They were BOTH in jail

Yesterday I got a phone call on the house phone from “Inmate.” I didn’t answer. Then I got a phone call on my cell phone from “Inmate.” Highly suspicious. I went to the jail inmate site. (Sad that I know how to access that) and put in Ryan’s name and low and behold he was indeed an inmate. It still didn’t make sense to me as why on earth would he call me. My phone rang “Inmate” again and since it wasn’t collect I let my curiosity get the best of me. It was from “Inmate Jenny.” Touching, they were both in jail. Apparently they got drunk on Tuesday night and this time Jenny beat up Ryan. He is out already he just got booked for public intoxication. Jenny got booked for public intoxication, felon assault and five outstanding warrants.
I pretty much yelled at her for her 3 minute call. She said she was worried she would lose her job and I told her she should be worried she was going to lose her !@#!# kids. She called again a few minutes later to cry that she didn’t want to be there and that she was cold. I yelled for another three minutes. She wanted me to go get the girls from her house. They were there with Mike. I went and got them. It took 20 minutes for Mike to answer the door. I actually called dispatch to send over an officer but he opened the door before they got here so I had the girls when they arrived.

Ryan got released from jail at 10 am. I didn’t find this out until 8 pm. I couldn’t figure out why neither was on the jail docket. It was because Ryan had been released and Jen is booked under her maiden name. Jenny’s brother called me to tell me Jenny had been booked. I told him I was sick of being lied to and didn’t know what else to do. He said that Jenny should give the kids up for the adoption and that he had tried to help her for years but had given up because she just drags him down. He told me to do whatever I could to protect the kids.

Ryan still hadn’t called me at 8 at night so I called his dad. He said Ryan was home but in the shower. (No doubt). A little while later Ryan called and said I could bring the girls home. I said “they are in bed.” I told him I didn’t trust him not to get drunk and he told me he wouldn’t (No doubt). The girls really overwhelmed Alika yesterday she had to babysit while I worked and wasn’t looking forward to doing it again. I honestly didn’t know what to do so I called Heather and now she has the girls. It brought tears to my eyes. When I told Brie I was taking her to Holland’s she just sat there with a blank look and then her eyes sparkled and she looked at me like it was Christmas and kept saying “MY HOLLAN, you take me to see MY HOLLAN.” She said it all the way to their house. She is only three and hasn’t seen or spoken about Holland in 9 months but she remembers. It’s like those two are connected souls. It is almost scary. When I drove up to Heather’s Holland was sitting at the window like a little puppy waiting for Brie. Whatever this “connection” is it is there on Holland’s end too. Like I said it’s very intense. I only planned to leave Brie but Kylie wanted to stay too so I left them both.

When I got home I got a collect call from Jenny at the jail. I took it and told her it was the only collect call I would be taking. She wanted me to take the girls back to Ryan. I told her I was worried Ryan would get drunk and she assured me he wouldn’t. (No doubt).

Oh, and I called her work yesterday when I couldn’t find them thinking maybe she’d gotten out of jail and gone straight to work. She hasn’t worked there for a couple of weeks. The job she was crying from the jail that she might lose she lost weeks ago. I do not know why she always lies to me. It is so frustrating. She wanted me to check her bail, its $8000 for the old warrants they hadn’t posted a bail amount for the new charges. She said Ryan was going to post it and get her out as soon as it was listed. (No doubt). She wanted me to call Ryan and tell him to post it and put money on her phone card which I didn’t do.

I’ve talked to DCFS several times and they are opening a new case. I’m not holding my breath for them to do anything.

Breaking news! Ryan just called. Jenny will be in jail until May 11th. They can’t post bail and that’s when her hearing is. Just talked to Heather and she is going to call the DCFS worker and let her know she has the girls. Ryan says he is busy looking for a job (No doubt) and would be grateful if I take care of the girls. I promised him the girls were safe and being well taken care of.

Heather and I were talking about “the right thing to do.” Gee, where is the book on how to handle a situation like this.

What box does Sean go in?

The Census Bureau just called even though I sent in my form. “Is this the Lindsay-Cramer-Thomas-Vestal household” they asked. Perhaps they thought it was a boarding house. They wanted to make sure no one had been counted twice. They went through each person individually and asked if that person had perhaps been in jail on April 1. “No” I answered, “not even Grandma or Sean.” Were any of us in a halfway house, mental institution, domestic violence shelter or drug rehab center on April 1? “No” I answered, “not even Grandma or Sean.”


Next they started asking about Sean. What is his race? “His mom is Hispanic and his dad is white.” “What is his race?” She asks again. “His mom is Hispanic and his dad is white” I say again. She then reads me a list that does not include Hispanic and white and ask me again “what is his race?” This is getting tedious. “His mom is Hispanic and his dad is white.” “You can say white and other” she says. Ok, fine he’s white and other.” I wonder what President Obama is? Is he white and other? In reality Sean is white, Hispanic and black. Oh wait, he’s white and other, how quickly I forget.

After we get race settled she asks if Sean is related to us. “No.” She paused, “what is his relationship?” “We are his legal guardians.” At that point she puts me on hold. She didn’t have any more questions when she came back.
My take away from this call is that you can’t put Sean in a box. Oh wait, yes you can, Sean likes boxes I guess the Census just doesn’t have the right kind.

One "white" kid and one "white" kid and "other" in a box.

And the answer to why is..... Hispanic is not a race it is an ethniticity.
Kylie told me today her mom is brown like chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is not a race either. I guess he is not  mixed milk either is just "other, .

  Hispanic is not a race it's an ethniticity.Which makes what Sean is confusing. Is he in fact Indian because many Mexicans origins are Indian? His mom is very dark skinned, so is he really black and white?

2010 Census

The 2010 US Census includes changes designed to more clearly distinguish Hispanic ethnicity as not being a race. That includes adding the sentence: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races."[13][14] Additionally, the Hispanic terms are modified from "Hispanic or Latino" to "Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin".[13][14]

Although used in the Census and the American Community Survey, "Some other race" is not an official race,[10] and the Bureau considered eliminating it prior to the 2010 census.[15] As the 2010 census form does not contain the question titled "Ancestry" found in recent censuses, there are campaigns to get non-Hispanic West Indian Americans and Arab Americans to indicate their ethnic or national background through the race question, specifically the "Some other race" category.[16][17][18]

Thanks census lady. Because of you I learned something new.

Happy 16th Birthday David

LGBT

The homeless youth center called me last week and asked if I would talk to their kids during “group” about sex, STD’s, birth control and general health. I went to the center to talk to the director about what information she was looking for and asked what the age group would be and if it would be male/female or both. She said male and female and that 40% of their kids were LGBT. I sat there trying to figure out what LGBT was. I know a lot of acronyms but couldn’t place that one so I had to ask. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, hmm, never would have figured that one out. This led to the question, why are so many homeless youth LGBT? The answer, “because their parents kick them out.” I guess I should have seen that coming but it really did surprise me. Wow, really, that many parents kick their teenagers out of the house for being gay. Amazing.

Today I went and met with the kids. Nothing shocking, but I am not easily shocked, mostly just sad. I really see it more as a homeless youth singles center. They seem to either be having sex with or have had sex with each other. I told one of the guys that when you have unprotected sex with someone you are exposing yourself to everyone that person has had with sex. He wanted to know if that made him gay. There was also a lot of talk about who was in jail today. One of the guys was going to jail next week. He was pretty happy about it. He said for 120 days he could eat, sleep, exercise, it would make him quit smoking and he wouldn’t have to pay any of his court ordered fines.

I was mildly curious about the kid’s histories and how they came to be homeless but not curious enough to ask. I noticed that all the girls sitting at the table had been or were “cutters.” Not surprising given their life circumstances but intriguing. I wonder what percentage of homeless youth self mutilate. I expect it would be a high percentage.

I am grateful for my life!

Eleven Times

That’s how many times Sean’s father has been in jail since Kylie was born. Jenny said she sat down and added them up. I told her 10 of those times have been since Sean was born and she said “maybe so.” Why do I bring this up you ask? Because Ryan’s back in jail AGAIN I answer.

I am feeling frustrated that Jenny feels so compelled to lie to me about every little thing. I don’t know what she thinks I am going to do if she just tells the truth. I try not to take it personally she lies to everyone it’s her way of life. I’m not sure she even realizes she’s doing it.

My current frustration started with Kylie and preschool. In January I paid to register Kylie and her first month of preschool at the local elementary school. I told Jenny I’d get Kylie started but then she needed to pay the $25 per month. Yes, that is correct $25 per month. It is a very inexpensive public school preschool program. (I told Jenny she should enroll the girls in head start because it’s free but she missed the deadline. Even though I reminded her registration week, but she couldn’t do it because Ryan was in jail.) A couple of weeks ago I asked Kylie how school was and she said “I can’t go because my mom doesn’t have any money.” I asked Jenny if Kylie was going to school and she said “no, it’s year round school and they are out for a month.”

I let it drop. Last week I got a call from the pre-school teacher asking why Kylie hasn’t been to school. I said “because it’s year round and school is out.” She said “no, we aren’t year round and Kylie hasn’t been here since March 2.” She asked me for Jenny’s current phone number and address which I gave her. The next day I asked Jenny why Kylie wasn’t in school and she said because they didn’t have the $25 but she would have it at the end of the month. I thought about this for awhile. Do I pay the $25? It’s pretty frustrating because they have money for beer, cigarettes, Village Inn and movies but not preschool. And let’s not forget all the court fines Jenny pays every month to keep Ryan’s loser butt out of jail. But, no money for Kylie to go to preschool. In the end I decided it is important for Kylie to go to preschool because it’s the only positive in her life and I have to separate my feelings for her parents and do what is right for Kylie. I called Jenny and told her I would pay to get Kylie back in to preschool and that I would send her a check made out to the school. She asked me to take it to the school district. Are you kidding me?

I took Sean over to there house last night for his weekly overnight visit. Which I hate doing! The girls seemed fine, the house was fairly clean. Only one beer bottle on the porch. I told Jenny I had to go downtown today and would stop at the school district and pay Kylie’s school fee. Today I went to the school district. They had taken Kylie off the rolls and turned the account over to collections. To re-enroll Kylie in school I was supposed to drive to 4500 South and pay the collection agency. Are you freaking kidding me? I got the number for the collection agency. After being on hold for 15 minutes they let me pay the $27.90 fee with a credit card over the phone. Yes, a collection agency for $25. Then I had to have the collection agency tell the school I had paid so I could pay the rest of the years fee to put Kylie back in school. An additional $25. Yes, all that drama for $52. I don’t know why Jenny couldn’t just tell me the truth before it went to collections! I suppose because I told her I expected her to pay for preschool after I paid the initial $50. Today I suggested she put the girls in head start next year so money is not an issue. There is of course the secondary issue of someone actually getting out of bed in the morning and walking her to school.

This all led to the second part of my frustration. I had to take Jenny the receipt so she could put Kylie back in school tomorrow. When I got there Jenny said “Ryan’s in jail again.” Why? According to Jenny yesterday around 6 (which is the exact time I took Sean over there) she and Ryan were walking to Smiths to buy ice cream for Kylie when a police car pulled up. Officer Stuck stepped out (He’s the officer that has arrested Ryan the last six times, they are on a first name basis.) and said “Ryan, I see you are with Jennifer and are in violation of your restraining order.” He then arrested him and took him to jail. Interestingly, Jenny says the restraining order was dropped a year ago and the court said it is their mistake and will let him out tonight. When I got home and looked at the jail docket, Ryan was in fact arrested on Friday at 2 pm. They are holding him for four or five outstanding charges. I am flabbergasted as to why she didn’t tell me it happened on Friday. Does she think my opinion some how changes because it happened on Friday instead of Sunday. Strange.

She also said that Ryan got a job at the M&M factory and that they are going to Arizona for a week at the end of the month and that she is surprised that DCFS has not been to their house. I’m not holding my breath for any of that.

Weekend

We had a little pre-birthday party for Art and Nate. Art and Char left town today and won’t be back until Art is 50. Nate will be two this month so a cake was in order. Look at those dirty little faces. (Nate and Sean’s not Art’s). Nate just took his spoon to the cake!

By the time they got out of the bath their dirty faces were clean.

This week the city is picking up yard trimmings so we moved our big pile from the back yard

To the front yard. How is that for exciting? I love spring clean up week. You curb it and someone else picks it up and makes it go away.

Alika's back yard hair salon is OPEN!

We took Sean to his parents tonight. He’s been going over on Sunday night for the past few weeks. He is always excited to go see his sisters. He is equally excited to come home but he sure does love playing with Kylie and Brie. I couldn’t help but compare Sean's weekend to his sisters. Jenny called me on Saturday to tell me Ryan had been “jumped” and robbed (again). Friday night about 11 pm he went out to buy some cigarettes. He was minding his own business when a group of guys started talking to him. They asked him if he had any money and when he said no they jumped him and beat him up. Hmm, In February he had a similar conversation with a guy in the same neighborhood and then that guy got in his car and chased Ryan and his friend and ran them over. His friend was in the hospital for a week and had three surgeries. Ryan had a broken nose. Interesting how he gets assaulted twice in two months while minding his own business. I asked Jenny if she was using all her money from work to pay people to beat Ryan up to get even with him for beating her up. She just laughed. I felt bad for the girls because Jenny worked all day Saturday and left the girls home with a sleeping Ryan who had even less desire than usual to take care of them. I always worry about there being drama while Sean is visiting. I don’t want him exposed to violence, drugs or alcohol. Then again I don’t want the girls exposed to it either but I don’t have any say

Does a bear poop in the woods?

No, it poops in the potty? 

Now that's a bubble bath!

Dino Land

OK, so it wasn't really dino land, it was the museum of history at the U. They had a "special dinosaur" presentation. It was in reality two people in a dinosaur suit. Kind of lame, but it still scared Sean and he didn't want to touch it. He prefers his dinosaurs like Elmos either stuffed and quiet or on tv.  Lucky for him they're extinct. He does think dinosaur bones are cool. That's the only thing he wanted to look at. He didn't care about the rocks or bugs or anything else. When we left he asked "where'd the dinosaurs go?" I told him a big meteor crashed into the planet and.......

I couldn't get Laila and Sean to look up at the same time.

I love this picture of Tyson.

Now that the weather is getting warm I'm ready for a trip to dinosaur park (or whatever it's called) in Ogden.

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Carter

We started our Easter weekend with dinner at Tippenyaki for Carter's birthday. When the hostess asked Sean what he wanted he asked for a hot dog. Guess in the future we'll bring one with us and throw it on the grill. It was a great dinner.

I can't believe Carter is 27. That means I have a son in (As Dan pointed out) in his late 20's. How can that be when I am only 30? Do the math, it just doesn't make sense. As if there wasn't enough chocolate being consumed let's have a chocolate birthday cake.

My cousin John and his wife Julie came to the Easter egg hunt with Larissa and Hailey. They were immediate best friends with Kylie. Maybe it was the polka dot theme.

Every year, I'm the Easter bunny. I tried to get Grandma to wear it but no dice. When Sean first saw me in the suit he was not happy. He looked confused, then scared, then annoyed, "take that off" he said. After the hunt started he got over it. Are you wondering why Steph has a basket and no kid? Me too. There are a lot of pictures of her hunting on her own.

This is such a classic childhood "cousin" picture. I love it.

Couldn't pick a favorite. Of course there are none where everyone is looking at the camera. If there were it wouldn't be such a classic picture.

Hmm, there's a baby and it's too little to run. What shall we do? Penny looks eggdorable.

And for a fianale. Alika decided she wanted to paint Bries finger nails. (Alika and Brie have a bond, it's quite cute) Alika brings out the polish and is letting Brie pick a color. I think she must of opened a bottle of polish and all the little girls in the house smelled it and came running. Instead of 10 fingers and 10 toes she painted 40 fingers and 40 toes. It made the little girls very happy. They couldn't decide on a color so most of them had a different color on each nail. How girly is that?

Nightmares and Committees

I defended my thesis this morning. I had heart palpations the entire time!


Last night I had a nightmare. I was being chased through a swamp by the “swamp thing”. He was like a big snake with legs. I was trying to swim through muddy water but kept getting caught up on tree roots and dirty water was in my mouth. In my dream I was thinking “I hope I don’t catch any diseases from this swamp water” and "I hope the swamp thing doesn’t catch me and kill me". Once I got out of the swamp Big Foot started chasing me. At that point I woke up with a start. That was a really weird dream, Big Foot and Swamp Thing. Strange! I got up drank some water to get the taste of swamp out of my mouth and went back to sleep. In my next dream I had an ostomy. I had the biggest stoma I have ever seen. It covered a quarter of my abdomen. My colostomy bag kept filling up with crap, I would change it and it would be full of crap again immediately!

Weird, weird, weird! What does all of this mean? It wasn’t until after my defense that I figured it out. My committee is made up of monsters and my thesis is a bunch of crap that continues to spew out of me even though I have been disemboweled by my committee.
How did it go you ask? I thought it went really crappy! (No pun intended) But in the end they told me not to miss the application for graduation deadline! Yes, you heard it I’m actually going to be done. I’ve been working on this for 8 years. AJ was 12 when I started. None of Jenny’s five kids had been born yet! I am done with my committee. I have to reword a couple of things and add three paragraphs to the conclusion for my Chair. (Just my Chair. Note: there were only two monsters in the dream, they were the committee members not my Chair)
Yippee. I submitted my intent to graduate form and paid the $25 application fee this afternoon. Could it be, am I really going to be done? We will see. The diploma isn’t on my wall yet. Soon, hopefully, soon.

Some cute pictures, just because.

Sean has become quite the artist and the world is his canvas. OK, in this particular case his face was.

They are tearing down McDonald's moving it to where the parking lot used to be then putting an In and Out Burger in between where McDonalds was and the 7-11. Complicated? That's ok Sean likes the view from his bedroom window. He particullarly likes it when the house shakes and he can see why.

The Woods Cross airport had free plane rides for kids. Don thought Sean was a little young to go in a plane without a parent but let him sit in the plane and get a picture. Sean thought he was so cool.

The next day while out walking with Don Sean saw a motorcycle for sell. "take my picture" he said.