Toots’ weekend at home was 98% good, 2% not so good.
The block party was fun. We have been doing this for eight years now, and amazingly we have always had good weather. Lew and I spent too much money and bought too much food and drink, but it will get used, mostly. He took some of the leftovers into work yesterday (I took a vacation day), and we are eating up most of the rest.
Toots was very helpful during most of the weekend. She is a strong kid, and there were some things that would not have gotten done without her help. Sunday, we were all exhausted. We cleaned up, slowly, and then mostly sat around. At about 4 pm, Lew and Noodles went out to return an item to a neighbor’s house. I was sprawled on the living room sofa reading the new Harry P. Also, I had an upset stomach and wasn’t feeling that great.
And thus:
Toots: Mom, can I go on the computer and check my email?
Me: Okay, honey.
A little later:
Toots: Mom, can you come up here?
Me: What do you need, Toots?
Toots: Mom, can you just come up here?
Me: Why, honey?
Toots: I want you to look at something.
Me: What?
T: I just want you to look at something.
M: But what is it?
T: It’s something on ebay. I can’t get back to it.
M: What’s it?
T: (getting exasperated) It’s a thing!
M: What kind of thing?
T: It’s a cheap thing!
M: (staying calm, but not willing to go upstairs until I know what I’m going up for) Yes, but what are we talking about? What kind of thing?
T: It’s just a thing! Just come up here!
M: But what is it?
T:(shouting) OH MY GOD! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS!
M: But Toots, I just want to know what you want me to look at!
T: AAAAHHHH!
I hear her slamming into the bathroom. I don’t know whether she’s going to start trashing the house again, as she did on that dreadful night in March (also when Lew was out of the house, which is no coincidence).
I go to the phone, call Lew’s cell and say “Please come home”. She comes out of the bathroom (no trashing, fortunately) and says loud enough for me to hear, ‘This is why I hate Mommy sometimes!”
Lew gets home. Talks to her calmly and quietly (this point is important). Turns out it was an inexpensive MP3 player on ebay. (P.S. Her vocabulary isn't extensive, but she does have the words to describe what "it" was.) She cries and carries on about how mean I am and that I ask too many questions. Decides that she wants to go back to LF immediately, so Lew takes her.
Tonight, I’m on the phone with her. She says, “Mommy, don’t be mad, but I told the doctor today that I’m not sure I want to come home.” I say, “Toots, you are NOT going to live in a group home. You are our family, and you are going to come home. We don’t know when, but you are going to come home.”
I hand the phone over to Lew. He gets from her that she told the doctor she’s scared of him, when he yells at her, and that’s why she doesn’t want to come back home. I didn’t hear all of their conversation—he was speaking quietly—but apparently she hung up the phone on him.
PEOPLE, HE DID NOT YELL AT HER. NOT ON SUNDAY. NOT TONIGHT.
It’s the same pattern for years now. Her demands, even the smallest, and especially the ones she directs at me ('cause I'm the mom who took the place of the mom who didn't keep her safe), have to be fulfilled IMMEDIATELY. If they’re not, it means we don’t love her and we don’t want her here and she doesn’t want to live with us anyhow.
Now if she had screamed, “Mommy, I’m bleeding!” I would have run upstairs to help. But she does not, cannot, give the orders in the family to make everybody dance to her tune. We are the parents. She is the kid. That’s it. She’s not in charge. She needs to listen and obey. And that includes answering very simple, basic, easy questions.
And if she won’t answer a simple question now, what will it be like in a few years, when we’re asking, “Where are you going? Who are you going with? Whose parents will be home?”
Imagine the fireworks.
Even though we have a glimmer of understanding why she does what she does, it’s so difficult to stay calm in the face of her manipulations.
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