I'm blogstipated

I don't post often enough so when I finally sit down to write, there's so much to say it gets too long and I forget some of what I wanted to say. And other problems, but I forgot them just now.

Last week Twitch was transferred back to the Greenwood store (Arby's) so we no longer have to make that long drive to Simpsonville. What a relief! I actually like the drive sometimes, but not when it's so hot, and not four times a day. So now I'm glad he didn't get an apartment there.

Diva is a hot mess, as usual. She got this internship thing at a hair salon, then never went. She's being her old crazy self again, and not being nice to me very often. I don't want to talk about it.

Let's see... Sproing. He's an ass. Hangs around the house most of the day with his friends, playing video games and talking shit. He tells me he has a lead on one job or another nearly every day, but nothing ever becomes of it. Yes, he's taking advantage of me. Again. Still.

Light's birthday is Friday. She'll be 26. She's been in my dreams recently, but as a small child. Sometimes she's under 2 years old, sometimes she's pre-teen. Sometimes my other children are in the dreams too. She was such a lovely child. I miss that.

Superman and I were in Target yesterday and saw some cute dresses for little girls. I like the idea of sweet little girls, ages approximately 3-7, but the reality can be gritty. I know from experience. Maybe I'm ready for grandparenthood. Thing is, none of my children is ready for parenthood, so let's just skip it for now.

Here's the segue to the next topic:

Sproing hangs out in the living room most of the day. Whenever I go through there I get a pang of melancholy or something in the middle of my chest. Melancholy doesn't really begin to describe it. It's sadder and more anxious than my concept of melancholy. Whatever, it isn't pretty. This ball of burning lead in my chest saps my motivation right out of me.

I've said before that I am a hoarder. I want to clear out a lot of this junk in my life, but there is a strong emotional component to this mess. I'm a mess. For months I've been staring at these shelves in my bedroom. Just those two over there, not that big bookshelf on that side of the room. No, not that one up there either. Let's for a moment ignore the one(s) behind me. Just these two little (OK, not so little) shelves on top of my two drawer filing cabinet. (Now I want to create a diversion by telling you how wonderful my filing cabinet is, but that's just an unhealthy coping strategy, so let's not go there.) So this morning, feeling like accomplishing something, I started on the first cubby. (The unit has four cubbies, two small and two large. And the top of the shelf. And all that crap in front of it.) I got everything except the really big unabridged dictionary cleaned out! I even threw some of it away! Go me! But OMG I'm now approaching a nervous anxiety attack. Walking through the living room made it worse. I'm hydrating, and I had a V-8, hoping vegetables will help my body deal. I can write coherent sentences (I think) so it could be worse. It could also be a lot better.

Papers from my college art classes were in that cubby. Some sketch books, some notes and communications from the class. I took those classes only about five years ago. It seems like a long time now. There was a note from my professor encouraging me to continue my art education because he sees a lot of promise/potential. All the gods have mercy upon me!! I want to! So much! I remember I cried when I first got that note from him, and I cried again when I read it today. I'm currently helpless, (well, probably not completely) hopelessly entangled in the trappings of my life, unable to exercise my creativity.

Actually, one of the things I want to do today is sew. I have a new dress completely cut out and ready to sew together. I've started sewing a shirt and want to get back to it. But do you know how close my sewing room/office is to the living room where the "chaps" are hanging? I can't go there. Gads, I feel so helpless and weak and stupid.

In other, lighter news, I broke a tooth over the weekend. For those of you keeping score at home, it's the bottom right, third tooth from the end. I have no wisdom teeth anymore, so don't count that. A piece of the tooth sheared off the side between the teeth. It's stuck between the teeth now, and shifts around when I chew on that side. Feels really strange. I broke it while eating cornbread. Soft, fluffy, oh so good cornbread. Or at least that's when I noticed it. I was also eating soup. Soup with nothing hard in it. I have no idea how it broke. I suspect there's a filling in that tooth and it popped off beside the filling. Thankfully it doesn't hurt. I have an appointment with my dentist tomorrow midday.

This is about all I have the emotional energy to write right now. Have a good July.

Ramblings

• I love having a whole day in which to do whatever I see fit. No homework! I had a lovely long nap this afternoon. I do miss working in the clay, though.
• Superman and the kids got home from his parents' home last evening. I often forget just how loud and lively Sproing is until he comes back after a few days away. Things were peaceful here with just C and N and me. I'm glad Superman is home again.

Saw Diva yesterday. We had a meeting with her therapist and reps from two state mental health agencies (not agencies, exactly, I think, but something like it). The meeting was to plan for her leaving the Residential Treatment Facility (RTF). Ugh. I like her being there. She's safe, everyone else is safe, and I don't have to do much besides make some decisions and visit every couple of weeks. These agencies are here to help her transition back into the home. She isn't currently ready to leave the RTF, but she is making a lot of significant improvements (it seems).

Here's the thing: She's good at making improvements, or at least following the course for a while. Then when I'm feeling comfortable and beginning to trust her again she attacks. It has happened so very often that trusting her is extremely difficult. I need to see long-term evidence of genuine change. "Long-term" means that I don't want her in my home again until I can be sure. I'm thinking a couple of years. The state agencies are thinking within the first quarter of 2011. Don't know what we're going to do about this. I won't let worry consume me over this issue right now, but it's something that will work along in the back of my mind for a while.

• N and I made gingerbread men yesterday. We're supposed to decorate them today, but he slept late then stayed in his room most of the afternoon until C got home. I took a late nap and didn't wake up until 8:00 this evening. Now he and C are in their room watching a movie and I'm in my office doing this. It may still happen tonight, or it might get pushed to tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.
• I got most of my Christmas gifts wrapped earlier this week when the family was away. Yesterday when I was in Columbia to see Diva I had the opportunity to do some more shopping. That's a good thing, as I hadn't found anything appropriate to give to C and N. Greenwood has a piss-poor selection of fabulous stores in which to buy fabulous gifts for fabulous gay young men. Yesterday I discovered World Market. Wow! I found so many fabulous gifts. I found something for Superman that he has wanted for a while, but I can't tell you what it is now because he reads this blog. :) I also won't tell you how much I spent there, because he reads this blog. :-p I even got a few things for myself, and found a plethora of great gifts for my gay guys. Most of their gifts smell good. I have a lot more wrapping to do now.
• I went to the dentist today to get my teeth cleaned. I love the feel of freshly professionally cleaned teeth, and I love getting a new toothbrush. Oh sure, I could buy myself a new toothbrush (and often do), but the toothbrushes I buy for myself aren't as thrilling as the one the dentist gives me. The ones from the dentist come engraved with the name of their practice. How fancy is that?
• Superman et al. were on their way home from points west in our little Aveo (Eva) yesterday when I went to Columbia. Manny is in very poor shape and I won't drive him out of town. So I rented a little Ford thingie... I forget. Hang on, let me look it up... Yeah, a Ford Focus. Nice little car I guess, but hardly memorable. Did have Sirius radio, though, which is cool. First time I've had a chance to try that out. Anyway, what I came to tell you about...

...is the rental experience. So I go to the En+erpr!$e place in town to pick up the car which I wisely reserved in advance. The young man doing the paperwork asks me where I am going in the car. I understand the need for that question. It's their car, they should know my plans for it. But he kept asking questions. It's a Southern thing, I guess, trying to be friendly. Or nosy. Or both. He asked why I was going to Columbia. I really don't think the company needs to know that, but whatevs. Told him vaguely that I was going to a meeting. Here's the thing: it's uncomfortable under those circumstances to discuss my mentally ill, institutionalized daughter. I was going to say "to discuss with strangers" but that's pretty much exactly what I do by writing about it on the blog! Hee hee. But this, for reasons I don't thoroughly understand, is different.

My 13 year old daughter is mentally ill. She has severe emotional problems. Does the guy at the rental car counter want to know that I'm going to a meeting with/for/about my 13 year old institutionalized daughter in which I try to convince state officials (of a sort) that she should not be placed back in our home for a while longer? I don't think so. I suspect such a discussion would have made him uncomfortable. It would have made me uncomfortable, which is why I didn't tell him anything.

My two youngest children have special needs. Yeah, they are eligible for the short bus. Thing is, they don't look like it. To see them, to talk to them, most of the time you wouldn't suspect anything amiss. Even when the boy is acting out his oppositional defiance in public, people usually see that as disobedience and a result of poor parenting. As for the girl, she's a sneaky freaky little bitch. (I say that as a loving parent, mind you.) She presents herself well in public until the demon takes over in a mad uncontrolled rage. That demon rarely shows, but the few times it has are frighteningly memorable. That shit leaves emotional scars on its victims, let me tell you. That shit is the reason I don't want her to live here.

Taking a thread from the previous paragraph: poor parenting. I've been accused, and have accused myself. I know I've made mistakes, chosen unwise actions at times. All parents do, to some degree. But I try not to. My intentions are generally good. Sometimes I use tactics that worked well with child 1 or 2 but fail miserably with child 3 or 4. That's a learning curve thing. The parenting of these special-needs children is especially challenging, of course. Their behavior, reactions, modes of interaction tend to inhibit good parenting. Really. I learned about that in my adolescent development class. Well, I learned it in the field, as it were, but my experience and understanding was validated in the course.

But difficult children aren't an excuse for poor parenting. I must continue to do the best I know how. I must continue to learn, to adapt to each child's individual needs. It's enough to drive a mother crazy, as has been demonstrated here many times. Just read the archives. Gawd-almighty, I'm tired.

Am I complaining too much? I don't mean this as a complaint. This is my forum to work this stuff out in my head. Writing it all out helps me process it in my mind. If you write a blog, you probably know what I mean.

It's late, I'm tired, and it's time for me to go to bed.

Weekend update, questions answered, and other miscellany

Twitch was home this weekend. It's the first time he's been home since he left for school. His term is half over now. The school is on the quarter system, not semesters like my school or Light's school. He is in the middle of his summer quarter now. He likes it and seems to be doing well. He's bored and lonely, though. I think he enjoyed coming home, but I know he also enjoyed going back to his apartment. This weekend reminded him why he was so anxious to get out of here. Yep, the kidlets were in fine form.

I cracked a tooth last week. It happened Thursday, but I didn't really figure out what happened until late Friday. The front (anterior) surface fell away. It's the part between that tooth and the one in front of it. I think it broke along a filling gap or something. I'm not sure. It doesn't hurt, thankfully! My tongue won't leave it alone, though, and the broken edge is sharp. The piece that chipped off was stuck in the gap, but I fished most of it out Friday afternoon. There's still a small sliver of tooth stuck in there. I have an appointment to see my dentist at 10:00. She'll figure it all out. I hope she can do what needs to be done today. I don't want to go back in there for this stupid thing again. I have an appointment for a cleaning next month anyway.

Karen asked recently, in the comments to a post I'm too lazy to look up, just exactly how we came to have Sproing and Diva living with us. I'll try to answer that question briefly, but as I've mentioned many times, brevity is not my strength. Superman and I have been interested in adoption since before Light and Twitch were born. When they were about 5 and 3 years old, we decided to go ahead and look into adoption. We wanted more kids (silly us), but pregnancy and I don't get along well. Knowing there are many children who need homes, we contacted the state department of social services (DSS) to begin the process. We got all our paperwork and home studies finished and were cleared to adopt. But the case workers at DSS were bumfoozlers and didn't want to work with us. I don't know exactly why, but I have my suspicions. We wanted to adopt transracially. Having been foster parents years before, we are aware how difficult it can be to place racial minority children. We wanted to provide a permanent home for a couple of those children.

But DSS wouldn't cooperate, so we went looking elsewhere. We joined an adoption support group, made some friends, networked a bit. There were a lot of people who knew we were looking for a child to adopt. We finally got a call from an attorney in Greenville who got wind of a baby who needed placement, having just been born down in Charleston, SC. Paperwork happened, and two days later we drove to Charleston to pick up our tiny new born baby boy. Sproing was only 4 days old when we got him from the hospital and brought him home. His adoption hearing was 6 months later, when he officially and legally became our son.

Having gotten some good advice from a director of an adoption agency some time ago, we knew we wanted to adopt at least one more minority child. It's (allegedly) emotionally healthier for a minority child in a different-race family to have someone else in the family who is also a minority. It makes sense. If Sproing were the only African American child in this Caucasian family, he'd be the only "different" one. With Diva here, they share the genetic heritage. That's the theory, anyway. So we put the word out that we wanted to adopt another child. A week after Sproing's first birthday, our attorney (the same guy) called with news of a one-year-old baby girl who needed a home. Things prevailed, and on February 4th, 1999, we brought Diva home to live with us. Her adoption was finalized on January (something-teenth), 2000.

And we all lived happily ever after. In theory. In practice, it's been much tougher. Having 4 children isn't the difficult part. Having two of those children suffer from emotional disturbances is the tough part. Of course no one could know when they were babies that they'd have so many problems. Superman and I were naive enough to think that if we provided a good home, loving and nurturing, etc., that they'd be just fine. I've learned a lot since then. Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes nature is WAY more powerful than nurture. And that's where we are today.

Does that answer the questions? If you have any more questions, just shoot them my way. I'll try to answer whatever I can as honestly as I can.

It's time for me to go see the dentist. Wish me luck.

UPDATE 1:15 pm:I'm back from the dentist, sporting a fancy new (temporary) crown. I feel so queen-ish.

This'n'that

My teeth are so clean!  I love how my teeth feel after I've been to the dentist for a cleaning.  Yes, I saw the dentist this morning.  It's a lovely office, the staff is so friendly.  My dentist wasn't in today, so one of the other dentists checked my teeth.  I have a cavity, dammit.  I don't floss often enough. I go back next Tuesday to get it filled.  But right now I am full of teh happy for my dentist's office.  

It's beginning to feel just a little bit like fall!  Finally.  It is nearly cool today.  We're having a dreary drizzly day, the second in a row.  This is the kind of weather that induces me to go to bed.  It's a good day for napping or making whoopie.  Then napping.  We'll see what we can do.  Superman comes home for lunch.  Hmmmm.

Good news!  S got a job!  Yes!  He had an interview yesterday with the HR lady from K-Mart, and was hired then and there.  It's conditional on passing a background check; standard proceedure.  I'm thrilled!  He's thrilled.  C is thrilled.  There's a lot of thrill going on around here. 

 

I broke the washing machine.  S and Superman say that it wasn't my fault, that it just happened. On Monday I put a load in and started it up.  Evidently I got the thing too full or something, which is hard to do with a front loader like we have.  It seems to have gotten off balance though, and neither S nor I heard it.   S went back there to check on the washer's availability and found the dryer, which sits on top of the washer, was nearly knocked off the washer and leaning against the wall!  He put the dryer back upright, then noticed that the washer door was ajar.  The latch was broken.

It won't run at all if the door isn't closed, and with a broken latch the door won't close.  Grrr.  I called my washer repair man Monday afternoon, and he came yesterday evening and replaced the latch.  That's all that was wrong with it, just the damned latch.  This is the 4th latch that washer has had!!  The first two we broke by slamming the door too hard.  But everyone has been much better about treating in gently, so I don't know what happened this time.  The repair guy (yesterday's He-ro of the day) said he has never had to replace a latch on any other Whirlpool Duet washers, just this one. Strange. Gremlins or something, maybe.   Anyway, it works again (YAY!!) and I should be washing clothes right now.  Instead I am blogging.  

Do you recall when Manny's windshield cracked?  Well Monday I finally got a new windshield!  The window in the driver's side door shattered last week when I slammed the door too hard.  (Are we noticing a theme here?)  So we had to call the insurance dude about that, and Superman had them fix the windshield at the same time.  I have a new windshield with no big crack and no scratched and pitted surface!! It has been a joy to drive since then.  Sort of. Manny is having some starting issues.  Manny often has issues, you know.  He has issues with his windshield wipers, too.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.  So far they've always worked on high, so I'm not going to do anything about it just yet.  It'll do.

I got a text yesterday morning about 11:30 from Twitch.  It said to pick him up at 12:30, they were being dismissed early.  WTF?  No other info, nuthin.  I called the bus office to see what was happening.  The boss told me the power had gone out in the school building, not to worry, all was well.  When I get a cryptic text with news like that, I worry that there's some kind of hostage situation, or a dirty bomb, or a massive structural fire, or a major terrorist threat.  I'm a mother.  We do these things.  Thankfully I know where to go for info.  So Twitch got to come home three hours early yesterday.  He was very thankful because he was supposed to give a presentation in Economics class, and he wasn't ready for it.  Because of the power outage, he got a day's reprieve.  I'm not entirely sure he used it wisely, though.  He may very well not be ready for the presentation  today, either.  He is like that sometimes.  

It was pretty cool, actually, and I didn't have to worry about picking him up later in the afternoon.  We went out to Sonic for lunch, then came home and I took a nap.  It was loverly.  

 

I think that's about all I've got.  More updates as the situation warrants.  Film at 11.