Categories: uncategorized
Date: 13 December 2006 21:50:25
I wonder what that sound could be. It sort of typifies my day today.
It could be an ambulance, of course. Dad is still really quite poorly, although the antibiotics do seem to be helping the comeback kid to gain some strength. But he is confused and weak. As a result of this, he won't drink. As a result of this he is becoming dehydrated. As a result of this he is becoming more confused and weak. Spot the pattern? Somehow we need to get through to him that the only way of keeping him out of hospital (our local hospital is, in many cases, sufficient threat to make people get better!) is in his own hands - DRINK MORE, DAD!
More likely, though, to be a police car. I will be contacting the police tomorrow to report a lost trumpet. Smudgelet is devastated - he left it on the bus last week and it has not yet been handed in to lost property. In the hecticity (not a word, i know, but it ought to be) of the last few weeks, we had totally forgotten to name it. I am hoping the insurance will cough up, but the last thing I want to be doing at this time of year is paying for a school trumpet to be replaced, even if it's only the excess.
I could be contacting the police in the near future on Smudgelet's behalf too. He is being bullied by a big High School lad and the lad's school has said they would support me in bringing a charge against him for common assault after he threw my little one (who's just nine) into a thorn bush on his way home from school. I know Smudgelet can sometimes give as good as he gets, despite his angelic golden locks and blue eyes and sweet smile, but that was totally uncalled for and, if Smudgelet is to be believed, unprovoked. I have asked the school to stress that if anything happens again it will be followed up.
And tonight I did contact the police. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done but it turned out fairly well, all things considering. Tiddles is certainly going through a rough patch and this morning he helped himself to £140 out of my coat pocket, all of which he has distrubuted amongst so-called "friends" at school. It being far from the first time he has stolen, though not in ages, I had to follow through with my threat and call the police. Apparently the officer that came should have arrested him, but fortunately it was an older man who felt the old ways were the best - not a clip round the ear (though I'd have been tempted to turn a blind eye) but a good old talking to and a warning of what will happen next time, should there ever be a next time. While I'm determined not to get into the realms of self-fulfilling prophesy, it is far from unusual for adopted children to go off the rails in their teens and I have been reassured that they do come back to normality eventually.... by the time they're fifty at least. But it's hard to see my beloved child on self-destruct at the moment and be unable really to help him... just have to stand by him, let him make his mistakes and be there to pick up the pieces. Hmm.. good job God's there to pick up my pieces!
Aha... that's what the nee nar nee nar is for.... they're coming to take me away!
Actually it does feel a little like that today. I think it's a touch of shell-shock, combat stress, call it what you will. Somehow everything seems a little unreal, not like a dream but as though it's happening behind a screen and I'm not really a part of it. Self protection in a way, emotions in overdrive have simply taken a day off. Doubtless it'll hit me when I lie down to sleep.
Sleep, what's that?