The roses continue to bloom. My mum would have loved these roses.
I had to go see Katie this morning because last time I bought her CBD gummies, I bought the wrong strength. This morning I walked the dogs early and then bought the regular gummies, at the regular store, and drove them to Katie's place.
Katie wasn't happy. She was waiting for the bus to pick her up but one of the staff had misplaced her bus pass, or taken it home with them by mistake. Not a huge deal, except for Katie it was. She was very upset, trying to pull my hair, banging her wrists against her teeth, and screaming and crying. Having me show up didn't help matters, so I didn't stay long.
This afternoon Jack and I have the ADHD course again. Jack seems to like it and I do as well. Right now the kids are talking about feelings and what they feel like inside their bodies when they have big emotions. And for the adults, it's how we were parented and how we're doing parenting right now. Of course I'm the oldest one there, and I fucked up my parenting with my own children, so there is that added layer to make things more difficult for me to sort out. I'm trying.
Our work for the week was to catch our kids being good and praising them. My husband and I both worked on that, and I worked on it with my husband as well because I need to. I am not a naturally warm, loving person so I work at it.
Tomorrow we're leaving for Adams River to hopefully see the salmon run. We tried in the past without success, but this year is supposed to be a banner year. Jack only misses a half day of school and he'll learn about salmon and habitats. I'm looking forward to it. The best part, my husband planned the entire trip and all I have to do is pack our bags. He even found restaurants for us.
The teachers are going on strike on Monday October 6th we found out on Monday. I texted Jack's other grandma and asked her for help, like I had back at the beginning of the school year. She's busy every day in October, except for one day. Not really much help, which I did say to her. I'll be missing my pottery classes unless I can figure something out for childcare.
I saw my niece yesterday briefly. She's getting married in a month and she asked if I had any of my mum's earrings. I had one pair, which are quite hideous. I took them over to her and she agreed that they were hideous. She's going to ask my sister if she has any of my mum's jewelery. I have no idea what happened to it. Everything about my mum's death is a bit of a blur. I was dealing with a lot of grief I understand now, but at the time I thought I was doing ok. I was not.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the wedding.
Sounds like a fab trip -- I hope you see lots of salmon!
ReplyDeleteI hope we do too. Last time we drove out to Campbell River and never saw a single salmon until the way home and we stopped at Valemont:)
DeleteWhat a wonderful trip! It'll be like an outdoor classroom for Jack. I'm impressed that your husband planned the whole trip. My late husband wanted me to do all the planning, then complained about it. There were a few melt downs about that! (on my part) When you were talking about the strategy of "catching kids doing something good," I thought how well that applied to ourselves. I need to do that instead of critiquing myself constantly over not exercising enough, not working on projects in my house, etc. Sorry about Katie. That sounds stressful!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see the salmon, sockeye apparently. And yes, it was so nice to have it planned out by my husband. I have lots of screwups in my past holiday planning, wrong day for the ferry, wrong floor of the hotel (upstairs with no elevator) etc. Nice to let that go.
DeleteI should try to catch myself being good too. I'm heavy on the self criticism and judgement too.
Also, I continue to unimpressed with Jack's other grandma. :( No help at all. Anders' other grandma is like that too although she's dealing with a difficult spouse with health issues and Alzheimers.
ReplyDeleteIt causes me a lot of resentment.
DeleteJack will love this trip! The other grandma must be very busy and organized to have everyday of the month filled already.
ReplyDeleteI think he will love this trip, I hope so:)
DeleteEvery day of the month except one? Really? WTF?
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew better what to do when I have big emotions. It's hard, even for old grandmas.
You are doing the very best for Jack that anyone could wish for. I truly believe that.
Yeah. Oh well, her loss.
DeleteBig emotions are hard. We were talking about anger at our class yesterday and how it's just the tip of the iceberg, covering all the other emotions below it like frustration, sadness, rejection, etc. Now we need to learn how to deal with them:)
That catching people doing something good is a strategy I learned in staff training in the nonprofit sector. It's a good one, when I can remember to do it. So many times people, especially children, hear when they're doing something wrong. It's quite a treat to be acknowledged when you done good.
ReplyDeleteWe all get a lot of criticism in our lives, people with ADHD get a lot more criticism their whole lives, but especially as children. It's nice to get an "atta boy/girl".
DeleteI'm so glad you have that class and that you all will be making that trip! I wish you had more help with childcare.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had more help too but that will never happen with the other grandma sadly. I had the same thing with my own mother in law when my kids were little, also caused a lot of resentment.
DeleteNever once in my life have I had something booked everyday in a month, unless it was work. I think she just doesn't want to watch Jack. That sounds like a fabulous trip.
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DeleteShe is a commited overscheduler:)
DeleteI think it'll be fun. We used to go away a lot before Jack was born, it's nice to get back to that.
What Allison said, flimsy excuse at best. I admire your dedication to raising Jack, it's a good thing you are in his life. Great trip, the little guy will learn something, Salmon are amazing critters.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be good for him to see the circle of life and spend time outdoors. The natural world is an amazing place.
DeleteWhen you tell us that you're working on it, it helps someone (me too).
ReplyDeleteIt's all we can do really, keep trying:)
DeleteDon't say you fucked up your parenting. You are a decent and sensible person, and I'm sure did your best at the time. A friend's parents were what were observably perfect parents, with love, care and stability, and gave their children good educations, yet the son went down the wrong path in life and drug overdosed in his 30s.
ReplyDeleteThe salmon running sounds exciting, and exciting to bears too, so take care.
I know I was not a very good parent, but I did try. Now I'm trying to do better, but still I fail. I'm not going to stop trying though.
DeleteWe have bear spray:) Jack wanted to bring a gun. We explained to him that we don't have a gun.
You are not a warm, loving person? You are to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks Katie. I'm not naturally a warm and loving person, it takes work. You know how some people just make you feel enveloped in love, yeah, I'm not like that:)
DeleteI hope the Wedding is a bright spot for you. I think we all can be too hard on ourselves when it comes to Parenting. Even after having Two Generations of a run with it, I know there are some things I could have or should have done differently, but, the Kiddos say in jest it wasn't like I was raising any garden variety children, so, there was THAT. And certainly I'm no garden variety Mom or Gramma either... how DO the "Normals" Parent I often wondered? And, what would it be like to raise a Child who doesn't have Special Needs? I'll never know. *Bwahahahaha* It's good that you and Jack are getting something out of the Classes, I did take some with The Son and with The Young Prince... they didn't have a Class that dealt with what I navigated with The Daughter, they still probably don't. *LOL* Princess T was and is my "Golden Child" and every Family should have at least ONE, it's only Fair! She hated that I'd call her that tho', said it put too much pressure on her to BE Golden, but, she basks in the fact she is and was our easiest, thank God since she was the final one we raised... mebbe we couldn't have lasted had she been NOT Golden? *Bwahahahaha* So funny now when she observes her Mom, who she only really met and got to know as an Older Teenager when The Daughter came back to America and moved in with us... and said, Wow, now I know why you Raised us Gramma! She Loves her Mom but can see why she wasn't allowed to Raise any of her Children and requires a lot of unconditional Love and someone looking out for her. So sorry Katie had such a difficult time of it with the Bus Pass situation, I know that has to be hard to not be able to diffuse a meltdown in progress and have to just exit stage left. That's how it is with Schizophrenic Loved Ones too, there's just no sense in Engaging and it can escalate things if you were to be foolish enuf to try.
ReplyDeleteYou have been through the wars your whole life Dawn. You are amazing how you manage to keep all the balls in the air, despite people stealing or hiding your balls:)
DeleteI'm not a parent so I'm not really qualified to talk about it, but I'll just say that I'm sure you did the best you could under the circumstances. It seems harsh to say you "fucked up" your parenting. You could have done things differently and still wound up dealing with similar issues.
ReplyDeleteHow could Jack's other grandma be busy every single day? Does she work?
I would love to see a salmon run in real life! Hope you will and can take pictures.
ReplyDeleteMy parents raised us following the watch them hit the wall method, whereby they watched us from a distance making mistakes and figuring out what to do next, while they had a smoke and a laugh and only when we came up with the correct solution was there any praise. For some reason, physical contact was fine when we were small but there was an unwritten rule that it was verboten by the time we started school.
I hope that Katie has got her bus pass back by now. It is easy to understand how such a disruption could make her have a kind of tantrum. Just now I guess that you are still at Adams River. I hope you manage to catch a big salmon with your bare hands.
ReplyDeleteSending you love during this teacher's strike. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. <3
ReplyDeleteJack will learn so much more from the salmon run in actual nature than he would from half a day in school. And one thing I have come to understand is that parents do the best they can and in your case your best was so much better than most I’m sure. I watched my aunt, an amazing, generous, and fiercely loving human, do her best with her two kids, and it didn’t work out so well with either one, and sometimes that’s just life. We come in with our life scripts I suppose, and maybe we’ve even made deals with each others souls beforehand to live them out in tandem, who knows? It’s a story I tell myself. One thing I do know. You did your best. And now for Jack, you know more.
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