Tina's Daily Blog: Weird - Sad - Funny

Monday, August 20, 2007

Weird - Sad - Funny - Loving

Wow... What a day! I'm at work, trying to gather my thoughts and writing them down to blog to you later about... Where shall I start?

I know, I have so much going through my head today I think I'm going to title this blog "Weird, Sad, Funny and Loving"... Then give you a bit of everything going through my mind.

First, the weird part I guess. My boss is out this afternoon. I work in an office where I am alone most of the time if one of my two bosses isn't in. I was at home at lunch, trying to think about how I was going to get everything done that needed to be done tonight actually DONE in time. The 'work' part while I'm working is fine... I move very fast and multi-task. Additionally the phone doesn't ring much when the guys aren't in.

I get out of work at 5. There's the dinner I have to make, and I can't rush that unless I started a crock-pot meal - which I didn't. Jonathan has piano lessons at 5:30 and that gives me from 6 to 6:45 to make dinner for all four of my first-day-of-high-schoolers, because at 6:45 I have to go to bible study. When I get out of bible study at 9 tonight, it'll be the "yell-fest" as I try to get them all to listen to me and go to bed before 9:30. Oh, and since I - the anti-morning person - have to get up at 5:30 with them -- I need to get to bed as well. Sigh...

Needless to say, all of this is pretty normal for me which is why I am such a great multi-task person. So... I'm trying to think of how I can multi-task and get things done. As I'm thinking, I notice... err... I feel the hair on my legs rubbing against my jeans. Yeah, I need a shave THAT bad. That's when multi-tasking came to mind! No bosses, nobody in the office but me, we HAVE a bathroom with a little sink here... "I KNOW!" I thought to myself.... "I'll shave my legs at work!" What the heck... Nobody is here, right? Yeah, I know... I'm weird! But I'm weird with clean shaven legs! Ha ha ha ha.

The sad part of my blog today is how very sad I was this morning as I took all the kids to the bus stop. I was up at 5:30 with them, orchestrated the chaos that can only be understood if you've seen four teenagers trying to get ready at the same time. But we managed; I got them all up and out the door by 6:30 and I followed behind them as they went to their bus stop. (Not too closely, I didn't want them to look 'un-cool', ya know?)

I wanted to see Jonathan, my baby, get on his first bus for high school.

The flood of memories that washed over me was almost uncontrollable. I remembered Amanda's first day of elementary school, little lunch box in tote. Jonathan's first day looking SO cute with his bright blond hair. Amanda's first day of Junior High with her little leopard outfit looking entirely too old for middle school, yet cute and utterly adorable at the same time.

Oh, the memories..... And I thought... What memories do I have to look forward to from this moment on? No more 'first day of a new school' memories... Unless he goes to college. No more cute memories or cute first time sorts of things... From here on out all the firsts are things like driving -- don't even GET me started on my memories of Amanda and her driving experience! OIE!!

No... All the memories are going to be young-adult kind of memories.

My mind flashed to Jonathan's bedroom this morning... Clothes tossed around the room like a messy teenager, but Simba - his life-long stuffed animal friend was sitting neatly at the foot of his bed. Surely Simba isn't going to make it much longer, is he? And my mind flashes to Pretty in my closet. Pretty was my stuffed animal as a child... A yellow elephant. He went through everything with me, even the fire when Julie set my bedroom on fire - we washed him and all the smoke eventually came off. I still kept Pretty... Maybe Jonathan will keep Simba? Maybe there will be childhood memories that will leak over into his adult life. Sigh. I sure hope so.

But as I watched him interact with all the other high schoolers, my heart broke, because I knew that the days of his childhood memory-making days were gone. But don't get me wrong.... It's not that I don't know that there are going to be GREAT memories from here on out... I'm experiencing them now with Amanda who is now 21. Heck, one month from today she'll be a married woman! But... Those kinds of memories just............ feel different. I don't know why -- they just do.

And - I suppose - in a strange kind of way - I'm mourning the loss of childhood memories. Gosh... So sad right now even thinking about it.

Let me move on with the funny I was going to share with you. You know how I like to share stories of past things that have happened to us. This is my memory of Amanda's first day of high school.

Chris and I graduated from Robinson High School (RHS) together in 1986. Two weeks later Amanda was born. In 2000 Amanda was set to start her first day of high school, at OUR Alma Mater... RHS! We knew everything about RHS, including the rules on the "senior parking lot", you know... The spot where you park only if you are a Senior?! Amanda wanted to be dropped off in front of the school, but Chris told her that he know of a better place to be dropped off... And he took her to the senior parking lot. Of course, he failed to mention to Amanda what the parking lot was, she just thought it was another spot to drop off the kids.

Chris looked horrible. It was early morning, he hadn't shaved yet, his clothes looked like he slept in them (probably because he did), hair all scraggly and sticking up... He just looked a mess. I'm quite sure Amanda was just as happy to not have to get out of the car in front of the school with all the other sophomores that she knew.

Chris dropped her off, and asked her to give him a kiss goodbye. Of course, Amanda refused saying something about not kissing your daddy in public now that she was a high-school girl. That was a mistake on Amanda's part. :o)

Chris allowed her to get out of the car and Amanda began to walk away very quickly, trying her best to be invisible I'm sure. With that, Chris gets out of the car, stands up on the inside of the door jam to the car and in his best 'retarded' voice screams.... "Amanda! Come give your daddy a kiss! Amanda!! Amanda Rhodes!! Come give daddy a kiss!!" Needless to say, she ran like hell.

Poor thing.

But... It is something we can laugh about now. Actually, we could even laugh about it shortly thereafter because it was SO over-the-top that it was hysterical. Of course, Amanda shares my sense of humor, so... You know she thought it was funny!

What was my last thought of this blog? Oh yes, loving.

This morning, after Chris read my blog, he decided to pray with me. Wow... That was really -- I don't know how to describe it if you've never prayed with someone you love for 'daily' kind of things (not something huge or massive I mean). Just day to day "dear Lord please bless us" kind of prayers. It was just... Good.

It caught me off guard because I had laid back down after the kids went to school, and Chris had just come in from his men's small group meeting. We were laying, cuddling, and I said "ready?" as in... Ready to get up? And he just ........ started praying. When he was done, he asked if I wanted to add anything to it, and I did all I could at the time, I added "AMEN". Wow... It was quite a spiritual time for us. Thanks for that Chris. I love you baby.

And I suppose that is it for now. I've got to go pick up Jonathan who is at piano class, then get dinner started before heading over to bible study. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers this week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I'm still laughing. Those were the days. I remember Chris' first day of school. Doug and Chris were at the bus stop and Doug was telling him what A big boy he was . Chris proceeded to tell his dad that he knew he was A big boy, because he had hair on his arms. As the bus pulled up and swallowed my baby, Jane and I jumped into my car and followed the bus ( on it's route) through the back" never world," on dirt roads. Jane said"" Do you think the children know we are back here? " I start to cry and said They are to little to even look out the window. We held hands as the bus findly pulled up at the school. I wanted to get my little boy and take him home and dare Doug to tell me Chris must go to school. As the children departed the bus, we saw Chris helping Holly ( Jane's daughter) from the bus and helping her find their class room. It was then that I knew my baby was on his road to becoming the man He is today. Tina is His wife and they gave us two wonderful grandchildren. Jonathan and Amanda. I'm so proud of their little family. They now have three more sweet chrildren whom I adore. Kayla, my Godson Justin, and little Kayte. I am and for ever more will be NANA to them as well. World, you can use this family as an example of how A family should live . Go Chris and Tina. My prayers have all been answered for Chris to have A family like the one I had growing up.I have three brothers and two sisters.He will never be alone.God continue to bless them every day. Children, go to bed and mind Tina. My eyes are on you. Papa and I are apart of the village to raise you chrildren. Tina Jim and I are here when you need us. Slow down and find a place that you can just rest . We are so proud of you. God bless. NANA; 9:58 PM
Anonymous said...: When I read your blog tonight, I thought back to when you and your sisters were that age. Yes it is a sad thing to see it go, but you know what Tina, it gets better. Right now you can't see it, but fast forward 10 years and vola - grandchildren w/no responsibilities.... It's the greatest and the most rewarding thing in the world. To see these little one's that have come from your children, is awesome. So hang in there, and maybe not to far into the future you will be blessed w/grandchildren and then the fun begins..
Love,
Mom; 10:09 PM

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In A Nutshell:

Here is a letter I sent to Dr. Phil which really sums everything up:
I am married to my high-school sweetheart (20 years this August), with two wonderful children (Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13). I have two sisters, both younger – I call them “my good sister” and “my bad sister”. My good sister is – well, good! Normal in every way. The bad one, Julie, has been in trouble since she was a kid. As a baby she cried all of the time. As a teenager she was in trouble all of the time. At the age of 14 or so I remember that she had run away from home to live with a grown man in Atlanta. This was one of many run a ways. As a teenager, she provided sexual favors to boys in school, as well as teachers. As a young adult she was arrested for prostitution. She’s done drugs ranging from marijuana to crack. She was diagnosed early on as bi-polar with personality disorder. She’s also a serious cutter to the point where she no longer hid the cuts. She’s cut things like “Ronald Cecchinni” into her arm… and “Fuck you Dr. XXX” on her stomach, in large letters. Julie is also a diagnosed sex-addict. She’s also recently (in the past year) begun ‘huffing’. (I honestly believe that this huffing has caused some permanent damage) She is currently 36yo.
Julie lost her husband Ron a year and a half ago as a result of Leukemia and Kidney Disease which the military attributed to his serving in the Gulf War. He left behind three children – Kayla who is now 15, Justin who is now 14 and Kayte who is now 13. Even when Julie was married, her psychiatric problems persisted. She has been hospitalized literally hundreds of times over the years. However, when her husband was alive, he would take care of the kids when Julie was mentally out of control. After Ron died, Julie lost control of the kids and her life. She began to spiral out of control, having pot parties at her home (to the point where the kids said a door would open and a cloud of smoke would come bellowing out of the room), smoking weed with her own kids, having sex all over the house with different men all the time, allowing young men (19 yo) to sleep over with her oldest daughter (only 14 at the time), and allowing Gang members to live in her home (she said she felt ‘safe’ with them there). In addition, she was attempting suicide daily, overdosing on medications hoping to not wake up the next morning. Mind you all of this while she was seeing her Psychologist every week and Psychiatrist once a month. Both of these Doctors knew what was going on at home, neither of them reported it to the proper authorities. I have even been told by one of them that he was told, by Julie, that she ‘heard voices telling her to hurt the children’ but that she was proud that she could ignore the voices. Still, these Doctors reported nothing.
I should add here that it was at some point in this period of time in Julie’s life when her children began suicide watches over their mom… each one taking turns to sit in a room with her at all hours (night and day) because their mom was less-likely to hurt herself while they were here. However, it didn’t always work – Julie constantly took pills in front of them trying to either dope herself up or overdose, and she would even cut herself in front of the kids.
Finally one day, she woke up furious that her last suicide attempt didn’t work. She got violent with her oldest daughter, police were called, and finally DCF was called. (I would like to add that we (other family members) had called DCF in the past to report things, but some of the cases were ‘unfounded’ and one other time the fled the state knowing CF only had jurisdiction in Florida.) DCF removed the children from the home in November 2005 and I gained custody of the Children shortly thereafter.
There are lots of things I could add here about my sister, DCF, and the horrible Foster Care or Custodial Care program we are involved with. However, that is not my main reason for writing to you.
Kayte, the youngest, seems to be adjusting pretty well. She has a tendency to trivialize what her mom has done and the seriousness of it, but I think that is normal given that it is her mom. Kayte was in counseling, but she feels it’s ‘a waste of time’.
Justin, the middle child, is okay. As a young boy I'm told he was a terror. He used to hit his mother and at one point (only 6yo) tried to jump off a building to kill himself. Since then, his anger has turned in to an endless smothering of love and caring. He does everything for his mom… from getting her whatever she needs to rubbing her feet and back. Justin has seen a psychiatrist since moving in with me who felt that his issues were brought on by trauma. It was also at that visit with the psychiatrist that he confided in myself and the Doctor that he had suicidal thoughts often while living at home with his mom in her ‘state of being’ after his dad died. However, since he moved in with me he has done so much better (and continues to improve daily) that she didn’t feel he even needed counseling at this time. He would, however, need counseling before he was reunited with his mom.
Kayla, the oldest, has serious issues. She is also currently in counseling but feels that it is ‘a waste of time’. Kayla has always lied and stolen things. Family members feel sorry for her because you can tell that she doesn’t really mean any ill will by it, but it’s been ‘the way she is’ for a very long time. By far her biggest problems are lying and her need for approval by men (young and old).
Since the kids have moved in with us, my husband and I have set up rules. The kids already had myspace accounts, so we set ground rules for it. 1) We needed the login names and passwords. 2) Profiles must be set to private. 3) The only people they were allowed to have on their friends list was people that they actually knew. When Kayla’s list climbed over 300, and she was found to have inappropriate conversations (wanting to sneak out and ‘hook up’ with young men), we made everyone cut their list down to 30 friends, which included myself. 4) All vulgar language and inappropriate photos would come off immediately and would be monitored by myself at any given time. At times, they try to put up ‘sexy’ pictures which immediately need to come down.
However recently I have found that she has multiple website things going on in an attempt to pick up young men. I'll outline a few here so that you understand the gravity of the situation: 1) I found her 'normal' myspace account set to 'public view'. She has over 11,000 profile views(meaning people looking at her pictures and wanting to know more about her). I had reset it to private many times, but she keeps going back and resetting it to public. 2) I have found another myspace account which she went by the name 'Shannon' and used it to pick up young men, tease them, then later tell them that she was 'taken' but refer them to her 'cousin, Kayla'. She'd then give them all of Kayla's information. Of course thiswas also set to public. 3) I have found another social network website that was like myspace in which she had ONLY men (mostly from other states) as her 'friends' whom she corresponded with. The emails back and forth basically said the same thing as all of the others... more on that in #4 - only these were guys that not only did she not know, but they were not even in the area! 4) All accounts that I have found had basically the same thing... her emailing guys wanting to know if she was pretty, if they wanted to 'hook up', talking about going to their 'crib' or meeting up with them somewhere, and constantly seeking approval and affirmation from these guys.
I believe she gets this from her mom. And the sad thing is, if you met her, you would love her. She is truly a GREAT kid… but she has serious issues. I’ve described to you Julie’s behavior and Kayla’s seems to be the same way. Neither can make decisions on their own that are ‘the right thing to do’, and both lack the understanding of simple values, morals and ethics. I could go into so many examples. How do I describe the utterly amazing difference between Julie’s parenting style and my own?
I know... Both Julie and I have myspace accounts set up to ‘monitor’ the kids. To illustrate the difference between Julie and myself, here is something that Julie and I both put on our myspace accounts. You are supposed to put something 'about yourself' by your picture. Here is mine: "I'm 38 years old. I have two amazing kids, Amanda who is 20 and Jonathan who is 13. I have great husband, Chris. I love to sing - and have been singing in Toast of Tampa Show Chorus for 10 years. I'm raising my nieces and nephew (12, 13 and 14). I love God and my family."And here is Julie's: "I am who I am and if you dont like me for me........FUCK YOU........ Plus if you dont like me for me....... Im gunna tell my kids and there gunna kick yer ass!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Here’s the other dilemma we are having; the two girls are in counseling that is costing me $25 EACH in co-payments every time they go. The State of Florida provides NO financial support to me as a relative caregiver, other than providing the three kids with Medicaid. They received small SSI checks because of their dad’s death, but it barely covers the food they consume. The DCF worker, having spoke with the girls and being told that therapy is ‘a waste of time’, has referred me to a clinic that DCF uses for cases such as this to seek mental care for Kayla (aswell as the others). However, the kids have TriCare as their primary insurance because their dad died from Military causes. TriCare requires the co-payment, regardless of the Medicaid secondary. Having said that, please understand that I worked in referrals in a primary care physician’s office for 16 years… I totally ‘get’ what is required for primary and secondary insurances and all the red tape. But because of the uniqueness of this situation, the kids are suffering!
I should also point out here that I have the kids for an indefinite period of time. Right now Julie is doing things that she has been told to do to get the kids back. However, she is still awaiting a court ordered detailed Psychiatric exam to determine if she can EVER parent again. Even if that Psychiatrist feels she can parent again, she’ll most likely need to be ‘clean’ and ‘episode-free’ for 6 months to a year minimum. In addition, Julie is only allowed supervised visits and one phone call a day. This came about because of her inappropriate behavior when she was with the kids and because when she was allowed to call any time she’d call 10 + times a day.
The other problem with Julie ever getting her children back is that… she doesn’t understand what she did wrong. She parents as if she were 15-years old herself. If anyone has ever done something bad and been able to ‘keep’ their kids, she sees no reason she can’t do it. She brought her daughter at the age of 13 in for a HUGE tattoo on the small of her back. It’s Tigger flipping ‘the bird’ with her gang name under it. She was also planning on getting a large tattoo on her 12yo before the kids were taken. Again, she sees nothing wrong with any of her past behavior.
So, you see, I could have these children for the rest of their teenage years. I honestly don’t know where to turn to get them the help they need.
I feel as if I am in a psychiatric nightmare and I just can’t wake up. Eight months ago I was at home, my biggest ‘kid worry’ was if my son was going to get good grades on his report card. Now I find myself in a crux worried about whether or not the lessons I teach them, this late in their young life, are going to be enough to turn these kids around and help them to be productive adults in the near future.

Tina's Daily Blog

Monday, August 20, 2007

Weird - Sad - Funny - Loving

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