my frustration with the male species, especially the phylum YOUNG, continues to grow and prosper.
austin is still at this father's house, albeit on restrictions again, this time because he stayed up too late playing computer games. the result is no computers tonight. however, his father is completely unaware of the fact that he is supposed to give an oral report on friday in his dual enrollment english class on a book that he never got and has not read. his efforts to secure a copy of it were meager at best, resulting in my having to drive in the dark to the barnes & noble on libbie avenue to get the book.
i stopped by bebo's on my way home, as i had purchased a dozen warm krispy kreme donuts and had no one to share them with. i gave him the book, and the donuts, and in return i got a lecture from him on again letting austin fail. this time my crime was going over his college essays before he sent them off to UVA's baseball coach for review. in bebo's opinion, i am making austin out to be someone he isn't, and next year he will fail it anyway and they will find it out. he says that i am making no progress with austin's skills and i am just "dressing up the monkey and hiding his tail." in his grand opinion, i am wasting my time and shouldn't do it, period.
as usual, his view is negative and disappointing, something he is prone to and is the reason (in my opinion) why he is perpetually unsatisfied with life. he never offers a solution or anything positive as an alternative. his new campaign is "let austin fail" and so he can learn a lesson. as i told him, there is $60,000 tied up in this personal opinion of his, and i am not about to let austin throw it away because he needs to learn a lesson right now. he can learn a lesson when it costs me less.
it is really infuriating that bebo, who has done almost nothing at all to help get austin where he is, can be so pompous and believe that his opinion should have any weight anywhere. he has lived totally free of any daily or even weekly responsibilities for austin short of paying child support. he is the most difficult person to understand and reason with, as his ideas seem to come out of left field and have almost no basis in anything practical. his taking the phone away vs. computer games only shows how unattuned his is to what austin values. he is very quick to let me and austin both know that i haven't disciplined austin and had he been with bebo, he would have had rules, etc. bebo could have been a discipline asset had he had any reasonable idea about what would be the best way to punish austin. but his punishments have never fit the crime, and have been either totally ridiculous because they were too severe, or nonexistent because he didn't think anything should be done. on this subject we have never been on the same page, period.
there is some basis in his belief that austin should fail at something and take the consequences. but all of the areas he is balancing precariously in have huge consequences, mostly monetary, that directly affect me in more ways than just financial. sometimes i just think bebo would like austin to do badly just so that he could point to me and say i am the reason. had i let him fail at something, he would have learned his lesson, blah, blah, blah. there are ways to teach a lesson, but a life altering one such as not going to college doesn't seem to be a wise move. it is a stupid move, period. i think as a parent you have to step in sometimes and just do it. but consistently baling austin out all the time would be wrong as well, and i have tried hard to stay out of that realm. but it has become necessary for me to be involved with the academics this year because austin is not doing what he needs to do because he is in the senioritis phase. i recognize that, and i am monitoring it. all i want to do is monitor, not intervene. but intervene i will if he does not do what needs to be done. if i have to go and do something that should have been done by him, i will do that and there will be consequences. this time i think it will be that austin will take my car after school tomorrow and clean out the inside of it. he took my time, so i am going to take his.
i am in the land of disappointment right now, and it is not a strange land to me. however familiar it is, i still don't find being here any kind of comfort, and would really like to climb out of this valley and sit on the mountaintops. the view from there surely has to be better, more inspiring, than the shadows i fall in and out of in the flatlands.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
medical update on me
lots of tests, lots of small issues. i am on new meds, higher dosages of the ones i have been on. i just had a colonoscopy yesterday and they removed 3 polyps. i have passed two small kidney stones and a lot of gravel in the last 2 weeks. i was in a huge fibro loop for about 2 months that finally has gotten somewhat manageable. i had the h1n1 flu in september which turned into walking pneumonia. it was discovered that my heart was enlarged, so i had an echocardiogram and the end result was that my high blood pressure has done a bit of damage. new bp meds, and the bp is down. my thyroid and cholesterol are down and i have lost some weight. i have had ongoing issues with choking, swallowing, getting stuck, so they did an upper g.i. and small intestine series last wednesday. don't have the results back on that yet, and won't have biopsy results on the colon until next week. they didn't seem to think anything was bad in there, so i will go with that.
meg got me reading a book called POTATOES, NOT PROZAC and it is about sugar addiction. i read it and saw myself all over it. i am doing the first step, which is eating breakfast each morning. i am getting used to that and i am feeling a bit better i think. the next move is to eat more protein and to start journaling what i am eating so i can pinpoint the addictive triggers. i like the concept of the book, and i think it is something i can do.
all the meds have made me sort of mellow.
meg got me reading a book called POTATOES, NOT PROZAC and it is about sugar addiction. i read it and saw myself all over it. i am doing the first step, which is eating breakfast each morning. i am getting used to that and i am feeling a bit better i think. the next move is to eat more protein and to start journaling what i am eating so i can pinpoint the addictive triggers. i like the concept of the book, and i think it is something i can do.
all the meds have made me sort of mellow.
thinking, which can sometimes be a bad thing!
the thing about writing is you have to start doing it, period. i haven't, but i have had this nagging feeling that i should be doing it and would be happier if i were. so i am. now.
on my mind right now is austin, who is going through a rough spot. senioritis i guess, but i feel like the punching bag. he wants to do whatever he wants when he wants to. i am at fault for letting logic rule the day in all cases. not a good precident, and now i am paying for it. bebo and i talked to him last week about his attitude and his mouth, but he doesn't seem to get it. in any case, i told him if he were to start doing the things he is supposed to do, when he is supposed to do them, that he could do more things that he wants. but he is not doing the basic things. he isn't keeping up with his classwork and is skipping classes. he doesn't do his chores on a timely basis and never completes anything. what he does is sloppy and half assed. and there is always stress involved in getting him to do anything. throw in bebo who thinks he should be allowed to fail, and it makes it very complicated.
austin has moved himself to bebo's for awhile, mostly in protest over the fact i will not let him go out and "spend the night with friends." this translates in his being able to stay wherever with whomever and having no supervision to speak of. they are apparently going around and doing pranks on each other. austin thinks that because he tells me what he is doing, i will approve. bebo has said i should let him have some fun. but fun is all he is doing, and he is not doing the other things he needs to do. bebo's version of discipline is different from mine, so we have a split there. this last week he took the phone away from austin, which wasn't much of anything because he could use the house phone and when he was with lindsey, he could use her phone. the only one punished was me, who worried about him being in the car with no phone, and therefore no lifeline if there were a problem. bebo doesn't seem to believe that taking away the computer would be a better punishment. that would be because he is clueless about really parenting and lives on his version in his head what HE would do, which isn't rational or based in anything vaguely resembling useful.
i am living in the house with the cats and quiet and me on the downlow. i am not quite in the girl cave, but the house itself has become something of a cavern. i am feeling a lot alone right now, and a bit sad. this is austin's last time at home, the end of his childhood. i never pictured that the last year would be hell. i thought he would have matured and it would be easy. i badly miscalculated that one. it has been a huge struggle for power and control on his part, and a huge struggle for a happy ending on my part.
there are a lot of things to be considered, not the least of which is how i will live after he is really gone. this has been something of a good thing in that i am getting used to it. but i do feel a lot unloved and uncared about right now, sort of childish i guess, but it is how i am feeling. it does point out that when it gets right down to it, i am really alone and i do not have a partner or a primary person in my life who is interested in me. i am not in the mode of recruiting one. i would just like my son to be a little empathetic and caring. at this point, i might as well be pissing up a rope to think that would be happening.
his behavior has caused me to question parts of his character, and i don't like what i am seeing. i don't like the way he is treating lindsey. but i also don't like the way she acts around him or in certain situations. she is a handful on a good day, and is sort of high maintenance. i often think that amy would have been better for him in the long run vs. lindsey. two opposites, believe me. he seems to be more himself with lindsey, but i am not sure i like some of that either. in the long run, i am left to ponder who my son is, and it doesn't always compute. i guess he is still a work in progress. i can only hope that he turns out to be a good man. i don't seem to get to see any of the good stuff, only the bad and the ugly. that i could do without. what is scary is that the ones he is closest too he tends to treat in an inconsiderate manner. he can be sweet and a lot of other things, but i don't see much of it. i just feel a lot abused and taken advantage of. again i have to hope that i have done some things right along the way and that he will turn out to be a good man.
on my mind right now is austin, who is going through a rough spot. senioritis i guess, but i feel like the punching bag. he wants to do whatever he wants when he wants to. i am at fault for letting logic rule the day in all cases. not a good precident, and now i am paying for it. bebo and i talked to him last week about his attitude and his mouth, but he doesn't seem to get it. in any case, i told him if he were to start doing the things he is supposed to do, when he is supposed to do them, that he could do more things that he wants. but he is not doing the basic things. he isn't keeping up with his classwork and is skipping classes. he doesn't do his chores on a timely basis and never completes anything. what he does is sloppy and half assed. and there is always stress involved in getting him to do anything. throw in bebo who thinks he should be allowed to fail, and it makes it very complicated.
austin has moved himself to bebo's for awhile, mostly in protest over the fact i will not let him go out and "spend the night with friends." this translates in his being able to stay wherever with whomever and having no supervision to speak of. they are apparently going around and doing pranks on each other. austin thinks that because he tells me what he is doing, i will approve. bebo has said i should let him have some fun. but fun is all he is doing, and he is not doing the other things he needs to do. bebo's version of discipline is different from mine, so we have a split there. this last week he took the phone away from austin, which wasn't much of anything because he could use the house phone and when he was with lindsey, he could use her phone. the only one punished was me, who worried about him being in the car with no phone, and therefore no lifeline if there were a problem. bebo doesn't seem to believe that taking away the computer would be a better punishment. that would be because he is clueless about really parenting and lives on his version in his head what HE would do, which isn't rational or based in anything vaguely resembling useful.
i am living in the house with the cats and quiet and me on the downlow. i am not quite in the girl cave, but the house itself has become something of a cavern. i am feeling a lot alone right now, and a bit sad. this is austin's last time at home, the end of his childhood. i never pictured that the last year would be hell. i thought he would have matured and it would be easy. i badly miscalculated that one. it has been a huge struggle for power and control on his part, and a huge struggle for a happy ending on my part.
there are a lot of things to be considered, not the least of which is how i will live after he is really gone. this has been something of a good thing in that i am getting used to it. but i do feel a lot unloved and uncared about right now, sort of childish i guess, but it is how i am feeling. it does point out that when it gets right down to it, i am really alone and i do not have a partner or a primary person in my life who is interested in me. i am not in the mode of recruiting one. i would just like my son to be a little empathetic and caring. at this point, i might as well be pissing up a rope to think that would be happening.
his behavior has caused me to question parts of his character, and i don't like what i am seeing. i don't like the way he is treating lindsey. but i also don't like the way she acts around him or in certain situations. she is a handful on a good day, and is sort of high maintenance. i often think that amy would have been better for him in the long run vs. lindsey. two opposites, believe me. he seems to be more himself with lindsey, but i am not sure i like some of that either. in the long run, i am left to ponder who my son is, and it doesn't always compute. i guess he is still a work in progress. i can only hope that he turns out to be a good man. i don't seem to get to see any of the good stuff, only the bad and the ugly. that i could do without. what is scary is that the ones he is closest too he tends to treat in an inconsiderate manner. he can be sweet and a lot of other things, but i don't see much of it. i just feel a lot abused and taken advantage of. again i have to hope that i have done some things right along the way and that he will turn out to be a good man.
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