Growing up, my parents never really showed affection to each other.

Namely, my mother never — not once, not that I could see — showed affection to my father.

I didn’t learn that this was not normal until I began school and began hearing stories of other kids’ parents.

At some point over the course of my childhood (when I was a bit younger, I do remember this much), my father offhandedly mentioned something about my mother no longer wanting him to kiss her because it made her nauseous. Looking back on this conversation with what I know now, I think he used the improper terminology — kissing him made her sick, and for some reason he used the word nauseous when telling me.

Toward the end of her life (and this is something that I don’t remember that much of, especially now that she’s dead, I don’t have to see her, and I don’t have to remember anything about her if I don’t want to… which I don’t), as we were having a conversation before I told her that all conversations from then forward would have to be in the context of caregiving, she said something to me about “never having to work (because of him)” in the context of possibly, presumably entering a relationship with him and then marrying him because she found someone that would enable allow her never to have to work. But it was the context in which she said it. She framed the entire relationship around her never having to work, and based on her facial expressions — she was getting progressively worse at hiding even little things — this brought her joy like she “got one over” on my dad and, to be fair, she probably did. At the time it actually surprised me to have this confirmed, as I was growing less and less surprised with each new thing that came out of her mouth. But thinking back on it, it doesn’t surprise me at all now. She would do almost anything to keep that free house, that free health insurance, and the knowledge that she would never have to work with my dad.

People on one section of that side of the family would probably not believe me if they heard this straight from me, but that doesn’t bother me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she didn’t actually want any children, either, but had one — especially with my dad — because it was “the expected thing to do”. All throughout my childhood, she made it increasingly clearer to me that she just wanted to sit at home and not have to do anything other than keep the house clean. Even as a child, I could tell that she didn’t really want to be around me or engage with me, and for the longest time my dad wasn’t physically around enough for it to matter, even though I wouldn’t have sought solace in him either. Truth be told, the only family members that I actually like are the ones that I’ve begun to keep in touch with due to Ancestry and 23andMe matches. She literally told me to my face at one point that she didn’t want to have any more children because of me, and regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, that’s not something that you tell a child. I honestly believe it though, because she gave my dad the obligate child. One and done. That was all she had to do.

When I had children of my own, I resolved to show them more affection than either one of my parents — but especially my mother, as she was the stay-at-home parent and the parent that I was most frequently around — ever showed me. So far, that has been going swimmingly well for all three involved parties.

I also ideally wanted to have two children because I never wanted either of my children to hear “your mother/parents didn’t want to have any more children because of you“, and am glad that I was able to do so.

One of the very first things that my mother said to me after she had been out of brain surgery for awhile and I got a chance to speak to her was to tell me to “stop faking disability and get a God damn job”. She called me a lazy ass several times and, if memory serves, even called me a moocher once. I try not to think about things like this because I try not to think about her at all now, having excised her from my life after her death.

The plan was that virtual schooling was supposed to be an option that parents and guardians could select for their children this year in the state, and many parents and guardians signed their children up for public school providing the needed documentation to allow them to start virtual schooling on the very first day.

This was the case… until the state governor removed all state funding for virtual schooling, stating that all students would be expected to attend face-to-face in the middle of a global pandemic that is still clearly going on, and further elaborating on that point by stating that if districts wanted to offer virtual schooling as an option for their enrolled students that they would have to fund it themselves. A few districts around here considered it, but came to the quick realization that they did not have enough money to fund it, and as a result no virtual schooling is being offered in my state (to my knowledge, anyway). This is in spite of the fact that children under twelve years of age can not yet get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine currently available for children over the age of twelve, and even if they can not be reasonably expected to attend face-to-face instruction because of safety to themselves or a household member. This is absolutely absurd.

Needless to say, I homeschool two children for a plethora of reasons. One of the reasons that I am not wavering in this right now is the Delta variant, which is shown to affect children more adversely than the formerly mild-assumed strain that had started all of this mess in the first place. You don’t want to take chances with things during an actual pandemic that has killed people, to include children. And yet the state of Texas, they which have a tenuous grasp of science at best, is actively striving to do this. This is absurd.

So I actually got a check for my first Advance Child Tax Credit payment even though the IRS has literally had my bank information on file since the first stimulus check. I checked, and all of that information is still in the portal on the website. But somehow, some way, I miraculously got a paper check in the mail. I had to make time to go down to my grocer, where my bank works, to deposit this check into one of my accounts. It should be deposited at around midnight if you want to get the most technical, and then I can begin doing what I told myself (and everyone else) that I was going to do with it… buy personal comfort items and toys for them.

I got Monster one of the toys that he has been wanting for going on a year now because he saw a YouTube commercial about said toy… the Peppa Pig Sing-a-Long Kitchen Playset. No one in the United States sells, or sold, it, so I had to buy it from a seller on eBay since I had enough money to cover it waiting for the child tax credit check to officially be deposited. He won’t know about it until it actually arrives because of the struggle that he has with conceptualizing time, waiting for things, and understanding the mail service in general. That, and it’s literally coming from another country, so if it gets here in a week I am going to be surprised.

Now to figure out exactly what to buy them with these payments, and help their dreams come true.

As per Informed Delivery, I was made aware that I would be receiving something in the mail from the IRS.

I thought that it would be the check or the debit card that the IRS portal had promised me, because all of that was supposed to start happening and going out on the fifteenth… but nope. This is probably going to be something like what I experienced with the first stimulus check where it took them months to even get it to me, and then they shorted me dependent pay (+2) for months, finally fixing that. I’ve had to threaten to get a hold of my state’s Legal Aid program again, having actually done so when HHSC and the OAG wanted to actively enforce Bub’s child support case in spite of the fact that it is unsafe to do for multiple reasons. The moment that they found out that I had contacted Legal Aid and that Legal Aid was working that up as a possible case, they put his child support case back into non-enforcement, where it has wordlessly stayed ever since. It was only when I threatened Legal Aid’s intervention that they actually did this, too. Blatant.

With any luck, it may be deposited into the bank account that the IRS has on file for me in the next… few days? But if not, I will definitely be contacting someone about the IRS. They have all of my financial information on file. None of this should be taking as long as it is, or it has in general. For fuck’s sake…