So caute :)
April 19, 2007
We inherited a teenager. We lived to tell the tale. Just about.
This week is offically the longest week ever. Offically in my book and no-one elses. I woke up this morning and thought it was Saturday. Pretty pants feeling. Of course there was no movement from the teenager. She was fairly sick yesterday and in a foul mood. Noticing a trend at all? Yesterday was a bit more relaxing as she wans’t in school and so I wasn’t dreading the whole txt messages. It actually cause my stomach to drop. I think I may need help in that regards! I am great at dealing with stressful situations.
Did a lot of work yesterday on the aP redesign as well as my day job. Even though I did a lot of work, there’s still nothing to show for it. Over 40 pages need to be re-done,each page consisiting of over 300 lines of code. Joy. I got home to an empty apartment, not usually a bad thing except for 2 things.
1) She was supposed to be home ’studying’ seeing as she didn’t go to school yesteday.
2) It was 5.55 and her maths grind was at 6.
As if on queue, the doorbell rings and its her maths grind. I make small talk with the woman whilst trying to reach Satan on the phone. She was in fine form, with lots of cursing and whinging. She barreled back into the apartment with the mate K in tow. I had words with her, left the money and ran screaming from the apartment. The neighbours looked on bemused.
We met with the mate J and heard all about her new job. She seems to be settling in well and enjoying it. I think she’s perfect for the job and will definetly make a difference. She’s just that sort of person. she doesn’t give out or whinge, she just gets on with it. Tonight we are catching up with the mate S, who’s finally returned from the wilds of the west. We haven’t seen her since she got back from travelling the world so we best prepare ourselves for an overload in information.
I’m having zero luck trying to get accomodation for Athlone in May. There must be some festival or something as everywhere is booked out. Last year, we were in a guest house with a bunch of Opus Dei type characters. Breakfast was such fun with them.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
The new boyf is on the way out. Well, it would take a strong man to survive PMT, no anti depressants and a stressed out woman. He doesn’t sound like a strong man. The kid was giving out about him yesterday because she claims he’s too clingy. She was in okay form , considering she had her irish oral. Thank god she didn’t miss it. Its a miracle. She txted a few times yesterday saying she wasn’t able for it, but I talked her into staying and getting it over with. Thankfully, she did stay and did it and thinks she got on okay at it. Needless to say, in her book this was cause for celebrations. She wanted munchies and coke. We were also to all hang out and talk about how wonderful she was. Considering I had nothing planned for the evening, we agreed. I got home to her celebrating by sleeping. When she eventually arose, she wasn’t in the best of form. PMT has a habit of playing with your moods. She went online to bash the boyfriend for a while , whilst we hid behind the couch. The poor boyf. I actually feel sorry for him. His latest crazy idea is that she got back on the anti depressants. Not so crazy until he tells her his idea. I reckon there’s easier ways to get through life and these would involve bungee jumping, white water rafting and taking a walk into a Lion’s den whilst he’s looking peckish. The kid wanted to dump him last night. He was too clingy, all this I love you shit doesn’t cut any water with her.
She needs her space. I asked how much more space she needed then the miles between Cavan and Dublin. She glared at me and went back to berating him. He was obvlious and retaliated by telling her he loved her and was going to stick by her.
Please bear in mind, they have been seeing each other for the last 2 weeks. She says she can’t dump him because he may kill himself. How does she find these people is what I want to know. We decided to watch a movie and leave her talking to the screen. She was online to some wiccan who was having trouble telling her parents she was a witch. One of her friends on myspace or Bebo or some other site she frequents looks like a porcupine. He dyed his hair blue. She thinks this is a great idea. She also thinks getting a tatoo and sticking a safety pin in your ear is a great idea. She’s pretty pissed off at the moment for a number of reasons, you name it, she’s pissed off about it. The latest is one of the ex-mate’s got called for an interview for Dun Laoghaire. Granted its a different course, but the kid is still panicked over the fact that she may not get in. I wish they would just send a letter one way or the other and put us all out of our misery.
We’re catching up with the mate J tonight, we haven’t seen much of her with her starting her new job and the antichrist replacing our kid. She seems to be settling in really well in the job. She has no online time at all though and I really miss having a natter to her over email or gchat. I can’t understand how people can’t be online all the time 
Although I am doing better with my online addiction. I now don’t go online once I finish work unless I really have to. Thankfully work has calmed down a lot. All that’s left is the aP redesign which is taking forever, there are so many pages in the forum and I need to check them in various browsers. Its such a headache. It will be worth it when its finished but at the moment, its driving me insane.
Yesterday was a fun day. The kid did get up and did go into school, but you know when you have that feeling. You just know that at some stage, the phone is going to ring, or you’re going to get a txt from her. Sure enough, after lunch, a txt asking me to ring her. I rang her, she was hysterical. There was no talking to her, she had an incident in school and she wanted to go home. I unfortunately picked that exact moment to not handle things and said I would get Mammy2 to talk to her. I wasn’t able for her, for whatever bizzare reason. I rang Mammy2 who thankfully took over. Within an hour, the kid had calmed down, wrote herself and note and was on the way home. Missing her actual Irish Oral. When Mammy2 told me about the irish exam, I got even more stressed. At this stage, I thought my head was about to explode. I was having chest pains, a really bad headache and was feeling nasuous. Pasture was beckoning, I considered writing my will. Then I rememebered I had nothing in the bank account. I decided not to leave the 20 odd euro to Mammy2, unless she got a cheap undertaker.
The rest of the day was pretty much a blur, I entertained notions of leaving work early, but I didn’t think of a valid reason to give. “Sorry boss, I think I’m having a stress related attack of some kind,” Sounds pathetic. I left work and took a slow stroll to my bus, enjoying the evening sunshine. There’s a lot to be said for the countryside and music. Met with Mammy2 who managed to talk me through my panic. We got home to the kid with half her hair dyed. She’s making an effort to get rid of the red hair dye and so its now half black and half red. I didn’t dare ask. I got a bite to eat and went to bed. Bed at 8 of a sunny evening. What a wuss! Of course, the kid was in great form. Except she wanted me to make an appointment for the doctor and for the eye person to get her eyes tested. I waited to see if she had any more appointments up her sleeve but no. Thankfully. She went back to sleeping. That kid spends more time in bed then anywhere else. She’s going to try and talk to the teacher today about her oral. I don’t hold much home.
At 11 I awake to the sound of a bath being run. She has decided to run a bath for the mate K who’s staying over. At 11. I didn’t realise it was possible to make so much noise whilst running a bath. The rubber ducks must have put up a fight. I felt like the grumpy parent asking her to keep it down. In fairness she was laughing and joking as opposed to being upset. I asked her how the ’studying’ was going. She has this thing of leaving books scattered around the place, to lull us into a false sense of security that she has been studying. Being on Bebo involves research into the social networking phenomenon obviously. As it turns out my original 6 weeks countdown is moot. She informed us yesterday she’ll be finished in 4 weeks. They’re letting then finish early to study. I responded
“Excellent stuff, so you’ll have 2 weeks to focus on your work”
The patented teenager ‘You must be joking look’
“I’ll be working SOME of the time, but I’ll need to take a break from the stress of it all” she says burrowing back into the bed for another hours sleep?What stress? I reckon the Leaving Cert will be the death of me but she’ll be fine.
