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.

Souffle de Ipod

Today I opened the oven to make croutons and found an iPod.

It wasn't a mystery whose it was or who put it there. It had been indignantly reported missing and the usual suspects had been rounded up and its theft vehemently denied by the young perps. It's a good thing I'm somewhat of a conservationist. Had I bothered to pre-heat the oven we would have had a stinking, smoldering, toxic mess.

We have an impressive number of things go missing, stolen, or broken around here. Just since Christmas we have lost a scooter, a DS or two, two iPods, a skateboard, a skateboard truck, video camera and memory card, four pair of shoes, and....I've lost track now.

I guess that's not too bad considering our record over the last seven years. With hundreds of traumatized kids coming through our home, we're certainly not shocked by sticky fingers any more. We've had stolen from our home a great deal of cash as well as dozens of video games and dvds, books, jewelry and other personal items, a PS2,game system controllers, a laptop, a stereo, cell phones, cd players, hundreds of cds, and the list goes on.

We also have had a lot of kids steal food and our personal toiletry items such as toothbrushes and razors (yuck!) and small things like chapstick and lipstick, hair and skin products even when they are given their own.

And we've also had to deal with shop-lifting incidents with a number of kids. Many have stolen from one another or from school, as well.

Stealing is a very common problem when working with traumatized kiddos. A lot of this stems from them arriving to us in survival mode. It takes a long time for such kids to feel safe enough for these behaviors to stop. That's a whole other post though.

At least for right now it seems that some of the kids are having fun stealing and hiding other's belongings and then accusing the victim of doing it to get them into trouble.

So the vigilance and buttoning up continue and the little thieveses continue to deny and cry foul.

By the way, the croutons were delicious.