Headcounts No Longer Needed

Quiet days here with so few kids in the house. Sorta-adult daughter is often gone so it's just the middle girls and The Boss hanging around most the time, although Lucky is gone to her mom's almost every weekend. Seems weird to be planning the holidays knowing only two kids will be at home. But on the up side, we are nearly done with Christmas shopping with a lot less strain on the budget than we normally experience.

Squeaker hasn't had a major blow-up for several weeks which is great. Most of the eye-rolls and snorting I'll just chalk up to "normal" fourteen-year-old girl attitude. Still some big concerns with both girls over their dishonesty combined with extremely poor judgement. Lots of supervision is required at all times which they appreciate less and less as they get older. Lucky will be thirteen next month and Squeaker fifeern in February. Still, they cannot stay home alone even for a few minutes, cannot be dropped off anywhere, and absolutely under no circumstances can they ever be left alone with the Boss even if we are in the next room. This makes it a bit challenging for us to make an escape for a kidless evening. It is fairly easy to find a babysitter for a kindergartener but much less so for middle and high schoolers especially with all the extra cautions and caveats. (except when oldest niece is available for teen-watching....she's the bomb!)

We're looking forward to lots of free and low cost holiday activities in our small town. Such a kick to find so much to do since we are pretty content with simplicity and low tech entertainment.

Missing

Stuff goes missing around here all the time. All kinds of stuff. Cheap stuff, expensive stuff, food stuff. The most recent missing items are a necklace, eyeliner, and some money.

The funny thing is that the adamant deniers are, of course, the ones who get busted (or blamed) for stealing all the time. They steal from each other and also very willingly throw each other under the bus when something comes up missing.

Lucky has been accusing Squeaker of stealing a necklace for weeks. Why she feels the need to keep confronting her about it with no evidence knowing that Squeaker can be meaner than a rattlesnake on a griddle is completely beyond me.

Lately, circumstantial evidence pointed to Squeaker as the snitcher of some money from someone's purse. She cries and denies but her history does not help her. She says, "But it's just that---HISTORY!" to which I can only answer that it is by no means ancient history; it is all too recent.

Last night, Squeaker stood in Lucky's doorway and loudly accused her (how else to tattle?) of taking her eyeliner. When I asked Lucky about it after sending Squeaker away she said, "She always accuses me of taking her stuff." Yes, just the same way you always accuse her of taking your stuff. Nice relationship.

When I followed up with Squeaker I told her that she had no evidence that Lucky took it just like it cannot be proven that she took the money. That's the end of it. Don't bring it up again.

Sometimes we recover stuff, sometimes we don't. And that's how it goes around here. If you want to keep it you better hide it, lock it up, or don't bother bringing it into the house at all.

Where Am I? Oh, Here I Am...**

It's semi-official with some precincts still pending...we have had one of the wackiest summers on record and that's saying something for us. The wackiness promises to continue for some time. We'll cope and adjust as always, of course, but who knew situations and people would go so crazily askew from what they were just six short months ago? Naturally, we're catching the blame.

I think our blogging hiatus is over as there is so much going on it's hard not to spill it out somewhere. This blog is public again so feel free to refer former readers back if they would be interested.

We've been taking advantage of all the free activities a small town has to offer: harvest kick-off, community theatre, free museum days, vacation bible school, movies and activities at various churches around town. Yesterday we went to the annual open house at our main fire station. The Boss sprayed a firehose, we got grit in our eyes and snowcone when the Mercy Air helicopter took off and we watched hunky firefighters crunch open a car. Everywhere you go in a smallish town you bump into people you know and yesterday was no exception, as the open house was kind of the "thing to do" for the day.

Afterwards we attended a free piano concert at the library next door and then walked around downtown until we found a new mexican restaurant to try. With only Lucky, Squeaker, and the Boss around most of the time now, our outings have been mostly pleasant. Squeaker always has some drama or attitude to take care of but for the most part it's all good. Ana even took us out to her driving route to work so we could catch some air over the huge rollercoaster dip in the road out beyond the dairy farms. No kidding, like fifteen dairies on her way to work. We count green tractors and sing the "Big Green Tractor" song. Rural hicks all the way by now.

Many more updates from the summer but I'll spread them out so you can catch up a bit at a time if you so desire. Meantime, your continued prayers are much appreciated for the older crew of teens as many life choices face them which, unfortunately, they often seem ill-equipped to make.

**Peter Lorre in "Arsenic and Old Lace", 1944.

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today was Squeaker's adoption day. Since she is well-known as the "human calendar" able to count fowards and backwards and sideways from any date which is important to her, she has been anticipating the day since July 3, 2008.

We went to Sonic for ice cream, just me and her which made her endlessly happy as she always wants to do things with just the two of us. The Sonicteers forgot to put the ice cream in the drink I ordered which was a bit disappointing and when I tried to reorder the right thing, they never came back with it. Oh well, it was Squeaker's day and she was happy.

She went to a pool party at the youth leader's house and made some new friends in the high school group. This is a big step for her since usually I am cautious about allowing her to go to events because she tends to be a bit over the top behavior-wise.

Afterwards she was hyped and happy but later snottily unpleasant about chores. I just kept adding them on until she was able to do them with a less grumpy demeanor. It didn't take too long so altogether a pretty good day for her.

Our Little World

Squeaker had a rough start to the weekend on Friday night. Lucky had a little end of the year party with a few friends then we took the middles and The Boss to get a pizza to take to the park. Squeaker got into a minor spat with The Boss and then would not let it go, back-talking and noncompliant all evening and into Saturday morning. I took her for a walk on Saturday to talk about how she is choosing to heap consequences upon herself by letting small incidents turn into full-blown temper tantrums. She is in the third week of minimal privileges which started out by her being annoyed that I called her in to do chores and ended with name-calling, door slamming, destruction of property, and violent throwing of heavy objects. The walk and talk seemed to help with conduct and demeanor improving for the rest of the day.

Her stepdad and birth sister stopped by in the afternoon and I allowed her to be outside and play for a while. Her sister will come back today to go to church with us and spend the day. She and her dad are moving out of state in the beginning of July so I expect high emotions when we say our good-byes tonight.

The bigger kids have been making themselves scarce and hardly talking to us when they are here so it's been a relatively quiet weekend apart from The Boss lamenting that he has nobody to play with any more.

You've Gotta Be Kidding

Squeaker left the house this morning to walk to summer school before I got downstairs to give her meds. I had to jump in the car and intercept her. She was wearing a shirt that was not hers and decidedly not dress code or allowed by me either. She had to come back to change clothes and, of course, take meds. I have to watch her swallow them since I found she had stashed some in a dresser drawer instead of taking them.

She tried to argue every which way that the spaghetti strap shirt was allowed (No...even if it wasn't several sizes too small) and that she did wait for someone to give her meds. She is not allowed to leave the house without permission, without taking meds, or without checking in with me or Ana to make sure she is appropriately attired. I told her that she knew her actions were wrong and to stop trying to justify it. Her response, "Like I AM?"

She needs a dictionary or I need to stop using big words, I guess.

Summer

It's not really feeling like summer around here. It's been unusually cold which we have been enjoying especially since only five plants from my garden succombed to the heat before things cooled down. That's not all that impressive though since I hardly planted anything this year. We are daring the weather with another planting hoping the late starters will have a chance to establish before our usual hot desert summer realizes that it overslept.

High school, middle school, and elementary school graduations under our collective belt, we'll spend a busy few months helping the kids prepare for the next phase of their lives.

Squeaker starts summer school tomorrow. She has been handling the last few weeks of minimum privileges beautifully. What're a few snorts and eyerolls among friends? I'm very happy with how she has been able to pull it together and comply with the restrictions she so clearly earned. Fewer choices and freedoms actually do make it easier for her to maintain control of both her anger and her giddiness so I'm hoping when we let out the tether a bit next week she will continue to be pleasant and cooperative.

The older teens are all on job hunts (or should be). Not only do they need their own spending money but they need to get out of the house doing something productive so I'm happy to drive them wherever they need to go in the quest for employment.

The task remains to find somewhere for Lucky to get out and have something to do. Our "new" town does not have the resources that we were used to before our move so it can be a challenge to find suitably enjoyable and appropriately supervised activities.

I pulled The Boss' second wiggly tooth so today we are off to the store to buy the Stargate action figure he has been saving for. Yes, I know I am raising him to be a sci-fi geek like his mommy, what's your point?

No lazy days of summer around here. Everybody get out and get busy!

History Repeats

Last night Squeaker came down to dinner chipper and chatty. I was still not feeling too friendly but I nodded and said "Mmmmhmmmm" a lot and we got through the meal. She told a story again about how she broke her arm on the playground while living in a group home. When her birth mother showed up for a visit she became incensed and screamed at the staff, upsetting Squeaker and was asked to leave. I remember this story from reading her case file and the staff noted that it was very traumatic for her.

Today has been a calmer much more cooperative day. When she realized the full magnitude of the consequences she had earned, I expected more outbursts but she handled it okay. I mentioned to her that when she had told the story about her mom it reminded me of her tantrum earlier that day saying, "That's what it looks like when an adult loses self-control." Sadly, that was a very typical response for her birth mom to resort to screaming, belittling, and abuse.

That is why we are working so hard on this, constantly pounding the concepts of self-control and responsibility, while she is still a kid. Losing even weeks' worth of privileges now is minor compared to what she will lose when she is an adult if she cannot learn to control her anger and take responsibility for her actions.

I asked her if she knew what her mom had lost as a result of letting her rage control her. The answer was obvious to us both: she eventually lost all of her children, her family, her job. That is not what I want for Squeaker and not what she wants for herself.

I know that the rest of her "house arrest" will not be so calm and introspective, but I can only hope she will learn enough from her history to take measures to give herself a better future.

"I Can't Believe it's Not Better"

In a world where improvement is often counted in minutes and a hectic day or a minor expectation can set of a maelstrom of violent reaction, better has turned to worse in a matter of an afternoon.

Leaving the older kids downstairs while Ana was out and I was laid up with painkillers and ice on account of a bursitis-y elbow (which I do not recommend....yowzer) was the impetus for Squeaker to careen out of control into smart-mouthy non-compliance.

I brought her in to do her chores and she flew off the handle because Ana had already vacuumed her room and she couldn't use the new vacuum (yes, it is that cool). Unfortunately for her she also called me a nasty name on her way up the stairs earning her a "benching" tomorrow and thus no youth group.

Door slamming, throwing heavy ojects, profanity, name-calling, kicking, ensued resulting in three holes in the walls and two in the closet door as she built up to more than three weeks worth of lost privileges (one day for every profanity, one day for every minute out of the room, and two days for each damage to property).

She also kicked me when I encouraged her to sit with a firm hand on her shoulder. Not sure what we'll do about that yet except call the cops if she attacks anybody else.

Possibly time to rethink meds.

Better

A much improved day yesterday. Finally, one whole day of appropriate interaction with everyone in the house.

We did have to have another conversation about sneakiness since she keeps wearing clothes to school that she is not allowed to wear and trying to hang out with a certain boy without permission or supervision.

Side note: Why do the kids continue to think we can't figure things out? We didn't just fall off the turnip truck although we don't always tell them everything that we know about what they're up to. On occasion we've joked that the whole place is bugged and under video surveillance which is actually not true (or is it? okay, no, not really) but we do make a point to know what goes on in our house.

Anyway, I'm happy for the turnaround and hope it lasts through today and Saturday detention tomorrow.

Day Two is a Bust

If Squeaker had managed (or bothered) to treat members of the household with even a speck of respect she would already be back to full privileges. As it is, she keeps resetting the clock by her snarky attitude and mean comments.

She started off reasonably well yesterday with only one small correction about her tone but by late afternoon she was off to the races again. She started in on the Boss again, repeatedly calling him a stupid baby until Ana asked Lucky to take him outside. That made her mad enough that she just would not shut up or stop rattling abusive names and chanting trashy rap songs.

I left Shorty cooking dinner and took her upstairs. I tried to talk to her but that was a complete waste of time resulting only in F-words and "I hate yous" (from her, not me). She also told me that she is going to become anorexic just to show me that she can, angry that I consider her threats to be attention seeking. She told me not to set a place at the table because she's never going to eat with us. Thirty minutes later she was at the table eating and dishing up seconds.

When I left her up in her room to cool down and be away from the others, she shouted names out the window at the Boss and a neighbor boy.

That window now has a lock on it so she cannot open it.

Another opportunity to take a fresh shot at it starts at 4 o'clock when she gets off the bus.

Try, Try Again

After Squeaker's extreme meanness and disrespect on Monday, she lost all privileges until she can go two days showing respect to every person in the house.

Yesterday did not go well. Luckily, she has today to try again. She did earn an extra day for behaving extra rudely instead of turning things around.

I sat with her yesterday at the table while she kicked furniture, threw her stinky socks at me, cussed, complained, undressed, and sang skanky songs. I just cranked up my iPod and tried to ignore most of it. She had to sit with nothing to do for a half hour after she threw her backpack and math book but then she got busy on homework and got one missing assignment done.

She had another flare up at bedtime and went to bed hollering rudeness thus resetting the clock on her "going three days without being mean and disrespectful to anyone in the house" consequence.

It seems so simple but for her is so difficult to accomplish.

That Happened

In what turned out to be a crummy end to an otherwise nice holiday weekend, Squeaker flipped out right before bedtime and launched into an hour's worth of backtalk and nonsense babble.

Unfortunately she is again demonstrating the fact that she is not ready for privileges that a normal fourteen year old normally enjoys. Last night a neighbor girl spent the night. When Squeaker has friends over, for whatever reason, it increases her rudeness and meanness to the other kids in the house especially towards Lucky and The Boss.

Tonight, while complaining that she's "not allowed to do anything", she also stomped, slammed, called me names, threw stuff at The Boss, mimicked him and called him "stupid" and "crybaby", and talked and sang loudly to herself when I finally parked her on a bench downstairs.

It is true that such immature, out of the blue, off the wall reactions do mean that she's not allowed to do much without supervision.

I wonder what it would be like to parent a "normal" teenager. I really have no idea.

Style

Squeaker just left for school looking for the second day in a row like she just crawled out of a hamper. Rumpled baggy shirt with rumpled athletic pants and uncombed bedhead.

She keeps shrieking at me that I always say something about her clothing. I do have a thing about telling her to put on a belt. I don't say "Crack Kills" like some other people in the house.

I think she's daring me to comment. I tried to bite my tongue but I did ask pretty nicely if today was pajama day.

It Doesn't Hurt To Ask

I guess that was Squeaker's philosophy when she asked if tomorrow, instead of taking the bus, could I just take her to school when I go in for her transitional meeting. At 11:30.

Let me think hard about that. Um, NO. No, not really.

Stony look. Stomping. Door slam (twice). "Leave me alone!. Get away from me!"
I'm not sure that she was expecting anything different on that one.

Meanwhile, The Boss is earning quarters like crazy by picking up someone else's toys whenever they are left out at bedtime. He counts his money every day to see if he has enough to buy the toys he has his eye on. He's got better money management skills than most.

Do Over

Got a call today from Squeaker's teacher letting me know that she has Saturday school due to some poor behavior choices. As often happens when she is upset, she had a hard time maintaining control and the situation escalated to increasing defiance and disrespect. Her teacher called back to say she was dangerously near a suspension but that I could pick her up early so she could calm down and avoid going too far in the wrong direction.

She came home around lunchtime, made herself a sandwich, and then I told her she should help me with the chores I was doing today. She worked alongside uncomplainingly from 1pm-6pm and then cleaned the rabbit's cage after dinner. Wednesdays are usually her "day off" from regular chores so she could have gone the other way and been angry about it.

This evening I thanked her for her help and she said you're welcome and thanked me for picking her up from school.

Have we ever come a long way from several years ago when a day like today would have resulted in raging, throwing stuff, and running away. Mercy from her teacher, an opportunity to settle down and try again, a day redeemed, and a fresh start tomorrow.

I like it.

Messed Up

Last night I walked upstairs to hear Squeaker in full-blown hysterics, telling Lucky that she "wants it all to end". I had just sent her up to clean the bathroom but that seemed like an extreme reaction.

She has been hyper-stressed at school lately with worry about starting high school and problems with classmates. Her vice-principal, counselor, and special ed teacher have been talking to her about adding three more mainstream classes to her schedule this semester, an idea that has had not much support from me. With four weeks left of school, why increase her anxiety level especially when she's already having a great many problems with her peers?

As is typical of her emotion-based reaction to life, any slight or difficulty overwhelms her bringing up chaotic feelings of rejection and betrayal by her birth family. Last night's upset was partly due to the heartbreaking fact that no one in her birth family calls her and often they do not even return her calls. It is so sad to have to constantly talk her through the process of minimizing her expectations on them. They will talk to her (with the exception of birth mother) if she calls them but they have never initiated contact of any kind. I know several of them, after being considered for placement, are glad she is someone else's problem after withdrawing their request upon finding out the extent of her mood disorder and antisocial behaviors. One aunt even warned off other family members from having visits with her. That's fine. She's better off without those types. What I can't figure out is why her more understanding relatives make no effort to keep her connected to the family.

Playing it Cool

Squeaker's teacher called today to let me know she had gone missing for a while at P.E. He and the classroom aides had to look for her. She reappeared shortly after confessing that she had gone to play basketball with the lunch kids. She got snarky with one of the aides on the way back to the classroom and walked off again, earning two days of lunch detention and a drop in privilege levels in her special ed classroom.

She got off the bus and came in the door after school already on the defensive and speculating loudly to Stickers about what her punishment might be. I surprised her by saying nothing about the incident and asking her to change clothes and bathe one of the dogs. She was pleasant from then on.

It could have been an ugly afternoon. I figure there is nothing to be gained at all by telling her again that she needs to be where she is supposed to be. Her teacher imposed appropriate consequences which can be dealt with entirely at school without increasing tension at home.

I am curious to see if she brings up the event to me. She has a hard time keeping things to herself so I know that before too long we'll be able to discuss it in a calm way without her going on the attack because I'm "lecturing" again.

UPDATE: Well, she did sort of bring it up. While helping clear dishes with the other kids after dinner, she walked back into the dining room, gave me a look and said loudly in a babyish voice "I was a good girl in P.E. today." I still made no comment and she dropped it. Weird.

Pardon Our Dust

For those of you who actually noticed we were gone briefly, please excuse our absence. By request, I had to do a bit of deleting of posts and pictures mentioning particular individuals. Onward we plow although minus identifying pictures from now on.

On my back and forth considerations of what to do about next year, I guess I'm back again. Squeaker is overly anxious about going to high school next year and heartbreakingly pained about her lack of friends at her current school. Exacerbated by the fact that she has been repeatedly told that she is going to get beat up in high school and that nobody will like her if she doesn't change how she acts. Ever so not helpful.

Her special ed teacher called me about an upcoming transitional meeting and when I asked how things were going there he said, "She said her birth sister died and she just hasn't told you yet." Um, no. Not even close to reality in fact she does not have any contact with birth family that I do not know about. He also said that she had a rough day when I got back from my trip because I had let her sister stay home from school and not her. Again, no. In fact, she was the only one I saw that morning before school.

Makes me continue to think she is not quite ready for mainstream classes and her extreme anxiety and social difficulties make me wonder again if she should be in public school at all. The only thing that makes me want to send her there instead of homeschooling her is my own self-preservation instincts. A twinkie response on my part that I do not want to put myself through the emotional challenge of being with her all day without break. However, on my "back" reflections and research I am now considering the fact that she has to work extraordinarily hard to keep herself in check at school which may be part of the reason that she falls apart sometimes at home where she is much more comfortable.

And while I'm back again...the public schools here seem fine. The curriculum is pretty good. The teachers seem okay (except during political season...don't get me started). But the kids....oy! They seem pretty mean in every school we've encountered so far. I'm not sure I want to send the Boss into that environment either.

I'm giving myself a week to decide because I have to enroll the Boss and decide whether or not I will require Squeaker to take summer school classes.

Movie Mad-ness

For the second day in a row, Squeaker had a teenage tantrum about watching a DVD...this time after I told her to turn off a movie with some inappropriate dialogue which she kept repeating and making sure Lucky didn't miss.

Tonight's display included stomping, defiance, yelling in my face and a lot of muttering under her breath, mostly about how stupid and retarded I am.

During her "time out" she shoved the dining table around and repeatedly banged on the couch. When told to stop, she said, "And what are you going to do if I don't? Yeah, that's what I thought."

When she finally went off to bed, I heard "what a jerk" and "I hate you" coming from the room she shares with Lucky but it got really quiet when I went and stood in the doorway. All is peaceful now. Sweet dreams.