Yawn

A few years ago when we had some drama around here I blogged it in great detail. However, lately it's just almost routine and I don't respond quite as intensely to anything.

Last night I was stuck in metro traffic on my way home and Bart was doing a wedding rehearsal. Salinda and the boyfriend were on her way to his house for the weekend, him driving, when she called me and got me out of training because she wanted to argue about how much money I had left for her. (Which was a very generous move on my part by the way -- it wasn't money she had earned. I'm not even going to go into all the details because they are just dumb and not worth the finger energy to type them). But apparently my comments sparked an argument which resulted in them back in our front yard yelling at one another.

He was refusing to take her home, she was refusing to get out of the car, he was attempting to get her out of the car and, not knowing that this is their pattern, one of the neighbors must have been alarmed and called the police. Directly before that Sadie had called to tell me they were arguing and I had called each of them attempting to help them de-escalate, but they both hung up on me. Eventually I was talking to her from metro traffic, finally willing to talk while the officers were outside discussing whether or not to arrest the boyfriend. I then talked to the police, apparently they concluded he did not need to be arrested, and sent him on his way, leaving her here for the weekend in bed, wanting to be left alone.

And my resopnse after all of that was over -- really just an internal yawn at the pattern of it all. While the blog is about my family, it is really about me and my response to parenting these kids. Had I thought my daughter was in danger, I would have called law enforcement myself. But I am sure the neighbors think we were very irresponsible to leave our kids home alone. Actually, we had 4 "kids" home alone -- Rand (21), John (19), Sadie (14) and Wilson (10). Dominyk was with a PCA, four boys were at sports practices, and we THOUGHT Salinda and boyfriend were on their way out of town.

As you can imagine there are a myriad of issues here -- the tone of their relationship, their response to small issues, the inflexibility of each of them, the concern of our neighbors and the embarrassment that calls, the effects it had on the rest of the children, and on and on and on. But there was little I could do to stop the situation and if they refuse to speak to me there is little I can do to fix it.

I have tried to talk to the boyfriend and apologize but he refuses to speak to me at this moment. So I'm going to be smart enough to stay away.

The ironic thing is that I am a person who HATES drama. I just don't get into hysteria or any of that and people keep dumping it on my lap.

Bart and I were in bed by 9 last night which he thinks is embarrassing -- Friday night and we were in bed at nine. So since he thinks it is embarrassing, I have to blog it of course. But we were both exhausted from long weeks, and the little boys were in bed early, as was Salinda --everyone else was at a football game, so why not?

I was rewarded for staying in bed a bit longer when the incredibly beautiful child pictured above (who happens to be mine -- sometimes I still can't believe it) crawled into bed with me to be tickled. And suddenly, several hugs, tickles, and kisses later, I was reminded that it is all worthwhile.