IT IS MONDAY AGAIN

Since it is Monday and I have been away for a while, I am going to empty out all the thoughts floating around my little head. Bear with me.

First things first. I would like to offer my condolences to all of Betcha's friends. While I never had the honor of meeting her, I know we read some of the same blogs. I always enjoyed reading her thoughtful comments. Losing someone so young and full of promise is just unfair. May her friends find comfort in their memories of her.

Now onto my bitching. On Friday, it was -48C here. According to a temperature converter I found on the Internet, that would make it -54F. In other words, IT WAS DAMN COLD!!! (Mark, if you still want to live here, you ARE the Lord of the Idiots. I will gladly trade you places). The School Division decided that it was too cold to run the school buses. Their reasoning was, if a bus should break down, it would take 15 - 20 minutes to get another bus there. (remember those times, it is important for later). They feel that is too long to have the students wait on the bus in the cold. It would be too dangerous to have to sit there for that long. IF, we lived in a rural area, I would agree with their reasoning. However, we don't. We live in a city. In the Capital city of the Province I might add. I can poke holes in their thinking. 1. If a bus should break down, the bus will not immediately become cold unless all the windows and doors are left open. The bus will stay warm for a while. The students would be okay for a while. 2. Being in the city, if a replacement bus did take longer to get there, the students could take shelter in any number of offices, stores, churches or community clubs they pass along the way. Sorry that argument doesn't hold water with me. If you need to cancel the buses, then cancel school all together.

Here is where I get royally pissed off. If you are a bus student, Friday was an excused absence for you. If you were not a bus student, you were expected to be at school. (Remember the time limit?) It takes my son 15 - 20 minutes to walk to school from our house. If he didn't go to school it was an unexcused absence for him. How is that fair? 15 - 20 minutes is too long for students to sit on a disabled bus, but not too long for my son to be in the cold. WTF???? It has always been that way, but it just strikes me as unfair. My friend's son lives one street over. He is classified as a bus student, but he never takes the bus, he always walks with my son instead. The Vice Principal called their house and told them that unless the boy had a ride both to and from school, he was not to come to school since there was no bus. I don't have a car, so my son still would have to walk and still have an unexcused absence. It drives me mad!

Thanks for listening to that little rant. My family is sick of hearing me complain about it.

Next up. Here are a few stories about what a bad parent I am. My son has been sick with a cold on and off for about four weeks. I tried to get him into our doctor, but it was impossible. You know how wonderful our medical system is. Anyway, on Wed, I decided that enough was enough and we were going to find him a Walk in Clinic. While we were at it, I had a sore throat I thought I would get checked out too. The usual Clinic we go to was closed for the whole week. Shoot. Okay next plan. The next Clinic I thought of was an out of the way place, not many people knew about. We had never been there, but I know I had seen a sign stating that appointments were not needed. Great except they closed at 5 and it was now 7. Last chance, one more clinic. This clinic was so full people were standing elbow to elbow. My son looked at me and said that he didn't want to wait, he just wanted to go home to bed. So we gave up. I did mention to him that we had passed at least 4 Vet offices. They were all open and didn't look busy. He didn't see the humor in that. On Friday, my one daughter was complaining about an earache just like me, so I took both of them to one of the walk ins we had tried earlier in the week. Luckily, the wait was only an hour so we all go in.

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Here is where bad parenting came into play. When the doctor saw my son he asked "HE HAS BEEN LIKE THIS FOR HOW LONG?" I guess he was a little more ill than we had figured. He has a throat and sinus infection and is on heavy duty meds. I felt rotten. Poor kid had been sick for so long, I should have taken him in earlier. On the plus side, the boy did tell me that he thought it was just a cold and nothing worse. Bad Parent, Bad Parent.

This next bit is hard for me to talk about. I cannot see the silver lining in this one and I for sure cannot see humor in it. I just have to get it out. Be gentle when you judge me on this one.

My one daughter S is a difficult child. When she was two days old, the nurse was waiting for us at the hospital door. She announced to us " Little Miss has an attitude" Little Miss was only two days old and two months premature. I knew right then, we were screwed. S is described as lively and feisty. She is also stubborn and quick tempered. Lately, things have been getting worse. She has started having accidents and throwing tantrums. Not little tantrums, I mean big 45 - an hour tantrums. She is starting to get violent too. I am sure some of this is brought on by the rotten kid at school that keeps harassing her. The School doesn't see these tantrums so they don't understand what a problem this bullying is causing. I guess they figure if they don't have to deal with it, it is not a problem. Anyway, the last time we took her to the doctor, I told her Dad to tell the Doctor about all this. He didn't see the point, but I made him promise to do it anyway. He did. The Doctor suspected ADD might be the problem. She is not disruptive in the classroom. As a matter of fact, her grades are very good and she is well liked by her teachers. We were referred to a Child and Adolescent Treatment Centre. They have since done an in ital assessment. They have decided that she is Not Add but she does need help. The wait list for help runs about 12 weeks. So we won't get in until Feb or March. In the mean time, they want us to get her assessed by a psychologist. Great. I will do whatever we need. The uh-oh part is that they warned us, it is not covered by the government medicare. The cost to us will be about $500. Okay, that is alot of money, but it needs to be done. When I actually made the appointment, it is not $500 instead it is $1100! Yikes. I don't have that type of money and I am not sure where I will get it from. Something is not right with this program when you have to pay that much for this. It is not something we did because we felt like it. This child needs help that I can't give her. I don't know why she does these things. The last meltdown she had, she tried to hit anyone near her and threatened me with a knife. She is only 9. If we don't get her help now, what will happen in the future to her? I can't help but think there is something that I did wrong to make her this way. Am I that bad of a Mother that I have damaged my daughter in some way? When she says she would be better in foster care than with me, I have to wonder what horrible thing did I do to her? What kind of mother am I ? This is so painful to feel that even your child feels she would be better off away from you. I don't know how to fix it because I don't even know the cause. I feel like my heart is breaking.

Those are the thoughts that are running through my head, and hopefully you now understand where I have been lately. I will try to check in with everyone this week. Take care.