The Moral of the Story

I really am quite buffaloed by our frenetic versions of Holiday Hell this year, here we are with no new children in the family for years, the permanency I’d worked on seemingly having little effect on their own inner security, or wherever they seem to have their little time bombs secreted. The detonations have been repeatedly subversive and have left little black stinky puffs of putrid smoke all over everyone.

Paloma again raged, cutting up about ten or so outfits of Mayras’, just to be hateful, physically hitting Mayra, yelling at me and everyone else the minute she arrived home. I knew Dr. Todd was on his way, so we all said little to her, and Dr. Todd made even less leeway with her, as she was totally in her own dark, disturbed milieu, there was no reaching her at all.

I have a very good thing happening today, and like the traumatized child I may have become now as well, I was very stressed about it, eventually bursting into tears while doing the dishes because Miss Cissy had sent me just about the sweetest text ever.

See? When folks are nice to me I lose it. It cracks my outer protective shell.

I’ve just become hardened and accustomed to holding it all in, dreading the next oncoming onslaught, becoming a textbook case of a domestic violence victim. JoJo caught me crying and came to hug me, but then he fell out emotionally, “I don’t want us to lose the house,” he sobbed.

What? I wiped my eyes on his t-shirt, “We’re not gonna lose the house, BoBo,” I replied in surprise. We use every available derivative of JoJo at hand, BoBo being the most frequent.

“Really?” he looked at me hopefully, and with total relief, both of us standing there, he’s now taller than me, looking at each other with a mutual ‘get a grip’ expression in our eyes, which we both immediately did, and he went on to actually help me out the rest of the evening, my big-eyed shadow who cracks me up constantly.

The only way we’d lose this almost paid for house would be if it caved in around our knotty heads and that’s why Miss Cissy is coming over to help out today. She has a construction crew at her disposal.

“I like your house,” the movie star looking psychologist complimented me, as he followed me around hunting for Paloma who’d left a trail of destruction simultaneously while Tony’d burst my best Pyrex dish accidentally.

“Really?” I whirled in surprise, looking to see if he was joshing me. The ceiling in the living room, that ugly popcorn effect, is chipping off in big chunks, leaving scars overhead that remind me of inverse clouds.

See? I can’t take a compliment anymore, sure there’s another shoe to drop, Cissy must think I’ve lost my mind, my kids very rarely see me cry, yet their antics are the source of my frustrated tears, and if January 4th doesn’t soon come, I might have to take up knitting, yoga, and, triathlons, or running for political office where my histrionics might be more appropriate.

I cannot tolerate the uber-stress of tinsels, bows, commercially false expectations and unrealistic demands. I’m on a roll.

See what happens to me in cold weather? I will soon be given to episodes of drooling and playing horseshoes in the house if the pressure doesn’t let up.

I’d gone to a very good meeting yesterday, part of the process where we’re still seeking help for Jose, whose situation has grown complicated and difficult. Having to wait an hour for it to begin, I sat and picked the brain of a guy who is gonna help, listening to his war stories about life as a social worker in his office, but getting the best advice that hadn’t occurred to me from the director of CPS, in which she basically suggested I throw a fit at the state level, but she couched it better, as in constituent requests.

My left hand is discolored from me shutting it in the door of my own truck, so stressed was I the other morning on the way to court. “Gross mama,” my children pronounced, “Are you trying to look worse than usual?”

My broken toe was again in accidental combat when JoJo and Allen were wrestling in the kitchen over something as important as eating bananas before bed the other night, and JoJo’s hard, boney knee landed exactly, squarely and painfully on the almost healed toe.

“How in Sam Hill did you manage to land on that one tiny toe?” I’d bellowed in pain, while JoJo’s big wide eyes stared at me in alarm, and the other children tried to contain their inner snorts of laughter as I hopped around yelling.

I suggested I was close to a stroke in the meeting and Miss Kim wanted to join me in it, wordlessly reminding me she has a massive workload of juvenile justice issues compared to my one at the moment that’s sending me over the edge.

Dang, she’s right, and I need to be reminded of that while I wallow in my own issue-ridden, Holiday-challenged family.

I have ten places to be today and Grandma wants to use some limited-time coupon to buy me something to wear to Daniel’s commissioning ceremony, no doubt worried I’ll wear my long underwear or tattered pjs, as the older I get, the more I deeply prefer comfort over style, which has always eluded me.

We’re both around 5’6” each and I’d yammered, “Can’t I just wear something of yours?” as I’d rather dress like an 80 year old woman who goes out dancing, than go shopping. “Can’t you just get me something black?” as I also am limited in my matching ability. “Do I have to go?” I’d scowled, looking like a bratty, petulant five year old.

She literally rolled her eyes at me like she’s done for 55 ½ years.

True story: I’d stalled about getting a wedding dress the second time I married. He finally just went and bought me one and said, “Look, now, all you hafta do is show up that day.”

I shouldn’t have, but I did.

Moral: See what shopping does to you?