Questions, Questions

I have lots of them today. Bear with me. Answer them if you can.  Offer humor if you can. 

1.  Am I unreasonable to expect my almost 16 year-old daughter to be responsible for her own laundry?  And to not let her go out in public with me if she is not clean and appropriately dressed?  This is Leigh we're talking about--  my RAD/OCD/PTSD/Depression/BPD child, who consistently has to be sprayed down before we go somewhere because she smells bad. 

2. Am I unreasonable to NOT allow my almost 17 year-old daughter share a bed behind closed doors with her girlfriend. (She's gay, so this is not a "just a friend," this a "we're dating" girlfriend.)  I'm opposed to any sort of spend-the-nights since they are in HS and I don't care if you're straight or gay, it is not appropriate to spend the night with the person you're dating.  My friend Katie, a lesbian, agrees with me, but she says she's so conservative she beats herself up in the parkinglot. 

3.  Am I unreasonable to expect my teenagers to complete basic housekeeping chores for the good of the family, even if they didn't personally make the mess in question?  My theory is that you ate the damn food that I worked to pay for AND cooked, you can clean up the kitchen. 

4.  And along those lines, if I ask you to do something, and you don't do it or half-ass it, I reserve the right to tell you no to something you want done, just on the backscratching principle.  Right?

5.  Is it wrong that we're still waffling about adopting the babies?  Is that a sign we shouldn't?  Or a sign that for the first time in our adult lives, we're looking at something long and hard before jumping in?

6.  Since Leigh has been off her meds, I have done a lot of thinking. Is it wrong that I plan to bully her into a birth control implant that she can't remove without pain and difficulty?  Is it wrong that I am starting to fantasize about spiking her food with Prozac?

7.  And am I wrong to be FURIOUS and HURT that bio-grandma called Danae's phone?  This is a violation of our agreement to move at our speed on bio-grandma's part; and for Danae, a violation of the promise she made to NOT give her cell number to her bio-family. 


That's all for now.  Thanks.

The Seven Things I Didn't See Coming... Last Week

So, instead of a wrap-up, I'm just going to start looking at the things that surprised me, the things that were unexpected. 

So here are my seven from the week of August 8.



1. I went to a drag show with my oldest daughter, Marie. I gave a drag queen money, which he/she took from my teeth with her (his?) tongue. No touching. And, as an unexpected bonus, I was sober.

2. Then, we went to a dance club. At 1:30AM. I have not danced, in a bar, around other people, since 1995. Again, I was sober. However, the man who kept grinding on my backside and elbowing everyone around us was not.

3. Leigh decided to take herself off her meds. She did okay for the first week, but this week, back at home, she’s not doing so well.  (You can loosely translate that as we want to kill her, but haven't found a way to get away with it yet.)

4. I found out that Leigh is having sex. Again. But with whom I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. With her off meds, she is not taking pills daily, which means being on the pill is no longer the best, easiest option to keep her un-impregnated.

5. The philosophical dilemmas I’m having with #4 are many. First, Leigh is 15. Sex at 15 is a bad idea no matter what, and we’ve been battling sex issues with her since she moved in with us when she was six. Second, if she gets pregnant, there are obviously many other big, big issues. Like the fact that I don’t believe in abortion, and that mental illness runs deep in her bio-family. And she is completely incapable of caring for a child. She can’t remember to put on pajamas. I shudder to think how a child left to her care would survive. And I don’t want to raise another baby, but I feel very strongly about keeping families together. Borrowing trouble? Maybe. But I’d rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

6. One week left until I go back to work. Ugh. Summer vacation is great. Ending it is not.

7. I haven’t heard from Dawn in two weeks. She made the mistake of asking me to be honest with her, and then not liking the answer. She’s also ignoring everyone else, which only makes me feel marginally better.

That's it.

Next week comes with more court, more caseworkers, more therapy, and my last week of summer.