We are ready for kindergarten!

The orientation went so smoothly!  I didn’t get an ounce of flak about not having a shot record, and the nurse was completely cool with the letter we had.  While I was filling out paperwork, one of the teachers took him off to evaluate him.  He passed the alphabet screen, letter sound screen, and number screen.  He apparently passed with flying colors, one of benefits of him missing last years cutoff by about six weeks.  He’ll be one of the oldest in his class as a result. 

I know that mothers brag – that’s part of our job.  But Brody has an interesting mathematical gift.  Starting probably over a year ago, he somehow learned to add numbers in his head…normal you say.  But he adds more than two numbers at a time in his head, and is usually right with the results.  They’re single digit numbers, but he’s being doing larger ones lately.  And if I can continue to brag, his vocabulary tends to blow me away.  Yes, he has another benefit of being raised with a teenage sister and a mother that doesn’t talk down to him.  But he actually surprised me the other night when draining his bath, he pointed out the “vortex” at the drain.  I guess second kids don’t get left too far behind always. 

I pulled the Mommy card

I don’t do it too often.  I try to let my kids sort their battles with their peers out for themselves, offering advice and listening, but I usually don’t intervene. 

However.

My daughter and her ex-boyfriend got back together about a week ago.  Take into account that they’re both 13, and they now go to two different schools.  I understand how important having a boyfriend is at that age, and I really didn’t have a problem with it.   This weekend, though, she had friends over from her new school for a video marathon/pizza pigout, and one of these friends happened to be of the masculine gender (take that adjective as you will, considering their age).  I had met the boy a few times prior, and all-in-all, he seems like a good kid and hopefully a friend she can keep in her life.

Now, the ex/new boyfriend got jealous that he wasn’t invited.  I have to say though, she had planned this occasion before they had gotten back together, and she wanted it to be a gathering for her friends at her new school.  Through the course of the evening, she got a series of texts from the boyfriend and a supposed friend of his (texting on the same line), and by the end of the night she was single again.

We talked about it the next day.  She was a little disappointed, but she understood.  But what happened after is where I intervened.  For the next 36 hours, minus school time, she continued to get text messages from her ex’s phone.  Again, I would have just let her work it out, but these were coming in when she should have been asleep.  And then she came to me with them, showing me the content.

I don’t care how old you are, to me, the word “gay” should not be used as a weapon.  And there were over ten messages from his phone with various phrases of the such.  One was so bad that I won’t even reprint it here.  So yesterday close to bedtime, after another text message, though this one was not too particularly cruel, I made the call.

I told the 13 year old boy that he needed to stop texting my daughter, and that his text messages would be considered harassment if he continued.  He tried to claim ignorance, as he had been blaming some of the ruder ones on a friend to my daughter.  I informed him that these were coming through on his phone line, and therefore his responsibility.  He again tried to argue, and I asked him very clearly, Do you understand what I am saying to you?  He said he did, and I calmly but firmly told him goodbye.

Amy told me it was a bit embarassing, but she was really glad I called him.  I won’t be able to rescue her from stupid stuff like this her entire life, but she needs to know that if she is in a bad situation that she doesn’t feel like she has the ability to get out of, I will be there for her.

 

Texas immunization laws and the Turkey Boy

First a bit of medical background.  My son, affectionately know as the Turkey, Turkey Boy, Turkey Sandwich, Super Turkey, Turkey Skywalker, etc, was diagnosed when he was a little over a year old with IgAD – Immuno globulin A deficiency.  This is an immune system deficiency, essentially.  Since this particular Ig guards the mucous membranes, what happens is that any ookies that could get through to him that way will.  What is more interesting is that this is hereditary, and it wasn’t until a few years after his diagnosis that I got mine of Rheumatoid Arthritis, one of the possible later complications of his disease (another would be Lupus).

I have in the past had his doctors send a note to his daycares to inform them that because of the immune system deficiency, he has not had the required immunizations.  I don’t get a lot of flak usually, but today is the Turkey’s kindergarten roundup, which means a new school for me to present his exemption to.  When I presented the dr’s note and a print out from the web on his condition to his current preschool, the director told me of the procedures for getting him into kindergarten this year.  She said I would have to mail something to Austin, get something notarized, and more and more.  But from my research, that’s only for exemptions of conscience, which is not quite the case here.  For the record, my 13yo is vaccinated, and she and I have even discussed the Gardisil vaccine.  According to what I’ve read, my doctor’s letter should be good enough for a lifetime exemption, since this is a lifetime condition. 

So now, armed with my note on Brody’s doctor’s prescription pad, I get to face the schools this afternoon.  And you guys know how I dread school officials.  I even had an anxiety dream this morning about missing the first part of the “meeting” and being embarassed walking in late in front of all the other parents.  Is it bad that I’m having embarassing school dreams, and it’s not even my school?

Jaw, floor

Yes, I know it’s a cliche, but I could not stop from gawking at the screen. 

Judge: La. schools must stop Bible giveaways

You get the general idea from the title, and please feel free to read the article, but here’s a couple of quotes that stuck out to me:

The ACLU filed the lawsuit for an anonymous family whose daughter said she felt pressured into taking a Bible because she was afraid her classmates would call her a “devil-worshipper” and think she didn’t believe in God. The girl was called Jane Roe and her father John Roe out of fear of retaliation by schoolmates and neighbors, the ACLU has said.

Right, btdt.  Ask Amy about being told many, many times she was going to hell by other students. 

However, the judge wrote, even procedures upheld as neutral for secondary-school students might be out of bounds for “an impressionable young elementary-age child.”

This is why there is no Christian Athlete groups in elementary school, but later, right?

Grade-school children might not understand that the school board was not endorsing any of the materials, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal said in that case.

At Loranger, the table outside the principal’s office also created the impression that the school was endorsing Christianity, Barbier wrote.

This is exactly my point.  Shall I back up to my daughter’s choir concert?  To have a representative of the school, specifically a teacher, stand before an auditorium and to use the phrase, “the true meaning of the season,” in reference to the religious music being sung, that constitutes a public school endorsement of one religion over another.  I did not have a big problem with the music.  I told my daughter, it’s like a play – you wouldn’t necessarily be a murderer in real life, but if it’s written into the part, I expect you to do your best at it.  My issue was the endorsement, and the fiasco that followed.

Regardless of their personal beliefs, our educators needs to be a bit more sensitive to the fact that their students do not have the same beliefs.  What if you were the only redhead in a classroom full of blondes, and the teacher made the comment that she really liked blonde hair.  You would feel left out, wouldn’t you?  You would feel like she prefers other students to you, even though your hair has nothing to do with your capacity to learn.  Following me here?

But my jaw truly dropped when I read the survey results following the article.  Two-thirds of those who voted in the informal poll disagreed with the decision!  And to those two-thirds, I would like to pose this question, would your answer change if the table was full of free copies of the Qu’ran?*

And ftr, I have nothing against the Qu’ran.  I am strictly using it as an example.  I strongly advocate educating oneself of every religious view one can.  

 

When it clicked

Before school started back again last year, my mom called asking to have the kids for the day.  I gave in, after them not seeing her for a while.  It just so happened my sister called my mother that day.  A close friend of hers had gotten put in the hospital, and she really wanted to be there for her.  She called my mother to see if she would watch her sons the next day, and called to ask me if they could spend the night at my house, since she knew our mother wouldn’t keep them overnight.  I agreed, and told her I could drop them back off at mom’s the next morning, since I couldn’t watch them during the day.  I also agreed to let my kids go over there a second day to help keep the boys occupied.

Picking up the kids was non-eventful and fairly quick, and we stopped at the grocery store directly after.  It was in the parking lot that it clicked.  I started to tell the kids that they would be visiting again the next day, but it had already been discussed without me.  My daughter had told me how my sister called and asked my mom to watch the boys.  She agreed, but when she hung up the phone with my sister, she burst into tears in front of the kids.  She cried that she couldn’t watch the boys, since they would exhaust her, and they weren’t that well behaved, and so on.  My daughter picked up the torch that I had set aside.  She said, “Don’t worry Gran, I’ll help you!” 

I called my sister and explained to her that our mother had no intentions of watching her kids the next day, that she had manipulated Amy into doing it for her, despite the fact that she eagerly agreed earlier.  I saw it so plainly, how she had groomed me to do her dirty work, and now, by the years of calling my daughter her “girlfriend,” and putting her in the special club next to her, she had groomed my daughter to do the same.

 

Happy Birthday to my Grammie

I called my Grammie last night to wish her a Happy Birthday.  I held my breath at first, wondering if I was going to recieve the obligatory questioning about what happened with my mother this weekend.  But I don’t think she knew who I was at first.  I made it a point to mention my kids by name at the beginning, but when Amy got on the phone, from the side of the conversation I heard, I think she was under the impression it was my cousin calling instead.  When she did figure it out, I could hear her yelling, “Figlia mia!” through the cell phone from across the room, she was so excited. 

And she didn’t mention my mother one single time.

My mother has in the past talked about how Grammie would do Tricks.  But the more I read, and work through my own issues with my mother, I wonder how many of those Tricks are just projection.  My mother has attempted to use it on me in the past: for example, an email I got from my mother last summer in which she told me I was upset with her because I expected her to help me more.  *jaw drop*  My mother has told me of how since my Grammie had to have her teeth pulled and wear dentures, she made my mother have hers too.  All these years, the story has frightened and confused me.  Now, I think it might just be an outright lie, since I’ve learned that lies are an appropriate form of communication in my mother’s social handbook.

I listened very closely to my Grammie last night, mostly because I miss her so much, and I don’t hear her voice nearly enough.  Her light accent of part Gloucester, part Sicily, brought to me the image of her beautiful tanned olive face, her snap-front apron, and the smell of White Diamonds, which she is no longer allowed to wear near my mother because the woman will cover her face with her shirt and start gagging, claiming to be so sensitive to smells.  But I also listened for any of those Tricks. 

I can’t tell you if Grammie acts the same towards my mother as she does to me.  But I didn’t hear it.  I didn’t hear any manipulation in the conversation, and believe me, I’m on hyper-vigilant mode for it right now. 

I heard love. 

No surprise, only sadness

I decided to set another boundary in the relationship between my mother and my family.  After posting Friday, I sent this email to her:

If you would still like to see the kids this weekend, you can meet them at the playground at the apartment complex tomorrow afternoon.  However, I don’t want them leaving the complex.  Please stop calling Amy to ask questions you should be asking me.  Email is acceptable if you choose not to phone me instead. 
 
If this is unacceptable, I’ll let them know.

She responded with, what time and where is the park?

I replied, Two. The playground is closer to the Fairmont entrance of the complex.  I would recommend going in that way.

Civil, no?  What I didn’t see was the email she sent after I had left for the day:  I forgot to ask, should I bring someone with me?  Passive-aggression on her part.

I told my 13yo Friday evening that she and her brother could go to the playground Saturday afternoon, and that I didn’t want to make a big deal about it to her younger brother, since I was almost certain my mother would find some excuse of not actually visiting with the kids, since the visitation wasn’t on her terms.  I told her I thought the playground would be good, since they’d still get to play even if she didn’t show up, and that they could just walk there and back, and not have to be in her car. 

Saturday, the kids and I went to try to pick up Amy’s ceramic figure from she had made at the birthday party the previous weekend, but it wasn’t ready.  My refrigerator was also pretty much empty, so we hit Walmart after that.  Now, this was probably poor planning on my part, but I really thought we would be home by two.  At about ten til, and we were still in line, I asked Amy to call her grandmother to say we were running late.  Looking back, I suppose I should have made the call myself.  I figured since everything was already negotiated, it would just be a courtesy call.  My mother told Amy on the phone that it was ok we were running late, since she had gotten lost. 

We were loading the trunk with groceries when Amy’s phone rang again.  I heard my daughter stutter, and say, Maybe you should ask my mom.  There we go – traipsing through the boundary I had tried to set up.  Amy hung up and told me to make sure I answer my phone, because Gran was about to call.  About a minute later she did.

Her: Toni Jo? 

Me: Yes?

Her: I found the playground, but it’s too far for me to walk from the parking lot.  The closer spaces are for residents only.  So I was wondering if I could meet them somewhere else.

Me: No, I’m most comfortable with them there. 

Her: Then I guess we’ll have to make it some other time.

Me: Ok, I’ll tell the kids.

I was civil, and didn’t try to antagonize her with my tone.  I was very non-emotional through the conversation, since I know this is the best way to deal with her.  I hung up, and put my phone back in my purse.  I told Amy that she’s not meeting them, but that they still can go play when we get home.  By the time I finished loading the trunk, got into the car, and pulled my phone back out again, there was a missed call and a message from her:

Her: Get a lawyer.

And there you have it.  I’ve violated her rights.  I’m not sure if is her imaginary grandparents’ rights, or her imaginary disability rights though.   I’m not worried, just very, very sad that this is what I get to deal with.  I don’t think she’ll follow through.  First, she would either have to spend a chunk of her fixed income, or share her sob story with someone she thinks might fund it, which is a possibility with her history of financial manipulation.  Then she’ll have to face my siblings to answer the question of why she thinks my children are worth this, and she’s never fought for their’s.  Matter of fact, she pretty much abandoned my oldest nephew and hasn’t seen him in over ten years.  Then she’ll have to sit in front of judge and rationalize her behavior, and I will not hesitate if it goes that far to air her dirty laundry to protect myself and my children.  But for the most part,  I think she’ll just use this as some sort of twisted ammunition to poison my relatives against me.  If I’m the bad daughter, they must feel sorry for the poor wounded mother, right?    I don’t play the game.  I don’t call everyone up to say what she’s done to me.  Yes, I’ll write about it – it’s good for me.  But I don’t send this in an email to my family.  What good would it do? To play into the drama gives her more fuel, and that’s not my intent.  I just want her to leave me and my family alone, to release us from her narcissistic game.

Setting boundaries with the narcissistic parent

My mother called last night.  She called my daughter.  She doesn’t call me anymore, because I set some boundaries in our relationship.  It took a long time for me to finally say, this is enough, and this is why these things are unacceptable.  So instead of manipulating me, she’s now moved onto her attempt to manipulate my daughter instead.

She wants to see the kids.  She’s called the past few weekends asking Amy when would be a good time.  Neither weekend has been good, but this will be the first really free weekend they’ve had in a while.  But let’s flash back to the beginning of the year first, ok?

My Grammie came to visit in January, staying with my mother.  Grammie called me once on Mom’s cell phone, and at the end of the message, I could hear her saying that she wasn’t quite sure how to even hang the thing up.  That’s the only time she called me.  I picked her up from Mom’s, but not before extending the invitation to my mother.  She declined.  The following weekend, my mother called (my daughter) again, asking to pick them up.  I told my daughter that if Grammie was going, I was ok with it.  My mother called back, and MAGICALLY in the time period between calls, my grandmother had gone to Shreveport with friends instead.  Right.  The last phone call we recieved while my Grammie was here was the day before she left.  My mother called my daughter to say that my Grandmother was very upset we hadn’t called her while she was here, despite the fact that she didn’t have a phone.  My daughter actually said, Gran, we invited you to go with us that time, and you said no.  My mother quickly said, this isn’t about me, it’s about your Grammie. 

Now, she’s calling again.  I could say no, but I have a feeling she won’t drop it.  She’ll put on her fake smile and say, “Whyyyyyyyy?”  So I have to figure out what ground rules to set for the visit.

I don’t want the kids at her house.  She lives in Harrison county, where I’ve had issues before with the sheriff’s department.  Specifically, dealing with the incident at my daughter’s choir concert where I was told I could be arrested for yelling “Get your f***ing hands off of me” when I was assulted, if I chose to press charges against the person who grabbed me.  But it’s a small town, so I must have asked for it, right?  BTW, the 911 call said that I was an “athiest” protesting Christmas music.  Um, not quite. 

I don’t necessarily want her driving the kids.  She’s “disabled” and is one of the most paranoid drivers I have ever ridden with.  She honestly cried she was so “afraid” when I drove her to the Amtrak station when she visited in Dallas.  And I swear it’s not my driving she’s afraid of.  She’s afraid of EVERY FUCKING CAR ON THE ROAD. 

And I don’t want her spending too much time with them.  A short time is good.  They’ll know they’re loved, and probably have fun, and my mother the queen will have her servents worship her.  But too much time with this woman, and you’ll walk away sure the sky is falling.  She’s emotionally draining, always complaining about something or something, and oh, did I mention she’s “disabled.”  She’s in her early sixties now, but has lived in a retirement community because of her disabilities.  This is the woman that said to me a few years ago that she didn’t want to do her breathing treatments because she might get better and then she’d have to work.  I kid you not.  I don’t want my children learning that pattern of behavior.

Now, since I know this post has been a bit depressing, I want to share with you a couple things I found today in my search can show you what spurred this on.  This post, Eight Easy Ways To Spot An Emotional Manipulator IS my mother.  I want to find out if the author might actually be related to me, she knows the woman so well.  I could give you specific detailed examples of each of her points.  I was linked there by Narcissists Suck, which I think I need to link from the front. 

I’ll be sure to give you an update post of the weekend.

 

Perhaps completely unrelated, but worthy of note

My daughter is having the most trouble in two particular classes since she’s reenrolled in public school. One teacher in particular rubbed me the wrong way during a phone conference I had with her, but I had been trying to blow it off. However, Amy tells me that she clashes with this teacher almost on a daily basis.

So yesterday, Amy told me that another teacher had to leave early, and her class was shuffled to the above-teacher’s classroom for the rest of the period. Amy asked that teacher why. Now, I know my daughter, and she can be a bit of a smartass. What came next honestly sounded like Amy was probably goading her a bit with the conversation, but the teacher said to her something like, ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

She didn’t call Amy stupid, but I have a big problem with the word itself. Anyway, I told Amy I wasn’t going to call the teacher, since it sounded like she probably wore the woman a bit first. However, you all should know me by now – I will let things drop, but they will stay catalogued just in case more evidence comes to light later.

Like today. I googled this particular teacher with a very unique name. School stuff, school stuff, school stuff, ah, this is more interesting: she and her husband are political contributors to a couple Republicans in the area. Specifically, Tommy Merrit, State Representative for District 7. And what does Mr. Merrit list as some of his highlights of last year? Here:

• HB 1034 – HB 1034 was coauthored by Representative Merritt. This bill will add the words “one state under God” to the Texas state pledge of allegiance. This bill passed the House 142-1.
• HB 3678 – He also co-authored HB 3678 which clarifies first amendment rights of students at school and authorizes the school district to adopt and implement a policy that establishes a limited public forum and permissible forms of religious expression by students. The bill passed in the House by a 107-28 vote and became effective immediately on June 8, 2007.

Great.

To my son’s grandmother

Dear Judy,

Please know first of all, I want nothing from you other than your time. I don’t want money, gifts, anything for me, just a bit of your time to talk, maybe meet your grandson in person. He turned five in October, and he’s so freaking cute. Perhaps I’m a bit biased though. He looks more like me than his sister does, but he looks a lot like his father. I sent a picture to you a few years ago, with my phone number, but I don’t know if you ever got it.

Brody asks me occasionally about his father’s side of the family. He asks me to remind him of his brother’s names, only one of which he has ever met, though I don’t think he remembers – he wasn’t even two at the time. It was one of the last times he saw his father, there at his home. Ryan was watching Cartoon Network, and I brought both kids over. He remembered my daughter Amy, since they are closer in age, and Richard and I would occasionally pick her up after work like we did him. He asked Amy if Brody was her brother, and she said, yes, yours too. However, he’s never met Jareth; actually, I had only met him once myself. He knows he has an aunt, and two cousins. Probably the last time he saw his father, Brody even slept in his cousin’s old crib, the one that his aunt had left in the house for him, anticipating being involved in his life.

I’ve always said that I would never deny a positive role model in my children’s lives, as long as they were safe and secure. I don’t know you; we’ve never met. All I know of you are the things your son told me during Brody’s oldest brother’s custody battle, and not all was negative. Did you know that my daughter’s grandparents accept him completely as their grandchild? They love him so much that it doesn’t matter who his parents are. Are you that big of a person, to open your heart?

I would like to ask you again to meet your grandson in person. He is such a neat kid. He shouldn’t be punished due to the fact that his father and I didn’t work out. I would love for him to have a relationship with you, his brothers, his father. I don’t expect it, but some nights it keeps me awake wondering why.

Please?