Cindy,
I know you are exhausted. I know you feel attacked, and sometimes you have reason to feel so. I know you feel defensive. I know you are angry and hurt and so very scared. I know you love your granddaughter, and you love your daughter. I’m sure you never imagined you would be living in this nightmare; going to sleep at night praying that Caylee is safe somewhere, and waking up wondering if you will ever see her beautiful smile again.
But, Cindy, I am so very confused.
You have looked into the cameras and demanded that I get out there and search for your granddaughter. You didn’t call me by name, but when you look into a news camera and say things you know will be broad casted widely, you are speaking to thousands of individuals who care about Caylee, and I am one of them. I want to help. I want to see Caylee come home safe, and for every accusation aimed at your daughter or anyone else in your family to crumble.
But I am a reasonable person. I try to think logically. And I just can’t make sense of any of this. So I am asking you for help.
You said that the media has led the public to believe that Caylee is not alive anymore. The media hasn’t implanted that idea in my head. In fact, if not for the media circus this had admittedly become, I, and most of the nation outside of the Orlando area, would not know her name or her face, like this boy, who disappeared and whose father refuses to say where he is.
If you want me, and others like me, to reclaim hope that Caylee can still be saved, you have to address the reasons we have given up that hope. We need to understand, and yes, I know you don’t *have* to talk to me. But if you need my help, why wouldn’t you try to convince me to give it?
Casey has lied so much that the information law enforcement and the public needs to help locate her daughter is either not known or muddied among all the lies. You have changed your own story, appearing to attempt to match hers one day, then you admit she has lied on another day. A liar does not make one a murderer, you said, and that is true. But how can we know where to begin looking for Caylee without clear, truthful information from your daughter? And why would she not be interested, desperate, even, in providing the necessary information? It just doesn’t make any sense. I am a mother, and I would never be an obstacle in the rescue of my child, so it is impossible for me to understand her reasons for leading the police astray at every juncture.
I understand that you want your granddaughter to be alive. I understand that the only hope you have of that happening is to believe that she is with someone who cares for her. But there comes a time when reality has to be accepted. If you love Caylee, you need to face the facts, and help bring her home. She needs you, Cindy, whether you want to believe she is alive, or not.
Casey will continue to lie as long as someone believes her. And it’s always been you, hasn’t it? You never wanted to see that your cherished daughter was manipulating you, using you, deceiving you. Who would want to see that? But now, today, Caylee needs you to put an end to the enabling. She needs you to look in her mother’s face and tell her you don’t believe her, and you won’t listen to her unless she is honest.
I have children, Cindy. And I wouldn’t stop loving them, no matter what they did. I don’t expect you to turn your back on your daughter. But I think you need to realize that expecting them to take responsibility and face the consequences of their actions is not abandoning them. Enabling her to avoid taking responsibility for her mistakes is hurting your daughter, and it may have led to your granddaughter being hurt as well. Don’t forsake Caylee for Casey’s sake. Make her accountable, for both of their sakes.
PS I spent my Sunday combing through Orlando, braving heat and bugs and sunburn, nearly losing my shoe, to try to contribute toward the massive efforts of Texas EquuSearch. I am disgusted by the way you slandered the organization, that YOU asked for help from, when they approached this case *logically* and *rationally* and deduced is was more than a small possibility they were looking for a body, not a live child. You need to realize that the jury that your daughter will eventually face will be approaching the case in much the same manner. The time to come clean is running out.
I’ve been having a tough time with my son. His name is Christian, and he is 14. I had him 8 days shy of my 17th birthday. I did my best to be a good mother to him, though I am far from perfect. I took my responsibility and commitment to him very seriously; far more seriously than many of the other teen mothers I went to school with at the special program I attended for mothers in high school. I worked to support his needs, and my mother helped me fill in the gaps. I graduated with my class, with my son looking on as I crossed the stage, probably wondering why I was wearing such a funny dress.
I never thought about how I would handle the teen years. I think, at 16, the thought of the wriggling fetus in my belly as a person my own age was so foreign that my mind couldn’t wrap around it. I think I just assumed that if I met his physical needs, showed him how much I loved him, and kept firm boundaries, everything would fall into place.
I was so wrong.
I should have known, really. My mom met my physical needs, showed me how much she loved me, and kept firm boundaries, and I still acted like an asshole.
Regardless, the last week has been hell for me as a parent. Not that it was sudden, exactly. I could see the slow build. The typical teen patterns. All the cliche complaints of parenting teenagers. I just figured it was the age; it was a phase; it was temporary insanity. I tried to roll with the punches, stay calm, and pick my battles.
But the battles have become wars.
$100 went missing from my mother’s purse sometime Monday. After talking through all the facts with my mom and Bri, we decided that the only logical explination was that Christian had taken it. Of course he denied it, and we couldn’t prove it. But we put the house in lockdown-no one in or out other than school or family outings until we get to the bottom of it.
Tuesday morning he became enraged. We don’t know if it was my mom checking his backpack for extra money that set him off or my suggestion that I turn off his cell phone and use the money I’ll save to put my girls in after care since he can’t even be trusted to walk them home from the bus stop safely. Either was, I was rushing off to class and he came out, tried to open my door, and when the autolocks outwitted him he slammed both his palms on my window. I leaped out, rushed at him, pinned him to the wall and slapped at him. I didn’t hit him, though. Not my proudest moment. I jumped back in the car to leave and I called my mom back home. She asked if he was going to school and I said of course, only to have her inform me he left without his backpack and was heading the wrong way. I followed him, told him to get in the car so I could drop him off at school, and when he refused, I had to call the police to help me. They wound up taking him to school.
Saturday I caught him with pot and LOADS of paraphranelia in his room. I can’t even go into detail about that whole thing, because it was just so overwhelming and hurtful. Maybe someday I will, but right now the feelings are just too raw.
Tonight, he called me lazy because I told him to eat leftover pizza for dinner because I wasn’t cooking. I have absolutely had it with that accusation from the kid who won’t get off his ass for anything unless it benefits him, when I work 40 hours a week, am taking 5 college classes, and raising four kids. I didn’t yell. I didn’t bitch. I just took his computer cord, his cell phone, and my palm pilot, which he was using to go online since his desktop was infected with a virus. Then I took my daughters for haircuts.
And he broke some things and ran away.
I got home, called and stopped by some friends of his, and when I couldn’t locate him, I called the police. I actually had to report my son as a missing person; as a runaway. I can’t even explain how that feels, even when you know your child is probably safe and will be home within 24 hours. The police came, and tried a few more ideas to find him, but left emptyhanded.
A friend of mine found him hours later. He was going to let him crash there overnight, but he and his wife just moved back in with his parents after a layoff, and the mother didn’t want to be involved. I had called the police to inform them he was located, and they had to go “recover” him in person, so they went to pick him up. His attitude was very “whatever” and when the deputy found a paring knife in his pocket, he asked if I wanted him brought home, or charged with concealing a weapon.
I agonized over what to do. I don’t want him to have a record. But this kid is on a dangerous path and if I don’t do something drastic, I am scared to death what will become of him. So I told the deputy to arrest him. I am crying again just thinking of it. I hated to do that to him. I absolutely fucking hated it. But he needed to know the limits were firm. He needed to know there are real world consequences for 14 year olds, and that Mommy’s consequences are cake compared to them.
The deputy called me after he was dropped off in holding at the county jail, and told me I would be able to pick him up later tonight, which means the Dept. of Juvenile Justice most likely didn’t pick the charge up. He said there was another juvenile in holding that he was familiar with. He was arrested for fighting with another inmate at one of those boot camp programs. He pulled the kid aside and told him that Christian ran away because his mom did not cook him dinner and took his computer and cell phone away. The kid said, “Oh yeah? Well my mom died. I live on the street until I get arrested for committing some crime I did to eat. I’ll talk to him.”
I don’t know if it will matter. But all I can do is pray to the God I don’t even know exists because I don’t know what else will matter to him.
I’m not gonna whine about how busy I am..even though it’s true. I started school on the 25th-five classes, and I was assigned two new cases at work. And my son has been acting like a total jackass.
The reason i didn’t post is way simpler.
I forgot my password.
I have it written..somewhere. But it was way easier to just use Flock to post, once my retarded mind remembered I can do that.
A real post is coming later today, because I have a BUTTLOAD to talk about.
Caio for now!
It occurred to me today that I better get all these convoluted tales out now, while my audience is limited to a precious few. Of course that’s assuming there will someday be more, but hey, I’m on a think-positive kick, so let me be, ha! I don’t figure if my in-laws find this blog someday in the future that they will comb through old posts…though I could be wrong. But anyway, this is how I feel, and why I feel that way, and I wish I had the balls to say it to their faces, but I don’t because Bri’s relationship with them is so precarious and I don’t want to destroy the little bit of a bond that the kids have with that side of their family. Now, not everyone in his family falls into the group that I discuss here. A few have always been kind, even when they disagreed with me, and for them, I will always be thankful. My mother-in-law’s wonderful qualities live on in the few who have seen past the bullshit to the truth.
The long and short of it is that they hate me. I don’t know why exactly, though I suspect it is because of the big fat lies Kris will tell anyone who will listen to get sympathy from them. They didn’t always hate me; in fact I felt pretty welcomed by all but one jerky cousin, but when Bri’s mother died suddenly about a year after we were married, I became persona-non-grata.
Honestly, I am confused by the way they think I am. No one has ever bothered to try to get to know me, but they think they know who I am anyway. And now so much has happened that I don’t even care for them to know me. I feel that they are the kind of people who will read whatever they want to believe into everything I do, so I’d rather just limit my exposure to them so they have less material to twist into support for their fucked-up theories.
The negativity started the summer before Emily turned 1. We had custody of Kris for almost two years at that point, but because he was involved in the DCF, (Department of Children and Families, the child protection agency in Florida), case against his bio-mom, we became part of her never-ending case and so we had the monthly visits from a caseworker and we had to attend the court hearings for his mom’s case. It was his mother’s summer visitation; she had three weekends each month and we had the other, and the weekdays throughout the month, of course, but during the summer she had more liberal visitation. Bri was working for a moving company and was away for a week or two at a time. I was on my own for all but a precious few days a month, with my son Christian, 8 at the time, Kris, 6 at the time, and Emily, who was not quite one yet. Kris’s bio-mom showed up with him, unannounced, just a day after picking him up. She had two younger sons and was pregnant with another. She said Kris had thrown his baby brother off the top bunk, and she couldn’t handle him. And she left.
We had court the next day, so I asked a girlfriend to come with me so I had someone to sit with the kids when we went into the courtroom. Kris was grounded from electronics for what he did at his mom’s, but I told him if he behaved at the courthouse I would let him watch a movie when we got home. He acted out so bad in the courthouse that the bailiff actually came out and instructed me to control him. Yes, me, wrestling with a baby and my own son, while his mother sat beside me and did nothing to help me “control” her own son’s behavior. When court was over, he asked if he was going to get a movie, and I asked him if he thought he behaved. Suddenly he wanted to go with his mother, but she had an appointment for an ultrasound, and couldn’t take him. He pitched a fit, but I piled everyone into the car and headed to drop my friend off, driving in the rain. Then we headed home. When I got there, and I went to get Emily out of her carseat, the seatbelt that I buckled when we loaded in was unlatched, and the whole seat lifted out of the carseat base.
I lost my freaking mind.
He had just endangered my baby, because he had consequences for his OWN behavior, and not anywhere close to unreasonable ones, at that. I just didn’t want to be around him for another second. He had kicked three-feet long holes in my walls that summer, had threatened his father and I, would frequently fly into unimaginable rages when he didn’t get his way, he lied like a rug, and now, NOW, he had acted out in a way that could have gotten my baby killed. I. could. not. take. any. more.
But Brian was on the road. And his mother, my only comfort when I needed help with Kris, had died suddenly several months before.
So I made the big mistake. I called his aunt, crying, asking someone to please call me. I just wanted someone to take him overnight. Give me a chance to cool off, and maybe talk to him about the choice he made.
Both his aunts showed up shortly after, and basically accused me of treating him unfairly, and said, “nothing happened” so what was the big deal. Like, I can point a gun at you, but if I don’t pull the trigger, no harm, no foul? Come on! That type of coddling was exactly what had left Kris’s father so unprepared for adult life, and responsibility, and impulse control. I was furious.
And they left. Without Kris. I was totally alone. With a child I was afraid of.
We somehow got through those years. But I will tell you, between Kris’s behavior, and Brian’s bullshit, they were the worst years of my life. I don’t know how I survived. I developed an anxiety disorder, and I had months on end of dysfunctional uterine bleeding associated with high stress. I put on weight, and I stopped caring about the things that I always loved, like writing and photography and even my friends, to some extent.
And his family openly hated me after that.
I don’t understand what they expected from me, but whatever it was, I didn’t deliver. And I’m proud of that. Because while guiding Kris is harder for me than guiding my three bio-kids put together, I know that I am breaking the cycle that contributed to his father’s self-destructive patterns.
It still bothers me sometimes, but like I said, none of them know me. They don’t know about our family, or our lifestyle, or our characters, either. They think they know us, but what they know is what they want to know.
And it’s their fucking loss.
Well, I *should* do it anyway. Which means I probably won’t, actually. Or maybe I will now, just because I said I wouldn’t. I can be pretty contrary, you know.
Anyway.
Angel, a girl I met in my A&P classes in the spring had an awesome party tonight. (Yes, yet another Angel. I kept answering to her name when the professor did attendance, ha!) The theme was luau and she did a phenomenal job on the decorations. Campy enough to be fun and relaxed, and totally fit the theme. The food was kick-ass: steak kabobs, bbq sandwiches, Polynesian meatballs, and other goodies, like these amazing little Hamburger Cookies. There were frozen Hurricane drinks, lots of liquor, beer, and I brought OJ & Vodka.
I hadn’t eaten dinner, so I ate a heavenly plate full of assorted goodies, and I sipped on a Hurricane. Then I did a Hawaiian shooter with Angel and Bri. Then I started sipping on my second Hurricane.
And then I started to feel like I had guzzled a gallon of moonshine.
We ended up heading home very shortly after that.
I was just saying to my mom earlier today that I can’t seem to get to that happy, fun state of tipsy anymore. I go from stone cold sober to having that rolling belly that makes me just want to get horizontal, pronto, (and no, don’t get any bright ideas because I may puke on you, dear). I used to be able to have a few drinks, and then slow down significantly and just ride it out. I didn’t get sick, and I enjoyed myself. Not anymore.
So, I say I won’t drink anymore. But it’s a lie. I’ll drink again, and I’ll probably puke again, and then I’ll say I won’t drink again.
So who wants to party with me now?
Uh, hello? Anyone there?
*grin*
My kids did not get off the bus until 5:45 last night. Seriously.
I knew I wasn’t going to need aftercare anymore, but I never expected to get a full day of care, yanno?
So, after standing out there for an hour and a half, without a bra, sweat accumulating under my boobs like I was competing in the Olympics or something, my babies finally poured out of that bus like little maniacs. (As an aside, I’d like to submit “Waiting for the bus on the first day of school” to the Olympics for a new competition. If you get points for awkward conversations with neighbors and ant bites on flip-flop clad feet, I’d totally win.) I of course asked everyone how their day was, and here was the rundown:
-Christian had a good day, knew lots of people, saw lots of cute girls, and was disappointed that school was canceled for today.
-Kris had a good day, knew lots of people, and already had homework.
-Faith got to play, and have a nap, and met knew friends, and the girl next to her at lunch threw up. (More than likely why she is sick today.)
-But sweet Emily took the cake. “I didn’t even get to play! I just had to work all day! I hate the first grade!”
Am I the only one who finds some humor in the fact that little Faith starts kindergarten the same week that Tropical Storm Fay is coming? Maybe you just have to know Faith’s tempestuous nature to find it funny.
Anyway.
So, my baby started school this morning. I tried to be upbeat and positive, and show no weakness, because she has said several times that she was nervous about all the new people. I explained to her that every single student at that school is feeling the same way, because it’s a brand new school. I told her she would be great, and that she would have to work on learning more than in Pre-K, but overall it would be very similar. I reminded her of the rules, most of which she told me without me ever telling her. I dressed her in a uniform jumper and polo, even though the dress code was vetoed at the last minute by the school board, because I had already bought them and they will keep her regular clothes from getting all those kindergarten art supplies on them. I braided her hair and I held her hand all the way to the bus, where her sister and my friend and colleague’s daughter took her hands and led her up those big steps.
And I waited by the phone for three hours in case she panicked at school.
She didn’t.
She’ll be home in about 2 hours. And I will hug her and kiss her and tell her how much I missed her and that I am so very proud of her for walking right up to that bus even though she was scared.
And I will learn from her, when I start my own classes next week, I will think of my tiny little brave kindergartener, and I will have Faith.
I’m such a tard I forgot to post about my cute little piggy addition on my sidebar!
Ok, so everyone knows the economy is shit..except the gov’t, who will be forced to do something if they actually admit there is a recession, but anyway. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it, but Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored came up with an idea for helping our fellow bloggers by pledging to click through our feedreaders to our favorite bloggers and dig around their archives to come up with long forgotten blackmail material give them additional pageviews.
I’m all about giving up some pageviews, because I love me some pageviews. I get little flutters of excitement when I see my projected traffic based on the last day is higher than based on the last month, because that means you like me, you really like me! Or else I’m like a trainwreck you can’t take your eyes off of, but hey, does it really matter why anyway? I think not!
Anyway, enough about me. Get a button, slap it on your sidebar, and join the fun! There are some sweet prizes, so don’t forget to email Kristen like I did. *slaps forehead*
PS I have offered a handmade, custom jewelry set for a prize to be given to participants! You can see some of my stuffage here.
I think the natural world is plotting against me.
I thought it was a moth. I brushed my hand over my hair where I felt something, then looked up to see what it was. Finding nothing, I turned toward one side, and found myself staring at a two inch long cockroach scurrying along behind me on the wall. I screamed, made Brian get it or I wouldn’t sleep in the room. The guy jumps his sleepy ass up and handles that roach like he was some big game-chased it from one end of the room to the other until he found it, and put it down.
Poor Bri, he earned some ass tonight, baby-terror or no.
I am going to assume I am in good company here, because of the tech/web geek nature of blogging.
I have this weird compulsion to try out every single calendar software I come across. As long as it’s free, of course. The end result of all this nonsense is that I have no friggin clue which calendar to use when scheduling something. Which is a little counterproductive, no?
I have a Palm TX, which I adore. So, I’m scheduling stuff on the go all the time, in addition to the things that stay the same, like my classes and our morning and evening routines around here. (Which are pretty neglected right now, but that is a whole other post.) I don’t know why that isn’t enough for me. I mean, I have it with me all the time, and it syncs with Palm Desktop so I have a more comfortable way to put events in when my laptop is available. But I need to have my Yahoo, my Google, and my Cozi calendar all sync’d too.
I do use the most flexibility with Cozi. I only put in things our kids need to be aware of, like the days I will be in Gainesville versus doing home visits around town, or the nights Nana (my mom) works, and the days trash goes out because even though this is the house I brought Christian home to as a baby he *still* can’t seem to remember. I like Cozi because it’s easy for the kids to understand and it prints up a simple calendar for the fridge. There are several features I never use, like the family journal, obviously, because I use this blog for those things, and the shopping list, because I use grocery savings sites like TheGroceryGame and GroceryGuide. But I can see how someone with less of an online footprint would really get good use out of them. The UI is pretty and they have additional software you can install like an outlook toolbar and a screensaver collage thing, but you can just log into the site and never install anything on your machine if you like. But, the event input is a little too simple-sometimes I need an every other week recurrence, and importing from anything besides Outlook isn’t gonna work.
Yahoo calendar has the most flexibility for import and export, but there aren’t any categories, just event types. I like to keep my events categorized, like: school, family, work, social, personal, etc. Plus the UI is just good enough to keep me from saying it’s ugly.
Google calendar is so damn sleek that I want to make love to it. (And as a bonus, it won’t get me pregnant. *wink*) But for some stupid reason the only way to sync Google calendar and Palm is with some $30 software, and I refuse to spend $30 one time on something that would save me two hours of work every time I want to sync my calendars. Cuz I make sense, that’s why. Dammit.
Palm software provides all the functionality I want, except a nice variety of exporting or syncing options. I want an ical export option, dammit! All it puts out are .dba files.
I had to sync my Palm Desktop with Airset, yet another scheduling software-that exports in ical format, and then export each group (categories in airset are groups) one by one, the import each into Google Calendar. Then I had to delete my groups (because you can’t just clear the calendar) and add them again in Airset, and subscribe to the Google calendars to pull those events. The ones I just imported. From Airset. Anyone else getting dizzy?
I also use Backpack quite a lot, and I can pull the ical feed into its calendar from Google, but only the first occurence of a recurring event is displayed each week. Kind of retarded. Like me, spending 18 hours fucking with all of this crap, only to discover that I may as well just stick to my Palm and Palm Desktop.
*sigh*
