Goth Grampy

Fun Feet

Last week Kit and I started our deep, dark descent into Goth/Emo by painting our toenails black. Yesterday, we sealed the deal by repainting them. He did his fingernail, too. I'm not that brave.

I think I'll wear them all summer. They go with my cheap sandals.

The end of an era?

Here I sit at McGotcha's, the only place in town where you can take different age kids and satisfy them all. Tio's online, Doc is playing in the tunnels and Kit's tapped into his Mp3. Tio doesn't want to eat this stuff anymore and I never did. Doc would be happy to eat it every day. Kit is tapped into his Mps. Some other small kids just showed up and that's great for Doc. He's quite the social animal, like Tio, and could stay all day making friends and running around. By the time we go, he's always made a "new best buddy". I never used to have to lure Tio here with promises of wifi. He used to be just as eager as Doc is now. Kit is stuck in the middle. He's getting too big for the play area, he doesn't connect so easily with the kids and besides... he's tapped into his Mp3.

Maybe we're looking at the end of the Golden Arches.

I huffed and I puffed...

A fairly ordinary day today. Beautiful weather and the kids off in different directions on a vacation day. I came home at six from doing some writing in town and took a bike ride with Tio down to the local airport and back, about 4 miles altogether.

Man, am I out of shape! It all felt okay while I was on the road, bit sore in the legs, but after I got home I practically collapsed out of breath. Then I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour. I'm still feeling the effects. Granted, it's the first ride of the spring/summer but gimme a break. We used to ride all the time together. Miles and miles and now I'm wheezing and panting on a not so hilly road?

No fair. I'm starting to feel like a grampa.

Mending broken feelings

In the past week, for those who have been following the post comments will know, it seems that we've been airing some laundry between Debbie's family and our own. It's time to extend an olive branch and step forward, instead of reliving the past. There is a time to gripe and a time mend. Here are comment excerpts of Auntie's and Tish from yesterday followed by my own thoughts.

Auntie wrote:
1.Slamming my sister all the time is making her disease worse. Buddy refusing to answer the phone so that I, my parents, or sister can speak with him is also causing issues. Is Buddy raising these kids or not?! We don't know who to ask, who to talk to, or who is in charge. That is why there is so much confusion at our house. No one cares if you and Tish take the lead with them, but who the hell do we talk to? Who are we supposed to deal with when we do hear things...

When someone suffers from a disease, they need help. Help does not refer to public bashing, name calling, or harassment. Buddy and Debbie made themselves into what they are... and Buddy is just as bad. I'm getting sick and tired of being called a liar, of my family being bashed for no reason, seeing as ALL of this started with Marcia, Debbie, and Buddy. As far as I am concerned, there should be no fighting between the grandparents, or aunts and uncles... The negative and harshness is aimed at Marcia and Buddy, not at you and Tish. I just wanted to be clear about that.

Okay. Then Tish wrote:
I think the only way we can heal our damaged emotions is to draw a line and all of us need to stand on one side of it. The future starts there. What ever is on the other side is gone and we can't do anything about it. The greatest gift we can give each other is forgiveness.

I hear a lot of anger coming from you, Auntie. I also hear a lot of threats indicating that you know the score, and the rest of us aren't privy to this information, but we will someday. I don't find that helpful or necessary. Yes, people were hurt, people have been lied to, people aren't what they were at one time, promises were broken, and no one in our families has been spared the hurt and the pain that has come of these things. But,that is all in the past.

I am no longer willing to listen to a broken record of what happened in the past. We are either all to blame for how things are now or none of us are to blame. This is not the time to hold anyone to what they did or what they said in the past. To remain as we are will only serve to destroy the comfort and well-being of those boys we all profess to love and care for.

I am however more than willing to sit down with all of those involved with these boys and draw that line. I am willing to be on one side with everyone and never look back to the other side of the line again. It means being honest with each other, accepting each other for what we are, our strengths and limitation, our quirks and our foibles. We don't even have to like each other, but we will have to work together. And it will be hard work.

So who is with me? The boys future is in our hands.
--Tish

My turn:
So there we have it. Anger, frustration, hope and a call for forgiveness. It seems that both Auntie and Tish are calling for this at the end of each's note.

First, Auntie, let me explain how our house is managed. We are a collective. We all cooperate in decision making for the kids, pool resources and do what it takes. Tish gets them up, Buddy gets them to the bus, I meet them after school and put supper on the table. Most nights, Bud gets home in time to read Doc to sleep and I make sure homework, chores, good moods, TV and gaming time, are all kept in proportion. I tuck Kit in bed and see that Tio turns the lights off at his appointed hour. It doesn't end there, either. Toilets need scrubbing, tempers quelled, a million rides and appointments, etc., etc., but it all gets done and we don't quibble or fight over it.

Because our interactions with Debbie and your father have left a sour taste in our mouths, to put it politely, Tish and I have left all communication between your family and ours up to Buddy. Whether that's good or not, our plates are full and we chose not to take on that layer of aggravation.

You are perfectly fair in saying that flogging a sick person in public doesn't help. At the same time, how do we (you folks, us, the kids...) get Debbie to take responsibility if no one speaks up, or worse, enables her to behave badly? Someone has to say "enough" and after her last couple of episodes, I couldn't watch the kids go through any more.

So here we are. After we've all thrown stones at every head we can think of who played a part in this, where does it leave us? Is there an absolute truth that we can all agree on? Not a chance. Should there be? Probably not. There is too much history, too many perspectives, too many grievances, and too many deep hurts.

All that said, are we adult enough to reach out for a fresh start for the sake of three beautiful boys? Who wants to take the first step?

Grocery shopping for a hundred

Going to the grocery store these days is a real trip. For years we showed up when we needed something, bought a few days worth of goods and drove off. Now it’s like I’m on a mission. I can’t do it in less than 3 hours from leaving the house to getting everything bought, home and put away. I have to compare prices and weights and sales and god forbid, I’m even considering, gulp, coupons. I can’t stand coupons. But there I am with my reading glasses marching up and down the aisle like a good little soldier filling my cart to the point of spilling while I decide if I should splurge on chips or an extra box of cookies.

I can see the other grans out there, pumping along behind heaps of food you know they don’t eat. Sometimes, they’ve even got the tyke in tow. We exchange empathetic looks as we pass each other in the coffee aisle, then again in the bleach aisle, and again and again through the whole store. I’ve exchanged stories with some and it’s all pretty much the same. Problem kids that couldn’t keep or handle their own kids for a variety of reasons and their parents stepped in. Statistics say there are 14,000 grandparents raising kids in New Hampshire alone, and this isn’t a big state. These reparenters are all back in the workforce after thinking they were done with the 9-5.

I want to afford it all. I want to spend without reserve so that we can enjoy the good life. On the other hand, I know that we’re better off than a boatload of others in this circumstance so I count my blessings and appreciate the store brand bread and generic pop. After all, we have a good support team here with 3 adults in the house where we can spell each other on different days and with different jobs. The kids help out a bit and I can make a decent batch of cookies when I put my hand to it. If one of us is sick, we can get well without having to hustle.

As I plod along, chained to the shopping cart, I always try to find a treat that each boy will like. For instance, Tio likes pistachios, Kit likes tinned clam chowder (I tried to make some and it was a disaster) and Doc likes ice pops. They all like ice cream and Buddy has a couple of frozen entrees he’s addicted to. At the far end of the store is a flower stand where, if I’m feeling particularly flush, I buy my Tish some flowers. But that doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

Maybe I can find a coupon for roses.

Do you reach out to a kid, or wait for him to come to you?

It's vacation week and Tio has decided not to go to his other grandparents along with the two other boys. From what he says there is a lot of tension, some of it caused by him, not much reigning in on inappropriate behavior, and a sense that he isn't welcome. I don't think his grandparents don't love him or not want him around but he's 12 and starting to see the world through teenage eyes. That in itself can bode ill, but when you add together a volatile household, a complete disconnection from his adoptive mom who still hasn't returned or said she misses him, and a couple of arguments with words that might call for apologies, it adds up to a downer for a kid his age.

His relationship with them is important to him and them both but I think they've lost the ability to communicate right now and may need to rebuild from the ground up. Maybe some one on one time outside the house, maybe a truce where they all cut each other more slack, maybe time apart, maybe maybe maybe... It's so hard to know what to do when it comes to this. Someone at some point will have to reach out. Will it be Tio? His granddad? Auntie?

Personally, I've always been the reconciler when I have a probem with someone and I make the first step to reach out. Even if it's rejected I hate to leave things on a bad footing with someone important. I refuse to let stubbornness or misunderstandings create permanent bad blood. I'm not always successful, either. I've lost my share of friends and take blame for it. But in the end, I believe both sides need to mend a relationship that breaks down, or else one party doesn't want it fixed.

I suspect that Tio will return to visiting his other family one way or another. The question is how and when. This is one place where I can't make things better. But if no one steps forward and the problems underlying his reasons for staying away don't get addressed this could turn into a permanent rift.

Introducing A. Kitten: video star of the future.

Kit and I started a new video tonight and it reminded me of all the music vids we've done since he was 5. Here's a 60 second sampler of a future superstar in a montage of all the songs we've done.

Being 10 and out of control really sucks

It's always a gamble whether Kit is going to have a good day at school, or get in some trouble, or just be enough out of control that he disrupts the class. Since he first came into this school over a year ago, we've worked closely with the school support team to create a better path to learning for him. This winter we finally got a comprehensive assessment to comprehend the details of his - for lack of a better word - condition. Psychological, academic, social, and behavioral.

All along the school has been leaning towards prescription meds but we've been resistant. Buddy was ADD and a nightmare to deal with as a child. He took meds every day and we monitored and assessed and profiled. Kit is nothing like that. Sure he's out of control at times, he loses it, he behaves badly but much of that if from anxiety as much as anything and he also admits that he deliberately perpetrates some of it. His anxieties have been getting deeper so his behavior has become more erratic. In the end the child psychologist assessed that Kit had ADHD. Big surprise. I spent a good half hour drilling him about side effects, down sides, misdiagnosis and the whole nine yards to be sure that we understood what was being recommended and how it compared to our experiences with his dad so many years ago.

Kit was present throughout the whole psych profile interview, playing with some toys, sitting still, leaning into me, and always listening intently, though he never appears he is. He didn't say much. We were really on the fence about using meds, right up to the end. Finally, he walked past my chair, leaned in close and whispered, "Let me take the pills."

"Sold," I said to the doctor. If Kit could be positive about it, then we should try it. Especially since stimulants unlike, say, antidepressants clear out of your system in 6 hours. So if they don't work, you can stop immediately.

That was 3 days ago and it's been a bumpy ride. He's had serious mood swings, stomach ache, and headaches. Home from school today because vacation has started, I found him this morning completely despondent on the sofa, even crying. He was irritable and didn't want to talk about it. Really not himself. Even so, he still wanted to continue with the pills tomorrow.

"No," I said, after conferring with the doctor, "this is probably an overdose and we need to change it. We'll try a different one next week and see how it goes. For today, we'll stay close together, have a good day out and once this dose has worked through you, you'll feel like yourself. Just remember that as lousy as you feel, it will pass by tonight."

And it did. But still, at bedtime he said he wanted to try again. I explained "if you try and hammer a screw into a wall and keep hitting your thumb as it flies out of your hand, wouldn't it be better to get a nail for the job?"

That helped and he's willing to wait for a new prescription. But this kid is quite the hammer when he gets behind a job he decides needs to be done. He knows he has a problem and wants to help find a solution. That takes real guts and courage and I'm very proud of him.

The faces have been changed to protect the innocent...

As a favor to Debbie's family, who are worried that the boys may be recognized by friends and family in the picture I've posted of them in my blog background, I have subtly disguised their faces to protect their identities.

Anything I can do to help.

One guy's normal is another guy's crazy

I bought a bottle of black nail polish so Kit and I can paint our toenails on Friday. It's not too outrageous but it's different enough for him to feel he's setting himself apart and I'm happy to share that with him. Next week is vacation so he won't be wearing it to school.

Tio doesn't understand this at all. He likes to be part of the crowd, wear the "normal" fashions and be 'ordinary' (his word). He doesn't understand Kit wanting to be different - really doesn't get it. "Why," he asks, "would anyone want to stand out?"

He's wrestled with that question all his life when looking at his brother. But what baffles him this week is why I would expose myself to ridicule along with him. If Kit is going to look like a fool, so be it. But Grampy, too? That's beyond comprehension.

"I watch your ball games and go to your dances, right?" I said. "because it's what you like to do and if you like it, it's okay by me."

"But everyone likes baseball and dances," he said. "not painting your nails."

"He likes it and it makes him feel special. That makes it special to me," I said. "Besides, I never played baseball as a kid. I didn't like guy stuff. You would have though I was a weirdo if we were in school together. I like to be different. There's nothing wrong with it."

"You are going to wear socks, right?" He was thinking how to explain me away to his friends, as if they didn't already know I'm not like other grandparents.

"If it's cold out." Then I wondered aloud, "Don't tell me you're going to be one of those guys who works on the 37th floor at desk 202 and goes home to the suburban house to kiss your 2.2 kids while you flip burgers on the back yard patio with your buds talking bout the latest scores and how much money your wives spend?"

"Sounds good to me." he said. And I bet it does. He really does want to be in a place surrounded by others just like him. That'd be comfort. Whether he is a Major League pitcher or a junior file clerk as long as he's surrounded by the same, he'll feel at home.

It's not a bad plan, laying a foundation of conformity to build a life on. I could never manage it and I doubt it'll be Kit's dream but I can see Tio building a castle out of normalcy.

In the meantime, he'll have to live with me and Kit wearing a bit of the full goose bozo.

The other side speaks up

Today, Debbie's sister, Auntie, posted a couple of responses to recent posts. Here's what she had to say (I'll post my responses after):

"I don't understand why you push your own fears and self doubts on the boys... you compare them to you as if you are one in the same... you are not. you may see certain similarities in their behavior that reminds you of a distant version of yourself, but by no means do they suffer the same hurts that you did. You are not the only one who loves those boys. You are not the only one that supplied them with the items they needed when your son and my sister fell short of the mark. You are a true narcissist. Some day the boys will read the paperwork on you, Marcia, Debbie, etc... I have nothing to fear on that day, nor do my parents... you however, do. Think hard to the name that you referred to your grandson as... the one that is on public record? The name that the judge even scoffed at? Kit will see that one day... and one day Tio will see his paperwork as well. Clear your conscience before the truth comes out.

it was not i nor my sister that called the state.... did it ever occur to u that it could be the school? or Marcia trying to wedge a foot in? either way i cannot believe that you made this public... do you have no shame?!"

My response:
First off, I suspect that anyone who writes autobiographically might be guilty of a certain amount of narcissism. That said, a true narcissist wouldn't be concerned about the welfare of anyone else but themselves. I wouldn't be taking Kit to therapy, Tio to ballgames, or reading bedtime stories to Doc. I doubt, if this was all about me, that I would even be concerned with their interests or needs whatsoever and that would be clear in what I write. Further, if I was trying to push my own doubts and fears on the boys, I wouldn't be nurturing them to develop their own interests or learn independent thinking. If this was all about me, why would have spent so much time getting Tio into baseball with countless hours of catch (which Isn't my thing) or playing dolls and make-up with Kit (which is the total opposite and still not my thing). Instead, I would have pushed them to read and play music and daydream without end. While it's true that I am introspective and express that in my blog to give readers a better understanding me, the boys are nothing like me and if you read the blog posts, it is obvious that I am not trying to remake them in my image.

Secondly, I'm fully aware that you and your family love them and they love you. The frustration that I discuss in these pages relates to the apparent inability to quell their out of control behavior when they visit your parent's house. It is unhealthy. Don't take my word for it. Talk to any therapist, pediatrician, or counselor and they will all tell you that kids need limits, control, and expectations. They even appreciate them. I hope that you're not suggesting that setting limits and expectations for them is narcissism.

Third, someone in your family did call DCYF (the child welfare agency) to spark an investigation. Only you folks knew the claims that the investigator described: diaper rash and Kit tripping on the stairs when he was half asleep. You took them to the emergency room six months ago for the rash (God knows why) and Kit only told your family about his fall which resulted in no injury. The school has no record of these things and Marcia has no contact with Kit or Doc to know anything about it. The shame isn't in making this public, it's in putting the boys through it in the first place.

In the end, Auntie, I don't mind if you don't like me, but please don't invent stories about me. I'll cop to having plenty of real flaws, you don't have to make up new ones. I don't have a clue what name you are referring to or what "the boys will read the paperwork on you" means. However, giving up my freedom, compromising my marriage, and donating my retirement fund and the next 10 years of my life to the welfare of these kids defies the definition of narcissism.

I'll be happy to post responses you may have if you refrain from throwing insults and unsubstantiated claims.

Do we run from life, or towards it?

Change is central to my life. I don't gamble but I risk. I have a clear memory and can look back over my life to any point and see some kind of turmoil or turnover going back to early childhood. Many were by choice, many just happened. As a kid it frightened me until I used it as a way to escape and by the time I reached the age of 20, I looked for it. Just jumping back arbitrarily by 5 year increments tells the tale: 2006 I was on the road doing classroom visits and promoting a novel; 2001 I chaired a million dollar renovation of our town library; 1996 I hired an apprentice and was trying to keep my business alive on a credit card while fighting a community battle to keep our town from turning into a national waste destination; 1991 we moved from Toronto to New Hampshire to start a new life; 1986 I moved in with Tish and her two small children to start a family, me in my 20's taking on an ADD boy and his detached sister without a clue what I was getting into; and so on and so forth. I could pick any other year and get the same result.

Who knows why I inflicted this on myself. I was a boy on the run from myself, living in 24 different places before i was 25, until I became a man who found himself and faced change without running from or to it. And still, like clockwork, some new direction, risk, or need spins my life on a fresh tangents, the latest adventure being the boys moving into our life.

While I wonder what the next throw of the dice may bring for me, I see the same potential meandering and perilous path for Tio and Kit because of their tumultuous lives so far. They have known nothing but change. Tio has lived in 14 different houses in 12 years. He's been abandoned by 2 mothers and changed schools 6 times and he's only in grade six. Kit's story is similar but has wrinkles all its own. What kind of foundation does that lay for their adult lives? How complex will the defenses they build around themselves have to be and will it send them into flight when things get hard?

I've been blogging about the walls that Kit has built and they're nothing compared to what he can hide behind as an adult. We all hide behind layers, some easy to see through and some thicker and sturdier than medieval armor. To a certain extent, we all need some. But trust and a sense of belonging won't come easy to these boys. It's much easier to run than to face your fears.

Doc makes a joke

I took Doc to the pediatrician on Friday for a follow up over an ear infection. He was nervous and we made jokes to lighten the mood. When the doctor stuck a light into his ear, I told him I could see it coming through the other ear and shining on the wall. He didn't miss a beat. He didn't turn his head or say I was making it up. He just grinned and raised two fingers in a peace sign and held them up to his other ear like they'd make a shadow on the wall.

That's not bad for five. All three of these boys have a quick sense of humor.

The 2nd twenty-five years

A few months ago my left ring finger swelled up for no reason I could see but it forced me to cut my wedding ring off before it got better. Our wedding anniversary is this Monday and I'm making two new rings from the gold of the one I destroyed. I spent a lot of time designing and pounding out the gold so I could lay it over a silver band. Last night, while nearing the end of the whole job, Tish's ring caught on the small end of my chasing hammer and got flung across my workshop. I heard it tinkling when it hit something so I knew kind of where it landed. That was at ten-thirty. It took me until three am this morning to find the thing after tearing my work benches apart 3 times!

The things we do for love.

Sometimes kids know themselves better than we think

Last night we were sitting round the table and Kit was talking about going Emo.
"Emo? You don't even know what that is," Tio challenged.
"Sure I do. Black hair, black clothes, heavy make up."
"But why are they Emo?" I asked.
"They like to cut themselves," Kit added.
"None of that makes you Emo," Tio said.
"Really, though, why does that make you Emo?" I asked. "I mean, why do they do those things?"
"Because they have low self-esteem and hide behind the costume to feel better about themselves," he said all perky. "Just like me."
I did a double take. He was smiling like the cat with the canary. I bumped him with my elbow.
"Someone's been paying attention," I said. "Good for you. Let's paint our toenails black this weekend."

Today, Kit and I went to emergency safety counseling to resolve the threatening behavior that got him suspended from school yesterday. We met a therapist who had some great insight into the layers of protection that Kit has surrounded himself with and why he seems hyperactive but isn't ADD. Without going into detail here, it connected several threads that we've been working on and introduced what I'm hoping might be a way forward with the school.

What is so spooky about it, is that Kit's insight into himself about Emo self doubt was right on the mark.

Aiming for the head and hitting your own heart

The state child welfare agency inspected us yesterday and found the allegations of "ear pulling, drug use, and throwing kids downstairs" completely unfounded. Big surprise. They also mentioned that the complaint included "diaper rash". Diaper rash? Really? The concerned caller was worried about spots on the bum being abuse and neglect?

The agent spoke with the kids separate from adults and asked if any of them would rather live somewhere else. Doc said "yes". Being 5, he'd been silent up to that point. "Where would you like to live, Honey?" she asked. "Florida," he said and that closed the book on this colossal waste of time perpetrated by an 'anonymous' call.

She said they knew who the caller was but couldn't share. Then she asked who we thought it might be. We gave her two likely names. I was leaning towards one over the other after hearing the diaper rash thing. "Why," she asked, "do you think they'd do this?" As an adult I can't understand why someone would make such a call to waste child services valuable time as well as making the kids extremely uptight with 'officials' showing up. They've seen a lot of that in their lives and it never turned out well before. But it fits with Debbie's family resorting to "calling the cops" as a last resort.

As a last resort to what, I can't say. Maybe they don't like my blogging honestly about our world (yup, they read it, too), or maybe they don't like that the kids are doing well. Maybe they just don't like us and that's enough. If all they are hoping to create is upset, they have accomplished that. Kit has been acting out so badly all week that he got suspended from school today and has to go through safety counseling before he can go back.

Whatever the reason, I reiterate what I've been saying for a couple of weeks. It's time to grow up and think of the kid's welfare first, and not your own grievances.

"Play Ball!"

Last spring and summer were very different for me because it was the first year with the boys here. We spent most afternoons at the playground/ballpark, often with a picnic. Tio played baseball, Kit and Doc met up with friends and worked out their afternoon energies.

As I leaned on the fence watching Tio practice with his team, my other eye on the Jungle Jim, I sucked in the warm spring air and remembered what a pleasure it was to have those afternoons last year. With the team running bases and the other boys running around with friends, I had nowhere to go and watching the boys give their all on the field of battle while the sun settled into the west was a calming pleasure.

I never saw or played a baseball game before getting Tio involved. I taught him to catch when he was five and he started T Ball soon after. We went to a minor league game once but it wasn't half as much fun as watching his midget league figure the game out. Last year was the first year they actually had enough skill to make the game interesting, instead of the pigpile scramble that beginners engage in. You know what I mean: as soon as some kid is lucky enough to connect the bat with the ball, all the boys lose their minds, forget their positions, and chase the thing down.

So here it is the beginning of another season and I'm looking forward to spending some slow, warm afternoons at the park watching the boys put on a good game and letting the world worry its own head for a couple of hours.

Grampy's Beer Battered Chicken recipe

This special Cajun favorite always makes preparing supper a treat.

Ingredients:
12 Oz bottle of amber or dark beer
4 boneless chicken breasts
2 eggs
Olive oil
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Cajun spices (mixure of small but useful amounts of all or most of these spices: sea salt, cayenne, paprika, onion powder, black pepper, garlic powder, ground cumin, dried basil, chili powder, thyme, mustard powder, and cloves) or
use your favorite premixed cajun seasoning.

Preheat oven to 375°
While warming oven heat tinfoil lined baking sheet with a thin layer of olive oil on the bottom.

Break the eggs in one bowl and mix all the dry spices, crumbs and cornmeal in another.
One at a time, lay each chicken breast on a cutting board.
Hold the beer bottle by the neck and batter the crap out of the chicken until it is thin and tender.
Cut the tenderized chicken into pieces. Dunk each one in the egg, cover with crumbs, and lay on the hot baking sheet.
Cook for 8-10 minutes on each side.
Toss together with coarsely chopped tomato and buttered egg noodles.

Drink the beer while setting the table. (You might want to pour the beer into a glass before battering the poultry)

And the hits just keep on coming.

Kit and Doc went to their other grandparents for the weekend. Tio stayed home. It seemed they had a good time. They visited with their aunt and uncle, stayed up late, and there wasn't a lot of tension. Debbie finally called and talked to Kit after six weeks of silence. There's still a lot to sort out but it seemed a good start. They came home in upbeat spirits and we were encouraged.

Then we learned today that an anonymous caller to the child welfare agency (obviously from Debbie or a member of her family) made preposterous false allegations about illegal drug use and "throwing the kids down the stairs", going on in our house. I asked Kit if he knew anything about it and he said he did mention the night that he slipped down some stairs after going up to pee in the middle of the night a few weeks ago but didn't know anything about the rest of it. We wondered if he'd made stuff up but he said he didn't and I believe him.

However, this fits Debbie and her sister to a tee. Even if Kit made some exaggerated claims, they know they aren't true. But that wouldn't stop them from making trouble. I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish. We were all in court barely four months ago and the judge ruled entirely against Debbie's petition for custody. Nothing has changed since then. The agency will make an inspection and determine just that. There is no evidence of drug use, violence, or any other form of neglect here. Why? Because there is no drug use, neglect, or violence here and simply by making the claim does not make it so.

So, what's the point? Is it simply to badger us and the kids? Or do they hope by crying 'wolf' often enough the boys will be turned over to them and life will be swell? The overriding question, as always, is where are the adults in this group and when will they step up and put the best interests of the boys first?

The whisper of death

Tomorrow I go under the gas for a colonoscopy which means I have to drink a gallon of sluice juice tonight and go hungry. My dad died of colon cancer at the age of 61 so I have to be especially vigilant. There's no imminent threat of cancer but it does bring the thought into the boy's comfort zone.

Each of the older boys separately posed the one ultimate question. Tio asked "What happens if you die?"' and Kit put it more demonstrably - "You can't die! What will happen to us?"

I gave them both the same answer. "Look after your brothers."

Hi-ho Silver, Away!" -The Lone Ranger

Here's another crossover from my planckscaleblog that seems relevant in light of what I've been discussing this week about doubts, raising kids and role models. It seems that we are always looking for a lone hero in our society and our obsession with superheroes in movies and celebrity and even politics (we want our leaders to be perfect and when they turn out to be fallible human beings we throw them over like so much trimmed fat). We need to raise children in the community of family if not the community at large. But one thing we can't do is expect someone else to come along and make things better and fix it for us. It reminds me of a Tom Toles cartoon with 2 panels. The first one, captioned "1950's" had a group of frightened people running scared from a flying saucer screaming: "save us!". The second one, captioned "1980's" had a group of frightened people running scared towards a flying saucer screaming: "save us!".

Here we go, from November 30, 2009...
I suppose the obsession with superhero stories these days is because the world is so stressful and problems seem so overwhelming that people dream about larger than life characters that can swoop in and save us all. I read Spidey and Thor when I was a kid because when you're a kid your immediate world is so overwhelming that dreaming heroes that understand and take charge is a parental kind of thing.

But, as adults do we really want to admit that our obsession in movies and TV with superhero, military hero, vigilante hero worship is really telling us that we're longing for mommy and daddy to swoop in and save us from the big bad world? All the adults in these stories are power hungry jackboots or buffoon 'yes men' who put obstacles in the hero's way. Unless, of course, it's a gorgeous blonde hiding behind black rims, a nuclear physicist in a D cup and compassionate lover of all things good. Is that how we really see society - through the eyes of a teenage male who is too young to even understand what he sees?

I wonder what we would make of it if one day we all woke up, our petty grievances resolved, our childhood problems washed away, bigotry and greed vanquished to irrelevance, leaving us with a clean conscience, positive attitude, and truly adult perspective on the world.

Who would save us then? I get the willies just thinking about it!

Setting the record straight

In a life fraught with troubles, trying to navigate this blog with a smidgen of objectivity is hard. I think in yesterday's post, I inappropriately painted Debbie and Marcia with the same brush.

When Tio was small and she was in his life, Marcia's indiscretions were aimed at her friends, family and partners. She was spiraling with outrageous behavior in ways that judges and objective observers alike agreed were not good environments for children. They needed to be separated from her lifestyle. After the third child was taken from her custody, I think she started to realize this and so began her long climb out.

Debbie, on the other hand, projected an image of outward domestic control that made it harder to observe the trouble beneath. She did, has, and does direct her inappropriate and unacceptable behavior towards the children. Her disappearing act this month is the latest in a long line of wounds she's inflicted on them and pales in comparison to some of the other things she's done. Her immaturity and inability to cope with life beyond herself has boxed her in to a place she may never be able to come out of. Unfortunately, her whole family deals with issues through denial, control, anger and, when all else fails, police intervention. Debbie has run away from home more than once. When she was a teenager it was only a matter between her and her parents. As a parent, she has more than herself to think about - she just doesn't.

Unfortunately, she can't think of more than herself. She never could. She acts like she cares for others to get what she wants or when it suits her and then turns on each and every one of them when times are hard or if she doesn't get things her way. She's wept openly to me about how badly her parents treat her and how they don't spend time with her kids, saying how I'm the only one who really stops everything when they show up to play with them. Then, barely a month later she scooped them up, left Buddy and took them to her parents and wouldn't let any of us see them until the courts intervened. When I tried to make arrangements with her, I was called a bully and her father threatened to have the police come if I stepped on their property again. This is where and how she grew up.

Now she's back to running scared and when she returns, as I expect sometime she will, she'll imagine things returned to so-called normal and act like it was all a big mistake or nothing happened. Until next time, that is. I don't know how many do overs she she thinks she should get but her rewards card has been punched so many times it's vanished into thin air. Her children will not forgive her for this, whatever they may say. They will not recover. Each emotional beating she gives them leaves them with a scar and makes them stay one step further away so that she can't cut so deeply the next time.

This was not Marcia's M.O.. She was a troubled girl who needed to grow up in a world of responsibilities she couldn't handle. She ran to a neutral place to finish growing up, find out who she wanted to be, and has come back to accept what she's done and move on.

Debbie is a child who can't grow up. Something stopped her during that phase of development where the only person in the world is 'me'. Now she's in her 30's and still the world is only populated by one person. Everyone else is someone to feed off. I don't know what it will take to help her unblock and move on. At this point, I don't care. All I want to do is protect the children from getting hurt again and again and again by a little girl who throws a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants.

When does the fun part of being a kid start?

I took Kit out for a root beer float tonight and some talk. It was his idea but I didn't imagine he'd be a lively conversationalist. He's been having a tough month and this week is no exception. He's completely baffled by his mom's disappearance. All he can think about is how angry it makes him. He can't understand it because he's only 10, and he can't even express what he feels, except outrage and anger. He thinks that she never really wanted kids. Which, of course, means that he doesn't think she wanted him.

What he wanted to talk about most was what happened when and how Marcia left Tio. You see, here in our little soap opera we have not one mother running from her children but two. Marcia left when Tio was six. Her world was full of trouble and she couldn't cope. She said her goodbyes and left Tio in Buddy and Debbie's care. Tio knew she'd moved to Arizona and that was it. Because Tio was younger than Kit and had only a part time relationship with his mom and had known Debbie all his life, it didn't smack his so hard and fast. Which didn't mean it didn't cut him deep and leave lasting anger and doubt in his life. He just assimilates easier.

Kit's close attachment, unhealthy at times, to Debbie leaves him exposed to his own raw fear and doubt that could scar him for life. He trusted her of all people to have his back and, while time to time he saw holes in her armor, it wasn't until this month that he has lost faith in her completely. He knows, and has said as much, that he'll never be able to trust her again because even if she does come back, how could he believe she'd stay.

Which brings us back to Marcia who has returned and assures us she has every intention of staying. Six years was a long time to be away and it will take time for Tio to accept that she's back for keeps, assuming she is. Kit may be thinking her to be a bellwether to gauge his own mother by. But the two moms are completely different.

I always imagined my kids would grow up, maybe go to college, but at least find a career, a partner, and have children in a typical middle class world. I could never have possibly written this plot - even for a movie. But here we are living it.

Read this blog and win a free gift!

I picked Kit up from his after school program and the director gave me a 'special certificate'. It was an 8x10 nicely printed color diploma looking thing with my name printed in the middle. Wow, I wondered, what have I done? I read on... Turns out it was a "Certificate of Attendance" for showing up at a 2 hour conference on school bullying that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

What the hell? Are they patting me on the back for showing up? How low can you set the bar? I feigned gosh and golly for a minute and thanked the Academy for their votes, and my parents, and all the bullied children of the world who made that lecture possible. I think they got the idea.

What kind of country are we living in where we need to be congratulated, rewarded, and praised for every little thing we do? I see this everywhere. Get a treat for losing weight, as though losing weight wasn't reward enough. Pay your kids to help out around the house instead of expecting them to chip in with their time. Need to be offered a gift just to buy or consider a product.

Tish attended a seminar on canine positive reinforcement behavior and all through the day whenever one of the students answered a question right or did something well the teacher tossed them a mint or a chocolate. It got so bad that some students were jealous of the candy each other was getting. These are adults who came to learn who ended up jumping like trained seals for a snickers bars.

Maybe I'm missing something here but to be rewarded for showing up to a talk about an issue that will help keep your child safe is almost contemptible. Do they imagine that I'm thinking "what a score - I think I'll go to more of these and collect the whole set for my den wall." If protecting your children from predators isn't reason enough to go (the small turnout was mostly teachers and administrators) then something is seriously wrong with the attitude of parents that might show up if there's a treat in the offing.

To get your prize for reading this far -- CLICK HERE

The inmates running the asylum

"KNOCK IT OFF, BOYS! GRAMPY'S STILL SLEEPING!" Buddy shouted, barely 5 feet beneath my head in the hallway under my bedroom early this morning.

"Not anymore," I muttered to Bunnie.

The dog licked my face, a sympathetic wag of her head saying, 'he hasn't got a clue, has he?' While I yawned and listened to Buddy and Tio's arguement play out, Bunnie added, 'seeing as you're up, wanna let me out for a pee?'.

Never admit that things are going well

Yesterday, I posted that the week went smoothly. Cocky me. Come Saturday night and Tio and Kit are scrapping over what seemed insignificant and ended in tears from one boy and blind rage from the other. Everyone stomped off feeling slighted, misunderstood, and wronged.

This morning I sat both boys down with pad and paper and we made lists of what was bugging them about the other and what we might do about it. They each conceded that the other was mean, called them names, provoked them and was generally full of themselves. Tio insists that he can't stand the sight of Kit and Kit is sure that Tio spends a lot of time insulting him in front of his friends.

There was a fair amount of typical sibling stuff in the lists and one or two real problems. We talked through them and I suggested how to solve some of the grievances, while others would take a lot of work if they could be done at all. There was a lot of overlap, too. For instance, when asked what the other could do to make things work better, Kit suggested that Tio could "get a different address", while Tio felt his world would be improved if Kit "disappeared". I told Kit that if he pokes Tio too much it'll be like teasing a dog and one day he'll turn around and bite and we won't stop him. On the other hand, if Tio doesn't back off his worst behavior, I'll play the dog on Kit's behalf and he won't like it any better.

All in all, they can get along but choose not to. They'll tell me I'm wrong when they read this but I know they do care for each other. They've had some hard knocks in their lives and were pitted against each other at times, so there are real issues to resolve. In the end, I suspect growing out of it will be the biggest motivation to change.

In the meantime - "leave your brother alone!"

The bane and blessing of humanity

Things are running smoothly this week and rather than get repititious, I thought I might dig deeper into my own thoughts about the human psyche and talk about something parents deal with every day in themselves and with their kids: self doubt.

I believe that all of human endeavor, motivation, achievement and actions can be traced to self-doubt. Da Vinci, Alexander the Great, Shakespeare, Bill Gates, and you and me. It is the essence of the 'human condition' and as such impacts how we think, feel, grow, and comprehend our world. It is the motivation of the bullied and the bully, it gives some strength and strips others of theirs. It pushes us to achieve greatness and throws us into the depths of depravity.

We are born knowing nothing and build on observation, experience, and heredity (not always in that order). The one thing we know is that we are someone, a separate individual, but have to learn what that means. During our first years there there is only one person: me. After that comes a recognition that the world really is bigger than 'me'. Third comes the understanding that there are other people who are as important as 'me' and should be treated as such.

Every step a long the way we face doubt. How important am I? How do I compare to them? Am I good or bad? Do others approve of me? A thousand questions and challenges chase us as we determine our place - all against a backdrop of doubt. For those who secumb to their doubts their lives can be filled with guilt or shame or lack of place. They allow others to control or manipulate them and feed off a small sense of self worth. At the other end of the spectrum, people who ignore or control their doubt live through ego and attempt to control the circumstances of their lives and the people in it. They feed on control to keep their doubt suppressed.

Most of us live somewhere in the middle. Doubt of self lives in us but doesn't control us nor push us to extremes. We are neither passive hand-wringers nor tyrants. The swing of the pendulum depends so much on how we interpret and act on our experiences through the prism of our doubts. We can all look back in our lives and find an example of a personal fear, from fear of dogs, fear of change, fear of loneliness, and see if we faced it or turned from it. That decision, big or small, still has impact on your life today.

This is why early childhood development is so important and so fragile in the hands of our parents. We can't control our children's heredity, nor the circumstances of our lives, but we can help them interpret and understand the world they experience so that they may develop a healthy sense of self worth and doubt.

Of course, this is a simplification of the issue, without reference or example. But if you consider life through your child's eyes, imagining the oversized world they face, unchecked doubts about who loves them, what will happen to them, where they fit in, and a host of other real fears can permanently scar or stop their emotional growth. I think this applies to whole societies, nations and cultures as well.

Let the snow fly and the wind howl

Tricorn Acres in Winter

Here it is another late night, sitting on the sofa as the deep snow flies threatening yet another storm of biblical proportions and school closures across the state, listening to the dulcet tones of Miss Tess on YouTube and wondering what went on today of note. I had a rare dentist appointment where he decided the cavity was too small to fill and didn't charge me for the visit. One of Kit's best friends from his old school just moved into our town and that's got him psyched. Tish is still trying to shake a nasty cold that's been living in her throat since 1968. Tio liked my chicken casserole and I took Doc to Home Depot where we played Batman & Robin buying wood for the batcave. Buddy came home in a good mood which made the day complete.

I guess we can handle a bit more snow. At least Tish can stay home to shake off the bug.