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Christmas Spirit arriving on time at gate four...
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. :-)
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. ;-)
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*
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. ;-)
no subject
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.
no subject
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. :-)
no subject
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.'