Baby A and I have both been feeling nasty, so we've been at the ENT a few times in the last few weeks. I've seen this ENT since I was about Thing 1's age, so 6? 7?ish, and he knows my family like the back of his hand. He has a new Physician's Assistant, and we saw her last week for the first time. I loved her! She has four kids, and was really helpful and kind and thorough. When I called this morning, they fit us in with her again, and I was actually pleased.
During the exam, she noticed a bruise on Baby A's ear of all places, and I, in my exhaustion and sickness, responded mom-to-mom, "You know, who knows. He's at that stage where he toddles and loses his balance, you know how it is! HA!" She got all quiet and weird and I think I put my foot in it, people! I feel like such an idiot, like an airplane passenger who joked about sneaking a bomb through at security. So she made this note in his chart and then got all super sleuthy and now I'm convinced that CPS is going to show at my door tonight. I called DPlayer frantically, and he got home about an hour early and he whisked the kids out the door so I can clean and purge and be manic all over the house.
I may never sleep again. PANIC! PANIC!
Oh, and, apparently, I'm blogging instead of cleaning, but I just took out three bags of trash (I didn't even know we had three bags of stuff, much less three bags to throw away!), and I'm having dinner. SO THERE.
Also? I can't believe I'm actually posting this, and going to share this, but I'm firmly committed to talking about the things that "we" don't talk about because of embarrassment and are you KIDDING me? Having a CPS report is SO one of those things. Now off to clean and wait and wonder and wait and wonder and wait....
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Day 100 of Kindergarten
Apparently, there are so few holidays and celebrations and cupcakes and parties and cookies and money and fundraisers and pencils and treasure box items and Clorox wipes and box tops and receipts and Promised Land dairy caps and Capri Sun pouches that we need to collect/be aware of/donate/celebrate that we made a new one up a while back! The 100th day of school! WHEE!
They have to collect 100 things that all:
1) fit into a quart size ziploc bag (and apparently they hate my baby, because that automatically is a choking hazard for him)
2) can be gathered and NOT LOST by Feb 2nd
3) can be glued onto a white shirt...which OH BY THE WAY!...
They also need to procure a white t-shirt that is new ) and you "may want to" glue the 100 items ON the shirt because they're going to wear them to school with the items on them? But still, [b]make sure they wear their uniform pants![/b] Bolded theirs. Of course, all this "they" and "theirs" and "they're" means "you" and "yours" and "you're" because he's SIX.
To sum up:
100 things (BE CREATIVE! That sound? That was me popping open my bottle of Xanax.)
choking hazards
have to buy a new t-shirt that's thick and heavy
gluing on 100 small items on a shirt, which sounds HEAVENLY!
no one ever misplaces anything around here
uniform pants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :nono:
Give me something awesome and creative and fun to do instead of pennies, because I can see where this is headed right now. Pennies. The night before. With lots of wine and profanity. Or just Xanax. And profanity. Always profanity.
They have to collect 100 things that all:
1) fit into a quart size ziploc bag (and apparently they hate my baby, because that automatically is a choking hazard for him)
2) can be gathered and NOT LOST by Feb 2nd
3) can be glued onto a white shirt...which OH BY THE WAY!...
They also need to procure a white t-shirt that is new ) and you "may want to" glue the 100 items ON the shirt because they're going to wear them to school with the items on them? But still, [b]make sure they wear their uniform pants![/b] Bolded theirs. Of course, all this "they" and "theirs" and "they're" means "you" and "yours" and "you're" because he's SIX.
To sum up:
100 things (BE CREATIVE! That sound? That was me popping open my bottle of Xanax.)
choking hazards
have to buy a new t-shirt that's thick and heavy
gluing on 100 small items on a shirt, which sounds HEAVENLY!
no one ever misplaces anything around here
uniform pants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :nono:
Give me something awesome and creative and fun to do instead of pennies, because I can see where this is headed right now. Pennies. The night before. With lots of wine and profanity. Or just Xanax. And profanity. Always profanity.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Longest Day
Remember how I was going to be blogging during homework time? Yeah. Well, see what had happened was? Life had come undone? And I had fallen down the rabbit hole along with it? So, the day after I posted the previous blog post, I couldn't get my laptop to boot up. I went to borrow DPlayer's laptop, and in the process of signing in, stumbled across an email from this girl. Long story short, inappropriate entanglement, not an affair, but too much investment outside the marriage, things improved a little, we coasted, then one random night, we just had this THING. And I never know where to draw the line with the oversharing, so for now, and since it's late, I'll just say that he blew up at me in front of the kids and dropped a few f-bombs. I immediately told him to leave, he refused, I got the baby and left, went to sob at my parents' house, fun times ensued.
Weeks passed, he dug in his heels, decided he was going to die on that hill, and with great sadness, we told the boys that Daddy was going to be moving into a new house and they would be visiting him there. That was awesome. I'll just step outside the story for a moment and say that seeing the look in their eyes at that moment, and seeing how they reacted to that - nothing makes you feel more like a failure at parenting than revealing to your 5 year old and 2 year old that Mommy and Daddy suck and that their firm foundation of family can fracture and break all around them. Thing 1 initially thought it was a great idea, thinking we were all going to have a second residence, Thing 2 got it immediately, and withdrew into his train table Thomas set. I kept trying to talk to him and see if he understood, and he acted like he couldn't hear anything I was saying. It was awful. And looking back, I'm feeling angry all over again that DPlayer put the onus on me to do it, and that I went ahead and did it, because he "just couldn't", and he got to sit there in suffering silence with tears while I did the Bad Guy Storytime.
Finally, after asking him lots of different ways about his feelings, I flat out asked Thing 2, "Are you feeling bad?" and he nodded, without looking away from his trains that he was making crash violently into each other. I said, "Oh, honey, so am I. I feel so bad and sad. I'm so sorry. This is very sad." He looked up, with a thunderous look on his face, and furiously said to DPlayer, "Mommy and me are sad. We feel bad!" And went back to wrecking the Island of Sodor. The effects on Thing 1 happened more over time, and as usual, manifested themselves in anxiety, a constant need to please and do everything and hoard toys and not throw anything away and always know where everyone is and what time it is and are we on time to school and did you sign my folder yet and what if A flushes my toy down the toilet and did you forget to start the washer Mom Mom MomMomMomMOMOMOMOMOMOMMMMMMMMMMMMM?!
My precious boys. I just don't deserve them.
Thankfully,I happened to have a maintenance appointment with my [s]drug pusher[/s] psychiatrist, and he was floored when he found out what was happening. He sees DPlayer for his ADD and has a separate relationship with him, and when he found out that D was moving out on the upcoming Friday, Dr. Drugs asked me to reconsider if he could come up with a plan that I felt comfortable with. I agreed, I told him that I would do anything and everything within healthy boundaries to save our relationship.
So, thanks to Dr. Drugs, we are seeing a new highly specialized and amazing psychotherapist who is highly adept. We don't see her nearly as often as we would like, due to childcare issues and DPlayer's work schedule, but the sessions with her, and our monthly sessions with Dr. Drugs have managed to extricate an actual marriage from what used to be a pile of ruins. It's hard work, but I am feeling for the first time in a very, very, very long time, as if DPlayer actually wants to be married and do what it takes to stay that way. I've missed him very much.
Because I am getting some affection and fulfillment from my marriage, I am again finding energy for things outside of simply treading water just enough to keep breathing. I no longer want to drive my car into oncoming traffic, and so, I look forward to blogging more often. No promises that I will do this every day, let's just call a spade a Danielle and realize that I am unpredictable. We will all be much happier.
Weeks passed, he dug in his heels, decided he was going to die on that hill, and with great sadness, we told the boys that Daddy was going to be moving into a new house and they would be visiting him there. That was awesome. I'll just step outside the story for a moment and say that seeing the look in their eyes at that moment, and seeing how they reacted to that - nothing makes you feel more like a failure at parenting than revealing to your 5 year old and 2 year old that Mommy and Daddy suck and that their firm foundation of family can fracture and break all around them. Thing 1 initially thought it was a great idea, thinking we were all going to have a second residence, Thing 2 got it immediately, and withdrew into his train table Thomas set. I kept trying to talk to him and see if he understood, and he acted like he couldn't hear anything I was saying. It was awful. And looking back, I'm feeling angry all over again that DPlayer put the onus on me to do it, and that I went ahead and did it, because he "just couldn't", and he got to sit there in suffering silence with tears while I did the Bad Guy Storytime.
Finally, after asking him lots of different ways about his feelings, I flat out asked Thing 2, "Are you feeling bad?" and he nodded, without looking away from his trains that he was making crash violently into each other. I said, "Oh, honey, so am I. I feel so bad and sad. I'm so sorry. This is very sad." He looked up, with a thunderous look on his face, and furiously said to DPlayer, "Mommy and me are sad. We feel bad!" And went back to wrecking the Island of Sodor. The effects on Thing 1 happened more over time, and as usual, manifested themselves in anxiety, a constant need to please and do everything and hoard toys and not throw anything away and always know where everyone is and what time it is and are we on time to school and did you sign my folder yet and what if A flushes my toy down the toilet and did you forget to start the washer Mom Mom MomMomMomMOMOMOMOMOMOMMMMMMMMMMMMM?!
My precious boys. I just don't deserve them.
Thankfully,I happened to have a maintenance appointment with my [s]drug pusher[/s] psychiatrist, and he was floored when he found out what was happening. He sees DPlayer for his ADD and has a separate relationship with him, and when he found out that D was moving out on the upcoming Friday, Dr. Drugs asked me to reconsider if he could come up with a plan that I felt comfortable with. I agreed, I told him that I would do anything and everything within healthy boundaries to save our relationship.
So, thanks to Dr. Drugs, we are seeing a new highly specialized and amazing psychotherapist who is highly adept. We don't see her nearly as often as we would like, due to childcare issues and DPlayer's work schedule, but the sessions with her, and our monthly sessions with Dr. Drugs have managed to extricate an actual marriage from what used to be a pile of ruins. It's hard work, but I am feeling for the first time in a very, very, very long time, as if DPlayer actually wants to be married and do what it takes to stay that way. I've missed him very much.
Because I am getting some affection and fulfillment from my marriage, I am again finding energy for things outside of simply treading water just enough to keep breathing. I no longer want to drive my car into oncoming traffic, and so, I look forward to blogging more often. No promises that I will do this every day, let's just call a spade a Danielle and realize that I am unpredictable. We will all be much happier.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
I HATE SCHOOL! Update: WE LOVE SCHOOL AND HATE HOMEWORK!
I'm wondering when kindergarten became the new third grade. This kid has about an hour-and-a-half of homework per night. I pick him up, we get home and he is Free Range Kid for about 30 minutes, then we get right to the work. He generally has two worksheets a night, I need to initial his accountability folder, we go over the letter he's working on and the memory verse that goes along with it, and BAM, it's 5:00. Time to start eating dinner for these guys. And I haven't even started making it yet. It's 5:30 now and he's finishing his number sheet and this has been the easiest day so far. Yesterday? And I'm NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING we had an epic homework battle. One of us was lying on the floor moaning, "I HATE KINDERGARTEN!" and the other one was on the phone with DPlayer, out of earshot, hollering, "I HATE KINDERGARTEN!"
You'd think that was the nadir, right? Well, you'd be wrong! From there, it actually devolved. It was ugly. There may or may not have been stomping, tongue-sticking, screaming and general mayhem. There were multiple time-outs and door-slams just as exclamation points at the end of tantrums. All in two hours! We're gifted in this house.
Today has been so much better. As I finish this, we just put away the folders and he rocked four worksheets in the same time it took to plod through 2 yesterday. Ohhhhhhhhh...I just realized yesterday was Monday. YAY ME! Note to self, and to those who will remind me - Mondays take extra patience and will usually be difficult as we adjust to a new school week. I really do love his school, I better, since we're paying for it. Extra, on top of taxes, that is. He's in a small private school this year, which we chose for a myriad reasons. Because you are just RIVETED, I will expound on that in another post, but for now I will just say - small. private. school. and leave you hanging. It's time to feed the zoo.
You'd think that was the nadir, right? Well, you'd be wrong! From there, it actually devolved. It was ugly. There may or may not have been stomping, tongue-sticking, screaming and general mayhem. There were multiple time-outs and door-slams just as exclamation points at the end of tantrums. All in two hours! We're gifted in this house.
Today has been so much better. As I finish this, we just put away the folders and he rocked four worksheets in the same time it took to plod through 2 yesterday. Ohhhhhhhhh...I just realized yesterday was Monday. YAY ME! Note to self, and to those who will remind me - Mondays take extra patience and will usually be difficult as we adjust to a new school week. I really do love his school, I better, since we're paying for it. Extra, on top of taxes, that is. He's in a small private school this year, which we chose for a myriad reasons. Because you are just RIVETED, I will expound on that in another post, but for now I will just say - small. private. school. and leave you hanging. It's time to feed the zoo.
Monday, September 21, 2009
I promised!
So my new resolution is to set aside the time that the kids are "doing homework" to update the blog. And by "doing homework" I mean that the 5-year-old brand-new kindergartener whines about having to scribble with crayons all over his coloring sheet that is apparently of überimportance in the formation of his formal schooling, while the 2-year-old chatters and colors his coloring book and the 8-month-old alternates between screaming, grabbing at the papers on the table and racing for crayons to eat as they hit the ground. Somewhere in there, I've also been trying to make dinner. And cure cancer.
Now, instead of getting grilled chicken with pie nut couscous and some edamame for dinner, the Dawgs are going to have to be content with frozen pizza and a carrot and a mom who has spent a few minutes doing something adult and that makes herself feel autonomous. Quelle horror! They're going to be thrilled.
Now, instead of getting grilled chicken with pie nut couscous and some edamame for dinner, the Dawgs are going to have to be content with frozen pizza and a carrot and a mom who has spent a few minutes doing something adult and that makes herself feel autonomous. Quelle horror! They're going to be thrilled.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
O HAI!
Dear blog,
I am sorry that I've neglected you. I'm sorry that I left you bereft. I thought of you many times, but as time passed, and distance grew, I became more and more convinced that what I had to say would be trite, meaningless, after such a long separation. I'm finally taking a deep breath, and typing these words in the hopes that you and I will manage to repair our breach, the chasm that has developed oh yea these many days. I look forward to visiting you often, to breaking free of the chains of fear that have kept me silent.
Until tomorrow (oh yes, I shall return tomorrow),
The One Who Missed You
I am sorry that I've neglected you. I'm sorry that I left you bereft. I thought of you many times, but as time passed, and distance grew, I became more and more convinced that what I had to say would be trite, meaningless, after such a long separation. I'm finally taking a deep breath, and typing these words in the hopes that you and I will manage to repair our breach, the chasm that has developed oh yea these many days. I look forward to visiting you often, to breaking free of the chains of fear that have kept me silent.
Until tomorrow (oh yes, I shall return tomorrow),
The One Who Missed You
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Enjoying it while I can
About a week ago, Sir H. informed me that in Finding Nemo, "their Danielle died". As my name is Danielle, I was surprised, because I usually remember when characters in movies or books share my name. I asked him to repeat what he said, and he told me again that "their Danielle died". When asked to elaborate, he said, "You know, Nemo's mom and Marlin's...um..." "Marlin's...you know, his Danielle." I asked, "Marlin's wife?" He said, "Yes! Marlin's wife. You know, their Danielle." I realized, he was talking about their - ME. Wife/Mother/Female = ME. I'm a generic now, like Kleenex. It made my heart swell an insane amount.
A few days after that, he drew a picture at preschool of our family. He told me that he drew me "like an angel". When I asked him why, he said "because angels are sweet and pretty". Y'all. Seriously. Could I be any happier? Also? Totally reminding him of this when he's 15.
A few days after that, he drew a picture at preschool of our family. He told me that he drew me "like an angel". When I asked him why, he said "because angels are sweet and pretty". Y'all. Seriously. Could I be any happier? Also? Totally reminding him of this when he's 15.
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