…sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I am doing and that my kids are really unfortunate to have me.  I really wanted a large family and I still see the benefits and why I wanted it but it is .all.so.overwhelming these days. 

First, at a birthday party a few weeks ago another mother commented to me that “Logan is hearing impaired right?”…I must have looked shocked but pulled it together enough to say…”umm, no…she just has an articulation problem” and then to go into a deep funk about how I have never had her hearing checked…that I have always just chalked her speech (that raspy sound) to a vocal cord polyp…and her “baby talk” has just always been cute to me.  So, I made an appointment the next day with an ENT to check her hearing and to have her checked out.  Unfortunately it was 2 weeks (actually relatively short wait but our medical center has a 2 week policy for new patient visits for employees) and I have been staying up nights trying to figure out what I would do if she did have a hearing issue.  Of course, she would get the best care $ can buy- that goes without saying.   mean more how was I going to live with myself for missing it and how could I have done this to her.  See…overwhelming.  Lucky for me, her exam today went great.  She has 100% hearing in both ears.  She has vocal cord polyps (called screamer’s nodules) which is what I thought all along.  I think she developed them from her 10 months in an orphanage and no one to answer her cries…okay, I got there as quickly as I could but I still have some empthy for her cuz of that. 

Meanwhile, Riley is out.of.control.  Let me say that again…he is OUT.OF.CONTROL!!!  every day he wakes up and picks a fight with me.  He won’t do anything I ask him to do and makes motions as if he is going to punch me when I make him.  then he goes to the school counselor and cries (I think genuinely) that he misses me and he is sorry so …they call me on my cell phone.  Don’t know if this is some sort of attachment dance he is doing…trying to make me prove that I am here for the long haul…or is it just him trying to break out of the child mold into the young boy mode.  I have been trying to spend one-on-one time with him about once a month and he is great during that (-even when i don’t buy him anything!) and then when the other kids are around he acts like a bear.  On Tuesday as I was leaving to go to the cubscout new parent meeting before I headed to Washington DC he threw a huge fit.  Picked a fight with me, went outside and refused to put his bike helmet on.  Said he wasn’t going to listen to the babysitter…threw things around and then refused to say goodbye to me.  For once in my life, I didn’t rise to the bait (again, another issue is that I have ALOT of trouble not getting into it with him)…I quietly put my stuff in the car and walked around the other side (where he was) and he proceded to melt into tears and not want to let me go (and slobber all over my shirt) so I looked great with the wet shirt front at the cubscout meeting – luckily it was outside and was dark – okay another story.  What.to.do…I’m welcome to any suggestions. 

Addison is squarely in the Terrible 3’s and is having all out-knock down-tantrums.  It is a good thing she is so sweet after it is over cuz she reminds me a little of Linda Blair and I don’t have patience for that right now.  Tonight’s episode started when Riley hung up our ind00r swing.  Addison immediately started crying that she wanted a turn (well I should say yelling).  I pulled her to the side and said that when Riley was done she could have a turn.  Over the next 10 minutes she came up to me no fewer than 10 times to whine that she wanted a turn.  On the 10th time i told her if she didn’t stop talking to me, she would not get a turn and she went to the floor, kicking.screaming.fussing.  So I sent her to her “crying” chair which it took almost 5 minutes for her to go to it.  Then she got up and asked me again and I decided that she wasn’t riding.  She has been screaming for the last 19 minutes. 

Matthew is (miracle of miracles) seemingly doing the best.  At his back to school night, his teacher said he was doing well.  she even said that if he couldn’t (read wouldn’t here) do his homework to just email her because he has been working so hard in school that she knows he needs downtime at home – Ok.where did this woman who is inhabiting his teacher’s body come from??  (If you remember during his Kindergarten year, she didn’t even want to give me over the weekend to complete his homework because she didnt have time to get it together! ) I’m not complaining but I am also trying to get him to get in the habit of doing 10 minutes a night.  This is hard cuz his medicine has definitely worn off.  Tonight I am so sick,we are going to do it in the morning. 

Oh yeah, I started getting a sore throat on Monday and haven’t slept in 2 nights and now my nose is completely stuffed and running at the same time.  Dang colds.

Oh yeah, I just don’t get my new boss (I guess that is better than saying he seems to be nutso).  I’ve been trying to just say he is different from my previous one…to give him time…but every week there is something so bizarro…I can’t see this ending well.  Just trying to keep my head above water and my body off the radar.  It’s hard.  I have been on service more the last 4 months than in a whole year recently.  I am sick of it but our new mandate of more patients, more patients, more patients and it is driving all of us crazy. 

So…I’m going to try and get some sleep tonight and hope that I will wake energized for the fight again tomorrow.

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