Trials, Tribulations and Great Sorrow

This last week has been a very difficult time. One of my daughters, at fifteen, thinks that she is ready for this world and all that it has to offer. I am a strict parent. I am the first to admit it. I also know that sometimes I am too strict and that, just like when you get nervous riding a horse and hold the reins drawn in too tightly, you can cause an explosion of anger that can damage yourself and everyone around you. She struggles with self-esteem. Over the last year her father has all but walked out of their lives (she has a twin sister) in lieu of what his new girlfriend wants. She suffers from fairly well controlled ADHD, and responsibility has never been her strong suit. It is a daily challenge, but we make it through and in the end I know she will be okay. She made a big mistake. She fell for the super cute boy. The super cute boy asked for pictures. She obliged. I recently had to contact the super cute boy and explain to him the laws on child pornography and the distribution of such pornography and that some parents have access to complete text logs. The pictures have been deleted, and removed, from all known sources. There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that I can do beyond that to take them from the unknown sources. Hopefully this won’t come back to haunt her later. She, of course, lost every privilege known to a teenager. I didn’t yell at her, even though I had to bite my tongue and dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from doing so. I spoke to her calmly, quietly. She had no answers to the biggest question that I had. Why?

I spent most of the week walking on eggshells around her, until on when Thursday I decided that I couldn’t keep doing it. I couldn’t tiptoe around it anymore. I was in constant contact with her school counselor (she has regular sessions with her) all week and slowly felt that the entire event was shifting to a place that I think will neither help, nor teach my daughter a lesson. She acted inappropriately. She behaved irresponsibly. There are consequences to every choice, good or bad. She started playing the victim. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am her mom and I hate seeing her hurt, seeing her cry, seeing the utter humiliation on her face when she realized what was happening, but I also know that if we step in front of every consequence, if we help her make excuses for her choices and back off on other rules because she is just “so bummed out” then we are not, ultimately, helping her at all. It breaks my heart. Tiny little pieces, everywhere. She is that boy’s victim, I understand that and believe me, I am angry at the boy, angry enough to consider driving over to his house and making it clear that I am not afraid of going to prison (not really, prison would terrify me but he doesn’t know that). I am angry because he “talked” her into it. I am angry at her. I am angry at myself for not realizing that that is what he was doing and that my daughter, who craves attention, would fall right into the most classic trap of teenage boys out there.

She is pushing me. She is asking to do things, like drive the car, when I have already stated that she must have all C’s or better to get behind the wheel and she currently has  a D. She knows this rule. But she is trying to turn this rule into something that doesn’t matter in lieu of the terrible things that have happened. Yes, it was terrible that he shared those pictures. But he shouldn’t have had them to share. I blame her, I blame me. I question my choices, my parenting style, everything.

On Friday my mother called me from Arizona. You see, my aunt passed away in July after a long battle with lung cancer. She was an amazing woman. My amazing uncle stayed by her side and took care of every aspect of her care. They had been friends from childhood and their love was truly amazing. My uncle passed away on Friday. His heart gave out while he was vacationing in a foreign country. We are working with the embassy to bring him home. We don’t know when that will be. We don’t know how long it will take or what the procedure is. It is a process. The loss that our family feels has shaken us all. Our only consolation is that theirs was a great love and he seemed so lost without her. Now they are together again. When I spoke to my father on the phone he was so broken, so hurt. His family consisted of his father and mother and his big brother. He lost his father when I was an infant, his mother in 2010, his brother’s wife 7 months ago and now his big brother. His entire immediate family is gone. I can only be there, listen, and hope that a man as stubborn and hard loving as my beloved father will be able to work through his grief, again.

On Friday night my daughter challenged me. I had spent the afternoon crying, crying for my uncle, my aunt, my dad, crying for my cousins because they lost both parents so quickly. Crying for myself. We are a close family. We always have been. With that comes the deep sorrow of losing someone close to you when others might not understand your pain. I had finally stopped crying and we were watching TV and I was joking around with her sister about her phone and she said, “Shut up, you’re being annoying.” I was baffled. We don’t talk like this in our home. It is rude, disrespectful and I know my mouth dropped open. My day had been rough already. She was already in trouble for sending pictures out. I lost it. I yelled, I ranted, I went on and on and she went stomping back to her room. I followed her. I calmed in mid-hallway but the challenge had been issued and I decided that it was time to make her face up to her actions.

I told her that she wasn’t allowed to speak that way in our home, and that she was going to start being respectful of those around her, including her siblings. She screamed about NOT being respected, I calmly explained that it is earned and it is not something that is just passed out because you share a gene pool. She screamed that she hated me. I told her that was okay, because I loved her. She screamed that she wanted me to send her away. I told her no, I wasn’t going to do that. I explained that the only “away” that there was was to her father’s house and she immediately screamed that she didn’t want to be there, that I should send her to a boarding school, just anywhere that she never had to see me again. She screamed that she would go to the school counselor and tell them she wanted to be put into the foster system. I asked her on what grounds she thought they would even begin to consider that. She had no answer and it made her even madder. I didn’t back down. She told me to get out of her room. I remained in her doorway, the whole time with my heart just crumbling at her cruel words and keeping it together because she probably really needed to scream just out of sheer frustration. I told her that I loved her, and that she needed to start talking to me, that she needed to stop blaming those around her for her actions, and that just because she was hurting that it didn’t make it right to hurt those around her. I asked her why she was so angry at me. She had no answer. I asked her if I had yelled at her, up until this point, at all about what she had done. She said no. She started to calm and admitted that she was just mad about it all.

We fell on the topic of the pictures. She covered her ears and screamed over and over that she didn’t want to talk about it. I continued talking to her in a calm voice, I told her that if she was old enough to “do those things” then she was old enough to sit and talk about them and the consequences. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she dropped her hands and looked up at with me and said, “I can’t tell you because I can’t trust you.” I was shocked. I asked her why. She paused. She said she didn’t have a reason, that it was only because she knew I wouldn’t approve and she would get in trouble. I explained that this was different than “trust” and that she knew that. She admitted that she did know that. She said she had done horrible things (it turns out they weren’t so horrible after all, but when your kids say they have done “horrible” things your heart falls all the way to your feet.)

I told her that if she talked to me we could find a way to work through her emotions. She said, “I know what I did was wrong, I knew when I was doing it that I was wrong, I know it, I know it! I don’t know why I did it. I like the compliments and now I can’t stand to think about it! I can’t sleep! I can’t think about it, I can’t talk about it, I can’t, I can’t!!!!!” She  was sobbing. I don’t know if we had reached a good point or bad point. My only degree when it comes to psychology is “BeingAMom101” and I am not sure I am ready to graduate. What I did know is that she was admitting that she knew she was wrong, and she was showing remorse over her actions, finally. I don’t want her to feel badly, but I knew she had to accept her mistake for what it was. A HUGE mistake, and that most mistakes can be fixed.  I told her that I understood. I know how it is to dwell on something awful, to have it haunt your dreams, chase you through your nights until you will do anything you can just to not think about it. I told her that we would take her to a different therapist, out of the school system, and that we would work through it, help her gain some self-esteem, help her learn to deal with and move on from mistakes that can’t be corrected. I told her that I would go too, and we would find our way through this together, as a family. She settled, finally. I was exhausted. We hugged, said our “I love you’s” and parted for the night.

I went to bed exhausted. I spent my fourth night in a row crying instead of sleeping. How I can I teach my daughter about acceptance and moving through things if I sit there and worry about her all night? That is hardly leading by example. It is a different thing, yes, I know. I just don’t know how to help my lost girl. I don’t know how to bring her back to us and to make her see how beautiful she is. I tell her all the time, but its not me she wants to hear it from and I can’t give her what the world isn’t offering.

Today I sit here, sick, probably because I haven’t been sleeping. I need to focus on homework.  I have an exam to take. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow, but there is nobody else to work for me. I want to sleep, just sleep and rest my exhausted brain and my aching heart. I want to burn my college books (but I won’t because they are expensive and I am broke) and I want to go back in time and make a Skype call to my uncle to tell him I love him. I know he knows that. I can FEEL that he knows that.  I sent him, not so long ago, a private message on Facebook and told him I loved him, and he said, “I love you too, sweetie.”  I can hear his voice saying that right now, in my head, because he always called me “sweetie.” I can hear my aunt’s laughter, she always helped me through things. I need her right now. I want to talk to her so much.

Like an idiot I didn’t save the message from my uncle and I dearly, desperately want it back… just to have, to maybe put on the back of a picture my aunt and uncle together. Something. I am sentimental like that. I want to ask God why he is pushing me so hard. I feel guilty because of my shaken faith. I feel badly because I feel like I have must have made huge mistakes with my daughter for her to want male attention so badly.

I feel like I am swimming along but sinking little by little and every once in awhile I get a foot hold and am able to pull myself up again long enough to regroup. I really wish I could get to shore, just for awhile.  I am just so tired. I am tired of being awake at night. I am tired of the tears that keep coming, they are falling even now, as I dump my emotions into this blog. Now I must wipe them off, go pick my daughter up from work, and make my way through an exam somehow. Stand up straight, soldier, you have work to do….

Student Drivers – Someone save me!

Student Drivers

My twin fifteen year old daughters recently reached a major goal in their life, one that brings me daily terror. They both received their learner’s permits and the driver’s seat of my van has become a position of great debate.

Taylor drives like her great grandma did in her 80’s. Seriously. I think we were once lapped by a wagon train. Now, I can’t disregard the idea that she is being extremely cautious and careful. I appreciate her slow pace. However, she clings to the steering wheel so tightly that she has white knuckles, her anxiety seems to transfer into me, even as I calmly give her instructions. Let me tell you, there is NO calm within me. Inside myself I am clinging to the “oh shit” handle on the passenger side and closing my eyes to avoid seeing my imminent death. She goes from being so close to the center line that I think we are surely going to collide with another vehicle and when I calmly remind her that she is going to kill us in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 she will swerve away from the center line and catch the shoulder of the road, causing me to press my hands against the passenger window in an attempt to physically push us away from the ditch. It doesn’t work. Not even a little bit. Somehow I eventually get her in the middle of her lane and have considered how long it would take me to walk home.

Madison is another story. She has always been my cautious one. I didn’t expect her to have driving qualities that could quite possibly place her as a Nascar driver. There is no such thing as slow. Why would we go slow? We want to get somewhere, right? Step on it. She drives smoothly, but she does crazy things like accelerating as she approaches a stop sign and then testing my brakes to see how well they work. She should do well in the “quick stop” part of the behind the wheel exam. My brakes now squeak. Not only does she think she is a good driver already, but she actually thinks that it is possible to listen to music AND drive. Yeah right. She even thinks about touching the volume button on the radio and I will rip the thing from the dash and throw it out the window. What difference does it make, we are going too fast to have time to listen anyway. I have also discovered that she has no sense of direction. Not even a little. She has been riding around with me for over 15 years and she still can’t find her way around town.

Honestly, I am not sure that either side of this is more desirable. They are both improving with their driving skills and my internal voice doesn’t scream quite as often. I don’t know if it is because she has lost her voice or if she has grown immune to near death experiences.

I decided that all teenagers that are learning to drive should have a “student driver” sign on their car, whether they are with a trained instructor or a terrified parent. This warns those around us that it may not be safe at any given moment and also gets the road raged psychopaths from riding their bumper. My daughters did not appreciate my sense of humor when I took the marker to the back window of my mommyvan. I was in a hurry so it isn’t pretty, but I think it works.

Truancy, kittens in heaven, and one shoe…. Oh my!

Today was… there are no specific words…. I guess… It could be described as any of the following:  rushed, sad, happy, crazy, hilarious, interesting, hurried, weird, upsetting, pleasing, and pretty much any other word.

It actually started yesterday when I got home from work and got the mail. There was a letter from the school saying that my daughter, Taylor, had missed eleven hours of unexcused school and that if she missed three more hours she would be charged with truancy. First off, I would never tolerate any of my children to miss school without good reason, and let’s just say that if I caught them skipping class that being in trouble for truancy would be the least of their concerns. At any rate, I became immediately upset with Taylor and jumped on her about it. She started to cry and stated that she hadn’t skipped, and she stuck to it. I was convinced of her innocence, so I reviewed the dates and learned that they all were times (all two days) when I had pulled her out of school for dental work, and once for a medication review. I normally try to schedule these for after school but we live in a small town and would lose the only open time just in driving time. At any rate, she had not skipped class and I offered her my apologies for doubting her.  In fact, I had called the school and picked her up myself, and had returned her myself on each occasion.

I then drove my girls to their place of employment only to find that they had once again lost Taylor’s paystub. Her checks get direct deposited, but hours get missed at times there and it is good to review. Always. For the second time in the last week they hadn’t bothered to print it. I has also needed some other forms filled out regarding their income and the payroll department had failed to complete the forms. I was upset, and made a call… of course, I got a voicemail. I left a long one.

When we got back we found that our poor little mama cat had lost her kittens sometime while we were at work. I had taken to helping her feed them and warming them up because she didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. She is pretty young and it was her first litter. I had prepared my daughters for this, having worked with a veterinarian for many years, and had explained that sometimes young mother cats (and some old ones) weren’t so good with the mommy business. I had placed a heater near their bed and had been supplementing their feeding, although she was feeding them some, but she must have abandoned them while we were gone and they did not survive. It was a sad thing. Even more upsetting is that between the time we discovered their unfortunate passing and went to find a box she took the babies and hid them. We went through everything. Bed frames, closets, clothes, blankets, drawers, we searched for nearly three hours and finally decided that we would try again today. Jacob informed me quite confidently that we would NOT find the babies because they had gone to heaven. Well put little man.

Madison was sick this morning, Taylor missed the school bus and came running up to my bedroom. I jumped out of bed and raced her to the next stop for the bus and got her dropped off. Then I hurried back home and found an upset Madison. She had awakened to Bella pushing on her face with her nose and crying. She opened her eyes and our dear little Bella had brought two of her babies to her and kept nudging them close to Madison, obviously upset and wanting Maddy to make it better. It was heartbreaking.  Maddy was upset, both about the loss of the kittens, and then again to waking up with dead kittens in her bed. Not a great start to our day.

I made the day even more interesting by emailing their principal with a keyboard full of anger over the notice I had received regarding my daughter. I carbon copied it to her teacher and was soon greeted with a phone call and an apology. Well that was better.  I then called and made a doctors appointment for Madison (she was not feeling well and had experienced an allergic reaction to her new medication earlier this week and really needed to be seen again.) We got in the car and got about half way to Jacob’s daycare and I got a text from Taylor. I have never been so baffled by a text in my life.

“Can you bring me shoes plz, don’t get mad I am already crying? I think I accidentally left it somewhere, maybe in the car.” (She knows I hate when they use abbreviations like plz, but I didn’t comment on it this time.)

I had no answer for her for several minutes. How does one lose a shoe on the way to school? I decided NOT to ask her. I responded that there was not a shoe in the car but I would go home and get her another pair. So, we turned around and went back to get her shoes. By this time we were running late. They are repaving the road into town so we ended up spending an extra thirty minutes going back for shoes and waiting for the pilot car to get us through the construction zone, again. Maddy was going to be late for her doctor’s appointment so I called and they pushed it back fifteen minutes. I would never be able to get Jake to daycare at this point and still get her to town on time so I skipped dropping him off and brought him with us. We got to the school where a crying Taylor came out for her shoes. A girl in school had noticed her bare feet and had made fun of her in front of the class and she was upset. Maddy was the one that got her to stop crying and laugh when she said, “Well, hey it could be worse. At least you didn’t sleep with dead kittens!” Of course, we are very sad about the kittens, and she didn’t actually sleep with them, but her words distracted Taylor and she took her shoes, dried her eyes and went back to school. We were late for Maddy’s doctors appointment.

Jacob was a treat at the doctor’s office. He is normally a good little boy, today… not so much. He was in a mood. He wanted a surgical glove to blow up into a balloon. He wanted to check his blood pressure. He wanted a sucker. He did NOT want to sit still. When I would put him back in his seat he would yell and kick and scream. Honestly I am not much of a believer in spanking but I was definitely tempted, especially when he grabbed my hair and yanked, which caught on my earring and sent it flipping across the floor. Eventually I got him to sit still without paddling his butt and he settled in. Once he realized that I was going to ignore his tantrum no matter how embarrassed I was he gave up and behaved. Thank goodness. We got Maddy situated. The low fuel light came on on my car and we sputtered our way away from the doctor’s office and  into the gas station on what I can only think were fumes…. I was now late for work.

I showed up at work, Maddy and Jacob in tow, and attempted to do billing statements and answer the phone. It didn’t go super well but eventually Maddy chipped in and we got it done. Thankfully I work in a small office with my family so having the kids there, while not preferred ALL of the time, is allowed on such occasions.

Taylor had to be at work at 4pm. She got out of school at 3:20. I got caught again in road construction and it was almost an hour to make just that fifteen minute drive home. She was late for work.

I am now home. I am sitting here blogging in order to relax for a few minutes, and so that I can one day look back at this entry and shake my head. In a few moments I am going to ransack my house, again, to find the other two kittens. Thankfully I am looking back on this day (this week, really) and chuckling to myself.

I have no doubt that you are as disgusted as I am about the lost kittens and I am completely baffled that I can’t find them. My house tends to be pretty orderly so I just can’t figure out where they are. Maybe she really did do the nature thing and consume them. I don’t know. Either way the thought of them being lost somewhere in my house unfound is, well, disgusting, and so sad. We have prepared a special little box and tears will be shed when we bury them later this evening. We did try to help the momma as much as possible and maybe we should have taken them from her and cared for them on our own, but I am a believer in natural instinct and nature taking it’s course. I couldn’t help assisting to a degree, especially when she was obviously upset during the last few days and meowing until we would come sit at her side.

Every day brings a new adventure when you have a four year old son with a superhero obsession, a daughter with migraines and working out her medication,  and a daughter that is absent minded enough to actually LOSE a shoe on her way to school. I dislike drama. A lot. Usually things go pretty smoothly in my home, because we run a pretty tight schedule. Every once in awhile I drop one of the balls that I have juggling in the air and they come tumbling down. I think, today, I dropped them all. However, I have now made a good start on collecting them and am in a surprisingly good mood.

Excuse me while I go follow the mommy kitty around to see where she might go.