, but really your drinking problems are more likely to blame.

Points of etiquette #6-8: Do not spell-swear in the company of children old enough to spell. It is rude to read over a person's shoulder (but gutsy to admit to doing so!). Do not drink alcohol before taking your children to Disney On Ice with your mother who cannot be trusted not to poison them with trans fats somewhere.

She went on talking to me for a few minutes, about how her kids can't hear. I said I wasn't worried about the kids, I just would like her not to spell swear words because my kid can spell. Then she started talking to me about her kid's cochlear implant and then about something else that was not a cochlear implant but she was describing it to me by contrasting it with a cochlear implant. And I nodded and wondered at the circumstances that would lead to a person attending Disney On Ice drunk, with 3 preschoolers, wearing only a sundress, in January, in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Point of etiquette #9: When you encounter a person with 3 or more really young kids, do not engage. Having too many kids at once will drive a person crazy. Having more than one 4-year-old, in particular, will lead to you being drunk at Disney On Ice in a sundress in January in Cleveland, ranting about trans fats. This woman was probably perfectly normal just a few years ago. 

This woman, before having children

The same woman, with multiple 4-year-olds.