Friday, 28 August 2009

• School and stuff

  Today I made the dreaded trip to get Josh, Alyssa, and Liz school shoes. I absolutely hate shoe shopping with kids. It never goes smoothly and it usually requires me to have more than one margarita before it is over. (Just kidding; I booze it up later that evening).

  There would be no exceptions today. Alyssa had in mind a particular shoe, but she had no clue where she had seen it. We started out at Payless (not my first choice for shoes, but she had seen a commercial with a shoe that looked similar) to check it out. Not only did they not have the shoes, they had next to nothing that the girls would be caught dead in. I don't know if we just have a really bad Payless or if they are like that everywhere, but the shoes at our store always look like old lady shoes. Down, but nowhere near out, we headed to another local shoe store. I was trying to stick to places that were offering the buy one get one half off sale because I was buying at least three pair of shoes and wanted the best deal I could find. We almost struck gold, but they only had the shoe in a high top and she wanted low tops. She did see a pair she liked, but wanted to continue the search a bit longer.

  The clerk at that store mentioned she had seen the shoes at another store and suggested we try there. It was in the same shopping center, so we headed there. No luck. That left me only one choice. We were going to have to go to the seventh ring of hell mall. I hate going to the mall alone so you can imagine how I felt about taking three tweens to the mall for shoes. We hit every store there and never did find the damn shoes. Luckily, the chain store we had located the shoes she liked in the wrong color also was in the mall. We headed there and she tried on the shoes. They were way cuter on and she was sold. Great; now all we had to do was find Liz a pair at the same store and I would save half off one of the pairs. Here is where it got difficult.

  H has instilled in the kids this fear of wearing white shoes. If they wear white shoes apparently the shoes are never supposed to see the ground. A small dirt smear will cause days of bitching how they do not take care of their things. Now, I like things just as clean as the next person, but these are shoes. Shoes for children. Children play outside where there is (gasp) dirt. Dirt will sometimes actually get on the shoes and the shoes might not be pearly white every moment of every day. I have no issue with that, but H (who by the way lives in disgusting conditions) seems to think that the children should walk on their hands to keep the shoes white. So, we found a pair of shoes Liz liked. The problem was they didn't have them in her size in black, only white. Liz has always worn white shoes prior to this year. She freaked out and said she couldn't have the white because "mommy wouldn't like it". Well yeah, that pretty much did it for me. We had been out for three hours looking for shoes for the girls. Neither of them was finding what they wanted and finally we had, but she couldn't get them because of "mommy". I explained in no uncertain terms that mommy wasn't buying the shoes. Mommy wasn't taking her to school and that mommy could simply kiss my ass if she didn't like the fact that I bought white shoes with MY money. Oh, it wasn't pretty. Poor Liz thought I had lost my mind. The wonderful sales clerk checked the back and lo and behold there was a pair of the shoes in BLACK in Liz's size. Liz lived and she got new shoes.

  Josh was extremely easy. We headed to the Vans outlet and got his shoes and a pair for Emily in under 5 minutes. I think he knew I was close to losing it and chose quickly. God bless him.

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  Emily's teacher called today. She will begin school on September 9th. She attends two days a week; Monday and Wednesday from 8 until 10:30. We are hoping that she has a better experience this year.

  A few days ago I decided that enough was enough with her bottle. She has been using a cup for over a year, but I was still offering her a bottle throughout the day and at bedtime. It was really just me not wanting to lose my little baby girl and I realized that it was getting a bit silly. I offer her only her sippy cup during the day and she is loving it. She couldn't care less if I gave her a drink from my hand as long as she was getting some milk during the day. I do still keep our bedtime routine up at least for now. It is our special time together and I just can't bring myself to totally take it all away. So, she gets about half a bottle at bedtime and then we snuggle. I figure by next week I will have taken the bottle away for good.

  ---

  I know you were all thinking you were going to get away without a rant about Down syndrome, but you are oh so wrong. I was reading a friends carepage earlier and I was just appalled at what they were put through today. Her daughter was going in for a dental checkup. This was her first time at this dentist. Before he had even met the little girl he wanted to talk with her mother. He brings her in and begins to discuss "special needs children" and their "behaviorial issues". He told her that often they had to be restrained due to their "issues". Now mind you, he had never even laid eyes on her daughter, but because she put Down syndrome on her chart (which we all must do because many of our children have heart issues that require special consideration when having any dental work done) he neatly put her into this box of what HE thought a child with Down syndrome should be.

  The poor mother was just stunned. Her daughter much like many of our children have spent many many hours at different doctor's offices. I would dare say they are more compliant because they have had so many procedures done than a child without "special needs". He wasn't treating her daughter, he was treating his idea of Down syndrome.

  It just got worse when it came time to leave. The wonderful receptionist at the front informed her that children with special needs had to be given an 8:30 appointment time due to the fact that "they" get more disruptive later in the day. Well hell, I didn't know that. It is 6 pm my time and Emily is quietly sitting down watching Wubbzy. I guess she didn't get that particular memo.

  I think what pisses me off the most is that this is a professional. How dare you treat any child in the manner that you treated this child. I would never darken that mans door again and would be sure and tell everyone that I knew what a complete ass he had been.

  Yes, some children with disabilities have behavioral issues. Some children without disabilities have behavioral issues. I can promise you that Josh has no known disabilities and the eye doctor absolutely cringes when she sees him walk into her office. He screams so loud when it comes to having eye drops put in that he scares the children in the waiting room.

  I absolutely hate stupid people. That is all.

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