This morning she was supposed to be tucked up in her bed, instead she’s still in Holland.
Yes, on Wednesday last she flew out, while she was very nervous, she seemed fine about flying and Dublin airport is a lot bigger then Dusseldorf.

I thought we were more nervous then she was! My stomach was doing somersaults and Mammy2 was trying not to act like she was nervous while she was really. We watched her go through the departure area praying that the safety pins wouldn’t set off 10 alarms. She got through that section and gave us a nervous wave before heading to her departure gate.

We waited until the plane took off as I was sure she’d be too scared to get on it. But, two hours later we got a text from the sister to say she’d arrived safe and sound. She’s been having a great time over there and seems to really like it.

Myself and Mammy 2 also enjoyed the few days break from her, as she can be exhausting!
I took the Thursday and Friday off work to chill out and relax and supposedly do some work on my sites, but there was classic daytime TV to be
watching?!

Its highly addictive stuff, from Chicago Hope to Fair City, its all trash, but sure who cares!

I rang her on Saturday morning to see how she was getting on and she was having a ball! She was off to Venlo shopping with the sister’s boyf J, god bless his energy. The sister was dying off the flu and so had a maximum 5 yard radius from the bed. On Sunday night, the kid had a date?!! She’s there all of 5 days and has a date! He is a nice guy according to K, the sister. They ‘hung out’ and played pool. One can only supposed anything is a step up from ‘Legend’ guy, who’s sole aim in life begins and ends with the letters J and D.

I rang another school yesterday, one that she was thinking of transferring to and they would allow her to repeat her Junior Cert but not change schools mid-term, it remains to be seen how she’ll take this. One can only assume there will be a raised eyebrow and possibly a “This country is soooo stupid”

The sister texted last night to say that they had left her at the departure gates and she seemed fine. At about 8.30 our time, I received a phonecall from Dusseldorf airport asking for K’s number as the kid didn’t get the flight . She was sick and had some sort of panic attack. So, the sister, who had driven all the way back home had to drive back to the airport to pick the kid up as there were no later flights, then we had the panic of thinking her luggage had gone ahead of her because she was on the plane when she felt sick.

Thankfully, they picked her and the luggage up. I’m sure to have a nervous breakdown before this kid reaches 18, I swear. I had all sorts of horrible images in my head of german serial killers looking for gothic looking teenagers to kidnap. Well, she was in strange airport all by herself. The staff weren’t too helpful, she rang us when she got back to K’s and sounded worn out. I think she’s picking up the dose that K has, so its straight to bed for her when she gets home.
We weren’t allowed transfer her flight, so we booked another one for 8.20 tonight. We asked K to knock her out before putting her on the flight this time!

Never a dull moment with this child. That said, I have relaxed sufficently enough to be able to be calm about the situation! Bring on the summer holidays!
Thank god she can catch a bus by herself, else she’d never leave the apartment.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005 at 4:18 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Chocoate worked!

She was fine by the time we got home on Monday evening, although as to what caused the tantrum, we have no idea.

Of course P dropped in complete with a red rose for her and she was chuffed. That man thinks of everthing, feckless rogue of fecklessness. J arrived in with fair trade everything, some of which were eatable!!

I was surprised! A night of Uno and then Pictionary followed and twas good fun. The kid stayed in the room ‘tidying’. Probably picking up all the cds she’d thrown around the place earlier in her fit of rage! She eventually decided that we were having too much fun without her so she joined us. People were surprised at my drawings, and not in a “Oh my god, you’re fantastic at it” , more in a raised eyebrow look as if to say what on earth are you drawing.

I shall give you an example. To illustrate rust, I sketched a gate with rain with a cow behind the gate for authenticity. I forgot to draw the cow in the next two pics of the gate where I was showing how the rust was affecting the gate. These people were shouting Liberty and Freedom while I was drawing rain and gates, I began to think it must be coming near Bastille Day or something.

Her best mate D was allowed stay over last night so needless to say it was a late one for both of them. I cam out to the living room to check on them at around 3 when they were supposed to be in bed and the two them were sprawled on the couch watching Scuzz.

The kid is starting to get nervous about the flight, not as much as I am. We’re sending her over to Holland for a week to stay with the sister over there, so that we can all get a break and while it seemed like a good idea at the time, I’m starting to panic about her flying by herself.

She’s more worried about every safety pin in her clothes going off when she goes through the metal detector. This kid is held together with safety pins! She takes what appears to be a regular t-shirt, cuts it to shreds, pins it back together and then wears it. Thank god I won’t be around for the safety detector!

Mammy 2 rang Aer Lingus to make sure someone would keep an eye on her on the flight over as this is her first time flying and she’ll be by herself. So we have to say it when we’re checking in this evening with her. I haven’t told her yet that her phone won’t work while she’s over there, I’m leaving that job to the sister! Seriously, she probably wouldn’t get on the plane.

We got our phone bill yesterday and over 50 euros of it was mobile calls to her best mate. Obviously we’ve asked her to cut down on them or her pocket money goes.

She agreed, but we’ll see how long it lasts. While she’s off gallivanting in Holland, we have to find her a new school, never a dull moment around here. I’d be amazed if a school took her in mid term espeically in Junior Cert, but we have to try something as she says she’s not going back to her old school.

I’m hoping to get it sorted by tomorrow or at least get an appointment so myself and Mammy 2 can chill out for the time she’s away.

Once I know she’s landed safely and is with K, the sister I’ll be happy. I just have these images of her wandering around Dusseldorf airport like a lost soul. I hope she likes flying and doesn’t
get afflicted with the same fear myself and Mam had. Its quote ironic that I have to convince her that flying is safe, whereas you’d need to inject me with something to get me on a plane!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 at 4:54 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Why the hell is life to hard sometimes? The kid just rang me sobbing about how she hates herself and wants to die and she’s only a burden on everyone and that everyone would be better off if she finished herself that time months ago before the trip to A&E.

What on earth do you say to someone who’s thinking like this?

She hates the anti-depressants and how sick they’re making her, she hates going to therapy, she hates all her friends who she thinks take the piss out of her at any given oppurtunity, trying to her that people who do this aren’t really her friends can be quite difficult.

She’s thrown stuff all around her room, her cds and books and while she’s normally a trantrum thrower, she never wrecks the place.

She puts so much stock in what people think of her, as if life wasn’t difficult enough at 15.

I eventually got her to stop crying , all this and the office is soooo quiet, its really difficult. All I could do was agree with her and say that everyone was crap and the world sucks, etc.

She’s been through so much already, if she can just get through this, I know she’ll be alright. She’s at such an akward time in her life and without her Mam around to look after her, no wonder life sucks as far as she’s concerned. Even mentioning P, who’s calling around tonight didn’t cheer her up and this man is god as far as she’s concerned!

I tried the chocolate route with some success and have my orders. All we can do I suppose is work through it with her and hope that she gets through it in one piece.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2005 at 11:31 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Just another average weekend with the kid. Friday dawned with the worst PMT attack that has taken hold of my body in eons. I swear, I went from 0- bitch in about 3 seconds. I had an interview which went fine and got into work late enough, but after being out sick the previous day I wasn’t attacked the minute I came in. I had a chance to get my bearings!

Straight into coding, development work which strangley enough I’m not used to. I get news from the agency that while the company thought I was great and fantastic , etc, I didn’t have enough expierence with asp.net.

This combined with the aformentioned PMT, lack of sleep due to working most of the night on the DLL site, and my sub-conscious playing bad tricks on me, that evening all I wanted to do was go home to bed and wake up in about 6 years time. However, the kid had other ideas as she had just finished her mocks and was in great form, there was talk of takeout and a dvd , etc.

I met with Mammy2 before we headed home as she tried to difuse the explosions in my head. When I got home, the kid decided possibly for her own safety that I should go to bed for a while, so after a quick shower, I was straight into PJS and to sleep. 14 hours later I awoke feeling much refreshed. She was dancing around in the bathroom getting ready to go up town and ‘hang’.

Seeing as it has been 2 months since the A&E incident, we decided to forgo checks, where we meet her every 2 hours and check her breath. She was also with D her best mate and we trust her.
We headed to the local to watch the rugby and at one stage it looked like an atmosphere might start to develop but the barmen were on it straight away. Great match, I have to say, I thought it was going to be a lot tighther then the final scoreline.

Arrived home and it was bloody freezing, so we headed for a lie down. Set the alarm for when the kid would be home so we could cook dinner for her. At around 6, I heard her voice and D’s voice in the flat? Now, usually we have to ring them to tell them to get home and they’re home already so it was a bit suspect. I eventually got up to see what was going on , at this stage D had headed home leaving the kid. She was tucked up in bed with the smell of alcohol wafting from her.

I left her to sleep it off and headed to the kitchen to deliberate what I should do. I texted D just to ask how much she had to drink and she mentioned a nagen of Southern Comfort.

Spent the next hour going through a range of emotions, from anger to being upset and wondering what we did wrong to anger again, but that could have been the PMT talking.

Flicked on the telly and decided to swtich off for a while, I didn’t see her rising before the morning , so I relaxed a bit. I could stress in the morning about having a talk with her. Copycat was on, Sigourney took my mind off things for a while. Mammy2 got up and I filled her on the story and she
had to go through the same emotions I had gone through earlier.

The following morning a sheepish kid was on the phone to D, so did our best to eavesdrop to no avail. Eventually we decided it was time for her to face the music. And her story was this: she was all delighted she had finished her mocks and wanted to celebrate, so herself and D bought some alcohol and got pissed. She got sick so D brought her home. In one way, I was relieved that it was her and D and not her drinking my herself , but saying that obviously wouldn’t have helped the situation so I kept my mouth shut while Mammy 2 played bad cop good cop and was being
a hard ass with her.

We settled on her being grounded for a month, pocket money we keep as she can’t be trusted with it. Also, all rules to be kept and abidd by. She seemed alright with that, well, considering the fact that I’d say she was nursing a whopper of a hangover , she seemed alright with it.

Grounded just meant no ‘hanging’ with any of those idiots from Temple Bar, herself and D could stay in the flat off a Saturday and watch DVD’s or whatever.
So, she got her miserable face on her then, muttering about being all alone, etc. D rang and asked if she could go watch the new Spongebob film??!!
After a long discussion with D about letting the kid near alcohol etc, we let her go watch it , anything was better then looking at her miserable hungover face. She was delighted and loved the film?? I give up, I just do not understand teenagers, its offical.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2005 at 6:05 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

I’m going to start today by talking about hairdressers. Now ordinarily I have no problems with my hairdresser, as I’ve been going to him for about two years now and he’s always grand, its a straightforward “Will I take much off” and me gesturing to a picture of Ripley from Aliens 3. He always errors on the side of caution though and cuts it as tight as he can.

Then its always the same question with regards to drying it, I’m not a fan of those fancy volumiser things, I swear the hair starts off fine and then suddenly you end up looking like Madge off Neighbours with more volume then AMI.

So, I went in at lunch time on Wednesday and managed to avoid all the lovely ladies that always go to this hairdressers because he makes them tea not to mention the digestive bikkies.

He cut it all grand, keep the small talk to a minimum, he’s learned obviously. And then, he whips out the hair dryer without so much as asking and preceeded to do terrible things to my hair. I was still reeling from the assult of the hairdyrer that I just about heard him mention Gel. I grabbed my
jacket and paid the man. Upon leaving, I decided to check out how much volume he’d put in, he’d gone mad with the dryer, I tell you. It wasn’t my fault he was having a slow day. Some serious adjustments needed to be made.

The kid was going to check out kickboxing classes last night and I just wanted to spend time with Mammy 2 so we headed to the local and watched the match. The local was hopping as always, there was 4 people at one stage.

She had English and Geography and got on fine , apparently, I’m unsure what fine is. To top things off , the evil Hachet Faced coot was waiting for her when she finished her exam to check makeup and nail varnish, I swear this woman needs to get laid or something.

Of course a note was issued, where would we be without these scraps of paper to tell us how dis-obident the kid is. I wasn’t in the mood of going in for work today as the kid had her appointment for Solas in the evening and trying to explain why I needed more time off to my manager wouldn’t cut any slack, the woman does not understand that family are always more important then work. Bless.
Her definition of urgent and mine make for interesting reading.

I needed to research for the interview I had and find out some more about the company.
Also, while on my day off , what else would I get up to but clean! In my defence the apartment was filthy and needed a good cleaning. I assualted the presses but they were onto me and fought back. I had to take down a tin of Bisodol, two lemsips and a sugar bowl before I got them under control. It was survival of the fittest. The sweeping and polishing was relatively straightforward once they saw that I took no prisoners. The fish swam for cover, bless, they think they’re hidden if they’re at the back of the bowl.

Then it was back to some lovely HTML coding for the DLL site, they want it live in time for the conference which is on at the weekend and as its all flat HTML , it should be no worries.
The kid arrived in at 4 and I was rushing around the place as our appointment with Solas was 4.30. I announced by pocket money plan, whatever state she left the bathroom in, albeit a messy one most of the time, she was docked 5 yo yos. We shall see if the black makeup stops appearing magically on everything, I mean everything from the powder to sanitary towels. What does she do, I wonder, put on her makeup and then fall face down into the powder?

She dramatically threw herself on the couch complaing of stomach pains etc. I told we had to leave, she recovered pretty quickly. My ears were burning on the way to Solas, she hadn’t seen me since the previous night and hence had to divulge as much of her day as possible She became mute when we finally met with the counseller, who’s lovely. Head buried in her chest. I pondered what she was like when we weren’t around. We headed up and left the counseller to do her job. At around 6 o’clock they came out.

The kid likes her, this is a first as she’s been to a lot of therapists and never liked any of them.
When she returns from Holland, she’s going to see her again and fingers crossed it will help in some way. I had a feeling she’d like her as she’s quite motherly and the kid prefers those sort of people.
Munchies were bought on the way home and she’s now studying her history for tomorrow while texting and about to watch convoy.

Oh and for those non-believers, the popcorn worked. Not sure whether she kept a chart or what, but they’re bigger!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2005 at 7:36 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.