He Says That He is the Victim

‎Gratitude Project Day 57 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1) That cooking helps me feel better when I have had a rough day. 2) That my cats are snugglers and cuddlers. 3) For dreams and never letting them go!!!

It has been a long day. I spent money and he found out about it. It will not take food out of our mouths and it will not prevent bills from being paid. It is however something that he does not like and he didn't give me permission so he freaked out. He woke me up and screamed at me. It took all my effort but I didn't yell back. I just let him go on and on. His new expression today is that my brain is fat. My daughter was home and I want the fighting to stop infront of them.

He just wants to fight until what he wants to say is done. It doesn't matter to him who hears as long as he can say what he wants to say. It may seem that I am making an assumtion about him, but I have asked him to stop arguing with me infront of the kids. He usually replies with that he is not arguing with me, I am the one who ALWAYS starts the arguments or he needs to say what he wants to say and I have no right asking him to be careful about what he says and where he says it.

Then today he actually said it was my fault that he cheated because I am always spending money. He keeps asking me why I don't have enough. He says that he doesn't buy himself anything so why do I keep spending money. I buy my children clothes, things they need for school, I buy things I need and very rarely buy things I want. I wish he could see all the things I don't buy when I have the money. I wish he could see that I pass by many items because I know we need to buy food this week. But all he sees is dollar signs and not what the purpose of the purchase is.

The argument he used today was that I am keeping food off the table. I went grocery shopping yesterday (because he is being nice [his words] and letting me do that again) and I have more than enough food for the week. He thinks he is the victim in our relationship. Afterall I am the instigator in his mind. I instigate and he just reacts. If I make him mad and he lashes out at me in his mind it is my fault.

I found out that he reads my blog. He thinks that it is filled with half truths. This is our life as I see it. If he doesn't like it maybe he should do something to improve it. I was surprised that he told me he reads this. He holds it oer my head that I want to leave. He must not want me to stay because he does nothing to try to convince me to stay. Yes I want to leave and the first chance that I can leave with the kids I will do so. It won't be a surprise. I might just have a party to celebrate it.

Truth be told tonight after he finished yelling at me and telling me in no uncertain word what a failure I am. How I am a blob and all I do is "Plop myself down" while the kids were in their rooms listening to us. After I shut myself in the staircase to get away from him. After all that both children snuck up to me and clung to me. They wouldn't leave my side until they knew he had left the house to go to work.

He is not the victim here, they are. I feel like a horrible mother because I don't have the resourses to get them out of here. So I sit here and cry, I cleaned the kitchen and made the meatballs for dinner tomorrow. Then I am off to bed wondering if I will work tomorrow. Wondering how I am going to save enough money to get us out of here and get us a decent place to live.

Anxiety and the "Big" City

Gratitude Day Project 56 (for as long as I can) I'm going to post at least three things I am grateful for. Join me!; 1) That I found all the groceries I needed even though I shopped at a time I usually avoid. 2) That I got an extra five minutes this morning before I had to wake up. 3) That my daughter gives me lots of hugs!!!

There was an hour before my daughter's bedtime and time for my son to do his homework. Tonight he had one worksheet and Mr. Myers Math timed subtraction test to do. If he took a half hour to do this I thought it would have been too long. I was wrong. Meanwhile I turned tv off so he could do his homework and needed to find something for my daughter to do. Then I remembered the paper city I had downloaded a while ago. I had cardstock to print it on and we had something to do.

Maybe it was watching his sister do something fun, though he should have been doing his homework. He started fooling around. Sunday night is never a goodtime to annoy Mommy, but a Sunday night after Daddy has been working all weekend and having to go to the grocery store when it was full of people (I love to grocery shop Sunday night when the store is empty) and after an afternoon of them annoying me is even worse. Please I asked him, please do your homework!!!

An hour passed and he finally finished the worksheet. It took him maybe three minutes to do once he sat down to do it. He had a break, though he didn't deserve it and he played with B decorating and setting up the paper city. It was a seriously cool design. (The link for it is in the title of this) Just print, color and fold and you have a city that you can set up and play with. There were people, cars, buildings and fun landmarks too. I let him have some fun then back to his homework he went. He only had three minutes left. That was it, of course that didn't happen.

I shouldn't have let him play. He just had so little homework and the city was something he was interested in. Of course he went from his usual bouncy behavior to uber hysterical in less than a minute. This has been his pattern lately and why he is going to see his pediatrician this week. It concerns me, as it is such a strong behavior change for him. Plus it is new and I don't know how to react to it yet. I try not to get mad, but it is so easy to just fall into that pattern.

I can't snap, B needs to go to bed. I can't snap, he needs a Mommy that can handle his mood swings. I should be able to adjust. He is screaming and telling me that I am mean because I want him to do his homework and how he hates me (to which I always reply with that I love him). It is painful to hear and watch so I ask him to take his bath hoping that will help him calm down. He needed a bath anyway tonight.

He is still screaming, but he is calming down as the water fills the tub. Water always has a calming effect on him. B and I finish playing with the city. She keeps setting up all the pices and then rearranging them. Then off the board they go and back again in another arrangement. We put them away when it is story time and oddly enough the book she picked tonight was about how a house is built. We started the book with the blueprints and finished with the family moving in. Hugs and kisses and off to bed she went.

He has been in the bath for a long time and now I need him to get out. It is bedtime and he still has part of homework to finish. He comes out of the tub all smiles and bouncing. Everything is honky dory until I mention he has to finish his homework. Immedietly he starts throwing things, ripping papers and screaming. This is such a surprise beause on Friday he recieved praise from his teacher for his vast improvement in writing. He was so proud of himself. He knew he did a good job and was so happy about it. He even had me email his teacher on Thursday night when he finished his assignment because he was so excited about his work. How did I go from happy to do his homework to the screaming wild child I saw before me? Friday seems a long way off and then I don't even know if his doctor will have any answers.

By the time he finished his homework he had no voice left, I was in tears and my stomach was in knots. I was actually feeling sick from the anxiety I was feeling, I can't imagine how he had to be feeling. We had a snuggle and talked about what happened. He appologized and went off to bed.

The stress of making sure he does his homework is getting to be too much. D very rarely involves himself with homework. Usually that is okay with me because honestly he usually either doesn't understand what they are doing or he just gives them the answers so they can finish it as fast as possible. We will get through this, we always do. it is just the adjustment period that really gets to me and him. Is it the asperger's or is it just him being 9, turning 10 and being stubborn? Do they still calgon?

Payday Woes

Something has always bothered me about how D, my soon to be ex husband divides the money in our household. Now that I have a paycheck he can't keep all the money away from me. After the bills are paid, gas for the car is bought and we buy groceries he likes to split the money up between us. Well, that is when he allows me to have money. That has always bothered me and I couldn't put my feelings into words until today.

My money is used for clothes for the kids, books for them to read, supplies for school projects, ink for the printer, and other things like that. I have no idea what his pocket money is used for. I know he complains if he needs to buy anything for the kids, even if it is from the dollar store.

Just now he again talked about splitting the money up and I finally said, what about expenses for the children? Whose pocket do they come out of? I simply suggested a split that takes their needs into account. I had no idea that he would blow up about it.

Of course the kids were waiting in the cold car for him to take them sledding. He was to busy arguing with me about using money to get things we might need for the kids. B needs tights and P needs socks. They need things too. If it comes out of my portion of the money then I should get a larger portion, if it comes out of his than he should. But seriously the time to argue about it is not when the kids are in the car waiting to go sledding.

A plus is that do have access to the money again, although the negative of him being mad about how he thinks I will spend it (before I have even touched one penny of it) is a huge weight on my shoulders. I keep setting some aside and watch my fund for getting out of this marriage grow each week. Every week my freedom gets a little closer.

Just Breathe

The night started like any other night, it was time for my son to start homework. The routine hasn't changed and I had no idea what was about to occur. I wonder if I would have done anything different if I did know. I would like to think that I would still be the "mean" mommy and still have him start his homework. After all it was a light homework night. He had no math homework only 10 words of his spelling and 20 minutes of reading and three small sentences. I fear it was the sentences that were the culprit this evening.

The first time he had this assignment he had such a rough time. To me it was such a simple thing, three connections. Three things that the book he was reading made him connect to. I do it all the time, to me it is second nature. Sometimes the connections are complicated and sometimes they are as simple as remembering a song that is mentioned in the book. A song that ties into a beloved job a planetarium. Funny after all these years listening to Holst's Jupiter and I still can remember exactly how it goes.

Three simple connections, to him though I think they are more like three 15 page term papers. Of course I offer to help and I page through the book he is reading. I bought this book because it involves the solar system and I thought P would like it because he loves watching Discovery Channel shows about the solar system. I see many connections that he could make between the words on the page and the many things that have occurred to him in his childhood. Unfortunately when I mention these connections he can't see them. He believes the connection must be exact. Eventually he will get it, but it won't be tonight.

I believe what happened next can best be said by Maurice Sendak in Where the Wild Things Are "Let the wild rumpus start." and it did. He started crying and complaining then as it usually happens at this point his ears got red. They get too hot and that almost always overwhelms him. The combination of the ears and him having to come up with the dreaded connections became all that were needed for the temper tantrum avalanche to occur. The next hour was miserable for both of us. More so for him I think because I had to let it happen. He has to understand that a temper tantrum will not get him out of doing his homework. I had to understand that I can't always gather him in my arms and comfort him. I wonder how long it will take me to learn that.

He might have been able to push through the original temper tantrum, but in the process of flailing around the book that he was holding hit him in the eye. I think I have mentioned that pain for him is either a 0 or a 10, there is nothing in between. Now he has hot ears, hated homework and a hurt eye. He starts running back and forth in the living room and stimming by flapping his arms. He has new sounds that I have not heard before that almost sound like words. I try to talk him down. He needs to learn how to do that. We have worked on breathing exercises before and he is beginning to understand that they can help him calm down.

Again he is almost done with the temper tantrum, I don't know how much time has passed but it has been a while. Then just as I think it is over he stubs his toe. Round three begins. This time I try to hold him, I try to comfort him. He is so upset that he can't be calmed. Time keeps ticking away and he is about to wear a path into our carpet. The worst part is that upstairs his daddy is relaxing before he goes to work. He must know what is happening and is not coming downstairs to help either me or his son.

Finally an hour (I think) has gone by and P is exhausted. He has hurt himself I think four times. Such innocent hurts but to him they are like the pain of a broken bone, at least that is what it sounds like to me. I finally can hug him and wipe the tears away. He writes one connection and I know when I am beat. He takes the book that he needs to read for 20 minutes and we snuggle on his bed. I kiss him good night and know he will soon fall asleep.

Then I Google "Asperger's and Red Ears" His doctor tells us the red ears is a result of him not wearing a hat in the winter and almost getting frostbite. He assures us that eventually they will stop bothering him and for a while I believed that. But I have noticed when his ears get red is when he is overwhelmed. I have noticed other children with sensory issues also have the same thing happen to them.

That is why I did the Google search. This is what I found, most link that popped up mentioned celiacs and suggested a gluten free diet. Gluten, found in many grains, something that is prevalent in most of the foods that P (and I) love. Celiacs, also know as sprue, something that D's uncle had complications from and died from many years ago. Celiacs, that does seem to have a tie in with autism. So is it celiacs or a sensory issue or both. Deep breath Mommy, just breathe and don't panic.

D is about to leave for work and I try to talk to him about this, He starts talking about his uncle and we talked about diet restrictions and then I said the worse thing ever (at least for my son), soy sauce was on the don't ever eat list. Somehow my sleepy son heard this and came rushing out of his room, I guess he hadn't fallen asleep. He is so upset that he can't have soy sauce anymore. Poor kiddo, he was so upset, and crying about his beloved soy sauce. Funny how we all have a food that is a deal breaker. Spinach was mine when I was told I couldn't eat food with oxilates in it, soy sauce is his. Luckily Google came to the rescue as we looked for gluten free soy sauce and found that is does exhist. Crisis averted and he went back to bed.

Okay, I'm not jumping to conclusions. I will approach this calmly. I made a doctor appointment for P and mentioned his anxiety, homework issues and maybe a food allergy or celiacs. We will start paying attention to what he is eating and see if gluten might be an issue. Just breathe!!!

Storage Wars - My Eclectic Life

What would my dream for 2012 be? Well, except for moving out and ending my marriage. I want to be able to store things and put things away. One huge difference between my soon to be ex and I are always battling about clutter and stuff. He thinks we have too much stuff. I think we have no place to put things. He wants nothing in our house and I want shelves and bins and toy boxes and containers and hangers to hang up my clothes.

It is true that in our last house we did not have closet space so we did not have hangers. He have been in this house for almost two years now. He still gets mad at me when I buy hangers. Seriously! How can I put my clothes in my closet if I don't have enough hangers. I just did hanger inventory again and I really need to get more. Because I started wearing dressier clothes for work I have taken those clothes out of storage and they need to be hung up.

I have many teaching supplies in bins in my bedroom. I think I have almost 20 bins. They are against a wall and not in the way. He actually is trying to get me to get rid of them. He thinks if it is in a bin that I am not using it. I may not be using it today, that is why I am storing it. But the bins are labeled so when I need what they hold I can find it. We have a fight about these bins about once a month. I don't know why they are so threatening to him.

My dream would be book shelves filled with books lining my walls. I would love my basement and garage walls organized with shelves filled with bins so our clutter can be put away and I could find it. I want those ottomans that you can put things inside. I want shelves with doors so I can hide things and put things away.

Already it is just a week after Christmas he is complaining that the kids have too many toys and no place to put them. But he also refuses to buy shelves, toy boxes, bins, or any container for their toys to be put away in. The kids long for these items. ANy big box we get is used by the kids to put their toys in until he decides it is clutter and throws it away. The all they toys are dumped out and become clutter once again.

We were in a store this past week and I pointed out to him how the kids were cleaning up nicely, putting toys in the bins they belonged in. It was beautiful. He said that we would have bins all over and they would take over the house. Then of course he brought up my neatly stacked bins in my bedroom that are against the wall and not in anyones way. Once again he told me that they needed to go and I was silly for wanting shelves and bins because we have too much stuff.

So now I slowly buy the storage items I can, and I pray that my son will stop breaking them. That is another battle and the older he gets the less he destroys. He really wants shelves in his room to put things away in. So I slowly get what I need. Hopefully in a few months, when I have enough money saved for three months rent, I will find a nice place for the three of us to move into and I can store things the way I need to without the Ogres input.

This is what I want, I walk into an organization store and I lose my breath. I want the label gun and little boxes to put into larger boxes. If they just didn't cost so much! So until I can get al of that I'll have to make do with the plastic bins and sharpie markers to label them. I'll have to shop the garage sales for mix matched book shelves and enjoy the eclectic life. Someday maybe I will be able to walk into a storage store and load up my carts with all that I dream for, or maybe I will just enjoy my eclectic life.