Do you ever just crave a sense of calm? I do. Nothing in my life seems calm anymore. My children, my husband, my dog....nothing is calm and everything stresses me out completely.
It seems like my kids bicker CONSTANTLY and they are simply wild and have so many quirky personality traits and true obsessive compulsive issues for me to keep up with and cater to that by the time I get everyone out the door each morning I seriously am thanking God above that I did not have my stroke on that particular morning...I know I am going to have one I just do not know which morning it will be.
My husband has obsessive compulsive disorder. He is very high functioning but he has it. People who know him well know that he does and at first and about some things it can be somewhat comical. (Him sniffing each and every bottle of laundry detergent after we got married and were shopping for the first time together comes to mind....it had to be perfect because he would want to use the same kind FOREVER!) I have to deal with issues related to his disorder from time to time. He gets unusually irritated about unplanned things coming up....major things to very minor things such as change in dinner plans for instance. The awesome thing about him is that he is an adult and can (with a stern look or word from me "get over it"). My little obsessive compulsive kids however are a little harder to calm down and deal with.
If anyone reading this really knows me you know I am the complete and total opposite of obsessive compulsive!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do nothing in the same order or way twice for goodness sakes! Half the time I can't remember how I did something the first time much less insist that it is done that way from now until forever or I will completely LOSE it.
I am just tired I guess and that is why I am posting my venting. I knew that Jamey was obsessive compulsive when we dated and I married him anyway and now we have two tiny people that the traits were passed along to. The very bizarre thing is....as frustrating as it is to me as a non-obesessive compulsive person it is even more irritating to Jamey...I guess that makes sense actually....when Sam has crumpled to the floor because his pants are touching his shoes it does cause delay in leaving the house, etc. and with Jamey being obsessive it triggers him.....GOOD TIMES!
I will leave you with some examples of things I deal with from my loved ones...most will be things I am dealing with from Sam because he is going through a really difficult time with things bothering him right now and they are fresh on my mind:
SAM
-His pants cannot touch his shoes - thta causes "bumps" in his pants and freaks him out.
-His socks have to be perfectly smooth...no "bumps".
-He WILL NOT let you help him get dressed even if it is taking 30 minutes....no help!
-I MUST brush his hair first. If I brush Riley's first he freaks out.
-I MUST brush his hair straight down in the front. "No Turns"
-He MUST brush his teeth before Riley.
-His velcrow (sp?) shoes must be the same amout of tightness. We spent 20 minutes trying to get that right yesterday.
-I have to ask him every morning if he wants his bookbag in the front seat or the back seat and if he is going to carry it into school or if I am. If I fail to do this and do the wrong thing the results are BAD....complete melt down.
-Season changes are bad. He hates to transition from shorts and short sleeves to pants and long sleeves.
-Shirts cannot be longer on his torso than a certain length...I do not know exactly what the length is but he does and he lets me know really quickly if the shirt I gave him does not work for him.
RILEY
-She MUST eat the same breakfast every "school" morning.
-She has to pick her hairstyle each morning or she will completely melt down...it is a delayed melt down at school...not at home when I can fix it.
Any change in routine knocks her off her axis. (Someone different picking her up than she was expecting for instance.)
-If she ever learns how to draw something new she will draw that thing CONSTANTLY and will get extremely upset if you make her stop to eat, take a bath, whatever. (When she learned how to draw stars she drew them for 2 days. She filled up several spiral notebooks and drew them anywhere else she could as well. She drew an American flag at school the other day and when she came home she refused to go to gymnastics because she wanted to keep drawing flags.)
-Basically is it almost impossible to get her to stop doing something once she starts...transitioning from one thing to another is very difficult for her.
JAMEY
-Basically his deal is that he does EVERY SINGLE THING IN ORDER EVERYDAY. From the stretch after he gets out of bed, walking to the kitchen for a sip of orange juice before his shower (do NOT run out of orange juice), the exact order he has for dressing, where he keeps his keys and wallet and the way he always flips his wallet open before he puts it in his pocket, etc. It is very bizarre to me.
-You cannot spring anything on him without negative results. If we are going to go to a cookout for instance I have to tell him as far in advance as possible so that he can work it into his routine for that future date and get himself prepared to go because......
-He always hates the idea of going somewhere where there is going to be a gathering of people...even if is people he knows well...he always makes me mad being negative about going so by the time we get there his negativity has rubbed off on me and ticked me off at him and then when we get where we are going he has a great time and I am still ticked at him for putting me in a bad mood.....it happens every time!!!!!! So if I show up to things alone you will know that I just wasn't in the mood to put up with his unpleasantness on the way. :-)
I know this was boring but I wanted to post it...I am hoping I can look back at this one day and thing....Whoa.....I am glad those days are over because I hope that these "symptoms" ease over time!!!!
Later Gaters!
