Warning... It's a long one!
This mother's day was bittersweet for me. A little over a month ago, I came to the decision to send my oldest 2 kids to their fathers to temporarily see if they can stop behaving BADLY! Long story short. My 15 year old son, was starting to hit me, and i don't mean playfully. When he would get mad over little things he hit. When he busted my lip that was the last straw, and my daughter decided that she would rather just not have any rules. She is almost 17 going on 25. She never does her chores, won't do her schoolwork., won't deal with any punishments given to her.. and let me tell you i had to start being creative with them. When nothing fazes a child and you have tried everything how do you get them to stop. Last October after already being in trouble for not being where she was supposed to be, we let her stay the night with a friend and go to the homecoming game/dance. I have a rule in my house that if they go to a friends house i have to meet their parents/ gaurdians first. the kids think im the meanest mother ever, of course all their friends mom's tell me they do the same.. anyways. she went to the game and didnt meet us when she was supposed to the next day. She was acting funny, so I knew something was up. Well that something was she didnt stay the night with her friend. her and a bunch of boys broke into a house that was for sale, stayed the night and smoked pot. Now if you would have asked me before this i would say no my daughter would never do that, the smell gives her "headaches" relative used to do it and she could smell it on them.
So her punishment for that??? I made her copy 400 pages of one of those little red bibles. When she was done she could be off punishment. Well still to this day she hasnt done it. She throws fits, screams yells, and sometimes actually sits and copies part of it. I think she was up to 280.
Now every year close to the summer the older 2 know they are going to their dads, and they start acting up, kinda like the what are you going to do about it, im leaving attitude.
Well we got in an arguement on a friday about, yep you guessed it copying the bible. and after the fight she went in and worked on it like nothing happened. On monday while picking her up after school from her drama cub. Her brother decides he is going to antagonize all the kids one at a time in the car to get em mad. After repeatedley telling him to stop or I would find something for him to do when I got home, and him telling me "okay I'll stop". I finally just started counting how many times... 32!!!! okay we get home and I tell him okay go out to our garden ( we were just starting one) and get all the big rocks out, so we can till it. he said he had to go to the bathroom. 45 minutes later he still isnt out there. my hubby came home and in comes tyler. I was cutting the boys hair and i asked him what he was doing. He tells me he talked to his stepdad and he can't do it. so knowing that we can't show we are on the same page. I wait until the kids all go to bed. and ask him if there was a reason he told tyler he didnt have to do the rocks? He looked at me and said i didnt talk to tyler about that. so next day I pick up brit again, get home and stop in front of the garden. I tell him he is going to do the rocks,. He started bawling like i had just beaten him and he's 15. so being the obstinate boy he is he just sits there by the garden refusing to do anything. so i lean out the door a couple times and tell him if he doesnt do his rocks then he wont get dinner. now im notreally going to keep him from dinner. i got pb and j out for him. I told brit that just you wait the minute his stepdad gets home tyler will come right up. and sure enough hubby gets home and he doesnt come up to our house he goes into his own house. ( we have 2 trailers, the 3 older kids slept in one and the 2 littler kids and us sleep in this one. with so many kids they didnt want to share a room, so we figured that it would be okay since they were older) .
so I stop making dinner and go down to his house. i tell him that he is goign to go back outside to the garden, and he has a choise do the rocks or he knew the consequences. he startes screaming that the other kids do worse things and never get in trouble and he wasnt going. i tried to physically pick him up and take him outside, that didnt work. so I calmly told him i might not be able to but my uncle could and i would call him. For some reason tyler is not afraid of me only men. Hubby has long decided to stay out of our fights becuase he is the stepdad. Well i guess he decided enough was enough. and went down there, and told tyler he was going to do what his momma said. now at this time brittany has run down to get in the middle of this. up to this point she is telling tyler to just go do it, and not to make it worse.... well the minute hubby said anything to tyler she starts screaming at him that he cant tell them what to do, and cussing at him. at which point hubby told her it was his house and they were going to follow his rules while they lived here. so she went running up to call her dad.. I love it when that happens.
So tyler goes outside and sits by the garden but still refuses to pick anything up. I get to have a chat with the kids dad. then when brittany gets on the phone she starts bawling like a baby. she wasnt even in trouble. so her dad talks to her for an hour and tyler for 5 minutes. I have him talk to hubby since he and brittany are the ones fighting, and frankly im tired of the im going to call daddy speach. hubby tells him that if tyler doesnt quit hitting me its goign to come down to me hitting him back or somehting happening.They talk and can't figure out what to do either.
Dinner time and he comes in and i tell him heres your stuff to make a sandwhich, you knew your consequences, make a sandwhich. he refuses.
so now it is wednesday and by now im really tired of fighting. So after the kids go to school ( i drive them since the bus stop is a mile and half down the road) the 2 older ones are mad at me so they walk. I go down and i lock the trailer. that way tyler can't go in there and i dont have to fight with him. At the bus stop, the kids start screaming F u to me and Oh im really scared. By now I really just dont know what to do. i have taken them to counciling, i have talked to the school councilor at their old school. we got to be pretty good friends, the school has a counciling outreach thing through a main counciling center, we talked to her, grounding, taking things away, writing sentences, asking advice from all my family and friends. I have tried it all.
So I sit down and write a 4 page letter to the councilor, their student advisor, and my daughters iep teacher. I explain whats going on and tell them that I need help. I cannot allow tyler to hit me anymore. he is getting bigger, and stronger, and the littler kids are watching all this go on.
So you know what their solution was.... they called the kids in showed them the email, and brit and tyler told them they were scared to go home. that i beat them and i refuse to give them food.
So i get home from grocery shopping and there is a policeman and cpsworker at my house.
They tell me whats going on question me for an hour. then they ask to see where the kids sleep. so i take them down. now one of their chores is to keep their place picked up if they want to stay there. Well i am embarrassed to say but my 16 year old daughter had bloody underwear and tampons on the bathroom floor. there was trash everywhere, and you could not see her floor. my son had been sneaking the dog in at night and had let her pee and poo on the floor and not clean it. now after numerous fights. I went down and not only thouroughly cleaned that house. but i painted the bathroom, living room, brits room. to make it more of their own, not more than 2 months before.
So they tell me that i need to put the kids on a fins petition that they didnt recommend it, very often but that the kids were out of control and needed it. Now i know my kids, so i ask them what do i do if they dont come home from school. the cop said oh they will come home and called the school. they told them the allegations were unfounded and the kids needed to be on that bus. he told me if they didnt show to call him....
Well they didnt show. I got the outher kids off the bus and went up to the school. i looked in the drama room, i went up and asked in the office, i called everyone i knew including my aunt that works at the elementary school. then i called the police. It is the scariest thing in the world to describe your children and what they were wearing to a cop. with the things brit does i was so afraid she was holed up somewhere. The cops did a manhunt. Searched theri friends houses, called all their friends...for 6 hours! at 10:30 at night i got a call. it seems the vice principal, who performed my wedding at my house, that i have sat next to at school functions. decided that she felt that the kids werent safe and sent them to a place called youthbridge. later i found out that they were actually in the middle school hiding in a room so they could honestly tell us they werent at the high school. I was furious. i was scared to death all night until i heard where they were at. we had family and friends driving around looking for them.
So i go and get the kids in the moring. and before that i went in and talked to the principal, and vice principal. I asked them how they could do that and all they would say is that they had the kids best interest at heart. I asked them if she had questioned any of the other kids, or called me, or called their previous school to see the stuff they had pulled there. all i wanted was an apology. i never got one. My husband even asked them if they had the kids best interest in heart, then they shoudl have at least told the police when they contacted them instead of waiting for 6 hours. We ended up walking out of there. The sherriff dept, and prosecuting attorney are pressing charges, for messing with custodial rights and for the time and money spent on a 6 hour manhunt that could have been avoided.
So with alot of thought. I decided that it was best to send them to their dads. With the fins petition my daughter would have immediately went to juvinille hall, and tyler would have followed. the younger kids were watching all this .
I have been a single mom for the last 14 years. So this mother's day was the first that i didnt spend with my kids. it was hard and i cried alot. but i know i did what i had to do.
okay so now you read all the drama, and i appreciate you all letting me get it out. sometimes you need someone to talk to , you know. But here on the home front it was a good day.
My daughter and son and hubby made me pancakes. i dont really like pancakes but my 11 yr old daughter decided thats what she wanted to do lol. My hubby got me subways for lunch. i love subways!!! yum! and they made me tacos for dinner. Hubby had gotten me bride wars, and thats a big thing cuz he doesnt buy "chick flicks" lol he usually buys zombie movies. And i love cards. I am definately a card person, and we have had so many "discussions becuase he is not and either doesnt buy me one or buys me a joke one....But for mothers day he actually got me one ... and even wrote in it! i cried. later they all went down to the store to get some cooking oil so my daughter could make a cake... chocolate frosting and chocolate cake..lol her choice not mine.
When they came back, they had gotten me some gifts. I have a hugedisney willage that i have worked on for the last 7 years. Hubby had gotten me a tinkerbell town set for it. and a dark hunter companion book from sherrilyn kenyon.. I love her books! kourt had picked me out 3 disney stuffed animals, and so did riley. Kourt and riley went outside for a long time. We live in the woods, and there is a small creek that runs though it. they went out there and cleaned it out to make it nice for pictures for me they said. it was a really sweet gesture. Kourt made her cake, and brought me out a homemade card, a handmade bookmark, and a neat frame thing. It rained this weekend , hubby was goign to take me to the renaissance faire in muskogee, ok. we go every year. I made all our costumes, and am quite proud of them. My daughter really wants to wear her new dress. so he promised we would go this weekend .. yeah!
Dakota was at his moms, but he made me a grass head, and a picture that the class laminated. It was very sweet....
So mothers day was a little sad but it was a good day too. I hope everyone else had a great day too!
here's some pix... cuz I wanna show off..lol
he was so proud he moved that big rock to make a bridge...lolAnd just cuz Im a proud momma.. heres my 3 kidlets. I took these at a place called Tanyard creek park. It has an awesome waterfall.
And here's one I took of my daughter for cheerleading this year. They told us a day in advance that they were taking their pictures, and when we got there you had to have the money right then. So we just went out in the yard and took some. Her tryouts for next year is next week. so we have our fingers crossed.
Im not sure what makes a great mom. Maybe some women are just born with it. I know that I have been a stay at home mom for all my kids life. It has afforded me to be able to go to volunteer on all their class trips, help out in the classroom, go to all their award ceremonies, sit with them when they are home sick. Sometimes i think it would have been nice to pursue a career back when I was younger, but I don't think I would trade it for anything in the world. My kids are my life, and I truly do love them with all my heart. I get tears in my eyes when i watch them get their awards, or sing for the talent show, or become homecoming princess, or get inducted in the national junior honor society. I get those warm feelings when my they tell me they love me. I know my daughter will turn 18 and Until she decides to come see me, i probably wont see her. I just hope that someday when she is older she will look back and see that I have always tried to do what is in their best interest. Sometimes that means being the mean one, and not the friend. Im not perfect far from it. But I try.
take care
xoxo
tink
(believing is only the beginning...)
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