tiggerprr’s scratching post

I never get too serious here at my scratching post because it’s usually more entertaining to write about the good or the funny. Today is not one of those days.

I never write about my childhood much. Mostly because it sucked. I had a mom with a severe mental illness that prevented her from being a nurturing mother, but instead an abusive monster. I feared her. I was shamed by her. The experience left me adamant that I wouldn’t ever have children, just on the off chance that I would be cursed with her illness and mostly, because I had no confidence that I would be any good at being a mother.

As with a lot of plans, things don’t always go as you intend. So I did have a child, and I have never known anything that resembles the love a parent has for a child. I hoped and prayed that I wouldn’t be the mother I had. I haven’t been.

Yet I find myself in a place I don’t understand. Ashlyn ran away tonight. Because I hold her accountable for her actions, or inactions and I refuse to bend to her will. To me, a good mother, will protect her child from harm, even if that means protecting them from themselves.

She has found herself safe harbor from me and my requirement that she be responsible and accountable for her actions in the home of her boyfriend’s mother. I suppose at least, I should be thankful she’s not out roaming the streets. I’m not finding myself able to be thankful that this woman I’ve never met thinks she knows more about what’s best for my daughter than I do. I think she’s got some balls to interfere in my family like this. But, Ashlyn’s 18, so there’s nothing I can do about it except give Ashlyn what she wants, to let her fly on her own without the interference of mom, but also without the safety net of mom.

Every action, has a reaction. I know Ashlyn hasn’t thought this through, but what she did today cannot be undone. I will never see her the way I did before nor will she see me the same. It is changed, irreversibly. I am changed. I have had two failed marriages. I have been fired from a job I loved. I failed to complete college. I have never felt as defeated as I do right now.

I’ve always been big on having a plan. I have no plan now and I feel like my path is so unclear. I fear for Ashlyn, because I know what she doesn’t know about life and how you can’t just do whatever. This is not my plan. Instead of looking forward to her graduation in 4 weeks, I now dread it. I do not know if she will get there and as of now, I have no plan to be there if she does. I cannot condone or support her actions.

Despite my good intentions, I have failed.

So we went out to eat for pizza tonight. And I was again reminded of how crappy a lot of parents are. Instead of ONE screaming kid, the table two tables down from them had 3 or 4 kids just running (literally) around the restaurant. One even chucked her shoe at the table behind them, whacking a guy on the melon. Both sets of parents…act like nothing’s going on. The dad of the shoe thrower wasn’t going to say boo to her, until the old guy tells her he’s not going to give her shoe back because she gave it to him when she threw it. Then the little girl chewed the old guy out. All dad did then was ask HER if she was going to say she was sorry. The dad should have been tripping over himself to apologize and then reign in that brat.

Here’s the deal…

A) If your kid screams to high heaven and you can’t calm them within a couple minutes…get a freaking to go box and maybe don’t keep your toddler out past what should be their bedtime.

B) If you have so little room at the dinner table in a restaurant that at least 2-3 kids (seriously, this happened) HAVE to stand at the end of the table, then run around (literally) the restaurant carting food around….Either go to another restaurant where they can accomodate you…or EAT AT HOME!

While you may think your kid’s banshee-like displays of poor behavior are cute or whatever…I don’t.

I raised Ashlyn such that she only threw one hissy fit in her lifetime in public… she was 3 years old. We were at the Houston Galleria and she wanted ice cream from Marble Slab. I agreed, but knowing she wouldn’t eat the whole thing and I’d end up with it, I told her no sprinkles this time. She threw the mother of all screaming fits.. “I WANT SPRINKLES… WAAAAAAAH!” I got the ice cream without the sprinkles….tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of taters…and took her immediately to the car…and ate the whole ice cream in front of her. Yes, I’m mean as a snake…. but you know what?

She NEVER threw a fit again…EVER.

I’ve been working. Loving it! (So far. I’m ever the optimist LOL). Soooo much less stress…sooo much more appreciation. I like it so much, I think I’ll actually take my Successories in there. I never took any personal crap to the last job, unless you count chocolate and Special K bars. We’ll see how it goes.

The kids also started school this week. So we’ve been adjusting our schedules and getting used to waking up on time to get five of us out the door and to our respective destinations. So far, so good.

I’ve also been playing WoW, but I am NOT addicted to WoW as someone seems to think. I just enjoy it, I could quit any time. I just choose not to.

Our first recording of our joint podcast led Yoshi to decide that we needed to have 2 podcasts, one where he and I co-host and interview fellow bloggers about themselves and their blogs. Jenny Ryan has graciously agreed to be our first victim interviewee. I just have to get off my butt out of Azeroth long enough to help Yoshi prepare some good questions for her. If you’d like to be interviewed by Yoshi and I, drop either of us an email, we’d love to hear from you!

We’re also going to go with our other podcast idea which is a mass hodgepodge of general discussions about topics of the day, news, movies, games, vacuum boobs, what Britney Spears isn’t wearing, etc…

So some pretty exciting stuff going on behind the scenes here! I’ll keep you posted!

Oh, and the cats are fine but OC seems to be a little more verbal and needy now that people aren’t around all day again.

Now that I have your attention…

Ashlyn had her wisdom teeth extracted today, all of them. Here’s a nice picture of her in recovery just before she used her cell phone to communicate the above statement to me…

She was quite amusing to me, since she kept explaining how good she felt (through a mouth filled with gauze) and wrote that she felt like Angelina Jolie (I assume her lips were feeling plump - either that or she had delusions that she was going to go home to Brad Pitt. hehe). She even spelled out a few lyrics from James Brown’s “I Feel Good” in between moments of complete stupor. Yes, I saved those post-it note ramblings for posterity too.

She’s now on the couch, sleeping the drugs off and icing her jaws. Being 17, and a (if I do say so myself) not hideous looking kid, she was pretty concerned about how fat her cheeks looked. I think she looks pretty good for having four wisdom teeth removed and I have to say I’m quite proud of how she went into this day. I asked her if she was scared on the way in to the oral surgeon’s office and she replied that she wasn’t, that she’d be asleep and that it would stop her other teeth from hurting when she eats (as they had been lately). She held my hand as they put her under, and then wanted a hug when they brought me back to their recovery area.

Despite the discomfort I know this is causing her, I’d say she took it like a trooper.

Today, we went out and got a new TV for the living room. I won’t pretend that I have any sort of understanding why this one is technically sound. Since my hubby is a Broadcast Engineer, I leave those sort of things to him. It annoys him I know, but I figure “It’s your bag, baby.” Just so long as I can watch 24, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, I really don’t care what gizmos are getting me there, ya know what I mean?

So along with this new equipment (this is something else I don’t fully understand, nor care to), we need a plethora of new wiring to make the magic happen. You”ll have to cock your heads to the side along with me, as I ponder the miles of wiring that’s in jumbled heaps throughout our bedroom and in our garage neatly stored away in various strategic locations throughout our house, just in case a wiring emergency should rear it’s ugly head. I am assured, that this wiring is “different” and needed for the proper care and feeding of our new TV.

This may very well be the longest intro to me getting to the actual point of this post. We’re standing in Target to look at the new wiring that we apparently need to hook the Ninetendo Wii up to the new TV when I cannot help but be held prisoner by overhear the following conversation between a mom and her bratty ass 9 or 10 year old little girl:

(more…)

your daughter calls you and the first words out of her mouth are, “Promise me you won’t get mad…”

Me: “Ummm… I can’t promise you that. What’s wrong?”

Sounds huge doesn’t it? She goes on to relate a story about her (nearly) 2 year old phone. Its display suddenly went black after she hung up, and taking the battery in and out didn’t make it restore to normal.

Me: Why would I get mad at that?
Her: I didn’t want you to think I did it on purpose.
Me (In my head: Picturing an Office Space printer bashing moment, only with her, and her phone.) We’ll have to have the techno guy (the hubby) look at that when you get home.

There for one moment, I had visions of her: in jail, pregnant or in a car wreck. Thank goodness it was only her cell phone display… hmmmm reverse psychology anyone? Naaaawww…