Modern day moral instruction

My children both have great future career opportunities in the Criminal Arts. Recession be damned.

I may be going against the grain again. I know the popular thought is to sort of ignore lying. Whatever the lie was, stop it in its tracks and redirect it with a quick moral review. Then, move on. I choose otherwise. I do this from fear. Fear of the day my children lie to me and I can't tell. So this is what I do instead. I encourage them to step thigh high in their own pile of shit. That's right, I encourage the lying. I lead them with questions all over town until they finally realize they are locked in the corner and start to panic. The whole time I am watching for their little "tells". Like in poker, they say everyone has a quirk no matter how hard they try to cover it up, there is always something. Maybe a single tic on the upper eyelid under dark sunglasses. Or the right elbow jerks convulsively. So I take the opportunity to study their little lying eyes and body language. Right. I take my parenting direction from gambling.

Genea is fairly easy. Although she is a prolific liar, the extra practice has not helped her build up skills. She tilts her head to the right and makes DEAD steady eye contact. Unblinking. She is so serious your pupils will blister from the intensity. And she takes on great creative detail in her lies. She has an answer for everything and can go on and on without wavering. She will be a great lawyer. But oh my unholy hell this child will do anything another child tells her. Anything! Genea was invited to a birthday party from school that her buttheaded friend The Twit was not invited to, and the friend told her not to go. So, she handed me the invitation when she got home and said, but I can't go. The Twit said so. Aghhhuuah, is the sound I made as I enclosed my throat with a used dishrag, choking myself into blissful unconsciousness (not really).

Teena, now Teena is a concern. She will make a great investment banker someday. Or maybe an adoption case worker (JK- no money in that lol). She just looks.... uncomfortable. Good eye contact but it wobbles. Tells her story, but is unsure of it. You really have to know her to see it. And she again will not budge. Over Christmas she had eaten some sort of non-food thing. Vomiting over and over for days, even had to be hospitalized overnight. Needles are being shoved through her skin. X-rays taken, visual proof she had eaten something that looked like little white balls. The doctor showed her the x-rays even. Pointed at the little dots and told her we can SEE INSIDE OF YOU and KNOW you ATE something. Nothing. Nope. Did not confess for about 3 weeks.

The other day she had a broken toy in her hand. I had heard a crunch, and I asked her what happened. She said, I don't know, maybe it broke ITs OWN SELF.

Anyway, I expect this admission I am about to make could get me banished to the crappy parent hall of fame. Dr. Laura would be appalled and would make me say things like "I am not my child's parent". Rightfully so. The Supermom patrol is going to hunt me down and set all my sippy cups on fire. Cuz this one is pretty bad. Yet I do it anyway. And then I speak of it publicly. For shame.

I let my kids watch Cops. Well, actually I encourage it by putting it on and holding the remote control out of their reach. They even sing the promo song. And as each episode unfolds, I like to emphasize that those people flopping around on the ground like fish out of water, with their scabby faces smashed into the dirt, did not listen to their mommys the first time. That's right, those shining examples of human bone- headedness, would have grown up to be fine adults if only they had done what they were told by their mothers. And like all children, mine are great little imitators.









The above picture is from the latest trip to my parents house. The girls had gone to stay for a few days without us. They were playing "Cops", running all over the house arresting each other, slamming each other to the floor and pretend- handcuffing each other. My sister's son is the boy. Horrible as this is, the picture sends me into hysterical laughing fits. It is just so dang funny. Hee hee, I am giggling just writing it. However.

There is an authenticity here that I find troubling. Teena's bangs are all sweaty, like she had been running. Genea's hair is all foofed up and flipped over and she totally looks like the one who was waiting in the getaway car for everyone. I am not going to assign a crime to my adorable nephew and Godson, who was just going along with his girlie cousins. Whatever his crime was, I am sure they made him do it.

Oh yeah, lying. I am sure, positive even, that it all starts with lying.

The kid we fight for (and other news)

Genea is on the upswing. Every few months she goes through a period of stellar behavior. She is as close to a regular kid as I think is possible for her. She is playing with a full deck. The lights are on, someone is home. The 6 pack has 6 cans. The switch is flipped.

She relaxes. She can wait her turn. She is funny! She laughs at jokes with a regular, normal sounding laugh. She catches on. She can put 2 and 2 together and get 4 instead of "banana". Her eyes are clear and there are no bags. She cares. She asks the person who tripped or fell or whatever, "are you all-right"? She doesn't have to ask over and over what is for dinner because she is confident it is coming, whatever it is. She can wait. She can hear the word no, and keep going. She stays on the topic of the conversation she is having. She ate a small portion of food at dinner and did not compulsively ask for more.

She is a 6 year old. She went to her friends house with explicit directions to play only outside. I could not see her and found her inside their house. She sits where I sit every time I get up. She asks questions she knows the answers to for our attention. She interrupts. She tattles on her sister. She jabs her new Barbie dolls hair an inch from my face so I can "see" it. Normal. All normal 6 year old stuff.

She is still toe walking. She falls and knocks stuff over and runs into things that are not there. She has to be able to see me or she will jump up, indeed she will levitate, to find me. She will follow me so close I literally trip over her, often. She paces back and forth, unable to focus on one thing to do. She is clingy.

This is it. This is the real kid that is in there, under all The Crazy. This is who Genea can be, what we fight for. The constant pace of manic- panic and fear is what we usually have. Even when we are having a good stretch, we always have that stress, the nervousness, the strain of mania and impulsivity, just to a lesser degree. But every once in a while, for a week or 2 if we are lucky, the real kid comes out. A regular kid who has been through a whole lot.

So what does that all mean? Does a kid with Reactive Attachment Disorder have periods of typical behavior? Does a kid with Early Onset Bipolar Disorder show periods of lucidity? Could ADHD cause all of this and her problems are related to hyperactivity and impulse control and does that go away once in a while? She is not free and clear. This break is a significant lessening of symptoms but many still remain. They are manageable. They are what you would expect from a child who has been through her situation. I don't know if an accurate diagnosis would make all the difference or if it matters and maybe there is no one thing that would explain everything. Would it change what we do and how we approach Genea? WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO AND HOW DO I MAKE THIS STICK?

In other news, The Husband is really sick. Now, Teena is really sick. And The Husbands parents are coming for a visit on Saturday, until Tuesday. Genea was mildly sick over the weekend but seems to be better. I am the only one left standing and I have suspicions that will not last much longer. Coincidentally, every time The Inlaws come out here (they live out of state), The Husband is either: A. Really Sick or B. Really Busy. This results in me having to do all the damn work for their visit while he slops around making a wreck of everything complaining that he is: A. Really Sick or B. Really Busy. Girls, beware that if you marry a man for his mind, there is a good chance he will spend decades using it to get out of household responsibilities!