Did you ever have one of those days where you look at it and say, “what the hell did I wake up in the twilight zone?” Well today is definitely one of those days for me. Nothing seemed to go right and I’m sick on top of it so I already feel like crap. Gotta love days like this.
It started off normal enough, got ready for work, got my kiddo ready for school and out the door we went a little early so I could stop and get gas. Which if you’ve been to the pumps lately, that’s a very depressing moment. Luckily it only took $40 to fill up my car, not as bad as I was anticipating. Off to school we went. Traffic was light so I didn’t have to worry about running late and making up time. I dropped him off and he was a little reluctant to get out of the car, but finally he did and into the school he went. I headed to work.
I arrived at the office and realized that it was pretty empty, which isn’t unusual for being that early in the morning. I went ahead and started a pot of coffee for my coworkers (I drink hot tea), and got lights turned on in the back part of the office. I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. Now let me tell you something about my computer, it’s the biggest piece of poo that I have ever worked on in my life. It’s so outdated, I think it runs on a hamster in a wheel and slow doesn’t even begin to describe it’s speed. Every time I use that machine I think of those two turtles in the Comcast high speed commercial. I started booting it up at 7:50 and it was 8:10 before I got to the screen where I could start to open programs. I’ve told them what I need to have done with it before, but I’m just a temp so why should they bother making sure I have a system that I can actually do my work on in a timely manner?
After cussing the machine out thoroughly for being such a disappointment I finally got started on my daily work. Then my co-worker called and said she wasn’t going to make it in due to a knee injury and a doctor appointment that afternoon. Ok no problem, I can hold down the education and training fort while she’s out. I had plenty to do today anyways seeing as how tomorrow is the 15th and my reports are due out. Then the receptionist buzzed me to let me know that she was going to be out from about 9:15 to about noon. (there is a whole different story to tell you about that woman, I don’t think I have enough space to type all that…..lol) Ok so now I get to answer the phones while she’s out. Goody! I try to be optimistic as I go to the kitchen for that first cup of hot tea, but I already don’t want to be here now I’m doing the job of two other people today, could anything else happen?
Yes, yes it could. I no more than get back to my desk, steaming cup of tea in my hand than the receptionist buzzes me again and says that she has to leave immediately because he daughter called and ran out of gas. Ok I get the phones right now, no big deal I can do this. I check my work emails and get my in-box work done so I can finally start on my reports. Luckily for me the phones are pretty quiet and I don’t get many interruptions. It takes about 2 hours to run the reports and I am done shortly before lunch. At this point my throat is still killing me and I still want to crawl back into bed and not come out until Spring.
Lunch comes and goes quickly with nothing bad happening. I spend the rest of the afternoon at work stuffing envelopes with the reports that I just printed out and making sure that they are ready to be postmarked tomorrow morning. Then I get a phone call from a client. He told me what he needed and it was an easy task to complete, but then he kept me on the phone for almost 15 more minutes just chatting. Normally I wouldn’t have minded talking, I love to talk to people. At this point I had to really concentrate hard to not let my scratchy voice get the best of me and end up sounding like a man during this conversation. He just kept rambling on and I just kept thinking, “Don’t you ever shut up?” Finally I was able to get off the phone with him and resume the rest of my days activities with 20 minutes left of work.
Naturally those 20 minutes crept by at a snails pace because I wanted to get home. I left work and headed to the school to pick up my son. He came out to the car bawling. I asked him what was wrong and he said he’d been bad at school. Oh oh. I checked in his backpack and sure enough he had come home on red behavior. There is a story behind this too, let me elaborate.
My 5 year old son started kindergarten this year and was also diagnosed with ADHD. Now I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical with that diagnosis, thinking that ADHD wasn’t really an affliction but a lack of parenting. Well let me tell you what, it’s real and it has nothing to do with your skills as a parent. My sweet loving son that I’ve taken such care in raising all his life, went to kindergarten and turned into Damien from the Omen movies. He was violent and disrespectful and absolutely a horror to have in class. My mantra the entire time to his teacher was, “I don’t know what to say, he’s not like this at home.” Which he isn’t like that at home cause he knows better. I finally took him to see a psychologist and a psychiatrist and got him put on a medication regiment. He takes Ritalin and Clonidine. The medications work together to make sure he’s not too stimulated but that he’s not too lethargic either. It’s a great mix thus far and his behavior has gotten so much better in my opinion. However today was not a good day.
The teacher called me after school to say that he just wasn’t able to be in control of himself today. He wasn’t following directions, he didn’t do his classwork, he was rude and disrespectful to her most of the time during the day. Once again I was left saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why he’s behaving this way.” She said that she was really hoping that the medication would change his behaviors more than what they have and that she felt let down by his lack of change. I didn’t know what to say to that at all. I think he’s doing wonderfully (most of the time that is). He’s learning more, he’s reading simple books now, doing basic math and spelling and doing very good in Spanish. I don’t see how she can say that he’s not making progress. Sure he’s not perfect every day but what child at that age is? What more does she want out of him? This conversation left me feeling very disillusioned about everything.
So here I sit, blogging about the day. It’s almost 5pm I still have dinner to make and I don’t feel like doing it at all. There are no leftovers to scrounge from so I have to cook tonight. We’ve been going out to eat a lot lately because I haven’t been in the mood to cook. We really can’t spend anymore money on fast food. It’s just so hard to be motivated to do what I need to do when this day has been a complete drain on me. Work sucked, my kid got busted at school, and my husband woke me up at 3am this morning because he couldn’t sleep. If anyone ever needed a vacation I think I would qualify. I love my family don’t get me wrong but sometimes I get really sick and tired of being mom. I know that things will get better, but right now I need chocolate and take out…..=D
