general irritation

I'm really irritable right now. Due to many things, irritated at my kids, Steve, Kroger's, money situations, etc. We have enough money but I sometimes honestly can't figure out where it's going. When I alone control it, I do well. With Steve there is tons more money but I have no idea sometimes what's going on. Half of it ends up in his belly. Like one day he went to IHOP and spent $23 eating some damn pancakes. "But there was this omelet I had to have!"I'm sorry but NO ONE spends fracking $23 on IHOP. Then he yells at ME for "running up the credit card" when I'm ONLY getting groceries and whatever other things are very few and inexpensive.

Micah is demanding. He's 12 and I love him. But man he is just so darn demanding sometimes. I just get tired listening to him ask me for things. Always his agenda. Everything has to revolve around his agenda. It gets soooooooo frustrating and irritating after a while. "I need Darth Vader Gloves! I need Darth Vader Gloves! OK we are going at exactly 3:00 to get the gloves. Mom why do you spend so much time watching TV?" (I'm not... it's just the Bengals.) "Mom, you fell asleep,that means you're not interested in the game so can we go get my Darth Vader gloves now? Right now? Why not now? Why do you always yell at me?"

Billy the bully is going here. Oh you should have seen him. He's a very good-looking boy, too. He had the big puppy dog eyes going and the stare like a wounded animal in his handcuffs. He was reeeeeaaaaaaaly working it. The slouch, the silent stare. But he's ALSO the kid who hit MY kid and knocked him over and took candy.

They dropped the theft charge since it would be hard to prove and there were others taking the candy. Prosecutor and defense struck the plea with assault charge. School resource man (a cop, basically), vice principal of the school, another police officer- they were all there- calling the kid a "menace to society" and "has no respect for authority".

So I pray that at the end of the swatch of destruction Billy wreaks, due to the aggressive nature, rebellion, and those good looks which will also get him a lot of girls who like bad and violent boys, at the end of all that I hope he turns to God- a heck of a lot of success stories have happened with ex-juvenile delinquints. In the meantime, hope Hillcrest can handle this one.

Can anybody tell me about...

any family at all that has NOT put the "fun" in dysfunctional? I can't think of many. Not at all! The few that do come to mind seem to be healthy (not legalistic or judgmental) Christian ones. And not too many of them at that. Families rich and poor, here and there, from the beginning of mankind until now, any place, well they are just dysfunctional. Surely that's NOT the way God planned it, but we humans have a way of screwing up the most basic political unit as well as all else. Even a person with a healthy, mostly well-adjusted outlook will probably have a family that's full of wack jobs, codependants, control freaks, black sheeps, goody two shoes-es (the suckups). Basic society.

Bed's here. Floor's mostly done. It's great!

I almost forgot to say...we have a new kitten...named Brio. While we had Oreo in the vet, someone came in asking if he could drop off a kitten he'd found- well, after saying no about 50 times, I finally said okay...if there's nowhere else he can go...(sigh)...well now with 3 cats it's getting overwhelming. The orange cat, bless his heart, the stray we found a couple of weeks ago...well I don't know if I can deal appropriately with what appears to be a digestion issue. I think I'm going to have to give him over to the SPCA, since I don't have the funds to treat a cat's expensive condition (which they all turn out to be), neutering, and more. I just don't. Oreo is enough. Steve says to get rid of both Reggie (aka Theo) and Brio. Micah can't seem to part with Brio. By the way Brio is a boy, though I chose the name knowing full well it sounds like a girl's name. There's a girls' magazine called Brio. (Good mag I might add, very wholesome and REAL girl oriented, spiritual, has a Christian basis but it's good for all girls to read because it doesn't focus on pencil-thin as the ideal body image, etc.)

Anybody out there reading this still? Just wondering.

Today...

has been utterly unreal. I can't divulge it all- it's all too embarrassing.

I'm having a lot more arrhythmia than usual lately. It gets to the point where it scares me a little, especially at night. I know I drink too much caffeine. I need, need, need to cut down. The diet pop is bad for my teeth, bones, and heart. Maybe I will try diet Mt. Dew caffeine free (which I have had before and it's OK) but the acid still leeches my bones and it's bad for my teeth.

Anyway when I read about arrhythmia online and am very aware of what my heart is doing, it makes me want to faint. Is that weird or what!

I'm going to talk to my doctor now.

Yah!!!! One of the bullies has been expelled! He's the little brat with the big old innocent looking eyes that tried to backpedal by coming up to me after Micah ID'd him saying, "I just want you to know, I didn't do any of this. I was trying to help him out. I was trying to put his candy back...." blah blah blah Well I guess he finally admitted it according to the official in charge. I hope they can get the other ones. The little fat kid, they can't get anything on him...

Wow, babysitting a 3 and 5 year old is wearing me out- don't know how I did it. Of course the most tiring thing, though, is the drive. The commuting, dropping off, picking up, etc. Then of course there's the stress that everyone in the line of fire can feel about the divorce. I won't disclose a whole lot but even when the STBEXSIL isn't around, people get edgy. I am glad Dan is there nights with me to diffuse the tension a little. Erin and Leah (especially Erin) like him. Sometimes they are friendly to me, showing me their cartoons and stories (very talented), and once in a while they can get snappy- oh well. Life is rough. But since Erin has always sorta had a crush on Dan, it helps. Like when I wanted to watch the Bengals game one Sunday, they were whining "football's boooooring!!!! We wanna watch X-Box!" I wouldn't let them commandeer the TV- my brother's TV. HOWEVER, when Dan wanted to watch Monday night football last night they (especially Erin) were all into it, like yay! Football! LOLOL Lucky when you're a man and have an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old thinking you're the best thing since creamed corn.

(Erin ALSO commandeered the TV in the middle of another show I was watching yesterday saying, "WELL I am going to put in a video for SIERRA!" and I just let it go...irritated but I let it go, it was rude but I'm tolerant. )
I wish they would do more around the house. I feel like I'm pulling their teeth sometimes by asking them to do any little thing. It IS a privilege that they can stay there and that my brother cares about them and their well-being and success.
Last night I had a lot of fun with Hayden. We played a ton and he fell asleep in my arms. I had a restless night because I slept in the same bed with Sierra and she crawls all over the place in her sleep. There must be a pea under the mattress.

A bullying incident happened to Micah the other day at the Homecoming Parade, and after a lot of going to the school, picking out the bullies, talking to the administrators (who are doing what they can, I guess), and more, I have come to the conclusion that if something does not change immediately, we are going to do something drastic. That is, if the bullies do not stop with this. Police reports have been filed. Some of the teachers do not seem to be supportive, either. This is getting so out of hand that we are now considering...........just considering for now........

PRIVATE SCHOOL.

There are 3 right in the neighborhood. Well for reasons I won't go into right now, Steve nixed the Catholic ones (2 of them)which left another private Christian school, Central Baptist Academy. I stopped by there the other day and got info. Their Christian methods and credo go with what I believe and know and Micah was very agreeable, too. There are openings, the tuition is really not bad at all, and it's right at the end of our street. Of course there is more we are going to have to do. I will not make a decision like this lightly. Steve and I have to be unified on this. I want to investigate their credentials, etc. But I did like what I saw. It also goes K-12, not K-8 like the two Catholic ones. They teach Christian values and precepts...and in a private school one doesn't have to be afraid to say the word "God" while being able to say anything else. Anyway, we have to really be sure about this. The bullying at the other school is out of hand. I am really sad about it, because we've been with Finneytown schools for so many years. They have a winning band which I'm proud to have Nathanael be a part of. Nathanael's in a good group of kids and he survived the bullying when he was 12 or so. He is strong enough, too, not to get engaged in too much of the political correctness that public schools dish out. He's earned the respect of the school and he's taking academically weighted classes.
To be honest, there were 4 kids who helped Micah when a group of bullies knocked him over and stole his candy, damaged his bike, and roughed him up. The bullies were bigger than he is (though when I saw as Micah ID'd them at school in the lunchroom the next day, most of them looked like a bunch of ragtag little scrawny white punks except for one fat black kid who helped himself to Micah's homecoming candy, same height as Micah but over twice as big, sure had no need of more candy).
The 4 who helped were a football player named Buddy Stallworth, and three kids dressed as goths for Halloween who saw him later and swore to take revenge on behalf of Nathanael's little brother. So to those kids I'm grateful.
I am hopeful the kids (it's a racially mixed bunch too so there's no race card being played here, thank goodness, even though some grown MAN called him a scrawny white SOB later as some kids in the back of the truck the man was in rode by and teased Micah while he was riding his damaged bike home). Gawsh I really hate race cards and I'm so glad the ones who helped him were also black and white. We did have a racial incident before when some kids at school a couple of years ago were calling him "cracker" and getting into a racial mess is a time-consuming waste.

Anyway, if we switch to the private school it is also a racial mix, about half b and half w, so it would leave no bad preconceptions in Micah's mind either about either black or white people. (Hey Micah's white himself but anyway...)

My comment on the racial thing is, genetically there's not even a foundation for separating people into categories like this...it is purely a cultural thing.

But I digress. I want Micah to be SAFE, both physically and emotionally. This is taking an emotional toll on him. His grades, despite frantic efforts to make up missing homework, are not good. It's been a rocky start to middle school. When I see the kids they just appear out of control. Is it Finneytown? What is it? This is not the first time for bullying, either. The school has such an anti-bullying policy, supposedly they had bullying workshops...what good has it done? It's out of control. OUT OF CONTROL. The administrators agree and sympathize with me and promise itwill be fixed and this won't happen again. In the meantime how can I be sure my kid is safe at school? Can he even learn there? This used to be an award-winning school,recognized by the state. Let's not let the secret out that it's really slipping because I don't want to take a loss on my house when I sell it.

Sick today- flu-like stuff. Home from work. I think it's the same stuff the little ones had so I can still sit tonight for about 3 hours while Dave goes to Memphis and back. These two weeks are crazy for him- Hartford, Memphis, Boston, somewhere in the midwestI wanna say Wichita, Oakland, Washington. And a few other places. Sounds excting to me but he says it isn't, that it's usually boring. Well talking to him while he's at a quaint crab shack in Connecticut, actually that sounds good. But yes, he misses his kids while he's gone. That's the hard part.

Doing the babysitting gig this weekend for my brother's kids. He's a pilot whose schedule constantly changes. The kids are wonderful. Sierra and I colored princess pictures. I had filched some paper and ink from my company and printed some princess pictures for her to color. Hayden was content to watch his two trucks bump noses. And play on the swingset. Take off running down the sidewalk in his diaper. And then he got sick...three times. Called my brother several times informing him. The two older girls went to Homecoming this evening and their mother (my STBEXSIL) and her mother Kitty came over fawning and prettying them up and taking lots of pictures of them and their dates. Erin and date went off in a big white limo- she was wearing an orange floral print sundress and he was shy and cute. Leah had to go to her date's house, so I didn't see him, but her mother and grandmother took her there- of course Leah's the statement-maker- wore a long black lace dress that had to be altered by her mother since she's so skinny. And she had been wearing clunky sort of grunge shoes and a cat collar to complete the pseudo-goth look, but STBEXSIL got her into a more "conformist goth" look by getting her some other black shoes and the exchanging the animal collar for a cute black-string necklace with a dolphin pendant. In the end both girls looked very cute and got a lot of attention ,The first minute i saw Hero today, my first thought was - pregnant. Puzzling, since it isn't kitten season. But I am guessing she's about 7 or 8 months old. A little older than Oreo. So...I told Leah, I think Hero's going to have babies...maybe...not an expert but I've had a lot of cats have kittens...and she says that's funny, she hardly ever goes outside. And she doesn't leave the yard if she does.

Dave confirmed during one of our calls by saying, She's an indoor cat. I think the most she's ever been outside is about 10 minutes.

LOLOLOL!!!! I laughed at him.

Anyway either she or the other cat was out long enough to bring Leah three gifts this morning. I discovered them when I went out with the kids, and told Leah her cat was trying to contribute to the income of the family by doing what she could. Well after a while the gifts became, well, aromatic. I can tell you, though, they weren't gold, francincense, and myrrh.

Reminds me of Oreo a couple of mornings ago- charges in through the house with a rabbit in her teeth- well I wanted it out, out, out of the house- so i shooed them out. Micah wanted to save the bunny but I said, No, it's dead already. Anyway, unbeknownst to me, Oreo slipped back in Nathanael's room (N. had his window open!) with said bunny and laid it on some paper of Nathanael's on the floor. Micah promptly cleaned it up before I knew.

Nathanael went to another band competition today. They've already qualified for state. Last night after playing at Indian Hill (football team lost, by the way but the band is my interest) some members went out to Buffalo Wild Wings. Like midnight. Nathanael called and said he'd forgotten there was this dinner afterward and could he have some money. So of course I took advantage of the situation and got some food, too. The kids had fun playing the trivia games and other stuff there. I sat apart from them, not wanting to embarrass my son by being his geeky mom. But close enough to hear and have fun, while still reading the paper. At the end, those goofy teens got up and did not leave a tip. I said to two or three of the approximately ten who had gone to the dinner, "Hey guys, you need to leave a tip!" "Uhhhhhhh.....I don't have money....uhhhh....I only ate one piece....duhhh...." and so on. I put a ten on the table and said, "Every one of you here owes Nathanael a buck and he'll give the money to me. You always leave a tip. Look at the mess you made and these servers did a good job. " "Uhhhhhhhhhh....." Nitwits! I guess being obtuse and being a teen go hand in hand...? I was pretty obtuse at that age.