Yep.

If you’re not into hearing me complain go here or here or here or here. I like these blogs and maybe you’ll like them too.

Otherwise I want to tell you that I am clearly in need of a new skill set to mother to these children. I really need to up My Game. There are things that are making me bat-shit crazy – am I allowed to swear here? I guess I’ll find out if my mom reads my blog.

Ethan plays Christmas music. Loud. Often. Constantly. My whole family knows that I mostly hate Christmas music. I make an exception from about December 15 to the 25th around noon. It’s not like that’s a lot to ask. We’ve given him headphones – then he sings really loudly in his very distinct tone of voice with his very garbled speech. Who do you want to hear? Ethan or Mariah Carey. God help me. (I am not using ‘God’ in the vain sense – I mean it)

Ethan does nothing I ask. He always says no. Always. Says. No. ‘Go brush your teeth’, ‘Go put your shoes away’, and ‘stop packing and unpacking your entire room into moving boxes’ are all met with ‘No!’ I mean, sometimes I have to “MAKE” him do things he doesn’t want to. That takes a dose of patience & persistence that was given only to Mother Theresa – so I’m shit out of luck. Uh-oh – does my mom actually read this?

I think I need some kind of hypo-parenting technique to live with Gavin. He’s is alternatingly resourceful, helpful and brilliant and then…I actually don’t know what to call it and the online thesaurus is not helpful (it only came up with ‘donkey’). The tiny letters that make up the abbreviation ‘ADHD’ does not touch what Gavin exhibits. Just wow. I sometimes feel like we are in a really bad TV drama because the terrible dialogue comes out so ridiculously. ‘I don’t have to listen to you’, ‘You don’t know anything’ and….oh forget it. We need new writers. Wait. We are not actually a TV drama. Shit – this is our real life.

How Sean could get to 5 1/2 without whining, only to make it his primary mode of communication now is confounding. I seriously don’t know how it happened. He still socks his brothers every time he doesn’t like what they say. That doesn’t go well with their particular issues either. We have deemed him the ‘tiny tyrant’ because nothing is ever right – from the seam in his socks, to the length of his fingernails – and yes, I know what Sensory Processing Disorder is – thank you very much. He is currently having some strange vision issues that might or might not be making me nervous and edgy every time he blinks, shuts one eye and tilts his head. <sigh>

Mikey is genuinely the kindest soul with the absolute worst attention span that I have ever seen. With every tool applied for kids with attention issues, I continue to turn around to him sitting and petting the cat. “Didn’t I just tell you….” – I should just record it on my iPhone so I don’t have to expend the energy to speak. “Why are you not using your list?”. Oh yeah, the list, I forgot. If I took “I forgot” out of his vocabulary, he might only be left with ‘I’m hungry’.

There are four of them and they are bundles of issues that dovetail horribly with each other – like the louder Ethan’s music is, the worse Sean’s whining and Mike’s attention. There never seems to be one moment – not one – when one of them is not in need of some type of attention whether positive or negative.

It has been particularly chaotic lately. So I bitch. Here. Because I can.

One of the reasons I blog is that it lets me see how good life is – the highlight reel. I have four, beautiful children – each of them a gift. Not one I would trade for anything or anyone else. But I still just wanted to say it. It’s hard sometimes.