Start of my Day

The boy came home from school yesterday with a cardboard carton of orange juice crammed into the stretchy nylon mesh pocket of his backpack. After an intense interrogation, I was able to determine that apparently the orange juice had manifest itself into the backpack pocket sometime between boarding the bus yesterday morning and my discovering it at 7 PM that night, but he insisted he planned on drinking it. Not sure how long he had it and knowing it probably had not been refrigerated in several hours, I felt it safer to not drink it and deposited it in the garbage. He was still sleeping when I got into the shower, but was sitting innocently on the couch almost ready for school, he forgot to use deodorant or brush his teeth, when I went to wake him. When I went to start coffee, the juice carton was sitting on the kitchen counter in a pool of yellow liquid, even more battered than the previous night. A second small pool of yellow liquid was in the middle of the kitchen floor. The cardboard container had apparently defeated him. That is how the day started for me.

I Hate the US Food Industry

I'm losing weight.  I was for awhile then I seemed to stop but now I have had 3 non-related individuals mention that I seems to be losing weight.  I also have noticed that some of my pants no longer stay up without a belt and recently I can wear some shirts that before were a bit tight, while many of my comfortable shirts are now a bit too roomy.  Mostly I attribute this do my eating.  I don't eat out much, I am eating a lot of vegetables, beans and whole grains.  I have cut back on starches, red meat and dairy.  I am also again working on portion control.  But the main thing is trying to cut out processed foods, and specifically avoiding high fructose corn syrup and anything that says hydrogenated.  I don't eat a lot of sugar, but if I am going to I try for actual sugar or some other type of sweet like maple syrup, agave or honey.  Despite the massive number of commercials and websites paid for by the corn industry, I tend to believe the Princeton independent study more.  Mainly because it makes sense.  Especially if you factor in the fact the U.S. obesity problem seems to correlate with the start of the use of high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar.  This is because the government subsidy of corn let farmers sell corn at a lose, meaning the highly processed corn syrup became cheaper than cane or beat sugar.  Now it is used in everything and not just as a sweetener.  You can find it in stuff like corn chips because it is also used as a preservative.  I sort of took this for granted for a bit until this weekend when it again hit home.  I have a foster son and he has a lot of food issues.  Saturday he was griping about the pancakes I made claiming they didn't taste right.  I made the pancakes from scratch and when I told him, he freaked out.  Pancakes were supposed to come in a big box and be put in the microwave and then covered in syrup and eaten.  My pancakes consisted of flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and a little vanilla flavor and sugar.  The syrup was Lob Cabin Natural which is sweetened with sugar and soy syrup.  I had the same pancakes but drizzled a Mexican caramel sauce made with sugar and goat's milk on it rather than drenching in syrup and thought they were great.  He ate them all so couldn't have been too bad.  But he keeps complaining about stuff and I originally started by trying to gradually change things, so I bought some of the food he likes and it's all has the HFCS in it.  Most of the time it's one of the first 4 ingredients which means it's one of the main ingredients.  The canned pastas have it.  It's in the frozen pizzas and the juices he likes.  He will drink 100% apple juice fortunately.  He prefers pre-bottled drinks to mixes I do at home, even the pre_sweetened ones.  And the healthy snacks they suggested for breaks at school?  He won't eat Goldfish.  Fruit roll ups seem the best.  They contain sugar and corn syrup and dried corn syrup and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil.  The fruit gushers are worse, they have sugar, corn syrup and dried corn syrup all as part of the first five ingredients, then they have frucose and partially hydrogenated cotton seed oil.  Four different kinds of sweetener.  The worst offender was the yogurt tubes that claimed to be low fat.  The second ingredient was sugar the forth HFCS.  There was a lot of stuff in there I can't pronounce and a little research on the internet revealed one of those tubes has more sugar than a can of Coca Cola.  Low fat, well so are soft drinks, but we don't think they are healthy.  This is nuts, no wonder we are so fat.

The Mind of a 9-year-old Boy and other Horrible Things

It's been 2 weeks now as a single foster-father of a nine-year-old boy.  It's been culture shock.  I have learned much.  First, the reason God sealed our heads shut, was because if he didn't 9 year-old boys would leave their brains on the school bus.  Why not, they don't seem to use them!  Last week, my foster son left a perfectly good red and blue light weight jacket on the school bus.  Yesterday, the bus dropped him off at my parents.  When I showed up to get him, I was jumped by an angry mother, because I let him go to school on such a cold day with no jacket.  I turned around around and asked him, "Where's your jacket?" "I didn't wear...didn't wear one today, remember?" he answered.  "You didn't wear one?" I asked innocently.  "Yeah," he said sounding more confident.  "I didn't wear one."  "Then what do you call the blue and white thing you put on when I told you to put on a jacket right before we left the house this morning?"  This caused my Dad to snicker.  "Oh, yeah, I left that in the gym."  An interrogation followed that left me with the certain knowledge that maybe the jacket had been left in the gym, he may or may not have told his teacher, who may or may not have taken him to check the lost and found."  I went into the school this morning, but no one was in the office.  I called the school today, he has a light windbreaker and a winter coat, but his two middle weight jackets are MIA.  The windbreaker may be when I get home tonight, as he wore it today.  I saw him pull it off the minute he hit the gym and sat down to wait for breakfast to be served.

He doesn't like school.  Getting homework information is like interrogating a war criminal without a waterboard.  The teacher does send stuff home, including a list of the next weeks homework assignments on Friday.  Monday he was to do 2 pages of math, I am unsure whether it was for homework or inclass.  He didn't have a handout to do and turn in, but he brought this language and science books, neither of which he had homework in.  He also brought a sheet they completed in school. It was seven questions involving science terms.  He was to have filled in the missing words.  The needed words were listed at top.  There were seven of those also.  Not too tricky.  The ugly red note said he was given 30 minutes to complete it and turned it in blank.  When he was given a second chance to do it, he completed it in 5 minutes, but all seven were wrong.  I sat him down at the kitchen table.  Turned off every electronic gadget in the house and he corrected the sheet while I made dinner.  Then he was forced to eat horrid vegetables.  He went to the bathroom twice.  I am fairly sure he was spitting out carrots and flushing them.  (The veggies weren't punishment, I ate them, they were good.  He just wants to live on junk food.)  Then homework, then valentines for the party, then putting away clean laundry and picking up dirty laundry, then he had an hour left to play video games.

Last night he brought home an empty backpack.  First time he ever carried it home empty.  Very suspicious behavior, I thought.  He claimed no homework.  I had his spelling words, so he wrote those 10 times each as I cooked dinner.  He tried to cheat and only do them 7, 8, or 9 times, so he had to finish them and write them again 5 times each.  He again tried to be sneaky.   He "finished" his vegetables and left the table, left cheek bulging.  "Where are you going?" I inquired.  "Bathroom" he answered.  "Wait a minute, please." When he turned around and looked at me I said, "Swallow first."  He did then sat back down.  I made up 20 math problems based on his last 2 homework sheets.  He did those.  Then he fixed the ones he did wrong.  Then I made up sentences with his spelling words and he wrote those out 3 times each to practice his cursive.   Then he picked up his room.  He had an hour of free time before bed.  Which meant I had 2 hours of free time before bed.  I really miss my nightly news.

He has some bad habits.  For instance, when he enters a room, he is king.  He thinks nothing of changing the TV channel regardless of who is watching it.  If he finds a show he likes he will also turn off the light to enhance his viewing pleasure, even if I am reading or writing something.  That has stopped.  He also has some eating issues.  I am told 9 year-old boys are basically walking converters of food to poop.  But this is excessive.  I no longer poke food down him when he starts this.  I allow him some snacks, but not what he is  used to.  He is being forced to eat what is put on the table.  He can have a decent serving of meat, but has to eat all the vegetables on his plate or no snacks.  I am also working with limiting his liquids between bed and supper.  He has some sleeping issues.  Last weekend I think he got up at night and spent a few hours between 11 PM and 2 AM playing games Friday night.  I had taken some cold medicine that made me sleep deeper than normal but woke a bit after 2 and caught him trying to enter the DVD code.  I know he sat up most of Saturday night watching Dragon Ball Z DVD's I got him.  I didnt' let him nap Sunday, but we had a rough Sunday night because a call from his mother gave him night terrors that didn't leave until midnight.  He slept okay Monday and Tuesday nights, at least nothing woke me and there was no evidence the next morning, I gave up on night time cold meds after Saturday night.  He lost his DVD's Sunday.  I also told him if I caught him watching TV, movies or playing games after bedtime again, all electronic stuff was poof and probably not coming back.  Previous placements have said he wandered the house at night.  I don't think he is.  I am resigned to the fact that I will be warden.  Hopefully we will bond more, he is a cute guy and can be very fun and funny when he lets himself be a kid, but that isn't often.  Hopefully, I can eventually soften the structure a bit, but it really seems to be what he needs.  He seems happy when he isn't testing the boundaries.  He had an initial habit of wanting to throw fits in public places and acting out.  He would also run off.  We established on the third day with me that I wasn't chasing him.  I told him in the middle of Walmart, "You'll either come back or you won't, and if you don't I'll come up with a good story for DSC."  He hasn't run off since.  I initially tried to reason with him him on the fits, but Saturday I just started ignoring them.  I decided it was attention seeking and rewarding it was just feeding the behavior.  Haven't had him out in public again since then so not sure if it's working or not.

Latest Update

Sorry to be late, but things began to move fast on me.  I received a call January 31 asking me if I would be willing to take a 9 year old boy, small for his age with some anger issues.  After asking a few questions and reminding them I could have conflicts, the woman I was speaking to assured me the child was from out of state.  I agreed, but they had to wait for someone else they had already asked to respond.  They called a couple of hours later to say they would call me tomorrow.  About 10 AM the next day I received a call and was told they would meet me about 5 PM.  I made it home, and about 5:30 a blond-headed boy was asking me what kind of game systems I had.  None, unfortunately.  I have since learned many things.  When I was nine, girls were lesser beings to be ignored or pushed on the playground.  He likes them.  Especially the "hot" ones.  That worries me a bit, but my more kid experienced coworkers say it isn't that unusual.  Also he hates all food except pizza, chicken nuggets, spaghetti, and cereal that looks like cookies.  He has since added hot dogs, bbq sauce, chocolate ice cream, oatmeal cookies, and beefy macaroni He hates all television except Dragon Ball Z.  Except Phineas and Ferb when no one is looking, and Kicking It, and Kick Buttowski, and Victorious, and Wizards Of Waverly Place, and Tom and Jerry Kids.  He loves school but hates all classes except lunch and recess.  He can be extremely independent but occasionally admits needing help.  He can be very well behaved one minute and totally out of control the next.  He is both cute and frustrating.  It's been five days and we are slowly adjusting to one another.