Lessons Learned

This week ended up being way more eventful than I planned so I haven't been around much after all.

Some unexpected work projects came up where my presence was required but that is a good thing because it means money and money is good. Other than that....

I may have mentioned before that I have been driving since I was 18 and have never been involved in a car accident. Not even a fender bender. Until Tuesday. Since it has been getting light later, I have been driving Littlest to school. Because my kids don't drive and possibly never will...anyway..I may have also mentioned HOW I have been driving them for twenty years. No, not in my pajama's. I get up and change from my pajamas into something much worse. Most recently that would be my cool weather uniform of faded yoga pants-with a hole, old green chenille sweater-with two holes, over giant t shirt (no bra), flip flops and hair that may or may not have been brushed. Every morning I pray that I don't get in a fender bender or get a flat and become a mockery on the side of the road. Does that stop me? No. I get up at 5:30 and leave the house at seven and the school is only 5 minutes away. Getting dressed for that is not worth the trouble. Particularly if I'm coming straight home to blog work at the house for a few hours. So. Tuesday Lit and I are approaching her school when "what the hell are you doing?!" a truck turned Right In Front Of Me! But I am an excellent driver and I stopped before I was eating airbag for breakfast. The lovely teenage driver behind me? Well she stopped in time too ( though later when I mentioned it was my first accident she cheerfully told me she had been in three!)  I had just started to move forward again, when the teacher behind her-slammed the the back end of her Mercedes with his ten year old Ford Ranger and I said, "Oh Lord that didn't sound good and then I said, "Are you serious?" Because, she was suddenly forced forward too and I was involved in an accident. We all pulled over and as far as I could see I had no damage. The Mercedes and Ranger were not looking as good. But I stayed anyway. I have never done this and we did get jolted pretty hard. I wasn't sure what to do. But by the time the cop came, I just told him what happened, said I was fine and asked if I could leave. Then I did.  Do you recall Middlest graduating in the spring? This was HER math teacher. End of Story.

 Oh Wait. Did I mention that it was one of the 1 out of every 500 times, in the past twenty years,  that I had to go to work directly after dropping kids off and was fully dressed?
There is a God.

In other news...

Middlest moved out two months ago and she's had a bit of a rough time. First, as soon as she moved out her manager at work cut her down to about 6 hours a week at work. This guy is a first class jerk in many ways and this was just the latest. So she had to find a second job. And she did. At a different sub shop. Which is when the jerk at the first place fired her for working at the second place. But the manager at the new job was understanding and they gave her a lot of hours. So she was doing ok.
Then. A few weeks ago we get a knock at the door. Surprise,  it was a detective! With photo's. Of our beautiful daughter with the most unsavory characters I have ever seen since Biggest was 15. Now it's been a long time since the police showed up concerning one of my children and the previous times I was the one who called them. I have only recently come to a place where I thought I could breathe easy. Can you feel the panic? Yeah. Me too. The detective wanted to question her about these fellas. Seems they had some questionable tattoo's that alerted someone in McDonald's to call the police. They were asked to leave the restaurant and Middlest Went With Them. They were walking down the road when they were stopped and questioned as to why they were in the area. Along with my child. They said they were just passing through and the police began keeping an eye on them. They lost track of them and they wanted to find out if Mid knew their whereabouts. What was my daughter doing associating with these people? She was being an idiot she was sketching them because she likes painting unusual or freaky looking people. These were not just unusual people.  This girl has no common sense. Thankfully, she hadn't seen them again. Biggest and DecentGuy were both Livid. Not only because they felt responsible for her but also because she was putting them in danger by treating these people as acceptable. I reminded Biggest that she has romanticized street figures in her stories and her sister does not have the experience to tell the difference between 'regular' street and criminal. They were about fed up with her at that point but were giving her another chance. At the time we had a talk with her about what would be expected if they told her to leave and she came home. Her Dad listed her responsibilities and the rules. He pointed out that she still would not have to pay rent but would have to supply her own snacks and personal supplies. Then for some reason he randomly threw in,
 "Except toilet paper. We buy it in bulk and we have plenty. So you don't have to provide your own TP."
In the end Middlest weighed the options. They were almost identical, the only differences being she paid rent with Biggest and we had an earlier weekend curfew. She decided to pay for the curfew and stay where she was. Common sense people. Seriously. I must have missed some kind of essential nutrient when I was pregnant with her. So anyway.

 A few days later Middlest called to chat on her way to work. She was in a good mood. She had just cashed her paycheck, gave Biggest her rent and was looking forward to going to the store after work to get some food because she was out. Of Food.  A few hours later at 7 PM I get a phone call.  All I hear is sobbing. Finally I am able to make out that it's Mid and she cries,

"I lost my wallet! It Had All Of My Money In It!"

What!!!?

 "I'm so hungry. I just wanted to get my food and I needed to get toilet paper! She burst into heavy sobs again. "I Dooon't haave aaannnny Toiiiiilet PaaaPerrrr!"

God has a sense of humor.

I finally got her to calm down. Then I told her, "I know that sucks honey and I'm sorry. You have to be super careful and not carry that much with you. The first thing you need to do is call the bank right away and tell them your debit card is gone before someone gets that money too." To which I received the answer, "There isn't any money in it." Yep. She cleaned out her account in two months. There wasn't a huge amount in it but there was more than enough to carry an emergency like this. So what did we do? Well the next day The SeaMonkey took her to the store and bought her some groceries- and toilet paper. Biggest gave her some of the rent money back so that she could ride the bus and have something extra in case she needed it. But she grumbled over it because Middlest had wasted her money on stuff like a new camera and unnecessary clothing items. I would remind her that Middlest did have to learn more about responsibility and appeared to be learning but just turned 18 two months ago and she shouldn't expect miracles. Over the past two weeks she has learned to live with no money and owing people on top of it.  Biggest continued to call me a million times to complain about how irresponsible she was. When I talked to Middlest I would get the other side of the story and find the most likely reality somewhere in the middle.

I finally have the answers to the questions I was wondering about not long ago. No. There is no money left in that account. Yes! She dumped the Douche (Who was 21 and wasn't going to college and also had no car, no job,  lived with his mother and was cheating on her). Some Good News. She likes the shift manager at her new job. Ok. She is actually dating the shift manager at her new job, (Who is 25 but has two jobs and goes to school too- !)  so I don't think she will get fired anytime soon.  She has learned a lot of hard lessons in a very short time. All lessons that she absolutely needed to learn and may not have if she hadn't been on her own.

Biggest called:  the other day and was on a tirade about Mid and how she was always off with her friends. I said as long as she was keeping up with what was asked of her I didn't think what she did with her time was Biggests business. But she still wasn't satisfied with how she kept up with things. Middlest had mentioned what Biggest considered, 'keeping up with things.' When she was finished I called Mid and asked if she wanted to visit me after work. I offered to pick her up and came up on her from behind in the car and noticed that she getting so skinny that her skinny jeans were loose. I brought her home and her dad and I had a little chat with her.

The night before last I was reading in bed and someone came scurrying into the room and sat on the steps to my bed and snuggled their head on my arm. I asked, "What's wrong?" The sniffling answer was,

 "Nothing, I just haven't been able to do this in a long time." Sniffle.

Ms. G, you know you baby that Mama's girl don't you?

Yeah. I know.

While Littlest found a whole lot of reasons to not miss Middlest she also realized she had no one to call in when she found something funny on YouTube, borrow boots from and worst of all- burst into song with.

I spent the first evening Mid was back doing something I missed: Being serenaded by an impromptu duet performance of various musical numbers from Cats, Disney and Avenue Q.

When Biggest came home and saw that Middlests' things were gone she cried.

Lessons learned.

I would like to go do my blog visiting now but I will have to catch up on my reading (AGAIN) later. My back is pretty sore and I could barely finish this. I think I need to go lay down with a heating pad.

But that's ok. I'm feeling thankful anyway.

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