School Bus Blues

So the time has come for my baby girl to officially ride the school bus. You would think she is turning 5 and its the first day of kindergarten! NOPE she's 14 and her high school is REALLY far away. We've arranged a ride for her every morning and sometimes after school but it looks like 3 days a week she will be riding the bus.
I remember when Jadyn was almost 5 and was starting Kindergarten, her Elementary was about 15-20 minutes on the other side of town. We chose to put her in a "Magnet" school that specialized in Math and Science. It offered more than a normal elementary school so it was worth the long drive. She was always begging me to PLEASE let her ride the bus. She learned early the saying "It's not fair" because her friends got to ride it. Well her friends moms weren't paranoid like me :)
She finally got to ride the bus on her first field trip, and then I realized I can use the excuse of her being able to ride the bus EVERY time they went on a field trip. (Like she was special and I made a deal with the school) LOL
It still didn't stop her from asking every year. When we moved to our small little city, there was no reason for her to ride the bus because her school was less than a mile away.  But now the times have changed and I don't like wasting gas and time on a long drive their and back.
I have to look back and think of WHY I have so much anxiety about the BUS?!?!
When I was in kindergarten I lived in New York and I rode the bus every day with my 2 older brothers. I met my best friend Amanda on the bus and we are STILL friends to this day!!! So why would it be such a bad thing? When we moved to Midland is where the trouble started. I was in Jr. High,  7th grade and I started a couple months into the school year. It was bad enough that I was in Jr. High, but to make it worse I was the "new girl" that didn't fit it.
On the way home is when a group of kids who had known each other for years decided to talk loud and make me miserable. I remember them sitting a few seats away and saying " I bet she lives in a run down shack" or "look at what she's wearing, its so ugly". They basically picked me apart from head to toe on my appearance and the assumption of my home" Since I lived so far out in the country our house was hidden behind a bunch of trees so they couldn't see it. But I wished they could've because it was a nice house,lol!
When I look back on it I think of  WOW, thats a classic case of being Bullied! I have always been terrified of my children being picked on the way I was. I also remember learning all sorts of stuff about sex from A-Z and the "real world" from the bus, I know I REALLY didn't want her learning all the WRONG and Nasty stuff at a young age the way I did, LOL! The weird thing about these kids is after a few months they quit picking on me, or I finally stood up with some smart comment and they finally shut up....I really can't remember. But we eventually became friends, and one day the bus took everyone home in reverse and they all lived in run down Trailers! I'm sure there is some twisted psychological reason for them to want me to live in the same poverty as they did!
I faced a lot of bullys in my life but have managed to push out the bad memories so it wouldn't hurt.
I remember some good memories of the bus and having to walk to the corner when the sun was rising. When I would get on, our 80 year old bus driver was listening to Earl Pitts and he would say..."Ya know what makes me sick...Wake up America!"  I would doze back to sleep and wake up just in time for the bus to stop at the Avery twins house... I would make sure the drool was not running down my chin and I looked nice and normal :) Once they passed my seat I would close my eyes again. As the years went by I made more friends and had fun riding the bus. But the anxiety of it all has stuck with me and I can't forget. So the natural thing to do is protect my kiddos against that same experience.
BUT I guess at 14 and the 9th grade she probably knows a lot more than I can imagine and is tough enough to handle it. She also has an advantage of starting out with knowing half the kids on her bus already. So I will take deep breaths and just allow my baby to grow up....even though I have the school bus blues!!!

I asked her to send me a pic of her on the bus and this is what she got :)

A year gone by!

Wow, I can't believe it has been Over a YEAR since I last posted!!!
Our Year has been filled with many ups and downs, a few more downs than ups but nothing we couldn't handle with God and a solid family :)

I will start with July 2011, Jeremy’s Grandpa Bill went home to Heaven. He was very ready to go. One of my fun memories of Grandpa Bill is when Jeremy and I were dating and they would go out of town for the weekend he would pay me $100 to watch their dog Mutt. All I had to do was feed him and sneak him some Advil in a banana, it was a fun way to make a quick buck! I lost my grandparents at a young age and him and grandma Dawna treated me just like one of their grandkids from the very beginning. He  always gave great hugs and was very encouraging over the years, he  is definitely missed! It’s sad when your loved ones leave but it is also a blessing to be able to catch up and spend time with your family that you haven’t seen in a long time.  And of coarse it makes you more appreciative of the wonderful family we have.

August 2011 we started our adventure in Foster Care. It was not the dream we thought it would be. Helping Children on their path in life with the beautiful goal of them finding a happy family to live happily ever after with.  I learned that the foster care system is rough and the people that try to help these kids unfortunately don’t always care who they hurt in the process. Our family learned some hard lessons through those 7 months. There are unfortunatly SO many kids in the system and they need help. Our family was not ready for the difficulties that came with other children in the home and our kids did not know how to adjust to the trials that us parents had to face to take care of them.  If I had it to do all over again I would have made much better choices. Having young kids and doing foster care did not work for us, but God is good and we have moved forward, and when the time is right and our kids are grown we will venture there again…maybe J

January 2012 my dad had a stroke, he was in the hospital for a few weeks and a couple months of therapy in an assisted living home.  We were very fortunate that he has only suffered short term memory loss and a little vision loss in his right eye.  In this process my brothers and I convinced my mom to move to Dallas with me J

So in April my dad moved in and my mom packed up her house and moved in shortly after.  It was a fun 4 months but our house just wasn’t made for 7 people,lol. They just recently closed on the purchase of a new house and moved in on Sunday. It is a great feeling knowing that my parents are just a couple blocks away and my kids can visit them any time they want!

In July 2012 we decided to start our adventure with snow cones! That will be a separate blog J

So that’s it for now, a year flown by with many ups and downs, we grow stronger and learn from every step.