Skype Call Gone Wrong (and a Call with the Sherriff's Department)

I have a huge exam to take tomorrow. I'm stressed over the exam, but there's something else weighing on my mind. It's been there for a while now, and I've sort of addressed it over on the Facebook page, but not to the point where I feel like I've gotten it out of my system.

Several weeks ago, Kaley was having a Skype call with her father. These calls aren't new. We've been holding them roughly every other week since January. It took him a while, but he finally came around to the concept of keeping them consistent, so that's what we've started.

Let's set the stage.

Kaley and I are sitting on the couch, the laptop is up and running and we're waiting for the telltale Skype call ringtone to sound. He's usually pretty good about being on time and this week was no exception. Cue the start of the call.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Kaley has ADHD. She's very easily distracted and often it's a task to get her to stay focused long enough to talk about one topic for more than thirty seconds. Most of these calls consist of flitting from one topic to another, briefly touching on the highlights of each.

After covering the basics (school, the weather, anything fun) we finally hit on a topic she will talk about. She'd recently attended a friends sleepover birthday party.

This friend has been in Kaley's class since they were in preschool. We've known the family for years, and their oldest son is one of my students. I'm familiar with them, Kaley is familiar with them and we trust them completely. I've never seen anything negative from either parent or heard anything that would cause me to worry.

The plan for the party was more than it is for most kids their age, but they are also growing up and times are changing. The girls (there were only 3 in attendance aside from Kaley and the birthday girl for a total of 5 girls) began their party at a local park. They played, the had dinner and the enjoyed cake and ice cream. From there the plan was to go to a hotel where they would open gifts, go swimming and settle in with a movie before it was lights out. The plan for the following morning was breakfast, followed by a trip to the nail salon and then meeting parents back at the local park. Was it more than Kaley is used to? Absolutely. But did I think she could handle it? Of course. And did I think the parents could handle it? There wasn't a doubt in my mind.

When Kaley came home from the party, we talked about it for a long time. She had so much fun and she started in on planning similar events for her own birthday next year! Talk about a kid who just couldn't contain her excitement over the entire event!

Back on the Skype call, the topic was suggested in her conversation with her father. She just went on and on. What about? Not the cake, not the movie, not the park or getting her nails done. She started describing a situation which she hadn't told me about and which was of some interest to her father and I.

What was she describing? A situation in which she and the other girls were at the hotel pool. There was an older man and his 12 year old son also there and she stated that they were being mean to the girls. Kaley told us that they had some toys and the man and his son kept taking their ball away and keeping it from them.

For the first time in years, her father finally truly paid attention to her and seemed interested. I proceeded to ask her a few questions. Was the birthday girls mom around? Were the girls being mean to the man and his son? Were they all playing together? Did birthday girls mom do anything or say anything?

Her answers all seemed alright with me, but I made a mental note to talk with the parent who was in attendance at the time. Apparently, though, I should have done something about it immediately.

Her father, with Kaley still right there on the Skype call, proceeded to lay into me about how I was neglecting our child and that I should have been on the phone with the police and he just went on and on and on. Literally raising his voice at me.

I did my best to tell him calmly that I would look into the situation and let him know what information I was able to gather from the parent. Calm and rational wasn't working, though, because he just kept at it. After about two minutes of this Kaley stomped her way across the house to Gramma's room, announcing that she was never going to talk to her Daddy again. At that point I told him it was either the end of the discussion or the end of the call.

He chose end of call.

So I ended the call because he started to raise his voice again.

Not two minutes later he was trying to call back. I denied the call. He messaged me telling me again that I wasn't taking the situation seriously and I was neglecting our child and that I was wrong to allow her to go to this birthday party.

I messaged him back, told him I was going to look into the situation and I would let him know. Then I signed off.

Now, of course, my first action was to send a message to the parent. I described the situation Kaley had told us about, questioned what had actually occurred and asked if she would provide a logical explanation. In the mean time I decided to put Kaley to bed and tell her we would discuss whether she had to talk to her father again later.

Kaley is a fantastic story teller. She also doesn't always see things the way an adult would. Knowing her the way that I do, and understanding that her perception of a situation could be vastly different than what actually happened, I waited.

What adults see vs. what children see

It wasn't long before I had a message back from the parent who was at the party explaining the situation.

Yes, there was a man and his 12-year-old son. It's a pool. At a hotel. It wasn't likely they'd have it to themselves. The girls had some toys, but they didn't have a ball to play with. The man and his son did. They were kind enough to invite the girls to play. Now, lets look at a young boy and a group of 7 & 8 year old girls. What's their favorite game? Keep away. So the girls would get the ball and not give it back. Then the boy would get the ball and not give it back. No one was being mean in the true sense of the word, but a 7 year old could see it that way.

Not two minutes after I received a response from the parent did the telephone ring. No, not the parent. Nope, not Kaley's father.

The Sherriff's Department.

Seriously?? You couldn't give me enough time to get in touch with the parent like I told you I would? Apparently that's too much to ask for and I'm supposed to be some sort of miracle worker or telepath who can communicate with anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Sorry, buddy, I don't work that way.

I calmly explained the situation to the Deputy, who laughed and understood completely how a child's imagination can get in the way of truly knowing what happened in a situation as he has a 4-year-old himself, and hung up. Oh, I also mentioned that this isn't the first time Kaley's father has called, and it isn't the first false report he's made. The Deputy made note of it and said he'd put it in the file.

I decided to log back in to Skype to clear out the messages I was certain he had sent me. And, of course, there's more. Now I'm childish for ending the call even though he was raising his voice at me. I'm a narcissist because I can't see how a situation like that would affect my child (seriously!? You didn't give me time to investigate the situation!). I'm wrong to trust the parent because obviously they're going to say anything to get out of a situation which could get them in trouble. I'm a terrible parent, blah, blah, blah. It's the usual things I hear from him all the time. I get it.

The aftermath?

Well, I spent the next two weeks trying to convince Kaley that she at least needed to get on Skype. Even if all she did was tell him she didn't want to talk, she had to appear and say it herself. I couldn't do it for her.

In that two weeks Kaley also asked, multiple times, if Pat could adopt her and be her "forever dad".

She also announced to Gramma that she was going to start calling Pat "Dad". And she has been more often than not.

Oh, and she announced that she didn't want to call her biological father "Daddy" anymore.

She wants to call him by his first name.

We've had a call since then, which is another story entirely. I'll update you on that soon. But I wonder if he noticed that during the most recent call she didn't once call him "Daddy"? Or address him by any name at all?

New England Aquarium [Boston]

I guess it's that time. Time to write about our trip to the New England Aquarium. But this wasn't an easy trip like the past few days had been. Why?

Because KBug's father met us there.

 

I didn't receive confirmation from the Ex Husband that he and his family would be joining us until the afternoon before. Naturally I hadn't told her that he would be joining us yet because I didn't want to get her hopes up and then have him disappoint her as he has countless times before. I didn't think that would be fair to her. She has had so much emotional upset in her life because of her father that I didn't want to cause an additional upset if there was no reason.

 

So Mr. Boston, KBug and I got up that morning, drove into Boston and found the parking garage. ($35 for parking. Ouch!) Once we parked the car, we put what we needed in our little backpack (wallets, phones, band-aids, etc.) and I held KBug for a minute while I told her about the day.

 

I told her that her father and his family were coming to join us and was met with a sort of blank stare. She found her voice and repeated it, after which she said "OK, can we go in now?"

 

So far so good.

 

Off we went to wait in line for tickets. If I had been smart I would have thought to reserve them online ahead of time, but I wasn't that smart. Oh well. It only took us about ten minutes to get through the line, pay for our tickets and have our picture taken before entering the aquarium.

 

Rather than standing around with a KBug who couldn't wait to go into the aquarium, Mr. Boston and I decided to take her into the small section right off the entrance where you can pet the stingrays. She's always loved the open tanks where she can feel the stingrays as the swim by, so I thought it would be a good distraction. Especially since I had yet to hear from the Ex Husband.

 

After spending a few minutes in there, I finally got a text that said they were in line for tickets. OK, I told him where we were and we decided we would meet just inside the aquarium entrance. Not a problem. I took KBug to the restroom and we waited. And we waited. And we waited. KBug isn't good at waiting and she wasn't all that interested in waiting for Daddy, to be honest. She was more interested in me holding her and talking about what was in the aquarium that we might see.

 

Once they made it into the aquarium and over to us, the Ex Husband said hi to KBug and she just sort of stared at him. Like I said before, she wasn't very interested. After bathroom trips for their family, KBug got slightly more comfortable and started up a conversation with their 3.5-year-old son and tried to talk with their 1.5-year-old daughter.

 

Then we headed into the aquarium. We sort of stuck together as a group, going to see the Seal show outside and venturing around the first floor. But once we started moving up around the giant tank in the center of the aquarium, we weren't really a group anymore.

 

KBug has always loved aquariums. But she wants to see everything. So she doesn't stay in one spot for very long. Basically she was constantly on the move, to the point where getting pictures of her was a little bit difficult because she didn't want to stand still. I managed, though.

 

We stayed together in something resembling a group through the second floor. But KBug had missed the jellyfish and I wanted to be sure she saw them. So I pulled her away, mentioned I was taking her to see the jellyfish and we went down to the tank.

 

By the time I turned around, they were gone. Mr. Boston, KBug and I thought we would move up to the next level to see if we could find them. Well, we couldn't. KBug was anxious to keep looking and was calling continuously to Mr. Boston and I to come see the tanks, so we moved on figuring we would run into them soon.

 

A few minutes later I received a text asking where we were. I told them we were on the third floor. They asked if we weren't a group anymore and I explained that I had taken her to see the jellyfish and they were gone when I turned around. They responded that they were at the top floor. I said we would be there soon.

 

We finished up half of the third floor and made our way up to the top. It took us a minute to locate them once we were up there, and by the time we did they were heading back downstairs. Awesome. I let KBug look around and then we headed down to meet them.

 

Their children were hot and hungry and getting a little cranky so they wanted to take them downstairs and move towards leaving. KBug wanted to see the other half of the third floor. So they went down, and we kept looking.

 

Eventually we found them downstairs. The Ex Husband had taken their son to see the stingrays and such, and KBug wanted to see them again so in we went. Apparently we had missed a lower level while we were in there earlier, so down to the lower level we went. It worked out awesome for me because they had more jellyfish down there and that's my favorite exhibit at aquariums, and KBug was able to experience a few more touch tanks.

 

After that we hit up the gift shop, made our purchases and left the aquarium. At that point they suggested lunch, so we headed out on a short walk to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. Mr. Boston had been dying to take me to Faneuil Hall all week and figured it would be the easiest way for everyone to get what they wanted to eat and then find a place outside to sit.

 

They decided that wasn't going to work for them and wanted a restaurant to sit down at. They chose Cheers. We found it, we sat, and it was pretty awkward. The Ex Husband made some attempt to talk to KBug but wasn't all that successful. When the only topics you have to talk about are school, fishing, pigs and chickens you aren't going to hold the interest of a 7-year-old for very long. And talking about fishing wasn't the best idea because it only reminded her that she would get to go fishing that evening when we went back to the campgrounds.

 

After everyone had eaten and we paid our separate checks, KBug hopped up and told her father she was ready to leave now so she could go fishing at the campground. Mr. Boston and I hadn't made any mention of leaving to her, so I was surprised when she said she was ready to go. Children know when they've reached their limits, and I guess that was her way of saying she had reached hers and didn't want to spend anymore time with him.

 

So we left the restaurant, she gave him something resembling a hug and we were on our way.

 

She made no mention of seeing him again for the duration of our trip. I had her write about something we did every day in a notebook, with a space for writing and a space for pictures, so she can have it to remember our summer, and he didn't even make it into that. I think that speaks volumes.

 

Anyways. That was our day at the New England Aquarium. And, like every other day, of course I took an abundance of pictures.

 

Excited for the aquarium!

Stingray tank

I love her so much!

She pulled  Mr. Boston's hand and dragged him to almost every exhibit

 

Jellyfish!

More jellyfish!

Since being home, KBug has only mentioned seeing her father once, as she was looking at the aquarium pictures with Gramma. Gramma had asked her if anything else happened at the aquarium and she shrugged and said her Daddy was there. She then told Gramma he was boring. I think that about covers it.

 

If you haven't read about our previous Boston adventures, you can read all about the Museum of Science, the Children's Museum, 4th of July, and Canoe River Campground by following the links.

 

Next stop: Franklin Park Zoo

My Painful Stories [part three]

 

 

If you've been following along with my blog for a little while, you've likely already met depressed, cutter Christine in My Painful Stories [part one]. And if you continued to read after that, it's possible that you've also met depressed, cutter, anorexic Christine in My Painful Stories [part two].

 

Now it's time to meet the next me.

Always Learning, Always Growing

Well, yesterday and today were emotional days for me. Not emotional in the normal sense, though. A typical emotional day involves some sort of anger, sadness, despair, desperation, moodiness, etc.

Well, my emotional day was not that.

Time to Grow Up

Well, KBug had another call with DD this past week. And she was pretty miserable about it.

I knew going into the call that she didn't really want to talk to him and her enthusiasm level didn't increase any when she got on the computer. I had kind of hoped that it would so that they could have a good conversation, but it didn't happen. And I can tell you why.

A Theatrical Cast

This is definitely not the first blog I've ever started. I have written many posts under a number of different blogs. But this is the first one that I really feel is going to be different. I may not post all that often, but I will post what is on my mind. I won't guard things for fear of offending others. I won't keep things to myself as much. I will be open and honest and love my writing because that is really what you're supposed to do. You should write what you feel. So, here I go with what is on my mind right now.