I have a parenting article due tomorrow, and I am strapped for ideas. They say to write what you know. But it seems that all my parenting issues are turning into things that are way too personal to include on a page read by thousands. Sometimes they even feel too personal to leave here, on a page read by maybe 20 – on a good day.
Here’s all that’s going on with us. Feel free to tune out now because I’m about to go into a very long-winded whine.
My 14 year old daughter’s boyfriend of almost 8 months just moved three hours away. Before that, she was Miss Manipulator, getting away with doing nothing around the house while she spent every waking moment with her boyfriend. Now she is battling panic attacks and bouts of sadness as she adjusts to a social life that doesn’t include him, and coping with the fact that she alienated herself from all of her other friends because of her relationship. In the midst of all this (or perhaps because of it), she’s revisiting the idea of moving back in with her dad, a guy who I honestly could never allow raise our kids – especially when I found out that he’s received a restraining order from his current girlfriend over abuse. Hm. That makes three baby mamas, three cases of abuse, three restraining orders, and three families with kids that he created he can’t see hardly at all and pays dick for. I could be wrong, but I sense a pattern.
At any rate, DQ called me today to see if she could go back to see her counselor, which I of course said yes to (and yes, to paying more money a week and juggling my work schedule to get her there). In the meantime, she has become a Jekyll and Hyde of emotions – either totally up and happy, or ready to tear my face off. It’s anyone’s guess where she’s at in any given moment.
My 11 year old son is back into his videogame addiction. We are in counseling about it, and the counselor said to give them back and record what happens. So far it’s been both a blessing and a curse. I have something to dangle in front of Taz to get him to do what he’s supposed to. But then he stays on them for hours on end, telling me “5 more minutes” when I say it’s time to get off. Before I know it, 40 minutes will have passed and he’s still playing, insisting that I told him he could actually finish the match he’s on and it isn’t done yet. Over the weekend while visiting his dad, he managed to talk his dad into giving him a bunch of money, and then talked his grandpa into taking him to the store so he could buy himself Black Ops 2 – a game I told him we would work towards buying depending on his attitude. And I feel like a chump, being taken advantage of right and left with absolutely no power as a a parent.
Meanwhile, he argues with me about EVERYTHING. Literally, everything. He’s bending rules right and left, and I know he’s testing the waters to see if I’ll follow through on punishment. But when I do, he loses his marbles and just totally goes off the deep end. It’s exhausting! I just want to take everything he owns, put it all in a pile, and set it all on fire. That would seriously make me feel better.
I get along with my 17 year old stepson, but I admit that I breathe a ton easier when it’s time for him to go to his mom’s house because it means there is one less kid in the house. Frizz has these weird quirks that I’m not sure how to deal with, like being ultra paranoid about everything. His latest is going for runs late at night, and then giving us a full run down on the strange cars that are following him or casing the neighborhood. It reminds me of my ex, and how he is sure that the government is watching his every move, and how Obama is the antichrist. The paranoia bugs the shit out of me.
And last on my list of things I’m groaning about? Money. We just had a wedding, Christmas is around the corner, my daughter’s camp fees are due this week, and I’ve already spent the paycheck I’m getting in three days. I was promised a raise that was supposed to take effect with the paycheck that’s coming this week. And then the raise was lowered substantially. And then I was told it’s actually not taking effect until the next paycheck – you know, the one I get when I’m supposed to be done with my Christmas shopping. And I’m stuck between feeling grateful that I am even getting a raise (I totally am), and completely pissed off because it was supposed to save my ass this month.
Plus I think I’m PMSing. Hence the reason that everyone sucks.
And I still need to write that damn parenting article. Too bad I can’t just turn this whine of a blog in. At any rate, thanks for listening. I think I just needed to vent.
Wine Country Mom 
Oh man,I just read my past lol not fun. Oh boy I just wrote a blog longer than yours and erased it because I don’t want to put it out on here. You and I need to sit down and talk with a glass of wine,your road that you are on is the same one I went on.
I would love to get together and hash out the uglies! Things are better today, and most of my hormonal angst is at the whim of one precocious teenager who holds us hostage with her mood swings…. You know how that goes.
Man oh man, do the kids read this thing? LOL. I’m lucky Kaitlyn is just now figuring out the internet, so she doesn’t read my blog. Well, lucky for us we get girl time pretty soon for an evening, yay! I hope things are going better. I seriously have no idea what I will do when Kaitlyn becomes a teenager. I considered using that opportunity to ship her to her biological father’s house but I don’t think she’d survive long on a diet of Fruit Loops and cigarettes. So I’ll keep her here. Hopefully you’ll figure out how to handle this stage so you can tell me how when Kaitlyn reaches it 😀
The only one who was ever interested in reading my blog was DQ, and I think she’s grown bored of it. Regardless, I have to be careful about what I write because any one of them could read. But that makes it sucky in times when venting is necessary, lol!