Courage

Raising a child, any child takes courage. Each and every day, you get up and remind yourself to have patience and courage to face the day. When you add in the challenges of being a single parent, or a parent of a special needs child, you almost need to have a double dose of courage delivered intravenously.

There have been many mornings when I wish I could have just that. But I hate needles. I feel that my Jakes is an especially trying special needs child. I know there are parents out there who are dealing with so much worse and I am grateful for what I don’t have to deal with in Jakes. But to ME, he is the most challenging thing I have ever had to deal with.

My courage has to be continuing, without deviations and procrastination, without rashness and without fear of obstacles. Sounds like a tall order, right? It is except that I only need to take one day at a time. I only need courage for the current day. I can get up the next day and pray for another dose of courage. Each day my courage will be renewed and will always be fresh and will not run out.

Over the weekend, Jakes apparently talked with his father about the things that have been going on at home. The changes in therapists, the involvement with Mobile Response, how much yelling I have been doing, just about everything. And his father was already PO’d at me for what happened in Court on Friday Morning. I have more to rant about A/H but that’s another post/another day.

Sometime while I was singing, I rec’d a text from A/H wherein he implied threats if I didn’t respond within HIS prescribed time frame. I chose not to answer him. Anything I would have said to him would have resulted in him getting angrier with me and taking everything out of context because that is what he does all the time. I did say a few choice words in front of ESM and once she knew what was going on, she echoed them! Lol

On Sunday, I rec’d an email from him saying since I hadn’t responded, he was going to contact the caseworker on Monday morning. He was obviously angry with me for everything and blamed me for everything, as usual. He also said that maybe Jakes should come and live with him when school was out. HAHAHAHAH! We tried that! We didn’t even get to court for that!

Monday morning, I called the caseworker myself and asked her to touch base with him. I figured he would at least be polite to her. (I didn’t have the courage to deal with HIM and Jakes in the same day!)

As far as I know, she left him a message and he has never called her back. I am waiting for a call from her today to finalize things for our Family Planning Meeting on Thursday. Very caring father, right?

We had another session with Albert last night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I consider that he is mainly there for Jacob and generally let them have time for their stuff. Last night, Albert asked me to sit with them for a check in. Jakes was annoyed with me anyway because I asked him to stay in the house while the Grandparents and I spoke with Albert first. An incident happened between Jakes and the grandparents that I wanted Albert to have knowledge of before seeing Jakes. I also wanted Albert to know that I feel Jakes is playing this whole situation in order for me to give up and allow him to move to his Dad’s house. Or if he continues to tell his father how mean everyone is to him, that his father will run in and “save” him.

During the session, Jakes was obviously mad at me and didn’t want me there. He wasn’t very nice to Albert either. But Albert persisted. He made Jakes VERY mad, so mad that Jakes asked to go to his safe spot to calm down. Albert was going to let him but wanted to say a couple more things to him. Those things set Jakes off even more. Albert told me later that he wanted to see how Jakes reacted when he pushed him.

There were several times during Jakes ranting that I wanted to just yell at him to get out, go live with your father. I am tired of having to find the courage everyday. I’m tired of fighting to make our lives better. But again, I lacked the courage to say these things. I did mention my feelings to Albert when Jakes wasn’t around.

To sum it up, Jakes hates me and my rules. He doesn’t understand why I get to make the rules and yell at him. He says that I am RUDE and MEAN to him. He doesn’t think he should have chores. He doesn’t think that we should speak to each other. He thinks that I should just leave him alone and he can take care of himself completely. He also thinks that he needs to go live with his father. He was ranting about the fight we had yesterday morning and wanted to know why I didn’t have to apologize for yelling at him. Um, because you are the CHILD and I am the PARENT! I don’t remember how many times Albert told Jakes that but each time, I had to turn my head away so Jakes wouldn’t see me smiling. We have been telling him this for MONTHS and he just doesn’t get it.

At one point, Albert had to direct who had the floor to be able to talk and he wanted us to use “I” statements. By using the “I” statements, it would be more of our opinion instead of putting the other person on the defensive. I asked for the floor and then asked Jakes how many hugs did we have this morning before school. He said ONE and that was ONE too many! Ouch. Well, guess who won’t be getting any more hugs!

And since he thinks he is capable of taking care of himself, guess who won’t be getting any help with ANYTHING, anymore??!??! If only I could.

Albert and I chatted while Jakes was calming himself down. Albert wanted information about A/H and his involvement. Tee-he! Albert was disgusted that I had to take him to court for permission to medicate Jakes. He said he would love to have a session or two with his father involved. Albert also was going to talk with the caseworker and bring her up to speed as to where he’d like to go with treatment. He is supposed to recommend that the caseworker get A/H involved because anything we do with Jakes will just be derailed by his time with his father. Albert is approved to see us for 8 weeks and can get an extension for another 4. After last night’s session, he is asking for the extension. Sigh.

So for now, I will be asking for my daily dose of courage each morning. God knows I need it!