Mouse in the Library

In case I never mentioned it before, I've always been lousy at keeping up with diaries and journals and whatnot. Especially so when life is going mostly smoothly.

We have (sort of) done the December decorating. We have a very small fake tree set up on a stool, on account of not having room in the apartment for anything larger. It still looks very cute, and it has ornaments and blue beads and silver stuff. It's in front of one of our bookshelves, the one that we nailed four stockings to. There's more blue beading draping from stocking to stocking, and lights strung around the shelving a bit above that. It's a very nice effect.

I have made caramels, and they are good. This is an understatement of vast proportions, but it does not do to let the entire world know that you make an addictive substance in your kitchen. I will be asking warinbear to cut the sheets later this week, because that's the only way they'll get cut as opposed to eaten outright.

The three of us, reana and darcsyde took Bear-Cub and Puppy Christmas shopping yesterday. JoAnn's, a half-priced bookstore, and Marshalls. With lunch out between the bookstore and Marshalls. Started around 11:20 and Warin headed down to Huntsville with the girls at 3:00. Uff da. Those girls have frickin' energy.

louisadkins and I have a chiropracter appointment later today. We also need to get some gorcery shopping done. We'll do one more grocery run on Thursday to get some of the more perishable stuff for Christmas dinner, and then we'll hole up in the apartment.

I'd almost forgtten how much running around tends to accompany this part of the year. -laugh- Ah, well. It's all good.

What's been going on, let's see . . . I turned 24 last week, on Sept. 8. Bear-Cub baked a surprise carrot cake for me on the day. Not that she knew it at the time, but carrot cake was my absolutely most favourite kind of cake when I was about her age. So, happy bouncy Omimouse. warinbear did something nasty to his back on Thurday night, and wound up going to see a doctor about it on Friday. We had the actual party for my birthday on Saturday. Tacos, cake, and ice cream. I worked on Warin's back for almost three hours straight that evening. It seems to have helped a lot; his pain levels were considerably lower on Sunday. catchild spent most of Saturday volunteering at the local Red Cross office.

We spent most of Sunday gaming. Good game, overall. I like playing an archer who is capable of hitting targets that are most of a mile away from her. Her bow is damn near bigger than she is, but it's a good bow. It's also enchanted, hence the phenomanal range.

Warin was feeling much better by today. We handled various and sundry housework stuff, and met the kids at the bus stop. Then Catchild checked her e-mail. She wound up using my computer, I think because hers was running something that meant no using it until it was done. When an incrediby angry looking Catchild poked her head out my bedroom door a few minutes later, I knew there was a problem.

Kathy (Warin's mom) contacted the school. She was looking for info about Bear-Cub's teachers, what classes she was in, when the school had open houses and PTA meetings, and so on and so forth. This after she had been told she was to have no contact with the girls. Period.

We'll be talking with the school about what we're going to do about this.

So, over the weekend, warinbear's mom (K) e-mails Bear-Cub. K tells Bear-Cub that the Huntsville Public Library will be having a birthday party for Harry Potter on Monday (today) and that she thought that Bear-Cub and her sister would be interested. Oh, and if no one else could drive, she could play driver for them.

We decided to go ahead and go. Let the kids spend some time with their Nana, let me spend some time with some very good friends. I practically grew up in that library. I was a volunteer and an employee there. I have friends there that remember me from when I was 7 years old. Therefore, I was perfectly fine with being around K there. My turf, y'see. Well, as fine with being around her as I was ever going to be. We drove ourselves, taking 2 cars so that louisadkins could go with me, catchild and all three girls.

Meeting old friends (library itself included in that category) was wonderful, the event was fun, all three girls had a blast. Phooka was in heaven in the toddler section. Catchild got to say hi to folks that she had met through me a few years ago, and I got to introduce Louis to old friends of mine.

Fast-forward about an hour and a half, to 5:30 in the evening. Catchild and I were needing food rather badly at that point. Louis goes in search of the two older girls. He found them with K. He told them that we needed to leave to get food, and that we needed to leave now. K was getting out pictures to show them at the same time that he was saying this. She said that she could just show them to the girls real quick first. Kids ignored Louis and dove into the pictures. Self-satisfied smile from K that the girls missed. Louis repeated himself on the needing to leave now angle four more times. He was ignored by both girls and by K. Fourth time, he informed the girls that if they did not move, they were going directly to bed upon our arrival at home.

Bear-Cub and Puppy moved. Bear-Cub was highly upset with having to go, and not happy about having a potential punishment tossed at her. Louis was (and still is) understandably upset about being ignored by both children and adult. Especially since Bear-Cub and K both know that Catchild is hypoglycemic. Bear-Cub also knows very well what happens when either of her mommies don't get food when they need to.

K was very obvious in comforting (and in my opinion, egging on) the upset Bear-Cub.

Okay. In review, that might seem like a small thing to be furious with a grandparent over. To review: K deliberately undermined Louis's authority with the girls. By example, she showed them that it was okay to ignore him. She then demonstrated to the girls that she felt that they shouldn't have gotten into any kind of trouble over it. She has done this to me, to ebonunicorn(Drkn), and to Catchild. I do not know if she has done it to Warin. I do know that both myself and Drkn usually catch most of it.

If past experience is any indication, the older girls will most likely ignore both myself and Louis for about a week or so.

I was furious and damn near hysterical with hurt and anger when we got home. I am now feeling very cold. K has finally crossed a line in my mind, and she has finally pushed to far.

My official parental vote on anything involving K is that the kids should not have contact with her. At all. Period. She refuses to stop undermining our parental authority with the girls. By doing so, she is teaching them by example that they do not have to listen to us or take us seriously. She is toxic, and it is my opinion that if we don't really trust her to be alone with the girls in the first place, why in the name of Hell are we letting her anywhere near our daughters at all? Yes, cutting her out of their lives now would hurt, but I think it's time we were actually honest with our children instead of hoping that K won't do something that'll screw them up for life.

Oh, wait. It's already to late on that front, isn't it? I say tell them the truth, hold them, hug them, remind them that we love them and that this is not their fault. Tell them all the things that we haven't been telling them about their Nana. And then get her the fuck out of their lives before she destroys them while we're waiting for her to do something 'obvious'.

My stance on this is no longer open to debate.



P.S. Catchild, I am not angry with you, this is not your fault, and I still love you very much, as I likely always will. While I am addressing several of your points, I am not upset with you. Okay?

I forgot how long the mourning process takes. While the timing of Oma's death was sudden, I had been expecting it for at least five years. I knew it was coming. I had time to prepare, to come to terms with it. When she died, it still hurt. It just took a lot less time for me to finish saying goodbye, and to be able to think about her without it hurting. It's different when you don't have time to prepare. It hits you like a knife, and it can take years for the knife to slowly twist its way out of your heart and gut.

Especially when you lost someone, not to death, but to . . . I still don't know what we lost her to, to be honest. When I feel bitter about it, I get snarly about how I never really knew there was a problem until it went boom, because no one fuckin' talked to me, but that's only when I feel particularly bitter about it.

ebonunicorn's son, Nik is up for the weekend. Apparantly, he'd been to an SCA thingie in the past week or two. He met Reana's son, L there. He told Bear-Cub and Puppy that he met L, and that L told him that he'd "broken up" with Bear-Cub, and that he no longer like her or Puppy. He was very insistent about this. Bear-Cub said something to the effect of "he never would've said something like that", and Nik got very set on it. Bear-Cub and Puppy were in tears for over thirty minutes.

I don't know what to think, or what in all of this is truth, and what isn't. I know that I'm not angry or upset at any of the kids involved. When adults fight, all too often it is the children who pay the price.

I'm just so very, very tired of all of this. I will probably never know all of what happened between Drkn, Reana, and Catchild. This means that I will also probably never know what caused the relationship between the three of them to explode so badly. All I know is that we are still mourning. I am still mourning. And my two eldest daughters have more than likely lost people that were very close and important to them.

And every now and then, the knife hits a nerve on its slow, painful way out.

Must calm down. Must calm the ever lovin' fuck down.

Right. The events of this evening proceeded thusly:

I took Sadie (our black and tan Aussie Shepard) for a walk, and then brought her inside to continue the ongoing process of getting the cats used to her and getting her familiar with the family's scents. After a little bit, I asked Bear-Cub to please take her back down to her house in the chicken-barn. Said barn, FTR, is within easy sight of the house. Puppy asked to go with. catchild said sure, go ahead. They were planning on playing in the effective front yard (considered to be the grounds in front of the house that can easily be seen from the house) after they settled Sadie in.

Go to one hour later. We figure that it's time to call the kids in at this point. They're not obviously seeable from the house. No biggie, they have an area or two that they're allowed to play in where we can't see them from the house, 'cause those spots are very close to the house. As in, maybe a thirty second walk. The ground dips oddly, and the pole barn is in the way.

Catchild calls a few times. No response. Catchild walks up the driveway, to see if they've taken Sadie up the hill to the neighbour's house to show Sadie off to one of their friends. She checks the chicken barn as she walks past. No kids up at the end of the driveway, no one at all up the hill, no sign of the kids anywhere. I step out onto the front porch and get told this.

I spent about 12 seconds inhaling in prep for calling the kids. For those of you that have heard my voice, I actively worked at projecting as strongly as I could when I exhaled on Bear-Cub's name. For those of you that haven't: I have been told, by just about everybody that has heard my voice when I slip and unconciously project a little while speaking, that my voice qualifies as a weapon. I am not exagerating in the slightest when I say that the entire valley heard me call her.

I heard what sounded like the kid's voices, off to the right of the house. I let Catchild know that I'd heard them, so that she would know that we didn't need the cops. It turns out that she had dialed the first number when I told her this. Kid's voices arguing.

"Get. Your. Butts. Home. NOW."

Cessation of argument. Bear-Cub's voice: "We're coming!" Five minutes later, they were in view. Catchild went down to meet them.

Catchild, louisadkins, and myself have all lectured them. In calm, precise voices. They each have an essay on basic wilderness survival and a story about a mommy who has lost her children to turn in. Bear-Cub has a basic report on human predators as well. She also got an age appropriate talk of a somewhat more specific nature on human predators from myself and her Uncle Louis as well.

This is the second time that they've done something like this. Bear-Cub has been informed, point-blank, that if she does this for a third time, the lecture will become more explicit. In ways that she very clearly did not want it to become.

warinbear you get to lecture them tomorrow, if you wish. I am going to go relax now. I have an incredibly vivid imagination, fueled by a knowledge of Catchild's foremost abuser, and his persistence.

And I know a fair amount of what he did to her. My mind is currently a pictoral view of Hell. No, Catchild says that Hell is nicer.

I don't think I've ever been so scared in all my adult life.

Got to see something incredibly cute and adorable last night. The Phooka was refusing to sleep, so at about nine catchild brought the fussy baby out to warinbear, and asked if Poppa Bear would please work his magic. About thirty minutes later, I came back into our room to get something, and found warinbear asleep on the bed, on his back, cradling a sleeping Phooka on his chest. catchild and I giggled and grinned and gently woke the Bear up, since we both knew beter than to try and pry the baby out of his arms while he was still asleep. He brought her to her crib and gently laid her down. The picture that they made last night still gives me warm fuzzies.

Snowfalke went to the vet this Monday. He wasn't putting any weight at all on his rear left leg, so off to the vet he went. The vet was shocked to find that the leg wasn't broken. He does, however, have a pretty nasty infecion in that leg. She drained a pocket of blood with a needle, and gave us liquid anitibiotic to feed him at home. He's looking much beter now, and he's actually starting to join in the run and pounce games again.

I'm feeling really happy about the job Peter Jackson did with the LOTR movies right now. Bear-Cub watched the first extended DVD about three weeks ago, and the second one last week. Upon hearing that this trilogy was based on a book, her eyes got reeeally big, and she proceeded to try and find where on the shelves the books were. louisadkins brought down his large hardcover edition (the one that contains all three books) for her to read. She is diving into it with unfettered enthusiasim. This is one proud and happy Librarian mouse right now.

I am also in search of Dutch and German tapes, CDs, and books. Bear-Cub and Puppy both have started singing along with the Rammstein CDs, and their accent is almost flawless. I want to encourage this trend. I'm already trying to remember to chatter with the Phooka in Dutch on a frequent basis. Anyone got any Muzzy stuff that they're wiling to part with? -hopeful look-

On a somewhat more grumpy note, I am also going to set aside time to educate Bear-Cub. She came home last year with the assingment of memorizing various parts of the Constitution. She asked me to help her study. After she'd finished reciting the piece she was supposed to memorize, I asked her, "Good. Now, tell me what it means. Her response boiled down to, "I don't have to know what it means, I just have to memorize it!"

Insert lots of shuddering and twitching, and several muffled screams. If the school has not educated her on the meaning Constitution by summer break, then I will. I have also been having lovely little history conversations with her. In general, I am trying to help her avoid falling into the one viewpoint only trap that so many American Social Studies textbooks contain.

My contribution to democracy: Education of the young.