Newest Chicken Tractor

There is nothing y'all, absolutely nothing that can make me much happier than mowing my meadow, jumping on the lawn tractor and hauling butt, visibly seeing my progress, having my efforts rewarded. Some of my less grouchy sons volunteered to limb up the trees in the middle of the meadow and I spent some peaceful time weeding around my Fragrant Purple Cloud tree, the buckeye I'd bought at a yard sale years ago, and a peach tree that Daniel'd once pulled from a trash pile at the plant nursery where he worked. "Hey, can I grab that? I'm sure my mom would want it."

After three years of a severe drought, both in rainfall and in my own abilities due to the onslaught of Hell folks have wanted to heap upon me for several years now, it is gratifying to watch my plants wake up and put forth new healthy growth. We'll see about the kids I hope.

The Adoption Counselor has a great post regarding adolescents, something I seem to be in excess of, and this one sentence nearly made my heart run cold as it describes several of them perfectly, "the interaction of adhd with ODD and bi-polar. To summarize it, those are combos that really make it hard to parent and there aren’t really any interventions beyond the meds for adhd."

ODD - Oppositional Defiant Disorder - is one whale of an issue to live with, add bipolar and there's a criminal in the making.

Not bipolar, just severely oppositional, JoJo'd written on a large card Lily had designed yesterday, "Thanks for taking care of me. You have to put up with my bad behavior."

Hmmm...was the emphasis on 'have to'?

We only had a few rumblings of discontent yesterday, Paloma and Jonathan, of course, wanted to get into a fistfight with each other, both were defiant and hateful, but that's such an everyday occurrence that it barely warrants mention.

A friend with an even more difficult, a sad Mother's Day ahead for their family had texted me that morning which kind of put things in perspective for me. Our favorite Social Worker, Audrey, had sent a message that cheered me up, especially the part that read, "I know you're out in the garden." Making me think she'd google earthed me and could see me out there checking where I'd planted peanuts. Yep, I looked up. I'm really loving this crackberry. I could read the many positive emails and messages right there without even coming inside.

Yolie's message read, "Thanks for birthing me into the person I am today." Sarah'd called early that morning and I let her know I was choosing to stay home from church before a rager decided to make that choice for me. An all day garden event for MY Mother's Day.

Joe came by and was showing me a free place to download ringtones. I might should've stopped with "Behold He Comes," one of my favorite praise songs, but messing around with zedge.net I found I could download 66 different farting ringtones so now, with my Crackberry merrily and loudly farting away in my pocket any time one of my grown children call me, I'll likely get banned from grocery stores. (You know you wanna go listen)

Daniel decided to corral Chuy and Martin, making me a new fantastic chicken tractor, ending an uneventful day - a Mother's day in which no deputies had to be called which equals a success in my book.

A two hour special ed eligibility meeting regarding Paloma's school situation, Scotty turning 11 today, and Charter not functioning all day due to an early morning thunder storm right in the middle of my blogging, all conspired to keep me out of the garden while I tended to two suspended from school kids and two on probation who flat refuse to go. Two soccer games tonight, six loads of laundry, eight pounds of pasta...I gotta quit counting and just get it all done.

I hope they comprehend the negative consequences that will eventually befall them both, I've certainly explained it over and over and over again.