June 19, 2013

I feel like I’m either a magnet for nasty people or I am such a horrible person that everywhere I go people just automatically hate me and want me gone. I am not a trouble maker, I don’t start fights with people, but I am not overly friendly. I don’t really speak to the people who live around me, I may wave high if they wave at me but that’s about it. I don’t sit on my porch and drink all night or have wild parties or anything like that. Honestly, I try my best not to draw attention to myself. I guess I am just used to being made fun of as a kid or not accepted by people in general. I have always been a little abnormal, was never very popular and I tend to rebel a little bit as far as how I dress and how I act. But I am not rude to people, and I don’t go out of my way to make people uncomfortable, I just go out of my way to avoid people mostly lol. Taking care of my kids has become pretty much my entire life now.

My daughter needs supervision 24/7. She is seven but she has the mind of a three year old, wears diaper and at times can’t even feed herself. I can’t let her out of my sight really, so that at times has caused my five year old son to be left to his own devices. He is basically a good boy but his ADHD makes him difficult at times. He’s on medication, which helps some, but he is still very active and tends to get into a lot of trouble. I have had to put alarms on my doors because he runs outside all the time. He never goes into the road but he will run down the side walk and go into other people’s yards. When I notice that, he has gone outside I go out and chase him down. I call to him and tell him to come back or to stay in our yard, but he is a five year old kid. I don’t think any parent can say that their child listens to them all the time and does what they are supposed to do. There are times that your kids are going to misbehave; it’s just part of being a kid. That doesn’t mean that I am not responsible for the things he does, but I do try my best to be a good parent.

So tonight, I am sitting at home and watching a movie with my kids and my son says that there are police pulling up in front of the house and coming up my walk. Apparently, the woman who lives next door to me, with whom a share a drive way, has called the cops because my five year old has been going into her yard and she claimed that he, threw some toys in her yard. I don’t know how accurate this is, he may have heard me calling him and dropped the toy because he knew he was in trouble and was hurrying back into the yard. The police showed me the toy; it was a small wooden bird house that he had made as an art activity, I admitted that yes it was my sons toy and I said that I was sorry that he left it in her yard but didn’t understand why she felt the need to call the police on me. They informed me that she was scared to come over and speak to me directly because she didn’t want to get into a confrontation with me that would result in her having to call the police anyway for her own protection. I was shocked at this; I haven’t said more than three words to this woman since she moved here a year ago. I don’t even know her name, I haven’t had confrontations with her in the past and I certainly am not a danger to the woman! What did she think I was going to do, beat her up? When she first moved in here, she came over as I was going out the front door and told me that my son was in the back banging on the door that he couldn’t get in. I said thank you, told her that the door was stuck and I was going round back to get him. That’s the last time I ever spoke to her and I didn’t get angry, yell and scream or strike her in anyway. I just thanked her then went round back and called my son to me. She went back to her house and I resumed ignoring her.

She has on several occasions griped at my mother for sitting in the drive way when she let my kids off and my mother informed her that she was only letting the kids off and will be gone soon enough. When she argued with my mom about it, my mom told her that she never has any problems blocking me in when her guests are there but that I never complain about it. My partner has gotten angry because the neighbor woman has allowed her guests to park on our side of the parking area, behind my house, when she has two spaces in front of her garage yet she tells her friends to park in front of my garage and then my partner has to park on the street. She told him that she had permission from the people who lived above us in the other half of this house. They told her that they weren’t using that space and that she could use it, well it’s not their parking space, their space was on the other side of the house next to their front door. Finally, my partner called the landlady and asked if the neighbor woman had a right to have her company park there and the landlady said no and told us that she was speak to her about it. Now she calls the police on me so I think the parking issue has something to do with it all. What really upsets me is that the woman felt the need to take pictures of my son when he was outside so that she could show them to the police.

Number one, she has no right to take pictures of my kids, on her property or not. If I find them on some social networking site, I swear I will press charges against her. Number two, if she has time to stand there and take pictures of him, why didn’t she just tell him to get out of her yard; or she could have come and told me to keep him out of her yard? When I notice that, he has gone into her yard I always tell him that he is not to do that. Every time that I have noticed he ran out the door I went after him, I honestly don’t think he has been outside on his own more than five minutes at a time. I don’t just let my kids run wild on their own and not watch them but when I have a seven year old that is still in diapers or needs constant care in other areas, it’s hard to always know what my son is doing every single minute.

I have sat him down and lectured him, I have told him that if he keeps doing this that children’s services could take him away from me. I have spanked him; I have sent him to his room and put him in time out. Now I have a table blocking the back door, which is a fire hazard, but I have to have it there so that my kid won’t run out back and get the cops called on me again. I’m not making excuses for being a bad parent I just simply don’t know what to do and I really think this woman was over reacting. It’s not as if my son dumped a whole toy box into her yard, it was one stupid toy. She also said that he was on her back porch looking through her windows. I can’t say if this was true or not, she didn’t produce pictures of him on her porch, just in the yard with the toy in his hand that he apparently threw in her yard, or so she says. It’s hard for a five year old to know where our yard is and where hers is because other than a strip of gravel the yards are connected. Granted, if he was on her porch then she has a right to complain, but as I said before, why didn’t she come to me? She can’t really believe that I would act violently towards her. I think that she told the police that just t make me look bad. She ended up making herself look stupid though because when I was talking to the police and telling them that she never told me anything about this and that this was the first I was hearing of the window thing and the toy being thrown, she came out on her porch and started yelling, “He’s lying! He’s a liar! All he does is lie!” I looked at the cop and said, “See, she’s insane.”

Anyway, the cops told me that she and I had to find a way to get along and stop this fighting or one of us would have to move and that if they were called again I would be fined $180.00 dollars for disorderly conduct! I was like for what? I didn’t do anything wrong and there is no fighting! I don’t even speak to the woman, she is the one calling the cops and causing trouble. I have no idea what her problem is unless she is just angry that she was told not to park in my parking spot anymore. I explained to the police my kid’s disabilities and that I was doing the best that I could to keep my son from running out the door and going in the back yard on his own but I can only do so much. I’ve been trying to get a nurse aide to help me out but my daughter is on a waiting list and my son doesn’t qualify. My partner has a full time job and I am a stay at home dad so it’s really all on me at this point. I just don’t know what more to do at this point. I was so upset over this whole thing that I was close to throwing up. I don’t know why people have to be such jerks about stuff like this.

I really don’t think I am such a bad person that I deserve to be treated this way, and I don’t think I’m a bad father either. Maybe stressed out and I know I make a lot of mistakes but what parent doesn’t? If this woman had a heart at all, she would see that, show a little more compassion and not just try, and make my life harder than it already is. Anyway, I am anticipating more crap to come my way. I figure the next thing she’s going to do is call children’s services on me and try to get the kids taken away. Maybe that what she’s wanted all along, that or me to be thrown out or get fed up and leave. Well, I don’t care what she says or does, I’m not going to tuck tail and run just because she has a stick up her butt. She needs to get over it and grow up.