Circling the Drain

The last couple of weeks have been really rough.  The Tween has been making things more and more difficult for himself.  He’s been scolded, grounded, yelled at, cajoled, spoken to, put on restriction… I’ve done EVERYTHING I can think of.  Nothing seems to be getting through to him.

Today, we found out he’s been lying to us again.  Lying about having read books and taken tests for the Accelerated Reader program at school.  We suspected he was lying and tried to get proof from his teacher to confirm or belie our suspicions.  The information we were waiting for kept getting lost, forgotten or “Stolen” out of his locker.

Friday, he was told NUMEROUS times before leaving for school to MAKE SURE he brings the report home that shows what tests he’s taken and what he scored on them.  He came home without it AGAIN, saying that he took a test that day and it made his goal for the grading period.  He figured I didn’t NEED to see the scores…

I lost it.  I yelled like a crazy person, wild eyes, spittle flying, LOST. IT.  (I didn’t lay a hand on him.  Just yelled… loudly… and a lot…)  After I calmed down, I told him now was the time to come clean.  If he’d been lying about taking the tests or the scores he’d made on them, NOW was the time to tell me.  There would be no negative consequences if he did.  HOWEVER, if he did NOT admit to lying and I found out later he’d been lying all along he’d be on restriction for the entirety of the next school year.  No band.  No sports.  No TKD.  No hanging out with friends outside of school hours.  NOTHING.  I made the offer several times to him in a 30 minute period of time.  He never took advantage of it.  Today, after 10 emails with his teacher, I found out he’d been lying.

Really, I expected to be so VERY angry, but I’m not.  What I AM is hurt.  What I AM is disgusted with the job of parenting that I’m doing.

I’m feeling very, very low.  I want to fix what I’ve done wrong, what EVER it is that I did to cause him to believe this kind of behavior is ok.  Take it all back.  I want to feel like BE a less shitty parent and I don’t want to feel like I’m failing in THIS area of my life, too.

I just want to curl up in a ball and hide away, fade away and not deal with all this mess.  I can’t and I won’t, but some days it would be so EASY…

Now the Race is On and Here Comes Pride in the Backstretch

I have new yarn on the way!!!!  My Muppet colorway is wending it’s way to me from AnotherCraftyGirl on Etsy and I’m SO excited!   This is my first time to order yarn from her and I cannot WAIT to get my digits on it and start knitting it up.  However, I’m trying DESPERATELY to get Sugar is Sweet as close to finished as I can before it gets here.  I have 47 rows left. Forty-seven.  Rows are so long now I don’t seem to be able to do more than 5 or so a day due to time constraints.  (Yes, I’m alone all day but I have other stuff to do too.  Also, NO KNITTING when the family is about.  NONE.  They distract me and OMG the frogging and the swearing and the rending of clothes that occurs!!!)

Anyway, ahem, I find myself racing the mailman.  I AM setting the shawl aside once my Muppet Colorway gets here, no matter what.  I am using the new yarn for a KAL.  It’s my first ever and I am NOT gonna fail out of it!  NONONONONONO.  It’s a new kinda challenge for me and I’m interested to see if I can meet it without losing my mind.  Project has to be completed by May 31.  I knit slowly.  Eeeek.  It’s April 27th already!  This should be interesting…  I’ll post a WIP photo once I get started.

This weekend is gonna be busy.  We have had some unwelcome visitors all week and HOPEFULLY they’ll be leaving us in the next day or two.  We’ve got a moth infestation in our garage, of all places.  We bought a bug zapper to take the lil basta’ds out, but apparently the weave on the cage is too tight for them to get in.  Tonight we clean out all boxes and whatnot and begin with the bug spray and cedar chips.

We’re also getting MORE visitors Sunday, but these we like.  My Inlaws are coming in to help us put up The Tween’s Trampoline.  He should be able to mess around on it some before leaving for the summer.  (God, that’s just getting closer and closer.)

Friday Funny?  Here ya go:

If ONLY it were that simple!

Grab Your Boots and Cape

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday.  I spent the majority of my day futzing with my Sugar is Sweet shawl.  I’m actually pretty excited.  I THINK I finally have it working properly.  I managed to do a row of K4Tog-TBL and K4Tog without destroying my garment OR stabbing myself in the eye with a knitting needle.  It took me almost 3 hours to do that ONE row, but by God I DID IT!

That’s one of the coolest parts of this knitting thing.  I’m physically doing something, and at this point it’s almost all new.  When I manage to master something it feels GREAT and I have something to show for it.  Granted, it’s never a PERFECT copy of the pattern, but when I cook I don’t follow the recipe to the letter either.

My superhero name?   “Danger Girl!”  or… yanno… “Can’t follow instructions Girl!”

Knitting Therapy

So… knitting for relaxation.  It’s not working out so well for me right now.  I cannot get this shawl to work out right.  I have no CLUE what I’m doing wrong.  Every time I THINK I have it figure out I’m proven wrong and I AM NOT FROGGING this thing again!  *stares around the internet wild eyed and panting*

I’m forging on with it and trying to correct as I go.  It’s likely going to be a hot mess when I’m done, but we’ll see…

Today I have ripped out over 1000 stitches and knit 5 rows of the shell pattern… incorrectly… but yes… I knit 5 rows.  My head hurts.

Someone pass the wine!!!!

Mother Frelling Daleks in My Mother Frelling Basement!

I almost never remember my dreams.  Sometimes I wake up feeling anxious or sad in the middle of the night so I assume I DO dream, but I can’t ever remember what they were about.  I can’t even pull one detail out of my head about them RIGHT after waking.

Also, I’m a bit obsessed with the British TV show Dr. Who.

These two things may SEEM random, but they created a perfect storm Sunday morning that set the tone for a totally whacked out day.

My insomnia was BAD Saturday night.  I mean, Ambien couldn’t fix it, BAD!  I was still wide awake at 3am and tossing and turning like someone had set some live lobsters loose on my side of the bed.  The Husband kept waking up when I’d move, so I decided to try “sleeping” on the recliner in the living room.   As I went into the living room I flipped on the light in the dinning room (They are connected.  It would give me light but not BLIND me.)   and ALL the light bulbs in the light fixture blew out.  Oy.  I FINALLY fell asleep a bit after 4am.

Shortly after 5am I woke to what I SWEAR TO GOD was a Dalek talking in my basement.  I clearly heard “EXTERMINATE!  EXTERMINATE!”  “No power in the universe can stop the Daleks!”  “EXTERMINATE!”.  As I struggled to get my wits about myself, I freaked out wondering how in the HELL Daleks managed to invade my frelling BASEMENT!  Then another thought came to me, The Tween must have gotten up, sneaked passed me, gone into the basement and started up Netlifx to watch some Dr. Who… at 5am.  OH HELLS NAW!

The newest incarnation of the Daleks, or as I like to call 'em, Skittles Robots.

I started hollering for him to “GET UP HERE NOW!”  Eventually he came into the living room… from the other side of the house… from his bedroom… NOT the basement.  Needless to say, he was grumpy and annoyed and I was confused.  I apologized to him for waking him, realized I MUST have been DREAMING ABOUT DALEKS IN MY BASEMENT (WTF?), and told him to go back to bed.  He needed to use the bathroom first, though.  He tried to turn on the light in his bathroom and… well… nothing.  No light.  NADA.   We started flipping switches all over the house.  Living room was fine.  So was the guest room.  Kitchen, dinning room, hallway, The Tween’s room and bathroom all were not.  We couldn’t get any of the lights in any of those rooms to turn on.

I thought about it for a moment and realized I must have somehow blown a fuse when I tried to turn on the dinning room lights.  I figured I’d mention it to The Husband in the morning.  I sent The Tween back to bed and just kinda of… lay there.  Then I thought, “Holy shit.  What if there’s a short in the wiring in the walls?  It could have started a fire and we’d never know until it was too late.  That could cause the lights not to be working like that…”

So, at 5:45am I woke The Husband with, “Honey, where’s the fuse box?  I need to check something…”  I’ve never seen him wake up and get out of bed so fast!!!  He went into the garage and began fiddling with the breaker box (after informing me we have breakers not fuses).  He found the right one and put it all to rights.

For some reason, he decided to look out the front door at that point.  There was a strange car in our driveway.  When he opened the door they drove off.  OBVIOUSLY, the 3 of us freaked out for a minute or two trying to figure out what was going on.  Then, The Husband found the Sunday Paper on the porch.  That explains THAT… Except… we don’t HAVE a subscription for the local newspaper. We commenced freaking out  a little bit more and then everyone went back to bed and slept for a while longer.

After we all got up for the SECOND time, I made French Toast for breakfast.  We ate and went to the grocery store… 3 times… in a 20 minute time span.  Yes, we had a list.  Yes, we are dorks.  That’s a story for another time….

Slip Sliding Away…

We are gearing up for the summer months.   The Tween gets out of school mid-May, and POTENTIALLY is leaving 2 days later for 8 weeks of being spoiled by grandparents and The Ex. (The Ex is The Tween’s bio-dad.)  I’m always so conflicted as we gear up for this part of the year.

The uninterrupted time with The Husband will be really nice.  We can really focus on us and just being together which is usually, pretty freaking fabulous.  However, I feel guilty for looking forward to that.  I’m really going to miss The Tween DESPITE the problems we’ve been having with him and his mouth/attitude.  He’s a really loving, sweet kid who is trying to learn to use sarcasm and humor, but doesn’t quite get the timing.  OMG HIS TIMING IS SO, SO HORRIBLE!  Seriously.  90% of the time he’s in trouble it’s due to this.  (Or what he CLAIMS is just jokes.  I STILL think he uses that to get out of trouble.  “OH SHIT I CROSSED THE LINE.  TIME TO SAY IT WAS A JOKE…” His internal monologue probably isn’t QUITE that organized, but he’s enough like ME that it’s ‘prolly a snarky S.O.B.)

Today’s portion of planning “The Big Trip” was buying his airline ticket to go see my parents for 2 weeks.  Tickets are CRAZY expensive, yo!  Also, he’s 11 so I have to pay the “Unaccompanied Minor” fee for him which adds another $100.00 to the price.  (If he has a layover it’s totally worth it, but for non-stop flights it’s kind of stupid really…) I was JUST about to buy his ticket when another option opened up.  HOPEFULLY, I’ll be flying him for about 1/4th the cost AND he’ll be accompanied on the flight by my ex-mil.  That would make things SO much easier.  I still have to flesh out all the details, and talk to my folks about it.  It moves his trip up by a week.  So, of course, my timeline for getting everything done is OFF the rails, but I’ll make it work.  It’s totally worth it for the savings and him having someone we know and trust with him on the flight.

I’m really excited about my knitting projects!  (Hang on, I’ll let you work out the conversational whip-lash for a moment…) Ok.  So, I’ve been knitting on Sugar is Sweet again.  I have 6 more rows until I’m at the shell pattern!  I’m so excited!  *quivers in my boots*  I thought I was closer than I was last week.  Apparently I need more fingers and toes to count with.  Oy!  HOWEVER, this weekend I’ll be working the shell pattern and HOPEFULLY I’ll have finished the shawl by the following weekend.

I do find I’m having an issue getting myself started with the knitting.  I enjoy it, but I keep putting off starting and don’t get NEARLY as much done as I could/should.  Not sure what that’s all about. I’m trying to get better about it.  It really DOES relax me and help my stress levels.  In fact, yesterday after posting here, I knit for a couple of hours and felt SO MUCH BETTER after.  Sometimes, I’m an idiot.

Finally, the weekend is upon us.  I thought I’d leave you with a Friday Funny:

Hormones Are EBIL!

Today I’m fighting with my hormones and my body in general.  It’s not TIME for it, but that’s what peri-menopausal is.  It explains the way I felt yesterday though.  (Can I just say?  Spell Check came up with “peril-menopause” and that cracked me up SO. HARD.)

My system is in total disarray and I’m seriously not happy about it.  A TV show made me do the ugly cry last night.  The show we watched after that?  I laughed so hard I cried.  It wasn’t that funny.  I rarely get that weepy over a TV show.  (Though honestly, I was a bit over attached to this particular character.  Odd for me, but there ya have it.)  My moods swing on a dime.  One minute I’m fine, the next RAGE!!!  OMG!!!  DON’T BREATHE IN MY GENERAL VICINITY OR I WILL SMITE YOU!

Physically, I’m not doing much better.  My boobs hurt.  I have these weird little teeny cramps.  I used to get them just before Aunt Flo made her appearance, but now I get them all the fricking time.  They aren’t super painful, but MAN are they annoying.  I’m retaining so much water it’s ridonkculous.

I’m just a mess in general.

My poor husband and son have to handle all this.  I know how much all this is wearing on ME, I can’t imagine how much it’s bugging THEM.  It’s like I’ve been possessed or take over by an alien.  Ugh.

I try to control the outbursts, and I manage it somewhat successfully, but then when it DOES blow up it’s 100X worse.

A friend of mine on Plurk named Holly Gastgeb posted a comic for me today about this and it was HYSTERICAL:

Gross, but SOOOOOO perfect for the mood and mindset I'm in.

I totally want to print it and use it as a warning sign for The Tween and The Husband. *Shifty eyes*  WHUT????

Unfit for Human Consumption

I’m having a very “Unfit for Humans” kind of day.  Not much to say.  Stitches are very, very tiny.  Hopefully I’ll loosen my grip later.

Growing Pains

Sometimes, being a parent sucks.  Everyone knows it.  Yesterday was one of those days for me.

The Tween has been having lots of stomach issues lately, ever since we returned from Spring Break actually.   I’ve been concerned about it but not overly so.  He can be a bit nervous at times and he’s been getting fussed at a LOT lately.  He can’t seem to control his mouth most days, and it gets him in trouble.  I figured it was just fall out from that.  He’s a sensitive kid.

Yesterday, on top of a head cold, he was having trouble with his stomach “blowing out”, again.  It did it several times throughout the day and then several more once he got home.  I decided it was time to press him and find out what was going on with him.  Turns out, he and his best buddy are having problems getting along. The problems they are having are legitimate and being able to do NOTHING to truly help him is so very frustrating.

My kid is a GREAT kid.  However, his peers don’t really “get” him.  Adults do, of course he’s an only child and has been around mostly adults his whole life, so that makes a lot of sense.  Kids don’t know what to DO with him though.  He’s loud.  He’s dramatic.  He LOVES to talk… non… stop.  He has no sense of personal space. He has a temper from HELL.   He’s a very sensitive and emotional child.  He’s also the first one to approach someone who’s crying or hurt and try to help or make them feel better.  He’s fierce in his defense of those he loves.

I tried talking to him about all of those things.  The good and the bad and the awkward of who he is, but I had no answers on how to FIX the problem.  I can’t MAKE the other kids accept and like him.  I can’t MAKE the issues his friend is having with him go away.  All I can do is listen and give him hugs and HOPEFULLY help him find a way to temper the legitimate problems while not snuffing out how wonderful he is as a whole.  It doesn’t feel like ENOUGH though.  When we ended the conversation, I was left feeling helpless and useless and ineffective.  I can only imagine how he felt.

The Husband came home from work and had the child run and errand with him.  He got The Tween some gum and let him pick out dessert for that night.  When they got home and settled in, The Husband started a conversation with The Tween about extroverts vs. introverts.  He did it calmly.  He did it in a way The Tween could understand and it seemed to make an impact on him.  He explained things from the introverts perspective.  (He speaks from experience as he is TOTALLY an introvert.)

This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it TOTALLY filled my heart to see/hear.  The two of them have had an…. adversarial relationship for the last several years.  It seems to be changing though.  Slowly.  Quietly.  Unexpectedly.  We’re finally growing into a family.

Sometimes, parenting sucks.  Being a family makes it easier.

Knitting news:  I didn’t knit a stitch yesterday.  I just wasn’t feeling it.  Today however?  I’ll be knitting the afternoon away!  Loose stitches today.  Loooooose.

Dorky Musings

This weekend was CRAZY y’all!

The Ex-Inlaws visit happened.  It was really nice.  I stressed out before, like I ALWAYS do when company is coming, but the visit itself was really nice.  🙂  It pays to stay friendly with your Ex and his family.  It makes things SO much easier for any kids involved.  It also pays to have a husband who deals with this sort of thing with class and aplomb.  Thank you Honey!  I love you! *Mwah*

We also had a couple of HUGE storms blow through Saturday evening/night.  Fortunately, we didn’t have any tornadoes close enough to do any damage.   Our sirens went off 5 times through the course of the night, but nothing developed where we could see or hear anything funnel like!  We spent a LOT of time texting friends and family who were also in the line of the storms.  Everyone we know and love was safe and sound, but MAN that was a crazy night!  I was up until almost 3am waiting for all the storms to blow through.  It was still thundering and lightning at that point, but all the warnings and watches had expired.   I tried going to bed but MeiMei was going batshit insane due to the storming.  I don’t think ANYONE got much sleep in this house Saturday night.  We were some cranky, listless people Sunday.

Speaking of Sunday, we went and bought a new 55″ LED – LG television and a stand for it.  We actually started OUT looking for end tables and coffee tables.  Don’t. Ask.   I’m totally excited about it getting here later today though.  Nathan Fillion in HD!!!  *Dies from the hotness*

On the knitting front, ohhhh… the knitting front.  I have joined my first KAL (Knit Along) and I am TOTALLY excited about it!  I am going to make a Stripey Sleep Sack in this amazing colorway called Scooter!  (It’s a Muppet Colorway themed KAL).  I dunno which of the 3 (OMG THREE!!!  What is in the damn water folks?) pregnant family/friends will be on the receiving end of this project, but I’m SO EXCITED about making it!  Baby!  Stuff!  WOOOOOO!  I’m fairly certain any of the 3 babies are going to be ovary explodingly adorable in or out of this lil cocoon bag.  Sigh… I love babies.

I have ALSO signed up for the Ravlympics 2012 Plurk team!  We cast on during the Summer Olympics opening ceremonies and have to finish by the closing ceremonies!  I’m a slow knitter so this will be a real challenge for me to get my speed up and maybe not worry QUITE so much about it being perfect.  It’ll drive me crazy I’m sure, finishing something that isn’t done JUST right, but it’ll be a good learning experience for sure!