My Lifeline

When Cindy posts things like this I am so indebted to her. Reading about how her grown children have grown up to make her proud gives me the willingness to go on when I am in the middle of what I call the "toughest years", the time when all of our children are older than ten but not old enough to come out on the other side as decent, appreciative adults. I am living in the mire, 10 kids between the ages of 10 and 20, battling constant arguments and bickering, consistent disobedience, raging hormones, anger, kids lashing out, melting down, freezing up, shutting down, screaming, fighting, and the constant theme being that it is my fault that their lives are they way they are.

I look forward to the day when even one of them is on the other side and at least not blaming me for everything. And if I could get two or three of them there, maybe I'd have incentive to feel hope for the ones currently at this stage. The fact that the teenage brain isn't fully developed is not helping my quality of life at this point.

I admit I've had a few weeks of funk, but I do keep doing it. I keep showing up at IEP meetings, sitting in court three times in one week, going to therapists and psychiatrists, filling out hoards of paperwork. I keep saying I love you in the morning and giving hugs and kisses at night (to the ones who will accept them, and sometimes wrestling down the ones who won't). I keep giving the rides and picking up the friends, and paying for the movies and snacks, and I just keep parenting. Even when I'm in a slump, my commitment never waivers.

I woke up before I had to get up this morning and it was so warm that I lie there just thinking. Not always a good thing on my part, but I did. I thought about a letter I've decided I need to write to Mike since I decided that I wasn't going to visit this weekend. I thought about a letter Bart and I need to write to Kyle, our oldest, about his summer options, giving our advice, which he most often ignores. I thought about the lengthy conversation that I need to have with Salinda, which she says she will not have with me, about the way she's choosing to ignore most of our small rules and yet expect us to come through with big favors for her. I thought about all the therapy I need to set up so that the kids can at one point see John and all the ways that the kids are going to attempt to manipulative in that process. By the time I got out of bed 30 minutes later I was exhausted.

But as always, I find hope, that one day it will be worth it. And reading Cindy's blog, reminds me that my hope may not be in vain.

We're off to church... The choir that the 4 youngest kids are in is singing this morning: