Beans and Grinds

It's as if my house sits backwards on its acreage, we generally enter through the garage, not a very welcoming entryway, but it's not like I can go outside and tilt the house properly. Now we nearly crawl through a narrow intestinal colored hall to get to the kitchen where it seems everyone congregates.

Dr. Mandy remarked on Tabby's shocking ability to put away 12 bean tacos with cheese, sour cream and black olives. It's become a Friday night regular meal, if there are any beans left over, we make enchiladas for lunch on Saturday.

The new issue of Mother Earth News stresses how much less expensive it is for a family to eat at home rather than carryout, which we all know. Duh. Eating beans, soaking them the night before, boosts one's health as well, fills folks up with fiber and later there's that very entertaining gas in a home full of middle-schoolers, plus it allows me to shop economically.

I'd started reading this periodical in the mid 1970s, still then living in Virginia, and I'd been immediately captivated by the thought of simple living, sustainability and working hard to provide oneself with food. Waylaid, somewhat, by the demands of the next 38 children, I'd always kept my original thoughts and plans, I'd just had to subdue them for awhile.

Interesting though, I'd always raised Sarah on whole foods and garden produce as a vegetarian and she's not strayed at all. She made me a large batch of granola from scratch and I'm debating eating it for breakfast or do I really want a burrito?

I'm still working on redoing rooms, repairing, scaling down and getting ready for spring, having seen a ton of cardinals partying on the monster compost pile, no robins yet, but hey my hope springs eternal. I've continued to drag home tons and tons of coffee grinds, it's how I psych myself to go to town to run errands, I bribe my ownself like a child.

Sabrina made the 8th grade soccer team and I'm proud of her. She's had an attitude dip, a swoop into the netherworld somewhat this school year, tempted by negative influences, but I really believe in her inner worth, she's such a sweetie, and soon the rec department soccer leagues will kick in, sending us to the park every night, making me ratchet up my own day energy into a higher gear so as to get more done in the few short hours I seem to have while they theoretically should be in school. Ya hear that Jonathan?

A grown daughter had been the sad recipient of budget cuts before christmas, losing a great job after six years. Offered two more jobe within the past two weeks, she's chosen the one closer to home, an equal salary to that which she left, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief for her.

With Full Confidence

It can be done...the kids can grow up and be self-sufficient adults. I've seen it happen over and over again in our family, as demonstrated by Miriam cooking her own dinner at her own apartment, Mayra was visiting her that evening as a guest taking pictures. At the moment, most of my grown children are functioning beautifully.

Those that are not, however, are sucking the life outta others, spreading their unchecked venom like a plague.

I once thought, in my hopeful, optimistic, pre-reality years of parenting traumatized children, that we'd someday need a very large beach house where I could host warm and happy family reunions, much like my own parents had done for years.

Now I've learned that several children will always be angry with me for what their birth parents did, others will blame me for their failures in life, and still others will chose to use their own children as pawns in a game where there can never be any winners. I find it sad and disheartening, but it is what it is.

With full confidence, I know that I sacrificed for them, provided for them, and was always available 24-7 as a parent giving them a beautiful foundation that seemed only to provide a stronger launching pad for their rejection of all I've done.

OK, tell me how that works out for you...

Even though I feel so much better that I did last year, I see myself receding as a human in being a total recluse because after so many years of this, so much armchair criticism from others, and so much blame heaped upon me regarding my children's severe emotional disturbances, I just don't have it in me anymore to go out in public with a glazed smile on my face when I can instead stay here and work my butt off which releases my many frustrations and gives me gratification for a job well done...something I rarely hear anywhere about anything.

Theresa posted her sadness over being so shockingly and constantly mistreated and I so agree. The drip drip of ingratitude, pure unadulterated hatred at times, and the frightening fury from former foster kids knows no bounds.

Did I ever link The Adoption Counselor and this study? I've mulled it over and over in my head all week, thinking about the implications, and being rather shocked overall. I'd talked with Miriam about it earlier as she too is fascinated with the correlations, thinking about her birth siblings and their very poor choices.

Claudia was here yesterday looking wonderful, All her early morning Y trips are paying off and I was so glad to see her, not realizing it had been a couple of years since her last trip. Skipping gaily outta here when school let out, as if she hadn't a care in the world, I was super envious of her next 12 hours of solitude. The sound of silence is more than golden, it is healing and rejuvenating, and she so deserves it.

I hollered a parting shot, "I get to blog this first!" knowing she had to drive back to Atlanta, but the cares of my life, no the uber-demands, sucked me into our family vacuum and I didn't get near the computer until I woke up early panicking again over the immense stress.

Cooking every night for the remaining 17 children is nearly a rote habit. I don't think about it, I just do it, and then I clean the kitchen as it requires too much hassle to expect any decent help from anyone. While they finished up homework, facebooked and played games, I kept on staining the dining room woodwork until the fumes got to me and it was their bedtime.

I'd taped yet another Oprah show on my own mid-life health stuff and watched it late in the night, thinking I wish I'd known all that in my late 30s and early 40s. I could have saved myself some grief and depression, could have caught it early, but as it is, pulling back up from my doldrums of last year is very encouraging and making it easier for me to face each day of issues, challenges and problems.

Finishing up the Gospel of Luke this morning, praying for our usual hedge of protection around our family, and thinking about the day ahead, I do feel strengthened again.

Shootings

No y'all...not LA, but Ohio and here near us.

Mental Health workers wanna convince us that we'll be safe with wrap around services. Just call 911 if there's a problem...

Yeah.

Picking Up Your Pieces

There's something in me that tends to bring out the goofy side in others somehow, certainly in my children, but also in folks I meet. A Hispanic doctor once caught hung up trying to remember his childhood name for beans, not frijoles, but habichuelas, stopping an exam to call his brother for help with the word, then going off into contagious paroxysms of laughter.

That stuck with me as I put on a huge pot of habichuelas for tonight's red beans, corn and rice plans.

Nando is pictured here in a mess, our dining room is a construction site, as it's on me now to finish staining the new woodwork. Tough to find a block of time in which to get it done particularly as Jonathan and Paloma continue their mental disintegration, Jonathan again refusing to go to school, Paloma trudging out the door, late and oppositional, hair unbrushed and an ugly shirt, daring me to re-direct her behavior.

I am always blogging backwards, as I hate to tell my plans beforehand, knowing they'll likely get disrupted by the behaviors of others. Yesterday I spent some time with Vanessa who got out of jail on her own. I told the bondsman that I would never co-sign a bond, knowing deep within that my children often choose to sabotage everything, particularly that which could really hurt them, as if tumbling backwards into a crevasse is appealing to some very deep inner emotional need. Y'all...I don't get it.

I warned the 19 year old friend who co-signed. "If her own mama has reservations, doncha think this might not be a great idea?"

Met with silence, I sighed. What's there to say?

I've restrained myself from linking two stories in two days of multiple murders, domestic family issues where the murderer, both times, has a diagnosed mental illness. I'm angry as H E Double Hockey Sticks at the lack of mental health services or concern for the safety of others due to folks with mental illnesses. Especially in the adoption world where the adoptive parents get blamed and mistreated by so many folks about it.

I deeply believe that these same people are going to have to answer to someone someday and, in the meantime, I need to deal with my resulting anger in my usual physical way. The kitchen floor is fixing to get mopped in a painful manner. Sucks to be our tiles as they're gonna bear the brunt.

Allen, bless his little heart, has lately been so emotionally subdued regarding his older sibs who are literally and obviously crapping up their lives. Miriam, alone, is one he can look up to, but she's emotionally struggling with all the issues dumped upon her many years ago by the negligent actions of others that should have cared for her. The literal unfairness is devastating to children.

I've spent decades picking up the pieces, applying emotional bandaids, and loving some children who feel so discarded.

On a really positive note though, Lily has almost earned straight A's, an 89 in Language Arts holding her back, but I'm really proud of her. However if I brag aloud, Paloma will angrily make her pay which is also patently unfair. I bought Lily a CD (Toby Mac) that she's been wanting as a reward anyway, by golly I'm really proud of her. Taking her aside, I keep it quiet, it's between the two of us, and I truly want to be able to concentrate on successes. She is such a blessing in my life.

Preditable Opposition To Everything Always and Forever

I had the opportunity to verbally unload to a school social worker yesterday, it was a positive experience as I found him to very understanding and knowledgeable. Two traits that I both appreciate and crave in my life. His earlier work experience involved the adolescent unit of a mental hospital where he came into contact with many children like mine. He really gets it.

Several emails lately from terribly hurt and frustrated adoptive parents. One who spent thousands on a home study only to eventually have to fight for a residential placement in order to keep her family safe, another mom struggling to terminate on one sib while keeping the others intact, which likely can't be done at all, another with an order of protection much like mine when a grown druggie son retaliates against her...calling CPS to report her, fortunately the sheriff and the worker understood the situation, but it is repeated ad nauseum across the board with adoptive parents.

We are threatened with financial ruin, emotional mayhem, bodily violence, and physical and verbal confrontations 24-7. It's a bit wearying and it takes a tremendous toll on a person. Thankfully I have my mind's eye drilled into the light at the end of the tunnel and it's getting brighter with each passing second. Freedom ahead...here I come.

Paloma, wanting to control the entire family and make everyone late for school, goes out the door daring me to tell her to brush her hair. I just don't care. I'm picking my battles and if she wants everyone in the fifth grade to think she's got issues, then go ahead. She'll make herself barf to come home, she'll blatantly lie all day that we have no hairbrushes, when all my other girls look mighty fine that live here with us, and she'll steal from others so stealthily that they have no clue they've been jacked.

My sweet son-in-law warned me about painting with a wood varnish in an unventilated dining room. I painted anyway without opening the front door, figuring the fumes were a step up from Paloma's stinky, self-imposed dishevelment, and if I focus on something positive, my mood lightens. So did my head.

I'd had to give Nando an oatmeal bath as he got into poison ivy, I was barking orders at the others about showering while Jonathan and Paloma, no doubt practicing for a homeless future, acted as if I were suddenly speaking an unintelligible language, oppositionally and predictably refusing to bathe themselves.

They make nests in their rooms out of dirty clothes and they scream hysterically if I try and wash anything. Holding us all emotional hostage to their half-baked, inappropriate behavior choices and brainsick poor hygiene, the others cut a wide berth, avoiding confrontation or any sort of interaction, automatically gravitating to those that make sense and smell better.

A day unfolding before me today, so far without Jonathan who inexplicably chose to go to school, I have a mental list of chores, tasks and projects while dodging the rain that we desperately need.

I'd read an article this morning vindicating Sarah and her theory that high-fructose corn syrup is not good for anyone. Let's eat God-made food not man-made synthetic weird stuff.

As a much younger woman, I was astonished at the apparent grouchiness and orneriness evident in school teachers who were over 50. Now I understand. It's as if menopausal women have their nerves painfully exposed to the surface and are constantly being rubbed by ultra-gritty sandpaper.

I'm in a much better place now, thanks to BHRT, which is a really good thing as my stress level did not need the competition from a lack of calming hormones.

Ms. Carr has sent me the most hilarious jokes lately, hitting the estrogen nail on the head, and I sit here snickering, making fun of my ownself.

Tony insisted that I had an 8 a.m. meeting at the middle school this morning and obedient attender that I am, I flew out the door only to find he was wrong. "Boy, I told you she always emails me," I spouted as this teacher is young and unforgetful, especially compared to me.

We held an impromptu session in the parking lot anyway.

Jonathan, a ten year old on prozac, still refusing to attend school. I'd told the school social worker to go on and charge him with truancy.

"Well," he hesitated, "it could come back on you as the parent."

Discussing it later with DJJ, I was reassured that would not be the case. She told me of other experiences she'd had which made me scratch my head in disbelief. A big ole jeepers moment. Yolie also had done her social work internship in the school system and had shared some hair-raising parental tales of moms who simply preferred to sleep in.

What does that word 'sleep' mean?

Knowing that someday soon, I'll be done with living with mentally ill children, they'll be grown and gone, and my life will then unfold like a butterfly with many options...that's a good feeling. Maybe I'll then be able to sleep.

One son has apparently defied probation and left the state. I'm not certain I believe that he left, as he lies all the time. I have a Christmas Day court order present to keep him away from us, sad that it became necessary to do so, but it did. A deputy found and served him that night.

Which reminds me, before I'd awakened the kids for school yesterday, our home phone rang and caller id named the county facility. A deputy said, "hey," as if I should know him.

"Who's this?" I'd demanded with my heart pounding hard, very afraid of hearing more bad news. PTSD in action, fear rising in immediate response.

"Oh sorry, wrong number," And he hung up.

My heart slammed in my chest for the next hour or so.

Two other sons must also never come around us due to their criminal charges and accusations against them. Never. There's a line that cannot be crossed.

It makes me sad, yet I know, as a parent, that I did all I could for them. With full confidence, I move forward with my life.

Maybe I was nothing but free room and board to some of my children. My love for them was very one-sided, they did not ever have the capacity or the ability to return love and caring, and that too is sad.

Again I have full confidence that I did what I was supposed to do. I parented with a great deal of love and concern, teaching and nurturing, providing for them and preparing them for a life on their own...most of what I taught and gave now seems to be rudely rejected...but I cannot control them, nor would I want to do so, I can only control my reactions to the Hell I often see raining down due to cwappy choices.

I'll move forward with my plans and dreams, I'll enjoy the grown children and grandchildren who chose to participate in my life, and I'll continue parenting the children still at home. I will not allow anyone to treat me disrespectfully, I'll allow them to move on, to leave me alone and I'll protect myself from further venom and misplaced aggression.

Duh.

Unrealistic Expectations

Living with mental illnesses is absolutely debilitating to normal folks.

When Jonathan won't go to school, there's nothing I can do. Nothing.

I can't physically pick him up, dress him, nor force him into the van, from which he'd either run or cause a school disruption, either way he'd be dismissed from the premises.

He's only 10.

This is not normal.

I once would have thought, if I were a normal parent to normal children, I'd have mistakenly thought that I could make a kid go to school. I really lived under that mis-assumption for many, many years.

There's no reasoning, no cajoling, no reward system, no consequence that matters to him. He doesn't care. He's not capable of caring. There's messed up wiring within his brain and, as he gets older, it becomes more apparent.

I did convince him to accompany me to the orthodontist this morning and later to visit the newly nicknamed Divine Miss M at DJJ, but when we returned home and I loaded up the truck to take recycling, he got into a fight with Paloma over a pillow neither cared about and he refused to accompany us so I had to unload the entire truck as it was too drizzly to leave the paper in the back.

I did it quietly, no point in me yelling as nothing works, nothing. No explanation gets through ever, there's no thought about the feelings of others, no empathy in sight, this is just the way it is.

I lived with two other significantly diagnosed mentally ill children. It's scary and I'm right angry that I'm expected to tend to, or manage their illnesses.

How?

In both other cases, staff members and a team of psychiatrists couldn't deal with the outbursts and attacks without resorting to injected medicines. If a team of brawny men couldn't successfully manage this, how can I be expected to do so while also keeping everyone else safe?

This is an unreasonable expectation.

Cussing...Or Not

Almost in an accident today as a ditsy teenager pulled out in front of me, I don't have the time, nor the inclination, for road rage. Cut me off, I don't care, I'll yield to you, as my personhood is not tied up in 'who gets to pull out in front of who' mentality.

Get in line, kid. I have plenty of others wanting to control my emotions via their own mental illnesses.

I've totally avoided phone calls lately from a rude, negative, mean and deceitful older son...because I can. I don't have to put up with it any more and if I did so, I'd be sending a message that treating folks like that is acceptable. No, son, learn to be nice and polite.

Not only am I in love with my locked gate, knowing that Chuck's work desk looks down over my gate is comforting as well. Chuck often works late into the night, noticing any cars that cruise suspiciously up my dirt road. "I need a million watt spotlight to mess with folks," Chuck chuckled yesterday.

He was kidding but I liked the idea.

Early morning orthodontia appointment with a totally pleasant son of mine, Martin will be 15 on his next braces appointment in February.

Jonathan, wrapped in his cloak of emotional blindness, refused school again this morning. I'm just glad that a hallway full of adult witnesses at the school saw how demented he can act at times. Tell me how to force someone to do that which they don't want to do?

The people you see mumbling on the streets and pushing a grocery cart of blankets...do you think they became that way at age 18? Or rather did it start genetically at birth and disintegrate in front of the sad, worried eyes of others?

Sarah's goofy baby, Hazel, is genetically just like me. Can't stand bows in her hair or fussy clothes, pulling them off and acting silly as a bird. Sarah's gonna have her hands full, just ask Grandma.

Mae Mae looked at these pictures yesterday. "Ray Ray?" she asked me, as the two kids resemble each other greatly.

"No, baby, that's Hazel," I told her and Mae repeated 'Hazel?' questioningly up and down the hall, looking for her cousin, and still refusing to mouth the word Bita to me.

Chuck finished my dining room, I now need to stain it and get busy, but I have a DJJ meeting at one today, and yet another dismal chore that I'll blog later when I'm not so irked.

When all I do is feel like cussing my frustration...I need to walk away and calm down...

Dreaming Aloud

I got this photo from Dee, a dream of mine...hot tub in front of a fireplace and while I'd originally thought I'd build it out in The Big Back Garden, up by the pool makes too much sense. This year also, should be the year of the arbor that I've wanted for so long, a shady area where we can sit and lifeguard with ceiling fans, an endless fruit basket to eat, and a handsome pool man to fan me. An ole bat can dream, right?

Nail Guns and Daffodils

Part of my many ongoing attempts to feel human again, after 21 years of being emotionally battered, and deeply resented for not being the birth mom, by the very children I'm busting my butt to love, support, nurture and guide to an unperilous adulthood, Chuck drew up a design for the dining room that will likely be finished by tonight.

Working with my very rambunctious children underfoot though can be distracting and dangerous, Chuck would wisely remove the battery from the nail gun every single time he stepped a foot away from the dining room, knowing the temptation to Bubbas would be unbearable. Bubbas? Honey, it's me you oughta worry about.

Because I had sweet pea seeds in my pocket, duh, who doesn't? I got a long row planted in the ground yesterday in The Rose Garden, alongside the fence that borders it from The Big Back Garden. I spent the rest of the afternoon on The Hillside Garden, digging out rampant, volunteer blackberries and other hearty weeds, thinking to myself, 'This is exactly where I'll plant Sweet William, Cosmos and Zinnias this year,' as I watched the very tender shoots of daylilies begin to poke their heads up from their roots likely wondering aloud, 'Is it Springtime yet?'

It's sneaking up on me. Lily picked four puny daffodils, but that's enough to put a grin on my face, and stress me out that I haven't yet hand dug the new asparagus bed since the 100 crowns I ordered should soon be here.

CJ accidentally dismembered an iris helping me in the garden and I screamed as if it were attached to my intestines, startling CJ, who then brightly remarked, "Not that one? Right, Bita?" Garden shock therapy? He could see the pool as we worked, it's up a hill, out of sight, and he told me all about his life jacket as we worked. No, work is the wrong word. We were joyfully tending to the Hillside Garden.

Jonathan had one of his mental breaks, slinging shaving creme everywhere, pissing me off royally, leaving me feeling helpless and angry. There's no spanking here, which is what I think they need half the time, but I won't hit a formerly abused child, so I yank privileges, sadly knowing it hardly matters to severely troubled children, and then I get terribly frustrated because behavior modification just doesn't work. We need serious residential treatment facilities with adopted kids at the top of the priority list.

Then, of course, he kept following me everywhere outside, chattering inanely, and making a very big deal about voluntarily helping me for two seconds.

Deep Sigh.

And this morning, the trepidation hovers...will we make it to church or will somone's controlling meltdown prevent it from occurring?

And according to Facebook, two folks here seeing Tabby's flowers, have birthdays today: Happy Birthday to Miss Terri and to Lynn S. in Michigan. Memaw (Sabrina) had uploaded pics to my Facebook page of the Yorkies yesterday. All these children and we put dog pictures up? The kids had played dress up with some very patient animals yesterday who later in the afternoon were as giddy as me, outside with a warm sun beating down on us and the promise of Spring...eventually...if I'm patient.

Eating Together

From Alice Waters:
Americans should think of food in terms of hospitality, not fuel, diet or even comfort.

"I don't think people understand what it means to come to the table and eat with their family and friends and make the table a place of conversation and inspiration," she said.

When they do, she said, they become believers.

"I've always found that when you feed people good food, the conversation becomes very productive," she said. "You don't have to do so much preaching. People get this idea."

We have a sit down supper every single night, assigned seats: habits, rules and manners required.

It's not always pleasant. It's a battle quite often. I spend most of my meal reminding everyone to stop yelling, stop talking with food in their mouth, stop reaching, etc. I've had children who never even had a kitchen table before, who want to run around the table and throw food. I'v seen it all in the last 21 years and I still insist on some level of civility and family togetherness.

But families DON'T generally eat together anymore due to over-scheduling, both parents working or whatever.

I'm an Alice Waters fan, a fan of Slow Food, eating God-made food not man made synthetic disasters that don't even resemble anything grown that pollutes one's body immediately. Get this - Dominos alone delivers a million pizzas a day.

Science daily reports Eating together as a family during adolescence is associated with lasting positive effects on dietary quality in young adulthood, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota.

And perhaps the most staggering thought comes here: Parents should east dinner with their children in order to reduce youthful drug use urges a nation-wide public-service campaign featuring Barbara Bush and Jamie Lee Curtis. The advice is based on a report supposedly showing that frequent family dining reduces by half the risk of substance abuse by young people.

All these articles are excellent, proof positive that the effort is worth it.

Yes, I have a grown kid in jail right now with a drug charge, yes she ate family dinners for her seven years here with me. What went wrong?

I didn't have her since birth, I couldn't un-traumatize her, she was pickled in alcohol in utero, I could go on and on, but just because my children are adopted does not mean I should not spend all my time and energy doing The Right Thing for them.

What they then choose later is on them.

I still believe that they'll all turn it around someday and succeed.

I still deeply believe in that comforting thought. I really do.

Here's Hoping It Sticks

Scotty certainly has done his fair share in wall punching antics, unable to control his temper at times, but overall he's a pretty darn good kid. His single two minute chore each afternoon is to feed the chickens and he does it well.

Jonathan is supposed to take the bucket(s) of kitchen scraps to the compost pile, sometimes it's JoJo or another Bubba, but always they miss. How does one miss a pile that's about 10 feet square and ten feet high? We have a sloppy compost pile, but I just don't have time to tend to it. This was Sarah's chore as a child. Now an adult, she still maintains a compost pile, yesterday bemoaning it's tendency to expunge it's Brown Gold out the sides before she has time to move it to its garden home.

Yesterday, a gift from God, it was 65 beautiful degrees, and I took my handy dandy clippers and my spading fork and reshaped the pile to my own specifications, dumping out about 200 glorious pounds of coffee grinds I'd collected. I stepped back to admire, goofy grin on my face, and bounded out to The Big Back Garden to plant onions only to immediately receive a call from the school that Paloma was predictably vomiting. Her ticket out of a school day.

The elementary kids went to a cookie night at church, Memaw and Mayra went with the youth group to watch the UGA Gymnastics Team, a Girl's Night Out while Javy went to the high school basketball game. You'd think then it'd be a bit quieter for me but it was not to be so. There's still The Bubbas, now all middle schoolers, loud, hormonal, silly and full of their own drama. Why do seventh grade girls keep calling my boys?

I thought it was just me...why do my plastic seed trays keeps shattering? I used to use them over and over and over again. Why isn't there a metal alternative? My favorite garden store informed me yesterday that these trays are made thinner and thinner each year, yet costing more. Well doesn't that just suck for me?

I predictably ran out of time, "Jack, will you water the greenhouse?" asking an 8 year old that I can count on, so I could cook beans for dinner. Friday night tacos has become a routine that everyone seems to thrive upon, I ratchet between sirring a huge pot, like a witch at her cauldron, and filling seeds trays with a germinating mix, rationing out seeds, labeling varieties, and cooking taco shells. Dr. Mandy was here working with the kids, multi-tasking at it's best.

I did get the onions planted, a new bed turned for sugar snap snow peas, a delicacy that I crave in early spring, today I need to get the new asparagus bed ready as I'd yanked out a 12 year old bed that I'd once wrongly planted where the fronds would shade a perennial bed. Ideas bouncing around in my head, energy surging, happiness returning, my own hormones stabilized naturally, and optimism racing through my veins.

Life's a bit calmer here for a few days, here's hoping it sticks.

I'm Back Y'all

I crawled out of my man cave yesterday, my self-created rooms of comfort, and sat my ballsy self down late last night to watch a taped Oprah show about hormone replacement therapy.

It was wonderful, absolutely informative, and now I'm a card-carrying Oprah fan.

The regular lady, via Skype, so reminded me of myself last year as I blubbered on and on about my sadness and depression, my emotional exhaustion and compassion fatigue.

Y'all I was so full of it.

Within hardly two weeks of BHRT and Armour (natural Thyroid medicine) I'm back to my happy self.

Jeepers, no wonder I was down in the dumps. Medically speaking I was but a shell of my former self and now I can see all the inner emotional improvements.

I wish I'd known all this in my 30s. I wish I'd truly known what was coming as many of the symptoms hit all women in their early 40s. I blamed stress, age, the loss of my sister, becoming a grandmother at age 42, a large family, and all the other accompanying issues for my dips and swoops in energy level.

In my early 50s I was seemingly reduced to a puddle on the floor, sad, tired and useless. I kept pushing through the exhaustion as I had no choice.

I've also now upped my vitamin intake.

Watch out world, I'm back.

I planted 50 eggplants yesterday. Who needs 50 plants? We do. I've always underestimated, not once gotten the needed amounts correct after all these years. I'm happy and excited about the next 50 years of gardening and farming. Jack's dogging me that I need a John Deere tractor but I disagreed, knowing a spading fork and a hand rake gets me through. It'll be 60 degrees today, a brief interlude, a precursor to spring, and I wanna work my butt off while I have the chance to be briefly embraced by the warmth of the sun. Rain tomorrow and that makes me happy as well.

How To Help Us All

People ask me on a daily basis, what can they do to help.

They want me to suggest something tangible they can do, such as 'please go buy gallons of milk' or 'could you take a son of mine for the weekend,' or else they're just as buffaloed as I am about how to help.

I ALWAYS ask for prayer because that is exactly, and only, what I want. I'm not being a martyr or holier-than-thou. I simply, deeply comprehend that they can move the hands of God in prayer.

My dear friend Paula could use some massive encouragement right now. If you have something nice to pass along to her, or maybe some way she, or her blog, has touched your life or helped you in your journey, could you write her a quick note letting her know that?

I’d love to see a ton of us go there and respond.

She is going through some very tough times that, unfortunately, many of us can relate to.

I read many blogs and I've learned a great deal from other adoptive parents, I've commiserated with many of y'all, and gleaned much emotional and prayerful support.

I'm wanting to be the first one to tell Paula what I've learned from her...

Another debacle two nights ago that I don't even have time to explore verbally. It was an 'all's well that ends well' moment, let's move on to the more pressing issues.

Jonathan again is refusing to get up and go to school. There's no way on earth that I can physically make him, the school administrators informed me yesterday that what they witnessed can only help, especially since he verbally threatened to hurt the coach.

If Vanessa were in this picture here, she'd be the middle child of three girls from a sib group of seven that includes Edgar, Fabian, Allen and JoJo. At the moment both Fabian and Vanessa, both high school dropouts, are homeless and incarcerated. Both runaways from our home by age 17, neither can, nor will, hold a job and their future prospects seems bleak.

Yet Vanessa is not emotionally disturbed, troubled yes, but she has the inner capacity to make it. Never involved with DJJ, she benefited greatly from counseling for several years - it may not appear so at the moment - but it is a deeply held belief of mine that she'll make it. Indeed I know she's captured the hearts of many of y'all over the years, Nancy in Iowa most notably, and your prayer coverings will reap blessings on her eventually when she begins to allow God to move within her. And she will, I have a gut feeling. Likely though she'll break my heart many more times before she gets it together.

Children who were so badly damaged in their formative years are filled with self-loathing, an utter and debilitating sense of inner worthlessness that is habitually tough to combat, but it can be done. I've seen it.

We may not have shining academic stars, IQs tend to hover around 100 on average. I know because I have my kids tested, I need to know what I'm working with, to adjust my expectations accordingly. I'd received, in the mail, the ITBS scores for my three seventh graders and, in my mind, I'd already projected very closely what I then saw on paper. Ain't I such a know-it-all? I apologize, my self-confidence astonishes even me at times. Conceit? Maybe...or perhaps simply a source of strength for me.

Miriam and Edgar, the original parentified sibs in a large sib group, have done decently since high school, both graduated and both work. Edgar struggles more than Miriam, both had brushes with the law, but I didn't enable either of them, and they both appeared to have learned their lessons. The next two, Fabian and Vanessa, have struggled mightily. The last three are iffy as well. Hopefully they'll look at the older four and think hard about the results, the negative and positive consequences, and make decent decisions.

The Adoption Counselor wrote recently about the stealing issues that echoed my own frustration lately. My Sarah reminded me, in a recent conversation, how we once felt about reading newspaper stories of foster parents locking their fridges and how we must have then 'tsk tsked' in response. Now I totally understand, but I don't do it, as I'm afraid both the lock and the fridge would be destroyed.

I do comprehend children born from, and into, severe lack fear that they'll ever have enough food. I get it. I address the stealing, but I've done little to curb it. Consequences don't work, a verbal dressing down is ignored, or used to justify a rage, I remind them of society's consequences (jail) over and over, but I too just can't seem to get this concept across to those with very little conscience.

Yolie keeps pointing out that I'm literally begging my children not to break laws and go to jail.

I've forced myself to quit stressing over it, I was only distressing myself, making zero headway into the offender's psyche, but I haven't let go of the issue. Most of my kids do not steal, but the few that do seem unstoppable.

I hope all y'all who are deep in the trenches go back each day and read the comments I receive. Lisa and Pat M have been in massive battles and need encouragement and prayer as do many others.

Pat in Ohio, a social worker and the mother of a large adopted family sent me this email that I'm sharing with her permission, "One of my boys just had a neuropsych eval, very, very detailed. He too appears very smart, but is heavily medicated to keep him under control (Concerta, Strattera, Prozac & Risperdal). What the Dr. found was "vascular dementia" which translates to brain injury to the right frontal lobe (think impulse control)..he explained that while this boy appears very bright, and tests as normal IQ, he is like a parrot speaking things back and the dots don't really connect. He said that it is basically like having a stroke in that part of the brain..either from prematurity or prenatal drug exposure...he has a twin sister with similar issues. The doctor said the "reactivity" is the result of the brain damage....people with this type of damage react in rage to very minor events. Sure fits a lot of our kids...!
He suggested that seizure meds, like Tegratol, be tried...it works more specific to this type of injury."

We can all greatly benefit from each other's experiences as we battle through, seemingly against all odds. Even though comments and questions are addressed to me, I gotta tell y'all, I so rarely have answers, please feel free to jump in with your opinions and thoughts. I'd sent Pat's thoughts to Dr. Mandy immediately as I'm continuously seeking, searching, learning, and trying to make it through it all.

Another lady wrote to me and stated I was living what she wanted to do. How do I answer her? Should I encourage her to possibly destroy her own life? I know that 20 something years ago NO ONE could have stopped me from accepting God's call on my life. Now knowing what I know, how it's nearly killed me, would I do it again? I'm literally stricken by the thought that I can't imagine not having the majority of my children in my life. It's the small minority of severely mentally ill ones that have done so much damage.

So...how do I answer her?

Cammie asked me, in a comment, what do I plant and the answer is virtually everything. I prefer Seeds of Change as a seed source. This year I'm planting onions from seed rather than from sets, something I've never done, but Sarah requested it.

I did go back and publish the anonymous, profane comment I'd received several days ago...I just couldn't help myself, I find it hilarious and absolutely inappropriate, but...dadgum it's funny.

Thank You Jeanne

Lord knows I needed to giggle.

JoJo My BoBo

Upstairs, late at night when I can't sleep, I'm reading Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation that's been in publication for ten years now. I have to wait until I find books cheap at yard sales, and ten years ago I was swamped with babies. CW was barely 2 and Lily was an infant, we didn't yet know that Jack would be joining them soon enough.

I've raised four of my children from infants. Nurtured and coddled, loved and protected, they've all turned out fine...as kids should. I can't, and don't, compare their abilities to my other children, because that wouldn't be fair, but I'm struck so often by the differences, the glaring differences when a child was neglected and abused during their formative years.

It's shocking.

It's sad and unfair to the children and, like everything else, I have no answers. If kids are going to be adopted, then at birth is a fine time for it, but birth parents are given years and years to do the damage that was done to most of my children. By the time they come to me they're full of anger and hatred, oh so messed up and how does one remedy this?

I can't just call a toll free number and tender my resignation, I've seen a large number of successes later in life...I remain encouraged, though bowed from the stress. I'm strong, but battered. I'm brave, but mistreated.

And I'll get up tomorrow and keep on going because that's what I do.

I'll manage my own stress horticulturally, seeds have arrived, I'm filling up the trays, watching the germination and having a grand old time with it.

Internship Theories

Four days after I received a bloody, busted lip for my Christmas present, trying to protect JoJo from the one he'd started a fight with, I was later in Myrtle Beach glad to not see anyone I know, watching the bruise spread, then slowly fade away.

Last night again, JoJo walked past someone and couldn't resist punching them. This was in our living room, I was ten feet away in the kitchen, this is all a very large open area and the other person retaliated fast and hard.

I heard Mayra screaming, I didn't even think, but threw myself between the combatants only to be hurled into a bookshelf and my 54 year old back feels it this morning, but I woke up to other problems to deal with, no time to even find an ibuprofen.

I sat in Dr. Mandy's office looking like a disheveled, disturbed client who'd just wandered in, homeless and out from under a bridge. I eavesdropped in the waiting room on a social worker talking on her cell phone and offering nebulous suggestions to a foster mom. Maybe internship ought to include a year of living with a large, angry, raging disturbed kid?

Jonathan again refused to go to school. I chumped him into getting into my truck, we took the recycling and drove Paloma to therapy and testing, then pulling up in front of the elementary school where she happily bounced into the school without any incident, taking me greatly by surprise. She looked real pretty today.

Jonathan refused to leave the truck and I went into the school only to cry in front of several teachers who hugged me and were nice to me. Am I this lame? If someone smiles at me, I cry? I did, taking them all by surprise. They thought I was stronger than that.

The principal, assistant principal, two guidance counselors (another had already called my cell) and a special ed teacher pow-wowed. Or rather they watched me tear up as I expressed my abject frustration of living so dangerously with such mentally ill children.

The man teacher physically carried a wildly flailing Jonathan into the school. Jonathan was fighting with him, threatening to hurt him, while the other faculty members shook their heads in understanding dismay. This man is a young, strong muscle-bound coach who used to teach Pepe, yet even he remarked about the battle, shaking his head in surprise.

This is what I live with every single day, 24-7.

I think I'll start publishing photos of all my injuries. I think maybe the act of adoption from the foster care system, of troubled kids, needs to CHANGE. I get email after email from very sad, well-meaning, once-normal, high-achieving, big-hearted adoptive parents who've been physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially destroyed by the system, that not only won't help us, but seemingly seeks to punish us for even having the stupid audacity to try and love the children. It's as if the entire cosmos seeks to ruin us personally for failing to cure incurable mental illnesses.

I've taken my kids to the beach several times, Walt Disney World, Epcot and Universal, we have a swimming pool, soccer seasons, school sports, a wonderful church, plenty of food, toys, computers and Nintendos. We have nice clothes, a van and a bus, a truck, an exercise room, trampolines, a once beautiful house, a devoted, nurturing mom 24-7 on the premises with no life of her own and FOR WHAT?

So I can be blamed for their mentally ill behaviors? For not continuing to use a sticker chart that didn't work anyway? Do you honestly think that a very well-educated woman has not tried every single possible behavior modification and parenting technique? "Have you tried explaining if this, then that to them?" I'm asked by well-meaning, but virtually helpless professionals.

There are times that it seems easier to simply give up, to walk away from everything, disappear, and become a shiftless, footloose and fancy-free, unencumbered waitress on some beach, but I have way too many children that I truly do love with all my heart and soul, and I could not imagine not being with them. I have wonderful grandchildren and sons-in-law, my parents, my dogs, and my gardens...I won't leave. Duh.

But I gotta find some help for Paloma and Jonathan, some residential placement where folks'll be safe, where their behaviors can be addressed, and where intensive therapy might prevail. But it'll be at a price as then they will continue to accuse me of everything under the sun, blaming everyone for everything, never comprehending that their own behaviors are so bizarre.

Bart Drew The Line

I have early morning appointments and can't post right now, but Bart again vividly and beautifully, but sadly told my story and y'all's as well.

I'll post later this morning.

Right?

I have zero eye for design, but I can live with that lack of ability, over-compensating in other areas, but for nearly 16 years in this particular house Cristy has looked at my wall pictures and hangings with a critical artist eye and yesterday she asked to do some rearranging in order to celebrate our new paint colors.

She, of course, did an excellent job.

Paloma, of course, couldn't stand it.

She threw a heavy decorated tile at Cristy, hitting her ankle hard before it shattered.

"I'm calling the police," Cristy responded.

"Do it," Paloma spit out hatefully, guttural voice coming, and I knew we were in for it.

"Ignore it," I advised, knowing the deputies wouldn't necessarily be able to do anything unless someone had really been hurt badly.

Cristy tried to explain, from her own experiences as a former foster child, what Paloma needed to do in order to succeed in life, none of which Miss P has any interest in ever doing, like be nice to others.

She hurled a broom at Cristy's head, hitting her again. I called DJJ and left a message reporting it but I'm fairly sure Cristy is going to file charges tomorrow when it's not a holiday.

Absolutely infuriated and astonished at such a lack of conscience and soul within a 12 year old, Cristy teared up and hugged me, "I'm so sorry you have to live like this," she said in shock that a kid can be this horrible.

Paloma, of course, smirked in an ugly manner.

If I'd have punished her in any way like send her to her room, she'd break a window. I know this from deep bitter experience and the $2000 I once spent on repairing broken windows, sashes and panes, some were so destroyed that entire frames had to be replaced. Our bedroom doors are hanging by a hinge, slammed and kicked so often that they're all cracked and broken.

Our entire family is held hostage to these attacks and threats of violence and destruction and I feel helpless.

She does what she wants with no consequence because she's so uncontrollable without a soul or a conscience.

Later Jonathan, tired of being rewarded for decent behavior, began kicking and hitting as hard as he could, my kitchen cabinets...for no reason. These children just snap. I cringe inwardly at the potential cost for replacements of my beautiful butler's pantry wall of cabinets.

Pepe, his birth brother, went to stop him as the noise level was tremendous and got slugged hard in response.

Paloma, of course, jumped to the Destroyer's defense and we spent the next three hours dealing with duo-rages in which both kids screamed and hollered at their three older birth brothers who are doing well, and at me, because according to them I like everyone else in the family better.

Well I do like the way the other children behave appropriately. Duh.

Chuy, their birth brother, tried to point out that good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior is consequenced, and both kids have no comprehension of the fact that they rage at will all the time over nothing, destroying everything in their wake.

Eventually Paloma got a grip and together we bathed the Yorkies, Princess with her delicate skin, now on fish oil supplements, allowing a learning lesson, kinda, as we discussed possible careers in animal care for Paloma, an area in which she's so gifted. Dressing Miss Princess in a pink nightie, it's hard to keep a straight face and discuss serious issues as this is one of the cutest dogs I've ever seen.

Her counterpart, Pudding, a male, having nothing to do with this dress-up time was gallivanting up and down the halls, slipping on the hardwood floors and chasing everything. These dogs have done wonders for my own skyrocketing blood pressure.

Reading Pat's words, I'm trying to remember my once strongly-held passion for this endeavor. Sometimes I just find myself chanting inwardly five more years, five more years, I can do anything for five more years, knowing life will be infinitely easier by then.

Right?

Pat had also once commented about 'finding my joy from deep within' and I've been working hard on that as well (see above Picture). Yesterday's comment about the pickles, from Sarah & amp, astonished my Sarah and I. Dern if that won't revolutionize my grocery shopping choices. I'll be dogged.

Lee gave me more ammo as well, food for thought, in response to my thought yesterday of 'Could it simply be due to her high intelligence?"

From Lee: "Probably not. You can learn faster if you have high intelligence. That's all it means, in the strictest terms. Which means you learn how to be stupid faster."

I'm still giggling.

Better Choices

Wearing my You better not take my picture face, I just don't know what's gotten into me. It's as if I've become absolutely obsessed lately with improving (changing) everything.

So tired of all the BS that I've put up with on every front, an anonymous commenter suggested two drugs that he/she prefers, Damnitall and another word I prudishly can't repeat (starting with an F), so therefore can't publish, but I immediately cracked up laughing, giggling for the next 20 minutes as I made coffee, typed, and cleaned the kitchen, that remark was the precise dosage I needed this morning.

I love to laugh, that's why I adore Earl Hickey and also AFV.

I'd been dancing with my Ipod on, while painting, until I realized that Sabrina had videotaped me. "I'm putting this on Youtube," she chortled.

"Not if you want to keep your computer privileges," I retorted, changing over to a Dave Ramsey podcast to hold my bones still. He suggests, no he demands, that every dollar have a name, a planned destination, which is also referred to as a budget.

Vanessa called me collect from jail, crying and begging, giving me the jailhouse talk so common amongst suddenly reformed, trapped criminal folks who'll promise anything if they get set free.

I explained to her that I have no extra cash, all my dollars got claimed, especially this month since this osteopathic physician doesn't take my insurance and I'm left with about $400 in necessary expenses. Honey, it's been worth $400,000 to get my health back...and I've not blogged the personal business of some of my older children who've been badly battered by our faltering economy. Vanessa immediately became unglued that I'd had doctor bills.

"I finally realize that you love me no matter what," she hollered and screamed into the phone, Mayra was crying by my side and could hear every word. "If anything happens to you..." she convulsed into tears.

"Vanessa I am fine," I stressed and launched into my predictable 'I told you so' lecture about how my named dollars all have other plans that involve other people's more positive choices.

"Do a property bond," she suggested ludicrously.

"Good idea!" I shouted back, "Let's risk everything for someone who chose to attend a drug party."

Quickly comprehending my sarcasm she backed off that dumb idea.

"I'll come back home and live with you?" she tried.

"Nope. No one is living with my and my kids when they have a drug charge," I pointed out. "This has to cost you something for you to learn anything darling."

Yes, y'all, this is hard. My heart breaks because I really do love this injured bird Vanessa. She's mean, hateful, gorgeous, loving, mixed-up, traumatized and everything else all rolled into one. She is not emotionally disturbed. She's a fairly smart kid with a sinking boatload of issues and it irks me to no end to watch what her birth parent's legacy has done to her.

As I type this, CW has DVRd Aftermath: Zero Population on National Geographic and it is fascinating, so my thoughts keep getting tangled in his show. Jack too is glued to the big TV from sweet Travis and Kimberly. Travis, a birth child in a large adoptive family, now grown...an emotional survivor who understands. He'd explained to Kimberly the rages that are common, the process that seems to be involved. It's a phenomenon known only to these particular, peculiar families like us...and like many of y'all who ventured into adoption.

CW, here since birth, has been nurtured and provided for, he knows no trauma, other than living with traumatized children which has birthed empathy deep within him. CW has the emotional luxury to develop curiosity and wonderment about our world while my other children seemingly struggle with every single simple concept ever known to man. Yet my very resilient Memaw (Sabrina) shares many of CW's normal qualities and I'm so thankful on her behalf that she's so unscathed. Could it simply be due to her high intelligence?

Several emails regarding Paloma's rages...how do I know when enough is enough? It's long been enough. I'm past the point of thinking she'll improve within a loving family. She truly needs professional residential treatment that I need to continue seeking. We made it through church yesterday and most of the afternoon only to have her come unglued at bedtime because I said, "Time to go to bed."

I've endured a thousand times too many irrational outbursts that usually result in explosive damage to something or someone. It's just so sad to watch a beautiful girl morph into such a frightening sight, so crazy out of control, so unreachable.

This explains my painting maybe...something I can control...a place I can find calm since it's too cold to garden. Improvements I can make and see immediately.

I love simplicity. An if then, then this moment where results come from hard work. Where there's no waste, no excess, no damage to the environment from frivolous demands on resources, where life makes sense to me. This is why I jumped into gardening, maybe to just get a grasp on something in a tumultuous world. Let's work with nature, not against such logic.

CW is taping another NG special about The Vietnam War which shaped my deeply impressionable formative years in high school as our society raged as a whole. I remember despairing then about the mere future of society as it became even more downhill enmeshed in stupid stuff like credit card debt, gangster mentality, Me decades, 80s excesses, more pollution, less morals and values, more societal problems and challenges to humanity when in reality...Simplicity should have ruled.

We don't need Jimmy Choo shoes, we need parents to parent their children. We don't need $80 hamburgers, we need sustainable farmers. We don't need gas hogging SUVs, we need carpooling and bike riding exercise. I'll try and stifle my oncoming rant here.

We simply need to make better choices in this world.

Grandma watched another of our joint heroes, Clark Howard, explain that a grocery cart of store brands had cost him $90 and then the same cart, filled with name brands, cost $130. That's pretty significant when the taste only varies slightly.

But then, this same very brilliant man confessed he didn't like store brand soda products, he needed the real deal.

My mother was shocked that such an intelligent man drank poison.

Yeah, me too, but I'm starting to realize, at this late age, that we walk to a different drummer.

Having Jobs, Not Jail

For all you tired, overly stressed and possibly undiagnosed mothers out there, I'm taking Armour and already have my health and energy back. Add the BHRT into the mix plus my mega vitamins that I've increased to include resveratrol and cucurmin, eating really well, slugging down varied herbal teas along with my wonderful well water, I'm feeling mighty fine lately.

Y'all that black cloud that had so enveloped me has absolutely dissipated. As Paloma has raged, I've remained calm but bothered by her future prospects in life if she goes untreated. She's the beneficiary of therapy, but one has to participate and to want to change, if one has the capacity for improvement...

Tony turns 13 today, leaving me with only nine kids who aren't yet teenagers, ages 6-12. For so long I had toddler and babies, a heavy load of elementary kids, now it seems so much easier. As I painted yesterday, they made their own sandwiches for lunch so that I could continue all afternoon, painting the hall, cleaning up, high energy once again and it feels so good. They all dress themselves and we have no diapers. I like this.

Cold outside so everyone kept cooking and eating all day while I worked, totally trashing the kitchen for me to clean later. Miriam came and picked up Mayra which is a good thing as Mayra's been despairing over Vanessa and Fabian's law-breaking messes. She needs to see Miriam with a job and apartment.

Miriam is also refusing to bail Vanessa out...what would Vanessa then learn? She'd have no impetus to change her negative behaviors then, it has to cost her, not cost the law-abiding ones. Edgar'd called me on his way to work also, checking in, concerned but so disappointed in his two younger siblings.

Painting In The Winter

This book is ten years old and as beautiful as the first day I cracked it open. When my kids are grown I'm so gonna change my life and have the house like I want it. I re-read this book every winter.

I spent four hours painting some other battered walls today, running outside only long enough to dump all the coffee grinds I'd brought home earlier this week. I honestly don't know how folks survive cold weather. We had a 42 hour period when the temps never made it to above freezing.

Sarah blogged.

Re-creation

Too cold to go outside, I sure have typed a lot lately, but honestly I can pound out a post faster than I can brush my teeth.

The man on the right is Sarah's very handsome husband, Preston, who's playing Playstation or something, with Daniel, probably for the first time in his life. I think he may have played Nintendo once, but basically the man's a reader.

Suzanne sent me this link to an article where a mother decided she'd rather buy beer than be a parent. Suzanne suggested it was somewhat like my own children's histories, when the truth is my children didn't get off so easily. First they were neglected, then abused, and subsequently abandoned. Police and hospitals were involved as well as multiple foster homes and shelters. But this mother's response is sadly similar to the eventual outcome involved in my kid's past.

My friend Merilee shared what she'd learned and a light bulb dinged over my head once again. A couple of her kids, parallel case histories to mine, have returned to Texas at times, Ground Zero, near where they'd been horrifically abused or hurt, witnessing and experiencing Hell back then.

Mamas like us scratch our heads and are truly baffled that anyone would seek to return. My kids get arrested as they rage in public, or break obvious laws designed to keep society safe and decent, and I just don't get it. I truly do not understand.

A professional told her, "that she thinks they believe that their life there would have been the same life here. That they were entitled to this life/style and it would have been theirs regardless of where they were. Even knowing or while they should know that their bios couldn't or didn't provide for them. "

I totally buy that explanation. I really do.

The battering of their inner self worth has been nearly insurmountable and they all truly deeply believe that they are not worth loving. This is my main battle.

Very intelligent children, Yolie for example, recognize this inner dilemma. Yolie once told her caseworker, "I deserve better than this," although Yolie has no memory of that statement, her worker documented it and used it as her mantra while she searched for an adoptive placement for the three of them.

Yolie was a rebellious teen, but she also somehow maintained her grades and went to college. It took her many years to comprehend my love for her.

Cristy, now 31 and successful, working for the school system and married to a nice guy, fought these inner demons for 15 years. She fought hard, giving in at times to deep despair, still fighting at times, angry now at her past, but able to use her anger more positively. This is probably not very comforting to adoptive parents to know that it takes so long...but this has been our experience.

Several of my other kids have been able to compartmentalize, to not dwell on their hurts forever, but to simply look forward (like Daniel), while others have physically fought their way through their teens (like Vanessa), and sometimes all I can do is sit helplessly as they fall again and again.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I worked my butt off for my children. I know that I clearly taught them right from wrong, took them to church, educated them all, and constantly worked on their disjointed value systems which was truly always an uphill battle. What they still choose to do, bang their heads against the laws of our society, well then they must deal with the natural consequences which I've discussed here over and over and over again.

I teach.

They can choose to learn.

But then there's the miswiring and misfiring of their neurons...

Pat, I get it.

Not Where They Want To Be

When I sit to write these blogs it is never with a thought as to who is reading them. It is only for my own selfish purposes of attempting to understand my preposterous life, hopefully to aid others in this same boat, if only in a way that makes them feel better about their own situations. Y'all's comments and emails help me with mine.

Grandma just told me that Allison O, a friend who got to start kindergarten a year before me back in the 1950s, not that I still feel left out, has been reading along here. Girlfriend, did time fly or what? Now living in Chicago, it isn't like we can see each other over coffee.

My first husband's second daughter, Jenny, has been known to read my posts, as does her dad at times. Is my life whack or what? I know it must seem so to folks who do not live with traumatized children.

Friends I've worked with, Devin, Millie and Mark, yet haven't seen in forever as I rarely leave the dirt road read also. Why would I want to leave? It isn't soccer season yet. Friends from the school I retired from, who are now teaching the majority of my children, reading between the lines, helping out and understanding while still loving my knuckleheads.

Miss Kimberly showed up this afternoon while Paloma was deep into her third massive, screaming rage in three days. Pepe tackled her when she attacked Jonathan, who was merely trying to protect Nando, as he'd been her initial innocent target. An hour and a half later of demented screaming until she vomited, accusing us all of everything from Kennedy's assasination to the fall of communism, I stood there wringing my hands wondering if I should call the police, but knowing they'd just have to release her back to me, madder than ever. She was kicking my newly painted wall just to up the ante.

Finally she calmed down, like I can trust we'll now have a decent evening? Like she won't blow again over nothing?

Dear Lord, please open a door for us to get her the help she needs, the relief that we need, send protection for us all.

Honestly the description in The Exorcist, that's what we see in these rages, this one seemed to even include the pea soup vomit spewing. It's just so bizarre.

It never hardly got to 30 degrees today, another really cold night tonight...Grandma suggested I bring in the five yard dogs...wonder should I drag in my rowdy hens and Rocco the rooster?

Only four out of my ten middle schoolers got to go to Middle School Madness tonight, several couldn't as a behavior restriction for ISS, deceitfulness, and other crap-ups this week. I won't have it y'all.

I talked with a deputy there who affirmed my no bail-out policy. "Even if it appears that I'm cold and unloving? Such a mean ole mama?" I asked anxiously.

She'd told me that her own kid knew she'd never bail him out, and as such she's never had to, he knew better which has been my aim and my intention all along.

"Let them figure their own way out," she advised, "They need to learn that jail is not where they want to be."

Amen to that sister.

Logic Can Exist

Every closet in our house is absolutely full of really nice, hung up name brand shirts, blouses, dresses, skirts, coats and fleeces.

Allen asked, "Whadya call 31 Mexicans wearing polo shirts?"

"Number challenged?" replied Sabrina, mentally counting 17, not 31.

"A Bodie?" suggested CW, who's oh so adolescetly irked at my apparently old-school, preppy rules that require collar shirts.

I'd just gone to the middle school this morning, temps down to a bone-chilling, painful 12 degrees, and I saw pre-teens in shorts and T shirts, the role models that my children want to emulate. Nope. Not gonna happen.

My kids will wear nice clothes. Period.

So Paloma, of course, digs out dirty clothes to wear, daring me to challenge her on it, poised to rage if I do say something...holding us hostage again to her irrational whims. Do I want broken windows?

I've lately taken to explaining, "Ok, you win. Tell me how you think that's gonna work for you when you're grown?" leaving her gape-mouthed with no possible answer.

"Stop saying that I win," she'll scream, making me wonder if I should point out that she's gonna lose, knowing that too will make her scream, knowing no answer will ever suffice. I am not a mental health nurse, this is where I'm a little irked in the adoption world where adoptive parents are expected to be miracle workers and are vilified when they can't cure mental illnesses. Don't you think that's an unrealistic expectation? Is my sarcasm unbecoming?

About enabling...a lady, who was bailing out her DUI son who was in his 40s, asked me 20 years ago, "Well what if it were Sarah in jail? Wouldn't you then go rescue her?"

With full confidence I replied, "Sarah wouldn't go to jail because she wouldn't break the law because she knows I wouldn't bail her out."

Ya know, logic can work.

And Sarah, now 35, didn't break laws, didn't go to jail, of course, but rather made excellent choices that would advance her life goals, as did Yolie, Daniel, Gina and quite a few others of mine.

Facing Each Day Again and Again

Out of the blue, after my last post, when I'd shut down the laptop and figured I'd get little sleep what with Paloma so angry over nothing and Fabian in jail, Paloma piped up in her emotionally disturbed guttural voice, "My heart is mad at you, but my stomach is mad at me."

I was speechless. She usually doesn't come out of rages like that. Her normal pattern is to sleep them off.

We sat in silence as I thought of a proper answer, knowing I could easily send her back to the pits of her fury if I said the wrong thing, also knowing the right thing doesn't exist.

I chose the analogy of the kicked puppy who won't even come out for food. I made it about me, told her after 21 years of this, I'm a kicked puppy. I never know how my owners are gonna act, as my kids certainly own me.

In her rage, she'd kicked out at her dogs, not touching them, but shooing them away angrily which suprised even them. They'd waited it out from across the room, forgiving her, even still willing to cuddle with her, while I was still too emotionally burned to even try.

She was then doing her 'I'll pay attention to the dogs, not to the humans' routine, telling them aloud what she felt too stilted to tell me, knowing I was listening as I was hardly two feet away. They, Princess, Pudding and Amelia, beamed at her while she groomed them, caressing them and kissing them while scorning me. Transparent? Ya think?

The original owner of Princess, one of our cutest dogs, had read my blog last night and offered to come over and give Paloma a talking to which, on one hand, is a great idea. On the other hand, it'd give Paloma yet another excuse to rage. Just as Paloma was polite in court, but then she made us all pay later, so too could this potential encounter develop. BTDT too many times not to make the connection.

Tia, Lily's dog, stays glued by her side 24-7.

It is such a tightrope. I'm such a klutz, unable to balance myself while ill, violent winds blow all around here. Mayra went down in a crying heap about Fabian, which I totally understand. Years ago Yolie cried constantly over Big Joe and his foibles. Sabrina came upstairs to my room since Mayra was being too difficult to share a room with while she was so upset.

We're several sib groups within a big sib group. It's an intricate chain of feelings and relationships, and I have to walk carefully through the explosive minefield, not keeping secrets from certain children, but careful about what I tell other kids. I tried calling Miriam but her phone went to voice mail, I did let Edgar know and he was angry and disappointed, I have not told JoJo and Allen as they'll be devastated. I will deal with it, with them, over this three day weekend.

Pepe (aka Jose) is Paloma's birth brother and he was clearly irked with her last night. I kind of elbowed him away, "I got it, boy," I'd told him, afraid he'd emotionally send her into overdrive, as often birth sibs cannot bear when their other family members side with Mama, even though they deeply know it's not about Mama, but merely about right and wrong. But hey, why make sense when one is raging?

I thought back over the years at all Fabian has stolen from me or broken in his rages. That's the name of the game, the nature of the adoption of older children. I thought about Bart's blogging about Mike, how these issues are so deeply entrenched in children, I thought about the many emails I receive from you all, I thought about how the fringes of society view jail as nothing to be ashamed of but rather as 'three hots and a cot', I flipped channels and wished there was a baseball game to watch to get my mind off all this stuff, finally barely napping, and then dadgum it's morning again. I can't just lay there and think about coffee...I'm driven inwardly to get up and go get a cup, ok to drink the whole pot....it is 16 degrees in Georgia this morning.

Gotta go wake up the kids in ten more minutes.

I'm in a surprisingly chipper mood in spite of it all, nothing like getting one's health back together. I'm feeling fat and sassy, ready to take on the world, full of vitamins, coffee, oatmeal and my usual piss n' vingar.

Feeling As If Parenting Has Been Pointless

Held hostage by the raging behavior of a 12 year old, every single person is tiptoeing around my house because she's even kicked out at her beloved Yorkies. Steam's been building up inside her since we left court yesterday and she refused to return to school because I wouldn't go to Subway and buy her a sub.

Like we should celebrate a court date?

I don't think so.

Much as I wanted a sub, I swallowed my wants for the billionith time and went home to get a sandwich while Paloma went into her weird, strangled voice where she gets irrational and hateful.

I always have to ignore it because nothing I say helps, it only escalates her anger when I approach her with any semblance of logic.

She threw a heavy wooden chair across the kitchen, not at anyone thankfully, but she was mad as a hornet that I won't let her participate in a 4-H activity after school when she's failing everything.

Remember four parents called to complain about the way she treated their children in the first ten days of this school year - fifth grade. The police have been called twice by the school to deal with her this year.

My blood pressure is pounding, I can feel it. You cannot imagine what I want to scream at, and to, her. She even pulled the 'you're not my real mother card,' as if I gave a crap at the moment?

Storming out the front door, 8 p.m., barefoot and a t shirt, on the coldest night in six years. I was emailing her Probation Officer at the moment.

Back in five minutes, since she'd gotten no reaction from the trees out there in the dark, she stormed in and banged around in Jonathan's room who fled in terror.

Still refusing to go to bed, she's sulking two feet away from me while I do my best to not engage in her crazy-making behavior, typing my frustrations out, knowing it'll end for me in a few years, and she can take her insanity with her to jail because at the moment I see so little hope for her.

And before I could hit publish post...a call...Fabian was arrested for theft.

Yes, son, that's what happens if one steals.

Everyday

If I'm gonna work this hard, I'm also gonna relax this hard.

Absolutely every single page of this month's issue of Garden Design illustrates what I want to do pretty soon. A huge article on visiting garden spas...not me, I'll build my own spa.

Nando is deep within McMurray's Poultry Catalog, arguing with anyone who walks by, which baby chicks we're going to order, not realizing that I always order the Rainbow Layers each year.

Every day after school I'm questioned about my day. "Whadya do Mom?"

"I went out dancing," is my standard reply.

"What's for supper?"

"Pork chops," as if I'd have a clue where to even buy any or what they look like....

Everyday.

Adrenaline

"A person who is acting out self destructively has no reason to change if they do not ever suffer major consequences for their behavior. If they are rescued from consequences, they are enabled to continue practicing their addiction." (From here)

"Rescuing someone who is actively practicing addiction of some kind, is enabling. It is dysfunctional because it supports the person in continuing to practice their addiction. A person in recovery working on getting healthier may need some help from time to time - and that is great, that is being supportive in a positive manner. Helping someone to continue to self destruct is not support, it is codependency - it is also not Loving."

Pat, my friend down here in Georgia, is facing criticism for "not helping," when what she's doing is not enabling the irresponsible behavior to continue. Read her comment here as she explains this dilemma, tell me she's not telling your story or mine.

An addiction can also include an addiction to adrenaline, that which courses through a body that is involved in an altercation, a crime, or any negative activity that results in incarceration, and then that person expects mama, or later a wife or friend, to bail him/her out?

What does that then teach the criminal?

Oh, honey, did that mean ole policeman lock you up for nothing?

Get real.

Yes, it is painful to watch loved ones fall and fail. It broke my heart with Big Joe back then as he struggled with his anger and ill-feelings. He still struggles a little, but he manages so much better now, nearly 20 years into his adoption, knowing I'm still here in spite of it all...and that I did NOT Bail him out. No can do, son.

Yes, at times, I've helped them out, and that thin line is one that each individual must determine what is appropriate to do, I've faltered and stumbled, bumbled and pooted around at times, trying to find my way through their emotional minefields.

Big Joe had the capacity to know right from wrong and I clearly stood on the side of Right where the blessings flow and the good natural consequences reside. He's a parent now, he gets it. Usually.

I simply won't, I can not enable bad behavior. Bottom line is that I feel strongly that I must answer to God for every parenting decision that I make. God knows my heart. I have to help my children learn from their bad choices, they need to learn it was wrong and to live right. Not necessarily by all my own personal rules, morals and values, but, at the very least, they must abide by laws.

I've cried buckets over my children at times, I've wrung my hands and despaired often and I've had some amazingly incredible moments of pure joy when they turn their lives around eventually.

I just gotta hang in there.

Good job Pat.

Court For Three

I get it. I do. I understand, but as my juveniles were explained their rights, I made it clear, as I've always done, that I expect them to be honest. They can't cry, "Not guilty," when there are police witnesses and evidence. They were guilty, all of them, and my prayer is that they learned something from this. I'm positive that 2 out of 3 are extremely remorseful, those were not crocodile tears shed today, but rather tears of unadulterated shame. I'm way more proud and happy with shame rather than a lying denial of the truth.

The judge was stern, "You can go now," she told us, prompting my big mouth to mention "I don't think so. Have you seen your docket today?"

Three deputies cracked up, as did the judge, two clerks tried to stifle their guffaws, and the judge smiled and nodded, "Yes, I know Cindy," then shaking her head in sympathy at the bonehead choices my children have made.

Today didn't even include my Nessa. The first words she'll hear, that she's gonna hate to hear will pop out of Fabian's mouth, "Mom already knows."

Vanessa will blame the deputies when it was Miriam who'd called me. "You need to know this, Mom," several words I've begun to dread hearing.

Paloma melted down after court, went into her stubborn, hateful mode, looking for a potential victims who were fortunately all in school. Angry at herself, she spewed it out upon me. I've finally learned, after all these years, to nearly totally disengage, I went about my business, behind as all get-out what with a marathon court session. Paloma spluttered, fumed, and fell somewhat short of a real rage.

Now that she's on probation, I have more teeth in my bite and her P.O. officer knows I'll do my best to handle and manage her behavior, iffy at best, although she's been kinda OK for nearly a week.

Good Again...In Spite Of it All

In one birth sib group, four out of seven have broken the law, been in handcuffs, charged, spent nights in jail, and put on probation. I still have three more of them at home. None of them have any mental health diagnoses, none have mental health issues, they're not even severely emotionally disturbed. They are just very, very violent. Worse yet, they snap quickly and attack.

I'd read every word of their case files nine years ago and saw no red flags. This from a lady who can certainly read through the lines and I have an amazing caseworker who's even more cynical and able to discern potential problems. We saw nothing other than the descriptions of the father and his drunken attacks on the family. I wouldn't even qualify these kids as FAE yet they are slightly mis-wired, duh which may indicate FAE, but it's mild.

I hated living with Fabian for several bad years as it took Edgar's constant vigilance to keep me, or anyone else, safe. Allen and JoJo have equally deep anger issues, I've been injured several times, but it was accidentally, while I was trying to protect another child from them. I was badly bruised one time trying to separate Fabian and Edgar in a fight, eventually it took Joey, Sergi, Vanessa and Miriam to help me pull them apart, leaving a broken doorjamb upstairs. It was springtime and my arms were bruised, I remember being embarrased at wearing short sleeves. Covering my bruises, don't I sound like a domestic violence victim?

Vanessa got into fights at school many times.

Talking with Miriam last night, I'm deeply distressed over recent events, bemoaning their inability, as a group, to control themselves. Impulsivity and a lack of understanding that natural consequences apply to them, has resulted in some fairly severe problems. Fabian is crying his eyes out over Vanessa, he's staying with Miriam right now, and it's not yet dawned on either Fabian or Vanessa that they are recreating their birth family problems as if it'd have different results? Get real, kids.

This same group is highly emotional, oh so volatile, and very, very devoted to each other, extremely attached both to each other, and they were able to attach to me as well, even if it nearly did me in.

I've tried every parenting technique known to man, every intervention, hunted resources and found help, seemingly to no avail, but I again reassured Miriam, "It isn't over yet. She's a smart beautiful girl who has the capacity to learn from this."

Vanessa should have listened to Big Mama, graduated from high school and now be attending culinary school, that was her original plan that I fully supported.

Instead, filled with the deep self-loathing that comes from a background of hate, anger, severe violence and trauma, she's acted out horrifically. As far as I know she's still in jail. I will not bail her out. I will not enable her to live criminally.

She knows, she absolutely knows, and is positive in her heart that I'm still here and when she turns her sinking ship around, I'll find Plan R, or whatever one we're on at the moment, to fulfill her dreams.

In the meantime, she's in a heap of trouble.

Today will be yet another humiliating day for me, in a long line of embarrassments, as I have to attend juvenile court with several of my children. Yep, several.

A large family in a small county is right visible. A birth uncle of one of my children, reading my blog, being complimentary which I appreciate, and adjunct in-laws of my grown children; the family relations and connections are becoming increasingly complicated. Sometimes even I have to think the connections through in my head which is already filled with complications and relationships. Mayra was teased in school today about Vanessa. I had to talk Mayra through it at home before she too snaps.

Healthwise I'm feeling way better. I once went years without crying, no matter what, last year I cried all the time, this year I'm gaining my strength back, recovering and moving on with a great deal of hope in my heart for all aspects of my life.

Dern, that feels good again, even if the Braves weren't smart enough to keep John Smoltz.

Some Things Are Just WRONG

From today's AJC, "Wow! Whodda thunk it?
Former Braves pitcher John Smoltz is all smiles today as he's introduced as a Boston Red Sox pitcher."

This is even worse than Glavine in a Mets cap back when...