Joseph. Hope you enjoy your day and your evening out....mmmm chilis You guys always look so happy you must have a good thing going there.
Tell Joseph Happy Birthday! Sounds like y'all are doing great with them I have a nephew who just graduated at 19. He was 10 years old when he was adopted and struggling with school and already a year behind. It was hard work but with a little guidance he made it through school and got his diploma. He graduated in May and has got to work doing lawn care, digging trenches for cable and loading trailers with cinder blocks for my dad...he is now thinking about furthering his education!
Had a good birthday party for Joseph, he had a ball, and I took them to play in the fountains in downtown Round Rock after dinner Friday night. Good fun. Then Sat night took Lily on a late-night motorcyle ride on the big V-twin. Sliver moon and big stars, nice ride. We both had a great time. We're having fun down here, and taking it day-by-day. Thanks for the support folks! -Mike
Had it out with Lily yesterday. Her room has had a smell lately, her laundry basket was full, clothes hanging out of drawers, and she’s had multiple blankets on her bed, water bottles, and books on her bed as well, piles of notebooks and papers and folders on her floor, plus I’ve seen things sticking out from under her bed, plus it’s dusty on her bookcase, dresser, and nightstand have clutter on them. The wood floors have cat and dog hair in the corners…just a MESS. She knows I get on her about keeping her room clean, and the floors you see are generally empty, but again, I was seeing stuff poking out under the bed and under her dresser, and in general, the room was full of clutter. On Monday morning before school I told her enough was enough, and to totally clean up her room after school, get everything off the floors (she has lots of room on her floor-to-ceiling bookcases), and from under her furniture, or I would do it for her, and she would not like it if I did it. I looked her right in the eye and told her I was NOT kidding. Her brothers keep their room very clean, (Johnathan is a neat freak), and Eddie and Tuck, while they have some clutter, never give me issues when I say go clean up. Our house, with seven people, a dog and a cat, is FAR from spotless, but it’s not cluttered and we keep the garbage empty and dishes done. Only Lily seems to have real issues keeping her room and herself clean. I called her after school from Dell at 3:30 Monday afternoon, and reminded her that she was to clean her room that afternoon, no excuses. When I got home from work I asked her if her room was clean at dinner. She said she was “working on it”. At 7:30pm I finally walked down the hall to her door, and she was in bed under the covers, drawing in a notebook, papers and junk all over the bed, tv on, and not one thing was picked up! I got so mad, said “Are you kidding me, after all the times I told you to clean up??”. She glared at me and said nothing. I walked around her bed, and there was still crap everywhere over there. I opened her closet, and got madder. My father told me he had grabbed her clothes basket and washed her clothes for her, and had given her the clean basket to put away. She had just dumped the clothes in the bottom of her closet! I yanked the sketch book out of her hands and yelled at her to get out of bed and get to work, this was NOT acceptable. She squinted her eyes and gave me a shocked, then angry look. I told her unless she never wanted to see her phone, computer, or TV again, she was going to get out of that bed and get to work RIGHT NOW. I told her I expected more of her than this, and that if this room was still like this tomorrow, she’d regret it, and slammed the door. Misty heard all this from our bedroom, and I went to take a shower and cool off. When I got out, I told Misty to please put Lily to bed at 9:30, that I did not want to see her again that night. When I got out of the shower Misty said Lily was just sitting on her floor at the foot of the bed, crying. I went to bed disgusted. The next morning I woke Lily and the rest of the kids just like normal. Her room was still a mess. I said nothing, just dropped them off at school Tuesday morning, but left work at 10:30am with the idea of cleaning Lily’s room for her. She’d had every chance to clean it herself. I got home and dragged the outdoor garbage can to the front porch, and then changed out of my work clothes into grubbies, and went to her room. It was MUCH worse than I expected. I started by picking up her floor around her bed, and then went to move her night stand. What happened when I moved her nightstand made me furious. I picked it up, and cans, bottles, wrappers, food boxes, and papers literally rolled out from under the stand, as well as from behind it where it faced the wall. The ONLY way that stuff could have gotten UNDER it is if she actually sat on the floor next to her bed and shoved it under there, like mail through a mail slot. NASTY! Just gross. Melted chocolate, melted candy, dried soda, and garbage stuck to all that was all on the floor there. I opened up her nightstand drawers and found bags of tea, salt, pepper, chips, boxes of open crackers, and more garbage. Ended up going through all her drawers in her room, throwing away anything I considered garbage. I opened her closet, and she HAD hung up her clean clothes after I yelled at her the night before, but the floor was still a clutter of shoes and stuff. I tossed it all on the bed. I got down on my knees on the floor and ended up using a broom to sweep the garbage and clutter out from under her bed, and I just threw it all away, not even looking at what it all was. Pulled the bed away from the wall, and was again AMAZED at the garbage. It seems she’s been shoving stuff between the head of her bed and the wall there. Ice cream sandwich and drumstick wrappers stuck to the floor and lower wall, papers, pens, paper plates, and even a ziplock bag with some kind of liquid in it that had spoiled and was hairy with mold…..just sick. I ended up moving the bed, bookcases, big wood dresser, and tv stand around the room, all had stuff under and behind them. Amazing. I then picked up at least 100 pens and pencils and put them into her two pen-holder boxes we gave her with her art stuff. After that I basically threw away everything that was on top of her dresser, nightstand (there were CD’s STUCK to the top of her nightstand…she’d spilled soda and just set CD cases on top of it to hide it. WHOA. And then took everything off her two bookcases and put it on the bed. I dusted her walls and her ceiling fan, then used Zep cleaner and cleaned ALL the furniture, her tv and DVD player, and her Wii, followed by wood polish on the wood furniture. Next I Windex’d her wall mirror and widow, and then I used my shop vac to suck up all the cat and dog hair and smaller garbage from the floor, then mopped her floor with Pine-Sol, moving the furniture around (thank goodness for wood floors). I then went to the garage and got some long screws and my electric drill, and screwed her large bookcase to the wall itself…there will be no hoarding behind that again! I then sorted through all the stuff I’d tossed on the bed, dusting off her books, art supplies, and toys and anything I thought was NOT crap, and then just threw the rest of the junk away. She had about 30 spiral notebooks that were full…I tossed them all. Finally I re-loaded her bookcases with BOOKS, put the good non-broken toys on a shelf, and put her art supplies and some still-useful notebooks on another shelf, put her shoes neatly in her closet, and then stripped the bed to the mattress and took it all to the laundry room. I lugged two FULL and HEAVY lawn and leaf garbage bags of crap to the front door and shoved them into the big outdoor can I’d left there. I knew she was going to freak out about all the stuff I threw away, but she had every chance to do this herself. Then I went back to her room. It glows. Smells of pine-sol, wood cleaner, and windex. It’s also somewhat empty, but that’s her fault. The only thing under her bed is the folded up crib and mattress Tuck used, and there is NOTHING under any other furniture. The only thing on her dresser is her jewelry boxes, a comb, and her purse. Her bookcases are full of books, but nothing else. All the dusty knick-knacks, papers, pictures, and such ended up in the garbage. Her art supplies are where they belong, and she has lots of blank paper still, but only three notebooks now. I ended up taking a three-hour lunch break yesterday. Happily my boss has kids, and when I told him how I spend my lunch hour, he clapped me on the back and made the comment that out of his three kids, his daughter was by far the sloppiest, and that he had been there. Ha! I called my Dad, since he picks Lily and Eddie up from school and stays with them until we get home from school. I told him Lily was going to be mad when she saw that I’d thrown so much of her stuff away, but that if she had a problem to have her call me, and also that Lily was NOT to bring any food or soda into her room, and that she was NOT to go “dumpster diving”, that the stuff I tossed was GONE, period. I then called Dad again at around 4pm to see how Lily had reacted. Dad said she was totally quiet, had been in her room for 30-mins, then had come out and cooked a Hot Pocket and he had to stop her and tell her she could not take that to her room. When I called she was sitting at the kitchen table, eating it with an angry lookj on her face. Dad did say her room looked fantastic, he’d gone to see it when he got the kids. So last night Misty and I sat all the kids down. I told them all that I’d spent three hours cleaning Lily’s room. Lily is the only kid in the house that has their own room. That is a privilege, not a right. Misty and I spoke, and we told the kids that there was to be no eating in the bedrooms anymore. Anyone caught eating, even a lolly pop, will lose their computer, TV, and phone for a month, no questions. The only thing they can bring in their rooms is bottled water, and that has to be put IN THE GARBAGE when down. We also told them that if Lily did not keep her room clean, and that Misty and I found ANY garbage hoarded under Lily’s bed, closet, or furniture, that we’d be flipping a coin and either Joseph and Johnathan would get that bedroom for themself and Lily would be moved into the back room to share it with whichever brother lost the coin toss. Lily made a shocked/panic’d face, and Johnathan yelled “I call HEADS!!, I want my own room! , I’ve never had my own room!” Joseph make a pained face and said he did NOT want to share a room with Lily. I told him that he might win the coin toss, and in true Joseph form, he said “probably not with my luck..” Joseph is our living Eeyore…ha. I told Johnathan to calm down and Joseph to relax, Lily still had her bedroom, but it’s hers to lose. She didn’t hardly talk to me last night, but she DID put her dirty clothes IN the basket, and today at lunch her bed was made and her stuff was put away, and the room was still neat. We shall see…..Just venting, sorry for the novel. This is my only girl and I'm fairly sure she's crazy.... -Michael
You should print this out and show it to her. There's sloppiness and then there's what you describe. While I'm no psychologist, and this could be just a severe case of teenage rebellion, the whole situation sounds like a cry for help on Lily's part. It's one thing to throw your clothes on the floor and not pick up the trash, but it's another thing altogether when she seems to be deliberately trying to immerse herself in filth. What you and your family have done for these three kids is beyond wonderful, and many people could not have done it. But while you have seen to her physical needs and provided her and her brothers with some sense of a family, she may have deep-seated emotional issues associated with the break-up of her family in the first place that have not been addressed and that are manifesting themselves in this way. In addition to showing this to Lily herself, it might also be worth showing it to her pediatrician.
I do think that Lily might be acting on some issues she has with what she has been through, and might benefit from some counseling from a good therapist. But I have to say, Mike, while I agree with what you did to handle this situation, there are so many other more destructive ways she could have been channeling her rebelliousness, and a filthy, messy room might just serve as pretty benign evidence of unresolved issues . How's that for some dime store therapy! Taking up where Dr. Joyce Brothers left off! David
In a way I am totally agreeing with jaunty, yet I also am totally agreeing with you Mike! My girl, although living with me most of her life had issues that only came up years later regarding why is My real Mom not around? My girl also made freeken mess of her room, now our PC room in her teens just as you described to the point my wife Deb who at the time was pure evil, the step mom did exactly what you did one day, just bagged it and tossed it and oh yeah, you needed a grinder with a zip wheel to cut the tension for the next couple weeks. As time went on and it was not over night the tougher love prevailed Now my girl all grown up hardly talks to me, yet is in daily contact via text and emails with her real Mom, her step Mom, my wife and hardly ever has anything to do with her real Mom! When we go to her place for dinner..... it's not a just cleaned because your coming, it's the way she keeps the place! I'm probably not making any sense, but been there, where you are now.... Time and forgiveness with some ... Can win the battle Sucks rite now, but ya dun did good DAD!
Thanks for the comments, and again sorry for the novel. A little history, Lily's mother, and her grandmother, lived in filth like this. The kids were raised like this...their home was always nasty, their parents made no effort to try to hide it....it's like that hoarders show on tv. Their Mom was a slob, and their Dad said cleaning was "women's work". Ha, so they just lived in junk. When I used to pick them up for weekends before we had them full time, I would drive back to our house with the car windows down, because the kids stunk. We kept clean clothes at out house, and would make the kids shower and change before doing whatever we had planned, and then would wash their dirty clothes and return them home with clean clothes when we dropped them off. No joke. I was always amazed that the school never called CPS...but they did not live in the best part of town. I think we will just have to train this hoarding out of Lily. I've been pretty happy that we've not had this issue with her brothers, they were all raised like this as well. I actually think it's why Johnathan is such a neat freak, he's trying to be the opposite of what they grew up in. Lily is just like her mother, and her grandmother. She just made an attempt to hide it...as I found out yesterday. I've watched her room grow more and more cluttered over the past year, but for the most part her exposed floors were kept bare. When I've told her to clean her room, it seems she's just shoved stuff where I can't see it, rather than throw it away. Most of the spiral notebooks I tossed out were from last year's schoolwork, and they were full, and she's never look at them again. She just piled them up rather than tossing them out. YOu would not believe what we went through when Misty and I tossed out a lot of their stained/torn clothes when they came to live with us. Lily wanted to keep them ALL. I had no idea there was all that junk hidden under her bed and her furniture, but when I found it...it of course reminded me of their old home, and of my memories of her mother's home back when we were kids. It was actually really disheartening...I was hoping that she was learning a better way to live, but it seems like she is just hiding old habits... Again hopefully we can train this out of her. Life is never boring! -Mike
Sad to hear. She may be "channeling" her mother or using what she's doing to connect with her in some small way. As nasty as her home life was, and as much of a failure as her mother was in raising her and in providing a good home, that was her real mother she was with. The fact that her brothers are doing better is, I think, only partially relevant. I have two daughters and one son, and the relationship between a mother and a daughter is not the same as between a mother and son. It's deeper in ways that only the mother and daughter can understand.
Wow! Mike you did what I would have done..... Oooops have done. This younger son, we adopted our first grandson, has turned into a slob too. But he is now 24 years old. What we noticed was the company he's kept. We didn't like it. Still don't approve of his girlfriends. But like I said he's 24. Up til he moved out for the umptienth time he did keep his room fairly decent. At least no food and drinks in there. We learned first hand what trailer trash is. Son moved in with a girlfriend and her trailer trash family. I'm not kidding, there really are people like that. He went thru the cycle of leaving one girl and moving home. Yea, I know. We should never let him return. But he is our son. even though we adopted him. And being our first grandson makes it even harder to use tough love. He went thru a few more girlfriends. Each as much a looser and a slob as the previous one. Sadly he meets friends of friends and more useless friends. So we know why he's become a messy slob. Now that he is home, we constantly are after him to keep food, drink, and damned cigarettes out of his room. We don't like to go in his room. He deserves his privacy. Yet we know we need to check it now and then when he is not home. But as messy as he's had his room, what you describe is amazing. That sweet, intellegent little girl really does seem to have a problem. Hopefully with enough follow up checking and constantly making Lilly keep it clean, things will change. Keep reminding Lilly about being neat, no food in her room, and check it regularly. Don't threaten to ground her and take things away. Promise her you will just like you did this time! Seems like I remember her parents weren't real neat either. I was typing as you were updating Mike.
Not quoting anyone but, as my Dad did say to me....... While your under my roof, your privacy depends on how you conduct your self and that will be the only reason I enter your room whether you like it or not! If you can't abide by that then move out, this is my house!
My daughter went through a phase very similar to this at around 12-13 years old and it was tough to deal with. I feel your pain Mike and had to take drastic measures much like you up to and including leaving her with a dresser a bed and a desk and eventually taking her door off the hinges. Later finding out that she had been doing meth and cutting herself (yes at age 13). She was sneaking out of her window at night to run with her sketchy friends, her mother and I had gotten divorced and I knew it was hard on her but she was taking advantage of the situation and having me take her to school then turning around immediately and going back home with 3 or 4 friends and getting high and eating me out of house and home. I got where I actually had picked her up from about every local law enforcement in town, including the local college campus police. Then at fourteen she got pregnant and dropped out of school and moved in with her mom. Thank the good Lord that she finally pulled her head out but this change only came at 22 after DCFS threatened to take her two children away. She is an awesome mom now with a loving husband and father but she put me through hell.
