Not A Pit Bull

Isn't this a cool idea?  Chicken wire within a frame?  I'd paid several big one dollar bills for this at a yard sale, an amount I very rarely spend shopping this way, but I was entranced.

Four months ahead of the game, Tabby dove into the church Christmas Musical Practice, this year Mae is old enough to perform in this extravaganza alongside CJ and Ray.  Tabby is also on a soccer team and a good student, conscientious about her schoolwork, making me very proud of her.

There was a time when The One Who Must Control Everything would've raged just to stop Tabby from attending auditions for a speaking part, envious in advance that Tabby's cute and talented.  Yet TOWMCE is quite lovely also.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm standing in the wreckage of a lopsided but brave social experiment surveying the damages, knowing it's all on me to put this house and the land back together.

Kids with issues can do a number on everything, the destruction was disheartening, there are so many repair jobs needing to be prioritized inside, plus a phenomenal amount of outside work I gotta catch up on, that I occasionally stand there gaping, flapping my arms, and wondering how I'm gonna do it all.

Oh well, I have another 50 years in which to dive in and revamp my entire home and gardens.

"Why don't you just rip out these garden beds and start over?" Nando questioned me, regarding a scraggly area I've not hardly had time to even glance at, much less maintain, what with 39 Demandos.

I believe I'm gonna rip out a bunch of areas and re-do a lot.  I personally need large changes in order to readjust my own iffy attitude.

Yesterday was a marathon of grown kids texting, demanding, questioning me on how they should do this or that, and I could hardly get anything done for their needs.  We were slap out of milk and cheese, two staples that there was no way to avoid heading for a grocery store if I wanted to fix dinner for them all.

Just because I'm reducing, and/or eliminating dairy products, doesn't mean the kids have to do so.

I hate running errands, it seems to suck an exorbitant amount of time away from me getting things done around here.

Because there is so little drama overall, because order has been restored, because residential placement is available for those who'd injure others during a rage, there's now a thin layer of 'hey, this sure is nice,' stability and security falling down over us all, and it is really, really delightful.

It is how it should be.  There's safety now.  I will not let down my guard however, I know better.

12 kids at home, all but two are teenagers, it's a lot of work, but our issues are minimal, well to me this is minimal after years and years of extreme combat situations and being scared out of my ever-loving mind due to extremely violent and aberrant situations.

Kids doing homework, spreading out their books and papers everywhere, no one being threatened by ragers, no one risking injury by just walking past a glowering one who cannot not lash out, consumed by an irrational jealousy for what isn't happening anyway, their skewed perceptions leading to violence back then, all of us tiptoeing and kowtowing to incessant, crazy demands.  We were physically and emotionally bullied for so long.

It was awful.

I ran into a friend of my grown kids last night and she was asking me about several kids, having seen some very ugly words being used on their Facebook pages.  They're grown now, in their 20s, I can't take away their computer privileges, they don't have me living with them as emotional and social brakes on their behavior.  This is kind of who they are, and it makes me sad because I wanted way more for them.  I've had to hide their status updates because I don't want a vulgar assault upon my system as they cuss and carry on.

I still love them and am praying for a sense of peace somehow to descend into their chaotic lives.

In another older sibling group, the middle one pointed out that he wanted to find the peace he felt he'd observed for years now in his older sister.  I know that he knows it comes from a deep and abiding faith, but I know he knows that he doesn't want me cramming this idea down his throat.  I'm certainly praying for the light to come back on within his angry mind.

I told this young lady who'd been asking about the kids that this is clearly the difference between her being constantly nurtured by her own loving parents, and my darling kids who came to me older, emotionally bruised, scarred and oh so terribly damaged.  It makes my heart literally hurt for them.

"Just keep praying for them by name," I asked her, hugging her, and heading back downstairs from the youth group room in order to attend the Wednesday night services that I now get to go to with an amazing regularity.

I scheduled a neutering appointment for our Chihuahua cat doggie and was told it'd only be $20 in September for all pit bull mixes.  "I don't think that's what this dog is at all," I honestly told the lady.

"We're not checking papers," she added.

"But I don't wanna lie to you, even to save money.  I just don't see that I can legitimately claim pit bull status," I continued, full of Methodist/Church of God vim and vigor.

"Look lady," she ran out of patience, "You don't know if the grandparents of this dog had any remnant of pit bull, use this opportunity I'm giving you and everyone else that calls."

"Well OK," I relented, "but let me go on record expressing my complete doubts.  I'm pretty sure this is a Chihuahua- Maltese mix."

"Whatever," she barked back.

Tia, one of our Yorkies, now 9 years old, gotten a couple of years ago for free from a Breeder, also should be spayed, and I convinced this lady that there was no way on earth Tia had any speck of genetic pit bull make up in her.

"Fine," this lady sighed, no doubt rolling her eyes at my ridiculous persistence in pursuing honesty, "Pay the full price of $85."  This is a low-cost, high-volume spay clinic where I'd once taken Shatter, our resident NoNoBadDog sweet pet.

I'd already called several vets and been shocked at how many hundreds of dollars they require.

I worked this into our September budget plans.