Good intentions

Well my intention was to post nearly every day...yeah, my last post was more than a month ago. Whoops!!

Things are ok in our household. Chris is still working far away. Our house is still on the market - just found out that the average # of days a house is on the market right now is 108 - very depressing!! (But I shall try to have a glass half full & look on the bright side.) Life is still a struggle between my selfishness, my kids & my depression. So life as usual right?

Sam started preschool last week, so that's something new. He loves it! We are trying to get him ready to enter Kindergarten but I'm not so sure he's going to be ready. I have not had the chance - no I'm going to be honest here!! - I have not worked with Sam on learning to write etc. I have tried from time to time but I get frustrated easily & he does not like trying out new skills. So the times I have worked with him, he does not want to try, I get mad, he resists harder, I get madder...you can see where I'm going with this right? The other thing that makes it hard is that I can only work with one of them individually if the other 2 are out of the house or asleep. They just all want in on the action & it becomes a free for all. We were planning on homeschooling but I've decided that my psyche & their behinds wouldn't be able to take it! So off to school we go yo-ho yo-ho.

We do, of course, have a conflict with the school thing. Chris & I are not seeing eye to eye on the subject. He has always wanted to homeschool and is having a hard time giving up on that idea. He hates the thought of preschool - and I agree with him to a point on this- and thinks it's useless. I think I'm seeing the reality that most kids these days go to preschool of some kind and this has changed what kids are expected to know upon entering kindergarten. And that's upped the ante on what they have to learn in that first year of school to move on to 1st grade. Chris (and again, I agree with him on the principle of this) believes that wether or not kids are taught in preschool that the test scores even out by like 3rd grade or so. My issue is that I was labeled the slow kid in school. I was ALWAYS behind & it hurt - bad. I was laughed at & picked on - school was not a plesant experience for me. I want to give my kids a better experience & I don't want to send Sam to school already behind! Chris is more worried about 'holding' Adah & Eli back a year. Which we are not really doing, all the kids are close to the cut off date & could go either way as far as when they start. What I would like to do is put Sam into the headstart program which is a subsidized preschool program in WA for a year & then into Kindergarden. Then we would do the same with the twins so that Sam's younger siblings are not in the same grade as he is.

Pray for us!!

Chris & I have agreed to start counseling after we move. We need to get on the same page on issues such as this & we just can't work it out ourselves. We are both completely pig-headed & stick to our guns so our 'discussions' about school & discipline tend to go in circles & nowhere else. We both agree that we are not in control in our home anymore. Don't know when or how we lost it but it's gone & the kids rule the roost - not good! We both want to get back on track but cannot agree on how to go about it & where to start - so to counseling we will go. Chris was a bit reluctant but I convinced him I'm going to loose my mind soon if we don't get this worked out - they outnumber me & I'm tired of loosing! I think it was Bill Cosby who said "I've seen the enemy and they are small!"

On another note - I lost my mind recently. I'm finding that about once a month (not cycle related) I just can't take it anymore & I completely fly off the handle. It usually consists of a day of yelling at the kids so much that I scare them. Then remorse & a lot of crying. Chris is sooooo good to me during these times! He is there for me, listens to me without judging me or getting mad, and lets me cry & spend a day in our room away from the kids. I usually get pretty mad at God for a few hours. This last time I threw something at the ceiling (hit the wall, bad shot!) I was so mad at Him! That always freaks out Chris - he thinks I'm blaming God for my problems but that't not the case. I'm just mad at everything & because I know that God could 'fix' things He ends up being the ultimate target. When I am in my right mind I know that there is a reason that I'm going through this situation & that God has my best interest at heart. I also know that He can take my little tantrums & He loves me no matter what! Anyway, I'm over it now so life should be sane for the next 2 or 3 weeks.

Thanks for reading!
Alane