Figuring out what I wanna be when I grow up.
Oop..I AM grown up...


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Do I Need To Give The School My PMS Schedule???

Yesterday I went to a meeting after school to talk to the teachers about Jack, what we "want in place for next year," and what we can do for some challenging recent behaviour like getting up in other kids' grills when they tick him off.  OH...and recently expressing his displeasure for school lessons emphatically.

The mature, grownup side of me was like; "sure!", because it's a good idea, and the part that wishes I never had to have meetings like this was all "WHYYYYYYY?!?  [super whiny voice] CAN'T YOU GUYS JUST FIGURE IT OUT?  AW, COME ONNNNNNN !"

Well, it turns out that Jack has not been paying attention in class very well lately.  He's been losing his focus, mentally drifting.  He's also been struggling to understand the concept of TIME, as they are learning how to tell time on the clock, and he also has a hard time inferencing information from a passage he might have just read.

Okay, fair enough.  He has always struggled with the concept of time. It's always been an extremely abstract, unmeasurable concept to him.  That's fine, I'll help him out more at home.  Luckily, thanks to some excellent extra math help he's been getting (whether he likes it or not), he can now count by 5's!  He can also count by 2's, 10's and 25's and believe me--that's freaking amazing.    So, I'll work on that.

But,

If he's anything like I am was--let's just say that school BORED THE TITS OFF ME.  I mean, COME ON!  The books and things they have to read?  Pppft...Ella is starting to do an at-home reading program, and the first book she brought home was about some little wiener who went to the hairdressers for the first time.  WHO GIVES A F*CK?!?   Give the kid a book about some Monster High girl, or Jimmy Two Shoes, and she could read it and tell you EVERYTHING that happened--VERBATIM.

Okay, I'm going off on a tangent that I should not be on.  Not everybody in the world has such as terrible attitude as I do, and I try, OH LORD HOW I TRY, not to transfer my bad attitude about school off onto my kids.

And, in all fairness, I don't remember being completely, utterly, brutally bored to death until I got to highschool.

BUT, let's go back to Jack's lack of focus lately.  And, let's add to this little story a small anecdote from LAST MONTH:

Jack's teacher:  "Jack's just not been himself lately.  Usually he's so happy, but he's just not his usual happy little self this week."

He was moody and out of sorts and a little bit of a mild smart-mouth.

Hrm.

Yeah.

Something was starting to occur to me.  If I had one on me, I'd have whipped out a calendar of the past month and said;

"Yeah.  Were THESE the days that Jack has been lacking in focus?"




I'm willing to PUT MONEY ON IT that those were the dates Jack was lacking in focus.  I would also circle approximately two weeks from the month before when he wasn't his "usual happy self."

IT'S MY PMS DAYS, MY FRIENDS!  HOORAY!

Screech....

Oh but wait a minute, karen, you say.  Every freaking pissing month you talk about your PMS, and you have said approximately 1 billion times how thanks to that herbal supplement you take every day, your PMS is WAY better, so, frankly, WHAT'S THE DEAL?

Okay, so I don't get TWO SOLID WEEKS of pure emotional retardation.  It used to be TWO FULL WEEKS--FOURTEEN FREAKING DAYS of this:


ATTENTION EVERYONE:  I AM GOING TO NEED
YOU ALL TO SHUT THE F*CK UP.  YES, THAT'S RIGHT
ALL OF YOU.  IN FACT, CAN THE ENTIRE WORLD
PLEASE SHUT THE F*CK UP?!?
THANK YOU.

Now add in a nice dash of pure rage/all encompassing hate, a whisper of super sore hoots, a side helping of monstrous anxiety and a fresh squeeze of irrational weeping and you had yourself one fine karen.


So, things have gotten better.  But, it sure as hell isn't all butterscotch ripple here.


Sigh....it's so beautiful here.  Everything is so
beautiful.  Everyone?  Beautiful.  Even the word
BEAUTIFUL is so beautiful.  

No, it's more like 4 days, spread throughout of debilitating anxiety, 2 solid weeks of resigned apathy, one super sore right ba-bongo, and a pandora's box of SCREAMING IDIOT SO DON'T MAKE ME OPEN THAT BOX.  DON'T MAKE ME OPEN IT!!!!!

And the sad thing is, is that in order for little Jack to be the happy, secure, carefree, sweet little guy that he is, I need to have my shit firmly held together at all times.

Did ya get that, people?  AT. ALL. TIMES.

And I just can't seem to accomplish that, because during those two weeks?  Suddenly I'm aware that people TALK SO MUCH.  THEY JUST TALK AND TALK AND TALK AND I'M SURPRISED THEIR HEADS DON'T FLOP RIGHT OFF.

And phantom traces of poop on things like, dresser drawers, the side of the bathtub, the edge of the sink?  Well, instead of delighting me like they usually do, they fill me with a pyromaniacal rage.  And when one of the kids says; "I CAN'T FIND MY PEN/HAT/MITTENS/UNDERWEAR/SOCKS/DRACULAURA HEAD/ETC, instead of chuckling gently to myself and heading off for the billionth time to help find that LOST THING, I tend to lose it a bit, like a total ass.

And yesterday?  When I asked if Jack had been acting out, and not being himself during the past two weeks, I got wide eyes of revelation--like a great mystery had been solved.

Yeah.  That's right. I am Jack's WEIGHTED BLANKET.  And when I'm emotionally unavailable, it all goes down the toilet.

So,

Should I give the school my PMS schedule for the rest of the year?

I think I will.  Jack's teacher and EA are wonderful and work so hard.  They deserve that much.


Sigh.

32 comments:

  1. oh dear Karen, you are in trouble. Can you not double up on those pills?

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    1. yeah Melissa! WORD! Well, what I might do is start popping the evening primrose oil capsules like CANDY when those two weeks come round. That might help! Or, I'll just run away. Yes, that's it. Better idea.

      Delete
  2. I think you should provide that schedule to your twitter/blog friends too. Just saying.

    Your kid's fine. The etacher's overthinking.

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    1. Oh Lance, I strongly considered putting a countdown to PMS on my sidebar. It's because I care.

      No--the teacher is right in this case! Jack has PMS too. It's monstrous.

      Delete
  3. You are so hilarious!! I gave you the Versatile blogger award, btw. I totally understand as I think I am a sufferer of PPMD even though I have never been officially diagnosed. I diagnosed myself! Hormones are a b*tch and they wreaked havoc on me and always do! Thanks for making me laugh!

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    1. thanks jd! I am SO brutal at picking those things up, but I will get to it, DAMN IT.

      Yeah, I think I have that too, and it makes 50% of life CHALLENGING to say the least.

      Delete
  4. Holy crap. I need to send out a schedule like that at work. No meetings, no "one on one" get togethers, no new projects, please don't freaking talk to me. here are the dates, y'all.

    And I agree with the crap they make kids read. I LOVED the weird stories... I think the first book I ever read was "Bunnicula: the Vampire Bunny" when I was six or seven. Why, oh, why do they make crap so boring for kids these days?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Leauxra, the world just DOESN'T CARE! SNIFF! We need more sympathy damn it. And more "solitary rooms with donuts."

      Yeah, I don't know why school has to be so boring. I think I'm going to have to rant about it.

      Delete
  5. Amen sister. Ryan hasn't done any homework this week because I've had a horrible headache. And frankly, feeding them and making sure they are clean and have clothes to wear comes before homework. But now we're something like 7 pages behind and it will take hours and hours to get that done. Can't *ever* be off our game. :(

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    1. Lisa, homework is bullshit. And you're right--there is no rest for the mom. Ever. Oh wait..I'm sitting here typing in solitude. Still, we have to be ON TOP OF CRAP.

      Delete
  6. Funny you should write this, because I have come to the same realization lately. My kid is so sensitive and tuned into the vibes I'm putting off, he absorbs it like a sponge. Doesn't help that I also have my fair share of anxiety lately.

    Also, my kid has trouble with telling time and understanding what he just read. It just made me feel better to know someone else has that struggle. I was feeling very lonely about it last night. (hold me!)

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    1. COME HERE YOU! Flannery, I've been thinking about you, and hellz yeah you've had some stress lately you poor thing! Oh, but we're not allowed to have anxiety. The kids eat are, as you said, sponges for it.

      Yeah, that's why the internet is great because we realise when we're currently in SUCK TOWN, there are other moms there too.

      You know what-for fuck's sake, I SUCKED at reading a passage and answering questions about what I'd just read. And I'm BRILLIANT DAMN IT, so clearly that WAS a waste of time. Hee hee.

      Delete
  7. Karen I am laughing my ass off because I blew my frigging head off at my kids when dearest middle child couldn't find her light up sparkle shoes and started crying. Then I lost it and told her to put on any old shoes which was CLEARLY the wrong answer so I wound up saying Fuck it to hell and back I'm getting in the car with or without you kids. To which Alex starts laughing and saying--hehe, moms' going to go to school by herself....and then I rounded on him and Oh Lord please make it stop.
    AND THEN I had to send in a note to the teacher that the kids may be a little off all because mommy started her period this morning and went ape all over the kids. See, see what hell this is?!? Someone come over here and please remove my uterus. My family will thank you for it.

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  8. LIZBETH!!!!! This is wonderful! I mean, it's terrible, but it's WONDERFUL! OH my god--we need to connect with all the other moms and especially the moms of kids with extra needs, and see how PMS and hormones affect THEIR home lives!!!

    You just cracked me up. I had to even pound the table for amused emphasis. I would have been exactly the same over the sparkle shoes. Exactly the same.

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  9. Hmmm, think our little international community, the Martyrs to Our Blessed Hormones Sisterhood, seem to be in crazy sync - I feel like a total bitch and that can only mean one thing... Cos obviously I'm a delight the rest of the time.
    I have been guilty of the unnecessary and over-emotional yelling at the kids, the moaning and griping about stuff that would usually make me laugh, the "it's not my fucking homework, I DID my homework, and now I know EVERYTHING" diatribe as I walk out of the room on the whining kids who can't be arsed to do theirs.
    Sigh... Oh Karen, pass me the Doritos please. I want to get to the rainbows-and-unicorns-and bunnies place now, I'm tired of being a cow.
    PS. I am now using "hoot" on a regular basis, you'll be pleased to know. It's not really a term used much here in the UK but I am officially adopting it on behalf of my British sisters. Thank you. xxxxxxxxx

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Curtise, I'm pleased by so many things that you said in your reply: I love the diatribe as your walking away from your kids, I love the Martyrs to Our Blessed Hormones Sisterhood, and I LOVE that you now use the proper term "hoot" in place of breast.

      This just makes me happy.

      Delete
  10. I thought you were going to post on how you freaked out during the school meeting...oh wait that was me last week!
    I find Sarah and I are completely miserable around the same time - hormones in the house make her crazy!

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    1. Nah, Michelle--I'm a rational, easy going person at meetings. It's at home I turn into a TARD.

      See? Who knew our kids were SO susceptible to our hormones???

      Delete
  11. My boys know that as soon as I start cleaning the bathroom sink..then it's time to steer clear of the crazy woman.

    Karen, have they worked out that your Jack, learns an entirely different way to other kids? He might be bored because he doesn't understand the way the teacher is "teaching" it. I know we had all kinds of problems with our son in the mainstream school, because he was way smarter than the stuff they were teaching him, which made him bored, and then act out. He also couldn't cope in the classroom environment. It was too stimulating, which made him unable to focus on his school work. I'm not saying you should do it, as it's a BIG decision, but we found that home schooling was the BEST thing we did for him. I mean, who else but us parents know the best how their little brains work?

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    1. Sprite, I think you've nailed it: it's different for Jack and totally boring. I agree that homeschooling probably would be much better, but I am far too selfish and I live for the break from him. That sounds heartless, but there you have it.

      Delete
    2. Not heartless at all. We made the decision because we are both stay at home parents, so we have the time. Like I said, it's a big commitment.
      Does the school offer any programs like advanced learning?

      Delete
    3. you know...I'm not sure! I'll have to look into that!

      Delete
  12. I know I'm responsive to my (very grown) daughter's mood - when she's happy, I'm happy. There is such a strong energetic connection; Buddhists call it a karmic connection.

    As for having mood/emotion-swings, oh, I know that so well, because depression can get very irritable. Sometimes it's just enduring someone, or just getting out of here before I lose it. Fortunately, I don't have a life where I get stuck with someone irritating. It really takes a lot of coping skills. Gee, that sounds weak.

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    1. somehow, Jeanne, "karmic connection" makes it sound touching. I like that. I do feel like I have that with Jack.

      That didn't sound weak at all. It summed things up quite succinctly: it does take a lot of coping skills.

      Delete
  13. No one can be on their A-game every single day. It just isn't possible.

    So I vote yes, send them your PMS schedule.

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  14. so funny! Yes we should all publicize our schedules! We need a break!

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  15. Damn it jennie, you're right. We DO need a break! MORE COFFEE FOR EVERYONE!

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  16. I've never thought about it like that, but I'm positive my "schedule" has an impact on my kids as well.
    Laughing at the rainbows and unicorns image.

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  17. Oh, Karen. For god's sake, YES!!! I think I may have to do the same for Rowan. It is a truism that if momma ain't happy, then NOBODY'S happy! Troy and Rowan get knocked off their nuts every month. You think they'd know what was happening by now...

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    1. ha ha ha...ignorance is NOT bliss, is it! Knocked off their nuts...wonderful expression!

      Delete

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