11/06/2012

Long time, no write.  Just been too negative, and since I don’t SEE OD, I don’t think to go write in it.  I just noticed something on FB today, and knew I’d get "more of the story" from OD, so here I came, to see what was what. 

I’m going to TRY to play catch up, lol….   Becca is 17, and well, not making me a very happy camper.  Sydni is 13, same song, different artist :).  Shabree is 10, doing ok in school, been helpful around the house, mama’s girl big time.  I don’t mind.  Sammi is 6 now, and doing ok in school except for spelling.  Girl cannot spell.  Alex… feisty, opinionated, can’t shut up if her life depended on it!  If she’s not babbling, she’s rambling, if she’s not rambling, she’s singing.  She makes up some cute songs, and is QUITE musical, she has an excellent ear and voice for a 4 year old.  She’s with me constantly, probably seems like a spoiled brat to outsiders.

Oh…  yea.  My "friends" seem to be thinking I’m not a good mother.  Becca won’t do a thing I ask, Syd is full of attitude and barely does a thing I ask, Shabree will ask me to do something over and over, even though I say No every time she asks… Sammi is actually pretty naturally obedient, and Alex is always testing the boundaries.  I can see how they think I am not doing my job, however, with Bec, my hands are tied, Jerry has seen to that.  He is the only person she will listen to.  Sydni… it’s more than likely just the age.  Can’t say much about Shabree, she really needs to rein it in and stop doing that… I am TRYING to be firm, and not mean, but my one friend, who by the way, is NOT a mother, thinks I’m not firm enough.  I’ve just had enough of being a bitch mother to last me a lifetime. It works no better, and I think Bec’s meanness comes from MY meanness in raising her.  I don’t know.  I am in a no-win situation.  I am getting to where I don’t want to be friends with these people anymore.  Let THEM try raising 5 girls, two of whom are their step children, and see how well THEY do at it!  See if they can rise to the challenges of getting enough attention, and dealing with the dad treating them like they’re the child in the situation!   I’m so tired of it all…  And I so rarely get any time to myself.  Jerry won’t take them.  He says HIS time alone is always working.  Well, even working, I have to have the kids with me.  Even now, Alex is sleeping beside me on the couch.   Alex only shuts up when she’s sleeping.  I love her dearly, but I think I’m going to lose my mind.  I can’t even answer half her questions because they’re about some random stranger and why they’re doing what they’re doing… OMG, WHY DO YOU CARE child????    "who is that?"  "I don’t know Alex."  "Why is that man doing that?"  "I don’t know, Alex"  "Why did that little girl wave at me?"  "Alex, I don’t know why she waved at you."  "Why is that little boy wearing that blue shirt?"  "I don’t know Alex"  I’m totally serious.  This is what I deal with daily.  So if she’s not asking questions I can’t answer, then she’s chattering on about things, and half the time, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be listening to her or not.  She gets mad at me, she’ll ask me something, and my hearing is going, and I get lost in thought, and she’s rudely trying to get my attention.  I am trying desperately to keep my patience with her, but she tries it, and honestly, it’s just her personality.  I got her singing "I’m a goofy goober" by Sponge Bob, because it helped relieve the situation some.  She can be really funny sometimes, and downright cute.  Her songs are one liners, repeated over and over, the other day she was singing "I’m just a cute little girl" and she probably sang it 15 times.  Good thing she can actually sing, it was cute, even as it was getting annoying from repetition.  She’ll sing how much she loves me, or how she loves me forever and ever.  She is a hugger and a kisser, big time, though again with the repetition, even that stuff gets old, as cute as it is.  She simply does not know when to stop.  I don’t know how to tell her without hurting her feelings… not that she’s sensitive, because she’s NOT.  I can tell her she’s chatter boxing, and now I even tell her she’s got to be quiet.  She, and all her sisters actually, do well when a business call comes in.  They’re quiet for the duration of the call, so that’s really good.  I really do allow her a LOT of room to talk all she wants.  But I could use a break, and I can’t seem to get one, Jerry acts like he’s the only one that works, he’s off taking care of his family, and of course, that’s NOT private time, that’s work time.  Well, what the FUCK ever… I don’t even get work time away.  We rented a farm… we have 5 goats, 8 chickens (started out 10, two died, one got trampled by our mini horses, the other probably from being squashed under the other chickens when it got really cold), 2 guinea hogs (look it up, they’re cool), and 5 rabbits.  Well, of course, they have to be fed every day.  Jerry usually does it, doesn’t mind it a bit, but he never takes Alex with him, and he COULD.  He really could take her, the farm is safe for her.  So today, he had 2 carpet cleaning jobs, no way could he get to the animals before 3, which is WAY late to feed them.  So it fell to me to do it, no biggie, I don’t mind doing it either.  But I HAD to take Alex with me!  Of course, she was fine, she was super helpful, actually, she made sure the chickens and horses got fed and watered, mostly watered, she turned on the water for me.  She also made sure the pigs got some hay (not their normal feed, just what was available.  Pigs will eat ANYTHING…. seriously.  Jerry fed them 2 dead mice yesterday… YUCK)  So I fed and watered everyone, and beat a hasty retreat… had a teacher conference at what I thought was 1:30, but actually was 1, and I made it with 10 minutes to spare :).  Alex and Sammi were super good during the conference, Shabree set them up with something to color, I think.  In any case, there was no bugging the entire time we were there, which was all of 15 minutes.  The teacher is very happy with Shabree, and she LOVES and ADORES him, lol… I’ve had moments where I’m seriously thinking, I’m sick of hearing "Mr Ryan this, and Mr Ryan that…"  WHY are male teachers so much better than so many female teachers?  I only ever had one male teacher, who was old as a fossil, that I thought wasn’t  a good teacher.   Just sayin… actually, I had one ABSOLUTELY wonderful, fantastic, female teacher who will always live in my heart as someone who made school worth going to again.  My kindergarten teacher, female, put me in a pre-first grade, totally unnecessarily, and I didn’t like her much.  My first grade teacher, male, I loved.  My second

grade teacher, female, near retirement, put me in tears quite a bit.  My 3rd grade teacher, she was excellent.  She really helped me learn.  My 4th grade teacher, another excellent one, but she was rarely there, we had subs about half the time.  My 5th grade teacher gave us homework any time anyone spoke, and the boys talked constantly… we usually went home with about 20 pages of homework a night, and I was miserable, and that was the first time I really remember hating school, and the first time I dreamed of dying, or running away.  6th grade, male, awesome teacher, but he left at the middle of the year, with a cancer diagnosis, and we got my all time favorite teacher for the rest of that grade, and 7th, too.  She was the one I mentioned before, who made school worth going to again.  8th grade, went back to public school (5th through 7th had been Catholic, and they were miserable years…)  Not a remarkable time, I didn;t like my math teacher… male, but I loved my science teacher, also male.  No females stand out in my brain at all, though I think my English teacher was good, first time I ever had to do a diary in school, and I loved it.  9th grade… nothing stands out in my memory.  Good Social Studies teacher, male, GOOFBALL.  10th through 12th were high school… drama teacher, female, sucked.  Shorthand teacher, male, the one old as a fossil, sucked, so much so, in fact, that because of him alone, I dropped the class.  French teacher, male, awesome.  No one else really stands out in my memory…. driver’s Ed teacher, male, ok, but I think he scared me a bit.  Hey, I learned to drive, and that’s all that counts!  You can’t even take driver’s ed anymore, which sucks. 

I even took classes from my mom in college, and they were ok, for the most part.  I refrained from calling her mom, lol.  I didn’t know WHAT to call her, so I tried not to call her anything!  She’s a good teacher, still is… but one thing was, I was so used to her always teaching me anyway, it was sometimes hard not to be a little resentful of it.  But I still appreciated the two or so classes I took from her.  One was Morals and Ethics, and let me just tell you, that is NOT an easy class to take, especially from your own mother!  Some of it, there’s no "right" answer.  A poor man stealing food for his family is STILL stealing, but without food, they’d die.  How do you judge that?  So yea… no easy answers there.  We went over questions like that…that one stands out in my mind!  Mon is very ethical, and I have not always been so much myself, especially as I’ve been married to Jerry.  He will go into a restaurant, and flat out LIE about the kid’s ages so they get in cheaper.  He does it so we can go out… but it’s NOT right, and it’s not ethical, and I aid and abet him in that so the kids won’t hear him.  But Becca knows he does it.  Sigh.  Enough of that!  I have to admit, even I am tired of hearing myself complain about the kids and Jerry.  It’s kind of hard, because I don’t have anyone I can really turn to.  Most of our friends are mutual,some don’t see Jerry’s flaws, his controlling attitude.  I hardly ever go anywhere, because I have to justify the cost of gas to him.  If I suggest a freebie on Craigslist, his first question is where is it, because even for something that would cost 1000 dollars, the price of gas isn’t worth going to get it.  So not only am I stuck with the kids, I’m stuck at home with them.  Money feels like it’s everything… he’ll even turn down jobs because of the price of gas to get there.  He’s got this ideal in his head that he’s going to make 100 dollars an hour, or it’s not worth doing.  I’m with him if it’s going to cost 50 bucks to get out there… but he’s also raised our prices enough that we’re no longer competitive… he’s trying to get a higher end client who recognizes the great work he does and is willing to pay more for it.  But honestly… who’s not trying to save money these days?  Those kinds of clients are far and few in between, especially in 10% unemployment…   so we are barely making ends meet.  They’re meeting…. mostly.  Another something I don’t want to talk any more about.  I should probably just wrap up.  I’m so tired, it’s 1 a.m. now and I’ve written a novel (but then, what’s new about that?)