Penelope's Next Big Adventure

School is about out, 1 1/2 more weeks left. Penelope told me that yesterday was the last day of After School Program, the tutoring program that the school referred her to. It did seem odd to have it end on a Tuesday after being off on the Monday for Memorial Day but I never followed up with the program people to verify. But she had told me this information a couple of weeks ago, and then reminded me yesterday morning when I told her I'd be picking her up from school. So my plan was to pick her up at 5:00 instead of after school. But when I got home around 2:30, I checked the mail and there was a letter saying that the ASP "ends" on May 21st. That was last Thursday! This would make more sense since it's the end of a full week of ASP (closed on Fridays) instead of having it one more day in the middle of the following week. So I hurried up to the school in order to intercept her from walking to the church. But she was no where to be found. I went to the church, not there, I spoke to a church employee and she said that it was over. I called her friend's house, drove around to see if she was walking - a lot of kids walk home in our small community. Maybe she was with someone else? I drove home to see if she walked home knowing I was going to be there today. I can see her do that too.
I was worried but my hopes were that she will be in front of the church at 5:00. I'm figuring she was trying to use this as an opportunity to not have to come home and go somewhere that I wouldn't let her - especially since she hasn't been allowed to go over anyone's house without me since her threat to hurt me, and DEFINITELY after her attempt at revenge to the boy across the street this past weekend. But then, maybe she decided she is going to run away.. or try to walk to her dad's.. or something like that. I can see her try to do those things to. Can you lo jack a kid?
Anyway, she was at the church at 5:05. She claims she was inside the entire time and that she was the only one who showed up and she had a computer generated certificate for being "A star today!" That is was just her and the program director. They did homework and played games. She was already gone by the time I pulled around to the office - probably left when she sent Penelope out. So I left a message on her bosses voicemail to verify if this was true. I just need to know if that was where Penelope was at. She did seem sincere when I questioned her, seemed honestly surprised I thought otherwise, so who knows. Her cons usually are not this planned and flawless. We will see when I get a return call.

Still hating George

It's been a week since my last post. A lot has happened since then. Not too terrible, and trying to keep a good perspective of it so I can climb out of my funk. Things at school for Penelope have been uneventful - a good thing. She is doing well in her classes. She might sneak out of 4th quarter with 2 As!!! no Fs!!! and maybe no Ds!! Whatever it is, she has made a huge improvement in effort and grades since the last two quarters. I'm not sure of her social situation at school. She is still at that age where she isn't that good at being a strategic liar. She will have some simple lies that are hard to read but planned out or long term lies either stink from the moment they leave her mouth or shortly their after. She paints this social scene for herself, that she has this boyfriend (for probably 2 months now), but she hardly ever talks about him and when I drop her off in front of school where the kids are waiting to go inside, he doesn't make a point to notice her or vice versa. I ask, but she says that he is with his friends and she told him not to tell his friends.. .right. But nothing has come of it. She has one friend that I have evidence they are friends. They eat lunch and go to recess with another girl. She says she is friends with two girls that she used to be friends with before she ruined those friendships with some of her anti-social behaviors. But when she calls them, they blow her off. She doesn't seem to care of mind. She also doesn't seem to make a point to take the hint. She either truely doesn't pick up on it or doesn't care.
We went to therapy on Thursday. We talked about how Penelope is doing well with her door being shut with an alarm on it. She is very sleepy in the morning and has gone back to trying not take her pills "playing" like she is going to throw them or crush them. But I also brought up an issue that has been escalating over time. Just always seemed like more important things to focus on instead in our hour. Penelope inappropriateness when it comes to masterbating in front of me as well as her shaking her newly developing breasts at me or in front of me. She doesn't want to wear a bra and doesn't care if her breasts show through her clothes. I think she does it at school, not that they have said anything - but she will do this excited fast shake of her body to get them moving but acting like she is just excited. I tell her to knock it off and she does, but she continues to do it again. We talked about all those things and was given advice on how to respond to her behavior. Just to tell her those things are meant to be private, in her own room. But she did discuss with Penelope the bra situation. So we will see.
All relatively minor issues compared to what has happened with her threatening to kill me. But all in the same, I have seen her redirect her defenses into this other approach and it becoming more frequent.
The other thing that was discussed while Penelope was in another room having "Brain Training" was the conversation her one therapist had with George's therapist. I told her what George told me that his therapist had said after the phone conversation - that she still thinks it would benefit Penelope to see her dad. That she will get use to it over time. But he was very evasive and sounded somewhat defeated or non-committal about what he was saying. I stopped asking for him to elaborate and just told him that I would find out when I see Penelope's therapist on Thursday. She told me that she explained the unhealthy relationship Penelope and George have and how George's parenting (what he did) that made unhealthy. She said the therapist somewhat rebuffed by telling her George's version of why Penelope is with me...
That I am lonely and wanted my own child but since I don't have my own (because I can't get a guy in order to have my own family) that I took his daughter and won't give her up because she is all I have.
She told the therapist that this was not the case. That I would prefer Penelope to be with one of her parents, if it was healthy for Penelope. Also, that the family supports Penelope being with me 100%. This is very true. And I have told Penelope such. I have told her that I know she wishes she lived with her father and her mother if they were different. That was her ideal situation. And I wish that her ideal situation was true because I want her to have what she wants. But it's not best for her and I am very glad to be the one who gets to have her since the ideal situation isn't possible. And she understands that. This was a conversation I had with her when she was trying to run away to her dad's, or would pick fights with me than say "My daddy will come and beat you up and break your bones!" Stuff like that.
But regardless, him painting this picture to this therapist - and I'm sure not the only person out there he has said it to since is M.O. is to tell people his "I'm the victim" story - really hurt me. It took a few days to really allow my anger to subside about it. I still can't talk about it with my parents without getting really upset and emotional about it. The thing is, I had a very good life before I agreed to take on Penelope. I dated, I had friends, I had somewhat busy social life. My social life was intertwined with my work life - happy hours, friends, long hours to climb that career ladder. Had nice things, got pedi/manis, highlights, Coach purses, nice cars. Wore makeup, took showers more than every other or 3rd day... So, it's more the opposite. I am lonely now! Like this was the life I wanted for myself! He is such an asshole.
With all this said, I definitly am not trying to do the "I'm the victim" thing that he is doing. I know I have choices. I could choose to pack up her stuff and take her and her things to his house and drop her off. But it's not a choice I could live with or want to do. I want to help her and continue to help her. Even with everything I know, I would still have made the choice to take her in. Because I love her and I want to give her a chance at a normal life. She once asked me "If I was still living with daddy, would I be fatter?" It kinda came out of no where, and it was an odd question. But as background, her dad is a really really big guy - 6'4" weighing over 500 lbs. Penelope's weight has fluctuated from being either too thin or overweight. Due to her medication. She is currently overweight. It took me a bit to answer her question as I thought about the posibilities. I know she is overweight because of her medication but she also loves to eat crap. I make her eat healthy food but allow for unhealthy food here and there so she doesn't feel deprived and become obsessed. At a point there she was stealing money and buying to lunches a day at school regardless if I packed her lunch or not. Anyway, her father eats horribly. She grew up on fast food and gas station food. So my initial answer was "yes." But then I thought about how she would have been with her dad if he still had her. She wouldn't be on the medication she is on because he wouldn't have gotten the help she needed, so "no." But then she probably would have ended up killing herself. They would have been back with his second wife, being abused by her, being ignored by dad, and eventually taking things into her own hands. I told her that I didn't think she would still be around if she was with her dad. I didn't tell her my rationale but she seemed to understand. I told her "So the answer is 'no, I don't think you would be fatter - or heavier or whatever you want to call it.'" But my point is, if I hadn't had taken her, she could be dead right now. I try not to find reason why my life has made such a dramatic change, just trying to deal with it. Do the best the I can do for her and eventually myself. Is this what I wanted? No. But I've learned a lot from the expierence so hopefully I will become a better person in the end?
I hate George, always will most likely. Do I feel sorry for him? No. Do I wish him harm? No. Sometimes, but I get over it. Do I think he knew what he was saying and how it would make me feel if I found out? No. I don't have a high enough opinion of his intelligence. I think he just simply wants to play the victim and have someone who is a professional in mental health tell him what he wants to here. Like I told my mom, I'm not surprised he painted a false picture for this therapist about his life and how it relates to Penelope. He's always been good at doing that kind of thing to the rest of the world. But I didn't think far enough ahead to see that he would say those things about me.
But the thing that I think about that reminds me it's not that big of a deal, is that I have never done any of this for him. The things, the MANY things, I have done for him, I don't really do it for him. I do it for Penelope and my parents. But in the end, he always benefits from them. But he has never appreciated it. If anything, he feels he is entitled to it. We are his family and we are suppose to take care of him when people have wronged him and put him in a bad place. Everybody has their limit though. Heck, I told my parents long before Penelope was even an idea in someone's eye, that when they are gone, George is on his own. I am not going to take care of him. So he better figure out how to take care of himself or it's going to suck for him. So my issues with George have been around pre-Penelope. It's not about her at all, it's about him and who he is and what he does.
On a brighter note, Friday night, Penelope went across the street to play with a little girl she claims told her to come over at the particular time. She wasn't home so Penelope played with the boys that lived in a different house. Something happened between Penelope and these boys and Penelope got mad. She found a piece of broken glass and used it to put scratches on the side of my car including a mispelled version of the name of the boy she was mad at. She concocted this whole story how they were after her and were going to hurt her bike.. and maybe my car. We brought her bike in the house instead of leaving it in the garage. But I knew something was up but not sure what. Not until the next day she was insisting I go look at the car to see if they did anything to it. It was obvious she did it and she eventually admitted to it. Lovely huh?

I hate George.....

So, Friday after school, Penelope was playing in the living room. She went downstairs to get some toys from the play room. She found in a box a charger to an old cell phone her dad gave her. She likes to collect cell phones from family when they upgrade. None of them come with chargers and without battery life, they don't work and are perfect for just playing around. I knew she had one of his old phones but didn't think too much of it... until she found the charger.
I know what a sick minded creep George is.. and I remember when my other brother had told me over a year ago how George showed him X rated pictures that were on his phone. So before I would let Penelope play with the phone I wanted to make sure I checked it first. I had to wait until it charged. A couple of hours later while she was taking a shower, I went and got the phone and started to go through it. I recognized the phone as the one he had when he was living in my basement - during/after his 2nd marriage, after he had moved out of my house.
The photo album had several pictures of Penelope from that time period, and that was it. I went to check text messages (I'm not stupid), and there they were. In his inbox, there were text messages from his ex-wife with attachments of body parts. 5 pictures in all.. In the sent folder, he had a picture of his penis - attached to text messages NOT just to his 2nd ex-wife but also is 1st, Harriet. You know, the woman who he would never touch, who calls him all the time but he doesn't know why. The woman who asked him to let her come stay with him in the house our parents own, during one of the many times she left her husband. The date of all these text messages were the week around Christmas 2007.

Let's list all the reasons why this is such a problem.

1. Most important - George gave a electronic toy to his 10 year old (at the time) daughter that has pictures of his penis, and her ex step-mother's breast, ass, vagina and clitoris. She may or may not have seen them. I had hid the phone after I found these photos so she couldn't see them but I caught her walking out of my room with the phone in her hand. I confronted her about going through my things to get it. She went looking for it and getting it before I even had a chance to tell her that I had took it! She assumed I took it because it was something her father gave her. I told her that wasn't the case. If it was, I would have taken it before. But rather that I looked at it, like I told her I needed to do, and I found inappropriate things on it. Without me explaining it, she knew exactly what I was talking about. I asked her what she knew. She said she had seen a picture of a woman and her dad naked on the phone.. back when her dad was living here. I asked her if she told him she saw it. She said she didn't because she was too scared. I asked her why she wanted the phone if it had bad pictures on it. She said because it was her dad's phone. I knew the answers to these two questions but I wanted her to think about the questions. She probably wasn't scared that her dad would be mad at her for seeing a naked picture, but rather she was looking at his phone without permission. She wanted the phone because it was her dad's but because she has been facinated by sex since she was 5 or 6. She doesn't care if it's of her dad, she wants to see sex or nakedness.
   
2. That he sent a picture of his penis to Harriet December 2007. This is the woman who has told her mother "for years" as she told me, that George would try to touch her inappropriately. And that was the excuse given to me after Penelope's 1st hospital stay, as to why Harriet was inconsistant with her every other Sunday visistation schedule. She would either cancel or cut her visits short. So Harriet could have shown the text message to her mother to support her accusations. Now, the phone showed that Harriet had responded to the text message but the message hadn't been opened. Since the service plan had expired, there was no way to retrieve the message to see if she was appauled or responded to the message that came with his attachment "Do you want to attend" to his penis I guess. But there was a text message that was sent later that evening from her that asked him what he was up to or something like that so I can't imagine she was offended. Which brings up #3.
3. Harriet and George were "chummy" enough to send these kinds of text messages. What the hell!? George is such a f*cking liar! He could have been touching Harriet inappropriately, but who cares! She probably liked it! I'm sure she would say something like "I was too scared to tell him to stop because he threatened to not let me see Penelope" or some crap like that. And maybe he did. He is a f*cking moron so I wouldn't put anything past him.
   
4. Debbie or whatever I have so far named the 2nd ex-wife... This is the woman who damaged Penelope more by playing the part of the evil step-mother very well. She lied to everyone about how she worked with Penelope and her love for her. When no other adults were around, she screamed and yelled at her, threatened her, withheld food from her and beat her with a wooden spoon. I know George still doesn't want to believe that Debbie beat her with a wooden spoon but there is enough evidence to support it happened and to support that Debbie is of the lowest character so it could be worse than we think. Penelope was miserable, hardly speaking to anybody, failing all her classes, acting out at home, and got so skinny and sickly looking it was hard to look at her. Her bones were sticking out. But as George would say "She still had a poochy stomach." She has always had one and probably always will.. just her physical makeup I guess. Or malnurishment maybe? But the summer of 2007 was when we found out that George was trying to reconcile with Debbie, after he stole all his money, opened up credit cards in his name before they married and never told him - or paid the bills for the cards, abused his daughter, "borrowed" money from my dad less than a week before she staged the "Your daughter had a teacher call social services on me (never happened) so your both out of here" event - with no intentions of paying my dad back. Penelope knew they were still talking and was scared and a mess. Her therapist told me that George had to make a decision one way or the other so Penelope could move on. (Yes, that's what Penelope needed, for daddy to go back with Debbie - idiot therapist. She was too passive to be effective) He claimed he ended the relationship with Debbie. But obviously that's not true. He could have ended it but didn't stop talking to her.. maybe getting a little casual thing from her once in a while. I'd rather he hook up with a stranger.

So I told my mother about the phone.. I gave it to her to deal with.. I can't deal with this shit anymore. George keeps calling me today because he has questions about his worker's comp claim and some paperwork he got in the mail. He then starts telling me how he talked to so and so.. like the 100th person he has talk to about his claim and the 10th person he has talk to who tells him to go get an attorney who is going to get him lots of money by tacking on every possible ailment, regardless if he has it not, to the claim and build up the settlement. He tells me that his buddy told him he could get more than the number I guesstimated a month ago.
I've been telling him not to get an attorney because there is nothing to fight yet, and the attorney will get 1/3rd of what he gets but today... today I told him to go ahead and get an attorney. For at least the simple fact I am tired.. tired of dealing with all his crap.. him asking the same f*cking question over and over and over and me telling him to same thing over and over and over. If he wants to get an attorney who is going to manipulate the system and get him all this money, fine. Whatever. He goes.. "I'm not... the money I get will go for Penelope's medical bills and braces and... " Right.
Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. I hate him.

Still alive

It's Friday and I'm still here. Penelope hasn't tried to kill me. But sleep deprivation might get me in the end anyway. My dad said I look like I'm about to pass out and keeps telling me to get some sleep.. um, I try. I remember learning in a class or somewhere there is no such thing as making up sleep. Your body just deals.. or suffers.
Thursday we saw Penelope's psychiatrist who didn't change her medication but recommended I take her to the ER to have her hospitalized again. I really didn't want to do that but I definitely didn't feel safe. He asked her if she still felt like killing me. She nodded her head. He asked her if I should feel safe and she shrugged her shoulders. He asked me if I feel safe and I told him no. I don't really think she has this plan on how she will do it - besides with a knife - but like when and how to get a knife. But that the simple fact she is thinking about, that I know she has done other things that I couldn't have imagined, and that all it takes is for me to piss her off bad enough.
When I was telling the doctor about the weekend trying to pick out signs and triggers and telling him what she said and drew, he kept his eyes on her face. I think looking for an expression or reaction. Her expression was disinterested and blank. Scary. But when the doctor said she should go to the hospital, Penelope got excited and started crying "No! I don't want to live in a hospital! I won't get to see my cats... or my friends!" I had told her if she stabbed and killed me, she would end up in jail that was like a hospital. But he corrected her and said "not to live, but to stay for a while like last time." He explained it was for safety reasons. I told him I wasn't ready to take her to the hospital. I wanted to talk to her therapists. He understood. He had already asked what they say about it, but unfortunately I had to divulge that they hadn't yet called me back. I called Monday morning with no call back. I called again Monday afternoon and Wednesday. Wednesday when I called, I just said that we'd see them on Thursday but asked them to at least call George's therapist because he's got his ass all up on his back because he can't see Penelope and his therapist, only getting his side of the story, thinks it would benefit Penelope to see her dad and doesn't see why he shouldn't be allowed to see her.
I did finally find a store that sold those magnetic alarms to put on Penelope's door. The one I had left over from the packages I bought to put alarms on all the windows and doors for her months ago, didn't work. And the store I got them at closed. But at bedtime, she screamed and screamed about having her door shut. I tried to reason with her with no such luck. I told her it wasn't locked and she can keep her lights on but it didn't matter. Ahh! I need sleep!! I called my dad and we said if she couldn't do it, she'd have to go to the hospital and even though she didn't want to, she ended up saying she'd go to the hospital before she could have her door shut. I finally gave up and let her sleep however the hell she wanted, and I just blocked my bedroom door again. I was so angry I gave up on trying to keep her safe too which was part of it... Even though my door was blocked, again I got no sleep.
Thursday my dad calls and says he wants to go to therapy with us. He is worried about both Penelope and I. But he is also upset that they hadn't called me and I need to be able to call someone when this type of stuff comes up. He didn't tell me that he also was going because he wanted to push for George's visitations with Penelope. That pissed me off. She isn't ready yet and she sure as hell isn't strong enough to see him right now.
But her therapist said she didn't have a problem with that.. once school is out and she is more stable. Middle of June. That's in a month. I don't know if I can deal with the backlash of that. Between Penelope and her thinking her dad will "save her" from her personal hell and start hurting me again or getting calls from Harriet because George told her "he may or may not had seen Penelope on Saturday."
But the therapist spent most of the session talking Penelope into having the door shut. It took a ton of persuasion but she did it. Penelope finally promised. And she promised my dad. Now she didn't get to sleep until 10:30/11:00 but she didn't cry.. whined a bit but didn't cry. I still didn't get much sleep but more than the last 3 nights. I wouldn't even call it sleep - more like blacked out.
I woke up to Penelope's alarm going off as she woke up right before my alarm went off to get up for the morning. She said she felt safe and slept well. But boy was she a pain this morning. Baby steps I guess. But it was truely a huge success to have her sleep with her door shut so the alarm can work.
I'm just soo tired. But I have Penelope's therapists cell phone number now, and I will have a latch lock on my door within the next couple of days.

No sleep

So, as I stated in my last post, Penelope told me Sunday night that she has been dreaming and thinking about stabbing me with a knife to death. Today is Wednesday. I don't sleep well anyway, but I have barricaded myself in my room at night the last two nights in order to get some amount of sleep. She has been acting like she never said anything. Not that her behavior or attitude is the same as it was before Sunday. Her happiness seems forced and fake. When I picked her up from the tutoring program yesterday, they were all walking back from the school's playground. She was acting like she was upset because she claimed some boys were mean to her. I think it was an attempt for sympathy. I asked her if her homework was done. She said "No" and gave me a list of 3 things she still had to do. I asked her why she was at the playground then? She knew the rules about homework being done before playtime. But I've also told this to the Program Director - which is their rule too but that Penelope will manipulate in order to do what she wants. I almost think they are burnt out themselves and are wanting to take the kids to the playground. I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I've had problems throughout the year with the program. And once again, just like in other situations, I'm wondering if it's them or Penelope is too much for them.
But yesterday, I confronted Penelope about what she said and drew on Sunday as well as her attitude since then. I told her that she needs to look at how she is doing and her effort and figure out what she wants. Does she want to work hard and be happy or does she want to make poor decisions to cope with whatever problem she is trying to deal with. I started by telling her that not using the resource of the tutoring program to help her with her homework was a poor decision and now, if she wants to do her homework tonight, she won't have any help. (Since I can't help her.) I also said that her killing me isn't going to solve any of her problems and it's the wrong way to deal with whatever problem she thinks it will solve. I didn't ask her again what the problem was. I really don't know. I know she has been missing her dad a lot but I've already told her that if she killed me or threatened to kill me - that the last place she'd end up going to is her dad's. That may or may not be true. If I were to give up on her, she probably would end up going back with her dad. No one else in the family would be willing to go through what I've gone through. They see the shambles I've become. Which I have so much guilt over because I'm sure that is a big reason why she is getting sicker.
But, she heard my words. I said she has been acting like it never happened. She said she is trying to forget it. I told her that it is pretty significant and she did say it. That's where she needs to make a decision about what she really wants. I also told her I am going to be putting an alarm on her door. I know she doesn't like her door shut but she will feel safer with it eventually and that is the main point. She has been starting to say over the past few weeks that she is scared Harriet is going to come and either kill or or kidnap her. But obviously I want to feel some level of safety as well. I still don't think I'll sleep well - to think your child who you have fought for, given up your personal goals, career, sanity for, who you love more than anything - wants to kill you.

Mother's Day Weekend

Penelope had a long weekend from school. They were off Friday for May Fete. She is doing better socially and has a friend that she was able to go to May Fete with on Friday. She said she had the best time, it was wonderful. Saturday, she woke me up with breakfast in bed - "Happy Mother's Day!" I was genuinely surprised and I cried a little because it was very sweet. I hadn't mentioned anything to her about it being Mother's Day weekend because of the issues she has with her birth mom and how badly Mother's Day went the prior year.
Backstory - She had only been out of the hospital (her first stay) a couple of weeks before Mother's Day and Harriet called wanting to speak to her. Penelope didn't want to talk to her. Harriet got mad and hung up when I told her. Shortly after that, I received a call from Harriet's mother who was on the beach in Florida - Harriet interrupted her vacation - wanting to know what was going on. She received a call from Harriet saying I won't let her talk to her daughter. I corrected her letting her know that was not the case, but that Penelope didn't want to talk to Harriet. Harriet's mother told me that I'm the adult and should make Penelope talk to her mother. I told her I would do no such thing. On a side note, she also proceeded to complain to me about Penelope's "manners" because at Harriet's last visitation with Penelope, Penelope insisted that Harriet buy her all these little trinkets, but when Harriet ran out of money, Penelope locked herself in a bathroom stall and wouldn't come out for about 20 minutes waiting us out. I had to direct the parenting at this point - but regardless, when she finally came out and Harriet told her she had to go, Penelope didn't thank Harriet for the crap she bought her. Harriet complained to George as well as her mother that I wasn't teaching Penelope any manners. Um, okay.. Like that's Penelope's worst problem.
So, present day Mother's day weekend, she was handing it very well. Neither one of us had mentioned how it was Mother's Day coming up so I really thought she didn't know. But she made me breakfast and after that (I made her breakfast and) she had chores and then we went over to my other brother's family's house to have dinner and bring back her cousin for a sleep over. This was a first. He is only 4 but they love to play together and usually get along very well. My brother has said that Penelope could stay the night some time but would never set a date even after I started in on it. I heard through my parents that he was scared of Penelope - that he wouldn't know how to handle her if she went crazy at his house. So I invited Mr. D over to our house. My brother had no problem with that. They had fun and everything was fine.
Sunday, they played inside in the early morning and than outside late morning/ early afternoon. Penelope was being a bit bossy and I was getting on her about that but everything still seemed to be going well.
Then we had plans to have our Sunday Night Dinner at Grandma and Papa's house. But being that it was Mother's Day, they invited my brother and his family too. George was not invited since Penelope was going to be there. I had discussed this with my dad earlier in the week because he wanted to do something for Mother's Day. I told him originally that we wouldn't be able to do anything because I didn't want to celebrate Mother's Day in front of Penelope. But when she did so well with Mother's Day herself, I called him and told him it seemed like everything was fine. But I had learned that my brother's family had been invited to Sunday Night Dinner anyway, the only difference than would be that we could mention that it was Mother's Day.
But after we got their, things with Penelope deteriorated. I didn't notice until it was too late. My brother asked me what was wrong with Penelope after dinner. When I asked him to explain, he said that Penelope was being mean to her cousins and rude to him. I said I think she has had enough weekend, I'm thinking. They were leaving but Penelope was in the dining room studying for a test for Monday. But she was being very bad about it. My dad told me later that she was having a fit that her uncle and cousins were outside having fun without her. They left and Penelope and my dad finished studying. It was around 8:30 when we left. It was going to be after bedtime when we got home.
On the ride home I brought up the issues she was having with her cousin and stealing his hat and making him cry. She didn't deny it and said she just wanted the hat. I brought up the fit she gave her papa because the kids were playing. I told her she needed to learn to share in order to have friends and I wasn't seeing that today. After about 5 minutes more in the car, I told her that if she goes right to her room and gets ready for bed, I would read a little to her before bed. She said okay but then grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and started to draw a picture.
After about 10 minutes she gave it to me. It was a picture of her stabbing me with a knife a bunch of times, me dead. Around the picture it said "Help me" "Help please" I asked her if she was mad at me. She said no. I asked her why she wanted to kill me. She said she didn't know and started to cry. She said she was scared. She said she had a dream about it and the voice in her head is telling her to but she doesn't want to. She had the dream on the way to my parent's house that afternoon when she fell asleep in the car.
When we got home I called my dad and my mom came over and spent the night. She said she couldn't sleep at our house again because the bed was too uncomfortable. She slept on it for several months before but whatever. I don't think anybody slept well. I know I didn't. I slept maybe 3 hours tops total. I was exhausted already. My sleep has been so poor for months now. My doctor gave me a prescription for sleeping pills but I've only taken them maybe twice in the last 8 months because I'm afraid something would happen at night and I wouldn't wake up.
Anyway, I emailed Penelope's teacher to let them know that she had a bad evening - without going into details. Everyone responded and said she was okay with the exception of a comment about her looking tired from Mrs. Carpenter.
I have to pick her up in about 30 minutes and take her to her tutor. I'm not sure I should take her but.. I don't know...