A tale of woe, Part 1

The day started pretty well. I had high hopes. But alas, my hopes were dashed.

Today is the last day of the semester in this school district. Therefore today was a half day. I picked up all my students before 11:45 this afternoon, and was completely finished an hour later. Cool, huh?

Twitch is going on a ski trip this weekend with his scout troop. He needed some ski pants for the excursion. We don't get snow, and we have no significant sloping areas. After work he and I went looking for ski pants at area sporting goods establishments. We found exactly what he needed at the second store. The stock was almost depleted but there was a pair in his size. They were marked down 20%, too, so it only cost $81.32. OUCH! I knew they'd be pricey. With me going out of town next week, my truck in the shop, and a few other unexpected expenses this month I really didn't want to spend $81.32 on a pair of ski pants for the boy that he'll probably never wear again after this weekend. He needs to get a job so he can pay for this kind of thing himself. The trip cost $110, plus $20 for meals on the road to and from the mountain. He needs to make his own money for stuff like this. He'll be 17 next month. It is time.

But that, while unpleasant, isn't what shot my afternoon to hell. No, it was the other son,
Sproing. I am feeling very uncharitable toward that imp today. Allow me to elaborate.

Sproing has been having some trouble at the after school day care. He refuses to cooperate, won't do the simple things he is asked to do, makes a big mess or a big fuss or both and refuses to clean up after himself. He's belligerent and defiant. That's bad enough, but these gals can handle that pretty well. No, it gets worse.

Of late he's also been screaming insults, including profanities, at the ladies who work with him. There is one young lady in the after school classroom and another woman who is the center director, both of whom have been working with him on his behavior. They tell me he has broken two chairs in the lunch room area, throws his book bag around the room if he's mad. He has been lying to the director about his homework, saying he doesn't have any when in fact he does. They have a homework time at the center. All the kids have at least a little bit of homework Monday through Thursday. I think it's school policy, maybe even district wide. I dunno, but he always has at least a little bit of homework. He refuses to do it and lies about it.

As if that weren't enough, he has begun to get physical with these gals. He has hit and kicked the classroom worker, and has scratched the director. The guy who is the director's boss called me yesterday to come get him because he was being so dangerous and disruptive. Yesterday he ran out of the building toward the parking lot, trying to, I don't know, escape. The director told him he couldn't do that, no sir! So he did it again. Today he threw a pair of scissors at the classroom lady, and punched the director in the stomach. Twice. Yesterday he spilled a glass of milk on the table at snack time. On purpose, of course. When told to clean it up, he took the paper towels and threw them on the floor. The lady persisted with her instruction and direction, and he finally got it cleaned up, but it took him half an hour.

There are a few other kids at the center. There are probably 6-8 other children in the after school group. When the workers are having to put so much energy into Sproing they of course aren't able to focus on anyone else. When the little brat acts like this he ruins the time for all the other kids. And of course he frustrates the workers out of their minds.

Superman and I had a firm talk with the boy last night, and then he got a spanking. Talking doesn't work, though. And the spanking didn't seem to do much, either. Although today when I brought him home I gave him another good spanking. This one relayed a stronger impression, I think, than the one he got yesterday. I had to stop before I got too rough.

I can't even talk to him. I talked yesterday, we went over it all. I asked him questions, he talked to me. He said he'd do better, but he didn't. I wonder if he is able to. The time for talk is over. Done. Dead. Gone. He knows better than this. He is actually a very intelligent little boy. He's almost 10; his birthday is next Thursday, two days after mine. He's intelligent, but belligerent. I don't know what his angle is, but he's got to cut this crap out. The center is about one straw away from throwing him out completely. The way he's behaving, I don't blame them.

Today is Wednesday. The kids are out of school tomorrow and Friday. I've already paid for Sproing and Diva to attend the day care those two days. But I'm not taking the demon child back this week. I have plans, I was counting on them being in the day care so I could accomplish some things. But no, not Sproing. He's got to make a huge fuss and get kicked out.

I wonder if that is his plan. He has told me he doesn't want to go there because they are mean. When asked to elaborate he says they make him pick up his book bag off the floor and hang it up with the other ones. Of course we've talked to him about that. That sort of thing is expected wherever you go. Pretty much everything he has issue with (at least that he's told us) is normal expected accepted standards of behavior.

A couple of years ago he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD. ODD is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Years ago when I first heard of ODD I thought "A disorder?? No, that's just a lack of discipline. That indicates bad parenting." Note to the wise: don't ever say anything like that. It'll come back to bite you in the butt. Hard. And NOT in a good way. Well, now Sproing is taking medication for the ADHD, and recently started on Remeron (or however it's spelled) which treats depression and helps him relax to go to sleep. He's always had trouble sleeping. Right now I doubt the effectiveness of both medications.

I have more to say about how I'm handling this, but I'll put that in a separate post.

Please do not give me any advice. I can't handle advice right now. There is a chance that maybe you've been in a situation like this. But I doubt it. Unless you are a recognized expert who has difficult children that you are parenting or have parented on a full time basis, I really don't want your advice right now. However, I will accept all the sympathy I can get!

Good Mommy points

Today is Diva's 10^th birthday. The sweet child is so different from me in lots of ways. She's more girly than I am, but not excessively so, which helps. She is very outgoing, loves to be with people, and absolutely loves a good party. And a good party is one with lots and lots of friends in attendance. She's got great spunk and creativity.

I, on the other hand, don't do well with lots of people all around me like that. For a while, yes. On a good day, probably. But I need an escape, at least a short break to collect myself. Not Diva. She's in the middle of everything.

She wants to have a grand birthday party. I can't do it. I'll do what I can for her, when I can, but I can't give her the birthdaypalooza she wants.

I think she had a pretty good day today, though. I bought her birthday presents at least a week ago, had them all wrapped up and "hidden" in my room. (She knew exactly where they were.) Light left a gift for her when she was here for Thanksgiving. She's been happy anticipating the gifts.

I didn't see her at all this morning, as she was still sleeping when I left for work. I was a bit concerned that I hadn't done enough to make her day special. Then I had an idea. I used to take cupcakes to her class on her birthday when she was younger, but that doesn't seem appropriate now in 4^th grade. But she's at day care after school, and they have snack time anyway… So I baked a cake in an oblong pan to take to the day care before I went to work this afternoon. I also baked a layer cake for us to have with the family celebration tonight.

The day care cake needed some help from Superman. I got the cake done, but time ran away from me and I didn't have time to take it by the day care. I also didn't have any frosting. So I called Superman to assist. He stopped by the grocery on his way home from work at lunchtime to pick up a can of frosting. He then took the cake and the frosting to the day care. I told him to just leave the frosting with the cake, not to try to frost the thing himself. Well, he did try, he said, but he was making a mess of it. One of the other gals there took over and made it beautiful.

Diva was delighted! She gushed thanks upon me when she got home. I felt good. Definitely good mommy points on that one. Extra bonus points because it was a surprise to her.

Then of course there was the other cake. And I made frosting from scratch for that one. (it didn't work real well, but tasted good anyway.) While I was mixing up the frosting I also figured out what to have for dinner and put that together. Understand that I rarely cook anymore. Superman does the bulk of the cooking, with S cooking quite a lot too. I'll do the "special" meals like Thanksgiving, etc. Every so often I'll do a roast & veggies thing. But daily cooking is something that has fallen by the wayside. Superman has had a rough couple of days and is tired and stressed. So I came up with a casserole thing that I thought tasted pretty good. You know what? I don't even know what Diva's favorite meal is. Or if she has one. I know about Twitch and Light. Sproing is blissful with anything pasta. But I am not sure what if anything Diva prefers.

Other things I accomplished today:

• Put our bed sheets in the wash, and Superman helped me re-make the bed this evening. Clean sheets! That's another thing I don't do often enough. I love sleeping on clean sheets, though, and he does too. We got out the flannel sheets. Yummy.
  
• Put away the pots and such from two plastic bins, one of which was a huge box. We've been slowly repainting our kitchen cabinets, one section at a time, and these were the dishes from the first section. The painting was finished a few weeks ago. I needed the cake pans that were in that box, so that was my motivation.
  

And here's a re-cap of the good mommy things:

• Baked TWO cakes for Diva's birthday.
  
• Surprised Diva with the cake at after-school day care
  
• Cooked supper for the family
  
• Got the kitchen table cleared off so we could all eat together around the table
  
• Bought presents for my birthday girl, had them wrapped ahead of time
  

Doing all the supper and supplementary stuff kept me in the kitchen, in the public parts of the house with my kids when we got home. Many evenings I go to my room and sort of hide from everyone. They come visit me, the queen on her throne, and I take care of their little concerns, usually delegating the leg work to others. I'm not all that involved with the nitty-gritty details of family life. Tonight I stayed there, out of my nest, in the midst of my children. That was definitely a good mommy thing. And it is the second time I've done it within a week. The first time wasn't so good. There was much strife. Today, though, it was much better. I kinda missed my little nest and seclusion, but I'm glad I stayed with the family. It was the right thing to do, and I feel very good about having done it.

And throughout the evening Diva kept saying this was the best birthday she's ever had. *sigh* It feels great to be appreciated. It happens so rarely!