Genea Was Brave (and now she is done)

When we were in New Mexico visiting The Husbands origins and family, we all decided to go out for a hike. Now one does not need to strain oneself to imagine conditions that put me in a position to where being outside in the nature was preferable to the lovely warm indoors, which is where people belong. I voluntarily went into the woods and canyons and stuff where bugs and vermin live in droves. Yes I did. So we went to some state park where The Husband knew his way around (he said) since he had lived there his whole growing up life.



Seriously, the only way I would normally walk anywhere is if there is a bar or a handbag sale on the other side of your rotten little gravelly path. And I can't go to bars anymore because I can't drink anymore because I need all my wits about me to live with these children and keep us all alive. Can't be going around with muted powers of observation.



ANYhow, so I let The Husband make the decisions and choices. I KNOW what you are thinking and you are right. He chose some jumbled up path with rocks and tree roots and nature junk all over it to get to some waterfall.

It was a ONE AND A HALF MILE WALK.

It was 1.5 miles of serious hiking people. Canyons and hills and such. Remember we live in Wisconsin. I grew up in Chicago where our hills were former landfills capped off (by the mob) (LOL). My girls think a rain ditch is a hill.

This is the janky waterfall. It was another 743 miles to get to the actual water. Since it was about 38 degrees outside and oh yeah, we had already walked a mile and a half, I said haaaiiiillllll NO we would not be going all the way down in that big huge hole. Okay, but you see what is feeding the waterfall up there at the top, it's a river or creek or whatever. As we were hiking we came to a point wherein our path mistakenly turned straight into the stream creek thing, right at the point where it was raging over broken up mossy rocks. Only there was no mistake, we had to cross IN the river to get to the other side. All 3 of us stood and glared at The Husband for a few minutes and he finally carried Genea over the rocks and walked over with Teena. Then he came back for me since I was perfectly happy to go back to the minivan and leave if he didn't.

We saw the waterfall after walking the rest of the way over the hills. Teena and her Daddy spent time looking at the nature things, little plants and petrified turds, while Genea and I had more concrete plans of getting the heck out of there. So she and I hustled back. She asked me if I could roll up her pants. Naturally I went with the immediate reaction of.... nonsense question! But no, what she wanted was for me to roll up her pants so she could try to walk through the raging river rapids herself. She wanted to try it. Walking in the water. Over the rocks. Over the slimy green stuff. Where she was going to have wet feet and be stuck that way for awhile. Where she could get, could easily get, knocked over and washed away. Fall over, fall in. She wanted to try, she told me. To be brave and to try.

Well knock me out with a diaper genie! I mean, this child is afraid of lint. Not just afraid, terrified, of just about everything she has ever come across. Paralyzed she was last week, unable to speak or move at the sight of the shampoo bowl at our hairstylists, even though she has been there and was fine 3 other times. She had a near panic attack when I changed the generic wheat bread I buy for her pbj's. Genea lives in fear. Fear is so prevalent in our lives it is like having a third kid.

I agreed I would let her try but only with her Daddy.

It actually looks fairly mild in the photos but take my word for it, it was a good 6 inches deep and moving fast.

And Genea was done and safe. And I still made The Husband walk me over too. And she and I walked ahead of him and Teena again and talked the whole rest of the way about how brave she was. How scary that was, and how she tried it anyway. And since she tried, now she knew she could do it!!!!!!!!! Because she DID IT!

Wooo Hoooo!

If anyone wants to leave a comment for Genea in addition to any regular comments, I will read it to her and let you know what she says.

***updated*** I forgot to mention the best part. As we were walking back to the car, Genea and I, and I was gushing over her bravery she told me, "I don't ever have to be brave again.... I did it"!

Poop Loops

Ok, so Thanksgiving is what it is. Once again this year, the world failed to bend to my wishes and provide me with a turkey free buffet of food. Stupid world. However, somehow a magical plate of ham appeared next to me during dinner and so I was able to have my ham and eat it too. And a bunch of other stuff.



Do your kids do this? Last week Teena informed me "you should always try Mama. Even if you don't like somefing you should always try because if you keep trying it you might like it a- cuz now I like beans". She says, with bean juice dripping off her chin dimple. Mmmmm hmmm. Thanks for the tip Teena. I have only been saying that for the past 5 flipping years! EVERY day, for FIVE years, up to THREE times a day! But whatever Teena, sounds good. She also told us we should be trying to eat healthy things that are good for our bodies. Mmmm. Really. Thank you public school. Now she is going to think chips are a bad thing for lunch. If she turns up her nose at pizza puffs it could get bad. She is going to be one skinny little student I tell you.



Actually what is funny, I think, is that here in Wisconsin they tell you things like milk and butter and cheese are healthy foods of value. A "value add" for the body. Right. Since when is butter something good for you? Only here in this state.



So Thanksgiving at my parents house was a lot of fun. Cousin Unabitch was fairly well behaved. She would drop little insults at me "you really better hope your kids don't turn out like you ha ha" and then turn and peel off with laughter at how hilarious her stupid ass is. I rolled my eyes several times, which I believe was in stride with her level of immaturity. Oh yeah, speaking of immature....



*Petty and i mmature warning* I am going to be mean* REAlly mean and RUDe too*** Awful!!!! Don't look if you might be appalled***

BAAAAH ha ha, I think she gained more weight. Mean, horrible of me. I KNOW! But for the love of cabbage the woman was wearing a knit dress! KNIT! Come ON! Every roll and bulge could be seen from outer space!



The best part of the day involved my little nephews. My girls and my sisters boys are all tangled together age -wise. Genea is 6, First Nephew is 5, Teena is 4 and Next Nephew is 3. So they are a riot together and manage to sound as if there are 13 children in the house. Anyhow, the boys got hold of some dress up bead necklaces. The kind that are really inexpensive plastic. They are shiny and sparkly and all different pastel colors. They had all been throwing the beads around for a good half hour. Up in the air, across the floor, at each other etc. Teena started that one to be fair. At home she will throw beads in the air and watch them land, then tell me what shape it makes or if it looks like a giraffe or a fork or something. But, Teena is not responsible for the next part. At which time the boys started dropping beads from their butts and screaming in the strident voices of little boys everywhere, "we're pooping we're pooping we're pooping"!!!! Within seconds the girls were pooping beads too. Then a grandma got in there and pointed out that if they are doing this they should be doing it right, and showed them how to dispense of the poop beads in a more genuine way. Reassessed their props and organized the poop loops. Now there are dozens of people making poop loops and beads splattering everywhere. It was SO FUNNY!



Maybe you had to be there.

Too True Tues(day) #9

Wooo hoooo it is that time again.... TTT! Too True Tuesday is your chance to tell the truth to the world. Forget your nicey nice voice, and screw polite conversation. Abandon the fake smile and let the little voice inside your head come out. Tell it like it is sista- fren!


I'm in the holiday spirit as usual for Thanksgiving. Looking forward to the festivity of the holiday blah blah blah family and friends coming together blah blah blah celebrate the season. Just call me Perky Pollyanna. So anyway, I'm effing grateful. Really. I just wish, yet again, that I could be grateful for something that is not a turkey.


Turkey sucks. I said it.

SUCKS!


We have Thanksgiving coming on Thursday. I have never had turkey that was good. Unless it was draped over a pig carcass. And called ham. Dry, chewy with the texture and flavor of a cardboard box that was used to hold cat litter. Why don't we just have cardboard? Easier, cheaper and I have a bunch of it in my garage already. We go to my parents house for this holiday in The South of Wisconsin, and my mom refuses to make anything other than turkey. It is tradition and for some bizarre reason my mother is a tradition fiend. If it was a tradition to take a long walk off a short pier, she would be there. She can be fickle though and there is no logic to the traditions she insists on and the ones she considers "garbage". Like the tradition of taking my kids for a few days after the holiday. Somehow it's okay to assert her constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness regardless of tradition when we go this year (and this year, they are not invited to stay- booooo!). Mind you, she doesn't like turkey either. You read that right. She doesn't like turkey but she makes one every year because it is a tradition. So you can see, there is very little for me to work with here. Every year I put in my plug for a ham (great stuff ham) and every year we talk about how sickly turkeys are and every year we have a stupid turkey anyway.


So the subject of this weeks TTT is, your least favorite holiday and why. And just for fun and balance, your favorite holiday and why.


I don't like Thanksgiving because I don't like turkey (and I also am opposed to forced gratitude, I'll be effing grateful when I want to be effing grateful).


My favorite is 4th of July. Its summer, usually sunny and I love fireworks and outdoor festivals. Really, explosives and alcohol after a hot sweaty day, what could be better?


(since this is my blog I will sneak in that I really have fun on Christmas these days what with the kids and all. It was a boring sort of holiday when there were no kids - religion aside).

So, join in! All you have to do is write yourself up a little post and link back here. Then you put your name down on the Mr Linky deal so everyone else can find you.

AND I WILL REALLY APPRECIATE A STRONGER SHOWING THAN LAST TIME WHERE ONLY 3 PEOPLE PLAYED WITH ME! IF YOU DONT WANT TO PLAY THEN YOU RUN THE RISK THAT I WILL MAKE A STORY UP FOR YOU!
Just saying.

*Updated: evidently there was a problem with the link system. It should be fixed now.
Right here is a link to my post last year where I outline all the different ways I have tried turkey in the past.

Tired and more tired

Just. so. tired. Tired of fighting arguing whining. Tired of having to be in line-of- sight all day every day. The echo of the mornings tantrums and fits is still ringing in my ears even as the afternoon selection of tantrums and fits is beginning. Constant, unending forceful ploys for attention. On and on and on and on and ooooooon. Shrieking and wailing at top volume, a sound that is soul crushing and tap dancing on every nerve I have.
I am just so tired of it all. Can we not take a break for one. single. day?
Maybe I should take up smoking. It would be so lovely to light one up and pssssssst.... whooooosh..... aaaaaaaaaahhhh..... holding the little stick of joy in my shaking fingers as the vile cloud of toxins floods into my lungs and the disgusting taste seers down my throat. Mmmmm. Sounds lovely.

(no not really, about the smoking).

New Stuff (take 3)

Hi!
I am changing up a few things in here just for fun. I love the new background look- it cracks me up. Its called Happy Fields. It makes me laugh because if I tried to grow something, this is how it would turn out. A little wild and overgrown, a little on the edge, but pretty regardless of my efforts. It is from TCBOTB and they put a little link up top on the left.
I put together a new store and gift guide from Amazon down on the right. It has toys and things my girls have loved to play with and do. Even though the widget shows toys, it has all the books about children that I have read and learned from, as well as my favorite "fun" reading books. I had to actually go back in my order history all the way to 2002 to get that many books to list! Then there is a small section for "Stuff" which will be growing but is for little things I like or find useful.
The Amazon store helps me out with a small percentage of the sale, so if you are going to order from Amazon (and lets face it, they totally rule and there is no parking to deal with), if you could please do it from my store link or my overall Amazon link at the bottom--- I will really appreciate it!
I am getting BlogHer ads in the next week, which is so exciting for me! I am going to shift to a 3 column format which should be obvious and not intrusive to the overall blog at the same time.
I changed my comment format to be interactive. Hopefully it works! I saw it on another bloggers post and it works well. Sort of like how wordpress comments go. I want to be able to comment on comments and there has not been a good way to do that, so I hope this goes the way it should.
*updated- it didn't.


I still want to go to Oprah. Oprah- can you hear me? I remembered last night, I made a few other big efforts to get on the show. They were seeking out moms who were overwhelmed and at risk of going off the deep end.

!!!!!

I mean seriously- why not just call the show, seeking out Essie!

Sadly, a few unfortunate factors blocked me from success. First, they wanted a letter about why you were overwhelmed. I wrote a letter. It was too many words. Like, quadruple the word count allowed. It took me 3 days to get the word count down to where the application would accept my entry. Of course by then, the due date had gone by. So I reconfigured my letter a bit and sent it anyway.
I rewrote the introductory paragraph to point out that I clearly was in far more disastrous of a position than any other mom who might have written in. Any woman who was able to get her letter in on time would have to be more together than myself. See, by virtue of my lateness I was thereby proving my appropriateness for the show!
Alas, I got no response.
(but that's okay because it turned out to be about mom's who really had gone off in a deadly sort of way).
(So my wait continues).

O nooooo O!

No Ope no, say it's not so! OOOOOOpraaaaaah don't leave me!
I have been watching Oprah since she was an ordinary local talk show out of Chicago. I know 2 people who have been on as guests over the years. I have been in the audience of the Jenny Jones show and the Jerry Springer show but never Ope. I have been procrastinating trying to get into the audience for years.... decades.....!
I tried to call for tickets one time on the phone and got through. But the show they were booking for was about people who were afraid to fly. So the producer person on the phone asked me if I were afraid to fly and I had to tell the truth. I was honest and I don't think I should have been penalized for it. I said I was not afraid to fly! I didn't screw up their episode! I DID THE RIGHT THING out of the kindness of my heart and the genuine respect for truth in my soul and my fear of looking so stupid on tv trying to look scared of an airplane when I am not.
I want to, I NEED to get to the Oprah show. Please! Help! I don't need to be a guest, I just want to be in the audience of a good show (not like a Karaoke contest show, like a give stuff away to pathetic people show). I am pathetic! I am pitiful! I need a lot of stuff! ALL MY STUFF SUCKS!!!!
What angle will get me the best chance I wonder. The makeover angle? Pitifully dressed mother of 2 with a phobia of "Mom hair".
Makeovers for women who smell like pee and the children who love them.
Maybe a home makeover?
My front door falls off when I open it.
My yard was "landscaped" by an 80 year old woman and we have never changed it except for hiring the "professional" who took our money and ran.
All my stuff is broken or held together with duct tape and gorilla glue.
The 1980's vomitted in my kitchen.
What else do I have?
Women whose mothers in law are impure of spirit.
A Mom forced to quit her job because of health insurance.
Moms of children in need of an exorcism.
Women who think cooking a meal should never take longer than eating the meal.
People who refuse to give stupid greeting cards to others even on their birthdays.
Women who think all their friends live inside a laptop.
Or should I go for it...... Mom's of adopted children diagnosed with Autism and Failure to Thrive and Addison's Syndrome and Depression who turn out to have Reactive Attachment Disorder and Bipolar Disorder but who do great in school even as they steal slices of American cheese and hide it in the bucket for pee clothes at home and the Mom's had to quit their jobs in order to stay home and take care of said adopted child and her sister and their 2 poopie cats and do annoying stuff all day like cook and wash out pee clothes!
O! This is sO bad!
I must get tickets to be in the audience in the next year before Oprah quits forever! I can get there in 3 hours if I am the one driving. Email me Ope, email me!!!!!

Blowing my cover with a massive brag fest

Shhhhhhh.

There something that I think is really amazing about children. Fascinating and interesting. Crazy cool. But don't go telling anyone I said this because it could shatter my image into the gutter (how big headed am I to think I have an image anyone but me cares about- ah well).

I think it is so awesome that a person can teach them stuff and they learn it.

Not me mind you. See, I can't teach kids worth a damn. People always told me they thought I would be a great teacher. They were wrong, wrong wrong. I worked with Teena and Genea all summer on educational whoosie whatsie stuff and neither of them learned a thing. Nothing. At all. ! . If you account for all the time Teena spent either a. talking or b. trying to do it all her own way that pretty much explains it. Then Genea spent all of her time being a. oppositional and b. deliberately inattentive so she learned how to do those things with greater persistence, but that was just not what I was trying to accomplish. Not was I was hoping for.

My kids have learned far more from PBS and DVD's than they ever have from me. And that is just fine (I just wish I would have saved myself the effort. And time! And oh my shit the hassle!). Teena just sucks in information from everywhere around her. Like if you are wearing black and every cat hair for miles scurries up and gloms onto your clothes forever. She learns just by being in the general area of something new. We were out at a restaurant when she was almost 2, a time when we were still counting her age in months instead of years, and she started pointing at a sign on the wall and yelling out the letters. How could she do that? M! K! A! Now, when we are doing Genea's math flash cards, she sits and collects the finished ones and has the answers memorized. Today she made word flash cards for herself, for fun, before school.

Now Genea is in school and is like a detached vacuum hose- where it flops and flips around sucking up little things from the whole room. It is just amazing, stunning, what she is learning and retaining. The Husband and I were watching something on TV the other night and Genea started pointing out- there is the White House, there is the Court with all the judges, and there is the.... the..... let me think..... (imagine 4 minutes going by so I can spare you) finally she says, OH YEAH its the tin can. Tin Can? Yeah, the Lin Can. The Lin Can? OHHHH the Lincoln Memorial? Yes Mama, that's what I said! She is 6 years old. It is just amazing to me what she learns and comes home and can tell me about. The Liberty Bell! England! She can read entire books in a sitting. Her reading is so good she is actually a few weeks ahead of her class on word recognition-- CRAZY COOL!

Not all is pretty yellow roses. She struggles in math enormously (like me) and spends 1-2 hours getting math homework done, one sheet. She has been unable to pass her first addition time test, on zero's, because she freezes up either from the testing situation, or the pressure of the timer. But she knows her zero's, so I am ok with it. I don't care about testing. The rest will come and the teacher is trying different things to help her through. GET THIS- her teacher gave her an area to work when she is feeling distracted and Genea goes there on her own when she needs to focus!

Oh yeah, and they can both imitate Cantonese!
*snort tee hee*

Random icks

Here is a gross picture of my thumb. Everybody say ewwwww! I scraped a layer of skin off on the plastic edge of a laundry basket right there where the cuticle meets the end of the fingernail. IT FREAKING HURTS! AND ITS GROSS!

Notice my pretty nail polish. Nail polish will not stay on my nails, it just won't. I know there are all kinds of things you can put on to make the polish stay more than through one shower but frankly, the amount of work required is more than I am willing to do. Like the color? I don't usually do this but.... I am copying a celebrity. I saw Heidi Klum flicking around with a medium gray color nail polish on Project Runway and I thought it looked cool. It is really hard to look cool when you are *ahem* my age, and all the cool stuff is designed for people who are *ahem* other ages. You have two choices, you can do the "mom" look, or you can look as if you are trying not to do the "mom" look but everyone knows you are one anyway.

Anyhow, the nail polish did NOT make me look like Heidi Klum and I want a refund. Even my hair is still brown! My disgusting cuticles are still disgusting too. I know there are things I can do about it but I tried them and now I am out of time.

Bad news, Cousin Una-bitch is coming to my parents house for Thanksgiving. I just realized today that I have been spelling her name wrong all this time, "Uni-bitch". *sigh* I just don't have time for all these details! I saw on TMZ this morning that Levi Ricki Hollywood Johnston was being compared to the Unabomber and I was horrified to discover I have been writing it incorrectly all this time. Cousin Unabitch got her name from the Unabomber (well, she got her name from me but that is where I thought of it) as she is a horrible person who drops these vicious nasty insults on people out of nowhere and she does it for fun. She is the type who then coo's at you "oh, I forgot you are so sensitive, here come give me a hug" when what you want to give her is a nice big shove down the stairs. One of these days when no one is looking......

Here are my girls being WAY TOO CUTE. See, they are wearing their fairy princess butterfly wings and repairing something broken with their tools. Hee hee.

They have not been getting along well lately so this was great! I don't know what is up, they last about 2 minutes then start screaming and howling. No middle ground with either of them. I think they have been peeing on their corner of the toybox trying to establish power. (NOT really, for once I can say.... no they are not really peeing on stuff lol).

The end.

Boring stuff

Seriously, boring stuff coming ahead. I have been reading and researching and have found some things out that I did not know. So I am going to share what I found because I thought it was significant to my daughters' circumstances-- Genea that is, not The One I Gave Up Caffeine For.

Start throwing your eggs.....now.....! I have always found neurology interesting. When I was in the 7th grade, about 100 years ago, I did a report on Autism. It was facinating to me that a child could start out with no problems and develop, for no evident reason, a disorder so severe it could cut off speech, interactions and interest in the world, after he turned 2. When I worked in a group home, there was a middle aged man who was "non-verbal". He had seizures a lot, wore a helmet and did very little other than sit in a daze. As far as I know, his whole life had been that way. Anyway, like I said, he did not talk at all. Made very little noise even, no grunting, moaning, laughing, none of it. But when this man had a seizure, he could speak in clearly articulated, grammatically correct, full sentences. "I would like a hot dog now, please" things like that. Then you have the stroke. Our wonderful child psychiatrist who had a stroke a few months back has recovered greatly (in another state-- booooo)but has not regained everything. Example, he can count as well as anyone when it comes to numbers on just about anything. But he cannot count change. Coins. He cannot add them up. Okay, so like I said, throw eggs at me if this makes me an egghead because I do think it is so interesting!

So I ordered this book, "Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple"- - HA, that is really the title so you can see where I might be drawn to it! By Stephan Goldberg, M.D. Since I think most of Genea's problems are in her brain, it seemed like a good idea to understand more about it. I have read so much research and so many books about attachment, bipolar in children, adoption etc and the thousand different problems that can come fully equipped on the child of your choice, and I have a good understanding of the "what" of what goes wrong, and the "why", but nothing on the "where".

Moving right along here, I came across a section about nerve pathways in the spine to the brain and here is what I found that was interesting- there are different paths for different nerves. There are 3 nerves that travel and cross over into the brain at a specific spot together. Those 3 pathways handle the specific information that Genea struggles mightily with every day, and there they are, climbing the jungle gym together! They are the main sensory systems here:

Pain- temperature. Feeling too much pain, or not enough. Feeling too hot, too cold, or disproportionate to the actual climate. Like sweating when it is 60 degrees out. Genea doesn't feel it when she gets overheated from too much activity, she just keeps burning and burning until she is physically stopped (well not that much anymore but for sure used to be that way) Genea only gets cold in extreme temperatures. She does not feel pain unless she really knocks herself into something, hard.

Proprioceptive- stereogenesis. Feeling where your body is in space, such as you know where your wrist is without looking for it. Stereogenesis is being able to tell what something is only by touching it. Genea is extremely awkward, clumsy and clutzy and I have often thought she looks like she does not know where her body is compared to where the furniture is. I don't know about her stereogenesis, I keep forgetting to check on it.

Light touch. Obvious what that is, but I never knew it was routed to the brain separately from medium or strong touch, or that it is connected to the other two pathways above. Genea will flip inside out if you lightly pat her arm or gently tousle her hair. But she will melt in front of you if you rub lotion on her or firmly massage her legs for example. I guess people who are paralyzed can sometimes still feel light touch but not strong touch for this reason.

Okay, so these three all party together (trying to make it interesting) and then twist around right before they shoot into the brain from the thalamus to the cerebral cortex with each other on board. This is what struck me, that the 3 are connected, a team, at this crossover point. That Genea has significant issues in all 3 areas.

SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???
I have no idea. But it jumped out at me and screamed.
It fits.

Does anyone have any idea's? If you can see that I misunderstood or got it wrong, let me know that too puuuuh- lease. Maybe everyone already knew this but didn't tell me?

Do other kids have the same combined problems in this area? Can you have a problem with one of these pathways and not the others? It is like having a key without having a locked door. I don't know what I don't know and that is a lot. It just struck me when I was reading- these things are connected. This is a piece. I think.

Rebel... with cause

My phone rang the other day. I am not a big phone talker. I think I used up my lifetime allotment of phone enjoyment from 8th to 10th grade when I could genuinely spend 12 hours talking to my friends. About what? Boys I'm sure. And if I was talking to a boy, it was probably about other boys. Anyway, I didn't recognize the number and let it go, then picked up the message right away. I wasn't doing anything else. Just waiting for effing bleeping Barney to be over so my life could continue.



Turned out it was THE call. The first call from Genea's school. I couldn't believe it. My stomach actually started convulsing like there was a Turbie Twist in there. It was a man mumbling, all I heard was "school liaison officer" and "return this call" and I am thinking, what the hell grade school has a police officer stationed in it? Oh great, the answer is my kids grade school! Let me tell you, nothing scrapes the "adult" off you faster than a call from the school. Suddenly, I am a teenager back in high school and in trouble for something I most likely did.



My first reaction is, omg, what on earth could she have done??? Something really bad of course, or the teacher would have called. Or the principal. Running through my mental list of Genea's known offences and potentially illegal activity, all I can think of is she must have stolen something expensive. She could have hit someone, but quite frankly if she were driven to that extent, well, the recipient would have been deserving.



My hands are shaking, literally shaking, and not from too much coffee. I felt genuinely nervous making the call back, which I did right away. Here is what happened. The officer told me that Genea was driven around the building to be dropped off at her entrance door for the start of school. When asked, Genea reported it was her Daddy that drove around. Driving around the school is not permitted as established by all the huge freaking signs everywhere and oh yeah, the blockades. But the officer was nice about it, and said Genea's Daddy probably just did not notice all the flashing lights, signs and machine gun toting service personnel (no not really but it adds to the story, ya' know) and cement barricades.



There you have it. Our first, dreaded call from the school was about Genea's Daddy. Breaking the rules. His excuse was he was late. Yeah.

Too True Tues #8

Wow, there have been 8 of these now! I want to let everyone know that I got to read every one's posts last time, but because I was out of town and on an alien computer, may not have gotten the chance to comment. But they were all great- hilarious how many people said they would either buy a new house/ vacation home, or pay someone to clean the house they have LOL!

This week I have a funny story, so I am going to wrap TTT around it. The topic is... a funny or embarrassing story where your kids have been the funny and you were the embarrassed.

This story did not happen to me. *ahem* It happened to some poor woman at the airport when we were on our trip last week. We'll call her, Some Poor Woman and just abbreviate SPW. She had a small child with her, about 4 years old and I believe her name was Schmeena. Yes, that sounds right. Schmeena.

So I guess that SPW must have been trying to relax for a single solitary freaking second when her daughter probably noticed and piped up that she needed to GO POTTY NOW! Then I am guessing, her other daughter piped up and said ME TOO, because her older daughter ALWAYS has to go as soon as her sister has to go. SPW was (apparently) so hopped up on Starbucks that the last time she peed, she actually could feel more pee processing and on its way as she was eliminating the original pee. That is a lot of Starbucks but folks, SPW was desperate, tired, and wishing she had an illegal drug habit. So she dragged her weary ass up off the crummy, crusty airport furniture, where she just wanted to rest for a second, to take Schmeena to the crummy crusty airport potty.

(Actually, O'Hare has awesome potties with rotating automatic plastic seat covers and you never have to touch anything with your hands so I am not sure what SPW was so bitchy about).

Anyway, in the teeny potty room, SPW let her daughter Schmeena go first of course. SPW realized that she had another shot of Starbucks refunding and decided to go potty too. As SPW was positioning herself and Schmeena was supposed to be paying attention to her own clothes, everyone in the bathroom, in O'Hare airport, and quite possibly all of Chicago heard Schmeena exclaiming at the top of her very loud little voice....

"Look Mama!!!! You have HAIR on your BUTT!!!!"
I can hear that poor SPW hissing at her child "be quiet! please! be quiet" to which the child replied....
"Why Mama? You didn't know you had hair on your butt?"
That poor SPW began to beg..... "please Schmeena please, yes I know, we just don't need to talk about it right now" at which point Schmeena stage whispered...... "Does all big people have hair on their butts?"
I can only imagine SPW trying to finish her potty and regain her clothing and composure without Schmeena commenting further. I have to imagine it, because like I said, this happened to Some Poor Woman and not me.

If that ever happens to me, I'll be more prepared. Maybe get me a Brazilian!

So there you go. TTT#8 is a funny story where your kids embarassed you. Or maybe Some Other Poor Woman. Here is the linky business:



Go forth and embarass!

Questions, incessant unending questions....

One of the first times I realized Genea might be having more than transitional issues, is when I read about RAD and the inclination to chatter incessantly. Nonsense question after nonsense question. AHA! Went my brain- we have that!
Of course, most children go through a stage where they appear physically unable to stop their lips from flapping like pancakes. It begins to feel like someone is slapping you up the side of your skull after a bit. *Smack* Smack* Smack* and your head is going *thud *thud* thud* and all you want to do is scream shuuuuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuuup! But, you can scream shut up all you want because it will not make a lick of difference. Yammer yammer.
I realized one day that there was an identifiable difference between Teena's unending senseless chatter and Genea's unending senseless chatter. Genea could stop. Without bribing and without threatening, if I told them to go sit on different couches and be quiet, Genea could do it, Teena could not. So I began to think, hmmmm, this appears to something she is far more in control of than I would have guessed.
Lately, Genea has been on a nonsense question streak. It always starts with Mama? Can I ask you a nonsense question? So it is a two for one. And the nonsense question is almost always a "no" answer. And I hate it. I feel like I am rejecting her 95 times a day because she asks these questions all day long and maybe 5 of them I can squeeze a yes into. I am being set up, 100 times a day and 95 of those times I am being directly led to a negative. It used to be that every. single. one. of the questions that was a "no" led immediately to the Wango Tango. That thankfully has lessened considerably. THANKfully.
I think this is Genea's way of connecting with me and her Daddy. If we are being forced into engaging with her, she is alive. She exists if we look at her and respond. She is not invisible or being ignored when she is hungry or needs a hug. She has someone who might take care of her if she can just force that person to acknowledge her in some way, any way. That is my opinion anyhow, I think it is an orphanage holdover.
A few months ago, I started answering a nonsense question with a nonsense question of my own. I have 2. I reply with "Is it dark outside?" when it is light, or vice versa or for some variety I might say "Is your hair purple?", both of which make her think, then say no, then she moves on. This has been moderately successful as it cuts waaaaaay down on the Wango Tango one can enjoy if one responds with "no" too many times.
So yesterday she came home and her friend had been absent from school. She asked if she could have some candy to make herself feel better (thanks you- know- who). Of course I said, no. We don't do snacks after school. I found last year that Genea would not eat her lunch (that costs 2 freaking dollars) if she had a snack to rely on, but absolutely would eat her lunch if she knew that was all she would get until dinner (rigid thinking ya' think?). A few minutes later she asked again. My phone rang, she asked could she get it for me (always no) and asked who it was before I even answered (again, not permitted and forcing my attention to her instead of the call). So I decided to try something I had been thinking about.
I pulled out a jar of these connecting blocks, as seen above, and counted out 14. Those 14 would be the number of nonsense questions she could ask for the rest of the day and when they were gone, no more questions. Regular necessary questions did not count, though only I would determine what was necessary and not. I thought, 14 nonsense question would leave her without any more questions right around 7:00, as it would be 5:00 when we started this, and she goes to bed around 8. See how I think these things through? So I could make my point and there would be a minimum of suffering. I just wanted her to get a sense of how often she really does this. How often she makes up a question just for attention. Just sheerly for the sake of making her Daddy or I stop what we are doing, shift our attention, engage and communicate and then create a negative atmosphere when we have to say "no" to something she did not want or need anyway. There would be no consequences and no rewards, nothing at all. Just to see.
She bawled. But she understood.
The picture on top is how many she started with yesterday. Yes, there are only 13 in the picture, I took it after she lost the first one.

It is now 3:00 on Saturday. We started yesterday.

She clearly has waaaay- haaay- ayyyyy more control over this than I EVER would have thought.

Ugh (warning, lots of whining)

It is 5:00 and it is totally dark out. It sucks that it won't get any better for another 2 months.

My cats were totally off kilter with us gone. One hid for so long we thought he might be either dead or gone. Turned out he was hiding behind the tv. Now he has diarhea. He is generous with it and has bad aim. Lovely.

I am left feeling stunned that there is a person in the world who would use my mentally ill daughter as the crux of her control battle towards me. Astounding. Disgusting.

Teena is sick. 5 straight hours of vomitting.

I am still sort of recovering from our trip. It was long. I am sure I will have my shit together soon (as good as usual anyway) but for now, ugh.

Oh I almost forgot, our furnace was broken when we got home.

Hanging in....

I am hanging in there with fingertips grinding blood into the volcanic ash turned rock turned mesa. OOOOOH, my.

Shit has hit the fan. It splattered all over the walls and into the lighting fixtures. There have been blatant attempts to give my daughters an eating disorder. Obvious, in my face, using the phrase "I'll say what I want to say". Despite my husband and I asking my mother in law several times over the past year to stop trying to control, manipulate, guilt and shame our children into eating their food, our words have wafted into the wind. Deliberately and specifically making an issue out of the food they eat over and over.

Sadly, I just cannot cope in a passive aggressive world. I am unable to make those sly nasty comments the older generation is so prolific with. That way of insulting the crap out of you while smiling and using nicey-nice voice. Unfortunately, I am a direct and to the point sort of person. So I have been. Direct. To the point. It seems my skill for clarity is just not appreciated. I don't know why.

Anyway, there will be no further attempts to give my daughters any type of eating disorder. So far, since 3 days ago, it has held.

In other news, it has been cold here in New Mexico but pretty. The girls are doing fabulously. Some kids like Genea freak out when on a trip away from home. If there is a background of trauma, especially trauma in primary caretaker, the kids can really flip out when going to another house. Other houses in the past have resulted in new parents. Genea is the opposite. She flipped her lid before we left. Oooooh my. She held a refresher course for us in every single gross and obnoxious behavior she ever invented. It was nice to be reminded how far she has come. So, once on the plane to leave for our trip, here comes Uber Genea! The best, most calm and pleasant and helpful, well mannered, thoughtful, kind, quiet child you have ever met. I believe this is to ensure we do not leave her anywhere. Look how great I can be! Make sure you keep me! In fact, I have a backpack puppy leash for Teena and Genea made me go get her monkey pack leash out for the airport. I am serious, it is so cute. She is 6 for crying out loud! She can take it on and off herself! She hands me the leash every time it leaves my hands for whatever reason. I had expected to get some rude comments from people since she is obviously so big so I had a response all ready: "Listen lady/mister, you have NO idea what you are judging here" etc. curse, etc, but no one was rude! Several people said, what a great idea, and a few even asked politely where they could get them. Unreal! I could have used to go off on someone. Why does the world conspire against me?

Teena is of course fine. You could drop that child into the rain forest without shoes and she would manage. She would talk with the parrots and take a nap with the iguanas. I have said this before, I know, deal with me a minute. I am so proud of her confidence and independence. I love that she has always been safe and secure and is so capable and adventurous. Then, when she stays overnight at her grandparents house and we go to get her the next day, she barely flicks an eyeball to us before going back to her fascinating activity, without even saying hi. Little shit.

I went yarn shopping in Taos at http://www.lalanawools.com/ . Get a bucket out first for your drool so you don't short out your keyboard. Their website is a little janky, but if you can find it, check out their Forever Random colors. Then, go rob a bank so you can buy some. I blew my whole yarn budget so cannot go yarn shopping in Sante Fe. However, I did not tap into my handbag budget at all, nor my Liz Claiborne budget. Wheeeeeee! Going tomorrow to the fancy outlet stores. Although last year, Liz had clothes surely beat by the ugly stick so I am not going to get my sorry little hopes up. Cut price, seconds and returned items at Coach will more than make up for the sad Liz clothes.

This has been my first chance to get to the computer for some time. I have been reading blogs in my minutes of free time and keeping up with everyone by reader but have not been able to get into comments as my time is being sucked into a vortex from hell (yeah, no I have no idea what that means but it sounds really bad which is my point).

I'll be home in a few days. I have a LOT of great stories, one that includes Genea being so brave she decided she never needs to be brave again. She has done it. LOL!