Help! I'm perpetually grumpy!!!

I'm turning into that grumpy girl! The negative nelly! What the hell is wrong with me?

I don't even know how to begin tonight's must-get-it-off-my-chest post tonight.

The bottom line? The Kid's daycare is driving me batty. They go on field trips three days per week. Two days of this and the next two weeks is to have a lesson at a [rival to The Kid's regular] Karate dojo. Karate is a sport that teaches the mechanics of the martial art along with social and life skills. It's a mind-body-soul thing. Ultimately, it's Zen in sport. For reals, it came from Zen Buddhists. This is a big reason WHY The Kid is already in Karate, and has been for the past three months. Okay? I get it. Character! Effort! Etiquette! Self-Control! Respect! I totally see the need for a sport in his life that will teach him how to use his body and mind simultaneously .

So, I was told today that as part of this other Karate lesson that The Kid is getting through daycare, they have to perform "homework," in which the young grasshoppers must respect their parents. I must say, I have no problem with repsecting parents. None whatsoever! What has my panties all in a wad is this: I was told by uneducated-hourly-pay-daycare-worker-lady today that he can now learn how to respect me because of this karate class they are providing me. You know, because before this karate thing, he had no respect for me. Clearly.

You know that very Ally McBeal television show fantasy/internal dialogue device/"quirky" filming style where someone says something shitty to the protagonist and then there is a fantasy cut to that someone's head exploding? I did that in that moment. Seriously. Like I literally thought how I'd like to watch her head explode at that moment.

I asked, So, how are they finally going to teach him how to respect me? She said, well, they want him to say Yes, ma'am when you ask him to do chores. I said, Oh, is that all it takes to teach respect? I'm so glad I spend an extra $1 per week for these karate people to teach me how to be a parent!! Quelle bargain!!!

It's a lost cause to even try to tell these people that The Kid respects me without this amazing "homework" assignment. They have their own fantasies of how I am a parent to him. I'm sure they are certain that we live in a screaming, fighting, angry house. It's really no use to tell them that we actually live in a very peaceful home, and that he is very loving and kind and caring. Because they don't really care. They're making their $6.50 per hour. The Kid is a pain in their asses, what with his special needs and all. And all of his "fits."

I'm so tired of it! My kid gets really angry. He's sensitive, and he gets mad. I'm sure it's hard to deal with all day. But there are ways to avoid it. There are ways to work with him to learn how to deal with it, but like I said before, the daycare teachers are making $6.50 an hour, they are not educated to work with bipolar children. They don't know about behavior strategies and "somatic awareness" in anger management techniques. I can't expect them to. And I can't expect The Kid to constantly live in a world where people understand and support him. With his temperament, this is going to be something he deals with for the rest of his life. I can only hope to teach him how to recognize and work himself through his own strategies for calming himself when he gets angry. Someday, he'll be mature enough to be his own solution. Right now, however, he's pretty young, and immature as far as being able to control this. And he depends on people who can't help him.

Talk about a rock and a freaking hard place. Poor Kid.