Parenting Fail?

Today, I got the phone call that every parent dreads. The call from the teacher.
What had my little angel done? Was this a praise?

Um, no.

My middle son, B-rex, had gotten into a fight at school. As he put it, "a silly situation got away from (me)." He was trying to grab a necklace that a friend had on. And he ended up shoving, getting shoved, and "doing a belly-flop on" the other boy. Till he finally bit the other boy.

What?????!

Biting? What is he? Three?

Nope. He's nine.

Where did I go wrong? Did I not spank him enough as a toddler? Have I not set the right limits? He doesn't watch fighting. He doesn't have video games. He and his older brother fight, but that's normal for boys. Right?

And what now? We (my hubby and I) have decided that he's going to miss his Boy Scout camp out this weekend. Because he loves Boy Scouts and this will hurt.

Except now he's running around the house, playing with his 2-year-old brother.

Now what??? How do we correct this? How do you teach your son that it is NOT okay to invade someone's personal space?

I'm lost.

Doin' It All

Scene: Playing with the baby in his room. He was trying to climb onto his scooter toy, while holding a book and reaching for a ball.
B-rex: Why can't he get up there?
Me (shaking head):  D-man hasn't learned that you can't do it all.

Wow. Profound.

At thirty-seven, I'm not sure I've learned that you can't do it all. I think back to this spring:

• Lil' C was playing travel soccer. Practiced every Tues/Thurs evening and had games out of town on most weekends. 
• B-rex was playing rec soccer. Practiced every Mon evening and had games in town on Saturday mornings. 
• I had an infant. Who couldn't walk for most of this time span and was still eating baby food that I made.

That would seem to any sane person to be enough going on.

Not me. I decided that coaching the middle school girls soccer team would make my life perfect. That meant practice every day after school until 4:00. Games on Mon/Wed after school. When the parents were on time to pick up their daughters after practice (HA!), I had an hour and 30 minutes to pick up all three kids, get them home, fed, changed, and back out the door to practice.

My life was insane. Completely, bat guano, insane. And I did this for just over 3 months.

I was ragged. Tired all the time. Eating fast food because there was no time to cook. Irritable as all hell. Occasionally, I would ask my mom to pick up and take to practice. And Weston would meet me at one of the boys practices (usually Lil C's) and take over so that I could go home to deal with the baby.

When will I learn that you can't do it all? Seems like never.

Have you learned that you can't do it all? What's your secret?

Overwhlemed

I feel like I've been running around in circles for the past few days. School has been terrible. Home life has seemed nonexistent. I have been completely foul.

I'm not sure what is going on. I'm frustrated by school. I'm "teaching" this online Latin course, and it is taking up oodles of my time. Yes, I'm being compensated a bit ($100 per student), but I am not going to see that money till the end of the semester. And it occurred to me on the way home tonight that I'm really doing all this work, which is the work of a full-time teacher, for free right now. And even when I do get paid for it, it's a measly $100 per student. For an entire semester's worth of work. And yes, the online course is already made, but it is not up to par. I have to move stuff around, add my own notes and powerpoints, grade the online assignments, give extra assignments, come up with projects, and grade all of it. For a measly $100 per kid! I think I will be talking to our contact at the D.O. tomorrow. This is ridiculous!

And things at home are not great. We are still broke. I thought it would be better once Hubs got a job. But we still can't make ends meet. I'm going to have him begging for money again tomorrow, because we don't get paid till next week. And I still haven't paid the car insurance, or my student loans. And his student loans are overdue by a couple of months. And most of our bills are being paid late, which is messing up our credit even further. And I don't know what else to do! I can't see where the problem is!

And Cheese is getting ready to have surgery again. The colostomy reversal is set for Oct. 1. Which means Hubs won't be working at all that week. And I'll have to take off the next week when he's at Duke for continuing ed stuff. Cheese will not be ready yet to go back to school I think. We still have to talk to the school to see if Cheese will be able to stay in his preschool program, since one of the requirements is that he be fully potty trained. And once they reconnect everything "down there", he will not have full bowel control for a while. Possibly up to a year, or maybe not ever really.

Can you say stress?

And tomorrow morning, B-rex has an appointment for evaluation by the school district's speech therapy people. At least that's free.

I just feel like I'm in a free fall. I have no idea where the bottom is, but I don't want to know, because it's going to hurt when I hit. I don't know how much longer Hubs and I can make it like this, with all the money stuff. I know I'm supposed to give it all over to God, and He will provide. And I'm trying, really I am. But it's so hard. And it doesn't really help me sleep at night. My doc said she'd give me a prescription for that (sleeping), but I can't afford to fill it anyway. What are we going to do?

The good news is, I've lost 33 pounds through Weight Watchers now. Still some more to go, but this feels nice. On the down side, most of my clothes are not fitting anymore. I can't afford to buy new ones, so I'm trying to belt them up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it looks stupid. Oh, well.