Job Loss

AnnaWen's surgery today is nearly unremarkable. She went down easily after I insisted on going into the OR with her until she was asleep, and stayed out for a little over 3 hours. During that time they cleaned and examined her teeth, gave her 8 stainless steel caps (two on each side in the back, top and bottom) and put white enamel coating/fillings on 10 front teeth. Of her 20 baby teeth, 18 had cavities. Luckily NONE needed to be pulled! I was so relieved to hear that. The highlight of our hospital stay came in recovery. She woke up very aggitated by the splinted wrist that protected the IV and insisted on it coming off. In an attempt to buy time to make sure she wasn't nauseated the nurse offered her a popsicle and said when she was done she'd take the splint off. She ate the popsicle in seconds - I've never seen a kid hover one that fast before. I figured she was hungry since it was nearly 1pm and she hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. She pulled the last inch of the popsicle off, stuffed it in her mouth and chomped down. When it was done she announced angrily "I'm all gone. Take it OFF!"

What's more remarkable is what happened at bedtime tonight. One of those "omg, I can't believe I have a child THAT rotten" in the moment that is soooo bad you can only laugh about it afterward. It started when Steve left for basketball. Jack didnt' want him to go. He took his irritation at Steve's departure out on his brother and sisters, just being a pain in the ass in general. I asked him to go to his room to try and interrupt the behaviour and he refused. Once he finally did go up, he refused to stay in there. It escalated adding time in the time out and losing his story until he stood on the stairs and yelled at me "If you want someone to go to their room, you go to your OWN room!". That sent him to bed, which put him over the top. Over the next half hour he screamed and yelled and kicked, refused to stay in his room until I locked the door from the outside (don't tell Children's Services), then screamed and yelled and kicked even louder, shouting "If you don't open this door RIGHT NOW, you're FIRED!". He called me every name he could think of, most of them involving some derivative of "stinky" which were laughable, but he also called me an idiot. For that he got some face to face time as I told him in no uncertain terms that he was never to use that word to talk about someone in this house again. "Stupid" and "idiot" are at the top of my list, I'd have rather he called me a b*tch or an a$$hole than "idiot" (don't tell him that!).

Every ten to fifteen minutes I went in to quietly reason with him, talk about why he was in there, encourage him to make better choices, tell him that I love him even when he doesn't know it, reinforce the fact that the state of our union is a dictatorship not a democracy, etc. Usually this was met with thrown animals and more screeches that caused my retreat (and confiscation of a pillow that was thrown in my face), but finally he seemed calmed and rational and nodded at all the right times and seemed remorseful. I asked if he had to pee before he went to bed and he nodded, got up and walked across the room to the door, opened it and looked at me, LOCKED it from the outside and shut it again. Fucker. I had to knock on the door until my Father In Law (who never wears his hearing aid) heard me and came to my rescue. All I could do once I got out was laugh in the hall with him, it was THAT rediculous.

All is calm now. He has lost his DS for the weekend, lost his story tonight and the last hour with his g'parents before bed. When I last checked on him (after we had a chat while he peed), he was curled up in bed in spite of his declaration to NEVER go to bed again. I covered him up and whispered in his ear over and over that I loved him, even when he didn't think so.

I think I'd rather that HE had surgical dental work today too!

N