Theme Thursday: Parenting, ADD Style

Theme Thursday was created by Jenn at Something Clever 2.0 to bring peace and harmony to the blogging world on Thursdays… and a place for a few of us to complain.  This week’s theme is Parenting.  To read other people’s takes on parenting, stay tuned immediately following this program.  OR click on the link at the end of this post.  Something Clever 2.0 assumes full responsibility if you are entertained by this post.

I love this picture and I want to use it everywhere…

Last week’s theme was O.P.K.:  Other People’s Kids.  This week the theme is parenting.  You don’t know how badly I wanted to entitle this post O.P.P.-Other People’s Parents.  But no, instead I decided to blog about me and what an awesome *cough* parent I am.

That’s a lie.  I am most likely classified among the World’s Worst Parents.  The WWP, it’s kind of like WWE without all of the chair smashing.  It’s because I miss stuff.  Not big stuff, like forgetting an important meeting.  I usually get to those.  I’m talking about the little things.  Little things like noticing that The Professor has claws instead of fingernails.  He probably doesn’t tell me they need to be clipped because he’s hoping that he’ll turn into Wolverine, so I can’t totally take the blame for that one.

I’ve got plenty more examples to support my point, take yesterday morning for instance.  I hit the snooze one too many times, spent too long on the computer looking at stuff, got in the shower late, got The Professor in the shower late, yet actually got in the car on time, got The Professor off to the sitter’s house just a little off schedule, and then drove the half hour to work.  As I pulled into town I caught a glimpse of Princess Tantrum in the rearview mirror.

Oh-I had forgotten to brush her hair.  And here I was congratulating myself on the fact that I got her out of the house in clothes that matched without a fight.  This isn’t unusual, she hates to have her hair brushed and will find any way she can to try to get out of it, but I usually catch it before I leave the house.  So I brushed her hair in the car before we went into the building.  Shockingly, I had a brush in my purse.  This IS unusual-I usually have all kinds of interesting stuff in there, but rarely something useful like that.  I am the person who has to buy extra deodorant in case I forget to put it on or has to go buy a box of maxi pads because I don’t have any on me when Aunt Flo comes to visit.

For those who are maybe just starting to read my blog, it’s not because I’m working.  It’s not because I have too many irons in the fire.  It’s because I’m ADD.  I have been all of my life.  I also happen to be the parent of an ADD child as well as married to an ADD adult.

I’m sure my son’s teacher is ready to throw me under the school bus.  She sends me little notes that I sometimes get, and sometimes I don’t get.  Again, I know about the important stuff, it’s those little things.  When I bring The Professor home, we have a little routine that we follow (partly for him, more for me.)  He puts his coat away and then brings me his take home folder with all of his papers in it.  When Dad picks up it doesn’t work as well.  Yes he get the stuff out, but by the time I get home it’s spread all over the living room.  Last week I found a note about having the kids bring in a little snack to eat during ITBS tests.  These were three weeks ago.  I also unearthed a note about bringing stamps for pen pals.  I vaguely remember her mentioning something at his last IEP meeting.  I guess I forgot.

Keep in  mind that trying to get to our post office within the ten minute window it is open each day is challenging even when you do stay home all of the time.  Now that I am working in a different town and trying to get to a place that sells stamps when I remember it is even more challenging.  I even sent the teacher an email about said stamps, asking how many he needed and adding that I might be able to stop on my way to work during one of the many two hour delays we’ve had.  I didn’t make it.  Today I got her reply, and I told her I didn’t make it, but would try to get over to HyVee after work and get some.

After work I went to HyVee.  I bought pop.  I also purchased pasta.  As I got on the interstate to go home I realized that I had forgotten the stamps.  I wasn’t going back.

She also mentioned his glasses.  Oh dear, dear *Mrs Saint-please don’t ask about the glasses.  Oh the glasses…

The Professor has owned two different pairs of glasses.  Add in the times that they have been completely replaced and it is more like four or five pairs.  The glasses he originally had were made of porcelain or something else like it that broke when someone spoke too loudly.  These are the kinds of things you get while you are on Medicaid.  You can’t afford a nice pair of glasses?  We’ll give you the cheapest pair ever for free and actually spend the amount of a nice pair of glasses fixing them.  Grandma stepped in after the 1,927 times I had to go get either the frames replaced completely, the glasses bent back into shape, the lenses replaced because they fell out, the earpieces replaced because they had fallen off or snapped…  She helped us buy a very nice supposedly indestructable pair.  He broke them three times.  He even had them replaced completely at one point because they were still under warranty and shouldn’t have been broken like that.  Never underestimate the power of an ADD boy.

The good pair snapped in half completely the week after the warranty expired, so he resumed wearing the crappy glasses.  These glasses actually have earpieces that are two different colors because that was the only way they could fix them the last time they broke.

I noticed him pushing the glasses into his face as he usually does (because apparently that is how you wear them when you are eight?)  His nose looked really irritated on one side.  This is because the nosepad was missing completely on that side.  The next week I went to the eye doctor on my break and had the nosepad replaced as well as the glasses unbent as much as possible.

And now?  We have no idea where they are.  I brought them home.  I brought them into the house.  Where they went after that is a mystery.  I can’t even blame him this time.  So now my son has no glasses.  Doesn’t that make me look like such a FABULOUS mom?

The good glasses, right before their imminent demise…

(Valuable Info that I need you to know:  My son can see without his glasses, he has lazy eye in one eye.  And yes, I will not let him go too long without them.  If they don’t show up soon I’ll fork over the dough to get a new pair-when insurance permits us to do so…)

To add to all of this great parenting glory, I got a call on my phone from the school yesterday from the school.  It turns out that although I had received the letter about kindergarten roundup for Princess Tantrum, I had neglected to sign her up.  Luckily, they know me pretty well there by now…

While I may receive no awards for my fabulous parenting akin to a zombie (except that I don’t eat human flesh or brains-former vegetarian you know) I think I should at least be considered for a Miss Congeniality of Parenting.  I’m nice, I try, and I don’t judge other people’s parenting.  If nothing else, I probably make other parents feel REALLY good about their parenting.

So what kind of parent do you think you are?  Are you a member of WWP like me or do you fall closer to the PPs-Pinterest Parents?  Pinterest Parents are the great ones who actually do all of that crap they find on Pinterest as well as remember to brush their children’s hair before they leave the house.  I merely have good intentions.  To make myself feel better, I just call them PPs.  Get it?  PeePees?  See?  World’s Worst Parent!

For other tales of my fabulous parenting, read And The Mother of the Year Award Goes To…Not Me!

*Names have been changed to protect people that probably don’t want to ever be associated with me.

Yes, he can be in the WWP club too! Check out last week’s post featuring Darth here!

Go ahead, don’t be shy.  Don’t walk, RUN over to Something Clever 2.0 and embrace the insanity.  Tell them I sent you.  On second thought, forget I said that!

The ADD Leading the ADD: Is There Hope for the Future?

You know, this house is full of ADD people.  Many days I really think it’s the proverbial blind leading the blind.  I’m surprised we all get out of bed in the morning and get out of our house with clothes on, let alone function like normal people.

Case in point-lunchboxes.  It’s bad enough that the Professor is severely ADD.  What’s worse is that his Mom is right there with him.  On Friday he came home without his lunchbox.  I did not notice this.  I went all weekend and didn’t notice this.  On Monday we looked at the menu and decided that he would do his one day of hot lunch that day since it was chicken strips.  It was then that he informed me that he never brought his lunchbox home.  We talked about it, and he agreed that he would make sure to bring it home.

That afternoon he comes home and tells me that he still forgot to bring his lunchbox home, as well as his take home folder.  Ok.  Late last night I emailed his teacher and asked her to please remind him to put his lunchbox back in his backpack.  This morning I threw together his lunch in a Target sack-a peanut butter sandwich, raisins, and almonds.  Lunch of champions, I tell ya.  I open up his backpack to stick it in and find HIS LUNCHBOX.  Why did he tell me he forgot it?  And why did I believe him?

After he left I saw I had a new email. It was from his teacher, it said “I put it in his backpack yesterday, did it not come home?”  Ah.  That explained it.  He had no idea it was in there.  I’m sure she told him.  I’m sure he forgot since he didn’t put it in there himself.  I sheepishly fired an email back telling her that I did not physically check it.

This IS the child whose backpack I didn’t check for awhile because we have always had him put anything important in a folder.  After several reminders, he knows to bring us the folder.  And to put his lunchbox on the counter.  One day last year I noticed his backpack was getting pretty bulky.  I opened it and pulled out five sweatshirts.

There are a lot of things that happen that are purely my fault around here, simply for me not thinking to double check on stuff that he does.  One of the jobs we have him do around the house is take the frozen groceries down into the basement and put them in the big freezer.  That’s not complicated.  I assumed that he could do it by himself.  However, one time he left the freezer door standing wide open.  Overnight.  Thank goodness it was pretty much just bread in there.  I don’t know why I’m worried, I think that freezer has a force field around it.  This is the freezer that you bet I’ll climb in if we are ever attacked.  It survived the basement flood.  It floated in several feet of water, and somehow continued to work.

The kid gets it from both sides.  I was diagnosed with ADD in 2003.  My husband has never officially been diagnosed, but he’s a classic case.  Another absent minded professor.  You may recall a previous post where he had every lunch container we owned at work.  He brought home a bag full of them, finally!

I am really dreading The Professor’s eye appointment coming up in a couple of weeks.  He has lazy eye.  He has been wearing glasses for a couple of years to try to correct it, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  That might have something to do with the fact that he was without glasses on and off over this time.  There for a while we were going in to get his glasses fixed almost weekly.  Medicaid doesn’t exactly give you high quality frames.  My mother finally helped us buy a pair that was considered indestructible.  He broke those too.  At one point he had one pair broken and one pair missing a lens.  After a lot of stress, we were finally able to get the one glasses lens replaced and the other pair of glasses replaced entirely thanks to a very understanding lady at the eye place.  She took one look at the good broken glasses and said, “I’m going to replace those for you.  That shouldn’t happen!”  Now he has two pairs of glasses, and the replacement pair has remained intact.  However he looks right over the top of them.  He was also given an eye patch that he was supposed to wear for an hour a day at his last appointment.  That lasted a little while.  Of course now it’s lost somewhere in the house.  It has been for awhile.  I have looked EVERYWHERE.   I kept thinking that I needed to call the eye doctor and get a new one.  And I kept forgetting.  Now it’s been a couple of months and his appointment is coming up.  I am embarrassed to take him and tell the doctor the truth:  That I do not have a brain.

Glasses and our family are not friends.  I have needed glasses since the 4th grade.  I have a slight astigmatism/nearsightedness and basically need them to read stuff far away.  According to the DMV, I don’t even need them.  This is probably a good thing, since I can’t seem to hold on to a pair.  I calculate that I have lost at least five pairs of prescription sunglasses.  I also lost my favorite glasses.  These were a pair of nifty looking plastic frames that I got as a freebie with my expensive transition lens wire frames I got a couple of years ago.  Transitions are great, but not for driving, because they don’t really darken in your car. I have very light eyes, and get headaches when I don’t wear dark sunglasses.  So I also had a pair of prescription sunglasses for driving, which of course I lost.

I currently use a pair of purple plastic sunglasses that cost $5 at Walmart to drive.  And then I just forget to put my glasses on.  And I wonder why I miss stuff.

My wedding ring is also missing.  Again.  It’s in our house somewhere.  Since it is “pokey” (as my daughter would say) I have to take it off when I sleep so I don’t slice my face open when I sleep.  So I’m sure it’s either in my bedroom because it got knocked off the nightstand, or in the living room taken off when I attempted to take a nap.  I sure hope the dog hasn’t eaten it.  He eats dental floss and dryer lint, why not wedding rings too?  I am glad my husband isn’t easily offended.  Of course he can’t talk-he used to work in a factory where if he wore a wedding ring there would be danger of his finger being torn off.  So every day he would put it in his pocket.  And forget about it.  I would wash his pants and it would come flying out of the dryer.  It became the running joke between us for the duration of his time at that job.  If we had money, I’d ask him to buy me a wedding band for our anniversary, that way I wouldn’t take it off.  I want a Lord of the Rings looking wedding band, but I’m afraid of the side effects.

I’m thinking another great invention for ADD people would be things that you just can’t off.  Glasses, wedding rings, etc.  We sure would lose them a lot less.

The Princess may be our very own Obi-Wan Kenobi.  She may very well be our only hope. She seems to have escaped the curse thus far.  She’s pretty on top of things.  I’m not saying she’s not going to have other issues, but at least she may be able to not be distracted by everything she sees.  I hope she doesn’t “develop” it later on.

Sigh… oh to just be able to pass as normal.  It’s never going to happen.  So bear with me.  I really try.  I really will keep trying when I remember to.  Just don’t hate my kid.  It’s not his fault, it’s all mine.  Don’t worry because I worry about it plenty (anxety, remember?)

These Dreams (Originally A Reference to a Heart Song but Now My Anxiety Dreams)

I bet cats don’t have anxiety dreams…

My last post, not my finest moment.  So not fine that I didn’t share it on Facebook like I usually do.  I got up this morning and looked at what I had written the night before, and thought about all those things that I haven’t shared.  It certainly was easy to write about.  I decided that it won’t hurt anything.  Oh hell, ok.  So I published it.

The anxiety dreams last night didn’t help my case.  Oh I had weird ones.  The one that stands out was the one where my dog became the Don Juan of the neighborhood, impregnating every female dog in a five mile radius of our house.  Yeah, we’re going to get the dog fixed next week whether we can afford it or not.  I can’t be responsible for an explosion of dog population in this small town.

That’s not the weirdest one I’ve had.  I’ve had some doozeys.  I’m not sure how you are supposed to spell doozey.

I often dream I’m losing my children.  I’m always losing things, so I’m not surprised.  In real life I’ve actually only lost my son once.  He ran ahead of the stroller and disappeared into the crowd at a home football game.  Don’t worry, he came back.  But that was the longest two minutes of my life.

My personal favorite is one I had about a month or so ago.  I dreamed we were going to Target (imagine that, in my life all roads lead to Target) and I lost my daughter.  Not exactly in Target.  There was a very big hill in front of the store.  For some reason, there was just this big grassy hill instead of a parking lot (I don’t know where we parked… details, details…).  Princess Naughty ran down the hill so fast I couldn’t catch her and disappeared into the revolving door (I don’t know of any Targets that have a revolving door, do you?)  She reappeared later in my dream, but then I lost my son.  He went somewhere in the car with my husband, and I couldn’t get a hold of them on my cell phone.  Which is perfectly normal.  My husband is notorious for either not having his phone, having it on silent, no knowing it’s dead, or just plain not hearing it.  He’s getting better, but he’s the reason why I pay for a texting plan-whenever he gets around to looking at his phone, I hope he may see my text.

Maybe she was after the bomb pops.

I have the school dream several times a week.  I’m back in (choose one):  a)  high school b) college c)  elementary school d) obedience school.  I a)  have never been to class b)  have a test I haven’t studied for c)  leave for school but never actually get there because I get sidetracked by half a million things d) never put on clothes.  Or it’s the work dream.  I’m at a) Kmart b) where I taught music c) one one of the daycares I worked at d) the preschool I worked at e) my associate job f)  the clothing store job.  I a) oversleep/don’t go b) have an evaluation c) am on my way but never actually make it to work d) never put on clothes.

Not exactly the school dreams I was talking about.

Do you see a pattern here?  Anxiety is FUN!

Another classic is the one where my husband leaves me.  I have been left because a) he didn’t like dinner b) he met a hot veterinarian c) he met a hot guy d) I did something he didn’t like e) I have no idea.  It’s always a relief to wake up to him snoring.  I tell him about these dreams, he just shakes his head.  I guess I’m safe-we’ll have been married for almost thirteen years and he hasn’t stormed out over dinner yet.

There are others too.  Many of the dreams I just plain can’t find something REALLY important.  I shouldn’t be surprised by that one, since that happens quite frequently to me.  My life is one big brain fart.

Maybe I just need a starship.

I really think if I ever get to therapy they’d probably write a book about me.  I hope I get some kickback from it, because I could really use the dough.

The anxiety itself has been much better these days thanks to a very effective anti anxiety medication.  I hated to do it, but the doctor really didn’t want to see me dead due to a heart attack.  I had been dealing with a racing heart and constantly being on the edge of a panic attack for the last few months.  While it doesn’t really help with other stuff, like moodiness, it’s nice to feel like I can deal with life rationally.  Like laugh at these dreams I’m having (I suppose the anxiety has to manifest itself somehow).  Enjoy my life.  And write this blog.

Have you ever had an anxiety dream?  Was it funny or freaky?  I find mine a combination of both.  And that’s ok.

It’s My First Blog Post! Truths About Me, Scary or Otherwise

I am not a cat… but I like this picture…

Apparently, I amuse people.  I find this quite hard to believe, but at least in print I have been told I am somewhat entertaining.  Not just me, necessarily, but me and the combination my two children, who are as unique as they come.  Somehow the mix here just works.  Time and time again I keep being told I need to blog.  Things that are true about me:

1-I am a Mom.  I guess I just said that.  I have two children, a boy and a girl, ages 7 and 4.  I also have a husband who can be a child.

This is not my family.  But we are very strange.

2-I used to have a life.  Ok, not much of a life, but I used to frequent places that didn’t feature groceries and one stop shopping in them.

There are usually two children crying when I am at the store.  Yes they belong to me.

3-I used to be a teacher.  I even went to school to be one.  The kids were great, it was the grown-ups who sucked.  I think the teacher choice was correct, it was the field that I chose to teach.  Hence the name of the blog, The Sadder But Wiser Girl. A gold star for you if you know what movie had a song in it of the same name.  Currently I am a KOSAHM (not to be confused with KOSAMA)-A kind of stay at home mom.  I work some, my hours and where I work vary greatly from week to week.  I don’t make much therefore I must take my kids to work with me when I work outside the house and attempt to work while I am home with them.  As a start this blog my elementary aged child has been out of school for a week, and I am already nearly nuts.

No this wasn’t me when I was teaching.  I didn’t really have a desk…

4-I live in a very small town in the Midwest.  One of those towns where the streets literally had no name until recently.  One of those towns where every event is done on the same date, at the same time, at the same place.  I am not from this town, not even from anywhere around here.  Therefore, I do not know what is going on.  Ever.

These are all everyday images for me.

5-I would like to be one of those moms who bakes everything from scratch, sews and makes all her own clothes, grows all her own food, and uses only all natural and organic products.  You know, I’d open my windows and start singing and small animals and birds would gather and join in.  Guess what, I am NOT that person.  Instead I am an anxiety ridden, ADD mom who makes a lot of food from a box that people in this house don’t eat, loves the organic grocery store but can’t really afford to buy anything there, and has a garden planted by my husband that I know the location of but really can’t tell you where anything is in it.  I also spend a lot of time clipping coupons and looking at those blogs that the frugal thrifty people have that I never actually use much of the advice on there-mainly because I lose the coupons before I get to the store or the recipe before I make it.  But I try.  What were we talking about again?

This isn’t me by the way.  That isn’t either.  But I’d kill for that hair.

6-Which leads me to this-I’m looking for something.  Really I am.  Most of my time is spent looking for something.  Keys, my son’s glasses, the remote, the box of pasta I KNOW I bought last week.  I’m also REALLY looking for something.  Purpose.  What I want to be when I grow up.  Inner peace. A good nights sleep.

And with these truths I start my blog.  Remember when reading it some important advice-enjoy it if you like it, stop reading if you don’t, and if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all!