A Chihuahua Cat Hoarder To Be

I don't think I'm bragging that much when I say I'm one of the strongest women I know. I know that I got it from my own mother who endured some long, tedious, back-breaking years when she did all the work as a landlord. All the work, all the time, all the painting, cleaning, mowing, and everything else. Doing what needed to be done to put her kids through some expensive colleges, all of us emerging debt free with excellent educations and no student loans crushing us.

So for some 25 years now as an adoptive mom, I've gotten up every single day and faced some children who wouldn't have minded if I'd died in my sleep, or if I'd somehow been able to fix their birth parents and allowed them to go home (and this I do truly understand sympathetically), or conversely some have come to deeply depend on me emotionally, physically and everything else. Their love has truly grown over the years.

But really? It's quickly added up to 9,125 days of this, when one merely multiplies 25 times 365. It's been a fast 25 years.

When I began adopting, I'd already parented the previous 14 years, an easy fun time of being Sarah's mom, and I still have some nine years until Tabby graduates from high school. That's a truckload of child raising years, right at 50 total.

So when folks contact me and say they wanna do what I've done, I wanna scream for them to run for the hills. But no one could've stopped me from following the call of God. No one. I don't wanna now be their naysayer.

The ladies I was with on Sunday reiterated that even though nearly one entire sibling group couldn't live out their complete childhood here, due to behaviors that put them into facilities, I'd still done what God called me to do, which was to help them somehow.

My own ego wishes I could've helped them here at home, yet my soul's cry for safety overrode my pretty strong ego.

But to those who'd yearn to also do this? Go for it with your eyes wide open.

Both Sarah and Jack had been struck by that ten year old picture I'd put up yesterday of me.

Both literally told me at different times, "I miss that old you."

I do too.

"You used to smile all the time," Sarah told me wistfully. I really was way more goofy then than now, I was fearless and not beaten down. She backtracked about insinuating how much I've clearly aged throughout my 50s, but hey, I see it.

That picture was taken right before I'd adopted the sibling group that was so dangerous, but it wasn't just that group, the last ten years have been abnormally challenging. It's been dangerous, violent, abysmally sad at times, heart breaking, and heart wrenching, as I've observed traumatized older teens make horrible choices.

I weeded and weeded yesterday, still trying to clear my own mind of accumulated resentment and anger at what folks have done to others around here, cleaning off the front porch, my sons were mowing, and we hauled a load to the dump. I know that I am subconsciously trying to erase many bad memories here, changing everything in order to continue providing new and better memories for my last dozen children still at home.

Other than Mr P not really provoking an explosive one yesterday who texted me his anger and threats from ten feet away, being incredibly rude to me, not helping at all, other than that, which is expected when raising teens, it was a pretty good day, me not stopping until dark thirty, when I picked lettuce and spinach, added some sunflower seeds and grated pepper jack cheese and ate the whole bowl my ownself. Tony picked Swiss Chard, as he was craving it, and the rest of the kids ran through $12 of cheese I'd just bought, making grilled cheese sandwiches on wheat bread.

After having had to drag 19 years of accumulation out of my bedroom for the ceiling repair, it's all put back together now, painted and cleaned, I ran through a pile of paperwork on my desk, and have almost finished planting all the 15 trays of seedlings I'd grown of 36-72 plants per tray.

I thought about Claudia facing a move, that'd so do me in, most of the kids now living with me have almost zero memories of ever not living in this house, Sabrina's the only one who can still barely remember Texas.

But as I work, making mental notes over all the deferred maintenance projects, it's gonna take me another 19 years to catch up. Chuy telling me he has dreams of fixing up the doublewide I own on our property. Gonna grow up there to be an old man raising Chihuahua cats. "Ok, son," I told him, but you'll have to get a job, that dump's gonna take some work."

While we were at the county dump, his eagle eye spied a metal grill he's been wanting for the fire pit he'd dug and built last winter. Clearly he's Cindy's offspring, proud of his Dump find. Martin was dogging him about it, but he'll be the first one out there cooking and eating, I'm certain.

I like hard work, I thrive upon normal challenges, it's the blind violence and danger that does me in, it's the raging issues that need facilities and professionals who are trained to maintain irrational thoughts and actions - that's what scares and intimidates me, not the wall to wall daily chores.

Tony was pasted to my side again all day yesterday, illustrating something Dr. Mandy had recently explained to me, Lord have Mercy, I need her as a tour guide along with Yolie's on target translations of the behaviors I observe around here.

My one and only daughter-in-law had sent me Isaiah's picture. I haven't seen him since Grandpa's funeral as they live way the heck up north and I nearly fell down at how big he now is, all geared up to go. Man oh Man, does he look like his daddy, or what? Look at those shoulders Jesse.