"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.

Geek High Five

So much going on with all the kids that I haven't been able to get my head straight to blog any of it. I feel like thoughts and ideas and worries are flying around in my brain but none of them connecting. When I described the feeling to Ana, complete with a demonstration of my index fingers shooting past each other but not meeting, she said, "Like a geek high five."

Two challenging kids back to line-of-sight supervision to protect property and the neighbors, daily lies and misdirection, irrational fears and unexplainable fits from the five year old (how will he go to kindergarten in the fall when he cries for 45 minutes because he has to go to the bathroom by himself?), keeping the littles safe from the meanness of the middles, navigating the complexities of older teens stuck somewhere in the crack between adult freedom and childish irresponsibility...all the while being constantly reminded that we don't communicate or do things like everybody's "real family". No wonder my head is rattled. These days I have no idea what I'm doing or what I've gotten myself into.

Squeaker is still acting a bit off even for her. She's cussing me out one minute and then acting super sweet and trying to engage me in coversation the next. She may be able to switch moods in 10 seconds flat but me, not so much. I don't even get how she can be so hateful and then come out and ask me sweetly for a privilege or favor while I'm still feeling freshly overhauled by her latest rage.

A renewed outburst of mean-and-nasty in which she pulled out every cruel insult and ugly word in her arsenal and shoved her bed in front of the door, resulted in her losing her activity for the evening and all privileges the next day.

I thought Saturday would be a toughy because that was the day that she was supposed to go either to Disneyland with her sister or to her cheer competition but her chronic temper had lost all privileges for the weekend. However, she did fine and was reasonably cheerful all day. I gave her a short hair cut as a fix for her hacking off big chunks from one side. She's been cutting/shaving/pulling snatches of her hair for years and I'm constantly taking her in to get it fixed so this time I did it myself.

Another cell phone went missing last week and, although I knew she and Lucky must have it, they kept it hidden for three days. I keep my bedroom door locked any time I am out of the room but this stealing thing has really gotten out of hand. shorty had set the phone down outside while he was on the trampoline and one of the girls just picked it up and slunk off unnoticed. Squeaker asked this week to go to the neighbor's house for the afternoon. Not hardly, little klepto.

Now the girls must ask permission to leave their room in the morning, go upstairs, outside or anywhere we can't see them. We must know where they are at all times even in the house. What a silly way to live. I don't want to be a jailor. Squeaker also frequently says mean things to The Boss when she thinks no one is around. But he's the biggest tattler in the house and then she hates him even more when he brings reinforcements.

As it turns out, keeping them close to home doesn't necessarily mean keeping the neighborhood safe from their obnoxiously inappropriate behavior. Monday night we got a knock on the door from one of our back-fence neighbors. Seems our sweet young ladies have been spending their time on the trampoline yelling naughty words, making fun of the neighbors in a racially disparaging way, and throwing bark and debris into their pool.

You know, I'm proud of my kids and I'm usually happy to claim them as mine but sometimes I want to say to people, "I didn't raise them that way! They didn't get that from me!"

Just sometimes.