Reality Me

10:15-11 – Rushed to load the wife, 20 mth old and myself in the car. Drove to the elementary school and checked out the 10 yr old. Drove to the middle school and checked out the 13 yr old. 13 yr old started asked what he and his therapist could do today and got upset when he was reminded that it was a shared appointment with his sister and her therapist. Yes, we are all nuts. Her therapy sessions are mainly to help her cope with her brother who has asperger’s syndrome. His therapy of course is to help him cope with the real world. Today they were trying to learn to cope with each other.

11:00-12:00 First the wife and I meet with the doctors (one gets floored when we mention that the 13 yr old is back in school) and then the kids. The 13 yr old became so worked up about this meeting that when we stepped back out into the waiting room he was unscrewing a lightbulb in a lit lamp and throwing books hard against the ceiling. He 3 times interupted us to explain that we were taking to long. The end result was that he got targeted in the meeting and came out feeling picked upon.

Here’s where things turn ugly. We were having a pretty jolly day. Now the kids are angry at each other, the toddler is needing a nap and the wife and I are edgy because of the tension. I get in the car. The 10 yr old gets in the car then the wife asks the 13 yr old to put the 20 mth old in the car seat and while he is putting her into the car he wacks her head on the ceiling. The 10 yr old and I are flabbergasted and start trying to explain that the wife needs to tend to her…anyhow, long and short we have a miscommunication and everyone gets upset with everyone else. I turn silent and distant and it takes until almost 3pm for the ice to thaw. Internally I’m thinking this is all wrong and that we should make ammends but the wife wasn’t hearing the words that the 10 yr old and I were saying and when I tried to explain this she interupted me and went off on a tangent and that sent me further into silence. Again, unnecessary anger. We are better now (in part to someone else giving us a common ground to be aggitated about) and that’s what matters.

We take the kids to Chick Filet and then return the fast eater, the 13 yr old, to school. Then the slower eater gets returned to school. Then the wife, the sleeping baby and I travel to Party City for Valentine’s day school supplies; then its off to Walmart where we talk while the baby sleeps in our arms and the healing begins. After Walmart we check on our Geocache, The West Knoxville Travel Bug Hotel and find the last cacher (a local) took 5 travel bugs emptying the cache and causing a traveler from out of state to find an empty container. That’s just wrong. Worse yet they got moved to a member’s only cache that already had 6 bugs in it. We have probably a half dozen paying members in the area. I clean up some garbage and we move on.

The next stop is a public park down a long winding road that is in a very weathly neighborhood where the neighborhood has obviously been designed to encourage this public property to be used as a “private” park. I’ll add that to my political agenda but way towards the bottom. This area would not make a good cache unless approached by boat…hmm.

We return home, play on the computers, I get upset with the 7 yr old because he got in trouble for the 6th day in a row at school but that’s not why I got upset. He apparently kissed a boy on the school bus. The story is the boy was trying to do it to him first and the 7 yr old kissed him on the ear. This would be funny in a way if it wasn’t for the fact that the 7 yr old has already been threatened with suspension for having slapped a girl on the bottom–typical 7 yr old playing but we were told that “school board policy does not permit ‘boys to be boys’ anymore”. The thing that irked me was the 7 yr old was so scared of getting in trouble that he stared blankly at me then said “I don’t know if I kissed him” How could one not know? This dad stuff isn’t easy. It definitely has its rewards but on days you mess up you really feel horrible.

The evening ended with happy children and that is how they should always go to bed…happy!

We will have a much better tomorrow!

Special thanks to Tim! I forgot to link the blogs I created for my brother and sister. Link available in the original post here and in the sidebar. Thanks again!

My brother is a chiropractor and has a wonderful sense of humor. His blog should be a fun read as soon as he gets the hang of it.

My sister is 17 years younger than I am and obsessed with playing tuba in the band but should be a good read for remembering those high school years.

Lot’s of catching up. What day! Let’s start with the current state of affairs:

-13 yr old in bed reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

-10 yr old in bed reading It’s Like This, Cat

-7 yr old in bed reading Hank the Cowdog

-20 mth old being forced to stay awake until 8:30 despite almost falling asleep on her feet but mesmerized by the cartoon Catdog

    

* lousy day

Time to check the 10 yr old and 13 yr old out of school for their joint therapy session. I wish I could be a fly on the wall for this one!

* Dropped the 13 yr old at school. The teacher I despise was there to greet him. Coincidence? Forgot to buy milk on the way home.

Things on my mind this morning:

-Insurance

-Finding work

-Travel Bug Hotel

-Asperger Support Group

-Red Cross Training tapes (big guilt. We borrowed them before Christmas and the lady says “Please try to do these this week or it won’t happen.”)

A New Day!

Let’s start the day off with a PayPal donation link:

This Morning

* Awoke at midnight and noted that the fire was still strong but that I should probably put wood on it since the wood was wet and we wanted to keep it going. Didn’t do it.

* Awoke at 2 am and tried to recover the fire for 30 minutes. It seemed to be going and at 2:30 I was wide awake and considering a bath. Instead I returned to bed. The fire died.

* Awoke without an alarm clock at 6:19 in a panic but not the usual spring from bed cursing type of panic. I maintained myself much better than I normally do.

* Got the 7 yr old and 10 yr old moving and I went back to bed for 10 minutes but started feeling guilty for not being upstairs so I got dress and went up stairs to lie on the couch while they fed themselves and prepared for school.

* Grandmother called to say she was almost here with the costume pants for the 7 yr old; she pulled in as we were trying to leave but then could not find the pants and feared she had dropped them on the driveway at her house. She pulled up to let us out and as I pulled forward it sounded like we had a flat tire; turns out it was just a rock in the tread. The carpooler wasn’t quite ready and I dropped the kids at the carpool lobby which irritated the 10 yr old. Grandmother calls and says she is at the school and found the pants under a fedex box and is dropping them at the office. I ask her to hold them and in leau of getting milk I pickup the pants since the rest of the costume pieces are at the house.

* I return home and the 13 yr old is in “give me attention” mode and ends up getting me worked up a little but not badly.

* Time to take the 13 yr old to school.

Last Night

Was totally unfocused and useless last night. Read blogs until my rear was sore then went to bed 9:30ish and watched tv until I passed out.

* Got my brother launched in this world of self publishing. I must break away from the computer for a bit.

Feeling a little blown-away and overwhelmed right now. Like the walls are closing in.

* set my bro up on a blog and got my sister rolling too

* time to cook dinner — evening ritual

Why does time fly so?

* Picked up 13 yr old and mentioned that the bus people had not contacted us yet and the teacher said she’d look into it. Apparently he had a good day and they are trying to “slowly” get him into classes. Sounds to me like they are doing academics within the special setting and not mainstreaming into regular classes.

* Dropped 13 yr old at home and pickedup 7 yr old from friend’s house to talk with his teacher. Had an opportunity to be more social with his friend’s dad than I have in the past and that was a good feeling.

* Came back and chopped some wood and the neighbor across the creek was burning rubbish hollered at me and we exchanged niceties something that hasn’t happened in the 6.5 years I’ve been here and that made me feel good.

* Going to settle in for some programming now.

* gone to pickup 13 yr old. Odd that the school hasn’t contacted us about busing yet.