Category: Sarah

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From the mouths of babes

Dad: "How were your TCAPs?"
Sarah: "Boring!"
Dad: "I know they were boring. How did you do?"
Sarah: "I don’t know. They don’t tell us."
Dad: "How do you feel like you did? Good. Bad. Questions were hard. Made you think."
Sarah: "I don’t know"
Dad: WWASD

Mom: "Noah, can Granny and Granddaddy come to your graduation?"
Noah, confused: "Did they come to graduation?"
Mom: "Can they come to graduation?"
Noah, still confused: "We haven’t had graduation yet."
Mom: "CAN!"
Noah: *blink* *blink*
Dad: "Noah. _Can_ Granny and Granddaddy come to graduation?"
Noah: "I don’t know if they can."
Dad, shouting: "Do you want them to come?!"
Dad, regrouping: WWASD WWASD…

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From the mouths of babes

This goes hand in hand with my earlier post.

Dad, asking nicely: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: sits silently with chin on fist
Dad, asking nicely: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: sits silently with chin on fist
Dad, becoming frustrated and gruff: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: "Because you won’t let me tell you why I am crying!"
Dad: blink. blink.

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Failing Dad

Cathy and I bill ourselves as "approachable parents." We want our children to feel comfortable approaching us on any topic including sex, drugs, and so forth. Apparently there is something at a genetic level that keeps children from talking to parents.

Sarah is currently in honors math. I am proud that she excels. Sarah yesterday brought home a note explaining that she will not be invited into Algebra I because she has failed her last 6 tests and told the teacher she "doesn’t want to be in Algebra I." Throughout the past grading period I’ve constantly asked, "how are you doing?" only to be told "fine." My trust has been betrayed. I neglected to talk to the teachers and get regular reports on Sarah. I let her down but the onus is not completely upon me. I cannot help those that do not seek help. I all but begged her to ask for help and she hid her test results from us.

Repercussions? 1) Severely limited extracurricular activities in the 8th grade until she shows responsibility and caring about her studies. 2) Much more parent/teacher communication next year. 3) Calendar planning skills to be enforced.

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Climbing

Sarah, the deprived, is off to go rock climbing today with her church group. I found out as I dropped her off that I could have gone along and participated. That would have been a pleasure but might have put a damper on Sarah’s never ending search for independence. If it is too rainy, they will switch to hiking. I am happy to see her participating in such great outdoor activities!

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Blended Families and Lies

Back in January Kristy wrote that she’d like to see more blended families discuss the step part.

Being a step-parent is hard work. The dynamics of the family change almost daily. Dealing with step-parents, biological parents, kids related in all different combinations of blood and marriage… It is difficult. … I know of a few blended families that I read online … but … I don’t read a lot about the ’step’ part.

Like many of Philip’s posts, I thought Kristy’s an inspiration for writing material. Here it is the end of March and little to no references on Reality Me to step-parenting.

Writing about the step part is difficult for me because I don’t view the children as step children despite being their stepfather. I do not want others to think of my children as stepchildren and, despite the awkwardness, I even allow other people to address me with the wrong last name on occasion. We de-emphasize "step." I think it has come up in discussion with either Noah or Sarah once and we pointed out that Amy and Evan are their brother and sister, and technically, if a qualifier was necessary, they are halfsiblings not stepsiblings.

stepwife- The wife of one’s father and not one’s natural mother.

Beyond that technicality, dealing with the absentee parent in a blended family is difficult. One of our challenges is the lies told by biodad. His version of the events that led to the divorce are far different than Mom’s version. Sarah yesterday declared, "I don’t know who to believe." Biodad is a habitual liar. He is so good at it that I am certain he believes his own lies. It is not fair to the children to tell them conflicting stories. All they need to know is that Biodad and Mom could no longer be together. I’ve directly confronted him on this issue but either he disregards it or needs a reminder. The children do not deserve to have to deal with the stress caused by lies.

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Could you, would you save a life?

Yesterday a 13 year old girl, Megan, on Sarah’s Bearden Middle School bus fell over with a heart attack. The girl beside the victom screamed. The bus stopped, students evacuated the bus, paramedics brought in a AED, rushed the girl away, and that’s all we know.

Poor Sarah. Bomb threats, lock downs, and possibly death. Too much reality for a 12 year old. The sad thing is Sarah keeps everything locked inside of her and I can’t get anything but stoic, short answers from her. I was the same way at her age and it pains me because I know that keeping things bottled up can only last so long and eventually it all has to come out; the longer she waits, the harder it will be to deal with the bottled up emotions. I bet she thinks she is being strong; strength would be talking. At least she has caught blog fever and perhaps we can communicate that way. She shared more information about the incident in her blog than I could have dragged out of her with any other means.

Taking advantage of the situation we had this dialog:

Dad: "So Sarah, would you have liked to known CPR to be able help?"
Sarah: "They taught us CPR at camp."
Dad: "So did you try to help?"
Sarah: "She didn’t need CPR. She needed those paddle thingys."
Dad: "An AED? A defibrillator?"
Dad takes a moment to explain CPR, the functions of the heart, lungs and brain, and why CPR saves lives until an AED can be brought on the scene.
Sarah glazes over and tunes Dad out.
Dad asks: "Would you like to be trained in CPR?"
Sarah, exasperated: " I don’t want to learn that medical stuff!"
Dad, starts to explain how she could have helped the girl today, or perhaps her grandparents or even parents.
*Ring ring*
Saved by the bell. The phone rings to end the conversation.

I have to say I found the conversation a little disheartening. More people should be trained with the American Red Cross.

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Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat – Update

Since the school was given the all clear, normal classes began at 11am. Any student checked out received an unexcused absence. Words exchanged amongst parents in the office were:

"the school declared this a drill and a normal day,"
"originally they were claiming it would be an excused absence,"
"all parents should call downtown to the administrative offices and complain to get this switched to an excused absence."

Overheard of the students:

"half my team is gone,"
"we aren’t going to do anything but sit around,"
"half the school checked out at the church."

I reiterate: All parents of Bearden Middle School (BMS) students should call downtown, not the school, to protest this day as an unexcused absence. All checkouts should be excused.
Central office information: 865-594-1900
Middle School Coordinator 865-594-1619

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We Storm IHOP Again

Eating at International House of Pancakes

I’m thinking IHOP needs its own category!

On Friday night the whole crew, minus Tommy who chose to stay home and play video games, went out to eat. We replaced Tommy with one of Sarah‘s friends. Lakesha (pictured), who knows us by name, came by for a visit. She always tries to get Evan to interact and sometimes he gives smiles while other times he cries. Tonight he giggled.

I love this photo because you can see the love pouring from Sarah and Noah into their brother. Not pictured was the jealous Amy. Looking at this picture makes it is easy to understand why Amy is acting out. Amy, once the center of the universe, has been dethroned. Making sure each child gets a balanced amount of attention is always a challenge in a big family. I really like to see that each week each child gets one on one time with at least one parent. That time might be a game of chess, reading a book together, or several hours belaying at the climbing gym.

Naturally we demolished IHOP and as we exited, the HAZMAT team entered. I think they are on contract now.

Remember, FREE Pancake Day is coming February 28.

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Woof Rough, Start

Our boarder for the week arrived and, to remind us how displeased she was with the service on her last visit, she immediately pooped on the carpet and peed on Tommy‘s bed.

In other news, I got all the kids ready for school and sent 2 of them to their respective bus stops. Noah returns home to tell me that school was cancelled after one of his friends’ mother drove by and told him it was cancelled. I confirmed on WBIR that they are indeed closed. Every now and then Noah shows a little bit of spectrum. His statement this morning was a confused "some woman told me school was cancelled" while Sarah said, "___’s mom told me school was cancelled." There is no snow out and the roads are clear. Good day to cancel!