On Mornings Like These....

I'm glad for 12 years of parenting experience because I am not suicidal afterwards and I do not need a stiff drink nor even a massage. However, four or five years ago I would be physically ill after a day like today. I think I'll attempt to tell the story as it has some humorous moments as well as hopefully providing some insight into my new approach to parenting teens.

Before I begin I should mention that most of our mornings go like clockwork around here. We have a good routine and generally it works. But on mornings like this morning, it is very apparent that we have several children. It's a series of unfortunate events, if you will, or a cosmic collision of special needs like the one last Friday. It's just overwhelming.

The bad morning started last night with two people going to bed very upset and I don't even want to bother with the details of that, but when I woke up they were both still very crabby, setting everyone on edge. I had a 7:45 meeting which meant that I needed to leave right on time. Leon couldn't find any jeans nor could he find his toothbrush. Dominyk's backpack was missing. The girls were nasty and rude in the brief moment I interacted with them. Tony didn't want to get up.... so we left seven minutes late. We got to the van and Dominyk fell in the sludge in the garage so I had to go back in the house and grab another pair of jeans. I know that if i would have sent him to school he would have obsessed about his pants tot he point the school would have called, so I just got that taken care of. And poor Leon, after all the stress of the morning, had to give me a grade sheet to sign showing three Fs. That's going to change.

On the way to school, our African friend with the handicap called, so I picked her up and she took a long time to get to the car. I was 15 minutes late for an IEP meeting which resulted in no IEP. They are still accessing Ricardo's difficulties as being related to his language acquisition and I am far from convinced. I checked that I did not agree with their conclusions, but it won't matter.

And then I was really late for the meeting about Sadie, which was eye opening as I found out her attitude has been nasty for weeks now at school and she's got herself backed into a corner (sort of like our friend the Black Night that I posted this morning). Hopefully she'll turn this around but if not, I'll ride the ride with her.

And I returned to recalcitrant Rand, who is refusing too cooperate.

And rumor has it there might be snow coming which might result in Christmas break starting earlier than planned.

And I'm actually fine. So I'm grateful for all these years of parenting experience....

and now, back to work.

And