Focusing on Itty Bit

My Itty Bit has never had it easy. From the day she was born she's been surrounded by chaos. Her dad and I fighting was probably the least of her problems...as sad as that sounds.

Her older sister despised her right from the start. I suppose it had to do with DQ being an only child for 5 years. I imagine her psychological problems also played a large part. DQ always treated her like ... I'm sitting here trying to think of how to describe this... It's hard to sum up. 

Early on, we knew we couldn't leave Itty Bit alone with DQ. There were sneaky attempts to hurt her. Physically hurt her. As they got older, no matter what DQ did Itty Bit still worshiped the ground her big sister walked on.  DQ used this admiration to her advantage. Manipulating her at every possible turn.

Towards the end, the interactions were straight up nasty and hateful. DQ had no reservations about screaming horrible things at her sister, with the intent of hurting her. At some point in the last year, Itty Bit stopped blindly following her sister, and began to hate her right back. It took 10 + years for that child's spirit to be crushed and her heart broken. But as far as Itty Bit is concerned, if you cross her Momma, it means war. 

And this poor kid doesn't get a break. When she goes to her dad's house it's a nightmare. She doesn't remember much of the fighting her father and I did. But she has a front row seat to the kind of person he is now. She put the pieces together and understands why I left him. 

She uses facebook to message me when she's there.  Often he won't let her use the phone to call me. I recall back to Christmas break, when I got a message saying, "Come get me, right now. Bring your gun."  Well of course I freaked out. Her dad lives almost an hour away. So I called the police and sent them out there. Then I got my best friend and we rode out to get her.

You know the situation is bad when you tell your bestie, "wait in the car, if I go in the house and don't come back in 5 minutes, call the police!" Oh, and we were both armed.  The Douche (ex-husband) tried to argue, but ultimately, I got her. She didn't go back to visit for almost 2 months. She didn't want to. 

In the summer, we are supposed to switch, one week on, one week off. Every time she spent the week at his house, I heard about fighting. Twice this last week I got messages saying The Douche and his girlfriend were going at it. This is my last straw.

I had previously told Itty Bit that if at anytime she doesn't want to go back, just say the word and I'll make it happen. But now, I'm making an executive decision. Enough is enough! She is not going back. I got her back yesterday morning, and she informed me that she tried to record the fighting with her ipod. 5 of them!!! The sound didn't come through. And also... they got physical, in the middle of the day with the kids watching. Are you fucking kidding me? No! Hell No! 

I told Itty Bit that I wasn't going to send her to Dad's anymore. She's ok with that. And I mentioned something like, 'If he doesn't like it, he can take me to court.' Well she sat up a little straighter and said, "And then I'll tell the judge about all the fighting and I don't want to go back."

Because you know what? It's time for Itty Bit to have some normalcy in her life. No more fighting, violence or anger. She's put up with the chaos in this family for WAY too long. At this point, everyone else can fuck off, because I'm focusing on Itty Bit. I no longer care about offending or pissing other people off. I don't care about the opinions of anyone who thinks they know best. Itty Bit and I are going to spend some time "catching up." I may spoil her a little. God Damn it, she's earned it.

Last night, Mr. Security and his son, (We're going to name him Stretch cuz the kid is over 6 ft tall) came over for dinner. After dinner I overheard the kids talking, laughing, sharing... Being kids. Stretch talks with her like she's a person. A human being that matters. They took turns sharing youtube videos. Neither dominated the controller. He didn't piss her off or make her cry or try to scare her or talk her out of her candy. They genuinely enjoy each others company. Which is wonderful, because I really like Mr. Security, but if Itty Bit had a problem with either of them, I would have to let them go.

I thought about putting her back in therapy. And I'm still sort of thinking about it. But I honestly believe what she really needs is time with me. Her sister used every bit of energy I had. There wasn't much left for Itty Bit. Now we have time. And peace. We are going to surround ourselves with good people who don't stress us out. We are going to do things that make us happy. I am going to put my energy into being the best Mom I can be for her.