Things just keep getting worse

Not really. I have many many good things in my life. I have a job that challenges every skill I have and some I don't. I have three beautiful boys who really are just joys on their own, together, they are a miracle. I have been blessed with a brain and an intellect and I live in a time when a woman having such is a good thing. I have a car. I have an apartment. I have kept the bills paid and the utilities on for over a year in this apartment, without barrowing money from anyone.

But then there are days like these. Today wasn't so bad, most of it. My students at school and the other faculty were glad to see me back (for some reason it is very nice to be missed). The day went fairly smoothly, no crisis or disruptions. The weather was still wonderful. Sunny and warm, but windy. AndI even like the wind.

Then I get home. and the damn SRS people are waiting for me. There has been another report. That I was emotionally abusive to Isaiah and that there was a strange man over here who yelled alot. That I don't keep suffiecent food in the home. That I was jerking Gideon around when I put him into the car.

I asked today, is it abusive to keep ahold of a little kid who likes to bolt into the road? Is it abusive to get on to a big kid who has been asked several times to do something and not done it? I had my brother over here saturday night. But he is a rather quiet person. BIg, tall, funny looking, but quiet. Is it a matter of abuse and neglect to have a relative visit for a little while?

Well, no none of that is abusive, but we have to check up on these things. I asked, look at my kitchen, its fairly clean and full of food (seriously, I have cupboards that over-flow, I like it that way).

Oh, another complaint, noah always has a runny nose, looks sickly all the time. Excuse me, the kid is healthy and hearty and huge. He gets colds occasionally, but hey, kids get colds. When he needs it (ie runs a fever and has symptoms that last too long) I take him to the doctor. I give him the medicine prescribed.

I don't understand this. Why is this happening to me. No one's house is perfect all the time. No one is constant sunshine and rainbows with their kids. Gideon is strong-willed, he will either grow out of it or not, but there isn't a lot I can do aboutit now other then take things a day at a time.

My dad wants me to move to tennesee. The Family preservation people think I ought to move far enough away that the source of all this (church people I think, people I have called family) doesn't have any access.

On the one hand, if I had a place of my own, and a job that paid good money, I probably would pack and move as soon as school ended. On the other hand, I like it here. This is were I choose for my stand. My place to build a life. Why should I let a mentally unstable busy-body and a couple of holy-rolling cronies drive me out?

I don't know. There is a part of me that really wants a rumble. That wants to punch and kick and scream at them until they admit that they are in the wrong on this. There is another part that wants to quietly pack my things and go away, to where no one knows us and the history I carry around with me. There is a third part. This one sounds the most like my mom. She says :never let them see the effect they have on you. Get up in the morning, smile, be nice. Pretend that nothign they do bothers you."

I don't know which urge is the one to follow. I do know that at some point, the way I hold on to a wild kid, when and why I yell at Isaiah, and what I stock in my kitched become no one's bussiness but my own.