Michael

Michael is a different kind of kid. He is the middle child between two girls. He had a strange relationship with his father growing up. I'm not sure what their relationship is now. His father moved to California with his then girlfriend, now wife. They have been out there since the beginning of November.

When Michael was growing up his father was distant most times, was always online on his own downstairs, and he made sure that his young son never did anything that would make him less of a man. I don't know how else to describe it. He wanted to make sure Michael was masculine or something. They really weren't very close when Michael was growing up. David would always promise to do things with the kids, or take them somewhere and something would always happen and it would fall through. The kids and I hung out upstairs all the time. We would play outside or go to the park; we would do things.

David promises them a lot of things. When he left for California he promised them he would be back ever three weeks or so. They haven't seen him since. He has promised them several times that he is coming and has never fallen through with it. Now we are on the promise that he will be here for Bailey's birthday, which is July 24th. I hate that he promises them and gets their hopes up. They both really do miss him. I hope he will follow through. I actually spoke to him about it a couple of weeks ago and told him that he needed to stop promising them things that he can't follow through on. He did agree. We are getting along okay now... able to talk about things without getting angry. I think part of that is that I don't get upset any more. I thank Kevin for that; he gives me peace.

I have tried to get Michael involved in things since he was five years old. I enrolled him in T-Ball when he was five and he hated it. We tried gymnastics/tumbling and he didn't like that either. He probably would have been really good at it too. We tried soccer and he would only play if I coached. He would pout and cry all the time when he didn't get his way. He talked about wanting to play the Cello. When he started Middle School I rented the cello and we enrolled him in orchestra. He hated it.. he wouldn't practice, he wouldn't know the songs when it was time for him to play at a concert. It was the same old thing. And I was always the big, bad, mean parent because I let him cry and didn't give him his way all the time. I didn't coddle him and baby him so he would feel better.

School has been tough since the beginning. When he started Kindergarten it all started going down hill. There were two teachers in the class. Michael was slow and he wouldn't focus and get things done. We had complaints almost every day about how slow he was. He would get sent to another room to sit there at the back of the classroom and finish his work every day. Now, this is in Kindergarten! We did not start off school well and Michael has hated school ever since. Every year it is in the same thing and now he will be starting 8th grade and he is no better than he was in Kindergarten. If he doesn't like something then he will just sit there and do nothing. If he doesn't like the teacher he gets his back up and won't do homework, projects, or anything. He is not a "bad" kid, so he doesn't stand out. He is the quiet one that sits there and doesn't do anything so he flies under the radar. But then on the other hand, when he really likes something, he excels! He really liked his Social Studies teacher this past year in 7th grade and the teacher gave him lots of encouragement. He would praise him and give him a huge boost in confidence by saying something like, "If anyone in this class is going to ace this test, it will be you Michael". He would come home and actually share that with me!  That is rare.. he doesn't share much about school at all. And when he comes home and I ask about homework he never has any or he finished it at school, or he forgot it. It is really frustrating. Honestly, I'm not sure how he passed the 7th grade this year. He failed his math class every single time. I'm not sure what else to do with him.

Michael gets really stuck on things. He has been like this since he was very little. I remember he loved Barney, you know.. the purple dinosaur. He would watch Barney over and over and over again. That is all he wanted to watch. He will get stuck on a story, like the Harry Potter series. He reads about them and researches them and can tell you every little detail about each character. And that is all he wants to talk about too. It can be extremely frustrating. He will get hung up on a certain video game too and that is all he will talk about and want to do. Until he decides to move on to the next thing.

He is a really lazy kid. He doesn't want to do anything to help out. He waits until the very last minute to get his chores done. He always huffs and puffs and rolls his eyes when you ask him to do something. He never wants to go out anywhere. And he is very selfish; he doesn't want to do anything unless there is something in it for him. And if you get something for one of the other kids the first thing out of his mouth is, well what about me? I'm hoping that is just his age. And he isn't the only one that does that.

He really has some great qualities too though. He is very affectionate and has a lot of empathy towards others and animals. He is very kind and wouldn't hurt a flea. If someone were to fight him I'm not sure he would hit them back. I'm not sure that is good. He doesn't get in to trouble, he doesn't act up and get into trouble. Michael really is a good kid.

He has always been one of the smallest boys in his class. I think that has really bothered him. He has always been picked on through school. Kids always made fun of him, because he was different. He isn't very social at all and he is very quiet. This bullying seemed to get worse this past year. It really had me worried about him and I approached the school on several occasions. There was a boy living here at the apartments that was calling him Michael Myers and Jeffrey Daumer (sp?). They would make fun of him at the bus stop and the maintenance guy even said one put his hands on him, slapping his hair away. I have tried to talk to Michael about it and he won't talk to me about anything, only saying that it's nothing and that no one ever put their hands on him. Then there was a boy at school that was calling him "Gaylor"". His last name is Gabbett. I brought it up to the counselor. Nothing was ever done about anything that I can tell, except for the boy here at the apartments. He was always in trouble, so they kicked that family out. I was thankful for that. One of the other boys was making fun of Michael and I went and confronted him about it. He hasn't had any other problems at the bus stop. I'm not sure what else I can do at school. I've brought it up several times this year.

Michael has his issues that we try to deal with, but honestly he is a good kid. He was diagnosed with ADD, but we don't do the medication. Having Kevin here will be a good thing for him. He will have a really good male influence in his life. If only that day would hurry along.

Okay.. sorry about the long post.. I could go on and on LOL but I won't!  Here is the 2nd Dahlonega page... I have one more to go. I worked last night and this morning on the cute little gold miner LOL

The photos are in Dahlonega.. the building is the Gold Mine Museum. All of the papers are Club Scrap again. I used Twine from The Twinery for the pennants. Dahlonega is Girls are Weird Sizzlits. The little metal washers I had in my stash. The gold miner was a graphic that I cut up and did a paper piecing with my scraps. I think he is adorable! I used a sketch, but I can't remember for the life of me where it was from. If I find it later I will update.

Have a wonderful day everyone! I'm leaving late for work so I'll be stuck in peak hour traffic now. Kevin keeps telling me so too!! :p  Love you baby!