In the land of giants...

I discovered something incredibly disturbing tonight. My baby, the boy I carried for 9 months, who is now almost 7 years old, is a whopping 49 inches tall. I am only 62 inches tall. When did this happen? I will soon be surrounded by giants.

Sinners

I am determined to have a good week, even if it kills me. Work sucks, but I am just trying to put in my 8 hours and not stress about it too much. I need to call the doctor about Miles, but I keep putting it off because I don't want to think about it too much and get sad again. I am going to try and get everything done in a timely manner, so I don't spend the majority of my evening worrying about lunches and laundry. I say this as I am sitting in front of my computer at almost 5pm and I haven't started dinner. Baby steps.

So on occasion my semi-Catholic upbringing comes back to haunt me. Actually, no, that makes it sound sinister and it isn't. My point is this year I have given something up for Lent, trying to be the good Catholic girl that I once was, sort of. There are certain ground-rules I have developed in my head about what I can and can't do involving said activity (which I refuse to mention). However, it is proving to be much more difficult than I thought it would be, and that is all I am going to say about it. Only 35 more days.

Off to make dinner like the good wife I am. Sometimes.

Lists

Yesterday was devoted to my once-a-week grocery shopping trip. I started this a few weeks ago because I came to the conclusion that I go to the grocery store far too often. Once upon a time when I didn't live near a grocery store, I made sure to buy the majority of my necessities in one trip instead of going 4 or 5 times a week. That is my new goal. Living 3 minutes from the grocery store is sometimes a curse because I think to myself: "I don't know what to have for dinner, I'll just go to the store", which, invariably, places undue stress upon my life and we end up not eating until sometime around midnight because there are too many choices at the store and we all know how good I am at making a decision. The main component to my new plan is a very specific, detailed list. Too often I write down a couple of things I need and figure I will remember the rest. Well, I don't until I need it to make some delicious meal and we end up eating mac and cheese from a box. So I spend a long time working on this list and planning out what we are going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention snacks, for the next week. I finish my list and get my coupons and reusable grocery bags and head off for what is usually a lengthy adventure requiring multiple stops. I hate that we have so many grocery stores because there are certain things I can only get at one or the other. I go to Hannaford for seafood and sometimes other things depending on the sales; I go to Wal-Mart for a lot of things even though I hate it because some stuff is much cheaper, however, I refuse to buy produce there because it looks like it came from the dumpsters of the other stores; but most of my shopping is done at Shaw's because it is 3 minutes from my house and it holds a special place in my heart, and they have good produce and a deli counter. So the point of all this rambling is that I spend all this time trying to make this come off without a hitch, but, as we all know, nothing works that way in real life. Most often the snafu involves my list. Two weeks ago I lost it in between Wal-Mart and Shaw's. Yesterday I left it at home. Luckily Erik was here so I could call and copy it down while standing in the aisle at Hannaford. So that was my fun and exciting Saturday. Not to mention, we are supposed to have ANOTHER storm, so everyone and their third cousin was out stocking up in case we all get stuck in our houses by the snow, because that happens so often around here. I love people.

I feel like going into hiding and sleeping for at least a week. However, tomorrow is Monday, so I will be back to work at 6am. I work a full week this week, and then next week I only work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because it is February vacation. You know what that means. In less than 2 weeks, my baby is going to be *excuse me while I wipe away the tears* 7. How did this happen? I don't recall seven years going by. I think I need to start looking at canes and walkers, because the "golden years" are approaching rapidly. As my dear, departed grandmother always told me: 'The golden years are hell.'. Looking forward to it.

I need to go do something. I am almost done with my Harry Potter book, so I am tempted to finish that. I should really do housework, but that's not nearly as fun.

My day off

It is Friday. Miles has no school today because of parent-teacher conferences that, because of the weather, they have decided to cancel. I forgot he was having today off, but conveniently got the day off anyway. We were going to go to the party store to peruse the selection of party paraphernalia for his upcoming celebration. However, it appears to be snowing out and I don't know if I want to drive all the way to South Portland in the snow just to go to the cool party store. We will have to go out at some point because we are picking Rory up at school today. We haven't seen him in a long time, so that will be nice.

My cat is cleaning herself. I can't imagine how an indoor cat could get her paw so dirty that she feels the need to bite at it to get it clean enough. She is hilarious. She is mostly white and incredibly meticulous about her fur. Now she has decided to wait for her sister to come through the door so she can jump on her. As usual she has forgotten what she was doing and is now lying down and sniffing the floor. Cats crack me up.

I am going to go have some Honey Bunches of Oats, which is by far the greatest cereal on the planet, and think about what to do with my day.

Shut up

So my child has - no surprise here- ADHD. Now I have to decide what to do about it, if anything. I am terribly stressed and depressed about the whole thing. I don't want to talk to anyone about it, because everyone seems to have an opinion about what I should do. He is my child and I am the one who has to decide and I am the one who has to deal with it. I don't really give a shit what anyone else has to say. It just amazes me that people think they can tell me how to parent. Anyone who has never dealt with this as a parent has no idea what it is like. I love my baby just the way he is. Sure, he drives me nuts when he bounces off the walls and doesn't pay attention when I tell him 100 times a day not to run in the house. But that is him and I accept that. If it were as simple as his behavior being annoying, then I would never do anything about it. But it is not that simple. His life at school is suffering because of it. I don't want him to grow up thinking he is stupid because he doesn't understand what is going on in class. He understands, he just doesn't listen because his mind is too busy being preoccupied with other things. I just don't know what the right answer is and I don't care to hear what anyone else thinks it is. I just want to curl into a ball and go to sleep and when I wake up it will all be taken care of.

ADHD sucks

My baby is broken. I just want to cry.

Saturday excitement

It's the weekend finally. I was able to sleep in today without any grief or snide comments thanks to my 10-hours-less-a-week argument. I guess once I put it into real numbers instead of whining about how tired I always am, I actually got some sympathy. Yay me!

We didn't leave the house today, but got quite a bit done. Erik installed some new cabinets in our horrible kitchen. The cabinets are horrible as well, but it means more storage which it is sorely lacking in. Eventually we want a whole new kitchen, but that would require building an addition, since our plan is to make half of our current kitchen into a downstairs bathroom. So until I can afford my new addition with new kitchen, I don't care so much if stuff doesn't match. I do plan to paint all the cabinets so they will match somewhat, but I don't know when that will happen. I also plan to paint the kitchen, dining room, and reading room. Hopefully within the next 10 years. I tend to procrastinate.

I bought Miles one of those disgusting Kid's Cuisine frozen entrees that he loves so much. Because of his severe milk allergy, there are only 3 kinds he can eat, and he still can't eat everything in those 3. For dinner tonight he was going to eat the "Fiesta Beef Taco Dippers", which consists of 3 little tacos, a bag of tiny tortilla chips, applesauce, and disgusting liquid cheese. So I opened it and discovered that the frozen liquid cheese substitute had somehow leaked into the other compartments, thereby rendering it inedible to my child. There was one taco that didn't get contaminated, but what would be the point of eating one microscopic taco? He took it well. Everyone assumes he must have it so hard because of his allergy. He has been like this his whole life, so he doesn't know any different. Sometimes it bothers him, but I try to find dairy-free alternatives to most of the things that other people eat. Except cheese, I have yet to find a dairy-free cheese that doesn't look or taste like plastic.

That's all I have for now. Tomorrow is the big game. Go Pats! Monday is Miles' doctor's appointment. I am incredibly nervous and stressed about the whole thing.

I just remembered I have a gin and tonic sitting on the counter. Off to drink away my sorrows!