He's baaaaaaaaaack!

So our 18yo kid moved back in. Temporarily. Here's the deal...we for all intents and purposes got what we wanted: a apology, a making of amends, an ackowledgement that he was wrong and he'd fucked up, and a plan for how he was gonna change.
Rent (because he's not in school and we don't house freeloaders who are of age),
Clean his room and himself regularly (because no adult wears his underwear 4 days in a row and isn't living in a box),
Don't lie to us,
Don't steal from us,
Don't smoke or do drugs.
Really, not a difficult list, but one he was wholly unwilling to abide by. We'll see if he can handle it. So far, so good, but after living in squalor, anything is better the first few days.

The Boy is Back

Well...it's happened. Our kid has come back. Some backstory: Hubby and I took in his young cousins about 8 years ago when they were in need of a really safe place for them to go to school. Without too much elaboration, where they were living was stressful for their caregiver and the boys were pretty much running amuck. Cut to a visit by hubby to see his relative and the need to help out became apparent. We offered. The boys moved in. Raising children from birth is a challange in and of itself. Raising them from 10 and 12 is worse. One attitudinal, one withdrawn, we had unique challanges. Hubby is an educator, so we thought we had a leg up on the challange. What we discovered was our mother's prayers were answered through these children.

2 years later, the oldest boy is going back to live with his father because he's just willful and not improving in school or his attitude. So, from that point on, we took care of his younger brother and all was going to be sunshine and roses. Oh how wrong we were...

Michael is a good kid. He was pretty quiet and had it pretty rough before he got to us. I get that, but things started changing about junior year of high school. His friends introduced him to smoking, sex, then pot and God knows what else. Our quiet shy kid, soon became our moody, secretive kid who was pretty stupid and thought we were class A idiots, to boot. Eventually, things came to a head and we threatened to have him leave. Repentance, improvement, then backsliding and new bad behaviors began (stealing from us, lying, etc.). One more come to Jesus meeting, and the law is set...you shape up or get out. Three rules: clean your room, get a job or pay rent, make restitution for stealing our shit. Easy peasy. On New Year's Eve 2007, he went upstairs, began cleaning his room, changed his mind and packed a garbage bag and left. No warning, no real goodbye, just "I can't follow your rules and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna screw up again, so I should go."

Fast forward to now: He calls a couple of days ago to tell us he's been evicted from the apartment he and a friend had rented. The "friend" stole his stuff, lied to him, blahblahblah and now he needed a place to drop his clothes off. We agreed to take his things, but put them in the garage instead of up in his old room. This morning, he arrives on the doorstep before dawn to say he hadn't slept in 2 days and just wanted to sleep, so hubby let him in and put him up in his old room to crash. He slept from 8am off and on until we woke him at 9pm to go to work. Before he left he asked if he could move back in.

Why do people really want to raise children again?

Dilemma...do we let him back in? Give him access to the house, our food, our stuff again after he's lied to us, exposed our house to people who have stolen from him and he's stolen things from us to give to them? Do we let him go back out in the cold world and say "Suck it up. You made your bed now get comfy." How mch do we trust this person we hardly know anymore and looks every bit the addict? (And we KNOW addicts, so that is not an overstatement.)

What a weekend!

Wow...I love a weekend off. It came at the end of a loooooooooooooong holiday season and inventory, so I'm pretty thrilled to be away from the stress of it all, even for a weekend.

Yesterday was just a "business" day of us running around and picking up groceries and shopping for stuff we want but don't need (furniture, electronics, cameras..). It was absolutely freezing out and the wind was up, which was sort of a change from the morning when we thought it would warm up, instead of getting even colder. So, all of our running around involved running and praying fora break from the cold.

Then we hit Central Market and Kroger for groceries for the week and managed to get things and not kill each other or spend the day bitching at one another.

We came home and watched Battlestar Galactica Season 4, or rather he watched it and I watched it between naps. (Sue me...I was tired.)

Today, we slept in until about 10am, then got showered, dressed, then carried the puppies to the park for a walk. This is an ordeal because the pups have car issues (Max throws up, Missy is afraid we're taking her to the pound.) After wrestling Missy into the back of the hatchback, we put Max in the car and prepared for the upchucking to commence. He doesn't really make a production of it, he just sorta lays his head down, then spews. And spews. And spews. Today, he was good and managed to make it. Both ways without incident. Missy and Max enjoyed the walk and Missy even discovered she likes to wade in the water. She's a good girl. And she gets really regular when she walks, so preparation is key. ; )

Now we're just enjoying a lazy evening of ironing, prep for the next week and just spending time together. I love the beginning of the year.