Clever Escape

Now, I know that this is going to shock most of you. Totally floored me.

You may want to sit down for this one.

That is, if you are standing up at your computer. Which would be abnormal. But just in case, make sure you are seated.

Sunshine tried to call her mother today, and…drumroll…”this phone is temporarily out of service“.

I warned you. It’s a shocker, that one. Especially considering that her mother has called her ONCE in the FIVE WEEKS she has been here.

ONCE.

IN FIVE WEEKS.

And that was two days after she arrived here. Nothing since then. Her grandfather called once about a week ago. But that is it.

My mother? Has called at least six times. Nick’s parents? Comment on her site almost daily. But her mother? Nothing. No communication at all. So we told her she should call her mother. And, somewhat reluctantly, she did. And it was out of service. We told her to call her grandfather and find out why her mother’s phone wasn’t working. He gave his phone to her mother, who didn’t answer her question at all, just said that it would be back on by the end of the week.

In other words, as soon as her husband came home to give her some money to pay the bill.

His phone, though, is on and working. Why they don’t have a family plan, I don’t know. Maybe his phone is a work phone or something. Which is assuming that he isn’t working under the table anymore, and is actually filing his taxes and stuff, and I’m sure you can guess the likelihood of that one.

Anyone that has been reading this blog for any real amount of time (as in, pre-deleteeverythingIhaveeverwritten) knows that her phone gets turned off all the time. ALL THE TIME. What if something had happened to Sunshine? What if we couldn’t get a hold of her? What if her father didn’t answer the phone either, or check his messages, as they are all prone to do? What then?

And what if, by some chance, Sunshine was actually interested in calling and talking to her mother, but she hadn’t been able to get a hold of her this entire time?

I mean really. One thing to not call all freaking summer. But to make it impossible to be called? That is a whole other level.

I shouldn’t be surprised by either. And really I’m not. I am not surprised that her phone was turned off. It is a common occurance and a big factor in why we got her her own phone on our plan. And she never calls when Sunshine is with us. Ever. Not even when we had her for six months straight. Nothing. We would have Sunshine call her every couple of weeks, but why go through the effort when it just ruins Sunshine’s day anyway?

And also typically, Sunshine was upset when she got off the phone. She does a good attempt at hiding when she is upset, and I am not looking forward to the day when she can actually pull it off, but she was visibly not happy. When I went to tuck her in, before my husband read her her bedtime story, she said that July sure went fast.

Is that why you were upset after you talked to your mom? Cause she made a big deal about how you were only here for another few days?

Yeah. I like it here.

I’m sorry you feel sad. July did go fast, but you will be back here before you know it!

Yeah. I wish I could stay here. If only it weren’t so hot!

Hey, it’s only really hot during July. And it won’t be July anymore when you come back, so no big deal.

I wish I could put more effort into defending her mother’s actions. I know that she is upset that she hasn’t called her all summer. She is upset that her mother made a big deal over she “only has to be there a little while longer”.

She does not understand why her mother does the things she does, or why her life has to be the way it is, why we all can’t live closer together. But it is NOT MY JOB to defend her mother to her. It is starting to get easier to stop myself from doing it. I used to think that I needed to protect her and her vision of what her mother is supposed to be. But I can’t do that for her anymore. I can’t excuse such noxious behavior anymore. I don’t have it in me. She is just going to have to figure it out for herself.

One thing I absolutely hate doing is having to say something over and over again, day after day.

It is one thing at school - I have to get them used to how I do things in the first couple of weeks, then I usually start stepping back and expect them just to remember what it is they are supposed to be doing with a few reminders here and there. They are pretty good at it.

But then, they are in high school, and shouldn’t need to be reminded to put their stuff away every…single…day…

Every time Sunshine comes to see us, we have to reteach her everything we had just retaught her the trip before. I know, she is 8 and not 15, but what I expect from her is quite a bit easier than what I expect out of my students.

Like, saying please and thank you. Apparently this doesn’t happen at her mother’s house.

Or getting dressed in the morning without being told to.

Or clearing her dishes from the table.

Or putting her dirty laundry in her basket.

Things like this make me wonder what her mother’s house looks like on a daily basis. I have been there before - it didn’t seem so bad. There was laundry absolutely everywhere, and her little brother’s toys were all over, but Sunshine’s stuff didn’t seem to engulf the house, and there wasn’t dirty dishes everywhere, and they all seemed to have changed out of their pajamas.

The beginning of every trip here is spent reinforcing the habits we had taught her the previous trip. It gets quite old.

This time I brought her over to my computer, picked out a cool font and made two lists.

The “When I wake up I…” list, and the “Before I go to bed I…” list. She helped fill in the lists. Mostly consisted of, get dressed, make bed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, clean one spot in my room, etc.

Then I made my morning list so she could see that while her list may look long to her, it really wasn’t. And we talked about responsibility and how as she got older, her lists would get longer.

And it has worked marvelously.

The first thing she does every morning is check out her list and get that stuff done. I haven’t had to say one single thing to her about any of it!

She gets herself dressed without me saying anything! Before noon!

And puts her laundry away!

And makes her bed!

And gets her breakfast! And then…loads her dishes in the dishwasher!

And every night it is the same thing…she gets ready all on her own, with no reminders.

Small victories.

Excuse me while I complain for a minute.

Yesterday we did the typical first day of summer stuff.

Swimming was a first must-do, since it is her most favorite thing, and she doesn’t get to go at her mother’s, and she needs to refresh her skills before swimming lessons start in a week.

Really though, swimming is an excuse to make her take a shower even though “I just took one yesterday”, and I can scrub her head and get all the sand and oil out and make sure she is washing everywhere. I still get kind of sick when I think about when she came here in March and had built-up dirty patches under her chin, the back of her neck and her ankles. Blech.

Next, we went shopping.

First, a haircut. Sunshine’s hair is usually in desperate need of a trim almost every time she comes here. I took her in and the lady said that at least two inches needed to come off to fix the dried ends and split hairs. Fabulous. I like her hair shorter anyhow. So off went 2 1/2 inches.

Then on to shoes. She came with her usual lovely pair of worn out sneakers that are too small for her. At least we had a credit at Kohls from the last batch of clothes my MIL sent that didn’t fit. So new shoes it was.

Then a loofah (last trip her loofah mysteriously met the toilet bowl, she blames her father, he blames her, it is a toss up to which did it), swimming shampoo, bath bubbles (she isn’t allowed baths at her mother’s anymore, only showers), etc. I took care of all her clothes shopping before she got here. Somehow I knew she would arrive with either nothing, or nothing worth unpacking. Surprise, I was right.

On to the library, at her request. We got her a library card here the last time we live here and she keeps it in her purse. She likes having her own cards and money and stuff and takes really good care of it. I took her up to the children’s section and ten minutes later she came waddling over with a pile of at least ten books. I told her to break it down to five and promised that we would be coming back as soon as she finished those five. Girl loves to read. She is currently in her room finishing up “Holes”, which she started yesterday.

I figured that was enough for yesterday, so today we finished up cleaning her up with her father watching her trim her nails (we taught her a long, long time ago, since nobody at her other residence can figure out how to do it) which had grown so long they were all broken off and pointy.

Don’t you think that would be uncomfortable? Really? Wouldn’t it make walking feel weird? Wouldn’t they stick to your socks and rub your other toes? She just shrugs when I ask and says she doesn’t let it bother her. I don’t push her for more than that. We’ll probably buy her *another* pair of clippers before she goes back again. At least those are cheap.

And we are working, yet again, on matching clothes and teaching her how to know when something gets to be too small. Nobody notices up there when her jeans are halfway up her shins or her long sleeves are at her elbows.

Enough bitching for today, I think…

Sunshine arrived last night, looking just as she always does and with the stuff she always brings (or rather, doesn’t bring). No surprises.

I suppose one thing that was new is that she brought a pile of stories she had written and a bunch of her school work from the end of school. We hardly ever get to see this stuff…her kindergarten and first grade teacher were really good about sending samples of her work every couple of weeks, but her second grade teacher didn’t. She didn’t even send report cards unless we called and specifically asked for them. But she was really good about mailing us her weekly newsletters, which kept us up on what she was doing in school which was really nice. Can’t complain too much when really it is more than I realistically expect out of the schools up there. Sad, isn’t it?

My husband called her mother yesterday afternoon to make sure everything was going well. Sunshine wasn’t with her. Apparently her father (Sunshine’s grandfather) was taking her to the airport.

He asked her if she had gotten the insurance cards yet and if she could mail us a copy for the summer.

And, I know you will be shocked by this, cause I was…she said she had been laid off.

Right.

Well, maybe. But I doubt it. She gets “laid off” a whole hell of a lot. But whatever.

At least my husband hadn’t dropped her from his health insurance yet. Which he had not done on purpose, he had every intention of dropping her last month but forgot (heh). Least it worked out.

So I suppose we should check and see if his dental plan has dentists up there, or if she will need a checkup before she flies back at the end of the summer. I am thinking we should just take her. Her grandfather always takes her and pays for it. I don’t like that.

For those of you who don’t know, he views Sunshine as his “second (or fourth, rather) chance” at raising a child, since he has thus far failed on his first three attempts and created losers.

Oops, trying to be more positive…um…no really I can only describe them as losers.

He pretends to be her father. She already has a father. And a stepfather, actually. She is all full up in that department. But her mother is content to sit back and let him do all the work. Oh well. Not our business what goes on up there, right? Unless, of course, it is actually harming Sunshine. But there isn’t any evidence of that (not real harm, anyhow) so we don’t worry about it.

Anyway back to the beginning. Sunshine is here and summer is really starting now. I really liked my full month off of not having anything to do. Definitely in favor of that. Though now I kind of miss it, despite how bored I was. Doing nothing was nice.

Ah well. Next summer.

Tomorrow we are leaving to go camping for our anniversary. Which means that today I get to get all the camping stuff out and go grocery shopping and make sure we have everything. Since my husband is *conveniently* sleeping.

Yes, I know he works nights and he is always sleeping right now. But still.

AND I need to clean the house because I know I’m not going to want to when we get back, and Sunshine is flying in for the summer next week.

I’m actually really excited about camping - we haven’t done anything like that for a long time. As in, anything not here. Not in the valley. And now is the perfect time to go since it has been over 110 for the past I don’t even know how long. Two weeks? And at least all of this week, and probably next week?

I don’t think I am into writing right now. Writer’s block or something. I know I have things to say, they just aren’t coming to me right now.

Maybe later.

Otherwise, we won’t be back from camping until Saturday!