The Happiest Place on Earth, part 2

The kids eventually settled with the idea that we were meeting up with Huz in Vegas, which we were, but that was not to be the end of the trip.  But first, I have to back waaaaay up.  

We made it about 45 minutes before I heard, 

'Moooom?  I have to go to the bathroom.'

Four.  She has a bladder the size of a peanut.

I decided that I would stop at a Tar.get store and there we would ALL use the bathroom, I would let each kid choose a snack for the car and we would pick up a small first aid kid to carry with us in the backpack as we walked all over 'the happiest place on earth.'

That evening we stopped in St. George to visit my sister.  I love St. George.  It is so beautiful!  We met my sister at her house and decided we would take the kids to the red rock park she had shown us when I took the girls down last spring.  Right about then, BoyTwo (who was in trouble for climbing on furniture and getting into other people's things) jumped off the couch and did a forward roll over the coffee table.  Out of his pocket rolled a small can of spray deodorant.

'BoyTwo.  Where you get this.  You stole this?'  BoyOne began the interrogation.

BoyTwo denied, so I took over.

'You stole this from Tar.get earlier today.  Now you will not be able to participate in climbing rocks.'

'So you do stole this?!'  BoyOne yells at him.

BoyTwo nods in affirmation.  I've learned that generally you do not ask BoyTwo yes or no questions.  If I tell him not to hit and he hits, you don't say to him, 'Did I tell you not to hit?'  You say, 'What have you been taught' or 'what have we asked you' or 'what are you supposed to do.'  The yes/no thing makes it too easy for him to lie.  It's so weird.  The other way, it's like he isn't usually quick enough to come up with a lie, so he just admits the truth.  Except for when he fakes a seizure.  

'Why you stole this?!' asked BoyOne, a question that I have stopped asking because the answer is always. the. same.  No matter what he does.  If he hits, lies, steals, destroys, cheats, hurts, breaks, etc.  

'Because I want.'  he says with a simple shrug of his shoulders.

GAH!!!!!!!!!  

I was pretty mad.  Livid.  At him and at me.  BoyTwo has not been in a store since he first arrived.  With kids like BoyTwo who cannot control their impulses, learn from experience, or comprehend reason, it is best to simple not allow them the opportunity to make these mistakes/bad decisions.  He cannot stop stealing (aka 'ownership issues'), he does not go to others' homes or stores or stay for lunch at school (yes, he actually takes food off other kids' plates as fast as he can and shoves it into his mouth).  He's had a difficult time with stealing from other kids at school this year, too, which puts me at a crossroads.  Do I keep him in school?  Do I pull him out completely?  He loves school.  School loves him.  He wants to be there.  He does only go part time.  He's got to learn to live in society.  I can't keep him at home until he's 40.  Anyhow, that's another post...

Why did I take him into the store?!  How in the freak had I missed this?!  What was I thinking?!  Why didn't I see this happen?!

These situations are so difficult.  I never really know what to do.  You read article after article after book after book about kids and attachment, kids and trauma, kids and FAS, kids and whatever else anyone in the adoption/psychology world recommends and the only stupid thing they say is to be consistent and do redo's.  We've done so many freaking redo's it's ridiculous.  Most of the time we have to redo our redo.  The books/articles also tell you all the terrible statistics that your kid is about to become.  No crap people, I know this!  Tell me what to do when he steals!!!  The best/closest thing I've come across was the advice from another FAS parent who said to remove the opportunity for these types of failures, which I'm already doing, go me.  But seriously.  I have to somehow help him be able to be socially acceptable.  Does he move out and live on his own but never step foot in a store?  Am I supposed to do his grocery shopping for him until I die?!  He steals every. day.  Every day people.  Every day.  Half the time I get judged by other people (and yes, they do feel it necessary to tell me about their judgements) because I am so strict and controlling of BoyTwo and I call him out on his attempts to manipulate.  The other half of the time I am reprimanded for not being a good parent.  Because obviously, because my kid steals/cheats/lies/is violent, it's my fault.  I must not be Karyn Purvis-ing enough.  Good hell, I can't catch a break.  I also have five other kids for which life must continue.  Last year I learned the difficult and damaging lesson of allowing one child to rule the rest of the family and I am determined to not let that happen again.  

We headed to the park, which was great fun.  Such a beautiful place!  Obviously, at this point, BoyTwo was on restriction which meant he couldn't roam around and climb on everything like all the other kids.  BoyOne was mad at BoyTwo for what had happened and chose to restrict himself.  One thing that I have noticed is that if BoyTwo is on restriction for something that a) BoyOne didn't see happen, b) BoyOne is really mad about, or c) feels is unjust, he restricts himself.  This wouldn't be so annoying if he a) wasn't SUCH a moper about it or b) didn't say things like, 'BoyTwo it's okay,'  because let's face it, it's NOT okay!  It totally undermines the restriction for BoyTwo and really gives him a feeling of control over whatever is happening.  We have spoken with BoyOne about this and while it has improved, it is still an issue that we deal with.  Anyhow, so I had to have BoyTwo attached to me by a 12 inch invisible string (ugh) and BoyOne attached himself to his brother by an invisible 24 inch string. Good times.  But really, it was.  The girls had a great time and finally the last five minutes we were there, BoyOne actually smiled:)  We grabbed some take out on the way back to my sister's place.  While at the park I decided that I would try to have BoyTwo return his little treasure to the Tar.get in St. George.  Even though he had taken the deodorant from a different store, I was hopeful that they would be able to take care of this for us here.  I couldn't wait an entire week to have him do this on our way back home when we would be near that first store again.  He can hardly remember what happened five minutes ago, let alone five days ago.

My sister kindly agreed to watch the other kids while BoyTwo and I paid a visit to Tar.get to return said merchandise.  I phoned ahead and spoke with the manager and security guard about what had happened.  In case anyone ever needs to know, you can return stolen merchandise to a different store location.  During the phone call basically, I asked the manager and guard to be very firm with BoyTwo.

Their definition of firm and mine were obviously not the same, so early on in the conversation I was saying behind BoyTwo 'mean.  you have to be mean.  he doesn't care.'

'Hi, buddy.  Did you take something from the store that your mommy wouldn't buy for you?'

I knew we were in trouble.  

'Nope,'  I said, 'he took some deodorant.  He didn't even try to ask me to buy it for him.'

'Why did you take deodorant?'

'I want.  I like take things.'

That one surprised them a little.

'Stealing is a really bad habit.  People that steal sometimes-'

'all the time'  that was me interjecting.

'go to jail.  Jail is not a really good place.  There are bad people there who aren't very nice...'

okay.  He knows all about jail.  His bio dad was there.  A lot.  BoyTwo aspired to go to jail for months after coming home (and probably a significant amount of time prior to coming home).  He's quit talking about it after a bajillion conversations, so hopefully he's done with that fantasy.

'Since this is your first time stealing from our store, it's okay-'

'if we sit here while you call the police and decide if they are taking him to jail now.'

That was me interjecting again.

'Yes, sit here and we'll be right back.'  They caught on.

After about five minutes they came back and told him that his image had been captured on the stores surveillance video (you know the one when you walk into the store) and that the store where he had stolen from had been notified.  They told him not to steal again.

BoyTwo, 'because I next time go to jail.'

'No.  There won't be next time.  You will not steal again,' said the security guard.  Where was that earlier?!  

'ok,' said BoyTwo.

And then we left and went to pick up the kids from my sister's and drive the rest of the way to Vegas.

to be continued.