We have many friends who never had kids. What do the do and what do they talk about? I blame it on our parents. If they never had kids we probably wouldn't either. :banghead3:
Parenting lasts longer then most marriages. No apoligizes needed 81x11 you are only venting as all parents need to do from time to time.
Mike, you rant and vent all you want! We ARE family around here. Better to vent here, and get it out of your system, so that you can deal with the situation more calmly in person. I simply cannot imagine the strength and courage it took for you and Misty to take in those 3 kids. I am, as always, in awe. You will likely never know just how much of a difference you have made in the lives of those kids, but I promise you that it is beyond immense. It may not mean that much coming from a stranger, but my admiration for you two is beyond measure. If ever there were a pair of heroes, you and Misty are they! My hat is off to you. Keep up the good work.
Have been quiet on here lately...thought I'd share why. This IS a book. These kids are moving to live with their father again. It's been a frustrating and somewhat upsetting couple of weeks seeing if this was for sure going to happen...and finally got word that yes, it is. We've had them a year now.. We sat all the kids down for a family meeting on Friday evening. My main goal was to make sure the kids did not feel like they were being abandoned again. They all knew that John was getting out of the VA Hospital at the beginning of November, and every time he’s seen them he’s told them he wanted them back as soon as he could make it work. So we just said their Dad was getting out of the hospital and will be moving to Round Rock, and sometime in the next few weeks they would be moving back in with him. We told them that John would be getting a car first, and then would be in Round Rock apartment hunting. We made it clear that he was looking only at three-bedroom apartments, and that they would not have to change schools. They were all fairly shocked, and took it in different ways. Johnathan was visibly upset…he just kind of scowled and sat there. Joseph was just quiet. Lily put her feet up on the chair in front of her and put her chin on her knees, and her eyes got wet. I made it clear again that John is only looking at apartments in the area, so we’d all still be close. I also told them that whenever we go to the lake, to the hill country, camping, or on other fun-runs, I will be calling them to go. I told them that if they had any issues, they can still come to me anytime, and that I’d offered to drive them to school every morning, just like normal. They liked that. I told them that everything we’ve given them over the past year was there’s to take, and they could of course take their bikes and such. I asked them what they thought, and if they had questions. Lily’s first concern was her cat….I told her that it was up to the apartments and if her Dad had enough for a pet deposit, but that we could keep Mimzy as long as needed and she could visit her anytime, and not to worry about it. Joseph, sweet kid that he is, asked me if they could still come to family dinner night at my parents on Tuesdays. He really loves those. I said of course! Johnathan, who has turned into a total neat-freak, keeps his room spotless, and showers twice a day, is VERY concerned about John’s smoking. If we’re driving around and someone is smoking in the car in front of us, Johnathan asks us to roll the windows up. He HATES smoking. I personally am also concerned about this, as the doctor told us that smoking is a huge trigger for asthma, and after moving into our home, Lily has not had an asthma attack once, breathes fine now, and was able to give up on here inhaler over 8-months ago now. I told them all that I would talk to John about smoking on his patio or deck, and hopefully not smoking with them in the car. Johnathan is pretty upset about losing his room. It’s the first time he’s ever had his own room, and he asked if Lily and Joseph would still be sharing a room, or if he will have to move back in with Joseph. I said that was up to their father. He didn’t like that answer much. Joseph then asked me if I could still take them trick-or-treating…ha. Of course. We also told Lily her birthday will go on as scheduled next weekend, and not to worry about that. They had a few more questions, but we wrapped it up. I didn’t want them to stew about it so I told them I’d take everyone out to Buffalo Wild Wings, a place they love. They jumped up at that offer, and we all went out and had a good dinner, and they were all fine and happy at the restaurant. Later that evening I noticed Lily sitting on one of the living room chairs alone. I asked how she was doing, and she said she didn’t know how to feel. She said she loves her Daddy and was excited to be moving back with him, but she was worried. I told her to go put on her “biker jeans”, and we went for a good long motorcycle ride under the stars (and one short shower too!) out to the 360 bridge and back. I told her that no matter what, that I would still be picking her up for weekend cycle rides. That made her smile. When we got home and she was in a much better mood. The next day the plan was to drive up to Temple and take John car-shopping. John had asked me to bring the kids, but Johnathan had an ROTC event, and Joseph flat did not want to go, and disappeared before I left that morning. Lily wanted to go, and so did Eddie, so I loaded them in the car and we drove the 38-miles to Temple. John realty wanted and SUV, and I told him he might want to consider a car for the gas mileage (he’s going to have an 80-mile round-trip commute daily), since he’ll be commuting to and from Temple until he can transfer to the Austin VA center for his job, but he was pretty set on a truck. On his budget, we narrowed the search to late 1990’s-early 2000’s Blazers, Envoys, Traiblazers, Bravadas, and Jimmys. Mainly because parts for these are so cheap, and with Truong, anything I can’t fix, we can get repaired cheaply. That and most of these have the wonderful 4.3 V6 engines, which just run forever, and can get around 20mpg on the highway, if you keep your foot out of them. We spent all day Saturday looking in Temple and Killeen for SUVs. We looked at two frankly pitiful Bravadas, and had a red Blazer and blue Jimmy in consideration, but then found a pretty pewter-over-black two-tone 2000 Blazer LT 4dr. See add here: http://killeen.craigslist.org/cto/4061402450.html . The FUN part was this is owned by a Mexican grandmother, and we had to use her 12-year-old daughter for translation for most of the talking, ha! It’s Texas! This truck had a little more mileage than I wanted for them (114K), but it had good set of matched Kumho tires, ran like a watch, has a new a/c compressor, and when we drove it, felt tight, braked well, rode smooth, shifted well, and the a/c blew ice-cubes I climbed under it and found no leaks, the oil was clean, and in general it’s a nice truck. It does need a good bath and detailing, but that’s easy. About the real only problems I found were the power mirrors did not work, which I think is from lack of use (switch gets sticky..had the same issue on our Denali), and while the digital compass on the overhead console works, the digital temp readout just reads zero…bad temp sensor I think, will check the Blazer forum. Also the sun visors need to be recovered, and there is a worn spot on the seat bolster where you slide in and out. Also the driver’s door panel needs some new clips…she had the power-window motor replaced and whoever did it did not bother to mount the panel back correctly. Easy fix for me. No accidents, non-smoking truck, smelled clean inside, all original paint, and being an LT-level Blazer, it’s loaded with black leather interior, power everything, overhead console, Bose CD and cassette, and basically all the bells and whistles…except a sunroof. Also, it’s a 2WD, not a 4x4. I didn’t want him to buy a 4x4…four-wheel-drive just kills the gas mileage, and is just more stuff to wear out…and above all, it’s flat not needed in Texas. I also liked that it did NOT have a trailer hitch, even though these tow well, it’s good to know the transmission does not have towing wear on it, and being Grandma’s car, only the driver’s seat is showing wear, the rest of the interior is very nice, and hopefully it has been driving gently…I think it has. John really liked it, and so did Lily. I told John he should offer about $500 less, in order to have some money to go through the truck as soon as he bought it. I told him I’d bring it back to Austin and have Truong do a 100,000 miles service on it. At just over 100K miles, and to get him the best mileage possible, I recommended that he give it a full tune-up (plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, pcv valve), and that while it was there we’ll also replace the grease in the rear axle, flush the Dex-Cool anti-freeze (hate that stuff) out of the radiator, and change the transmission fluid and filter. We’ll also check the brakes and rotate the tires, and possible get it aligned. While it’s in the shop, I’ll have my interior guy re-cover the sun visors, and once all that is done, I’ll re-attach the door panel correctly and I’ll clean and detail it for him (a chore I enjoy, and hopefully an incentive for him to keep it nice himself). Once it’s tuned up and detailed I do think it’ll be a nice SUV for them. Those are good for 200K miles, if he’ll take care of it. John offered $500 less than asking price, and she took it, but he could not get the rest of the funds out of the bank until Tues (tomorrow), so he gave her a deposit and she took the for-sale sign off the window. The plan is tomorrow I’m taking a LONG lunch and with my Dad riding along we’re going to Temple to get John, and then to the bank, and then driving to Killeen to buy the truck, and then we’ll go get all the tune-up parts and such at the parts store. We’ll then take John back to the VA, and I’ll drive the Blazer black to Austin with Dad behind me, and we’ll drop it at Truong’s shop for the repairs. Once it’s done, hopefully in about a week, I’ll drive it back to Temple and John can bring me back to Austin, and that’ll be that. I did go salvage-yarding yesterday and picked up a pair of better sun visors (still need to be re-covered, but vanities looked better…will drop off at interior shop tomorrow), a used power mirror switch, and some other trim items for his truck. I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty on it. I love a car project, and think I can make this NICE for them. It’ll look and drive nearly-new when I’m done with it. As for the remainder of the weekend, we all got along and had a good time. I took the kids to IKEA on Sat night, Lily had always wanted to go, and I wanted to look at couches. Neat HUGE store, it’s such a maze that even the boy enjoy going, they hide and chased each other all over the store…glad we didn’t get kicked out. Then I took them to the outlet mall to walk around, and then to Steak-N-Shake for dinner and finally went to the 10pm showing of Red 2 at the Dollar Cinema. That was a GREAT movie, really funny. Got home at midnight with a car-load of full and happy kids. Yesterday, as I mentioned, I went salvage-yarding and got some Blazer parts, and then came home around 2pm and put the kids to work cleaning the house and doing laundry, and then we all met Dad at Chuy’s for dinner, and then drove down to South Austin to hit Trader Joe’s for snacks. Finished the evening with a DVD movie in Lily and Joseph’s bedroom. My brother burned “The Way-Way-Back” for us, and it was pretty good! The kids are home today for Columbus Day, and my Dad is over there watching them. Misty and I are both at work. Such fun. Back to John, I think he’s actually excited about all this. He’s getting a nice car and hopefully a nice apartment, and after a year of being somewhat without a direction and on his own, he’s now got a “plan”. My main concern is the kids slipping in school or not re-adjusting well. I’m planning to stay in their lives as much as I can. Also, the hours John works (3:30pm-10:30pm, Mom-Fri) ,means the kids will be on their own in the afternoons and will also have to FEED themselves dinner and get ready for bed. It’ll take John about 45-mins to get home, so it’ll be close to midnight before he gets home every night. I’ve got all the kids trained to go to bed at 9:30 on school nights (11:30 on weekends), and I have a feeling they will not be getting as much sleep. Lily CAN NOT get up unless she goes to bed fairly early. At least, if I’m picking them up for school in the mornings, I can see how they handle all this. I hope Lily does not try playing the “sick” card with John. She tried that with us at first, but learned she could not fool me, and NONE of them has missed a single day of school in the year we’ve had them. John did say he thinks he can transfer to the Austin VA building soon, and hopefully will find a local full-time job with normal hours quickly. He does seem happy and motivated. I’m really hoping this all works out. Anyway that’s the latest book. Will keep you in the loop. -Michael
Mike, thanks for the book. Good luck to John and the kids. Let's hope this works out well. At least with you and Misty still in their lives things appear to look well. Kids need to be with parents. At least one of them, which is more than many have now days.
Mike, thanks for the update. I was thinking about you last week, hadn't seen you post for a while. Now I see why. You're one heck of a guy! Bill
Thanks for the words all. We'll still have them another two weeks most likely. Maybe longer...their father...well, he could get cold feet, but legally they are his, and he wants them back. Will take it as it comes, and do the best we all can. -Mike
Mike, what are the plans for the extra empty bedrooms? Dollie is getting hostile now that we made it through another anniversary! I'd love wading in those creeks and playing with your cars.
Thanks for the book! Always in inspiration to hear how the kids are doing. It is great that John feels able to look after his kids again. That is a good sign. Even better is that you will be there, keeping watch, to make sure that things do go right. I'm sure you will be there, observing, and ready to take action should the need arise. Knowing that is the case may just make it easier for John to be able to handle the 3 of them himself. Back up is important. I have a feeling you are going to find a sudden hole in your house with them gone. You might consider Cat's kind offer to come fill that hole. He seems half-way housebroken, and he is able to help with the projects in the garage. Just an idea. Make sure you keep us up to date with progress. We're all rooting for you, John, and those 3 kids.
Mike, my respect to you and your wife for helping John out and his kids. At least your VA system works to give your vets some support. Our Canadian one is a political football, and the guys just get dumped unless they're quadraplegic. They even have to do "means test" to get their pensions. We ask them to give their lives and they get treated like left-overs. Heck of a story. Hope they team up with dad, and give it their best as time goes.
