On Birthdays

Our birthday flowers from Friday are all dead so I guess it's official....the party's over and now we're forty.

Birthdays are always kind of sticky events around here. Drama Boy, Sparky, and often Squeaker have a difficult time if anybody gets anything that they do not get. They are of the mind that they are always getting gypped in some way if anybody else gets attention.

On Friday, we got cake and flowers and that was it but if Sparky had been here he still would have been a raging, cursing mess. Non-eventish as this one was we still did not get off scott-free. Drama Boy had a big crying fit when Ana would not drive him to his friend's house nor allow him to walk all the way across town to find him. He spent all afternoon blubbering over the phone book trying to find his friend's listing since he had neglected to ask for his phone number. He did okay at dinner then screamed at Squeaker when she asked him to come downstairs for cake.

We've had crying, screaming meltdowns on every birthday so far this year. This snarkiness is not limited to birthdays. Both the boys were on the receiving end of the "it's not all about you" lecture on Squeaker's adoption day last summer and Squeaker has already demonstrated that she will need it an upcoming adoption day next week. Drama Boy even cries when we take the other kids out to dinner while he is visiting his grandma.

And on the bright side, we were both pleased that no one had a major tantrum and no one called us ugly names which is how we celebrated the past few years. The girls not only wished us happy birthday, they also helped us clean the house before our family came for dinner. Lucky got Ana a card. One of the girls put up some streamers and gave us each a key keepsake on a shoelace (which we wore all day and I plan to wear on birthdays and new year's from now on). I bought a mix and the girls made and decorated a cake. That's more than any of our kids have ever done for us and was entirely sweet of them.

Ahead: The Boss, Lucky, and Drama Boy all have December birthdays. Since DB particularly dislikes the other two we'll be bracing ourselves for plenty of nastiness and bad attitude on their days.

Out and About

On Saturday we all went to an Oktoberfest at the local animal shelter (where we previously got two of our four dogs). Lucky and Squeaker were to perform with their cheer group with Squeaker on stage again later with her school choir.

Outings with all of the kids are always an interesting challenge. For starters, the kids are a wide range of ages so interests and attention spans vary greatly. Also, the kids are not really bonded as a group so taking the whole herd out often means having to deal individually with all the kids rather than enjoying the camraderie of being out together as a "family" of even a bunch of friends or even friendly acquaintances for that matter.

I hate to say "I told me so" but Saturday was a typical day out for us. The first hour was fine because there were animals of all kinds and booths to look at. Everyone maintained pretty well for the cheer performance. Then we walked a few blocks to get lunch and so Squeaker could change from her cheer uniform to her choir outfit. The day inclined slightly downwards from there.

Drama Boy and The Boss begged for money and tickets. Lucky made a connection (her words) with an ugly little dog at the shelter and then fell apart when she couldn't have him, leading Drama Boy to tease her in the car on the way home.

The general crabbiness continued at home until DB and Squeaker were shouting at each other and slamming doors while Lucky continued to cry over her dog. I talked to Squeaker and I sent DB to Ana. He made the common Squeaker mistake of turning his anger and shouting on the adults instead. Total meltdown ensued when he was sent to his room to get some self-control.

Knowing the emotional overwhelm would continue unless we got back into more of our regular routine, we canceled dinner plans that we had for the evening. Disappointing since it had been a very long time since we had a kid-free night out but it seemed unfair to dump a bunch of grumpy kids with the cousins even for a few hours and part of our childcare plans had already fallen through that morning.

And they wonder why we rarely go out and do "stuff". Ana and I both agreed, as we often do, that we would have enjoyed the event a lot more if we had been there without all the kids.

Text Message

Ana is at cheer practice with Lucky and Squeaker. Here's our recent text message conversation:

A: i just got to meet mr. b--- (math teacher)so he could tell me {squeaker} is competing with another girl for the title of class flirt. nice.

M: Typical

A: he said she's doing much better but she just needs to buckle down cuz now the hard part is starting. she was cutsie and smartmouthy. not cute. he said she's not horrible anymore.

M: That's quite an endorsement

A: yeah. she was like "what?!" and he said "no your behavior towards me was horrible. you talked back to me and everything but that has improved in the last couple of weeks."

M: Was she there for the "flirt" part?

A: yeah. she said (dramatic gasp) "i am NOT!" yeah. right.

I'm glad her teacher is addressing that. She is so unbearably obnoxious and inappropriate around boys. Her poor teachers....wouldn't wanna be ya! She is the only girl in her special ed resource classes. I hope the silliness wears off somewhat before high school.

Ice Cream

The littles snuck out for ice cream at Sonic after lunch today. Shhhhhh. Don't tell the big kids.

How to Make Kids Extra Crabby

Get the middles out of bed to pick up the other half of the family who had to cram themselves into the cab of a tow truck for twenty miles after blowing the spare tire on the freeway.

Good times.

Meltdown

The Boss totally flipped out a little bit ago when I put him on his bed and shut the door because he wouldn't sit in time out.

Seamonkey was already in timeout on his bed because he would not stay where I put him either. He was laying quietly on his bed, but the Boss reacted like the kid in The Sixth Sense when he got locked in the attic. I'm pretty sure there were no dead people in the bedroom, but he screamed "I'm scared, I'm scared!" repeatedly.

When I opened the door he kicked and pounded the walls, broke a nightlight, kicked and scratched at me when I tried to hold him, then thrashed around and smacked the dog twice in the face when I put him down. When I got after him about hitting the dog he finally wanted to be picked up. It took a while for his screaming to subside and then he whined for a while longer and allowed me to hold him but only cradled, not sitting up.

He was terrified and angry and completely out of control. He's fine now and I'm tense. I guess I won't be putting him in his room again.

24 Hours

Squeaker and Drama Boy got into a fight on Friday over what movie they were going to watch next. When it started to get ugly, I stepped in and told them they lost the privilege to choose so move away from the tv so I could put something on for the littles.

DB had to be told twice but finally shut his mouth and moved on. Squeaker, as she often does, turned the fight on me when she didn't get what she wanted. Never a good move. She can get pretty gnarly pretty quickly and it's impossible to get her to reign in her temper once she gets going.

I had her sit out for the remainder of the evening and she lost all privileges until she could go 24 hours without talking back or being rude to me or anyone else. Since her "time" was on Saturday she did it easily as we had no other plans that day.

She has maintained a pleasant demeanor through the rest of the weekend and this morning. I wish we could continue this way but her mood changes without warning and often with no apparent provocation. During the week is often the worst because her stress level is higher.

It's tough when you don't enjoy your kid very much a lot of the time.

Breakfast

Squeaker drew her line in the sand and refuses to make, take, or eat lunch at school. And I don't care. Maybe I should. Maybe this is another one of her test to see if I am (in her words) "a good enough mom". But I just don't care. She is hardly starving herself and if she doesn't perform as well as she could in school because she doesn't want to fuel her brain, that is her choice.

Now she has decided that she will not eat breakfast either. That's a bit too much, in my opinion. She does not have an eating disorder (although she pretended to a few years ago and spent a couple months melodramatically telling people so). Her attitude is more like "You can't tell me what to do so s***w you." She likes to play the weary warrior in the mornings who spent all night tossing and turning (she doesn't have sleep problems but pretends she does and likes to tell her therapists and her psychiatrist so) who now must mope and heave great sighs and mistreat others because of her rough night and yell at me that she's just not hungry OKAY?

I don't care if she skips lunch but I DO care if she skips both breakfast and lunch only to overeat at dinnertime. She never refuses dinner and when I asked her why she skips other meals but wants seconds and thirds at dinner she said, "Because it tastes good." Ah, so she can eat when she is not hungry.

So here's the deal. Lunch or no lunch is up to her. Breakfast is required. If she chooses not to eat breakfast then I'm not going to fight her on it. She may be excused to go about her day. However, on those days she may not have any junk food, soda, or dessert. Even if it's a weekend, a birthday, or a holiday. It's not meant as a punishment, but I see no reason to give a green light on these things to a child who refuses to eat real food at mealtimes.

So on the first day of the new deal she scowled and poked at her breakfast for half an hour taking only a couple bites. Finally it got to be past time for her to finish getting ready for school so I told her she was excused, but remember no treats or dessert today. She yelled at me that she DID eat, before dumping a full bowl of oatmeal down the drain. No dice.

When it came around to dessert time in the evening (and it was birthday) she glared pointedly at me from across the room then moved closer to stare me down. Then she stood and leaned with both hands on the table hovering over me. Peaches asked if she was going to have any and she said snottily near my ear, "I don't think so because I SUPPOSEDLY didn't eat breakfast."

I asked her to please move away from me. She allegedly did so. Can't wait for this "I'm so weird I don't even eat" phase to end.

Response to "Our Family"

(This started out as a reply to a commenter on the post below but then I took my rant and ran with it so it rated it's own post.)

When we had a lot more kids in and out, the food stashed all over the house was unbelievably gross. We have a very strict "no food upstairs" rule which means there's candy and food wrappers tucked in, under, and behind things and bits of lunches and stolen snacks nastifying in unusual hidey-holes. So disgusting. We don't even buy bologna because the smell of it is pretty strong even BEFORE it's been hidden under someone's underwear for a couple of weeks. Ewwwwwww! Our kids tend to be big cheese and peanut butter sandwich stashers. We don't allow gum either but still find it stuck to the carpet, furniture, banisters, and the the inside of the clothes dryer all the time.

And while I'm on my rant...two words. Ramen noodles. I would be happy as can be to never smell them again. When we did our PRIDE classes one of the trainers, who had been a foster parent for thirty+ years, said that Ramen noodles are the one thing that she could get every kid to eat. Boy is that ever the truth. Some of our kids had never eaten a vegetable but noodles seemed to have been a staple in nearly every home. Our kids love them cooked or dry. Ick.

Okay, stepping down now but still not finished. I've got a whole other food rant ready to go.

Food Issues

Issues with food are a common theme with traumatized kids. Stealing, hoarding, gorging, not eating...we've seen it all as have many foster parents.

While not unexpected they can still be very irritating especially with kids who have been here a while and suddenly make it a control issue.

Squeaker frequently does not eat at school. Last year she got free breakfast and lunch so I wasn't that involved in it, knowing that she eats well enough at home. Except when the aides in her special ed classroom got concerned with how many times she did not get her free lunch and sent a letter in the mail about it. Again, she eats quite a lot at home and since we rarely allow junk food, it's a good variety of healthy foods so I wasn't overly concerned. This year she eats breakfast at home. Often she mopes first but if I insist she will eat. I gave her the responsibility of making her own sandwich for lunch. She often forgot her lunch or would eat the sandwich and stuff the lunchsacks with everything else into her sock drawer. She has made a sandwich only one day and even on that day she didn't eat it. I found two old nasty lunches in her backpack this morning. She gets angry when I ask about and says "Why do you care anyway? You never cared before. It's none of your business." Whatever. She'll get a consequence for her snotty tone but not her words because she's right. I don't care. I'd rather have her not pack anything than take something and waste it. I can't make her eat it and she's not even close to starving herself. I remind her that she'll be in better emotional control and learn better if she feeds her body and her brain but if she's not going to I can't force her.

Drama Boy spent too many mornings snuffling and crying over what was offered at breakfast so he is not allowed to eat it at home any more. He eats free breakfast and lunch at school. He's pretty picky but we've gotten him to expand his food horizons a little bit. We eat vegetables or salad at every meal and usually he can get through it now without difficulty. Other times he drools, gags, and pretends he's going to vomit. He's a food stealer. He takes food and sometimes eats it but other times he'll throw it under the sink in the bathroom, under his bed or in a drawer. Last night I got sent a text message "There's cheese in the toilet". DB had taken four pieces of string cheese and threw them, plastic wrappers and all, into the downstairs toilet. He ate one of the containers of yogurt that I was saving for breakfasts. He ate a good-sized roll and left the bag open. He ate directly out of the fridge from the leftover spaghetti leaving curly noodles dropped all over and the spoon still in the refrigerator sticking out of the container. Sigh. He says he's getting enough to eat but sometimes he still wants more. Fine. Ask. And for goodness sake DON'T WASTE FOOD. It's driving me up the wall. Some foster parents keep a stash of snack food that the kids can eat whenever they want so they will always feel secure that there will be enough to eat (many neglected kids including DB were left home alone with no food in the house). We tried that. A cabinet for snacks they could have whenever they felt hungry. They ate it all in one day. So now we offer snacks and meals and if they don't like what's offered then they must wait until the next one, but they may eat fruits or vegetables any time they are hungry.

Lucky doesn't like vegetables at all but is otherwise a pretty good eater. But she keeps up a running commentary so we'll know when things are not up to snuff. Last night she ate all her dinner and seconds but still said, "You know what sounds good right now? Pizza. Cheese pizza. With pineapple. Doesn't that sound good right now? I feel like eating that now."

The Boss eats almost like a real person now after years of chicken nuggets and yogurt.

We try not to make a big deal over the food issues. Our dinner rules are if you don't want to eat it that's okay but don't complain about what you are served, if you serve yourself you must eat it all, on nights we have dessert you must eat veggies first. Outside of dinnertime it is much harder to impress upon the kids how we can little afford so much food being wasted all the time.

Every Day

We have a written schedule for the middles (ages 13, 11, 11) but every day we have to tell them to do things or they don't get done.

Every day we have to tell them to wash their hands before dinner, often after they've already sat down at the table.

Every day we have to tell them to get in the shower at shower time.

Every day we have to tell them to use soap and shampoo.

Every day (actually twice every day) we have to tell them to brush their teeth. And when they say they already did say, "No you didn't. Try again."

Every day we have to tell them to put clean clothes away and dirty clothes in the hamper.

Every day we have to tell them to make beds and pick up their rooms.

Every day we have to tell them to do chores.

Every day we have to tell them to start homework or reading time.

Every day we have to tell them to get out the door and go to school or wait for the bus.

Every day we have to tell lunch takers to make a sandwich....and then to put it in their backpack.

Every day we have to tell them to go upstairs for "room time" before bed.

Every day we have to tell them to turn off the lights at "lights out" time.

I know....logical consequences, love and logic and all that. But every day these things need to get done and I'm unwilling, at the moment, to deal with the stink and squalor and late night shrieking and giggling that would result if we didn't tell them to do these things. I guess we've picked our battles and these are not them.

Somebody's Been Sleeping in My Bed....

....and he's still there!


Hey, that's my bed. Those are my pillows....well, except the one with the cars and trucks on it. Those are not my books.

But at least he fell asleep before 10pm.

Experience is (Not) Everything

The cover art of the novel I was reading last night is a black and white photograph of two sleeping babies. The Boss asked me who they were and I told him the book was about twin brothers and that the picture was supposed to be them as babies.

Him: "Oh. Are they adopted?"
Me: "No."
Him: (with great concern) "You mean they don't have a family?"

We have been praying for kids on photolistings that don't have families yet and are waiting to be adopted. I guess we might not have covered the fact that most kids become a part of their family in a more traditional way.

Absence of Malice

Drama Boy is gone for the next four days on a parent/child rehab program with Sparky and his mom. Interestingly, the usual underlying unease (unintended use of alliteration) that we are accustomed to living with has been absent since he left last night.

The rest of us went to the new popular eatery in town for cherry limeades and slushes. Lucky was loud in Ana's ear, Squeaker and The Boss wrestled together jostling the table annoyingly, but still it was a fun time out together.

The pleasant atmosphere continued today with happy banter and good-natured kidding at dinner and then later as we made ice cream sundaes. Normal family time for most people, I'm sure, but very unusual for us to have everyone not only enjoying themselves but also the company of one another. Someone mentioned it was fun because Drama Boy wasn't there to kill it. Not a very nice commentary on DB but not far from the truth.

This afternoon Squeaker had some problems on the bus when she "got into it" with an aide and the bus driver. I know I shouldn't lecture but I couln't help a tiny one since she always feels like she has good reasons to be disrespectful and defiant.

For now, we're looking forward to a relaxed weekend. Tappy will come for respite. We'll go to pizza night with our sister's family, a harvest festival in town, and enjoy peace while we have it to enjoy.

Cousins

The Boss picked this picture to post of him and two of his favorite cousins (all his cousins are his favorite). I think this was way back at last Thanksgiving.