Weekend

A former colleague of mine who I worked with in the Bloomington schools, mentioned to a mutual friend a few months ago that she would be willing to take Akila for a weekend respite. I of course emailed Jo right away and she was rearing to go. I said we could wait until summer sometime since Akila had just had a weekend away in March, but her hubby was out of town last weekend so she wanted to give it a try last Saturday night.

Jo is the person who loves the challenging kids in the school age child care program that she runs. She has always been gifted with tough kids, so I knew it would be fun. Jo had her 8 year old granddaughter stay over night as well, and she said the weekend went pretty good, they had some bumps, but she laughed that she did not get hit. She did get called an F***ing B multiple times, but it didn't phase her. Now, that is commitment.

It did phase me. It was just more proof of how Akila is getting to a new level of junk. She has always been the type, that starts a negative behavior at home, and withing 6-12 months (usually), the behavior follows at school. She has been hitting at home for two years now, it started at school. She has been calling names and swearing a little at school, but the brazen name calling and swearing at Jo, is new. This has been something she has lovingly reserved for Michael and I. Have I mentioned that she frequently calls us the N word. If she only knew.

When I picked Akila up, I went through her bag of course. She had one of the granddaughter's shirts in her bag. Jo's daughter was there who I also use to work with. Her mouth was wide open, not at all in a judging way, just kind of astonished. Then when I was about to check Akila's pockets and clothing, I saw that she had a double shirt on, and the bottom one was not ours. She had to go change. Jo's daughter was commenting on how she wasn't even really embarrassed. She was more mad that she was caught than embarrassed, which is normal for her. I was sure to look in the hole of her teddy bear this time, to make sure there was not another cell phone or something else hidden in it. It was clean.

So, it makes me a bit nervous that she was calling Jo the FB combo. Although, it is partially a testament to how comfortable Jo made her feel at her home. Jo is good, and I am blessed to have so many people who are willing to help us raise Akila, the whole village thing is really cool sometimes.