And so it goes....

A few good things: I tried to see if I would like a fake tree this year as my girl thought we should 'save the environment' and not cut down any trees....jury is still out. I think I would like it more if I hadn't gotten such a tall one at 9ft. I have high ceilings, but man is this thing big. My sister's throat issue is a minor cyst, no scary things in there, so that is good.  I went back to work last Mon/Tue and it wasn't the greatest, so the work nurse suggested phase back in so I worked 3-6 hours rest of last week and will this week too. It's in the good news category because it gives me additional time just to breathe and rest.  Nothing is going to fix years of sleep deprivation overnight, but if I can just have a release valve for now, it's better than chugging through and feeling overwhelmed most of the time.


In the eh, could be better....lots to deal w/ at the construction house. The tile guy decided to get an attorney and threaten to sue me if I didn't pay him thousands of dollars. Gimme a break he didn't finish multiple areas of his work. So, I got an attorney myself. We are negotiating now and I hope we can just reach a settlement because I just want to move on. Will see.
Asbestos--after doing some floor testing we found out that the back of the orange vinyl in the main living area had asbestos. Since my contractor didn't think he could demo out what the new floor guy did without disturbing the orange floor,  I called 3 abatement folks as referrals from the testing place and one guy stood out--awesome to work with, been doing this for 30 years. He came in and once I told him the vinyl was 'hot' (industry term), he was surprised to hear the adhesive underneath it or 'mastic' was not. I told him that I was the one who got the sample piece and he suggested maybe having guy come and re-test. I also showed him the kitchen and some concerning areas (not originally tested) and he said it's best to just do it.  SO, the tester guy came back out last week and sure enough, there was asbestos in the kitchen underneath some tile they laid. It was showing as heavy asbestos content approx. 80%. In addition, the main living area that didn't initially test 'hot' in the adhesive did a second time. I'm not surprised as the abatement guy said it likely would have.

Old Orange Vinyl

Similar view, a bit farther back. You can see the counter and wall are now gone. This pic was taken way before floor guy got ahold of it and added many layers on top of that orange that has already been torn back out.

Basically all that is seen in second picture (kitchen where window is opening up to main living area) is getting abated today and tomorrow to the tune of $3500. Ugh.
However, it was totally the right thing to do. It will be done professionally and the air quality will be checked in the containment area as well as outside of it (due to checking for anything that could have been an issue when they first demo'd). It still makes me worried that demo work was done on materials that contained asbestos, but it was done. I actually didn't know the new contractor was going to try and get up the orange, thankfully I stopped him after he only did small area. And, it didn't even cross my mind to think about asbestos in the kitchen underneath the ceramic tile that was there.
The worst part about it is that my kids have been in/out through the construction process. I said this to the tester guy who has seen a lot of this and said that it had 'minimal risk'. Still......


I also just sent an email to my contractor that quit who said he would repay me $2,000 but has yet to fulfill that.....that he has one week to make payment, if not I will reach out to my attorney--and yes, I do have 'my' attorney now due to handling issue w/ tile guy. I told old contractor that I suspected he could pay what is owed now, or it will be much more than that if attorney involved.
Oy. Vey.


One other thing that I've struggled w/ lately is parenting. Clearly I am under a lot of stress and trying to manage the best I can. However, my girl, who is 6....going on 16....has been in battle mode. It seems for most everything. The worst of the behavior is I find her hollering at her brother all. day. long. Granted she has been sick for weeks and is probably exhausted in general, but I just won't tolerate her lashing out at her brother. Poor kid--my son walks around saying...."she's an-gray"...but as soon as she hears him she screeches out, " I am NOOOOT!".
I have told him several times that yelling is not okay, he doesn't deserve it, he's doing just fine, etc.. but I worry that her behavior is impacting him. I know for sure he is picking up her bad habits of:


obsession with saying 'punch' or 'punching' and play 'punching' all the time
when I ask to do something...it's No. No. No. No. No. Just repeated over and over again.
saying words like poopy and peepee, etc. at inappropriate times and thinking it's funny
wrestling more
yelling more at each other


Yesterday was a rough day. The minute the nanny left, my girl was in rare form and it was rough the rest of the day. I actually broke down in tears at one point because I just felt like I was not getting through and I was playing referee most of the day. Mostly trying to keep my girl from lashing out at her brother or me.


I will admit I looked at therapy or counseling for me and/or her to understand more how to deal with this kind of behavior. The outbursts and other behaviors are disrupting our household. I found a few therapists websites, that don't take insurance of course....but, I also re-read material on parenting highly 'spirited' kids and there doesn't seem to be a doubt that she is one of those.  Feels feelings pretty intensely, can switch moods quickly, parenting them is exhausting and can suck you dry, she is intelligent, has a fierce sense of right and wrong and fairness (boy do I hear this one a lot....it's not fair!)....will negotiate everything, bossy, etc..
I'm finding that timeouts aren't working and I don't want to leave her alone with those big feelings trying to work through them, but I don't know how to deal with all of it in the moment.
I wont tolerate disrespect and rudeness.....but I also need to make sure she knows I'm not 'picking on her' in a way by constantly telling her she shouldn't be doing X, Y, or Z.


I felt a bit better after reading some more materials and researching that hey, there are other kids like this, and yes they are hard to parent, exhausting, you will doubt yourself, etc....but on the bright side, I care enough to want to do the best I can with her. In addition, they say these types of kids are natural born leaders, resist peer pressure, etc.. so that is something. I don't want to pigeon hole her into a label, I worry about that some, but I do need some more tools w/ how to work through these challenging situations.
In fact, part of me wasn't planning to write all of this because it just feels so personal and perhaps my mama bear is coming out that I don't want anyone judge her or me.
She is an amazing kid and yeah, hard to parent.


I suppose if I feel differently in the morning, I can come back and edit.
I still want to put a few pictures of my son's birthday...back from October!