sueeeus

The stepchildren have arrived. Gadget didn’t get to see them at all last year, due to irresponsible and inconsiderate scheduling on his ex’es part. They are here for a month and a half this time. He reports that their living conditions are similar to those of my own youth, a squalid shack in the middle of nowhere. It’s hard to fathom why his ex left him for a crotchety man eleven years her senior. If he had wealth, charm, or some other redeeming qualities, I might understand, but the only thing I can see (and I’m being objective!) is that he’s not Gadget. Apparently that was enough.

It’s sad to see the kids raised in an environment in which he has absolutely no influence. The step-dad is out of work, hobbling around recovering from having an ingrown toenail removed, and the mother has never worked. From what Gadget can see, they live on the child support that he sends for his daughter, and welfare and social services. They were receiving social security payments for the step-son that had something to do with his having leukemia as an infant. I’m not sure how that works, but he’s 19 now, graduated from high school, and about to face the future, so for some reason, the social security payments stopped, which means that much less for them to live on.

While we were dirt poor, we never used welfare and social services, and my dad went to work every single day, regardless of health. He was an emotional tyrant (and sometimes physical), but he had a good work ethic. Our house was a pigsty, but we had a band of nine wild ones and a harried and frazzled mother who tried her best to keep food on the table and clean clothes on our backs. If she’d had more energy and perhaps some parenting assistance from my dad, we might have been made to contribute with housework and chores. One thing is for certain. Each and every one of us counted the days until we could be out of that house and on our own. I left the very day after I graduated high school. I was 17.

So these two children are being raised by a mother who doesn’t and won’t work, and a step-dad who works sporadically. They don’t clean their house. Gadget wouldn’t even use their bathroom while there. Dirty dishes are everywhere and stacks of junk are everywhere else. When not in school, they watch TV, movies, or play video games, all day, every day. Or they go shopping. (??? I’m not even going to get into that…)

Neither know how to swim. The daughter is going into high school next term and doesn’t yet know how to ride a bike. When here two years ago, she loved to read and had a little spark. Now she hates to read, and she’s all huddled into herself. She mumbles incomprehensibly if she does speak, or she just doesn’t respond when spoken to. Occasionally, she’ll nod her head yes or no. She’s got extreme pronation in which she practically walks on her ankles, and now one leg is visibly longer than the other. We tried to get her to take interest in trying to correct her walk, the last time she was here, to no avail, and now the problem is much worse, and she claims not to care at all. She’s setting herself up for a future of chronic pain. We’re going to try to get her to at least wear specialty insoles. She snubs any reasonable shoes. Gadget is very angry that his ex doesn’t try harder to help her correct this.

Enter Sueeeus, the wicked step-mother. Sueeeus has rules. Every day there is a chore to do, and it must be done before any game-playing or TV/DVD watching. Work first. Then reward. And Sueeeus sets limits. Only one movie per day. Only one hour of video game playing per day. Only one hour of TV per day. (That’s three hours of leisure trash time, but one would think it was cruelty to the utmost extreme.) Oh, that Sueeeus, she is so wicked.

These kids are not prepared for life in the real world. The boy is very soon, as in several weeks, going to be out there. At least he has some enthusiasm, and although he has very limited vision and ambition, I think he will be able to make a way for himself. I hope.

The girl has no ambition. No interests. No spark. Nothing.

It breaks Gadget’s heart, and mine, and makes us both angry and frustrated.

***

A few days have passed, and thankfully, the girl is opening up a bit. They’re not grumbling TOO badly about their chores, although, in the long run, I may wonder if the price is or was worth it.

So far, we’ve nearly lost our freezer after being left ajar a night. Gadget worked all his magic on it, to no seeming avail, but it kicked back into operation after a full day and two nights. Phew. Such a sad and shameful waste of good food, though. That was just a sloppy oversight, not a chore.

Yesterday I assigned weeding. One might think it would be common sense that things IN planter boxes were meant to be there, and things outside of containers were not. One would think. Gone is my lavender and my dwarf bamboo. Present are dandelions, bindweed, and thistles. Today I reassigned weeding. They’re on their second round, having failed the first inspection. I’m not sure what they pulled this time, but the dandelions remain. There may be hope for my lavender and bamboo, because I noticed that they were just pulling tops, and not pulling out the roots. I re-instructed them to pull the roots up, using a dandelion as an example. They didn’t give me a very appreciative look. I told them that if they don’t pull the roots, they’ll be pulling those same weeds all summer. Another steely glare.

I haven’t told them that we might go to the movies tonight. They can wait and be surprised by that reward. Meanwhile, this weekend the hot tub must be scoured and sanitized, and the carpets and floor mats in the car must be cleaned. I’m sure they’ll rejoice over that. Next week they’ll get to steam clean the upholstered chairs and sofas. And the downstairs carpets. And maybe paint a wall or two.

Yes, I am the most wicked of evil step-mothers.

Casualties of an extended weekend:

• 1 broken Wii remote – fried
• 1 broken Wii charger station (see above)
• 1 three year old child, afraid of the water since his everloving dad thought he was big enough to try going under
• eleventy gazillion DVDs out of order, with or without their jackets
• forty seven** opened but unfinished soda cans
• thirty two** opened but unfinished snack cracker/chip packets
• 1 mountain of laundry
• 3 mountains of dirty dishes
• general homeland chaos
• sore, sore feet
• headache
• 1 parental meltdown when her three year old decided he was afraid of public toilets (which is completely understandable) and would only go at home. This at the beginning of an extended weekend away from home. (Luckily, once settled in to the hotel room, he decided that one wasn’t too scary.)

Highlights of an extended weekend:

• An overnight stay at a swanky downtown hotel, complete with swimming pool, white robes, and unlimited complimentary*** milk and cookies room service for the children
• A glorious sunny day for the girls to wander, browse, and shop without the boys
• An opportunity for the boys to go play arcade games without the girls
• Dining out with family
• Playing in a beautiful swimming pool with happy happy children (prior to being dunked, that is)
• Two little boys sitting on a king-sized bed, snacking on cookies and milk, and playing ‘go fish’
• Five kids, two adults, popcorn, candy, snacks, sodas, blankets, and pillows (all in two vehicles parked side by side) at the drive in theatre for the new Indiana Jones movie.
• That blissful calm that descends when the four extra kids are safely delivered to their own home, and our little family of three is safely back in our own home.

*Memorial Day weekend.  So it’s yesterday’s news.  Better late than never.

**exaggeration — even so, TOO MUCH WASTE! Ack!

***may not be so complimentary considering the king’s ransom charged for just one night

There have been many times in my life in which a discovery like this might have put me in a foul mood.

Especially if it happened to be found in a load of our best whites – you know, the expensive plush turkish spa bath sheets, and my brand new white pants and summer shirt. Of course it didn’t manifest itself in the load of darks. No, that wouldn’t be nearly so interesting.

Surprisingly enough, to both myself and the man I married, I shrugged it off. Of course, I did leave the pen fragments on the kitchen counter before I left home, so that he would see them when he got home. I had things to do, and no time to work out a damage control plan, but I was somewhat curious as to what his reaction might be. After all, there are only three people living in this household, and I’m quite certain that instrument of destruction did not originate with me or the wild child. So.

I did receive a somewhat sheepish phone call, but there was only the slightest hint of sheepishness. No apologies. Very few words. And I continued to surprise myself. In days past I would stew and remain irritated for days at the laziness, stupidity, and irresponsibility that could cause such a thing. But not now. And I’m not even on Zoloft any more. It’s a wonder of wonders.

All part of a new me.

…Carefree…

…Young(er)…

!!

So, when there is so much gray, what can one do? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.*

I do wish I’d had a video camera to capture the expression on my son’s face when his mother walked through the door. After his initial shock, he came up to me, cradled my face in his meaty little paws, and kissed my head.

Then he gave me a present. “A prize.” (Surprises=presents=prizes around here.)

“Thank you,” I said.
He beamed.
“What do I do with this?” (me)
“Play with it.” (Grownups are so daft, they don’t even know what to do with prizes.)
…and a little later…
“Don’t choo wanna play with your prize?” (Grownups are such ingrates, with no imagination whatsoever.)
…and the next morning…
“Hey! Why is your prize still here? Don’t choo yike it?” (Grownups. What a bunch of fuddie duddies.)

*I’m a bit self-conscious about the next time I show my face at the office. It’s such a dramatic change that people won’t be able not to say something. Obviously, I didn’t think this through. Must brace myself against pending social anxiety. And make sure I do a good job with the makeup.

Cyclone has taken to asking me whether I’m mad, when he does things that busy 3 year old boys like to do. Such as crushing styrofoam packing peanuts into thousands of pieces all over the floor. Are you mad? Three seconds later. Are you still mad? Another three seconds pass. Are you mad? Are you happy?

He likes to test me. Blowing bubbles in his soup. Are you mad? Blowing more, making a bigger mess. Eating with his fingers. Are you mad? Are you still mad? Are you happy?

In his world there are only two states. Happy and mad. I love how simple it is!

Unusual sounds coming from the living room. He heard me get up to investigate and I saw him scurrying for a place to hide under the table. He knew he was up to mischief!

Are you mad?

It’s been a quiet Sunday morning, if one can count all of the above as quiet. Which I can.

The best thing about Sunday morning is if someone stays up until 2:20 a.m. reading a book* that she started on Saturday evening, she doesn’t have to worry about going to work and managing to get through the day on too little sleep, especially when the resident 3 year old insists on her being up somewhere between 7:30 and 8 a.m. On Sunday, naps are a viable possibility (although not probable).

Of course, if an urgent call comes in from work, in which something has to absolutely be done NOW, well, that can put a damper on things. Luckily, I have my equipment at home so can get it done without going to the office. Now that would make me crabby, going to the office on a Sunday. It would also be nice if we got paid time and a half (or more!) for overtime, but alas, we do not. Even so, my job is a service oriented job, and it’s a rarity to be called to action on a weekend, so in the large scheme of things, I’m happy to be of assistance.

It’s also an excellent excuse not to go outside and pull weeds.

*Kite Runner – another Suse recommendation, and very good (even though it was predictable as to the villain and the outcome, I still happily gobbled it up).

Yin: All American boys at an All American game.

Yang: Chili-cheese goop on a certain youngster’s shoe. Now how did he manage that?

Yin: Garlic fries at the baseball game. Don’t tell the carbohydrates police.

Yang: Finding a sweaty piece of minced garlic lodged beneath my left boob, having survived the game, a night of sleep, and half the morning. Ewwwww.

Yin: A sandbox for a cyclone boy. He loves that thing!

Yang: The new neighbors have a cat. Apparently. In spite of our fully fenced yard, said cat has discovered the nirvana of litter boxes. Hello toxoplasmosis. Now Gadget has to dispose of ALL the sand, douse the box with scalding water (bleach and chemicals supposedly don’t work), build an ingenious lid mechanism, and refill the box. Meanwhile, we have to keep Cyclone away from it, and sanitize all the toys. Oh joy.

Yin: A double strength latte, first thing on a Sunday morning, made with fully caffeinated beans and half&half cream. Divine decadence.

Yang: The espresso factory requires no trivial amount of cleanup, what with loose grounds sprinkling the counter (bench, as the Aussie’s say), milk froth stuck to the steaming wand, and a hot puck of compacted espresso grounds in need of a good home. Still, totally worth it.

Yin: Spring in all its glory.

Yang: Allergies. Weeds.

Even though there’s a giant new bed in the household, the resident cyclone child, once he weasels his way in, has a manner of emulating the expandable gas theory, in which he manages to consume all available space.

Sure, he looks small enough in this picture, but looks can be deceiving. This sprawler’s feet manage to make contact with both parents’ faces, at least once during a night, and I still find myself perched at the uttermost edge.

There’s a new rule in town. Cyclone children who wet their pullups don’t get to sleep in the big bed. I suspect he’s being lazy when it comes to that. At least in the day time. He’s pretty much all good when it comes to number two, so I’m very thankful there, and when he returns from daycare, he seems dry and sometimes I can tell he’s had the same pullup on all day. However. Once home, the next thing I know, there’s a cyclone child running amok, wearing a wet pullup. And I’m constantly asking him if he needs to go. I think perhaps I’ll just stop letting him wear pullups at all in the day, and see if he finds it unpleasant to wet himself. Hopefully.

As far as the bed goes, it’s a flimsy Ikea frame, which I like in style, but hate on all other counts. And much as I abhor the phrase, “you get what you pay for,” in this case, it applies. I don’t like how it didn’t come in one set. The slats and support beam, both of which are critical to the unit, had to be purchased separately. And once constructed, the slats have very little to hold them in place, and the headboard feels like styrofoam. Very bad feng shui, for me. I was willing to put up with it, but Gadget dislodged the slats the other night while lifting the cyclone child out of the bed to put him in his own bed. Not good, and likely repeatable. So that was a happy evening, what with a sleepy and irritated spouse trying to put the flimsy ass bed back together in the late of the night. So this weekend, we’re taking it all apart, and returning it to Ikea. I hope they give us a full refund. It’s a piece of junk.

We’ll be sleeping in close proximity to the floor for a while, which will also irritate Gadget, but since I ordered a new frame that meets with his manly approval, I think he might actually suppress the expression of his displeasure. One can hope.

I find corporate buzzspeak so wearisome.  What does it actually mean?  Drives me nuts.  So, enough of that.

Today I woke up feeling happy.  Not that I don’t usually wake up happy, because I tend to be a morning person, but today I awoke in better spirits than usual.  Which is quite nice.  And to add to an already pleasant morning, BamBam (I’m thinking that I will begin referring to them as Pebbles and BamBam, assuming the peanut really is a girl!) actually woke up on his own.  Which meant that we didn’t have the normal get dressed and ready and out the door struggle. 

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that, for the first time in I can’t remember when, I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to attend to a child or my own bladder that can no longer be ignored.  Or, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I actually exercised yesterday.  Yes, stop the presses.  We joined a gym, and I’m loving the aqua aerobics.  Especially because the pool is full of real people with real shapes and sizes, and not super models and beach bunnies.  I feel so much more comfortable in this gym environment than I’ve ever felt in the past.  I think it’s part of why I’ve hated gyms for so many years.  The gyms I belonged to in years past tended to be filled with vain and superficial people for which the external appearance was paramount to anything.  Not my scene.  And I even looked good back then! 

Now, I don’t usually do this, but I feel compelled to share a link to an amazing talk given by an amazing woman.  My sister has written a book (and I hope she publishes it soon, because I just know it’s incredible, and want to buy a bazillion copies to send to all my friends –okay, several copies, because I don’t actually have a bazillion friends) and found this link, which she says describes some of the characters in her book.  It’s really great, because it’s science that corroborates her art.  It thrills me!  I listened to it at work — multi-tasking, of course — and ended up needing tissue to dab away tears.  It was that good.

Now, to take some of that insight and do something with it.  Translation:  I really, really, really need to tap into my right hemisphere more.  The question is, how?

While I have a thousand 989 pictures taken during my recent trip to the land Down Under, which need to be sorted and eventually uploaded somewhere for sharing, and while I have several posts milling about in my head about my adventures and all the wonderful people I’ve had the pleasure of sharing time with, and while my Google Reader shows 94 unread posts, I will forgo all of these things for now, and begin with the status of my little Joey-Roo.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m going to experience the joys of first trimester nausea in the second trimester instead. I’ve been feeling a bit iffy for the last few days, and am not sure if it’s due to the whirlwind of travel or the little one within. Today I heard the heartbeat! It was a healthy, steady 162 bpm. Oh, the joy! The nuchal numbers from the last screen came out well within the normal range, and the presence of the nasal bone is also encouraging. The blood test came back with a positive marker for Down Syndrome, with a 1 in 33 chance. I’d been told I had a 1 in 25 chance due to my age alone (good heavens, I’m on the cusp of 43), so that number doesn’t worry me. I know my little sprogget is just fine. So today, apart from being jet-lagged, I’m on top of the world.

My Beautiful Boy and I had toast for breakfast and I snuggled him as much as he would let me (which was a lot!).  I can tell that he is very happy that I’m home.  He was so proud of his ball cap with the kangaroo embroidered on it that he asked to wear it to daycare to show Babcia, so he didn’t even try to beg me to stay home this time.

He and Gadget made a pirate ship while I was gone. If only I could describe the smile that crossed his face when I noticed it on my desk, and told him how much I liked it, and what a good job he’d done. He was so proud, he literally beamed. My boy is growing up. Two weeks, and he seems a bit more mature. It’s a marvel.

Happiness is the joy that bursts from every pore of my being to see my own sweet superhero, groggy but smiling, all dressed up in his Spiderman outfit and strapped safely in his car seat at half past midnight.  It’s good to be home.

(It’s good to see my Gadget Man too.)

More to come…

Although the better part of me tries to avoid making stereotypical comments, assumptions, or generalizations, there are times when the other part of me surfaces. I’ll try not to be defamatory, but I’m just so frustrated.

Mr. Gadget’s son graduates from high school this year. I’m taking an alone trip (to Australia!) so he gets to take an alone trip to attend the graduation ceremony. Fair! (There’s a way in my mind that I can completely justify this as being fair, but I won’t go into the convoluted logic. It is fair! Fair!) After graduation, MG is going to bring his son and daughter back to stay with us for the summer. (Good LORD, I may need to get my hands on some Valium*!)

Mr. Gadget’s ex is not particularly good at planning and coordinating things, such as making sure that any doctor appointments that the children need are scheduled around, not during the time when they will be here. We didn’t even get to see them last year due to badly and inconsiderately scheduled appointments. This year, I started prodding MG very early so that he would coordinate with and prod the ex into getting appointments and dates lined up and squared away. Finally, we were able to agree on some dates.

Time is of the essence, because air fares climb steadily as summer approaches. Not that summer is approaching, but the fares have been climbing. Originally there was a targeted date for graduation, and then we learned it had been changed. We waited for the school to sort things out and solidify their dates. Finally, between the wishy washy school powers that be who set graduation dates and the wishy washy ex, we had the window figured out. So we hop on the internet to book tickets. One round trip from here to there for MG, two round trips from there to here for the kids. In the time it took MG to book the tickets, the prices for each rose $100. Needless to say, I was a bit miffed at him. (Mr. Independent had to do it himself, whereas moi, Ms. Lightning Fast at Internet Shopping, sat patiently by, giving him his space. I wouldn’t have been that miffed at him for taking 4 hours to get it done, but the fact that the delay caused the total trip price to rise over $200 was reason for a little bit of ire.)

A week goes by, and we receive an email from the travel company notifying us that they’ve changed one of the flights. So now the children would be flying back on a different airplane. MG was all over the customer service rep in a heartbeat, and got his flight changed to match his children’s flight. That is, after about two hours of explaining, more than once, that he’s a divorced dad going to see his kids and bring them back for a summer visit, and he’d like for them all to fly together, thank you very much, and yes, his trip is from here to there and their trip is from there to here. Yes, his return trip must match their departure trip. Exhausting.

So, not twenty minutes after he gets the new itineraries printed and copies sent to the kids, the phone rings. It’s the ex. Graduation has been changed to a week later.

I don’t know if he called the principal yet and raised holy hell, but what are they thinking? They had already solidified a date. Students have ordered their graduation invitations. Geographically distant family members have made travel plans.

Of course we buy the cheapest air fares we can find, which means they’re non-refundable, and there’s a hefty surcharge to make any changes. So frustrating!

These people, this school, is in Kentucky. Not the most economically advantaged place on the planet. When I was preparing for my own graduation, those fancy invitations were no small expense for my family to accommodate. It must be similarly challenging, financially, for those students and their families now.

All because of poor planning. (Okay, so I’m a control freak. Planning is an essential part of my universe.) Even so, this seems fit to stretch the limits of even normal non-control-freak people. Doesn’t it?

*I now understand why my grandmother needed Valium when we came to visit.