What I would rather be doing......

I would much rather be posting about my weekend in Ohio with Shay. I would much rather be posting about what we did. I would much rather be posting about her Graduation and how proud I am of her. I would much rather be posting about our drive home, which I would rather have been posting was an enjoyable drive. But I can't and it wasn't and this week since (has it been a week?) has been the week from hell.

As is the norm with most teenagers, Anna(my exchange student) and I have had some communication issues. You say that is typical? That is what I thought. That was my experience with my own teenage daughter. She did not understand why I needed her to call everyday when she got home from school but I thought we had that worked out. It came out last week that Anna does not know how to clean a bathroom. And since she is responsible for cleaning her own bathroom she needs to know how to clean a toilet, sink and tub. It came out last week that Anna's family has a housekeeper who does these things. Well, I guess when she returns she will know how to clean those things. Well, that was the plan.

You see, I have a neighbor who I thought was helping me out. She would let Anna come over and hang out with them. When she called me on Sunday to ask if Anna could go shopping with her on Monday I told her that I did not have a problem with that but that I needed Anna to ask me. I needed Anna to communicate with me. I explained that we were having this communication issue and I needed her help and asked her not to get in the middle of things. At the same time I asked her not to tell Anna she would do things with her until they had been cleared with me. You see, my thought was that if she mentioned it to Anna first and for whatever reason I said no then I was the bad guy. Are you following me?

Without going into all the gory detail I can tell you that last night I delivered Anna and all of her stuff to the area coordinators home. They are scheduled to conduct a home check on the neighbors this morning (same neighbor as above) who contacted the coordinator while I was on the road and said they would like to take Anna. WTF. This all came out on Tuesday when we drove out to the coordinators house for a meeting that I hoped would help Anna and I understand each other. Anna pretty much had her mind made up that she wanted to leave my house and go to the neighbors. So we arrived home late (again) on Tuesday knowing that one day soon Anna would be leaving and more than likely it would be the neighbors. Have you followed me so far?

Wed came and Anna left for school at the normal time. When she got home she called me to tell me that she was "here". Usually she says I am home. She then went to a neighbor boys house (not the same neighbor) to do homework. She arrived home sometime while I was out mowing the lawn so I did not see her. I came in and Shay started dinner for me while I took a shower. Then I grilled some pork chops and asked Shay to tell Anna that dinner was ready. Anna was not hungry so would not be joining us.

Thursday morning came and again Anna left for school. This time when she got home Shay was here. I had forgotten my cell phone anyway. I told Shay to ask Anna if she needed anything for her costume for Friday (lat night) as we had tickets to the Disney Not So Scary Halloween Party. Anna said that she didn't think I wanted her there and that she did not want to ruin my time. So they talked a bit and I got home around 6pm. Shay told me that Anna said she was tired and was going to bed. Again, are you following me?

I felt like Shay and I were walking on egg shells. Not know what to say and having this person living in the house who obviously did not want to be there. I called the coordinator and after speaking for a while it was decided that I would take Anna out there. So yesterday after Anna got "home" from school we packed up and drove out there. Shay and continued on to Disney as we decided to go toe the Halloween event. Pictures to come. We got home after 1am. I went into Anna's room and found a note on the bed that she had written me. Basically the "it's not you, it's not me, it just is".

Don't get me wrong, I am not angry or mad at Anna. She is a kid. Of course she wants to be at the fun house. I was going to teach her how to clean toilets, sinks and tubs. I was teaching her to consequence of not planning ahead for homework and having to tell the teacher why you don't have your homework done. She told me at 6:30 on Sunday that she needed to go to Walmart to print some pictures for an assignment that was due on Monday. It should have been done before she went with the exchange program to Disney all weekend.

So now I have to live across from Anna and these neighbors for the next 9 months. I then have to live across the street from these people (who I thought were friends) for the rest of the time that I live in Florida. They had their house on the market for almost a year and just took it off within the last month.

So hubby told me yesterday that one of the Marine Officers that he is in school with told him the story about his friend who had an exchange student. The same thing happened to them. The student became friends with the neighbors and asked to be moved. And get this, the student was from Sweden. I think the program makes it too easy for them just to say I want to be moved when the going gets a little tough. I have been having conversations with Anna's father and he was helping me figure out ways to communicate with Anna.

How did I go from being The Best State and the Best Family to this?