Scratch that. Operation tough it out is on.

SO! Ive started to write an entry several times since my last one and failed at it. There’s been a lot going on but I havent felt like writing about it.

I applied for every single available low-income apartment in town, and was put on several 3+ year long waiting lists… by the time those things become available, I won’t need them anymore. I also got denied at several low-income complexes because my credit score is too low. Seriously. Low income housing, with a credit score requirement. SERIOUSLY. 

SO. We thought we were going to move, but now we aren’t. Now we’re stuck where we’re at. With Ross.

Kasin is in Texas with his grandma Julie for his Aunt Kelsey’s graduation from Texas A&M. He is spending time with his dad and grandparents who has never met, aunts and uncles who he’s never met, and lots of cousins who he has never met. He hasn’t seen Kelsey in about 4 years, but they talk on the phone pretty frequently. He was excited to see them all, and really excited about going to the zoo and to the amusement parks and meeting his cousins and going to a REAL Toys R Us. (We don’t have one here.) Aunt Kelsey sent me pictures from the zoo visit, and Kasin appeared to be having a great time. He was also wearing all new summer clothes, a tank top and shorts and matching flip flops. I don’t know why this bothers me, except that I’m upset I wasn’t able to buy him a full summer wardrobe for the trip. I did buy him several tank tops and some sun screen and disposable cameras and pulled out all of the shorts he had from last summer which still fit him, but I still felt bad that he didn’t have a very thorough summer wardrobe to take along.. oh well, apparently someone there (possibly Julie) bought him some new summer stuff, and that’s great, I don’t mind, I just feel inadequate. :  Oh well.

Anyhow, he’s missing the second to the last week and half of the third to the last week of school. He’ll be back for the last four days. It’s so close to the end of the year that his teacher just shrugged it off and said it would be awfully quiet without him. lol I’m worried he’ll miss something important, but I feel like being able to go on this trip was more important. I want him to have memories of his dad to look back on as he gets older, and I want him to have these experiences. I can’t really give him vacations very often, so this was a great opportunity to have one… without me 🙁  But I’m glad he went and I know he’s having a blast and I hope Grandma Julie keeps sunscreen on him and I hope he remembered to take lots of pictures at the zoo and at Kelsey’s graduation.

The first week of May, Heather’s family went out of town to visit her dying grandfather. She wasn’t able to go, but since she had the house to herself, she and I were planning to spend a lot of time together out there, with or without my kids in tow. Ross and I got into a huge fight on the 1st, the first day that she had the house to herself and I was planning to spend the night with her anyways, since Wed is the night I go out with her every week, and so Ross would have Milo that night and take him to daycare for me in the morning. It was also Ross’s first day at his new job, which turned out to be a really stressful day doing lots of exhausting deliveries. I was feeling really bad for him after a couple of texts, but when he got home (a half hour after I did) he was fuming and seething and being rude and nasty. I flipped and stormed out of the house, telling him I couldn’t wait to move so I could leave his sorry ass. He seriously came in and started bitching the minute he got home about how I never do anything (not true) and the house is such a freaking disaster (partially true, but whatever) and no one else ever takes care of the cats (not true) and so on and so on, being mean and nasty and belittling. I was just not in the mood to sit and be screamed at, so I left. And I didn’t come back for four days.

On Thursday after that, I came by the house while Ross was at work and I packed stuff for the kids- snacks, clothes, toys, whatever. I got everything into my car and went to work. After work, I took Kasin and Milo with me to Heather’s house and we stayed the night there Thurs and Fri, then on Saturday we had Mommy and Me portraits at 330, so I went home around noon and showered and got ready while Milo took a nap. Ross unfortunately came home in the middle of my getting ready, but he was very polite and kind of clingy, following me around and talking to me and asking questions. I was thoroughly annoyed by it. I finally went into Kasin’s room and shut the door while I finished getting dressed. Then Ross had to leave again and I took the kids to pictures, and came and dropped Milo back off at home with Ross for the night afterwards. I took Kasin to Julie’s and went back out to North Pole. Heather’s friend, Tiffany, who is kind of annoying, was there and we all hung out and ate lots of good food and watched movies and chatted and had a great time. 

I was HOPING to convince Ross and Julie to each keep the kids for Sunday night, but Julie insisted on dropping Kasin off at like, 2pm on Sunday, and Heather was only JUST waking up by that time, and hadn’t been expecting him, so she was sort of annoyed by it. We were planning to have more kid-free time, but oh well. Ross kept Milo, but I decided to go home that evening since I was going to have to get up early to take Kasin to school anyways. So I packed everything up and came home at 7ish that night. 

That will be a week ago, tomorrow, and Ross has been very polite and warm and not easily upset, no fits, no tantrums, no drama, ever since we got back. He’s been very nice to everyone, including Kasin, and engages him in conversations and is nice and fun, has been spending time with him in the basement, even, playing Mario Kart and talking about guitar and drawing, interests they share. He’s always had this capacity, but never the time or the energy. I think his new job is helping him a lot, its a very physical position and he is getting a lot more exercise. He also has to deal with fewer people, only has two coworkers, and gets to go to a lot of neat places to make deliveries. I think that all the physical activity is releasing some endorphins there for him and he’s been thrilled with the change of seasons, as well. 

I still really want him to go back to his Dr and get his medication, but I’m not sure if he will. I think he will be much better over the summer, but once fall hits and things get tough, it’ll be a different story.. maybe.. so I’m going to try really hard to get him back to the Dr by fall, and I’m also going to try to get him in with a therapist at the local Behavioral Health clinic, a friend of mine works there. Actually, she’s my mom’s best friend, and she’s like an extra mother to me. <3  Anyhow, she told us he would probably qualify for a lot of the free care there, so Ive been trying to get him to go in, but he wont, yet. I’m gunna work on that more towards the fall, like I said.

On Monday, I went to work and had a huge fight with a coworker right around closing. She’s JUST turned 18, like a week or less ago, and she’s been the "manager" for the night shift for a few months. She has a big head about it and thinks she owns the joint and tries to tell everyone what to do. I don’t take kindly to being told what to do, ever, and I dont especially love some high school student telling me how to do my job, but I usually just deal. However, that night she was picking on Kasin a lot and Kasin kept getting in trouble for getting in fights with this horrible little brat child who is 6 years old and weighs 100 lbs. He’s completely out of control and his mom just babies him and thinks he’s special, even though he’s been tested for everything and there’s nothing wrong with him. The staff members (namely Danny, the one I was fighting with) just don’t even try to work with him because he is SO beyond help, he’s just impossible, and there’s no physical way to MAKE HIM do anything, because he’s so big. 

So, basically, this kid was starting fights with Kasin and Kasin kept telling him to quit and was trying to get away from him, but the other kid wouldn’t stop. So Kasin shoved him and sat on him, and Danny freaked out on Kasin and put him in time out. I told her that was baloney and told Kasin that if no one else is going to try to deal with that kid, he is more than welcome to defend himself. Danny got mad and said that Kasin picks on this kid and all the other kids (not true, I work there, I know it’s not true, I see him all the time with these kids, I work in that room all the time… etc) and that the other kid has behavioral problems and its not his fault. And I basically said that I dont care who’s fault it is, the STAFF MEMBERS need to discipline all the kids fairly, and not just pick ONE CHILD to put all the blame on, especially when BOTH PARTIES were acting out, and the OTHER KID started it. She got pissed and called my boss (Mesa) and made it into a huge to-do, where in Mesa ended up calling me and I sort of resigned at the same time as she was probably going to fire me.

SO, I didn’t go back. At all. Kim, who is a friend of ours through Jesse (Ross’s brother) works at the center too and she packed up all of me and Kasin and Milo’s stuff for me and brought it by with my final paycheck on Friday. *sigh* 

The end of an era, there. Mesa was really mad, and she didn’t even ask for my side of the story, really. Im really irritated with how it ended, but in the end, whatever. I’m going to stay home with the kids for the summer, I need to go apply for ATAP and Food Stamps, but I am not sure how much we will end up getting with Ross still working FT.. but he’s the only one with a job, and he did just take a pay cut.

I also put an ad on Craigslist looking for some kids to babysit over the summer. I have high hopes that it will work out much better this time around than it did when Milo was a brand new baby, if simply because Milo is older and we’re all on a pretty regular schedule, now. I’m excited to do the summer reading program with the kids at the library, and go swimming at the lake and go to open bowl around the corner from our house. We also live really close by two BIG playgrounds, so that’ll be great. I really hope we get some kids to watch. We could REALLY use the money.. wish us luck. SIGH!

That’s all the news I have 🙂
~Me