I’m beat
Ugh. Last week sapped my energy and I’m still trying to catch up. We had something going on every day and add to that taking my mom to the ER Wednesday last week and then again to the doctor this past Monday and you have an exhausted mess in me.
I’ll start on a nice note (har har) by reporting that Gracie’s concert was splendid. They were all so cute dressed up with their little violins. She had a solo that her teacher wrote for her which she named Dancing Princesses Dance at the Ball. My only comment is that she’d benefit from a little practice. I know, I know — no nomination for Mother of the Year for me. It was very sweet though.
She says she loves the violin and wants to keep doing it so that’s what we’ll do. I really enjoyed learning with her and I wish I’d remember to practice more and then get her to practice. I get caught up in my day and all the stuff I have to do and forget that it’s okay to take a few minutes to do something that only involves me.
I think she liked coasting by a bit when I had no idea how to help her with her practicing. Now that I know how to play, she knows that when I practice I like to stick with it. Her teacher said that’s pretty common with kids her age so as long as she’s having fun I’ll encourage her to practice and I’ll set an example but I’m not going to push her so hard that she ends up hating it in the end. If it we couldn’t afford it or it was a huge disruption in our schedule then I’d be more apt to suggest she rethink it if she wasn’t too keen on practicing. For now it’s no big. Once I start generating an income again, I want to start taking private lessons for myself.
Her Suzuki teacher was at the concert. I thought it was nice that she took time out of her summer to come to the concert to see her students who took summer music. She left rather quickly at the end so I didn’t get a chance to say hello. I guess we’ll be seeing her soon enough when September rolls around. She’s a wonderful woman and really loves what she does and you can tell. I wish more teachers were as devoted although so far we’ve been lucky in that respect.
What I do have to put away for safekeeping are the violin solos that Gracie wrote Tuesday. I’ll have to transcribe them onto manuscript paper using real notes but she wrote them out the way her teacher wrote out what strings and fingers we had to play when learning The French Folk Song. Her teacher would notate the string (G, D, A or E) and then how many fingers to put on the string (3, 2, 1 or open). Gracie did the same and would indicate at the end if she wanted a “long A” or whatever note the solo was finishing in. Very cute. Tomorrow I’m going to try and play the solos for her so she really hears how her compositions sound when played correctly.
Another cute thing she did was write a letter to the Tooth Fairy on Iain’s behalf (another thing to put away). He’s had a loose tooth on top for the past few days and yesterday morning it finally fell out. He said he put it under his pillow but some time during the course of the day it was moved (probably by one of the girls) and now we can’t find it. Grace thought she’d write a letter of explanation with an apology to put under his pillow. She told me that maybe the Tooth Fairy would understand.
Dear Tooth Fairy:
Iain is sorry he lost his tooth.
Love,
Grace
I slipped a dollar under the letter when Iain wasn’t looking and he was happy about that this morning.
On to my mom:
Last Wednesday she had problems with a nosebleed that would start, stop and start again, getting worse each time. I ended up taking her to the ER and they finally got it to stop. Monday came along and during a phone call she told me she needed to make an appointment with the doctor. Fine. That’s cool; we’ll figure something out. She then goes on to explain that she was out of blood pressure medication. For how long? Oh, about two weeks. TWO WEEKS? Yes. Two weeks.
Sigh.
She explained that she knew I was busy and she didn’t want to bother me. !! I told her that I’ll be busy for at least the next two decades so as long as she gives me some lead time, we can figure something out. Jeff was off that day and pointed out that she doesn’t need fasting blood work for blood pressure or prescription renewal (she was hemming and hawing because of that) and told me to take her right then. I called, made the appointment and took her. She has her refills and now I’ve been working on setting her up on a prescription drug plan.
I decided while I was at the office that I’m going to put together a binder that keeps record of her visits and all that. Plus, I made copies of her driver license, Medicare card and other things just in case something happens. I need to get this stuff organized; I need to get some control over all this because if I don’t there will a huge mess and I won’t know where to begin. My brother is a useless crap so it’s not like I could rely on him.
And speaking of the useless ball of crap, he told my mom that night that he couldn’t take her to the ER because he had to work in the morning. Yep. You read it right — he couldn’t take his mother who lives alone who is bleeding more and more out of her head for God-knows-what reason because he had to get some shut-eye. Here I was, wanting to take her but couldn’t just speed over there because I had three kids in bed and my husband was at work. I was livid. That’s an understatement actually. Apparently his oh-so-important job at the auto parts store has gotten more important and my mother’s need to visit the ER would’ve been inconvenient. He didn’t use those words but that’s about how it shakes out.
After all this, she told me at the doctor’s office that she’s really ready to move on and get the house sold. She’s lonely and feeling a bit helpless and scared now that her health is declining. She feels guilty for calling me because she doesn’t want to inconvenience me and I told her that she needs to stop with that nonsense and let me know what she needs. She doesn’t drive and the useless ball of crap a.k.a. my brother doesn’t live there anymore so there’s more planning involved. But that’s okay. We can get around that. I can’t, however, read her mind. I can’t trust her to tell me so now I have to keep track of her prescriptions so I know when she’s running out.
I went by her house on Tuesday because she said that she’d hang with Iz for a couple of hours while I took Gracie to gymnastics. When we arrived I could see that she was feeling like shit. She couldn’t watch Iz which was fine. I certainly wasn’t mad at her for that. What I was a touch upset with her about was the fact that had she told me she needed refills we would have had the prescriptions refilled and she’d never have had a gap in her med schedule. Now her body is acclimating again to the meds in her system and the side effects are back. I hope she’s learned her lesson. That probably sounds mean but she can’t mess around like this. She knows I’ll take her to the doctor and I’ll figure something out but more importantly she can’t jeopardize her health by not taking the meds.
If that weren’t enough stress, we have the building crap to think about. With the housing market the way it is, it makes me lightheaded and sick to my stomach even thinking about doing all this. It’s always the money. Housing prices have dropped so we’re actually losing equity and that boggles my mind. I’m still pissed at my father for cashing in the insurance policies and leaving my mother with a shitload of debt. The house was paid off not long after they bought it but then a few years later my father took out a loan to cover business debt. Then he died. My mother could’ve lived comfortably without worry if the house were paid off. Even with the decline in the market, selling her house would have covered most of our building costs and we’d have a consolidated household with no worries about her being alone or sick. I don’t know how we’re going to do this. At this point I don’t see how and I’m not that optimistic about it.
So, anyhow, the builder wants to get together with us to talk about all this. I don’t know what he’s going to say to make me feel better about it. He conceded that the housing market is a challenge right now. Uh, no kidding. What kills me is that if we don’t go through with this, we’ll probably never be approved for a lot from the city again. Building exactly how we want to in the city we love is simply a dream. Plus, we’ll lose out on the tax abatement that we’d get if we build on the lot we have now. We love where we live and the special education program is excellent and has done so well with Iain. I hate this. Hate it.
I think I’ll go cry now. If you need me, I’ll be the one with snot strands in the corner. I may or may not be rocking.
