03/13/2012

Stolen from parenting.com

Just one of those days at the Jones house. I think that the energy level are very high with my up-coming surgery. It makes even the dogs a little edgy and when an event happens that pushes us over the edge our house explodes.

I went to pick up Eli today only to be confronted with him being VERY behind at school. Sean and I should have known about it but, with life being week on week of it is hard to keep track or know what was "really" done at the other parents house.

Well we can tell you this week that one HUGE project was not done. One that counts for most of Eli's grade is Social Studies. It is mostly our fault that we were not up on what was going on at school or at Ms. N house (Eli's mom) I know that if I would take more time I would have a much better understanding of what was happening with his school.

However, I struggle with this. I got him into this Gifted school and it is hard. Eli hates it and Ms. N and the school got off on the WRONG foot. So she has never been in support of the program. It makes it hard to keep E motivated and be able talk with Nicole about the program. I have been the bad guy through this.  At least that is how it feels from this side of the fence.

Secondly with me being home this year I have noticed Eli doing a lot of lying. He hates to disappoint and somewhere along the line he started lying about things. I am sure they started with little things but, now those little lies are HUGE lies about a lot of different things. He just lies and I have caught him a lot this year. I was bringing it up with Sean but, for a while there he was just taking Eli's side. There was always an excuse for it so, it didn't seem like that much of a lie. That was how Eli always spun it to Mr. Jones at least which in tune made me the bad step-mom who was attacking his son. Once again this is just how I felt. I am sure this explanation is completely off but, that is just how I feel. So I stopped ratting him out because it didn't seem to do anything...

Lying hits close to home for me because I struggled with lying for a long time. I was bad enough through my teen years that I lost friends and lied myself in circles. It was a very hard time in my life that I would hate to see Eli go through. I have spent the last ten years recovering from the guilt of all the lies I told. It made me feel like a horrible person and I am sure that my friends felt betrayed all the time. It was a HARD experience and I would hate to see Eli fight and struggle with this.

Then today happen and Sean didn't realize until the end of the night that Eli had flat out lied to his face. That he had completely told a bold face lie. Yes my school book rough draft is done... turns out no it was not even started. So now what to do with it. Do you ground your emotionally unstable kid or do you let it ride and talk about it in counseling?

Eli has had so much going on recently that I am not sure how much he can handle or if it really is  just an act to keep out of trouble. His Mother and step father are in the middle of a divorce. His step father just found out he has lung cancer and had lung surgery last week and his grandfather just had open heart surgery. This does not even cover the house stresses here. Wow that is a lot on the plate of a little guy. He needs a break.

More than anything I am writing out my thoughts trying to get a handle on how I feel. Sorry for the rambling and if you have a suggestion I would love to hear it.