Problem Child

Do you have one?
We have one.
It’s a girl and its name is Geneva. Beautiful name for a Tasmanian Devil, yes?
And it’s entirely not her fault, due to the fact that she was dumped at birth in a 3rd world orphanage. The institution was basically a step up from a concentration camp, and I’m not foolin’ with that description. Anyway, we flew half way around the world and adopted this poor creature when she was almost 7 years old. She’d spent her entire life, her developmental years, neglected and starved and when we found her she weighed a whopping 29 pounds and wore 2-3T clothes at 7 years of age. It was beyond sad. She had a bloated belly with flaccid spindly legs, she boar open soars all over her body, her hair had fallen out in chunks, her lips and nail beds were blue. Later, back in the good old U.S. of A. and in the care of a wonderful pediatrician at the KU Medical Center (Rock Chock Jayhawks!) , the doc said, “I’ve never seen someone with so few red blood cells still be alive.”

Geneva had but one thing going for her; a sizzling smile and gung-ho attitude (from hell, we’ve discovered) - o.k, so that’s actually two things. The smile kept people from killing her and the attitude she used to keep herself alive. Her caregivers back at the Kazakhstan orphanage had given her the nickname “Chuda”, the Russian word for miracle, feminine form. It was her cheerful disposition in a wretched life which earned her that nickname, and God bless the orphanage workers, really. They often work for weeks at a time without pay, trying to keep the children alive on paltry excuses for food. Anyway, time to put away the violins and get to the meat of this here blog.

What in hell do you do when you’ve got a child that is simply the most irritating person on the face of the planet? Wow, that sure jumped gears mighty quick and dirty. And oh, it don’t sound too perty for a mommy to say that, neither. My darling husband and I grapple with this daily, as we’ve spent 5 years trying to ‘fix’ our little Chuda. The first 4 years we did it on our own (well, mostly me, because I’m the mom and everyone knows that the mom is the glue of every damn thing and he just pays for every damn thing. Probably in more ways than one. But I digress…). And so my poor husband, well, he struggles to tolerate her. Her behavior, similar to that of a Labrador Retriever puppy on cocaine – and with Alzheimers – who you cannot please no matter what you do - and with time and age, a defiant streak that leads to violent outbursts of temper, has lead me to eat many a drive-thru fry. Charming, yes? So now, we’re on DRUGS! Yes indeed America, solve it all with some pills washed down with a side of desperation and you’ve got another kid on Ritalin. And do you know what? I’d like to sloppy kiss those drug whores at Ciba-Geigy (whose Ritalin and its sister drugs netted them a modest 3.1 BILLION dollars in 2003). Geneva’s brain, it’s like swiss cheese, man. Information flies around in there, bouncing like super-balls on speed, with no place to find purchase. To watch her try to sit still is painful. And I know kids fidget for Godssake – but this takes fidgeting to a new and harrowing level. She’ll pick at her cuticles until blood pours from them…so then ask her to do a math worksheet. The math sheet becomes history and a lovely example of shredded, bloody paper. The Ritalin has ended those most gory days. I saw her suffering so. If she needed insulin I’d make sure she had it. To me, this is a similar call. She should actually be in the 6th grade now, but can eek along in the 4th grade with lots of help while simultaneously dragging down the Maryland State Assessment tests, much to the chagrin of everyone involved. But I’ve gotta hand it to her - even tho it takes every single brain cell she’s got, that Chuda spirit hangs in there. I tell ‘ya, if it had taken ME a year to learn plus from minus….thats how long it took her. M&M’s on the table, every night for a year, “Geneva, this sign means we ADD M&M’s and this sign means we take them away”….every night, for a year. She got the award for finally learning it and I got….damn old, yep, thats what I got…. Meanwhile, well meaning onlookers, mostly family, insisted that she was “just like so-n-so” who was also very active. Sure.

Well, so what do you do when the most annoying person you know is your own child? And frighteningly, I allow myself to say that out loud because it’s just…it’s just…sooooooo damn true! And I’ll say this again, yet again, its not her fault, its not her fault, its not her fault. She was abandoned like garbage. Unwanted human refuse. Yet when they dumped her, she was still fresh and new. 7 years in a hell hole will turn anyone into a train wreck. Geneva has Reactive Attachment Disorder, Sensory Integration Disorder, severe ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and we think she was a fetal alcohol baby. So she’s a RAD, SID, ADHD, ODD, FAS kid. WOW! Friggin’ CONGRATULATIONS to all of us!! I’d like to take this special time to send a big SHOUT OUT to the bastards who left her in state care - two sets of family who knew she was there and never once checked on her in 7 years! She could have been better, you know. She didn’t start out with all those acronyms after her friggin’ name. They were put there by poverty, oppressive government, lack of birth control. And now we, as her parents, are trying to erase all those letters after her name and holy crapola it is HARD and is it NOT fun and….and we can’t give up. Even tho we can’t stand her most of the time. And we can’t stand her because all of those disorders I named, all those things WRONG with her, all result in behaviors that are not good. They are not good, my friends. Children can’t raise themselves, they need love, guidance, hell - they need FOOD for pity-sake. My kid didn’t have that stuff, so now she fights an uphill battle in the most competitive society in the world. She’ll give you her last pencil or the only treat she won in class for behaving. Geneva’s birthday presents were mostly opened by her little sister, at Geneva’s insistence. Someone sent her money, she pressed for half to go to her sister. Yet, she’ll steal you blind five minutes later. She’ll shove the hell out of someone not moving fast enuf in the lunch line. She will lie to your face like she went to the O.J. school for sociopaths and took “Deny, deny, deny 101.” So we sit here, between these two really sticky, jabby, uncomfortable boulders which are squishing us until we want to SCREAM. One rock is compassion, the other intolerance. I have no tolerance for liars, I have less respect for stupid people than I care to admit - man whenever I have to go to Wal Mart and observe the teeth to tattoo ratio I feel my own I.Q. drop about 20 flippin’ points - so given that I am such an intolerant bitch, how do I bolster myself to keep working with this child for all eternity? She’s MINE. I signed papers-n-shit. You might be thinking something really mushy and touching right now like it’s ‘love’ or something that will keep me going. Hell no. It’s not about love, because I don’t even know how much I really love her. When someone is annoying you 90% of their living, breathing moments, it kind of squeezes the love right outta there. I, and my darling husband, will keep doing this because if we do not….if we do not…..society will have to ‘deal’ with this child who is a fraction away from being the latest statistic of some horrible sort. She is unpredictable, under-emotional, and disconnected yet angry. What a frightening combination. I will not raise a ’school shooter’. I will ALWAYS know what is happening in our garage. I WILL monitor her future computer, phone, diary, yes I will. I will dog her thru Mayberry with a pair of cursed binoculars for as long as necessary. She will be dragged to therapy as long as I’m legally able to make it happen. Yet, she has the most gentle ease with developmentally delayed children and she will stand up to stop bullying of others in her presence. Then again, 2.1 nano-seconds later she’ll shove the crap out of someone in her way or simply slug them because they “made her mad.” She is not ‘lost’ yet. We’ve had 5 years to undo the first 7, most developmentally important years. I’ve got about 5 more to go until she’ll be on her way to 18. I promise I’ll do my best to turn out an acceptable facsimile of a person. Since she began medication she has improved at least 60%, maybe even more. Personally I don’t even take aspirin for a headache until it’s been relentless for at least 8 hours, but as far as this little orphan and her whacked out brain go, “better living thru chemistry” I say! What therapy don’t fix, the pharmacy will! Unfortunately, there is no pill for abandonment. No pill for neglect, starved brain cells, or a tortured and lonely soul.

So if you see me in the drive thru, wave and pray will ‘ya? I need all the fries and angels I can get my racked little hands on.