That's My Boy

The Boss is a funny kid. He is unbelievably stubborn and strong-willed and argues about everything. We're working on that. Sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's hilarious.

He has now decided that not only is he "the boss" but now he is "the grown-up" too. He graciously allows me some limited access to his powers. "Okay Mom, you can be the boss today." Gee, thanks, kid. Sometimes he has a narrower time frame. "You're the boss for four minutes." Not that I can't cram a lot of bossing into four minutes.

I am trying to get my room back from him. He recently had to move in with me so we could separate Drama Boy and Sparky. Now that the bigger boys are back in one room we are moving the Boss back into his own room. With much fuss and back-talk, he finally managed to get all his toys out of my room this weekend. He did give my bed a little redo. I don't remember asking for Spiderman sheets.



Yet despite his bossy ways, he is a peacemaker. While playing a Transformers game on my phone in which the good guy Optimus Prime fights the bad guy decepticons I could hear him giving voice to the players. "Do you want to be friends? Do you want to be friends? I'll shoot you then. POW! POW! POW!"



Look at that face. Very intense player. He's got a furrow. And also, if you look closely, a scab from where Seamonkey threw a plastic lion at him.

Last night he was playing Transformers with a pile of toffee peanuts he was eating. One peanut was clearly our protagonist Bumblebee while the others were decepticons. "Pow! Pow! Pow!" Such violence during dessert. He turned to me and said. "Mom, the peanuts are playing. Do you want to play with my peanuts?"

I've never been asked that before. I think I hurt myself laughing.

Three of a Kind

We have three cars and one of them is not working well right now and the other two not at all. Holding out on fixing our main car until there was money to do it was, in retrospect, not that great a move since the money never materialized and it's been sitting at our sister's house for months. It's actually our best car and fits all of us most comfortably.

Ana's van, which also fits all of us, just gave up in apparent protest of the increased workload. Our third car is being temperamental about starting and frequently runs hot but will be okay for around town until its turn in the shop. It doesn't fit all of us and we go to church and have appointments in the next county so some activities are on hold.

I hate car problems. So frustrating, inconvenient, and expensive. And it seems like we have enough cars that we never should be stuck without one.

Kind of like blowing a tire when the spare is already on the car.

Yes, I've done that too.

A Rare Day

Sometimes, once in a very great while, we have a wonderful day when everyone is well-behaved, pleasant with each other, and actually fun to be around. When it happens on a holiday, it is nothing short of miraculous. This Easter was one of those rare days.

All through breakfast, the Jesus Movie Project (we didn't make it to church because the only car that fits all of us wouldn't start), lunch with family, Guitar Hero with the cousins, August Rush (their only Easter gift), jump rope, Apples to Apples, egg decorating, dinner around the fire pit, a night time Easter egg hunt with glow-in-the-dark eggs, more time around the fire pit with the middles drinking hot chocolate and amusing each other with fart jokes (I got to supervise that since Peaches and Monica were putting the littles to bed) the kids were happy, relaxed and even grateful. Yep, you read that right...grateful. The most amazing thing was that I only had to tell them one time to go to bed. Remarkable. Unheard of.

What a gift. Thanks, guys.

Dale Carnegie We Ain't

After Squeaker's sidewalk profanity spewing incident and subsequent loss of front yard privileges, I thought maybe we might have a quiet week without appearing too freakish to the neighbors.

Yeah, right. What was I thinking?

Yesterday another neighbor showed up on the doorstep with her son in tow. Whenever the kids answer the door and I hear someone say, "Is your mom home?" I know it means trouble (or a salesman which is not any better).

Apparently, the neighbor kid was supposed to get the mail and asked Drama Boy to walk with him down to the mail boxes at the end of our culdesac. What was supposed to be a little mail-collecting jaunt turned into a federal-property-tampering crime spree.

Okay, spree might be a teeny tiny exaggeration.

Allegedly, one or both boys jammed a piece of wood into the lock on their mailbox. It will now cost the other boy's parents $30 to pull and replace the lock. They won't be able to receive mail until after Tuesday when the post office sends someone out to fix it.

Of course, both boys blame the other. Drama Boy is not exactly known for his honesty and his version of the story is not holding up. Ana reminded him that if he had been where he was supposed to be we wouldn't be in this situtation. He is not exactly known for being where he is supposed to be either.

So we haven't exactly impressed the neighbors with our polite, well-behaved children as of late. What else is new? At least there were only shoes on the roof this week, not children.

All the kids are hereby banished forthwith from front yard play except with direct supervision. I anticipate much backlash, drama, and whining about how they never get to do anything.

Boo hoo.

Win the crowd, Maximus, and you will win your freedom.

National Anthem

Cactus Cuties performing the National Anthem. Wow.

Thou Shalt Not Cuss Out Thy Neighbor

Last weekend one of the dogs got out while the kids were in the front yard. Not recognizing the dog, a neighbor a few doors down threw a bike at it to chase it away from his screaming little kids. While this dog is relatively small and entirely friendly, he had no way of knowing that and did what he thought he needed to do to keep an unfamiliar animal away from his small children.

Our kids witnessed this episode and Sparky came to tattle but Squeaker FREAKED out. By the time Ana got out there, she was yelling and screaming and refused to return to the house when Ana told her to. By the time I got out there she was sullen and defiant making rude and disrespectful comments about the neighbor and Ana for not caring about the dog (who was completely unscathed and unfazed by all the commotion).

Squeaker lost front yard privileges and a pair of shoes (another story) for two days.

Yesterday, the neighbor came over to explain and apologize and make sure there were no hard feelings. Ana assured him she completely understood and apologized for our kid's appalling behavior.

Apparently while Ana was retrieving the dog, Squeaker continued to stand in front their house screaming profanities and making obscene gestures.

I told her today that she's lucky that the neighbor is a nice guy and didn't throw a bike at her for harassing his family.

Now she can only be outside when an adult is there to supervise. We have a lot more years of this. I wish someone could help find that line in her brain where emotional immaturity ends and mental illness begins. I don't have a lot of information on her specific condition right now but I ask every professional I have access to how much improvement we can actually expect especially during the teen years.

Makes me think of Jack Nicholson in the psychiatrist's office saying "What if this is as good as it gets?" I hope not.

Something Missing? Part 2

In addition to our meatless meals, the kids also seem completely unaware of the fact that we ran out of napkins two days ago.

Yucky.

Good Times

On Saturday night we told the kids we were going out for dinner. This is not totally uncommon but for some reason the middle kids were almost giddy with excitement (this was before knowing that we were actually going to the carnival and not a restaurant).

As we pulled out of the driveway and most of the way there, the kids called out their restaurant choices and then began to sing them to the tune of whatever song came on the radio.

Pretty hilarious listening to them belt them out to the tune of "the best mix of the 70's, 80's, and more".

Just so you know Hometown Buffet has a nice beat and you can dance to it.

Do I Look Stupid to You?

Um, do kids really think adults are that dumb? I can't believe the lines of malarky that the kids expect us to swallow when they are sneaking around doing things they are not supposed to.

By the way, I'm only pretending to buy it in case a certain someone decides to come clean because the lies are so awkward and transparent that that person must want the truth to come out.

Really, honestly, kids...only sitcom parents are that stupid.

Mixed Bag

Interesting few days.

Friday we had a team meeting with two social workers and two therapists from our agency (outnumbering us 2 to 1.....hmmmmm) to talk about an action plan to help get Sparky under control. Always interesting, these meetings, hearing the opinions of folks who have weekly access but don't have to deal with it daily. Many of their observations were accurate and some not. Sparky's former therapist put a lot of blame on us (as usual) for allowing him to behave in such a way so now he hates us because he feels out of control (whatever...he hated us before that and he was already out of control). Otherwise they said a lot of things that we did not disagree with but that we already knew so no help there. They did, however, jump on the phone and set up some services and told the county worker to get on the mom and grandma for telling the boys that they could return to mom. He will also supervise visits to make sure they same thing doesn't happen again. So that was a great help. They also called the local sheriff and determined that there is no psychological emergency response team in this area so we needed to call 911 if he was a danger to himself, others, or property.

Of couse, as soon as he got home from school we got to put the new "plan" into action and called the police out when he refused to come home, jumped on the car, became aggressive, and put his foot through a switch plate in his room. Let it be noted that it took so long for the police to actually come that Ana commented, "He'll seem like a real danger when they show and he is laying on his bed reading his BIBLE!" (which are the only things he has in his room right now except for his dresser and clothes). The officer was understanding and helpful, though, and said we could call any time. C'mon now, I'm used to much more condescension and blaming than that. Anyway, the police visit bought us a couple of days of pretty subdued behavior.

The kids helped Ana with yardwork on Saturday in order to earn a soda. We took the three middles and the Boss to a carnival in town. They were hyper and excited but pretty well behaved all weekend. Despite the police involvement, Sparky decided it was the "best week ever" because he got to go the carnival and we got two new dogs from the local shelter which we get to pick up on Monday.

Easily forgotten though since he went to bed on Sunday night surly and rude after getting reprimanded for pantsing the other kids on the way up the stairs.

Hanging In There

No, we haven't fallen off the planet. We are still daily dealing with Sparky's issues. He is increasingly hostile, oppositional, and aggresive. Not a day goes by that he doesn't call us all names and defy house rules. The other kids sometimes tattle but mostly ignore except for Drama Boy who got sucked in yesterday. They both were required to stay in and Sparky went out anyway. That's not FAIR so Drama Boy took off too. They rounded out the evening by spraying some of us, including Seamonkey and a social worker, with the hose and then getting angry because we are sooooo mean as to give them consequences. When told he could not watch a dvd after dinner as we usually do, Sparky said to Ana "You'll regret that, you A**hole." He'll see to it that we do, too.

I have a tension pain between my shoulder blades and Ana has had a headache for two days. We are now discussing our limited options about how to handle the situation.