What I learned parenting someone else's kid

This is the last week of school. Kids everywhere are counting down the hours until they're free. And so am I.

For the last year our teen aged nephew has been living with us. It's been a long, frustrating year and to say that I'm excited the end is in sight is an understatement. Before I go any further I should say that's he's not a bad kid. He never did anything REALLY bad like stealing from us or harming our children in any way. It's just been a lot of little headaches all rolled up to make one gigantic stress on our family.

Why he moved in with us

My sister-in-law is a single mom. Her estranged husband passed away when the boys were quite young. My sister-in-law had to work, sometimes multiple jobs, to keep her family afloat. The boys were often left to babysitters when they were young and then on their own as they got older. They became unruly and their behaviour was becoming increasingly violent and disrespectful towards their mom. They started using drugs and drinking, and the younger of the two (who was just 15 at the time) was stealing his mom's car. Both of them were missing a ridiculous amount of school and they were failing everything. My sister-in-law, in an attempt to spend some time with her boys, took them on a little family trip to a southern state where her husband's daughter from a previous relationship lives so the boys could see their half-sister and her new baby. While there, an incident occurred at the resort they were staying at and state troopers were called. They were going to arrest my sister-in-law and deport the boys when my brother-in-law (her brother) was called and he managed to talk them into just sending everyone home.

As soon as they got back my sister-in-law kicked the boys out begging my brother-in-law to take one of the boys and for him to ask us to take the other. She was at the end of her rope and emotionally she just couldn't handle the stress anymore.

Everything happened so fast

In a flurry of late night phone calls my brother-in-law explained to my husband the situation and asked if we could take one of the boys. My husband is the youngest of 7 kids in his family, and we're the only ones with young children, but we're also one of the most financially/emotionally stable couples in his family. The older of the two boys is my husband's godson and my sister-in-law doted on my husband when he was little as she was 16 when he was born. My husband always felt guilty that he could never be there more for his godson as he was in high school when he was born and then away at university and working right after. Without really consulting me J said we'd take in his godson. Now, I believe there's nothing more important than family, and helping family whenever possible, but I was worried about how we were going to handle a troubled 17 year old while raising our then 2 year old and 6 month old.

I was hopeful but skeptical at the same time

When he got here a couple of days later he was beaten looking. He was heartbroken and remorseful and I desperately wanted to help him. I felt that we could provide for him what he never had, a stable home. He told us he never had a mom to come home to. That the only time they ate dinner together was on holidays and that he was jealous of his friends that got to spend time with their parents. My heart went out to him. I'd come to learn later that he's quite the little actor and manipulator. (While what he said was true, he really wasn't that broken up about it.)

In the hour leading up to his arrival J and I wrote out a list of rules. Things that would get him kicked out of here without a second thought, like doing drugs, stealing, or abusing the girls in any way; and others that were punishable offenses like damaging the house (they punched holes in their mother's house and wrote all over their bedroom walls), missing curfew and skipping school. We tried to cover every scenario and left him very little wiggle room. When we told him our rules he flinched at some, like curfew as he never had one, but took it all with a surprising amount of maturity for what I had been told he was like. We explained that the more he fell in line the more we'd ease up on the rules.

He earned our trust and we gave him use of the car as long as he paid his own insurance. His curfew was extended and we started letting him out on school nights. The first time we left him alone here for a few days to visit my parents I was nauseous the whole time but came home to a house that was still standing. He's pulled his grades up significantly and actually excelled in some areas. I'm proud of the effort and progress he's made. But it hasn't been an easy road.

What I learned this year

Discuss how you plan to parent your kids right through til college

Couples usually go through a natural progression in their parenting. We were thrown into the deep end of the ocean, literally, over night. We're new parents and thought we hadn't needed to discuss how we'd handle the kind of issues a teenager presents just yet. We thought we had done what we needed to do when we created the rules list. I urge you to sit down and discuss your parenting philosophy with your partner and try to get on the same page, cause before you know it your kids will be in their teens and you'll be smacked in the face with situations you aren't prepared for.

It's "you" against "them", stick together!

He presented us with challenges everyday. He wasn't used to rules and tried to push the lines every chance he got. "Can I stay out for an extra half hour?" "Can I take the car to school today?" "I want to go to a concert 3 hours away and then stay overnight at my friend's cottage." We got asked questions like this all the time. We discovered my husband is the softie and I'm the hard ass. I'd say no and then right behind me J would be saying "Yeah sure." I felt undermined a lot of the time and after our nephew would leave we'd end up fighting.

My frustration with the boy was often taken out on my girls or on J as he would be gone and I had no outlet to express myself. Anytime I tried to bring up a problem with my husband he thought I was just being mean and he didn't want to hear me complaining about the boy anymore. So I became more and more stressed out and angry. I was the one who was home 24/7 dealing with everything and I felt like I didn't have any support, so I kept my mouth shut and vented on twitter which, although helpful, wasn't helping the situation. I eventually had a complete breakdown, with ugly crying, and let J know that I felt like I was doing this alone AND he was working against me. He saw my side and came around to being my back-up, but for a few months there I saw the possibility of separation in our future.

Don't be your kid's friend

Kids need a parent, not a buddy. My sister-in-law tried to be their friend. I suppose out of guilt for always working, and them not having a dad. But what happened was when she tried to lay down the law they walked all over her. My mom was tough on me and soft on my sister (at my dad's urging to lighten up!) and the difference in how we turned out is quite evident. I know now that being tough, but loving, is the best thing you can do for your kids. We laid down the rules with the boy and for the most part we stuck to them and he followed them. His grades alone are proof positive that the discipline worked.

Kids will lie, don't be gullible

The boy is the king of "the story". He always has some long, usually ridiculous, story about why he needs to do something, or go somewhere, was late for curfew or borrow the car. And he always times these stories for when we're the busiest, most tired or most distracted (a source of a lot of frustration for me). You need to become an investigator if you want to make sure your kid is telling the truth and being safe. I don't necessarily mean tossing their room like a prison cell (although J did do that once), but scope out their facebook page, check their school calendars online, and call other parents if you have to. I know now that when my girls are older if they say they're staying a friend's house overnight, I will be calling to talk to that girl's parents to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Teenagers are expensive and messy!

Holy Hannah. Our water bill doubled, the boy takes 3 showers a day. Our food bill is at $1600 a month, which is more than double what it used to be. We put an extra $50/month of gas in the car. He wears hoodies, thick ones, once and washes them and he owns like 30 of them. I have to buy detergent every week! His room has an odd decaying grass smell. (If you follow me on twitter you might know why... chewing tobacco spit in a water bottle... friggin' gross!) You can't see his floor. The bathroom, which he shares with my girls, and is responsible for cleaning, is disgusting. He never puts the toaster away. He puts the milk back empty. He eats 7 times a day. He leaves his shoes everywhere. He spilled coke all over the basement floor and didn't clean it for 2 weeks. The car now smells like stinky gym clothes. He takes our clothes out of the washer wet and throws them on the floor to wash his. Half our dishes are in his room, despite the no eating on the 2nd floor rule, and all of them are growing something. He claims things of ours as his own, like my portable iPod speakers. He... phewf, I needed to vent!

All that to say, expect your kids to one day become messy, selfish and expensive. Be prepared, save some money and hire a cleaning lady!

Looking forward

We had originally signed up to have him live with us for two years (he has to do another year of high school as he didn't earn a single credit last year) but the stress has taken it's toll on both J and I so when we found out we were going to have another baby we talked to J's sister and she said she was ready to take her oldest son back (the other one is still not allowed to come home as he hasn't made much progress and was kicked out of my brother-in-law's house too). I knew I couldn't handle sleepless nights, 2 kids and the constant "Can I do this?" "What's there to eat?"
"Can so-and-so come over and play XBox?" (where they swear loudly and wake the baby). I look forward to having our house back. I look forward to being able to focus on our kids and the major change that's about to happen. I look forward to being able to go to bed at a decent time instead of staying up to see if he makes curfew.

I hope he keeps up the hard work he started here. He has one more year of high school, and thanks to some long talks with J, he has a career direction he'd like to pursue. He's learned respect, and to value his mom, who he actually did miss quite a lot while living here. I'm glad we were able to help her, and him, by giving them the time, space and tools to get on a better footing in life. I don't regret having had him live here for a year. But I am glad to be getting back to our own family and focusing on us for a while. We deserve it.

Confined to the cart until she's 18!

We moved into our brand spanking new house 2 years ago. It was a major upgrade from our last shack house. The thing about building a house with a major developer is they nickel and dime you for EVERYTHING. So when we were picking out our options, and materials we said (HELL) no to a lot of things we could do ourselves (for way cheaper) and decided to do them as we could afford it and had the time.

This brings me to our latest trip to Home Depot. We were in the fairly large city my husband grew up in (cause our tiny, middle-of-nowhere town has an even tinier hardware store with 0 choice) and decided to pop into Home Depot to look at tile for our first home project: a kitchen backsplash. We'd been looking and looking and found out that we have VERY different taste when it comes to tile. I like clean, classic, tumbled marble and he likes... tacky. Seriously, he wanted tiles that had apples on them. So we head to the tile aisle with the kids in the cart and about 30 minutes to try to pick something out. Recipe for disaster.

Lilianna got all squirmy and annoying and wanted to get out of the cart. We were wrapped up in trying to convince the other our choice was superior (come on, apples? I win.) so Lily stated hitting Emily in an attempt to be let down. That's when the miracle happened. We saw a tile we both loved. Excited that we finally found one we could agree upon we searched for an employee (don't even get me started on this one) to get us more from "the back" as there wasn't enough on the shelf. By this point Lily was practically screaming to get down so I told J I'd take her for a little walk around while he waited for the tile.

"In a second, she was gone"

We toured the store, stopping to look at carpet she was fascinated with, the lighting section, and lumber (what is the deal with kids and lumber?) and then headed back. When we got back J was talking with the employee who was telling us they didn't have any more in stock. As we're standing there another employee comes up with a huge skid of something and asked us if we could move our cart off to the side so they could get by, so J grabbed the cart and moved it as I was taking pictures of the tile and SKU numbers for future reference. Jason came back over (like from 2 ft away) and said we should just go cause we were going to be late to meet his family for dinner. We turned around and saw Emily sitting in the cart all happy and smiling... but no Lily.

"It happens to every parent"

It happens to every parent at some point. You let go of a hand for a second or stare a little too long at the big screen TV dreaming, and your child wanders off. I grabbed the cart and started off in the direction of the route we had taken on our tour cause she's a bit of a creature of habit and would most likely be recreating our first trip around the store. J started looking around where we had been looking at tile. Both of us calling her name and getting no answer in return. With every step my heart beat faster and the sick feeling in my stomach started to grow.

I got back to J praying he'd found her and when I saw him frantically looking around and calling her name I almost dropped to my knees and started crying. J found the lady who had been helping us and told her Lily was missing so she took off like a rocket to lock the doors. Oh my God, I had never been so scared in all my life. If someone had taken her they could be long gone by now, into a big city where we might never find her again. The urge to throw up was getting stronger and stronger.

I yelled out her name once more and a woman pushing her own little girl heard and said:

"Is she wearing a pink sweater?"

My heart stopped. "Yes!"

"She's over here I think."

I ran over and as I turned the corner I saw her peek out from under a tile display that had an "A" frame holding it up, smile and then duck back in, where she sat in the shadows giggling.


I yelled. "Why didn't you answer mommy?!"

J called to the front that we found her. I yanked her out from under the display and hugged her. Then yelled some more. Then hugged her again. J was livid, he was so scared and angry, mostly at himself. We picked her up and put her in the cart and headed for the door.

"Everything that could have happened"

The ride to the restaurant was spent discussing what we had done wrong, explaining to Lily why she should never walk away and to answer when we call her name, and going over everything that could have happened.

It took until halfway through my entrée at dinner for my heart rate to get back to normal. Seeing her sit across from me happily munching on french fries I couldn't be mad anymore. I was just so glad she was okay, and with us.

Lesson learned.

Just let me park the damn car!

My husband came with me and the kids to have their pictures taken with Santa yesterday. I needed the moral support (as far as I know flasks at the grocery store are frowned upon) as well as someone to shake the toys and make silly faces as I took pictures*. Santa visits our local grocery store, a place my husband rarely goes, however, he is not unfamiliar with parking lots or traveling with kids. But despite these facts, he still makes me want to beat him with my travel Starbucks mug every time we’re in a parking lot looking to park.

It never fails, he always picks one of two places to park: the spot closest to the door or the spot closest to the exit. Now admittedly, those spots sound like good choices, but only if you’re sans kids.

There seems to be two clearly different ideologies when it comes to parking, the “Shopping Without Kids” way and the “Oh Crap, we’re parents now, nothing will ever be simple again” way. I miss the days of “hopping out” to run into a store quickly, clutching my husband’s hand as we browse, talking about life and current events and how awesome that cream suede sofa would look in our living room. (We bought it btw, and it WAS awesome.. until formula, spit-up, pen and a cookie or two got all over it... le sigh)

My husband must miss those days too cause he’s stuck in “Shopping Without Kids” frame of mind when it comes to parking.

When I’m in a parking lot (without Big J cause he never lets me drive unless he’s had a few) I look for the spot closest to the shopping cart coral that’s closest to the door. That way when the shopping is done I don’t have to either a) drag the kids across the parking lot to stow the cart and then drag them back to the car all the while yelling “do NOT let go of my hand, we’re in a parking lot, it’s dangerous!”, or b) strap them into their car seats, lock the doors and run with the cart, with my head turned back towards the car so I can keep an eye on them, praying I don’t run smack into a car pulling out of a spot.

My husband always looks for the spot closest to the exit. He hates parking lots with the same firey passion I save for pap tests and women who wear cross-trainers with a skirt suit (I don’t care how comfortable they are, you look like a reject from 1988!). He wants the least amount of driving in the parking lot and the least amount of hassle to get out. This is usually okay when we’re together, unless it’s pouring rain... or a blizzard, but hey, this is Canada, how often does that happen?

When I manage to find this most perfect parking spot I always drive in. And if the space directly in front of it is empty I don’t drive through. Why? When we're out and about %99.9999 we're dragging kids with us, and if there are kids there is usually any number or combination of the following to cart along: strollers, diaper bags, sports equipment, blankies, loveys, reusable bags, bumbos, booster seats, and bags containing toys/clothes/snacks/crafts/crayons/sippy cups/ binkys/more clothes/camera. Backing into a spot or driving through so that someone can park behind you just makes it that much more annoying when it comes time to unload or load the car.

My husband LOVES to back into and drive through spots. So much fun trying to pull a double stroller out of the back of the car when it’s 4” away from a concrete wall. Or better yet, trying to load groceries in when the cars on either side of you are straddling the yellow lines and some old lady pulls her boat of a car right up to your bumper. I swear, I have no idea what he's thinking sometimes.

I guess I should cut him some slack, he doesn’t go shopping with us often (THANK GAWD!) so he’s not used to thinking about these things. Maybe if he’d just let me do the driving every now and then... but that’s another rant altogether...

* The Santa pictures thing, they take pics too but they're free so you're allowed to take as many as you want with your own camera as well.

The "Deal" or How I'm gonna get an iPhone

I had my 2nd baby 1 year ago tomorrow (expect a sappy, weepy post from me in the evening about how my baby isn't a baby anymore... blah blah blah) and ever since she came barreling out of me like I was some sort of a cannon on an old fashioned pirate ship, I've been trying to lose this damn pregnancy weight. Yes, I'm sticking with the fact that's it's pregnancy weight, I hear some women still making that claim when they're buying acne medication and training bras for their kids, leave me alone! It has absolutely nothing to do with my baking obsession or the fact that I can "sense" when there's chocolate in the house.

Nope, it was the kid.

So anyways, I've been bitching and moaning for months about how I hate that I'm in "mom-wear", a.k.a. Lululemon or sweatpants, day in and day out cause none of my "regular" clothes fit, and that I'm really tired of nearly passing out just from going up a flight of stairs (okay, it's not that bad, I'm a whiner).

Tonight, I was sitting at the computer on twitter (cause that's a great way to burn calories, really, I'm serious, I'm sure I burn like 1200 calories just tweeting... No? pfft, what are you, some kind of expert?) and hubs came in and asked me if I wanted to make a deal. I had visions of me having to agree to go on an allowance from reckless Visa use, or agreeing to sexual favours in return for getting me a maid.

Me: "Oh God. What?"

Big J:  "How about we make a bet, if you can lose 10lbs before I can do 30 chin-ups, I'll buy you an iPhone." (we're both really out of shape!)

Me: "Huh?"

Big J: "How much do you want to lose total?"

Me: "Ideally 50. Stop looking at me like that."

Big J: "I'll make it even better, if you lose an additional 10lbs I'll let you pick where we go on our anniversary*. AND, if you make it to your goal I'll finance a girl's only week away anywhere you want to go."

Me: *blink blink*

Big J: "But you can't go starving yourself, that's cheating!"

Me: "Yeah, cause that's what got me in this mess in the first place, the ability to say NO to food."

Big J: "Well, what do you think?"

Me: "No sabotaging me either! If I need you to watch the kids so I can run you can't say no just to win!"

Big J: "Deal."



He's going DOWN.


* Our 5 year anniversary is coming up and we decided to go on a trip. He planned one and was all excited and when I asked him where we were going he told me all about the casino and water and yadda yadda, so I asked to see where we were going... he picked Halifax. Now, I have nothing against Halifax at all, beautiful little city, my dad was born there, but when I think "romantic vacation for couple with 2 kids who are getting away on their first trip alone since they had kids" it's not 1st on my list. Big J was crushed by my unenthusiastic response and vowed we weren't going anywhere. He's so sensitive sometimes.