I told you about the baby mockingbird we were feeding.  I had no idea how to graduate the bird from baby bird food to real food.  I finally emailed a bird rescue group.  I was planning to drop the bird off with them so they could teach it to hunt and eat, but then Ethan got a bright idea.  Some ants got into his room (which isn’t surprising if you’ve seen Ethan’s room.  There’s always an open coke or some candy in there.).  The bird started eating them.  Ethan, being the smart kiddo he is, got the idea to put some grasshoppers, crickets, and June bugs in the old plastic turtle cage.  He began feeding them to the bird.  Finally, he’d open the cage, let one out, and let the bird catch it.

We’d taken the bird out several times to let it sit out on the little tree in our yard and talk to the other birds.  The bird would always fly back when it was hungry.  Not this weekend though.  Vanessa took it outside, it flew to the big oak tree outside of our yard, and that’s the last we’ve seen of it.

I wanted it to get out on it’s own and I know that being people friendly isn’t good for wild animals, but I was still hoping that it would keep coming back to us.  Who knows.  Maybe it still will.

Fast forward a couple of weeks.  I sit down at my desk to check my email before going to bed, and notice I have a note on the keyboard.  It was from Vanessa.  It said that she and her boyfriend have decided to have seks.  She was telling me beforehand as promised.  She said she knew I’d want to talk about it, so just wake her up when I was ready.

I wasn’t ready that night.  I wasn’t really ready that next day, but we’d been doing that short answer, small talk thing long enough.  I finally asked exactly when and where this was to take place.  She said, “I don’t know!”  which happened to be her answer to a lot of my questions.  I finally just stopped asking.

After a few minutes of silence, Vanessa said, “Well…”  I said, “Well what?”  She said, “You have more to say!”  I said, “Do you want me to put you on birth control?  If that’s what you want, I will; however, you should know the side effects…and that it doesn’t protect from diseases.”

…and the fight was on.  I’m not sure why.  She’s heard that stuff at school.  I don’t know what she was wanting me to say, but I finally just said, “Vanessa, I told you I’d put you on birth control if you wanted; however, if you’re looking for my blessing, it’s not going to happen.  I’m completely against this.”

She said, “Do you hate Cody now?”  I said, “Well, to be honest, his timing was very bad on this.  I’m still trying to trust him again after his lapse in judgment on the drinking thing….and the fight in school before that.”  …and she blew up.  Spewing great statements like, “You’re stupid!  It’s not like he’s ever going to drink again.  What’s that have to do with this anyway?!?!”

Finally, I said, “Okay.  I’m done talking.  I told you I’d put you on birth control if that’s what you’re looking for.  I will NOT be a grandmother any time soon.  I do NOT agree with the decision.  I DO think Cody’s jumping from one bad move to another…and you are NOT allowed to do that in my house, regardless.”

A few hours later, she came back in to talk at me again. Notice I said at me.  She wasn’t trying to have a conversation.  She was trying to tell me how I’m wrong.  How I offended Cody.  How I’m stupid.  I finally looked at her and said, “Cody can be mad.  I don’t care.  You told me your spill.  I told you what I think about it.  Now you’re telling me my opinion is wrong.  Stop trying to prove me wrong, and just start trying to look at it from my point of view.  I’m your mother.  I’m never going to be happy about the prospect of someone boinking my daughter…especially not when she’s 16 and he just recovered from almost drinking himself to death.”

I’m not as good a parent as I’d like to be.  She did what I asked of her, but I didn’t handle things so well.  Blah…Why can’t she wait two more years?  Then she’d be an adult and I’d have done my job.

It was 2 AM on a Saturday morning when the daughter’s boyfriend’s mother (sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it?) called Vanessa to ask “Are you still with Cody?”

Now normally, this would be a fair question to ask on a Friday night; however, this Friday night, I’d called on my way home from work and Vanessa was being dropped off by the bf and his friend.  NEVER is she allowed out that late without some parental interference.  Since Cody and the friend were going bowling without parents, there was no chance of her being out with them that late.   She replied, “No.  They dropped me off at 7:30.”  It turns out that Vanessa and another boy (who was also at home) were supposed to be bowling with them.

Vanessa promptly came into my room and woke me up.  “Mom, it’s 2AM and Cody’s not home.  His mom doesn’t know where he is.”  My first thought was, “He’ll show up.”, but then it hit me.  This is the kid who never doesn’t call his mom back right away if he misses her call.  (Like that double negative?)  He’s not allowed to spend the night with people.  He is NEVER out that late.

Vanessa launched a calling campaign that woke every 16 year old in our county.  In the mean time, Cody’s mom picked up his cousin in order to send him knocking on doors.  Vanessa told his parents every place that she could think of that he might be.  She told them about places the kids go to drink.  She told them about kids’ houses that didn’t have phones or kids that didn’t answer their phones.  She spilled her guts.  Finally, she told the cousin, “The only place left is Ryan’s.  I don’t know why he’d be there though.  Ryan’s a pot head.”

Guess where Cody was.  His parents found him at 6AM passed out, with his pants halfway down, drunker than a skunk.  So drunk, in fact, that they couldn’t wake him.  They had to call 9-1-1.  Of course Cody wasn’t the only kid there.  There was a house full of them.  Cody’s dad went around taking drinks away from kids and screaming at them.  The ones with vehicles left, leaving the others stranded.  Is parents also found a 14 year old that was drunk, beaten up, and left in the ditch.  That kid had to be careflighted.  Cody only had an ambulance ride to the hospital where they announced he was not on drugs, but had a .286 blood alcohol level.  Kids that were there swore he passed out about 11PM and they drug him onto a mattress - which is why his pants were coming off.  The doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.

The kid had never had a drink before that.  They’d spiked his coke and for whatever reason, after drinking that, he decided he’d already messed up, so no reason not to keep drinking.  Of course the kids kept feeding him drinks….until he passed out.  Then they watched him to make sure he was still breathing.

One detail I left out, the boy’s house that this all happened at, his mom was home.  Never did a thing.  Three boys were treated for alcohol poisoning and one was beaten pretty badly.  No charges were filed as far as I know.  The kids didn’t even get MIP charges.

The phone rang this morning.  It was the ex.  “I have a big problem with Ethan!” 

Ethan came home last night, unexpectedly.  He’s been at his dad’s house since school was out.  I got no call saying they were coming.  He just showed up about 9PM.  When I got that call this morning, I realized there was a reason for this.  There was a problem.  “A big problem” even.  Not, “We had a little problem.”  Not, “Ethan got in trouble.”  No.  “I have a BIG problem with Ethan.”  I held my breath as I waited for him to continue.

“He taught Jade how to jump in the dinner table.”

. . .

DID YOU FEEL THAT?!?!  There was a slight jolt!  I think the world may have slipped off its axis! 

OH MY WORD!  My son!   My son!  How could he?!?!  What did I do to deserve a son so horrible?!?!  Why, oh why, did he do that????

There was only one thing I could do.  I ran to Vanessa’s room, slung open the door, told her, “Meet me in Ethan’s room!  We have to have a family meeting now!!!”  She sluggishly got out of bed.  I was already ahead of her and waking Ethan up.

“Kids, your dad called.  He has a BIG problem with Ethan.  We need to get this fixed immediately!  Ethan, why did you teach the dog to jump on the table?!?”

The problem was worse than I could even imagine.  Vanessa gave me the evil eye, turned, and left the room.  Ethan rolled his eyes, laughed, and rolled over. 

How did I get such disrespectful children????  Where did I go wrong?!???

Have you all seen IMVU Messenger?  See my Avatar??  If you think you want to give it a try, let me send you an invite so I get credits for more in game stuff!!  (It costs nothing to try it)

That’s what I did all night last night. Pistachio brought in a baby mockingbird and set it down in the floor. It’s not a baby baby. It hopped around spreading it’s wings, but it couldn’t get off the ground. It was like watching pinball as it ran from one cat to the rest.

Luckily (for the bird, not for me), Vanessa saved it. We tried to find a nest, but have you ever looked for a bird nest in the dark? We made a nest out of newspaper and put that inside the old turtle cage.

This morning, we tried again to find the nest, but still no luck. We took the bird out to see if maybe it screaming like it did all night would call the momma bird. No luck with that either.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe I was just hoping to kill the bird and put myself out of my misery, but I got this bright idea to see if the bird could fly this morning. Threw it up into the air. Bonk. It hit the ground, wings just a fluttering. Vanessa complained and threw it up herself, catching it rather than letting it hit the ground. Much more humane. By the third time she did it, the bird was enjoying the ride. It didn’t even put it’s wings out. Just screeched a little which I think meant, “Do it again!” in bird talk.

We got baby bird food from my mom and Vanessa’s been feeding it every time it yells. (There are perks to being the mom. She found it. She feeds it!) It’s learned the system and now yells for more every time it sees her.

Vanessa came out of her room earlier and said, “I have to feed it like every two hours. I don’t want to do that all summer!” I said, “You don’t have too…” and looked at the cats. She stormed off, back into her room.

I think it’ll be a long time before we save any more baby birds.

All my troubles seemed so far away..er wait. I had troubles yesterday!

I didn’t have to be at work until 10AM, so I thought I’d make a quick run to the bank before work. For some unknown reason, I decided to go ahead and get ready for work before leaving. A very wise move on my part!

On the way to the bank, the truck started kind of shimmying. I pulled over and checked the tires. Sure enough, one was falling apart. It wasn’t flat. I’d just lost a chunk of tread. I was almost to the bank (closer to there than home) so I called my mom and told her I was coming to her house after the bank to change the tire. She yelled at me, “Come straight here!!!” Hmm…2 miles from the bank and 15 miles from her. I go to the bank first on my shimmying tire.

The longer I drove, the more the tire shimmied. It felt pretty good actually. It was kind of like a body massage while driving. If I could figure out a way to make tires that would do that to a vehicle without causing damage, I could be rich! I could market the idea as a weight loss technique. “Drive away that stubborn belly fat! Melt away those stubborn love handles and steer your way thin!” Truck drivers across the land would be super thin! People would call Nicole Richie “an 18″ as she would be “18 wheeler” thin. There would be no more “heroin chic”. People would see a group of models waiting for the catwalk and say, “Look at that convoy of big rigs!”

My little rig died. The tire had finally had enough and gave up half way to my mom’s house. Of course this happened in the middle of a big curve where there have been many wrecks. I used to hang with a boy that lived there. They put up a fence made of rail road ties to help keep the cars out of their yard. I was over one day when they were replacing a couple. They were buried a few feet into the ground, but some one hit hard enough to damage them despite that. I decided it would be a good idea to drive (very slowly) down a few houses so that I’d be out of the way of any speeding tie breakers.

I pulled into a driveway and called my mom to let her know what happened. She called my uncle (my dad’s at Canton for the weekend). I thought I’d be able to change it, but no luck as I was missing part of my jack. /boggle

My uncle gets there and he can’t get one of the lug nuts off so he calls a friend that’s on the State Highway Department. He comes (while on the job in a Highway Dept truck) and brings a four way (Like a tire iron only shaped like an ex with four different sizes of umm….whatever those things are you get lug nuts off with are!)

Finally, we get the tire replaced and I’m back on the road. At this point, I’m running about 10 minutes late for work. I call to tell them what happened….and then got stopped by a Highway Patrolman.

The gentleman said, “Were you aware you were speeding.” “Yes sir.” “What was your hurry?” “I had a flat tire and am late getting to work.” Now mind you, in the back of my truck is this tire falling apart. There’s no question that it’s flat. My hands were horribly dirty from trying to change it. I see him looking at the tire in the back of my truck. He says, “You work in Ennis?” I said, “Yes sir. At the WM pharmacy.” My badge is sitting right there beside me and I see him looking at it. Does he cut me any slack though? Nope!

It’s been years and years since I’ve had a ticket. =( I got a ticket for going 80 in a 65….and a warning because he said my back plates were obstructed by the license plate cover…the one the dealer put on my truck when I got the tags in. The same one that’s been on there for NINE YEARS without any problem.

Wonder if he’d have let me off with just a warning if I’d mentioned the vibrating tire massage to him…