Thursday Thirteen #11: August Wrap Up

This is the August Wrap up. 13 very significant days this month.

1. I made 3 years with The Company. 8/1
2. I am finally divorced. My great grandmother’s funeral. 8/2
3. I sent my son off to start Kindergarten. I didn’t cry or have a panic attack. 8/5
4. I began the process of changing my name – e.g. my SSN#, driver’s license, bank accounts, etc. My son also gave me a heart attack because he didn’t get off the bus and the bus driver thought he was on the wrong bus. 8/5
5. FINALLY convinced Preston to get rid of his crappy 95 Honda Accord. Nothing wrong with it, just don’t like Honda. 8/10
6. We traded in 3 of our 7 cars – 2001 Volkswagen Jetta, 99 Chevy Blazer, 95 Honda Accord. Yes, all our cars run, legal, and insured. Insane huh? Preston bought me a 2004 Toyota 4Runner for my birthday. 8/13
7. I turned 24 years old. 8/16
8. I celebrated my birthday with 4 other family members of which I didn’t even know they birthdays fell in August. Hell I only knew 3 of the 4 people on that cake. But it was awesome. 8/17
9. I attended my first official open house and school book fair, as a parent. o.O I finally bought my son a Recaro Car Seat, w00t! 8/20
10. I bought supplies to start a hobby of soap making. 8/23
11. We went to the beach twice on complete opposite sides of the island. I hate the beach. But I had fun. 8/23-24
12. I attempted to body board and ate shit failed, but it was TONS of fun. 8/24
13. Best one, I had my son for the last 5 weeks. J. always had an excuse ….. reason ….erm…. screw it, he was always too busy to pick him up. 7/20-8/28

I write it out it seems like I had on hell of a busy month. I guess I did, it went by pretty fast.

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.

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.

Only myself to blame.

Last November I looked up all the online classes offered through UH. And let me tell you it was a long list. I’m not aiming towards any degree right now. Since I graduated from KCC in 2005 I’ve just been taking classes that interest me. Religion, Psychology, Art, etc etc. But last semester I took off. I didn’t enroll for any classes because I felt my load was pretty heavy already.

So I figured I’d be back in the game come January. Well my lame lazy procrastinating ass enrolled for nothing. Well until today. Since school starts on the 14th I’m pretty damn late. Only two classes I wanted to take were still open to me. Astronomy 110 and Business 125 Starting a small business. I sign onto my UH account, press add/drop courses . . .

Err… what?

“You are not a student for the selected term.” 

I checked and doubled checked. Sure enough I didn’t do anything wrong I was getting this stupid error.

Please oh please tell me I don’t have to re-register, get my TB test, and take that stupid placement test again.

I called admissions office and she confirms it. Well minus taking the placement test again. Not only to have to re-register and take my TB test, but I have to pay an additional $30 late registration fee. I can’t take another day off. I won’t make it back in time.

So it’s put off till Fall semester. Why oh why didn’t I get on the ball when I should of?

Score 1 for procrastination. Zero for Danni’s new year.