A Turd in the Punchbowl

A conversation the other morning involved, "what are you thinking about?" as I noticed Edgar lost in thought.

"A Toyota 4Runner," he instantly answered, "you're probably thinking about plants or flowers right?" as he is always trying to peg me, to predict what I'll say, as he finally seems to be getting a grip on the way I think, often regurgitating theories I'd shared with him.

"Nope, soil structure." Who doesn't appreciate a more spongy soil that will hold water better in times of drought? Duh.

"Mama, you're impossible."

When I first woke up this morning I was debating on blogging about light bulbs or loneliness.

I'd read the article about loneliness before I went to bed, and had been thinking about it, wondering why people didn't just do something about their situation. I was fantasizing about loneliness actually. I'd love to be lonely at times.

I'm typing this post as 6:30 in the morning, and Sergi is already up talking to me as are several Bubbas. What is that word alone?

On Wednesday's Child last night they featured a young CP boy waiting on a family, but they also interviewed a woman who'd adopted twins, one of which was in a wheelchair due to CP. She beamed, she glowed with love, explaining how the boys had enriched her life in immeasurable ways, and I thought about lonely people. She'd been alone, but had done something positive about it, as the boys had been motherless, the worst kind of alone.

I know I am simplistic, and obsessed with this subject matter of kids needing families, but heck it only has to make sense to me.

When I took the kids swimming last night we quickly discovered several floating turds within minutes of being in the pool. We knew who did it, and I won't embarrass that kid here. I got everyone out of the water, told him to retrieve his bodily emissions, he refused, shut down emotionally, and told me to shut up, which is akin to threatening to assassinate a public official so serious is the offense of disrespecting Big Mama. There were then 24 open-mouthed, gaping kids.

I went ballastic, but only on the inside, he was sent to his room, everyone had to leave the pool area, although Joey and Fabian offered to clean it up. That just provoked me into a verbal tirade about how will he, the offender, ever learn if we, the recipients of his feces, pick up after him? If he does not learn from this disgusting behavior, how patently unsuitable this poop deposit is for normal living, what will his future contain?

Edgar walked in just then, saw the steam shooting out of the top of my head, but wisely did not question me about it. A couple of Bubbas filled him in on the source of my aggravation, and he went to investigate the pool area. "Mama, we gotta clean it out, can't leave it there, we can't wait on _______ to do it, this has got to be the worst kind of pollution."

In my absolute fury and revulsion I cleaned the kitchen, dining room and living room for two solid hours, like if I can control that particular environment, my world will be right? My physical manifestation of cleaning could figuratively scrub away what had just happened? Chuy and Allen, glued to my side, Vanessa hovering and helping, Sonny and Joey took the rest of the kids outside to play...Edgar tended to the pool. We're talking a couple of tiny turds in a large 60,000 gallon pool, but it is the thought that counts.

This morning, now that I am calm, I will deal with this. This kid is seeing Dr. G for his nasty way of painting our walls with crappy internal brown, smelly "paint" when distressed. His first year here, years ago, a turd eeked out of his pants leg at school, much to the horror and dismay of his pregnant teacher. We all know that this is indicative of severe psychological distress, another duh, and this, in particular, is being addressed in therapy, but it is deeply stored in his psyche and he's holding on tight to whatever initially caused this resulting display of, "my life is sh*t, I'm spreading the sh*t. I want you to understand how sh*tty I feel."

This was Yolie's paraphrase for me back then, to help a middle class greenhorn like me to comprehend why someone would dig in their own bowels. I apologize for the grossness of this post, but this act is not uncommon in traumatized children. This is a graphic example of the kind of behaviors that cause adoptive parents to quit in disgust. I'm disgusted...I got that part right...but I won't quit working on this issue until this kid is grown and displays normalness on any planet.

This is a kid who can appear to be abnormally polite, a cover-up for his internal fears. A kid who was trying to raise his brothers and sister on the streets as his birth mom was in jail and had left them in the care of a grandmother who put them out like an unwanted litter of puppies. Toilet training did not involve the use of a functioning facsimile of a bathroom. When the kids finally land in my house after multiple placements...what do I expect? Maybe not this, but this is what I have to work with, gotta do what I can, find the help he needs...and pool disinfectant.

Yes, loneliness is often appealing to me, and our family switched light bulbs years ago.