Here's another post

Somebody suggested that I post more often. So here's another post. What will it say? I don't know yet.
In the meantime, enjoy this post:

Yet another post

One reason I haven't posted recently is that I don't want to talk about it. It's too damned depressing. 

Yeah, I'm depressed, and it affects the way I communicate. My thoughts are disorganized and so is my communication. I don't make sense to myself, so I doubt I make sense to anyone else. 

I saw my therapist today. She knows I am depressed. She sympathises. She wants to help us get Diva into a group home or something. 

There's a group home here in Greenwood. I contacted the admissions director the other day to see about getting Diva in there. She says they have space for her, but there is of course more to the application process. I dropped off some of Diva's records yesterday - the discharge summary from the psychiatric residential facility, the latest IEP* from the school, that sort of thing. I've arrange for the school psychologist to send their psych evaluation to this place. Next step is for us to have an interview. Or for them to interview Diva, I'm not sure which. The invitation to interview depends on whether or not the paperwork I've already submitted scares the admissions director off of Diva. We shall see. My therapist knows the admissions lady and will call her to put in a good word for us/Diva. 

Superman had a heart scare Tuesday. His heart was fluttering something awful, beating really fast, he was dizzy and short of breath. I took him to the emergency department. The doctor he got is the best cardiologist in town, according to reliable sources. Superman was experiencing atrial fibrillation, which is the leading cause of stroke. FML. But, it's also very common and very easy to manage. I pretend not to worry. 

So, do you think stress might be a factor? Do you, like me, think that Diva in particular and the sons in addition are killing us? 

Diva did a bad thing last weekend. She was grounded, but convinced her daddy to allow her to exchange one day of being grounded (Friday evening to Saturday evening) for being grounded the rest of this week. We brokered a similar deal with Sproing not too long ago. So yeah, we let her spend the night/day with her friend in Abbeville (the next town west of us). The little bitch pulled the switcheroo, though. See, I knew we shouldn't trust her, but I went along with the plan anyway because what the fuck. Her daddy trusted her, though. He was to pick her up at 6:30 Saturday evening. To make a long painful story short, he didn't actually get her until 7:30 Sunday evening. She kept calling to say she wasn't at her friend's house, they were in another town visiting relatives or some such. It's all lies anyway, so whatever. The thing is that he trusted her and she broke his trust. Again. And this was the last straw. He is heartbroken, really. 

I had a little talk with her this afternoon. I explained that she did herself in this time, that her daddy who has always had her back, who has always given her the benefit of the doubt, is now finished with her. 

Superman was in a state Sunday evening, and since then, too. He is in mourning for the little girl he wishes he had. You probably know I gave up on her (mostly) a long time ago. It hurts to see how much she has hurt him. 

There's more, too. More that involves her screaming and cussing at us for an hour right after Superman got home from the hospital. She insists that she's going to move to Abbeville to live with her friend. That ain't happenin'. We're the parents, we have legal responsibility for her, etc. and we're not going to let her live with some other skanky ho to get into all kind of trouble. We will, however, let her live at this group home. At first she balked (that's a very understated way to describe her reaction) but after finding out more about the place she's more willing to consider it. I hope to all the gods available that they accept her. 

Sproing is home and nothing has changed about the way he interacts with the family. I don't know how to describe it. He's bossy, shifts blame, bitches about any task we give him (though he usually does what we ask if we leave him alone), and ignores the rules he doesn't like. He goes before the judge again on March 11th for his final ... whatever the legal term is. This is when the judge considers the results of his evaluations from the evaluation center (the kiddie jail he was in) and makes a final judgement on what to do with him. I have no idea how that will go. Frankly I haven't the emotional energy to give a fuck. I'll deal with it when it happens. 

Twitch is looking for a job. Sort of. In a very lazy half-assed way. His presence irritates me because he's being such a leech. I "encourage" him to get out there and pound the pavement, but godalmighty I'm so fucking depressed that I barely have the energy to give him a dirty look. 

Superman and I will leave here as soon as we're finished at court with Sproing on the 11th. We'll drive up to Pennsylvania to see Light. Her art exhibit is up until the third week of March and I really want to see it. So on the way to Delaware we're going to swing by Indiana, PA. Yeah, it's a round-about way to get to Delaware from South Carolina, but it involves seeing Light so it's all good. Then Thursday we'll head to Lewes, DE for the Bloggerpalooza. Oh my stars I'm so looking forward to seeing my blog buddies and being away from home! It feels like years since I did anything resembling fun. I had a blast on my road trip last summer, and that's probably the last time I had fun. Being so depressed makes it seem like I've never known fun and will never have any fun ever again. So I'm going to Delaware looking for fun. 

"They" say that being involved in charitable activities helps relieve feelings of despondency. Tomorrow (Friday) I'll spend a few hours with a sweet little old lady who is slowly dying of heart failure. It's my Friday thing for now. Until she dies. This is the third Hospice patient I've had the privilege** of visiting. She isn't quite as spunky as the last lady I sat with, but she's very nice. Her daughter (the caregiver) is nice, too. I'll take my knitting. I knat last week and she enjoyed watching me. I find that amusing, but whatever to amuse a poor dying lady, I'll do. I think I left my little scissors there. They weren't in my tote bag when I got home. 

And that's about all I know. It's pretty damned depressing. Maybe one day I'll be able to post something that has nothing to do with my children and that is pleasant. This ain't it. 

*IEP - Individual Education Plan

**"Privilege is not spelled with a "d" anywhere. Remember that, Java. Also, it truly is a great privilege to visit with these Hospice patients. 

stuff

I should really post more often. I need the therapy. Also, a lot of shit happens in my life and I need to keep up here.

Sproing was sprung from kiddie jail today. He has a scheduled appearance before the judge on March 11th, which happens to be my baby brother's birthday, to confuse you with unrelated details. Back to Sproing; he's doing pretty well. He is most definitely glad to be back home. He is showing respect for his parents, at least. Let's do the work to keep this up, Java and Superman!

I feel that I'm a neglectful parent. I really am to some extent. My excuse is that I get easily overwhelmed. Is that just a flimsy excuse or a valid reason? I'm not sure. Maybe a bit of both.

My keyboard "m" is wonky. Stingy. I try to use it and it doesn't give me the m. Sometimes. There must be tiny gremlins under the key keeping it from fully depressing. How depressing. My space bar isn't giving me space, either. Hmm. First world problems.

So I was released from the hospital today. Only stayed one day. I had some odd chest pain yesterday (Tuesday) so Superman took me to the emergency department. The EKG in the ER looked good, but they admitted me for observation and testing. I passed the tests. I had a stress test this morning and everything looked good, according to the doctor. The official diagnosis (I think) is PVC, Premature Ventricular Contraction. Because my heart otherwise looks fine, these PVCs are benign. Probably. I am currently wearing a Holter monitor, also known as an ambulatory electrocardiography device (isn't that a fun phrase!) that will check these things. I get to wear it for 24 hours (until 2:30 Thursday afternoon) and can't get it wet. No shower, in other words. Also, I didn't bathe yesterday while in hospital. I had a monitor on then, too, with sticky tabs stuck to my chest. Doesn't mix well with water. So I'm a little bit funky. My scalp bothers me the most, but I will wash my hair in the sink tomorrow (too tired tonight) and everything will be fine.

Reading the above linked website, I learned that some possible causes of PVCs are caffeine (I drink decaf coffee and not much other caffeinated stuff) and electrolyte imbalance. The doctor showed me the blood test results indicating that my magnesium level is slightly low, so that might be something. Alcohol may also be a cause, and indeed I notice the heart palpitations, or flutters, more often after I've had a couple of beers. Stress and insufficient sleep can make them worse. Well, by golly, I've got the stress thing in the bag, don't I? I talked to the day shift nurse this morning. We had a lovely chat. I told her some of the stuff going on in our household, the challenges with Sproing and Diva, etc. Her unofficial diagnosis for the cause of my chest pain is stress. She was kinda funny. "Honey, it's stress that brought you in here!" It was quite an exclamation the way she said it. Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, I have Trigemini. That's a PVC every third beat. Not all the time, but when it's doing its PVC thing it'll go every third beat. I have actually listened to it and noticed the every third thing. I have a stethoscope and sometimes listen to my heart when it feels fluttery. This often happens at night when I lie down to sleep. The fluttering keeps me awake (how does that help?). In summation, my heart dances the waltz.

Updates on news from the last post:
Twitch needs to get his ass in gear. He's being a lazy SOB. Time for Mama to kick some lazy butt. He needs to be making money, working, getting life experience outside of my house.

Light's art show was fabulous, and it's good that her Daddy was there. She was kinda emotional before the opening reception and he helped diffuse that. He's good for her that way, probably better than I am. The show is actually up until the third week in March, and Superman and I are hoping to 'swing by' when we go to the Bloggerpalooza in Delaware next month. Yeah, western PA is not exactly on the way to Lewes, Delaware. There's a wrench in the works I discovered today. Sproing's court date is the Tuesday before the Bloggerpalooza and we hoped to arrive in Indiana, PA that day. We will see what we will see.
Here are some pictures from Light's art show.

Light herself

 Light's artwork

It's been a busy week?

I don't know anything anymore.

Diva has been doing her shorter school day for about a week now. The special-needs bus brings her home around 1:00 in the afternoon. She hangs around, watches TV, sleeps in the afternoon. I have no gumption to encourage anything else. I don't know what to do with her anyway. If we talk too much we end up fighting, so I'm trying to stay out of her way.

This is fucked up. This is not how I envisioned my life with my adopted children. Things were going to be so much better than this. There have been lots of missteps along the way. I did what I thought was right for a long time, and of course I made mistakes. But at some point a few years ago (probably five years if I had to guess) the balance tipped. I am in over my head with these kids. I don't know what to do and have no confidence to try much of anything anyway.

I read over the past few posts about Diva. I really do sound like a rotten mother. I have a bad attitude, that's for sure.

Sproing has been in jail for three weeks now. Not sure when he'll go before the judge again, but it will probably be within another three weeks. Superman and I had a good visit with him Saturday. He turned 16 a couple of weeks ago and is itching to try for his drivers' license as soon as he gets sprung from juvie. Yeah, we'll see. Really, I don't know. I think there should be an easy answer, that he definitely should (or should not) get his license yet. But I don't know and haven't the mental/emotional fortitude to figure it out. Or to stick with a plan.

And Twitch is home again. I drove down to Charleston last Thursday to get him and all his stuff. He's here. And pretending to look for a job, but not very hard in my estimation. He wants to go to Cincinnati (I don't know where that came from) to get a job, but he has no money, no prospects, nothing to go on. I told him to get a job here, make some money, do a bunch of research and job searching online and when he's got enough cash to make the move and a job to go to, then he'll be ready to go. He's been moping and mumbling around here since Friday. He helped his dad gather firewood on Sunday, that was helpful.

C moved out over the weekend. Twitch is now in the room C and his friend shared. This is the third time, if I recall, that C has lived here then moved away. This time is the worst yet. "How do you mean, Java?" Well, we had to kick him out this time. The other two times he motivated himself to go and had an apartment to go to. Now he moved in with some other friends and the situation is not ideal. It's a fairly small house with way more people than fit comfortably. Of course that could be said about this place. Also, the other residents have three dogs and there's a 5-year-old kid there at least part of the time. C doesn't deal with children well, and he has little patience for dogs (less for cats, but that's another story). C is a cook at the local Shoney's restaurant and doesn't seem to have any further dreams. He almost graduated from college but quit with two classes to go. Or maybe it was one. I don't remember. It looks to me like his life is stuck in idle and no one is at the controls. The clutch operator went out for a smoke break and hasn't returned in a while.

But he's gone from here, so hopefully that will help him kickstart his life again. He was definitely too comfortable here.

So lots of changes in the past week. In all of these things I feel a degree of guilt. Other feelings, too, but definitely guilt. Maybe it's misplaced, maybe not. Doesn't matter. It's what I'm dealing with. And not dealing well, either. On the other hand, I haven't gotten drunk since my last post. I have been eating too much, though. I feel a lot of pain right now, and I'm looking to food for some feel-good. I had a small ice cream thing a couple of hours ago and now my stomach feels unsettled. It didn't taste good enough to make me feel happy, either, so now I'm just sorry I ate it at all. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who can't eat when they're depressed, but really it's all bad, so whatever.

In happy news (the only happy news around here at all) Light had her Master of Fine Arts oral defense this morning. She passed! And her art show is this Saturday. She says everything is set up and looks good. Superman and Twitch will drive to western Pennsylvania on Thursday to spend the weekend with her, see her show, etc. I'm disappointed that I don't get to go, but Superman hasn't been to see her in nearly two years and I've been twice since then. I'll be here with Diva. Hopefully Sproing won't get out of jail until his dad gets back next Tuesday or Wednesday. So I'm happy as hell for Light, and glad that Superman and Twitch get to see her.

Today, that's all I got.