"Thank you for today, Mama"

Y is pretty grumpy in the morning, whether that "morning" is 10am or 2pm. But, lately, I have been getting the comment,
"Thank you for today, Mama!" at the end of the day. To which, I usually respond, "You're welcome." But, Sunday, after a particularly bad morning where I called Y out for obeying the "letter of the law" but not the intent (turned his computer off at midnight, but stayed up all night watching TV), and therefore being defiant and disobediant AGAIN. I told him he was nice and polite and respectful to everyone else, but he treats me like dirt, and I'm tired of it.

He had some time to think about his actions while he sat in the car during church, and then went to Sylvan for a couple of hours of tutoring after that. His mood was much improved later that afternoon, and he was actually quite pleasant on Monday morning (maybe because he actually went to sleep?). After a visit to the dentist, and before I left for work, Y told me, "Thank you for today, Mama," again. This time I said to him, "Thank you for every day, Y." His response had me laughing out loud:

"No! Mama! I no can tell you thank you every day, because some days you are MEAN!"

He was quite perplexed when I said, "Yeah! I'm a Mean Mama! Mean Mamas are the best! Grandma was the meanest Mama in town!" Y told me that Grandma is not mean and "I no believe!" I told him that Grandma was mean because she always had to know where we were, who we were with, what we were doing and when we'd be home. Nobody else's mama did that. And, we had rules that no one else had, like no crossing the street by yourself, and she had to know your friends' parents before you could do anything with them.

Y told me that his Papa in Ukraine did the same thing, "That's because you were small, Mama, but now I fifteen and I do what I want." Oh, no, not in Grandma's house. If you lived in her house, you followed her rules, didn't matter if you were 5 or 25. "Serious? Oh my gosh, Mama, I no believe you!"

Natalie
TX

So Much, Too Much

Haven't posted in a while because I really haven't had the time. Homeschooling Y has been interesting, but I'll get to that later.

First a couple of dog stories (I know you've all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for another one!):

About two weeks ago, Y and I took Michael back to his trainer for a follow up session, he did pretty good, and about an hour and a half later we were pulling into our driveway. As I parked the car, I noticed Miley happily wagging her tail - and standing on the back porch! I asked Y, "Wasn't she inside when we left?" He said, "I think so." All sorts of thoughts of doom and gloom ran through my head, the largest being if a door blew open (it was extremely windy), then I needed to go looking for a 130lb lab; and there's no telling where he'd be or how long he'd been gone. So, I opened my car door and started talking to Miley. Y did not have the foresight to grab Michael's leash during the last minute of our ride, so Michael bolted out the door and headed straight for the woods. Miley began to follow him, but Y was out of the car and halfway across the back deck when I shouted, "NO!" and Miley crouched to the ground. We got her back in the house and Y was quite upset that he had to look for Michael AGAIN. I told him he would have to do it by himself, because I needed to secure the house from the other dogs escaping, and I needed to change clothes and go to work in 30 minutes. Then began a litany of, "Mama, you help me!" and, "No, I have to get ready for work," and, "But you open door!" and, "But you didn't grab his leash!"

Y went off to find Michael, and I discovered that Goofy and Squirt and Daisy and Tigger were all safe and sound inside the house. All doors were locked and all windows downstairs were shut. The mystery continued. I got ready for work, and as I was walking down the hall to come back downstairs, I noticed that the door to Y's room was shut. I remembered that he had left his windows open. I went in there to find 3 open windows, one missing a screen and a happy fat cat sitting in that window enjoying the outdoor breeze. So, I shut his windows, put all of my stuff in my car, and then went down the street to help Y find Michael. Michael was playing with Miley's mama and brother, as I expected, but he ran across the street in front of me and over to the pond before Y could get him. He was out galavanting about 20 minutes or so before Y caught him and brought him home. Y didn't believe me that Miley had fallen out his second story window, fell of the roof into the azaleas and then stuck around our property till we got back, and she'd only been with us for three weeks. Michael's been here eight months and he's spent most of his time trying to figure out how to get away. Sound like anybody else you know? Constantly thinking about leaving, but never really wanting to go anywhere or do anything not associated with his computer?

Dog story #2:

Last Saturday, I took Michael and Goofy on a short bicycle ride to just 'take the edge off' of their hyperactivity. I normally don't take both of them together, since they collectively weigh about as much as I do, and they're much stronger than me. But, that day I was very tired after working a 5:30am shift and meeting with a tutor after that. So, two dogs at once it was. I was only planning on ten minutes, so how hard could that be? Easy peasy, if it wasn't for my neighbors next door. We had no problems passing their house on the way out, but the last 250ft on our way back was the killer. As soon as she saw us, their Rottweiler began charging the fence. I growled at her (seriously), and she backed off as usual. But, their nasty little white dog came running around the house and charged the fence, too. Whitey is the alpha of that pack, no doubt about it. So, the Rottie rethought her decision, and now they had two dogs charging the fence. Well, that's a serious insult to my boys, and they began barking and pulling them, me and the bike over to my neighbors fence (we were about 50ft from them). I straddled my bike and began pulling on my dogs' leashes (firmly attached to the bike handlebars) and screaming, "NO!" at both my dogs and theirs. Yelling at her makes the Rottie stop, but not that nasty white dog; 15lbs of a-hole if you ask me. Unbenownst to me, the owners were sitting outside between their house and garage; I couldn't see them from that point, but the wife did come over and pick up the white dog after about 5 minutes and take it back to the house. The Rottie continued to rage at my dogs and she did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to control that dog. I yelled, "Aren't you going to control BOTH dogs?" and she ignored me as she walked away.

At that point, I was still straddling my bicycle, it was leaning/being pulled to the left by my dogs and I had one hand on the bike and one hand pulling their leashes back to me. It took me almost ten minutes to go that last 200ft back to my property. I couldn't get the leashes unhooked from my bike and my dogs kept reacting to their dog being aggressive. All this time both neighbors were sitting on their bench watching the whole thing take place and laughing at me. I yelled at them three times to please control their f-ing dog (well, at least the first two times I was polite), and they didn't even get off the bench. Once my dogs lost sight of their dog, they immediately began to behave, but I was still very pissed at my dogs and even more pissed at my neighbors. Three times my dogs almost got hit by cars on my street that were trying to avoid their lunges as they drove by. All of the cars had to drive with one tire on the grass on my neighbors' side of the street to avoid us. I was fuming, but I still had two other dogs to walk before the day was over. I was not going to admit defeat and NOT walk my other dogs just because my neighbors are a-holes. So, as I walked Miley and Squirt past their house, the husband began yelling, "Waa! Waa!" at me. I'd had it then, I told them that I was reporting them to animal control for refusing to control their dogs. His response was, "F you, they're on my property!" I told them that his dogs had cost me about $600 in vet bills because of their charging the fence and I would be giving him the bill the next time my son, my dogs or I became injured. He kept yelling obscenities at me, and told me to walk the other way. I told him this was a free country and a public street and I'd walk any way I damn well pleased. When I was on my way back with the last two dogs, the husband approached the fence and asked me if I'd taken my "chill pill" yet. He still hadn't controlled his dog (she was raging again right next to him), so I told him no, and that I was going to call animal control when I got in the house, I'm not waiting for the next time. He told me, "You can't talk to me that way! I am not your dog and I am not your son and you can't talk to me that way!" in a very menacing tone. I told him that he treated me like a piece of shit just fifteen minutes ago, and that I would speak to him any damn way I pleased, and I walked home. I called animal control, but of course they're not there during the weekends, so I got a phone number to call the animal control officer "Joe" and I'll do that after work today. They'll probably just tell me there's nothing they can do about it, but I want to start a paper trail so the next time my son or one of my dogs gets injured I have written proof of an ongoing problem.

Okay, now off the nasty neighbor/bad human being rant.

Y's homeschooling has been limping along. He has a hard time switching from Mama/Son mode into Teacher/Student mode, so I made the executive decision to hire two additional tutors, one in ESL and one in Math. Both are in their 60s, Ms C, his new ESL tutor will do six hours a week on Thursday and Friday mornings (she is of Ukrainian descent, her grandparents moved to Canada way back when), and Ms L is his new math tutor (she is Ukrainian, living here 9 yrs, fluent in Russian and a masters degree in physics). Ms C will come to our house and Y will go to Ms L's apartment on Saturdays after I get home from work. Of course, this will cost me about $175/wk more, but his education is worth it. Plus, no one can say I'm not homeschooling him in a "bona fide manner." I found both of them, as well as my babysitter on www.care.com ; really a good website, check it out. Then we can do any additional fun schooling like museum visits or guitar lessons on Sundays, Tuesday or Wednesday mornings. Y is already complaining about having school six days a week. I dropped the shoe on that one, and told him that his total time would only be around 18 hours away from his beloved computer, so quitchyer b*tching!

My biggest problem with Y right now, is that he disobeys bedtime all the time. He thinks it's a-okay to stay up all night, night after night after night, and sleep all day. What the heck, he doesn't have to do any school work until 5pm! Come on, Mama! I told him previously that was okay on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, but he had to turn the computer off at midnight every other night. He refuses to turn his computer off because it takes too long to restart it, so he just logs off and watches tv before he goes to sleep. When I found him awake at 4:45am this morning (up all night again), even though he knows the rules and I went to bed early last night due to 5:30am overtime I had to work today, I was annoyed to say the least. I told him that he needed to get off the computer now, go to bed and not give me any complaints about going to Sylvan tonight. I also told him that since he can't obey the rules, that from now on I will unplug the internet router and take it to bed with me on the nights when he needs to sleep. Again, "Why?! Why?!" from Y; because you need to be up and awake and ready to learn when Ms C comes on Thursday and Friday mornings (he has to let her in the house on Fridays), and also because you live in TX now, not Ukraine or Russia and you need to live on our sunlight schedule.

We will have a meeting with the therapist and our school district soon, I just don't know when.

Time to breathe now,

Natalie

TX

There Ain't No "Five more minutes, Mama!" in Homeschool

Well, had the meeting with the school district on Monday afternoon. Took our family therapist with me because she's a bit of a pit bull. Glad I did because I needed the moral support. The school vice principal and a couple of the teachers took offense when we told them that they did not do everything they were supposed to do. The school has NEVER tested Y in English or in Russian, as they are required by state law to do. Lo and behold, they never found out that his reading comprehension is at a kindergarten level and his math is at a fifth grade level; and they had him reading 8th grade science books and in pre-algebra! Setting him up to fail is what they were doing. They kept telling me that he could either be classified as ESL or special ed, and not both. I told them that I agreed his IQ level disqualifies him from special ed, but that his ability to perform the work should clue them in that he needs a lot of extra help! "Well, but he can't be classified as both ESL and special ed." And we went round and round like that for several minutes.

Every one of his teachers informed me that Y was a constant disruption in class (hello! - he can't keep up with the reading/math and he's amusing himself), and that if they wrote him up for every discipline problem, then he'd be in the vice-Principal's office every day. I told every one of them that the very first person to advise me that Y was having disciplinary problems was the vice-principal! Not a single teacher ever emailed or called me to nip it in the bud. Every single one of them let him get away with "minor" infractions until they became major. They also administered the exact same consequence every time: ISS lunch. Big deal. By that time he had learned to work the system. Y worked the whole year on the system that Mama would never know if he was bad at school, so why behave? And, each one of his teachers fed into that problem. Of course, they didn't want to take any responsibility for it. Funny thing about responsibility - nobody ever seems to want to take any, just give it way to everyone else.

One teacher who tutored Y last summer (I learned that day, that she did it for FREE), agreed somewhat with me and our therapist. She said Y did not know his alphabet or how to read at all when she got him last June; and by the end of the summer he knew his alphabet and could read at a kindergarten level. This teacher asked the others just exactly what they'd been doing with him all year, because although his vocabulary had grown and his pronunciation is pretty good now, but his reading comprehension has not improved at all in 7 months. Exactly my question! But, she kept insisting that the school had done all it could and more, so, "Someone else has to step up to the plate and take some responsibility!" That statement made my blood boil, and I immediately replied that she had no idea what our home life was like last summer. I informed her that I was a single parent for the last six months and that I had no one else to help me, except a babysitter whose forte is not math or science by any stretch of the imagination. I asked the VP if he remembered that I told him several times that I worked three night shifts each week. He said he did. Then several of the teachers asked why, even if I was tired after work, could I not go over his homework with him when I got home from working the night shift? I was astounded - don't these TEACHERS know what the word "night" means? The looks on their faces when I asked them if they wanted me to wake him up at midnight or 1am so that we could do schoolwork "when I get home from work," was priceless. Apparently to them, working at night means you get home by 8pm, not 10pm or 1am or 7am!

I then asked how I was supposed to force him to bring his homework home with him? Most days he didn't bring anything home from school. And, I have no access to his work unless he does bring it home. Then I told them that when I was informed he was not turning in his homework, I did go through his binder looking for it. When Y saw me doing that, he started raging. I was then interrupted by a few of his teachers who told me that they had teenagers, and their kids didn't like them going through their things, but they did it anyway. I asked these teachers did they understand the difference between the meaning of 'dislike' and the meaning of 'rage'? They didn't quite get it, even when our therapist explained that I actually meant 'RAGING' when I said it, and not mere anger. She also explained that my son did not have a concept of family life before he came here, nor did he have personal possessions, therefore he was overcompensating now and considers everything his possession and "none of your business!" They still didn't get it, even when I told them that such a personal possession as your own hair was violated by the school district, so he gave up any pretense of behaving and doing his work when they made him cut it. "Oh, puh-lease!" was their response.

Then we cut to the chase - what was/is the school district's plan for Y? The first words out of the VP's mouth were, "How old is he?" I said, "Almost 15 and a half, why?" And the VP said they would just re-enroll him in the 8th grade next year.

That's it.

That's the sum total of their plan, in a nutshell, and there'll be room left over. Y could attend summer school, at my expense, and they also expect me to have him privately tutored for at least two years at my expense. I asked them what made them think that he would be able to perform at an 8th grade level in four months as opposed to now? They are just setting him up to fail again. I also told the VP that I was not comfortable putting my 16 yr old son in a school with 12 year olds, I would rather have him moved up to the high school and put in special education classes. He said the school would not be willing to do that.

So, I told them my plan - homeschool, where I could do it on my schedule and I could still provide the private tutoring for him, but I would not be restricted to after-school hours, and I would not be exclusively reliant on others to provide Y's transportation to and from it. As an added bonus, I don't have to get up at 6:30am after arriving home at 1:00am the night before.

The only thing the school agreed to do (at their expense) was to give Y the testing that they should've done a year ago! This will be accomplished by August, and then we'll re-evaluate homeschooling at that point.

Last Monday evening, I took Y to the "fishbowl" at the high school where they tell all the incoming freshman what to expect, what classes to take and what activities/clubs are available. We found two really good activities for him: Interact Club and JROTC. Interact does community service projects on an international scale and JROTC is JROTC. Y was not interested in that until they told him he could do rifle drills and other cool stuff. When the instructor told the kids that the group was student led, but that none of the freshmen would be in charge of anything, Y leaned over to me and said, "Mama, no one in charge of me!" Oh boy, does he need JROTC! I sure hope the school district will let him participate even though he's being homeschooled.

Tuesday morning was our first day of homeschooling, hence the title of this post. At 10am I woke Y up and he replied, "Five more minutes, Mama, please." I told him there was no five more minutes in homeschooling, get your butt up, you have four puppies to tire out! (Yes, Michael is back from doggie school - and he's had a largely successful personality transplant.) We began with 1 hour and 15 minutes of bicycling and walking the legs off of four large dogs. Y complained the last twenty minutes or so, but I told him "too bad!" Next was breakfast and a couple of hours of "science" where he watched two episodes of the Discovery Channel's series, "Life." Then he told me about what he watched, and then it was time for me to go to work. I told Y that very soon he would have to do more than just tell me about what he was watching, he would have to write a few sentences about the program, too. "Maybe, Mama."

That evening, my babysitter picked him up and took him to Sylvan for two hours of tutoring, and he gave her no problems. Wednesday was much the same, gym followed by science and Mama going to work. Y told me that he was tired when I left, but when the babysitter got there he told her he was too sick to go to Sylvan, and refused to go. She was in a panic when she called me, but I assured her that the only person who would suffer a consequence for Y not going to tutoring was Y. When I got home I told him that if he was "sick" again, D would test his temperature. If he had a fever he could stay home. No fever, get his ass in the car and quit his bitching. If he failed to do so, he would lose his computer for TWO days. Gasp! Say it ain't so. Y promised not to do it again. Yeah, right.

Long post, will post more later.

Natalie

TX

Tidbits

Got a meeting with the school scheduled Monday after classes are over. We'll see how that goes. Y keeps asking me if he still has to go to school after that. We'll see.



Y got a letter from his birth father last night. He took it upstairs to read, and came down extremely upset, said he needed to get a job right away so he could send money to his birth father. We discussed how he is not responsible for supporting his birth father, how he cannot get a job right now because he needs to concentrate on his schoolwork. Y told me he didn't need to know how to read to get a job. I told him, not in America - if you can't read the application, you won't get the job. I told Y that we would figure out some way for him to earn money this summer, but that I wanted him to save it for himself. Y wanted to know why we could not visit Ukraine this summer (again, money); could he go when he's 17? (No, you can't go until you're 18, and then only if you have saved enough money to go.) So, Y wants to start a savings account so he can save "big money." I told him we would send some pictures to his birth dad and he would be allowed to put $20 in the envelope. He has decided to wait until he cleans up his room and bathroom, so that he can take pictures and send those to his birth father as well. In all honesty, I do not know if he is being directly asked to send money, or if he just infers the need from his birth father's writing of how life is in Ukraine. This is only the second letter he has received from the man in a year. His last phone contact was in June 2009. I think I will have to have a friend translate the letters for me first, if another one arrives. I will try to get a copy of this one and have her tell me what it says, as well. Then I may need to write him a note telling him that if he sends one more letter requesting money, all of his letters will be monitored before delivery. Y's gonna love that if he finds out.



Someone who shall remain nameless got a new job today. Hopefully that will begin paying soon, because I just got notice from the lawyer that court will not be until late April. Ugh! Everything is signed and ready to go, but we can't get a court date for another 5 weeks, and then who knows how long before the settlement check is actually mailed. It'll probably be June or later before I get reimbursed and everything gets paid off! And, to top it off, I have negative $23 in my account right now and 10 more days till I get paid again. I guess it's back to the payday loan place for another round. I haven't even bought groceries yet.



Before you ask, I had some unexpected expenses this paycheck and last: $684 for Michael's doggie school (with $600 more owed), plus $800 for Y's tutoring and evaluation (+ $325/month). Both times I think it is money very well spent (they've given three other dogs personality transplants while training them), but I sure would like to eat this week, not to mention gas to get to work next week. I do have $300 in savings, so I'll go get that out before I go to the payday place. $145 of that goes to Y's caregiver next week. She asked for an extra $20 a week because now she has to take him 30 minutes away to tutoring each night for two hours each time. A little pricey, but he needs the tutoring and that was when they could fit him into their schedule. And, it relieves me of the stress of taking him because it is accomplished while I am at work.



We will be at E's birthday party this weekend, though. I sure need that stress relief of being around friends, and Y is actually looking forward to it. Maybe I'll have him make her a card instead of buying one!



Natalie

TX

OMG! I'm in Heaven!

I just did a little old Google search and found something that I wasn't sure existed: a liberal homeschool resource! And they have two groups in Houston, no less!


http://www.uuhomeschool.org

I actually brought up the subject to Y tonight. At first he was giddy and kept saying he doesn't want to go to school tomorrow at all. I told him that he has to go to school tomorrow because there are certain legal requirements I must complete before I can remove him from public school. I told Y my plan was to remove him from public school for the last 2.5 months and homeschool him from now until the school year begins again in late August. He seemed okay with that, and actually sounds like he wants to go to high school next year. I explained that I didn't think the school and teachers would be able to help him enough to bring his reading and math up to par in the next two months. I also told him that he would still go to Sylvan for 4-6 hours a week, but that he would have additional schooling at home with me after work on Mondays and Fridays, in addition to an extra two hours or so on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Y told me, "You no can teach me math!" Poor thing, he has no idea what's in store for him. I told him absolutely no slacking off, and no telling me that he didn't want to do school today. I told him if he ever sassed me, that I would re-enroll him in school the very next day and he could start getting up at 6:30am again!

Y told me that he wanted to ask his friends questions at E's birthday party on Saturday afternoon and he would give me his answer sometime Saturday evening or Sunday. He was less than thrilled when I told him that we would still have gym class every day, too. Y wants me to buy him a Bowflex like the one Bill took with him when he left. Not likely. We have a Gold's Gym five minutes away. We'll be visiting that once or twice a week. Plus, of course, we have four big puppies that would just love daily walks/runs/bike rides/swims in the lake, etc. I'll get all my exercise just kicking Y's ass on a daily basis.

He will be involved in the family budget as much as he can understand it. I will be using combinations of info gained from Suze Orman, Ric Edelman and Gail Vaz-Oxlade of CNBC's "Til Debt Do Us Part." I've already bought five jars to use for 'food,' 'transportation,' 'clothing & gifts,' 'entertainment,' and 'everything else.' I'm going to make Y use a budget binder/book, and he'll have to tell me first which jar each receipt belongs in, then he will be responsible for recording them in the budget binder/book and ensuring that we do not exceed the weekly amount allocated to each jar (ie, $200.00/wk for food, $75.00/wk transportation, $25.00/wk entertainment, etc.). I'm sure Y will hate the entertainment budget, since he'll have to share it with me! I might make it easy on him and buy him a calculator. Not.

As for reading, I will be supplementing Sylvan's stuff with the Rosetta Stone English edition that I bought last year.

Not sure what I'll do to meet the requirement for "good citizenship" just yet.

Gotta go to bed, Y goes to school tomorrow and I go to jury duty. Too bad I can't take him with me tomorrow!

Natalie
TX

Please Visit This Website About Adoption Tax Credit

There is a website devoted to alerting everyone that the adoption tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year. Without this tax credit, most families would not be able to afford adoption, and many children would be left without families.

Please visit, and contact your local congressman and senators.

Thank You,
Natalie
TX

http://adoptiontaxcredit.blogspot.com

One Year Home

Finally, that one year mark!

Way too much to blog about now, but will get back to it next week on my breaks at work.

Even spent St Patty's Day dragging Y to something else he didn't want to do - testing at Sylvan Learning Center. They're way expensive, but they already have a definite plan to get Y reading up to speed (or very close there) before he enters 9th grade. Makes me want to pull him out of school for the rest of the year and just have him go to Sylvan. Seriously.

Natalie
TX