Is The Red Tent Coming or What?

Oh lawd, I think Lil Lady's pre-menstral...are you kidding me? Either my oldest is about to get her period, or something else is making her act like a real turd lately. I'm not ready for this. Turn back the clock, I'm not equipped to handle a teenager yet.

Lil Lady and Chillgirl both have been at each others' throats and awful in general, but especially at bedtime. I know they are 8 and 12 and not 2 and 6 years old, but they are resistent to actually turning off the tvs and lights and laying down without wanting a snack, or my attention, or to mess with each other at their freaking bedtimes...its ridiculous that this most basic rule in my house has lately been broken so carelessly.

Most nights Chillgirl is lights out by 9:30pm, so exhausted she's out within minutes. Last few nights she was restless and up and down and wanting to come sleep with me, which is a BIG no-no, I don't care how cute she is. She already comes in nightly at 4-5am and crawls in while I'm comatose so I have a strict no-sleeping-with-mom-while-mom-is-aware policy and she pushed me the other night into yelling at her to go to her room and she began wailing at the top of her lungs until I had to close the door to ignore it. This is after 10pm it was still going on.

The very next night my pre-teen Lil Lady revolts at 10pm when I tell her lights out, yelling she wants to watch just a little more of her show. I'm adamant its already late, no way, lights out. She begins to wail and Chillgirl wakes up and starts her crap again and I'm again in my room with the door locked as to not kill them both.

Both girls assured me it wouldn't happen again when I told them they needed punishment and they sweet-talked me into getting to play outside for an hour while I ran. Call me Sucker Mom, but when they're good, they're really sweet and good and I fall for it every time.

But I did tell Lil Lady if she didn't shape up that night and the next morning (her attitude's been rude and borderline homicidal most days in general) she would NOT go to her friends' parties this holiday weekend. Told her she's on thin ice and she would NOT get to go. That night they played and came in and got ready for bed. Chillgirl's in her bed like she should be then 20 mins later its LL's turn but she started arguing how CG didn't go to bed exactly ontime and she shouldn't have to either. Told her she already had one bad night, she better just get in bed and not argue. More snotty comments and jabs later she's in bed and I'm in my room.

I hear CG moaning "Mom, she turned out the bathroom light!". I yell, "Go turn it back on"...I am NOT getting up for this BS...(sidenote: CG sleeps directly in front of the bathroom and wants the light on until she falls asleep, LL's room is to the side so the light isn't even on her directly and after CG is asleep she's allowed to turn it off)...

This is exhausting for me to write, so I know you are wiped out reading it...basically CG gets up and turns it on, LL gets up and turns it off. They are yelling to me each other is doing this and I tell them if I hear another word about it, I'll be in there to ground them both. So next I hear puh-puh-puh, footsteps, then door open, the puh-puh-puh, door close, and back and forth...on and on. Then they are silently fighting over having the bathroom door open or almost closed with the light on inside. Now it is past 10:30pm.

My blood is boiling....literally I can feel it rising, as in my blood pressure. I'm sitting there thinking, really girls? I REALLY don't want to ground you, but you REALLY are not leaving me a choice. REALLY I'd rather you just go to sleep and I can pretend you did it on time and not an hour later after passive-aggressively terrorizing each other. REALLY. Can you just STOP? I'm saying this to myself and getting more and more pissed because they are still messing with each other in there.

OK, no choice. I get up, and WAR ensues. I'm yelling, they're yelling blaming each other, and everyone's grounded. The dogs may even be grounded, I'm not sure. Friday night festivities GONE and threats of adding Saturday plans to the list of cancellations. Crying all around. Somewhere before midnight I turn off my light with sobs still echoing through the house. Put the lid on that day, I'm DONE.

The next morning there are I'm sorry's and please don't ground me's and I remember saying something to the effect of "I don't negotiate with terrorists". Pouts and sneers from Lil Lady go down swell with my morning coffee. She can't believe I won't let her go to the slumber party. I'm the meanest Mom ever. I am hateful and evil. At least Chillgirl has the common decency to stop while she's ahead and accept her punishment, but Lil Lady is relentless.

But I stand my ground. I will not be conquered. Its two against one but I'm still the Enforcer.

When puberty hits both girls full-force I will probably be close to menopause. Lord help us all.

Dammit...I have breast cancer.

That's how I feel about it. Cancer. Dammit. I couldn't really fathom what it feels like to know you have cancer so it was easy to decide I didn't. But when my doctor called me at 6:30pm on a Wednesday and left me a message to call him back, on his private number, I knew my world was about to change.

DCIS~ Ductal Carcinoma In Situ. It's the 4th one down on the picture. Only identifiable on a mammogram as those omnious white dots, or microcalcifications. I would never have known it without the mammo screening. As far as we know right now, it's within the milk ducts and contained only there. This is good. My doc says it's "the best kind of breast cancer to have"...I know, that's a strange thing to say, right? I read that DCIS is called Stage 0 breast cancer. That's reassuring to me.

Once identified as which ducts to remove, they are excised by lumpectomy (even though there is no lump really) and radiation over a number of weeks takes care of any remnants. That could be a pain in the butt, but it reduces my risk of reoccurence from 30% without radiation to less than 15% with it. I'll take the x-ray beam at my chest for 6 weeks for those odds.

So I have a handle on what I have and how we usually treat it. I am still having tests to see if there are any other surprises. An MRI today to look at the whole chest. Hoping that shows a normal result except for the expected diagnosed area. Hormone tests should show if I need ongoing hormone therapy, which my doctor thinks I will need for the next 5 years or so. Soon the surgery will be scheduled and I can get this show on the road.

Aside from normal worries about reoccurance and pain and suffering, I'm bummed this will change my summer plans. With my girls, with my cycling and tri buddies, with my boyfriend and the beach trip we wanted to take. It's a huge unknown at this point and anyone who knows me, knows I'm not good with plans up in the air. But for once, the not-knowing is a bit more attractive than the knowing. I'm assuming I know how this will play out but Bad Luck or Karma or whatever you wanna call it may reach It's mighty hand in and yank the rug out from under me again.

I pray I will be ready, and strong enough to charge ahead, and kick this thing in its Ass.