The weekend is over, it's 15 minutes til' my bedtime.
Today was a wash.  Good morning, pretty intense afternoon.
Good this morning because everyone went to church, we worshiped the Lord and then after church?
Josiah offered to buy dinner at a sit-down restaurant for everyone. That's a pretty steep bill to pay for
9 people, even if most of them are kids.

The problem.  Josiah took off in the pickup at dad's house with his girlfriend yesterday, immediately
after he had called mom and told her he was going to the store, to which mom replied fine, but she
absolutely is not going with you.  M'lady has no control over him at dad's house, but she does have control over use of the pickup since....it's her pickup.

The information came that he had taken her with him to the store.  Further that he basically told everyone there "screw them, I don't care what they say, you are coming with me!" in reference to his GF going with him and basically telling m'lady and I to go blow.  There is even more, but not going to go into details.

Well, m'lady had already made her decision about what he was going to do about this and we're sitting in the church parking lot discussing whether we should take up his offer to go out to eat?  I mean, you are about to tell him something he is definitely going to blow up about?  But in the end, we ended up going to a Mexican food restaurant, a thing I have been missing since I came out here, not that many around and the few I have been to have been pretty nasty.  We all had a great time.  It just kinda made me a bit apprehensive and a little sad that I knew what was coming to both of them in not too much more time, but enjoy the moments you get when you get them.

And so it was.  We got home with the both of them, she called them outside and I called the rest inside. They got in the back of the pickup truck and sat there.  I checked a few times, the last time I looked they were both crying.  The worst was yet to come when she told them that she was taking her home and they would have to tell her parents what happened. Then the girl started choking and sobbing.

They left and were gone a long time. I watched a movie with the kids - Happy Gilmore - absolutely hilarious movie with Adam Sandler, we sat there and laughed and laughed.  I watch that movie once in a while and just laugh every time I see it.  The Bob Barker fight I find especially hilarious, lol.  I had a 9 year old girl snuggled up to me on one side and a 13 year old boy on the other.

I have unintentionally stolen the hearts of the two little girls from their father.  He doesn't touch them, he doesn't tell them how special and beautiful they are, he doesn't give them kisses and he shoes them away from him.  They come give me big hugs all the time. The 9 year old sat right next to me, grabbed me hand and held it for a long time while watching that movie.  I really feel bad for all of those kids with a dad that simply will not show them love in any way, shape or form.  When they go to his house for over-nighters, they are sat down in front of a TV and watch movies the entire time.

The 13 year old hates going over there.  He is very active and sitting around for countless hours is not his forte.  He can watch a movie or show, but to sit there doing that all day and night long? Absolutely not.  Anyway, when they did finally return - m'lady and Josiah, Josiah came in and asked me if I would go work out with him. Yes, of course I will.  Mom was especially giving on that one, yes, go work out with him and maybe try to get him to cool down and sort through his emotions.

So we did.  Gone for about 2 hours.  Just heard him out and tried not to be too preachy. He was demanding to know who ratted him out - I simply refused to tell him. I told him flatly that I would never tell him and that he had committed his acts in front of all of the rest of his siblings so what did he expect?  But we had a good workout none-the-less, spent some good time with him trying to just get him to cool his heels a little.  I am no longer the decision maker so I am reverting back to the role I had with him before: a mentor and someone who will listen.

But it quickly went to hell when we got back and she had written out in black magic marker a message to him which she held up in front of everyone - it was written in huge letters.  It basically said on August 3rd he can see his girl starting at 2 pm, providing he works both this week and next and providing his attitude doesn't get crappy.  Josiah blew up.  He got his shoes on and took off.  No-one tried to stop him, no point in it.  Let him run and blow off steam.

After that, talked with m'lady for a long time alone.  :Had to air all of this out and she wanted to know what happened when we got to the gym.  Just basically letting him vent and hearing him out.  I don't have to agree with a person's views to hear them out and have a heart.

It's never ending over there, especially on weekends.  Anyway, I got the pellet rifle out for the 13 year old who was begging to shoot it.  He follows me around everywhere.  I'm serious.  When I am talking with m'lady I have to tell him to please go do something else, we want to have a private conversation.  I don't care what I am doing or where I am at on the property or in the house - he is there. I brought that up to m'lady today, that boy has become very attached to me.  Yes, she replied, he has never had any kind of male role model figure in his life.  I know and I don't mind filling the position, but he is very attached.  He sees his dad frequently enough and yet it is like his dad doesn't exist.  He hates going over there.

Well back to talking to m'lady again and doing laundry - having an entourage following me in there as well and in saying that I don't mean that I am some fantastic, special superhero, just they have a dad that won't get involved in their lives.  The sun going down, Josiah hadn't returned.

I texted him.  Well dude are you coming back or what's going on? I'm lost!  I'm in woods and I can't find a road anywhere!  Ummm, okay.......how far away are you from us?  Can I shoot off a few rounds and get you a directional back here?  Or hit the arrow on your phone map, it will show you where you're at and what's around you!  Finally I get a text back: I am on such and such road.  Okay, do you want me to come get you?  If you want to.....  Well, I feel for the kid. He might have brought all of this onto himself but he was a couple of miles away and had run out of water and the sun was going down. Not like there are street lights out in the country....

Got him back home then we started cleaning.  The 13 year old started getting an attitude. No idea.  He usually just does whatever he's told, he may not like it but getting this bad was unusual.  Okay, it was not unusual a while back but his tude' improved greatly - I don't want to pat myself on the back but I know I have had a large part to do with that - so just sat there and watched it for a while before finally asked him to get rid of the tude' and just get this done.  Wasn't like he was the only one doing anything.  I ended up back in the laundry room - which is the size of most people's master bedrooms, lol, and then the truth came out.

He was upset that I was leaving.  I mean, how do you handle hearing that? I know he has become attached to me but not to that degree.  Well, I replied, well I'm sorry. I have to get up early in the morning for work.  I don't want to leave but life has it's way of interfering with things.  But it's so boring around here when you aren't here! He's just pouring it on and I'm just like....wow, okay.   On hearing m'lady's talking about it earlier, I asked him if he would like to go out sometime and do something together? Well, yeah!

I just let it go at that, until he asked. Well what are we going to do?  What do you want to do?  I dunno.  Let's go see a movie then?!

I didn't want to leave him all down in the dumps and being unhappy about everything, so at least that brought him back up a little.

That's been my day and then some.  I can't write everything out, it would take up ten times this amount of writing I did here and that's already a lot!

.......and work in the morning. Mondays lately have been really s*****.  I would like this one to not be quite so bad, or not bad at all!  Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeee pray for me about that! Thank you!

Nite.

ben