2 more days

I am so glad that this week is almost over, tho it ends with a second birthday party. Tuesday night the upper part of our street was completely blocked off by police. A friend's husband went completely bonkers. He and his wife were talking and the next thing she knew he jumped up, went into the other room and started beating the walls with a hammer. After knocking a hole in the wall between a bedroom and the bathroom, big enough to walk through, he locked both doors. She got scared and called the cops. Who he kept at bay for hours with the hammer and a knife. Their house is almost a lost cause. No one knows what set him off or why. Shoot, we've known them for years, Mark knew them before they moved in and he has never done anything like this before.

Then Wednesday a very good friend came over so that her little girl could play with Jackson. He is smitten with her, he calls her his Caitlyn. She was having some problems with her car door, it won't close, so Mark went to look at it (he can still do that, no lifting required). The latch thingy is broke. Since her boyfriend is more of a girl than she is, Mark called around to some junkyards to get her a part. (The man weighs 385 lbs and hates to get his hands dirty, he had to have his daddy fix a flat tire for him. Its sad really.) Another friend of hers took her to get the part and she had not one but two people getting her kids from the bus stop, me and another friend of ours. Since my child is home schooled, I have no Earthly idea when the bus gets here, but our other friend lives right by the bus stop. Somehow the girls got past her and started heading home, a few houses past the bus stop Misty's grandma was waiting in someones driveway. She got the girls in her car and took off.

We spent over an hour looking for them, when Caitlyn says to me "maybe they are with Grandma." Another child mentioned them getting into a white van and everything hit the fan. Misty and Mike went to her grandma's house to get them and her grandma hit her and told her that she was a piss poor mother that didn't deserve to have her kids because she wasn't at the bus stop when the girls got off the bus. She then threatened to have the girls taken away from Misty.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I lived in a mobile home park when I was a kid and the bus didn't stop at every house. It stopped at the front of the park and dropped everyone off, that's what it does here. I don't recall very many days at all that my mom or anyone else was waiting at the bus stop for us. We got off the bus and walked home, chatting with our friends, throwing snowballs (if there was snow). If it was raining, someone might be there, if not we hauled booty to the house. I know that we know live in a world that everyone lives in fear of what might happen, but at some point we have to trust our kids and ourselves (that we've done a good job). A seven and eight year old should be capable of walking less than a block to their house without someone worrying, if that woman would have left the girls be, I guarantee they would have been found.

Whether we want them to or not, our children will grow up. The question that we need to ask ourselves is this: Do we want them to grow up to be full functioning adults that are able to wipe their own bottoms, tie their shoes, run a vacuum, etc.? Or do we want them to be completely dependant on us their entire lives and afraid that the bogeyman is hiding behind every corner? I vote for the full functioning adult. Now, how do we get that to happen? We start by teaching our kids how to tie their shoes, work buttons, snaps and zippers, give them chores and let them make some choices for themselves. But we don't stop there, we pray for strength, guidance and put it in God's hands. We enlist the aid of friends and relatives, cause no one can do it alone. We all need someone to lean on sometimes.

Today was our running day. Bills had to be paid and I realized that Jackson had no goody bags and his party is Saturday. We also wanted to get a few last minute things for Christmas. We left the house at 9 a.m. and didn't return until after 4, so needless to say, I'm exhausted and my day is nowhere near done. Goody bags are done, kids are in bed, I still need to clean off the table and (hopefully) get the second panel of Sierra's new curtains finished. Then its off to shower and probably pass out before my head hits the pillow. And before I forget I have to email my sis-in-law the recipe for Gooey Butter Cookies.

Tomorrow, we clean. Not my most favorite thing to do, but it must be done. And not just everyday clean, that would be a piece of cake. We have to party clean, that takes a little more. I also have to bake a dinosaur cake that is blue with blue spots, since I don't know exactly how many people will be coming, I may make a small single layer cake as well. Depends on how I feel.