Saturday, October 29, 2005

Frustration

Got her letter today. Of course it is a week old. Have I said how much I hate snail mail? She has a bit of frustration in it - frustration at still being in orange on on staff buddy, frustration at seeing other girls get into their full uniforms, frustration at herself. On and on. And then the tone switches. She says she wants to do this, but the proof is in her actually doing it.
M-

Friday, October 28, 2005

Nearing Halloween

Things at home are quite hectic. The new roof is finished, but the computer died, so I have to write her on my work PC (you don't want to have to read my handwriting). I have been a bit shocked at the amount of demerits that she is getting - 1400 in one week. Is she trying to set a record or what? I talked to Katie's mom - who claims she has been out of town and will write to her. She hasn't written to Katie since she got to the school. My mom also wrote Katie a letter, which I added to mine. I don't know when she will start working the program, but they keep saying that they will progress at their own pace.
M-

Friday, October 21, 2005

Letter update

The final oriententation phone call. These last two assignments weren't bad. One was to register for Discovery - we did that. The second was to go over what violations Katie would have made in the last three months at home, had she been in the program. Whoa, but she would have racked up a huge amount of demerits. But who am I kidding, she IS racking up a huge amount of demerits already.
Mike

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Final Orientation

The final oriententation phone call. These last two assignments weren't bad. One was to register for Discovery - we did that. The second was to go over what violations Katie would have made in the last three months at home, had she been in the program. Whoa, but she would have racked up a huge amount of demerits. But who am I kidding, she IS racking up a huge amount of demerits already.
Mike

Monday, October 17, 2005

Crayon Letter

Interesting. Must be because she is in staff buddy - the lowest level at the school where she has to be with a staff member at all times, but her letters are in crayon. I got one this weekend. She is already learning a lot of the program language - but she is obviously not following it, as she is still not our of her orange jumpsuit yet. She did try a little manipulation in her letter - about not being worth the money we are spending on the school. But I'm not going to let that stop us - Diane and I know this is for the best.
Mike

Friday, October 14, 2005

Slow mail

I have not heard back from Katie for a while. Using snail mail is sure slow - it looks like it takes a full week for us to get her letters. I wrote her again, giving her more family news. Diane and I have also signed up for Discovery - this is the first of several seminars for parents. It is in Chicago on December 2nd. Looks interesting. Of course, that means I have to sell my Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets that I got for my birthday, as it is the same weekend, and there is no way I can get back from Chicago in 1 hour to make the concert on Sunday night. Katie managed to screw up my birthday last year too. It may be childish, but I am feeling a bit resentful of her for it.
Mike

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

More Parent Orientation

We continued with the parent orientation. Chapter 3's assignment was to sign and send off a commitment letter - stating that Katie was in the program until she graduated, period. Chapter four was to log onto the bulletin board and make a post. I did that last week already, once I got access. The board is a little cliquish - there seem to be small groups that talk a lot, and it is hard to get in on those. Also, it is only our school, we can't see the boards for other schools. Plus there is a board to announce parent support group meetings - but nothing is being announced in ohio - bummer.
Mike

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Therapist

Finally had a chance to talk with her therapist. He seems like a real good guy. His first impression of Katie - "she is a trip". I think that is a clinical term :-). It does help a little bit to get some validation that hey, maybe we aren't crazy and she really can use this. So now we are on a weekly schedule, one week with the therapist, the next week with the family representative. Plus I'm doing the parent orientation on the phone. It has gone from no information to quite a lot very quickly. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable about all of this now at least.
Mike

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Parent Orientation

I started my parent orientation with the parent co-ordinator. This is a series of phone calls to help get me familiar with the program, and review the Parent Orientation Handbook. Kara is nice and able to answer several of my questions - and then at the end she gives me homework. Just like in school - oh joy. I have to write up a full description as to why we put Katyln in the program for chapter 1, and for chapter 2 I had to describe what happened when she didn't get her way, and how she handled it, as well as what techniques she used to get her way. Interesting reflection on things.
Mike

Monday, October 03, 2005

My answer

I wrote her back. Most of my letter was simply news from home, what is going on in everyone's life here. I wanted her to know she is still part of the family, but also what she is missing out on. I told her how sharing love just makes it grow, and that when I remarried it did not mean I loved her any less. And I wrote about how small she was when she was born, and what a fighter she was in the ICU struggling to breath for her first few hours of life. I think about that a lot, the image of my newborn daughter, still covered with blood from her birth, laying in an oxygen tent as we waited to see if she would live. I feel a bit of that again now - waiting to see if she is going to choose life over the self-destructive path she was on.
Mike

Saturday, October 01, 2005

The first letter

I finally get my first letter from Katie. Very brief, but filled with a bunch of attempts to induce guilt. Lines like "I guess now you can have a happier time with your wife" - made me want to tear my heart out, and at the same time made me angry at the manipulation I felt behind it. It is also very frustrating that letters take a week to get here - this was dated 9/24 - the day after she arrived. It will be really hard to keep up any kind of corespondence with that big of gaps in it.
Mike