Friday Frustrations

I am sooo frustrated that my 4 year old... who used to be a sweet lil girl who was cooperative and loved to learn and who pretty much obeyed when I told her to do something or not to do something... has become very stubborn and downright oppositional and has no interest in paying attention when I try to teach her anything. I tell her not to do something and she just flat out does it anyway... with me standing right there watching her and telling her she had better not and why. Or if I tell her to do something she just does not do it and then lies and says she did.

You know I have 3 grown children... and they were very difficult. They were all 3 born within 1 year... Sarah was 11 months old when the boys were born.... and they were all ADHD and Sarah is Bipolar as well. They were by no means whatsoever easy children to raise. For several years... their preteen and teen years... it was pretty scary around here... I was afraid they would kill each other or even me... seriously. I had to hide anything that could be used as a weapon... my kitchen knives were hidden in my bedroom closet... ball bats... golf clubs... any thing that could do serious damage was hidden. You should see the holes they put in my walls. Thankfully we all survived and I'm happy to say that they have all matured a lot and I no longer worry about the damage they might do to others.

When I got pregnant with Steffie I thought 'If I can survive that... this one should be a breeze... one child as opposed to 3... different genetics so no ADHD... plus the lessons I learned while parenting them.... right??? Well things aren't looking so great. I'm wondering if maybe Steffie is ADHD as well.... the child bounces off the walls all day... never stops talking... and has become pretty rude and demanding... and her attention span was longer when she was 2! I really wanted to homeschool her... I don't want her exposed to all of the bad attitudes and risky behaviour that goes on in public school... I don't want to wonder if my child is safe from violence and drugs and sexual behaviour everyday. I don't want to deal with the people who run our public school system and all of their judgemental attitudes and worrying about things that have nothing to do with whether my child is getting educated or not... like whether her shirt is tucked in... or has a collar on it... or what color her hair is... or how many piercings she might have (someday)..... or saying she has to go to school when she's sick because she can't miss too many days or their funding gets cut... or those pain in the ass fundraisers that kids have to do... and the hours and hours of homework she'll have to do after sitting in class all day already. I want better for her!

I want her to learn at her own pace in a way that is best for her learning style... I want her to be free to express herself in her appearance however she wants... I want her to feel safe and loved... and not have to worry about bullies... or doing what everyone else is doing just to be popular. I just want so much better for her as she grows up.

But now I'm questioning my own ability to teach her... she just refuses to pay attention when I try to teach her anything.... I know she's young... but she's 4... she's old enough to start learning to read and write.... she just will not sit still and listen even for a short time. She has known her alphabet since she was 2... and I mean really known it... not just singing the song... she knew each letter and a word that began with each one... she knows the phonics already... she can count to 100 with very little help... she knew her colors when she was 1... she can use the mouse and surf the web like no other 4 year old I've ever seen. But she refuses to write a B... just won't do it.... and it was she who asked to do her B writing lesson. It feels like she's toying with me... trying in any and every way to get under my skin. Aren't kids supposed to want to please their parents at this age? Don't the "I hate you"s come much later??? She told me the other day that she hates me... where did she learn that??? I know she doesn't hate me... but sometimes it sure feels like she's trying in every way possible to be downright mean to me. And then all of a sudden she's hugging me again and telling me she loves me and that I'm the best Mommy ever. She goes from downright brat to sweet as pie in a split second.

Am I expecting too much? Can I homeschool this child and still keep my sanity? Will her defiance get better as she turns 5? Will I cave and send her to school next year? I dunno...

A Lil Enchanted,
~LaShan~

Friday Frustrations

Well I haven't done Friday Frustrations in a while because honestly I've been trying to have a more positive outlook on things and not think about the frustrating and bad things. You know the old/new 'positive attracts positive... negative attracts negative'... and it's been going pretty well.... up to now. So here I am....

This week has been so horribly frustrating. We made it through the recent Mercury Retrograde with very lil issues... but it seems like they all hid in a closet and just waited until this week to jump out and say "BOO!"

My sons vehicle was taken away last week.... a long and complicated story that I won't go into.... a family matter on his father's side (my ex). So we've tried to just go with the flo... driving him back and forth to work. He also lost his cell phone service... another long and complicated issue having to with his now ex girlfriend. So I share mine with him for now until he can get his turned back on. We were coping with the issues.

Well on Tuesday my husband's car broke down. Now I'm very thankful that it broke down one street over so it was easy to push on home and we didn't have to get it towed! But that puts us down to one vehicle for three people to use. Since hubby and son both work at the same place they've been able to ride together some... but they don't always work the same hours.... and next week will be a huge issue if we don't get that car running. At this point we don't know what's wrong or how much it will cost to fix it.... we should know tomorrow. Our neighbor across the street is a mechanic and is looking at it. Hubby thinks it might be a $400 repair... which if that's the case it won't be getting fixed. We just bought this POS a few months ago for $700 and then spent another $200 to fix some issues. We're not spending another $400 to fix the POS! So cross your fingers and toes and arms and legs..... light candles and send some cheap car repair energy this way please! We really need this vehicle.

But that's not all... today was horrible. Steffie was the worst behaved she has ever been in her life. And I was not in the best mood either.... so every lil thng she did just pushed me a lil closer to losing it.

And on top of that my e-mail had a brain fart.... at least that's what I call it... and ruined my day completely. I use gmail along with Incredimail.... and occasionally it does this. I have at least 100 subfolders inside of main folders for my business and yahoo groups etc.... and all of the subfolders just come out of the main folders and all of my message rules that tell them where to go get messed up. So it took me the whole day to get it all put back. It's very frustrating.... I don't know why it does it.... but today was just not a great day for it.

So if you e-mailed me and I haven't e-mailed back that's why.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day... and way more relaxed.

A Lil Enchanted,
~LaShan~

Friday Frustrations

My main frustration right now is Entrecard and Adgitize....grrrrr...

For the last several days EC has been working only sporadically... I've been really busy this week and have had lil time to spend visiting blogs and dropping EC's... between my computer running slow and the EC drop button not showing more than half the time it's been very difficult to get much done. Adgitize hasn't helped since they changed their list of "blogs not dropped on today" to the preferred blogs list (or whatever they are calling it)... because now it does list ones I've already clicked on so I can't even depend on that to go to unclicked ones. Also speaking of Adgitize... I've been trying for 3 months now to earn the $14 just get my ad on there.... and I'm still lacking about $5.... so I'm frustrated that it hasn't added up a lil faster.... at this rate I still won't have the complete amount even after another month :(

Another frustration.... I decided to try The Grocery Game... I've been thinking about it for awhile... this week was pay week and grocery shopping time... so Monday I signed up hoping to find great deals and make getting my list done easier and quicker. Well... it wasn't.... I spent over 6 hours on Monday getting familiar with using it (it'll be be quicker next time because I know how it works now).... and getting my coupons and list together. I was doing like it suggested and just marking my coupon flyers with the date they came in the paper... this is how they tell you where to find the coupons to get the great deals. Well it took forever to find them that way because I had to keep going back through each flyer every time I wanted to find a coupon and there were tons that I wanted to find. So most of Monday was spent getting my shopping plan ready. It also didn't help that my old printer (the only one that has ink in it) would not print my lists from the website... that would have made things much easier and faster as well. So I've decided that I need to clip all of these coupons (100's 0f them) and file them alphabetically so I can find them faster. This is a task that I've been needing to do for quite some time... and one that will take hours :( Then it took the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday to do the actual shopping because I went to 7 different stores... I got a late start on Tuesday so I had to carry it over to Wednesday... and I had to drag Steffers along which makes everything take longer.

I have to say that I did find quite a few bargains by using The Grocery Game... so we'll see how it goes next trip (in 2 weeks).... if you want to give it a try they offer a free 4 week Trial Membership... and please list me as the person who referred you ALilEnchanted@gmail.com.... I can earn free weeks of membership :)

I'm still frustrated with the condition of my home... though I've been making myself spend more time cleaning. I really need to spend some major time focusing on getting it into shape.... it's almost fall and that means fall decorating... and then Christmas decorating etc.... and I always get the cleaning bug in the fall.... most people Spring Clean.... I Fall Clean. Soooo I've been seriously considering taking a week off from blogging to focus on my home... I haven't decided yet if I can have the will power to do it....lol... but I'll let you know if I decide to go through with it. I really do need to do this. Maybe now would be a great time since EC isn't working well anyways.... but geez I'll miss everyone :( .... I'll let you know in a few days what I decide to do.

Time seems to always be my biggest frustration... I need a few clones so I can get everything done.... can they speed up the process on that clone thing??? lol

A Lil Enchanted,
~LaShan~

My Friday Frustrations....

1 - Hmmm... well I wanted to participate in this and vent my frustrations with the never ending pile of dishes that fills my sink. Myself (of course).... my husband.... and my 3 year old live here... along with my 20 year old daughter.... and just recently my 19 year old son just moved back in. Everyone eats.... but no one wants to lift a finger to do a dish! They just eat and then pile their dishes in the sink and leave them there. They assume I guess.... that since I'm a stay-at-home Mom that it's my duty to do their dishes. Now of course the 3 year old can't do hers yet.... but everyone else can! Why is it soooo hard to rinse the food off your dish that you just ate out of and put it into the dishwasher that is right beside the sink????

And... if someone else cooks anything.... that's even worse! Because then I have to wash the dishes and clean up the rest of the mess they made as well. I feel like all I do is wash dishes. Very little else gets done in the house because I spend hours in the kitchen washing dishes and cleaning up everyone else's mess. I constantly tell them to do their dishes.... they never do! I tell them "if you're gonna cook you have to clean up your mess".... they never do! I've even told them that if they leave their dishes in the sink they will find them in their beds later.... I guess they know I could not bring myself to carry out this threat... and not that my daughter would notice.... her room is a pit!

So before I go do yet another overflowing sink full of dishes left from last nights snacking and cooking I wanted to vent....

But then I found a new Friday Frustration....

2 - Trying to figure out how this Mr Linky thing works.... I figured out that I didn't have to add it here to do the Friday Frustation thingy but I would like to participate in some other ones like maybe Music Monday. So after at least an hour of trying to figure this out (time I could've.... should've been doing those damned dishes!) I still don't know how to do it. So if someone out there can or will take the time to give me Mr Linky For Dummies-type instructions it would be greatly appreciated.

Now I'm off to do the dishes before it's time for me to cook dinner and then do the dishes again!

~A Lil Enchanted~
( but not with dishes.... grrrrr)