I went into the bank by myself. The tellers wanted to know where my kids were. But they didn’t even ask in idle curiosity. They were a little mad at me because they wanted to talk to the kids.
It’s going to be hard leaving somewhere that we are so well known that people act entitled to a chat with my kids.
Got a call from my OBs office. I show no signs of the liver issue they were worried about. No reason to assume I will have to deliver 3-4 weeks early. Yay! A fully cooked Lightning is a happier Lightning!
I continue to be impressed with Future Middle Child holding it together through Christmas. They genuinely had a hard time with their sister getting a doll and them not getting a doll and they are talking about their feelings, in a separate room from sister, instead of tantruming. That’s awesome. Well done, kid.
They already have enough damn dolls and they won’t share any of them. Eldest Child is not being unduly favored.
I feel happy about my continued plan of not giving many toys for Christmas. I am not good at making things “even” and this is just easier.
They share most of the books they get. The clothes that EC gets will be hand-me-downs before much longer (and frankly they can share the clothes that FMC got this year because they are practically the same size). The art supplies mostly get shared. The games are played together.
The only “just mine” thing is the doll.
So it is reasonable for FMC to be having feelings. But they have half a dozen “just mine” dolls already.
I love that we give each other a lot of food. That feels nice to me.
We have very functional/consumable Christmas presents and I like it. It suits my personality. We aren’t trying to look for pretty/useless things or duplicates of what we already own.
Everyone is highly conscious of the fact that over the next year we want to downsize a lot.
I broke the zipper on my favorite jammies night before last. My belly was too much pressure. I am going to find a tailor to replace the zipper because those 10 year old jammies are not ready to be binned. They just need a new zipper.
I’m happy that by 33 weeks pregnant I am starting to be big enough to strain my damn pajamas. My belly feels… so non-impressive to me. I don’t have tight skin on my belly. I have a bunch of loose fat and extra skin. You can still smoosh my belly fat in big handfuls! It’s hilarious. I don’t anticipate new stretch marks from my body expanding around this kid. I will never again use up all the extra skin I used for containing EC. That pregnancy was just… whoa. I was huge.
Dad called on Christmas. That was nice. He’s doing well. His current relationship is far less dramatic than most of his relationships. I hope things continue to go well for them.
I talked to my cousin a little. She needed to tell me at great length how devastated she is and then she instantly switched into the drama from her dating life and how she’s going to get even with people. Ok. That’s where you are in life. Ok. I don’t feel as sad about her not showing up. I recognize that we probably only had a low stress Christmas because she didn’t show up. It would have been anxious with her here.
I wanted her here. But maybe getting what I want isn’t always a good thing. She actually had the audacity to suggest that we could try again next year.
hahahahahahaha no. I need to not keep being this flavor of stupid.
I will need to love her over the phone. Or stop talking to her. I’m not sending more money. Ever.
I will keep donating money to places that use it instead of buying plane tickets that go unused. That’s a bad usage for money. And since I have feelings about money being essentially set on fire in terms of usefulness… I need to not do this again.
It’s ok. Today I get to talk to Jenny. The kids want to go shopping for a couple of things they want to buy with their allowance. Noah is working. I will putter through chores. I like it when the kids are on academic break…. And all of their physical skills classes are on break. Blissful easy schedule.
I went to the dispensary yesterday and bought 4 months of meds. As of January 1st the laws around my medication are going to be shitty. All medications must be sold in 10mg doses. I use 50mg-70mg at a time. So I’m going to have to buy huge lots of single serving medications and fill my stomach with shitty candy constantly in order to medicate appropriately. The pills I like… are going off the market entirely. I’m stocking up.
I continue to be amused at how perception of marijuana usage varies. My last (fired) psychiatrist was panicking and throwing fits about how I am an addict ruining my life because I use so much pot. My pain management doctor says, “That’s a very conservative dose for managing your conditions–you are doing great.” The budtender says, “Wow! You microdose! Good for you!”
Perspective.
Am I a filthy overusing addict or am I using a moderate amount of medication for my conditions. Who the fuck knows.
Sigh.
Taking 50mg pills 3x’s/day is not being a heavy user. It’s staying medicated so I don’t have the big dips in mood and pain.
The Zantac is my best friend right now. I’m chugging water and it feels so good. I haven’t been on it a week though. I’m watching carefully for when it becomes less effective.
I feel less depressed but like anxiety is hiding nearby. I don’t feel super anxious. But I feel like super anxious is watching me from the corner waiting to jump on my head.
I continue to worry about the results of the liver test I took. I won’t get results for a bit. I’m a bit worried about my next ultrasound. Kiddo’s kidneys weren’t shaping up perfect. I’m afraid of needing to have a bunch of specialists in the room when my child is born. But if that is the path… I just need to find gratitude that I live in a place where such people exist and I can afford to pay them for their time.
But I’m nervous.
I don’t feel like the baby is transverse anymore. When I do a sit up there is now just a solid ridge down the center of my belly and it isn’t wide anymore. Way less vicious kicking into my lower right ribs.
The baby is still moving… but it doesn’t feel as frequent/constant/painful. Lots more Braxton Hicks contractions.
I think it’s funny that no matter what time of night or day if I put my hand on my belly and ask how the baby is doing… the baby starts moving instantly. I know it’s woo woo weird shit, but I feel like this kid is excited to meet me too.
Looking at the calendar… we should probably try to do dates with the kids this week. It’s easier this week than any other week till after the baby is born. The date nights we do are a big deal. The kids really value them.
My kids ask me a lot about dates. They think dates are the best things ever. Going on a date means you spend time one on one with someone talking. You get to monopolize someone’s attention and you aren’t being rude at all. Dates are fabulous. No sharing mom’s attention with that pesky sibling. Ha.
When I say that I hear too much about video games… I don’t mean that I hear the games (thank god). I mean that our date night is going to involve multiple hours of me hearing about which game makers are the current obsessions and what a child likes about this way of playing a game and what they want to make in their next game and why they want me to do a bunch of supportive work (I finally got around to uploading music for EC onto her computer so she can stop bugging me about this step) and…
My kids want me to help them learn how to process their thoughts. Including about video games. We work through how to plan out their process. EC wants to release a game on her birthday. We are talking about how to schedule the work so it all gets done while she’s also doing all her school work.
We are going to go get her a paper planner so we can start talking about the logistics of planning this shit for herself. Really we just need replacement months because she’s stealing my old planner. I prefer paper but it’s harder to share with Noah so I don’t use it much anymore. We are going to talk about different planning/journaling styles and she will be encouraged to try things and see what she likes.
I’m not so secretly excited about the teaching planning portion of helping with the video game. Even if I do wish I never had to hear about the damn games again. Sigh.
No life is perfect. I may chafe at being dumped in gamer culture but I picked my spouse and this is his culture. Suck it up, buttercup.
Noah’s been ridiculously nice lately. Sometimes he’s distracted and inattentive and I feel neglected. He’s nailed the last few days. I feel guilty for enjoying this so much because I will feel petulant when he gets busy again. I don’t want to feel guilty for enjoying this. I want to just enjoy it. But letting myself have good feelings would be silly or something.
Noah’s talking about his conference schedule for the year. May I say again how the timing of this baby was maybe not the easiest possible? He’s going to hit the ground running for travel before the baby is three months old and then he’s going to be gone just about every month after that. The month the baby is turning 3 months old he is gone for over a week between two conferences.
That’s going to be… festive.
But we’ll cope. It will be fine. The big kids will be sad they don’t get to move back into the bed with me when Noah is gone. Not with a 3 month old. This will be our first time of me not snuggling them when their dad is gone. That piece is going to be emotionally hard for all of us. By the time the kid is over a year old… sure. Not at 3 months.
I feel a little bit like a hypocrite. When FMC was born EC still slept with me basically full time. But BIG OLE 7 & 9 year old bodies are different.
They could hurt the baby in their sleep and there are no take backs.
I’m excited that we are running low on Christmas sweets. I feel… over sugared. Good thing my sugar levels are always so low that me binging on sugar around Christmas is not particularly unhealthy…
I’m afraid to stop eating the sugary snacks though. I’ve gained a little weight and I don’t want to lose it….
I’m going to go climb back in bed. I’m cold.
I talked to my cousin a little. She’s upset. Ok. I’m… not. I’m just sighing a bit. Of course it went this way. Shrug. Yup.
We still had a great day in our house. We played together and read together and snuggled and talked and ate good food.
FMC had some big feelings and we talked them all through with kindness and grace and they ended the day feeling pretty good. We were patient with them and they were willing to put effort into managing themself. That was great. I’m glad that we as parents could hold it together today and not be pissy with them for being a kid.
One of our elderly neighbors came by to bring us candy. (We’ve had other similar deliveries from other neighbors over the last week.) She mentioned how much she loved the Christmas letter and said that she had to immediately get on the internet because she has never heard of the concept of being transgender before. She left our house with a book to help her understand more and she’s glad.
That was a really special moment. Our neighbors care about FMC and want to be able to help them feel included and loved. So much so that they will educate themselves and put effort into being appropriate. That’s just… magical.
We checked in with several neighbors. We watched The Trolls and the Christmas Express. Holy cow! We never watched the She-Ra and He-Man Christmas Special this year! Whoa. Advent just flew by.
I’m feeling calm and happy. This was one of the best Christmas days of my life. It was a shoot for the moon and land in the stars kind of day.
Yesterday was mostly chill. I had a mini fuss when Eldest Child told me that I ruined the surprise of a gift when I could tell what it was from the package. I left the room and had my feelings. I’m over being told I’m ruining Christmas.
But we shook it off. She apologized and said she was trying to be funny.
It was a nice day. We walked around the neighborhood and delivered cookies to our neighbors. We cuddled and spent time together. Noah cooked lots of delicious food.
Today has been great. It’s not 9am yet. Our present pile was…. way bigger than I thought it would be when I was shopping. Eep. But more than half of what anyone got for Christmas was clothes. The kids have been genuinely having a hard time with not having enough winter clothes. They have about four pairs of long pants each. So now they each have a full week of winter clothes and Future Middle Child has a warm coat. They’ve been telling me that they don’t like having to wear three sweaters to be warm.
There was one doll in the bunch because EC has been having a hard time with the way FMC has possession of every doll in the house and they are nasty and refuse to share. So EC got a god damn doll. FMC just about burst into tears.
Noah and I talked to them about how this is one of those times when they are acting like it is mean and unfair for anyone but them to get a good thing. Is that a way they truly want to act? I also whispered in their ear that if they are sweet and generous and they give their sister a couple of weeks to enjoy her new toy… has she ever been a jerk about sharing?! They acknowledged that no she really hasn’t. She’s super kind.
So FMC shook off their upset in just a few minutes. I thought that was incredibly well done of them. It’s hard feeling left out. It’s hard feeling like someone else gets the good stuff.
But EC was elated over every present of clothing and FMC tossed things aside with near contempt.
Sigh.
They are both very excited about the stack of books we acquired. Quite a few kid books that are continuations of series we are reading.
Noah and I each got mostly practical gifts. He got a gravy separator, cookbooks, and a microphone he needs for work. All things he asked for. In his stocking he got a fur jock strap and possum fur nipple warmers because that has been an ongoing joke in our relationship for about 9 years. And he got bath supplies. And food.
I got two cute outfits from Trashy Diva from Santa, bath stuff, lids for Tupperware (all of our stuff is 30+ years old and in the past 6 months we’ve had all the lids break), a couple of neat books, a pretty mug, and a tray that will make eating in bed easier during the postpartum time.
Mostly very practical and/or consumable stuff. Perfect.
Each kid got a puzzle and FMC got a copy of the game Operation. So not an excessively toy heavy Christmas. They did get Shopkins in their stockings to go with their socks and underwear and bath bombs.
I have this weird obsession with Christmas presents being mostly functional/consumable. Food. Clothes that are necessary (ok, what I got isn’t NECESSARY but the dress and the shirt are both highly nursing compatible and I’m starting to run low on clothes that make my boobs accessible so they aren’t completely unnecessary either)- mostly socks and underwear and warm stuff. Books. Necessary work/school stuff. (FMC got a bunch of Spanish language learning books.)
We will watch The Trolls and the Christmas Express today because we haven’t yet. Dinner is pre-cooked.
It’s going to be a great day. 😀
I know I should feel bad for my cousin. She failed because she has a laundry list of mental health problems. She doesn’t work at all because she is not competent to show up and do things. She was fired from the job I put her through college for because she couldn’t god damn file alphabetically.
She called me 72 hours before the flight to tell me she didn’t have an ID so she couldn’t get on the plane. I wired her money. She got the money late Wednesday night. She then slept through Thursday. She went to the DMV in the last hour it was open on Friday before Christmas. She did get an ID. She walked out 15 minutes past closing time with an ID.
Then she texts me 1.5 hours before she is supposed to be at the airport and says, “Can you change my flight so I can come at a later time because I can’t find anyone to take care of my dog.”
I told her that if she had planned in advance I could have helped her with finding dog care but changing the flights would be probably upwards of $400 and no… I’m not doing that for a $650 flight. When I sent you $200 for an ID this week. No.
So she isn’t coming. And now she’s sending me pity party texts about how upset she is about spending Christmas alone.
I spent almost a full year of my disposable income on this. So that she could choose not to fix any of the associated issues in a timely fashion.
But mental illness!
I think I need to not call her any more. Because this is so familiar. This is what dealing with my family is like. I’m not a person I’m an ATM who is supposed to solve all of their problems for them with money. Problems that could have been managed reasonably with just a little advance notice. Hell… I would have paid for boarding the dog if she had asked me in a timely fashion.
This is like my mom calling me 12 hours before her hysterectomy (that she knew about well in advance) and telling me that I have to give her $500 Right Now or she can’t have the surgery she needs.
I told my mom no.
Another expensive lesson: dealing with my family is just setting me up for heartache.
On the upside Christmas will probably be less stressful and dramatic this way. Being with Noah and the kids is lovely. I’m very lucky and grateful.
This is why I have more kids to have more family. It’s the only avenue available to me that will have the possibility of respectful relationships.
My cousin didn’t go to the airport because she didn’t arrange care for her dog. She’s not coming.
I am… full of feelings. I think I’m done talking to her. This is my reward for trying with my family. I got exactly what I deserved.
I’m really itchy. Apparently that’s a problem during pregnancy. I need to go in at 7am for a fasting blood draw to see what is going on with my liver. Hopefully all will be well. If things aren’t doing what they should do I will have to deliver in week 36 or 37.
In 11 days I go in to see what is going on with LIghtning’s kidneys. As of the last time I checked they aren’t where they need to be and there might need to be a pediatric urinologist on hand for the birth. The pediatrician will have to know about this possible condition before birth.
My massage therapist says she is feeling arthritis develop in my hands.
My massage therapist fixed the fucked up groin bits! God I love her. She’s a miracle worker.
I’m now taking Zantac. I slept better with less acid reflux. Let’s see how long one pill does anything for me… (I don’t take most over the counter medications because of how fast my tolerance climbs. It just seems… silly.)
My chiro says he is surprised by how much strength I am still able to demonstrate. Even though I don’t feel like I’m exercising “enough” I’m clearly still doing something that’s good for me. Yay for sit ups.
I’m going to place several huge orders with my dispensary this week. As of January 1st the laws on edibles in my state become absurd. And they are more than doubling the tax. Wheeee.
I still haven’t heard from my cousin.
Merry fucking Christmas.
Edit: she made it! She’s coming!
There are few phrases that Noah can utter that make me twitch more than “market forces”. I’m not nice to him about this.
Whenever he says this, no matter what the context or conversation, I am instantly in the mindset of “Oh great the rich white man who was set up from birth to be one of the most successful people of his generation is going to lecture the white trash whore on our relative values. Great.”
I don’t think that is what Noah means when he says it. But that’s what my brain does and it makes it very difficult to hear the conversation. I know this is a me problem.
It doesn’t matter how much basic value or truth there might be in the conversation he might be bringing up. It doesn’t matter how neutrally he means it. He might be talking about something 100% removed from me or my life and I’m still… stuck.
This is going to have to move to the “work on it” list but I don’t know how to get past this twitch. I don’t know how to get past the basic fact that I view him as having just about endless value and I am worth nothing.
I invited my cousin to come visit us for Christmas. After doing so she informed me that she will be spending half the time with the relatives I don’t speak to.
Yesterday she texted me that she needs money to get an ID card because otherwise she can’t get on the plane. In like 48 hours.
She knew she didn’t have an ID card before I bought the plane ticket. She could have brought up the fact that she didn’t have an ID nor money to replace her ID then. Instead she waited until late last night.
I’ve already done a bunch of physical labor preparing for having a guest. With sending her money for the ID and buying her Christmas presents and the plane ticket… I’ve sunk about $1,000 into this visit. That I get half of because she wants to go see the relatives who hate her and do nothing but talk shit about her.
And maybe she won’t be able to get an ID in time? I can’t find indication online for how long it takes in her state. It just says, “You’ll receive your ID after paperwork has been processed.” Does that take minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?
I feel like of course this is how it is going. How could I have expected someone in my family to behave otherwise?
This is why Noah is so fucking miraculous to me. He’s the only person who makes commitments and shows up more than 95% of the time. Everyone else… I’m shown exactly how little of a priority I am.
I spent 10 months of my personal fun money on this visit. That may end up not happening. Because she didn’t want to tell me weeks ago that she couldn’t get on a plane.
This is why I don’t ask people for time or attention. This doesn’t actually surprise me.
I feel sad. I feel like of course this is how I’m being treated. This is how important I am. I’m not.
In other news I told the kids that they need to actually do their chores without me nagging and being a bitch before they get their computers back and we’ve had more than 24 hours off the computer and miraculously… they are getting along better. We’ve had less fighting in the past 24 hours than we’ve had in while. And things were on an upswing between the kids. So that’s awesome.
We saw Star Wars yesterday as our advent activity. Noah asked for it. Given that mostly the advent calendar is about what I or the kids want…. yes Noah we can totally go see Star Wars with you. It was sweet listening to his reactions.
And this morning we laid in bed and talked for a long while. It was so lovely.
It is hard that talking to Noah feels like basking in the sun. When he doesn’t have the time or energy to spend on talking I feel like the sun has gone away and I will never be warm again.
I know I can’t pin him down and demand hours of talking every day–he’s too busy for that. But it’s hard doing without it. I feel like I wither.
I try not to be too controlling with it though.
So then I get into this space where I don’t feel like I can ask for anything because asking is controlling, right?
Such a cluster fuck.
I was talking to someone about judging how other people parent. That’s a tricky thing. Here’s my basic position:
I don’t care what choices you make. I don’t care if you breastfeed or formula feed. I don’t care if you cosleep or if everyone is in their own room. I don’t care if you home school or public school or private school.
Are your children showing signs of distress?
That’s the only metric I care about. People need different things. There are families who are doing great with every possible set of choices. There is not One Twue Way. But if your kid is freaking the fuck out… you are doing it wrong.
Not because you should be doing it like me… my way might be totally wrong for your kid.
You need to look at the child you have when you make decisions. I came into parenting with some assumptions and some of them have proven correct (I have kids who have extreme needs with regard to attachment) and others have been proven incorrect (I thought they would be able to handle sleeping in a separate room by now… they can’t handle it).
Do what is right for your household. Not what is perceived as “right”.
My body sucks. That doesn’t help anything. Yesterday I had a nice healthy salad for lunch. When I was trying to swallow the penultimate bite I had to spit it out into my bowl. Then race to the bathroom to throw it up with great force.
Strangely about three hours later I ate a massively heavy Chinese meal and felt fine. I needed the calorie density.
Then all night long I was up to painfully poop every two hours. I feel like my intestine are being scraped with a paint scraper.
I’m so frustrated about the video games in my house. I have a full time god damn job of listening to video games and I have fucking hated video games for about thirty years now. But I can’t get a break unless I literally abandon everyone I live with.
I’m tired of feeling helpless and incompetent. I’m tired of needing so much help that Noah going to the grocery store is him contributing to bonding time such that I feel like shit all the time because the work that goes into maintaining my physical body is so much that talking to me isn’t much of a priority.
I hate that I am never alone and I feel so lonely that it physically hurts.
I want to mutilate my body so badly that I spend a lot of time sitting very still because that is the most self control I can have. Mutilating myself is a lot of how I remind myself that no one owes me anything. I have no right to ask for more or demand more or beg for more. Just shut up.
I have asked for way more than is fair to ask for. Just shut up you stupid bitch.
I feel like I want to leave. Not divorce/move out. But be gone from when I wake up till when I go to sleep. I’m tired of my role being to bitch at people all day about the work they don’t want to do in between bursts of listening to god damn video games.
So I spend a lot of time on the forums mentally checked out because it feels more like connection than anything else I have on offer at this stage of my life. Only it really isn’t connection.
I feel so empty. And I’m never going to get anything more from this valley. Asking is so utterly pointless.
I periodically go through the communities in my head that I miss. Then I remind myself of all the rapists who are more important than me. And I stay home.
I’m really sad and I don’t know how to change this feeling.
On Sunday I pulled some muscles in my groin. Last night I went for a walk with a friend.
I can barely walk. Oh god it hurts so bad. waaaaaaaaaaa
My oldest child has outgrown booster seats.
Would anyone like a nice Britax Frontier we have about 3 we are ready to pass on…
Last post for the morning
I’m up 10 lbs finally. I am managing this by drinking 500-700 calories a day. If I stopped drinking so many calories I would abruptly lose the weight I’ve gained. At the end of a pregnancy the placenta + fluids + baby weigh somewhere between 10 and 20 lbs. Can be up to 30 lbs depending on what you are including in pregnancy weight.
So I’m not even holding my own against the weight of the baby in my weight gain. I’m still losing weight, effectively. And I’m not in the clinically obese category so this is not doctor recommended. If I manage to gain another 10ish pounds in the next 8 weeks then I won’t have caused the baby to dramatically eat me. If I fail to gain that much… the baby is eating me.
I think it is funny that the chicken wing on me left arm is just about entirely evaporated but the chicken wing under my right arm is still freely swinging. Hilarious.
I still have jiggly apron pudge on the bottom of my distended belly.
I’m still wearing my regular size large pants if they are stretchy in the waist. I’m mostly wearing regular shirts. I just don’t neeeed maternity stuff in the main. I wear my regular dresses.
The acid reflux from water is fucking killing me.
The baby still feels traverse to me. I’ll find out in two weeks at the 34 week ultrasound. I see my OB this week for the 32 week check up.
Traverse means an attempt to spin the baby and if it fails then a mandatory c-section. I’m not scared about that.
In my previous pregnancies a c-section was the boogey man. Not this time. I feel very… at peace. I want this baby out in less than 24 hours. I don’t care how. I won’t need this uterus again after this so it doesn’t matter if you do some damage to it this time getting the kid out. And while you are at it, tie my tubes.
Physically and emotionally I can’t go through this again. I can’t do this to my family. I’m so god damn depressed and physically disabled that this isn’t an ok thing to do again. This is my limit.
I’m not exercising how I should. I’m so weary I feel like I can barely walk around the house to do basic chores. My body is having more pain because of the lack of exercise.
That’s something cool about this pregnancy. I’m FEELING the difference between good food and exercise vs not having good food and exercise. I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a dramatic physical experience of going back and forth. I can tell when I will feel bad and why. That’s kind of neat.
I have 4-5ish weeks of driving left in me. I’m stopping 3-4 weeks before my due date depending on how I feel. The driving hurts. Lightning bitches about the car posture. It’s not comfortable.
This is still an active kid but not quite as active as they were a few weeks ago. I think they are feeling a bit more cramped.
FMC is still encouraging me to try not to gender the baby. They have a good point. But it’s also hard.
I love the name we picked out. It’s kind of pretentious sounding but it is humorously pretentious in a way that honors the three women who have done the most to keep me moving through life. Who doesn’t want to be a spiritual gift of style and charm?
If I could emotionally get off the damn forums my arms would feel better. So would my neck.
Come on Krissy. Do it for your body.
I had a dream that I was taking a class. In the class a girl turned and for some reason nastily mentioned that I was white trash. She was a stranger. I said, “Better to be white trash than a nasty bitch.” She was physically aggressive and posturing. I said, “I may be 8 months pregnant but I can still kick your ass” and we left the classroom.
It turned into a therapy session with us talking about insecurities and issues. Because that is how my life goes.
I’m kind of funny.
Goodness gracious my life has a theme lately. What is privacy? Who deserves it? Under what circumstances? When are you allowed to keep secrets from people?
I fucked up. Or more appropriately, EC’s therapist fucked up and I was the recipient of the fuck up. We (me, Noah, and FMC’s therapist) have done a great job of teaching FMC that they don’t need to share a single word that is told in therapy if they don’t want to. Apparently we have not delivered that message with sufficient force to EC. I feel super bad. EC’s therapist asked me to check in at the end of the last appointment so we could discuss appointment regularity over the next few months.
She turned to EC a few times and said, “Is it ok for me to share with your mom what you said today?” barely paused for EC to say “Uhhhh I guess” then told me stuff EC had said. EC told me she felt like she had no choice but to say yes.
Fuck. That’s not ok. We fucked up. That’s a really big fail. Oh no.
I clarified on the way home, “So when you got silly and distracting… was that your way of trying to say no?” She said, “I do that when I’m trying to block out the conversation because I don’t like it and I don’t want to hear it.”
I said, “Baby… it would work better if you said “I’m very uncomfortable with this topic and don’t want you to talk about it. We would both stop.”
“You would?”
“Yes. We are there to support you and if what we are doing is a problem instead of support then we need to change what we are doing. You are allowed to say no or stop at any point and we have to respect it.”
“But she asked in a way that didn’t feel like I could say no.”
Oh we screwed up. The whole conversation home was about how EC is not my doll she’s my child. I don’t get to know all of her thoughts or feelings or experiences. I get to know what she chooses to share with me. I am not entitled to know more than she wants to share.
I immediately wrote her shrink an email when we got home and explained that we screwed up and we need to never do that to EC again. Next time when there is a check in about appointment regularity the conversation should go a lot more like, “EC is getting a lot out of therapy. She feels it is important to continue every two weeks.”
I don’t need to know the words she is sharing. That’s not my business.
I hope we haven’t damaged EC’s trust in her therapist with this fuck up.
I reminded both of my kids that therapists are legally obligated to break confidentiality for three reasons: sexual abuse, self harm, or harming others. Outside of that… it’s not my business if you want to spend all of your therapy talking about pickles or friends or me or books. You use your time to get support how you need support. I don’t need to know about it. It’s not my business.
I feel really bad. That’s such a big fail.
To be fair, the stuff the therapist repeated was softball stuff explaining problems I already knew existed but that doesn’t make it ok.
Then as we were coming home yesterday EC was reflecting on how some people like her more than others. She’s getting old enough that being in the same room as other kids doesn’t mean it will work out for play or feel like friendship. Sometimes she clicks with people and sometimes she doesn’t. She didn’t click yesterday and she was feeling bad about it. So on the ride home she was thinking about the people she has clicked with. Her face was crumbling in the back seat.
Me being me, I was all, “Hey wait. You are having feelings. You are thinking about something. I think you are thinking about a person… maybe more than one… and you are sad…. do you want to talk about it?”
She proceeded to tell me that I wouldn’t understand because I’ve never had to deal with losing someone who was important to me.
PEOPLE. I HAVE SUCCEEDED AT KEEPING MY WHINING OFF STAGE. THIS IS A FUCKING MIRACLE. I ALMOST FELL OUT OF MY SEAT LAUGHING.
I told her that in fact I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words about how much it hurts to lose people who are important to you so maybe I might understand a bit better than she thinks.
We talked for a while. When we got home she asked if we could cuddle on the couch and she could cry about the kids she won’t see again who liked her so much.
When she was feeling a bit better I said, “Hey. You know how you are scared that I’m going to have Lightning and never pay attention to you again? Did you notice how you can’t even have a sad facial expression for a few minutes without me pouncing on it to ask what is wrong? Do you really think I’m going to stop paying attention to you?”
She smiled in this blissed out way. She said, “I love how you love me” and she melted into me with perfect trust.
I may not own you. But I care about you. That isn’t going to stop.
I tell her that my goal is to earn a friendship with her when she’s a grown up. I don’t deserve it just by existing. She will get to decide if she enjoys my company and she wants to be my friend. She doesn’t have to take care of me, ever. She doesn’t owe me information she doesn’t want to share. She doesn’t have to tell me about herself.
It’s only if she wants to.
And I fail to earn it… that’s my problem.
I’m wasting all of my typing spoons on the stupid forum site because they talk back. Also, a bunch of shit is happening that isn’t about me that I shouldn’t write about and I suck at that.
I asked the kids to make sure they had all the stuff they have to turn in for this grading period done before they went to Texas. I was assured that they had it all. FMC was lying through their teeth. They had half of it.
So we’ve had a stressful week. They spent about 10 hours not really making progress on an assignment yesterday as they cried and told me how unfair and mean I am. They can do one of these assignments in 1-2 hours if they choose. They kept restarting the first two sentences and crying. Why? I don’t know.
So when we were getting close to dinner and they still weren’t halfway through the penultimate assignment and they were still derailing to tell me how awful I am… I snapped. I started screaming.
It is not my fault you are in this position. You are in this position because you chose to lie about being done a week ago. So since you lied to me and are proceeding to make my life miserable because of your lie… you are grounded for a week. No screen and no sugar.
And tomorrow morning you get to wake up and finish your work. If you don’t finish by the time your ES shows up… you are grounded for two weeks and that includes Christmas.
I’m not fucking around.
Do. Not. Lie. To. Me. And if you do, at least have the courtesy to not turn around and yell at me that it is unfair that you have consequences for lying. That’s not ok.
I’m not going to play this bullshit game.
So I feel meeeeeeeeeeeeeeean and like I need to be this mean. It would have been better if I could have just enforced this without screaming. But holy shit the whining and yelling at me yesterday was more than I could handle.
So in the past hour kiddo has finished the first assignment and is almost done with the second assignment. Apparently they woke up with a fire under their butt. They are no longer whining and stalling they are just concentrating and writing.
They don’t want to be grounded for Christmas. Oh good. They are still not eating cookies at the cookie exchange party. I’m a hard ass.
I tell my kids frequently that home schooling is a privilege. If you want to home school you have to be responsible for your education. I am not going to breathe down your neck and force you to comply with doing work. Do it or you can go to school and be micromanaged by a professional teacher who is BEING PAID to boss you around like that. I’m not being paid to micromanage you. I’m here to help you if you want to do the work. I’m not ok with dragging and forcing you through an education. I will not do it. Work or go to school.
Every so often we need a reminder that I’m serious. I’m not going to do this harsh babysitting/punishment thing constantly. I’ve only had to yell at my kids on two or three days this year about school and I’m unhappy about it being that much?
If I were better I wouldn’t have yelled those days. But I hit my limit sometimes.
Sigh.
EC had her shit together this time. I was impressed. She didn’t even need reminders. FMC is only seven and this is their very first time in their life being held to school standards like this on a regular basis. The fact that I’ve had three days of fuss in their first academic school year…
I need to be a little more patient. They have mostly done pretty well. And I didn’t ask EC to do this shit at this age. It actually makes sense that FMC is testing the boundaries to see what happens. What they are discovering is that I’m kind of a nasty bitch if you lie to me. I can tolerate all kinds of failures and mistakes without raising an eyebrow. I don’t expect perfection. But don’t lie to me.
And now kiddo is done. Sigh.
We’ve talked about how next time they won’t lie and say they are done because it didn’t make the work easier it made it a lot harder. And they are really sad about being grounded. So next time… they will be honest about not being done yet. I asked them if this work would have been hard if they had started a week ago with many days before the ES came. They shook their head and said it would have been really easy. They even spontaneously added, “I wouldn’t have cried at all.”
Yup.
That’s what we are shooting for. The not crying. The not stressing. The not feeling terrible about deadlines. We had time.
Lying makes everything worse. Don’t lie.
And now they are doing their 15 minutes of online reading program and they are done with academics for the day by 7am. That’s going to be a better day for them….