Venting

Normally, I do not blog about my day job. It's generally been an insignificant part of my life, something that I do simply to pay the bills, put food on the table and have health insurance. Never have I operated under the delusion that this was my "dream" job or what I feel is my life's work. At the end of my shift, I simply walk out the door and everything that has happened to me in the 8 hours inside this building stays here. By the time I get to my car it is simply out of my mind. Of course, as all mothers who work outside the home know, it is hardly the end of my day. There are plenty of things to occupy my brain once I leave. However, they have changed my job. Without asking, without consulting. I walked in one day and they said 'this is what you're doing now.' End of discussion. I have been a complete and total stressed out wreck  ever since. This is department wide, they simply divided us in half and assigned us to what we're doing. Although I am grateful to still have a job, don't get me wrong. However, in my new "role" I don't feel as though I can do anything right (because she tells me on a regular basis what I'm doing wrong) and two, even if I do it right I get the impression that it will never be good enough. And, perhaps that is nature of what this job is in the corporate world. I don't believe that, personality wise, I can ever be as aggressive as they want me to be. And not only that, I believe there is a clear discrepancy between how the "high dollar" accounts are handled and the mom & pops. I've always had a low tolerance for unfairness- which has caused issues in the corporate world before. So here I sit. I don't belong. I'm supposed to be at home, tending the kids, not paying for after school care, finishing my novel, and complaining about the publishing business. That was my plan. And real life sucks.

And speaking of novels, ever since the change at work, I've been blocked. Or so I've blamed on the stress of the job that I can't get into the writing zone during lunch (not even for a blog). A friend of mine told me that he didn't think it was the job at all. I'm nearing the end and that I'm afraid to finish. Not sure I buy it. But he went on to tell me to just write anything. "Write something you know is wrong just to get it flowing. Working with words is easier than a blank screen." So I skipped a head in the story and wrote on the ending. Not sure what I'll keep...but at least I have something to work with.

Then right after my sister moved out, WC fell apart in school. He simply quit paying attention. It was like he just lost the ability to focus. She had to begin putting him alone to do his seat work and still he wouldn't finish it. He had a couple of glaring low marks on his report card. And when I asked the teacher about them she agreed that with the rest of the report card & his abilities that this does stick out like a sore thumb. But he is refusing to do two things: retell a story (verbally) in his own words. And to write a sentence (phonetically). They don't expect them to spell perfectly at this point. For example she asks What do you do on your birthday? And they are to come up w/ a sentence such as: I like to eat cake. And he simply draws a picture and pretty much refuses to attempt writing the sentence. With his overall ability (96% on his unit test) it doesn't make sense. These two things and lack of focus are what is keeping her from recommending him tested for gifted-ness. The only thing that I can come up with is his perfectionism. I've seen it many times, If he can't do something perfectly the first time he doesn't want to do it at all. We're going to have a long, hard battle with this. He doesn't want to attempt something because he's scared of doing it wrong. I don't know where this comes from. We've never expected perfection from him. I've always told him that as long as he tries his best then that makes me happy. I also discovered that many of the things that I thought my sister was helping him on, school- work wise had not been happening. She'd quit going over the things that came home in his bag was simply plopping him in front of the television.He was probably watching two hours of cartoons instead of going over his work. I'm surprised he only had two low marks. It just goes to show me, what he is capable of- if I can get him to concentrate.

Last week, he managed to have a good week at school and by Friday she was able to let him return to the class for individual seat work and he completed it. So I took him (and CJ) out for a reward Friday afternoon. We went to a "jump" facility- where they have the giant inflatable slides and houses and obstacle courses and just let them run wild. Then to McD's for dinner.

The added stress of my job plus worried about WC and how I'm going to find the time to drop off/pick up/commute/karate/homework/going over his reading/training for half marathon. I was almost ready to throw in the towel on my healthy eating/exercise regimen last week and bury myself in margaritas and cheese dip or anything with triple chocolate in the title or pretty much anything that would wreck havoc on my waistline. But I didn't (I did go overboard w/ the cookies last night- but the 5.5 miles on Sat cancelled that out, right?). Oh and now there's a blister on the bottom of my foot...

If you've made it to the end of this, thank you for listening to my rant.