Homework

So the twins are in 2nd grade now.  They've been going to the same school since they were 2, almost 3, since their birthday is in November.  They have always been behind with reading and math being the hardest subjects for them.  As it stands right now, they are in the 2nd grade and cannot read.  I'm not sure if it's because they can't read, because they can't concentrate, or because they just don't understand.  They are a little bit better at math, but still not where they need to be.  We have talked before about holding them back a year, but because of when their birthday is, they are already almost a year older than the rest of the kids.  So if we were to hold them back, then they would be a full 2 years older than the other kids.  This means we have consciously moved them ahead a grade, even though we know that they are not ready for it, with the plan being that we will hold them back in later years if we need to, when the age difference won't be such a big deal.  This will probably happen around the end of elementary school or we could wait until they get to middle or high school.

They do a half and half type of day, where half of their day is inclusive with their peers and the other half of their day is in a self contained classroom getting more individualized attention.  They also receive speech and occupational therapy through school.  Last year we had an understanding with their regular education teacher about homework.  That sometimes homework would get done and sometimes it wouldn't, because they did understand all of the concepts of the homework that was being sent home.  This would result in hours of crying and fighting trying to help them get it all done.  It just wasn't worth the effort, especially if they didn't understand the concepts of the homework in the first place.

This year the teacher sends home the whole week's homework on Monday.  So last week I decided to just help them do all of their homework Monday night, which mostly means me reading it aloud, writing down what they say and having them copy it.  (which to be honest, I'm not even sure this is helping them)  The next day I get a note saying, "please do not go forward with homework."  This seems pretty silly to me considering that they do not understand the homework.  They do not get what they are supposed to do.  And it just causes a lot of stress and grief when we could just get it done in one night and then spend the rest of the week not worrying about it.

What do you think?  Would you push the homework issue?  My honest thought is just to sit down Monday and get it all done anyways and then just send in each days homework on the day it's due.  What would you do?

Bio Mom

So to continue from the last post, some information about bio mom.  You know I hate that saying bio mom, just because she gave birth that makes her a mom?  Seriously giving birth does not make you a mom.  The blood, sweat and tears that you put in day in and day out is what makes you a mom.  But I digress.  Bio Mom, S, is a few years younger than me.  She has a son from her first marriage that the state of Minnesota took away from her and he is being raised by his dad and stepmom.  From what I have been told is that she wasn't taking good care of him, such as dirty diapers, no food, he wasn't clean, etc...  Of course this is coming from her family up there, so I have no way of knowing if it's really true or not, though I am inclined to believe it considering what I know of her parenting skills.

So like I said before, I started taking care of the twins when they were 15 months old.  What I know of their time before that is that they spent lots of time in playpens and walkers, and pretty much no stimulation or contact with S.  I think S just likes the idea of being a parent, but doesn't really want to put in the work and effort of a parent.

Pretty much S woke up one morning and decided that she no longer wanted to be married or to be a parent anymore.  So she very literally packed up all of her things and walked out, leaving the twins with my husband.  This is when my husband called me and I packed up my stuff and moved from Texas back to Virginia and took over everything.  S has been living her life as she pleases every since then.  She goes out, she parties, does drugs, drinks, and whatever else she happens to do that we don't know about.

Every so often she goes through this phase where she decides that she wants to be a mom and she bugs us about seeing the girls.  Currently we are trying to be the nice people and we let her come over every other weekend and stay from Friday night until Sunday night and spend time with them.  Now don't get it wrong, she has absolutely no rights to the twins.  F has full physical AND legal custody of them.  She's taken us to court a few times over the girls and the last time we went to court the judge said that she wasn't allowed to see them unless it was through social services.  And she is not allowed to be alone with them at all.  The judge did give her some conditions where she might possibly be able to get them more, and those were, a stable job, stable living environment and 1 year drug free.  That last court date was 4 years ago and she still has not managed to do any of these things.

Then there's also the issue of child support.  Some people think that because she's the mother, she shouldn't have to pay child support.  I say it's equal rights all around.  Plus it's not like she pays a lot.  She only pays $150 per child per month, which is $300 a month.  And to be honest in this day and age, $300 doesn't get you really far, plus she doesn't pay it.  Last time I checked she owed over $8500 through child support enforcement.  She's been taken to court quite a few times for not paying child support, and every single time she's warned to pay it, but so far they haven't done anything else to her about it.  Which to be honest if she was a guy, she would have gone to jail by now.  And it's no use to suspend her license because she doesn't have one, and she doesn't know how to drive.  I guess we'll just wait and see if she'll be taken to court again anytime here soon.  She literally hasn't made a payment since May and that was for $25.

I will update more as I go along, but what do you think of the situation?  Would you do what I do?  Would you let your husband's ex wife stay in your house every other weekend?  Would you let someone like that around your children?

Who are we?

Well my name is Kristy and the kids are A (son, 20), T (daughter, 16), L (daughter, 7), and N (daughter, 7).  N and L are technically my stepdaughters, but I have been raising them as my own since they were 15 months old.  See to put a long story short, I have my son at 16, the father and I did not stay together.  Then I met my now husband, F, and we had T, when I was 20.  We ended up getting married and I joined the military.  Not to get into the gritty details, but we divorced a few years later, then we both remarried.  He ended up having the twins with his second wife, though we kept on decent terms, for the most part.  We finally figured out when the twins were a little over a year old that we still loved each other, but we didn't want to do anything as long as he was still married.  But the twins bio ended up making the decision easier for us when she woke up one day and decided that she didn't want to be a mother and wife anymore, so she packed her stuff up and left, leaving the twins with F.  He called me up because I did not live in the state, and within a week I had closed up shop in Texas and was on my way back to Virginia.  

Once I was in the house with the twins I realized that something was going on with the twins.  They weren't walking, they weren't talking, in fact at 15 months old they could barely crawl.  So I contacted their doctor and started researching on the internet to figure out what was going on.  That then started the cycle of doctors for the next 3 years.  We went to psychologists, psychiatrist, neurologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, DAN doctors, and a few others.  It was to the point where my whole life was literally spent driving them from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was going on.  Finally they came to the conclusion that the girls had PDD-NOS and ADHD, which the PDD-NOS label was used up until last year, when it was finally changed to autism.  N also has muscular hypotonia.  Essentially it means low muscle tone, which she still has to this day.  It's kind of freaky because she can almost literally turn all of her limbs in different directions, or touch her fingers to the back of her wrist.  She claims it doesn't hurt, but it is certainly freaky to look at.

During all of this time we also had some testing done on T which showed that not only did she still have the ADHD, which she was diagnosed with at 3, but that she also has aspergers.  Her doctor was really great though and put it down as autism instead of aspergers, because by that point in time we already know that the new DSM-V was going to get rid of the aspergers diagnosis and combine it into the whole autism category.  Since autism is a spectrum disorder.  

So I now have 3 children in the house that have issues.  So we have the meltdowns, the tantrums, the stimming, the spinning, the hyperactivity, etc...  Any other parents that have a child on the spectrum will understand completely what I am talking about.  Some days are really good and other days you are counting down the hours and minutes until bedtime.  But we are lucky in that our girls are all verbal, so that does help out quite a bit.