The first days

So we are on day 3.

 

Day 1

 

Actually went really well. I stayed with him the whole morning. We got there bright and early around 7am. We talked to the cafeteria and he got his first public school breakfast. Which we public school kids know isn’t all that great.

 

He truly is a spoiled private school kid. He was in a private day care for a year and in a private Pre-k school for another 2. His meals are all freshly made. Juice 100% freshly squeezed or ice cold milk. Meals are served in big serving dishes where he can serve himself. His dishes are real and just his. He has his own personal seat and sits at a ‘real’ table. I loved eating lunch with him. Sometimes the food was better than what I could cook. And I can really cook.

 

So when it came to breakfast he had the look of “You got to be kidding me. This isn’t real food.” He was irritated that none of the kids were sitting down nicely, quietly, and eating. The food of course looked micro waved, even the rice. The fruits, well of course there canned, so Nyx didn’t think they were real. So to say the least he hated breakfast. Even the carton milk, although it was chocolate, lacked any luster for him. He didn’t know how to open it, irritated he didn’t have a cup, and even saddened that he couldn’t get a straw. It got to the point where he looked at me with his beautiful brown eyes and said, “Mommy can we just go home.” No matter how much I wanted to say yes and flee faster any person before me, I held back and said no. I felt bad. As far as the food, I understood the feeling. I hated cafeteria food anyways. So I’m deciding home lunches might be the way to go for him. We are still undecided. But at this rate breakfast at home might be opening up. Now if I could only get him to wake up early enough.

 

After breakfast we made our way to his classroom. His teacher wasn’t there yet, so we waited. Next door he saw his Pre-k classmate Abby, which was a relief for him because he was becoming worried that he wouldn’t know anyone. Shortly after his friend David – who is in the same class with him – came waltzing in too. Mrs. T. finally opened the door and all the kids rushed in. Nyx was excited. Signed his name in, got his name tag and hurried to find his desk. It was almost as if the whole breakfast fiasco didn’t happen. Lucky for me, I was worried he was going to start crying. I took a few pictures, Not really much, I was more focused on make sure he was comfortable than taking much pictures.

 

In the end, we were both ok. I didn’t cry. I didn’t freak out. I didn’t even have a mild panic attack. I was ok. I was a big girl.

 

I walked away with a smile on my face, excitement in my heart, and knowing this is going to be a good thing.

 

Since it was a half day the bus wasn’t going to bring him to the youth center after school. I had to pick him up at noon and bring him there myself. I questioned him about everything. Maybe a little too fast because he wasn’t able to respond fast enough, but when I slowed down Nyx had only one thing to say,

 

“Mom, I’m so happy I went to Kindergarten. I want to say there forver.”

 

That’s all I needed to hear.

 

Day 2

 

Same spiel, difference? He gets to ride the school bus. My number one worry.

 

I took off from work early to go see a doctor and get some antibiotics and run everywhere to change my name.

 

While at my main bank I realized I got a miss call from the school at 1:15pm. I only noticed at 1:38pm. Weird, school finishes at 12:35 on Wednesdays. I have a voicemail.

 

Correction I have 3 voicemails! 2 from the school and 1 from the bus driver. My heart stopped.

 

Message 1.

“Hi Daniella, the bus driver called and doesn’t know where you son goes. Nyx said he doesn’t know where he lives.”

 

Message 2

“Hi this Irma, the bus driver, I have your son here. If you could let me know where he lives and I’ll happy to drop him off.

 

Message 3

“Hi Daniella, the bus driver still doesn’t know where your son goes. Your son has gotten on the wrong bus. Please call back.”

 

ZOMFG!!!

I’m in town a good 45 minutes away. I hurry the teller along and urgently call Preston. No answer. I call his coworker Ken to hurry and get Preston. I run out to my car and Preston calls me back and lets me know that he will rush over to the school.

 

Now my son has a great imagination so when asked where I lives, I wouldn’t be surprised that he would make up a place and that’s where he will go. I would hope the bus driver has better sense than that.

 

I called the bus driver, no answer. I called the school, they said he isn’t at the school. WTF!?!

 

I call Preston and he tells me, well the school said Nyx was brought back and sitting in the office. Why couldn’t they have told me that? I start to cry frantically.

 

Preston tells me not to worry. I should just finish my errands in town and he’ll pick up Nyx and figure out what happened.

 

Pssffttt. Like I’m going to do that, I rushed back. I wish people knew when things were urgent and just moved. Lol.

 

On my drive back I learned that Nyx did get on the right bus, but since he looked so confused the bus driver figured he was on the wrong bus.

 

You see he doesn’t take the bus to our house; he takes the bus to the youth center for The Company. So he had to get special permission for that. I guess we didn’t drill teach or explain to him enough as to what he should do when the bus stops. So when Preston picked him up he drove back to the youth center bus stop and walked him through step by step what he should do and where he should go.

 

It’s weird his other friend’s that go to the youth center got on the bus with him, but he never got off with them. I don’t know. It must be my fault and my horrible directions. Either way I FREAKED out.

 

Nyx wasn’t scared, he wasn’t mad, he was just confused. A teacher told us about another student, an older girl that goes to the youth center also, she will help Nyx get the hang of riding the bus and help him get off and walk to the youth center with him.

 

Day 3

 

So the first thing we did was find the teacher that will point out a new friend for Nyx. The girl that will help him get on and off the bus. Although she wasn’t there yet, Nyx stayed with the teacher until she introduced Nyx to his new friend.

 

What really sucked was that Preston made me leave early.

 

I didn’t get to eat breakfast with Nyx.

 

I didn’t get to walk Nyx to class.

 

Preston made me leave early. I was sour about that. But he is right. I need to start leaving Nyx at some point. I can’t walk him through everything. No matter how much I want to.

 

So today Nyx truly was on his own.

 

I’m not even sure he even bothered to eat breakfast. He still looked confused, but he was offered to sign in for the “Breakfast Club”, where they could just play games until school started. Which probably prevented him from eating because he heard the words “play games.”

 

So I hope it went well. I hope he walked to his class. I hope he ate something. I definitely hope he gets off the bus this time.

 

In all, the first week of school is almost over. I still want to hold his hands. I still hate dropping him off. And I’m fearful to get to the point where I can pull up to the school, he gets out on his own and walks off.

 

I’m still holding on to whatever small threads I have to be the overbearing/protective/crazy mom I’m allowed to be.

 

Tomorrow is another day, maybe I’ll grow up a little more then. Lol.

Tomorrow is the big day.

Supplies…….check.

Books………..check.

Backpack……check.

Bus Pass…….check.

Mom…………unchecked.

We can say that again. Nyx is definitely starting Kindergarten tomorrow. My heart has only sped up since last week. Only twice as fast.

Taking the wise words of advice from my son, “I’m trying to be strong son.” Not as much for him as it is for me. I haven’t gotten any better from wanting to prevent him from school. Since I enrolled him in February I’ve been waiting for a reason to rear it’s ugly head to let me keep him out of Kindergarten. I know that is a horrible thing for me to say. But I’m scared. I’m scared to let go. I’m scared to have no control over what will happen over there.

There are 17 kids in his class -including him. Only 2 of which I know from his Pre-K class. Which gives me a little comfort, but only a little. There are still 14 other kids. Kids I don’t know. Kids I don’t know if I would even like their parents.

The little boy that lives next door to me creeps me out. Sure his parents are nice, but they are drug dealers. It’s nice they don’t do it from our house. (Side note: remember we occupy the main house they live in the extension, so there is only a single wall that separates us.) But the fact that they get calls their “customers” pick the dad from the drive way and do their “transactions” else way still makes me uneasy. We live in a great neighborhood too. At least 90% of the people here work at The Company. The Company does random drug testing and no ones  during my 3 years there has gotten fired. I’m falling away from the story, sorry.

But the thing I’m getting at is the parents and kids from Pre-k are awesome people. Great influences on both my son and I. I’ve met the possible new parents and kids my son will have and it’s scary really. The kids are so mean and bully my son already. No surprise because their parents were already being dicks to me, and I know I didn’t do anything.

Here’s a good one, one of the moms stared me down because she was upset me son knew all his colors, shapes and letters at Kindergarten camp and her son couldn’t even spell his name. No where near being my fault, but apparently she though different.

I hate public schools.

But I have to learn to put those feelings and thoughts aside. I’ll only make my son paranoid and give myself panic attacks for the next 13 years to come. It’ll get better right?

After Nyx’s last day at CDC/Pre-k we took him to his new school and walked around. We even made him give us directions on how to get from our house to school. He was dead on for the directions. He even took the faster way, rather than the way I would have went.

I asked him to show me where his classroom was and he knew where it was. I walked him through knowing where to go when I drop him off and what to do while he waits for school to start. I laminated his temporary bus pass, labeled his wallet and backpack, and hopefully stuck the notion in his head that his wallet and bus pass only come out when he is boarding the bus.

I am most terrified of the bus. I don’t think I need to explain way, but Mrs. T assured that there will be someone there to make sure the kids get on the right bus. Later on through the year the older kids makes sure the younger ones get on the same bus. Which is awesome because the older kids’ parents all work for The Company.

As a present for this momentous occasion we bought Nyx his own computer. Granted it is used, but it’s rebuilt from the toe up so it’s practically brand new. It has a faster CPU, more memory, CD/DVD burner, and a card reader. Nothing on it but the O.S. so yey him! He can finally install all his computer games and doesn’t have to wait till Preston and/or I to get off our laptops to use. He thanked the guy we bought it from with a big grin and in turn the guy gave it to us $20 cheaper.

I have to admit Preston and I do want to kick ourselves in the ass for just not building Nyx his own computer. It’s not like we don’t 4 towers with motherboards in them already. It’s not like we can’t build computers either. But you know how the stereotypes go right? The best mechanic always has the shittiest running car, the carpenter has the house that’s fall apart, the therapist that his way more issues than his patients, and the computer technicians who don’t have the time to put a simple computer together for their son to they up and buy one from another technician that builds them. Yea well you get the point.

As I rivel in the last moment of the day we are finally going to go finish watching 21, I’m going to stare at my son for a few moments before I wake up tomorrow and he’s my big kid, and then take a nice hot shower.

So good, so far, let’s keep this going.

It’s only the 3rd, but this month is turning out to be pretty freaking awesome.

1. My aunts (minus 1) are all down, even a couple of my cousins. More coming down on the 8th. Lots of family dinner at tons of different houses and every event filled with loved. I mean LOTS of love. Loving out the ying yang. Love from people I didn’t even know I was related to, but is so they shove love down your throat. lol. But I almost forgot how amazing it truly is to have a huge family like mine.

Filipino families, well maybe not all but definitely the ones in Hawaii, there is no such thing as extended family, 2nd or 3rd or 4th cousins, aunts and uncles. Everyone is just family. They are “far” family. Don’t even need an ounce of the same blood you are family like they have known you your whole life.

And it’s pretty nice.

To feel wanted. To have people that want to be a part of your life.

Though there is a somewhat sad side to this, but I’ll tell you another day. I don’t want to ruin this great start of a month.

The funeral was beautiful. The food was great too. And man did I mention my family was just huge?

2. We went to my Uncle R’s house to swim in the pool. I went with the expectation that Nyx was just going to be opihi. I general can’t enjoy swimming sometimes because he constantly hanging onto me and I have to carry him.

Lo and behold, I jumped in, he swam to me. Let me repeat. HE SWAM TO ME. My jaw dropped and my heart jumped. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes until he popped back up and was threading water right in front of me. He quickly grabbed and said AGAIN! He held my hand, put his head under water and started kicking to the edge of the pool. What did he do?

He ran and jumped into the water. Over and over and OVER again. He showed me his “starfish” swimming method. Held his breath for LONG periods, over and over again. So we spent several hours poolside and enjoyed every second.

3. The best damn news. I checked my mail today. That doesn’t sound so exciting, except for the fact that I’ve officially be divorced since July 24th, 2008.

July 24th, 2008!!! Single, free, unmarried -ish. I still have Preston. lol.

It’s finally over. I just have to finish paying off my lawyer, but it’s done. I started to read over the decree and started to cry. I was happy. Happy is too bland of a word to explain the utter relief, excitement, and pure joy I had in my heart. But happy was the only word that could find its way out of my mouth when trying to explain to Preston why I was crying.

Preston is stoked still.

So August is looking pretty damn promising for us. I hope it keeps going on for the rest of the year.

4. Oh yea my fortune cookie tonight said “The Evening Will Bring Romance.”

*wink wink*

Finally coming to terms

Today we had our final meeting with Nyx’s teacher, Mrs. T., we brought in his huge list of school supples. Practically all labeled. Minus labeling all 104 crayons. I was totally over that!

Doesn’t mean I didn’t having anything to label. I had 4 bottles of glue, 4 bottles of hand soap, 4 boxes of 10 markers, 2 glue sticks, 2 sets of paints, 24 sharpened pencils, 3 shirts, and a load of other things. We got to let out all the final questions. Questions that have been driving me up the wall crazy. I’m extremely paranoid so I asked ALL the “what if” questions. And amazingly she answered them all. Even Preston’s interrogation questions too.

She really put my mind at ease. She’s incredibly nice to. Better yet she has a daughter going to the same school. Though from the looks of it she’s a couple years older. Nyx also has 2 other, possibly 3, friends from Pre-k in the same class and that’s even better for him. And me.

I got the whole bus thing situated, so he gets to start riding the bus from the first day. Another great fear of mine, but his other Pre-k friends will be riding the bus to the same place as him, so once again he won’t be alone.

I signed him up for the after school youth center, which is free by the way. Had our tour of the place yesterday and Nyx is looking forward to it. Actually he’s been looking forward to going to the youth center for the last year. So yey all around!

And the last thing on my list was the school lunch thing. I thought it was going to be expensive, so I was going to apply for reduced/free lunch, looked at the chart and realized I don’t make the cut. Apparently for a family of 2 I make too much. (Note I’m not rubbing it in your face just stating a fact). So I went on ahead and just put $100 on his lunch card for now. The lunch is $1.25. Pretty cheap I think. So I don’t think Preston and I will bother applying for the reduced/free lunch. I’m sure there is another family that would like our place anyways. Even if we did try with our combined income they’d probably laugh at us for trying to apply anyways. Not a big deal.

During our interview with Mrs. T Nyx got to tour his new classroom. The nice MAC computers, the pretend center, the desks, practically everything. So the greatest ease on my mind is seeing the excitement in Nyx’s eyes. Everything out of his mouth has to deal with Kindergarten. So if he is excited, then I should be too. I don’t want by paranoid/negative vibes to affect him. I want to keep him on this path of wanting to learn.

After the interview I decided to take the rest of the day off. Relax and get things organized. My great-grandmother passed away a week ago and her funeral is this coming Saturday. I have lots of family flying in and they all want to spend some time together. I hardly see them and I think half of them hardly know Nyx exists. Not that they exclude me from their lives, simply that I don’t communicate with them. Nothing is wrong with my aunt, just never had a strong bond with them.

Anyways, there are 4 Great Great Grandchildren and the family want them to play a role in the ceremony. So I’ve been preparing Nyx for that. He’s never attended a funeral before. So I hope he’ll be respectful and follow directions.

In the end, I wish I could have known my Great Grandmother better. I’ve met her a couple times, but I don’t really have a bond with her. It got me thinking, thinking things I should have done a long time ago, I should rebuild my relationship with my grandmother. She is an amazing person. Very funny and I want my son to have a good relationship with her. She’s great and healthy so I know she’ll be around for a long time more. My grandfather is still here too, but has been in and out of the hospital the last year or so. And I know my grandma will make sure he stays as long as she does.

So tonight my WHOLE family is having dinner at my Aunt’s house, N. I never met N. in fact I didn’t know she existed till an hour ago when we were told ordered to go from grandma through dad.

Nyx is taking a nap and this is my opportunity to play with my Wii Fit, DDR, or maybe even *gasp* clean.

I do know something about my Great-Grandmother though, she’s 4 years older than my grandma.

Do Work, Son!

And that I have, and man have I.

In 10 days I put in 134 hours of work. I asked for extra money in this rough spot of the year and I got it, 3 folds. Lots of overtime and double time. Very little much to complain about. I saw my son for all of 8 hours the whole time. I spoke on the phone with him every moment I could. I cuddled up for the nights that was possible for me to come home. It hurt, a lot.

I have been quite absent from everything, everyone, and even myself. I’ve been trying to prove myself, not only to my boss, but to myself. If that makes much sense.

In the months of pass, I’ve grown very weary of my job. Frustrated with feeling stunted by my every daunting task. And questioning my very worth as an employee.

Though I had to sacrifice my valuable time with my son, I received a rejuvenated feeling of worth. I was given incredible challenges and surprise attacks of “bam you got 1 hour to do this make it happen.” Truly it was grueling and i wanted to cry, but I needed my faith in myself to be restored. I needed to reminded that I am pure awesomeness at my job.

Don’t misunderstand me though. I hated being away from my son. I hated not seeing him off to school. I hated having to eat each microwavable meal with another coworkers in a cold building. I hated hearing the tone of much sadness in my son’s voice. It was hard. For the both of us.

Though I needed to be reminded why I enjoy my job, above all we needed the money. Expenses have gone up dramatically. Needs need to be met. Bills to be paid and roof to be kept over our heads. A boss needed to feel much confidence in to give me my raise. Of which prior boss had set up for me already, but new boss didn’t know and screwed that up.

So I’ve done work and things have started to slow down again. I’m back to 8 hours a day. Which leaves only 3 more days of weird hours. 3 days which my son doesn’t need to be in some sort of sad state. He’ll be at J.’s house and won’t really notice my leave.

And so goes for the work end.

Kindergarten.

Nyx had his assessment test yesterday (7/21) and it was about 45 minutes long. Really went through some basic things. His letters, upper and lower, numbers, colors, shapes, body parts, etc. I feel he went through with flying colors. He stumbled a little on the Q, R, G, and S. Skipped 14-16 while counting to 20. Didn’t know where his wrist and heel was, but in all he had awesome remarks.

I get to call in tomorrow or Thursday to schedule a parent-student meeting. That’s when we get to learn what teacher he will have and group he gets put in. We then get to place all his things into his classroom and he finally gets to see where he will finally be.

Might I add, labeling every crayon, erase, marker and book is really a huge pain in the ass Especially when he has 4 boxes of the same markers and crayons.

More updates of Kindergarten are soon to come.

And to end my entry with…..

Divorce.

Not much I can say here. I rushed to notarize some documents last week Friday. In return my lawyers response was,

“So looks like you’ll be divorce in a couple weeks.”

Not that the last 3 years of fighting for a divorce was a fucking breeze.

It’s not jealousy, believe me.

I just seem to be full of complaints today.

OK only 2 complaints, but complaints nonetheless.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe a select few, but I have a very set way of what a family is in my mind.

Families don’t keep things from each other. They are open and honest. Families do what they can to be there for you. Even it’s it not physically they call, check in on you,  or even send stupid text messages. Families aren’t second best to anything. When you take away the materialist superficial things all you have left is your family and friends that might as well be your freaking family.

You get the gist, I really could go on.

But lately, my sister has been grinding on my nerves.

I mean 100 grit sandpaper grinding.

Since my brother and his girlfriend moved away we knew they were going to be coming back to visit. We found out months ahead of time they were coming in May. We knew many weeks ahead of time the days they would be here. Now before my surgery I made sure I had some days off to spend some time with them. Time I could put forth the effort to see them and do something.

Now since I’m kind of stuck in my house they have been gracious and understanding enough to hang out at the house with us. Spend some time with the nephew, Nyx, BBQ, watch some movies, play some games, and in generally spend some good quality time together.

But my sister? She spent maybe one day. All she did was rave on and on to people about how our brother and his girlfriend were going to come back to visit. Always reminding anyone, even me, that she was taking off two weeks to hang out with them. Sending text messages about how important we, her family, were to her. How we need to spend more time together so we aren’t like our mom. Yada yada yada.

So my brother and his girlfriend have been here for a week. They leave on the 28th. She hasn’t taken off. In fact she’s taking off for a week or so the day he LEAVES so she can spend time with the not-girlfriend-girlfriend’s family.

Sure I’m pretty understanding that she works two jobs. I let that go, but it’s not like she works both jobs everyday. The night she could have come out hang out we were blown off because she “had a meeting with the girlfriend.” When do you have meetings with your significant other?

I brushed it off.

But I’m coming to realize it’s more than that. It’s more than her not spending time with out brother who we aren’t going to see for a while and hardly will. It’s more than her not spending time with me.

It was finally brought to my attention, which I always thought but never believed or wanted to say, my sister is a horrible compulsive liar.

She makes up insane stories sometimes. LOTS of people always believe her and we, family and friends, have to hear about from other people and we know it’s full of SHIT.

She told people the reason why our brother was coming down was to get married. WTF.

When we confront her about her lies she adds on to them. We don’t say anything about it anymore, we just let it go and let her look and sound like a loony. But it’s those lies that drive me insane and I just somehow never made that connection.

I hate it even more when she tells some bullshit about our own family. I got her Myspacing a message about how “our dad doesn’t even know how to be a real dad yet. She can’t drive any where because she crashed the grandparents car. My dad can get us any alcohol we want because he doesn’t care.”

A) My dad does care, sometimes doesn’t know how to show it.

B)  She doesn’t even have a license or know how to drive.

C) My grandparents aren’t even crazy enough to let ME borrow it, let alone her?

She asks for advice, I know she doesn’t care about and ALWAYS replies with “That’s what I said!” Which is bullshit about 99% of the time. That 1% is rare and really far between.

I hate hearing from people that have been my friends 5 times longer than they ever knew my sister ask me about things she says. Especially about our dark past and family problems.

I personally don’t like to hang our dirty laundry out for everyone.  But she loves the attention she gets.

Brings me to issue 2. We - I will not say who that consists of - have come to general consensus that she hurts herself on purpose to gain attention and sympathy pains. I no longer care what she does. I know she isn’t a cutter, so I don’t worry.

But drives me over the cliff insane is the fact that she thinks we are completely stupid to her stupid games and she doesn’t realize she’s doing it all day every day.

She’s like the early stages of our mother.

People who don’t think she’s like that think I’m insanely jealous. That I want her attention. I want her life.

Sorry people, I like being honest, I hate attention, I enjoy NOT looking like Jack the Skeleton King, I love having curves and boobs, and I’m not an attention whore.

I don’t know what to say to her anymore. It all sounds like lies and she turns herself in the victim.

I just want to bitch slap her sometimes.