Tuesday Evening Roustabouts

Four kids raging and upset last night over nothing right at 8pm when they all needed to be heading to bed. Jose was arguing with Jojo and got sent to his room. He proceeded to knock all the clean, folded clothes off his dresser thus making his own self madder. He threw a valuable stuffed frog from Goodwill that belonged to Chuy out the window which threw Chuy way over the edge. Jonathan fell apart when Chuy was hysterical, walls were kicked, tears slung everywhere, snot and spit involved. Little Chuy went to attack Jose. Bad move. Gito intercepted but needed an assist from Joey.

Chuy was absolutely hysterical. He was screaming that he hated me, hated our family and thought I didn't care. I had been minding my own business, cleaning the kicthen, totally uninvolved with the beloved stuffed frog but I am always the emotional target in this house. I have to "pay" for all their anger at the foster care system and uncaring birth parents. Chuy is in the Gifted class at school so one would think that he has the emotional tools needed to sort out the true details but he also has a temper from Hades.

Jonathan cried and raged because Chuy was out of control. Chuy, Gito and Joey rolled up and down the long hallway in an attempt to protect the frail sheetrock walls from Chuy's well-aimed soccer kicks that he has perfected on the field. Javy was terribly upset over Chuy's outburst and Jonathan's screaming. Jose stood there watching with tears streaming down his face knowing tha he had inadvertantly provoked the entire scene.

This went on for 90 more minutes until Chuy finally obeyed me and served his five minutes in time-out for attacking Jose. Jose outweighs Chuy by 30 pounds and had already served his time-out while caterwauling at the top of his lungs over what he had caused.

These are four birth brothers who are deeply emotionally bound to each other in a profound way brought about by their years of homelessness, foster care and a violently dangerous drug-dealing birth family. Their one sister, Paloma, heard all the commotion and, for once, bounded down the hall to tell me that she wasn't going to join the family outrage breakdown this particular evening. She, Mayra and Sabrina were doin g hair.

Javy, at 12, is the self-proclaimed protector afraid that i'm going to quit on them like everyone else. He was a nervous crying wreck last ight sure that Chuy was going to blow this for them. While Gito and Joey were protecting the furniture and the walls I was reassuring Javy that this would soon blow over. Edgar and Daniel didn't even bother to come downstairs to see what the uproar was over. After years of living here they knew. If I needed them they'd sense it and be by my side in a heartbeat as they always have done so.

Of course this was never about the frog.