I woke up on Saturday with four things planned. After those things were done I was going to help the kids decorate the tree. The four things were as follows: Finish and print handouts for the New Orleans Conference, Finish the powerpoint and Videos for church, pack for the trip, and work on Christmas letters. Little did I know that this day was going to be the vortex of multiple issues.
It started with Mike needing to meet the Mike he was going snowboarding with at 8:00. At 8:40 he called and said he would be right home. He didn't show up until 10:10 and by that point I was very stressed. They finally left around 10:30.
The backdrop of the day was "Mom, I don't feel so well." Dominyk had the 24 hour stomach flu and was obsessed with his physical condition. He literally spent the entire day either lying at my feet or Bart's moaning. "Oh, my stomach. It hurts. Oh my head." We gave him medication, hugs, and plenty of attention but the monologue went on all day long.
Tony had a major meltdown as well, but Bart handled most of that one.
Then Jimmy got in trouble after lunch and I told him he no longer had permission to go to the hockey game. He got stuck on stupid and began to ask, "Why can't I go to the game?" No matter how many times I explained it, he kept asking it over and over again.
For a while I tried to ignore both Dominyk and JImmy who were, at this point, not even waiting for attention from me but simply changing the mantra. So for 30 minutes I listened to "Ohhhhhh, my stomach. My stomach, it hurts" and "why can't I go to the game" simultaneously coming out of their mouths. I tried answering them, but then resorted to ignoring. I was working on something for church that required precision so even with headphones on trying to drown them out, I finally lost it and told Jimmy he had to get out of my office. When her refused to mvoe, I made the mistake of trying to make him move, which resulted in him throwing and breaking things and threatening to kill me. When I finally was ready to call the police, he went to his room.
Mercedes then showed up in my office to let me know that she had decided that was the day she was going to start wearing makeup. Since we had already set a different day based on some prior choices she had made, I wasn't going to negotiate or budge, sending her into her own stubborn seemingly endless meltdown.
About this time Mr. Rooter showed up (yes, that IS his name) to take care of a plumbing problem in the basement. He let me know that his initial fee was going to be $300 and something and kept having Jimmy come get me from the Mercedes Makeup Argument to sign things, agree to things, initial things -- all things I needed to check out with Bart by cell phone because he was not at home.
As I went back and forth from that situation to Sadie's room, Salinda got involved in the makeup discussion and Sadie said something that hurt her feelings and she started packing to leave. She was going back to the group home NOW. Kyle called and acted selfish and it annoyed Bart.
Eventually, everything resolved itself, except that stuff wasn't done. I did have the handouts done for the trip, but the rest of the stuff, I finally, at 9:30 p.m., decided I would help with the tree decorating. Jimmy had to be sent to bed early because when Leon said, "why do y'all do that" he made the comment, "Y'all? I don't understand you. I don't speak Chinese." We explained it was not appropriate for him to say that, that y'all was not Chinese, that Leon was not Chinese, and that Leon didn't even speak his parent's native language.
The whole tree decorating scene finished at 10:30 when the events Bart blogged about that night began.
They concluded and we discussed them until 1 a.m. I had to be up before seven to finish all the things from the day before that I had to do before we left.
Whew. Some days are just like this in our world. They don't happen very often any more, but when they do, it is quite shocking. It's as if everything comes piling on at once and it's marathon parenting coming at you all day long.
I'm still worn out just thinking about it.
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