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.