Fabulous Monkey Tub Action

So last time the girls spent a weekend with their dad they came home with a Curious George DVD. No real issues there. We're sitting here on the couch, watching it together, and the phrase "fabulous monkey tub action" just made an appearance.

I don't know if I can, in good conscience, let my kids watch something that sounds like monkey porn. I'm a little creeped out.

Not so much

Oh, folks. Things here are going... not so well.

I think it's been about six months since I went off my meds. I could be wrong. I could go check. I'm too lazy. Give or take, six months.

I've started yelling again. I'm not really sure where it comes from. Somewhere deep in my brain that I'm not consciously aware of. I can maintain calm for a finite amount of time, and then...

I snap. I yell. I say things that, if they ever remember them, will make my kids feel like shit.

I've started to get that feeling, where the outer shell and the inner being are disconnected. Most of the time the shell is intact. Things get accomplished. Dinner is made, laundry done, phone calls returned. Moderate-to-good parenting takes place. I read bedtime stories. I teach the Bear how to skip.*

But underneath, the hate and the anger are just simmering, seething, waiting for any excuse to erupt. It's like a solar flare - brief, violent, intense, then gone.

I remember this feeling. I've been feeling like this for, oh, I don't even know how long now. Years. A decade? Maybe two. I can't feel connected to anyone in any human way. I'm entirely alone in the Universe, and sometimes it's too much to take.

Along with the anger comes a decided lack of impulse control. I mean, NO impulse control.

Exhibit A. I just threw away my cat. Not into the trash can, obviously, because that's highly impractical. Into the street. She bit the Bear. I'm tired of listening to the Bear cry when the cat torments her. I would get arrested for throwing a human child into the street. Not so with a cat. So, cat is gone.

I want to be happy. I do. I see things that I think should make me happy. Turning leaves. Smiling children. Tomorrow is the Fall Festival at the Bear's school, which I have been informed we must attend. Games! and Prizes! Games And Prizes! It looks like fun, or something that passes for fun when you're four. The school is sponsoring a pumpkin decorating night - we'll go to that in a few weeks. Free! I'm going to a conference that promises to kick ass - for like four days! Free! My mother is going to come for a visit - yay! The New Guy is coming for a visit - also yay! But really, much as I know I should be made happy by these wonderful things, I'm not. I can't be.

I think my soul is dead. Try as I do, I can't feel anything but pain.

Good god, that sounds melancholy. I swear I'm not being overly dramatic on purpose. I hate that shit.



*Did you know that children don't innately know how to skip? They must be taught. I, myself, was six years old before I put the right sequence of motions together. The Bear, it seems, is my child.

Don't worry

Why is it that the parenting things you worry about seem to come in threes? Just like all the other bad shit in your life?

A) There is, by all accounts, a not-very-nice little girl at the Bear's preschool. Two of them, really. Tiny little four-year-old bitches. Last week, they wouldn't let the Bear play with them because she had the wrong color of hair. (!) Then, today, Little Miss Emily* wouldn't let the Bear play Ring Around the Rosie with her and Cynthia. The Teacher had to tell Emily to be nice (!) to the Bear. While I'm glad that the teacher has a good grasp of the situation and is reminding these little shits to play nicely, and while the Bear is completely unperturbed by all of this, and has her own little group of nice, sweet girl friends (god bless Nikole with a K!), and while I know as a teacher that this is just part of the growing up process, I am just. furious. In my heart of hearts, I would love to protect the Bear from all the unpleasantness of life, and I can't, and it just kills me. Somewhere out there, little Emilys and Cynthias are being MEAN. To my BABY. That's so not cool.

2) The Bear failed her hearing test at the doctor's today. We've known for almost a year now that she doesn't hear very well, and place the blame squarely on the 50 or so ear infections she's had**, but it still gives me visions of little tiny hearing aids, and mama don't like that very much.

C) The Bear has been talking to her Head lately. Out loud. She'll say, "Head! Stop bothering me! I don't want to listen to you!" and discuss at length with me the things that her Head is telling her to do/think/say/feel. Given my family history of mental instability, I'm convinced that I have a schizophrenic preschooler running around here. Is she or is she not hearing voices? I can't tell.

*You'll never know if that's her real name or not...

**I'm not even exaggerating here.

Taking a break

I'm a socialist! Thanks, Amy!

You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (10% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Howler

I try very hard not to make fun of the mistakes my students make, even though it's incredibly tempting. But sometimes, you just have to share with *someone*. When a student mistakes a P for a V and ends up saying that her chores include cleaning up her Volvo, instead of dusting her room, it's just too funny not to laugh!

On second thought, reading that here, it's just not as funny as it seemed on paper. Perhaps it's time to take a break from grading...

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle

Gentle Reader, I have, in the past few months, er, years, said some less than flattering things about my soon-to-be-ex-husband. And I stand by many, though not all, of them.

None of that matters tonight. On the merest whiff of suggestion from me, he independently arranged for the kids to go to his parents' house this weekend, thereby freeing my schedule for 48 whole hours, whereby I am free to indulge this godawful head cold* in blessed, merciful solitude.

Plus! He offered to take them winter clothes shopping, of his own volition. Because he Wants To!

Somewhere in my head, that White Stripes song about how You and I Are Gonna Be Friends is playing. I would smile if I didn't feel as though my sinuses would implode. I'm smiling on the inside.


*Thank you, seventh grade boys, for coming to school sick even when you should be home in bed, thus infecting EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE FREAKING BUILDING, HOLY SHIT. TAKE SOME ECHINACEA ALREADY. AND WASH YOUR DAMN FILTHY LITTLE HANDS.

When it rains...

First, may I just point out that it's been raining here since Friday, and it's not supposed to stop until Tuesday, and that we are tired of the rain, please?

Things here are incredibly complicated at the moment. I have no clue what I'm doing, I think. Teh Ex is being incredibly difficult and rather sweet by turns, and I couldn't figure it out for the longest time, until I finally caught on that he still thinks about me, ahem, That Way, and that since he can't have at me, That Way, he's taking his frustrations out verbally. Weird. I mean, now that I know, it makes it easier to understand, but not easier to deal with. We are trying to be friends, but working out the parameters of friendship with your ex after a divorce is just tough. People go from being friends to spouses almost too easily, but going back in the opposite direction takes finesse. We're still working on that part.

Then, The New Guy has made admission that he is, in fact, pretty much crazy about me, which is lovely and flattering and great, but I'm not sure how to explain to him that while I like him quite a bit, I'm not quite *there* yet. I'm slower, more cautious. I have to be. And I need to find a tactful way to explain this to him, without somehow invalidating the feelings he's shared. I'm not saying that I might not end up in the same place as him; I'm just feeling a little insecure about going there right now.

So, I have this bizarre balancing act going on, and trying to maintain balance without tumbling over the precipice on either side is way taxing. Especially when I'm more concerned with making sure that the kids come through this entire thing relatively unscathed, or as unscathed as it is possible to be when Mommy and Daddy don't love each other any more and decide to rip your entire world into pieces and patch them back together in a way that's not entirely pleasing to anyone involved.

I must say, I like being a single parent. I like the autonomy. I like the unquestioned authority. Nobody to haggle with over the Rules, how to do things, etc. It's all My Way, all the way. But the constant, 24/7 demands on my time are a real drain. I would love to have someone around to hand the kids off to for an hour, just an hour, so I could go sit in a quiet corner and just think. Or read. Or be. Or something. Something quiet. And it's not like I'm missing something I had so great, because Teh Ex was rarely home, and when he was, I still wasn't getting much of a break. I just wish I had help, sometimes. The kids are very small still, and very labor-intensive. I need some Me-Time, time to recharge or relax or whatever it is people do when they get a break from their children.

Well, for fuck's sake! How long should it take the average person, upon realizing that Blogger has done another stupid shitty upgrade which is completely incompatible with Safari, to realize that they can just break down and start using Firefox like the rest of the universe?

A) shut up.
B) the fine folks at Blogger can blow me. seriously.