Its been a while since I’ve updated the old journal for one of two reasons.

1- I don’t have the energy and 2, she has been behaving herself for a change. None of the drama of recent months thank god.

We had our second appointment with her psychiatrist yesterday they recommend anti-depressants for her. 25 mg’s for the first two weeks and then we’ll see how it goes from there. So between Mammy2 and herself on anti-depressants the home life is going to be a barrel of laughs. In fairness to the the kid, she has improved a lot mentally, we feel in the last few weeks, gotten a lot more confidence and is really making an effort.

We also had to lay down some new rules in relation to bedtime, which she was delighted with, obviously. She’s warming to the idea, even though no teenager has had to go through the trauma of bedtime like she has. Bless. Her best mate is staying over more often with us, which we don’t mind at all. In fact, we’re glad, she seems to love it with us, says we’re like a proper family.

Her family are a bit off, it was her birthday last Tuesday, so we got her a card and a cd and bought a cake complete with candles etc and sang, well, Mammy2 sang and I mouthed happy birthday to her.

She was chuffed. The kid tells us yesterday that the family forgot about her birthday. She’s an only child? They got her a present and that was it. What more did she want? Good lord, I wonder how some people can be allowed to be parents. So, we’ve inherited another kid! Well, if it keeps the child happy, then we’re happy. Speaking of the child, the ongoing battle with her year head continues. I seriously think some people are not cut out to be teachers.

Rules and regulations is all they seemed to be concerned with. There are certain rules in the school that the kid just has problems with the main one being the makeup. She wears black eye makeup which is bound to attract more attention then the ordinary makeup the other kids wear. However, she is doing her best, she lightens it as best she can, also she refuses to wear the tie right up to the neck as its very constricting so she wears it where it can be seen and according to the rules it has to be visible. Well, the last 3 days, her year head and class tutor have been chasing her around the place checking makeup and tie.

The year head had the audacity to ring me at work the other day and basically say that she looked like she’s spent the night in a ditch, with her uniform crumpled, tie not on properly, etc.

When I asked the kid about this , she went mad, and to be honest, I check her most mornings before she gets on the bus and she looks fine, she takes great pride in her appearence, even if she does look like, and I quote, a giant snot!
We’re not those parents that think their child is saint, on the contratry we know exactly what she’s like, a handful and a half, but give her a break!

Mammy 2 is ringing the vice principal today to discuss things with her and try and get those muppets to put some perspective on things.

1) She’s lost her mother less then 7 months ago.
2) She’s moved from the country to the city and had to adjust.
3) She’s changed schools twice already.

She gets up in the morning, goes into that hellhole, does as much of the work as she can and then we have hachet features and that other yoke
chasing her around the place telling her to check her tie???

I’d love to buy them a clue.

To top all this off, I haven’t been sleeping and the cranky head that’s upon my shoulders these days. Mammy 2 diagnosed it as my subconscious starting to force me to deal with things. Hmmmm, I hate when she’s right. Since I’ve stopped working at home, I’ve more time on my hands and more time allows me to dwell on things, always dangerous. So, now, every night, I’m awake for ages thinking of things.

On the plus side its nearly the weekend. And Mammy 2’s birthday. She’ll be 31, getting on a bit. She’s insistent that she’s not getting old, so much so that she refuses to even look the side of those Lowe Alpine jackets that most 30 something’s seem to be sporting. She thinks that once we go down that road, we’re doomed. Perms follow closely behind. I’m not sure what she’s been smoking, but anyway..

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 27th, 2005 at 6:49 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Its been a while and I know you have been anxious about what’s been happening in the life
of the kid for the last while. Well, would you believe is been fairly normal, I say fairly, because
I don’t see anything normal with this kid.

She’s been allowed back up town to ‘hang’ as long her best mate is with her and we check
in with her every 2 hours. Yes, she thinks we’re nuts and we probably are, but howandever
it works. She’s met up with some guy called T whose entire vocabulary consists of the following words, in no particular order:

“Legend, Respect, Pathera”

I don’t think he’s big on talking. He’s never seen without a bottle of Jack Daniels. Quite a catch for any young girl, methinks. Anyhew, it seems the more we like any guy she’s seeing, the less she likes him. There’s no chance of us liking this orangatang so she’ll probably marry him or something like that. I can see the bridal gown already, black with a hint of black. She’ll be like an extra from BeetleJuice.

I think though, being quite an articulate girl, she may soon tire of the words legend and respect and move onto someone with a braincell. She appeared to have a good day ‘hanging’ though.
She turned blue a couple of times while re-telling all that happened and I mean all. My ears were bleeding!

She skipped a couple of days last week due to stress over study and the junior cert. While we innocently thought putting her to bed would equal her going to sleep, she was lining up the books to study?
She’s a bit of a nocteral creature, not that this helps the following morning when she’s like the creature from the black lagoon.

We’ve set up a study timetable and so far its going well. When I say that, I mean its stuck up on the wall and that’s about it. She was supposed to do maths with me yesterday but was too busy imitating Julie Andrews in the sound of music by making trouser out of teatowels and tops out of socks. I kid you not, I was tucking her in last night and there was a big cut down the duvet cover. I’m convinced that if they were black, she’d be wearing them and singing “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens “!

I’ve stopped buying anything black as it appears to grow legs and walk out of my wardrobe.

We had our appointment with the Child Guidance clinic yesterday, finally. Someone had cancelled, so she was next on the list.
She never opened her mouth the whole time we were there. We explained what had been happening in relation to the cutting herself and then the trip to the A&E. She asked if we’d mind waiting outside while she spoke with the kid.

I had images of her wrestling the kid to the ground while trying to get her to talk. However, about 40 minutes afterwards she called us back in and told us the score. She reckons the kid is suffering from depression, as to the level of it or what she needs to do in relation to dealing with it, she recommended a psychcharist who would be able to assess whether counselling would help or she would need medication.

The doctor said its quite normal to suffer form this after losing someone you love and its part of the natural process of grieveing.

At least its a start. Solas have already told us that they would do the counselling if we wanted. The doctor also mentioned a support group for parents and guardians which was starting up in the Mater in February and thought it might be good for us to attend.

I’m not big on group therapy, I’m not big on therapy full stop, but the whole group aspect isn’t something I’d feel comfortable with.

We’ll see how things go.

Oh, the spirit came back. Remember that portal she opened, well, the other night I could have swore I heard her calling me. Went in to check on her and when I told her this, she got that wide eyed look and glanced around the room.

“Do you get that smell?”
“What smell?”
“The corn beef smell?”
“Nope”
“Its the spirit!”

While trying not to burst out laughing , I managed to keep a straight face and ask:

“A corn beef spirit?”

The following morning, she was having problems with the shower, which she blamed on the corn-beef spirit. So, at least we know he’s clean if he’s always in the shower. Just hope he’s not a perv.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2005 at 10:20 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

I was cool! Okay, it was only for about 5 minutes. She was texting a friend and talking about websites and apparently he looks after a forum or something, so she was all impressed with my credentials. Needless to say it didn’t last.

Yes, she arrived back in the capital with a bang on Friday night and what lovely weather awaited us. The rain and wind was mad, the wind was actually shaking the car. She was one of the few people left in the station and considering her attire, I’d say the rest of the people left before she took out her Grip Reaping equipment. She’s already taller then me , but with her 12 inch shoes, she towers. All in black, its a scary sight.

She was delighted to be home, demanding tea and flicking through the christmas pictures admiring herself! Well, she always comes out well in pictures. Without much sleep over the last week, she was a bit cantankerous so after a solid 2 hours in the bathroom I finally managed to get her to bed. 2 hours, of which only 30 minutes was when the actual shower was running?! What goes in there for the other 1 hr 30 minutes is beyond me as she comes looking much the same as she went in.

She slept until 2 the following day and then we were preparing ourselves for the whole heading up town and hanging lark.

When she said she wasn’t really bothered and could be go and play pool instead, my jaw had to be picked up off the ground. I tried to appear nonchlaent as I picked myself up off the floor. We headed to UGC to play for about an hour and then home again. She mentioned getting a part-time job as she was getting tired of just ‘hanging’ on a Saturday. Again, nonchalence was the key as I got stuck to the front of the Luas with shock. As I flew past her, welded to the front windscreen, I told her that I’d take a look around for some jobs for her.

Saturday night was spent in listening to the wind and rain and watching Eddie’s latest DVD, sexie. Special offer in HMV as a christmas purchase. The man is a comedy genisus.

Mammy 2 cooked stew and for the day that was in, it was perfect. Warmed the bones of ya! The kid had a full bowl. I was beginning to think that there was no food in Athlone at all!
Another 12 hours sleep that night and she was in grand form on the Sunday, she even tided her room. I didn’t hit the floor at this, for tidying, read, re-arranging. It all looks the exact
same to me, but to her, its tidied.

Tried looking up jobs on the internet for herself, found one and I thought it was hilarious to picture her in this job. Childrens’s entertainer and face painter in a leisureplex. I could just see all the little kids heading back to Mammy and Daddy complete with black eye backup and white faces and asking why they lied to them about Santy Claus. She’d last all of an hour. She of course wants to work in Asha, that terrible shop which charges a fortune for clothes with holes in them already.

We spent the evening trying to think of kids names , for the child that hasn’t even been conceived yet. We’re trying to gently introduce the idea that there might be another little person joining us at some stage. While we are delighted with her interest in names, the child is not being christened Dime Bag. She got over it pretty quickly.

This morning, at around 7.30 I was standing in her room with a hair straightner. Yes, you need to be wide awake in the morning around this one. She was in good spirits heading to school. Lets home it stays that way.

Now to job searching…for her and me!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2005 at 5:16 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The end is nearing, as the four men of the Apocaplyse ride towards Dublin with her in tow,
our quality time must come to an end. Dare I say I was starting to miss her. Those loving
yells from the bedroom looking for tea. The scattered crisp/chocolate wrappers scattered
around the floor. The paints dripping off the wall. Tripping over some strange book about rock stars.
It was a fun few days but now we must return to being parents.

She’s back in school on Monday which is good as far as we’re concerned. It keeps her out
of divilment. She seems a lot better now that christmas is over, or maybe its our imagination
as we keep thinking things can’t get any worse and then she surprises us.

We haven’t heard anything back from the clinic yet and with three letters from doctors and counsellers you’d think we’d get some response.

I suppose we can give it until next week and see what happens from there. The last few days have been so relaxing its been great. People keep telling us that she’s at her most difficult age, you’re telling us!

And here we are thinking of doing it all again with a new one. Mad we are, mad I tell you.
To top it all off here I am looking for another job. Getting very tired of being peed around in here.
I didn’t spend four years getting a degree and another 6 years building up expierence to bug fix and
work on the helpdesk. Call me strange!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 7th, 2005 at 7:00 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

So we made it through the christmas in one piece, just about. Thank god its all over for another year and we can go back to things being normal, well, sortof normal.

As normal as life gets with a 15 year old in your life. She was down in her friend’s for a couple of days and it was great to get the break. You don’t realise how much time
they take up until they’re gone and then you have suddenly loads of spare time on your hands. She got loads of presents over the christmas from everyone, including Mammy 2’s
family which I was amazed by. Sometimes they surprise me!

She got clothes vouchers and this involved heading to that horrible shop Asha. Its black, black and more black with a hint of black. She got a long dress and finally school shoes. They have
about a 10 inch heel on them and I look like I have the Angel of Death on my shoulder when she’s all dressed up in that garb. Her latest look is punk apparently. The day we were due to head
down and visit the relatives and Mam’s grave, she arrives out looking like something off a retro 70’s video. Red plaid skirt, red and black tie over a black corset, tights with hand made rips no less
and as always her black docs. The sister , who was home from Holland with the boyfriend nearly had heart failure and uttered the immortal lines ” You’re not wearing that down are you?” Myself and
Mammy 2 hid in the wardrobe and waited for all hell to break loose. It didn’t, but there was a lot of mutterings under her breath.

She was back from Athlone yesterday and it was good to hear her voice scream for tea from the room. All was going well, until at around 12.15 I asked her to get off the phone to her mate D and
get ready for bed. In a very serious voice, she yelled back through the door that she couldn’t get off the phone, it was a vitally important phone call. D thought that they were being haunted by someone?
I told her she had 10 minutes - and then the fun started. I was just getting into bed thinking all was well, when I heard a scream and the kid was calling for me. Herself and her mate have been sending each other voice messages, some new thingy with her phone and in one of them , whatever happened with it, but D’s voice didn’t come out and some scary voice did. Yes, scary voice.
She was convinced that they were being chased by some demon? Or it could have been Mam. All of this was being delivered while Mammy 2 was choking on her laughter in the next room. I calmly asked why Mam would be intercepting voice messages between her and D and got a look. One of those ‘you will die screaming’ looks that she seems to reserve for us Mammies.

So, she wanted to sleep in with us as she felt a presence in the room.

I set up the bed in our room and waited for her to get ready. In the meantime she’s shouting out from the bathoom that it would have something to do with one of her rituals that she does. She is into Wicca and all that stuff so she does rituals every so often.
She mentioned something about maybe something went wrong and she opened a gateway. At this stage, I thought Mammy 2 was going to fall out of the bed with laughter. I tried to maintain a serious conversational voice saying that I didn’t really like the idea of gateways being opened in the house and were we now living on a hellmouth like Buffy? She paused in the brushing of her teeth, probably to roll her eyes.

She also mentioned the fact that she had woken up once in her room and felt a dark presense in her room and swore that she heard it laughing malevolently. Mammy 2 explained to me that this wasn’t good laughter. Every now and then dark shadows would also appear in her room. Judging the amount of posters she has in her room, I’m suprised there’s not more dark voices.
Herself and D were txting each other about scary voices and apparently D’s reflection was changing. Into, wait for this, an evil form. I advised her to tell D not to look in the mirror and to go to bed with a crufix and some holy water.

More glares followed.

“We’re not christians”

Pentacles were being charged and she advised D to stay away from mirrors. It was getting very serious. I asked her what we were going to do with the gateways in the house and she mentioned purifying her room the following morning and hoping that would work. She was still annoyed that we weren’t taking her possesion or whatever it was seriously. Mammy 2 suggested the two of us pretending to be dead when she came in from the bathroom but I didn’t think she’d see the humour in that.

While it was hard to take her seriously, while talking of pentacles and evil forms, I did feel sorry for her as she was geuninely scared. At the same time I was pondering how one could accidently open a gateway to hell or whatever it was? Did you knock over a candle or something and voila, you have two dark presences in the room. While I don’t know much about wicca, I cannot see how the rituals she does, which are supposed to be a celebration would entice evil spirits or whatever it was. I would swear it was a static in the voice message, but suggesting that may bring a malevolent curse onto me.

She’s talking to heading to Athlone for the rest of her holidays. I’m not going to get excited until she texts us telling us she’s on the train!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 4th, 2005 at 3:31 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.