Borrowing Someone's Family For My Own Emotional Regeneration

I thank God for this beautiful pre-teen of mine. Little Miss Memaw has somehow managed to demonstrate incredible resiliency through nearly insurmountable odds. She's intelligent, sweet and delightful, and in my despair over all the issues I am dealing with, I laid out my all my dark feelings to Audrey...how all the Yolies and Sabrinas of the foster care and orphan world may not ever find families while so many of potential families are struggling with children who will never care about themselves, us, or anyone in the world. How fair is that in the grand scheme of life? Audrey, of course, set me straight.

I say this, not necessarily based on my own varied experiences, but in response to the many emails I receive from parents who are pushed beyond human limits and endurance, the dangerous situations that many of us find ourselves grappling with constantly, and the hatred and destruction we must absorb from our children that we are devoted to helping.

On top of everything else I'm dealing with, I discovered an older child absolutely lying to me for no reason. She's old enough to make her own decisions and she yelled the F word in my front word yesterday evening as she wrongly thought I was aware of her deceptions. Totally blindsided, some other children of mine tattled and told me the whole story. I was then righteously enraged, but I channeled my anger into verbal form and replied to another mom who is also struggling, contemplating a disruption.

Grandma came to watch the kids go to bed, it was 8, and I had a soccer game of my older kids, the U14 league. I ignored a grown kid there, who never even saw me arrive, and I went and sat on a blanket with a family who has six birth kids. This mom attended my church in the 80s, we didn't know each other then, she married, birthed six charming, beautiful kids that she homeschools, using her Master's Degree in Math Education where it counts. Their dad coaches my kids and I simply needed to get my bearings, to sit and listen to her sweet children chatter normally, playing with my cell phone, and looking at pictures of my kids, asking a bunch of questions. Their grandma was there as well, she has 18 grandkids, a really beautiful woman herself, I love it when someone has more grandbabies than me.

Honestly, I regrouped in a big way by sitting with them last night for an hour. They have no idea how emotionally healing that time was for me.

This morning I fled to Sarah's house, barefeet and in my pjs, just to see Hazel, Ray and Sarah before I started the rest of my day. My Franklin-Covey Planner is very full: Nando's birthday, three soccer games, art club for Lily, ecology club for Scotty, dinner for 20-25 tonight, and I'm headed off to my own dentist check-up for which my dentist prescribed Valium to calm my jets and make me sit still long enough to get the job done. Five days at home for Fall Break, I need to replenish the pantry with groceries.

As much as I carry on here, Lord knows I won't quit, I'm human enough to get fed up with the boiling over raging issues, with a child who broke a cop's nose this weekend, and with the theft here at home of some money I'd hidden, plus the culprit that I suspect stole four boxes of Viactive - chocolate calcium chews - which will undoubtedly result in a good case of diarrhea - natural consequences, albeit right smelly.

Such is my life. Time to get a grip and face it again today.

Thank you Yolie, Audrey, Sarah and Ms Carr for yesterday's support. If I called Ms Carr by her first name, I'm afraid my children would follow suit, so I have to demonstrate to them the proper way to address a grown woman.

Thanks to the Stearns for letting me emotionally "borrow" their family for an hour last night, it felt so nice to be with them.