Groundhog Week

I feel like I have been away from my blog forever, but, I am finally back. I have tried to keep up with my blog reading, just been unable to find the time to post. My Dad (for those of you who don't know, my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer last fall) was in the hospital last week with pneumonia. Last Monday-Friday was spent getting my kids off to school every morning and then whisking my mom to the hospital where we proceeded to sit and wait all day for the doctors to come in and tell us that he was still not well enough to go home. Then, I would rush home in the evening, trying to figure out something for dinner or getting the kids to baseball practice. I swear, it felt like Groundhog Day every day last week. I was so tired. I don't know why it wears you out so much to just sit in a hospital all day. But, my Dad finally came home on Saturday night and it's just going to be a slow process for him to recover from the pneumonia and regain his strength.

My husband has stumbled into a "2nd job" opportunity that so far is working out really well. It's been such a rough year for us financially and I have had NO luck with the 15 jobs that I applied for (so I have given up for now). But, this second job is letting him work a LOT of hours (pretty much whenever he wants) so hopefully it continues to go smoothly. I feel bad that he is putting in so many hours, but, right now we have no choice. I'm trying to man the home-front and keep up with all the kids' baseball schedules and guitar practices, homework, etc. (although I must confess that I am not much help to my 6th grader with his math homework - seriously, I suck at math and it's pretty humiliating when I have to call my husband at the firehouse to confer with him about 6th grade math). I like to think that my area of "homework expertise" falls in the language arts/social studies arena.

Speaking of kids and the home-front --- WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THAT RAISING TEENAGERS WAS GOING TO BE SO HARD? --- Our oldest is 16 and we have been butting heads with him over various issues for several months. I guess I was just living in this bubble, thinking that my kids were going to be just the way I wanted them to be and always do the right thing and say the right thing and make perfect grades and not ever disappoint me....well, I think my bubble has been busted. For the past year, it's been the same thing over and over - arguing over grades, attitude, lack of motivation, etc. I just can't accept his total blase attitude over everything and how he can't see how easy he has it right now. He will be out of high school in a short 1.5 years - it scares me to think how unprepared he is for "real life." I am the type of person who wants to do things for my kids to make life easier for them. In a way, I think maybe that has been a mistake. It hit me like a lightning bolt the other night (after arguing, yet again, with my son) - "ok, I really have to just let him go and learn things the hard way, on his own". The first thing I did was to tell him I will no longer wake him for school each morning. He is extremely difficult to get up in the mornings, I usually have to wake him 2 or 3 times before he's up and at 'em. It was hard for me to just hand that over to him and not get up to make sure he was awake on time. I didn't even set my alarm or anything. I can't believe it, but, so far he's got up every day on time AND made his own breakfast. We have four kids, hopefully things will get a little easier with each one. If not, I may not survive, LOL!