Well, That's Just Great

We found out yesterday which teachers the boys will have this coming school year.

I don't know anything about Liam's first grade teacher and I can't find anyone who does.

Great.

As for Evan's kindergarten teacher?  It's the same teacher Liam had last year for kindergarten.  I'm guessing she requested Evan after she found out during the kindergarten entrance tests that he could read.

Sigh.

The one advantage to this is that Evan already knows her and is comfortable with her making his transition to "big kid school" a bit easier.

But.....seriously?!?

Disturbing Phone Call

Nothing can compare to the horrible phone call I got a year and a half ago.  It's the kind of phone call I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  Ever since the incident that prompted that phone call, Ryan has worn a medical ID bracelet with my cell phone number in case of another emergency.

Thankfully, he has been seizure-free since then and I haven't received another dreaded call.  However, every time my cell phone rings and it's a number I don't recognize, my stomach clenches up a bit and I answer it because I know that it could be another Good Samaritan looking out for us.

So today, I turned my phone back on after church and noticed that I had a voicemail from a number that I didn't recognize.  I knew it couldn't be someone calling about Ryan as he'd been with me all morning so I didn't get any kind of sinking feeling.  In fact, I was sure it was a sales call of some sort.

And then I heard this:

Man's Voice: "Uh, hello, this is Officer Smith* and I'm calling regarding a homicide that took place last night at a property you own."

My thoughts:  Oh God, our sweet tenant has been murdered in our rental house.  Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. 

Officer Smith:  "The property is located at #### Oak Street* and we need any footage that you may have recorded on your cameras.  Please give me a call back at ###-###-####."

The address he gave was not the address of our rental house.  Thank goodness.

I called him back immediately.  He asked if I represented the company that owned the property.  I informed him that I was a stay-at-home mom and we didn't own that property.  He recited the phone number he'd dialed.  I informed him that he'd misdialed by one digit.  He apologized for the miscommunication and I finally took a breath before hanging up.

Talk about disturbing.

I feel sorry for the person for whom that call was intended.

I wonder if they were as freaked out as I was once he finally reached them.

I guess I'll never know.


*Names have been changed in case a crazy murderer does a google search on his (or her - I don't discriminate when it comes to cases of murder) alleged crime.

Letters

Dear Neighbors to our Right,

It would be great if you could stop throwing your trash in our yard.  It would be great if you could stop playing basketball before 10 pm.  It would really be great if you would watch your mouths while playing basketball so that I can let my kids play outside again.  It would be great if you could learn how to work your car alarm so that it wouldn't go off every morning between one and four.  It would be great if you didn't tell your kid that he could play at our house all day (lunch included!) without asking me first.  It would be great if you could make your car payments so that we don't have to watch the repo men come and tow away two of your three vehicles.  But then again, if you're not keeping up with your car payments then you're probably not keeping up with your rent, either, and you will be evicted soon.

Here's Hoping,
A Neighbor Who Has Really Tried to be Nice
_________________________________________________

Dear Neighbor Two Doors Down to our Left,

I realize that it's difficult to pack up a house and get ready to move with a five year old around.  But dropping her off at my house several days in row is not cool.  Neither is asking us to watch her as we pull into our driveway after getting home from our vacation.  And neither is asking the sweet neighbor who lives between us to text me and ask when I'm getting home so you can drop off your kid.  Not cool, man.

Find Yourself a Babysitter,
A Tired Mom
_________________________________________________

Dear Netflix,

Would you please add the next two seasons of Sons of Anarchy to your instant streaming programming?  We're almost done with the seasons you offer and we are hooked.  Hooked.

About to Go Buy Some Leather Cuts,
Two Law Abiding Citizens Who've Been Dreaming About Motorcycles
_________________________________________________

Dear Sweet Daughter,

You wanted to paint your room so we did.  You wanted white, whispy curtains so we got them.  You want a green lamp so I'm looking for one (although it would help if you weren't so picky).  And now that I've done my part, you need to do yours and put all your stuff back in your room.  I'm fairly certain your little brother would like to have his room back when he gets home from his grandma's house.

Get to Work Please,
Mom
_________________________________________________

Dear Summer,

Please stop flying by.

Sincerely,
A Mom Who Likes Sleeping Past 6am

Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Backstory: Our church has a weeklong camp in which the kids get to focus on their favorite hobbies and interests and try out new ones.  There are classes for science, woodworking, fishing, photography, art, etc.  Liam chose Legos for his primary class - no surprise there.  Syd chose Hogwarts Academy for her primary class.  While her Harry Potter obsession may have waned, she still adores the stories and mentions something from the books at least once a week.

So in preparation for her class (which, according to the mom running it, is going to be loads of fun), Syd has been re-reading all of the books this summer.  She's currently on the sixth one and as quickly as she reads now, I have no doubt she'll finish the seventh by next Monday.

Since my little overachiever is determined to be the most knowledgeable student in her class, she asked me to quiz her on Harry Potter details.  While I've read the books and I enjoyed the story, I quickly ran out of quiz questions so we turned to Sporcle for some trivia questions.

One of the quizzes gave us a list of first names for 50 or so characters and we had to type in the last names for those characters.  These quizzes are timed and she can't type very fast, so she stood behind me and shouted out the answers for me to type for her.

It went something like this:

Q: Harry
A: Potter! (because she was excited and shouted the answers at the back of my head)

Q: Ron
A: Weasley!

Q: Albus
A: Dumbledore!

All was well until we got to a certain name and I wound up laughing so hard at her answer we had to pause the game.  What got me so tickled?

Q: Colin
A: Firth!

The answer is Colin Creevey, but my sweet girl has obviously lived with me for so long that a bit of me has rubbed off on her.

I still chuckle when I think about it.

I don't know that Ryan found it all that funny, though.  I don't know if he can handle two Colin Firth obsessed females in the house.  :)

------

On a related note, I saw the trailer for a new movie called Austenland the other day and about died laughing.  I definitely have to go see this movie.  Too bad it's rated PG-13; otherwise, I'd take Syd with me and make a girls' day of it.

Guess I'll just have to drag poor Ryan to it instead.

Haunted by a Movie

Have you ever seen a movie that haunted you?  I've read books that have stuck with me (I still think about the characters from "The Poisonwood Bible" more than a decade after I read it), but I've rarely had a movie do the same.

While scanning the grown-up movie selection at the library last week (the kids' movies section being completely depleted by this point in the summer), I came across one called "We Need to Talk About Kevin".  I vaguely remembered hearing that it was good and since Ryan and I both like Tilda Swinton, I grabbed it.

Oh my.

It took us a while to figure out what was going on because the scenes jump back and forth in time, but once we got the gist of the plot, we were riveted to our seats.

The plot revolves around a woman (Swinton) who, along with her oblivious husband, raises a sociopathic son.  From the earliest age, the son is devoid of feeling and is quite simply, a monster.  The mother really tries to be affectionate with him when he is younger, but grows increasingly colder toward him and eventually becomes frightened of him.  I won't give away any spoilers, but I will say that the son does something absolutely horrific and the mother spends the next few years dealing with the aftermath of what he did.

By the time it was over, Ryan and I looked at each other in disbelief.  We were left with the question of whether the mother became cold and distant because her son was sociopathic or if he became a sociopath because she was cold and distant.  The filmmakers did a great job of leaving it open-ended.

Honestly, it reminded me of a family we know.  Sydney is involved in an activity with the daughter who is a perfectly lovely girl.  She's quiet, sweet and eager to please.  Both of her brothers, however, are holy terrors.  They are overtly rude, mean-spirited and generally terrifying to be around.

I felt sorry for their parents.  And then I talked with their mother.

Now you never really know what goes on in someone else's home, but if the little snippets of conversation I've had with the mother are any indication, theirs is not a very happy one.   Even when she attempts to say something nice (a very rare occurrence), her tone is insolent and surly.  Ryan, who is a much more easy-going person than I am, can't stand to be around her.  That says a lot.

We've only known this family for a few years so I really wonder if her boys act like they do because of her attitude or if she developed the attitude because of how her boys have acted.  I guess we'll never know.

After watching the movie, however, I am kind of worried about how those boys are going to turn out.  And I really worry about their sweet sister.

I briefly toyed with the idea of anonymously mailing a copy of the movie to their house.  I won't, of course, but I wonder what would happen if the mother saw it.  Is she capable of changing her overall tone and attitude?  Would her sons' behavior change?

I just don't know.

Well, Well, Well......

Because I know I have a couple of male readers, I won't go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say that I've been dealing with an issue the past few years.  A girly issue.  So if you are already uncomfortable with where this is heading, keep on scrolling through your blog reader.

For those who've decided to continue reading, consider this your daily public service announcement.

So this issue has been getting progressively worse over the past several years, enough to where I am miserable and in quite a bit of discomfort on a regular basis.  That's all the detail I'll give you because you are smart women (I'm assuming that the men have stopped reading at this point) and you have probably figured out the general issue.

When I asked my ob/gyn about it a couple of years ago, he did an ultrasound and thankfully ruled out all the scary things.   He recommended I have this procedure.  In fact, he was almost insistent that I have it done; I couldn't believe the amount of time he used trying to convince me to do it.  I read the pamphlet he gave me (provided by the company that manufactures the equipment used in the procedure, of course).  I also did some research on my own and decided against it.  I can't describe it, but I just didn't have a good feeling about it.

Another twelve cycles of misery passed and I went back to my ob/gyn for my annual visit.  We discussed the issue again.  He suggested the procedure again.  I declined.  His only other suggestion was this procedure.  I may be approaching a milestone birthday, but I am way too young to be considering that one.  So I declined it as well.

I went another twelve cycles in complete misery and spent my time researching natural remedies.  Most of them pointed toward homeopathic doctors who performed extensive blood work and hormonal balancing.  This is all well and good for people who have better insurance than I do or don't have three kids to put through college.  That stuff is Expensive with a capital E.

So we discussed the issue again this week at my annual visit.  Wouldn't you know it, he didn't recommend the procedure he'd been so gung ho about a couple of years ago.  He said that there have been some adverse effects from it in younger women like myself.  (I loved that he called me younger - it's been a while since I've heard that word used to describe my age.)

He gave me several alternatives, one of which was a new, super expensive medication.  When I gasped at the monthly price, his nurse informed me that it would be less expensive with the manufacturer coupons they could give me.  I've been around the block enough times to know that this means some cute pharm rep in a short skirt bought lunch for the office and pushed it on them.  Sigh.

I guess my gasp at the cost sufficed as my answer to that alternative and I ultimately went with a solution that is a lot less expensive and much less invasive than the ones he suggested earlier.  I'm still not thrilled with it, but for the sake of my sanity, I had to do something.

So I guess the public service announcement is this: if you're not comfortable with a medical procedure or your gut feeling regarding it is a bad one, don't do it.  Or at least think really long and hard about it.  If I'd gone ahead and had the procedure he'd suggested a couple of years ago, I might be suffering from the adverse side effects he mentioned.  I actually shudder a bit when I think about it.

Hopefully, I will be feeling better in a few months and I won't have to search through a laundry list of possible remedies for this again.

Sometimes it stinks to be girl.

Natural Consequences

We have really tried our best to guide and/or advise our kids while still letting them stumble and fall.  We generally like to let them enjoy the natural consequences of their actions.

When Syd procrastinated on a project for school (albeit a very pointless, stupid project [but we did our best to keep our opinions to ourselves]), she received a not-so-great grade on it.  Actually, she received two not-so-great grades on it bringing her average down.  Natural consequence.

When Liam lost his jacket on the playground, I made him buy a new one with his own money.  Natural consequence.

Evan knows that his not learning how to ride a bike means he can't keep up with his camping buddies while they toodle around the campsite on their monthly trips.  Natural consequence.

But at what point are natural consequences not enough of a punishment for your child?

Syd has always had a sensitive stomach.  She cannot stay up too late or eat too much junk food because her stomach will get upset.  She has known this for a long time.

We've let her suffer the consequences: having to come home early from a sleepover, having to sit through church with a queasy stomach, having everyone at camping call her "the girl who always throws up".  All natural consequences for something she has to learn to regulate herself.

I thought we'd finally turned a corner on this issue when we went to a swim party with a bunch of her friends yesterday evening.  While several of her friends completely pigged out, she only had a couple of pieces of pizza, a small drink and bit of ice cream.  She even sat on the side of the pool for a good 15 minutes after eating while watching her friends play so that her stomach could settle.  I was so proud of her for regulating her food choices and activity level.

And then the pool party ended (at her usual bedtime) and what did she do?  She grabbed another piece of now cold (and greasy) pizza and another sugary drink.  She took her shower and went to bed well after her usual bedtime and I warned her that I didn't want to hear about an upset stomach before church the next morning.

Lo and behold, I go to wake her up this morning and she has a throw-up bowl next to her pillow.  I simply said, "You're lighting the candles this morning.  It's time to get up."  She asked for dry cereal for breakfast and spent forever in the bathroom, but I'll give her credit that she didn't say a word to me about her stomach.  She (sneakily) asked Ryan for some medicine while I gave the dog his morning walk and we headed out the door.

I dropped everyone off at the door of the church due to the rain and as soon as my soaked self sat down in our pew, Ryan told me Syd was sick in the bathroom with my niece keeping watch over her.

I wanted to scream.

When is she going to learn?  At what point are natural consequences not enough?  I don't think I should have to tell my now ten year old what she can and cannot eat.  When is she going to learn this for herself?

I helped her clean herself up, cleaned up the toilet and thankfully they found someone to fill in for her.  And then we left a mere five minutes after getting there and five minutes before the service started.

She's now in her room "resting" and I took away her access to all electronics because if she's "sick" then she needs to rest.

But for how long?  The rest of the day?  Do the rest of us have to have our afternoon plans ruined (and we had something really fun planned) because she can't get a handle on this?

What is the correct term for this situation?  Maddening?  Frustrating?  Bewildering?

Or do I call it what it is - parenting?

Do other parents have to deal with this sort of thing, too?