Just a quick overview of today...
BLAH! I just wasted four hours of my life!
I'm convinced that the class I attended today was intended for folks without any common sense. I've tossed the idea of even posting anything around for the last hour. Am I simply putting others down to make myself feel better about sitting through a parenting class that I thought I was "above?" I really don't think so. Seriously! I think I was the only one in the room of over 100 without my butt crack hanging out (I don't think it was), a ring in an odd place (no comment, y'all), or that wasn't enjoying the class. The class should have been marketed as, "How to Do Divorce: Jerry Springer Style."
If you've never attended a course on how to parent through a divorce (state mandated, thank you very much) then you might not have a clue why I'm whining so much!
First of all, they packed over 100 people into a small courtroom. The lady sitting next to me was sitting in her chair and mine. For all I know, she might have been sitting in her other neighbor's chair, too. No. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just telling you how darn cramped it was. And, in case you didn't know, I DON'T like to be touched by strangers or be in crowded places. My overlapping friend also had on some perfume that smelled similar to possum potion number nine.
While the speaker thought he was quite funny, his lame jokes just drug things out. He covered topics such as, "Don't Use Your Children as a Bargaining Tool, Don't Fight in Front of Your Kids, and even Don't Forget About Your Kids." Some of the attendees were asking questions about these topics which made it quite obvious that these topics were like headline news to them. My favorite question was from the man sitting across the room. He raised his hand and said (mumbled), "I'm tired of paying child support to four different women. It's getting old and I just can't afford it. I can't work because I have a disability." Um. I admit. My first thought was, "Well, darn mister. Obviously, you've got one body part that seems to be functioning quite well if you have twelve kids between four wives!" Seriously? And, I'm assuming he was getting rid of wifey poo number five if he was taking this class. I don't think anyone would pay for it and take it just for entertainment!
The other odd thing about the course was that most of the attendees were there with their spouses. I guess everyone was in varying stages of the divorce process. Maybe you get a buy one get one free deal if you go together. The room never got silent. At all times, there was bickering going on. The couple in front of me was arguing over whose friend ratted out their affair to the other. There was a serious undertone of hatred running rampant throughout the room. I've never been so relieved to know that everyone came through a security check as I was sitting there in that cramped court room.
The sad thing, never once was marriage mentioned as a sacred union or as anything more than a contractual obligation that could be dissolved with a bit of money and red tape. They never mentioned all of the increased risks that kids have when they have divorced parents. It was all about how to quickly dissolve your marriage and move onto another marriage with your kids in tow. At one point, they started referring to the kids as a business that you had to deal with despite your hatred for their other parent.
So, those were the facts of the day. The whole thing was asinine and almost irreverent to the institute of marriage. My emotions that went with the lecture throughout the four hour torture were much different. The tears started flowing within the first two minutes of this "therapist" beginning to talk about how much divorcing spouses hate each other and how that hate impacts their kids. Maybe everyone else in the room was able to look at the big picture but every time this guy said, "Kids," I imagined Annie, Grant, and Dasha. Not random kids. My kids. Our kids. Every time he said, "Spouse," I thought of Eric. Somehow, there's no hate with the thought. Sadness, yes. Acceptance of the situation, yes. But not someone that I'd want to poison as the couple behind me was discussing. I had no idea that you could put Clorox into someone's drink to "knock them off." Yeah, I knew you shouldn't go sipping the stuff like a cocktail but I'd never considered using it like that!
To me, it was all personal. The tears silently flowed (along with the snot) for the better part of the first hour. Of course, I didn't have a tissue with me and I was blocked into the corral and couldn't move out to get one. I just kept swiping my nose and face with my hand like I was three years old. When I left, I even had snot tread marks down my pants. Nice. I know you really needed that information.
Bottom line, I went. I sat. I got the certificate. That was the goal and it's now accomplished. However, I'm completely emotionally drained and still so stunned that folks don't have enough common sense to know what's good for their own kids. To top off my day at the circus, I picked the kids up and got everyone settled into homework only to find that Dasha had done more wrong than right today. When I started quizzing her about the teachers' emails, I noticed she had black marks all over her front teeth. Yep. She'd eaten another pencil. However, she didn't see the problem with it since it was "only a little one." I just couldn't engage. I took her pencils away and gave her crayons to finish her homework. I guess if she eats those, she'll at least have rainbow teeth instead of slate gray ones. I also ended up handing her over to Eric via video chart for some back-up. When she returned to the table to finsish her homework, she looked bewildered. I asked her what she was thinking and she said (and I quote), "I don't understand why everyone gets mad at me when I eat pencils. I have more pencils in my binder and it's not bad." Tomorrow morning, maybe I'll just serve her pencils for breakfast. I don't get it. What used to be once or twice a month drama has turned into everyday drama and I just don't have the mental capacities or patience to try to work it out logically with her. She simply doesn't understand logic!
This drama is all added to having to "milk" Grant's hand again, help him write the answers for his homework, and remember how to do 6th grade math.
Then, there's the sitter's frustration over trying to potty train Annie. Have I mentioned how stubborn Annie is? I guess Annie continues to go under the table at the sitter's house to poop. The moment Fatima sees her head under there, she takes her to the potty and waits for Annie to do... nothing. She puts the Pull Ups back on her and waits for her to head back to the table to take care of business. The sitter said that this went on all day long. The minute I put Annie into the car seat this afternoon to head home, she said, "I needa go home and poop in the potty." I brought her home and she went directly to her room and came back downstairs with the box of wipes and a diaper and asked me to change her diaper. Geez. Like I said, she may never potty train. She can just transition from Pull Ups to Depends. I don't really care right now.
So, this was my day and it's not even over yet.
I'm just looking forward to this long weekend. I'm not looking forward to having a furlough day and trying to figure out how to budget for that but I am looking forward to the extra day on Monday. I have tickets for an apple orchard and a pumpkin farm from Groupon. Maybe we'll do one of those things this weekend just to get out of the house. Or, maybe we'll just have nap time all weekend!
For now, I'm heading to find Dasha and make sure that she finished her homework and make sure that Grant's hand is milked again and wrapped up properly. Do you know how hard it is to wrap a child's hand with stretchy gauze so that areas A, B, and C are covered but areas D, E, and F are left open? I'm thinking about getting a cotton gardening glove and simply cutting holes in it in the correct spots and letting him wear that!
Good night, all!
