dealings

I find the thought interesting that one day my kids will be grown with kids of their own, and they'll be able to look back and see how it was from my point of view with them.

So a few things, mostly I just want to record what I'm "dealing" with right now at this stage in life.  I regret how much of my life is "missing" from memory.  I want to keep it all, even the not so pleasant. I'm by no means complaining, I might vent a little, forgive me, but mostly, I just want to keep track of it.

We've been battling lying at our house.  It seems the kids take turns with it though.  Once we get one to start fessing up and telling the truth, it seems another slips into the lies.  And what's beyond me is that they lie about the silliest things.  Like completing chores and homework.  Or who's wrapper is on the counter. 

Apparently these things are lie worthy?  I can't imagine that they're afraid of telling the truth about not doing a chore or leaving a wrapper on the table because the only consequence is to simply have them take care of it. 

Until they lie about it.  Then they get extra chores for the lie.  Was it worth it?  Usually it only takes a couple of times dealing with not so pleasant extra chores before they figure out that when I ask a simple question like "did you do you chore?" the best answer is to say, "no, but I'll go do it now."  Really, that's good enough for me.  But do not lie to me.

I can only hope that soon we'll have broken the bad habit from our home.

My ex husband has quit his job to be self-employed.  While I can't blame him for following dreams, and hope the best for him, it leaves me anxious for the future as child support is half my income.  And even now I'm wondering if I'll get the check that I was banking on this week. 

It frustrates me to no end that he still has a certain extent of control over my life.

But I have to thank my ex because it seems that every time he throws a loop into my life, it throws me into action and I come out better for it.  Though it sucks that it takes something like this to get me off my butt and live up to my potential. 

I have a plan to counter this event.  He will no longer have this control over me.  We'll see if it pays off.  Literally.

I'm tired of pee.

Bed wetting is not my friend and if we look at the big picture we'll see that I have been dealing with pee for 12 years now.  I am so tired of it.  I can't keep up with the laundry when we have two loads of regular clothes to do a day and now a bed or two of peed blankets and sheets.  And you can smell it through the whole house. 

I know that they can't help it.  And sometimes I lose my cool with them.  But all I can really do is just clamp my mouth shut and make sure the laundry is getting rotated as quickly as possible. 

Which is hard in and of itself since I work full time and am not there to watch it.

My man loves me and we've just turned a large closet into a second laundry room.  Hopefully this will help.

Cas came upstairs last night after they were told to go to bed, but the look on her face told me I had better listen to what she felt she needed to say.

Apparently she had just been waiting for a quiet time alone with me.  It was only a matter of seconds before she was in tears and telling me that she felt she ought not to be hanging out with D anymore.  This is something that I had felt all along but asked her why.

The story is that D had bragged about getting drunk because she was bored. (Where are the parents for this girl?)

And this bothers Cas.  Which I'm grateful for.  I'm also grateful that she knows it's not something that she wants to hang around.  We expanded the conversation with talk of upcoming middle school and how she's going to be able to meet and make so many new friends. 

She desperately just wants good friends.

We talked about other girls in her class that she's never hung out with and that perhaps she just needs to ask them for their numbers and try hanging out with a new "group."

We talked about alcohol and how it will eat her brain.

But made sure to reiterate that if she ever found herself in a place and situation with alcohol, to call me and I would pick her up, no questions asked.  Even if she'd drunk it.

She needs to know that.

Hopefully she won't.  These are things that adults should face.  Not eleven year olds.

And lastly, Brynn showed me a progress report from her teacher this morning.  She's missing 50% of her homework assignments.

How did this happen? 

This plays into my feelings of being an inadequate mom.  And my conversation with her teacher didn't help.  I sent a note with Brynn asking her teacher why she hadn't sent me a progress report the week the assignments went missing like she said she would do for her students.  Now it's the end of the term and I had no idea that it was going on.

Her teacher countered with the fact that 4th grade is a hard transitional grade.  A lot of students struggle in 4th grade if they don't have a "sound homework routine at home."

I know I'm not a good mom when it comes to monitoring homework. 

And I feel it's my fault that my child is struggling in school.

But I don't understand how a teacher will let it go on for so long with out letting me know about it.  She said she'd been working with Brynn to get it caught up for awhile.  It was too late to do more about it.  She's too overwhelmed with grading piles of homework to send out the progress reports.

I don't think it's just my fault.  I should have been made aware before it was "too late to do anything more for it."

And I'm frustrated beyond all.

I guess I need to create a homework lineup at the kitchen counter while I'm making dinner after work.  I guess I need to see everything that the child has done to know that it's getting done.

I feel terrible guilt that I haven't already been doing this, but I also know that it doesn't matter what measures I take, if Brynn doesn't tell me about even having homework how am I to know if the teacher doesn't let me know there's a problem?

And to top it all off I have cold.  The kind where you cough all night and don't get any sleep.  I'm tired. 

I've been putting all my efforts into painting and decluttering and reorganizing the kitchen  for the remodel that my own bedroom is a disaster and my master bathroom needs to be scrubbed.  Badly.  I feel like I'm falling behind.  Actually, I am falling behind.

At least the kitchen is almost done.

And I can still claim that dinner is made every night.  Last night I just sat and took them all in as they sat around the dinner table talking and smiling with each other.

I get frustrated, but I sure do love them.