Psychotomy

So, Kiir went to the airport and left with Kitty.  Leaving just me in charge of DK and Pi.

So, first things first, we should eat dinner!  I took them to Red Robin, since it’s basically their favorite.  Dinner was good and fine.

She brought the check, and I said no to the boxes since they were still eating.  A minute later, she’s just at the next table  taking their drink orders, they both declare that they’re done.  When she finishes, she carefully turns in a direction away from me, and it’s loud so she didn’t hear me calling for her.

Fine, I’ll catch her when she comes back, she’ll be back for the check anyway.  They start being antsy, duh, but it’s just another minute.

I’m not sure how long it was, I’m sure it wasn’t the ten minutes it felt like, but it was definitely a while before she came back.  I think she waited at the bar for 6 drinks.  Whenever I order, I have to wait forever for my bar drinks while sodas come out instantly.  I guess they weren’t QUITE that busy.

Anyway, she comes back, I give her the card and ask for some boxes.  Pi has been asking to go potty for a while, and DK now wants to go too.  So, we run over to the bathroom.

TWO MINUTES LATER!   TWO MINUTES!!!   Come back out and see the waitress talking to the busser.  Who has already tossed the milkshake and the kids drinks into her bin.  Along with both pastas.  And one of the three things of fries.  She started with the full one apparently.

Seriously!??

I understand, it was the rush time (quarter past 7 on a friday).  I understand that I didn’t have anything at the table to clearly state I was coming back (note:  what, I was going to leave a child?)

But I did have a lot of fries, a full milkshake glass, a kids shake, pasta, and a balloon tied to the lamp.  I’m not sure leaving anything would have helped, honestly.

The waitress apologized and offered to have the kitchen make fresh for me take.  Except, you know, the kids were already done with waiting.  And since they swapped out the motorcycle arcade game, they’re not even really all that interested in the couple games out front (well, one racing game where you sit in a chair now, and then a couple carnival claw games; really, they’re not actually interesting, I agree).  She did say “next time you’re in I’ll remember to take more off”, which I guess means like she wouldn’t charge us for one of the kids meals or something?  But, seriously, even the waitresses we get often don’t recognize us.  We really try not to go too often!

On the way out, the manager on duty apologized, and offered to have the kitchen make up new orders to go.  Still, kids?

So, I ended up losing a pair of school lunch pastas and a weekend lunch of fries.  Because they’re busy enough to need to bus tables quickly.  And apparently have no system to define if a table is done or not.

Actually, the lady doing the bussing, tossed the last two sets of fries as I got back to the table.  While the waitress was waving the togo box and telling her that we had just asked for boxes, we were trying to take it with us.  And watching as I came back with two kids.  Honestly, she looked almost malicious at it.  And when we were leaving the table, she mumbled sorry.  I don’t know if she didn’t mean it, or if she didn’t speak much english and didn’t understand what it was supposed to sound like.  Either way, it certainly wasn’t an apology.

*sigh*

Posted in: DK, general, PI by attriel /
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So, DK has been having more meltdowns recently.  Not coincidentally, he’s much more willing to go up for bedtime around 9pm.  No, wait.  He’s much more willing to go upstairs with me and Pi, to “help out a little.”  But since he knows what happens when he helps (he falls asleep), I’m counting it, because he is taking that on.

So, fairly sure he’s having a growth phase of some sort.  Mental or physical, I don’t know (although my guess would be mental).  And that has him all out of sorts, prone to, alternatively, tear or screaming fits.

He broke down at a birthday party recently, he had climbed up to a platform, but there was only one ladder to go up or down (poor planning IMO), and a bunch of other kids were coming up.  When it started to get full, he decided he wanted down.  But kids were coming up.  Then everyone decided it was crowded o everyone wanted down.  Meanwhile, DK had been shunted to the back of the crowd, and even though he wanted to get down before everyone was up, he ended up the last one on the platform.  By which point he’d sat down in the corner to have a breakdown.  I know how it feels, I’ve done it myself before.  It’s just so frustrating and it seems like the world is against you.  *sigh*

Of course, then we have the part where he’s demanding things and we’re telling him no.  We got Skylanders for Xmas and I opened it up early for him, and we bought him a bunch of extra characters.  Now every time we go out he demands a new one.  Or two.  ”or one hundred!”  Even at the grocery store the other night.

And then the far end of the spectrum.  Wherein last night I established myself as (a) a power to be considered, and (b) worse than satan.  We’ve threatened to take away a Skylander or two, before, but we’ve never needed to follow through.  Once over t-day, I told him I was taking them away because he was insisting on watching TV instead of going out for a walk with Nonnie.  Then he said something, and I realized it wasn’t so much the TV as he wanted ME to come on the walk, and his little brother.  He hadn’t articulated it before that point, but once I asked if that was what he wanted, he was happy enough to grab his shoes.  Although he did ask, before we left, if he was still losing his Skylanders (I said no, because I decided that the imminence of the threat had motivated him to at least tell me what he wanted)

But last night, Pi was ready for bed.  Kiir was taking up Kitty.  And I ‘needed his help” with Pi.  He didn’t want to go, he wanted to watch the movie (not that Robin Hood: Men in Tights isn’t a GREAT movie).  We discussed the point, we argued.  He screamed, I got pissy.  And then I told him I was going to take a Skylander if he didn’t start going, and I counted down.  And he kept telling me not to count, and he batted at my hand to make the numbers go away.  And when I reached 0 … I picked out a Skylander and told him it was gone for a week.

The screams reached a fever pitch at that point.  He begged me not to take it away. He shrieked bloody murder.  He started to go up the stairs, and asked if he could have it back since he was going now.

I said no.  No, you can’t have it back, because you weren’t listening and you weren’t following directions.  And once I made sure he was far enough up the stairs to not see where I was storing it, I put it away.  Because if he saw it, even “out of reach” he’d just climb on something (possibly dangerously) to get it.  So I made sure he couldn’t see where I was putting it.  I don’t think he could see it when he came down this morning.

We all went up, brushed teeth, and they were playing in the room before booktime, and I told them to get up on the bed so we could read.  They ignored me.  I said “Five”, and DK went barelling up onto the bed.  Because, after all, Il Bastardo has already proven he’s maniacally willing to take away my Skylanders, I am NOT risking another one!!!

I hate “ruling by fear,” but I’m always being told I’m not supposed to be their friend.  ”You’re their parent, first.  You’re NOT their friend.”  I just don’t really know how to be a parent without being a friend, too.  A slightly bipolar and sadistic friend, perhaps, but…

(Kiir gave him back his Skylander this afternoon; which is fine, I didn’t really necessarily MEAN to take it for a week, but that was the unit I said, and fundamentally I needed to not be seen backing down from it; I did make him go give her another hug and a kiss and say thank you after I got home, because “daddy said it was gone for how long?  And mommy gave him back already?  I hope you gave her a hug and a big thank you, because that was very nice of her”)

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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Today it was raining.  Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain.  It rained yesterday.  We decided that taking Pi to the zoo on Pi day was going to be cold, damp, and muddy.  And the animals would probably show more smarts and stay inside.

So we went out to the aquarium in Baltimore today, instead.  Nani & Pom’s gift this year for the two of them was the family membership.  The both fell asleep in the car, so we let them sleep a while.  Woke them up at 3, ~90 minutes of naptime.  DK kept running ahead, I think he was looking for something, but it turned out to not be the puffins or the sharks.  Might have been the arboretum, might have just been hyper.

Kiir kept running after him and trying to get him to stop an look at the fishes, with limited cooperation from the boy.  I had Pi on my back, and we kept stopping to look at the fish.  She liked the pretty colored ones :o

OMG are people annoying.  They kept standing like 5 in a row completely blocking paths and views.  And with Pi on my back, I couldn’t really slip through anything.  And the folks who had to surrender their strollers (it’s crowded enough as it is; we take ours to contain the boy to/from the parking deck, and to store our coats when we check it) and got the aquarium issued carriers … External frame hiking bags.  Except instead of high, they went far back.  And these people weren’t used to them.  I kept having to dodge out of the way :!

Pi enjoyed the fishes, and when DK calmed down (after going up on Kiir’s back) we went through a second time so he could actually see fishes.  And Pi could get a second round with less rushing to keep up.

They were both happy with their fishes viewing, yay!

Happy birthday, Pi girl.

Posted in: DK, PI by attriel /
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So, I’ve determined that the reason DK doesn’t use more than mono-sounds is the fact that he doesn’t cognitively recognize the necessity of more.  Because he CAN, in fact, do longer words.  He simply DOES NOT.

My confirmation came today when he looked at the word octopus, sounded it out, and then said Oct.  With some prodding he went to Octo.  But an hour earlier he’d asked for “caysadiya” (which, frankly, is how quesadilla would look if he tried to spell it).  So obviously he CAN use longer words.  And he can recognize that there’s more word.  But he doesn’t feel the need to enunciate it because he doesn’t have any other words that start octo.

So, I guess we need to introduce him to more words so he’ll get more collisions, in which case he’d naturally end up using full words.

Also, do normal people refer to them as hash collisions?  I wonder what a pediatrician or ped-speech would call it …

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, I am apparently an evil dad.  Today I decided we really needed to take down the xmas tree, so I started pulling down ornaments.  And DK started grabbing them and trying to put them back up :o

By the time I was taking down the lights, Pi had a piece of wrapping paper in her hand and just kept turning it over and looking at it, like ‘wait, what’s happening?  I liked the presents thing :(‘

Apparently after Xmas comes Evil.  And I am the embodiment of all that is evil :/

Posted in: DK, general, PI by attriel /
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Lately, DK has taken to shaking my hand occasionally and telling me that it’s nice to meet me.  “Nice to meet you!”

Last night at Costco he was on Kiir’s back in the carrier, having been taking a nap.  He was awake by now, just still in the carrier, and he turns to me and puts out his hand.  I give him mine, he shakes it, and says “Nice to meet me!”

The pleasure is all mine! :o

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, took DK swimming today. Of course, he ran off and wanted to go to the children’s center instead. While I’m following him down the corridor, I’m commenting on how I have the swimming stuff not the workout stuff. what am I supposed to do here, dk?

He ignored me, as I expected, and they barely got his nametag on him before he vanishd into the kids center So I went to work on my back (which, apparently, there’s basically nothing for stretching out that lowest part of my back where I have all my trouble; only one machine, and it doesn’t seem to help anymore)

He was actually there about 15-20 minutes before apparently realizing that I wasn’t there with him, or something. They called me back, and once he saw me he was almost ready to run back in, with me in tow this time.

We went to the pool instead and played for another half hour. Then the showers for 15-20 minutes. The biggest problem I had the whole time? The screaming fit when I turned off the shower. sigh.

Came home and he fussed and fought and fell asleep. Now I don’t really know what to do with myself.

I suppose I probably should have been cleaning the basement some more, try to finish that up for a play area for DK, Pi and Kiir during the days. Oops

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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hearing that is downright depressing :o

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So I want to try to get a few posts up over the next couple days talking about the VAST AMOUNTS OF FUN that was my weekend trip to atlanta :o

But in the meantime, DK was putting his Cars matchbox hot wheels in the crip tonight. When I took them out so he could play with them, he got off his chair, grabbed them, and put them back in. Apparently they went to sleep when he didn’t :o

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, as much as I miss having the opportunity to play on the xbox ,mess on the computer, or watch vids, generally …

It turns out the last 3 days have sucked. I have no energy, no drive. My get up and go got up and went when I had to drop Kiir at the airport (wasn’t even allowed to go in with them :/)

Sunday was the wedding, and DK with all the jumping left my arms exhausted. Monday when I got home I pulled vines from the yard. Did some general cleanup in the living room, reorganized the video drawer so its a lot of vids DK can watch instead of front loaded with Law and Order :)

Need to clean out the car today, of all the bits DK has left overs. Need to finish vacuuming and steaming. But I’ve been so damned drained, even the 10 minute process of vacuuming daunts me :/

I think I need to look at my meds, too. Because this? this is ridiculous.

Posted in: DK, house by attriel /
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