Posts
Neglect
2 years ago
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Easter Morning
Well, its Easter morning and I miss those days when the kids were little and they would be so excited about their Easter baskets. Colton has spent the weekend working in our backyard. It is like a tropical paradise back there and is constantly in need of caretaking. He spent 4 hours working very hard and earned $40.00. This is because he wants an xbox 360 for his birthday next weekend. I told him that he needs to pay for some of it since it is so expensive. It seems like we have a plan to get his behavior under control. He will have to have his teachers sign a behavior form daily in order for him to have priveleges for the night. He has had no computer, ipod or xbox all weekend. Hopefully the new xbox will motivate him to behave also. Tomorrow he has detention before school then dentist at 10:30 and then back to school. I am anxiously awaiting the summer break. Hayley is going to be in Algebra honors next year in high school. I hope she does well because she won't be getting any help from me. I have trouble with the 6th grade math homework. She was accepted to the medical academy and is very excited. I don't write much about her because for the most part she is always well behaved. My perfect child. She probably feels left out because Colton seems to get all the attention. I try hard to make her feel loved. I hope she knows how much I do love her and am proud of her.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Detention
I am so ready for the school year to be over. Today Colton got another detention. Of course it was from his favorite teacher in Science. As I'm driving home from work trying to relax listening to my CD Player my phone rings and guess who but Colton's teacher. I feel a little bitter. At this point I feel that she is so intolerable of him and his situation. Believe me I know that Colton is not 100% right in this but I believe that she is now looking for a reason for him to be in trouble. My husband tells me that I'm biased and I should make him take responsiblity for his actions. I tried that path. I tried to be supportive of the teacher. I am still waiting for her to come up with a resolution to fix the problem. I have done my part. He has been totally grounded for one week. No XBox or computer. He has a Ymca dance tomorrow night that he now can' t attend because of his behavior at school today. If we didn't have just one month of school left I would demand that he be pulled from her class. The entire reason for the detention is because she says they were doing a lab experiment in class and Colton put a pencil into the water. Colton has a different synopsis of what happened. Another boy was doing something and Colton had a pencil and it fell into the water. Now I don't neccessarily believe that Colton is telling me the truth but there are other ways to handle this behavior than to just arbitrarily give out detention. So his teacher tells me that there has to be consequences. I wanted to ask her so are you implying that he doesn't receive consequences at home??? Then she tells me that he must be at detention tomorrow at 8:40. Well, I hate to burst your bubble but I work at 6:30 am and I can't miss work. She of course had no alternative. Now I will have to have my stepson on his way to high school drop Colton off early at 8:00 and have him wait until the teacher gets there to let him in and she states that he will be safe. She had better hope he is safe. I don't let me son go anywhere unattended. Thanks for listening. I feel better now that is off my chest.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Your child is unhappy
Now I am going to fast forward to something that happened just this last week. My son has been having problems in his classrooms again. The teacher called to talk to me regarding his behavior. She said to me "Your son just seems very unhappy". I tried to keep my calm as I started to stutter the word unhappy? as my voice increased with every syllable. What would this child have to be unhappy about. It must be the new ipod that he got for his birthday or the new computer for christmas and all the new clothes that I just bought for him last week. I am sure those things are making him oh so unhappy. The child that places his order as I go grocery shopping for all the snacks for the week. Because when I was a child I had no computer, ipod, gameboy, xbox, gamecube. I was lucky that I had a bike for transportation and didn't have the pleasure of riding my $200.00 scooter all over the neighborhood.
I felt I needed to set the record straight and tell his teacher that the only thing Colton was unhappy about was going to school and having to work at learning as this was difficult for him. When I heard the word unhappy I felt it directly correlated to me and how I was raising my son. How could this boy be so unhappy. At night at home he would in his little boy voice he would call MOMMA playfully and giggle. I know I only have so many nights left to experience that little boy voice and giggle before he will be on his journey to adulthood.
I felt I needed to set the record straight and tell his teacher that the only thing Colton was unhappy about was going to school and having to work at learning as this was difficult for him. When I heard the word unhappy I felt it directly correlated to me and how I was raising my son. How could this boy be so unhappy. At night at home he would in his little boy voice he would call MOMMA playfully and giggle. I know I only have so many nights left to experience that little boy voice and giggle before he will be on his journey to adulthood.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Best Friends
In the beginning having my best friend living with me was great. It was like being in high school all over again. Staying up late after the kids went to sleep and having a glass of wine or glasses of wine and talking for hours. Now Traci if you ever find my blog and read this you know that you will always be my best friend and I love you. Unfortunately though, you have some bad habits and faults just like I do. I am sure some of the things I did got on your last nerve. With that being said, Traci was not the best housekeeper and our house was always a mess (trashed). Laundry was a never ending cycle of clothes being washed over and over again because someone would start the washer but the clothes never quite made it to the dryer and if they made it to the dryer they never seem to make it out of the basket. Now if they made it out of the basket then they would end up on the couch. Then the kids would push them to the floor. I am a little obsessive about my clothes. They cannot ever never touch the floor. So once again I would rewash the clothes that were mine anyways. Laundry was just one of the problems. Dishes were another and mowing the grass and cleaning the kids rooms. These things were just not very important to Traci. I don't think she mopped the tile floors in the house more than twice the entire 4 years she lived with me. She might have mowed the grass once (but never finished). In the beginning I tried to keep up with the four kids and my (wife). Not an easy task to keep up with. When Traci first moved in she had a job where she would travel during the week. So while she was gone was probably the cleanest my house would ever be.
Roommates
The story gets better yet! So I am now separated from my husband in June and dealing with my sons problems in August and September. My divorce is going to be final on Dec 3rd. My soon to be ex-husband disappears off the face of the earth. You heard me right. Not wanting to pay child support after he loses the custody battle he decides to quit his amazing great job with Nasa and leave his children behind forever. To never to see them, call them forever. What kind of person could to that?
I guess I should have been expecting this to happen since his brother tried to intimidate me during the divorce by telling me his brother will not pay me child support. My response "I don't care I don't need his money to support my children". Well, afterwards to myself I acknowledged that maybe I did just a little. Mortgages, daycare, credit card debt with no help is impossible. So my bestest friend who has been living in St Louis for the past two years happens to be having a very hard time also. She is divorced with two children. A boy and a girl just like me. I have a 4 bedroom house and wouldn't it be great if we could be roommates. The kids could share a room each and we would have our own rooms. Think of all the fun we could have. I would then be able to keep my house and give my children some semblance of normalcy and not have to uproot them into an apartment in probably not a great area of town. My best friend packs up all her stuff and moves back to Florida and thank the lord my house has been saved and my children can go back to the school where everyone knows our name! Yeah!
I am not an overly religous person. I believe in God and afterlife. I was born and raised Catholic. I am talking about on your knees every Wednesday during lent citing the stations of the cross. Never missing church on Sunday so when I finally was in control of my own life I decided that church was something I could do without. I do believe that God was with me every step of the way during this time and as a sign read this past week that I passed on a churchs billboard. Sometimes god has to break you in order to remake you!
I guess I should have been expecting this to happen since his brother tried to intimidate me during the divorce by telling me his brother will not pay me child support. My response "I don't care I don't need his money to support my children". Well, afterwards to myself I acknowledged that maybe I did just a little. Mortgages, daycare, credit card debt with no help is impossible. So my bestest friend who has been living in St Louis for the past two years happens to be having a very hard time also. She is divorced with two children. A boy and a girl just like me. I have a 4 bedroom house and wouldn't it be great if we could be roommates. The kids could share a room each and we would have our own rooms. Think of all the fun we could have. I would then be able to keep my house and give my children some semblance of normalcy and not have to uproot them into an apartment in probably not a great area of town. My best friend packs up all her stuff and moves back to Florida and thank the lord my house has been saved and my children can go back to the school where everyone knows our name! Yeah!
I am not an overly religous person. I believe in God and afterlife. I was born and raised Catholic. I am talking about on your knees every Wednesday during lent citing the stations of the cross. Never missing church on Sunday so when I finally was in control of my own life I decided that church was something I could do without. I do believe that God was with me every step of the way during this time and as a sign read this past week that I passed on a churchs billboard. Sometimes god has to break you in order to remake you!
Dealing with Pyschiatrists and Psychologists
So now we enter the world of psychologists and psychiatrists and try this medication at this dose and if that doesn't work we will adjust to this medication or increase this dose and he will take the medication at 8, then 12, then 3 and then 6. Now my son is on a roller coaster he goes up then crashes down and then up and down. He is like a junkie on heroin. Back in those days there were not time release capsules for adhd. So the children would go from a great high to a complete low.
Obviously, that wasn't working and we continued to have behavioral issues. Colton was moved to a Varying Exceptionalities class for children who ranged for the most part of mentally impaired. My son mentally impaired? No, but the school system had no idea where to place him. He couldn't be in a regular classroom as he created such a huge disturbance in the class. Colton gained quite the reputation at the school and everyone knew him by name. Now don't get me wrong. There were many teachers that tried to help my son, but there were also many teachers who just labeled Colton as a trouble maker and did nothing to help him achieve some sort of stability and learning.
Now on to the psychologists and pyschiatrists. My definition of a psychiatrist from my experience "Overpaid drug dealer who can legally dispense medications." Every three months I would pull my son out of school and drive him to the pyschiatrist. The pyschiatrist would weigh Colton as these medications supressed appetites. The pyschiatrist would say how is everything going? I would say fine and think just write me the prescription so I can get out of here. He would then ask Colton how is everything and Colton would usually not respond. Then many moments of silence later as Colton is bouncing around his office and I am constantly admonishing him don't touch that the doctor finally writes the prescription. Looks up in the middle of writing and says how are his grades? I respond he is doing okay. Explain that he is a VE student etc. etc. He continues to write the prescription and we are finally on our way. We repeat this every three months for years. After many years I have a hard time containing myself and almost blurt out if there is a problem I will let you know. Please don't ask me these stupid questions anymore. One psychiatrist would ask Colton do you hear voices? Now my son has reached about the age of 10 and he looks at me like what do I say to that. Now in the car on the way to the psychiatrist I have to guide my son in how to respond to this quack and can someone tell me where she got her license from? In Florida on most HMO plans you have doctors who you wonder where could they have gotten their licenses from? A third world country? Don't get me wrong I don't believe I am racist but I would like to be able to understand the person I am speaking to and not be asked stupid questions.
On to psychologists, I would drive Colton once or twice per month and at the age of 6 Colton would go into her office and play. She would watch him in his play. First Colton at this age has a very difficult time talking about his feelings. He is not mature enough to tell her how he is feeling other than in one word. I felt this was a complete waste of time. We have seen many psychologists over these years and not one yet has made any progress with my son.
Their diagnosis that Colton is acting out from our divorce and that it is excaberated by the adhd and impulse control disorder. No shit sherlock I didn't need to be driving for 30,000 hours over the past 5 years and spending $5,000 for you to tell me what I all ready knew. Thanks for your help!
Obviously, that wasn't working and we continued to have behavioral issues. Colton was moved to a Varying Exceptionalities class for children who ranged for the most part of mentally impaired. My son mentally impaired? No, but the school system had no idea where to place him. He couldn't be in a regular classroom as he created such a huge disturbance in the class. Colton gained quite the reputation at the school and everyone knew him by name. Now don't get me wrong. There were many teachers that tried to help my son, but there were also many teachers who just labeled Colton as a trouble maker and did nothing to help him achieve some sort of stability and learning.
Now on to the psychologists and pyschiatrists. My definition of a psychiatrist from my experience "Overpaid drug dealer who can legally dispense medications." Every three months I would pull my son out of school and drive him to the pyschiatrist. The pyschiatrist would weigh Colton as these medications supressed appetites. The pyschiatrist would say how is everything going? I would say fine and think just write me the prescription so I can get out of here. He would then ask Colton how is everything and Colton would usually not respond. Then many moments of silence later as Colton is bouncing around his office and I am constantly admonishing him don't touch that the doctor finally writes the prescription. Looks up in the middle of writing and says how are his grades? I respond he is doing okay. Explain that he is a VE student etc. etc. He continues to write the prescription and we are finally on our way. We repeat this every three months for years. After many years I have a hard time containing myself and almost blurt out if there is a problem I will let you know. Please don't ask me these stupid questions anymore. One psychiatrist would ask Colton do you hear voices? Now my son has reached about the age of 10 and he looks at me like what do I say to that. Now in the car on the way to the psychiatrist I have to guide my son in how to respond to this quack and can someone tell me where she got her license from? In Florida on most HMO plans you have doctors who you wonder where could they have gotten their licenses from? A third world country? Don't get me wrong I don't believe I am racist but I would like to be able to understand the person I am speaking to and not be asked stupid questions.
On to psychologists, I would drive Colton once or twice per month and at the age of 6 Colton would go into her office and play. She would watch him in his play. First Colton at this age has a very difficult time talking about his feelings. He is not mature enough to tell her how he is feeling other than in one word. I felt this was a complete waste of time. We have seen many psychologists over these years and not one yet has made any progress with my son.
Their diagnosis that Colton is acting out from our divorce and that it is excaberated by the adhd and impulse control disorder. No shit sherlock I didn't need to be driving for 30,000 hours over the past 5 years and spending $5,000 for you to tell me what I all ready knew. Thanks for your help!
Those Trying Times
30 Number of days in September that I was called to pick Colton up from school
5 Number of times Colton ran away from school
6 Age of first suspension from kindergarten
3 Number of days of first suspension
3 Number of more days that I have to take off work
11 Number of times Colton hid under the table in August in kindergarten
I look back now in amazement at those days. Luckily I had a very understanding job that allowed me to leave almost every day for 30 days. School in Florida starts the 2nd week of August. I was very recently separated from my husband in June. My son is emotionally reacting to the separation. My husband was zero percent supportive of his problems with his behavior. Colton acted that way because I was a horrible mother.
Colton would hide under the table, disrupt the class, throw things, hit his teachers, run away all over the school. He was totally disruptive and no one could control him including me. During this time I tried everything. Taking priveleges away, spankings, threatening, long talks, you name it I tried it. Nothing worked. One day it all comes to a head.
Colton slaps the dare officer at the school. I am once again called to the school and am told that either I take him for a psychological exam or they will Baker Act him into a mental hospital where I will lose all control over his medical care. After many tears and feeling like my world has ended (how can it get any worse than this?) I proceed to the hospital.
Don't forget now I also have a daughter who is one year older than Colton who never gives me any problems, does great in school who is also trying to cope with the fact that her father no longer lives in our house and her brother gets all the attention.
I quickly arrange for a friend to pick her up from school and on to the hospital we go. Of course we have to go through the ER in order for the insurance to pay. We are finally admitted to the pysch ward and I have to leave my hysterical 6 year old with them for observation. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I don't think that I have one tear left in my body. I was there for hours giving them information on our lives and history on Colton.
I leave to pick up my daughter from my friends house where I collapse on her couch and somehow find the tears to cry as if my world has ended. Now my poor 7 year old daughter is completely confused as to what is happening and somehow I pull myself together and drive home with her. 7 years later it feels like it happened only yesterday and I can still feel the terror that I felt during those times.
5 Number of times Colton ran away from school
6 Age of first suspension from kindergarten
3 Number of days of first suspension
3 Number of more days that I have to take off work
11 Number of times Colton hid under the table in August in kindergarten
I look back now in amazement at those days. Luckily I had a very understanding job that allowed me to leave almost every day for 30 days. School in Florida starts the 2nd week of August. I was very recently separated from my husband in June. My son is emotionally reacting to the separation. My husband was zero percent supportive of his problems with his behavior. Colton acted that way because I was a horrible mother.
Colton would hide under the table, disrupt the class, throw things, hit his teachers, run away all over the school. He was totally disruptive and no one could control him including me. During this time I tried everything. Taking priveleges away, spankings, threatening, long talks, you name it I tried it. Nothing worked. One day it all comes to a head.
Colton slaps the dare officer at the school. I am once again called to the school and am told that either I take him for a psychological exam or they will Baker Act him into a mental hospital where I will lose all control over his medical care. After many tears and feeling like my world has ended (how can it get any worse than this?) I proceed to the hospital.
Don't forget now I also have a daughter who is one year older than Colton who never gives me any problems, does great in school who is also trying to cope with the fact that her father no longer lives in our house and her brother gets all the attention.
I quickly arrange for a friend to pick her up from school and on to the hospital we go. Of course we have to go through the ER in order for the insurance to pay. We are finally admitted to the pysch ward and I have to leave my hysterical 6 year old with them for observation. I am mentally and physically exhausted. I don't think that I have one tear left in my body. I was there for hours giving them information on our lives and history on Colton.
I leave to pick up my daughter from my friends house where I collapse on her couch and somehow find the tears to cry as if my world has ended. Now my poor 7 year old daughter is completely confused as to what is happening and somehow I pull myself together and drive home with her. 7 years later it feels like it happened only yesterday and I can still feel the terror that I felt during those times.
The beginning
So far I have just been a spectator in the world of blogging. So where do I start? Do I give you my life history or just start talking about all the boring mundane things that happen in my life on a day to day basis? I guess its best to give a little information on myself.
My husband and I live in the sunny state of Florida where I moved to from Wisconsin when I gradutated from high school so many years ago like 18. My husband is from Boston and of course a Red Sox fan, Patriot fan etc etc. If there's a sport he's a fan. We were set up on a blind date in 2001. It was an immediate success to my surprise. I had been divorced from my childrens father for about 2 years. I really had no interest in dating, one man's torture had been enough. At my company picnic at Wet N Wild after a few cocktails and a group of us girls talking, one of my friends said "Would you go on a blind date?" Bolstered by the many drinks I said courageously, of course I would. As we were driving to dinner and my palms were sweating I kept thinking why did I ever agree to this. I finally relaxed after my first glass of wine and discovered that we had many things in common. He was divorced and had two children like I did. We both enjoyed sports. He probably enjoys them alot more than I do I discovered a little bit later. The night was a success and the relationship started moving full speed ahead.
Our date was on a Saturday night and by Wednesday he was back and we went out to dinner again. This time to a Gators around the corner from my house to do what but watch sports. When we met I told him that we would have to be on a minimum of 5 dates before anything would happen between us. So I fully expected to see him again on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Luckily he had his own responsiblility's with his children but he was back again on Friday and then on Sunday I was all ready meeting his two sons and preparing dinner at my house for everyone including my children. Let's just say that was quite an experience and I can't believe that he every called me again.
I will give you a quick run down on my son Colton. He was diagnosed at the age of 6 the year that he started Kindergarden with a severe case of Impulse Control Disorder and ADHD. This was also the year that I was going through my very emotional divorce from his father. My ex-husband was fighting me for custody and I was doing everything I could to fight him for custody and try to keep our house from bankruptcy and deal with my sons emotional issues which my ex-husband denied that Colton had any problems whatsoever. Let's just say I have no idea how I ever made it through those years. I will talk much more about all the things that happened during those years later.
Even on medication Colton was a force to be reckoned with and I know that he took advantage of me. I truthfully didn't do a great job of handling Colton and he pretty much ran the show back then. Back to the dinner for my new boyfriend and his two children. Colton precedes to stand up at the table on the chair and throw corn in the air and try to catch it in his mouth laughing hysterically while I slump farther and farther into my chair and yell at him to sit down now. Of course that worked and he sat right down and started eating his dinner like a human being and not some sloth. Yea right! Finally, after being sent to his room where he finally stayed for about 5 minutes the dinner was over and I am sure Chris questioned to himself what the hell have I gotten myself into. Luckily for me he must have saw something he liked in me and he called again for another date.
My husband and I live in the sunny state of Florida where I moved to from Wisconsin when I gradutated from high school so many years ago like 18. My husband is from Boston and of course a Red Sox fan, Patriot fan etc etc. If there's a sport he's a fan. We were set up on a blind date in 2001. It was an immediate success to my surprise. I had been divorced from my childrens father for about 2 years. I really had no interest in dating, one man's torture had been enough. At my company picnic at Wet N Wild after a few cocktails and a group of us girls talking, one of my friends said "Would you go on a blind date?" Bolstered by the many drinks I said courageously, of course I would. As we were driving to dinner and my palms were sweating I kept thinking why did I ever agree to this. I finally relaxed after my first glass of wine and discovered that we had many things in common. He was divorced and had two children like I did. We both enjoyed sports. He probably enjoys them alot more than I do I discovered a little bit later. The night was a success and the relationship started moving full speed ahead.
Our date was on a Saturday night and by Wednesday he was back and we went out to dinner again. This time to a Gators around the corner from my house to do what but watch sports. When we met I told him that we would have to be on a minimum of 5 dates before anything would happen between us. So I fully expected to see him again on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Luckily he had his own responsiblility's with his children but he was back again on Friday and then on Sunday I was all ready meeting his two sons and preparing dinner at my house for everyone including my children. Let's just say that was quite an experience and I can't believe that he every called me again.
I will give you a quick run down on my son Colton. He was diagnosed at the age of 6 the year that he started Kindergarden with a severe case of Impulse Control Disorder and ADHD. This was also the year that I was going through my very emotional divorce from his father. My ex-husband was fighting me for custody and I was doing everything I could to fight him for custody and try to keep our house from bankruptcy and deal with my sons emotional issues which my ex-husband denied that Colton had any problems whatsoever. Let's just say I have no idea how I ever made it through those years. I will talk much more about all the things that happened during those years later.
Even on medication Colton was a force to be reckoned with and I know that he took advantage of me. I truthfully didn't do a great job of handling Colton and he pretty much ran the show back then. Back to the dinner for my new boyfriend and his two children. Colton precedes to stand up at the table on the chair and throw corn in the air and try to catch it in his mouth laughing hysterically while I slump farther and farther into my chair and yell at him to sit down now. Of course that worked and he sat right down and started eating his dinner like a human being and not some sloth. Yea right! Finally, after being sent to his room where he finally stayed for about 5 minutes the dinner was over and I am sure Chris questioned to himself what the hell have I gotten myself into. Luckily for me he must have saw something he liked in me and he called again for another date.
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