Wonder what "homeless" feels like?
Unfortunately, none of the housing applications I put in over the weekend worked out. I can understand. I've been a landlord. Landlords hear "single mother with six children" and jump straight to the stereotype (welfare mother who had all those kids to whoever for the money. Yes, the money, I tell you! Don't get me started...) Of course, if there are many children, I must be stupid/insane/mixture of both, or at the very least, unreliable with no understanding of how contraception, or sex (er, what's sex???) works. Of course "ALL THOSE KIDS!!!" are a huge burden to me, and I can't wait to get rid of them, because they must, by definition, be little monsters.Grr.
My kids are normal, by most standards (although I am regularly told how good they are even on days *I* think they're acting out and my 14 year-old got 3 ticks from 4 different teachers in the behaviour column to emphasise how polite he is in class). My 3 (almost 4) year-old is a handful: he's three. They tend to be. Energetic and nowhere to put it yet. He wants to be at school but can't be. He wants to be with his brothers but can't be. They all have their off-days. We all do. There are some days I'd like time to myself: that's not a function of having 6 children, that's a function of being me: I was like that as a child. Ever since my ex moved out, once the adjustment happened, home life has been relatively quiet, in all truth, I am the worst offender when it comes to temper, etc. They're not angels, but they certainly aren't horrible little brats who don't know how to behave, either. Children are human, and they are children, learning to become adults, not miniature adults born knowing how to act.
Rant over.
The good news is, I should receive a reasonable amount from the sale of the house, so I've decided to up, slightly, what I can afford on rent. That's opened up the market somewhat (an extra $20 a week makes a rather large diff, it seems). The other good news is, I'd miscalculated the settlement date: it's April 26, not April 21, so I have an extra weekend.
I'd be lying if I said I was nervous, deep down, though. Despite doing the "responsible" thing (you know, making sure my kids aren't actually becoming homeless and getting everything done that needs to be done), I can't actually bring myself to care much. Complacency isn't a Good Thing, but I'm not concerned. Maybe I just believe it will work out. Maybe I'm just protecting my brain from massive overload (I look at my To Do list for the next week and my brain starts dribbling out of my ears). I have no idea. I have a lot on my mind. besides housing, I have a healthy dose of URST and also need to get over a certain ridiculous "thing" before a friendship goes up You-know-what Creek.
Oh, I've taken off a kilo and a half, a Good Thing. The only thing that's different? I'm eating more. Have been doing so since the last doc's appointment or so. Haven't even started up with the regular walks yet. Will.
Pftht. Better go. School's back today and the To Do list calls.
Edit: I just read my Cainer for today:
Little, if anything, is going to plan. Crucial resources are in short supply. Intense desires, some reasonable and some far-fetched, are preoccupying you. Arrangements keep changing. Promises keep being made and then broken. Funds keep floating away from you like feathers on the wind. Yet, oddly enough, you hardly care. It is as if you are being driven by a need that you don't understand yet which is right... and which will be met.
Hmm.
S'pose I should just let my control-freaky self go with the flow. heheheee. Yeah. right. Like that's going to happen. *snorts*
posted by Heather @ 7:19 am
3 Comments:
Your kids are awesome and actually very well behaved for their age. The older ones show maturity (kids of the same age around here constantly act like monkeys...) and the younger ones are more polite than any I've usually encountered around here. I am also impressed by how clearly they speak - words and sentence construction. I don't mean all the kids in my local region are poor in speech, but most of them can't put together a simple sentence (in one language or another) and their parents seem to encourage baby talk (distorting speech by delibrate mispronounciation) because they think it's cute to talk to each other like that. Or they just let the child scream non-stop. I normally don't like children so I really meant the compliments.
Good luck on the house stuff.
- Liz
I'll say again, I love you Liz. :-)
Actaully, I probably don't give them enough credit. I actually think my kids are great, but I tend to also think I'm way biased. So it's really nice to hear it from another.
My three year-old is vacuuming the lounge as I type. That sounds like I'm some sort of slave driver, but he actually insisted. Stridently.
He actually does a better job than I do (no, I don't do a bad job). Watching him is funny, because he's more than a little anal about it: he's just taken off the big nozzle and is doing around the furniture legs. Obviously, he's been watching me closely lately! I sense a clean freak in the family... funnily enough, he reminds me a lot of another gorgeous but fastidious Leo I know, born on the same day some 26 years earlier. :-D
Which is not entirely a Bad Thing.
I don't like it when parents ignore misbehaviour either, although in some cases it's more from fear of being thought of as "child abusers" if they say anything above a whisper to the child, in others it's pure laziness. I mean, yes, kids will be kids, but it's the job of parents (or other adults if the parent abrogates responsibility) to teach them how to be adults, appropriate to the kid's age, of course.
Oops. Off my soapbox now. :-)
Thanks again Liz. #3 son is home sick and he saw your comments and is now feeling very good. :-)
Kewl. Get well soon, Alex! :)
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