My son came home from camp and he said he had a really fun time. He makes me so proud and I am hoping for a good start to middle school.

Thank you for using Picture and Video Messaging by U.S. Cellular. See www.uscellular.com for info.

Ranting

Normally, I try to keep things that go on between my parents and myself private in the private blog to try not to chance hurting their feelings but screw them. Why do I care if I hurt them or not. They don't care if they step on me.

I invited my older sister and her girls over for pizza cause they came from out of town. I felt like I should invite my whole family. So, that would be my Mom, my little sister and little brother. I didn't invite my Dad because of the whole divorce thing plus I didn't want to spend tons on pizza.

My Mom wasn't there long. She had an excuse to leave early. It might have been a real good one cause she is moving. She is letting the bank take her dead husband's house and renting one.

Anyways, we are all just hanging outside and I have to tell you that I loved seeing my sister and her girls. They have grown so much and are beautiful. I wish we didn't have so many miles between us. Well, anyways, my sisters are showing off pictures on their phone and one that goes around is the picture of Izzy and my sons from when they met during a bowling outing. When it got around to my Mom, my sister handed the phone to her and she looked at it and really didn't say anything.

She didn't stay long enough to eat pizza and she went on to hug pretty much everyone goodbye and say goodbye but she left my house without even so much of a goodbye.

Is it cause she hasn't been filled in on the reunion with my daughter? Maybe. But why should I? She is the one who pushed for adoption because she couldn't let me live with my Dad cause she needed a babysitter for her kids.

She is the one who told me to keep my daughter a secret and that's what made me feel shameful of my daughter and adoption all my life. Screw her! The only way she is going to meet my daughter is if my daughter wants to meet her. I will not ask my daughter if she wants to meet the grandmother who couldn't be bothered. So, Izzy will have to come up with the idea all on her own.

My Dad probably thought he could away with not being mentioned cause he didn't do anything. Well, your not so innocent Dad. He knew my Mom was a shit and just let his kids not have a parent around. I can forgive you for that.

However, after reunion and after my daughter is willing to meet you in person your still not counting her as a grandchild. You say you have 8 grandchildren. Well, newsflash you have nine. But he doesn't need to be bothered by it because I am not going to ask or pressure my daughter to committing to a date to meet. She said, she would but she has to make the suggestion because I have a feeling she was going to do it cause she thought I was willing. Well, I am only willing as long as I think she wants to do it. Well, I think she doesn't care one way or another and besides she doesn't make the count as a grandchild to either side.

Oh and my stepmom who has facebook who I don't want to friend cause never mind I won't say it. She only lists 2 grandchildren. Those would be the ones that are related to her.

I also found out that my Mom was taking my nieces to the fair. I am not jealous that she does that with them cause she is their grandmother but she has never babysat, never taken my kids to dinner, never taken them a movie, never taken them to a fair. She has went as far as not to say hello to them when we run into her at a restaurant. They live 12 hours away. We live 20 minutes or less away. I don't know why I get so worked up about her. She isn't worth it.

I always try to think if I invite my sisters and brother and not Mom how would she feel. Well, I am done wondering how she is feeling. I don't give a damn. She can live in her guilt and continue to ignore me and my family cause she can't face reality that she screwed the fuck up.

Notice if any family members did find this blog and read this. I am not mad at my sisters and brother. But I am done being a nice guy.

On the way home, my son said Mom they didn't count Izzy and wasn't she the second grand child born. I said, yea, I know and yes she is 29 days younger than the first grand daughter.

new school

In the past, I have blogged about how my oldest son is failing high school and the plan was to try to get him in an alternative high school to graduate. We took him yesterday and he had to take a couple tests to see where he is on tests scores. His reading is a 12 grade level and we won't even talk about math. It wasn't pretty.
They really tried to push for him to get a GED and said he could probably have it by December but I really want to see him get a diploma. I graduated at the same school and the person that is over seeing the program was my business teacher. They said it would take another three years to get credits and don't know if it's the right place for three years. I feel that there will already be a stigma about the diploma not being as good cause it came from an alternative school. I always feel uncomfortable when people in my town ask where I graduate from. A big part of that is that I don't want to get into why I ended up there. The truth was emotionally I had nothing else to give at a normal public school. I was drained.

Well, anyways, my son has stopped fighting the idea of the school now that he has been there and spoke to people. The average class size will be ten or under and they have an average of 40 students.

The biggest hurdle is going to be my son deciding that he wants to be in school and learn. The second hurdle will be getting to school. He will have to take the city bus. It was been agreed upon that my son won't come over to my place on the normal weekend. His time with me will be during the school week since the school is pretty close to me. However, it still means taking the bus if we can't take him. It will be all on him to decide that he isn't above taking the city bus.

There is a chance that this school will be no longer to offer credits for graduation so it's possible he may have to go for the GED.

Sleep away camp

We signed up my youngest son for camp at a local park that was one a battle ground for training for the world war 2. It was called camp grant. This environmental park has been doing field trips for schools ranging just one day to a sleeping there for a few days with the school. I stayed there but don't recall how many days. It was sort of a scary thing but a very cool thing to do.

I dropped my son off this morning and on Thursday night we have family night and on Friday afternoon he comes home. My son is special needs but doesn't need a lot of help. But there were keeping his issues in mind and said they would place in the group that could give that support.

I am a little nervous with him being gone at camp. Mostly, I think I will really miss him. I was a little worried that his appetite would cause him to feel like he was being starved to death but with our new snacking routine things have slowly improved. He sometimes would wait an hour or two after breakfast to ask for his snacks of the day and the fighting and pleading for food has gone down quite a bit. Actually, on Sunday, he forgot to ask at all and didn't have snacks between meals.

I never got around to blogging about my volunteering night for MELD last week. It was just my sister and I and nine children. All but three were babies. A couple of the babies were walking but in my eyes they are still babies. The other children were between 2 and half up to five years of age.

It was a crazy night. We had to call the driver to come help us with the babies. A lot of them were crying and he said he was going to see about getting a volunteer from another night to come help on Monday night. He actually said, he wondered if the children didn't know how to react or relate to us because he doesn't know how many of them see white people. I was a little offended but I know that I have had many children snuggle with me. I have has many children smile and be happy. Yea. I have had some screamers too though.

One baby puked on my sister and I was trying to take care of two babies and for the life of me all I wanted to do was laugh. I controlled my giggles cause I didn't want to tick my sister off. Well, it didn't pay for me to laugh at her getting puked on cause one of the babies I was dealing with puked on me.

We had a couple babies including a newborn that we hadn't seen yet. I love seeing the new babies but in reality it's another young parent trying to balance life as a new Mom so it's not all good.

I was shocked to see that one of the babies that I started taking care of when he was about six weeks old has learned how to walk. It's pretty cool watching the babies go from new born to crawlers to walkers and now one of the young children is currently getting potty trained.

It's August now and that means summer is coming to a close. It makes me kind of sad. I love the fun moments of summer of not worrying about early mornings and homework and early bedtimes. I love the pool. We have stayed pretty busy with the local pools and have done some interesting things due to being able to purchase a packet of fun from our park district. It has allowed us to do many things that would otherwise be unaffordable.

We been talking a lot about my son going to camp on Monday. He will be gone until Friday. It's the first time he has been away from home that long. We went shopping today for a few things that they are suggesting he bring with them. It seems like a long list for only five days though.

Today, in the mail came more information about the retreat I am going to be going on in late September. It's getting more excited for it. I also have a list of suggested items to bring. I am really excited but nervous at the same time. It's just a couple weeks after Izzy's 20th birthday so I am hoping it helps keep me focused on something good compared to stressing over her upcoming birthday.

retreat offer

I blogged about an offer for a retreat. You can read about it here. The retreat offer has been hanging over my head every since I found out about it. I really want to go cause I really feel like I need a break away from my family. I hope that doesn't sound bad.

It's was also kind of scary. I have never been away from home from my husband or kids. They have gone and been without me but not the other way around.

I find comfort that it's in the same town and we will probably drive by there sometime to see it with my own eyes. I find comfort that it's a retreat center and not a huge hotel that I would fear getting lost in.

I got a little extra money cause my home owners insurance decided to almost double the rate and it was paid out of my escrow but I wasn't happy about my home loan payment going up so I found insurance for a much cheaper rate and fired the old company. When they were sorry that they couldn't keep me as a customer. I said, "I am sorry too, but my pay rate hasn't doubled and I can't allow yours too."

So, my husband told me to pay for my retreat. I had to call and see if their was room still for one person before I sent off the check. So, it's not a while yet, but I will be going on the retreat for Mom's of special needs children.

So, I am excited about the retreat but kind of sad that summer is coming close to an end. I am not looking forward to my youngest being in middle school.