It seems I only write an update on Alex when we've had issues. So, these long stretches of nothing about Alex is proof that things are going well. Or at least are not monumental enough to write about.
And really, today's update is a bunch of different events spread out over a few weeks.
So, as you know Alex has issues with cheating and lying. He's done so well but - dang - if he doesn't fall off the wagon every once in awhile.
So, he has at home English studies 5 days a week - in exchange for not taking his "annoying" functional literacy class. He picks two words he doesn't know the meaning to, writes the definition, uses them in a sentence, and writes a short story using each word twice. He does one English worksheet and reads one short story with comprehension questions.
Thirty minute - tops - if he actually concentrates and works. It can take two hours when he looks off into space and/or goofs around.
A couple of weeks ago, I was praising him on getting all his comprehension right. He really struggles with comprehesion. So about day 4 or 5 of perfect worksheets, I get one of my mom promptings and ask him what the story is about that he scored so well on? He has no idea. He makes up a story about a bridge - because it mentioned bridge in the title. He has cheated. The answers keys are under my calendar on my desk and he's just been cheating.
Boo.
He cries and I get mad. We come to the conclusion that the reason for cheating is to hurry and get it done so he can play with his Ipod. So, no Ipod. He cries more. (Because he honestly feels bad about losing his Ipod. Not cheating. Not losing trust. Not hurting my heart. It is what it is. It hurts him more to lose this precious electronic device.)
Then I pull up his grades. He has failed a math test. Not the end of the world. What is not okay is that he has a chance to improve his grade by making corrections and turning them in but he has a zero. I ask if he did his corrections?
Yes.
Then how did you get a zero?
I got them all wrong.
Oh.
I decide to email his teacher. He never turned in corrections. When he comes home I tell him I've caught him in a lie and until he figures it out there will be NO Ipod. (We had an agreement he could have his Ipod for an hour a day once his week is up from getting it taken away in the first place.) He is stumped. It takes him a day and quite a few hints but he figures it out and upon figuring it out, promptly and cheerfully asks me for his Ipod. No way. I just can't give it to him. He has no remorse for lying and he's told me as much. It is so much ingrained in him that he doesn't even feel bad. He only feels bad when he gets caught and has a consequence. Besides his week isn't up anyway.
So we go on our cruise with the arrangement that Alex can have his Ipod for ONE hour a day when everything is done. Except I forget to tell anyone where I hid it. Oops.
I honestly thought he'd call and/or my brother in charge would call and I would tell him. But no one called and I totally forgot about it.
We get home and Alex is pretty much under the assumption that he cannot have his Ipod and who am I to argue? I tell him he can have it for an hour but that's not good enough I guess? He'd rather just go without? Okay by me.
He gets caught cheating again on his comprehension.
Sigh.
James and I are trying this new parenting technique - called co-parenting? We will talk together and decide together what to do? I know. Most of you have probably figured this out but with James gone so much, I pretty much run the show here. This new technique is cool because James is way more level headed than I. I tend to think like this "He cheated. He will continue to cheat and lie. He will lie to his wife and she'll leave him. He will be unable to hold down a job and resort to a life of crime. I will visit him in jail."
James on the other hand thinks, "Maybe these stories are too hard?"
Geez.
It is discovered that the stories are NOT too hard.
After talk # 65 about lying and honesty, Alex confesses that he wishes this life was all a dream. That he would wake up and be back in Ukraine and I would be there to adopt him and he would KNOW everything he knows now and he could start over. Sort of profound. Sort of sad. But so not a solution to our problem.
We talk about how life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it. The real thing. And that all we can do is learn from our mistakes and try harder.
Then my grandma dies and last week was a whirlwind.
Yesterday, I needed healing therapy and for me, that is cleaning. I go to town on my house. I get to his room. and I consciously DON'T look in his drawers as I know everything will be shoved in there helter-skelter and it will drive me insane. I just focus on getting everything out of the bottom of his closet and off his dresser and behind his bed that does not belong. I pile it on his bed. Dust and vacuum and he comes home from school and puts his pile of crap away.
Later that night I ask if he would please put his clean laundry away and in the correct places.
He take two seconds to shove the entire pile into his closet and leaves.
Oh mercy.
I call him back in and ask why there isn't any underwear in his top drawer - where it goes. Because it's shoved in his closet on top of his shoe rack.
He then has to clean out his drawers. The drawers that have no sense of organization or order -despite me just cleaning them out over a month ago.
He's crying.
I'm mad.
Really mad.
He starts throwing things.
He's mad too.
I tell him that despite his age in years he acts more like a 5 year old when it comes to doing what he knows he should do. Like put his clothes away in the right place.
He gives me this excuse, "I am meant to live in an orphanage."
Oh please.
I have no compassion.
I lose it.
Really? You are meant to live in an oprhange? That is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard. Rather than just step up to the plate you like to blame everything on your past. Get over it. You have had almost three years to figure this out. How many times do you think we've talked about putting your clothes away in the right places?
He comes up with twenty. I figured if we've talked about if for ten minutes each time that's three hours and twenty minutes.
Good grief.
What a waste of breath and time.
I just let him have it. We're wrapping it up and I've calmed down and he just starts sobbing. Why? I ask. He refuses to tell me. I tell him that's fine. No one is leaving this room until he tells me what he is crying about.
Ten minutes pass then he lets on (or comes up with) that this is all his Ukraine moms fault. That she didn't teach him anything because she was too drunk. That may be true but it is yet again another excuse. I explain - and I'm holding him now and talking softly. That his Ukraine mom made some bad choices that she wouldn't have made if she wasn't addicted to alchol. That the worst choice she made was giving him up and that she probably regrets that and wonders how he is. But that he has me now and I've been trying to teach him all the things he missed. But he has to want to learn. I just keep repeating myself over and over. After all these talks and lessons he'll just nod and hopes it will stick without any concsious effort on his part. I tell him how I taught the other kids when they were little with silly games and praise and that I could teach him like that too but he would feel like a baby. He agreed.
We left it with a commitment that he will try and think about in every situation "Is this what my mom taught me to do or would want me to do?". I figured this would work with just about everything. Chores, school work, the idea of cheating, etc.
This morning I woke him up early (6:10 am) to finish his dishes. He had shoved uncovered bowls of twice left over food with spoons in them in the fridge. We've covered this subject a few times too.
I was very patient.
I explained -again - that we don't store food uncovered in the fridge. We never leave spoons in the containers, and that when we've already had it as leftovers once, chances are it needs to be thrown out and that he can always ask me if he is unsure.
Good grief.
If he would just learn from his mistakes instead of making the same mistake over and over, both our lives would be so much easier.
Anyway, that's my rant.
