10:15-11 - Rushed to load the wife, 20 mth old and myself in the car. Drove to the elementary school and checked out the 10 yr old. Drove to the middle school and checked out the 13 yr old. 13 yr old started asked what he and his therapist could do today and got upset when he was reminded that it was a shared appointment with his sister and her therapist. Yes, we are all nuts. Her therapy sessions are mainly to help her cope with her brother who has asperger's syndrome. His therapy of course is to help him cope with the real world. Today they were trying to learn to cope with each other.



11:00-12:00 First the wife and I meet with the doctors (one gets floored when we mention that the 13 yr old is back in school) and then the kids. The 13 yr old became so worked up about this meeting that when we stepped back out into the waiting room he was unscrewing a lightbulb in a lit lamp and throwing books hard against the ceiling. He 3 times interupted us to explain that we were taking to long. The end result was that he got targeted in the meeting and came out feeling picked upon.

Here's where things turn ugly. We were having a pretty jolly day. Now the kids are angry at each other, the toddler is needing a nap and the wife and I are edgy because of the tension. I get in the car. The 10 yr old gets in the car then the wife asks the 13 yr old to put the 20 mth old in the car seat and while he is putting her into the car he wacks her head on the ceiling. The 10 yr old and I are flabbergasted and start trying to explain that the wife needs to tend to her...anyhow, long and short we have a miscommunication and everyone gets upset with everyone else. I turn silent and distant and it takes until almost 3pm for the ice to thaw. Internally I'm thinking this is all wrong and that we should make ammends but the wife wasn't hearing the words that the 10 yr old and I were saying and when I tried to explain this she interupted me and went off on a tangent and that sent me further into silence. Again, unnecessary anger. We are better now (in part to someone else giving us a common ground to be aggitated about) and that's what matters.

We take the kids to Chick Filet and then return the fast eater, the 13 yr old, to school. Then the slower eater gets returned to school. Then the wife, the sleeping baby and I travel to Party City for Valentine's day school supplies; then its off to Walmart where we talk while the baby sleeps in our arms and the healing begins. After Walmart we check on our Geocache, The West Knoxville Travel Bug Hotel and find the last cacher (a local) took 5 travel bugs emptying the cache and causing a traveler from out of state to find an empty container. That's just wrong. Worse yet they got moved to a member's only cache that already had 6 bugs in it. We have probably a half dozen paying members in the area. I clean up some garbage and we move on.

The next stop is a public park down a long winding road that is in a very weathly neighborhood where the neighborhood has obviously been designed to encourage this public property to be used as a "private" park. I'll add that to my political agenda but way towards the bottom. This area would not make a good cache unless approached by boat...hmm.

We return home, play on the computers, I get upset with the 7 yr old because he got in trouble for the 6th day in a row at school but that's not why I got upset. He apparently kissed a boy on the school bus. The story is the boy was trying to do it to him first and the 7 yr old kissed him on the ear. This would be funny in a way if it wasn't for the fact that the 7 yr old has already been threatened with suspension for having slapped a girl on the bottom--typical 7 yr old playing but we were told that "school board policy does not permit 'boys to be boys' anymore". The thing that irked me was the 7 yr old was so scared of getting in trouble that he stared blankly at me then said "I don't know if I kissed him" How could one not know? This dad stuff isn't easy. It definitely has its rewards but on days you mess up you really feel horrible.

The evening ended with happy children and that is how they should always go to bed...happy!

We will have a much better tomorrow!