...contd...

It took us 2½ days to reach KS. Hubby had to start working the same day. Yes, everything at last minute is his motto. We checked in the first motel we found. Rented the room for a week and the next day start looking for a place on monthly rent basis. Its not a big city so everything we found was on yearly lease. We were thinking that we were gonna buy a house soon, it was just 2-3 weeks we needed to stay somewhere and if the house needed work it the mostly 2 months but not more than that. Still checked out a few apartments. I have a phobia of rugs with pets pee and dirty walls. Since its not a big town, everything is not upto date here like in NJ. Even though it was ok we(I) didn’t like any of it. And I never lived in an apartment, to me its like living in someone else’s house.. Beside it was crazy to unpack some stuff and then pack it again in few months.. In the mean time we looked at couple of houses and all the schools.

They have one virtual school, which follows the same K12 method and requires the kid to take test before enrollment. Since A was already reading fluently, doing addition, subtraction and multiplication in pre-k I thought of sending him to virtual school where he can learn the next thing he should instead of repeating everything he already knew... In pre-k he had trouble going to school. School was for only 2½ hours still he didn’t want to go to school because he was getting bored. I had arranged with his teacher to give homework or some extra sheet to him but she was lazy. I even used to give him some assignment to take it to school still couldn’t interest him going to school regularly. I wasn’t happy with his teacher or principal so let him stay home when he really really begged. At home he was having more fun and doing more things than school so I wasn’t worried.

Anyways A took the test and according to the grades he got, if we pick the virtual school he was gonna go to 3rd grade language arts and 2nd grade math catagory.. I was so proud of him.. But there was one problem, socializing.. so keeping that in mind we decided to put him in regular school which I loved when we went to visit. Everybody was very nice. School was clean.. Kids looked happy.

So we enrolled him in Kindergarten. There they took his tests for 2 weeks and called us for a meeting. A never told us that they were taking his tests. We found out when we went there. In the meeting room there were around 10 teachers who gave their report after testing him. They thought he had mastered Kindergarten and 1st grade and he should be in 2nd grade.

WOW… yeah thats what came in my mind.. I never forced A to learn.. we never had study time but he was curious about stuff and I always tried to satisfy his curiosity. But 5 years old and 2nd grade was amazing.. They set a trial period of 2 weeks for 2nd grade and decided to have another meeting after that. After 2 weeks, his teacher said that ‘I thought a kindergartener would not survive in 2nd grade for even a day but he has proved me wrong.”

He got 94% on his 2nd grade weekly assessment test and 100% on spelling test. Everything was fine but kids in his class were 8-9 years old. He was getting along with them fine but we thought it would be best for him to spend time with his age group kids. According to them kindergarten was out of question so they put him in 1st grade and continue going to 2nd grade for language arts. 2nd grade math time was clashing with his 1st grade schedule so he picked the 1st grade stuff. We were happy.

I compare the stuff they do here with the stuff they do in previous school and it was way different. They learn a lot more here. Some of the stuff he is doing in 2nd grade, my friends son did in 3rd grade. Almost no home work here.. only once a week he gets spellings other than that they test them what the teach in school. All he does at home is play play and play..

Then one day I was eating Chinese food and all of a sudden my forehead went numb. I got so scared and went to ER. They did EKG and other blood tests and again everything was fine. He told me that something near my stomach felt very tender and recommended a doctor. In the mean while he gave me acid reflux medicine. It helped but only 40%. I missed the appointment and they gave me another appointment after a month.

By the time we bought a house. It was an old house but in move in condition. Nobody painted the house since it was build, green carpet, old kitchen, one standing shower bathroom, one with only bath no shower etc but clean. I could live in it if I had to but decided to get it done before finally settling down.. hubby agreed (at that time, now he blames me because of the time it took).

Got somebody to work in the bathroom and moved in the new house by end of oct. That guy got some problems and could work only few hours a day and it took him 2 months to do one bathroom. We stayed in motel for 2 months and we were back to 1 room situation in the new house. I was going crazy in one unfinished room with no carpet, old bathroom, sleeping on mattress, no washing machine and buying new cloths. I found another guy who could do rest of the work cuz I was already sick of the other guy. I painted A’s room. Got the carpet done and moved into that room with the bathroom that took 2 months to get finished. The new guy did the other bathroom in a 10 days.. whole new bathroom..

I started painting the room attached to the new bathroom so that we could move back before my MIL came to visit. We thought kitchen would be done before she came but it was partly done. and even if it was finished I couldn’t have used as it was all dusty and who wants to cook in that condition. She was here for a week.. She stayed with us for 3 days and we took her out to salt mine, to MO to see fantastic caverns.. It was 3 days trip.. The end of 3rd day she had flight back to my BIL and we came to our undone, dusty house..

First thing we did was hook up the washing machine and dryer so that we could start the laundry. Then I started the painting job.. painted Gudiya’s room pink and purple.. changed the kitchen color again. Painted downstairs playroom with 8 different colors. Painted another room downstairs and hubby did the living room & hallway upstairs. Forget about the extra time for white ceiling.. By now paining wasn’t a fun thing anymore.

Hubby has to finish his Phd so he started working lots of hours a day.. Me with the kids and the same routine.. house not done yet.. I was going crazy. I kept the kids busy.. they were happy , I wasn’t.. Stress started to build up.

Had doc appointment and they said I should get the endoscopy done. They checked for tumor and stuff and found out that I had some irritation in my stomach and hiatal hernia. He gave me 2 kind of medicine and told me to come back for follow up. Pills worked great and got rid of most of the symptoms I was having. The reason for Hiatal hernia was pregnancies. And another reason was gudiya’s acid reflux. She used to throw up a lot during her first year and I used to hold her in my lft side and sit about 22 hrs. a day. Doc said that my shoulder muscles are very tensed and I should visit chiro but who has time between all this chaos.

Its been 7 months since we moved to KS.. little over 5 months since we moved to new house and we are still living in 1 room, house is not doen fully.. upstairs room are done and one room is set as playroom other is just for bags of stuff which we can’t put in our bedroom yet and tons of folded laundry. Living room and kitchen is 99% done still he has to do some work. He kept taking off in feb & march and worked for 3-4 hr. a day.. That’s what put us so behind our schedule.. my stuff is still in boxes in the garage.. I don’t know how I am going to unpack all that.

This is small city with no computer jobs.. I can't get any job if I want to work.. What will I do?

Every thing took a toll on our lives.. Its not like it used to be.. This is the first time in my life when I am scared, confused, stressful and in depression. This is the first time when I felt the need of having mother, a loving family and friends. This is the time I really needed a shoulder and needed somebody to hug me, understand me, comfort me and be there for me. This is first time when I am scared thinking my kids are going to hate me when they grow up.. I am not a good mother, a good wife or a good person.. This is not how it used to be. Anytime somebody needed solution to a problem, I was the one they used to and still call. They all think I am the best mommy and I go out of the way to help everybody. Their kids are great too but my kids are considered the polite ones and intelligent ones and everybody gives the credit to me still I feel worse..