10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5....

...4, 3, 2, 1 Lord grant me the strength to not lose my head!

Just when I think things are coming around and getting better with the daycare kiddos, things go insane with an 11 year old boy. OMG I about blew my top tonight. You see, I bowl on a womens league on Wednesday nights from 6:15pm to about 8:15pm, and I take 2 kiddos, who are 8 and 11 year old brothers with me. Well tonight on the way to the bowling alley, which is about 5 minutes from my house, they decided that they wanted to fight, spit in each others hair and bend fingers backwards while they were in the car. I know that they are boys and will do these kinds of things but come on, it was a bit ridiculous. So when we arrived at the bowling alley I gave them each a piece of brown paper towel and measured off one fingers length and told them that they needed to write a short story on why they should not have been doing that in the car, and then they could get up and go play. Well, after about an hour of them playing around instead of writing, the owner of the bowling alley comes over and tells me that one of the boys dumped the liquid soap from the dispensers into the sink in the men's bathroom.

Immediately my blood pressure boils and I am pissed off. They are 11 and 8 years old! I walk over to the table and sit down with them and I say "I AM GOING TO ASK THIS QUESTION ONE TIME AND I BETTER GET THE TRUTH WHEN I ASK IT!!" Before I could ask the question the 11 year old says "I did it." They both knew I was livid. His reason, "because I was mad that I had to write that story." Great excuse! I immediately send him over to apologize to both owners and I make him call his probation officer (yes, probation officer) and leave him a voice mail telling him that he just got into trouble at the bowling alley and what he did. I was so pissed off that the women I bowl with knew that and just bowled around me and let me handle that first then I went back and got caught up.

Back to the probation officer, yes the 11 year old is on probation for shoplifting and domestic violence. His mother turned him in while they were at a local grocery store for stealing and he then preceded to hit her and his older sister, so they nailed him for both. Needless to say that it was not the first, second or third time Mom knew he was stealing. Mom caught him a couple times and also he was caught by a store owner and they just made him put it back and he was not allowed back in the store. He definitely has a stealing problem, that's for sure. I have to check his bookbag all the time before he leaves my house. I caught him stealing some stick- tack from his school about two weeks ago and I made him sit down and write a letter to his teacher and probation officer, telling them what he had done, and I mailed them off for him. I told his Mom about it and she says, "I find that stuff in the washer and dryer all the time and I just throw it away." Well, you know what, it does not belong to him so why allow him to continue to steal it. I refuse to be an enabler. He is old enough to know better, he is almost 12. Obviously probation does not mean anything to him. That make the 4th time I had caught him stealing in the 2 years that I have been watching him. Kids these days, what is up with them? Or is it their parents? I say definitely BOTH!!

So, for an update on my family of three! Happy news! We have now made it from having 5 absolutely long horrible days per week to having maybe 1 or 2 horrible moments per week. Please knock on the closest piece of wood for me, will ya? Things have really came around with those adorable kiddos. They are so darn cute, and that poses such a problem when they behaved as bad as they did when I started keeping them. Thank goodness for gummy butterflies! They get them for being good in the morning, at nap-time and in the afternoon. Most days they all 3 get at least two of butterflies but more and more often they each are getting 3 per day. We have now progressed to learning manners, wish me luck on this one, too.