Nineteen:

I know, I know. Shoot me.

It's what I do. When the shit hits the wall, I retreat. Away from everyone that might be able or willing to help or listen. I retreat into Dave. I retreat into the kids. I call my therapist in a mad panic of "GET ME IN NOW BEFORE MY BRAIN EXPLODES!!!". I retreat because I know that if I pull one more thing onto my bipolar 2 plate, I will downward into a funk that will require a very large amount of medication to pull me out of. Or liquor. Or both.

It's like this, friends... I can only juggle so many plates at once. The plates I choose to constantly juggle are my kids and that man child I married. They are the ones I never put down. My next choice to juggle are the ones that directly pertain to them- In the past two weeks, it's been another car accident, an epic battle with our health insurance over $700, L switching schools to be with G but then not being able to continue on to 2nd grade because of the interim principle's "philosophical objections" against little boys skipping grades and not wanting to start a precedent at her school and that we'd broken the law by skipping him a grade (Well, he skipped a grade at another school, lady.)... Among the regular day to day annoyances of raising three boys and a man child.

Then, I choose to take on secondary plates- My family, Dave's family, and friends. I can only handle so much bullshit that extends from either of those three areas before I want to fucking snap, and they all fill up the same bullshit jar. My family fills it up relatively fast with intruding and nonsense questions like, "How are you going to come up with the money to fix your car?" or "How much money do you have right now?". Well, being that you just bought one of my siblings a house and you are not, nor have you been actively financing my life in over 10 years, you don't get to ask me those questions. AND, we're all going to Florida together as one huge happy family in about a week. Shoot me in the fucking head now- Hence where all the money questions are coming from. (Lyndsey, I'm probably going to be calling.) Then if I get one more email about some old lady I've never met's sternum, I'm going to scream. Thank's Dave's mom.

And then there's the "friends". And I use that term loosely. I have a few. I've recently met a few nice, non bat shit crazy women. I've started taking part in a playgroup. And then I posted about my issues with the interim principle. (Not the full story about how I grabbed my balls and called the Kentucky Department of Education on her ass, but hey. Let the triffling tattle tale think that I'm just a ranting pissed off mom. I'm ok with that.) And some some pissy bitch decided to send my vent, which wasn't anything that I'd not said to her, her boss, the principle and admin. dean of L's current school, and the head of primary education for Kentucky to the principle in question. It got brought up in a fucking AMBUSH of a meeting, because they thought I'd still be bringing my 2nd child to their school. And then she thought that she'd go ahead and lecture me on internet safety because nothing on the internet is secure.

Let me start off by saying that I was mortified. Not that she read what I wrote. I stand behind everything that I put out in public. I was mortified that someone that I'd never met felt the need to interject themselves into my life in such a way that could have such dire and horrible consequences for L. Secondly, I was pissed for everyone else who posts personal things on the playgroup message's boards. Thirdly, I don't need a fucking lecture on internet safety. I'm not a fucking 12 year old girl. Don't fucking ambush me in front of the soon to be principle because I ran your ass up the flag pole to your boss, your bosses boss, and the State of fucking Kentucky. But again, the trifling bitch who was doing the interim principle a SERVICE by letting her know what I said didn't know the entire story... Or that I'd actually done something about it besides sit on the internet and whine.

Anyway, so long post short... Back to the plates. My arms are short. And if you know me, I make sure that the plates closest to me are the ones that stay up. It's nothing personal. If I don't answer your phone call at 10:30pm, it's because that my insomniac ass is finally trying to sleep. If I don't answer every one of your text messages immediately, it's because I've got so much on every one of those closest to me plates that they come first. They have to. They are my priority and always will come first...

Besides... They are really cute.