Surrogate Inspired
I have been thinking lately about society as a whole, and how it reflects on us as individuals.
More specifically, how it impacts the way we live, and the diseases we suffer from, and our children.
Even more specifically, Pint. And me as well.
I started thinking, WHY do we all seem to suffer from psychiatric diseases of varying degrees? Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bi-Polar, ADHD, Oppositional Defiance, Autism spectrum disorders, etc.
Have our brains as a species changed? Did we mutate?
Because, basically, few of these diseases existed 100 years ago, even 50 years ago.
OH> we just discovered them. Balderdash. They were there all along I think.
So why now, are we all being medicated as a society. And further, what is the incidence of the above referenced diseases in third world countries?
Do they suffer from high teenage suicide rates in poorest African countries, or eastern Asiatic countries? Depression?
No. and I think I know why.
Because 100% of their time is centered around 'survival'. Basic things like Food, Water, Clothing, and keeping children alive.
They simply do not have the leisure to have the fashionable diseases, while surviving.
We, as a society, however, do.
It is sort of an existential thing I think. I am remembering back my lifetime. I am remembering the onset of “I'm okay, You're okay. EST, Warm Fuzzies, Cold Pricklies, Primal Scream therapy, Hypnotherapy.....it goes on and on and on.
Obesity is huge (pardon the pun there).
Since our lives got 'better', we got worse as a society. We ask less and less of ourselves, and we expect less and less of ourselves. We no longer hold ourselves or our children to standards. It is easy to put off tasks. Easy to break the law. Easy to make excuses for behaviors, or just things we would rather not do.
Especially me. Now retired. Nice home. Enough money to make it almost through the month. Husband home and retired (disabled).
When I worked full time, I had to schedule everything. If I didn't schedule it, it did not get done. Laundry, dusting, cleaning, cooking, activities, even bathing had to be scheduled.
Now, it is too easy to say “oh, I don't feel like running the sweeper today, I'll do it tomorrow.” Tomorrow may, or may not come. I don't have to worry about dinner other than to go to the freezer and face the monumental task of deciding which package of frozen meat to take out and thaw. Which non stick pan to use. Whether or not I have to wash the pans tonight, or if they can wait till tomorrow.
100 years ago, I would have had to send DH out to SHOOT and BUTCHER dinner. I would have had to send the kids out to the garden to gather the vegetables. Also to weed the garden. To milk the cow for our milk and butter that day. I would have gotten up with the sun to start a fire in the oven, to start the bread to rise, to start oatmeal for breakfast, or eggs and bacon. After breakfast, I would have immediately cleaned up the mess and started the preparations for lunch. Whilst all that was going on, I would have been making home remedy medicines, cleaning the house with homeade soaps, sweeping with a corn broom, shaking out bedding and linens, and rugs, feeding chickens and cows and pigs and goats....sewing clothes by hand,
DH would have been working the fields, tending the stock, building various outbuildings, using horse power to plow and harvest.
He would come in for lunch, which would have rivaled a three course meal in a good restaurant today, and went back out to work until dark.
The kids would have arisen with the sun, did chores before breakfast, eaten, taken their lunch in a box and walked to school. They would have gotten out of school to return home to do more chores, then homework, then sat around with us talking. Sewing. Knitting. Building.
They wouldnt have been 'fresh mouthed' either at home, or at school. They wouldn't have DARED. The punishment would have been swift, sure and left no doubt as to the expectations. When away from home, they would have been held to a standard MUCH higher than the one we hold our children to today. And any behavior not in line, would have been reported to parents immediately. And punished just as immediately.
Then we all would've gone to bed with the setting of the sun. We all would've fallen asleep almost immediately, from just being tired.
I think our brains are wired so that when we are BUSY trying to survive, we do in fact, survive. And the rest of it just didn't exist. I think for the most part, humans as a specie are still survival wired. And, since we do not have to struggle to survive, our brains are allowing all sorts of things to pop up which are actually a signal that we as a society have too much time on our hands. To much dead time.
Now, is there a cure? Nope. LOL. Sucks to be us doesn't it?
But maybe. Now I don't want to give up all my comforts. No one does. And I don't want to schedule my life so that we are constantly doing something. I don't think that will help anyway. I see that a lot with some moms. Their kids are in every single activity that they can find. Soccer, scouting, baseball, dancing, etc.
The kids are dragged from one activity to the next, none of which they ever excel at, but all of which they are cheerleaded and shepherded at.
I don't want my girls to think they excel at everything. I don't want to artificially inflate their opinions of themselves. I don't want to make them think everything they do is good, and wonderful.
How do we do that? I am not sure. If they draw me a picture, I say thank you. I don't tell them its the most awesome picture in the world, if it is not. If they sing, and ask me if they can be the next Hannah Montana, I tell them “Well, no.” You can't sing honey, not good enough to be a rock star, but I like it when you sing to me....
I can plant a garden, and have them work in it. But that won't really help.
The fact is, as a society, we ARE what we ARE. Rolling back time, artificially, I don't think is going to help.
I do think the diseases are REAL. I also believe it has something to do with not having to survive anymore.
I don't have any answers. Maybe the scientists should go study those barely surviving in third world countries, and see if there is some chemical their brains secrete that our brains don't anymore. Perhaps when every second of your day revolves around staying alive, your brain acts differently and puts out a chemical which keeps all these designer diseases away?
Does make ya wonder, doesn't it?
The girls are basically fine.
Pint is showing some obsessive compulsive behaviors. At last appt with her psychiatric prescriber, he suggested Zoloft to complement her ADHD meds, which is the Daytrana patch. You all know I prefer the patch to the other options, first, the medication in the patch has been around and been used by ADHD kids for well over 40 years, and so I am comfortable with giving it to her...and secondly, it only lasts 9 hours instead of 12 or 13....and if I need to, I can take the patch OFF at any time and 1 hour or so later, no medication in her.
I haven’t as yet filled the Zoloft. I am a little uncomfortable with giving it to her. I asked about the ‘suicide thoughts’ black box warning on the Zoloft. Her prescriber said....yeah. Only since they put in on, teenage suicide levels have RISEN 20%. cause now they aren’t giving it to kids that NEED it.
Like he said, those suicides were mostly where a pediatrician said, “here, put him on Zoloft, and I'll see you back in 6 months.”
He said that should NEVER NEVER NEVER happen when you are giving a child any psychiatric drug. We see him every three weeks. He said give it to her and just observe for any changes in mood, temperament, feeling of worthlessness etc. That seems logical to me.
Still, I haven’t given it to her yet. I don’t know if I am being over cautious? Paranoid? ½ Pint is now hating kindergarten. The other kids are ‘stupid’ and she is bored. Sorry about your luck little girl, you are going anyway LOL. After having her since birth, I REALLY looked forward to kindergarten, and started her the second she was ready. I certainly could have held her back one year, her birthday WAS the cutoff, she turned five the last day possible LOL. But, she knew her entire alphabet by sight, even mixed up, could count to 100, and was driving me nuts at home. She already surfed the internet and was teaching herself to read. Keeping this kid home another year would have put me right over the edge LOL.
The girls counselor is ready to pull the plug on visits with mom...and mom is moving CLOSER to the girls. Wheeeeeeee. AND, she took a job that means she works midnights (a 12 hour shift), friday, sat and sun so she will be available ALL WEEK LONG and only 20 minutes away. I can hardly wait. Not. The girls are bad enough when they see her now.
We shall see how much she visits or calls. Since 1/6, she visited on that day, then went 9 days without a call, then called and made a promise to call the next day and did not, didn’t call for 5 more days, then called and made a promise to come over next day, broken, then called with excuse and another promise, broken, then called with another excuse, promise, broken, then finally showed up 2 hours late.....on tuesday last week, then called wednesday, hasn’t called since.
At one phone call, I heard Pint say “mommy, I need to hang up now so you can go take care of baby sister, I hear her screaming and she has been crying for an awful long time...” the counselor flipped out when I told her that.
She asked if I was ready to take the baby, who will be a year old this Friday. I told her I have been ready to take that baby since the mom was 4 months pregnant and I found her shooting heroin, but I will NOT take any action to go after the baby.
CPS has to take this one away. I took her other two. If she loses this one, I am pretty sure she will kill herself. I don’t think I can take the responsibility for that. It IS my daughter after all, no matter how much of a fuck up she is, I do, somewhere DEEP down there, love her . I can’t stand being around her, and hate her as well.
Other than that, Nursey is getting a divorce, which is putting her ¾ Pint through hell, we still have her every weekend...they are moving to Pittsburgh which is a couple hours away from us.
As far as karate, the girls didn’t go for two months. The divorcing daughter had a deal with us for daycare. She paid karate and the car payment and insurance, we watched the six year old every weekend. Well, then the separation, and lo and behold, her husband CANCELED the karate payments. I have now worked out a deal with the karate studio. I work the desk two days a week, and the girls get karate for that. Good thing too as Pint is only ONE TEST away from her BLACK BELT !!! how rude of my son in law to cancel it. Also affects his daughter, ¾ Pint as SHE also is only one test away from a black belt. Poor kids. They always suffer.
Life goes on. And on. And on. But hey, it's MUCH BETTER than the alternative...LOL
Pint.
I have an appointment today with Pint's Psychiatric prescriber. Therein lies a dilemma.
She has been, of late, taking little forays into the beginnings of psychosis. Not in a big way, but in a little way that seems to be progressing. Very little things which I have recently discussed with her counselor. Little things that are bothering me.
Her absolute insistence that I be on that old ladder every single night without fail, for however long it takes her to fall asleep. That I can pretty much handle, and that is really not a psychosis type thingy. That is more of an, um...insecurity issue.
But, the bugs. And the coughing. And the don't touch my food. And the hysterics over nothing.
I thought those were just weird.
But, the counselor says that is not just weird behavior. They are the beginnings of psychosis.
And that, is scary.
She doesn't go into the bathroom without checking for bugs. There are times a night, but not every night, (only when she is really tired or had a very bad day) when I have to strip the entire bed to check for bugs. She no longer goes outside to play because of bugs.
Now, every night, as she is falling asleep, she constantly coughs and clears her throat. There is nothing wrong with her. She has a drink. She has no fever. She is not having allergies. Yet she is constantly, and I do mean constantly clearing her throat. Once she falls asleep, the coughing and gagging stops.
The other morning, I poured her bowl of cereal. Normally, since they also eat breakfast at school, I don't pour very much cereal into their little corell ware bowls. About ½ full is what they get. Why waste it? That morning, I either wasn't paying attention, or wasn't awake enough, and I poured a full bowl. Not even thinking, I reached my hand into the bowl (my hands had just been washed and dried) and picked up a handful of cereal and returned it to the box. Gross maybe, but it is probably done lots and lots by busy mom's all over the US and wherever else they have boxed cereal.
She totally tweaked. I mean total hysterics. Crying and screaming and snot running down her face tweak. “you touched my food with your fingers....”
I explained, that I touch her food all the time, being as how I am the PREPARER of her food. Didn't matter.
So, I mentioned these things to her counselor two days ago. And, she is VERY worried.
The dicey part comes in now. She is on ADHD medication, the Daytrana patch. And,.....drum roll....ominous music.....
One of the side effects of ADHD medication is occasional psychosis.
Damn.
Now, I would like very much to take her off the medication. But honestly, she cannot function without it. Imagine a roomful of bouncing, verbal diarrhea, moving, mobile, hysterical kids hanging off your elbow. Then condense them down to ONE kid doing it all herself.
That is my Pint with no medication.
With her meds, she can MOSTLY track. Without it, not at all. With them she is an A student, without them, she would be in the principals office daily.
Even with the meds, she has bad days at school. This is a straight A student, who occasionally (okay, ONE time) gets a B. You can tell her bad days, because she just simply forgets to do work. Like she will do the front of page 1, and the front of page 3 and totally miss page 2. she normally gets over 100 on every assignment. The occasional difference is somedays, she will get a 93 instead of 100 or above. Not a big deal. Still an A kid. I don't personally give a dang whether or not she is a d student or an a student. Each to his/her own potential
So I am thinking that this guy will change her from the patch which I like, but which may not be working as well as it used to, to a pill.
I hate this. I hate medicating my child. I hate giving her something that changes her reality.
And yes, for all the naysayers out there, we tried organic foods, cutting out sugar, cutting out proteins, cutting out carbohydrates, cutting out food coloring (and THAT was hard), all the different diets and behavior systems out there to control ADHD.
There is only one word to describe how I feel right now.
Shit.
Pint.
I have an appointment today with Pint's Psychiatric prescriber. Therein lies a dilemma.
She has been, of late, taking little forays into the beginnings of psychosis/obsessive behaviors. Not in a big way, but in a little way that seems to be progressing. Very little things which I have recently discussed with her counselor. Little things that are bothering me.
Her absolute insistence that I be on that old ladder every single night without fail, for however long it takes her to fall asleep. That I can pretty much handle, and that is really not a psychosis type thingy. That is more of an, um...insecurity issue.
But, the bugs. And the coughing. And the don't touch my food. And the hysterics over nothing.
I thought those were just weird.
But, the counselor says that is not just weird behavior. They are the beginnings of psychosis/obsessive behaivors.
And that, is scary.
She doesn't go into the bathroom without checking for bugs. There are times a night, but not every night, (only when she is really tired or had a very bad day) when I have to strip the entire bed to check for bugs. She no longer goes outside to play because of bugs.
Now, every night, as she is falling asleep, she constantly coughs and clears her throat. There is nothing wrong with her. She has a drink. She has no fever. She is not having allergies. Yet she is constantly, and I do mean constantly clearing her throat. Once she falls asleep, the coughing and gagging stops.
The other morning, I poured her bowl of cereal. Normally, since they also eat breakfast at school, I don't pour very much cereal into their little corell ware bowls. About ½ full is what they get. Why waste it? That morning, I either wasn't paying attention, or wasn't awake enough, and I poured a full bowl. Not even thinking, I reached my hand into the bowl (my hands had just been washed and dried) and picked up a handful of cereal and returned it to the box. Gross maybe, but it is probably done lots and lots by busy mom's all over the US and wherever else they have boxed cereal.
She totally tweaked. I mean total hysterics. Crying and screaming and snot running down her face tweak. “you touched my food with your fingers....”
I explained, that I touch her food all the time, being as how I am the PREPARER of her food. Didn't matter.
So, I mentioned these things to her counselor two days ago. And, she is VERY worried.
The dicey part comes in now. She is on ADHD medication, the Daytrana patch. And,.....drum roll....ominous music.....
One of the side effects of ADHD medication is occasional psychosis/obsessive behaviors.
Damn.
Now, I would like very much to take her off the medication. But honestly, she cannot function without it. Imagine a roomful of bouncing, verbal diarrhea, moving, mobile, hysterical kids hanging off your elbow. Then condense them down to ONE kid doing it all herself.
That is my Pint with no medication.
With her meds, she can MOSTLY track. Without it, not at all. With them she is an A student, without them, she would be in the principals office daily.
Even with the meds, she has bad days at school. This is a straight A student, who occasionally (okay, ONE time) gets a B. You can tell her bad days, because she just simply forgets to do work. Like she will do the front of page 1, and the front of page 3 and totally miss page 2. she normally gets over 100 on every assignment. The occasional difference is somedays, she will get a 93 instead of 100 or above. Not a big deal. Still an A kid. I don't personally give a dang whether or not she is a d student or an a student. Each to his/her own potential
So I am thinking that this guy will change her from the patch which I like, but which may not be working as well as it used to, to a pill.
I hate this. I hate medicating my child. I hate giving her something that changes her reality.
And yes, for all the naysayers out there, we tried organic foods, cutting out sugar, cutting out proteins, cutting out carbohydrates, cutting out food coloring (and THAT was hard), all the different diets and behavior systems out there to control ADHD.
There is only one word to describe how I feel right now.
Shit.
I have recently re-acquired my acquaintance with fire. In a manner of speaking anyway. As some of you know, I bought a cord of firewood right after the first of the year. Propane being rather expensive right now, I threw caution to the wind and said, what the heck, we will light a fire to help heat the house.
I should have realized, but perhaps had forgotten, that I would also be embarking on a physical fitness regime. By default. Sort of.
Today, for a brief while, I achieved 'F I R E P E R F E C T I O N'. My fire crackled, it hissed, it lovingly flowed over and under the assorted logs, flames dancing along the entire length and breadth of each log.
But believe me when I tell you, Fire Perfection does not come easy. I often wonder now, daily almost, how fire can start unaided and burn a house down, yet, I struggle and struggle each day to get one started and keep it going. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?
My grandparents always heated with wood, and I was the firetender. I do know a good bit about how to build a fire and keep it going. Good thing too. Trust me on this.
First, I had the wood delivered. In a pile. A rather large pile. Dumped. In the driveway.
Then, I had to stack the wood. Not that you cannot just leave it in a dumped pile, because actually, I could've done that. We do live in the country, and really, who cares? But no. That is not the way I was raised. Firewood must be stacked. Neatly. Little log soldiers all in a row. And it must be stacked so that it doesn't fall, or tip, or cast the occasional log off onto the driveway. My firewood is known as “mixed hardwoods”. The reason they call them hardwoods is because, well, I actually don't know that. But I call them hardwoods because they are hard to work with. And hard to burn. And hard to stack. And heavy as shit.
Then, I had to purchase a fire burning kit, otherwise known as “hearth tools”. A hearth is the stoney piece of stone in front of the actual part of the fireplace that contains the fire. Hearth's are there to keep your rug from catching on fire when the rambunctious coal or two pop and spit and throw embers out of the fire and onto your flooring choice.
So, fire gloves, bellows, poker, log picker upper, axe, hatchet and ball peen hammer, and broom and shovel later, I was ...ta da...equipped.
We don't get a newspaper out here in nowheresville.
That became a problem almost immediately. Right after I discovered that I didn't have newspapers, I also made the following discovery.
I did not have any kindling. A quick call to the firewood personage rectified that little situation, and two days later, he pulled into my driveway with his dump truck, and delivered a bundle...and I do mean a bundle...like 12 feet long.. by 6 feet wide and about 3 foot tall, of banded and assorted rejects from his lumber cutting side business. So now I have assorted almost board feet of lumber in my driveway instead of a pile of firewood.
My father in law has the chain saw. So for kindling, I have to take the extension cord, the reciprocal saw and a good sunny day and plug the extension cord into the master bathroom and close it in the laundry room door to the outside and sit on the steps to cut kindling. So be it.
I went to the Dollar Store, where they have a newspaper vending machine, put in my $.35 and reached into the bottom where they discard the left over newspapers and grabbed a handful.
Now I have firewood, newspaper, kindling, a fireplace and hearth tools. I am ready to make a fire.
And yes, I did remember to open the flue.
What I do NOT have yet, is the stump. You know, the stump in the yard where you chop the unwieldy logs into smaller, easier to handle logs.
My day now. Get up, get the kids off to school. Put on farmer boots, farmer coat, farmer snoopy hat with the farmer ears. Farmer gloves. Go out the farmer door to the farmer wood pile. Shut the laundry room inside door and the master bath inside door, which leaves the laundry room a closed space so to speak. Leave outside laundry room door unlatched, walk over to farmer wood pile. Pick up and carry 16 logs to the stairs. Put them inside the laundry room on the floor. Climb over them. Shut the door. Open the other two doors. Carry the wood into the living room. Logs by the front door on a piece of cardboard. Kindling and smaller pieces to the hearth.
Stir up the coals, see if there are still any hot ones from the previous night. If so, (and there usually are although I put the last log on at 8 pm), expose the coals and find two or three small skinny pieces of kindling. Get bellows out and blow. Fire starts. Burn kindling adding expeditiously as needed until coal bed is large enough to support wood.
Put first logs on. I usually try for softwood or smaller pieces. Build up to the bigger ones. About every hour I throw another log on the fire...(and yes, that song keeps going through my head day after day after day.....).
Repeat as needed.
I now have biceps. Whatever they are. DH told me so. I have discovered that the pounding on the hatchet with the ball peen hammer to make big logs smaller that I have been doing on the hearthstone is making my arthritis horrid in my hands.
However, I can keep the furnace off from 8 am to 8 pm. And, I now can build a mean fire
Which is a good thing because we dont have a TV in the living room and it gives us something to look at until the tax refund hits the bank and I can go to Wally World and buy a flat panel tv to hang on the wall because we don't have anywhere to PUT a tv in the living room except on the wall.
Life - It's not like the brochure...
Calamity hasn't called the girls at all yet this week. Not a dickie bird of a phone call. Weird I think, but what do I know. The girls haven't asked about her either.
They both had counseling Tuesday. Counselor wants me to work on feelings with them still. She also explained how 1/2 Pint was affected by some of the incidents surrounding her visits when she still went to Calamity's house. She explained that when a crises or chaos ensued, which it usually did, chaos surrounds Calamity's life...1/2 Pint did not process and close from the chaos, that she stayed constantly in a state of high anxiety because of the chaos. It was quite technical, but she explained that normally, a mother (or in my case, grandmother) will say, (and I do this often...) ”honey, this is crazy, or this is sad, or this is whatever it is at the time, but it's okay, It's going to stop and it's going to be okay in a few. Or, people have bad things happen sometimes, we will be fine, MeeMaw will work through this and we will get through it together. She said Calamity never did any of that when there was chaos present, and so 1/2 Pint, who was still wee little, like um, last year at age 4, then did NOT come out of the anxiety state because Calamity didn't do any closure to the events.
We will have 3/4 Pint all weekend. Nursey and Cop are going through a separation, looks like divorce. Sigh. Just another monkey wrench thrown into the mix I guess. Nursey is moving to Pittsburgh into a house that a friend of mine has sitting vacant, and trying to get 3/4 Pint into a private school. I have to pick 3/4 Pint up tomorrow after school and take her to her counselor then bring her out here for the weekend.
I am in a pretty anxious state myself. Go figure LOL. Still, I am 52 and can deal with it so that's okay. I think I will go stack the firewood. Physical labor helps a lot. The girls have girl scouts this afternoon so don't get picked up till five at the school. DH went into town to run errands so it's just me and the dog.
Saga of the Sailing Trampoline, Part 2
Having put on my farmer clothing, we went to town to run errands. On the way out, we stopped at the end of the pasture fence to see what the total damage was.
And, it was. In pieces. All over the pasture.
Coming back from town, DH pulled over at the end of the fence, I jumped out of the old PT Cruiser and opened the hatch. Grabbed out two walmart bags...and jumped the ditch to the fence. Used the Walmart Bags to pull and tie the barbed wire strands far enough apart that I could wiggle through.
Stood and looked at the sailing trampoline. Moved it around a bit and kicked at it with my farmer booted foot.
Sighed.
Started picking up pieces, beginning with the jumping fabricky part. NO HOLES !! Whoo HOOOOO. Get it disentangled. Look at the metal legs etc......they are there, but not all of them...
Throw what is there over the fence, fold up the fabric, throw it over the fence, crawl back through the fence, throw the stuff in the back of the pt cruiser, dh drives to the driveway...
I go back through the fence, cut the walmart bags free and start looking for springs in the path of travel. Find seven leg parts and twenty springs in the 600 yard trek across the pasture.
I think we can salvage it, but it won't be till spring now LOL.
WIND ADVISORY from Your Early Warning Neighborhood Forecast
WIND ADVISORY from Your Early Warning Neighborhood Forecast
Yeah. Well.
They didn't tell me that it would be enough to pick up the 16 foot trampoline...and sail it right over the five foot pasture fence....and carry it clear across the pasture.....which is about um....six football fields long.....
and end up 600 yards away from my home, in the corner, resting up against the other side of the fence.
I haven't had my second cuppa yet, so haven't put on my farmer boots, my farmer jeans, my farmer coat and my farmer snoopy hat with the farmer ear flaps and the farmer chin strap and farmer walked out through the farmer pasture to see where the farmer trampoline ended up.
And if the farmer trampoline survived (I can barely see the farmer legs of the farmer trampoline sticking up out of the great blue farmer fabric of the farmer trampoline.......)
Then I will farmer figure out how to farming get the farmer trampoline back into the farmer yard and then farmer STAKE it into the farmer earth so the farmer WIND doesn't farmer blow it away again.
Happy farm day everyone !!
Bit of a quandry....
There is, in raising children, often a bit of a dilemma. Sometimes, you have to do things that you really don't want to do, but you have to enforce behaviors. I think that is what our parents meant when they said “this is gonna hurt me more than it is you”, and we never understood that.
As chronicled before, Pint has a few behavioral issues. Mostly emotional. And, they can be hard to deal with at times.
Last night, there was a firehall dance. From 6 – 9 pm. Pint has been doing really well with her new bedtimes, so I let all three girls go to the firehall dance.
We came home with no problems. Well, two of us did. ¾ Pint was here, and missed her Mom so Nursey drove out here and picked her up at the dance and drove her back to my house and put her to bed. The other two stayed at the dance with me until 8:30 when we left to come home.
¾ Pint was already asleep when we got here. ½ Pint went down pretty well, Pint went to BED pretty well, but did not fall asleep until about 10:30. Partially because, well, mostly because of the dance, and the Sprite I let her have for a drink at the dance. Sprite = sugar. Sugar = hyper.
No biggie really.
This morning ½ Pint woke me up at 8. Nice and sunny. (her mood, not the weather). I got up, started waking Pint up. Not yelling at her. She was already in bed with us from the middle of the night. She started in yelling and whining. It got worse.
We had CCD at 9 am. One hour is sufficient for three girls to get up, eat a bowl of cereal, brush their teeth, get dressed in jeans and clean shirts and drive the ½ mile to the Church.
We did NOT make it.
Pint was literally screeching. ¾ Pint was sitting in her chair. ¾ Pint looked at her. ¾ Pint picked the same kind of cereal Pint wanted.
¾ Pint was simply sitting at the table waiting for breakfast. We do NOT have assigned chairs. It is first come, first sit at our table.
I lost it. Started yelling back. I do not take kindly to screeching in my face first thing in the morning. Pint, however, was in full steam and would not quit. I told her that there would be no girl scout bowling trip next Saturday, as this is exactly what I am talking about when I talk about behaviors and privileges. Of course, that made her screech worse.
Finally, she got up from the table and ran into her bedroom and got in her bed, still screeching. I said good and shut the door, and told her if she was gonna screech, I didn't have to listen to it. I went into the bathroom with a cup of coffee.
When I came out of the bathroom, I told her she is grounded. No TV, no computer till I am ready to talk.
So, I am thinking, first talk about the truth. My biggest goal for her is to realize actions/consequences. And to own up to things.
I want her to not blame everything on ¾ Pint who had nothing at all to do with any of this other than sitting in a chair.
So #1, is to tell, AND accept that she is wholly responsible for this mornings debacle.
#2 is to apologize.
#3 is to accept that there are now consequences for her actions this morning.
That much I can do without any problems.
The problem arises here. Do I make the consequence match the crime....or do I make the consequence match the privilege that she had which led to not enough sleep and then, a bad mood this moring.
I am trying to teach her to CONTROL her own behavior (with the help of the Patch for now). Last night was a privilege, going to the dance. She allowed the dance to affect her mood and behavior this morning and failed to control herself.
So, lose the next privilege, which is next Saturday, bowling with the girl scouts. Let ½ & ¾ Pint, both of whom had NO problem this morning, and both of whom are younger, attend? And, have Pint stay home?
Or, just a regular grounding, no TV and no computer for a couple of days....
I cannot believe the collective stupidity of people
I guess it never ceases to amaze me. I do understand being busy. I do understand not being involved with things.
In the past few days, I have corresponded with those friends of mine, some of whom hold a college degree, and cannot spell simple words. I am talking about a sentence like this...."so we wint up there and got them, than we wint to the movie"
I totally understand the occasional mistype. Every computer on the face of the earth has a spell checker.
i ttly ndrstnd txt msg sthnd n n fct cn tlk wit my 18 yo qk n fst i no wen she wl b l8 n wen she is out on the roads
Interestingly enough, we have the Greeks to thank for the vowels in our alphabet, which we are now starting to drop in the interest of speed and brevity of letters.
Not the alphabet itself, that was earliest semite slaves, who finally translated pictographs into letters, but the Greeks DID insert vowels. It is possible to write without vowels for the most part and that is what text message shorthand is about.
Except for the pronouns and nouns. Those don't work too well without vowels.
My original point is not even a valid one, and I know that. These writers are wonderful people, they are compassionate, smart, hard working, etc. They just cannot spell.
totally change gears now.
I was at the karate center. The OWNER of the studio was there.....I asked "I saw a video bio of Mike Huckabee the other day, he was wearing a black belt and breaking boards in one segment...what do you think the chance of Huckabee being a fomer or current ATA member is......"
He looked at me and said "Who?" I said "Mike Huckabee". He said, shaking his head, "don't think I know him.."
I said, you know how the HOME OFFICE of ATA (American Taekwondo Association) is in Little Rock, Arkansas? And he was right on that one..."YEP!"
I said "thats good. He was the Governor of Arkansas." he replied, "Oh". I continued...."he is also running for President of the United States and just took the Iowa Caucuses by 34 % of the vote to finish in first place for the republicans."
He said, "oh, I don't follow politics".
AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHH HHHHHHHHHHHHH
IF, you don't participate in MY country, if, you do not care enough to select our LEADER, could you please just move somewhere else where people can decide your future without the approval of others.
My country is a DEMOCRACY and requires the input of it's people to work well. I really don't care who is elected...I want the person elected by the majority......(okay, thats a lie, I do in fact care....but I want the process to go through to its logical conclusion.)
So, if you live in Democracy and are too stupid, or apathetic, or ignorant to vote, or just don't want to bother, then move to a third world country or a communist country where they will make all your decisions for you, stupid idiot.
Our country doesn't even require anything from you, except taxes, and you won't even get off your ass to decide if we will have a president or governor or senator who will raise, or lower taxes.
I even make my 18 year old vote. I don't care WHO she votes for. But, she will vote. She WILL participate in being an American. Every one of my children has each time they turn 18.
So piss off, all you non voters. I don't want to hear you even talk. I don't want to hear your excuses. There simply AREN'T any. I don't care how tired you are, cranky, worn out, apathetic, angry, gay, straight, gender confused, agnostic, religious, whatF&^%$ing ever.
If you cannot be bothered to vote, quit living in my country.
About Firewood, and Life's little lessons
Have had ¾ Pint since Sunday,. Got up yesterday and ran her to Dr, she was spiking a fever. Virus Dr. says, but gives her antibiotics in case, cause its ¾ Pint..and well, you can't take any chance with medically fragile kids. She is still running fever. Her Mom doesn't work today, so she will go back home later. She hates it, but I told her Honey, your mother is a nurse and your dad is a policeman. There is nothing we can do about them working holidays. Still, its hard on a six year old.
Night before last, there were WAY too many people in the bed. First 3/4 Pint came in with a raging fever, then 1/2 Pint with a nightmare, then Pint. At that point, with Dave, all three girls and a chihuahua and two cats, I gave up and went to the couch.
This morning ¾ Pint ended up in bed with us about 3 ish. Then ½ Pint joined in at 4. At 5:30 I gave up and got up. PInt made it all through the night in her own bed, no nightmares, no sickness. Whoo Hooo!
Stopped and got propane yesterday, it is up to $2.69 a gallon. Minimum order is 150 gallons, there went $400.00 but we were down to 5 %, so what are you gonna do? Ouch! Then stopped and paid for a cord of wood, to help stretch the propane out till April. That wasn't too bad, $125 a cord of mixed hardwoods, and he delivered for only $10 more. Also, its a full cord !!
Pint and I had a really good time. She went out with me to stack the firewood. (not willingly exactly, but she did come out to help...) 3/4 Pint did too for about two minutes LOL. Pint hung in there though. She whined and pissed around at first, “They're heavy, I cant do this, I need a break...” but after a bit, we did take a break and we talked for about ¾ hour about all sorts of stuff, sitting on the stairs out by the door...
About being ADHD and how its' not a crutch for what she cannot do....and
How the perks of being eight years old will ONLY be given AFTER the responsibilities are assumed by the eight year old....and
How she is teetering on the brink of lots and lots of life...and things she will enjoy, like working with Neighbor in the stables, horse lessons, sleepovers at friends houses, four wheelers, go karts, etc..
But (isn't there always a but?) that as long as she throws fits and continues to not control her actions, none of it will happen. How ADHD makes it hard for her to realize all this, because I told her that the hyper part also stands for hyperimpulsivity...and that means that she doesn't think things through to their logical conclusions....
She said but I cant' help it.
I said you can. She said YOU don't have ADHD. How would you know....
Ha ha. I said, but in fact I DO HAVE ADHD. She was totally blown out of the water on that one. She said you DO?
I was like, yeah. Only back in the dark ages, they didn't know about it, and didn't have medication for it. So I had to LEARN to control my impulsiveness, control my actions, and take control of my overactive brain. And I have been trying to help you learn to do all of that..but you don't listen to what I say, and you fight what I am trying to teach you. And how frustrating it is for me to see her go through it and know that there are real ways of helping..if only she would listen and learn. I told her that when she learned to control herself, that she might be able to be OFF any medications at all, and that it is totally possible to lead a regular life with ADHD. She talked about her Dad and how he has it, so it's not his fault he is in prison.
That was hard. I had to explain that while Daddy is a really wonderful person, funny, loving, kind etc., (and all of that is true), that he did NOT learn to control his ADHD. That he did not learn to control his behaviors. That he did not learn to look to the future, and that, for the most part, is what ended him up in prison. That while we don't necessarily LIKE the rules that we have to follow, we still have to FOLLOW them. That Daddy had not done that.
That in order to achieve all she wants to achieve in life, that she MUST learn to control her brain, and her behaviors.
I told her about using prayer to help herself to settle down and fall asleep. I told her it is so not normal to have to have your grandmother in with you for two hours every single night to fall asleep.
Then we got up off the stairs to finish the job. She said...Do I have to do this. I said well, I don't see any wood stacking fairies out here..do you? She laughed and was like, Nope.
So we did. Then we learned about working stupid, and working smart. I told her that we had been working stupid, and it was hard, and boring, and took forever. Was she ready to learn to work smart? She allowed as how she was, so I sent her over to get the wheelbarrow. I told her there are usually two ways to do something. Stupid, or smart. We had tried stupid,and got about an 1/8 of the wood stacked. Now we were going to try working smart. A cord of wood is a LOT of wood when it is dumped in the driveway. It takes a lot of effort to turn that pile of wood into a neat stack, 8 foot long, four foot high and four foot deep.
I showed her how to load the wheelbarrow. How to put the heaviest ones in front. Explained about center of gravity. We loaded it up. She asked if she could push it. I said, I don't know, CAN you? Turns out, she COULD. And boy was she proud of that. That was a full wheelbarrow too. And she is a little shrimp of an eight year old girl, 4' 6 inches and all of about 60 pounds. It's not like she had a lot to put behind the pushing. But, she did it, and over big slag too. Then she asked if she could dump it. Again, I said, I don't' know, CAN you? And again, she proved, (with a little advice on hand placement and how to shift your grip while lifting the wheelbarrow) she DID IT!!!
After telling her how impressed I was, (and I truly was impressed), I asked if she wanted to do the loading and dumping, and I would do the stacking. So off she trucked with the wheelbarrow back to the wood pile. As we worked, we laughed and talked. She noticed how much more we were getting done. I showed her that also working smart meant taking the logs from the FRONT of the stack which were easier to get, and then it meant you didn't have to climb over them or trip over them while getting the wood which was NOT easy to reach.
After about 12 loads, and 2/3 of the wood in the pile, she asked if we could be done for the night as it was starting to get dark and her hands were sore. I said as how I thought that was a really good idea, cause my back was killing me. We had two 8 foot sections stacked, 2 feet deep and 3 feet high. We had started on the third section.
We came inside and decided we would finish the job tomorrow. Then I gave her $3 for helping me. She was jazzed as all heck over that one.
We came in, did dinner, did showers, and then I put the little's to bed, and let her stay up till 9 as a reward. I told her that if she learned to put herself to sleep without drama, without me constantly going in there, without me standing on the ladder for hours every night, that I would move her bedtime up to 9 pm, and let her stay out here with Pappy and me until 9, and then she could just go in and go to bed like regular people do.
And, SHE DID !! What a blessing that was.
Nice way to finish the year off.
