Honesty is the best policy...I hope.

So, I've been keeping busy puttering around my blogroll reading adoption stories and trying to catch up. 

I sit here and think sometimes that maybe I need to step away from my blogroll for a few because some people have it so bad and some people have it so good and some people are just oblivious (most of the latter aren't RAD parents. lol)  It's just such a roller coaster and I can feel it building up inside of me in addition to my own crap at home. 

For the past....hmmm, well since Hubbins went to the movies with the oldest on the 22nd CDQ has been a little $#%^.  I tried almost everything I could think of but she kept going on and on and on. Nothing in particular happened except we spent a good day together at the mall where we had fun...or so I thought.  

While Hubbins and the oldest were at their 2 hour long Star Trek movie, I was left with the four youngest.  We were going to come straight home...but I got soft. Our mall has an indoor Merry Go Round so they went for a ride on that and then we window shopped at the Disney Store and Build-A-Bear.  I think the kids think I am BS'ing them but I am totally truthful when I say that if they took care of their stuff I would buy them a ton o'crap from the Disney store. I love Mickey and all the old cartoon characters. 

At one point we passed by two people who appeared to be talking to one another. The man pulled me aside and in chopped up English asked me if my shoulder hurt.  I had actually been rubbing my shoulder because all the walking (like it was miles or something...NOT!) and the escalator episode was causing me to have an RA flair up. I was having trouble lifting my arm.  Anyhow, he was a massage therapist and they do 15 minute massages for $15 amongst other things. 

I had never had a massage before and I was desperate.  Let me just say, I will never do that again. 

He shoved, he pinched, he pushed, he prodded... and I wanted to cry. He kept telling me to relax and I can tell by his labored breathing I was making him work for his money.  He worked and worked on my shoulder and my neck and my back. He cracked all kinds of things. I've never had my ass kicked but I imagine it would feel something like that. 

Aside from learning that the kids had never been on a Merry Go Round, I also learned the hard way they had never been on an escalator. Picture this. They all stop in front of the escalator and I say let's just take this instead of the elevator and I step on the escalator and about a third of the way down I decide to look back and see them all still standing at the top. SHHHH#$%!!!!!

So in stair climber fashion I try to go back up the escalator to get to them but end up getting no where.  I have to call up to them instructions on how to get on the escalator while still climbing it so they are all in my sight. Let's just say we practiced up and down the escalator several times so that will never happen again. lol 

We also did some girly shopping in Bath and Body Works. We tried lotions and sniffed other fragrances much to the dismay of the boy.  But rest assure, I am training him up right since it appears to be in his genes already to not enjoy shopping with the ladies. He carried our bags around the mall for us. *chuckle*

We went to Hallmark where we did some Father's day shopping and then we ended up back at the movie theater to wait. While we were waiting, I saw they had one of those picture strip machines and figured since it was a good day, I would have their picture taken so they could remember it. 

Those are the pics that I've sprinkled in above. If you are asking whose hand is that wrenching the kids in every direction...why yes, it is mine. Because even though I thought "this way" or "that way" was pretty precise they always went the opposite way then what they should've been. lol

So after all that, we all piled in the car together and went to dinner. It was a good day. 

But as I said CDQ...let's just say as the days went on from there she lost her $%^#.  It escalated over the past three days ending today with just pure erie silence.  All those days she yelled at me and screamed at me and cried and cried. 

I told her it was ok. I told her to go ahead and cry louder. I told her it didn't bother me. At one point I told her it made me feel more like a mommy to hear my baby crying... yeah...whatever that was supposed to mean because even I have no clue where I pulled that out of. I had been trying to appeal to her ODD.  That's when she screamed at me that I wasn't her mother and that she didn't have a mother.  Hmmmm....

At first, I was like FINALLY! since none of them have ever yelled at me that I am not their mother.  It was like a rite of passage, a milestone if you will.  But then, a light bulb turned on. 

I grabbed her birth certificate. The one that floored me when I received it because it is a certificate of a live birth claiming me to be her mother.  Just like that poof! 

I took it to her and I showed her..."but yes... I am your mother. It says so right here."  Then the lightbulb shone brighter..."As a matter of fact...YOU signed the paper saying you wanted me to be your mother."  

There was confusion: me, her, Poufy... I looked over at Poufy and I told her "You signed a paper too so I am your mommy too"...she had a HUGE smile on her face.  Which I have to admit surprised me.  I thought she hated me too. 

With that I got silence.  For a full day I had mutterings about me on the intercom. Then last night at dinner she copped an attitude with me. Let it be known...I don't care who you are, what disorder, whatever. I don't do attitudes.  If her mother were around she can ask her what happens when you give me an attitude. God did not put me here to be ANYONE'S doormat or punching bag. The end. 

 So I let her know what time it was and then again this morning she thought she was going to go for round two at breakfast and this is when I let the truth be known. According to her, EVERYONE talks about her ALL the time.  I told her that wasn't true to which she decided it was basis for an argument and not fact. I interrupted her and I put it on the line... who here really thinks about CDQ? Her siblings looked confused, some shook their heads. I said, aside from people complaining about her crying while we were trying to do school (Yep, we were homeschooling through all this) who has said anything about CDQ?

The oldest said she was tired of her whining and the others chimed in that they had either said they were sick of her crying or had said nothing about her. It was pretty clear looking around the table that no one had given her and her dramatics much thought. I told her that I was pretty sure I was the only one who had even thought of her and it was that I thought she was probably hungry the night before. 

She tried to go on with her drama that people were talking about her but I interrupted her and told her that she needed to think because she pulled this same thing when she was in school and she ended up turning all her classmates against her and no one wanted to be her friend or be near her. 

This one also has a thing with giving dirty looks. Another trait I have low tolerance for.  I said "Look no one is trying to put you down, no one is trying to hurt your feelings. I'm just trying to get you to see what you do because you keep pushing people away. It's all you CDQ and it has to stop otherwise it's going to be very sad for you." 

I left it at that. Walked away, left the room.  Today at dinner. She told me she owed me an apology.  She said she had thought about the way she acted and realized she did it for nothing. She had no reason to do it.  Um...ok. I accepted her apology and I left the room because in all honesty I had no strength to hash it out with her.  I guess deep down, I didn't want to try to get to the root of it because I didn't want to discover that it was all part of the drama in her head. I'd rather just take it at face value for now and move on.