One of Those Days

The days are long and the weeks are longer when Dan is gone for an extended period of time.  Today was no exception.  On bad days, my "drug" of choice is usually a nice milky chocolate.  I'll  buy a Hershey Bar or maybe a bag of M&Ms.  Today was not one of those days. It was a horrible day. Today was a day for the "hard stuff."  Ghirardelli!   The day started well enough getting the kids off to school.  I've been putting off going to the commissary and really needed to go today.  I even made a grocery list organized by the commissary aisles last night.  I was on the ball. 

It all started when I drove onto base.  The guard waved me through security and then yelled for me to stop.  Of course, it was busy and there was a line of cars behind me.  She looked at my ID again and informed me that it was expired (last week, I believe).  She had to confiscate my card and took several minutes to write me a "confiscated receipt."  Remember the line of cars staring at me???  She offered to give me a visitor pass (no good because I need an ID to shop at the commissary) or directions to DEERS so I could get another ID card, but I've been there done that with Dan in another country.  I even tried a power of attorney last time, but nothing works except having a form signed by your service member.  Another guard graciously stopped traffic so I could pull around and head out the direction I came in.  I have a lot of stress with things with single parenting, the kids, orders, moving and this little incident was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I drove to a nearby Walmart and had a good cry and if you know me well, you know I don't cry often.  Dan might argue differently lately, but this move to Misery has really thrown me for a loop.  Back to the story -  I did my shopping at Walmart and spent $140 on about $100 worth of food (if I'd been at the commissary).  I still have no meat in my house because I refuse to pay grocery store prices for meat.

Next I met with the team from Jaelyn's school.  I gave them a run down of Jaelyn's ADHD diagnosis and gave them the letter Dr. K had written stating her agreement to request testing.  They tabled the meeting right then and there.  An IEP team will meet within 30 days to assess where we are and decide if testing is warranted.  IF they decide to test her, and that's a big if, it must be done within 60 days of that meeting so we should be able to finish in this school year.  The way I look at it is that Jaelyn can be a behavior problem, but she's not a big enough behavior problem that she's ever been sent to the principal's office.  I want to have an accurate IQ.  If she's living up to her potential with her attention issues, why put the medicines into her body and deal with the horrible side effects they cause.  But if she isn't living up to her full potential, and medicine can help, then I'm more than willing to continue trying.  We've tried 2 medicines so far that have caused what I would almost describe as anxiety attacks.  I also want to know exact where she's having problems.  There's some sort of processing issue with her comprehension and if we don't figure it out, it's going to start to effect all her other subject.  Well, actually, I think it already is.

After the meeting I went to BJs and just wandered around.  I bought a few things and somewhere between paying for them and getting to my car, my credit card and BJs card fell out of my pocket.  I searched frantically through my trunk and the cart corral.  A nice man stopped me as I was going in and asked if my name was.... He found my cards and gave them to the customer service desk.  Thank you God.  I still came home and cancelled my credit card, just encase he wasn't as good of a good samaritan as he seemed.  It's a good thing Dan and I carry different cards or he'd be in trouble. 

So...after all that I deserved my Ghirardelli, don't you think?  The kids, thankfully, were good this evening.  We even made it to Tae Kwon Do.  We've been trying out different days and times and I think Tuesday afternoon is going to be the perfect fit for our family.

11 more sleeps till Dan comes home.  I'm not thinking about the 3 week April/May Idaho trip he emailed me about yesterday.  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!