Update January 14, 2023

News

Saturday

Saturday was a good day, though it buzzed by so fast it felt out of control. First, I played D&D – which resulted in an embarrassing mommy fail in which IL4 tried to tell me he needed the potty, and I was in the middle of something, so I said “so go.” I assumed it wasn’t an emergency #2, but it was. Poor IL4 was so embarrassed. 😭🫣😱 BIG TIME mommy fail.

Then M10, IL4, Aaron and I went to Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. That was IL4’s first theater movie, and he did great. He loved the reclining chairs (yes, he was going up and down the full movie, but no one was behind us, so it’s cool). He had to leave twice – once for a refill (I don’t know how he knew that was a possibility) and once for the potty.

Sunday

Sunday was a calm day. I finished reading To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, by Moniquill Blackgoose.

Monday

Monday was frustrating. I had 3 appointments for the kids. One turned out to be recorded in the calendar wrong, so we missed it, which is fine, since the appointment that I thought was right before it went an hour longer than expected.

On top of that, M10 got grounded for lying. He was promised McDonald’s if he ate his breakfast. He didn’t finish his breakfast, so I told him he needed to eat his snack. He didn’t finish his snack, but let me believe he had. So he got McDonald’s. Then, when I found the unfinished snack, I told him he needed to eat it before getting his tablet time. He tried throwing it away, thinking we wouldn’t see. (Mind you, it was food he liked, but as usual, his eating disorder was keeping him from feeling hunger.) Then he lied, and said he hadn’t thrown it away, despite Aaron seeing him do it. 🤷‍♀️

Tuesday

Tuesday was interesting. My friend had a court date that I was witness at.

Basically, he had gotten Suboxone from several sources because he had to switch narcotics programs due to transportation issues. His large-organization health system, seeing that he had gotten a controlled substance (Suboxone) from a few different doctors, put a hold on him so he could only get prescriptions from one pharmacy and all prescriptions had to be ok’d by his primary care physician (thus slowing them down.)

This was tough for him because he needed two pharmacies – one for urgent use and one for bubble wrapping his many prescriptions (for a variety of issues). Since he couldn’t keep track of all his meds, the bubble-wrappibg was necessary. He appealed to the state.

Although I knew that the hold had hurt rather than helped, and although I knew that he had had justification for the way things had gone down with switching narcotics programs, I didn’t think his appeal would amount to anything – no one cares about addicts, after all.

However, the person representing the health company made such stupid arguments! She argued that he’d been to 5 clinics in 3 months, and 5 ER visits, and thus was misusing the system. The clinics were: eye doctor, endocrinologist, psychiatrist and the two narcotics clinics. Umm. He’s not allowed to go to specialists now? As for the ER visits, 3 were for suboxone (the first narcotics program required ER visits at first – part of their program). The representative from the health company argued this was misuse of the ER because he was not admitted to the hospital.

I argued that if I had chest pain and went into the ER, and was told it was not a heart attack, by her logic I had misused the ER. The arbitrator seemed to agree, and asked her for the legal definition of misuse of ER. She said: “Well, I’ve never been asked that before,” as if that should excuse her from answering.

That wasn’t the only humongous hole in her logic, but I won’t go into all of them.

Also on Tuesday, the older kids auditioned for a Willy Wonka production at a local children’s theater. They both did great!

Wednesday

Wednesday was an e-learning day because the roads were terribly icy. It was also the first day of a new schedule where IL4 stays home from daycare on Wednesday and Friday because he has so many appointments I figured he wasn’t getting the educational benefits of those days.

We had taken wifi away from M10’s school iPad because he kept smuggling it downstairs and watching YouTube all night. I had told him he would have to walk to the library if he needed to do homework. 🤷‍♀️ So this was a test of my resolve.

I had already promised IL4 we could go to the library, and he remembered. I thought it would be funny to make M10 walk and then drive past him honking and laughing, but I decided that would be juvenile.

Anyway, at the library D13 wanted to get a new library card, because hers had expired. IL4 really wanted one too. So I told him that he could get one next time if he helped me check out a book, because he didn’t help me today (he was busy trying to smuggle out a toy).

He immediately ran into the aisles, grabbed a book, and handed it to the librarian. I said “Oh, I’ll put that back, sorry.” She scanned it and said “No, you’ll like this one. Your card?” 🤣😂 I was played by a 4yo and a librarian.

Thursday

Thursday I filled out a ton of paperwork and then played family D&D.

Friday

Nothing much happened on Friday. I had fun things planned with IL4, but when I took him to speech therapy he threw a 45 minute temper tantrum. So I decided he wasn’t in the mood to leave the house. We made some hot and sour soup and lemonade together, though.

Read to IL4