Nutshell

This was originally a long winded post, but it gave me a headache when I re-read it. Since I love you all so much, and don't want to torture you with my venting, I'm going to give you the nutshell version of my weekend.

Saturday

- The kids are thrilled. Their mother has bought a $600 dog from a Montana breeder, and it arrives at 2pm.
- Two weeks ago she was complaining about not having enough money to buy food. Um....ok....
- We take kids over to visit the dog. The house is a disaster (not suprising). The dog is not house trained and pees on Jan, Mrs.Brady and various objects around the house (which I know is normal, but it doesn't help when there is so much crap on the ground that can't tell where the dog did a do-do).

Sunday

- Greg's 13th birthday. We take him and his friends bowling. Afterwards, we take them back to Mrs.Brady for cake and presents.
- When we get there, the kids run around the house trying to find their new dog.
- Mrs.Brady announces that she's lost the dog. It wiggled its way out of its collar and ran away.
- Mrs. Brady is devastated. Kids are sad.
- Marcia calls to tell us that Mrs.Brady is going to take them to look at more dogs on Monday. We ask about the one that's lost. She says that if it comes home, they'll just have 2 dogs.

I know it's none of my business. I know it's not my home, nor is it my decision. But it does become my business when her decisions affect the children who live in my home 3 days of the week.

A week ago she could barely afford to feed the kids. Now she can afford to drop $600 on a dog, plus whatever she spends on the second one?

I am beyong confused.

(BTW - thank you for all your comments about the Birthday Blues. I have since decided that from now on I'm just going to take them shopping myself. If he gets two sets of presents, so be it. It's better than seeing him not get anything at all).

Birthday Blues

Again, another 2 weeks without a post.

Work.Has.Been.Nuts.

The last few weeks have been quite eventful – and also a huge dissapointment. Not necessarily for me, but for Mr.Brady.

Before I go off on todays rant (which isn’t all about Jan – yay), I’d like to say again how much appreciate all of your blogs. I look forward to reading them everyday and they bring me so much comfort – especially in a situation that can leave you feeling very alone. So…thank you.

October 13 was Mr.Brady’s birthday. It was a big one, he turned 40 years old. We had the kids Wed, Thur, and Fri that week, so I planned a family bday dinner on the Friday. We had Chinese (the food, not the people), German chocolate cake, and the kids made cupcakes. We all sat down and enjoyed the feast.

It was about this time that I noticed that the kids hadn’t brought out any presents, cards, or pictures/paintings – so I held off on bringing out the present I had gotten him. I brought out the cake, we sang (horribly), he blew out the candles and we all stuffed ourselves silly. An hours passes, and still…nothing.

Mr.Brady and I begin cleaning up the table, and the kids go off into the TV room. I begin to wonder if this is some sort of family tradition that I don’t know about…maybe they don’t give gifts at the table? Maybe they give them on the hour they are actually born? But no, I’ve been with them through birthdays before, this was definitely not the case.

What is going on???

An hour later, the kids are in bed. Mr.Brady is sitting in bed reading. I use this opportunity to give him his gift. He opens it. Loves it. And then says, “Did my kids forget about my birthday?”

It was the saddest thing I have ever heard him say. It broke my heart.

The next day, Marcia told me that her mom would take them shopping for their dad. Next week arrives, still nothing.

Here is my question. Actually no. It’s not a question, because I already know the answer. It’s more like a statement that I need to have validated.

I should not have to assume that I am buying Mr.Brady presents from his kids. That responsibility is Mrs.Brady, who has them 4 days out of the week.

If she couldn't afford it, or couldn't find the time, I would have been MORE than happy to take them shopping, but she didn't communicate anything to me.

Mr.Brady always ensures that the kids have something to give to her on her bday, so why wouldn’t she do the same?

Breakfast, by Alice Nelson

Knock, knock.

“Yes?” said Mr.Brady.

“I’m hungry!!! I want breakfast now!”

“We are sleeping. Breakfast is at 9. Eat an apple if you are hungry”

Screaming, kicking, yelling ensues.

Alice groans and rolls out of bed, “I am not starting off my day to the sounds of her screams”. She grumpily slips on her robe and opens the door, “Jan, get in here and take a seat.”

Jan sits on the floor and crosses her legs. Tears stop. Alice kneels down, “If you are that hungry, all you need to do is say so. You don’t need to scream and cry. You scream and cry about everything so often that I’m not even sure when you’re serious anymore. Are you really that hungry? Are you screaming so that we all wake up? My point is, you don’t need to scream. If you don’t want an apple, and would prefer eggs, just say so. You are far too pretty to always be crying. Why not show that beautiful smile of yours instead?”

Alice gets up and takes Jan’s hand. Together they walk to the kitchen, where Alice makes Jan a breakfast of toast, eggs, and hashbrowns.

Jan eats one fork-full of eggs and says, “Is this the best you can do”.

Alice takes a deep breath and grabs her plate back, “…Oh! Well if you don’t like them, I’ll gladly eat them. I think they’re delicious.”

“NOOOOO! I want them!” she yells.

As Alice walks back to her room, she lets out a small laugh.

She has decided to take this kid on with a sense of humor.

...or she might go insane.

I think I missed the chapter on dealing with tantrums...

Is it common for a 5 year old girl (turning 6 in November) to cry, scream and have a tantrum every single day? I am not exaggerating.

Like I've said before - girl is moody. Her behavior can go from 0-60 in 3 seconds.

Is this "normal"?

Am I completely discombobulated for no reason?

Do I need to be a bio-mom to truly understand and sympathize with these tantrums?

S.O.S

The kids have been here for 3 hours and already Jan has had 2 crying sessions, and 1 tantrum. She's currently in her room, screaming her head off and banging on the door.

I feel like I'm tucked away in the trench of some Lord of Flies battlefield.

...send wine.

K-I-S-S-ING!

I'd like your opinion on this matter. Mr.Brady and I received this email from Jan's kindergarten teacher. I'm not sure I agree with the punishment for showing affectiong, but I'd like to know your thoughts...

Hello Parents

While normally I would save classroom discussions for my Friday reminders email or Monday newsletter, I feel we have an issue on our hands in kindergarten that I would like to nip-in-the-bud with your help. We have developed a kissing problem in our classroom, which I see mainly outside at recess and in our lines before school. The kissing has occured over such a range of students that I felt it necessary to send out a quick email in search of support.

Please remind your kindergartener that kissing is reserved for home: parents, grandparents, and pets. At school, we have discussed that this will be an automatic turn-to-red card change with a loss of 5 minutes of recess. This early in kindergarten it is so important to set social and personal boundaries at school, which is why I am really trying to curb this behavior.

Thank you for your help and support!

While I can see the issue at hand - my suggestion would be to encourage the kids to bond in a different way. Why not teach them a secret handshake/highfive, that only their class knows? Or hugging instead of kissing?

What do y'all think?

It's a small small world...

Hello. Remember me?

I sincerely apologize for the two week sabbatical that I took – but things have been crazy! We have just returned from our 7 day trip to Orlando (Disneyworld), and before that I was up to my ears in work – trying to tie up all the loose ends before I left.

Oh. Yes. There was also that huge urge to choke every time I thought of our Disneyworld trip. Why? Because it wasn’t just a trip with Mr.Brady, the kids and me. It was a trip with Mr.Brady, the kids, his niece, Mrs.Brady & Mrs.Brady’s boyfriend.

:: crickets ::

It wasn’t as horrible as it sounds. We obviously stayed in different rooms, and we rarely saw them except when we met everyday at 3pm to “hand-off” the kids. But it was still…weird. The important thing here is that the kids had a great time, except maybe the little one. Jan hated the rides, and refused to go on any. She warmed up as the days went on, but it was impossible to get her on Splash mountain, or Buzz Lightyear. Instead, she would rather take a few roundtrips on “Small World”.

Sweet Jesus. I forgot how much I hated that ride. Even as a kid I disliked it. That song. That horrible horrible song. I close my eye and all I see are kaleidoscope images of animatronic puppets from around the world, swaying to that evil 2 verse theme song.

Other than that – I thought the other rides were great. There were tons of learning stations for the kids, and so many interesting attractions to wonder through. Epcot was by far my favorite part.

On a more parent-related note, and less Disney…

Mr.Brady and I had some excellent opportunities to chat about the group-vacation-experience as it was happening – and I had some excellent opportunities to vent my brain out. He listened well, and was increadibly patient when I tried to put my feelings & emotions into words.

There are a dozen funny/sad/strange Disneyworld-stories I could write about, but let me focus on a climatic point ... Jan (yes of course the climatic point is about Jan) was being fussy and impatient while we ordered lunch – she started hitting her sister (for no reason). I asked her to stop. Futile. I ask her again. No response. Mr.Brady’s niece grabbed Jan’s arms and stopped her from hitting Marcia. This upset Jan greatly. She decided to take her restraint-frustrations out on the nearest person. That would be me. She smacked me (hard) across the side of my body.

I can put up with a lot. But hitting? This may be the only time I swear in my blog, but this is what was going on in my head, “You just fucked with the wrong step-mom, Kid.”

I kneeled down grabbed her shoulders, looked her in the eye and said, “Jan, don’t ever hit me again. Ever.” I picked her up and hauled her off to a nearby table, sat her down and walked away. Mr.Brady was in shock…everyone was in shock. It was like they had never seen discipline in action. She got up immediately and came back to the table, I said calmly, “Are you coming back to apologize for hitting me?”

“No.”

I picked her back up and sat her at a different table. She came back 3 times, all with the same answer. She cried. We ignored her. Finally she came back and mumbled something that may have been an apology. I asked her to repeat. She finally managed to say “I’m sorry for hitting you.”

I smiled and said, “Apology accepted.” She sat with her head down for the rest of the meal.

I’m not trying to promote shame here – but talk about pride! I began to wonder if Jan had ever been taught to apologize. Later that day I asked Mr.Brady – his response, “Not really. I actually was really impressed with how you handled that situation. I would not have done that.”

Mr.Brady has this habit of just rolling with the punches (know what I mean?). If she’s a brat, he’ll say “Knock it off”, or “Stop that”….and that’s about it. Two minutes later she’ll be all happy and bubbly, and he’ll roll with that. Seems like an easy going way of dealing with her behavior, but I don’t think she learns anything. I strongly believe that rolling with her punches is just teaching her that she can act however she wants.

One minute – Mad
Next minute – Happy
Following minute – Crying

…and it doesn’t matter, because this is how Mr.Brady will react.

Mad – “Uh oh…she’s mad…I better tell her to quit acting like that”.
Happy – “Yay, she’s happy, let’s see how long I can keep her like this.”
Crying – “Well that didn’t work. I wonder how I can please her and make her stop.”

Do you see what I’m getting at? There is no reason for her to stop hitting her sister – because there is no real consequence. She knows that in 2 minutes, if she smiles and laughs, her dad will think she’s the cutest thing on the planet again, regardless of what she’s just done.

It.is.so.irritating.

The good news is – Mr.Brady and I had a long talk about this and it looks like we want to be on the same path. There is hope.

Alright – I’ve been incredibly random in this post – and I’ve talked your eyes off – but there is more. A.lot.more. Funny stories!

Again, thank you for being so supportive!

In the picture: Jan, Greg, Alice, Mr.Brady's niece, Marcia.