School days and school woes

    Nixon finished his first week of school last week. He had Monday off, for Labor Day, but went 4 days in a row after that. He's adjusting but it's difficult. We've had a couple phone calls from his teacher, he's tattled on himself for bad behavior and we've been working on his behavior at home.
   The problem is: how do you correct behaviors that you never see at home? That's our current situation. We're practicing things at home and working on developing a routine but it's only been a week, we can't work miracles.

    We've resorting to a system of stickers and a reward (aka bribe). He needed 8 yellow or green smiley face stickers to get his reward. He did get it, yesterday. He had 4(!!) green days in a row!

    After sitting down and talking to him, after one kind of awful day and one phone call to Mac, and really got to the deeper issue he's having. It's so awful I can't even share it with you!
    I'm kidding.
    The heart of the issue is he misses us. He wants to go home and see us. And, if you knew how his preschool used to react to his tantrums, his current behavior makes sense. His preschool would call us to come pick him up if he was acting especially awful, which he did (A LOT) after I started working full-time. Little did I know then that it was all a ploy to get more time with me. Which also explains why we NEVER see the behaviors he does at school, at home.
    After finding this out, and explaining that in Kindergarten he won't get sent home unless he's being suspended (oh yeah, that's already been mentioned to us....more than once, by the teacher and the administrators), I came up with a solution. We took 3 selfies, as a family, and Nixon got to pic 2 of them. I printed out the 2 pictures he chose, put them in his backpack and told him if he starts to miss us he can ask for the pictures at school. I also explained it to his teacher, who seemed shockingly impressed with my solution.

    As I said, he had 4 good days.
    Then came today and he had an awful day! He was disruptive (usually his starting point of missing us), he was removed to another room where he threw things at the teachers aid and then the vice principal. Then he spit at them! Fucking SPIT, y'all! I can not for the life of me stand spit! It's vile, gross and incredibly disrespectful.
    Finally, after a struggle to sit in a chair, he finally calmed down and hugged the teachers aid. He then went over to the vice principal, said he needed a hug because he missed his mommy and asked her for a hug.
   During the phone call, from the vice principal, I listened. I didn't say a word. Until she was done and she said something about Nixon missing me. Then I cut in and explained the photo-in-the-backpack plan. She had no idea what I was talking about and I was more than a little annoyed! There seems to be a communication breakdown and Nixon is getting the short end of the stick as a result.

     The vice principal also informed me the school's councilor is going to work with Nixon and get a behavior guide of some sore going. I'm a little pissed because I had asked for a conference during the first week of school and still no response. I hate to say it, but this school is not going to like me because I'm not going to let them run the show much longer. This momma bear is getting ready to growl!

   
     I'm other news: Nixon recently started complaining of leg pains. Yesterday, when he woke up (at nearly 7am on a school day!), he hugged me and I thought he felt taller. So I got the tape measure and he is now a smidge under 4 feet tall. At his doctor's appointment last month he was 46.5 inches!
   

The ugly truth, facing my past and telling Nixon the truth....it's one giant grey area

     This isn't exactly a normal Random blog. This one is a deeper topic brought on by recent events in the NFL world.
     Abuse. Domestic and child abuse. Sadly it has become a topic that Mac and I find ourselves struggling to address with Nixon.
   
     I asked Mac this morning, how and if we should talk to Nixon about child abuse. Nixon is in kindergarten now and that means he is around a variety of children from different backgrounds, we don't know any of his classmates families. Mac's answer was that we don't take the easy way out and we talk to him about this topic like we have with any topic honest on a level he will understand.
     But how honest is too honest. Do we tell him about our own childhood?. Do we not tell him, to protect his view of our parents? We often joke about our childhoods, but the truth is we suffered some serious shit at the hands of our parents. Were we growing up today, instead of in the 80's and 90's, there is a real chance at least one of us (Mac and myself) would have been removed from our family by the authorities.
     I don't shy away from my past and the shitty situations I have overcome. A physically abusive father, an emotionally distant (practically emotionally absent) mother, a physically abusive first boyfriend and my ex-fiance became emotionally and mentally abusive as our young love matured into an adult relationship. To say I was a broken and abused mess would be an understatement.
     I have long said, physical abuse is the least of my issues. Bruises, broken bones, welts and scratches all heal and while the memory of them remain, even scar, it is the mental and emotional abuse that haunts me to this day. I am not saying physical abuse is easy, I am saying the damage does not last as long, if you are lucky. I struggle daily with trust. The men I loved and the father I wanted to trust did a real number on me. I was beaten and told it was my own fault for making him do it. I was slapped and backhanded because another guy looked at me. I did nothing but look in the same direction. My ex backhanded me before I knew what was happening. I was 14 or 15 at the time. I was in a shitty family situation and an even shittier relationship.
     I was sexually active with boy, T. I remember thinking I might be pregnant. I told T and he slapped me,  called me a whore, and after I fell (tripped over something on the ground backing away from him) he kicked me in the abdomen and ribs multiple times. When I got home, late less than 5 minutes for my curfew, my dad beat me. I tried telling my mom about what T had done to me. She walked away and told me I probably had it coming, whatever it was. I do not know if I was pregnant or not. I am pretty sure I had internal bleeding but never went to a doctor.

      Mac tells stories of growing up in an Asian household and kneeling on rice as a punishment. He was sent to the backyard to choose his switch for a whooping.
     We grew up in a time when neighbors and family members were instructed that ass whoppings were allowed and these adults could do it if our parents were not around.

      I saw a shrink once. We barely scratched the surface of my issues, but after just 2 sessions he told me I am far more well-adjusted than most people with like pasts are. I'm pretty sure he was full of shit because well-adjusted is NOT a term I would use to describe myself.

      My ex, M. I spent 9 years of my life co-dependant on him. He was tragically damaged and I needed to be needed. After we moved in together and started growing into our adult selves, we weren't the same teenagers we were when we met. I had learned I didn't want to live with an addict again (Dad is an alcoholic) and he was hiding a gambling addiction....poorly. We fought often and epically. I threw dishes and he swore he'd change. He struck me. Once.
     I was stunned. We'd never been physically abusive to each other. I left for a few hours. I came back and he had notched up the emotional abuse, making me think I wanted him to hit me because it was the only kind of love I ever felt from my father. What an evil fucking dick he morphed into. I stayed because I believed what he said. I stayed because I was afraid to live on my own. I stayed because he helped me financially. I stayed because his words spoke the words I said to myself every day. I stayed when the cheating happened, but I never admitted to him I knew. I feigned ignorance and kept my focus on the degree I was going to school for. When the words coming from his mouth were bitter and ugly about the degree I was earning and the goals I wanted to achieve, I tuned out. It took 2 years of lies, his painful words, his emotional manipulations, to earn my degree. Less than a month later I left my hometown, my family, M and everything I knew. I fell back to him and his lies more than once those early months away from all I knew.
     And then, I just let it all go.

     He crossed a line and I was unforgiving. I went home when my dad was hospitalized after having suffered a stroke. I stopped to talk to a couple friends, M was there. While listening to me describe the insurance mess and my dad's weakened state, M says "Well, no offense, but it's not like he has that many brain cells left to damage after all his years of drinking."  No offense?? A stunned and awkward silence fell and I left.  I could say things like that, a few years later my dad and I will say almost those exact words to each other, but M.....M could not! It wasn't his dad, or even his family. That day I left and never looked back. I mourned the boy M was and the vile man he'd become.
    I found my backbone.

    Sadly, not every abuse victim does. Sadly they stay, for whatever the reason.
      I'm struggling how to tell Nixon about abuse. How to tell him about my own past and why sometimes I read a story or watch TV and feel tears welling up. How to tell him about the pictures of the marks on Adrian Peterson's child, put there at the hand of his father. How to tell him he might have a friend in his life who lives a life like that. How to tell him his parents know the pain that little boy, a year younger than Nixon, feels. How to tell him about the lies I heard about myself from the men I loved. How to tell him about the fear deep inside me, the fear that I'm my father's daughter and I will eventually do to Nixon what was done to me. I'm struggling with how to still be strong for my child and not pollute the love he has for his grandparents.
     I know I need to be honest with him. He's not old enough to hear tales from Mac and I's childhoods. But some day I'll have to tell him. Someday he'll see the damaged goods mom once was.
      For now, I guess telling about about abuse and the types of will be good enough.    I adore Nixon and I've made peace with my past. As difficult as it was, I'm not getting any younger and holding on to that kind of anger, bitterness and hatred was not good for me. I made peace with my parents and the role they played in my fucked-up life.     I'm very angry that people are judging Ray Rice's wife for marrying him and staying. Anyone who has never been in any kind of an abusive relationship can quite easily look at her and say she's dumb for staying. They say she should have left, if anything happens now, it's her fault for staying.     Sadly, she may think she will never do better. As awful as it is, she may feel that staying and dealing with things at home is better than leaving him and the life style he gives her.      It's hard to start over with almost nothing. I've done it. It's one helluva struggle. I had to dig deep and go through some shit, on my own, before I started to accept and believe I was a better person for those experiences. 

    This blog was supposed to be about my struggle to tell Nixon the truth about abuse, but it turns out I needed a little therapeutic outlet.