Sometimes it's easier just to not blog

Thursday night was wild here. Bart left for the Cities for an overnight meeting and within an hour of his going everything just seemed to get out of kilter. I was exhausted, having worked in the morning, and I needed some rest before heading to a meeting at night. Things that happned from 3 to 6 included:

*7 missed calls during a 30 minute nap;

*the cancellation of a family for my training;

*a desperate email from a family thinking of backing out on a placement;

*Bart forgetting a notebook and needing Rand to meet him to bring it to him, requiring the hour of time that Rand was going to use to fix dinner;

*John's meeting with his Probation Officer which indicated that he will most likely be going back to jail and that he should wait for a summons to court. This had him in tears, but I was pretty matter of fact. The sad piece is that he has functioned fairly well as a human the past few months -- he has not gotten into legal trouble, has been generally kind and cooperative, not violent at all, and a fairly decent family member. However, he has not done the things required by the court regardless of how seriously I encouraged him to take them.

*Wilson doing a great deal of manipulation which resulted with he and and a 10 year old friend being at the mall with no adult supervision and without the other kids' parents permission and no ride home and me and Bart both out of town (fortunately I was only 30 minutes away and got there). This resulted in a very angry set of parents and a less than appreciative Mall Cop.

*Rand leaving the cash card in the cash machine, which i desperately needed for meals for training yesterday (and it got sucked in after 3 minutes)

We survived, but I had no time or energy to blog it all.

Then yesterday I did a complete day of pre-adopt training. Had I not repetitively mentioned to them how drained I was, they may not have noticed, but the presentation all day was fairly dry and lacked the usual passion and humor that I interject. However, we were all in survival mode and just wanted to get it done, so we did accomplish that. By the end of the training I was wiped out.

BUT there was a piece of good news in the evening -- Mike did get his job. That means that he will be on work release from jail for a full month of nearly full time employment at a call center. This will boost his confidence and when he is released if he has done well he will have a job. This is a huge answer to prayer and makes life seem much more possible for him.

Salinda called last night just to say hi and that was nice as well. We also got some news last night from one of our sons who has asked me not to blog it. You should email me and see if you can guess. If you want. Here's some clues: It's good/bad news, it's not at all unexpected, but it will make our lives even more difficult.

Having read your posts about adult children I realized that I have probably left a different picture of my "freeloaders". We do not pay for car insurance. If they drive they pay for it. We do not allow driver's ed unless they have no Ds or Fs or can pay for it themselves. We do not pay for any of our kids to have cell phones. If you are 18 you may eat here and live here and as long as you are in high shcool and going to school, we provide clothing, toiletries, etc. If you are over 18 and graduated, or not going to school, those things are your responsibility as well.

Every person in the house besides the parents who pay for and cook the food have one meal of dishes each week. Each person also has a chore that they are expected to do each day -- one room of the house. The adult children who live here are generally pretty compliant with these things.

So it isn't if we are giving them handouts and they are doing nothing. Rand, at 21, is required to help with driving and to clean for the number of hours a week he is not working to equal full time. This is usually a struggle but he has had a good week.

Today we have people coming over to paint and my three adult children are being unusually cooperative. Bart just took Dominyk with him to head up and watch Ricardo and Leon wrestle at sectionals. Both of them have a very good chance at this point of going to state. Ricardo won all three matches yesterday and Leon won two out of three.

Today is starting with me having slept well for over 10 hours last night and feeling rested. I'm not coughing much, I feel like I can breathe, my stomach is not that upset, and I have a bit of energy.

We should be able to have a fairly decent day. I'm looking forward to having my kids work together and so far they are doing so. Tony even spent a couple hours cleaning his room last night.

So life goes on at the Fletchers. That's pretty much the moral of the story. We have our ups, we have our downs, nothing goes as Bart and I ever planned. But now with some of our kids we are at a different stage. They reap the consequences of their choices, and so do we. This is the part we forgot about when we were building our family. We forgot about 18-30 and all the things that would happen for our kids after they were no longer our legal responsibility.

But feeling like I can take the next breath and the next step sure does make optimism a bit easier.

Thank you SO much for your prayers. I am still going to Seattle and it cracks me up when people suggest that that trip would be more exhausting than being home. :-)