Piece of Cake

Fridays are never fun in our house. Friday from 4-7 our kids have supervised visits with their Mom. They get picked up from daycare by the supervisor and then brought home. Friday mornings are usually pretty rough. Usually we have tears and purposeful disobedience like we did this morning when Jelly Bean was told by Dad to put on gym shoes and did so until he left and Mom came down to find she had put her sock covered feet in flip flops are was trying to sneak out of the house this way.

Friday evenings when the kids come home are a crap shoot. Depending on what happens their behavior can escalate or I can be dealing with tears. And I'm just going to put it out there. I. AM. TIRED. Of them coming home in different clothes, covered in candy/frosting/soda, with stained clothes, and hungry. Tonight Mr. Mohawk came home with blue and red stains on his face and pajama pants on. Apparently family tradition is to smash each others faces in cake (which of course he doesn't know because he was 2 last time he was there for his birthday) which Little Mama was happy to do. So he cried and then of course wet his pants. Why? Because he's scared and confused and afraid he's going to get beat. So she gave him pajama pants but didn't have underwear for him so she left him in wet underwear.

Our number one rule is keep your hands to yourself. This is something the kids struggle with as their first reaction is to ball up a fist and hit the other person. I think this should especially be enforced at a visit. And if it wasn't then she could have at least cleaned him up. Did I mention he also managed to pour himself a bowl of cereal without anyone noticing? And in our house he is to ask before having food because he sneaks it.

And so begins this cycle of getting back to normal and then unravelling it again. It was finally (and thankfully) decided this week by the therapists and case supervisor that family therapy with Mom's therapist was not going to work (like we said at the beginning) and that more harm was being done to the kids. So a neutral therapist is going to be found and hopefully they can wade through this mess and see that Mom cannot and has not taken responsibility for her actions and the abuse she inflicted on these kids. This week she told Gabby that she remembered hanging someone up by the hands in the closet as punishment but she didn't remember that it was Gabby who she did it to. To which Gabby explained it that it was so long ago (2 years) that of course her Mom forgot.

We'll see how they take this news as they know family therapy is key to them going home.