Family Meetings

Hearing a ruckus in the family room, I'm in the next open adjoining room, the kitchen, and by the time I'd flown the short 30 feet or so, to investigate the commotion, Allen and JoJo were already exchanging blows. Javy separated them, Allen cooled off, but JoJo ratcheted up his negative behaviors the entire rest of the evening, screaming at me that he didn't care if he had to go get locked up someday, it'd be better than living with my stupid 'no fighting' rules. "No fair!" he screamed over and over again.

How does one reason with that?

Hours later, when he'd calmed down, heck it was almost 11 at night, I made him repeat slowly what I'd said about his consequences, how the police would be forced to treat a common criminal who assaults people, and how his life might negatively turn out if he doesn't soon learn the errors of his way.

He was confused. I lost him when I used logic.

"Huh?" he stared at me, as I futilely tried to explain that there is never a rational reason for attacking someone at the computer.

"Self defense," he hollered, having heard it somewhere, but literally unable to define it.

Hitting someone in the back of their head while they're playing a computer game is definitely not self-defense. There's no defense for annoying assaultive behaviors, for picking on people, for having violent reflexes.

JoJo has lived here for nine years and still does not reason well.

His birth sister, Mayra, provoked me yesterday. Genetically incapable of initiating activity. No kidding. Not a crime, but a flawed personality trait that will likely result in sequential job losses. Sitting and staring uncomprehendingly, never understanding social cues or the concept of offering help to others.

Fed up, I called a family meeting where we all sit in the family room and listen to me caterwaul over my frustrations. Yep, it's all about me. I repeat rules that are not being followed, list chores that are not being accomplished, and suggest better ways of functioning in polite society. Met with blank stares, bad attitudes and sullen expressions, you'd think I'd learn.

Simple stuff like do NOT eat anywhere but in the kitchen, gone are the days of snacking in front of the TV as the 16 kids still at home are pigs overall. I'm sick of tripping over discarded shoes, tired of having to gather laundry from each bedroom and irked to be the one constantly working while the rest use their undeserved, unearned free time to provoke fights and disagreements.

This was our fourth family meeting in hardly a two week period, but any adoptive mom knows that kids act out severely around vacations, holidays, upcoming events like school starting, full moons, any whichaway the breeze might blow, and sidelong glances at anyone for any reason.

Tax free weekend coming up on the day my retirement check hits the bank and I've budgeted for new school shoes for everyone, like we always do, yet everyone has nonstop peppered me with questions about it, as if I might suddenly stop providing, much as everyone else in their pasts had done. Like I don't have about a 55 year history of responsibility and stability.

Oh brother.

Not all of my tomato plants have died, I'm obviously not gonna use a fungicide to combat the blight, I'll organically work my way through or suffer the losses. I'd rather lose than eat chemicals, glad I've already frozen a goodly amount of tomatoes, and eaten much of the potatoes. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Critters ate my soybeans, left only the lonely stems.

Oh well.

Moving on, bounding through life, dealing with this and that, just like everyone else does, being advised to tell a magistrate judge about some gun threats from a jailbird who's recently been released, my to do list sounds odd, but it still needs doing.