Another day in (W)hole

I haven’t come here in years, but it felt right today.

I think when OpenDiary was still around, I clung to that because it was so much easier to pour your heart out there than on Facebook. But then I just slowly slipped into the FB land of traitors anyways haha… micro blogging was so much easier when my kids were small. There were so many little moments to remember when my kids were tiny, so many silly things they said and milestones and height and weight updates that I could quickly and easily announce and save. Now they even pop up as memories to make me smile. I forgot all those things, they were replaced with new (and endless) information.

So what’s new in the world today? I don’t even remember the date of my most recent update here, but it has to be somewhere in the last 4 years.

Im getting married in August. The 20th. I’m so excited, but also sooooo stressed. We aren’t getting any help with paying for anything, so it’s just Chanel and I footing the bill for the entire ceremony and reception. We booked a venue early, it’s cheap and its gorgeous. It’s a cabin with a huge lawn and playground. We’ll get married outside, eat tacos (still need to arrange and pay for catering) inside, display guest books and family photos inside, have lawn games outside and a DJ on the cabin deck so that dancing will take place in the yard. We’ll have a Ben and Jerrys scoop truck come and do a sundae bar, as well. I still need to secure our rental items, including linen and an arch, folding chairs for the lawn, some beverage dispensers and trash cans.

Work is weird. I’ve been here for almost five years, and my supervisor (the lady who interviewed and hired me) moved away about a year ago. She hired someone lovely as a replacement, but she came from a community college where she worked with neurotypical college students, and all of our clients here are college students with learning differences, mental health issues, ADHD, or autism. Not really the same crowd she’s used to, so she doesn’t really understand why things are done the way they are here. She wants everyone to have spotlessly clean apartments, which just isn’t practical for this population. She wants everyone to have a job, which doesn’t even make sense. They’d never get through school with jobs to juggle, and this organization is a college support program. We focus on education. And now here recently, almost everyone that’s been here for the five years I’ve been here has either left or is leaving. Everyone has quit and found other jobs, a lot of people have moved to nearby towns. The atmosphere has changed a lot, and I don’t really feel as committed to it as I used to. It’s not the same program, and the way things are being changed doesn’t really make sense to me. I miss my coworkers, they felt like family, and now even more people are leaving in the fall. I applied to a few different jobs at various universities nearby, but the only one I REALLY wanted was a registrar position that I don’t have the necessary Excel skills for, so I lost out in the final round of interviews to someone who is Excel proficient. I was offered a gig at a private college but the hours were weird, so I didn’t take it. (who works till 7pm?! Not people with 5 kids, I reckon.)

All the small kids played soccer this past spring, and they all had a really good time. Parker (6) had a terrible coach who had nooo control of the kids, but was a really nice guy.. he just didn’t learn much. They won exactly one game, and Parker scored both goals in the game. He’s not even really good at soccer, he just watched the bigger kids play enough to know you’re supposed to kick the ball into the net. He refuses to kick correctly (inside of your foot rather than with your toe) and wont pass to other people. He’s much better at t-ball/baseball. But of course wants to play soccer in order to continue being as inconvenient as possible haha. Soccer has 2 practices every week and 1 game every Saturday, so when we had all 4 kids in soccer, we had 2 diff practices every single day except Monday, and 4 games every Saturday. It was not enjoyable, especially because it was pouring rain every single weekend. The scheduling sucked and we’d have a game at 8am, one at noon, another at 1, and one at 7pm. So we’d be back and forth to the fields 3x in a single day. It was A LOT. So I told Chanel that I think we need to just have 2 kids at a time in soccer, and if they all want to play again next season, they’d need to divide up so it’s 2 kids for Fall and 2 for Spring. Milo (11) decided not to play again (no surprises there, he’s more of a chess club kid than a sports team kid) because his coach and team wont be returning in the fall. Ariel (10) wants to keep playing, she’ll get to stay on the same team with the same coach. Addisyn (7)’s team went up a league to a competitive club team, and she wouldn’t make the try outs. She made low effort for most of the season and was sort of a jerk to her coach, refusing to do what he was telling her to do during practices and not listening. (So, yanno, her usual behavior.) We told her she could play again, but it would be a different team, and she said that was fine and she didn’t care. But then she was told she could choose gymnastics for the fall instead, and she was thrilled about that. I found a Ninja Zone class at the gymnastics place for Milo, and Parker decided he would like to do that with Milo since they could be in the same class for it. Which means no soccer for him. That had us only having 1 kid in soccer, which sounded amazing to me, and then Chanel decided that Parker should do both Ninja Zone AND Soccer. So I threw a fit. She said she’ll ask him to just pick one. I told her I was overwhelmed with the number of practices and games we’d be committing to with 2 kids in soccer and 3 in gym. She didn’t think Ninja Zone was going to be “enough” to keep Parker active, because it’s only 1 day per week. I said that it keeps US less active, which is GOOD. Less rushing around, fewer mobile dinners in tupperware while we run to practice, more time to sit and relax, have the kids work on homework, etc. Sooo I guess we’ll see how that goes.

Kasin is 17 now, and was 16 during Covid and therefore was not able to take Drivers Ed at school. I looked into signing him up for it this summer, but it was far too expensive. He says he doesnt want to take the classes and that he wants to just wait until he’s 18 and go take the test. I gave up on fighting against that plan when I saw the prices for driving school. The problem, however, is that he hasn’t ever done any practice driving and has no idea what he’s doing. He will ask us to drive with him and then never follow through on going. He’s also supposed to be getting a summer job, he’s been out of school for almost a month and still hasn’t found anything. He just plays video games and sleeps and complains about having 3 chores to do, then half asses the chores. He’s driving me bonkers. I guess teenagers do that.

Milo is at his dad’s for the summer in Montana and he’s having a great time. Not being a great listener this go around, however, and his dad seems frustrated. Now that he’s getting older, he’s realizing Dad is a push over and taking advantage of it. He always tells his dad “you’re too nice to get me in trouble” and things like that. He’s been a very adventurous eater since he’s been in Montana, however. Blackened fish sandwiches, authentic pork tacos with cabbage and cilantro and lime, bacon wrapped brussels sprouts, all kinds of cool stuff none of our other kids would ever dream of eating. I really want to get him a corgi for his birthday in February. He’s always wanted a pug, but pugs have so many health issues that I don’t want to deal with one. I have always wanted a corgi, and he said that what he really wants is just a small dog he can snuggle in bed with. I think a corgi fits the bill ;)

Chanel’s 3, Ariel, Addisyn, and Parker, had a very short lived, HORRIBLE summer vacation with her ex. There were a lot of problems that came out of the visit, which was cut more than 3 weeks short. There will be court in the future regarding the situation, which is another source of stress.

Chanel graduated EWU with her BA in SOWK this last month, and has been looking for a case management job. She’s had several interviews and was offered 1 position, but didn’t accept it because we did some research on the company after the interview and weren’t impressed. With the wedding expenses, I really need some help with the finances right now. I’ve been the only one working for the last almost 3 years, which wasn’t a big deal because she gets an adoption stipend each month for the kids. However, now we have all these big bills for the wedding and I can’t keep up. Not to mention potentially going to court with the ex before next summer rolls around. I’m also just a smidge bitter about being the only one who ever has to work. I wish I could sleep in till 10 every day and lounge around the house doing nothing on a regular basis, but that never happens to me. The kids are in daycare, so she doesn’t even have to deal with them. I’m definitely ready for her to go back to work, but I don’t want her to take the first job that comes along and then end up hating it.

I wish I was happy. I feel like I SHOULD be. Things are so busy and stressful all the time, I just dont have any down time. When I’m home, the kids are all home. Even when its just the 3 instead of 4 smalls, it’s a lot. They’re all ADHD (drug exposed in utero prior to adoption) and Addisyn has her severe outbursts and behavior problems. They fight, they’re rude, they’re gross, they never stop talking. It’s just exhausting. Sometimes I seriously spend a lot of time thinking about how nice it would be to be dead. No responsibilities, no aching shoulder, no worrying about what I can or can’t eat because it may have gluten in it. No more thinking, no more moving. Just nothing. Sounds amazing.