This child! She is going to give me a heart attack, I swear! She ran away again on Saturday. I was at my friend's house, taking a 2 hour break. I was only gone for 2 hours! She told her dad she was doing laundry, which I had told her to do while I was gone. So it wasn't suspicious that she went downstairs. She wrote a note and bolted. We didn't realize she was gone for about 3 hours. She had made her bed so that it looked like she was still sleeping in it. She had been pouting and sleeping since we brought her home Friday. When I went in there to tell her dinner was ready, I realized she was gone. Dirty and I went back down to the police station and filed ANOTHER runaway report. The officer was very kind and said he wouldn't put her into the computer as a runaway until he checked out her boyfriend's house. We drive around a bit, Dirty dropped me off at home so to make sure Zilla didn't know what was going on and to give my dad an update. Dirty went over to the boyfriend's house and waited for the police instead of running into their house and scaring them away. Nothing, she wasn't there and his mother didn't know where he was either. At this point, we're positive their together, but aren't sure where they could be. We tried to get some sleep and when we woke up we started the whole thing over again. Instead of alerting her friends, I contacted every adult I knew. I told them all that Nae had runaway again and to either call me or the cops if she is seen. I even sent out a mass FB message with her photo attached to anyone that lives in town. I figured the more adults that knew, the better our chances of finding her.
The boyfriend's mom stopped by with Nae's things. She was over there Thursday AND Saturday but the mom didn't know she was a runaway so she didn't think anything of it. After the police talked to her, she went up to his room and found a drawer of Nae's stuff and then went driving around looking for them but didn't find them. She did tell me that they might be hanging out with another boy that drives and gave me his name and description of his vehicle. As soon as she left, I called the police and told them I had new information. Dirty Googled that kid and found his parents' names and address and then got in the car and drove over there. Nobody was home so he talked to a neighbor, told him what was going on and asked him to give our number to the father and have him call us.
On Dirty's way home, he drove by a park and there she was! He blocked her in so she couldn't run and she willingly got into the car. He told the children she was with that Nae was a runaway and if they help her runaway again or hang out with her knowing she had run away, he will sue their parents for custodial interference. Of course, the children don't know the laws and what custodial interference is and that we can't ACTUALLY sue their parents, but whatever keeps Nae out of trouble!
She walked in the door crying and gave me a hug. I bawled like a baby just SO happy to have her back. Then after about 15 minutes I was PISSED! I asked her why she kept doing this and why she thinks her life is so bad that she needs to run away. She didn't have any answers for me. Then I said "there are children out there who get beat and raped by their parents, THOSE kids deserve to run away. There are children who don't know where their next meal is coming from, not just that they want Mac and Cheese instead of chicken enchiladas for dinner. THOSE kids deserve to run away. You have two parents that love and care for you, yet you choose to run away. Hell, I don't even have a mom and you're treating me like shit! This has got to stop! We need to figure out what the hell is going on with you!" Low blow, but she needs to see what this is doing to us. It isn't just about her and how "unfair her life is", she is doing this to ALL of us. She cried harder and kept apologizing, but I just don't know. I do think she was remorseful and I do think she feels bad for making us worry, but I still don't think she gets it. In the end she is still a teenager and thinks everyone is out to get her.
As of right now, she is home. Her attitude has been pleasant the past few days, so that's a plus. She isn't getting much freedoms, well NO freedoms. We gave her the choice to go to school this week to take her finals WITH me tagging along or have us reschedule them for after school where she can be monitored by someone who knows what is going on and myself. She chose the latter of the two.
So we will see, I guess. This is going to be a long road to rebuild but I'm hopeful that we're in the rebuilding process. I still won't give her much room to prove me wrong. I still can't and don't trust her. The trust won't be there for awhile.....
Jun 12, 2012
Jun 9, 2012
Where Did I Go Wrong?
We were happily chugging along in life. There were some trials and quite a few bumps but I felt we did a good job of navigating our family through all of them. I emailed teachers, talked to parents, talked to her, told her our reason for punishment and praised her when she was doing good. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was raising a daughter who would eventually make the right decisions and get back on the right track. There was yelling, but no physical punishment (no matter how much my hand was itching to make contact with her cheek), I knew it would do no good to lay my hands on her. Once the heat of the moment passed, we all took deep breaths and talked as calmly as possible. We wiped the slate clean, the past was the past. We accepted her boyfriend, despite not liking him. We went to bat for her at school and in the courtroom. We didn't make excuses for her actions or her behavior, but we as her parents stepped up to the plate. All this while I'm trying to graduate from college. Have you ever had to schedule a final around your daughter's court date? It isn't easy, I don't recommend it. The shit storm of having a rebellious teenager died down and she was polite, fun to be around, helpful, got her grades back up, and was generally being a NICE person. I actually enjoyed being around her and wanted to spend time with her. We were getting good reports from her teachers, not just about her grades but about her attitude. She was being respectful and kind to her teachers. "We have turned a corner! She is doing so well. That was a shitty year, hopefully Zilla learns from this and won't put us through this." That's what we thought, we were high fiving each other and commending our parenting skills because clearly we rock. Then Thursday June 7 happened. There was a period of 26 hours that I didn't know where my daughter was. My 15 year old daughter was not home, nor did I know where she was when I went to sleep that night.
I filed a runaway report that night, I knocked on her boyfriend's door, I had the police call his mother, I called and sent a text every single one of her friends trying to get ANY information as to where my daughter was. I woke up the next morning and started calling people and schools right away. I was in contact with her boyfriend all day and he told me he didn't know where she was, yet I'm being told by a few different sources that she IS with him. I went back to his house and his older sister tells me she has no idea where my daughter is. I resorted to telling them that she is a missing child at this point and there is an Amber Alert out for her. Yep. I lied to get that damn kid to tell me where my kid was. This whole time, we never heard from the boyfriend's mother. WTF?! Where is she?! Why isn't she answering her door and her phone at 11 PM and if my daughter is in her house, why does she think I would be OK with this?!
Finally at noon, on Friday, I found her. It was pure luck that I did find her, but she was safe. Pissed off at the world, but safe. The officer came and she got cited with a few things, but that really isn't on my top priority list of worries right now. My biggest worry is how do I get through her?! How do I tell her that I am not against her? I am not the enemy here, I am WITH her! I want her happy, I want her to have friends, I want her to do stupid teenage things (not illegal) and have stupid stories to tell when she gets older. I do not want her to run away, nor do I want her to die. I want her safe, healthy and happy, clearly that is too much to ask at the moment.
Where did I go wrong? Was I too overprotective? Did I not give her enough space to learn to do things on her own? I thought I was doing all the right things, how how wrong I was.
I filed a runaway report that night, I knocked on her boyfriend's door, I had the police call his mother, I called and sent a text every single one of her friends trying to get ANY information as to where my daughter was. I woke up the next morning and started calling people and schools right away. I was in contact with her boyfriend all day and he told me he didn't know where she was, yet I'm being told by a few different sources that she IS with him. I went back to his house and his older sister tells me she has no idea where my daughter is. I resorted to telling them that she is a missing child at this point and there is an Amber Alert out for her. Yep. I lied to get that damn kid to tell me where my kid was. This whole time, we never heard from the boyfriend's mother. WTF?! Where is she?! Why isn't she answering her door and her phone at 11 PM and if my daughter is in her house, why does she think I would be OK with this?!
Finally at noon, on Friday, I found her. It was pure luck that I did find her, but she was safe. Pissed off at the world, but safe. The officer came and she got cited with a few things, but that really isn't on my top priority list of worries right now. My biggest worry is how do I get through her?! How do I tell her that I am not against her? I am not the enemy here, I am WITH her! I want her happy, I want her to have friends, I want her to do stupid teenage things (not illegal) and have stupid stories to tell when she gets older. I do not want her to run away, nor do I want her to die. I want her safe, healthy and happy, clearly that is too much to ask at the moment.
Where did I go wrong? Was I too overprotective? Did I not give her enough space to learn to do things on her own? I thought I was doing all the right things, how how wrong I was.
Jan 29, 2012
Still Here and Still Crazy
So...I've had the urge to blog for awhile now, but whenever I sit down to actually type out a post, my brain goes crazy. There was SO much going on the past few months that it feels like I am running on place, getting exhausted and getting NOWHERE.
The situation with Nae got WAY worse and is now (I think) getting better. About a week after Christmas, she decided to go over to her boyfriend's house with her friend, she neglected to tell us that part. We found out where she was and when she got home there was a HUGE blow up between her Dirty and myself. We followed through with her punishment as we had stated when she got into trouble the first time. Well, the LAST time, not the first time. I wish! She had to take EVERYTHING off her walls, hand over her phone, iPod, and anything else that was considered a luxury. We also took the door off her room, which may sound a bit harsh but we couldn't trust her to not be watched ALL the time. As we were in the midst of telling her what we wanted her to do, there was a lot of yelling and her saying how unfair her life is. Dirty and I were up until 2 AM talking, crying and thinking. We found out a lot of things one never wants to find out about their child. She was smoking pot, skipping school AND taking pictures and posting them online of all these activities. We shut down her Facebook acct, Twitter, emails, and Tumblr accounts. That wasn't the worst of it. We woke up the next morning and Nae had run away. We assumed she was at her boyfriend's house but wasn't sure. So we went down to the police station and filed a runaway report. We had to give them a recent photo of her and fill out paper work stating that if she wasn't found within 24 hours, we would have to bring down a sample of her hair for DNA and they needed her dentist's number for dental records. All very scary and I wasn't handling it well.
The police ended up finding her at her boyfriend's house in car because they were on their way to the mall in a different town. If that had happened? We wouldn't have found her for at least a day. I told Dirty if that would have happened, he was going to have to medicate me, 3 hours was bad enough, I can't imagine have to go OVERNIGHT not knowing where she was or what she was doing.
So now, she's grounded, still. She is earning her privileges and our trust back slowly, but I don't know how long that is going to take. We've talked about family counseling, but I still just don't know. honestly, I'm a little shocked and have no idea what to do about it. She does seem better now, but she only gets out of the house when she goes to school. She really has no time to do the activities she was doing before.
Part of me feels like a failure for allowing her to get this far away. I know that teenagers are jerks and will do whatever they want and that their brain hasn't fully developed which leads to impulsive behavior and rash decision making. Knowing all of that doesn't really make me feel any better, though.
Aside from the teenage drama issues, Dirty has a few issues of his own and I am drained! I am finding myself bitter toward him even though I know his issues are chemical (anxiety) and he is trying to overcome them. I am just tired of feeling like I am carrying this family. I don't know if I ACTUALLY am, but it sure as hell feels like it. Sometimes, I just want to run away. Not the most mature idea I've ever had, but it is the truth. I won't run away though, not yet anyway.
I'm going to do my best to blog more regularly in the hopes that, that will help me feel less alone.
The situation with Nae got WAY worse and is now (I think) getting better. About a week after Christmas, she decided to go over to her boyfriend's house with her friend, she neglected to tell us that part. We found out where she was and when she got home there was a HUGE blow up between her Dirty and myself. We followed through with her punishment as we had stated when she got into trouble the first time. Well, the LAST time, not the first time. I wish! She had to take EVERYTHING off her walls, hand over her phone, iPod, and anything else that was considered a luxury. We also took the door off her room, which may sound a bit harsh but we couldn't trust her to not be watched ALL the time. As we were in the midst of telling her what we wanted her to do, there was a lot of yelling and her saying how unfair her life is. Dirty and I were up until 2 AM talking, crying and thinking. We found out a lot of things one never wants to find out about their child. She was smoking pot, skipping school AND taking pictures and posting them online of all these activities. We shut down her Facebook acct, Twitter, emails, and Tumblr accounts. That wasn't the worst of it. We woke up the next morning and Nae had run away. We assumed she was at her boyfriend's house but wasn't sure. So we went down to the police station and filed a runaway report. We had to give them a recent photo of her and fill out paper work stating that if she wasn't found within 24 hours, we would have to bring down a sample of her hair for DNA and they needed her dentist's number for dental records. All very scary and I wasn't handling it well.
The police ended up finding her at her boyfriend's house in car because they were on their way to the mall in a different town. If that had happened? We wouldn't have found her for at least a day. I told Dirty if that would have happened, he was going to have to medicate me, 3 hours was bad enough, I can't imagine have to go OVERNIGHT not knowing where she was or what she was doing.
So now, she's grounded, still. She is earning her privileges and our trust back slowly, but I don't know how long that is going to take. We've talked about family counseling, but I still just don't know. honestly, I'm a little shocked and have no idea what to do about it. She does seem better now, but she only gets out of the house when she goes to school. She really has no time to do the activities she was doing before.
Part of me feels like a failure for allowing her to get this far away. I know that teenagers are jerks and will do whatever they want and that their brain hasn't fully developed which leads to impulsive behavior and rash decision making. Knowing all of that doesn't really make me feel any better, though.
Aside from the teenage drama issues, Dirty has a few issues of his own and I am drained! I am finding myself bitter toward him even though I know his issues are chemical (anxiety) and he is trying to overcome them. I am just tired of feeling like I am carrying this family. I don't know if I ACTUALLY am, but it sure as hell feels like it. Sometimes, I just want to run away. Not the most mature idea I've ever had, but it is the truth. I won't run away though, not yet anyway.
I'm going to do my best to blog more regularly in the hopes that, that will help me feel less alone.
Oct 24, 2011
TOO MUCH!
I can't even begin to tell you how much is going on! I seriously long for the days when it was just school that was hard. Throw in some teenager antics and life, I feel like, is nearly impossible to handle.
Yeah math is hard. Yeah chemistry is hard. Yeah it has been difficult to balance everything, but I would MUCH rather try to balance school and normal home life.
It all started the last week in September. I got a call from the school saying there was an altercation with Nae and another student and I needed to come get her and talk to the vice principal. Dirty and I jump into the car, totally shocked that Nae had gotten into a fight. Once we got all the details, it turned out that Nae had defended herself. Granted, she didn't do it in a timely manner and instead of standing up for herself IN the moment, she waited until lunch. We have always taught her to defend herself, we never made it clear to do it AT the time. She knows now, as does Zilla. So, she was suspended for a FULL week because of the aggressiveness of her actions and the other girl was "only" suspended for 3 days. We felt grounding her wasn't the way to go so we gave her many talks and went about our business. Her nose was pretty swollen and by Monday when the swelling had gone down, we noticed it was crooked. Dirty took her to the hospital while I went to class. Sure enough, it was fractured. SON OF A BITCH! And of course, the only ENT in our network was out until November and we needed to get her nose fixed BY the 10 day park of the injury, otherwise she would have needed a FULL rhinoplasty. I take her to the only ENT in our area and he suggested surgery. It is only called "surgery" because she was going to have to be put under and it will be done in an actual operating room. This was all on a Wednesday. The surgery/procedure had to happen BY Monday, otherwise, real surgery was going to be the only way to fix it. Of course, our insurance didn't feel the need to jump right on the request to have an out of network doctor do something, that would have made things far too easy. Friday afternoon/early evening, I FINALLY got the call that everything was a go. Thank you universe! Monday we all wake up at the ass crack of dawn and drive to the hospital, get her nose fixed and then go home. She missed the next week of school because her nose was so fragile and if she got bumped again, her nose could cave and obviously we didn't want that. So, that's 2 weeks off of school, so far. She was doing her homework and I was in contact with her teachers the whole time.
The Monday she goes back to school, she goes to hang out with her friends and I get a phone call from the kid's mom saying the 2 were involved in a car accident!!!! Nae is fine and her son probably has a broken hand. We go to the hospital AGAIN to pick her up and find out what the fuck was going on. I wasn't aware she was in a vehicle with this kid, not only was she NOT suppose to be in his car but she told me he had fell and broke his hand that way, via text messages. I was pissed, Dirty was angry but chalked it up to her being a teenager. His way of thinking was that when he acted up as a teenager, he got all his freedoms and EVERYTHING taken away and it didn't matter, he just got more angry and acted out more. I never did this kind of shit as a teenager, so I was allowing him to make the final decision on punishment. Ahhh so cute how naive I was! So, instead of grounding her for the rest of her life, we decided to go with the "you almost DIED today" route. Which is true, I saw the condition of the vehicle after the accident and had there not been airbags, I would be telling a COMPLETELY different story. That is a very scary thought! And on that hasn't been far from my mind since I got the phone call. So yeah....scary.
We kept her home from school on Tuesday because she was pretty sore and banged up from the accident. therefore, she wasn't able to get into any trouble on Tuesday. Wednesday, we found out that on Monday, she wasn't just late to class, but she ended up missing the last 2 periods AND is failing one of her classes. I try to direct Dirty on how to approach this, but he's just so convinced that "coming down hard" on her wasn't the right way to go. I'm telling him "we've given her a lot of freedoms and I think we need to reign her in". He keeps going to the whole "if my parents had just talked to me instead of punished me and took away all my shit, I think it would have been better", finally I have to blurt out that our daughter is having sex and is not making good choices right now. He proceeds to freak the hell out, rightly so and wants to ground her for the rest of her life. I try to tell him that we can't ground her for having sex, but we do need to get her back on the right track. She gets home and we all talk and she gets lectured for 2 hours, informed that she is grounded and she isn't allowed to leave the house unless she's going to school. Her friends were allowed to come over to help her finish up any homework they are doing together, but they do not leave the house. We also informed her how close she came to dying, we even brought up the guilt factor and asked Zilla what he was thinking when we had to run to the hospital to get her. He cried and said 'Nae I was so scared, I thought you died, please don't die!" SOOOO sad! She cried harder and they hugged, it was cute and sweet. The rest of our evening went on, we were a happy little family and Dirty and I are patting each other on the backs for such great parenting. But...no.
Thursday one of my friends saw Nae walking home from school SMOKING a cigarette! She and her friend get home and I ask them what they were doing on their way home, I gave Nae every opportunity to come clean, she didn't. She gave me some bull shit story. I asked my friend if that's what she could've seen, hoping SO hard it was. It wasn't, apparently Nae had been smoking for a full block, so her story of "I was just holding it for so and so" was not true. Weird, I know. So after getting the real story from my friend, we confront Nae again and she comes clean. Pissed off once again. She got ALL her stuff taken away. No TV, no cell phone, no stereo, and no PS2...its all gone! She also has to ride the bus to and from school, no hanging out after school with her friends. Last weekend was the first weekend of her sentence and it was hard. It sucked for everyone. I don't like being mean and neither does Dirty, no matter how much we know it's for her own good. It still sucks!
Now, we just don't know what to do. We can't ground her forever, although that does sound pretty sweet, but there is going to come a time when we have to allow her to make her own decisions, no matter how stupid they are. We haven't even reached the one week mark and Dirty wants to cave. Thankfully we both want to cave at different points, so hopefully, there's no chance of caving. I just don't know exactly how to go about this. I'm not the great parent I was, I feel like an idiot now. I'm embarrassed, disappointed and pissed off! If only I knew for sure she had learned her lesson. If only.....
Yeah math is hard. Yeah chemistry is hard. Yeah it has been difficult to balance everything, but I would MUCH rather try to balance school and normal home life.
It all started the last week in September. I got a call from the school saying there was an altercation with Nae and another student and I needed to come get her and talk to the vice principal. Dirty and I jump into the car, totally shocked that Nae had gotten into a fight. Once we got all the details, it turned out that Nae had defended herself. Granted, she didn't do it in a timely manner and instead of standing up for herself IN the moment, she waited until lunch. We have always taught her to defend herself, we never made it clear to do it AT the time. She knows now, as does Zilla. So, she was suspended for a FULL week because of the aggressiveness of her actions and the other girl was "only" suspended for 3 days. We felt grounding her wasn't the way to go so we gave her many talks and went about our business. Her nose was pretty swollen and by Monday when the swelling had gone down, we noticed it was crooked. Dirty took her to the hospital while I went to class. Sure enough, it was fractured. SON OF A BITCH! And of course, the only ENT in our network was out until November and we needed to get her nose fixed BY the 10 day park of the injury, otherwise she would have needed a FULL rhinoplasty. I take her to the only ENT in our area and he suggested surgery. It is only called "surgery" because she was going to have to be put under and it will be done in an actual operating room. This was all on a Wednesday. The surgery/procedure had to happen BY Monday, otherwise, real surgery was going to be the only way to fix it. Of course, our insurance didn't feel the need to jump right on the request to have an out of network doctor do something, that would have made things far too easy. Friday afternoon/early evening, I FINALLY got the call that everything was a go. Thank you universe! Monday we all wake up at the ass crack of dawn and drive to the hospital, get her nose fixed and then go home. She missed the next week of school because her nose was so fragile and if she got bumped again, her nose could cave and obviously we didn't want that. So, that's 2 weeks off of school, so far. She was doing her homework and I was in contact with her teachers the whole time.
The Monday she goes back to school, she goes to hang out with her friends and I get a phone call from the kid's mom saying the 2 were involved in a car accident!!!! Nae is fine and her son probably has a broken hand. We go to the hospital AGAIN to pick her up and find out what the fuck was going on. I wasn't aware she was in a vehicle with this kid, not only was she NOT suppose to be in his car but she told me he had fell and broke his hand that way, via text messages. I was pissed, Dirty was angry but chalked it up to her being a teenager. His way of thinking was that when he acted up as a teenager, he got all his freedoms and EVERYTHING taken away and it didn't matter, he just got more angry and acted out more. I never did this kind of shit as a teenager, so I was allowing him to make the final decision on punishment. Ahhh so cute how naive I was! So, instead of grounding her for the rest of her life, we decided to go with the "you almost DIED today" route. Which is true, I saw the condition of the vehicle after the accident and had there not been airbags, I would be telling a COMPLETELY different story. That is a very scary thought! And on that hasn't been far from my mind since I got the phone call. So yeah....scary.
We kept her home from school on Tuesday because she was pretty sore and banged up from the accident. therefore, she wasn't able to get into any trouble on Tuesday. Wednesday, we found out that on Monday, she wasn't just late to class, but she ended up missing the last 2 periods AND is failing one of her classes. I try to direct Dirty on how to approach this, but he's just so convinced that "coming down hard" on her wasn't the right way to go. I'm telling him "we've given her a lot of freedoms and I think we need to reign her in". He keeps going to the whole "if my parents had just talked to me instead of punished me and took away all my shit, I think it would have been better", finally I have to blurt out that our daughter is having sex and is not making good choices right now. He proceeds to freak the hell out, rightly so and wants to ground her for the rest of her life. I try to tell him that we can't ground her for having sex, but we do need to get her back on the right track. She gets home and we all talk and she gets lectured for 2 hours, informed that she is grounded and she isn't allowed to leave the house unless she's going to school. Her friends were allowed to come over to help her finish up any homework they are doing together, but they do not leave the house. We also informed her how close she came to dying, we even brought up the guilt factor and asked Zilla what he was thinking when we had to run to the hospital to get her. He cried and said 'Nae I was so scared, I thought you died, please don't die!" SOOOO sad! She cried harder and they hugged, it was cute and sweet. The rest of our evening went on, we were a happy little family and Dirty and I are patting each other on the backs for such great parenting. But...no.
Thursday one of my friends saw Nae walking home from school SMOKING a cigarette! She and her friend get home and I ask them what they were doing on their way home, I gave Nae every opportunity to come clean, she didn't. She gave me some bull shit story. I asked my friend if that's what she could've seen, hoping SO hard it was. It wasn't, apparently Nae had been smoking for a full block, so her story of "I was just holding it for so and so" was not true. Weird, I know. So after getting the real story from my friend, we confront Nae again and she comes clean. Pissed off once again. She got ALL her stuff taken away. No TV, no cell phone, no stereo, and no PS2...its all gone! She also has to ride the bus to and from school, no hanging out after school with her friends. Last weekend was the first weekend of her sentence and it was hard. It sucked for everyone. I don't like being mean and neither does Dirty, no matter how much we know it's for her own good. It still sucks!
Now, we just don't know what to do. We can't ground her forever, although that does sound pretty sweet, but there is going to come a time when we have to allow her to make her own decisions, no matter how stupid they are. We haven't even reached the one week mark and Dirty wants to cave. Thankfully we both want to cave at different points, so hopefully, there's no chance of caving. I just don't know exactly how to go about this. I'm not the great parent I was, I feel like an idiot now. I'm embarrassed, disappointed and pissed off! If only I knew for sure she had learned her lesson. If only.....
Apr 18, 2011
Its Been Awhile....
So...hello there! Clearly I've been super busy. I had math last term, as many of you know, and while I worked my ass OFF, it didn't end well. I didn't fail it, which is good, but I didn't get a C either. I got a D..OUCH! Apparently trig isn't my thing. I even asked and begged for help, but for some reason I was behind in the understanding from day one. The good thing is that when I retake it, it'll be mostly a review. Hopefully the second time around, I'll be able to pick things a bit easier and quicker. This term isn't as busy but still busy. I'm taking a technical writing class, which I love but it's tough! We have a research paper due at the end of term that's going to be about 10 pages long, SINGLE spaced. ACK! Of course I picked a difficult and controversial topic, embryo donation, but so far, I've gotten quite a bit of information. We'll see how all this pans out. I'm hoping for an A in the class and if I keep up the work I've been doing, I'll do just that.
The kiddos are doing well, too. Nae has been ungrounded for over a month now and not once has she screwed up! I'm really hoping that she learned her lesson and realized how stupid she was acting. I highly doubt we're at the end of all the insanity, but I know we can get through anything. Zilla is just as crazy as he's always been. That kid's energy level is through the roof! He also has a bit of an attitude, that I am consistently adjusting for him. I'm told this is normal, I have my doubts. Personally, I think he's trying to drive me crazy, but that's just me.
And NOW for the heavy shit. I'm pretty sure my dad has a girlfriend or something. Not sure what to call her because I think it's mostly online and phone calls. I don't know how they "met" or anything like that. I do know that they have talked on the phone a few times and post things on Facebook that make me want to throw up and scream. It sounds silly, me overacting over an "online" thing, but this is all new for me. I don't know how to act or if I have any reason to act a certain way. I haven't talked to him because I don't know what to say and I don't really want to talk to him about this. He deserves to me happy and if he is, that's great! I'll get over it, I'm sure, even if it turns out to be "something".
Right now, I'm just trying to be honest with my emotions and with myself. Ahhh how I love these little doses of reality.
Short but sweet post for now.
The kiddos are doing well, too. Nae has been ungrounded for over a month now and not once has she screwed up! I'm really hoping that she learned her lesson and realized how stupid she was acting. I highly doubt we're at the end of all the insanity, but I know we can get through anything. Zilla is just as crazy as he's always been. That kid's energy level is through the roof! He also has a bit of an attitude, that I am consistently adjusting for him. I'm told this is normal, I have my doubts. Personally, I think he's trying to drive me crazy, but that's just me.
And NOW for the heavy shit. I'm pretty sure my dad has a girlfriend or something. Not sure what to call her because I think it's mostly online and phone calls. I don't know how they "met" or anything like that. I do know that they have talked on the phone a few times and post things on Facebook that make me want to throw up and scream. It sounds silly, me overacting over an "online" thing, but this is all new for me. I don't know how to act or if I have any reason to act a certain way. I haven't talked to him because I don't know what to say and I don't really want to talk to him about this. He deserves to me happy and if he is, that's great! I'll get over it, I'm sure, even if it turns out to be "something".
Right now, I'm just trying to be honest with my emotions and with myself. Ahhh how I love these little doses of reality.
Short but sweet post for now.
Feb 2, 2011
Dear Nae
Things are SO much better. Thank you for all of your advice and kind words. I'm still pretty confused and scared for Nae but overall things are tons better. I want to write her a letter to get it out of my head and then MOVE ON! I feel like I'm dragging this out and we ALL (especially me) need to move on.
Dear Nae,
Hey sweetie, I know 13 is a rough age, hell ALL ages are, but I can respect that this particular time in your life is pretty rough on you. I get that you are confused about EVERYTHING and you just don't understand why we won't let you do certain things while your other friends' parents let them. Yes, we're more strict, but believe me when I say "it's for your own good". It's not just something stupid us parents or adults say. It is the truth. I want you to fly, baby, I really do, but I want you to be safe! That has always been my goal in life, to make sure you are safe. I can't even begin tell you how much I love you and how much you've changed my life in the 13 years you've been in it.
It kills me that I have to let go and let you learn these lessons, but I know I have too. I know in the end you will be a beautiful (inside and out) woman, but right now, I need you to be kind to yourself. Please, be nice to yourself. Treat yourself as you would a friend. When those nasty thoughts pop into your head about your thighs, tell them to go away. When you feel like running away, remember it IS ok to feel that way, we all do, but it's all temporary. Remember when a boy says "don't you love me?" that love isn't conditional. Love is given freely and opening. It's not a bargaining chip to use to get what you want.
Renee, my beautiful mini me. You are perfect just the way you are! Nothing will ever change how I feel about you. I know this crap we're going through won't be the last time, but I have faith in our family, that we'll get through this. On the other side is a different relationship, it'll be a more even one. One where I'm not telling you what to do all the time. One where we will be more equal. I can't wait to share that with you. I can't wait to share the rest of your life with you.
I love you! Pink says it way better than I ever could...this is for you, love.
Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss 'No, it's all good', it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I'm still around
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're f*ckin' perfect to me!
You're so mean, when you talk about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead
So complicated, look happy, you'll make it!
Filled with so much hatred...such a tired game
It's enough! I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same
Oh, pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're f*ckin' perfect to me
The whole world's scared so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer
So cool in line, and we try try try, but we try too hard and it's a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere
They dont like my jeans, they don't get my hair
Exchange ourselves, and we do it all the time
Why do we do that? Why do I do that?
Why do I do that..?
Yeah, oh, oh baby, pretty baby..!
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're fucking perfect to me
You're perfect, you're perfect!
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less thank f*kin' perfect,
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're perfect to me...
Love,
Mommy
P.S. The part about beer doesn't apply ;o)
Dear Nae,
Hey sweetie, I know 13 is a rough age, hell ALL ages are, but I can respect that this particular time in your life is pretty rough on you. I get that you are confused about EVERYTHING and you just don't understand why we won't let you do certain things while your other friends' parents let them. Yes, we're more strict, but believe me when I say "it's for your own good". It's not just something stupid us parents or adults say. It is the truth. I want you to fly, baby, I really do, but I want you to be safe! That has always been my goal in life, to make sure you are safe. I can't even begin tell you how much I love you and how much you've changed my life in the 13 years you've been in it.
It kills me that I have to let go and let you learn these lessons, but I know I have too. I know in the end you will be a beautiful (inside and out) woman, but right now, I need you to be kind to yourself. Please, be nice to yourself. Treat yourself as you would a friend. When those nasty thoughts pop into your head about your thighs, tell them to go away. When you feel like running away, remember it IS ok to feel that way, we all do, but it's all temporary. Remember when a boy says "don't you love me?" that love isn't conditional. Love is given freely and opening. It's not a bargaining chip to use to get what you want.
Renee, my beautiful mini me. You are perfect just the way you are! Nothing will ever change how I feel about you. I know this crap we're going through won't be the last time, but I have faith in our family, that we'll get through this. On the other side is a different relationship, it'll be a more even one. One where I'm not telling you what to do all the time. One where we will be more equal. I can't wait to share that with you. I can't wait to share the rest of your life with you.
I love you! Pink says it way better than I ever could...this is for you, love.
Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss 'No, it's all good', it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I'm still around
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're f*ckin' perfect to me!
You're so mean, when you talk about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead
So complicated, look happy, you'll make it!
Filled with so much hatred...such a tired game
It's enough! I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same
Oh, pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're f*ckin' perfect to me
The whole world's scared so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer
So cool in line, and we try try try, but we try too hard and it's a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere
They dont like my jeans, they don't get my hair
Exchange ourselves, and we do it all the time
Why do we do that? Why do I do that?
Why do I do that..?
Yeah, oh, oh baby, pretty baby..!
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less than f*ckin' perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're fucking perfect to me
You're perfect, you're perfect!
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less thank f*kin' perfect,
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing
You're perfect to me...
Love,
Mommy
P.S. The part about beer doesn't apply ;o)
Jan 31, 2011
God, This Sucks and An AWARD!!!!
First, good news! Kimbosue gave me an award! How sweet is THAT?! Thanks, hon!
Here's the deets, yo:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you the award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 other bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.
Hmmm 7 things...pretty sure y'all know everything about me, but it's been awhile so let's do THIS!
1) I am doing HORRIBLY at math this term. Seriously. Karma is a bitch. It's what I get for being so damn cocky in my other math classes *sigh*
2) I am least talented person I know. I can't sing, can't draw, can barley cook, can sorta dance. The "talent" gene that EVERYONE else in my family has, skipped me.
3) This thing with Nae is really killing me.
4) Zilla slept in my bed last night because he had a bad dream and when I went to wake him up for school this morning, I got all choked up. I am too damn emotional right now.
5) Have a class of death, dying and transition on Fridays is SUCH a buzz kill!
6) My ethics class is my FAVORITE class! I often take the least popular side of the argument just to be a shit. So much fun!
7) I'm a texting whore! I literally text Danielle all day long just about every day. She says she loves it, but I'm not so sure ;)
Now 15 (!) bloggers to pass this on to. How about we just pass it on to a "few" bloggers. I think 15 is a bit too many.
Danielle because she puts up with my insane amount of texts and dramatics. Love ya girl!
The fabulous and beautiful Miss Ruby! You should go check out her blog, she just revamped it and it looks AMAZING!
The funny Sass and not ONLY because she's wearing hammer pants but also because she's my slutty wifey <3
Jamie because she needs a little pick me up right now.
Jules because she NEEDS a reason to blog, clearly! And since I've had a few posts in a row, I can nag her.
We Have Angel Wings because she didn't get to see her little one today because she was released from her RE to her OB! Great news, but she obviously wants to see her little bun.
OK, 6 will do! If you want to do this, JUST DO IT! Let me know so I can pop on over and read what ya got.
Alright now to the "God, this sucks" portion of this post. My weekend was full of tears, texting friends, talking to anyone that would listen and getting a lot of great advice and support about Nae. I know she's 13 and all of this is going to happen, but I feel like she's going down a path she isn't ready for. I have never had a problem with her having friends that are boys, but if she's willing to lie to us to go over to a boy's house? That's sending up HUGE red flags in my mommy brain. We never checked up on her before because we never had a reason too. Of course there was meeting parents before she'd stay the night at a friend's house, but she had a lot of freedoms. I never went through her messages or emails, I never wanted to actually. More importantly, I felt like I didn't HAVE too. I trusted her. I've had many conversations with her about language, about sex, about EVERYTHING! I also know that the things kids are doing these days are A LOT different than when I was her age, but that doesn't mean it's still OK!
I went through her messages last night and it sucked SO much! I did not want to do it at all! I knew I had too, but that didn't mean I liked it. I felt like I was going through her diary, it was awful. Her and I had a talk after and I was very calm despite finding out some things that were a bit disturbing. There were a lot of tears on her part and lots of loving words coming from me. She, of course, has body image issues. I told her that it is normal to feel this way and validated her feelings while telling her how much I loved her. I don't think I'm being a "softy", I do think this is a tricky place to be in our relationship and the way these conversations go could effect our future relationship, so I'm trying to be stern, yet showering her with love. I'm honest with her about her punishment by telling her she's going to be grounded for awhile but also telling her that we can fix this but it is up to her. She lost our trust and it's going to take a long time to get that back. I really do not think she understands the impact of her choices yet. I don't even know if she should at 13. All I know is that this is a BIG deal and I do feel we're dealing with it appropriately, even though she might disagree.
I also think I may be over reacting a touch. I know I am taking it WAY too personally and I shouldn't, but I can't help it. A friend told me yesterday this "she's lying because she knows what she's doing is wrong. You're a good mama!" That made me feel better because I feel like SUCH a failure. I feel like I've done everything "right" and I think that's why this came as such a shock. I am questioning everything I'm doing. Am I going out too much? Should I quit school? Does she need me more? Am I being to easy on her? Where did I go wrong?! Am I setting a bad example for her by having a glass of wine? These thoughts are killing me! I just don't know what to do, or even if there is ANYTHING I can do! I'm staying strong, when she's around. When she isn't, I'm a mess of these awful swirling thoughts and worry.
If anyone has any advice or words of encouragement, I'll gladly take them! Personal experience from when you were young, something a friend went through and how it was dealt with, ANYTHING, I'm seriously at a loss. All I ask is that you PLEASE don't attack my mothering, I feel enough of a failure as it is. Thank you!
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