Barnmaven

That woman was out of her everloving mind

 

 

 

"You know, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, in the most delight-ful way!"

I call bullshit on you, Mary Freaking Poppins.

His liquid medicine goes in chocolate milk.  With a straw.  Every day a straw, like a special occasion.  Three tiny little milliliters of medicine, a cup or so of chocolate milk.   His capsule full of little round white balls of helping you focus gets poured into the middle of a spoonful of chocolate pudding and then covered up with more chocolate pudding.

You can't taste the medicine.  Trust me, I've tried it myself just to make sure.  And this kid loves chocolate.  You would think that getting to have chocolate milk and chocolate pudding every single morning of your life would be all like WHEEEE, AWESOME! CHOCOLATE! for a six year old boy.

Not my six year old boy.

I guess the official term is "not medication-compliant."  I've begun to think of it more as  holy hell you stubborn little turd, take your freaking medicine already, i've been trying to put it in you for half an hour and i'm out of patience and late for work and out of things to take away from you and you know some children have to SWALLOW PILLS or TAKE SHOTS to get THEIR medication fercryingoutloud, and all you have to do is EAT CHOCOLATE FOR GOD'S SAKE and oh my god i'm going to LOSE MY MIND.

Is there some point at which this actually becomes funny and we can tell stories about it at his wedding?  Because right now it is NOT FUNNY AT ALL unless I pretend its happening to somebody else.  In which case it would be funny, so naturally I forgive you for laughing at my pain. 

 

When I'm the one who needs a time out

It was a tough day for parenting yesterday.  C decided to replace the batteries in an old truck toy.   After he put the new batteries in and screwed the battery compartment shut, his expectations of working sounds and lights were unmet, and he started to escalate.  He'd forgotten that the truck hadn't worked right for quite a while after having been left outside in the rain for an extended time.   After an hour or so of screaming and throwing things, he finally accepted that the truck was Not Working Right, and so decided that his next step would be to take it apart and try to understand why.  Except that one of the screws on the bottom was stripped and neither he or I could get it out.  More escalation.  More screaming, throwing things, kicking things.  I'd been coping with this while trying to catch up on an enormous amount of housework and my patience was starting to wear dangerously thin.  I asked him for the truck.  Told him it needed to get put away for a while so it didn't frustrate him so much, and we needed to find something else for him to do.  "NO!!!!!!"  More screaming...and I just popped.  I grabbed the truck from his hands and I yelled and I threw the damn thing into the other room.  I never wanted to see it again, I wanted it to go away, wanted the screaming to just STOP. 

The truck landed on the floor and promptly separated into two complete halves.

Oops.

This is one of those times when walking away would have been the wiser choice.  Instead I showed my son how NOT to handle your stress.  I did exactly what he was doing and then some.

It does not in the least detract from the wrongness of my actions that within 10 minutes he was happily checking out the control board and the wiring and putting the top half back on and taking it back off and trying to see how the connections all worked. 

 

I work so hard to try and keep myself calm and listening when my kids are having a hard time.  I know that even if it takes a little while to ask questions calmly and listen carefully to what the need is, it takes a lot less time than it would if I simply added to the emotion and stress of the moment by trying to impose my will.  I have those days, I really do.  But then there are days that are so full of parental fail that all I can do is say "I'm sorry" and "I'll try better next time," and hope that I haven't scarred my son for life.

Yesterday was not a shining example of quality parenting by yours truly.  Today, however, is bound to be a big improvement.  They stay with their dad tonight.

How...lovely (sort of nsfw)

"Mommy, I made an angel for you!"

"Oh, baby, that's so nice.  How sweet."

"It has a picture of baby jesus on one side."

"That's wonderful, C."

"And the angel's on the other side.  Here you go, Mommy.  I love you, Mommy!"

"Thanks buddy.  She's...she's...ummmm..."  awkward silence.   "...are those boobs?"

"Uh-Huh!"

"Why is your angel naked?"

"She's not naked!  She's wearing pants!"

"I see."

"Pants!  And an invisible shirt!"

"Um, thanks C.  I really love it." 

"Uh, C?  Could you maybe not draw boobs anymore?  For a while?"  Til you're like, 30, maybe?

 

Because there will be plenty of time for boob pictures when he's NOT IN KINDERGARTEN.

 

I really screwed up

I injected what I think was a note of sarcastic humor into yesterdays post.  At the time I was reeling, and trying to make it at least a little funny was my own way of coping with what was happening around me.

I also didn't want to post too many details, because at the time I thought the reason the sitter was jailed was because of something far more innocent than the real reason she was in jail.  Today I learned why she had been arrested, and let me tell you, when I learned why, my blood ran cold.

Let's start at the beginning. My sitter was last employed by a family in my town as a full time nanny for their two children, the older of which has autism and needed a caregiver experienced in special needs.  According to testimony and news stories, not too long after she started working for this family, the mother confessed to her that she wanted to kill her husband and run away to Mexico.  Some weeks after this confession, the sitter realized that the woman was actually serious and informed the husband, who then involved the police.  The police involved the sitter in a sting operation whereby the wife thought the sitter was helping her to obtain drugs to help her in her endeavor, but which were not really drugs and the whole pass-off was videotaped and wiretapped.

The wife was arrested and charged.

Six weeks after this, the husband fired the sitter and obtained a restraining order against her, claiming that he thought she was trying to take the children and was giving them drugs.  The sitter responded with a restraining order in return, things got all weird and sordid.  The wife eventually took a plea deal to lesser charges and was released from prison with credit for time served.  A month ago, the sitter filed a lawsuit against the couple in civil court for damages related to defamation of character, etc.

The police have never charged the sitter with any crime, though they thoroughly investigated her.

Because the sitter was never charged with anything, my background check which included a search of all felony arrests or warrants, turned up NOTHING.  A misdemeanor from when her daughter was a teen and stole her car, where the sitter claimed that she had let the child drive in order to keep her out of trouble, but she had told me about that in the interview.  In fact, it was comforting to me to see that she was so truthful she had owned up to the ONLY thing that came up on the background check when I ran it after the interview.

Had I run a simple search engine lookup on her name, I would have learned the details of the family she had worked for before.  In all likelihood, I would not have hired her.  Not because I thought she had done something wrong, but because there were active restraining orders and ongoing court cases and I don't need my children in any way involved with someone who is a tad notorious, even superficially.

Instead, I trusted her, gave her a key to my home.  Allowed her to pick up my children from school.  Take them to the library and the park and to her house for macaroni and cheese.

What I did not know:

This woman was in an ongoing battle with some long term acquaintances.  Over the weekend she told police the women had attacked her.  An investigation ensued, and no evidence could be found that such an attack had taken place.  What the police were able to find, though, was damning evidence that my sitter was engaging in a threat campaign against these women via text, email and voicemail, leaving them threats.  Serious threats, including a threat to "beat one victim to a bloody pulp with a bat" until she was dead.

Yesterday, after learning she was jailed, I went home early and had my locks changed.  I assumed, offhand, that she had been arrested for mistakenly violating a restraining order.  I thought I might be overreacting, but I wanted to make sure I took steps to keep my family safe.  After learning of the details of her arrest, I am glad I took those steps.  

I am horrified, reeling, unsettled, shocked.  At any point my children could have been harmed by this apparently unstable woman.  I don't know the details of the feud with the other women involved, but heaven forbid one of them was retaliatory toward my sitter AND MY CHILDREN WERE WITH HER.  Or if she had been arrested this week any day but the day I work from home, and my children had been present.  My mind keeps going over and over all of the details, fragments of conversations, thoughts, observations.  In no way did this woman seem to be the kind of person that would leave someone violent threats.  If anything, she just seemed a little too nice and possibly even naive.  I was completely mistaken about her character and the reality of what was going on in her private life.

Lessons?  Many.

Background checks are NOT enough.  An interview is not sufficient.  There are many good unlicensed people out there providing childcare.  I was unlucky enough to find one of the few who was a high risk.  There was nothing in her manner or words or ANYTHING to indicate she was a potential danger.

I'm not even upset about needing to find yet another caregiver for my children.  I'm grateful instead, grateful that my children were not harmed.  Perhaps they were never really in danger, but in my opinion we dodged a bullet on this one.  Things that could have gone wrong didn't.

Ultimately, I count myself at fault.  It is my job to protect my kids.  To be thorough in researching the people who are providing their care.  I didn't do that.  If my kids were in danger, they were in danger because I didn't do my job.  I'm incredibly thankful that the cost of learning this lesson wasn't as high as it could have been.

The one where I claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I'm not losing this battle

So let's see, where were we?

The teacher that can't be bothered to "trouble shoot" (direct quote) my son sent him home after a mere half an hour in kindergarten on Tuesday.

My emails to the Principal and the counselor have gone unanswered, though I finally received a return phone call from the assistant director of special services with the school district, who I resorted to calling Tuesday afternoon.  Since I feel my concerns aren't being addressed, I've taken the liberty of elevating things.  I am not certain this is a good move or not; by getting the district involved I risk alienating the people I am counting on to help my son.  On the flip side of that  penny, I fear if I don't take some sort of action to push things along, we might make it through the entire year of kindergarten without my son learning anything more than the fact that his teacher can't spell his name right.

Yes, that's correct.  His teacher sent home a sheet for the children to practice writing their names.  She was kind enough to give them a model to follow at the top of the sheet...except she spelled my son's name incorrectly.   After everything else that has happened it was...I can't even find the words.  Insulting?  Last straw?  Proof?  Don't know.

There's something about talking to school administrators, who must be very carefula bout how they choose their words in order to avoid any appearance of acting outside of rules and regulations (and federal laws) that makes me feel somehow shamed.  As if my son's problems are MY fault.  The result of poor parenting.  Because maybe when he was born I just took a big ole' hypodermic needle and shot him up full of anxiety and ADHD and manic-depressive illness.  Because, you know, that sounded like FUN.  And so, feeling somewhat on edge from the phone call I had with the school this afternoon, I trudged happily off to choir practice knowing that it would make me feel better to do that and that I could then come home, throw the little guy in the tub (his sister's at their dad's) and relax with a nice glass of H3 Cab. 

That was a very good plan, until I sat down with my freshly poured glass of wine at this computer and opened my email. 

"I wanted to talk to you in person but it’s hard to find a moment to do that without little ears around. So, forgive the email. I know time is of the essence. I’m sorry to put  you in this position but I have decided that it’s best that I do not continue watching _____ & _____. I didn’t want to quit on you or the kids, but I think it might be for the best. ______ & ______ are great kids and I see the good in them. However, it is overwhelming and I am thinking of my little ones. _______ is impressionable and copies [sic] everything older kids do; we just feel that it’s best to go with our instincts on this.

I regret putting you in this position but I also need to be honest with you. If it was just me watching _____ & _____ (without my little ones); I wouldn’t mind. However, I realize now that I need to look out for their best interests.

I plan on still watching them tomorrow (as you did pay me through this week), and maybe that can give you the weekend to make other arrangements?"

Ah.

I see.  My kids are "great kids" but your kids are impressionable, and so what, you don't want them to COPY THE KID WITH ADHD.  Which I get, really I do, but maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED THE FUCKING JOB.  I totally understand how being involved with me and my broken, special children isn't in the best interests of ANYONE.  I do.  And I forgive you for it.  And no, you don't need to watch them tomorrow, dear lady, because the last thing I want to do is send my children back to a home where the adult in charge thinks that they are a BAD INFLUENCE.   We get enough of that everywhere else, thank you very much.

And as you might guess, I am now sipping that nice glass of cabernet, plotting my revenge trying to wade through all of the anger and guilt and shame in my head and figure out just what on God's green earth I am going to do next.  I am simultaneously thanking that same God for my boss, who when I called him trying to explain what was happening without dissolving into miserable tears, reassured me that I was valued, appreciated, and to please not worry about taking a day tomorrow to try and solve this problem.  To not worry about doing anything that was needed to take care of my family.

And then I came here to post, and I read the really supportive comments a few of you really amazing people have left for me on the last couple of epistles, and I know that I am not alone.  I know that I am not the only person who is trying to make chocolate chip cookies out of a steaming pile of dog poop, and I know that this is not the worst thing ever that could happen, even if it feels like it right at this very moment.

And I am not giving up.  I am not going to concede that my child has no value, regardless of what some educators and caregivers might think.  Yes, he can be terribly difficult.  Annoying.  Crazymaking.  He is also adorable and loving and articulate and SMART oh my God smart, and he has the best smile in all the world.  When we do songs and stories at night, as I tuck him in, we do a hug, he kisses me on the cheek, and I say "I love you, C."  "I love you too, Mommy."  "I love you more."  "No, Mommy, I love YOU more."  "I love you more than anything, C."  "Well, I love you more than the whole EVERYTHING, Mommy." 

You win, buddy.  You win.

 

Kicked.

Out, that is.  Out of aftercare.  I knew it was coming, was trying to stay ahead of the curve but they beat me to it.

As time went by it was becoming painfully obvious that the hubbub and chaos of a large group aftercare program was not the right environment for my highly sensitive son.  I had hoped that the medication we just started him on would help, but it's still the same story, every single day.  Hitting.  Oppositional.  Can't sit still.  Won't participate.  Refuses to cooperate.  Runs out the door.

I start interviewing home care candidates tomorrow.  I can't afford it, but I hear that if I just leave him home alone for six hours with scissors and a hand grenade I'm probably crossing some sort of legal boundary, so home care it is.

Times like these I realize I need a wife to stay home and watch my kids.  Because, you know, the applicants are just lining up by the droves to get involved with the codependent, opinionated half-crazy middle-aged woman and her two non-neurotypical kids.  Can't you hear my phone ringing off the hook with all the guys asking me on a date?  No?  Yeah, you probably hear the same dead silence I do. Oh well, I suck at relationships anyway.

I'm ok.  Or at least, I will be.  So will C.  We just have some work to do to get there.

 

A Tooth's Tale, or Why I Can't Get to Work on Time **Updated**

 

My 9 year-old started getting her adult teeth early, and when she loses one these days, we're all Ho, Hum, better ring up the Tooth Fairy and see what the going rate is this week, when what she'd really like is for the Tooth Fairy to deliver Justin Bieber, singing and dancing, for her birthday party.  She had so many problem teeth as a toddler that when the last silver cap took its time to finally work its way out, I was ready to yank it with pliers.  We haven't dealt with a first loose tooth in well over four years now. 

When my son announced he had a loose tooth last week, I was so excited.  He showed me where it was wiggling in the bottom front of his mouth, and I told him that it was finally HISturn for the Tooth Fairy to start visiting!  Yay, you're a Big Boy now!  Every day he would sit there with his fingers in his mouth, wiggling and wiggling that tooth.  Oh, the fun and excitement.  Oh, the joy! 

Oh, the SOMEONE GET A SHOTGUN AND END MY MISERY NOW.

Why?  You want to know why? 

Yesterday.  Breakfast.  The tooth is wiggling so far back and forth you can see the underside of it - but it won't come out.  I'm standing at the counter contemplating making another pot of coffee before church and out of nowhere, from the breakfast bar, a bloodcurdling shriek so loud and frightening it almost made me wet my pants.  I literally jumped four feet across the kitchen to my screaming son.  "Oh my God, baby, what's wrong, what hurts?  Are you OK? What's the matter?" He sits there screaming with his hands over his mouth.  "Did you bite your tongue, sweetie?  Let Mommy see."   "NO MOMMY!!  My tooth!  My TOOTH HURTS!!!!" 

Sensory issues and loose teeth, apparently, are not a match made in heaven, when every bite of one's breakfast makes one's loose tooth move about excessively in one's mouth.

He won't let me pull the tooth out.  He won't pull it out himself.  As of this morning it was hanging on by a thread and still, he won't let me pull it out.  And every bite of food he takes, every snack, every meal, he screams like a FREAKING BANSHEE because his tooth is bothering him.

If that tooth doesn't fall out today I swear to GOD I'm going to knock him out with Benadryl (there, I just lost my last follower.  You know what?  I FEED THEM MCDONALD'S, TOO!) and go after it with a pair of pliers.  My nerves can't take much more of this.

 

UPDATED:  MONDAY AFTERNOON

The tooth came out.  The tooth fairy got quietly drunk on a cheap bottle of wine to celebrate.

Unexpected things

It would have been nice if we'd been told that they'd moved C to another kindergarten teacher.  It would have been nice if the school had updated the district transportation department that  he was not in afternoon kindergarten but in morning.  It would have been nice if at any step along the way someone at the school had listened to me.

Because?

When your child has anxiety disorder, you make the effort to be very structured.  Your child needs structure in order to cope.  The unexpected, which is difficult enough for the average individual, is torture for the child with anxiety disorder.

So when I made the effort to map out my son's day for him so that he would know what to expect?  Yeah.  Wasted effort.  We arrived to find he was not in the classroom he expected with the teacher he expected.  I had to have someone restrain him so I could leave him in class.

He expected to ride the bus home.  I gave this information to his principal, very explicitly.  Except that he didn't have a bus home BECAUSE NO ONE TOLD TRANSPORTATION HE WASN'T IN MORNING KINDERGARTEN.  So they assumed I must have meant the bus to the Unnamed Youth Organization that will providing his afterschool care beginning next week.  So my son WHO HAS ANXIETY DISORDER got stuck on a bus to someplace he wasn't expecting to go.  After spending three hours in a room he wasn't expecting to be in with a teacher he wasn't expecting to have and had never met.

This is what my head did about an hour ago:

UNACCEPTABLE.

For this mother, who didn't know where her son was and couldn't get through to anyone at the school on the phone after finding out from the transportation department that her child wasn't on a bus home because that bus home didn't exist.

For this sweet boy, whose first day of kindergarten was supposed to be fun and exciting, not scary and traumatizing.

When I arrived at the aftercare place to pick him up (they were really confused, not expecting him until next week) he was completely undone.  He didn't understand what he'd done wrong.

Needless to say, I'm girding my loins for a full-on confrontation with his school.  After I finish wiping my tears and maybe having a nap.

Wishes

I had something lighthearted all written up to post today, I was just going to give it some last minute editing and then schlep it onto the blog.

But something else found its way to my heart to be blogged about today, I'm sure that happens to all of us from time to time.

Sometimes as a parent I feel confident that I know what I'm doing.  I know my kids, I get what it is they need from me, and for the most part I feel like I am doing a good job providing it.  The divorce is hard, on all of us.  I am confident this is the right step, for lots of reasons.  We've had lots of therapy with the kids and had assurances from the professionals, the people who are supposed to know what they're doing, that we are handling this in the best way possible, putting our kids needs first insomuch as that is possible, and providing them with much love and assurance to help them feel secure. 

I know, from talking to other parents, to professionals and through what I've read, that even when kids really understand that there are valid reasons for their parents to split up, even when they readily admit that they like living without the fighting, at heart they still always wish for their parents to reconcile, to have their family in one piece again.  And even though I understand this, intellectually, emotionally - its still extremely painful to be reminded that the decisions we make as parents have deep and unavoidable consequences for our children.

In addition to really enjoying writing stories, my daughter likes to make lists.  She makes lists of her friends, of her animals, her family members.   I don't know if it is a self-comforting method or just a way of understanding the framework of her life.  As I was putting clean clothes away in her room, I found this, her latest list.

 
 

The first three things are sad enough.  AT 8 my daughter already wants to be popular, and as a child with behavior issues, that's going to be difficult for her.  But the fourth?  I felt my heart sink to the ground and shatter. 

I know she needs to be able to say these things, and I'm not going to ever tell her that she can't wish for her mom and dad to be together.  But its hard knowing that I can't make her wishes come true.   Even though I believe that I am doing the right thing, reading her words makes me wish I had the ability to change history, erase time, start over again and do things differently.  And I just. cant.

Its that moment of I'm trying to do what I know is right for me and by doing it I'm hurting my kids.

Mommy doesn't do blood

Cuts, scrapes, stubbed toes - these I can handle.  I handle them well, in fact.  I am the Empress of Band-aids.  In my house, Band-Aids are the placebo for everything that goes wrong.  I mop up the blood, apply a little sticky-backed patch of Doctor Mommy Goodness and off they scamper, back outside to bust something else.  This blood is no problem.

All mommies are Superwoman.  And with few exceptions, all mommies have their kryptonite.

Mine?

Needles.

I am squirming in my seat just typing the damn word.  Needles give me heebie-jeebies of EPIC proportions.  But only medical needles.  Not tattoo needles.  Not sewing needles.  Just the kind of needles that the doctor or dentist uses to put UNDER YOUR SKIN or IN YOUR VEINS.  Omigod, I almost just passed out.

It started at a very tender age.  My childhood pediatrician hated me.  Poor Dr. Tucker, if I so much as thoughtI was going to get a shot or have my finger poked for blood, it took five people to hold me down.  By the time I was in my twenties, I had to caution every doctor I had to put me horizontal for bloodwork.  More than one doctor or phlebotomist insisted "Oh, no, its just a little draw, you'll be fine."  They found out the hard way that I was going horizontal, one way or the other.  Involuntarily works just as well, folks, except you risk injuring your patient.  I've fallen off more than one exam table.  Once I tried to donate blood, because my fireman father - who, incidentally has some kind of kooky award from the blood bank for donating something like 1,000 gallons in his lifetime - insisted that I was not a true American or a patriot or even a human being if I didn't donate blood.  So I donated once when the building I worked in was doing a blood drive.  I made it all the way through the procedure, then passed out in the elevator on the way back to my office, scaring the shit out of some poor man who was riding with me.  He thought I'd died.  (Dude, my fingers are going numb right now.  I can't even THINK about that day without my eyesight fading to black)

I thought pregnancy would cure me of my aversion.  Remarkably, for both of my pregnancies, I did OK with the blood draws and the IV's.  Anything for the baby, I supposed.  But the postpartum surgery I had after A was born quickly proved that my pregnancy-induced-tolerance was only a temporary phenomenon.  Remember how I posted a little bit ago about how its not really funny if the doctor gives you too many stitches in your perineal tear?  Yeah.  So I had to have surgery to correct that.  So I could, you know, GET LAID AGAIN SOMETIME IN MY LIFE.  And I went in, got all dressed for the prom in my open-backed butt-hanging-out hospital gown, reclined on the preop bed, and promptly passed out when they put in my IV.   Oh how I miss the days when anesthesia just meant they put a big mask on your face, you breathed in a few times, and you went down for a nice long nap.  No.  Now they want to stick needles in you.  JUST MY LUCK.

So the whole point of this post, the reason I'm telling you all about how big, tough, me is a total weenie when it comes to needles and blood, is that C had to have a blood test.  My secret, shameful parenting fail is that neither of my children has had basic bloodwork done.  EVER.  I can't do it.  I can't take them.  But C needed to have some blood tests done - long story short, it is likely that C has a double-gene mutation that, if he has it, would cause his body not only to not uptake Folic Acid but also not to process it into the end product that the body needs.  This condition also has some indications for people with anxiety disorders.  For those who take meds for their anxiety disorder, it can cause the meds to make them very nauseated, and mostly rendered them ineffective.   My poor little C has pretty bad anxiety disorder - likely genetic.  He's been having a very hard time lately.  Our pediatrician doesn't think he's going to survive kindergarten very well in his current state, and I concur.  So we want to try some low-level medication to see if he has good results.  Except if he has the gene mutation, medication won't really help.  So he needed a blood test to help find out if that's the case.

I just couldn't.  Could. Not. 

All the credit for getting that done goes to his dad.  And when he called me to let me know it had been done, I almost passed out in my chair as he described the event.  (I think he did it on purpose.  There has to be some way to get me back for the Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts that was our marriage). 

I won't be able to look at the band-aid on his arm without my knees going week and my stomach doing a little flip.  That's how bad I am.

My name is Mary and I'm a Weenie.