Rob and I have had an ongoing disagreement for months (years?) about this one issue and I think it’s taken him being away for a week for me to see things his way. Rob insists that the boys do not do enough around the house as far as cleaning up after themselves, lending a helping hand and pitching in when needed. I’ve maintained that they are only kids once and that as a kid I was messy and self-centered, etc., too.

This week, though, I reached my breaking point. I think things have been exacerbated because I had to go away for two weekends in a row and Rob was gone the entire time (I’m also realizing just how much Rob does around here!). The kids did not help me out one little bit. Even their normal chores were ignored until they were told repeatedly to get them done. I’ve long been a fan (in theory, at least) of saying something once and then if it’s not done dishing out consequences. I haven’t been so good with following my own advice/beliefs this week. It’s been rough just trying to take care of everything I need to for myself – between work, physical therapy, and meetings, and going away twice, I’ve been pretty swamped. Throw in the pets, taking care of my food, packing, laundry, dishes, and keeping the house kept up all on my own with virtually no help from the kids (who, by the way were busy making more messes) and you’ve got one worn out, pissed off, frazzled Amy.

Something happened on Friday, though, that absolutely pushed me over the edge. I packed my suitcase for my trip and told the boys to do the same. Even though they were told to pack on Thursday, they both chose to do so on Friday. That was a battle I decided I didn’t want to fight. I figured if they didn’t have their bags packed by the time we needed to leave on Friday, they’d wear the same clothes all weekend. So. On Wednesday and Thursday I had the boys do their own laundry (I’m dealing with the after-effects of that tonight – but that’s another story) and Aric’s clothes were still mostly in the laundry room on Friday. There was a suitcase sitting on top of Grace’s kennel in the laundry room that I used to pack my stuff in. After I was all packed up, I took the suitcase and placed it in the front hallway close to the door.

When Aric finally decided to pack his bag, he came storming downstairs in a huff wanting to know why I used the suitcase in the laundry room. He had that particular suitcase ready to go for his stuff, he tells me. I guess his plan was to pack his bag directly in the laundry room. I let him know that he didn’t really need a suitcase to go to his grandmother’s house for 2 days, but he was pretty adamant. I knew there were other suitcases so if he wanted to use one of those, he was free to do so.

Not too long after his bag was packed, I told him and Connor to load up the car with their belongings. When I came upstairs I noticed my suitcase was no longer in the hallway. I was pleasantly surprised. Aric packed my suitcase, too?! That was definitely unexpected. I mentally patted myself on the back for raising such a courteous young man who knew how to take care of his mother while his father was gone even if he was mad at her.

We drove over to my parents’ house and I had the boys unload the car of their belongings. Once they were done, I went to check that they had everything and noticed there were no suitcases in the car at all. My suitcase was not there.

“Where’s my suitcase?,” I cried to both boys as they stood staring at me slack-jawed on the curb.

Both shrugged their shoulders and said, “I dunno,” as they walked into the house, my dad trailing behind them shaking his head.

So here I had a 3 hour trip ahead of me that just grew by another 30-45 minutes. Even better – it was now ominously close to rush hour. I left without saying goodbye. When I got back to the house, I found my suitcase thrown haphazardly on the laundry room floor. That little shit. I spent the weekend nursing a resentment against both of them. And for the first time ever, I was away from the boys overnight and I did not miss them. Not even a little bit.

I know Rob is feeling frustrated since he’s 2,500 miles away and can’t help me out. However, I bet he’s also almost grateful that I’m going through this pain because it’s propelling me to change. My views towards the boys and their lack of contribution to the household has done a complete 180… and my actions are right behind. No more Mrs. Nice Mommy. I’m also looking forward to being more on the same page as Rob with this. I hated that there was a chasm between us whenever this issue arose, but I honestly didn’t feel their behaviors were a problem. I guess I needed to deal with them on my own for a while to truly see.

My boys are good kids, don’t get me wrong, but they sure are self-centered, lazy, and slovenly. I don’t know if changing how I parent them will change them internally; I’m hoping that they can act themselves into right thinking where this is concerned by me forcing their hand with their actions. And if they don’t, at least there’s more peace between Rob and I – and less work!

Connor’s bus picks him up at 6:40 (yikes!). Here he is before walking out the door.

Aric’s bus is supposed to pick him up at 7:35, but that bus apparently comes early because there was no bus in sight from 7:30 on this morning. Rob ended up taking him in. Here’s Aric looking thrilled. Ha!

It’s funny, they both hate that I take their pictures on the first day of school, but they stand there without too much fight completely resigned to their fates. They’ll both appreciate having these pictures when they’re older, though. Mark my words.

Eleven years ago today, our little family grew by one. Our precious Aric Angelo was born at 10:15 AM Eastern European Time at Incirlik AB in Adana, Turkey.

Hard to believe that newborn has already grown into the fine young man who is mowing lawns, operating tractors, and shooting guns as well as men two and three times his age.

Aric is an old soul – at times he seems an old man trapped and tortured inside a young boy’s life. One of his teachers last year said to us that Aric just needs to “get through childhood” as best as he can so he can begin living the life he is so ready to live. As much as I want that for him – I know it will free him – I am dreading it because I just want him to be my baby boy forever. I love spending as much time with him as I possibly can; he’s such a character and always has the funniest and most interesting things to say. You never know what you’re going to get from him, either, as part of his charm is his unpredictability. I love that he’s so completely random – it keeps us on our toes and almost always keeps us laughing.

Rob and I have been incredibly blessed in this life. We’ve got two wonderful boys who both offer us their unique gifts and I couldn’t be more grateful. Today I’ll be spending some time in quiet reflection of my memories of Aric through the years and I’ll give thanks for every day we’ve had the pleasure of knowing him. I couldn’t have asked for a second born son that I’d love any more than I do Aric. He is a true gift to me and to our family. We’re all so extremely fortunate to have him in our lives and today we celebrate that fact!

Speaking of the 10 year old, he came with me to Whole Foods where I bought the Cup, and got himself a little education in the process. I’m pretty open with the kids, and I’m not embarrassed to talk about bodily functions or sex with them. He asked how the cup worked, so I told him. He seemed okay enough with it until I put the package in the cart. His eyes popped out of his head and was speechless for a moment. When he regained his composure, he said, “THAT is going to…. never mind. You are crazy.” Hahaha! When we got home, I had to pee really bad, so I was running to the bathroom and he yelled out, “Don’t forget your DIVA CUP!” Love that kid.

And here’s a still pic, just because they’re so darn cute:

On the way home, I wanted to check in on Connor to make sure he was okay. It’s funny, not too long ago, if we were gone for just a few minutes past when it got dark, Connor had us on the phone wondering when we would be home and when we got there, every light in the house would be on. Now, he doesn’t even think about us not being there! Rob said that he probably wouldn’t even answer the phone. I decided that I’d be hip and send him a text message instead of calling. I guess your first clue that I’m not really hip is the fact that I used the word “hip”, a point that was driven mercilessly home to me after texting Connor.

I break out my cell phone and start typing the numbers that correspond with the letters I wanted to use, but I noticed the words weren’t being pre-populated once I typed in a letter or two. Sindy clued me into that cool little feature last week after I told her how slow I was to type up a text. I thought I’d learn the predictive text thing and *really* be hip. So I start sorting through the settings, trying to find where to change it to iTap for predictive text.

General Settings – let’s see here:

- Ring Styles – it wouldn’t fall under here, right? Next.
- Personalize – hmm, maybe this is it. Okay, a bunch of settings under this menu, none of which seem to have anything to do with text messaging. Next.
- In-Call Setup – another maybe. Another fail.
- Security – I think I can bypass that one. But I will return if desperate. Sadly, I did have to return. And sure enough, not there.
- Initial Setup – See Security.
- Network Info – I feel safe in skipping this one.
- Car Settings – Thankfully I knew that my cell phone wasn’t smart enough to know that I was, indeed, in my car at the time. But don’t think I didn’t think about looking here.
- Headset – Okay, another one I feel safe about skipping. Whew. But where is this damn setting??
- Location – Confirmation that my phone didn’t know I was in the car. See? Smart. And hip.
- Connection – This is the last option in the list, and even though I know I won’t find anything about texting here, I check it anyway.

Okay, fine, so the Settings menu most likely wasn’t the place to change my text messaging settings. Moving on, I create a new text message and look for the options there.

Eureka! I find the setting I need and make the changes, then go back to creating my message.

But, wait, what’s going on here? Why is the first letter not being capitalized? Why won’t any letters come up when I click on a number? I head back into the options menu to change the entry mode to Primary and try again. Still no first letter capitalization, but I can deal with that. Besides, having the first letter capitalized probably makes me less hip. But something is wrong. The predictive text won’t let me type in the word “hey”. It assumes I want to say “hi” and when I try to correct it, I get a bunch of nonsense that starts with the letter “i”.

By now I’m really getting frustrated, and Rob is not helping matters. “Hey, hon, want me to just text him? Why don’t you just call him?” Um, shut up. I am hip and I will be sending a freaking text message with predictive text if it kills me.

I finally figured out what was going on with the message – after I saw the menu option for “Contacts” for the umpteenth time, I figured out that I was trying to enter the message in the place where I’d normally enter a phone number. Yeah. Not only am I hip, I am apparently brilliant, too.

After a few more minutes, I did get my message sent, but I had to start it with another word besides “hey” – I couldn’t figure out how to get around the phone telling me to say “hi” or “ig”. What gives?

So I ask you: Does taking 15 minutes to send the message, “Everything OK?” mean I’m un-hip? Come on, tell the truth. I can handle it.

For tonight, I’m going to stop reading about it and pray instead. I think that will bring me more peace of mind than anything else right now.

Aric came home from his grandparents’ with bullseye rashes all over his legs. They were all very nasty and mean looking, and I was immediately concerned. I spent a good portion of the weekend Googling bullseye rashes, and every single thing I came up with pointed to Lyme Disease. Rob doubted that’s what it was, but agreed we should take him to the doctor just to be sure. I wasn’t sure what it could be, so I just wanted to get some answers. I was hoping the doctor would say it was a reaction to the green flies on the bay while he was fishing. However, that apparently isn’t the case. The doctor took one look at his leg and immediately called in two other doctors to check it out, too. They all agreed that they were most likely looking at Lyme Disease.

Then the doctor asked if Aric had been sick recently. Remember when Aric was sick a couple weeks ago? I had almost forgotten about it until today. Now things are starting to piece together – his sickness was exactly how it is described in any of the symptoms for Lyme Disease I have read. They drew his blood to perform the screening test, and we’ll wait to see what the official results are. In the meantime, he was sent home with a script for 21 days worth of antibiotics and he is to take them whether the test comes back negative or not. From what I’ve read, the screening test has false positives and negatives, so it’s not a perfect indicator. I just hope the antibiotics do their job and he doesn’t experience any further trouble after this. I’ve heard horror stories about this disease; I would like it very much if we’re not one of those.

Anyway, Aric has his own pimped out quarters at the grandparents’ place. They set him up with his own room complete with his bed, a couch, a dresser, and a TV mounted on the wall. He’s been enjoying chilling out in there as well as doing all the activities they’ve been doing with him. He’s gone fishing a couple of times – his favorite pastime! I wish he could spend his whole summer like this – just being able to relax and chill and just enjoy being a kid – if only he wasn’t two hours away. He normally goes to camp all day, and while it’s not high pressure or anything, he does have to get up at a certain time and spend his whole day in a structured environment.

I know he’ll be home before we both know it, but the days are just dragging right now. I want my baby! From what I hear, his grandparents are going to miss him something fierce when he leaves, and this week I know exactly what they’ll be feeling.