Re: Re: Updates on intermittently transient living for 2 years w/son
  By: Nancy Backus to Damon A. Getsman on Sun Feb 08 2015 01:52:56

 NB> When things can't be helped, they can't be helped... one does have to
 NB> work with the situation one is actually in.  He at least has the
 NB> stability of being with you, and having you care about him and his
 NB> welfare... 

  Yeah.  When I'm out and about with him I still get people complimenting me,
at random, whenever they care about kids and are in the area enough to overhear
me explaining things to him, and teaching him about new things.  I try to think
of that as an offset...  And honestly, I know that there's not a whole lot I
can do about all of this right now other than what I'm doing, but it's hard for
me not to fret, especially as changes come on and I don't know if they're
strictly from age or more from the transience...  Of course it's a combination
of both, and I'm sitting here wringing my hands kind of helplessly.  I do have
an appointment with his school counselor coming up, though.  Maybe she'll have
some insight to give me, too.  I'm always a little haunted about not being able
to take good enough care of the people (and animals) that I care for.

 NB> At least he has the friends at school... that's important, too.

  Very much so!  He's got a bestie, and that helps a lot.  I remember a year
when I only had a friend at school, though, and it was a rough one.  I hope he
comes out of it without it screwing up his social development at all.
  He didn't get to sit next to him at lunch yesterday, though.  It appears that
my looseness with my lips has spread to him a bit.  Not sure which word it was
exactly (but I think it was an eff-bomb) that he dropped with the range of a
kid that narced on him, so he had to sit apart from his usual crowd.  :(

 NB> It might or might not help things... some "lower class" parents buy into
 NB> the same helicoptor parenting... part of it seems to be the way things
 NB> tend to be nowadays... 

  Yeah.  I just can't see how that, taken to such extremes, can ever prepare a
person to be able to stand on their own feet, unless they're inheriting a
legacy the likes of which will keep them isolated from anybody that they don't
choose to be in contact with, and free of all hardship.  :P

 NB> Woulda, shoulda, coulda... The past is what it was... you can learn from
 NB> it, you can work with the results, but you can't change it, nor should
 NB> you dwell on the mistakes made...  Hopefully you have learned from it...

  It's a major shortcoming of mine.  Part of the reason I'm also trying to take
more of my own personal time to focus on some tenets of the Buddhist philosophy
that I try to adhere to; living in the moment, not haunted by the past, not
fretting over the future, but in the moment planning for the future and having
learned from the past.  I know I've learned; it's the time when I'm in bed
after everybody else is out that I flog myself endlessly with the ghosts of
Damo past flogging my poor brain.  ;)  I'm getting much better at it, though. 
Er, not doing it, that is.  ;)

 NB> The books will probably do the most to help wean him off the games...
 NB> it's a better way to exercise the brain, and most engaging as well,
 NB> since he enjoys reading... :)

  I've got a bunch coming for him, and actually, the _day_ after you mentioned
an electronic reader, someone picked one up for him and told me that it was in
the mail!  :)  My luck might be changing a bit.

 NB> Eventually you'll probably have that... both the space and hopefully
 NB> some friends with more helpful parents... ;)

  I'm always on the lookout; not going to be changing that any time soon.  :D

  Thanks for the input and the ear; it's always appreciated.  I need to tell
about some of the adventures we had before winter hit here so that I can
balance things out a little bit, I think.  ;)
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