My Little Brother

Yesterday was a no good, very bad day- that ended a no good, very bad week. It started with Jelly Bean deciding that the outfit she had on was not acceptable to wear so she changed. While everyone else was getting in the car- thus making everyone wait for her. I know it is about control but I swear that this kid is going to end up with exactly 5 shirts and 5 pairs of pants in her dresser. Hubby was not happy when he came back in the house to find her changing at the pace of a snail.

This led to a phone conversation between he and I that started to aggravate me simply because we were going over all the nonsense that happened this week. From sleepless nights to 200 ft of toilet paper pulled off the rolls at school resulting in the 3rd week in a row of Wednesday phone calls from the principal.

Then I arrived at work where upon everyone decided to blatantly ignore direction and pester me about deadlines and cause me so much stress and irritation I ended up in tears - twice.

So after leaving work at 7pm I arrived home to be told that 3/4 kids would not be getting the ice cream my brother and sister-in-law were taking us to get because 1) was hitting people in the car 2) were beating up the dog with pillows.

I decided a healthy dose of reality was in order and demanded to know what had happened at their visit. "Something happened. Everything was fine and you were comfortable then you wouldn't have come home and acted like this." (Because after 26 months in foster care and seeing your Mom 2-3 times a week we still have behavior issues nearly every single time?)

Apparently Jelly Bean though he saw her Dad in the parking lot of the restaurant. And she actually did what I told her to do when she felt scared and told an adult. She is scared because he believes that her Dad tried to kill her Mom. In fact, her Mom has taken a series of restraining orders out on this person, as recently as December of this past year. Mom's response to Jelly Bean: "Your Dad has changed. He goes to my church now." And then she proceeded to lead a discussion about fathers. Regular readers of this blog will recall that one of the fathers is in jail for criminal predatory sexual assault on one of the other siblings. And is a big issue and causes lots of tension and uncomfortable feelings. You know. typical dinner conversation.....

So that led to interrupting. Which was allowed. Which led to misbehavior. Which led to no ice cream by the time they arrive home. Additionally, the kids believe the driver was "yelling" at their Mom because at the end of the visit when Mom was talking to the driver she was crying. So Hubby pointed out that maybe she was sad that they were leaving. I pointed out that Gabby complains that anytime she tries to tell her Mom something's he doesn't want to hear she tears up. That perhaps she wasn't in trouble, she just didn't want to hear what the driver said.

So then my brother rang the doorbell and I just hugged him for a good 2 minutes. My little brother is a 6'2" Army veteran. He's like a giant teddy bear. And while he is witty and sarcastic most of the time - he's one of the bet listeners I know. He can also be very concerned at times. I started to cry and he was like what's wrong and I'm like - I don't know if I can do this and he was all of anyone can it's you.. And he said it in such a matter of fact way that I knew he had total confidence in me. Because my brother would be the first to tell me if he thought I couldn't - I gained the strength I needed to keep going for another few days.

So we drove an hour to get ice cream in 46 degree weather and 8:30 at night where a bunch of hilarity ensued. It included not 1 but 2 calls from our parents. The first a major worry that their email had been "compromised" and my brother trying to explain that it was probably just a spoof email. But his explanation was just so funny that it had me rolling. Then a second call about some family gossip that "should not be put on Facebook" because ya know my first thought when bad things happen to people in my family is to embarrass them on Facebook....