Freaking long day

Jerry’s up working in our room, so much as I’d almost rather go to sleep, it’s near impossible.  I don’t understand WHY I can sleep in the middle of the day, but not at night with the lights on?  Go figure on that one.  I suppose if I covered my head up with the blanket, like I do during the middle of the day, I could… but I still couldn’t escape the sound of his typing.  I guess I’m like Alex and Sammi, I need it dark and quiet to get a good sleep going.  So here I am. 

I spent my day CLEANING.  Ugh.  And it does NOT look fantastic.  It looks OK.  Sydni cleaned the bathroom, took her an hour… maybe an hour and a half to do it.  And then she cleaned the pantry (yay), but she took an hour… hour and a half to do that too.  I was losing my patience.

Speaking of losing my patience… Rebecca told me to shut up.  I about lost it ALL.  I didn’t know what to say, so I resorted to yelling "Shut UP?  SHUT UP?" and slamming a pad of paper.  I was making Shabree cry, and I wasn’t even mad at her.  Jerry came downstairs, thinking I was telling the girls to shut up, and I was just shaking.  Here he is, mad at ME, and I’m saying "no, Becca said Shut up to me!"  So he came into the kitchen, asked what was wrong with this situation, and quickly figured out it was Bec’s snotty little attitude.  Let me preface that I was trying to get a sleeper sofa from Freecycle, and Jerry insisted we had to clean the van out, well, the woman had told me that whoever got there first, got it.  So I TRIED to get Jerry home, and then the van cleaned out, but I was too late.  So… I was kind of stewing about that a bit.  I was frustrated and thinking I should give up on Freecycle.  Well, Becca says to me that I should not take out my frustration with that situation on her… however, she forgot that when I came back in the house, she WAS NOT doing the dishes I’d asked her to do.  I finally got mean with her (this was before the whole shut up thing happened) and said "Becca, please stop speaking to me."  And she wouldn’t… she just kept talking.  I told Shabree to empty a box, she’d filled it, she needed to empty it… here’s Becca, I don’t know, to the rescue of Shabree "She didn’t fill it up." 

I said, "Becca, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.  She did fill it up…She and Sydni have filled up this box for the last couple of days while cleaning up the living room.  So she most certainly DID fill it up.  Get your facts straight before you start going off."   So she evidently felt she needed to defend herself on THAT, and I was just getting madder and madder, and she kept telling me to quit yelling at her… and then she tells me that *I* am being just as disprespectful to her as she is being to me.  That made me even madder (still before the Shut up), so I am pretty much yelling at this point, though NOT as loud as when she told me to shut up… and I told her "Becca, quit talking to me like you’re my equal.  You are NOT my friend.  You are NOT my sister.  You ARE my daughter, and you may NOT speak to me like that."  So she said "So you hate me then?"  I said "No, I love you more than anything, but you’re still my daughter, NOT my equal."  Later, when I’d calmed down, I went into her bedroom and told her "Let’s get something straight.  I love you, I love you and all your sisters, you are my LIFE, without you and your daddy, I’d be nothing.  I know you’re my step daughter, but really, you’re my daughter, you’re MINE."  I went on for a couple of minutes.  I basically told her that I wanted there to be NO mistake about how much I love her. 

The whole shut up thing… I just really went blank.  I wasn’t even sure how to deal with it.  I just went for scaring her.  Man, was I pissed off.  She’s lucky I didn’t resort to name calling, because I sure did have to check wanting to do that.  I’ve GOT to get the yelling under control, but dang, sometimes it’s all I can think of.  I am reminded of why I am NOT a spanking mom… that would have sent me over the edge, I swear it.  My mom and dad used to scare the hell out of me.  Before their divorce, my dad would take a belt to me, and I was under the age of 6 or7, because I was 7 when they divorced, I think.  I was in trouble one time, and confined to my room.  I saw them outside, and was trying to get their attention at the window, and when I figured that they couldn’t hear me knocking, I kicked on the window, and I didn’t realize I would break it, but I did.  I do NOT remember getting the belt at all, but I do remember that I was going to, or was afraid I was going to.  I don’t remember much about those days at all truthfully… that’s one of the few memories I do have about my childhood.  And they were yellers, or at least, it seems, my dad was.  Again… I don’t remember.  I just know that ONE thing about Jerry that’s always made me secure with him is that he’s not a yeller, because like Shabree, I tend to freak out even when it’s not aimed at me.  It seems like that’s another reason I need to get the yelling under control.  It’s just the hardest thing to do…especially when my damn buttons are being pressed by Rebecca.  I thanked her for doing the dishes, and she just goes "uh huh."  and I just sighed, but I held my tongue.  Jerry said  to me, "It iS considered a form of you’re welcome."  And I just said to him "I didn’t say anything."  Which I had NOT.  I had decided to just let. it. go.

I just don’t know how to get through to Becca sometimes.  I mean, I think she had no right to speak to me the way she was.  I kind of feel that if she WAS a friend and not my daughter, that I’d get rid of her as a friend.  I don’t want my friends speaking to me like that either.  And truthfully, friends DON’T speak to each other like that.  Becca lacks tact in any way, shape or form, and once in awhile, it costs her.  Her sisters think she hates them.  They think she’s MEAN.  Go figure… she IS mean.  And she does not care.  She doesn’t like them, so why should she care?  She spends a great deal of time in her room, reading.  She spends even more time at the computer, these days watching Animé or reading Breaking Dawn in PDF (the last Twilight book… really the best one of the series, IMO of course.)  She is a typical teenager is what it comes down to… but.  But, but but.  I guess that doesn’t mean *I* have to like it.  Freaking, she pisses me off is what it really comes down to.  How can you love someone SO much, and still want to not see them for the next 5 years until they grow UP and become human again? 

I just re-read that and realized, Freaking, she pisses me off makes NO sense.  Of course, sub the F word for freaking, and you’ve got my meaning.  I TRY not to swear.  I do. 

When she interferes with me trying to get her sisters to do something or behave a certain way, I want to whirl around and say &quot

;Stay the F out of it."  But I don’t.  And it’s NOT like Shabree doesn’t get away with enough crap as it is!  Christ almighty, who made Bec the mom?  And… THAT is not a "Becca teenage" thing.  That’s just a Becca thing…she’s been doing it forever.  She is such a %&#@ing control freak.  Oh, I swear to God, there are days, and this was one of them.  Oh, and you know what…. doing the dishes was the ONLY thing I asked her to do, because she came home sick, with her face swollen on one side.  When I said we were going to clean, she says "Goodbye." and went to her room.  Okay, fine whatever.  WHATEVER.  So I asked her to please fill the dishwasher… no handwash, just fill the dishwasher.  So yea, when we came back in the house and I wasn’t going to get the couch, and she wasn’t doing the dishes… it pissed me off.  And perhaps… just perhaps that made it look like I was taking out some disappointment about the couch.  But no… I was just upset that I couldn’t ask her to do ONE SIMPLE THING and she’d just do it.

I feel a bout of sarcasm coming on… and I’ll spare you.  I think maybe I’ve gone on long enough about this.  One thing, I ALMOST wanted to blame myself, but you know… I asked her pretty politely to just stop talking.  And she didn’t.  I think she deserved to be yelled at.  Another day and age, and she might be going to school tomorrow with bruises, and no teacher would call CPS, because there would be no CPS.  She’s lucky we don’t spank or hit… back talk like that would even today get a lot of kids at the very least a backhand across the mouth for what she said to me. 

Of course, in another day and age, no "lady" would swear like I do, either!  So…whatever  I’m definitely rambling a bit at this point.  I’m pretty tired.  And for having spent so much time on this house…it just looks OK, what a bummer.  Oh, I baked oatmeal rasin cookies, and they turned out GOOD this time.  Shabree put them on the baking sheets, and she did all right for her first time doing it.  That recipe’s been a difficult one to nail down.  I think I’ve been using too many eggs to soak the raisns in.  I keep at it though, because I really love that recipe, it’s good, even when they don’t come out right, it’s still SO good. 

I sure hope Todd and Angel come tomorrow, because if they don’t… I know my house is clean and all, but that was SO much work… there were a lot of other things I’d have rather done with my day.  I guess if my life depended on cleaning, I’d survive, but it’s really not my forté.  As with so many other "house" type things, it’s not something I do well.  This is the only thing that ever makes me think maybe I’d be better off going back to work.  I mean, I just suck so bad it seems at all the "housewife" crap.  I can only cook ok.  I can only clean ok.  I take pretty good care of my kids, but generally only one at a time, and I’m not good with stuff like being appropriately sorry when they fall off their bikes, etc.  I kind of want them to just get over it.  I try though.  I’m good at "kissing and making it better."  I’m good at hugging and holding and rocking… at least the little ones anyway.  But I lack a certain amount of patience….poor Sydni… she did some rearranging of my closet, and it LOOKS good, but she messed some things up, and I was none too happy about that, because I did rather have it sorted to where I could find it, and some things I just couldn’t find… so she swore she wouldn’t do it again, she was NOT happy.  I only wanted her to clean up the floor and get the empty bottles and cans off the shelves, so the fact that she rearranged everything, AND took so doggone long to do it… well, you get the idea.  Frustration city for me.  You can’t criticize ANYTHING Sydni does.  Nothing.  She gets really put out.

What a long day… not fun.  I guess life isn’t SUPPOSED to be fun… but this day just really sucked all around.  Tomorrow, grocery shopping with Jane and the girls.  That should be all right.  I don’t mind doing that sort of stuff for Jane.  I’d rather see her spend her food stamps and money wisely, and get more for her dollar.  Plus, then maybe she wouldn’t be bugging us for stuff at the end of the month… one can only hope!  Besides, it’s typically better to go to the store with someone, and while I enjoy going to the store with Jerry, I begin to feel rushed by him, and it’s annoying as hell.  There have been trips with him where I’ve just abandoned some things off the list because of how long we’d been in the store and how antsy he got.  Man has a definite love/hate relationship with shopping.

Of course, these days, I know where everything IS in that store, so I can go through it pretty fast, and find everything I need.  So that helps.  We’re going to go to the one in Folsom though, because it’s slightly closer, and it’s a different store.  Sort of a similar set up, but just a tad different.  So, it’ll take a bit longer.  Unfortunately, we have to do this in two, two and a half hours MAX.  Should be plenty of time… but now I’ve lost my doggone list (or Sammi stole it, one of two, more likely the latter.)  Oh… nope, there it is on the floor… yay.

I’m going to bed… it’s 1 a.m.  If I have to kick him out, so be it.  Actually, I need to pump first.  But, I cannot type and pump at the same time, so I will wrap up anyway.