Same Thing, Different Day....

Alex called my cell phone yesterday at 2:27 pm.

Mom, I don't have jobs today. I practice piano. Can I  hang out with Brach?

You practiced your piano?

Yes

For how long?

Thirty minutes.

Are you sure.

Yes.

Alex, you get out of school at 2 pm, you have to get home and now it is 2:27 pm. How could you have practiced your piano for thirty minutes?

I did. I got out of school at 1:55. I set timer. I practice for thirty minutes....

I interrupted and told him we'd have to talk about it when I got home. To not go anywhere, I would be home in a minute.  I came home to a sulking boy sitting and waiting. 

I took him into my office and told him that I would love to believe what he says but I can't. I can only make my decisions on what I KNOW to be true. Not on anything he says. I WANT to believe him but I can't because he has lied so much to me in the past. (This is a totally different tactic then our past talks/lectures/wailing sessions.)  I KNOW that school gets out at 2 pm but even if it got out at 1:55. I KNOW you cannot take your back pack to class so I KNOW you needed to go to you locker, get your stuff, go to your bike, unlock your bike and ride home and that would take at least ten minutes. I also KNOW that the first thing you do when you come home is have a snack. He interrupts with "I didn't have a snack." I said, "That my be true but how am I suppose to believe you? This is part of losing your trust. I cannot believe what you say because you keep telling me lies so I can only go with what I KNOW and I KNOW that you have a snack right after school. I also can see the time that you called my cell phone asking to hang out with Brach. Can you see the time? Yep 2:27 pm. So, if I do some basic math - even based on getting out at 1:55 and NOT having a snack, there is NO WAY you couldn't possibly have practiced for thirty minutes." 

Busted.

And he knew it.

But he also had a different look of understanding. I can't really explain it. It was like he understood he couldn't be trusted and what it really meant to be trusted. He kept nodding - but not in his robot way - when I explained how I cannot believe the things he says because of his past history. I don't know. I feel like we may be making headway? That rather than the moral talks, stories and examples that I have dished out by the fist full, over the past two years, that he finally got it! "She cannot believe me."

In his journal he wrote about our incident but  neglected to mention "My mom didn't believe me because I have lied so often to her in the past." Yep. You bet. I made him add it.

Our journal deal is this, if he can write a journal entry with three or less mistakes (spelling, punctuation, sentence structure) and write at least ten sentences that tell  a story or event in the correct time line without any major missing information,  he can skip journal writing the next day! (I had been holding off on journal writing trying to gage his junior high homework level and since it's usually a few  math problems and reading, journal writing has been incorporated back into his life. No. He is not happy.) 

Journal writing I am hoping will help with sentences like this: 

"Do's anyone want last chicken?"  

and 

"May you get me fork?" 

Despite the tone and topic of the post, he has been a sweet boy, telling me he loves me, hugging me and looking right into my eyes when we talk. I think our "send me back to the orphanage" day really scared him. (It scared me.) We talked more about it and he knows that I would never send him back and I know that he doesn't want to go back. Ever. 

Someday, this boy will tell the truth or at least stop holding to his lie like a bull dog with a T-bone in his mouth. I have hope for him yet.

I can always have hope, right?