What on earth does someone do to get fired from McDonalds on their second day?

For the last couple of weeks Will and Cody have been talking all about how Cody has this job at McDonalds.  Cody has described what he has been doing there.  Sunday night he even told me that he had to work at 6am on Monday and this morning he texted me at 11am to tell me he was home from work for the day.

This evening I found out that Cody is not employed and hasn't been for a while.

Why all of the acting?  Why the deceit? 

I asked both boys why they had been telling me he had a job.  "They don't want me to think he can't pay me rent."  Clearly lying is better than causing me to have "financial worries".

Some of the discussion about jobs was when I was discussing the need for honesty in our home.

Oh the irony!!

Today was ridiculous.  I felt like I was back in middle school.  One of Will's friends, Cody, wants to move in with us, because he is estranged from his parents.  He was recently expelled from high school and won't be graduating this spring even though he has the appropriate number of credits.

You may be thinking "why on earth would you let one of Will's friends move in when Will is such a hot mess?"  Will is beyond distraught that Cody is technically homeless.  He is focusing all of his energies on Cody's issues and neglecting working on any of his own "stuff".

Today with those two nearly pushed me over the edge.  It would appear Cody has similar issues as Will's when it comes to truth telling.  They were stuck in multiple lies together and then trying to get me to get in the middle and call another friend of theirs. 

According to Cody Will told him that Charlie and Aaron were going to beat the $&*# out of him when he returned to our home, because the two of them had been horribly disrespectful to me.  It was true that they were disrespectful.  This is the text Will sent Cody, "You have a talk waiting for you by my brother and Aaron for disrespecting Mom."  I'm super confused where it says he was going to be beat up.  He wanted me to call another friend, Santannah, to figure out what was going on.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I have been out of middle school for a very long time.  I am not going to do this ever again.  Let alone every day.

At one point I told the two of them that they were the most deceitful, manipulative people I had ever met.  It is unreal.

I NEVER had this much drama in all my years.  For that...I thank my classmates and friends!!

This weekend I went to my parent's home for a visit and to help with reunion planning.

It had been a long week.  Friday started with a call from the sheriff's department at 3:45 looking for Will and one of his friends.  They had been pulled over earlier and the car searched.  Drug paraphernalia was found in the car.  The officer wanted to talk to them again, but they were evading him.

Of course Will took ZERO accountability for this.  His favorite thing to say that everything is "supposedly".  I couldn't decide if I should leave for the weekend.  But I was so frustrated and angry.

Will has been suspended all week for smoking pot at school.  He had tasks he was supposed to do each day, but he is very defiant these days and didn't do any of them.  Not a one.  He swore he would get the tasks done while I was gone.  WRONG....not one thing got done...NOT ONE.

He stole money from me this weekend and was manipulative and deceitful.  Thought disorder or sociopath?  How do we know?

I can't believe I haven't written a single word in over 3 years.  The letter in my last post almost seems like a lifetime ago.  What I know now is this....writing this blog was therapeutic for me.  It was a way to talk about the "stuff".  I've missed it and how it helped me work through things. 

I'm going to give it a go again.  So here's an update of what is going on with each of us:

Denise - I am still the head of this crazy household.  I continue to work full-time as a Commissioning Agent, but there is actually a commissioning department now.  I still volunteer as a mentor for the UNO Architectural Engineering Department for the senior team design class.  I am no longer a youth group leader at our church.  Watching those six girls graduate was hard and it seemed too hard to cultivate more relationships.  For MANY reasons that I don't have the energy to get into I gave up my foster care license.  I may pursue it again one day or not.  I spent a year as a member of Leadership Omaha Class 38.  I met the most amazing people who are going to change Omaha.  The trauma-informed school seems like a faraway dream.  I am now a board member of a Nebraska Foster Care Review Board and a Foster Care Probation Review Board.  I applied to be a member of the legislature-appointed Foster Care Advisory Board.  I was a finalist, but ultimately not selected.  In the past few months I started a group for moms of kids who were adopted from foster care at an older age or are fostering teenagers.  These ladies are definitely my people.  My 30th high school reunion is this summer and I am helping to do the planning.

Charlie - In the end Charlie dropped out of high school.  In the past year he has started back in an online program through Penn Foster.  He is doing his electives in auto mechanic classes.  It isn't his favorite thing, but he is committed to finishing up.  He works full-time at Alohma, a vaping store.  It is a large enough chain of stores that he has full benefits including a 401k.  He's been working there about a year and a half.  In January, Charlie moved into an apartment with his girlfriend, Bailey, and their miniature Australian shepherd, Rocky.  They are doing well and I am so proud of Charlie.  Within the last two years he has matured in ways I honestly wasn't sure he ever would.  He continues to make music in his spare time.  Most of his work is pretty dark, but quite good.  He has a page for his music, but I don't know off the top of my head what it is.  He is an INCREDIBLE writer of lyrics...so much talent and it isn't just a mom thing.

Will - The past couple of years have been an increasing struggle with Will.  He is a senior at Omaha Northwest.  He is not going to graduate this spring.  He is more than capable academically, but trauma gets in his way.  He is no longer in ROTC, because he was missing too many credits to continue.  He is in a legal mess that I will describe in another post.  His decisions could be filed under "stupid decisions not to make".  He is having some mental health issues and his psychosis is getting much stronger.  His therapy team thinks there is still hope for him to live a productive life if he is willing to acknowledge his thinking errors.  To this point he is not interested in doing the work and there is a fear that he is developing multiple parts of self.  There are likely going to be some tough decisions to be made soon.  He is a kind boy who got such an unfair shake in life.

Tyler - Tyler continued to live with us for a total of four and a half years.  He was such a blessing to us in so many ways.  He moved into an apartment with his girlfriend, Jamye, in August.  I miss him much.  I miss having someone to laugh about the absurdities of life in our home with.  We still see him at least once a month at our family dinners.

Cameron - Cameron and all of the other boys had some sort of falling out a couple of years ago and I haven't seen him since.  He checks in with me every now and then and seems to be stable and doing well.

Aaron - Aaron moved out for a couple of years, but he moved back in last spring when he was homeless.  He is working on getting his life back on track, but there have been some bumps along the way.

Sophie - Sophie is a six-year old toy dachshund.  She continues to be a diva and spoiled rotten.  She is slowing down both due to age and a torn ACL from a jump off of the couch that went wrong.