Angela McClanahan discusses the state of life with Bob, and reacts to a recent comment.

Did you read my last post (about keeping your head in the heat of the moment) and feel like telling me to shove it? Yeah...me too.

One thing I remember from high school science class is Newton's third law of motion--in a nutshell, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As an adult, I've learned this is true--and not just for motion. A lot of things in life--actions--produce a responsive reaction of equal intensity. Particularly, the actions of a child living with a psychiatric illness.

I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with Daylight Savings Time. Don't get me wrong--I love having more daytime hours when the weather is on its best behavior, and I love that extra hour of sleep when it's time to Fall Back (if only my children understood that concept). I am not, however, a fan of spending almost all my winter free time in the dark, nor am I a fan of the 2-week grogginess that seems to follow Springing Forward. And as the parent of a child with ADHD and bipolar disorder, I am certainly no fan of how the time change seems to affect his mood.

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."* A picture is, as they say, worth a thousand words. I'm thinking about a picture that actually rendered me speechless.

My sister and (soon-to-be-ex) brother-in-law told their oldest daughter, my 9-year-old niece, they are getting a divorce. My sister and the girls will move into a duplex; their dad will stay in the house. It's an amicable situation (at least, as amicable as it can be)--no custody battles, no front-lawn fights, no holidays ending in thrown dishes. And my niece, who has always had problems with anxiety, is apparently taking it about as well as...whatever the opposite of "well" is.

If you listen to my audio posts, you know I was rather unhappy with Bob last Thursday afternoon. It seems he'd spent the majority of the past 48 hours being completely unruly (to put it mildly), including shoving classmates, throwing pencils at his teacher, and being a general pain. And the school music program, which Bob was required to attend as part of his music grade, was in just a few short hours. Yaaaaaay.

Early last week, while picking up Bob from school, I was stopped by one of the after-school program teachers. "Summer enrollment is this week," she warned me. "Make sure you fill out the form before Friday afternoon." Thus began a several-day period of stressing, obsessing and plea-bargaining.

I spend a lot of time complaining about the ignorance of others--those who don't understand pediatric psychiatric illness and, therefore, use my child to educate themselves (or, even worse, try to educate me about my child). Particularly bothersome are people who seem to think every. single. undesirable behavior is directly related to Bob's psychiatric diagnoses (bipolar disorder and ADHD). It's maddening trying to explain to them not every issue is Bob-specific, that some behaviors are common to all children. It's even worse when the offender is...me.

I've been job-hunting. Although currently employed, office politics (and, if I'm being honest, the 60-mile round trip commute) have led me to seek other options. So I find myself wondering--how much of my family life should I disclose to potential employers?