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...
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