High Numbers, Pathetic Blogging, and Way Too Much To Do

I have noticed that I have more visitors than usual lately and it is certainly not because of my good blogging. I haven't posted many pictures, I don't update as often as I should, and sometimes my entries are pathetic. But when our lives are more stressful, we seem to have more readers. regardless of blog entry quality.

Right now i am swamped. My work is somewhat caught up for my jobs, but family stuff is way behind. There are so many things that need to happen in regards to Christmas, schedules, special events, that I feel like I"m running in circles and I have the tendency to want to avoid everything I'm supposed to do instead of doing it.

For the last two weeks this 15 year old from one of Jimmy's classes has been calling here for MIke. He has been coming by the house, lying to us, showing up at the backdoor and calling Sadie names, etc. Every time we ask Mike to get rid of the kid he says "he's not my friend, he's Jimmy's.

Last night MIke calls and asks to talk to jimmy. When I ask him why, he says it is because he needs a phone number. I give the phone to JImmy and hear jimmy say that he doesn't have the number and asks me what to do. He gives the phone back to me and I gently remind Mike (and I'm actually NOT being sarcastic) that it is odd he is calling for the phone number of a kid he has denied having a relationship with for the past three weeks.

Our transition back home on Wednesday night was uneventful and I really thought we were going to have a smooth transition. But yesterday, it all came to a screeching halt. It turned out Rand had lied to his employer and not worked the whole time we were gone. I had to straighten that out and it did not go well -- BUT he eventually did what he was told.

Dominyk had it in his mind that he was going to get his allowance early. I have noticed a need for me to be more structured after reading a book (which I will share more about in another post) and so I wasn't going to budge on the "payday is Friday" fact. He had a major screaming, sobbing, convulsing meltdown that neither his PCA nor I could do anything about.

Sadie came home with homework and, if she is in the wrong mood, me helping it with her can really set her off. She began a literal 4 hour verbal fit that had some pauses in it -- and said as many evil things as she could think of. I had come back from the conference determined not to add further consequences when kids pushed my buttons, but she really gave me a run for my money. She hasn't ever pushed quite far before -- even wishing I was dead, or better yet, had never been born.

JImmy got in trouble at school again after holding it together for three days. Fortunately he had the sense to pay his consequences.

We ended the night by opening a very special gift early from our friend in LA ... and the kids were estatic. We waited until our prone-to-steal kid was gone so that he would not come back to get it.... The kids had a blast and I even did. THANKS SO MUCH MB!