Not knowing

Welp, D left today to go to respite. My husband left to ride his bike. So here I am all alone with the little boys, who are asleep.

D told his mom that I was sending him to respite for a few days, and she told him that I was probably going to get sick of him and kick him out! Obviously not true. At all. I am just having a really hard time with him. It's so hard to know when to have a little grace, and when to put my foot down. And it's hard to know why he is acting like this. I mean maybe it doesn't matter, but it would be helpful for me if I understood. I (vaguely) remember being 12, and it is a hard age. I don't know if he is acting this way because of just being 12 and hormones and all that stuff, or if it's something to do with his life in foster care.

I feel like he has gotten to the point where he is looking at his time with his mom through rose-colored glasses. He hasn't lived with her in over a year; and he hasn't spent a summer with her in three years. At our house he has been doing stuff like following me around, or just staring at me when I'm doing something - like he is CRAZY bored and can't think of a SINGLE thing to do, so he just has to annoy the snot out of me. Then he acts all hurt and offended when I tell him he needs to find something to do, or if I make suggestions. He hates being alone, so like if I offer to pay him to work in the yard he won't do it, because he would be alone out there. He hasn't gone back to work at his "job"; he worked for a total of 2 hours there and both of those hours were on the day he got the job! He hasn't been back because he doesn't want to be alone, or it's too hot, or (fill in the blank with other random excuse). He is training for a triathlon, but he refuses to bike or run without someone going with him...so if we are busy or something then he just doesn't do any training.

Today I got up at 8 and went biking and running, and when I came home he told me that I left at 7 and he KNEW I left at seven because he heard me leave. I told him I left at 8, and my husband confirmed that I left at 8...and D said "You guys are always right, and I'm always wrong!" and got really mad and went into his room and slammed the door! Then he stayed in there for like 20 minutes cooling off. I even had proof that I left at 8, because my GPS watch showed what time I started...and he didn't want to see the proof. What the heck? Why does it even matter? This is the kind of random stuff he just blows up about and we get into huge fights about it. Like we were talking about driving a car, and I said something like "If you hit somebody, blah blah blah" and he said something about getting into a fist fight, and then insisted that I said "If you punch somebody" and not "hit". And then he got really mad about it!

This is the same stuff he does with math - like I will tell him that his answer is not correct when I'm grading his homework and he will say "I KNOW that one's right!" and can't admit that he is wrong until we argue for 10 minutes and I show him 18 different ways to do the problem and all of the answers show the answer that is the RIGHT one and not the one he had. I think that is the main problem; he opens his mouth before he thinks and then he can't admit when he is wrong. He just digs his heels in, and he actually plugs his ears when he doesn't want to hear the truth. Which honestly sounds like something a 5 year old would do.

It's just frustrating I guess. And I'm just venting. And it sucks because he always puts on a front for everyone except for my husband and me and he seems so nice, and helpful with his little brothers, and so responsible, and sometimes it just makes me feel like I'm crazy when I try to tell caseworkers or whoever what is actually going on when we are at home.

As a side note, last night we went to dinner with my family and he asked me how long my parents have been married. I said "Oh, 32 or 33 years, something like that?" He looked at me incredulously and said "Your parents have been married longer than you have been alive???" I kind of laughed and said that actually that is kind of normal; like that's the way it's supposed to happen...he plugged his ears. :)

Also the other day we were talking about pregnancies, and he insisted that C, Y, and M were all "accidents", and that pretty much all the kids he knows were "accidents". I said it's not that hard to not get pregnant, and that lots of people plan for their babies. I told him that me and my brother and sister were planned and hoped and tried for, and that several of my friends have babies that were also planned/tried for. He was shocked. I, in turn, was also shocked at the fact that he was shocked. Which has kind of become normal around here. :)