This Is Our Life

Skipping a few chapters, today my daughter is 5 1/2 years old and in Kindergarten at a school for hearing impaired children. She communicates solely through the use of ASL (American Sign Language) and she wears the processor for her cochlear implant every waking hour without struggle and she has quite some time now. She is the pickiest eater I have ever met and getting her to eat nutritiously is a struggle. At school they feed her foods I don't approve of such as fries, chips, fried chicken, etc. It's out of my control what she eats at school and that frustrates me as I see my daughter who used to be in the low percentages for weight now weighing over the 50% percent level. She didn't become potty trained until she was 4 years old and to this day she still wears a pull up every night to bed. Some nights she is dry, other nights she is not. Bedtime is still a struggle. Her grandma must lay down with her every night in order to get her to sleep. She throws her toys everywhere and is very reckless/careless with her possessions. Getting her to clean up her messes is a nightmare. She takes her brother's toys off of him while he is playing with them and then throws a tantrum when she is disciplined for doing this, as if she doesn't understand she is being wrong and her actions have consequences. She cannot talk and makes noises, usually in play or in objection to something. These noises can cause me headaches and embarrassment in public as they sound like noises a mentally retarded person would make. Taking her to public places is like gambling these days. You never know if she is going to behave herself and keep her noises to a minimum or if she is going to scream and throw herself on the dirty floor when you explain to her that you're not buying toys and candy for her that she wants. My mother still continues to try controlling this situation and acting like my daughter is her child even though she is only her grandchild. Sure my mother helps deal with this child a lot, but I do not agree with her ideas on discipline as it lacks structure, rules, and reason.

As for the A-hole that is her father, he has been in and out of her life since she was a baby a few times. He has always gotten behind on child support and always put himself first. He has dropped in and out of college and gone from job to job and lived in place to place. From Christmas of 2006 he has been in her life and shown interest in changing his deadbeat ways and maturing. He has been seeing her on his days off, for the most part. But of course he isn't helping with her in the ways that he should. You figure there's 168 hours in a week. He is seeing her roughly 7 hours, which is around only 4% of the time in a week. She now attends speech therapy through Children's 2 days most week and it has become his job to take her there. This saves me a lot of anxiety honestly, but still it is not enough for his half. Now he is working a different job where he has off on Sundays and she doesn't have school on the weekend. I have had to suggest that he take her from Saturday into Sunday overnight, he couldn't think of this himself. Her father give my mother and I much disrespect and lack of appreciation for all that we have done for his daughter. His family also irritates me because they love children and they all shower the other grandchildren/nieces/nephews with attention and my daughter misses out on that because her father doesn't have her more. Here I am struggling to raise a special needs child as a single mom and he has this huge support group of family waiting for him to have her so they can help out with her. Is that fair? My mother is driving me more insane all the time. I have come to accept the fact that I will not be able to handle taking my daughter when I move out on my own with my son. I also will not allow my daughter to stay here with my mother. There's a few reasons for this; 1. she is not my mother's child 2. she can't provide the proper discipline 3. her father has that large support group, not us 4. it's not the right decision for anyone. My mother seems to think differently of course, yes that's right, she doesn't want her granddaughter to move out to live with either her rightful mother or father, she thinks she should keep her instead! That's beyond ridiculous but the truth. I have addressed these issues with her father and he sees my point on things even though we don't get along very well due to his lack of respect. In a few months if all goes accordingly, my daughter should be living with her father, I should be out on my own with my son, and my mother can be all alone realizing the wrong she's done in trying to control the situation with her granddaughter for the last time.


Of course I have documented some of the things her father has done and I am posting them as my sort of vent here in the meantime. I am keeping this blog to discuss the drama of this crazy situation.