Twelve Days To Self Awareness

Twelve days, it has been 12 days since we had our little chat. How much time am I supposed to give him to show me any effort. All I've gotten is a "I want to work this out" and a "am I being nice enough to you"? This morning was the first time he had spoken to me in a while, ya want to know what he said? "Don't I have any clean work clothes"? Nice, he comes home late and leaves before I wake up. But when he needs something, instead of looking for it himself he wakes me up and wants me to find it for him. I promptly found what he wanted and asked him if he realized that he only speaks to me when it concerns something like this and he said "sorry". That's all I get. Enough time wasted on him. The more I fixate on how infuriated he makes me the less in control I feel. I don't need to spend my days worrying about what I need to do to make him happy. I need to focus on making myself happy and if he wants to join he party then that is up to him.

It took five kids to get one that will actually walk up to other kids and say "Hi, I'm Eddie what's your name?" She will do it to every child in the park and then she will want to invite these same children to her house for elaborate parties and picnics. She asked me last night if the little girl at the park could come and sleep over. People must think we are nuts! I am quite afraid of what she is going to be like as a teenager. If she's gonna be anything like me I think I'll have to see if there's a good nunnery or some other place with four walls and a lock on the door to contain her for awhile. Maybe that's what's wrong with society these days, besides prison or the Army, there isn't anywhere to send your children for a little straightening up. And if there is, and you do, you are considered a terrible parent. I don't think anyone should be condemned for having to ask for help with their kids, especially these days when there is so much more influence on them than just your family and friends. There's cable, and Family Guy, and their delinquent friends, and the stupid people you know who just say crap to scare kids thinking it is funny. I'm, of course, not speaking of anyone in particular, I'm just saying. Very few parents don't try their best and even the ones who aren't probably don't know any better. Point being that asking for help should be a normal thing to do not something of last resort. Many children could be saved a lot of confusion and self-esteem issues if their parents just spread the parenting around - not to be confused with the dumping off of the child because you are tired of dealing with them. Some of the most well rounded people I know were raised or are raising their kids in a multi-generational situation. My kids rarely see their grandparents, I find that to be very sad. Some of my best memories are from spending time with my grandparents. Kids get to learn that there are other people besides their parents who might know a thing or two about life. They might even feel more comfortable opening up to them. Here I go getting all philosophical again and that can't be a good thing since I can barely even spell the word philosophical. Getting back to my point, I think Eddie, having had more influence in her life from her older brothers and her sister, may have the benefit of more experience talking to others and depending on people besides me. This, in turn, has given her a little more confidence when it comes to her day to day interactions. Or, maybe I'm just blowing smoke and she is just naturally social and her early influences mean nothing. In which case I will shut up now. The fact remains that a little extra life experience is a good thing and in order to get that you need to experience life. We are going to make more of an effort to experience new things and meet new people, who knows maybe we'll even get to know ourselves a little better.