Learning To Never Understand

Maybe other families do a much quieter, calmer job of getting themselves together each morning and going out the door with a minimum of violence. The blessed peace when they’re gone is staggeringly overwhelming. Listening to quiet may become a new favorite pastime of mine. I stood on the back deck in the early morning darkness this morning listening to two young roosters trying to get their cock-a-doodle-doos right. It’s that kind of cacophony that soothes my soul, nature's music.

I’d had to walk out of the sanctuary during praise and worship yesterday, I felt as if I couldn’t get any air into my lungs.

“A panic attack?” Yolie’d asked me.

No, there’s nothing to be panicked about, I just couldn’t breathe, fanning myself rapidly with my friend, Angie’s bulletin, I was able to settle down enough to absorb Pastor Tony’s very anointed sermon, but upon getting home I started sneezing and finding myself right congested. I almost never, ever get sick. I popped Vitamin C’s all afternoon and I feel perfectly fine today.

Not so my reluctant-to-leave-the-house kids. But finally…noses wiped, cheeks kissed, hugs dispensed, breakfast served, everyone successfully made it out the door, with the glaring exception of Paloma who blatantly chose to wear dirty clothes, glaring and daring me to make her go change.

No, thank you.

Look like cwap if you want, I’m not walking into your trap, where me trying to force you to comply will only result in you thinking you have an excuse to be truant. She trudged on, looking for a fight somewhere, anywhere.

Chuck is paneling, with bead board, my hallway that’s long born the brunt of angry fists and vicious kicks over the years. “I’d like to see ‘em slug this,” he stated quietly, as he’s incredibly low key, maybe just in contrast to Yolie and I who are wired for sound.

CW, with his broken collarbone, Mr. Uber Attached Jack, and my very intelligent Chuy stuck by Chuck all evening, loving the project, absorbing knowledge, and confidant ownership of my house via renovations, leaving Yolie with little to do other than to guffaw at my inability to chose paint colors. “You think that’s pink?” she hollered in disbelief at me, while I backtracked trying to come up with possible shades of mauve in a lame explanation. “Mom, that’s green.”

Well, that’s why I wear black a lot, I can tell that shade.

“I can’t wait to read your blog tomorrow,” she’d giggled, as JoJo had put on quite a show, demonstrating why Bodies should not own thermos bottles, umbrellas, nor vacuums, as we break ‘em as fast as we touch ‘em.

My resident mean girl, Mayra, who’s not at all offended by that apt description got into a giggling, hair-pulling, run down the hall and tumble into the living room tussle with Sabrina, while Chuck wisely removed the battery from his nail gun every time he left the room, already hip to the weapon tactics of my children.

“Chuck’s so smart I feel like we ought to be calling him Mr. Chuck, “ CW reasoned aloud to me.

Chuck’s hitting 30 this fall, but was hardly 17 back when CW was born. CW has known Chuck all his life, heck I’ve known Chuck since he was younger than CW is now. Sarah’s husband, Preston, is 43, giving my kids some pretty old brothers-in-law. I still giggle thinking how my best friend, Emily’s kids, all called Preston a hottie. He is handsome.

16 hours until my retirement check is electronically deposited. No problem, we have groceries and I have a gallon of paint to dispense in the Bubba’s nasty bathroom after I clean it up. It stormed theatrically yesterday, knocking out the TV and internet connections, forcing me to type in Word this morning, until the cable guy gets here and has to fight his way past snapping Yorkies, over-protective, but very lazy outdoor dogs, who don’t even bother to stand up when they bark, and two ridiculous terrier mixes.

Soccer practice tonight and Chuy’s first football game this week. I think Daniel’s gonna join me there. He’d invited me to go to a late lunch with his girlfriend’s mother, something I’d absolutely love to do, but can’t do it at 3, as I’ll be starting supper, cranking the homework nag machine up, and getting folks ready for soccer.

“Man, if Dubs hadn’t broke his collar bone, we’d own the rec league, we’ve got the best team ever this season,” Chuy wasn’t exactly making CW feel better, and I don’t know how I’m gonna keep ole Dubs slowed down enough for the bone to properly heal. Three weeks down, nine more to go, says the doc before he’s officially released out of captivity back into his beloved sports.

Oh wait, I do have Twitter, I can twit not blogging, I can read email on my Blackerry, and read the blogs I follow. Good to hear from Misty last night. I’d just been thinking about her, wondering how she was doing, and bingo, an email from her. The Law of Attraction at work, which I always credit specifically to God, not the nebulous energy waves one might summon up.

That’s what a simple faith entails, believing one is divinely guided as one makes decisions all day long, big and small, meaningful and petty, whatever, I’m just grateful for the confidence that faith gives me, even as I struggle with all I see happening around me. I don’t have to understand everything, that’s apparently not my job. Good thing.

And me, fretting over a broken cable connection. I then was reminded about prioritizing correctly, receiving a message from one of Cindy Adams' kids that moved me to tears. Oh Lord, I really don't understand this world at all.

So...an hour later...cable man says give him another 48 hours as the pole got struck by lightening. I'm up on Grandpa's porch using his wireless.

Non Threatening Emotions

The very excellent book, Fast Food Nation, was turned into a deplorable, offensive drama mess of a movie, out of a fascinating non-fiction read. To say I was disappointed, doesn't show my true irk as I slammed my computer shut. First off I noticed it was rated R. I assumed there must be a graphic meat slaughterhouse scene, but I was oh so wrong. I'm just not having the F bomb dropped in my house, I tried fast-forwarding, but even with Kris Kristofferson in it, it stunk.

It simply sucked. It was so doggone bad, like an ignorant and perverted seventh grader wrote it.

It should've stuck to its documentary roots.

I should've stuck to reading.

And gardening. I don't care how it ends, this stupid movie, or even the middle, I'm so not sitting through trash like that. My time is way too valuable.

Another chance of rain today. I'd mistyped and written pain instead, chuckling as that's more accurate around here, but yesterday was calmer than I expected after JoJo's furious outburst in the morning. I do not weigh less than him, we're equal, me and this angry 12 year old boy kid. Same height too. Great, confirmation of something I always suspected, I'm built like a 12 year old boy.

I can outwork a 12 year old boy also, my energy and endurance is comparable - no, it is excessive.

Lately my kids have craved the comfort of pinto beans for the weekend. Every weekend. If I cook up a big ole pot, then we can eat all weekend, various dishes such as burritos, tacos, enchilladas, tostados and what have you. I get 100% agreement here on this, no one doesn't like pintos. I just run 'em hot through the food processor, adding enough water to make a paste, dumping in garlic and chili powder, serving it up with my fire hot pepper sauce, creating an intoxicating fragrance in my kitchen, this after simmering in a pot on the stove for hours, soaked beforehand overnight.

They'll reach over and ask me in church today, "What's for lunch?" just to hear my reassuring burrito answer, knowing we had tacos last night, glad to think I'll sizzle up some tortillas in my trusty black skillet.

Sarah and Hazel came by after supper, looking over a wonderful box of books Cristy had just dropped off, discards from her school, older books that brought back many memories of when it was just Sarah and I...and our very beloved books. Today one room in her gorgeous house, her office, is lined with bookshelves, packed to the gills, sagging under the weight of thick books, as she and her husband are both readers, and are passing that love to Ray and to Hazel.

Wonder if I can get everyone to Sunday School and to church without detonations? A simple goal, but difficult to attain. Tony is already in high gear today, stuck in his rut of irritating folks until they explode, then snickering at them, further angering everyone. If he doesn't learn to break this self-defeating cycle, he's gonna get hurt out in the real world someday. Somthing I've pointed out and explained to him for 11 years now, to little avail.

Shadow, the dog pictured between Paloma and Lily above, is so goofy as to be entertaining. It's just so easy for my kids to love the dogs, animals with no expectations, no emotional needs or demands, so simple as to be so non-threatening to their charred emotions.

A Sarah Update

Sarah blogged.

Still So Dumbfounded

For someone so verbose here - feelings, emotions and frustrations pouring out through the two fingers I type with, I can be remarkably quiet around folks I don't know, or even those I do know and am extremely comfortable around. In Sunday School, for example, I sit and listen, rarely participating because it 's one of the few luxuries I do have, the time then is to listen to Martha teach, later in the sanctuary I'll either be consumed with making JoJo behave, or enjoying a quiet moment with Hazel as she waits on Sarah and Preston.

My story is so convoluted, so tangled, so good, and so conversely deeply tragic, that it's nearly impossible to explain. Catching up with old friends on Facebook, asked the question, "Where have you been for so long?" How does one explain?

"Ummm, at my house," sounds pretty lame.

I did allow Allen to spend the night with his friend last night, I'd gone to meet the mother and really liked her. Allen will be 14 next month, this is his tenth year of living with me, and he's never been away except at church functions and church camp. He's emotionally very, very lose to JoJo, his birth brother, and he's very attached to me. First thing this morning he was instant messaging me, he'd had a great time, but obviously needed to touch base with home.

He's disruptive at school, extremely frustrated with other's academic abilities and his own inability to comprehend, nor to understand why an education is even remotely important. I swanny, the longer I do this...

That early nurturing is vital and my family is living proof.

It's terribly sad for a child to have been so deprived of that one facet, that of nurturing.

We made it through last night without any Paloma explosions, a very quiet night for a family like ours, maybe it was all that french toast.

Soccer practices this morning, but Scotty woke up barfing. Uh-oh. Too broke even to get to yard sales - that's pathetic isn't it? But the bills are paid, we have plenty of groceries, and nothing's pressing at the moment.

I think my netflix movie will arrive today, Fast Food Nation, and I'm happy, as if I need more ammo in my fight for real food. As if I hang out at fast food joints. Life's too short to feel sluggish from processed food, nasty chemicals, and cheap, farm subsidized corn products.

"Did you mean to get the Fast and Furious," I was asked.

Yeah, right, I must've goofed on myself. Sometimes I just stare.

My two kids pictured here, Jack and Lily, nurtured by me since birth, happy and well-adjusted, fun to be with, balance out my life, bringing me total joy and they are a barometer for me. Sometimes it's easy to be sucked into the morass of traumatized emotions and acting-out behaviors.

Words has drifted back to me that my very mentally ill kid in jail has been acting up terribly, having to wear the color jumpsuit that visibly indicates an emotional level that the behaviors clearly show. All I can think of is why was I, a raggedy ole woman, expected to maintain these same explosive, very violent behaviors in my home for years?

The deputies, the jailers, folks with guns and tasers are having a rough time, imagine how much so for me?

I remain dumbfounded.

Just as I typed those three words, Mayra and I had to break up a fight between JoJo and Jonathan...this just isn't right. Me with my frail bones, trying to slam my 125 pounds agianst someone who outweighs me, and is furious at the world. How can this work out well? Mayra's only about 115 pounds...but a mean girl, so that helps.

Like I said, I remain very, very deeply dumbfounded.

Facebooking On My Own Time

Not H1N1 at all, but a good ole case of strep for Tabby. However she's contagious and I had to cancel Dr. Mandy's visit. Several other kids have complained about sore throats, and I'd been dosing them with Airborne, Vitamin C and zinc lozenges, hopefully they can all shake it off.

A long stressful week at school for the kids, administrative uproars that I don't understand, principals changing schools, our county for all it's worth, it's emphasis on academics, great programs, wonderful support, and everything else can sure have some contentious school board moments.

I think I'm gonna fire up the largest black skillet and cook french toast for everyone tonight. It requires an hour or two of standing at the stove, but nothing says lovin' like something from the oven, or close enough.

I timed it, 66 minutes of a moderate rain shower landed on my very parched gardens. I need 66 inches or 66 hours, either would work for me.

I took some Me Time today, Facebooking with three different high school friends. I graduated in 1972, fell off the Virginia radar in 1977, consumed by my family and its massive demands and my 25 years in the Georgia public school system. How wonderful to re-connect with some really wonderful people today. I'd screamed with joy and surprise when my old friend, Floyd, came through on my Blackberry. Who knew the last time I saw him that it'd be thirty something years before we spoke again? I used to see him just about every day in the 70s.

And Dottie? The hugest horticultural influence ever on my life? That one spring day in 1973, when I was pregnant with Sarah, she'd helped me plant my first garden. I've written about her here before, way back in the archives.

I know I've been under a rock for a very long time, seeing the sunshine again is gratifying.

Something's Gotta Give

Starting to go downhill with Paloma again, I've been documenting her very irrational behaviors, having to send some of my kids over to the locked side of Grandma's house for safety as she, at times, chooses random targets of her misdirected hatred. There's no available discussion ever, as she is so emotionally erratic, always saying we said something we never said, it's always what's in her very paranoid mind that comes tumbling out leaving a roomful of speechless witnesses. She literally dissolves into angry incoherency in front of our eyes.

I am a seriously logical, uber-rational person who becomes flummoxed by aberrant, disjointed statements. I walk away, not wanting to be drawn into a pointless discussion, she escalates her behavior so I'm forced to re-direct when always sets her off. Derned if I do, derned if I don't.

All of the middle and high school kids are complaining about her inappropriate bus behavior, acting seductively towards high school boys, yet when I quietly confronted her, she, of course, denied everything and determined in her mind that everyone in our house is jealous of her and that we are all out to get her.

OK.

Yesterday I emailed DJJ, Dr. Mandy and the Mental Health organization here about her refusal to take her meds, her aggressiveness towards younger children, and in light of my trepidation regarding her entire sib group minus one, I think my fears should be taken seriously.

I'm considering legal action to keep our family safe.

Tabby has a high temperature, it came on suddenly after lunch yesterday at school and she was sent home around 2. Tylenol isn't bringing it down and the school has suggested she see her pediatrician due to swine flu fears. Normally I'd just let the fever burn up the gunk, knowing it's nature way of recorrecting a problem, plying her with liquids and love. I am fixing to call the doctor when they open at nine though.

All of this rain that has hit Georgia, has not shed more than a drop or two here. I've watched the radar screen with anticipation and glee only to be sorely disappointed, watching my gardens fry in the sun and I am highly irked at a school situation here where our high school principal is under fire. I support him a million percent and need to figure out how to best voice this. I'm a parent who's dealt with him over the years with Big Joe, a tough kid to get through school, not under the best of circumstances and later with Javy's skipping school. This man has always been exemplary in our meetings. I totally adore him.

Paloma did finally take her meds late last night but she raged in spite of lithium, concerta, abilify, lexapro and clonedine. How can that be? How is it even possible to function under all that, much less scream and carry on? An obvious indication of the severity of her diagnoses. Yes, talk therapy with Dr. Mandy is excellent, but this is a child screaming for 24-7 residential care and the state funding has all but dissipated. I've re-applied but have heard nothing in return. I keep praying for doors to open on her behalf.

Maintaining dangerous children in the home has cost us so much over the years in so many ways that it has totally turned me off regarding the adoption of older children, rendering me incapable for the past several years from participating in the matching work of AAN, I just don't want to have a hand, to be silently complicit, in potentially ruining well-meaning, once normal adoptive families. I've seen too much damage wrought by dangerous children.

Pepe, in his phone call home, kept yapping about the stupid white people he has to deal with that are annoying him. "Son, that's offensive," I pointed out the obvious, "I'm white."

Silence. Total silence as he digested the notion.

"Well you cook Mexican and you speak Spanish," he lamely offered up.

So that makes me not stupid, but still white?

Whatever.

Fast Food Nation: The Movie

Documentaries like the scathing Food, Inc and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair's work (The Jungle), awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat.

So says this fascinating Time magazine article, Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food.

If you really want to eat meat, here's how to do it right.

I never painted today, I scrubbed my bathroom floor, vacuumed more, and joined Netflix only a decade or so behind the general population. Sarah and I really want to see Fast Food Nation and we hate to have to go to town to rent it. We'd both read the book some time ago.

I'm sticking with the advice of The Unclutterer, keeping long empty spaces free of piles of paper or anything else, I'm loving it.

I hate it though when kids pull on my cabinet doors and they fall off, leaving a gaping hole.

More Shades of Green

Claudia's book and Dee's book have both piqued my own interest in eventually having Sarah edit this blog, that is now close to 3,000 posts, into some semblance of a story. The weird thing to me is that I do blog a lot, but only touch upon such a tiny fraction of the major events occurring here each day.

My house is blessedly quiet for the moment with everyone in school, we have a half-decent chance of rain later. Late last night on the radar I saw Atlanta get a huge storm while we never even saw the first lightening flash. I'd wager that west of Atlanta has received 20 times the amount of rainfall as us.

It was three weeks ago tonight that I was awakened at 1 in the morning to a hellish event. Last night was the first night since then that I got a full seven hours of sleep. It's taken me quite some time to begin to cope once again with a new and different normal.

My first husband, Sarah's father, knew I'd post this picture sooner or later. I think he told me he'd been face painted at Busch Gardens, when he and his wife had taken a grandchild there. Dang, JB, I like the various shades of green.

Dealing with the aftermath of yesterday's very violent disturbance, I called Jesse out in Texas this morning, pre-empting his questions, explaining the situation that had occurred in the next county, talking with Yolie also about it of course, moving on, hoping for a resolution and way less drama.

Forgetful about details, I'd purchased another gallon of 'Herbal Green' paint, getting home and realizing I should've gotten 'Thyme Green' or vice versa. Whatever, it's not like all our of bathrooms don't need another coat. Then maybe I'll superglue the kitchen cabinet knobs on, in the very faint hope that no one will mess with them.

In her teaching of Path classes, Yolie is careful to point out some issues that naive, clueless prospective adoptive parents, like I once was, will surely face such as enuresis and encompresis. Nasty issues that are fairly common, hard to live with certainly, and graphically indicative of severe emotional disturbance, but as I reminded my friend, Emily, who already knew anyway, when one raises troubled children, one's house is going to bear the brunt of these issues which may or may not include feces smearing.

Emily remembers when I bought this house, nearly 17 years ago, it was much smaller then and had ZERO kicked in walls, no holes at all...ya know, like most normal houses. Adoptive parents need to know they will be expected to endure violence and destruction from angry children who've been adopted from the foster care system. It's a fact.

One of my teenagers left me a sweet note on the coffee table that Shadow, the puppy, just chewed up. OK Miss Runaway and Has Snuck Out At Night, talk's cheap. Don't just tell me you love me, show it through some positive actions. Again I'm grateful for the door alarms.

In four days, when my retirement check is electronically deposited, I'm purchasing window alarms, no easy feat in a house with seemingly a thousand windows.

Next up, a Walton EMC Security System...this from someone who never locked up until recently, who leaves her keys in the vehicles...for most of my entire life I've safely slept with only an unlatched screen door, never fearful.

"Smell the pee?" I'd idiotically asked Emily, as if I needed reassurance of an obvious fact, circles of dampness on the sheets that an 11 year old denied wetting. Dude, do you think my eyeballs are painted on? I can see.

There's no point in me belaboring the issue when I can just as easily go wash the sheets my ownself, the issues here run so deep, many of my children don't stop the bed-wetting until their early teens.

A special ed teacher long ago informed me that bedwetting in a 12 year old was not normal behavior, and I withheld my smart alec, "No Spit?" response.

I KNOW this, but that doesn't change the fact that my children have some very deep, severe psychological issues that are constantly being addressed in various therapies.

After nearly ten years of trying every single day and night, one of my sons is finally learning to sit at the dinner table, to not keep getting up and bouncing around the kitchen, to chew with his mouth shut, to not hit others at the table...anyone really wonder why I thought Alternative School was a wonderful option for him?

Is my entire life really just one big DUH?

I absolutely have to expend a great whopping amount of excess tension and energy each day to just release my own stress, we call it 'getting yer energy out' as if we didn't do so, we might just bounce off the walls all night. I know that is true of someone like me.

Ahhhhh, my sweet pastor Tony just texted me exactly the encouragement, the confirmation I needed to hear. Now I really will go paint a bathroom. Mine needs it too, but by the time I got all the plants out, my day would be shot, think I'll start with the Bubbas bathroom that Vanessa once painted red and purple.

A Fist-Fight Avoided For Once

While I'm unable, or unwilling at times, to discuss family matters here, since we're often either in therapy about it, or recovering from it, I do always discuss everything with my former caseworker, as she's a very close family friend now.

She just happened to be here visiting yesterday, bringing me lunch, when a doozie erupted elsewhere and was dealt with by phone. Because I'm truly worried about a grown kid, I can't divulge the details at all at this moment, but it reminded me how other kids'll try and pump Yolie for details, knowing she's always privy to what's going on, as I dearly need her brilliant perspective. Sarah also is a confidant for support, empathy, and knowledge.

"I dunno," Yolie'd shrugged off some recent persistent questioning.

"Yes you do, Mom tells you everything," continuing to badger her for a while before giving up. Yolie can stonewall nicely.

Another kid, Jesse, hard to call this very large man a kid, but he'll always be my kid, "Just let me ask you one question," he'd proposed in a recent conversation, "Was someone in the house?" in reference to an ordeal we'd endured, the one I called unendurable.

"Yep," I replied.

Silence.

It really is tough to live like this at times. It's also really rewarding.

Daniel's commissioning ceremony will occur along with his college graduation in December, Yolie and I will get to pin the bars on his uniform, and while I'm overwhelmed with pride, it is tempered with my fear of the unknown. Where will my baby go then? My 24 year old baby? I'm trying to stuff down my concerns. He knows what he is doing, he's mature, capable and intelligent.

I've parented Allen and JoJo since they were 3 and 4 years old, the two youngest in a sibling group of seven challenging children, the oldest was 13 when they moved in with us, we're now in our tenth year together which is mind-blowing as it really has flown by.

One might think that I'd have taught Allen and JoJo better within that time span, and I'll brag and say, "I surely did teach them." But the reality is that they didn't actually learn, plus they rebel. Here in my tenth year of close observation, I believe I can truly propose that the entire sibling group is genetically inclined to violence. I'm just thankful Vanessa was not involved yesterday in what could have been a horrible situation.

I have a sibling group of three grandchildren that I've raised since each of their respective births, they are now 9, 12 and 13. Because they've been nurtured and protected, taught well, and their birth mom paid very close attention to her own health during each pregnancy, they're very well adjusted children, sweet and mannerly, loving and bonded.

I use them, in my head, for a concrete example for me. What if they'd been removed and sent to another family? They'd be as angry as hornets and would never recover. Of course they also wouldn't have had the abuse and neglect issues, the anger alone would cripple them. That said, that thought alone has enabled me to comprehend half of the depths of my other children's primal pain, to look past their anger and dismay, and to see them outside of all that.

I DO get it. I understand, and I've held children who screamed, cried and carried on for hours because they truly do miss their birth parents, even horribly abusive birth parents who would not comply with the laws of our society and were violent, neglectful and substance abusing folks...but my children loved them.

Then it was all gone.

My children were bounced around though foster care, sometimes in terribly tough situations, shelters, facilities, RTCs and other placements, tragically separated from their siblings, and by the time they arrived here to a countrified Sally Sunshine, they were truly in no mood to participate in my fantasy of a normal family life.

It was a big HELL NO from them. They didn't appreciate clean sheets, food on the dinner table, clean laundry, nice book bags carefully packed with school supplies, shower curtains, decent furniture, nor a new mom who might possibly give a good cahoot about them.

It's taken me the next 20 years to comprehend all this. I've been battered beyond belief, gone through some hellacious storms, will likely go through more, I've been accused of everything malicious under the sun, lied about, stolen from, lied to, slugged and knocked around, watched my home be physically destroyed, my windows broken, vans torn up, the list of indignities goes on and on.

Why am I still standing?

Call it blind faith, stupidity or stubbornness, but I literally believe that I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, living in God's Will for me, that I truly prayed for and about for a very long time. I'm sustained and strengthened by all that, although I fuss and moan about it a great deal, that's how I cope.

I can't count the number of times I've spent long nights dealing with stuff, wondering WHY I live like this.

Yesterday Allen was rude about everything, ill-tempered, irritable, and I was afraid he'd provoke JoJo into a very predictable fistfight, but thankfully it didn't happen. This morning Allen hugged me, "I love you, Mom," knowing he was gonna hear, "Well you have a funny way of showing it," from me, as I was clearly aggravated.

I hugged him back, "I know you do, I love you too," and he bopped off to school, not wearing the collar shirt I told him to wear, not angry about anything at that moment.

But some of my older children are still rudely and childishly working through their issues, clueless and self-sabotaging, not discussing the obvious, shouldering the natural consequences somewhat, two steps forward and a mighty blow backwards, while I, like a turtle, withdraw into my self-protective shell, weary of the conflicts that resolve nothing, worn out from wondering when they'll learn, and trying to curb my own resentment sometimes, and to respond civilly to absolute in your face bullspit.

Missing Knobs

My room is a cross between a rain forest and a sleeping porch of olden days. I love it, but it needs a coat of paint, as it's been nearly 17 years since it was first done, but jeepers, I've been kinda busy.

I'd just told a friend last night that my future plans involve re-becoming a hairy-legged hippie, living off the land, but still being a politically conservative, tree-hugging, church-going Republican, in stark contrast to my once held anarchy views during the 60s. Then, lo and behold, I get up this morning to learn Sen Ted Kennedy passed away. I tried explaining to my history buff, CW, about how society felt when JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were all murdered some 40 years ago. I lived in the DC area at the time, and it was an astoundingly challenging time for our country - shocking, life changing and sobering all at once.

I've been a Born Again Christian since October 16, 1982, and I remember exactly what I was wearing that life-changing evening. In contrast, I couldn't tell you what I'm wearing now.

(Pjs.)

Within months back then, in a very vibrant, charismatic church, I noticed a man, arms upraised in worship, tears of joy running down his face, and I cynically didn't understand at all.

Now I do.

I was blasting Gold City Quartet in my Ipod yesterday as I was vacuuming my room with my Shop Vac. Plants in a room can sure make a mess. I was turning over furniture, vacuuming underneath, figuratively reclaiming my life, what with all the literal cobwebs I encountered, and some of the songs simply moved me to tears. Happy, soul-filled tears of joy.

I am dead sure that it's taken me all these trials and travails in raising my mightily challenging family to turn a very strong-willed, uber stubborn, hard-headed, and biologically, genetically strong woman into one who finally truly comprehends her very simple need for God. Most folks learn easier than I do apparently.

Otherwise, where would I be? Married for the seventh time? Grappling with the injustice of society? Spiritually lost? Confused and dazed? No, thank you. Lemme struggle, as I do, but with my cement strong faith.

One of my teenage daughters gave me permission to share this thought. She'd told me that she was very glad for our door alarms now as she'd listened to several girls at her lunch table yesterday talk about sneaking out and partying at someone's house this past weekend. She now has a reason, an excuse, to not cave in to peer pressure.

"Where were the party host's parents?" I'd asked.

"Oh, mom, they're cool like that. They'd rather their kid party there than out in public."

"You think that's cool?" I bellowed, while again frying up tortillas on my gorgeous black, well-seasoned skillet.

"No, I don't think so, that's just what everyone was saying."

"It's absolutely against the law to contribute to the delinquency of a minor, underage drinking is also against the law," I was just getting wound up, preparing to launch into my DUI spiel and teens who think it's cool to mess up their minds, and she could see it coming, fairly sure I'd call the sheriff and report it all, so she conveniently forgot the name of the party host.

That kid's not my issue. My kids are.

Right before bed last night, I noticed with total surprise that I was missing 18 drawer and cabinet knobs in the kitchen. What the heck? Knowing I wouldn't get a straight answer out of anyone, much less a confession from a culprit, I just let it go, and kept nagging for everyone to do their business and get into bed.

Of course, this morning all the 18 knobs were back on. How can that be? I have door alarms, no one left their room last night. The mystery was later solved when Sabrina tattled on Tony, who'd returned the knobs just minutes before lights out and door alarms on. There's no point in me trying to get to the bottom of this, that's what therapy is for in our world. Dr. Mandy knows how to ask questions and to comprehend motives. Tony spirals in and out of moods, sometimes he's the most helpful kid in the house, sometimes he's shockingly vicious in his destructive tendencies.

The kids have been in school for several weeks now, and it has seemed as if I've had to be somewhere every single day, so far it looks as if the rest of this week is free, and that's a great feeling for me as I have a ton of stuff that I want to do as part of the Take Back Cindy's House Project.

Sarah also had not heard of Fresh, the movie. I'm gonna spend some time googling this morning, then go plant some fall greens, and repot some house plants. I have a few still in plastic pots which I totally despise, sure there are chemicals leaching into the air we breathe, I always pick up clay pots and others at yard sales, pennies on the dollars for their worth, and that makes me very happy. Simplicity rules.

Jack's new dog, Shadow, makes me smile too. A very goofy, clumsy puppy, but a terrier mix, and they're so dadgum bright. She's figured out how to get let back into the house, and so many other movements, in very sharp contrast to some of my children without the clearly fully functional frontal lobes, explained wonderfully by The Adoption Counselor. Her explanation there worded exactly what I'd been grappling with and trying to say. Claudia's posts lately show her struggle and how we all eventually reach this point in our parenting journeys.

Several of y'all, Lisa, Jo, Rachel, may have received the newsletter yesterday from the adoption agency. Yolie's article was in it, and I also read with interest the article on grief and how our children don't/can't tell you they are grieving...but they show it in their behaviors and in their actions. After all these years I still see it nearly every single day and it's an important concept to comprehend.

I Think I'm in Love

Coming down from my no door bedroom, an open area, 800 square foot aerie, totally filled with plants, I was reading a comment from Amy. She'd just told me about Fresh. I need to get out more often, I didn't have have a clue.

This man, Will Allen, is amazing. He's living my life, or the one I wished I'd concentrated more on, I wanna be a food radical. He's from Growing Power, an impressive organization.

Claudia still has an amazing passion for adoption. I don't. I'm passionate about my family, but terribly burned out by the system, the dearth of resources, and the constant negativity and ill-advised treatment I encounter.

I'm moving on, but taking my kids with me.

I'm done with society, I'm being who I am, a hayseed who'd rather work in the dirt.

I stood outside this morning, looking at the cwapped up tomato plants, victims of the blight, so I ate figs and picked a ton of purple bell peppers for my lunch, chopping up a big bowl of them like lettuce, adding grated cheese, sunflower seeds and flax seeds with balsamic vinegar.

Sweet Audrey, my favorite social worker, just emailed me, inviting me to go see Food, Inc tonight, oops, already went, please take Yolie with you.

Desensitization

I took Vanessa out for her 19th birthday lunch, Yolie and the kids joined us, and Vanessa, Miss Former Viper Girl, was absolutely a joy. No drama, no mean girl stuff, no make-up, no piercings, no arguments, just a sweet kid enjoying her family. She chose El Paisanos and we pigged out on quesadillas.

Sabrina has yet another dentist appointment this morning as we're trying to improve her dental health, she's just been here with me for under five years, the first ten years of her life there were dental neglect issues - mild compared to the other trauma, but something we can easily repair.

The therapist in Atlanta pointed out to us, a therapuetic foster mother and I, how desensitized we adoptive, or foster parents, can become to difficult and anti-social behaviors such as stealing and pathalogical lying. I've thought about that a great deal since then, resigned to it is how I'd felt, but in a flash of shocking clarity, I remembered my life many years ago when Sarah was an only child.She never stole.

Never. Ever.

She lied once at age 6 about her hair barette.There was complete trust between us, as it should be. In most families, that's the way it is and the way it should be.

Over the past 20 years I've gone from leaving my pocketbook anywhere I felt like it to eventually locking it in a closet at all times. I deeply miss my former freedom to not have to live under siege, but I hadn't actually pinpointed that desensitization until the therapist pointed it out. My normal is not normal at all.

Maybe because Sarah was such a good kid, an easy going, grade-grubbing kid, that the comparison is vastly unfair to my other children. Sarah had all the advantages of stability, security, no lack, no neglect, no abuse...as it should be. Now nearly 36 years old, she's raising her two children as she was raised and they're subsequently delightful. As are Yolie's children, who are also being raised as perfectly as loving parents can do and be.

Sarah was nearly 15 when others moved into our family. In retrospect I wished I'd have waited until she was grown and off to college. My caseworker clearly warned me how emotionally difficult this would be for my only child, books echoed that thought, but I was incapable of truly comprehending it until many years later. Now I cringe when I see folks adopting out of birth order, or those who have much younger birth children still at home.

Back then Sarah was in high school and starting into her more grown-up years, but was mature, capable and independent.The desensitization is shocking, as I step back from my challenging family and consider all the ramifications of what I've endured. I've slowly, without my conscious knowledge, become less sensitive or insensitive, or unresponsive after long exposure or repeated shocks. Constant trauma in action, pounding away at my spirit.This does not just include the stealing behaviors, but I've sadly come to acknowledge at times, 'if their lips are moving, they're lying,' or what about the emotional mistreatment constantly or the physical danger, the shattering violence by those who'd do me harm? What about the passive aggressive behaviors, the disrespect, the takers, the criminals, and the mental illnesses I've lived with day by day.

Am I now absolutely and totally desensitized to normal? Or is God protecting my own psyche by giving me the ability to get up each day and continue forward, one foot in front of the other, both hands on the wall, one foot on a banana peel, feeling my way through monster difficulties and unfathomable trials of life?

Up at 5, my mind churning and me checking on the exploding toilet that I'd literally prayed over last night. "Dear Lord, please help me unstop this bugger and get me some sleep." Armed with a busted plumber's snake and a crappy plunger, I just about ran out of patience.

I gave up any attempts, turned off all the door alarms, as I prefer the front door hanging open so I can smell the still nighttime air as I drink coffee and peruse the newspapers online.

Soccer season underway, I'd picked Chuy up from football practice, having to drive him directly over to the park for soccer practice, homework and a late dinner for him, he was snoring by 9:30. Dr. Mandy had been startled by Paloma's very manic phase, not having actually experienced it before, finding it disturbing, honey try living with it as it has not abated yet, no wonder I can't sleep that much.

Outside pressures crushing me, unreasonable demands on me most of the time anyway and for me to have this blinding flash of comprehension over how much I've changed via desensitization and trauma, Lord Have Mercy, I need to spend me some time outdoors today weeding, mowing and tending to the gardens that sooth my raggedy, beat up soul.

But first I have listened to CW's long drawn out account of his dream in which he was shooting Nazis that invaded our home.  Too much History Channel, son?

Eat Real Food

"Mom, Your date's here," several kids yelled down the hall to me when Sarah walked into our home childless. Grandma and Grandpa here to babysit, we'd carefully planned our excursion to town to see Food, Inc. Everyone was fed, I'd rented them that lame Hannah Montana movie they wanted to see, they were happy, I was happy, Grandma had Rummicubes and willing players, so she was happy. A win-win situation.

In a burst of bragadocchio here, claiming a Master's Degree from Emory University plus one more advanced Specialist degree (EdS) from UGA, I turned and whispered to Sarah within the first 90 seconds of the movie, "I need to take notes here." Click and watch this youtube short and see if you're not transfixed. I felt like a hayseed hick watching a high brow documentary, oh yeah, I am... and I was.

Both of us later exclaiming on the ride home that we felt we'd missed half of the important information, as we'd still been absorbing previous statements. We both want, and need, to view it again, feeling as if neither of us was capable of absorbing so much in-depth information so quickly.

Jeepers, we American food, (and I use the term loosely) consumers have been bamboozled by clever, devious marketing ploys, wheat and corn subsidies, and our own ignorance and apathy.

I kid you not, if you eat food, you need to watch this movie.

I wrongly thought since it was in limited release that it'd be sold-out, so we got there early, only to find only about 20 other folks in a several hundred seat artsy-fartsy cinema, wake up America and smell the garbage you're eating.

It's not about vegetarianism, although it made me very glad to be one. If I ate meat, it'd only be free-range, grass-fed, and this movie explains and shows graphically why. I'm not out to convert folks to being vegetarians, that's my own happy choice.

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet," or so says Albert Einstein. I think intelligent men are very attractive.

I love my hens, when they get out and we have to chase them, they're smarter and faster than us. The chickens grown for corporations cannot even stand on their own two feet, nor take more than a couple of steps before falling, as their skeletal system are simply too frail due to the chemical feed that plumps them up too fast. Food Inc showed this on film and I was stunned. I've read books and book regarding this crap, but to see it illustrated so sadly knocked my socks off. Corporate meat production is brutal.

I am not genetically slim, one cannot blame, or excuse it, on genes, that's just an easy excuse. I'm slim, although I eat mountains of food, but it's because I eat REAL food; not packaged food, not processed food. Maybe I should write the very obvious diet books, but it'd be too short, comprised only of three words of advice: Eat Real Food. The diet industry is making billions of dollars with little to no long-term results, we as a nation are getting larger and more unhealthy by eating processed foods. Period. Duh.

Our last two generations hardly know what real food is, the slow food movement is a speed to them.

Monsanto obviously is unhappy with their real life portrayal in the film, this site explains why. I was horrified at what they do to farmers.

Michael Pollan and Eric Schlooser narrated the film, pouring out so many facts and statistics, information, graphics and visuals that I could hardly take it all in. I'd blogged before about this guy, Joel Sallatin and in the film, as the cameras rolled around his Polyface Farms, he demonstrated the proper way to butcher, package and sell humane, grass fed, free range animals, but I could hardly look. Again, if one eats meat, one needs to watch this film, and adjust where you purchase the meat from. Gag.

Wal-Mart has eliminated a growth hormone in the milk it sells and has implemented a huge amount of organic food sales such as Stonyfield. Calling it voting with your fork. Wal-mart, a behemoth, will adjust their products to the tastes of the consumers and consumers need to wake up and smell the pesticides that are killing us all slowly.

I could go on and on. Two skinny girls, like Sarah and I, hardly needed any more ammo for our world-view on food. I ate four large cookies Sarah had carefully baked, because I can. She uses real ingredients. We'd run into Ms Carr there, sharing a bit of the cookies, not much left after I'd gotten ahold of them.

If you eat real food, you can be a pig like me.

Bottom line, if you like to eat, and we both love to eat, then eat real food, cook from scratch with real ingredients, read more, eat more, and live better. Folks comment on my energy level - well it's not due to a chemical intake, rather I burn a great deal of real food, getting to eat more to burn more, a fun and happy combo, isn't it?

And it can be done, I've fed my children brown rice and cooked beans from scratch, whole wheat pasta, wheat bread, tons of garden produce, and no meat for the 36 years I've parented. No sodas, no kool-aid. I have been known to cave in at times, with chips, Krispy Kreme, gummy bears, whatever, as random treats, not as a diet. I'm not a food purist, but I am careful.

My grown kids tell me they miss my cooking, it represented someone who cared enough to cook dinner each night. Yes, they grow up and eat fast food, meat, some drink sodas...heck, some do drugs and get DUIs, but it's not from a lack of effort on my part.

I dare anyone to read all these links, watch this film, and not change your eating habits for your own good. Call me a food radical...

Visiting Sugar Stacks & Buying Glasses

Thanks, Nicole, for this incredible site. My kids and I were just looking through the items and gagging.

From Rachel: Look up Zenni Optical or Google $8 glasses. I have ordered from them and they are fantastic, better than what I'd hoped for. The price is real and you can order as many as you want for only $4.95 shipping. All you need is a prescription to type in so they are correct. Any idiot can do it, I did. My kids break their glasses when they are in a fit so this way I don't lose my cool.

I didn't know about this, my kids can break glasses on the rise home from the Opthamalogist's Office.

The Spirit of a Child

The Bible admonishes us to keep the spirit of a child within us, and I truly am still filled with awe and wonder at our world, the beach is an amazing place, my horticultural pursuits thrill me, and I absolutely and unequivocally love where we live. I love our land, I love having Sarah and Yolie's families close by.

Mae Mae nearly ran back to my house the other night, remembering she'd left a toy there, fortunately Yolie's eagle eye and diligent parenting intercepted the two year old's unwise plan that night.

Hazel has, of course, figured the way over here, a short jaunt through the woods or an ambling walk down two different dirt roads.

CJ has discovered a pear tree here and is loving it. Ray's growing into a fine young man, playing flag football this fall.

To be running out of fresh tomatoes by the first of September is shocking, this nasty blight wiping out some 200 plants that should've provided fresh tomatoes until early winter, canned and frozen through the year. I planted three colors of bell peppers, and again this year those purple bells have thrived, but my jalapenos?

What's going on? I made some Hot-As-Hell, that's not a cuss word, just a descriptor, pepper sauce last night that probably should be offered up as a cure, or maybe a repellent, for Swine Flu, and as I chop, I always separate the seeds and guts of the produce for my hens who crave such fresh delicacies, cutting down on what goes in the compost bin, but finding enough grass clippings, weeds and other yard waste to more than compensate.That's how my brain burns and churns each day, my huge goal in life is to not have to pay for curbside trash pick-up, misnamed greatly as dirt roads have no curbs, no sidewalks at all.

I do think about each item I toss in my large kitchen trash can, these cool folks have taken it to the next level. Our county doesn't recycle many plastics, other than the more common nos. one and two, my friend Kimberly telling me she takes her other stuff into the next town. Hmmm, good plan as there's a huge center near Dr. Mandy's office.

I was walking around our yard, also misnamed as it's more of an acreage than a mere yard, picking up discarded toys, clothes that have been cast off, shoes left behind and, Lord have Mercy, trash that's been dumped. Who does this? Who thinks it's OK to toss a chewy bar wrapper on the ground? In the grand scheme of things around here, that may seem petty and minor, but I feel it's indicative of the big picture, the total lack of insight into one's actions, the apathy towards the world and the sad inability to think past that one singular instant in time.

We'd nearly had a lawn tractor accident last evening, as I had a responsible 15 year old mowing the meadow, and a younger child breaking the rule about being anywhere near a machine in motion. Darting in front, my loud voice drowned out by the motor since I was up on the front porch looking out towards them, in painstakingly slow motion, I saw the disobedient child get knocked down, and I nearly had a stroke. My mind racing into blood, guts and mayhem. Very fortunately, the child must've been made of rubber, so quickly was the bounce back up reflex, and I barrelled out there to lecture and holler.

Breaking rules results in natural consequences, and I can't even get that one piece of the puzzle across to folks with zero impulse control.My heart slammed within me for another hour or so as I dwelled on what might have happened, thanking God over and over in my head, like a mantra, for what did not occur.

Walking around my room, later into the night, trying to calm my own pulsing motor down, I noticed with gratitude that one of my Snake plants had bloomed, I can't begin to express how happy that makes me. I'm right simple-minded and easy to please at times, ain't I?

Our blazing hot, nearly oppressive temperatures have suddenly cooled off somewhat, surprising everyone with the immediate relief. As the dust settles on this summer I am overall disappointed with my gardens, providing us with food now, but not much for the winter.

"I wish we had pinto beans every night," Sabrina told me recently, indeed there's never been a complaint, Edgar texting me in Spanish about how much he missed the various bean dishes I cook. Grandma, too, is hooked on the pintos, such comfort food, smothered in hot pepper cheese. I'm thinking about frying up a burrito for breakfast on my aged perfectly black skillet, well heck I've been cooking out of it for close to 40 years, it's had time to season itself well. I have an entire cupboard of black skillets, the way some women might amass their expensive shoe collection. I've never passed up a skillet at a yard sale, passing them on to my children who've been raised this way, knowing Big Mama thinks Teflon'll kill you quicker than cigarettes.

Lily, sitting here with me early this morning before church, figured we cook between 32-36 pounds of pinto beans each month. Maybe closer to 400 pounds a year. I'm gonna have to row crop soon, there's just not enough raised beds to do this correctly. Even when they're all grown, I'd need about 6 pounds a month, 72 pounds a year grown organically. Yippee! Another fun goal to pursue.

If I can just convince my hard-headed, rebellious children to not break laws, then maybe we can move on to higher order thinking, to have a conscience, a concern for society and the environment, nutritional thinking versus the high that crashes too fast sugar mentality. What about farming and gardening, producing one's own food? Caring for others? Taking care of our earth? Are my plans too ambitious?

I raised Sarah right. Of course I've had almost 36 years to do so, making my share of mistakes along the way.

My three other children that've been here since birth are empathetic, sweet and well-behaved, going through the developmental stages of childhood properly as they should. My other children who were not as fortunate, who'd been jerked around, unsettled, and mistreated, and they have so many more obstacles to overcome. I pray minute by minute for God's grace to cover them and I, for me to always know which road to chose in raising them, and for their emotions to someday be healed.

Other normal parents who may have a glass of wine at dinner...well, they have that luxury. In my over-worked thinking processes, if I drink anything besides water, coffee, tea or soy milk, it'd have to be an Odwalla, packing in the protein grams that my body consumes and needs, building me up for the next fall, or the next ordeal.Life's been so tough, rough and difficult lately, I'm praying for some relief, for some peace, and for some progress here within my family. Chuck and Yolie have been super committed here lately, helping me Take Back My House, Sarah's made some her version of mint Toll House cookies that I'm looking forward to today, if she can keep Preston out of them...

Some Good Things

The U14 coach is an Emergency Medical Technician, always a good thing for aggressive players like my kids. So far we've had a broken nose and a broken leg over the years from soccer, plus Chuy broke someone's arm last season.

Sarah found this, our winter hibernation reading list, two food nerds, obsessed with nutrition because it's so fascinating, and we've devising a plan to get us out the door to see this movie. I'm excited.

We're so there.

Another Thing I'm Slowly Learning

Being an enabler ranks amongst one of my worse fears on earth. In Atlanta, I'd asked the organization that provides therapeutic foster care, their policy if a client is arrested and was happy we had similar philosophies - NO bail outs. The therapeutic foster mom said she's often let a kid sit in jail and think, later providing bail money. I have a very tough time imagining though that she'd ever sign a property bond and risk her beautiful home for someone who has been diagnosed as such a risk.

Not bailing out may seem heartless, but in the long run, how else will we teach children to not get arrested? Every law enforcement officer I've spoken to agrees 100% with this thought, most of them even telling me about their own ne-er do well family members who were constantly bailed out and rescued, therefore never understanding consequences nor results.

It just burns my butt to financially help out someone who then visbly mis-manages their money. They have cash for garbage while I live so sacrificially? I don't think so. If I want to give away money there are orphanges that will use it to buy food.

I also plan to not ever let an older child move back onto my property. I've shut down the double wide, my independent living facility attempts at "helping" folks get on their feet. Worse yet has been those who've literally moved back into the house, with the exception of Daniel after a year of dormitory living. He's a helper, a giver not a taker, but he's also fiercely independent and succesful.

Many of my older children have an arrest history, it would seem patently unwise to allow them to return. They also hang out with those folks I don't approve of (thugs) and will not allow on my property, thus setting up other conflicts where the grown kid tries to convince me they're old enough to make their own choices. OK, dude, go pay your own rent as well, then you'll have that right.

One kid was once outraged that I objected to a DUI. Ya think??? Bye-bye. If you can afford alcohol, you can afford to pay rent somewhere.

I need a sanctuary. I need less conflicts, less rebellion which is never a pretty sight in someone who isn't paying rent nor pulling their own weight.

I've slowly come to understand that those who cannot successfully secure their own housing situations are way more emotionally needy and demanding than I can handle. I'm tapped out. I'm done.

I set out on my own at age 17, demanding to be independent, to pay my own bills, and to thrive in that arena, finding myself nearly 40 years later appalled at the laziness and apathy I see around me.

This may sound harsh, but it is all based on some major difficulties, some terrible disrespect and outright dishonesty I've sadly encountered over the years, leaving me deeply desiring to be a solitary hermit.

I want someday for folks in this community to wonder aloud down at the soccer fields, "Whatever happened to Cindy? Remember that skinny freak with all those kids?"

Others will reply, "Oh yeah, I forgot all about her. I ain't seen her in a month of Sundays."

And I'll be hunkered down out in my gardens, drifting in peaceful solitude, lounging on my sofa reading books and eating popcorn, unlocking my gates only for those children and grandchildren who mean me no harm.

That's my dream.

In God's Hands

In my constant quest for knowledge, trying to understand that which I see happening around me, please know that I crave your comments and your thoughtful emails, your take on thorny situations, and your experiences as well. Just because I'm lax, or late, in answering does not mean I haven't absolutely dwelled on your words.

Claudia's book told of her adoption of Mike and Kyle, and Kyle's diagnosis of Conduct Disorder, a term that I'd not encountered in any of my adoptions, one that I now see springing up constantly in kid's write-ups. Yolie'd wondered aloud if any traumatized child wouldn't qualify on some level. Claudia informed her readers that this is on the extreme edge of the ODD spectrum. I'd even venture there's a massively high percentage of older children claimed within that spectrum and, for me, it's one of the hugest blood pressure raising aspects of adoption from the foster care system.

Back in Big Joe's day it was merely labeled as 'ornery as Hell.'

I made Claudia's book about me, of course, aren't I doing that a great deal now, picking through and pondering on the Ah-ha! moments I was reading. The disassembling of items she'd described has been written here in my experiences, she used such a polite term, whereas I rudely call it destruction.

We have three double beds that are now on the floor, as the bed frames have been destroyed. I used to constantly replace them, shopping at yard sales, and I eventually discovered I was paying more to haul off the broken pieces at $15 a truck load to the dump, than I may have originally paid for the furniture item. What's wrong with this picture?

As I could not sleep last night, blessed thunder storms, stress levels, my own fretting over events, my age, and my thoughts on Claudia's book, I also pondered yet another aspect she'd written so eloquently about - that of poverty.

Our children came from such depths, but it isn't just financial, it's emotional and spiritual, generational and so entrenched. I've watched my children arrive in our once lovely home, trash it beyond imagination, and move on, but sadly return to similar origins of their birth; marginal trailer parks, seedy apartments, and live with shady characters, seeking out a frighteningly lower quality of life.

I cannot explain why other than to muse maybe it is because it's their comfort zone? The familiar chaos and dysfunction?

I know I've seemed terribly down lately. If I could share the details, you'd wonder how I'm even functioning on any level, obviously I'm relying and drawing upon my very deep level of faith, thinking I'll hopefully once again enjoy the mountains more after moving through this desolate valley of darkness.

Another bathroom explosion, wading through the poop of others, mopping, doing laundry late into the night...all my college educations for this?

Yes, I chose it. I'll pull through, I'll be blessed again, stronger than ever for having survived yet another devastating blow...I'm very grateful again to my friends I've met here via this adoption journey, y'all my internet support group, imaginary friends, moms in the trenches together, and the dads I've also come to know.

It seems pointless at times, all these sacrifices...for what?

It's in God's hands, not mine.

Out of Many, One Family

For a mom of 39 children, for one who has endured an incredibly stressful month...why would I slump on the sofa and read an adoption book instead of a garden book? Who knows? But I did, and was immensely rewarded in the process.

A fascinating book written by my friend, Claudia Fletcher, and Claudia's charming husband, Bart. Sarah called him crazy handsome one afternoon several years ago when they were both here visiting in Georgia, sitting around Sarah's kitchen table...momentarily childless, the Fletchers and I, that day.

I knew their story, I've daily read their blogs for years, exchanged emails and phone calls, visited with them a couple of times here, and once in Ohio when I'd first met Claudia, so I thought to myself, lemme start this book tonight.

Y'all I couldn't put it down, just couldn't stop reading it at all, immediately captivated within a story I already knew, thinking to myself, well if I like it this much, imagine how much more so for other folks, especially newcomers to the adoption world.

I could hear their voices, especially the wryness of Claudia and her dry, on-target humor. That time in Ohio, we were both new to Adopt America Network, I was missing my silly Bubbas, calling home to discover Daniel had hosted a pool party with his high school baseball team, while Claudia made fun of my countryfied accent, yet we immediately clicked, becoming fast friends and supportive cohorts in this immensely challenging journey of adopting older children.

She got up to speak that chilly day in July, (chilly for a Georgia girl who prefers to swelter) replacing someone who'd had to bow out and she cracked us all up. A gifted public speaker, she's an excellent writer who has captured the joys and immense frustrations in adoption. Some of her experiences were achingly similar to my own, some were vastly different, and having come to know her children over the years, I was very interested in their beginnings, in how their family came to be as they are now.

She and Bart opened the story perfectly, within the first few pages, quoting the foster care licensing worker's initial questions.

"Do you have pets?"

"No."

"Good, because these kids (speaking of foster kids) would kill them. Do you have valuables?

"No."

"Good, because these kids will steal, ruin or destroy them."

"Do you have furniture or possessions you highly value?"

"No."

"Good, because these kids light fires."

An effective approach, suggests Claudia, shocking them into the harsh reality of what foster care could be like, and she claims, they were wise enough to get the point.

Ironically I, Cindy Bodie, snickered, part in shock, part in personal grief.

Their book delves more into the adoption process, it's easy to discern that they have another book needing to be written about their own realities of life in the ensuing years. This book alone is 221 pages, of know how and interesting bullet points, detailing what they learned along the way.

Bart's "intentional parenting" intrigued me, it is what he does so well.

So even if you're past adopting, as I am, or a newcomer, or still in the process, I highly recommend the Fletcher's book.

Do I only write positive reviews? Yep, if I didn't like the book, I'd not write anything at all, saving my promotional words for those books I personally feel will benefit other parents, since parents are my personal focus group.

I'll pass this book around, I'll promote and suggest that Yolie push it in the Path classes she teaches, I'll loan it to my own caseworker, now the owner of an adoption agency, as she always curious and interested in the perspectives of adoptive parents. That's what makes her so good at what she does each day.

The Fletcher's deep passion for helping children burns through every page, shaming me even somewhat, as I've nearly been morose lately, faced with such daunting challenges. I personally needed the shot in the arm that their book provided.

Great job, Bart and Claudia, I thoroughly enjoyed plopping myself on the sofa this evening and traveling to Minnesota for some time with y'all. I hope you've already started penning your next book.

You may order their book here

My Own Attitude

I'm so emotionally whacked out I don't think I can even pick my fork up at supper tonight.

Trying to get to Atlanta this morning by ten is no easy feat, beings I have to get all the kids to school first. Of course Jonathan refused to go. I called the School Social Worker and DJJ, never heard back from DJJ, but Mr. Brian was here within minutes, spending nearly an hour trying to talk Jonathan into attending school which is nothing short of being legally required.

"Call the deputies," he suggested, but I knew Jonathan would just get released into my custody, no consequence, feeding into his illogical thought processes, that there are no consequences, since there truly do seem to be none. Don't feel like going to school? OK, go lie to the judge, nothing's gonna happen as budget cuts and non-existent funding is combining to turn juveniles into near monsters. That's a poor choice of words on my part, as I'm dealing with a severe mental health issue, not just bad behavior.

The assumption though seems to be the child isn't parented properly versus here's what mental illness looks like.

Mr Brian understands, he listened to me caterwaul my utter frustration. Jonathan eventually came out of his room and agreed to go to school. Think the Abilify kicked in?

I ran through the laundry room, grabbed a clean collar shirt, and jumped in my truck, only to realize I'd grabbed my nine year old son's polo shirt and it fit perfectly. Great, haggard and gaunt now.

A terribly frustrating couple of hours spent in Atlanta with a child who feels unbelievably, uncontrollably driven and compelled to steal. Her therapist pointing out that folks who steal, also lie. Four months until age 18, if she's not arrested first for a recent credit card theft, well then she'd turn 18 in jail. This very intelligent child has had the benefit of full-time, high caliber, therapeutic intervention, yet the seemingly sociopathic proclivities are sprouting with abandon.

I was so dern hungry I thought I'd either faint or barf. I stopped at a grocery store to get our weekend groceries, and I bought, and immediately ate, an entire pot of hummus with salt and vinegar chips, physically craving fat grams, feeling so light-headed and stressed from nearly a month of crushing blows that I chug-a-lugged an Odwalla bottle of Super Protein (33 grams of soy protein) in two gulps, and ate two pounds of cherries, spitting the seeds across my truck onto the passenger side floor.

It's my truck and I'll spit if I want.

That's how girls act who drive 11 year old, five speed trucks. Lord I love stick shift.

It's seemed as if the stress is crushing my heart, squeezing my soul, and diminishing me as a human being. I'm so weary from being everyone's emotional punching bag, sick of disruptive behaviors, and unexpected hatefulness. I'm a mom, not a psychiatrist with a staff to help me.

I've worked, worked, worked and worked, painting, cleaning, scrubbing, replacing, repotting, rewashing and doing laundry out the wazoo.

I've got to git me some relief soon. Yep, that how I talk, it's my house, and I'll talk how I want.

What an attitude...

I best go mow the grass.

Pet Therapy In Action

Why is there a hen in the house? Scotty'd drug it in, wanting to cut a piece of string off that had become entangled in its claws. I'm not that much on pets, but I've allowed ten dogs and a dozen chickens to be a part of the kid's responsibility chores around here, obviously this means I spend an inordinate amount of time doing it my ownself, but at least the pets act grateful for my efforts.Finding these two pictures, taken 8 years apart, Jack, one of my here-since-birth grandchildren/children with his sweet ole dog, Lizzie.  As a puppy, Lizzie would sleep upstairs with Daniel who was barely starting high school then, now turning 24 in the next couple weeks, a visible reminder of how time flies.

I'm gonna need to argue with some of my readers here. Many of you start your emails, or tell me somewhere in the middle, 'I know I'm not dealing with as much as you are,' naming a number of children that isn't 39, but y'all, ONE raging child is more than enough to deal with, and some of what you all have encountered in these rages far surpasses what I've experienced.

One mom to one child makes such a difference and if we stop to consider this, we then need to have such gratitude for every mom, or dad, who remains with their child.This primal rejection injury kinda never heals. Some of my grown children put on a happy face and succeed mightily against all odds, but even my Yolie had confided in her blog, had explained the depths of that horrific pain.

The Adoption Counselor linked two studies today on her blog that are fascinating and relevant to us adoptive parents. I'd made it all about me yesterday, plodding through a New York Times article on stress and the brain, glad I had my gardens to distract me, but also stressed about that, since all I've been able to do for the last month is to harvest and eat - not weed, not plant, nor lovingly tend to it at all.

We've been in a whirlwind of emotions, plans, scheduling conflicts, ordeals and demands lately.

It was Sarah who'd scared me silly, apparently chigger bites that became infected, her skin is very sensitive, blistering up exactly like chicken pox, hundreds of them suddenly. A nurse casually told her it was chickenpox, that had been my first thought as well, but I'd pushed it aside, remembering exactly 30 years ago when she'd had a tough bout with them as a child. I'd really fussed at her about going to a doctor, something we both dislike doing for ourselves, and after much consultation and examination, it was determined it was not chicken pox. Thank God. So off to flag football she and her family went with Ray Ray.

On Lily's twelfth birthday yesterday she got glasses. A brainy and beautiful child, she'd mentioned she was having a hard time seeing the board at school. A new vision center had a great deal of $69.95 for an eye exam and two pairs of eyeglasses. An adopted grandchild, she does not have Medicaid.Nor does CW with his braces and collar bone injury, oh heck Martin doesn't have funds for his braces either, but isn't that a parent's job?

I've been up since 5:30, sitting with JoJo, explaining percentages to him for math problems and yes son, you will need to know this in real life. Don't you often see me with Quicken, Excel and an online bank page, fretting, sweating and figuring? Everyone does, not just moms of large families.

"I'm not gonna be a mom," he's been whining, as if Dads don't need to know math. Truly he's Edgar's birth brother in every mannerism, Edgar who'd sent every text to me recently in Spanish, another Mama's Attention Demander, challenging me to rise to the task, prove something once again to him. A real mom who answers in his own language, I get it, son.

No longer reluctant to live with door alarms, I'm adding window alarms as well, no more of this sneaking out when I'm asleep, or stealing food I'd have given permission for them to eat, duh, we have two tons of vittles, Mayra picked me my first scuppernongs yesterday and I'm excited for the upcoming harvest.

But today, I need to be gone most of the day to Atlanta, zooming back home before the bus desposits my children, before Dr. Mandy's visit, our last free night before soccer kicks in full-time.

A Happy Update

She does NOT have chickenpox.

Still Clueless, Part Ten Thousand Apparently

Written in the late 80s, just as I was in the beginnings of a new adoption, telling the very heartbreaking story of fetal alcohol syndrome in an adopted kid, I arrogantly, or ignorantly assumed this wouldn't affect us. Why so? Because I don't drink? What was I thinking? Reading this tome, The Broken Cord, is still a must read for adoptive parents. If you adopt from the foster care system, this will be an issue.

The children I then had in my home, beautiful and right intelligent, had a deceased birth father, cirrhosis of the liver, that alone did not clue me in, all siblings would eventually keep it together enough to finish college, to marry, and to have children, but the emotional issues took us all by surprise, not truly manifesting until their 20s.

There's a difference, of course, between FASD - the full blown spectrum of difficulties and FAE which more loosely lumps different symptoms. FAE can be mild, can almost be attributed to mere lapses in judgement, until one looks at the bigger picture and takes into account the different aspects that are then glaringly evident.

None of my children came from teetotalers, all came from severe drug and alcohol backgrounds, the mental health diagnoses of birth parents has been shockingly dismal, and one would think I'd have fretted over so many red flags back then, when I still deeply believed that love, security, stability, education, and a nurturing environment would, or could, overcome early gaps.

Yeah, right.

Reading a case file many years ago, schizophrenic birth moms in more than one case, I dumbly thought, "Oh they really need a mom," not thinking about the genetic component that might be passed on to the children I wanted to mother.

But Cindy dear... well-adjusted, non-smoking, drug free and alcohol moderation mothers don't necessarily lose their large sibling groups of children to termination of parental rights. The birth moms represented in my family have extensive criminal histories, as well as mental health labels and substance abuse problems.

Why has it taken me so long to connect all these dots?

The majority of my children will grow up to be law abiding, fairly normal, middle class people. It's that raging minority, the ones who desire to be criminal thugs, who have no conscience, too many weighty diagnoses, and a well-documented history of violence that scares me.

And what about my grandchildren? With these scary family histories? Yep, I fret.

But today I'm going to dote on my birthday girl, Lily, pictured here. A sweet, smart, gorgeous young lady who is a total delight to parent. She's a grandchild-child of mine, been with me since birth, joining me in our surprises at the ridiculousness of some actions we see around here.

I'm taking her to lunch.

Tomorrow I have an opposite day, a day of difficulty in Atlanta at a therapeutic setting for one who's almost 18. My stomach clinches to consider the machinations that I'll encounter, part of the ordeal, I signed up for this, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. BTDT with zero results before.

But I can't see the Big Picture, as God often must remind me in prayer, and in my daily walk with Him.

Miss Smarty Pants doesn't have the answers and that's where she (I'm) grateful for my faith that sees me through.

Tabby got clocked in the eye at school yesterday, a child with a hula hoop, a total accident, but I want it documented as a school injury. She came home whining about it, soldiered through Children's Church last night knowing they had an Ice Cream Social that she'd been anticipating for a month, melting down hard this morning, wanting a Mommy Day, but with children's Motrin and some hugs, I finally got her to school, informing Miss Beth, the Guidance Counselor, of Tabby's insecurities and high maintenance emotions.

Jonathan was very dark, refused to get up until I was loading up the van, sullenly chose clothes that he knew I'd object to, thus justifying a rage in his twisted thinking, but maybe the Depakote or the Abilify kicked in, he too made it to school, leaving me here alone without any meetings for maybe the next three hours, relishing the total peace.

CW took a tumble at school yesterday, tripping over his own large puppy feet, only having one arm to catch himself with, while trying to protect his healing collar bone. The pain shot through him, he's tough and strong, but still needed to call me right around noon to come pick him up, looking pathetic standing there with the nurse. Nothing like sitting in the recliner with pain meds and eating an entire carton of Breyers' vanilla ice cream, adding a nap for good measure. He's tried again this morning to accomplish an entire school day on Motrin only.

That said, I have an entirely different pressing medical emergency I need to attend to, helping a grown daughter and her children, hoping and praying their mama doesn't have what a nurse just diagnosed her with last night. More to come...

Compassion Fatigue

"Compassion fatigue results from taking on the emotional burden of another's agony, similar to PTSD, the stress is a reaction to the result of another's trauma." Paraphrased from an article, sent to me today by Lynn.

Hits the nail on my head, doesn't it?

I'm certainly not tired of taking care of the children still living with me, it's the older kids who could not, would not learn, who are destroying their lives, and expecting me, or even asking me, to help out when they ignore all logic ever presented to them by me, therapists, teachers, preachers, resources, programs and interventions.

I cannot be expected to fix bad choices, especially after I've warned of what might happen if they go down that road.

Where are positive choices? Why is self-destruction attractive?

Hey, Where's MY Phone

Chasing a dozen chickens first thing in the morning is a fine way to start one’s day.  Smart enough to slip out and head for the compost pile, it took six of us to herd them back into their enclosure.

Every morning this week I’ve needed to be out of my pjs and in the middle school front office either tending to CW’s broken collar bone issue, or this morning, JoJo’s re-entry into regular school, reluctantly  leaving alternative school where he truly adored his teachers and the highly structured setting.

Now sitting at the Psychiatrist/Psychologist office, waiting on my children who have therapy, cutting up with the receptionist, Lyn, I’d brought my laptop along so I could blog, knowing the rest of the day I’d be tied up with scheduling conflicts.  I was here yesterday morning as well.  This is my life and I’m fine with that.

Due to an ongoing situation, I have CPS in my life.  I report stuff that needs investigations, I do not cover-up, but all large families find themselves under scrutiny, particularly by those who couldn’t do what we do, but find it pettily imperative that they call CPS and make ridiculous assumptions.  A for example might be, “How can she possibly feed that many children?”

Large families are suspect.  Often low income, a bunch of kids fathered by a dozen different men, that stereotype is transposed over me as well. I’m sometimes treated as if I don’t know where kids come from, as if the birds and bees theory was never properly explained to me. Yes, I resent all the implications that come with this territory.  Should I wear a sign with my own college and grad school credentials? I do have a resume, expired now, but still illustrative of my experience and education level.

The CPS worker and I were conferring in my office, our very large pantry that has full shelves of food, I’d pointed out the many holes in my walls where un-spanked kids must sit in time-out for their infractions.  It angers them to be held responsible, so they kick in my walls, break down the beds, or punch out window panes.

She was very sensitive to the fact that my children have massive fear issues with social workers, knowing that they are the People Movers, and that acting out often occurs.  Oppositional as usual, my children were perfectly well-behaved yesterday; quiet, obedient and polished even, surprising me certainly.

I should’ve known better.  After she left, Tony threw a book at Scotty’s head and an immediate fistfight ensued.  Martin and I pulled them apart, afraid they’d tumble onto CW who was protecting his shoulder area, I pointed out AGAIN to Tony that I won’t always be there to stop fights that he provokes.  Indeed one of his teachers stopped me this morning at the school to tell me how rude and disruptive he’d been lately.  Don’t I know it.

He picked a fight with Mayra immediately, I sent him to his room and he hollered he was gonna call DFACS on me.  For what?  For not letting him fight?  For sending him to his newly painted room? He’d thrown a glass of water in Mayra’s face. Anyone else wonder why I twitch all the time and am beginning to stutter?  Is drooling next?  Adult diapers for me?

Within the next two hours, nearly every single kid had seriously melted down with fears and preconceived notions; crying, sniveling, fussing, picking at others, and terribly misbehaving so I’d be forced to verbally redirect them, then justifying their own inner feelings of rage. Even when we’d be in a new adoption and caseworkers were supervising the placement, my kids would act out and we’d call it Social Worker Hell. It was a sight to behold I tell you.

Last night took about 10,000 hugs and 89 conversations to reassure everyone, old emotional scabs ripped off painfully once again, fears rampant and acting-out apparently necessary.

When I finally had everyone settled down, bowls of ice cream after supper, door alarms set, I collapsed into my own bed only to discover a trail of ants in it.  What the heck?  On the second floor?  There’s no food in my room, but I’ve read that ants will go anywhere and everywhere in severe drought.  I had to change my sheets and stomp around on the floor.

I have a football sized bruise on my upper thigh from falling into the vent hole the other day, a fist sized bruise and laceration on the other side, it’s scary looking, like I’d been dragged behind a motorcycle, and it’s painful.  I’d worked hard all day and I cannot begin to explain the mental exhaustion that is usually so severe it’s tough to even sleep.

One reason I resist having folks help me out, especially financially, is that I do not ever want to feel beholden to anyone.  Truthfully, we make it every month, we’re very careful with money, and we don’t have to have the latest items.  We’re fine overall.

I know I can’t ever reciprocate and I’m so independently stubborn that I get a strong satisfaction in doing this on my own.

I’ve noticed over the years that when I financially help a grown kid, they tend to subconsciously make me pay for doing so, they resent me, they tell tales about me, justifying within their own minds that they owe me nothing.

That’s right, they don’t owe me anything…but decency.  All human beings deserve that, at the very least. I think, because I do hold stuff in, that folks are certain that I have no feelings.  I confide only in those that I trust one million percent. 

I’m thankful for pastors and for Dr. Mandy, and of course for my friend Emily. Initials after one’s name impresses me still, Emily with her LCSW credentials and life experiences, Mandy with her PhD…that’s important to me, it indicates the amount of study and research involved, a training in psychotherapy is vital.  I don’t have it, I’m an educator, a retired media specialist.  The issues and challenges that we face demand big answers that are so tough to find.

I’m very emotionally shut off lately - very, very tired of disrespect and hatefulness.  Y’all are grown, go live your life, I promise I won’t interfere at all, I’ll live my own life peacefully, obviously embattled, dumped on, and stressed out, but I’m such a survivor.

That ole ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ seems unduly bitter, yet relevant.

Because I’m in Week Two of Severe Stress, I’d not had a chance to order Claudia’s book and I was super surprised to have it come in the mail yesterday.  How cool, I’ll read and review it soon, already knowing I’ll love it as I’ve read most of it as she wrote it. Yolie was grinning, “Lemme read it next,” she’d asked.