The Day After

Today has been surprisingly calm. Diva has been in her room all day, coming out to use the bathroom only with permission. I also had her come to the table to eat her meals. Rather than go to the trouble of actually fixing gruel for her breakfast, I poured her a bowl of Cheerios. For lunch she had a peanut butter and jelly sammich with a glass of milk. Light fixed a delicious supper of Orange Roughy, homemade hard rolls (dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil), green beans and applesauce. It was SO good! We let Diva out of her room to join the family for dinner. She was very pleasant. Sproing wasn't, though, so (of course) we didn't have a particularly peaceful dinner. It was very tasty, though. 

Sorry, got distracted there for a few. It was a really good dinner! 

Diva cleaned her room. What the hell else was she to do in there? She hasn't complained or pouted at all. Sometimes I think she enjoys being left alone in her room. Whatever, it works for me. Superman screwed the windows shut last night. I don't like doing that because it eliminates the fire escape, but in this case it is necessary. We may not leave them like that for long, but it needed to be done now. Diva got upset once this morning. Remember the bed Superman built for her? She slept on it for maybe a week, but has had her mattress on the floor for a few weeks now. She kept falling off the bed, and the bed is high enough so that it's a painful fall. 

Right now Superman is disassembling the bed's legs and using the wood to make some shorter legs. I want her to be off the floor. She's had the bed on its side for a couple of weeks; I don't know why. Today she tried to set it upright all by herself, and that didn't work at all. I didn't want it upright because the whole idea is to unscrew the legs anyway. She pitched a crying fit about that. I told her to hush. I gave her the old standard parent line: "If you don't hush, I'll get the paddle and give you something to cry about!" You know that line. It's the one I swore I would never use on my children when I became a parent. Never say never.

Sproing was amazingly sweet, compliant, and helpful today. Diva was out of his hair. He also started taking a new medication a couple of weeks ago, and that seems to be making a big difference in his ability to control his outbursts over life's frustrations. Sproing had a list of jobs to do today, with incentive. Each job successfully completed earned a little bit of money. It varied by the task. If he finished three jobs, he got an extra dollar. Five jobs completed earned him an extra two dollars. If he did all of them, he got a five dollar bonus. He was really excited about this! Superman came up with the idea. He's a genius. The boy did all of the jobs on the list! He needed some help weeding the flower bed in the front yard. It was really nasty, and hasn't been cleaned out since sometime last summer (if then). Lots of grass among the irises. A real mess. 

Superman and Twitch went to the housing orientation at Twitch's new college. He starts July 13th, and moves in on the 10th. I was supposed to go with them, but with Diva's behavior of late, I didn't feel comfortable leaving her with Light. Diva can be totally nasty to her siblings. She has no respect for Light's authority. Hell, she barely has respect for my authority. I was a big bad mean Mama today, though, so it was all good.

Back to Twitch and college: he and Superman have been there at least three times. They went for a look-see visit, then for a financial aid seminar, and today for the housing orientation. When Twitch moves in, though, I am going to have to take him. He moves on Friday, July 10th. There's some kind of orientation thing on Saturday the 11th, and classes begin on Monday the 13th. Note how that Saturday is July 11th. Coincidentally, Superman's sister is getting married on July 11th. That sets up an uncomfortable conflict. I actually wanted to go to the wedding this time. I haven't been to the in-law's home town in a few years. By choice. On both sides of this fence. But I was looking forward to being there for SIL's wedding. I'm super thrilled for her. She's been through the wringer with relationships recently, but that's another story I'll not get into now. I'm wandering all over the topics tonight as it is. Anyway, of course Superman will go to his own sister's wedding. He'll take Light and the terrible twosome (I assume). 

That leaves me to help Twitch move into his apartment at school. That's almost funny. I have enough trouble carrying my big fat ass around. There isn't much I'll be able to carry into his new home. He's a strong, strapping young man, though, and hopefully he'll be able to do the lifting himself. We have a nice hand truck. 

I can push that with boxes on it. I hope his apartment is on the first level. So the first time I see his school and his apartment will be when he moves in. I had hoped to see stuff today. Alas, 'twas not to be. Once more I made a sacrifice for my children. It is what we do. Most of the time I don't much mind. Sometimes it is crappy. 

I actually accomplished something today! Backing up a tiny bit, while I was in Baltimore Superman cleaned up a very messy portion of our bedroom. It was wonderful. Today I cleaned off our dresser. We haven't seen the top of that dresser in at least three years. I'm pretty pleased with myself. I followed the advice of those in the know. I did NOT leave the room!! I had a garbage bag and a box. If something needed to be put in another room, it went into the box. I threw a lot of stuff away. Amazing how many old receipts pile up when I'm not looking. The dresser looks pretty good now. The box with not-for-the-top-of-the-dresser stuff is on the floor beside the dresser. I was too hot and sweaty and stinky to take care of it, but it is all together, and I can work on that later. Perhaps 15 minutes at a time, right Patrick? It was fairly easy to decide what should be removed from the dresser. The more difficult task is deciding where the rejects go. Some of it should probably be thrown away. Some of it needs to go with my sewing and craft supplies. The kicker there, though, is that my craft stuff is in such terrible disarray that there isn't really any kind of appropriate "away" place for most of what I have. That's a task for another day. 

Right now I'm going to call my day "done." Thank you all for your support and encouragement. And thank the Deity (or Deities) that I had a pretty good day today.