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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Some people!

It may seem hard to believe, but I am not a confrontational person.  I am a pretty laid-back person, generally speaking, and I don't like drama unless it's on tv and I'm watching it on the couch in my sweats. However, drama seems to find me.  The latest drama involves my little girl and her girl scout leader.

This girl scout leader and I are in frequent contact because both our girls are in the same class and play together.  We get along, they get along.  I see her twice a month when I pick up the daughter from girl scouts.  In fact, a week ago this past Monday, I spent several hours with this lady picking up hundreds of girl scout cookies and sorting them for delivery.  Never once has she brought up any concerns about our girls.

So imagine my shock when I receive a nasty little email from her last night.  In it, she blasts my daughter for being mean to hers.  She also CC two other people, a mom I don't know and the teacher.  She then goes on to say that she has her daughter "M" there sitting next to her so she can help her remember all the wrongs my daughter has done.  Some examples are:

1.  M and a little boy were holding hands on the playground and my daughter evidently walked up behind them and "sliced" their hands apart.

Okay.....really?  That's what kids do.  


2.  M and my daughter were walking together and this little boy walked up behind them and my daughter told him it was girl time.

again, okay.....


3.  My daughter evidently sings songs at recess using the words poop and the dreaded "s" word.  No, not that word.......stupid.

This one, i totally see.  She has been caught at home singing about poop.  Not sure why, but this seems like tattling to me.  And the "s" word????  I was concerned til I saw it was S for stupid.


She also said in the email that my daughter is a liar.  That really pissed me off.  First of all, she's not and second, why are you telling this in an email to other people?  What the hell?  Her example of my daughter's lying though is somewhat comical:

"At the valentine's day party, M came up to me and told me she had won bingo twice.  Your daughter then came running up and said that she had won 4 times"

Maybe she did bitch.  


I was so livid.  I ended up contacting the classroom teacher and the teacher said she didn't see these behaviors and she was aware that this little boy and M do tend to leave people out.  I replied back to the girl scout leader mom, letting her know that, and that I wish she had just come to me instead of emailing people.  There's an event next weekend and my daughter was going to ride with  M and her mom.  At the end of the email, I said we would make sure she got there and she wouldn't need a ride anymore.  Well, psycho-mom replies back that I was attacking her parenting and calling her irresponsible and that maybe I should look for a different troop for my daughter.

I tried calling her, but she wouldn't answer.  yeah, it's really easy to shoot off emails attacking people but you can't pick up a phone and talk about it, can ya?  Anyway, I emailed her back and let her know that if she was going to treat my daughter differently then yes, she would be moved.  And that I was not attacking her parenting style at all.

She replied back one more time.....stating that she would never treat my daughter differently and she only suggested that because I seemed to be questioning her ability.

She never once acknowledged the fact that her daughter is also part of the problem.  She also never apologized for emailing or involving others.  In fact, she told me she was glad I had talked to the teacher and "got it all sorted out".  Yeah, i sorted out the fact that your daughter is a whiney wuss who runs home to mommy and that you're an overprotective witch of a woman who doesn't understand 6 year olds.

I find it almost comical now, how idiotic this lady is.  I've decided to let it go.  I have vented to several people and I've talked about it to a friend of mine whose daughter is in a troop in the neighboring town.  If my daughter starts coming home complaining about the leader at girl scouts, then shit will hit the fan. I've decided to keep her in because the lady does do an awful lot with the troop and finds awesome things for them to do, and there are several girls from my daughter's class in the troop.

I just don't get it.  Some people have no clue how to tactfully bring up something.  She went about it all wrong and in the end, it helped no one.  All she accomplished was making me upset, making herself look like a fool, and letting her classroom teacher in on what kind of person she really is.

One word for this lady.  Whack-a-doo

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Well hello, TBI.

In addition to severe PTSD, Hubs also has a brain injury.  It's annoying.  He'll lose his keys, forget entire conversations we've had, and lose his cell phone.  He'll lose something, for instance, and then freak out and have a temper tantrum because he can't find it.  For example, currently his cell phone is lost.  He misplaces it all the time.  Problem is, he keeps a lot of his appointments in his phone.  He has an appointment today with his psychologist and he doesn't know what time it is and so he says he won't go.  Never mind using my cell phone to call.  Never mind putting it on the calendar thats on the fridge so I know too.  Noooo, that would make too much sense.

Course, he says he isn't going to go anyway.  I can't stand that.  He doesn't have a job, his job right now is to go to appointments and get his therapy.  His job is not to sit on the couch all day and night and crawl deeper into the pit of depression.  I want to shake the shit out of him so badly.  


Sunday, February 26, 2012

Discovery World

  There are good days and bad.....for both of us.  My last post was a bit of a meltdown.  However, meltdowns are good.  You can't keep it bottled in or you explode.  And so, I blog.

Today we decided that we needed to do something as a family.  The stress of the past week and the emotional toll it had taken on the whole family was showing.  We needed to reconnect with each other and our children.  So, this afternoon, we went to Discovery World.

Discovery World is this little....well, discovery center.  It's on the banks of Lake Michigan and it has several exhibits.  We had never been before, but I had heard of it, and looking at it's website, it sounded kind of neat.  I will say that it's not a place I'll go to often, but it had a few neat things.  One of my favorite features was a little aquarium at one end.  You take an elevator down to the ground floor and there's little tanks set up around you.  Then, you turn the corner and this is what you see:


It was so cool to walk through the tunnel with fish all around, below and above you.  Our daughter LOVED it.  She kept staring at her feet and watching the fish swim by and then she'd call me over to look at some other fish she'd spy above her.  I really want to take her to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago because I think she'd really enjoy that place.  We have taken her before, but she was younger and doesn't remember much of it.

There were some other exhibits she liked:  a large ship she crawled around in, a bed of nails she got to lay on, and a large section of gears she got to mess with to make things move.  There was also an exhibit for the Hubs.  That's how I got him motivated to go....an entire exhibit of Les Paul guitar stuff.  Over all, fun times.  There were some exhibits closed which bummed me out, but not a bad place to spend a few hours on a Sunday.

One thing I've learned is to embrace the happy.  The moments we can just be as a family and enjoy our time together, I suck all that in and hold onto it as much as possible.  Tomorrow might suck, but for today, happiness.

 


Friday, February 24, 2012

Bitch-fest

I'm pissed.

Our daughter is on winter break today.  It's not long, just a day and a half off, but instead of doing something FUN on her day off.....she and I are stuck at home with baby boy while my husband is a state away at a funeral, and I'm mad.

I'm mad that his buddy succumbed to Alcoholism and PTSD and is dead.  I'm mad that our fun weekend plans are ruined.  We have been promising our daughter a trip to the Wisconsin Dells (think large indoor water parks) for a month now and this would have been the weekend.  Instead, I had to explain to her that daddy's friend died and plans change.  I guess this sounds heartless.  I do feel for his family, but I'm obviously more concerned about my family.

I'm annoyed that my husband invited another buddy from his residential program to stay at our house.  He didn't really ask me.  He told me if I said no, he'd get a hotel room for the two of them.  What the Hell?  The two of them?  First of all, the guy could have got his own hotel room, and even if he did get one, why would he go too?  So, didn't really have a choice there, I didn't want Hubs spending money on a hotel room.  I get that the guy lives in Michigan and had to travel hours to go to the funeral and I respect the camaraderie among them, but it weirds me out having someone here that I don't know at all.  Someone who has PTSD like Hubs.  I want to shake my husband.  I have enough to deal with, I don't need more stress here!  To his credit, his friend has been decent and polite, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

I hate PTSD.  I hate that things have to be so hard.  I hate that my husband feels more comfortable talking to his friends than to me.  I cry because my husband has not slept in our bed in years.  He doesn't want to be near me I guess, I don't know.  I just want normal.  I want my husband to go to work everyday and me be the little woman who stays home and takes care of the babies and the house and welcomes him home every night with a hug and kiss.  I want to joke around and laugh with my husband without him taking everything the wrong way.  I want to laugh at his jokes instead of being paranoid that he's starting a fight.

I want to feel loved.   I dont remember the last time we kissed, I mean really kissed.  I want to sleep in the same bed as my husband.  I want to go on date-nights, I want to be happy, dammit.  Is that so wrong?

Okay, this post started out as something else and spiraled into a pity-party for one.  Ug.  I hate that.  I need to pull on my big-girl panties and deal.  It's just hard sometimes.  He doesn't understand.  In fact, if I do get upset, that's exactly what he tells me, "Quit feeling sorry for yourself".  Well excuse me, but I think I have that right to feel sorry for myself sometimes.

OK, this post is all over the place and the baby is screaming and the daughter is yelling for my attention.  Jumbled thoughts today...


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Dog therapy

Last week we welcomed a new member to our family.  A furry member.

We got a dog.  Between the cat, the rabbit and now the dog, I'm starting to feel like I am running a petting zoo.  The cat was all me...I'd always wanted a cat and Hubs gave in to my whining begging request.  He isn't a big cat fan, but he tolerates her.  Shortly after we got the cat, darling daughter went next door to play with a neighbor's kid and came home begging for a guinea pig like the neighbor had.  I stood firm and said heck no.  Unfortunately, she got ahold of her dad and she has him wrapped around her finger.  Next thing I knew, we had a rabbit. (The pet store clerk said a rabbit was a better pet.  I'm not sure....at least the rabbit doesn't look like a rat with no tail.)

So, that brings us to the dog.  I admit, it was all me.  What can I say, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. We had a dog, a very nice Border Collie that was a service dog for Hubs.  This dog was house trained, and very smart.  However, Border Collie's need to be worked, they need a job.  For awhile being the service dog was working out great.  Unfortunately, Hubs took him with him to the VA one day and the police there detained him.  That was the end of that.  He was so embarrassed.  The stupid cops dont know the laws I guess and they did get reprimanded, but the damage was done.  Hubs no longer felt safe taking the dog anywhere and the dog got very, very bored.  A bored service dog = depressed service dog that starts acting up.  We did what was best and we gave him back to the lady we got him from where, I hear, he is very happy training other dogs to be service dogs.

After we sent back that dog, we vowed no more dogs.  However, my husband LOVES dogs and he has been so down lately and had been talking about having a dog again.  Well, this opportunity came up and we got a dog.  A puppy.  A bulldog puppy.  

We picked her up last Thursday, the night before we heard the terrible news about his friend who passed away.  Friday on has been pretty tough, but actually, I think it's been good to have Lola around.  The puppy has helped distract him and keep him busy.  Plus, she's been so affectionate, and loving.  Just what he needed.   She's also been decent about not going in the house.  Of course, now that I say that, she'll probably take a dump here on the carpet, but hopefully not!

We are done with animals though.  No more critters or I'm going to have to start charging an entrance fee and bringing local children through to pet the animals.


Sunday, February 19, 2012

Not again

It's been a horrible past two days.  I have gone through so many emotions within the last 48 hours: anger, disbelief, frustration, sadness, bitterness.  I've had to be supermom and take care of the household on my own because Hubs has been out of commission over this.  Today I went down to the man cave and harped at him (again) until he finally got up.  I felt awful being so witchy, but life does go on even after something like this happens.  It's just so damn frustrating.  I guess I should explain...

Hubs goes to a VA about an hour away for a lot of his care.   He has done residential treatment at that VA and is getting ready to go back.   Every other Friday, I go with him to see his therapist there.  This is new, but I don't mind.  It gives me a chance to listen and put in my own two cents about how he copes with things, how things have been.  Anyway, we drove down there just to find out that the therapist (along with most of the doctors) had called in sick.  We had driven an hour for nothing.  Looking back, maybe it was an omen of some sort of things ahead.

Driving back home, he got the call.  I thank God that He was looking out for us because Hubs wasn't driving when he got that call.  We had pulled over and I had ran inside a Culver's to get some food.  Had Hubs been driving, I'm pretty sure he would have crashed so I firmly believe God was looking out for us. As it is, I came back out to the car and saw my Hubby hunched over in the passenger seat crying.  Shit. This cannot be good.  He told me to drive and then he told me:  One of his friends from residential treatment programs had died this week.  Suicide by Cop.  

My first thought was not of this man's family, but of my own.  I knew this was seriously going to fuck with my husband, and I was right.  

I'm so angry.  And I feel guilty for feeling angry.  A family out there is grieving their son, their brother.  But I am selfish and thinking of my family.  This isn't the first time someone he's been close to has died.  First in combat, then in suicide, now this.  How much more can this guy take?  Come on already!!  Those thoughts have gone through me.  Hubby is pretty closed off to the world, he doesn't like to get close to people and I'm usually trying to get him to open up and meet new non-military friends because I worry about him only having friends from the service or from the VA.  I want to keep him in an bubble where I only let in certain people, people who aren't going to call him late at night with meltdowns, people who aren't going to end up homeless, aren't going to kill themselves or someone else.  Is this so wrong??  I just want to protect him, and I can't.  I can't protect him from these people, because these are the people he connects to, and don't think that doesn't scare the crap out of me also!

So, once again, I must help him get through this.  Hubs does not grieve well.  He shuts himself off from society and his family.  He doesn't care about interacting with his children, his wife, his interests.  This will carry on for days, if not weeks.  I'm so mad, so Fucking mad.    These soldiers, sailors and marines are hurting, but their actions affect so many people and their families.  Their buddies, who they say know them best and would do anything for them, end up hurting them and leaving more scars.  My husband will lay around for days and I'll struggle to get him up and going, to help him remember he's still in the land of the living.  It sounds so harsh, but left to his own devices, I'm sure that would not end well either.  

The kicker is I know this will happen again.  Somewhere along the way, someone else he knows is going to lose their battle with PTSD.  I hate to be so pessimistic, but it's happened so many times.  All I can do is pray he keeps getting the help he needs, and that he finds some better, healthier ways of grieving, because this sucks ass.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

PTSD vampire.

He's sucking the life out of me.  This man I love, who is hurting so badly, is killing me.    There's always been more valleys than peaks in his cycles of PTSD, and we've entered another long, demanding valley.  I knew it would return, it always does.  If he's happy for a day or two, I breathe a silent thank you to God and then, as soon as I do.....the bottom drops out again.

The depression and the awful pessimism is weighing me down.  I try so hard to be "normal", so my kids don't get too affected by it, although I know they are affected by it.  How could they not be?  I try to keep up a peppy attitude for my own sake at least, otherwise I'd get sucked down into his pool of depression too.  As it is, I'm barely keeping my head above water.  I'm trying, but it's so hard.  Some days I don't even want to talk to him, because I know nothing positive is going to come out of his mouth.






Thursday, February 9, 2012

The power of friendship

I have a confession to make. It's hard for me to keep friendships. I feel like I've spent the last oh, 5-6 years just trying to survive. Survive year long deployments, the terrible two's, moving cross country, and above all, surviving PTSD. It has sucked the life out of me so much that I havent had anything left in me to foster friendships. That sucked. Good friends can carry you through so much, and over the years so many of my friendships have withered from lack of effort on my part. Well, not anymore. I recently joined my church. I'd been going there for years but Hubs and I decided to become members. This involved going to some new member meetings where they filled us in on things the Church offered, stood for, etc. one of the speakers talked about a mom's group. I was hooked. Then, about three weeks later I had my second munchkin and life was chaotic for months with a new baby added to the mix. Well, this week I reconnected with the group by going to one of their meetings st Noodles. Then, today, I went to visit one of the moms at her house. My host offered up baked potato soup (yum!) and tried to teach me how to crochet. I'm not very good, but it was so nice to be able to relax, chat and just....be. I was comfortable opening up a little about my situation and it was almost therapeutic. She didn't try to counsel me, or offer up opinions on what to do, she just listened and was sympathetic. In short, she was a friend to me. I have a mission, a goal. My goal is not to allow myself to be so consumed by my husbands issues and stressors that I lose me in the process. I've got to reach out to people and foster those relationships, because friendships are so, so important.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Here I am

Blog take.....5?  I've tackled writing a blog before.  My last blog I kept for about a year, but it tended to focus only on how much my life sucked at the time.  Reading back through some of the entries, it hit me that my blog was kind of.....pathetic and depressing.  Which, that's okay, after all it was MY blog and written for my benefit.  However, I wanted to start afresh.  So many good things are happening, or are about to happen (I hope), so here's to new beginnings:

A little about me:  I'm married.  Hubby and I have been married 7 years now and we have two munchkins, a girl and a new baby boy.  Thus, the four of us.  We also are the owners of a mischievous cat and a sweet little bunny.  My background is teaching, but I quit my job after the birth of our son to stay home to be with him and my hubby.  Hubs has severe combat PTSD.  Yes, it does suck and hell yes, it is stressful.  He's been fighting the battle for a long time and at times it has seemed like PTSD was going to win, but my husband is pretty tough and stubborn.  I guess I identify quite a bit with being the wife of a disabled veteran.  It's become my life to help him through this as well as to raise our family the best I can in a safe, nurturing environment.  It's not easy, and there are days I cry and want to beat my head against a wall.  However, there are good times too, if there weren't, I wouldn't be here.

So anyway, post numero uno done on this blog.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to blog about but I guarantee there will be some humor, some tears, some bitch sessions, and some silly moments.  Life is never dull around here!