So I’m driving along in my car right, and I get a text message. Being the responsible person I am (shuddup you, yes you with the smirk) I don’t text and drive. Thinking it was PSLS texting to say he was ready to be picked up from work, I handed my phone to the 13 year old sitting next to me in the car. CJ opens my phone and the message without giving it a second thought and is confronted with

“Should I buy condoms”

hmmm not my husband at all, but rather one of my girlfriends contemplating the successful possibilities of a potential date!

Woops!

Fortunately the 13 yo had no advice to offer and merely closed the phone before rolling her eyes…. but I think she might be avoiding messages from my girls for a while LMAO

our first week of home schooling!

Barely.

CJ managed to kick something early in the week that has left her with a large painful lump on her foot (yes that same foot) that still makes her gasp whenever she bumps it and I managed to sprain my ankle quite badly so have it all strapped up and am hobbling around. (Yes, I am a klutz too)

Apart from our injuries, I only wanted to kill her once. Yesterday, when she decided that everything I wanted her to do for the day was shite and started arguing with me about it. We got there in the end, but I now know where she got her stubbornness from – me! LOL

Meantime she has been trying to con me into allocating Wii time into her daily schedule with the argument that schools are using Wii games for sports so Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, and Wii Fit could be considered physical activity; and Guitar Hero constitutes music practice. She’s also arguing that Brain Training and Maths Training on her Nintendo DS should be part of her schedule as well. Those two I might give her, but the Wii….

Lets hope the novelty of the idea of unlimited Wii time without having to share wears off soon or we’ll never get her actual book work done!

The week before we went on our Easter holidays camping trip I had an assignment due, for my psychology unit, on stress and coping.  We had to put together the introduction for a research report into gender differences in stress sources and coping styles, discuss positive and negative coping styles and come up with some hypotheses for our report.

This all of course necessitated a fair whack of reading and research on stress and coping in the weeks leading up to it, and I came to realise over the course of my study time that I was not handling my own stress very well.

Insomnia, my most familiar symptom has been an all too frequent visitor in our house of late. Hiding, the next interloper on the list, has been an all too frequent urge of late. Hiding in my text books or hiding online. Avoiding having to deal with, well, everything. The problems at my kid’s school, CJ’s health problems, mounting financial pressures, hubby’s worry about his job, the increasing distance of a much loved friend…. Just everything.

And I realised that I am not coping.

Not really. Not well. I am merely using negative strategies to avoid everything and distract myself. It’s not doing my health much good either.

My not being here regularly is also a sign. My head is so full of clutter that I don’t know where to start or what to say.

A few days ago I had the most open talk I’ve ever had with my GP. Confessed my dark secret sins, told the tales of my tortured nights. I’ve started some medication despite my reluctance after long ago experiences, but it’s been okay. No nasty side effects. In fact only one side effect at all.

Sleep.

For the first time in six years I have had a decent nights sleep every night for two whole weeks.

Boy, does that make a difference!

Now to start poking my head out the door again…

Took ourselves on a little adventure today!

So here is Widdle Shamrock all strapped in ready for the car ride…

And off we went to meet up with Jayne and her son, Feral Beast! We went to Benalla, a thriving little rural city which prides itself on it’s connections to the infamous Ned Kelly. Little did we realise that Widdle Shamrock likes to run amok in museums…

First she tried to try on Weary Dunlop’s uniform

Then she had to climb in the dock used at the Kelly gang trials and have try at sweet talking the judge…

The poor museum people ended up offering a reward for her capture!

Then it was off to the botanical gardens for lunch where she insisted on climbing every tree

And sitting on the big guns!

She was eyeing off the art gallery,

but we didn’t trust her not to cause chaos there too… especially after we saw the name of her latest exhibit there

so we wandered over to the ceramic mural instead where she played hide and seek with the kids

And mucked around with them till it was time to go

So we took a quick group snap before heading off

And zipped back up the freeway heading for Albury

She did insist on stopping at Glenrowan to check out the giant Ned Kelly statue

Though I nearly died of embarrassment when she checked to see what he wore under his armour!

When we finally got back to Albury, PSLS had a surprise for us and took us all out to Lake Hume

And we watched the sunset

Perfect end to a perfect day

It’s been a while since our previous instalment in this series but I think it’s time for another one…

Put on your best Mrs Doubtfire voice and run from one teen’s bedroom door to the other knocking loudly, swinging open the door and calling out “Helloooooooooooooo” till they are awake and moving.

Then grin at them as they scowl at you from the lounge… LOL

Gots to love it when he wakes up in a good mood…

CJ has recently been having more problems at school with the narky group of girls who are determined to exclude her from everything – social activities, group work in class, conversations at lunchtime, even from having someone to sit next to in class. I spoke to the school about  it in year 6. I spoke to the school about it in year 7. What may have started as simple school yard skirmishes have continued and developed from occasional incidents into the standard operating procedure for these girls.

I’ve spoken to the school about it 4 times in the past two weeks and now these girls are approaching CJ wanting to know if she ‘dobbed on them’. (To which she replied “No, but I don’t know what my mum might have said when she talked to Mrs P” lol)

I must admit to wanting to burst into hysterical laughter earlier in the week when I was visiting for open day at all the “Make our school a bully free school” posters hung about the place. If only it was that simple. I’ve had to speak to the school about incidents concerning all three of my children in the past six weeks.

CJ also has that impossible teacher that gave her such a hard time last year. The one that have a go at her about managing on her own on crutches, that she just doesn’t like and doesn’t manage to get on with very well. She has been applying herself more this year, and making great efforts in her homework thinking that would get him off her back and gain her some peace. Only it backfired spectacularly. After getting an ‘A’ for one assignment she is now reminded every lesson that he expects that same quality of work from her all the time now, both in and out of class. No let up in the pressure at all.

Then she is bored stupid in some of her classes – some just don’t interest her, some are too elementary for her (like music) and some she has convinced herself are beyond her (like geography).

And of course we have all the pressure at home with things being different with Lou home and all the extra focus on helping Lou manage her anxiety problems.

CJ is also the kid who usually just does things because they need doing, is the most conscientious about doing chores, tries to help the other two do their chores properly, often finds herself in the middle of their arguments, and is most often the first to notice if I’m having a bad pain day no matter how well I try to hide it.

It’s a lot of pressure for a 13 year old and she’s beginning to crack. Over the past 6 – 12 months she’s been getting injured more often than her previous 13 years combined, her appetite has changed, she picks up every bug that goes around, she has lots of headaches and she’s become very apathetic towards school, sport and just everything in general. Our GP has diagnosed depression.

There’s not a lot more than what we are already doing that we can do about reducing the pressure at home. It is getting less as Lou improves, things are evening up more and balancing out more and we’ve always made the  effort to let CJ know she’s appreciated and to provide her with more freedoms and treats for the things that she does or puts up with.

We have decided though that one thing we can do is give her a break from all the added pressures that come with being in a school and to give her more time with us one on one. So we have decided to join the dark side and are going to home school her for the rest of the year.

Already, since making the decision, we can see a lightness in her step. A real weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She has been helping me plan her programme and I am seeing enthusiasm from her that has been missing for quite some time.

I might have to cut back on some of my uni to do this, but that’s okay. Just the improvement we’ve seen so far in her state of mind tells me that we are doing the right thing and it will all be very, very worth it.