Pet Peeves

Let’s just name a few of my pet peeves, shall we?

1.       Do NOT cut your nails in public. Better yet, don’t cut your nails at work. So gross! Not only can I hear you, but I can see the stupid nail clippings flying all over. This is considered personal hygiene, and frankly, I don’t think you should be “practicing” personal hygiene while sitting at your desk at work.

2.       When a person walks, whether they walk quickly or slowly, you shouldn’t be stomping. If you walk past my desk it shouldn’t shake everything in my office.

3.       Social media. It’s great, isn’t it? Especially since you can post from your phones now; they are such. SMART. PHONES. But if you’re going to be posting for all of social media to see, how about we try to use correct grammar? Or even maybe a little punctuation? I’m sorry, but “i went to the store they were out of milk im so mad i missed conferences for my kid what kind of parent am i” is just utterly ridiculous. I have to actually concentrate to read that run on sentence. And social media should be fun, shouldn’t it? It shouldn’t remind me of elementary English class where we had to mark through everything that was wrong, and correct the capitalization, punctuation, etc.

4.       Please learn the difference between “two, to, and too” and “your and you’re” and “there, their, and they’re”. It drives me crazy. Its It's not two too hard. Get it? See what I did their there?

5.       Since we’re on an English roll, let’s not forget about those people that write/type exactly how they speak. “I done went fishin’.” Went. You WENT fishing. You certainly did not “done” fishin’.

6.       If you work at a restaurant, no matter what position you are in (waiter, chef, hostess), you should not go to work sick. I swear, if I see one more Facebook post about how much you are throwing up, but you are “sticking” through it at work, and I KNOW you work at a restaurant, I’m calling the health department. Don’t doubt me, because I WILL. DO. IT.

7.       Vitamins are great. Holistic remedies can be great. But you are not a doctor; you are not an herbalist; you don’t know what you’re talking about. There are some ailments that cannot be cured by some weird concoction of natural supplements. I know you think that your grandmother’s cancer went into remission because of the herbs you gave her, but I assure you that wasn’t the case.

I think that’s enough for one day, don’t you? I really just had to get those things off my chest. I feel better now. 

Wait-Listed

It’s done. D.O.N.E.

Jackson is officially registered for kindergarten. What? When? How? How did this happen? When did my baby get so big, and old, and just… Just…

I went today to his assigned school and finished up the registration. It’s still kind of up in the air as to which school he will be going to, and even what calendar he will be on. We wanted year round, but there’re way too many kids now that requested year round school. They held a random lottery and unfortunately, Jackson didn't get in. He’s been wait-listed! 

The weird thing is that Dalton did get year round. We weren't sure if he would, because we had to switch schools since we moved at the end of last summer.

So. Right now Dalton is in year round, and Jackson is registered for traditional. Bizarre-o.

I just don’t know how the last 5 years (almost 6) have gone by so fast! It will be nice to not have to pay for full time daycare anymore, I realize that. But that’s about the only positive thing I can come up with for right now!

It is so weird to me. This little booger is starting school? 

 Bless all those teachers and school workers...cause they broke the mold with this one. Those teachers are in for it!!!

I am a Terrible Mother.

There. I've said it. I'm a terrible mother. Horrible. Bleh.

So Dalton got in trouble for fighting, right? Two days in a row. Three kids. And part of that punishment was doing extra chores on top of his regular chores. (Side bar: Am I the only parent that still gives her kids chores? Seems like no one else does this.)

Friday night's chore was to dust the baseboards in the entire house. It was perfect. I hate doing it, he's in trouble, AND he's closer to the floor than me, so it's a win/win. Okay, well, it was a win for me, not so much for Big D. But I digress. He dusted the baseboards in the entire house. (Not very well, they were still kind of dirty). I had him use baby wipes so that the dust wasn't flying all over.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning, we go get allergy shots. I get two, he gets one. So we both get our shots, and about 15 minutes later, we're sitting in the waiting area for our allotted 20 minute wait time, when he starts coughing. His face gets flush. He starts wheezing. He starts hitting his chest. I stand up and make eyes with the receptionist, who stands up and yells "WE NEED AN EPI PEN!" Oh, lawdy!

There had to have been a good 40 people there that day; the clinic waiting room was so full. So they rush Dalton to the back and jab him with an epi-pen (which seriously folks, those things are no joke!! He started breathing better almost instantaneously.), then set him up with monitors to measure his heart rate and oxygen saturation, and also started doing a breathing treatment, then gave him a shot of Benadryl. Holy moly.

And this is not Dalton's first reaction. He had a reaction the day after Christmas, but they didn't have to use the epi-pen that time. This was worse; this freaked a certain mommy out to no end.

So about ten years later (seemed like it; I think it was only an hour), they are getting ready to let us leave. The doctor is warning me about how even though he is fine now, he could have another flare up, even a couple days later, and told me not to hesitate to use the epi-pen and then call an ambulance. (It's pretty mandatory to go to the ER after an epi-pen injection). She asked how long it takes to drive home, to which I say 10 minutes, 15 tops in traffic. She says "Well, you have his inhaler right?" Um, no. "Do you have his epi-pen?" Um, no. "Do you even have YOUR epi-pen?" Um, no? Lord, I'm a terrible parent. So she really lays into me while getting us samples to take for the ride home. She also warned me, no physical activity for the rest of the day.

And then I remember. He's in trouble. He's grounded from electronics. He's hopped up on albuterol and epinephrine, jittery as can be, and he's grounded. How do I entertain him? And THEN I remember the punishment. Dusting baseboards. He was exposed to a bunch of dust (dust mites being his biggest allergy), and then 12 hours later he was injected again with the serum.

So, super sly like, I say "Um. Dust. He dusted the baseboards last night." And the dr asks if he wore a dust mask. "No. Did I do this to him? Is this my fault?"
She said, and I'm quoting here... "I'm not saying it's YOUR fault..." Oh. My. God. That was it. I broke down. I almost killed my child. I am a terrible mother. Someone go ahead and call DHS so I don't have to call myself, 'mkay?

Did I raise you like that?

Dalton has been having some behavior issues this week. Normally he is so even keeled, laid back, polite. He's such a good kid, which makes what happened this week so out of character for him.

He goes to year round school and they are on break this week. After school and on breaks, he goes to a program in town (same place as Jackson goes for daycare) that is in a church. So Wednesday, he was supposed to go to graduation for Taekwondo to graduate to the next belt. I had to leave work early to go get him to get there on time. I get to the daycare, check out Jackson, and go down to get Dalton. I sent him into the bathroom to change into his uniform, and one of the other teachers came and sat on the bench with me.

She is actually Jackson's teacher, so I thought Jackson was in trouble for something (let's face it, it's usually him...). But this teacher was in the hallway and saw everything go down with Dalton and tried to stop it, so she wrote the report and talked to me about.

Long story short, Dalton tried to beat a kid up. A kid that is older and bigger, and luckily, the kid just blocked his punches and didn't fight back. Then later in the day, he threatened ANOTHER kid. So we didn't let Dalton go to graduation. We went straight home, Dalton had to clean his room while we waited for Dad to get home. We talked about it with him, asked why he did it (which, of COURSE he didn't have a good excuse, there's just not a good reason to hit someone unless you are defending yourself). We talked at length about it. Dalton got grounded from his tablet for a week (his choice; I was going to suggest 4 or 5 days).

So then Thursday I take him to daycare again, and remind him before I leave to make good choices, etc etc. Well. So much for that. We find out that he hit a LITTLE GIRL, and when the teacher tried to talk to him about it (a different teacher), he shrugged at her and wouldn't talk, like "Whatever. I don't care."

So again. We talk with him about it. He gets grounded. Again. This time from not just the tablet, but ALL electronics, for two weeks. And he has to complete all his regular chores for two weeks, but not get his allowance. Then he has extra chores on top. So last night he had to do all the dishes, tonight he will clean all the baseboards in the house, this weekend he will pick up dog poo in the yard, etc etc. And they were supposed to go on a field trip today to Jump Zone, but instead, he has to sit at the front desk for 4 hours while everyone else goes.

I just don't understand what is going on with him. This is SO out of character for him to act this way. And not just to have an incident, but three in a row in two days, back to back to back? I am at a loss. I don't know what else to do if this happens again. I can tell you that my mom and dad, WAY back when, if my brother had acted this way he would have been black and blue all over for a month. Paddles, fly swatters, whatever. (I never got a spanking in my life, but my brothers....) I can count on one hand the number of times I have spanked my children. I am not completely opposed to it, but I HATE doing it. Besides, I think there are much more effective ways to discipline, I just don't really know what they are, other than what we've done already.

Let's break this down. My son threatened to beat up a boy, TRIED to beat up a second boy, and hit a GIRL. IN A CHURCH.

Anyone have experience in this?

It has NOT been three years since I've blogged. Right?

Seriously? What do you say when you go 3+ years since last blogging? We've been busy. Sick. Moving. Planning funerals. I don't know, all of the above? I'm gonna' try to get back in the groove. I started the blog all those years ago so that our out-of-town family could keep track of the monsters  children growing up. And I wanted the boys to be able to look back and know who we were, them, us. And time slips away, and the next thing you know you're old and creaky and, well...

Dalton is 8 now, almost 9. Almost 9!! Holy moly. He's in third grade for crying out loud. I don't understand where the time goes. He is so...big boy...it just blows my mind. He's still kind and considerate, and some of the things he says are just outrageous. When did he get so smart?

Jackson is 5! He will start kindergarten this fall. I'm not ready for that. Truth be told, I don't think he's ready for that either, but our bank account is sure ready to stop paying for daycare! Jackson is...Jackson. He's so... I struggle to find words to describe this boy that don't describe him as being a heathen, but he kind of is. I'm sure it's our fault. We babied him, and treated him as breakable for so long after his early entry into this life, and it RUINED him. ;) He's rambunctious, obnoxious, loud, ALL BOY. Don't get me wrong, he has his moments of being sweet and cuddly and all, but those moments are few and far between. He's lucky he's so stinkin' cute.

We moved in July 2013. We'd outgrown our old house, and it was falling down around us. Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but we were so tired of throwing money into it. The roof leaked, so we replaced it, but insurance wouldn't pay for it because they claimed it was "installed improperly"...17 years prior. We had a leaky pipe in the wall that we couldn't get to, and ended up having to tear our entire master bathroom to fix it. That was after the roof leaked and took out all the ceiling drywall in that bathroom, so at least it was in the same place I guess. It was just one thing after another, money and bills and financing and JUST STOP ALREADY! So we did. We met with our realtor, who is a friend, and she helped us get it all ready to go. We sold it approximately 36 hours after it went on the market. Seriously! We hadn't even house shopped. At. All. So we furiously went on the hunt. Luckily we found a house we love just days later. We had a few minor snafus with the buyers for our house, and the closing getting pushed back, but all in all, everything worked out fine.

My sister, Ann, moved to Dubai in August 2013. I know right? We have her dog, Maggie. ;) I never previously posted much about Ann. My siblings and I...well. There's a big age difference (like my oldest sister, Catherine, is 20 years older than me). So most of them were moved out of the house by the time I was born, so we're not real close. 5 years ago, if Ann had moved across the world, I most certainly wouldn't have offered to keep her dog, and it wouldn't have been super sad to me to have her so far. But now... we've grown very close in the last 3 years. And I miss her now. The fact that I can't just pick up the phone and call her (not that I did much before) is devastating. What happened 3 years ago that we got closer?

Our mom died. There. I said it. Mom died. Those words, when they leave my mouth or head, it's like fiery vomit leaving my body. I say it out loud and my body burns.  Bleh. She was killed by breast cancer that metastasized to her lungs, bones, and brain.

I literally just sat here after typing the above, for about a full minute. What do you say after that? Mom died. She is gone. When someone you love so much leaves the earth, how does everything else continue to function? How does the world still turn? I miss her so much. I miss her advice, and her nagging, and her. Everything about her. I find myself thinking at least ten times a day about her and what she would think or say in any given situation. When Jackson fell and got a concussion, I needed to call her and get her advice. When Dalton was violently vomiting with the stomach flu, I needed to call her and ask questions. When we were moving, I needed to call her and ask what she thought. I still need to call her, and I can't, and I don't even know how to put into words the feeling of loss and emptiness and despair. The thing is, you always need your mom. Always.

Wow. This is heavy stuff after 3+ years of silence. I'm done rambling for now. I really really really hope to blog at least once a week. But no promises, eh? (Sometimes I like to pretend I'm Canadian).

Later -
Nancy

I Miss Her

I always slept with my phone beside my bed, in case mom called and needed me. There are mornings I wake up, still half asleep and see my phone, and think “I should call Mom”. And then I remember she’s gone. It’s been three weeks, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her, or miss her. There’re days where I’m driving and have to pull the car over because I’m crying so hard I can’t see.

People say she’s in a better place. She’s not hurting anymore. And I say it’s bull shit. She’s not in a better place, because her place is here with me. She may not be hurting anymore, but I am. Grief, pain, and loss do not get better. Life doesn’t get better. It just gets…different.

Blue Eyed Boy

I’m just sayin’…doesn’t he have the most beautiful blue eyes??