Christmas Spirit arriving on time at gate four...

[merimask]

OMG I have to re-do this ENTIRE entry because I did something that angered the LJ gods and I lost the whole freaking thing just as I was finishing it...and I didn't copy or save it or anything.  Arrrrgh!  I hope you all know how much I love you...

So!  Anyway!  I've had a terribly busy weekend.  I decided to attend a very small local SCA event,  primarily so I'd have something to do on Saturday.  I was hoping to have a good time hanging out with friends (which I did) and maybe make a few bucks so I could do some much-needed Christmas shopping.  To my surprise, I ended up selling a lot of really nice stuff (among other things, the Amaterasu mask and one of my new ribbon masks).  I brought little low-cost things like pins and prints, that I figured would be good impulse gift purchases, and instead I was running cards all day for big ticket items...woo!

I was very pleased with myself, by the way, because I had the foresight to bring a cute little bento box full of sushi for my lunch.   I found out it's absolutely the perfect food item to have on hand during a bustling busy event.  If you get swamped with orders or customers and you have to pause, it's ok because it's supposed to be cold!  :-)  Also, it's compact, neat, and you can impress the hell out of folks with your mad chopstick skills.   Hee!  It turns out a lot of my friends are into sushi too (who knew?  Not me.), so now I have a number of pending lunch dates...and the only thing better than sushi is sushi with friends. 

So, y'know, color me happy.  :-) 

I arrived home exhausted and I have yet to recover, because our house was not a relaxing place all weekend.  Charlotte invited her latest friend over for an impromptu sleepover.  I wasn't in the mood to deny the kid anything; when I got home I found a letter on the kitchen table, telling us that Char made the honor roll again this year (and enclosed was a brand new "My Child Is An Honor Roll Student!" bumper sticker...another one for the collection!  *beam*).  So her friend spent the night, and there was much squealing and running up and down stairs and other kid-related mayhem that I'm not used to.

You know, I have just one kid, and sometimes that makes me a little sad (because I think I'm a pretty damn good mom, if I do say so myself), but sometimes I'm so grateful to just have one, because it seems like more than one can be a real...adventure.   One child alone is mature, composed, never lacks for attention, is helpful and reliable; more like a miniature adult than a kid.  Have MORE than one, though and they start to gang up on you!   There's rivalry, jealousy, bickering (over toys and attention, and later it's clothes, makeup, and boyfriends!), and basically the kids take over.  That's how it looks to me, anyway.  It's a matter of personal preference, I guess...I just don't like a chaotic house.

This little friend of Char's, however, comes from just such a chaotic home.  Six kids from three different marriages...to call this a "blended" family is putting it mildly (if they are "blended", it was done in a blender set on "frappe"), and the situation, in my opinion, is bordering on child abuse.  The girl's stepmother seems to despise this child, and favors her own blood-related children over the father's girl.  She encourages her kids to heap abuse on the poor girl's head...it's a real Cinderella story but with no fairy godmother.  The father has elected to "solve" the problem by not solving anything...he made an apartment out in the back of the home, and this little girl fends for herself back there (separate entrance because stepmom locks her out of the main house, separate refrigerator because she's not allowed to eat her stepsister's food, and the kid gets an allowance from dad to do her own shopping because dad is too busy and stepmom can't be bothered)...and this girl is just 13 years old.   

About a week after she started coming here every day, I noticed a flea on Kiba, which is weird because there are NEVER fleas on my pets, ever.  I use flea treatments all summer and my house has always been pest-free...even my dear departed pets were always clean.  Plus, it's not even flea season anymore (too cold!).   I was confused until  I overheard this girl telling Char how there were SO many fleas at her house that you can see them jumping.  Also, she has lice.  :-(

It's a disgusting situation and I'm tempted to get CPS involved, except I remember how "helpful" they were the last time I had an issue I thought needed their attention (if you're on my f-list, you might remember all the "fun" from last year?).  I've already called the school, and I think they might have said something to this girl's father because he made an effort to meet our family this weekend and explain the "situation".   He did a lot of shrugging and justifying ("oh, you know, my wife is just crazy but it'll all blow over.  Whatever!").  I was not charmed, but I just nodded and kept my mouth shut (I find that if you're silent, sometimes people will just keep talking and you learn more that way) and I think I know two things for certain.  This guy is not a bad person, but he is not bright, and he has NO idea how to manage this family or rectify this situation.  Also, if I said "Why don't you let your daughter come stay with us for a while?" he'd JUMP at the chance.

I am not going to do that.  I wouldn't feel comfortable, enforcing the household rules on someone else's kid.  I can see she does pretty much whatever she has to do to get by, on her own recognizance, and there's a long history of pathology there (her real mother abandoned her when she was just six years old, and she hasn't seen or heard from her in as many years).  Frankly I'm pissed at the father.  He's done a crappy job of protecting his little girl.  Before I married Greg, before he moved in, even before we got really serious, we had a LONG talk about Charlotte and this family and our plans for making it all work.  It would have been a deal breaker if I'd discovered that he didn't like her.  I suspect this father never had a talk like that with his current wife, and his kid is paying for it.

And you can tell she's on her own.  Her hair is a mess, she's as thin as a rail (from what I can tell she subsists on powdered donuts and chocolate milk), and she dresses like a homeless waif.  I'm working on the hygiene thing (I got her a bag full of shampoos and soaps from Bath And Body Works...subtle), and my Mom took her shopping and spent about a hundred dollars on an updated wardrobe at Hot Topic.  I feed her a warm breakfast on schooldays, and after school she knows my house is a safe haven for her until her Dad gets home from work (yeah, I know I'm being taken advantage of and I'm just providing her slug parents with free babysitting...but that's not the kid's fault).  Charlotte is a sweet kid with a soft spot for lost causes.  She wants to "save" this girl, but I'm not sure how much "saving" we can do.  I'm worried about the future of this relationship with this kid, and I foresee trouble in high school (she has absolutely NO supervision).  It's an upsetting situation.  I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm treating my household for pests.  I just had to spend a hundred dollars I didn't have on three months of Advantix treatments for the dog and the cat (but it's worth it 'cause that stuff works like a charm).  *sigh*

Today was another busy day because I brought home our tree!  It's a perfect 7 ft tall frasier fir and I got it from the nicest little family business!   The young man who so helpfully wrapped and loaded our tree onto my car rack told me about the family farm about two hours south of here...they grow and cut the trees on their own land ("...and someday it'll all be mine 'cause I'm the one who wants it!", he was just as cute as a button), so our tree was JUST cut down (and my livingroom smells wonderful...like a fresh pine forest).  I was so tickled I tipped him a five.  We'll definitely go back there next year...they beat the huge commercial lot just up the street all to heck.  Last year I paid almost 70.00 for a frasier that looked a little crooked, and this year our tree cost me less than 50.00 even with the tip.  *pleased*

So now the tree is up and decorated, the lights are on the shrubs out front (little white net lights...very tasteful), and the flag has been changed from "fall leaves" to "winter snowflake".   It's beginning to look a lot like...well, you know.   ;-)

Comments

[aoi-tsuki1.livejournal.com]

My family did almost the exact same thing with my best friend. Starting when we were twelve, through early to the middle of high school, Mary had her own toothbrush and half my closet space at our house because her own family was so dysfunctional. Her behavior devolved into total sex-obsessed idiocy a few years later, and we didn't see as much of her because my parents - especially Dad - absolutely refused to tolerate or condone that kind of behavior. Thank God she turned out okay after all; she and her husband are perfect examples of people who've learned what NOT to do from their upbringings.

The point? Unless this kid is totally ungrateful, violent, dangerous, and/or will really screw your lives over, your helping her is pretty damn close to Godliness. Seriously. She sounds exactly like Mary: totally lost, borderline abused (definitely, in this case), and helpless. If you can ease some of that pain at all, please try to prevent another girl going through...bad stuff I can't repeat without being angry enough to hyperventilate. :( In all fairness, though, I must also add that if she's going to be staying with you, your rules should be obeyed. Nothing unreasonable or pushy about that at all.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

You know, I wanted to talk this out on LJ because I hoped I could get some insight, maybe from someone out there who'd experienced something similar. So your response really helps. :-)

The whole prospect about crazy "acting out" behavior in high school (like your friend Mary did) is exactly the kind of thing I worry about. I've already told Char that she's not to ever go over to her frind's house ("apartment", they call it), so there's that, but I shudder to think of the trouble an unsupervised girl who's starved for attention can get herself into with only a minimal effort. That stuff has a way of causing a ripple effect and I don't want Char to get any ideas. They're both cute girls who already get too much attention from boys...it's a recipe for disaster.

But, since I can control the environment in my own home, I'll do what I can to help her out here. I think just having a stable environment like ours as a haven will have a good effect on her. Holy crap...I'm a role model! *freaked at the irony of it all*

[aoi-tsuki1.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the kid. Mary was a very bad combination of uncontrolled extroversion - her parents were always mistaken for her grandparents back in high school, for good reason - desperate need for attention, and probably hormonal imbalance (hyper/hypo?thryoid problems made her hooooorny), and she latched onto a succession of boys to make herself feel better, the last of whom was a predator of the worst sort, and the one person I'd most like to introduce to the wrong end of a baseball bat, given the option. (If I ever see the little fucker again, I'll cheerfully murder him, if it hasn't been done for me already. Not joking.)

But yeah, the point is that just providing her a haven of warm normalcy and affection can work wonders. Mary told me once that she thought screaming profanity and belt-smackings and forced two-hour timeouts were just how families worked before she met mine; even letting your kid's friend figure out that she's not being treated right can make a world of difference--provided you don't let her go nuts under the impression that she's now Free at your place, of course (Mary had to be told very, very firmly on more than one occasion that she was NOT going to always get away with playing with fire).

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

I'm the oldest of three girls (there was never a speck of rivalry or similar jealousies in our family, btw...none of us thought of the others as competition). I was born as something between a thirty-something feminist and a little old lady...I was never anything like a kid. So certainly the case could be made for my having been exceptionally mature as a preteen and teen.

I had a string of best friends who all desperately needed me to mother them. Lisa, Shannon, and then Roberta. They were all slightly 'bad' kids...bad in behaviour but with perfectly soft little hearts. None of them were from particularly good families, though none of them were actually 'abused'. They were just scummy or carelessly neglected or had parents who simply had no qualifications for the job and did everything wrong.

They all liked my parents, because my parents were interested in them if they happened to come around to see me. And I had the strictest parents in the school almost all my life. (No dating until you're ready to start considering marriage, for example, no make-up until fifteen, no skirts above the knee, no tight clothing, no showing the midriff, no going out with friends of other religions outside of school except as a very rare thing, etc. Is it not weird that I was NEVER picked on for these things? But I wasn't. Maybe because I tended to laugh at people who picked on me AND I was the strongest kid in the school, lol.)

So...I don't think this friend of Charlotte's would rebel much at rules being laid down. If you said something like, "You're welcome here any time, as long as you and Charlotte follow the rules of the house," expanding upon that as necessary. She might actually like it...some kids crave rules. (Seriously. They might complain anyway, but secretly it makes them feel good.)

I think even less that Charlotte is likely to be led astray. If she IS likely to, it'll happen anyway, with or without the kid around her a lot...imo, of course. I never, NEVER did anything 'bad' in school. I seriously did not. And my friend Roberta was a bad kid when it came to school...she skipped classes and stuff, and was failing most of them. And Shannon was so easily led that she would experiment with things. But I was never even faintly tempted to fall in with them...THEY followed ME, not the other way around. I actually bullied Roberta any time she considered skipping (she liked it, believe it or not) and Shannon got pout-lipped a lot because I'd scowl at her any time she did something stupid, which was frequent. And they were both *nutty* about me, it was a little creepy now that I look back on it.

To be continued...

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying that unless Charlotte already has a weakness in that direction, it's not likely that having a friend who does bad stuff will make HER do bad stuff. It didn't with me or any of my sisters. Closest to it was my baby sister, who would hassle my parents by demanding skanky clothes and the right to go on class trips that had already been forbidden, but that was because she was (and is) that kind of person. In the same situation, I was never even tempted by the things my friends could do that I couldn't. Honestly. (I wasn't allowed to go to school dances, either. That is the ONE time I rebelled...I went to a fully supervised school dance with the rest of the school for an hour and didn't bother mentioning that it was happening to my parents. But I didn't do a thing there that would have bothered them, if they'd been watching...I just wanted to see what was going on, and I never went to another...I was twelve, then.)

I think that whatever you can do for the girl is awesome...very good of you and, in my opinion, perfectly safe to do. But only if you do actually maintain rules for both of them. If I had been shrugged at and told I could do whatever I wanted, I'd have done a few more things that maybe most parents wouldn't care for. Worn make-up too young, for example, or gotten extra holes in my ears, or gone to movies that were above my approved rating (though to this day I despise R movies and won't watch them.) So yeah...SOME stuff could happen if you didn't, but probably nothing that Charlotte wasn't interested in all on her own anyway. I'd never have skipped school to go around with my friends, for example, or gone out to get drunk, or tried cigarettes (I never have tried them) or anything like that. Just tiny things that did interest me, I'd have tried, if I knew my parents didn't care what I did. But I did know, so even those tiny things, I didn't do.

Just my personal experience, of course. I WAS (am) a weird kid...but if you say Charlotte is mature, then I'd bet that everything would work out perfectly well for her and the other girl even if they became conjoined. The girl is lucky to have a friend like Charlotte, she really is. My friend Roberta told me a few years after I had to transfer to a different school that she would have graduated high school, if I hadn't left. (She dropped out after failing grade ten twice.) It's almost definitely true. I don't feel responsible, but it's a bit sad, and I wish I could have helped her more. And I know if Shannon (boy crazy kid, such a flake, so needy with the popular kids) had lived with me and my parents instead of her own, she wouldn't have wound up married at 18, already a few months pregnant. She wasn't abused so they would never have considered it, but *shrug*. If she had, she would have had to follow the same rules as everyone else...and she had to follow them while visiting, or she wasn't allowed to visit. She didn't mind. She loved my dad. :)

Finally done, lol.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

See, it's good to know that this happens to other people (because I need the input on this...I don't know if I'm overreacting to this girl's situation or not doing enough), but at the same time it's so depressing that there are so many sad unwanted children out there...what is WRONG with people? *shakes head*

When I think about it, there was a neighbor boy who lived across the street from us when I was a kid...he was a froend of my brother's and his parents were alcoholics AND divorced so no one was ever around to take care of him. He sure was over at our house an awful lot for dinner. So I guess it's much more common than you'd think.

I DO worry a bit about Charlotte with this girl though. Char is smart and mature, but she has this need to belong to a group (that ran deep on both sides of her family...my sister was like that and so was Char's Dad) and she seems to actually like drama. It might just be a teenage hormonal thing but it can be enough to get her in trouble if I'm not vigilant.

So, I'm cautiously going to offer this girl any refuge I can...but with terms. I think that's fair.

Thanks for the response. :-)

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that makes it a bit different, of course :) I never *wanted* to fit into a group. Ever. Which makes it funny that *all* the groups (The popular kids, the brainy kids, the dorky ones, the 'bad' ones...etc) all thought I was okay and didn't mind if I hung around at 'their' table in the caf. (I went to a very clique-ish junior high, like something out of Beverly Hills.) I guess when you just don't care, people find you easy to get along with, heh. :)

My little sis is dramatic and cared more about what her friends thought than I ever did. (My other sister is too insecure and quiet to stick out enough to even be noticed...her primary thing was that she was a super student and all the teachers thought she was great.) If my parents hadn't stuck to their guns I suppose she might have done stuff that would be a bit regrettable...I'm not positive. And every kid has at least a few little things that they keep secret, that usually don't really matter, like my going to that dance.

Definitely have terms. If you think Char needs them to protect her then that's definitely your first priority...you can't look after someone else's kid before your own. But the other girl will probably appreciate the rules, really...though I doubt she'd let on that she did until she's grown up enough to admit it :) I've seen for myself how some kids, the neglected ones whose own parents never bother with rules, feel kind of loved, just because someone cares enough to *make* rules for them. After all, a lack of rules is basically a parent saying 'You're not important enough for me to care.'

[ramblinsuze.livejournal.com]

My sister is learning the lesson of more than one kid right now. She often says that she had no idea how easy she had it when there was only one of them. Now that she's got two underfoot, getting into trouble...I don't know how she stays sane! lol

Our home was always the haven for lost kids when I was a teen. My brother and sister had quite a few friends with severely dysfunctional families, and they'd often come over to our house to hang out, talk with my mom (who was very cool about that stuff - it helped that counseling is her profession!), and just be in an environment where people actually *cared* about them.

I think "save" is a strong word. Aside from adopting the kid as your own, that's really not going to happen. But providing some sort of stabilizing. positive influence - even if it's just a healthy meal and hygiene products - can make a world of difference. At least she'd know that there *are* decent people out there.

And I've had no experience with CPS, but that certainly seems like a case of child neglect, at the very least. Poor kid. She's lucky to have you and Char. :)

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Whew! I know about your sister 'cause I've seen the pictures on your LJ...WOW does she ever have cute babies! :-) More power to her. I love my brother and sister to bits, so I'm glad (now!) that mom had three of us...but I know that we were a handful growing up. I just don't have that kind of patience.

I find it fascinating that it seems like a good chunk of my f-list came from stable, nurturing families...that's so neat. Anyway, I feel better about trying to help this girl (I worry that I'm being too nosy, but I just think it's the right thing to do).

Oh! I got your card today...thank you! :-) It's very funny, Char got a big kick out of it.

[rumdiculous.livejournal.com]

OMG LJ killed my reply to this post and I can't remember what the hell I wrote. >:(

I do remember saying that you are a Saint for helping this girl. A little goes a long way and just giving her a safe place to go to for a few hours will make a big differance.

*glomp*

[merimask.livejournal.com]

"OMG LJ killed my reply to this post and I can't remember what the hell I wrote. >:( "

lol! See? Mt bad LJ karma is spilling out and causing mayhem in the responses too. Seriously, I had an entry at least as long as rhis one all FINISHED and LJ robbed me. Mugged me! It was ugly (there was much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth...it was disappointment of biblical proportions).

*hug* Charlotte draws drama to her like flies to sugar. All her friends seem to be kids with "drama" too. I am pretty sure this is only a harbinger of what high school with her is gonna be like. *investing in lots of hair-coloring products to cover up the grey that's undoubtedly in my future*

[(Anonymous)]

"I am pretty sure this is only a harbinger of what high school with her is gonna be like. *investing in lots of hair-coloring products to cover up the grey that's undoubtedly in my future*"

You. Have. No. Idea.

Erica is/was the same way. *Everything* in her life in high school was high drama, and she surrounded herself with people who were also dramatic. Being the "part-time parents," we weren't on the front lines, but suffice it to say that my teeth were clenched pretty much permanently from the age of 13 until about 17. I'm not sure which was my low point: when her mother's live-in-boyfriend (I refuse to call him her fiancee - they got "engaged" before we did and we've had our sixth anniversary) moved his two teen-mother illegitimate daughters and their which-boyfriend-fathered-this-one kids in with them (they'd been evicted) and Erica started talking about how cool it would be to have a baby (can you imagine what my blood pressure did?); or when we heard about the police showing up at midnight looking for her boyfriend who had been reported missing by his mother. This was the 18 year-old-boyfriend - when she was 13 or 14. I can't imagine what her mother was thinking. I told her flat out that I considered any 18 year old who was sniffing around girls her age to be an incipient pedophile.

At any rate, my point is that you need to brace yourself but know that it will be okay. Erica is through her third semester in the college of criminal justice at Northeastern University (Dean's List AND 4.0!!!) and going into her internship. She still has drama - that girl's entire life is drama - but she's okay. Char sounds like a great kind, and you've grounded her in a good, loving family. I don't think she'll stray too far.

As far as her friend... that one is tough. Is she basically a decent kid? If she has capital "I" Issues, you need to be careful to protect your own family. But otherwise I think that you are providing something she really needs. Friends of mine raised a distant cousin of his - her mother was disappointed when she grew too much to be a ballerina (both of her daughters were going to be dancers - that was her plan), and one afternoon older daughter came home to an empty house. Her mom and sister moved out while she was at school, leaving no contact info. Her dad took her for a while, but when he and the new wife had a new baby that didn't fly, and my friends took her in. She became a lovely, talented, hard-working young lady.

I'm not suggesting that you move her in. But keep doing what you're doing if you can swing the finances. A warm breakfast, a non-abusive place to go, exposure to an affectionate family: these are valuable far beyond the monetary cost of what you're feeding her. By all means, enforce the house rules - she's in your house after all. Make sure that there's no ambiguity, and lay down some boundaries. And make sure that you and Greg agree. He lives there too :-).

As much as anything, you are providing an example of how a family *should* work. If this girl grows up only seeing what is happening in her "home," she's going to perpetuate it. You can't aspire to a healty relationship if you don't know what it looks like.

Eloise