The Rest of the Story

Well, to answer a few of my reader's questions, she has a 12:00 curfew on Friday night only. The rest of the week it is 11:00 in the summer, and 10:00 on school nights.

I called the cell phone and talked to her 3 times. I waited 20 minutes and then tried to call the cell again to let the guy with the cell know that whoever was driving better bring here home. Nothing.

So around 1 I turned my cell phone to silent, made sure the house phone was plugged in in case there was an emergency, and tried to go to sleep. DIdn't happen. As of 4:15 I was still lying there awake and no Salinda. I finally fell asleep and woke up again at 6:45. I noticed my cell phone had messages. One was from here at 2:13 calling me a "retard" which, though i don't like it that she uses it, is the name she uses for all of her best friend and her boyfriend when they are joking around. Apparently I had forgotten to tell Rand to leave teh door unlocked for her so when she got home at 2:13, the doors were locked.

Grant it, she could have rang the bell. But I'm sure she didn't want to "get yelled at." DUH, did you think I was going to THANK YOU for coming in at 2:13? So, at 2:17 there is another call saying she will be staying at a friend's house whose dad would bring her home first thing in the morning.

So, around 7:10 I hear her come in, but she doesn't tell me she's home. SO I go into her room only to let her know that I didn't lock her out and she should have rung the bell. I intimated that there would be consequences.

I'm still deciding what they will be for sure. One will be that she will not be given permission to hang out with the group of friends she was with again because they obviously knew I wanted her home and they had no regard for my rules or my wishes. She will lose the phone for several days which is like blocking a major artery for her -- and if she continues to be as nasty to me as she has been recently when I discipline her, I'm going to extend that. And I"m postponing driver's training, which is really going to hurt when everyone else her age is getting a permit.

It's difficult with her because right now I think she is teetering on completely blowing off all of the rules of our house like Mike and john did. Maybe she secretly hopes she'll get into foster care like John did, becuase it is widely known that there are many foster homes for teens in our area who basically have no rules.

She has never been on meds before but I'm scheduling some appointments. She's seemed quite depressed all summer -- sleeps way too much (I am constantly finding her asleep). Either she's depressed or she's sneaking out and gone all night and not getting caught, because nobody could sleep that much if they had a good night's sleep and weren't depressed.

Speaking of a good night's sleep, I got less than 3 hours and I have most of the kids alone today while Bart goes to meet his mom and pick up Tony ... I was thinking of school shopping with some of the kids.

Ugh.