Some complaints that no one wants to hear!!!

Alyssa is babysitting my cousin Kendra's boys, Dominic, age 7 and Devante, age 4. She is there 2 days a week, it started out as 4 but after ONE week my aunt's neighbor became available and Alyssa was more than happy to give up two days to her! I think you all know about Kendra. I am not even going to get into it. She's my cousin, she's 26, divorced, her mom has custody of her two boys, she has her 2 year old daughter in Miami with her pimp/boyfriend/baby-daddy. She's a fine, up-standing citizen. My aunt receives no child support from her or their father. She won't go after her daughter because she's afraid she'll get arrested because of the outstanding warrants against her. She won't go after the father because she's afraid he'll try to get custody. Yeah, he can't afford $200 a month and he's going to take them full time? I think not. Besides which, I think the court can see, oh yeah, she's had them for three years, you have paid not one dime, she has not asked for one dime, now she's asking and you want them? I don't think so. They would see that it was only to avoid support.

The reason Aly was more than happy to give up half her income is that Dominic is a holy terror. He hits and kicks Devante, then when Aly puts him in time out he screams and yells and kicks the bedroom door and when that fails to get a response out of her (because it does get a response out of everyone else so that is what he is used to) he comes out of the room and hits and kicks Devante some more. Aly had scratches all over her legs the first week from him kicking at her. This past week they were at the park, he wanted to go home "the long way" Aly did not, Devante did not, but Aly said ok figuring she'd rather not have the tantrum and Devante is a sweet natured child. He did not spend much time with his mother. Dominic did. Most of Devante's time with his mother he was an infant. So they start on the long way and he changes his mind but as far as Aly is concerned there is no point turning back then so she says we're going this way and he throws himself on the ground and starts screaming. Aly calls home, Rob told her to walk away, just leave him, he'll follow. So she did and he did and by the time they got back to the house he had given up the screaming. I told Aly it will take a little time but hopefully, according to behavior modification, he will learn that she will not respond to negative behavior so he will not employ it to get her attention. Since no one got kicked that day, maybe it is starting to work.

Now, Aly is watching them at their house because my aunt really cannot afford to keep these kids and she absolutely cannot afford full time day care for two kids, one of whom is a 4 year old still in diapers. So Aly is only making $25 a day for putting up with this nonsense. However, she does nothing all day anyway, she can text her friends and go on myspace at my aunt's house too so at least this way she gets paid. But my point is that my aunt is not going to get away with paying $100 a week for day care any place else! What I am really saying, I guess, is beggar's can't be choosers.

So the other day my aunt calls me and asks if I have a minute to talk. She doesn't want to get Aly in trouble but how do we deal with her when she doesn't put stuff back where it belongs? She has been baking (which she was told she could do) but she doesn't put things back in the right place. She's cleaning up, but not "right". I said "Yeah, we don't. That's just Aly." And then I said, "I mean, she knows where stuff goes here so it's usually not an issue. If it is I would just call her and say 'put this where it goes'. But that's it." Apparently my aunt has never heard of choosing your battles. She's not leaving a mess, she's trying to put things away, what exactly is your complaint here? Tell her she can't bake then. I don't know what you want me to say.

Then she tells me that she told Aly that day to give the boys cereal or pancakes (from the freezer) for breakfast. But she thinks Aly made them eggs anyway and she is going through too many eggs and she can't be buying three dozen eggs a week. My gut response to this was "Are you fucking kidding me?" But what I said was "Did you specifically say not to make eggs today? Because if not, she may have made them for lunch. She made eggs almost every day when she got home from school." I said Aly was good for following the letter of the law but not necessarily the spirit and she may not have made eggs for breakfast which is what you told her not to do. OK, so we're letting that one go.

Then she tells me Aly was going through her stuff in the bathroom, which I can agree is completely unacceptable and there is no need for her to be doing and said I would talk to her about it. Aly says she was not going through her stuff in the bathroom, however, she has a history of that. She used Lisa's mascara one day when she was watching her girls. There are items missing from my room (which she tried to say Lisa did-yeah, Lisa took face powder when she doesn't even wear make-up and sparkly, flavored body powder for what reason?) So, I think she did go through the stuff in the bathroom so I said "Whatever, say out of her shit."

But seriously, I am SO annoyed about the eggs and the not putting things back exactly how they go. If you don't like it, put them in day care or summer camp and pay $250 a week for it, then you won't have a bored 15 year old in your house. And if you can't afford the $250 then suck it up, buy some more eggs and let your stuff not be perfect for two months. Your daughter is a prostitute, maybe you have bigger things to worry about!!!

Oh yeah, and she was upset because when Dominic was screaming in the park she called home instead of calling her and why didn't she just call her? I dunno, because she's 15 and her gut response is to call her own parents for help. Why does it matter? I don't think she should call her because that will probably make Dominic worse. My aunt will make idle threats through Aly and then he'll be even worse. I told Aly to just call us, it was fine.

Yeah, so I already bitched to my dad about some of this stuff because it's his sister. He totally agrees with me that she can't handle these boys and needs to end them to their dad. But he doesn't want to be involved so I try not to complain too much to him. I don't want to say anything to Rob because he gets really pissed off about it. He wants to tell Kendra off, which is not going to do any good. But he'll get all worked up and I don't want to deal with that. So, there ya go...my rant!