Tag-Archive for » teenagers «

Hodgepodge

12
Jan 2012

I am almost completely past the roller coaster!

I do not have an overriding theme to go with this post.

But first, I want to tell you that you MUST go out and buy Joshilyn Jackson’s new novel, a grown up kind of pretty. I just inhaled the book. It arrived yesterday. I tried to stay up all night reading it because I did not want to put it down, but my eyes refused to cooperate. They kept closing. So at 1 a.m. I gave up and went to bed. And then this morning, at 6 a.m., I was awake again and “working” from home. I waited until most of my family was gone to their various obligations, and I buried myself once more in the novel. I was done by 9 a.m. and ready to dive back in from the beginning. Loved. it. Absolutely.

It is so quotable. I must confess that I absolutely love the way Joshilyn’s brain works. She puts words together in ways that make me want to stare and admire them as if I was standing in an art gallery and actually knew something about the art I was staring at. Example #1: “…and Liza would know; when it came to mapping all the bad ways adolescent girls could go, Liza had been Magellan.” That quote was on page 2. By page 2, I had already read at least 3 or 4 quotes out to my family. Such as example #2 from page 1, “I like black cats about as much as I like any other color cat, and I’ll go straight under any number of ladders if you put the right kind of pie on the other side.”

You must read. The book is yummy. And I fluffy heart it.

OK, but this post isn’t all about my newfound love for Joshilyn’s latest. I also had other things to talk about.

For instance, right now, right this very minute? I have nothing to grade. Nothing. I am all caught up on grading. This is the last time I will be able to say this for the next 15 or so weeks. Enjoy. I am. I love the way it sounds — nothing to grade. Nevermind that it is because nothing is actually DUE yet. I’m taking it.

I am down another pound. I have now lost 61 pounds. And the weight continues to come off especially when I exercise. Who knew? LOL

Do you know who I love more than Betty White? Dolly Parton. I cannot wait to see her new movie, Joyful Noise.

Why did I mention Betty White? Everyone was declaring their love for her on the People’s Choice awards show. I caught White’s line about how turning 90 wasn’t an achievement. It just happens. Great line.

I have had coffee this morning. That’s it. I should probably eat something and take my vitamins. Plus, I should actually work. I need to also get dressed. And before that, I should exercise.

I have an orthodontist appointment tomorrow. I will be getting braces on my bottom teeth. I am not looking forward to it. Well, I am looking forward to the final results of my braces but not the in-between stuff. Braces hurt.

My oldest child still has her braces. She had hoped to have them off months ago. Now it looks like she will still be wearing them for months.

Her canine tooth was sideways behind her front teeth and ABOVE the roof of her mouth. Almost two years ago, she had oral surgery to expose that tooth. The process to pull it down where it belongs began almost immediately. The tooth is moving into place, but it moving slower than molasses. Once it gets to where it needs to go, it will have to be twisted into place as well. This will take a while. And her braces are paid for, and her orthodontist schedules to see her every 8 weeks. Why not sooner?

She has also managed to damage her eyeball. It is a temporary damage (hopefully) because she tended to wear her contacts too often. Her contacts were not made for that. She had an appointment to get her eyes checked earlier this month, but the appointment had to be postponed because her eyes were damaged. She has to wear her glasses until the 23rd in order to give her eyes time to heal. Silly girl.

The 12-year-old boy is playing basketball. He refuses to wear an actual winter coat, so I am kind of glad that it has been a mild winter. Still, I keep warning him that one day he will be out and about without a coat and the vehicle he is in will break down, and he will be cold without a coat. I am sort of hoping it happens, so he will learn to wear a coat!

The man child has also lost his basketball shorts and basketball shoes. He does not know how. He claims they were in his locker but admits they may have fallen onto the floor without him noticing as he carried them somewhere. How he drops something without noticing? I do not know except I do know because I know him, and he could do it.

Yesterday, I drove home with a heated massaging seat and listened to Michelle (my GPS) tell me how to get home while listening to my Kindle Fire play “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” It was very relaxing. It makes me want to commute to work more often. :-)

And that’s it for today. Thanks for playing.

 

 

Category: Choppy Thoughts  Tags: , , , ,  Comments off

Dirty Laundry

21
Dec 2011

The child pictured at left thinks her dad is an asshole and her mother is a bitch. Life sucks, and she cannot wait to move the hell out of her home where she hasn’t been happy for a very long time because, hello, her parents suck.

They do mean things.

For instance, they yell at her when she uses things that do not belong to her — especially after she has been told not to use them.

This does not stop her from using those things anyway, which is why they yell.

Her horrible parents have spent about $1,000 in the last two months to repair a vehicle that she has repeatedly abused and broken including getting said vehicle stuck on railroad tracks. Somewhere in there she managed to crack the caliper in HALF. But her dad is such a fricking dick because he PAID for the parts and REPAIRED it for her in less than 24 hours. That is just how much of a dick her dad is.

Her mom is a bitch because her mom gives her gas money to fill said vehicle when it is empty.

Her mom makes her do things and yells at her when she doesn’t. Her mom repeatedly asks her to do things like clean her room, which she ignores.

When things go missing, they tend to be found in the girl’s possession. Yet she has no idea how they got there or that they are even there because the girl’s room is messy.

Her absolutely hateful parents do horrible things like not get her what she wants. For instance, she doesn’t have a phone or a laptop, or a vehicle to drive, a kindle, or a varsity jacket.

Oh wait, she has ALL of those things.

And how does she repay her parents?

She yells at them.

She lies to them.

She sneaks out of the house.

She thinks everything in this house belongs to her and treats it that way.

She shows no respect to her parents.

She screams at her siblings.

She expects everything.

She whines.

She yells.

She throws mini tantrums every single day.

But it is HER PARENTS that are the problem.

She doesn’t pick up a single thing. She throws something away and it misses? You can expect to find it next to the trash can for the next week.

She still takes her laptop to her room although she was told not to. Plus she can get online with her Kindle but she isn’t supposed to.

They make her do dishes even after she has worked all day and hasn’t had any sleep because she stayed out the night before and now can’t say a civilized word to a single solitary person.

OMG they make her do dishes after working all day! Can you believe that?

They yell at her when she threatens to hurt her siblings or actually does hit her siblings.

They tell her to shut up and go to her room without dinner when she just can’t keep her mouth shut despite repeated requests to knock it off.

Her dad’s a dick, and she is ready to do something that will really make him think twice about just how stupid he is being. She has enlisted the help of guys although she isn’t quite sure what she needs them to do yet.

Her dad trusted her implicitly. He didn’t think she could ever lie to him. She did lie. Her mom would figure it out. But her dad still believed her. Until the day he didn’t. Until she specifically told him she wasn’t lying, and her mother proved she was lying. Now, her dad can’t trust a single thing she says to him. But he loves her anyway. That’s a dick for you.

Now, her mom isn’t so bad, but she still has her moments. She really is a bitch you know. Plus, her mom the bitch will just go along with her dad the asshole.

As her mother, I am finding this is getting very old very quickly. Lately, I have given in to her demands to go here or go there because it is fricking easier than having her at home where she makes life a living hell from all of her bitching and moaning and lousy attitude towards the other 5 people that live here.

This morning, I am at my limit. I found just how little she cares for us, and I thought that I’d let the world know.

I suck as a mother. I’m a bitch. Her dad’s an asshole. I don’t know how the fuck she is going to stand living here until she turns 18 and life suddenly becomes wonderful and she can move the fuck out of this hellhole.

 

And the damn thing is that I still love her.

 

Category: Mother of the Yeeeaar  Tags: , ,  One Comment

Closet Clean Out

13
Dec 2011

This was captioned: I got the better deal -- more material same price!

I attended the kids’ band concert last Thursday and ran into the lovely lady pictured with me at right. She let me know she still had the shirt she is wearing in the picture below and let me know I looked great and could fit into the smaller version of the shirt. She still owned it.

The picture was taken at our 20-year-class reunion. We live in the same small town where our shopping options are limited. We both had the same idea when we bought the shirt at Fashion Bug.

I no longer own my shirt. It is too big for me now that I’ve lost nearly 60 pounds. I donated it several months ago.

Today, in my bedroom, I have another very large bag of clothes to donate. I had been holding onto my size 18 pants because they were what I wore for work. But they were getting very baggy. The other day I realized I needed to stop wearing them when I was able to take the pants off without unzipping or unfastening them. Plus, they made my butt disappear.

It is now the end of the semester, which means I won’t be needing many dress clothes for an entire month. I decided it was time to bag up the baggy clothes and all of the size 18s are gone. So are the size 16s (well except for one pair that is pretty comfy).

I know that I am going to have to sort through my underwear drawer soon. I have bras that are too big (in the band and the cup) and some underwear too. I have read too many horror stories about underwear falling off to trust my larger stuff much longer.

I am now in size 14s, and I even bought a jean skirt to wear. It is a bit on the short side, so I’m going to have to invest in some leggings of some type as well. The skirt was at the Gap Outlet and on clearance plus 40 percent off, so I bought it for less than $3. How could I not?

There is a downside to being smaller. I live in a home with three teenage daughters. The youngest is still a small, but the two older girls wear medium sizes. I am a size large now, which means my clothing no longer swims on my children, and they are finding things they like. The other day my oldest arrived home and upon seeing what shirt I was wearing announced, “I was going to wear that.” It was mine.

I suspect it will only get worse when they start fitting into my pants as well.

And in good news — my middle daughter has a pair of black knee-high boots. I tried them on, and they fit my calves! The problem is she won’t let me borrow them. ;-)

Category: Fat Man's Daughter, Weighty Thoughts  Tags: , , , , , , ,  One Comment

Protecting Presents from Snooping Children

06
Dec 2011

An Oldie but a Goodie: Mom (me) and Justin at a Christmas several years ago.

Driving to work this morning, I listened to Finster (of WKLT’s Omelette and Finster) complain about his stepkids snooping after his wife wrapped up presents and put them under the tree. Finster described a scene I was pretty familiar with — kids counting and shaking the various presents as they wonder what the packages might contain.

A woman caller suggested a fantastic strategy. Instead of putting the kids’ names on the packages, the caller said to use reindeer names. You don’t reveal which child is which reindeer until Christmas morning.

Tonight, I mentioned the idea to my husband, but my kids overheard. My son immediately decided it was a bad idea. He proclaimed that shaking the packages was part of the Christmas experience.

One of my daughters immediately called dibs on being Rudolph. When I suggested it would defeat the purpose if she knew the reindeer name I assigned to her packages, she proclaimed no one else should be Rudolph except for her.

Tonight, I wrapped a bunch of gifts.

(By the way, my son mentioned that Congress just recently passed a law that you MUST have a Christmas tree up and decorated once more than two presents have been wrapped. I’m sure we’ll all read the news reports about this new law soon.)

I refrained from using the kids’ names, and I used the reindeer names instead. Right now, we have presents for Dasher, Dancer, Vixen and Prancer.

The presents are not yet under our tree because we are in clear violation of the newly passed law. We are still without a tree. Instead of under a tree, the gifts are on top of the containers holding all of our Christmas tree ornaments and lights.

I think to completely mess with the kids, I will add more presents for Comet and Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. That’s right. I will assign TWO reindeer names to each kid, and they will be completely confused about who will receive what.

(Insert evil laugh!)

Category: Parenting  Tags: , , , , , ,  Comments off

Car Wars

28
Nov 2011

Mornings have become a battle ground at my house, but it isn’t because of any of the usual things (wearing someone else’s clothes, grabbing the last pop tart, getting in someone’s way, stealing mom’s socks, not getting ready, failing to get out of bed, etc.).

My oldest child, 17, has to drive to school at least twice a week because she takes afternoon classes at the local community college.

My second-oldest child has decided that she hates to ride the bus to school.

That picture is of the two of them in one of the rare moments when they are smiling and looking like they might actually like/love each other. (On a similar note, their behavior towards each other was so much sweeter when they were younger as evidenced by the family videos we watched while decorating our house for Christmas last week.)

As a result, my second-oldest child, without asking, will just get ready slow enough that she has to ride with her older sister.

Apparently, this is the way to kill/torture/maim the older sister because the older sister is never happy about this. It seems she would rather have her eyelids cut off than have her younger siblings ride in the same vehicle with her despite the years they spent in the same vehicle together.

I was driving to work and received a phone call from the oldest child who was concerned that younger siblings were planning on riding with her. “I’ll take the bus and not drive,” she threatened me. I wasn’t worried. I told her to not worry about it. She started objecting and complaining, and I said goodbye and hung up.

You see, the second-oldest child has already called and asked for alternative school-carrying means to be approved. I had approved them. The younger siblings were not riding with the oldest nor on the bus, but they were hiding that just to aggravate the oldest child. It worked.

The next day, the oldest child found a way to get the upper hand. She got up, got dressed and let it be known that she planned to ride the bus. When the bus arrived, all four children went out the front door. The oldest walked slowly toward the bus.

As her younger sister crossed the road to get on the bus, the oldest child waved bye and turned around and came back in the house. She planned on driving all along but didn’t want her siblings to know about it. It worked once, but I don’t think it will work again.

And I have to wonder, what is so wrong with siblings riding to school together?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Category: Parenting  Tags: , , , ,  Comments off
« Previous Entries