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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

FUNdraiser

Ugg. Ever wish you had a time machine, so you could go back in time, and warn yourself about something bad that was gonna happen? Well, I wished for one today. And it started out as such a LOVELY day, too...

I got Jake on the bus at 7am, and Tom and Eme and Joe on the bus at 7:30am, and Jim was still asleep. So I TOTALLY went back to bed. And slept till around 9am. Oh yeah, gotta love sleep in days :)

My allergies seemed to be MUCH better today, and I could actually breathe. I washed off my old layer of make up, and applied a new one, and brushed my hair, dressed my child, threw on some clothes, and he and I headed off to the commissary. I needed a few things.



Always singing...
And stopped at the Shoppette for a refill. They say you're not supposed to do refills if you ASK, but if you just bring your cup to the front register, they'll ring it up. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, right?

After the commissary, Jim and I headed back home, and I started cooking tacos... um....er.... burritos....um,....enchiladas? Yeah, it was some kind of creation... I took a diced onion and a lb of ground turkey, and fried it up. Then added the beans and rice from El Taco Tote, and a package of taco seasoning, cooked it up, and filled flour taco shells with it, and put them in a baking dish. Then mixed 1 can of cream of chicken soup with 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup shredded cheese, and poured it over there, then cooked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.
Next, I baked cup cakes. I used a yellow cake mix, and added 3 mashed bananas to it, then baked like normal. For the frosting, I used 1 box of Vanilla Pudding (powdered)(6 serving box) mixed with 1 large tub of Cool Whip. And 3 mashed bananas. PERFECT frosting. I put it in a zip lock bag, and put it in the fridge to stay cold.

And when I was ready to frost them, I squirted out a dollop onto the cupcakes, and then put on some caramel ice cream topping sauce on it, and Praline Crunch ice cream toppings too. SO yummy!

I chatted with Captain America on Skype for a few minutes inbetween cooking, but you know how men like you to focus JUST on them.... hehe. And I couldn't bake/cook and focus JUST on him at the same time. I'm good, but not THAT good :) So I continued to cook, and he went to exercise then go to bed.

And I got Jim to the bus, then hurried back and baked/cooked some more. And was ready to go to Kari's party at 11:45. I loaded up the car, and headed on over. Here's me at Kari's house.

And here's the game that we played. She would hold up these letter cards, and we had to be the first to yell out a "naughty" (not bad, Amanda!) word. hehe. It was funny :) I sucked at first, but caught on after a while. Terra and I tied for first place! Yeah for mild terrets!!!

Kari showed us all the new products for the spring, and we played another game. I just LOVED the grapefruit scent! SO good! I'm got more Body Dew (body oil) in Grapefruit scent, and can't wait to try it!

During a break, I hurried off to the bathroom, and couldn't resist playing on the "swing" before heading back into the living room. hehe.

Dude, this would TOTALLY make me motion sick. I about hurt myself - ROFL!
We all ordered what we needed, and ate a FABULOUS potluck lunch, and had fun visiting and chatting. Then headed off to wherever we were going. Me? To the bus stop to pick up Jim. And the bus drive pointed out that my tire was flat. Whaaaaat? SO not cool!


So Jim and I got home, and wouldn't you know it! When I pulled up to the house, I spilled my 64 oz DDP on the floorboard! Crap! I'd JUST refilled it at Kari's house! Freak! I got some towels, and did my best to get it all cleaned up...

Jim and I watched a show, and I relaxed on the couch. I designed for a bit, and went through some emails and work stuff. Then Jake got home at 3:15pm, and Eme and Joe and Tom at 3:35pm. We decided not to go to the pool, but to spend the afternoon/evening at home.

Eme did her chores real fast, and went to her friends house to work on homework (the little girls mom doesn't speak English). And the other kids worked on their stuff. And Jake started hastling me about being grounded. And trying to find a way to make it so he WOULDN"T be grounded. Yeah, wasn't gonna happen.

So he decided to sit near me, and go "Why am I grounded? Why? Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom?" for about 10 minutes straight. And yeah, I couldn't handle it. I could for a bit, but it got too much for me. And I told him to go to his room.

Nope, he flat out refused. Go to your room, Jake! He decided to make it into a power struggle. "You can't make me, mom. I'm bigger than you". So I decided to use my strength, and force him into his room.

And I got him about 1/2 way there before he threw me off of him. And it went downhill from there. No matter how hard I tried, drug, pulled, I couldn't get the child into the bedroom.

And he just kept getting madder (while still remaining calm, if that makes sense) and madder and madder. And more stubborn. And more assertive of his strength. He got mad, and threw over a BIG bookshelf, and glass stuff went EVERYWHERE!

At this point, I called Laurie. I tried to think of who had a husband at home who could come over and be "bigger" than Jake. I, of course, started bawling on the phone, and her hubby wasn't home. But she came right over to help me.

She tried to talk to him too, but it wasn't working. He didn't want any part of it. He tried to take the dog into his room (which is against the rules), and that didn't go over well either. At one point, he got super mad, and picked up the Dell laptop, and threw it on the ground as HARD as he could.
Followed RIGHT after by the Acer. Crap! NOT good at all! At this point, I ran to grab my laptop, ran into my room, and hid it REAL good. Under the dirty laundry pile. And came back out real fast.

At this point, I called the police. I didn't know what else to do. He was scaring me! I didn't know what he was gonna do next. And it took them 20 minutes before they got here. Sigh.

Before they showed up, Jake went into the living room, grabbed my old Asus computer that's hooked up to the EHD and the big screen TV, and threw it from the living room into the Dining room where Laurie and I were. And it shattered everywhere.


Then he picked up the EHD (with all of my designing PSD files on it, and all of our pictures, and my WHOLE life), and threw it against a wall as HARD as he could. Then, because it only made a hole in the wall, but didn't visibly break the EHD, he threw it on the floor. Yeah, that did the trick. Sigh.

He went into my room a few times looking for the "hidden" computer, but didn't find it. Thank goodness! I was praying that he wouldn't find it. All the while, the little kids are hiding upstairs in their bedrooms. Peeking over the balcony, wanting to see what's going on.

When the police finally showed up, he was sitting on the couch, with the dog, calm as can be. Laurie and I spent the next hour filling out police reports, and they had a cop that deals with Juveniles come and talk to him. I'm not sure what they told him. I know that the one officer did a "fear of God" speech on him, but I dont' know if it worked or not. One of the, "If we have to come out here again, then YOU are gonna get taken away, not your mom..."

I filled out even more paperwork, and Laurie's hubby got there, and talked with Jake too. Something about having it good here in this house, and you don't want your mom to just drop you off in Downtown El Paso, do you? Because you wouldn't survive long there. Or do you wanna go to Juvy, with 60 other boys from bad families in El Paso? How long do you think it would take before they'd beat you every night?

I wasn't in the room while he was getting these talks, but I hope and pray that they sink in, at least a little bit. By the time I got done with the police, and was walking Laurie and Spencer, and Amanda (she's stopped by to make sure everything was OK when I wasn't answering my phone) out to their cars, Spencer noticed my flat tire. And it was WAY worse than before.... Crap!

See, here's my I CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER 100 DAYS LIKE THIS face...
And here's Spencer changing my tire for me, and putting on the spare. I'm to go to the Tire place tomorrow, and buy a new one. But I need to call first, and make sure that they have it in stock. Will do, Spencer! Thanks SO much for helping me out!

And by the time everyone left, and I headed back inside the house, Jake and the dog were TOTALLY asleep on the couch. I woke him up, and told him to go to his room, and he went, no questions asked. And instantly went to sleep. That was about 6pm. And he's still asleep now...

I did a lot of crying tonight, but tried to push on. I helped the kids with their homework, and got the messes cleaned up. We piled up the books where the bookshelf used to be, and put the pile of boards from the bookshelf in another pile. We swept up the glass, and assembled all the broken computers. And components.

And we chatted on the video phone for a bit with my mom. And I said that we weren't coming for a visit this summer. This freak show is DEFINITELY not taking it on the road. hehe. We'll stay here, thank you very much. LOL! Can you imagine what happened today in a truck with 6 other people and a dog for 4 days one direction? Yeah, no thanks!

Kids ate leftover taco stuff, and cupcakes, and I eventually made it to the couch, and Facebooked and vegged. I was SO spent. And I wasn't really paying too close attention to what Tom was doing, but I finally, after the little kids went to bed, looked and saw what it was he was working on. He needed to make a robot for school. Not a working robot, but a mannequin type thingy.

He was taping together straws to make a GIANT frame. He had the torso and the head done. And was trying to figure out what to do with it next. So Eme and I stopped what we were doing, and went to work helping Tom.

We crumpled up newspaper, and filled the inside of the frame. Then wrapped it with Tin Foil. LOTS and LOTS of tin foil. And there's a big yellow dump truck under there, that the frame is sitting on. And it's all wrapped up too. And some squiggly eyes and a smile taped on. Tom was SO proud of it!I had Tom bring the metal dude upstairs, so the little kids didn't trash him in the morning. And he and Eme went to bed. And I sat down to blog. And texted with my friends a bit. They were checking up on me to see how I was dealing. OK, I guess. I'm still a bit weepy. I don't feel particularly good. I've got a headache, and feel kinda like puking.

Tomorrow, I'm getting kids on the bus, taking Jim to daycare, going to a speech meeting for Tom at the elementary school, calling the Renters Insurance (USAA) and begging for reimbursement on the computers, going to the Tire Place to get a new tire, picking Jim up from Daycare, and dropping him off at the bus. Pfew! And if I survive the morning, I'll let y'all know... Pray for me. I'm needing some prayers right now...

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!


Cool layout, Sharon! Love me some minty Girl Scout cookies!

16 comments:

Rachel said...

Wow! Definitely praying for you! Hope your tomorrow is much better!

Gale said...

Wow! Not a great day! I hope that things calm down and Jake "figures it out". Could be his reaction to so many things. Everything is so dramatic at that age.........prayers are with you and your family.

Breeoxd said...

Me thinks we need to do a Bethany FUNdraiser. hugs. Let me know if I can help!

Dinphy said...

Oh my gosh girl, that's a rough day!
Hope tomorrow is a better one, and he gets the message.
Sending good thoughts and strength your way.

sfninerfan7 said...

HOLY Crap. THAT is a run away to Australia day if I've ever heard it. BIG hugs to you, and I don't even know you! I'm a fb fan of your work...can't imagine what you are going through. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. to your husband AND YOU for your service to our country. I know our servicemen's families can certainly suffer during a deployment. My heard and prayers are with you!

Anonymous said...

Holy crap.... Your day started well and then went downhill :'(
HOW do you manage?! I feel so sorry for you that you have to deal with this alone, without Brent I mean, cause you DO got friends.
I hope all the talks helped, specially the one the cops had with him. How scared must the little ones have been too! :( Please take care and if you need help: shout! I can't do much from here in Holland but I'm always willing to listen and such things.

I am with Breeoxd though on having a Bethany FUNdraiser! Tomorrow HAS to be a better day, for all of you. I pray it will be.

Big,big hugs from Holland

Angel said...

I am not sure what made me come to your blog today but after reading it I know why! My husband is presently deployed to Afghanistan right now as well, but he just left in Feb. I have 3 boys with ADHD and Autistic Spectrum Disorders and one adding Oppostional Defiant Disorder. Mine have never broken anything but have hurt his brother and myself. This is his second deployment in less than 2 yrs. He was in Korea until last June... and I found all this information about the kids while he was gone. I feel your pain and will be praying that things will get better and your wonderful husband arrives home safely soon! Thanks for sharing as it helps to know I am not alone.

Denise said...

What a horribly rotten nogood day! So sorry. Will say many prayers for you and for him. Huggles!!!!

Anonymous said...

Bethany,
My heart goes out to you and your family. Yesterday was definitely a horrible day for all of you. I hope today is much better. Sending prayers your way.
lots of hugs to you!

Sassy Girl Studio said...

Praying for you girl. Keep your chin up. Hugs from Oregon, Andi

Becki aka Crazsquaw said...

Awww, sweetie...BEEN THERE and survived, though they don't make it easy!!!
I'm SO sorry you are going thru this with him, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
While I don't have the answers for you, I can tell you that you can DO IT. I have total faith in you as a person and a mother...and we've never met! LOL
Stay strong, that's VERY important, NEVER let them see you breakdown while he is acting out.
Also, stick to your guns and don't back down...continue to do as you always do. BUT talk to him, alone.
Get some personal one-on-one time with him, he may have some issues building up that he needs to get out.
Not sure what else to say, but as a mother who has been thru this I am here for you and wish you well.

PS: THanks for the amazing WA, you rock!!

Becki aka crazsquaw

Bit's grandma said...

Hey girlfriend! You take good care of yourself; remember you have to be healthy to deal with all the junk with Jake. Praying for you in every way. And, by the way, but far from the least: thank you for the sacrifice you are making so we can be safe here in the USA!

Sandy_in_MD said...

Oh, Bethany - I am so sorry to hear about this incident with Jake. I hope you have a better day today, and can get the insurance worked out for the laptops & EHD. Big hugs to you and the rest of your family. (((((( )))))))

Jenn Nielsen said...

You are an inspiration. You really are. The way you keep on keeping on is an awesome example to us all.

AND . . . Since trials refine us, I am guessing that you are on your way to being solid gold! ;)

AND . . . I am an Activity Days leader in my ward, and LOVE it when you post about your activities. It gives me awesome ideas!

AND . . . I am praying for you. :)

You're not alone . . . but you already know that. ;) *hugs*

Laura said...

hugs and prayers to you and your son. Hopefully you can find out what was going on so it doesn't happen again.

deb said...

I'm so sorry! I'll be praying for you and your family.