So Much, Too Much

Haven't posted in a while because I really haven't had the time. Homeschooling Y has been interesting, but I'll get to that later.

First a couple of dog stories (I know you've all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for another one!):

About two weeks ago, Y and I took Michael back to his trainer for a follow up session, he did pretty good, and about an hour and a half later we were pulling into our driveway. As I parked the car, I noticed Miley happily wagging her tail - and standing on the back porch! I asked Y, "Wasn't she inside when we left?" He said, "I think so." All sorts of thoughts of doom and gloom ran through my head, the largest being if a door blew open (it was extremely windy), then I needed to go looking for a 130lb lab; and there's no telling where he'd be or how long he'd been gone. So, I opened my car door and started talking to Miley. Y did not have the foresight to grab Michael's leash during the last minute of our ride, so Michael bolted out the door and headed straight for the woods. Miley began to follow him, but Y was out of the car and halfway across the back deck when I shouted, "NO!" and Miley crouched to the ground. We got her back in the house and Y was quite upset that he had to look for Michael AGAIN. I told him he would have to do it by himself, because I needed to secure the house from the other dogs escaping, and I needed to change clothes and go to work in 30 minutes. Then began a litany of, "Mama, you help me!" and, "No, I have to get ready for work," and, "But you open door!" and, "But you didn't grab his leash!"

Y went off to find Michael, and I discovered that Goofy and Squirt and Daisy and Tigger were all safe and sound inside the house. All doors were locked and all windows downstairs were shut. The mystery continued. I got ready for work, and as I was walking down the hall to come back downstairs, I noticed that the door to Y's room was shut. I remembered that he had left his windows open. I went in there to find 3 open windows, one missing a screen and a happy fat cat sitting in that window enjoying the outdoor breeze. So, I shut his windows, put all of my stuff in my car, and then went down the street to help Y find Michael. Michael was playing with Miley's mama and brother, as I expected, but he ran across the street in front of me and over to the pond before Y could get him. He was out galavanting about 20 minutes or so before Y caught him and brought him home. Y didn't believe me that Miley had fallen out his second story window, fell of the roof into the azaleas and then stuck around our property till we got back, and she'd only been with us for three weeks. Michael's been here eight months and he's spent most of his time trying to figure out how to get away. Sound like anybody else you know? Constantly thinking about leaving, but never really wanting to go anywhere or do anything not associated with his computer?

Dog story #2:

Last Saturday, I took Michael and Goofy on a short bicycle ride to just 'take the edge off' of their hyperactivity. I normally don't take both of them together, since they collectively weigh about as much as I do, and they're much stronger than me. But, that day I was very tired after working a 5:30am shift and meeting with a tutor after that. So, two dogs at once it was. I was only planning on ten minutes, so how hard could that be? Easy peasy, if it wasn't for my neighbors next door. We had no problems passing their house on the way out, but the last 250ft on our way back was the killer. As soon as she saw us, their Rottweiler began charging the fence. I growled at her (seriously), and she backed off as usual. But, their nasty little white dog came running around the house and charged the fence, too. Whitey is the alpha of that pack, no doubt about it. So, the Rottie rethought her decision, and now they had two dogs charging the fence. Well, that's a serious insult to my boys, and they began barking and pulling them, me and the bike over to my neighbors fence (we were about 50ft from them). I straddled my bike and began pulling on my dogs' leashes (firmly attached to the bike handlebars) and screaming, "NO!" at both my dogs and theirs. Yelling at her makes the Rottie stop, but not that nasty white dog; 15lbs of a-hole if you ask me. Unbenownst to me, the owners were sitting outside between their house and garage; I couldn't see them from that point, but the wife did come over and pick up the white dog after about 5 minutes and take it back to the house. The Rottie continued to rage at my dogs and she did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to control that dog. I yelled, "Aren't you going to control BOTH dogs?" and she ignored me as she walked away.

At that point, I was still straddling my bicycle, it was leaning/being pulled to the left by my dogs and I had one hand on the bike and one hand pulling their leashes back to me. It took me almost ten minutes to go that last 200ft back to my property. I couldn't get the leashes unhooked from my bike and my dogs kept reacting to their dog being aggressive. All this time both neighbors were sitting on their bench watching the whole thing take place and laughing at me. I yelled at them three times to please control their f-ing dog (well, at least the first two times I was polite), and they didn't even get off the bench. Once my dogs lost sight of their dog, they immediately began to behave, but I was still very pissed at my dogs and even more pissed at my neighbors. Three times my dogs almost got hit by cars on my street that were trying to avoid their lunges as they drove by. All of the cars had to drive with one tire on the grass on my neighbors' side of the street to avoid us. I was fuming, but I still had two other dogs to walk before the day was over. I was not going to admit defeat and NOT walk my other dogs just because my neighbors are a-holes. So, as I walked Miley and Squirt past their house, the husband began yelling, "Waa! Waa!" at me. I'd had it then, I told them that I was reporting them to animal control for refusing to control their dogs. His response was, "F you, they're on my property!" I told them that his dogs had cost me about $600 in vet bills because of their charging the fence and I would be giving him the bill the next time my son, my dogs or I became injured. He kept yelling obscenities at me, and told me to walk the other way. I told him this was a free country and a public street and I'd walk any way I damn well pleased. When I was on my way back with the last two dogs, the husband approached the fence and asked me if I'd taken my "chill pill" yet. He still hadn't controlled his dog (she was raging again right next to him), so I told him no, and that I was going to call animal control when I got in the house, I'm not waiting for the next time. He told me, "You can't talk to me that way! I am not your dog and I am not your son and you can't talk to me that way!" in a very menacing tone. I told him that he treated me like a piece of shit just fifteen minutes ago, and that I would speak to him any damn way I pleased, and I walked home. I called animal control, but of course they're not there during the weekends, so I got a phone number to call the animal control officer "Joe" and I'll do that after work today. They'll probably just tell me there's nothing they can do about it, but I want to start a paper trail so the next time my son or one of my dogs gets injured I have written proof of an ongoing problem.

Okay, now off the nasty neighbor/bad human being rant.

Y's homeschooling has been limping along. He has a hard time switching from Mama/Son mode into Teacher/Student mode, so I made the executive decision to hire two additional tutors, one in ESL and one in Math. Both are in their 60s, Ms C, his new ESL tutor will do six hours a week on Thursday and Friday mornings (she is of Ukrainian descent, her grandparents moved to Canada way back when), and Ms L is his new math tutor (she is Ukrainian, living here 9 yrs, fluent in Russian and a masters degree in physics). Ms C will come to our house and Y will go to Ms L's apartment on Saturdays after I get home from work. Of course, this will cost me about $175/wk more, but his education is worth it. Plus, no one can say I'm not homeschooling him in a "bona fide manner." I found both of them, as well as my babysitter on www.care.com ; really a good website, check it out. Then we can do any additional fun schooling like museum visits or guitar lessons on Sundays, Tuesday or Wednesday mornings. Y is already complaining about having school six days a week. I dropped the shoe on that one, and told him that his total time would only be around 18 hours away from his beloved computer, so quitchyer b*tching!

My biggest problem with Y right now, is that he disobeys bedtime all the time. He thinks it's a-okay to stay up all night, night after night after night, and sleep all day. What the heck, he doesn't have to do any school work until 5pm! Come on, Mama! I told him previously that was okay on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, but he had to turn the computer off at midnight every other night. He refuses to turn his computer off because it takes too long to restart it, so he just logs off and watches tv before he goes to sleep. When I found him awake at 4:45am this morning (up all night again), even though he knows the rules and I went to bed early last night due to 5:30am overtime I had to work today, I was annoyed to say the least. I told him that he needed to get off the computer now, go to bed and not give me any complaints about going to Sylvan tonight. I also told him that since he can't obey the rules, that from now on I will unplug the internet router and take it to bed with me on the nights when he needs to sleep. Again, "Why?! Why?!" from Y; because you need to be up and awake and ready to learn when Ms C comes on Thursday and Friday mornings (he has to let her in the house on Fridays), and also because you live in TX now, not Ukraine or Russia and you need to live on our sunlight schedule.

We will have a meeting with the therapist and our school district soon, I just don't know when.

Time to breathe now,

Natalie

TX