Just Another day

"I have good news and bad news," Daniel began our phone conversation.

Having already fretted over him jamming a finger playing basketball, I braced for him to tell me it was broken, knowing he was going to the University Health Center.

Fortunately, he was then at the UGA baseball game, the second in a series I'd have loved to have been attending, and was sending me a picture of his friend, Mitchell, pitching while updating me on the score and various plays of the game.

That's how traumatized I now am. I've changed my cell phone ring so that I won't automatically flinch when I hear it. Family members have a different ringtone. The school calls sends me into an orbit of dread.

I'm sure DJJ must recoil when it's me calling. I'd been to court with Pepe, in which he'll likely be getting some help again for his issues, "I really wanna return to my family when I'm better," he told our awesome juvenile judge, trying to appear sweet while in shackles. Chuy had to face him down, the Judge suggested Chuy tell Jose (Pepe) how that attack made him feel.

Chuy's jaw tightened, he fought tears and told Pepe, "I was scared."

Pepe hung his head, apologized, and knows he has severe anger issues. Someone always gets hurt.

I hadn't a bit more gotten home, changed out of my monkey suit (church clothes) and back into my uniform (work clothes) when my cell rang, informing me Paloma was fixing to blow.

A flare-up between herself and the school guidance counselor in which Paloma found herself enraged because the GC was being logical. That's enough to prompt destruction in her mind.

By the time I got there she was in a full blown meltdown, refusing to obey any school authority, yelling at me the minute I walked in - OK, child, I hadn't even been involved in this altercation - I was quiet, calm, urging her to just come get in my truck and let's go home.

"NO!" she roared, running to the bathroom in the school clinic and slamming the door loud enough to shake the cinder block walls, banging around, eyes ablaze, and steam coming out of every pore, or maybe it was smoke.

I'd found yet another burned piece of cardboard from Jonathan as his behaviors escalate.

I knew I had to tread carefully to not fuel her internal flames, the GC equally as calm, still using understanding, or trying to be logical, but instantly understanding the minutia of the situation, herself an adoptive mom, but of a baby girl from China.

I called DJJ, Miss Kim's cell number, but she was in a sick trance. Truly as ill as a ICU patient, I felt terrible for bothering her, so I called her supervisor, but received no answer.

Principal, GC and I pondered calling the deputies because by then Paloma had been in and out of the bathroom and discovered she could actually lock us out of the entire clinic, but was thwarted by a custodian, further pissing her off, for lack of a better word.

The school principal was cringing from the racket, the door slamming, handle beating, and the stomping and kicking. "How do you DO it, Cindy?" he asked me in bafflement, shaking his head at such demented behaviors.

My own eyes were obviously stressed out, I had no answer.

Paloma stormed out the front door in front of some surprised parents, stormed back in, slamming doors, causing school personnel to back up in shock.

The GC and I waited it out. Calm on the surface, my heart was pounding with stress and trepidation.

Within an hour, she went to my truck, wouldn't put on her seat belt (another control issue for her constantly - "You can't make me!" she'll roar gutturally), opening the door over and over while I try and drive home, scaring the purple snot outta me.

At home, she slammed around, sitting down in the Lazy Boy chair, rocking 100 mph until the chair itself was propelled from the living room, through the kitchen and jammed in the pantry door opening. I folded clothes, keeping a wary eye out, knowing not to fuel her flames, and finally she calmed down and asked for a snack.

"Not until you take your meds," I bargained, afraid I'd stir up yet another hornet's nest of rabid bees.

"OK," she chirped, a complete turnaround from the previous hour. The difference was astounding.

But within the next hour, she blew up at Jonathan, and then Javy, her 15 year old birth brother who looked at me with very sad eyes, "Man she needs help, Mom."

Ya think?