Monday started good

Late Sunday night, I found out that NOH8 is doing another shoot in San Francisco this weekend, and I want Corky to come with me. I was hoping The Boys could come too, which their father agreed to today, as long as their images are not used for advertising (which they are not). In the morning I found out that I'd won tickets to see Chicago the musical! Free B-Way tix? YESSSSSSSS!!!!! So it looks like a bunch of trips to SF this weekend, but for totally awesome reasons.

Of course, my winning high could not be sustained all day and into the night. After school brought monumental homework battles, tears, shouting, crying, whining and arguments worthy of a Supreme Court briefing. During the arguments, I fielded a call from a friend, missed two calls from Corky, and was being peppered by so many questions from all places, that I was unable to then also put together a decent dinner for us. So I escaped to In-n-Out, picked up food and came home. During the drive, I called my mom. and then called Corky as I'd been short with her on the phone. I just wanted someone to talk me off the cliff edge, tell me it would be okay. What I got was an irritated gf, who accused me of rewarding The Boys with take out food after they behaved so badly. I explained this was not for their benefit, but mine. I was going to seriously lose my mind if I had to add any one more thing to think about and keep track of, which included dinner. I was already on The Youngest for 6 separate things due this week, from the spelling test and vocab due tomorrow, the write up for a story they are reading due Wed, a Middle East test due Thursday, and a science study guide (the class in which he just obtained an F quarter grade) due Friday. I am working on getting his week set up and splitting up the larger tasks and assignments. He has a major assignment due in a couple of weeks, so I am also getting him to do some research each day. That would have been plenty, but The Oldest determined that he does not know how to structure a complete sentence, and thus I was dictating (from his own notes and science study guide) complete sentences, which I had to remind him to capitalize, and appropriately punctuate. That was after the temper tantrum, and his insistence that he had no idea complete sentences were required (despite it being written on the study guide), Then his attestation that his teacher clarified that complete sentences were in fact not required, That was followed by my insistence that he write them anyway because he was no longer going to have the option or choice of doing the bare minimum. My requirement is complete sentences, even if he could get his teacher to tell me otherwise. Even then, he tried to get away with a few complete sentences, so I had to have him keep going back to actually write them out. In between this was me proof reading The Youngest's essay, adding clarifying questions, and reading those, adding follow up questions and sending him back to do the complete work ,instead of the bare minimum.

It was exhausting, and I was pretty upset with my gf, as I am sure she is certain that I am caving in on giving treats to The Boys, but there are days when my sanity is actually of utmost importance. I need my strength, because I know without a doubt that this is not the end of the battles. This is only the tip of the iceberg. It is absolutely going to get more difficult before it gets easier.