Life with My Blue-Haired Pixie: Who Really Saved Who?

I thought I would write a little about what it’s been like raising Abby.  Before her mother passed away, she lived in Florida with her mother and grandmother.  She came to visit us every year for a total of six weeks.  Then suddenly, her mother died unexpectedly, and a week later, Grubby and I drove down to Florida to move her to Virginia.

When she would come to visit, it was always difficult because Grubby was always scared that if he disciplined her at all, her mother would try to take him back to court or Abby would end up hating him.  Unfortunately, that meant that I would spend her visits wound tightly, tiptoeing around being a stepmother who didn’t interfere and a person who was pretty set in her ways.  Often, these two sides were in direct opposition with each other.  I frequently mused that it might be possible that she had been told to do the exact opposite of whatever it was we told her to do or not to do.  As a child, she didn’t know who to listen to, so she listened to the parent she lived with most of the time. 

Since she was five, she was medicated for ADHD, and yes, she definitely has it, but it didn’t help that she rarely played outside, never ate anything except processed food, drank sodas, and had a Kindle in her hand 24/7.  I once found Adderall capsules that she didn’t take tucked under the sofa.  From then on, I made her do the “Survivor” trick and show me her empty mouth after I watched her take her meds. 

We never asked her what her life was like in Florida because we figured that she would tell us about it when she was ready if she wanted.  We had an idea, just based on her behaviors when she would come here to visit, but Grubby always said he couldn’t undo in six weeks what was being done the rest of the year.  She didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t smile (if she did, the smile rarely reached her eyes), and looked down a lot. 

When she moved here, she fought us on the move.  She was scared of going to public school.  She was mad that we didn’t bring her pets here.  She would not follow the most basic of rules.  It was understandable that she would have an adjustment period, and we got her in counseling right away.  We let her choose which of the two spare rooms we had, and we took her to IKEA and let her choose her furniture and décor for her room.  We let her choose the color of her walls.  This was her home now, and she needed to feel that it was. 

Grubby and I were playing a “tug of war” during those first few months.  He wanted me to be a full-time mother and take on all mothering duties and I wanted him to be a full-time dad.  After all, she was his responsibility.  I would help, but I didn’t want things to fall squarely on my shoulders.  It didn’t help that three week after moving her up here, I learned that IKEA was shutting the plant down and I would be losing my job.

Fortunately, we began to find a rhythm, and settled into our little family of three.  Grubby and I patiently waited Abby out when she tried to avoid eating vegetables.  She learned quickly that after 20 years in the Navy, we were both Ninja-level “Hurry up and wait” players – we could “Outwit, Outlast, and Outplay” her every time, and so we had our own version of “Survivor” playing out in our house.  We went through her room one day and found a two-liter Coke stashed away, candy wrappers tucked under her mattress, and Veggie Straws hidden behind stuff in her desk!  We found a map of our house, with all the places we would hide her Kindle at night!  We even found a checklist that she had written (with boxes and all!), that said, “Get Coke.  Get charger.  Wait for Dad to go to bed (to sleep).”  She was very industrious, and we couldn’t help but laugh at her ingenuity and determination, even though we did have to discuss the fact that she was hiding food away in her room with her.

We corrected her behaviors gently, unless we had to take severe action.  At one point, we had to take away all sugar, all sodas, all tea, and all electronics for two weeks!  You would have thought we were the worst parents in the world for that, but we told her to humor us while we did an experiment.  At the same time, we were reducing her medications at the recommendation of her doctor.  Surprisingly to her, she survived the two weeks, and we began to limit what she could have to non-caffeinated sodas, limited sweets, and time limits on the electronics, with an hour before bed being the cut off time.  I hid the Kindle in a location not on her map!  She was eating healthier, and actually asking for things like butternut squash and asparagus!  She began making smarter choices. 

She began smiling more, and she adjusted to public school very well.  She loved her teachers and they loved having her in class.  As much as she hated pre-algebra, she even suggested that we get her teacher a Home Depot gift card for Christmas, since he was a man.  I found a new job and life was good.  Then, Covid-19 hit, and she and I were sent home for school and work respectively.  We spent our days together, her in the kitchen on her laptop and me in the office on my laptop.  We ate our lunches together.  On her PE days, I did PE with her.  She turned 13 during the lockdown.  Grubby brought his shift and a group of her teachers and some other students by the house in the afternoon and gave her a birthday parade!  She declared that it was the “best birthday ever!”  It wasn’t long after that that she asked me to adopt her, and after some thought and talking it over as a family, we began that process.

Grubby died before it was finalized.  On the morning after he died, I sat Abby down and asked her what she wanted since the equation had changed, and I told her I would understand if she wanted to move back to Florida with her grandmother.  She told me that she wanted to stay with me, here in Virginia.  I was granted total and permanent sole custody of her that afternoon.

We began our healing together.  We traveled, we made decisions together, and we kept a close bond, in spite of the looming objection to the adoption and battle for guardianship that we were having to fight.  Abby held fast in her decision to stay here with me, even when she spent several weeks with her grandmother and her cat during the summer.  She began opening up about her life in Florida, and even told me that she didn’t really know what love was until she moved up here with her dad and me.  That broke me, but I also realized that he – WE – had taught her the most important lesson of her life!  After nearly two years, and home visits by Abby’s Guardian ad Litem and Social Services, the adoption was finalized, and we could finally rest easy.

I watch her today, my little blue-haired pixie with her Daddy’s smile, and I see the transformation that she has gone through in just over three years.  She has come out of her shell, she is well adjusted, and she is doing great in school (when her ADHD brain doesn’t get the best of her!).  She has friends now and has even spent the night with them.  She has a community of her peeps in the band.  She is turning into this amazing strong, independent, outgoing person!  She told me recently that she chose to stay with me because she knew she would have a better life here, even though she is still limited on her electronics and sugar intake. I was flattered to hear that, but honestly, she has given me a better life! On my worst days, she has given me purpose, and on my best, she has smiled alongside me! She challenges me at times, and I have to correct her attitude sometimes, but she’s 15 after all.  She’s going to be a challenge sometimes, and although it drives me nuts at the time, secretly, I wouldn’t have it any other way because I know that the child who was afraid to speak up is becoming a woman who will stand up for herself and her beliefs.