Unimportant and Forgotten, I Guess…

Today I decided it was time to start cracking on getting some help around here.  I don’t mean help in the sense of getting someone to aid me in cooking and cleaning.  No, I mean some good old monetary help.  I had incredible goals.  I was going to go apply for food stamps.  Then I was going to call the WIC office and reschedule.  After that I would hit up the post office and mail out a few packages.  This was going to be a very productive day.  Sure, nothing would have really gotten done at the house, but at least I would have been well on my way to getting my life back together.  I’m sure the extra income would take a load of Oz’s mind too.  He’s been so stressed about money recently.  Who can blame him?  Everything is adding up so fast.

Unfortunately, the day started out without being so productive.  Corde had been up in the middle of the night again.  She stole candy and then tried to say that was all she took.  Then we found a cupcake wrapper in her bed.  How disgusting is that?  I wonder how she feels about luring ants into her bed.  It was clear she was up a good deal of the night playing because she had toys all over Beekee’s bed (which he still isn’t up for sleeping in yet) and she looked painfully exhausted when she got up.  You could see how tired she was.

From there she went on to fuss and fight about brushing her hair.  First she couldn’t find her brush.  Then she couldn’t get the tangles out.  When I finally did it for her, she screamed like I was trying to kill her.  I was so frustrated by the end of it that I almost shaved her head bald too!  I’m getting sick of fighting over this, especially since a quick brush through every day and not twisting her hair into knots again would solve the whole problem!

After we dropped Oz at work, the fights went on.  She fought me for two hours about not wanting to tie her shoes.  I told her that if she didn’t do it the right way, I’d show her how to do it the right way and tie it for her, this time at least.  However, she couldn’t even try and do it wrong.  Instead she just threw a fit, wailing that she can’t tie her shoes because she doesn’t know how and no one ever teaches her.  She spent the better part of that two hours in time out.

Getting to the welfare office was no easy task either.  I had completely forgotten where it was.  I was certain I knew the general area, but I ended up driving around in circles for a bit.  That place isn’t easily labeled at all.  "Department of Health and Services" doesn’t exactly strike me as the welfare office or the "transitional assistance building" that they have back in Mass.  However, without too much wasted gas, frustration, or anything else, we finally made it!

When we got there, I signed in and filled out the paperwork.  I was told to have a seat and they’d call my name when it was my turn.  Now, it could have been that the kids were loud and troublesome, but I could have sworn my name was never called.  The end of the day came and not only could they not figure out why I hadn’t been called, but they couldn’t find me on the list!  I waited two hours in there for someone to call me, just so I could hand in my paperwork.  Then what happens when I get some assistance?  They tell me that the part of the post I live on is part of a different county!  It didn’t matter that they processed my information there the last time I lived there.  Nope, I have to go back to a DIFFERNT office tomorrow with two cranky kids and waste my time some more!

As if it’s bad enough that I now have two exhausted, cranky kids, I’m now exhausted and cranky myself!  I’m seriously annoyed that they took so long to get to me.  I’m seriously annoyed that I have to go to a different office tomorrow.  Today was a total waste of time!  On top of that, I wasted gas getting there when I could have just gone to the right place!  I’ll be wasting more gas tomorrow in driving to a different location when Oz could just take the car!  I understand policy is policy and all, but seriously?  How much of my time do I have to waste driving around in circles for these people?

What really kills me in all of this is that it seems I’m just not meant to get state assistance.  It seems like WIC, food stamps, and everything else is like pulling teeth.  I just can’t wait for all the applications to be done and over with.  Seriously, I just want to get my benefits, start working towards repairing my life, and be done with it.  It’s time to move on and start building a positive life for myself and my family.

In other news, Oz is taking a week off of living here in the beginning of the month.  He’s going to be staying at a co-worker’s house for a week to get a break from the kids.  I can’t blame him!  Corde’s been particularly a nightmare.  He’s at wits end with her and so am I.  I’m going to be furious if she ruins my relationship with Oz because she can’t stop stealing, lying, acting rudely, and otherwise misbehaving.  I completely understand that my kids should be more important than my own relationships, but in truth Corde has driven away most of my friends at this point and is causing serious problems in my relationship.  At this point I just hope that Oz finds his week away refreshing enough to come back and not so refreshing that he doesn’t want to live here anymore.  I’m terrified.

I’ve decided I just can’t do this anymore.  As much as putting her in counseling may help, I really fear it’s going to be too little too late.  Corde’s already driven Oz to frustration, as if he needed that with everything else he’s going through.  If I lose him because of her, I just can’t have her living with me anymore.  I can’t live alone and in misery because she drives away everyone I become close to with her temper tantrums, thievery, and everything else.  I just can’t do it anymore.

I’ve talked to Caelan about it and if she doesn’t straighten up by the time he gets home from deployment, Corde will be going to live with him.  She’ll be in school and after care and when she’s not doing one of those two things, she’ll have to deal with her father.  It’s not what I want to do to the poor girl, but I’m at wits end.  Sending her to a therapist isn’t going to be the miracle cure I need it to be.  It’s not going to help her sleep through the night.  It’s not likely to stop her from stealing.  In truth it’s likely to get CPS involved with the way that girl spews lies out of her mouth about Caelan, Oz and I.  I can just see it now, her psychologist reports to CPS that we beat her dai

ly and never allow her to eat anything.  In truth she gets spankings now and again because there are times when absolutely nothing else gets her attention.  As for the food, the girl will eat four or five servings at one dinner if we let her and then will refuse to eat her lunch the next day.  She won’t eat her food if it’s too hot, which is totally understandable, but if she lets it sit even a second too long, suddenly it’s too cold and she wants someone to heat it up for her again, even if everyone else is eating it cold!  For example, food at a party that has cooled to room temperature on a buffet table is completely unacceptable to her!  Someone must heat it up for her or Corde will throw a world class tantrum like a spoiled brat!  You would almost expect that she’d lived her whole life with someone heating her food up for her should it get too cold for her liking, when, in truth, no one has ever done that for her.  If she didn’t want her food cold, she just went hungry!  If she doesn’t like what’s being served, she’ll whine and complain that she’s not hungry, yet miraculously has an apatite when something she wants makes an appearance.  She’ll whine that she’s hungry and wants a second serving of dinner.  When she finds out that there was only enough for everyone to have one plate and we tell her she can have a sandwich, she screams and rails that she doesn’t want a sandwich and we have to give her another option!  Either that or she wants Oz or I to go hungry so that she can have more of the meal and we’re supposed to have a sandwich.  I’m going to have to start doing school work with her on a barren table, sitting over her shoulder and watching her like a hawk to make sure she’s not writing on things she’s not supposed to, like my books or the table, instead of doing her schoolwork.  If I tell her to clean her room it’s because I’m mean to her and I want her to be bored.  I ask her to clean her room because I hate her.  Of course, the fact that I twisted my ankle getting candy wrappers, the charm to my necklace, and some of my stitch markers out of her room, things she stole, could have nothing to do with it.  Her brother isn’t allowed to touch any of her toys, but anything that belongs to anyone else is fair game for her.  She’s constantly taking Beekee’s toys from him.  She wrote on Oz’s PS3.  She steals my jewelry, make-up, hair adornments for belly dance, and everything else.  She sprays Oz’s spray deodorant all over the bathroom because it’s fun.  She’s ruined half a box of cotton swabs, two rolls of toilet paper, and heaven knows what else by playing in the bathroom sink when she’s supposedly going to the bathroom.  Hell, she lies about having to go to the bathroom!  She wails that she has to go potty RIGHT NOW!  She’s going to have an accident!  Then when we get to the bathroom she doesn’t go at all.  She just goes in there to play as an excuse to turn the light on or avoid going to bed.

I’ve tried everything I can think of, except for a psychologist.  Once I have the house in order, I’ll call a therapist and see what they have to say about the situation.  If they call CPS, at least the house will be tidy so that’s one less thing they can fault us for.  If that doesn’t solve anything, I give up.  I can’t fight this with her anymore.  I can’t watch her treat everyone in her life badly because she thinks she deserves to be a spoiled brat.  I can’t watch all her friends be driven away the moment they spend more than a few hours a month with her.  I can’t watch all my own friends and lovers be driven away so I’m left with loneliness because Corde acts like such a nightmare.  I can’t watch her treat her little brother like dirt just because she seems to think she deserves everything and he deserves nothing.  I can’t bring another sibling into this mix knowing full well that Corde is teaching all her bad habits to her little brother and the chain of abuse is likely to continue on.  I’m tired of getting glares at the welfare office, WIC office, or anywhere else we go because my daughter goes completely wild and out of control if she doesn’t get what she wants exactly when she wants it, like they blame me for spoiling her too much, even though I’ve never spoiled her a day in her life!  I’m tired of the disapproving looks I get when Corde wails that she’s hungry in public and that we never feed her.  I’m tired of her wailing that she didn’t get breakfast or lunch and I’m trying to starve her when she’s had both meals AND a snack that day.  I’m about to stop letting her go visit friends because she’s constantly begging for food while she’s there, like I never feed her.  I just can’t do this anymore.

I don’t know.  I’m not looking forward to the same screaming, whining, and complaining I got from Corde at the welfare office today.  I’m not looking forward to poor Aris being exhausted, like I know he will be.  I’m not looking forward to having to hear Corde wail every five seconds that she’s hungry or bored.  She’s going to say I didn’t let her eat or complain that I didn’t let her bring enough toys, even though I think two stuffed animals for each child is more than enough.  Most parents don’t even let their kids bring that much!  I don’t want to hear her whining and complaining that there’s no kids to play with, as though I’m only allowed to go places where she can play with other kids.  It’s frustrating enough to just deal with the whole food stamps process, never mind with the addition of an exhausted Beekee and Her Royal Majesty.  I just hope tomorrow is quick or I might be tempted to kill someone…or myself…for having to put up with all of this a second day in a row…

~*~Rave~*~