KG's Hideaway

Holy crap... it's a freakin' mad house around here. I can't remember what I've posted lately about the kids, so I'll try to cover some of that as well as what we're working on and what we're about to do. (Like it really matters, right?)

Ok, we'll start with the kids. It's not good. At all. Austin looking at making some changes, and they can't come soon enough. He's driving me crazy but even worse than that is how crazy he's driving himself. He's actually thinking of going back to school. Will know more in July. He'll be 22 in August... bless his heart.

Speaking of crazy... I know that is going to sound so callous when I write about Kyra, but God almighty... I don't know what else you call it. Let's see... back in late February I finally got tired of watching her behavior escalate and forced her to tell me what was going on. She resisted at first until she thought I already knew what was going on and was just trying to get her to tell her dad. She never figured out that I didn't know anything other than SOMETHING was really wrong... and she finally started talking. I won't share all of those details her but suffice it to say that she absolutely FLOORED me.

She admitted that she lies to everyone about everything (I already knew that! She's a TERRIBLE liar!) but I didn't know the extent to which she'd gone to lie to everyone about all aspects of her life. She'd lie to one person to make it seem like she's just this side of abused and then lie to another person to make it seem like she's got this fairytale life. WEIRD!! Anyway, we knew things had gotten bad when I forced her to see her Mom in November and to pay me back for that she created this scene that I swear you wouldn't have believed even if you'd witnessed it yourself. (She actually sat in front of all four of us- us along with her mom and stepdad) and said that she thinks we try to keep her from seeing her mother. Wha...?

Wait... you sat there five minutes before that and told me how pissed you were that I MADE you see her and NOW I don't let you? This is the same child who has REFUSED to see her mother for about 5 years... try to figure this one out. She's just manipulated everyone... even going so far as to say things to members of my family about OTHER members of my family, and that started a HUGE fight... all over lies.

They pretty much believe she has a personality disorder but that can't be diagnosed (AMA) until she's an adult. She actually told the school some horrible stuff about her mom... that really stinks, too. I mean, yeah she's bitter about her mom's treatment of her and I get that but DANG the woman has been sort of trying the last few years, so don't you have to forgive at some point? Sheesh... her mom is just sort of detached and Kyra has always complained that her mother treats her like a friend, not a mom. Ugh, I don't know... Her mom made some mistakes but the stuff that Kyra told the hospital and the school is way out there. Kyra is also VERY angry at the world because she has Cerebral Palsy. At this point we've been told this will probably be a lifeling struggle for her.

So for now we are just medicating her. They've given up hope for now (again) on therapy working because she's totally noncompliant and she continues to lie about everything. Since we're going out of town on Craig's BIG company trip we're sending her to Craig's parents for a couple of weeks and hopefully she'll get some relief by a change of atmosphere. :::sigh::: Enough of that.

Now Ryan... God, where does it end??? Ok so she redshirted for b-ball but competed in track. She was doing really well but she decided to skip the last three track meets because she needed to focus on her grades. She was really struggling. Passing, but struggling. We'd always been told by the school district here that she was dyslexic and they covered her in the 504 program but she never used it. They just followed her so that if she did have trouble they could immediately help her. I have EVERY single IEP (individual education plan) form that the school sent over the years so we filed with the Office for Students With Disabilities at UTA so that she could get some extra help. The documentation I had was insufficient so I called the school and they sent me a couple of other papers that I didn't have. And IN THE MIDLE OF THE DAMN PAPER is a paragraph that says...

When Ryan reads from a selected passage she is able to answer 7 of the 8 questions about that passage correctly. BUT... when the passage is read TO HER??? She can only answer 1 of the 8 questions correctly, indicating... (wait for it)... an AUDITORY PERCEPTION DISORDER. I just about slammed my head through the damn wall! WHY WASN"T I EVER TOLD THIS?????

No WONDER this poor girl would walk out of her lectures (especially astronomy) and have no clue what she'd just heard. Damn... SO, in mid May we had a psychologist (one of the head ones at UTA) do all the testing on Ryan to find out exactly what her disabilities are and will get the results on Monday. (She's had two of the people from that office how in the world she's even managed to convince herself to come to school!!!) I don't know if I'm excited about Monday's news or dreading it. Either way, its coming so I gotta suck it up and deal with it.

We HAVE been working in the yard (angry energy to burn I suppose) and have made a little progress. But really, I'm not interested in doing major work until we have the siding installed on the trim and eaves because I'm not getting on a ladder and painting it. The house is natural stone and brick for the most part but the porches, trim, and eaves are still ALOT to deal with. Anyway, here are a few pics.

My great-grandma Danner was (as I've said on here a billion times) Amish Mennonite. This pot is from the late 1800's, and she used it to do her laundry. After she finally got a washing machine it was used in her yard, then in my grandmother's yard, then my mom's. Mom and Dad brought it over last weekend when they saw the work we were doing in the yard. The flowers aren't arranged yet when I took this, but you get the idea.

This planter has started a massive fight with my sister, but this time she has gone too far and it appears that my parents have even had it with her treatment of people. I won't go into it, but I really loved this planter! (This was taken two weeks or so ago and ALL of the plants have gotten SO big and the flowers have MASSIVE blooms on them... I'll try to take a more current pic today... but you get the idea. (Ignore my tomatos in there!!)

I've got various plants in different planters around the yard but my favorites are the Talavera pots. Here are two of the turtles just after I plopped the plants in the top of them... there are also Talavera pots on the porches...

And closeups of some of the blooms...

There's a boat-load more to talk about but I've got too much to do. Got two trips to pack for... more on that later. Ciao!