Knowing It's Coming Doesn't Help

So. School started yesterday. I'm so weary from the afternoon of screaming we just endured/are enduring that I hardly know where to start. I knew that big boy's erratic behavior and violent mood swings would get worse while he adapted to the beginning of the school year, but somehow it's still nearly impossible to handle. He's screaming again, as I type this, and it makes my chest hurt. I'm not even annoyed with him, or at least not much, I know he's the only person feeling even worse than I am, I just don't get it. I know the schedule disruption is tough, but I swear this behavior would be extreme even if there were some sort of dramatic trauma involved, and there's so not.

God, it's impossible to think, or type, during this. I guess I'll go try again. I. Hate. This.

An end to penis envy

Oh my god. Look what my weird husband just found online. It's a paper penis substitute to allow women to pee standing up. The best part are the directions, which refer to part of a woman's anatomy as "the flow area between your legs." The flow area??? Who on earth is bankrolling this? AND, they recommend that you recycle the used paper penii. I'm very earth-friendly and all in favor of recycling, but I don't want my recycled paper products to have your bodily fluids on them. What is wrong with people, seriously?

The Sordid School Story

And now, at long last, for the details of our last-minute decision to transfer big boy to another school. I think I've probably told most of the 14 of you who read this blog the whole story in person, but here's the recap for those of you who have been out of cell phone range this week and have been wondering about the disturbance in the force you felt when my head asploded on Sunday. Yes, that's another Star Wars reference. It's contagious.

I will begin with a tiny bit of background. Boy's old school was started two years ago and has been adding one grade per year, with an ultimate goal of having grades pre-K through 8. The school has space in two buildings previously owned by a church, and operated in only one of those buildings for its first two years. Plans were in place to renovate the second building to include a gym, cafeteria, and some classrooms. As recently as the end of July, school officials expressed, to a parent audience, confidence that construction would be completed in time for the opening of the 07-08 school year next week. In the meantime, the old cafeteria was demolished and replaced with offices for staff.

The revelation that caused the aforementioned head asplosion on Sunday was that the construction on the second building has not been completed and may, in fact, not yet be started, because no one got the necessary permits. The biggest immediate problem is that there is no cafeteria for the several hundred children who will begin the school year on Monday. The school's solution (which was already undertaken before any notice was given to parents) was to BUY A TENT, and pitch it in the courtyard, and have the children eat in it for the duration of the construction. The duration, incidentally, is being spun as "until November," which I believe is constructionese for "July of 2010."

A note about myself - I often overreact to an unforeseen situation at first, but upon reflection chill out a bit and learn to accept my new reality. In this case, I found I was doing the opposite. Although my initial reaction was mostly amusement at just how ludicrous the whole thing is, the more I thought about it, the more upset I got. My primary objections to the tent solution, in no particular order:

1) This is the mid-Atlantic. If we are charitable and assume that lunch will only be under the Big Top until November as planned, that still covers a time period that could include extreme heat, extreme cold, rain, snow, even hurricanes. None of which are rendered more pleasant by time spent under vinyl. Are tents made of vinyl? Sorry, not the point.
2) This is Baltimore. The city mammal should be the rat, if it's not already. Hundreds of kids eating outdoors daily, plus rats. This does not seem wise.
3) If/when they finally do the necessary construction, it will be in an old building directly next to the tent. Asbestos? Lead? Aerosolized by renovation and sprayed into the air next to the tent? Hmmm.
4) The school is between two fairly busy streets in a big city. I'm not hyper-paranoid about child predators in general, but having kids eat outside every day at the same time with limited security seems like an open invitation to local creeps.
5) The kids used to use the courtyard that now houses Circus Circus for recess. Now, they won't have anywhere to go for recess except/unless each individual teacher, at his or her discretion, chooses to take a much larger amount of time away from instruction to walk the kids the extra distance to the park.
6) I'm not crazy about the underlying themes of incompetence, miscommunication, lying, and poor prioritization that this latest incident exemplifies.

I had already seriously considered moving him several times, so this was really just the straw breaking my back. I'm sort of bad at committing to decisions in general, but I've felt such relief since making this one that I really believe it's the right one. I will miss the community at the old school and I hope they are able to pull it together and achieve what they're trying to achieve there, but I think that it's best for our family, and this child in particular, to be in a more stable and safe environment.

And that took an inhumanly long time to write up and may not make any sense at all, and I'm going to bed. 'School' is starting to gain on 'sleep' in the list of bad things people don't tell you about having kids.

The First Annual Allies

Today has been hard-core suckass horrible, but rather than dwell on the misery and bitterness, I have decided to hold an Alioto Family Awards ceremony. You may call the awards "the Allies."

Most Likely to Become an Actor - the award goes to....the 6 year old, for a fine, sustained performance of histrionics this morning the likes of which (I hope) most people have never seen. His exertions were impressive to behold, and his energies went toward both verbal and physical expression of displeasure. The reason for this 2 hour tantrum, which would have made any 2 year old envious? I sent him to his room for interrupting me on the phone over 10 times during a 5 minute conversation. I know, I'm vicious. Please don't call the cops.

Most Likely to Become an Opera Singer - the award goes to....boy twin. His voice is, thus far, usually gratingly unpleasant, but I'm certain that the incessant "eh eh eh eh" whine he emits must be strengthening his vocal cords and preparing him for a life of fame and fortune on the opera circuit. Does opera have a circuit? Whatever.

Most Likely to Be Eaten by a Giant Tortoise - the crazy wacked-out almost-4-year-old, who will not let his goddamned imaginary enemy go, and who spent the whole day alternating between being really rough with the babies and then shrieking in literal hysterics when I put him in time out, because being away from my side renders him subject to the mercies of the "giant tortoise! giant tortoise! giant tortoise! giant tortoise!" I swear to god, if he does not get over this soon, I'm going to find a giant tortoise and feed him to it.

Most Likely to Live to Adulthood - girl twin, my lovely darling angel-girl, who was a little fussy today but did just have surgery yesterday and was wearing lavendar satin and tights and was thus cute enough to pull it off. Also, she was mostly drowned out. And she has adorable ringlets.

Most Likely to Chain My Mother to the House upon Her Return - my husband, who not only has to weather my mood swings alone this week, but also has to listen to me bitch without pause about the enormously increased workload I have with my mother gone. Of course, he just turned on yet another boring-ass documentary and then left the room to play a video game, so my sympathy is lower than it might be.

And thus concludes the first annual Allie awards. I really, really wish alcohol didn't conflict with my medication.

More insanity from my children

Today was rich in crazy around here. A sampling...

I mentioned in a conversation with my big boy that older women can't have babies any more (don't ask, I get sucked into the weirdest topics with him). His response? "Because the hole closes up, right?"

The almost-4-year-old saw an episode of Little Einsteins this morning that has apparently scarred his poor weird brain for life. For those of you not familiar with it, Little Einsteins is not a scary show, unless cartoon children with disproportionately large heads and a propensity for bursting into song frighten you. And they should. But back to my wacky boy - there was a brief appearance on this morning's episode by a tortoise. Since he saw the tortoise, the boy has been glued to my side, unwilling to go upstairs or even to the bathroom by himself, and has been Rain Man-chanting this refrain: "the giant tortoise in my wall has strong claws and is going to kill me." I have tried logic (shocking that that didn't work), sympathy, tough love, etc, but he stuck with his concern and got shrieking hysterical if asked to go into his room. I may have toned it down a tiny bit by showing him the most innocuous looking tortoise picture on the internet, then telling him that tortoises like cabbage and giving him a head of cabbage to spread around the yard to lure the tortoise out of his wall and into the great outdoors. Sometimes, you just have to fight crazy with crazy.

Even the twins got in on the action today. I was trying to get them to make the sign language sign for "please" before each bite of dessert tonight, but they really aren't getting it yet. Finally, boy twin did the sign properly - but on his sister's chest, not his own. I wonder if it's making permanent dents on their psyches to be a group act?

There's lots of other stuff going on this week - I moved big boy to a new school (only 6 days before the start of the new school year) and girl twin got tubes in her ears today - but I had to get the funny in before my sieve of a brain lost it.

Missing my mommy

We're back from vacation, and it was really wonderful, but now my husband is back at work and I'm actually having to take care of my kids all by myself like a real live grownup. My mother lives with us but is out of town for a couple weeks helping my sister move, so my secret weapon against the constant incursions of dirt and noise is gone. People ask me all the time "how do you do it?" when they hear how many kids I have, and I feel like a faker because the true answer is that it's not even hard with all the help I get from my mom and husband. These next couple weeks will make me appreciate that help even more, I'm sure. I already did two loads of dishes and three loads of laundry yesterday (my saintly mother usually does those), and I already miss having someone to share goofy twin antics with.

I'm trying to maintain some order while she's gone, though. I actually got up before the kids today to shower and dress (even though the rat bastards ALL woke me up at least once last night and I'm exhausted), which is why I have a minute free on the computer. I have all of our appointments written out for the week - usually, I just leave one or more of the kids with my mom and run out quickly for doctors and stuff, but I need to be more organized if I'm going to get all of us anywhere on time. I've also found out yet more disheartening information about big boy's school, so I have to spend some time on the phone this week in a sure-to-be-futile effort to find 1st grade openings a week before school starts. And, craziest of all, I have to continue to hound the department of parole about big boy's bio-dad, who is trying to move here but can't because of bureaucratic crap. Why am I helping with this again?

That was rambling and uninteresting, but my window of peace is short and I have to post something, right? Wish me luck!

Vacation!

We made it to South Carolina yesterday with all 6 kids and didn't even need to use duct tape on anyone. Miraculously, every single one of them was good for the 11 hours it took us to get here, and I still like them all at the end of today, our first full day of vacation.

It's beautiful here. Every time we come to visit my in-laws, I think fleetingly of how nice it would be to live here, but then I spend five minutes on the road and realize I'd be in prison within a week. These are some seriously bad drivers, and not just bad but hellishly slow. My blood pressure goes up just thinking about it.

My step-daughter and I got our hair cut today. It's nice not looking like a female sasquatch, and my step-daughter can start fifth grade in two weeks without people thinking she keeps small nesting animals in her hair. Doesn't everyone drive 500 miles to get their hair cut? The twins are responding typically to change - my daughter is hamming it up and eating her weight in food at every meal, while my son clings desperately to my leg, refuses food, and longs for home.

And with that, Big Love is on. What could be better than this?

Awesomest day ever

Well, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but it was a very, very good day. First, I had an interview to volunteer in the Shock Trauma department of the hospital where I want to go to medical school in a few years, and I'm in! and I start September 17. THEN, random weird social networking paid off in an unexpected way when I was informed of an open adjunct position at a local community college via a mom's list serv that I hardly even post to. I replied to the post yesterday, had an interview this morning, and got the job! It was quite gratifying to see how happy they were with my IT credentials and ability to speak in sentences (I sure fooled them) - I think they were really and truly desperate for teachers, as the quarter starts on 8/27. So, I'm a teacher, yay me! It's just 3 hours a week for 15 weeks and the pay's not bad (certainly better than the nothin' I'm getting for the oogy hospital work - my big boy said incredulously, "you're just doing it to be nice?" when I explained that I wouldn't be paid for my efforts). So, zero to two jobs in one rewarding morning. Look at me! Then, I took all four of my wee bits to the pool all by myself like a big girl and no one drowned either accidentally or on purpose, and I even like them all right now, at the end of the day. Wonders, not ceasing.

There are a lot of exclamation points in that paragraph. Run-on sentences, too. Be not afraid - I'm spending this entire weekend trapped in a car with my children, so my next several posts are likely to be written under heavy medication and possibly from some sort of institution. I just need to figure out a way to write out the feeling of "rocking in the corner like a mental patient."

I'd join a gym

We just got an email about a back-to-school orientation being held in the scalding, scorching, searing, sizzling, smoking, steaming, stuffy, sultry, summery, sweltering, sweltry (alphabetized list of hotness, including the new-to-me "sweltry" courtesy of thesaurus.com) cafeteria at my son's school the third week of this putrid month. My husband recently attended another meeting in the same venue, and his instant response was, "no way, I'm not going. If I wanted to go to a sauna I'd join a gym."

The punch line? We belong to a gym now. It even has a sauna. Here I've been feeling guilty only taking advantage of the gym once or twice a week. At least I know it's there!

I love my marriage. Only with my husband can I feel like a fitness queen with an excellent memory.

Knowing you're done

I am a frequent visitor to a large families discussion board. One of the regular topics on that board is how to know when you are done having kids. Some of the women seem very certain that their families are complete, and some don't seem to think they will ever really feel done. I worried for a long time that I would fall into the latter category. I would look at friends with one or two kids, who seem very content, and wonder what was different about me that made me want more. Even after the twins were born, for a while I just wasn't sure.

Now? I'm sure. And it's not (just) a feeling of being fed up with the repetitive inanity of daily life with small children. The confirming factor for me is how I feel as the twins metamorphose from helpless larvae into little toddling people. When my oldest was a baby, every developmental milestone was poignant for me - although I celebrated his progress, I mourned the loss of his babyhood, the disappearance of my baby. I even anticipated how much more severe that feeling would be when it was my last baby disappearing, but now that the time has come, I am surprised to discover that I am greeting each baby step toward personhood with nothing but happiness, and maybe a little feeling of liberation. I love babies, and I've loved my babies, but I'm happy to be done.

That sigh you just heard was my husband's deep relief.

Your boy's...different, Mrs. Gump

My funny quirky boy has been making a lot of changes this summer. He's become a lot more social, a lot more compliant (most of the time), and he seems much happier now that he's understanding us better. Sometimes, though (like, a few times a day), he reminds us that he's a little bit off from center with the wacky things he says. Examples? Why, certainly!

Example 1: After the drive-by rocking the other day, poor quirk boy was quite distressed. My friend was comforting him and called him a peach. He incorporated this into his (skewed) perception of events and has repeatedly explained to us that "those bad boys thought daddy was a peach so they throwed rocks at him."

Example 2: Currently, his favorite toys are two erector set sticks. Neither he nor any of the other children have ever actually built anything with the erector set, but he pretends the sticks are everything from chef's knives to light sabers. This morning, he held them up facing each other and said, "look, they're friends! [in high squeaky voice] 'I like your outfit!' [waggling the other one now] 'I like your outfit too!'" Apparently, complimenting each other's clothes is what friends do. My friends ARE mighty stylish.

Example 3: The boy hurts himself frequently - the developmental pediatrician said he has low muscle tone, which may contribute to the injuries, but sometimes it just seems like he doesn't trouble himself with petty concerns like obstacles or cliffs in his path. This morning, he fell getting out of his bed (he was already up and trying to come downstairs). He knocked himself pretty badly on the side, and cried, "I gave myself a bug bite!"

The twins are freaking out and the temperature has risen at least 10 degrees while I've written this, so I have to go make Sophie's choice twice - which twin to comfort first and whether to plug in the computer or the a/c. We've only lived here for 5 years and we don't have all the kinks worked out in terms of outlet usage. Nor do we have many pictures or curtains up, for that matter. I guess we'll have time to decorate when the kids leave for college.

Lights? Tunnels?

Yesterday, I took my kids to a little beach and let them run themselves exhausted, and it paid off - my wretched big boy went to bed last night with only a couple quiet requests for water and NO SCREAMING. He woke up today looking unlike the accident victim he appeared to be in my last post and we had a lovely day together with only a few nerve-shredding rounds of sibling rivalry. He started to fall apart a little after dinner, but I took him away from the rest of the family and we talked and read a few chapters from a book about the Wright brothers and ate soft pretzels in my bed and he calmed down enough to come downstairs for a game of Sorry before bed. I didn't even try to make him go to bed without me lying down with him, and when I told him after an hour of waiting for him to pass out that I was going to have to go downstairs soon, he said he was ready for me to leave right then. I nearly fainted from the shock. So now I am free from my children's clutches for a few blissful hours and my lovely husband taped Wedding Crashers and we got awesome food from our CSA today and had bacon for dinner and the a/c is working and I feel like maybe, just possibly, I fixed the boy just a tiny bit tonight.

Self-flagellation

There's really no reason for me to share this picture with the world except to wallow in my own guilt and despair as worst mother in the world. This is what my poor big boy looked like when he woke up this morning. This is the result of him screaming for two straight hours at bed time last night. He screams EVERY night at bedtime, but this time must have been qualitatively different, from an opthamalogical perspective.

This can NOT be normal. Seriously, why???? WHY??? He's six years old. He's had to go to bed every night of his life. Why is it still this awful?

Editing to add: I don't think I was clear enough in my original post. We didn't hurt him, I promise! This is all just from crying. As you were.

My poor husband was the victim...

...of a drive-by rocking. Well, a walk-by rocking, as the kids were on foot. And he wasn't really a victim, because the dumbshits missed him like 10 times with their rocks. We were at the pool, and my husband went to get the car, and three dumb kids started chucking rocks. My husband got out of the car to chase them off, and they threw a great big honking rock at him. It went right over his head and shattered in front of him. He reached for his cell phone and they ran away. Little bastards.

The pool manager called the cop that does security for the pool off-duty, and 3 cars were there within 10 minutes. My step-daughter used her mad detecting skillz from camp to give the police a full description of the one rock-chucker she'd seen clearly, and asked if they could lift prints from the rock fragments. My husband's skin tone faded back from scarlet to mottled pink to regular, and the demented vengeance-seeking look gradually left his eyes. I love it when he gets mad, as long as it's not at me - it's so rare and so complete. Those kids are lucky he didn't go after them.

I learned that I do not function all that efficiently in a crisis. I saw what was happening before anyone else in my group did, but could not speak or move to help or stop the children from going toward the situation or do anything useful at all. I finally broke through my paralysis enough to yell "STOP!" - I think I was trying to get my own kids to come back away from the rock-throwing, but maybe I was scolding the little hood-rats. That'll show 'em.

Flowers for Algernon

I love that story. However, I don't particularly want to live in the story, and I'm afraid maybe I do. It occurred to me tonight to ask my husband if maybe they should be doing intelligence, not behavioral, testing on our 6 year old. He seems bright enough, in terms of school work, but he shows an entrenched inability to learn from his errors at home. Everything I read about parenting emphasizes consistency, and I see its value in the impact it has on my other kids, but you can have the exact. same. response. to this child 50 times in a row and he will be shocked as shit when you have the same response the 51st time. You could literally train a mouse to run a maze more easily than you could train this child to listen or put his shoes away or go the fuck to sleep at night.

I remember the first time I posted about my parenting frustration last year, how guilty I felt even writing it down. Now it is just a permanent part of me, this agony of frustration and this knot in my chest. I'm bone weary of being angry and feeling guilty and wishing there was any way out of having to deal with him, even for a little while. I dream of running away, not from home, not from life, but from this one child, and I'm pretty sure that makes me the worst mother ever. I thought my post-partum craziness was the reason for my irritation and despair, but I feel better about every other part of my life and this remains. It stays and stays and stays.

The prettiest girl

Let me distract you from my lack of posting with this picture of my gorgeous girl. Couldn't you just eat her up?