My Urban Zoo

Have you been there?

I'm a guest on My Urban Zoo this week, and I'm so happy to be. It's my first appearance on another blog, and I'm so excited about it, and of course, it's been so busy this week I haven't even been on to post anything since I was accepted. Please visit my host!

We had two new angels come in to the house recently, sisters 10 and 2. They've been quite a handful, and I can't really discuss their circumstances, but I can discuss my experiences with them. They both have some mighty powerful survival skills going, and the chaos in my house has gone up a few notches!! Then, yesterday, the judge sent the 2 year old home and kept the 10 year old in care. I can't really explain why they do stuff like that except that the abuse issues were only with the 10 year old and her older sister (who is in another foster home.)

I'm going to call her Kristy. She is smart, and savvy. She can also lie and manipulate with the best of them. In the short time she's been with us, she's already figured out how to push Annie's buttons just right to get her going into a full-fledged rage. In fact, Annie was late for school yesterday because she was going off and couldn't stop. Kristy managed to get her going before she left for school. This kind of thing is a challenge because she isn't necessarily doing it because she's cruel or hates Annie, but because she is upset with her own situation. But just because it isn't actions to be cruel doesn't mean it doesn't warrant consequences, right? Manipulation is the hardest behavior to discipline because it isn't out there in the open where everyone can see it, and it often comes down to her word against hers. My problem is, I have three little girls sharing a room who are all liars most of the time, and it makes it hard to decide who's telling the truth in certain situations. I need a lie detector machine in my house!!

I had a friend in Albuquerque who had the perfect setup. When she was sure one of her kids was lying, she would say, "Let me smell your hands." She would sniff them, then say, "OK, I know who is lying now, you better fess up if you don't want to get in more trouble." And they would. She told me when they were little, one stole some bubble gum from his cousin, and his hand smelled like the gum, so she knew he'd done it. Her son didn't realize that's how she knew, he just thought she could truly smell it is he was lying. I don't know if that still works for her now that her kids are in high school, but I always thought that was so ingenious. My trouble is that, even when I try something like that, they keep lying.

My kids are different in that they have brain damage. So the thinking synapses have kinks in them and sometimes short out. One time, I watched Annie go into the kitchen, open the pantry door and take some Halloween candy out of the bowl. (We hadn't had a chance to give it away yet.) She turned around and about jumped out of her skin when she saw me standing there. Then she looked at me, rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders, and in a high-pitched attitudy voice said "WHAT?!" I looked at her little 7 year old self and said, "You need to put the candy pack and go to your room." Of course, she said, "I didn't take any candy." (It was still in her hand.) I pointed at the candy in her hand. She started stomping and whining, threw the candy down and yelled all the way to her room that she didn't take any candy. So, caught red-handed, the evidence still in her hand, and she couldn't be honest, she kept insisting she never took any candy.

Talk about a zoo!!