I visited my friend on Friday and her sweet little Miss Kitty was so curious and a general pain in the ass, as only kittens, and children, can be.

Life continues on.  I saw my podiatrist on Friday and if I haven't broken a sesmoid bone in my foot, she'll clear me to go back to work on March 1st.  I was complaining of some pain under the ball of my foot and she just wants to make sure that nothing is cracked; I'm going for an xray shortly.  I tried to go for an xray on Friday but the place I went to, their machine was down.  The doc also gave me some pads to disperse the pressure on those bones and that's helping.

Jack is Jack, happy, sad, funny, crying, angry, and oh so sweet at times.  We took him out to play places on Saturday and Sunday as it was too cold to be outside.  First rule of play place, nobody talks about playplace, and the second rule of playplace, get a seat early if you don't want your back to hurt.

We took Katie out and she shook hands with everyone she could, with those who were too far away, a wave had to suffice.  She also looked good in purple.  The scars on her forehead are from her banging head on the floor or walls when she's upset.  Katie still gets upset but far less than she used to thanks to valproic acid, a mood stabilizer for her.

And that's it.  

I took the dogs for their shots yesterday and Lucy is not as close to death as we had feared.  She's on a new medication now, a diuretic which will help to remove the fluid from her lungs.  She had it IVP (intravenous push) yesterday and we saw a huge improvement.  The pills are supposed to be given twice a day but that won't work when I go back to work, even once a day will help though.  I took both dogs to the dog park and they had a great walk and Lucy peed a ton.

The lego building continues on, unabated in our home.  

About fifteen years ago my husband broke his left leg and ended up with a rod and screws in his leg.  A few days before the weather changes, he is in a lot of pain.  Last night he asked me to put some peppermint oil on his leg for the pain, and then Jack wanted to get in on the fun.  I put some peppermint oil on Jack's hand and he proceeded to slap my husband's leg which caused even more pain.  I taught him how to gently rub the oil on poppa's skin.  Then Jack touched his eye.  OMG.  I did that once at work by accident and it is so painful.  Crying and yelling ensued.

I told him to stop touching his eye, scrubbed the oil off his hand and then got him upstairs for a shower to help wash the oil out of his eye.  As he went flying into the bathroom, he managed to whack his head on the doorknob which caused more crying and screaming.  I finally got him into the shower, washed his hand again and let the water do it's work.

When his shower was finished, he wouldn't get out of the tub and I finally left him in the bathroom by himself.  More crying and yelling.  He wanted nana to wrap him in his PJ Masks blanket and bring him downstairs.  I told him no.  He came downstairs to tell me this and then ran back upstairs.  I again told him no.  Then he came back downstairs and put his blanket on the register to warm up;  the cat promptly curled up on his blanket and Jack remained naked.

Eventually he got his pyjamas on and a diaper, it took him forever to fall asleep.  At one point he got up to go to the bathroom and he gave me stinkeye, asking why he had a diaper on.  I told him that he had watched me put it on him and that he needed it because he had peed in the bed by accident.  He was not happy.

Life with an almost four year old is never dull:)

Jack is also a very picky eater, it runs in our family, I understand it because I am a picky eater too.  But two nights ago he kept changing his mind about what he wanted to eat for supper (this is new), after supper was in front of him (he wants control), and I made the mistake of hopping up and down for him and the dogs while I was trying to eat my supper (very bad for my mood).

Yesterday, I printed out pictures of the things he will eat for supper.  He doesn't like our food, too spicy, and I am not going to eat his boring food.  There are now photos of six different things on the fridge and I told him he can choose what he wants for supper but that once it's made, that's it.  He tried different things last night, I need this, I want that, etc but I refused to get up until my meal was done.  I had a mother who did this too, the hopping up and down for children and her husband; that needs to stop because it just gets me cranky and shows a lack of respect for me.

So in case anybody thinks everything it's all goodness and light in our home, while we raise our grandson, it's not.  I love him but he's still a turd at times.

 

 

Once again I feel like a piano is tied to my ass.  We've decided to sell our condo and use that money to pay down the mortgage. I hate dealing with realtors, renters and appointments, maybe that's what's bugging me.  There's also no sunshine this morning, so there's that.

Poor Jack has had accidents the last two nights which have upset him.  Plus he's got sore legs from running so hard and playing so hard on Saturday.  I've never seen an almost four year old limp from sore muscles.  He wants us to carry him.  Dude, you weigh forty pounds.  

Jack seems to be entering a new phase right now and has become more diffiuclt at times.  He is very articulate and I think people (his grandparents) probably expect more from him because his is so very good with words, but he's still a little guy. Almost four year olds are supposed to be stubborn, bossy and defiant; it's part of normal development.  He's also starting to understand how powerful words are and uses them like a weapon at times, also normal.  Last night he was mad at me and pulled some leaves off a plant of mine.  On Saturday I told him it was time to leave the playplace and he pulled my hair, hard.  He drives his poppa crazy with the Lego.  His poppa builds the Lego and Jack literally destroys it.  He doesn't understand that it shows a lack of respect for his poppa's time and energy, but Jack only wants  something built so he can take it apart.  It's the destruction that he wants.

I mentioned to somebody (Debby) this weekend that I only want peace and quiet.  If I want peace and quiet, it's up to me to do that, not others.  I need to put limits on what others can expect of me, including Jack and his poppa.  I really do want a peaceful life where a dog walk in the afternoon is not something requiring a lot of planning but rather something I can just slip out and do.  I take good care of everyone else but not me, something which is looming large with me with my return to work in March.  These past five months of staying home, while boring at times, has greatly reduced my stress (except for my son and his families) and I want to keep that in my life.  Work can be very stressful at times, who am I kidding, most of the time.  Plus there is everything around the house that still needs to be done.  I did it before but not sure how I feel about doing it again.  Resentful maybe:) 

Bagheera enjoying the heat register.

Walking in the dog park.

 Hoar frost.

I shut comments off yesterday because I just needed to get that shit out of my head.  I felt stupid and naive, but none of these drugs were a thing when I was young.  My friend has far more experience than she ever wanted with drugs, thanks to her son, and she's always so kind and compassionate.  She told me a lot about crystal meth, how it's ingested (now I know what that pipe was for in Gracie's house), and what the side effects are.  I also did some reading about meth which helped my understanding as well.  

All that I can do, I have done.  There is nothing else for me to do, so I need to just leave it be.  What will happen, will happen.  This thought works for a little while, until I find myself spiralling down again into my neverending worry pit.  But I'm trying.  The past week has left me feeling battered but yesterday helped.

I quilted for most of the day; it's almost as good as gardening because it allows my mind to relax.  I picked out all the fabric on Monday with the help of a very nice woman at the quilt store.  It took an hour and half but the time was well spent.  The woman who helped me is also an artist and helped me find colours and fabrics that went well together, and also explained why they went together.  It was a good learning experience and now I'm busy cutting all the fabric into six inch squares.  I have eight metres of fabric so it takes time and focus.

I took Heidi for a long walk yesterday, both for my foot and for my mind.  Walking also allows my mind to relax.  We have hoar frost again and it was so beautiful.  The small sparkles of light in the photo above are not natural, I accidentally left a filter on but I liked the look.  I did my ten thousand steps and woke up with a sore foot, but that's a good thing.  I need to know if I can walk all day before I commit to going back to work.

Life continues on despite everything.  Two nights ago I snapped at Jack during supper, the whole day was a shit show really, and then I apologized.  He was awful too because I was out of sorts and tense.  Then we went upstairs for his bath and he wanted me to play cars with him while he was in the bath.  When he plays cars, he wants them to talk to each other.  It started out as a shooting game but then it became a farting game and our cars were farting at each other.  We both had a lot of fun and after his bath he gave me a big hug and said, "I like when you silly Nana."  I told him I liked being silly too.

Note to self, I need more silly.

My son was released from the psych unit, the doc said my son was fine.  I found out yesterday that my daughter in law uses, coke, crack, crystal meth, heroin and various pills.  I called Children's Services and made a complaint.

I called my best friend, whose son is a drug addict, and she told me the same thing had happened to her son.  She thought he had lost his mind; he was hallucinating, delusional and losing his mind.  He was underage at the time so she took him to emergency.  They kept her son for 36 hours until he self confessed to using crystal meth, he was not mentally ill, he was a using crystal meth.

I know nothing about drugs even though my son was a drug dealer and drug addict.  Denial I think is what it's called.

My son is trying to get sober, my girlfriend thinks he had a slip up and lost it because he is genuinely concerned about his son's safety.

On a side note, now I know what I found at Gracie's house, a meth pipe.  I had no idea what it was.

Jack is safe.  Children's Services will look into Charlie's life and see if he is safe.

Life is kicking me in the ass these last two weeks.  Mostly I feel stupid for trusting and not seeing what was in front of my face.

I'll take Heidi for a long walk later and try to breathe.

We had a rough weekend.  My hubby was sick and both of us were feeling down with regards to my son, his wife and our grandson.  Jack was out of sorts all weekend, probably because of our stress.  He was a turd at times.  He had a bad dream and was cold last night, so he crawled into bed with me in the middle of the night.  It's nice to be able to give comfort to someone.  I'm feeling much better today, even though we have no idea what's going on.  

I'm starting another quilt today, this one will be a wedding quilt for my middle daughter.  This is the style and colours she has picked out, and here's a link to the creator of this quilt, credit where credit is due.  I did tell my daughter she was killing me with the muted colours and simple pattern but she just laughed.  I prefer lots of bright colours but it's not going to be my quilt.

It looks like I'll be going back to work starting on March 1st so I will be walking a lot more, trying to increase my tolerance for walking, without my foot hurting.  I see a lot of dog walks in my future which is always a good thing, for the dogs and for me.

And some funnies, just for laughs.

My son was apprehended and is now undergoing a psych evaluation.  From what the nurse told me, he is being cooperative.  His main concern is the safety of his youngest son, Charlie.  In other good news, Children's Services will be fully investigating all of the allegations my son made against his wife.  I don't know what's going on with those two, they both lie, but I am hopeful that Children's Services makes sure that Charlie is safe, and if he isn't, that he's removed from the home.

It broke my heart going before the judge yesterday to ask to have my son apprehended and held, but my son is fine with it and hopefully we all get some answers.

Jack is home, sleeping on the couch.  He's always exhausted when he comes back from his grandma's.  The big guy is sick and he's sleeping on the other couch.  I'm eating chocolate because I'm a little/lot stressed.  We canceled Katie's visit for tomorrow.  My husband is sick and I'm stressed.  Katie can feel stress from a mile away and it just upsets her.

Life continues on.

Yesterday I took the dogs out for a walk, to the dog park.  As always, a beautiful place and it wasn't too busy because it was early afternoon.  While I was walking the dogs, my son phoned, I picked up, something I haven't done in years, and that's when all hell broke loose.

My son had Charlie with him and he wanted to come to our house.  He wanted Charlie to be safe; then he went into a long list of things that were going on, such as:

-people doing drugs in the basement of my daughter in law's rental

-children being held against their will

-sexual abuse by his wife, of their little boy

-a pedophile ring

-people attacking him

-barricading himself in the house with Charlie, pushing a sofa up against the door

-telling me that his wife had tried to kill Charlie with a crow bar

-people were following him or trying to stop him from keeping Charlie safe

-his stepdaughter was in danger, due to the pedophile ring

-he managed to get one of the children out of the basement

It went on for awhile.  I asked him if he was sober, yes he was.  I asked if he was hallucinating, no he wasn't.  He wanted us to take care of Charlie but I said we couldn't.  I told him to phone the police and children's services but he didn't want to do that.  I told him we wouldn't be home until 4:30pm and left it at that.

When I picked up my husband from work, he told me that my son had been there looking for me, but I wasn't working.  Then my son wanted to see my husband, but my hsuband told reception that he wasn't there and my son and grandson left apparently.

We drove home and picked up Jack at daycare.  We were late getting home and arrived about the same time as Jack's other grandma arrived to pick him up; she was going to take him for a couple of days.  As we stood there visiting on the driveway, I got a phone call from City of Edmonton Police.

My son was somewhere,  but they didn't know where, and they wanted to make sure that Charlie was safe.  We talked for a couple of minutes, I got her phone number and then texted my son.  He was in Sherwood Park, at the bus terminal with Charlie.  I told him to stay there; I phoned the police officer back and told her that I was picking my son and grandson up shortly and gave her our address.  Then we went to pick him and Charlie up.  

My son wasn't high or drunk but he was seriously delusional.  After the police arrived, my son told the police all of the same things that he had told us. They said they would investigate his allegations and they told him they could give him a ride home or they could arrest him.  He agreed to a ride home and we agreed to take Charlie home.

Once we go Charlie home, we sat and talked for awhile with my daughter in law.  Charlie was happy to be home and wanted his mama to hold him.  Charlie ended up on the floor, playing with his sister and her friend. My daughter in law has a no contact order for my son, but she keeps letting my son in.  We told her that needs to stop.  None of the allegations that my son made were true but all of them had a thread of truth running through them.

There were people in the basement; there is a rental suite in the basement and the renter had friends over.  My son could hear children's voices because one of the people visiting downstairs had their little girl with them.  There was a sofa beside the back door because my daughter in law had an extra, free, couch and was waiting for someone with a truck to help her move it to her daughter's house.  The guys visiting in the basement rental suite did come upstairs when they heard my son and his wife fighting and tried to intervene to keep my daughter in law safe.

Afterwards, one of the police officers sent me a link to mental health act forms, to have my son apprehended and have a psych evaluation done.   My son showed up again at 2:30 in the morning to his wife's house. She called the police, he was arrested and then they let him go.  

I filled in the Form and tomorrow I will take it to the Courthouse, a warrant for my son to be apprehended.  My heart is broken again.

The sun came back into my tv room last week, shining through the windows, making both me and the plants happy.

I've been home all day with nothing much to do.  Yesterday I cleaned the house, vacuumed, washed the floors, caught up on laundry and made supper.  Today I had to do something so I started finishing up the two quilts that have been sitting on a chair, waiting for me to finish them.  It's the binding that needed to be finished on both quilts, and binding isn't even hard to do, but it can be tricky, especially if you don't pay attention.  I don't always pay as close attention to things as I should.

I don't like just sewing all day, I want to listen to something too, so I turned on the radio, CBC Radio One and listened to a show called Tapestry.  It's a show about spirituality, religion and the search for meaning.  Years ago the presenter had a psychologist on the show, Jonathan Haidt from the University of Virginia.  He had written a book called the "The Happiness Hypothesis" and what he had to say just made so much sense.  The one thing I remember most strongly about that show was the fact that studies showed that writing/journalling, made people feel better, just as much as talk therapy.  I started writing then, much more seriously, and learned about cognitive behavior therapy, did that for a couple of years, and then realized how unhappy I was with my husband and got divorced.  My point is, her program was life changing for me.

This morning she had another psychologist on the program, Dr. Marisa Franco, and she has written a book called "Platonic".  The book is about friendships, about how important they are to us and why we should be embracing friendships as important in, and to our society.  It seemed to come at just the right time for me, after I had written about a friendship of mine that had died.  The author talks about how important it is for us to have different friends to allow us to express different parts of ourselves.  One friend does not have to fit all.  I have her book on hold at the library now.

Then she mentioned something that I had never heard about, The Liking Gap.  The liking gap is the disparity between how much we think people like us, and the opinions others have of us.  Most of us underestimate how much other people like us and enjoy spending time with us.  She also talked about how we all fear rejection, and that the more we fear rejection, the more likely we are to keep people at a distance.  Disclaimer, this may be me:)

Because of things that have happened in the past, because of how I was bullied as a child, because of my own family, I fear rejection, a lot.  I doubt people when they say they enjoy my company.  I try not to let myself be vulnerable.  Although I seem open when writing, in real life I can be distant.  I keep people at arm's length mostly through humour but also through anger.  

And then this morning I heard that most people are like this and I was like wow!  I didn't know.  Maybe people aren't blowing smoke up my ass when they say they enjoy my company.  Maybe I'm not such an awful person, because that's often how I feel.  I deal with a lot of fucked up people in my life and I usually have to tell them no and deal with their blowback and part of me believes them I guess when they tell I'm a bitch, a cunt, a terrible parent, a horrible human being.

The program was excellent to listen to and left me with a lot to think about.  I don't know about most people, but I always feel like I'm the only one who feels things the way I do.  It gives me great relief to know I'm not alone; it's not just me.

 

There is very little going on here.  I got out to the dog park twice last week which was heaven.  Jack spent a few days with his aunt and Grandma; he didn't see his mama while he was with them.  Gracie has managed to piss off her mom and her sister, so they didn't want to deal with her either.

Jack was exhausted when he came home and out of sorts yesterday.  I took out Miss Katie by myself yesterday and while I was out, my hubby and Jack were playing with lego, for three hours.  Jack told my husband, casually, that he doesn't like his mama.  It breaks my heart that a three year old has to deal with such complex issues and feelings.  Your mama is supposed to be your safe place when you're a child, and as I write this, I realize there are many children in this world, for whom that is not true.

Last night, he was still tired and told me that he didn't love me.  I said that was fine, I still loved him.  Then he said he didn't like me and again I said that was fine, and that I still loved him.  Then later he said he loved me and poppa.  He uses love like a weapon and I'm guessing that comes from Gracie.  She's always asking him if he loves her.  It's her job to love him, not the other way around.  He's three years old!

I briefly texted with my son last week because I wanted to ask him if he was okay with us going ahead to petition the court for day to day parenting.  He supports us doing this he said.  I also asked him if he was sober and he said yes which suprised me, no alcohol and no weed, but that it was a daily battle not to use.  His honesty surprised me.  He's taking care of his other son every weekend when his wife works, despite her calling the police on him.  I told him I was proud of him and he said, not yet.  Another surprise.  I still hope.

Still life with lego.

And this is why I love the woods.  My foot is feeling better!  I'm not limping anymore!  I went for a walk at the dogpark yesterday and it was wonderful.  The trees were still there, waiting for me, looking like a cathedral, blessing me with their silent benediction.

I'm still working through the writing workbook my daughter gave me for Christmas.  Last night the prompt was to write about a time you were ignored.  

When I was fourteen years old I met a girl who was to be my best friend for thirty years, until she wasn't my best friend anymore.  We told each other everything and both went through a lot of shit together.  We had both married the wrong man and both had difficult children to deal with.  I loved her like a sister and thought she felt the same way.  She was my emotional support person, even when she moved to Vancouver Island. 

When I first left my husband in 2008 she was happy for me.  When I went back to try again, nine months later, and told her, she literally bit her tongue.  She had an infection in her tongue from biting it.  She was angry with me and thought it was a stupid thing to do.  I did what I needed to do at the time.   

I'm glad I tried again.  It convinced me that leaving my husband was the right thing to do and that I had tried.  So I had an alcoholic husband who was verbally abusive, a disabled daughter who became physically abusive when she hit puberty, a drug dealing son, and she told me that I was too angry.  That's all she ever told me, "You're too angry."  She ignored my emails and just didn't want to talk to me anymore.  Today it would be called ghosting but I had not heard that term at the time.

I needed her emotional support.  I had been there for her when she left her husband and had even loaned her money to leave him, which she paid back.  When she drank I was shocked at how deeply angry she was with her husband, but that anger only came out when she was drinking, otherwise she stuffed it all down, deep inside.  I listened to her, comforted her, supported her and she did the same for me, until she didn't agree with what I was doing.  It broke my heart for a long time and I cried a lot of tears over the loss of my best friend.

When I was writing about this last night I had to write and then distill my writing down into a four line poem.  What I realized and ended up with was a poem about two angry women, which I won't share here because it's a crappy poem but it speaks to me.  Both of us were such angry women and neither of us could cope with the anger in the other because it made us look at ourselves too deeply, I think.

I still miss the closeness we had; we grew up together and had history together.  I was her maid of honour and she was mine.  She was my son's godmother.  But none of that mattered in the end.  She didn't want to see my anger and all of the grief and sadness behind that anger, couldn't see it.  And I was the same.  I didn't realize how much anger and grief and sadness she carried either.  A part of me would like to tell her this but another part of me feels the need to protect my heart and not put it out there to be rejected and stomped on again.

It wasn't just her and it wasn't just me, it was the both of us, unable to give the other what we most needed. 

In the last two days of 2022, mother nature gave us a beautiful display of hoar frost.  When I was at the indoor playground with Jack, I was talking to a young mom about the hoar frost.  She hadn't seen it before as she was from Palestine and had only lived here for the past four years.  I explained that it was called hoar frost and spelled it for her, hoar, not whore.  She said that she found it more beautiful than the fall colours.

Jack is back to daycare today and I'm thankful that holidays are over.  I love that guy but five days with him, without a break, is tiring.  We managed to get him to nap yesterday and I took Heidi out for a walk.  I heard a woodpecker and managed to get a photo of it as well.  It's a pileated woodpecker.  We get lots of downy woodpeckers at our suet feeder and once in a long while, a pileated woodpecker.
 

Jack is toilet trained now, so well toilet trained that he woke me up just before midnight last night to let me know that he had to pee in the potty.  I helped him with his diaper and then got him back in bed, but he wanted me to lay down with him, so I did.  After about half an hour, I went back to my own bed, only to have him show up a couple of minutes later.  He wanted milk and he wanted to sleep with me because he was cold he said, so he slept with me for the rest of the night.  On a side note, why do small children kick so much when they sleep?

Last night I got a long message from my daughter in law.  My son had refused to give her back their son who had been staying with him for a couple of nights.  She had called the police and was distraught.  I thought my son was doing well, sober ( I hoped), working, an apartment, caring for his son.  I hoped.  He finally showed up at her house with their son.  I woke up this morning, grumpy and then realized I had hoped again and had that hope destroyed, again.  I'm not getting involved. 

And some funny for the new year because we all need more funny.

Update

I'm having a really hard day, between fatigue and frustration and anger with my son; I feel really down.  I know it will be better tomorrow but today sucks.