MMOB or not?

My mom had a major freak out tonight in front of my nephews. Major as in screaming, cursing, and breaking shit.

This is going to be long.

Ok, so my mom has always been, well to put it nicely, a little off. She claims that she has been battling depression her entire life. Well, she won't go see a shrink and the pills our gullible doc prescribes her really don't seem to ever work. As soon as she decides that the pills aren't working, she takes herself off of them. Doesn't go back to the doc so he can wean her off of them or anything, like a normal person would.

She also does this thing where whenever she feels like she isn't the center of attention all of a sudden she is deathly ill. The best was one Christmas when I was a kid, she decided that she was sick and went to the ER. She convinced some poor ER doc to admit her overnight for observation and missed Christmas. Sadly that is one of the few Christmas' I actually remember.

Anyway, sometime over the weekend, she decided that her current meds weren't working and took herself off them. On Tuesday, my dad had to go see a specialist about his shoulder in the city 3 hours away. My mom was supposed to go with him but ended up staying home so my baby sister didn't have to pay a sitter to watch my nephews. She HATES it whenever my dad does anything without her and makes life miserable for for anyone who crosses her path for a couple of days afterwards. So I expected her to act all bent out of shape when I called that afternoon to find out what the specialist said but I underestimated how bent out of shape she really was.

I called the house and my oldest little sister answered the phone. I asked to talk to my mom. She gave the phone to my mom and this was the conversation:
Mom: Who is this?
Me: Who do you think it is, it's me. How did Dads appointment go?
Mom: I don't know. Ask him yourself.
And she hands him the phone. I talk to him for a minute and then go back to working.

After work, I picked up the boys and they wanted to go over and see my nephews. I saw my mom standing at the front window when we were walking across the sidewalk. By the time I got the boys inside, she had ran off to her room. I go into the living room where everybody else is and the first thing they tell me is that mom is "sick" again. Ok, well, whatever. We said hi to my nephews, I tell my dad about how the cat caught his very first mouse and we leave.

So now it is Tuesday. The boys wanted to stop by to see my nephews again so we did. My dad was standing at the stove cooking dinner and as I walked by, he told me that I probably shouldn't stay long. I asked if everything was ok and he told me to go talk to my sister.

According to my sister, my baby sister dropped off the boys before she went to work. My mom must have been shitty to her yesterday too because she had a "talk" with her. My baby sister left and my mom comes roaring into the kitchen, screaming and cussing (my mom isn't a curser) about something. I have no idea what that something was, my grandma butted herself into the conversation before I could find out. This is when I find out that my mom had decided to take herself off her meds. Anyway my mom started grabbing the kitchen chairs and hitting them on the ground. She broke 6 out of the 8 chairs and ran back into her room. My sister said it was chaos.

That whole meltdown happened in front of my nephews. Now, the baby is barely 4 months old but Ollie is 2 1/2. He doesn't need to see that shit. I know I would have flipped my lid if my boys had seen something like that from my mother. My oldest little sister is 24 and was scared. I can't imagine how scary that nonsense would have been for a 2 year old.

It makes me sick to my stomach that I didn't pack up those boys and bring them home with me. But the only thing I was thinking about was getting my own boys out of that house before something else happened. If we are ever in that situation again, I will be bringing ALL the boys over to my house.

So now I need advice. Do I talk to my baby sister about finding a different daycare situation ASAP or do I keep my nose out of it and hope that she does the right thing?

Do I try to talk to my dad about maybe forcing my mom to get some real help (an intervention or maybe even committing her temporarily) or do I keep my opinion to myself and hope somebody figures it out?

Career Woman

Oh crap! Did I forget to mention that I have started embarking on my career?

Not just my job (which I still LOVE) but my CAREER.

What is it? Are you sitting down?

I am starting my very own Event Planning Business. I am going to focus on weddings but I will offer party planning services as well.

I can't begin to tell you how flucking excited I am to be starting this. And actually following through with it!

More details to come. I promise.

Am I Pushing Them Too Hard?

I was reading on Monk Man's birth board and the post I read was about how independent your 5 year old is. I was SHOCKED at some of the things I read that average 5 year old kids were not doing.

Just a few of the things that made me go, what the hell?:
~~Not showering/bathing alone
Monk Man has been showering and taking baths alone since he was 3. I even trust him enough to put Bobblehead in there with him once in a while. And even HE takes showers and baths alone most of the time.

~~Not wiping their own asses
Really? Gross. I stopped wiping asses when they stopped wearing diapers. It is part of my potty training process. It is simple...you go, you wipe, you flush.

~~Not pouring their own drinks
I can understand this. At 5, they are clumsy as hell and make scary messes. But they also learn how to help clean up their messes. If mom and dad ALWAYS pour the drinks, the kids never learn how to do it themselves.

~~Not getting their own stall in a public restroom
I give my boys plenty of privacy. Bobblehead is still too young to be trusted alone in a public restroom. There are just too many cool things to play with and break in there. But Monk Man? Of course he goes to the bathroom alone. If we are at a place that we know well, like local restaurants, he goes alone. If we are at a very crowded place or out of town, Hubbs or I walk him to the bathroom door but we wait outside.

~~Not dressing themselves
The boys have jeans and tshirts, shorts are added in the summer and coats are added in the winter. If it is an issue with the clothes not matching, well, it's kinda hard to screw up jeans and tshirts. I did that on purpose. They also know which clothes are theirs, Monk Mans are the big ones and Bobbleheads are the little ones. If they happen to get confused, we laugh about it and they go try again. I have tried my damnedest to make getting dressed very easy for them to do.

~~Not brushing their own hair
Ok, this one is just silly if you have a boy. I can understand the girls needing help. But boys? Boy hair is awesomely easy. Monk Man has a Mohawk and does it himself. Bobblehead has a buzz cut but is able to run a comb through it if needed.

What the shit, right? My 3 year old can do most of this stuff.



But then I started feeling bad. Just a little though.

It made me question what my boys ARE doing. Is it NOT normal for them to be able to do things on their own? Am I pushing them too hard? Am I going to screw them up and cause them to need therapy because I won't wipe their asses or make them, gasp, play out in the backyard, double gasp, unsupervised?

Remember Me?

Well, here is another attempt at getting myself back into blogging. I have a few posts in the works but in the meantime, check out this blog, impossibleliving, for some very neat abandoned places photos.