forgive me now, i'm sleepy and this is honestly gonna be a mish-mash of thoughts.

this weekend, i let my friend's little cousin stay over. she's 13 and LOST. her mom is on drugs in b-more and apparently her father never really wanted her and she knows that. she hates her step mom but doesn't say much about her. her dad was at his last straw with her, so my friend took her in to be a part of her family for a couple of months. (otherwise, she would've gone to foster care.) the problem with my friend taking her in is she treats her as if she's a boarder. she doesn't try to bond with her even though it's PAINFULLY OBVIOUS she needs female role model.

the little girl is doing horrible in school, her attitude isn't great, and neither is her mouth. she ended up stealing $65 from my friend's husband and that's where i came in. I tried to swoop in and act as a mediary because they were ready to send her to her dad's. i tried to tell them
1) she's bored
2) imagine how she felt growing up KNOWING your parents don't care about you, of course she's going to be distant & have an attitude
3) if given an allowance, it will help her confidence and make her feel empowered and that the things she did (chores) was worth something.
4) she needs a female's touch
plus other things. i also talked to her for a while to see where she was coming from and explained to her where the adults in her life were coming from. i saw the light click on in her head. ever since, it's been decent at the house, but she's still fucking up at school.

so anyway, she spent the night and i took her and my children to the youth slam. we didn't stay long b/c i knew they wanted to have fun. the important thing was she was there, she saw young adults involved in something different and she heard greg speak the truth. i found out that it was only her 2nd time in philly. the first time she only went to the train station. i saw how a young girl behaves when she has NO positive influence. and honestly, i wasn't used to it. i'm scared for the kind of woman she will grow up to be. she will have sooo much hatred and resentment in her heart, that she won't be able to trust. but that can be avoided if someone cared...daily...now. and my friend just isn't going to do it. i can't be a daily presence, but i can and will be a presence. i'm hoping that it will help a little. the next sleepover will include a trip to the art museum.

the funny thing is, on sunday night, when we came home from a meeting (i drag my kids with me to my event planning meeting too sometimes.) alyssa gave me a hug out of the blue and said 'thank you.' now, me being me, i looked at her like . and she smiled and said, 'no mommy, seriously. thank you for all of the things that you do with us and for us and all of the places that you take us.' and she was sincere. i guess she noticed everything this weekend too.

sometimes kids just need more than what they can get at home. sometimes kids act out just because they know people figure they'll act out... and because it gets them attention. just ask my little cousin, who although he was supposedly on punishment, was able to leave home, get drunk with a friend, come home sick, and almost get away with it, if it wasn't for his brother diming him out. where was mom? in her room the whole time, oblivious, worrying about her own life.

but he got some attention though. if he hadn't gotten drunk, he wouldn't have.

the things some of these kids go through, i can't imagine, even though i been around it all my life. my parents cared.

It's wonderful when people take interest. Young adults need activity and exposure. The things my mother exposed us to early had a big effect on us. Music, art, discipline early on. That's why my husband and I make a very conscious effort to expose Pie to the entire universe around her. When you realize how vast the world is your problems don't seem so big. Hopefully we can keep it up because I remember what it was like when my moms got caught up in the stresses of her own life with no outlet of her own. It was like we disappeared. That's when the suspensions and the animosity started to pile up. As an adult it took time to work through and is taking. One of the biggest things for teens to get past is that they are not responsible for the lives and problems of adults. Everything is not their fault. They require positive examples of adult life to see that the person they dream of being and the goals they set are actually achievable. Then they begin to push for something. Steak is not a reality in your world when all you've never even seen a picture of one and all you've ever been served is crumbs.