Update featuring "bad" children

I wish the kids were mature enough to be civil responsible citizens, but alas, emotionally disturbed 16 year olds act like ill-behaved adolescents. Both are on probation. Sproing is currently in violation of his probation, but Diva is about a month away from being off probation. She's done a bit better recently. However, just this Tuesday the two of them got into a fight here at home. They traded punches and threw things (including furniture) at each other. It was a loud mess. Property was damaged. But through it all I remained calm. It's gotten to the point that whatever they do, there's not much I can do to make a difference. Through the fight I calmly told them to go to their rooms and calm down. They totally ignored me, as usual. I'm just trying to survive until they grow up and move out. It makes me feel like a bad parent, but I don't let it tear me apart like it used to. When I was earning my recent psychology degree I remember in either Adolescent Development or Adolescent Psychopathology class I read that "bad" children lead to "bad" parenting. OK, it wasn't that simple. Difficult children make it much harder to do the "good parenting" things. I find that to be a very true truth. 

Superman is out of the country on business this week. He'll be home Saturday evening. It's been a long week. He's in Belgium, where those Belgians make some of the best chocolate on the planet. As usual when he goes to Belgium, I don't allow him back in the country unless he brings me chocolate offerings. After the week I've had, I need it! 

"Need" might be overstating things. I'm an over-eater. Some people drink too much alcohol, and "need" booze to help them through difficult times. In like manner, I "need" chocolate. I had a lovely bowl of chocolate ice cream this afternoon. In related news, I've gained about 20 lbs. since the start of summer. I'd lost about 60 lbs. but am up 20 now. I need to get a grip on this shit. There are more effective ways to deal with stress. But dammit, I'm too stressed (or maybe too depressed) (or both) to invest the energy into eating right and exercising as I should. That's bullshit, you realize. I am responsible for my own actions (or inaction, in this case). It is all my fault and it's my responsibility to get my shit together and do the right thing. But damn. A bowl of ice cream is easier. Also, the depression thing causes me to not care about myself enough to do the right thing. But then I feel fat and stupid and want to lose weight. It's an evil cycle. 

Just this week I was able to talk to another mother with a difficult child. Her kid is only 7 years old, poor thing, and has serious mental/emotional problems. There is nothing I can do to provide practical assistance, but I can listen and sympathize. It's amazing how much help that can be. I understand her feeling of helplessness. She's just beginning to get a clue that she is a parent of a special needs child. It's extremely difficult to accept that designation. It's one thing if your child is born with an obvious birth defect. This kid looks perfectly normal. But when the behavior is socially unacceptable, the parent looks like a fool. It really isn't the parent's fault, per se, it's that the kid is abnormal. That's not what Joe Schmo on the street sees, though. My point here is that I feel useful when I'm able to talk to the mom, or more importantly listen to the mom, and assure her that I know what it's like, have similar experiences. 

And I heard from one of my former professors asking for the same help. She knows a woman with a difficult child and asked if I would talk to the mom, maybe help her connect to local resources to help the child. So now I'm waiting on an email from this mom. I do know a few resources that can maybe help the kid, but I suspect just connecting with someone else who understands will be as much help as anything else. 

I haven't had any social connections recently. I'm not doing anything these days, and I feel useless. Well, I am doing stuff, but it involves taking my children to appointments and such. Oh, I failed to mention that Sproing has been suspended from school all this week. The fool (he's really very intelligent, but painfully unwise) got himself six days of out-of-school suspension. So this whole week while Superman has been out of the country I've had to deal with Sproing all day, every day. And his attitude stinks. He's a pain in the ass, except when he wants something from me and then is very charming. He has charm out the wazoo. 

Speaking of chocolate, I read yesterday that the price of chocolate will probably go up soon. The African countries with Ebola problems supply much of the U.S. chocolate. Ebola is the real tragedy. Chocolate is a meaningful and unfortunate side effect. Chocolate impacts my life more directly than Ebola. For that I am thankful. 

Baseball is in the post-season playoffs now. I like baseball, and have been watching the playoffs when I can. The Kansas City Royals won the American League championship, and currently San Francisco and St. Louis are battling for the National League championship. The score in game 5 is tied at 3 in the 9th inning. Sproing has been in here arguing with me for the past two hours, criticizing me for not paying attention to him. And he's arguing about stupid stuff. So I told him to go away until the game is over. I hope he won't want to argue with me anymore when the game is over. I don't like to argue. The boy does. A lot. I'm emotionally exhausted.  

Hello

I keep thinking I should write something, but nothing sounds interesting.

Manny, my truck, is in the shop. The passenger window came off its track today, so they'll fix that, and I told my guy to go ahead and fix the bad oil leak. Maybe then the truck will be ready for a nice long road trip. Unfortunately a long road trip isn't in the budget, especially after paying for the repairs. Oh well. I do hope to get to the mountains of North Carolina for a camping trip this summer. Probably not going farther than that, unfortunately.

My life is boring.

Superman and I have been going to the gym almost every day, doing the weight machines and treadmill (me) or elliptical (him) on alternate days. Did that make sense? Every other day it's weight machines, the other days it's treadmill/elliptical. Tomorrow is a treadmill day for me. This is a boring topic.

I had an argument with Sproing today. Nothing new. We were in the truck (right before he knocked the window out of its track) on the way to his doctor's appointment, arguing, when I got pulled over by a state trooper. Why? Because Sproing wasn't wearing his seat belt. HA HA HA!!!  He got a $25 ticket and a lecture from the state trooper. I got to watch it all. We were only a little bit late for the doctor's appointment and it wasn't a big deal, thankfully.

I've been sewing some more. I made a dress that doesn't fit right but have an idea of how to adjust it to make it work. The arm holes (it's a sleeveless jumper) are too tight in the front. I'm going to have to hack up the bodice a bit. I'm making this shit up as I go along. I really don't know what I'm doing.

Which leads me to my current theme song.


And that's about all I got tonight.

I'm getting better...

I think. I thought so yesterday, but when I got home from work everything fell apart. Work was busy and stressful yesterday and I was able to hold it together very well all day long. But as soon as I saw Superman it was as if the pressure valve suddenly released, and I went all psycho-bitch on his ass. It surprised the hell out of me! I had no idea where the vituperation was coming from. I'm not typically like that with him.

This is what started it. I was the last one home yesterday, so the other two cars were already in the driveway. C's car was parked beside the garage and the van was in front of the garage. (Of course we don't keep cars in the garage as there is no room. You should know me well enough by now to have figured that out.) There isn't a whole lot of room in front of the garage, though it is wide enough for 2 cars. But each car has to stay on its own side in order for the third car, the one parked beside the garage, to get out if necessary. The van was not over far enough for me to fit my truck beside it. It made me boiling mad. Which is stupid; it's not that big a deal really. But I wasn't in my right mind.

I called Superman from my cell phone while stopped in the middle of the street in front of the house. I fussed, told him to move the damn van. He came out and pulled completely out of the driveway. I just wanted him to back up far enough to scoot over. That made me more mad. He drove in, I backed in beside him. (I prefer backing my vehicle into a parking spot when possible.) He came up to my door and asked if I'd had a bad day. I glared at him and growled "Back away slowly." As soon as I saw him, as soon as he said something nice to me, I let down my guard. I wasn't even aware that I had my guard up! I was immediately sorry that I'd growled at him, but he had gone back inside by then. I felt horrible all over again (see Sunday's post) and got all teary.

I was afraid that I was about to go into freak-out mode: uncontrollable crying, rapid breathing, inability to speak. C knows how to handle me when I get like that. He helps talk me down and I trust him. Those freak-out sessions scare the crap out of my darling husband, which just makes me even more upset. So I said I wanted to talk to C. He and I went back to my room and started talking. S and Superman kept walking in, derailing my fragile sense of continuity. The last time Superman came in he said he was on his way to get milk, did I want anything. Without thinking, without guarding my words, I said "Yes! I want to be left alone!" Oh, shit. He beat a hasty retreat. As soon as he was gone I said to C "Oops. I didn't mean it that way. Do you think he's mad?"

He was mad.

I can be frustrating to live with. I annoy him sometimes, but never on purpose. He gets exasperated with me. But he almost never gets really mad at me. Last night he was really mad at me. Understandable. I had been incredibly ugly to him. I was sharing my frustrations with C, shutting my husband out completely. None of this was intentional. It's as if everything I said to him came out wrong. I tried to explain and ended up making more of a mess.

When Superman got back from the store I sent C away and focused once again on trying to communicate what I was REALLY feeling with my darling husband. He came in and said he wanted to talk to me, so shut up and listen. I shut up and listened. Everything he said, all the frustrations that have been building for the last few weeks, he was accurate about. I've been hard to deal with, I haven't been much help around the house or with the children. Everything he said was true. After asking permission to speak [ :-) ] I was finally able to say what I meant to say earlier. I corrected him on some misconceptions he had about my words and actions, but mostly agreed with him that I've been a bitch. I apologized, of course. Hell, I'd been apologizing all evening.

Then he held me and I told him all about it, all the stuff I'd been telling C. I intended all along to tell him all that stuff, I just wanted to talk to C first so I'd be less frightening when I talked to Superman. We talked, I had a good cry (not the scary cry) and he comforted me. It took about an hour of talking and hugging and crying before we were all better. I was emotionally exhausted! He was, too. I slept well.

Superman and I don't really fight. We disagree often, but most of the time we have no anger toward each other in our differences of opinion. Last night he was angry at me. I was angry at me, too, but not at him. What I just described is typical of our fights. We don't raise our voices when we argue and we usually come to a peace fairly quickly. I don't hold grudges, hardly ever with most everybody and certainly not Superman. I don't have the energy for that foolishness!

So I think I'm feeling better today. I know Superman and I are both feeling better about each other. I'm about to go back to work now. We'll see tonight if I'm still sane or if I'm back to channelling the psycho-bitch from Hell.