Bring on the New

Year....

2020, doesn't that sound all Jetsons like?  

It was a good year, sort of.   When you have a kid with issues "special needs" it is never fantastic but who's year really is?   I am going to go with no one and leave it at that.

Jacob graduated so that was good.   I reallly didn't think he would do it and he really didn't but thank you calculus teacher for seeing him two points to push him to that point.  It probably wasn't ethical but you saw me and you got me and you felt for me (and him) and there will be a special place in heaven for you one day.

We went to West Virginia for a few days and saw a game and introduced Adam to the President....

of West Virginia University.  

Before I ever left that town I dreamed of sharing it with my children.   They would be as awestruck as I was the first time I saw the Mountaineers take the field, they would tear up at the band's playing of Simple Gifts, they would beg to have their picture taken in front of Woodburn Hall....

Oh well, it wasn't what I imagined but I enjoyed it.   

My happy place....I'll be back for good one day.   

We saw the Steelers play......

And the Texans.....

And the Astros.....

Yes.   We like sports.     

We made new friends....

and are finally at that point where you can leave your children home alone without locating a babysitter.   It is AWESOME!   (this wasn't one of those times.....she insisted on coming and I am a sucker and allowed it).   

As much as I swore I would never teach preschool again, well, I am teaching preschool again.    I am pretty much doing it as a favor and probably won't be doing it next year but never say never.   This is my first time working with two year olds.  I also swore I would never do that but I kind of like it.    I do miss my free time though and by free time I mean all that time I used keeping my house clean and cooking meals and doing kid stuff.   I still haven't finished any of my Netflix queue that was what I wanted to do with my "time off" last year.     

My sister moved to Florida and that sucked (hence the new friends LOL) but she hates her job so much she is actively looking for something else back here so it may not last very long.   

I am very blessed that my parents are still healthy and self-sufficient.   I am blessed that my children are healthy and thriving regardless of their smart mouths and frequent bad attitudes.   I am blessed that we have food on the table, a car that runs (19 years old!),  a house that is paid off,  friends and family who support us.   We are blessed to be able to send our son to college and pay for it sans scholarships because Lord knows that isn't happening.   Nevermind that he withdrew from two classes without telling us and finished the semester with a 0.5 GPA but, you know, whatever.   Hopefully he understands if he doesn't get it together in the spring it's Hello Army, Navy, whichever you want for him.   

2020.....I thought for sure I'd be living in a space high rise with a flying car by now.   

Happy New Year to all!

Finally

 I posted these pictures on Facebook and my best beach friend replied:   "Best Day Ever!" because she knows and she gets it and she loves me and was happy for me.  

I saw other mothers on Facebook doing the same and it felt strange to see their tears and read their beautiful posts about how they would miss them and how these years passed in a flash and they were the BEST EVER.    I remembered a little bit about Thomas the Tank Engine and weekly trips to the library and wanted to get misty about it, but it just didn't come.

I have to be honest and say, yep, BEST DAY EVER!

He has been living in that room for three months now and the stress for the rest of us has greatly lessened.   It's like we have come up for air and can breathe again.  

If he leaves the dorm for an extended time he stays with my parents, he prefers that.   He hasn't slept here since the end of August.   He is ten minutes away and I have been over twice, both times to take him to an urgent care because he was convinced he was dying of something......he is 18 and stopped taking his medicine and, therefore, his anxiety is high.   I finally convinced him to try a new prescription and he says it is helping.   I wouldn't know because I rarely see him but he asked for a refill so I guess that is a good sign.

He calls every Monday threatening to drop out because he is failing most of his classes.   I remind him he will have to leave the dorm and he changes his mind.   Academic probation is in his future.    He swears he will do better next semester and he should as he has signed up for twelve hours of the most easy and unnecessary classes that are offered but we are okay with that if he can just stay the rest of the year in that now filthy disgusting room.

He loves it and we love it.  

He's made friends and has a girlfriend.    His high school friends were coming around for a while but they seem to have faded away.   He is sad about it and I am too, for him, just remembering my own breaking away from that life, but it will be better for him.   I hope.

We spent Thanksgiving day with him.  It was almost nice.   He still hates Elizabeth.   She still hates him.  

He came over to help decorate the tree and he actually hugged me.   He said, "I like you better when I don't live here.".  

Ditto, kiddo.  

Can't We Just Be Nice?

Our neighborhood has a "security" gate.    Now.   We do not in any way live in a prestigious area, but for whatever reason the developers felt we needed this gate and our neighbors are all in hot love with it.  

I hate it.

This morning returning from my morning football drop-off, there were three vehicles stopped because they can't get in (interlopers! trespassers!)  The stupid gate is not that far off the highway so three cars do not have a lot of room.   Anyway, I try to get out of the road before I am hit by a texter not paying attention when a shiny black Audi tears it quickly into reverse and,  if I hadn't had the foresight to remember my horn,  she would have totalled my car.    I needed to catch my breath for a second and then proceeded to open the gate where this ugly woman tore past me, rolled down the window, then yelled at me how rude I was to honk at her she just needed to find her son who has been lying to her all morning so I just need to get over it.

WTF?

I swear to God I see why my grandmother constantly told me how much she hated people and how she could not wait to die.

I honked at this "lady" to keep her from hitting my car.   I was seriously scared for my life for a bit because she was not going slowly at all.    I thought she was going to apologize but she made it my fault?

Our whole world is this way anymore.   Everyone, EVERYONE is so freaking self-absorbed and incapable of caring about others in any way.

Case in point:

I can laugh about this now, and I frequently do, but I mean, no regard at all that there might be someone else who would like not to look at her butt all afternoon.  

I would like to be an asshole as well but my mother taught me better.   I would have looked for the spot completely out of line of sight and if it couldn't have been helped I would have asked for permission to set up and apologized profusely.    I wish I had told that woman today that I could not have cared less about her bad parenting but all I could mutter was, "You almost hit me" and then she gave me the F-You I should have given her.   

Why is everyone so rude?   Where were there mothers?

Our gate is topic of conversation daily on our community website.   People are awful about it.   Like I said, they have hot love for it and cannot stand the mere THOUGHT of a non-resident getting through.   It's insane.   

These are the "sticks" the board put out to keep others from turning in from the forced turn-around exit.   Apparently people go through the exit when they can't get in and this pisses my neighbors off.   They are pretty huh?   

Now, not only am I pretty polite person, I also believe in following rules so I see where you shouldn't drive through the exit but really?   Is this the worst thing?   Whatever.   Now people who have been her previously don't even go through the entrance, they just go straight through the exit and wait for someone leaving.   Some of my neighbors have actually forgotten they were on their way somewhere and blocked the way and had words and generally put themselves in harm's way because apparently it is VERY important to keep people out.   They post pictures of it all on the website.     One lady got our Amazon delivery woman fired for doing it.    They are passionate.  

I don't want the gate anymore.   It's made my neighborhood an ugly place, more so recently (new neighbors) but this has been going on for years.    What's the point of it?    I got an ugly hair after I was ALMOST KILLED and attempted to block BITCH from coming in and, you know what?  She came in anyway.   If someone wants in, they get in.    There aren't many people living here but there haven't been many times I have approached and there hasn't been somewhere there.   All you have to do is wait and not that long either.    

So I really wanted to post the opposing view on the website but I just don't like confrontation and, truly, I fear retaliation.   People know where I live.   I wanted them all to see what the perils of the gate are.   If she had actually hit me, I probably would have.   Because a few people like to feel exclusive and important, we will have to continue this constant pile up and confusion and frustration and dangerous maneuvers just to get over the border, because they are going to keep coming and a little old gate isn't going to keep them away.

Kind of like our country.   

Why can't we all just be nice like our mothers taught us to be?   

Two weeks later edited to add:   Today on the website someone actually proposed building a WALL around our neighborhood.   REALLY!   We actually sort of have one on one side dividing us from the highway but they want MORE!   You can not make this shit up.    

Why Can't It Always Be Good

Why don't I live at the beach?   Why isn't this my daily view?

It's always so sad to leave our vacation.   Even if it did pour the first three days, it was fabulous.   Adam and Elizabeth slept until noon each day and Jacob wasn't even there.    Life was good.

But......he's back.

I am trying so hard to stay away from him but it's hard when he follows me within six inches and screeches inappropriate words and hasn't changed clothes in a week...the smell, my lord the smell.

But my mother needs a break and there were things he needed to accomplish here:   thank you notes, college assessments, chores.   I would love to say he got right on that but, no.  We need to pay some fees to the glorified community college but he refuses to sign the agreement that allows us to access his account.   You know, because he's an adult and he doesn't want us in his business.   WHO came up with this shit?   I mean, how many just graduated seniors do you know that just have that money lying around to get it done?   Of course, I realize most of these adults are actually adults and know that if they want to succeed they need to pass the baton to THE PERSON WITH THE MONEY, but I live with a man-toddler who just wants to be an ass about it.   Yes, yes, I should let him fail BUT THAT IS WHAT HE WANTS.    If I don't pay, he doesn't go and HE DOESN'T WANT TO GO.    If he doesn't go, HE STAYS HERE and that is exactly what he wants.   His "Gap Year", his lazy time, his sit-on-his-ass-and-do-nothing-because-he-deserves-it.    Yes, I could stop myself right here and let it go but then I get to spend the next year doing the same shit I have been trying to get away from for the past 18.    I really, really hate the person who came up with the stupid agreement.

I want to go back to the beach.   Live there.    My sister is moving there.   Maybe I will go with her.   Do you think she could support my gap year?

Next Chapter

So....

Last Friday was a shit show.   To cut it short:   I asked for his college email password so I could complete the housing requirements and he held me at a six hour stand off about it.    He was unmedicated, of course, but it was crazy.  

FYI if you do not yet have college age kids:   Once they turn 18 NO college will deal with you without permission from the 18 year old CHILD.   If you have a spring birthday, get it all done while YOU can still do it yourself.  

Anyway, at about the five hour mark I got in the car (after I located my spare car keys because he thought it would be cute to hide mine) and drove to the Justice of the Peace office (like stupid cop man told me) and procured the previous eviction papers.   I brought them home, told him he could relinquish the password within five minutes or I was filing those papers.   Amazing how quickly he could find it then.   I still haven't heard back from the housing people but, whatever.   My vacation is coming up and I am not thinking about ANY of it until I return.  

See that?

I did that.  

The screaming and griping and you-don't-know-what-you-are-talking-about-just-let-me-sign-up-for-the-easy-stuff, here we are four years later.   He finished high school with THREE endorsements.   I don't really know what that means but it looks better than not having it, am I right?   I do know here in Texas he needs one endorsement to graduate.   Look at me overlapping those classes!  

And that was after he insisted on three years of a PE credit (only needed one).  

It was confusing, all of it was, but I think now I have it all figured out.   Now that he's done.   I'll be ready for Adam and Elizabeth.  

He did graduate.   He didn't actually pass precalculus but his teacher went to WVU and spotted him two points.   I still don't know how I feel about that.   He didn't earn it so shouldn't take it but at the same time?   It's time to move on.  

Suprisingly enough, I bawled my head off through most of it.   YES.   I still need him to move out.   I still need some peace away from him.   I still need a new normal.    BUT.   I cried and cried for what could have been.   No parent should feel such fear and stress from her child and if I am feeling it, he likely is as well and I feel shame and guilt and frustration that I could not raise him any better than I did.   I tried, every day I tried, but I didn't do a good job.   I failed him.   I failed us.   I cry in the hope that he can rise up and overcome and love the rest of his life most likely far away from us.  

And if I cried so hard at JACOB's graduation?   I will need to stay home and watch Adam's online.   I cried yesterday dropping him off at the high school for his first football practice.    NOT.   READY.  

That's the forced keep-from-crying smile.   My sister also told me an hour prior to this that they were moving back to Florida at the end of the summer.   Suffice it to say I cried a lot on Sunday.   And Monday.   Today is Tuesday and so far, so good.   Jacob went to his grandparents for the next two weeks and is apparently attempting to take his drivers test and I am packing and preparing for the best. week. ever.  while also getting ready for my summer preschool job.    We are moving into a new chapter, all of us.

So.....

here we are.....

Sick

I hate Facebook this time of the year.  

I am 50 years old.   I give no more fucks.

The 34 pictures from every angle and every step to the stage as your child receives the Best Student Ever?   I don't want to see that.   The thousands of cords breaking your kid's back in his graduation gown?   I don't want to see that.   The fistsfull of awards?   Nope not that either.    I just do not give one fucking shit about that.   Yes, I know it's your Facebook page and you can post whatever you want on it and I encourage you to do so, just know I scroll right past or in certain cases I have blocked you altogether.

You would think after YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS of my children barely scraping by I would be used to this but you know what?....it just gets worse.    Every year I think THIS will be his, his, and her year.    Please sweet Jesus remind me in August that it will NEVER be their year.    My kids have no passion for anything.  They are not smart.   They do not care about others and they have no character to speak of.   I know this because they have no awards for it.     I guess in a way it's a good thing because I can go to the bar and have drinks with my friends on awards night.   Well, I could only in theory because my friends are all at school watching their own kids get awards.  

One of my children is failing the 12th grade at the finish line because he has a point to prove and another one is failing math and has to go to summer school because instead of turning in her homework papers we spend hours a night doing SHE THROWS THEM AWAY.    My other child doesn't want to do sports anymore because he has to be at the school all summer at 7 am and ain't nobody got time for that.

Where do you get those children who have drive and ambition?   I want to exchange mine.

I hope all your Facebook pictures make you feel like a fantastic parent because they should.    All they do for me is make me contemplate foster homes for mine because, obviously, this is something I did.

I am 50 years old.   I give no more fucks.

 I refuse to throw out all that touchy feely shit about my lazy children, how I am proud of them no matter what because, you know what?   I am not.   If that makes me a bad parent then I am a bad parent.   All three of these children could do so much more than what they are doing they just refuse to do it.    Where will this lead them?   The best I can hope for is skate by and be average and I would be OKAY with that but they could excel.   Why won't they?  

What they tell me is, "Why bother?"   The same kids win the same shit every year.   If you don't start out winning in first grade you never win.    I watch my preschool parents retain their perfectally capable and smart children because they want them to be  farther ahead of the others so they can win the awards (no joke).  

Don't be expecting any pictures of my children this month.      While your children have been busy getting every single award every year, my kids' motivation and esteem fell until they no longer want to attempt because it hurts less when you lose and you don't try.   Trust me.  Next  year I won't even try.  

Ramped Up

Have you ever just wanted your life to end?  

I don't know what I did to deserve this, I have always thought of myself as a pretty decent and good person, but apparently I pissed off the universe sometime, somewhere.  

I give.   I'm done.  

My husband had a Boy Scout event on Saturday so he was gone all day.   In case you aren't aware, we had two Boy Scouts for a while, they quit.   My husband keeps going.   Of course he does.   If he is there, he doesn't have to be here.   This happens almost every weekend.    I BEG him not to leave me with him and he just chuckles.   He is not as awful to him as he is to me and I am Jacob's target.   He attempts to pit him against me through lies and when I tell him Jacob did XXX and then Jacob gives him Yes, Sir, No Sir, he gives me the side-eye.   Years.   Years of this.  

Anyway.....

Jacob started screaming at 9:54 because "It is 6 fucking AM I shouldn't have to empty a dishwasher before daylight!"  and kept going.    Anytime I attempt to get help from my husband his response is to call the cops.   Everytime.   This time I didn't even call him.   I called the police.   The short version of this story is the cops were complete assholes and actually had him record them telling him that until he graduates we are legally obligated to him and CANNOT kick him out.

Seriously.   They seriously did that.  

The cop in October told us we could evict him at 18.  I guess that is not a thing.  

Also, you need to go through the local government to have him evicted and he has thirty days after the forty-five days it takes to complete the eviction process.    He has squatter's rights.  

Today, he missed the bus.  

A solid hour of stomping, cussing, slamming doors, throwing things, beating on the other kid's doors, spitting, splashing toilet water, peeing on the floor.   The three of us locked in our rooms.   My husband, of course, is at work.   He would never behave that way if he were here.

When I finally "get up" since I need to get these other kids dressed and out the door, he bellows at me that I need to "get my ass up and take him to school".     Oh yes!   Let me get on that!   I said no.   Act Two commenced.  

So here we are.     He can walk to school.   He walks home every day.   He just won't because my lazy ass should be driving him.   He called my husband, of course, told him a bunch of lies so that guarantees our evening should be just as pleasant as our morning.     I guess he'll stay here all day long cussing and screaming and destroying whatever he can whenever he wants because I was told specifically the police could not help me.   I told them he might kill us one day and that bald ass fuck just shrugged.  

I am done.   I am just fucking done.   I do not know where to go from here.    I just know I cannot continue.  This "child" is never going anywhere.   He won't graduate now because he knows he can live here forever if he doesn't.   He doesn't have to work, doesn't have to contribute, doesn't have to pay bills, he just stays here every fucking single day of his life and abuses us and is allowed to do so. If he were my husband those cops would be encouraging me to leave, it's my child so now I can't?    AND I need to work and support him?  

I understand the desperation suicidal people feel.   You feel trapped with no one to turn to and no where to go and the complete and utter unhappiness just buries you.    I try.   I try to fix this.    Everyday I try to fix this.   Everyday of the past 18 miserable years but it never gets better.   At least before I always had an out.   I knew the day would come that we did not need to keep him here, something to look forward to (and I realize that looking forward to the day you kick your child out is pretty perverse), and now.....it's not there.   Our sentence has been extended.      

It will never end.   I have been given life without parole.    And I don't even know what I did.  

Take Two

Still no college......still not passing.

Just in case you were wondering.   LOL.

These kids are going to kill me.

Last week it was Adam.

I got a call on Friday that was cutting it out:   "Son...office....truancy."   I was on my morning walk.   I ran home.

So apparently Adam has been leaving his coveted office aide class early since January and on Friday they finally got tired of it.  

Maybe I should have dealt with it, huh?   I would have been all over that if KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

I mean, seriously.   We go from he's-such-a-good-kid-we-felt-a-warning-was-sufficient to in school suspension in twenty minutes.    Grrrr......

This is the same school that wouldn't allow him to attend a field trip because he had a library fine and when I brought to their attention that we could not find notification of a fine ANYWHERE I was told the government shutdown kept them from doing that.    O-K.  

Adam deserves punishment for disobeying their directions.   I am not disputing that at all.   In fact, I really didn't dispute anything because my first instinct when I returned that call was to cry and tell some woman I have never met, "NOT THIS ONE TOO".     All I could think was what have we done?   Why do we have TWO of them?   Why can't my children behave?   Can life expectancy be 50 again?   I might have even said these things out loud.    Could be why she suggested some outside psychiatric help for me........LOL.....I have some!   Thanks!

So anyway, my children both come home and they are loud and using their hands to tell me what happened that morning and, you know what?    I got a completely different story from them.   I know, I know, you're thinking they didn't do it yada, yada, yada.   That wasn't what I got.   From them I got some story about Adam having Elizabeth's ID tag and the librarian (the one who couldn't send library notices due to the shutdown) noticed and sent Adam to the office and then got Elizabeth out of class to get her ID and instigated some showdown between the two accusing Adam of stealing her ID.   Adam's story is he picked hers up on the way out the door which I do believe because I have asked him to take hers to her before and he's refused because he doesn't want to be caught dead with it.   The librarian's story was he was trying to pull a prank by buying a dance ticket with her ID (she already had a dance ticket).

????????

Elizabeth says he pulled out his phone and the principal put her hands on the counter and said, "That's it, you have ISS"    Adam says he pulled out the phone to call me for his ID because the librarian kept asking where was his ID.   Elizabeth was coddled and patted on the head and sent back to class and Adam was sent immediately to the ISS room and that was when I got the half-phone call.

Hmmmmm........WTH?

I relayed the story I got and they were both confused.

Why wasn't this woman forthcoming if she felt he was being disrespectful and just say, "Adam was being disrespectful therefore he has an in school suspension"    I mean, TWO DAYS SUSPENSION for taking your phone out?   OR TWO DAYS SUSPENSION for leaving class early?

Either way,  I think the punishment is excessive since this is the first I have EVER heard about him being a problem in any way.   Now he misses the eighth grade trip, an athletic field trip, and he sure won't be getting that character award at the end of the year.

BUT.   I said nothing.   I thought at the time he was clearly skipping class and deserved the punishment, now I am not so sure.   I feel like I was played.   I called yesterday to get the full story and (surprise) haven't heard back.

He served his suspension and all it's done to him is make him hate school, distrust adminstrators, and lie in bed depressed as soon as he returns home.  

Last week, different kid.  

Here we go again.  

I want off the roller coaster.

College?

I know everyone has seen all about Aunt Becky and Lynette Scavo's cheating their children's way into college.   I can't remember how to link to anything, so you can google it if you've been on a long vacation on a desert island.

Anyway....

It's terrible.   It's unfair.   It's really, really obnoxious, but you know what?   If I had $500,000 to toss around, I can't say at this point in my life I might not do the same thing.

Barring a miracle, Jacob won't be going to college.   He did finally bring up his SAT score to something pretty respectable.    We paid plenty of application fees.    We paid even more fees to have his scores sent to said schools because "I just didn't feel like plugging those in on the stupid SAT".    We paid even more fees to have his transcripts sent to five schools that have dorms and he was accepted to three that we know of.   We should all be rejoicing right now because he should be going to a good school without having to pay a dime and we and our little children could breath a smile of relief knowing this daily turmoil would soon be coming to an end.  

Oh, but no, that's not happening.   Jacob decided he wanted to go a community college down the street and told those other schools he wasn't interested.  

Community college = lives at home

He doesn't have a drivers license and is no longer interested in getting one.    Guess who would have to drive him to school like a freaking preschooler.

That's if he can still even get into that one.   He hasn't completed one assignment at all this last nine weeks period.   He is failing everying except his three theatre classes but he's coming close with those.    He is convinced he doesnt' have to supply them a final transcript.   We are idiots you know.

I have no idea what is going to happen.    I don't think he is going to graduate.   We told him he had until April 15 to bring his grades up and affirm to one of the sleep away schools that he would be a student there or we were kicking him out on June 15. .   He pretty much gave us the finger and told us to try.  

I seriously have to wonder if all these rich people had kids they could no longer live with.    I fully expect Adam and Elizabeth to gain entry to the college of their choice (or a backup) on their own mertis.   They have to learn to do for themselves and if they want it, they will work for it.   Jacob, I wish to all that is holy that there was something we could do to pull up at some school (preferably far away) and drop him off and leave him there.    He can't go to the military because of his medications. All I see in his (and our) future is a 40 year old loser mooching off our dime and doing absolutely nothing while continuing to treat us shabbily.    My anxiety is so amped up right now just anticipating this shit show I seriously ponder my desire to live, at least here, with him.  

I don't know, if I had $500,000 I don't think I'd rule it out.   If you had any idea what it's really like in our house, you might not even judge me.

14

This baby.....

I miss him.  

I would give my dying breath to kiss that little cheek and rock him to sleep just one more time.   

Fourteen years ago when I found I was pregnant with my second child I prayed daily (sometimes hourly) for this one just to love me.    Jacob was (still is) a difficult little soul and it was apparent from day one that he despised me.   I don't really know what happened there, maybe it was the three weeks in the NICU or maybe it was my mom who swooped in his first night home and glued herself to him and I just let her because I was so very tired and so very unequipped to deal with the incessant screaming like I probably should have been.   Maybe I was (am)a bad mother?   I have been in therapy for years to answer that question to which I will likely never have the answer.   I have just had to make peace with it and move on.   

Anyway, this isn't about Jacob, this is about Adam.   

OK....I just wanted a baby to love me and, BOY, did this baby love me.   He would have nothing to do with anyone else.   He would push his little hand out if another adult tried to take him.    He clung to my leg while I cooked meals and crawled into my lap any time I sat down.    He didn't say much those first four years but he didn't need to:   Adam LOVED me.    

 Prayers answered.

I shouldn't put such a burden on a child but Adam was my redemption.    He proved to everyone, if really only myself, that I could be a good mother.   He saved me.   It really wasn't until he was born that I began to feel like a mom, giving love and receiving love in return.    I LOVE Adam.

With the teenage years upon us things aren't as sweet as they used to be but there is no mistaking his love continues.   He is always grateful if I do something for him (like bring his track uniform to school AGAIN) and he has learned the very difficult skill of saying and showing he is sorry when needed.    Although he will no longer hug his sister at school, he does oblige her one when they get home every day (usually).   He always tells me he loves me when he leaves the house (or vice versa). He teaches the neighborhood kids football plays and includes the often shunned Muslim kid down the street.   He sees no color, no religion, no social class.  

In school he plays football, runs cross country and track, and was appointed an office aide for one class period which requires positive teacher recommendations.   He makes As and Bs completely without my help and input.   He has figured out his complete four year path that will allow him to attend his dream school:   Texas A&M.   He has many friends, I can barely keep track of them all.   Giggly girls show up at our door asking for him, Elizabeth says they follow him down the hallway at school.   So far Fortnite and Madden 19 have most of his attention, but he does sit with one particular girl on the bus every day, according to my accidental spy.   

Adam turned 14 on January 23.   It's taken this long to write this because there is always something.   I am so blessed to be able to raise this child.   I pray now daily that all of his dreams come true, that he has friends, becomes successful, is HAPPY.     

Thank you God for answering my prayers and giving me THIS loving little baby.    

Happy Birthday Adam!   

Happy New Year!

2019....

I swear I am still in 1989.   That was a pretty good year.    Let's Go Mountaineers!   How I miss Morgantown and all that came with it back in those days.   I should have enjoyed it more than I probably did at the time.    I would give anything to have one more day......

Anyway.

18 Christmases.....

I remember rocking that hippie-looking baby and watching the neighbor children walk to the bus and thinking it would be FOREVER before he graduated high school.   2019?   Would we even be here?

Here it is.   It is very surreal.  

I couldn't really see past the 9/11 coverage on the television then, it never felt like this would come.

I struggle daily because I feel like I have not appreciated it as much as I should have.     I imagined it all so differently; would I have liked it more if it had been that way?   I thought being a mom was the easiest job in the world......in 1999.      Lord have mercy, this is a HARD gig.     It NEVER ends.   You don't go home and put it out of your mind.    EVER.   Ask my mom, she knows this well.    Since being a stay-at-home mom for a few months now I can honestly say I am working more now than when I was "working".   I don't know how that is, but it is.    I am tired.

I want to go back and do it again with all of this knowledge and all of these feelings I currently possess......I want to bask in joy every.  single.  hour of their fleeting childhoods.     Mom guilt.   I am owning it big time.

I cannot believe I have a child approaching graduation.   And *fingers crossed* college.

2019.....I want this to be the year we bring joy back.   I want to appreciate my children for WHO they are instead of WHAT they could be.    I want it to slow down because I am not ready to walk this path with the other two.  

Adam starts high school in the fall.    This is currently hurting my heart in a way I never felt with Jacob.   Because:

yesterday.

Is this life?   Always wanting what was?   2006?  1994?   1989?  1976?    I want to want this day right here, right now.    I am sure going to try.  

Happy 2019 ya'll.  

Love your now.