Toning it down

I hate that I have to do this. I love baking. So I bake. I've started to decorate cupcakes. Fun things. Loving it. But it isn't just baking. I love making things. I'm crafty, I guess. For Riley's birthday day I made pirate cupcakes. I put together goody bags. But instead of bags I used sandwich boxes. Each one had 2 ring pops (pirate treasure), gold coins, a pirate eraser, a pirate pencil sharpener, and then I tied them shut (because they wouldn't stay shut with the ring pops) with pirate bandana's that I made. A friend teased, and I know that it wasn't a mean comment, that no one can compete with what I do for a party. She is genuinely impressed, she doesn't like to do this stuff, so she is impressed that I do like to do it. (Never mind that she crochets, sews, quilts & scrap books!)

I am now faced with soccer. I am doing snack for next weeks game. I am going to do apple & orange slices and a water bottle. But after seeing what a pain it was for the mom Sat to get each of her three things out and handed to the kids I was thinking that I should have a container. I have these cute little cardboard popcorn boxes. I was going to punch holes in the sides and use pipe cleaners to make handles & put everything in them. And yet I am second guessing myself because it is the 2nd week & I don't want the other people to think they have to live up to what I do. That isn't what I want. I do it not to impress people but because it makes me happy.

Why do we do this? Why does everything become something that other people have to live up to? I don't expect other people to do what I do. I do it because I love to do it. Yet I feel that people will think I am doing it to be better than other people. *sigh* I hate this.

More on the hearing thing

Well, the office that the pedi referred us to says that they aren't the place to do the testing for an auditory processing disorder. But they directed me to a place that would. The woman who runs that clinic is THE researcher in APD. I spent about an hour on the phone. He doesn't have ADD/ADHD. He isn't on spectrum as a classmates mother suggested. (Which wasn't even a concern for me.) Here's the problem. They don't test for this until they're 7. So we have another year. *sigh*


I don't know what to do. We have to wait a year. Another year with too many kids in his class. Another year where he can't focus in class. I am so PISSED that we have this debt that makes it so we can't afford the private school. I would love to be able to put him in a private school, especially with the class sizes they have. Last years kinder class had FOUR KIDS. FOUR.


I have a thought for paying things off. But I don't know if we can do it. Brad & I will have to talk about it. A lot. Hopefully we can. I want him in private school.


All the things that his kinder teacher says that he can't do, he can do just fine without 29 other kids making noise. I'm so frustrated.

The inlaws

Well, where to start.

My in laws have never been really involved. Demanding of time? Yes. They would expect us to do for them, and usually it wasn't an issue to do them. But if it was an issue it was a huge sigh and this whole “Oh, we don't know what we will do!” Brad was often guilted into spraying the vineyard because “Oh, we can't afford to hire someone!” Yes, he got paid. But no where near as much as they would pay a vineyard employee.

After Riley was born we thought that they would want to be involved. But they didn't. We would invite them to things and they couldn't be bothered. In fact, after knowing the dates of both my baby showers, she made plans for them to be on trips both of those weekends. They never said no to babysitting, except the time that I didn't know they were coming back the night before. But they never made an effort to see him. Even when we lived across the street.

Last summer when everything was going on with my dad they were pretty good. Calling regularly to check on things, offering to run food over, things like that. So they were good there. They were supposed to leave 4 days before the funeral but they rescheduled their trip, paying the fees associated with changing your tickets like that. So again, really good. No one expected them to do that.

She decided to host Thanksgiving, which was fine. Everyone was there, my mom, Ty & Gab, some friends of theirs. A lot of fun. Although I don't think she was thrilled that my pies were totally gone and her's was barely touched. But that is when it all started. That was when they informed T & G that they were staying with them for a month, from when their house closed in early Dec until they left for France in Jan. No, they did not ask, they informed. Keep in mind they knew full well that G's parents and her brother & his wife were coming for Christmas. Not to mention that their lease specifies no guests for more than 2 weeks.

So during this time T & G asked them if it would be possible for them to stay somewhere else while her family was visiting, for one week of it not both weeks. Reasonable? We all think so! The inlaws, however, did not find it reasonable to be asked to stay somewhere else when everyone had known since summer that these other house guests were coming. You would have thought that they were thrown out in the snow! Never mind that G had pretty much set something up for them (something that they had said they had inquired about but hadn't). They ended up staying there the rest of the time. Christmas Eve was rather . . . tense. Lol

They came to T & G's on Christmas, but barely talked to us. Whatever. On Christmas day they were invited to my mom's for lunch/dinner & to T & G's for breakfast. They quickly stopped by both places on their way to the hotel they were staying in. When they stopped at my Mom's he made the comment “Oh, I guess the recession didn't hit here” in regard to the toys and gifts Riley was given. Keep in mind those gifts were from so many different places. It wasn't like they were all from us! But whatever, he can piss off. They didn't even stay long enough to see my mom who was getting dressed. They called when they were 5 minutes away.

So off they went to France. No biggie. We only heard from them if they wanted/needed something. Typical. When they got back they were going to stay with T & G for a week before heading to Maine. Then they decided to stay at a hotel near their storage unit. Fine. Then they decided to stay with T & G. Whatever. They left for Maine.

They had bought a boat in Southern California and were having some work done on it while in France. The work wasn't done when they were leaving, so they left the boat. Then the guy stopped returning their calls, they couldn't reach anyone. They got a call from a gal who worked at the shop that the shop was locked down by the police and the owner was on the run from the cops. Brad went down & was able to do some inquiring and could see the boat. A few phone calls later and FIL flew out to see if he could get the boat. Totally put G out by staying there and just generally being rude. And this is where everything went to hell.

He arrived Wed night. That night J invited him to his baseball came Thurs night. He promised. He promised his grandson that he would go to the game. Then Thurs came. He went & was able to get the boat. Great. Back to the house where he informed T & G that he wouldn't be staying that night. MIL would be flying in & they were going to head back to Maine. He left 20 minutes before the kids got home. So he didn't even have the balls to tell J himself that he wasn't staying, he left that to Ty.

And they didn't even leave that night. Nope. They went to a hotel & stayed there for the night.

In the midst of all of this there were texts back & forth with Brad & his mom about how they were here and he couldn't believe they weren't seeing the kids, how Riley wanted to see them. But you know, they had contractors coming. Oh yes, God forbid the contractors don't have you there. Heaven forbid you don't see your grandsons. Assholes.

So now we're at a point where pretty much no one is talking to them. We are all so sick of it. I don't care if I ever see them again. I'm so tired of this crap. So tired of it all being about them. They don't care about any of us. They never care if they see us or their grandsons. I have no respect for them anymore. None. And yet as I meet people & they hear my last name they rave about how great of a teacher she was. And I have to smile and nod.

I'm so done with them.

*SIGH*

Well, apparently Riley peed through his diaper again last night. He'll be 6 in Aug and he has woken up dry 3 times. And all 3 times he was sick. We've gone without diapers, he pees and doesn't wake up when he does it. He can lay in a puddle of pee and not wake up. He just doesn't wake up.

We've tried waking him when we go to bed. He either doesn't wake enough to pee or he wakes all the way up & wants to go play. We've tried the nothing to drink after a certain time. Doesn't work. We just don't have the ability to let him be thirsty when he wants a drink.

At a loss. Obviously he isn't ready to be dry all night. I just don't know if we should be "pushing" this in some way or what. *sigh* I don't know.

Fun wake up call

Got woken up this morning around 2-2:30 by this weird noise. Took a minute to figure out that Riley was laughing. I thought "Crap! He's awake!" No, no he wasn't. He was laughing in his sleep. Truly laughing, deep, belly laughing in his sleep.

What a great way to wake up.

Let's go fly a kite . . .

Except that it's raining. Again. June 4 and we've had rain, hail, thunderstorms and tornadoes this last week. It's raining right now. At least the weather was nice for games yesterday for Riley's last day of school.

Since we can't enjoy the first day of summer vacation outside I guess we'll go to Mary Poppins. Ok, we've had the tickets for weeks. It will be fun. Riley's first live performance!

A visit with the pediatrician

Saw the pedi today. I wanted R's ears checked again because the other pedi said the tube in his left ear was compressed and it could have been allergies or from the infection. I also was helping in R's class one day & he was kind of freaking out when it got loud & I was thinking he might have some sensory issues. Even though no dr has said that I do, I know that I do. I get overwhelmed in large crowds, I can't handle tags, I can't handle seams in my socks, stuff like that.

I explained to the dr what I saw, what he has said about not being able to work because everyone is talking, stuff like that. The pedi thinks he has an auditory processing disorder. Basically, when there is all the other noises he just CAN NOT focus. It isn't that he doesn't want to focus, he literally CAN NOT focus. There is therapy, but most insurances don't consider it to be medical so it isn't covered. Plus the pedi thinks that he'll outgrow it. No, that isn't right. Not that he will outgrow it, but that he will learn to work with it. Like so many of us did.

Oh, and I brought up the ADD/ADHD thing that I know his teacher thinks he has. Yeah, he doesn't even find it worth considering, which I agree with.