Plugging Away!

This has indeed been a week from Hell in many ways here.

Not only for me but really, especially for my daughter here. It's been horrendous.

I'm not going to go into major details about the cause of many of the problems, but trust me when I tell you this, it's been kind of like being on a treadmill -where you are walking and walking and walking some more and yet, never going anyplace that appears to be making changes on a positive nature.

We've had a phone call from the state police -initiated by a family member of the SIL -checking on his welfare. Yes, he's fine -alive and still kicking. The day after the phone call, we had a visit by the local township police -initiated by a relative of two of the SIL's children -about his welfare. This after my daughter had talked to the party who placed the call the night before and she had been told then all the information that my daughter had to that point. And yet, she felt it necessary the very next day to sic the local john-laws on us. Incredible!

And yesterday -well, suffice it to say that it was quite the day with what seemed to be one problem on top of yet another.

Starting with the minor meltdown Maya provided at 7:30 a.m. in trying to decide what to wear to school. She was giving Mandy a royal hard time about her clothes to the point where Mandy threw her hands up and yelled for me to please come and try to help Maya select something appropriate to wear to school because her patience had just run out. It took a bit of cajoling but eventually she did find a nice pair of dark blue tights along with a really cute blue striped smock top and looked quite spiffy when she went out the door to hop on the bus and head off to school.

Kurtis was a tad on the crabby side when he got up too but thankfully, no full meltdown there and he too, got on his van and off to school then with no major problems.

Then, after he left -because my back was aching like toothache -must be another storm brewing to come dump more white stuff on us sometime in the near future -I decided to take a little rest and lay down on the sofa for a while. I woke up to the UPS delivery guy dropping off a package and knowing what Mandy had ordered, I thought -Ah ha! My life is about to take a good turn as I knew it was the copy of Jodi Picoult's newest book -"House Rules" that he had left in our doorway. And I was right -that's what it was. And I was ecstatic that I could get my hands on the book first and thereby read it as quickly as possible too! (Which I am trying to do now, btw.)

Then it was time for the kids to return home and that's when things took a downhill turn for me.

I decided I would wait till Maya got home to take Sammy for our afternoon stroll and that in doing so, I would extend the walk a tiny bit and get the mail at the same time. My thought was that Maya -who often wants to go for a walk -would enjoy this little outing with me and Sammy. It was cold, yes -but not bitter cold, not snowing, not raining or anything like that so, that was my game plan. Plus, I figured if we left as soon as she got home from school, we would be back in time to get Kurtis off his van and well, it would be a good time for all -along with good timing.

That plan quickly went down the tubes though as Maya decided as soon as she got inside that she didn't want to go back outside. She had absolutely no interest whatsoever in going for a walk -with or without Sammy!

The thing here was that by that time, Sammy not just wanted to go out for a walk, but I knew he needed to do that -probably drastically needed the walk, ya know! And it took me twenty -yes 20 -minutes of talking to, arguing with and cajoling Maya until finally I was able to bribe her into going on the walk by telling her yes, she could take her little water bottle -filled with water, including of course, two ice cubes in there too! However, by that time, we had to cut the walk a tiny bit short so we would be back home when Kurtis arrived in his van.

Kurtis was another thorn in my side when he arrived home in the van as he was really upset to see me getting him off the van and not his Mommy. So that took a bit of a struggle with him to get him unfastened, out of the vehicle and into the house.

From there on then there were the normal squabbles between the two kids -caused mainly because Maya has this overwhelming urge to totally be in control of each and every action and reaction of her brother to her demands! Yeah, a whole lot of screaming and crying going on -none of which was conducive in the least to allowing me to read the new book either I might add.

Then Maya decided she wanted to get out a garbage bag and that she was going to clean up papers and bits of stuff off the floor. Now what could be wrong with a plan like that? It was a shocker to my system initially because this is the child who is always "too tired" to help do any type of clean up under normal circumstances but I thought -foolish old lady that I am -that she had had a change of heart perhaps and far be it from me to turn her away when she is making even the tiniest suggestion of cleaning up anything, ya know.

So, she began to busy herself with her "clean-up" and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her going from the dining room to the sunporch dragging what appeared to be a very FULL garbage bag and that set of some major alarms in my mind. I knew there had been some papers and a few odd things on the floor but not near enough mess to fill a garbage bag! So I called to her and asked her what she had in the bag and her answer was "Garbage." And being a bit of a pessimist then I told her to please bring the bag into the living room so I could see just what all she had in there.

To my surprise, she had a very full bag full of yes, garbage! She was right about that but where the heck did all this stuff come from anyway I asked her because there was stuff in there that I knew hadn't been in the dining room or the kitchen -empty detergent containers for openers and then, I noticed too that from her dragging the bag, a whole had developed on the bottom and from that hole, there was this black dirt-type stuff on the floor that had fallen out from said hole. Initially I thought it was cigarette butts and ashes from our having emptied ashtrays into the garbage bag but that theory proved to be incorrect.

As I was checking out the garbage bag and having seen the hole, I asked Maya to bring me a new bag so I could then ease this full bag into a new bag with a bottom that had no leaky hole, ya see. It was about that time that Mandy called home from work to see how things were going and I told her the latest development with the garbage bag.

Mandy then apologized to me for having forgotten to take the trash out before she left but I kept thinking that there was no way Maya could have lifted the garbage bag out of the trash can and such so this had to be other trash she had acquired some how. It was about that time then that Mandy informed me that she had put some kitty litter in the trash bag in the can -yes, nasty kitty litter -and that's when I realized the dirt I had initially thought to be cigarette ashes was, yes, you guessed it, some yucky kitty litter!

I also saw then that the kitty litter had been "leaking" out of said garbage bag on not just the living room floor but on the dining room floor and also -a great big bit of leakage had occurred in the sun porch as well.

And yes, I was then saying "OH, Wonnerful, Wonnerful!" -with a whole lot of curse words interspersed between each "wonnerful" too!

After cleaning those messes up -more cursing of course -I finally settled back into my recliner to begin reading again. This time my reading was interrupted by Kurtis crying and I called to Maya to ask why he was upset only to get the response "Kurtis just spilled peppermint bubble bath on the dining room table."

WTF! Where in blazes did he find any container of peppermint bubble bath anyway? I had no idea any such item even existed in the house much less that it might have been in a place where his little fingers could get hold of it. But I was wrong. There had, it seems, been one of those little trial-size bottles of the stuff on the shelf of the cookbook bookcase on the dining room wall. Now how had he managed to get up there and get it because I have to really stretch to reach the shelf it had been on and I'm quite sure he can't do that. But Maya informed me he had used the wooden train my cousin had labored over to make and send to Maya when she was about 18 months old, or therabouts. But I also saw that the train was no where near the dining room and I knew I hadn't heard the squeaky wheels of it anytime thus far yesterday so that told me he hadn't gotten the bubble bath down but his sneaky big sister was the culprit in that aspect of this mess. Yes, he was the one who had dumped it on the table -all over the table, as a matter of fact -but if she hadn't got it down to begin with ... Well, the peppermint bubble bath debacle was then blamed on her because she initiated it!

That mess cleaned up and back to the chair to resume reading and Katie is heard in the dining room asking "What's this stuff all over the table -all black?" Hmmm. That wasn't bubble bath, that I knew for sure because that stuff had been pink. So out to the dining room to check on this issue and I see Kurtis has managed to find a black marker pen and used it to "color" a very large portion of the dining room table. Between Kate and I we did get that "mess" cleaned up without too many problems and both kids were then put in time out -which of course, opened up another can of worms for me in that I had to listen then to Maya whimpering and whining and complaining about why did she have to be in time out because she hadn't been a bad girl.

Yeah, right! Her version of bad and mine don't quite jive ya know.

By that time, I had to forget reading an cook supper.

My game plan for last night's meal was to fix salmon cakes. I was a bit concerned on how I would get that item to pass muster and into either -or both kids -systems because I knew if I told them what this really was, they would both throw major hissy fits and refuse to eat it.

I also planned to heat up the large container of buttered noodles leftover from Tuesday night's supper when Maya refused to eat the noodles because they were "buttered." Only on the reheat version -since her complain Tuesday was that the noodles had no "cheese" once they were well warmed up, I sprinkled a good bit of shredded cheddar cheese on them, figuring that would make them doable to suit Her Majesty's taste buds!

Supper on the table and the question is asked -by Maya -of the salmon cakes. "What's these, Gram?" And I decided to not be fully honest about the fare, simply stating they are "cakes" and left it at that. Maya took a look at them and must have decided it looked like chicken because she then started calling the salmon cakes, chicken patties and that was fine by me. I put a dabble of Ranch dressing on both their plates for them to dip the "chicken" patties in -since they both love to dip stuff in Ranch dressing -and that worked fine for Maya as she ate first half a salmon pattie and asked for more of said substance then too. Kurt took a bite or two of his but then ended up dipping his buttered-cheese noodles in the ranch dressing and polished off two helpings of the noodles in that way. Maya -as noted above -ate the salmon with no complaints at all but the noodles -not so much as she could still see traces of the damned butter there from the night before.

Go figure!

Then, time to get ready for bed -for the kids anyway. I told Maya that she didn't need a bath last night so to go get her pullup on and her jammies but that Kurtis needed to get a little wash-up since he still had black fingers and hands from the black marker episode. Well, that was a controversial thing there because Maya had a fit that she needed to be washed too and why did Kurtis get to be washed and she didn't. Okay, fine! I announced we would all go in the bathroom and all get washed and dressed ready for bed. The only thing that went peacefully about that was that we went into the bathroom. Then Maya decided she didn't want to be washed after all.

Sheesh! Make up my mind already, will ya! There was -after both were cleaned up and dressed for bed, yet another little outburst about going up to bed as she insisted she be allowed to lay down on the loveseat instead and I gave into that request as long as she did that was was QUIET!

By 9 p.m., both kids were however, sound asleep -her on the loveseat, Kurtis on the sofa!

And by then, my eyes were wanting to go shut too so no reading followed the end of yesterday for me.

Here's hoping today is a much quieter, calmer, meltdown and mess free day though!

It could happen, ya know.