...........

So, I started two different posts this week, intending to publish both, and then reaching a point where I stopped for one reason or another. We'll see if this one makes publication.

C has a doctor's appointment this afternoon. His meds are not working, at all. I may have to pay for the meds myself, since I don't think the insurance will cover it because I just filled the Rx for the old dosage a week or so ago. But it needs to be done, even if I do have to pay for it myself. His grades are suffering badly, as well as everything else in his life.

D's made trainer at his current job. It doesn't really pay any extra, but he loves teaching others how to drive, so it's a good thing. He's still hoping to get on with this other company, but we'll see how it goes. He's still not thrilled with the place he's at now, but now that he's a trainer, he's a little happier.

J's teacher has seen me a couple of times now, and has told me that J is doing a great job: he listens really well, he pays attention and follows directions, and his grades are excellent.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make some money. The ChaCha thing is doing so-so, it doesn't look like the photography business is really going to take off, and there's just no jobs out there.

I'm sure there's other stuff I meant to talk about, but for now...my brain won't cooperate. So I'm off.

I'm pissed!

So, I'm standing in line at the grocery store this morning. Every Friday, I drop the kids off at school, and then immediately hit the store at the godawful hour of 7:30ish, to avoid the crowds that congregate later.

First, I get stuck standing in line behind a family of three: mom, dad, and little boy. And it seems they like to stand in the checkout line and argue, debate pricing strategy with the cashier, and oh yeah...get the wrong size of everything and run it all back one at a time to get the right size...all while I stand in line behind them with milk getting warm and butter starting to get to room temperature, because there's no other line open. *sigh*

I finally get close enough to put my stuff on the belt. As I wait semi-patiently for them to finish, I start scanning the covers of the various trash magazines that grace the checkout line. I always roll my eyes at the ridiculous headlines, and the only way I ever read those magazines is if someone I know buys them and passes them on to me for whatever reason. Hey, it's free reading material...and I can't survive without something to read.

Then I look at the cover of Us Weekly. On the cover is a picture of some brunette girl with a baby in her arms. The headline reads Teen Mom: I'm Broke. Ummm...why is this newsworthy? There are single moms all over, both teen and otherwise, that are broke. Why, exactly, is this one so special? Oh, yeah, because she is apparently famous, had lots of money, and has now blown it and can't afford rent and food for her baby.

Look, I'm sorry, but I just can't muster any sympathy for this girl, whoever she is. I'm a 31 year old mother of two. I chose to wait until I was stable enough financially to have a child, and mature enough to raise it on my own. Later, my circumstances changed and yeah, now I'm a broke single mom. But I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me, and I certainly don't get to be on the cover of a magazine begging for said sympathy.

And what really gets me is that she had money. And blew it. I'm sorry...if you get money, and you're stupid enough to waste it all in today's economy, then you don't get sympathy. Why should we feel sorry for you for being an idiot? Why should we feel sorry for you when you got yourself knocked up? I know, I know, she's young, blah blah blah. Not an excuse anymore. Teenage pregnancy is not the big hush-hush secret it used to be; expectant moms don't get sent to the convent or off to live with Aunt Edith until after the baby's born, to return home claiming they went abroad for a year to expand their horizons. If you aren't smart enough to know that having sex can result in a baby...well, all the more reason you shouldn't be having sex.

And why doesn't she have enough dignity, enough pride, to NOT want to announce on the cover of a national magazine that she was stupid enough to waste the money she had and now can't care for her child? Didn't her mother ever teach her about responsibility? About doing what you need to do to take care of yourself and your child? Well, I guess that is expecting a lot from a mother who didn't seem to care enough to make sure her kid didn't waste all her money.

Ok...done ranting. Just had to get that off my chest.

So...D & I are doing pretty good now. Still not great, of course; that'll take time. But we're getting better and better with each day that passes. Looks like he'll be back otr pretty soon, which is good. The place he's currently working is absolutely horrible. This week alone, he had a powering steering line, an air line, and a tire blow...all in a 3 day period. And the owner claims it's the driver's fault if a tire blows. Not sure how exactly he came to that conclusion, but...whatever.

C is going to be getting on a higher dose of his meds. He's having massive trouble paying attention in class, and he's not doing so well here at home, either. So, I've got to call and get him an appointment in the next couple of weeks and get his dosage upped. Then, we'll see how it goes from there.

J is, as always, doing wonderfully. Great grades, great behavior, lots of friends, etc.

That's about it for now.

It's Friday! Not that that really means anything...

We made it through the first week of school. I'm pretty sure we're mostly intact. All the fingers and toes are still there...haven't checked brains yet.

C came home with homework again today. Even on Friday, they have homework. I'm finding this not  only ridiculous, but intrusive. I also have to wonder, with all the homework he's expected to do, when and what is he actually being taught while at school? I mean, *are* they actually teaching him anything? Or are they just acting as glorified babysitters for 6 hours a day? I know I'm just frustrated, and I realize they do teach him, and they do a lot. It just seems...I guess I feel if they were effectively doing their jobs, then the kids wouldn't need so much homework. And I'm all for parental involvement, I am very actively involved in my children's lives, both academically and otherwise. But I send them to school for a reason, a reason that I am rapidly beginning to think no longer applies. The point of sending them to school was to provide them with a teacher who, I thought anyway, could provide them with a better education than I could. Considering the amount of time I spend helping with homework, I'm beginning to think we'd all be better off if I just homeschooled the boys. It would probably take less time, as well.

I'm also discovering that working from home is not as simple as you might think. It might just be because having been out of work for so long, I've come to think of myself as a stay at home mom and therefore feel it is my responsibility to keep up the house. But I find that when I'm working, I feel like I should be doing housework. But if I stop working to do housework, then I think about how I should be working so I can make money. I think it's just a matter of finding my balance, figuring everything out and planning my day. It is only week one, after all. I can't expect everything to run smoothly right from the start...just like everything else, I've got to find the rhythm.

My friend Carolyn's son got C's old teacher for 1st grade. It was the teacher that Lukas had in 2nd grade. She's been moved to 1st this year. Carolyn is so please with her. The teacher is an amazing teacher. She's wonderful with kids at any grade level, and great with the parents, too. What I find odd is that there is another teacher that got moved to 1st grade this year, and she's not such a wonderful teacher. She's actually had numerous complaints filed against her, complaints that as far as we can tell no one has ever actually taken seriously and done anything about.

This particular teacher was heard on a mother's voicemail calling that mother's child a bastard, an asshole, and being told to shut up and sit down and several other horrible things that should never be said to a child. For that incident, she was suspended with pay for 2 weeks while they "investigated" and then reinstated with nothing in her record about what she had done. And this was with proof on voicemail! I don't know the details of the other incidents, but I don't really think I need to. Based on that one alone, she should have been fired. This was when she taught 2nd grade.

Another parent at the school questioned why this teacher was still there, given the incident I mentioned. This parent was told that they moved this teacher to 1st grade, to see how she does there, and if she doesn't do well, she'll be fired. Ummm.....huh? We have a teacher who was recorded on voicemail calling an older child horrible names and saying other horrible things, and now we're going to experiment with younger, more emotionally fragile children to see what she does? Please explain to me how this makes sense. Why do we want to expose children who are even more easily hurt and influenced, who are even more likely to take what this woman says to heart and believe there's truth in it, to her? That just completely boggles my mind. When I look at things like this, it suddenly makes perfect sense why our children learn nothing and why we are so far behind other countries educationally speaking. How can we expect our children to learn when the people in charge are complete blithering idiots?

I'm glad that J didn't get that particular teacher, otherwise the school and I would be having some serious issues right now.

Both boys seem to like their teachers very much, a fact for which I am very grateful. C is not happy with the homework his teacher assigns, and honestly neither am I. But as I've told him, his teacher assigned it, so he must do it.

Today's math homework for him was about figuring out appropriate numbers for a description. For example, was the number of people living in a particular state in the millions? He had to answer yes or no. I had to laugh when I saw the following:

Q: Does your math book have millions of pages?
A (exactly as he wrote it): YES!!!

Can you tell the boy hates math? Not that I blame him. In fact, I'm right there with him.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

I love my children. I really do. No, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm reminding myself.

School sucks. Homework sucks. Hey...did I tell you that school and homework suck? They do, you know.

C is in 4th grade this year. Each year, homework has increased. The teachers claim it's 10 minutes per day per grade level. So, first grade is 10 minutes, 2nd is 20 and so on. So, 4th grade is 40 minutes. C takes...roughly 2 hours. I frequently find myself wondering if C is just that much of a whiner and procrastinator? Or if the problem is his ADHD? Or if the problem really lies with the teachers. I once, when he was in 1st grade, sat beside him as he did his homework and did it mentally myself. The 10 minutes that it supposedly should take him...is how long it took me, an adult who knows this stuff. I highly suspect that the teachers do the homework, and decide that how long it takes them is how long it should take the kids. They don't take into account that the kids are still learning this stuff and will therefore take longer. And then, with mine, you throw in ADHD and you end up with...2 hours a day spent on homework.

J gets done much quicker. Which leads me to believe that a large part of C's problem is whining and procrastinating. J is in 1st grade, but when he does his homework, he's done in about 10 minutes. C never was when he was in 1st grade; he usually took about a half hour. J has always seemed to have a much easier time academically than C, though. I'm not sure why. They are both incredibly smart, and eager to learn. I don't understand why it is that C won't just buckle down and get the work done. D tells me that I need to be firmer and make him get it done, but he's never here when we do homework, so he doesn't understand that I am firm. I am firm, I do make him get it done, the problem is that he doesn't do it in a timely fashion. And I can only do so much without making the situation worse.

I can't really put a time limit on him. First, it's hard to impose a time limit on something like this, because there's really no way to know how long is reasonable, considering he does sometimes struggle. Second, putting a time limit on him applies more pressure. And he doesn't do so well under pressure, which means if I put him on a time limit, he's going to feel more stressed, and therefore have more trouble concentrating, and thus take longer to finish.

I can only hope that as the school year wears on, as we get back into the routine, that things will get better. I can only hope that he will get tired of not having any time to play outside, or even inside for that matter, and decide on his own to apply himself and get the homework done.

On the plus side, it looks like D will have this otr job. It'll suck with him being gone so much, but we might actually have more time for each other. Plus, we'll finally be able to get the money together to get our own place.

I have a couple of friends who have volunteered themselves and/or their children to be my models to help me get my photography business going. And working as a Guide for ChaCha, though somewhat boring, does seem as though it might start paying off.

That's about all there is for now. Time for me to go figure out what the heck I'm going to make for dinner tonight.

I just can't fricking win!

Every time it seems like things are starting to get better, they just have to go and get sh*tty again.

The kids were off their meds and taking herbs for their ADHD. Initially, I saw some improvement. Then, after a few days, there wasn't really any improvement, it was really about the same as on their meds. And a few days after that, it was as if there was nothing at all in their system. It was as if their ADHD was completely untreated. So, we've resorted to a combination of their ADHD meds and the herbs, which seems to be rather effective. I still wish the meds weren't necessary, but I just don't see a way around it right now.

I'm still having no luck with finding a job. There's just nothing out there. The rare occasion that I find something that *could* work, it ends up being part time or too far away for it to be feasible, or worse, both. I'd love to figure out a way to work from home, since that would save on childcare, gas, and so much else, but I just can't come up with anything that doesn't cost me money.

Living with my parents is...well, it's living with my parents. Not an ideal situation at all. They forget they are grandparents, and step all over me when it comes to the kids. They claim to not know they're doing it, and when I point it out, say they'll stop, but...nothing changes.

I'm just so fed up with my life right now. Nothing seems to go right for me. I've always been a rather optimistic person, and I keep trying to stay that way, but it's so hard. Every time it seems like I'm getting somewhere, I get knocked back, and further than I was before. I'm about ready to just give up.

Yet another update...

So, things are better and worse, depending on the particular thing.

We got the boys off the meds and totally on the herbal stuff. They seem to be doing pretty well on the herbal...about the same as on the meds. I think the true test will be once they go back to school next month, although I must admit to some trepidation about that.

As for D and I...He lost his job last month, and only just found a new one this week. None of it was his fault, but it made things very tough and tense for a while. They're better now, though. And, we still have another potential job in the works, one that actually provides a job for both of us. It's an apartment complex management deal, looking for a couple. Provides an apartment, paid utlities, 3 weeks vacation, and a salary. Ideal solution to all our problems, so we're really hoping. Keeps him home, too (as does the job he just found), which is a plus in my book. I love seeing him every day, although if he did have to go back on the road, I'd deal as I did before. But, as horrible as the whole situation has been, one good thing that seems to have come from it is that it really helped our relationship. Having this time together, being able to see each other and talk and just be close has really helped bring us closer. We're doing so much better than we have been.

Tomorrow, I'm visiting a couple of assisted living places nearby. D's father is older, and thinking it might be time. I told D, because he has to be to work at 4:30 in the morning, that I would check a couple of places out and get some info for him. We're not making any quick decisions on that, because if we get the apartment deal, we'll be relocating about an hour away from where we are now. His dad would like to be closer, so we want to wait and be fairly certain of where we're going to be before we move him and try to get him settled somewhere.

My family isn't doing so well, either, at the moment. One of my uncles (well, my dad's uncle actually), has cancer. He's had it for a couple of years now. He keeps going into remission and then it returns. Now he's to the point where he has to have frequent chemo, and he's been told that if he doesn't get it, he will die. This is the only brother my grandmother has left, and she's 80 years old, so this is particularly heartwrenching. I'm very afraid of what may happen to her if he dies. I fear she may fall into a major depression, which at her age and with her health, will be very bad for her. As if that weren't enough, my grandfather's brother had to have open heart surgery...I believe it was last week, maybe the week before. They wanted to inject a dye into his veins and arteries to check for blockage, and couldn't even do that. They immediately scheduled the surgery. He came through it fine, but he needs to lose about 75 lbs and change his diet, and that's just so they can do another surgery to finish trying to fix what's wrong with him.

Writing all this has made me realize...I'm old. lol Sounds silly, I know. But honestly, this made me realize it. I'm sitting her writing about all the people in my family who might die and how I'm looking at assisted living facilities for my (I hope) future father-in-law. This is not the kind of thing young people do. This is what grown ups - old grown ups - do.

Oh, one last little update: Hell has officially frozen over. Yes, it's true: my ex has made his first child support payment in 4 years! It's not the full amount, but it's a start. Do I think he's changed? No, not really. But if he's willing to make an effort, I'm willing to be open minded and see where it leads. I did get a letter a few weeks ago that he was requesting a modification of child support. And I was pissed, trust me. I had every intention of hauling his ass back into court and having him held in contempt and pushing hard for an increase. But now that he's done this...while I doubt he's changed, and I doubt it will last, I'm still going to keep an open mind and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe, he's finally grown up and will step up to the plate.

So, that's about it for now. I'm going to try to post more often now that things seem to be starting to smooth out around here.

Summer's Here

The kids are out of school for the summer, and have been for about 2 weeks now. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm about ready for them to go back. Ok, not really, but there are moments when I would give anything for a little break. D and I took them to Orlando for the afternoon on Friday. There's this really interesting store down there that carries...well, everything. Literally. They have this huge variety of different things, just kind of thrown in there randomly. It's actually quite cool. D could spend days there, I think and never get bored. And now, so could the boys. We stopped and had lunch on the way down. That part was...well, not so much fun. The guy taking our order kept asking the same questions over and over, clearly not listening to us. Then we all went to the bathroom, and discovered no soap in either of them. Think about this for a minute. The same bathroom the employees use...and no soap. All together now: EWWW!!!!

We're spending lots of time in the pool. The kids brought home a little card from school that gets them 2 free games of bowling every weekday during the summer. I paid for a family pass so that I can bowl with them. All we have to pay for is shoe rental, so that's a nice little thing we can do every now and then. And we're hopefully going to get together with a few different friends and their kids at local parks or whatever. We did have tentative plans to get together with a couple of my friends at a lake house belonging to one of the friend's friends. But...the lake is now teeming with bacteria, so no swimming. And if I can't swim in it, I don't see much point to going to the lake.

So...aside from last night, life is getting better. D and I are doing ok, the kids are doing pretty good. I'm trying them on some herbal stuff to see if I can get them off the meds for the ADHD. I am not happy with the meds, I feel it's too intrusive in their systems, and there's just too much that's unknown about what it might be doing to their bodies. I could try switching them to something else, but that's not any better. So, D and I discussed some various herbal remedies and we got them and are now trying them out. In the next day or two, I'm going to stop the meds and just go with the herbal and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Oh, and C got his FCAT scores in the mail last week. He scored above grade level all the way! Even in math!! That made me so proud of him. Knowing that even though he struggles with math, he's still above grade level eases my mind. I think he put too much pressure on himself and then I put even more pressure on him and it just made things worse. Having seen these results, I'm hoping that we'll both ease up next year and he'll do better.

Well, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll try to keep updating, but I have little time to do much of anything these days, with two little boys constantly asking can we go outside, can we go outside, can we go outside? You know how if you say a word too many times, it starts to lose its meaning and not even sound like word anymore? Yeah, the words "can we go outside" have reached that point.