She's nuts and you're handling it beautifully.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

She's nuts and you're handling it beautifully.

This.

You know, hot on the heels of our decision NOT to move to PA besides, oh, we don't WANT to, own a house, have a 20-yr old circle of best friends, ailing, aging family all in Midwest, silly non-reasons like that, is the simple fact that if I lived within driving distance of her and I had to deal with this F2F bullshittery, one of us would end up face down in the dirt.

Aw honey, that would never happen. If you and D uprooted your lives and moved to PA she or her husband would have an utterly irresistable job opportunity in Portland (Maine or Oregon, doesn't matter) within six months.

Truds, that was certainly a consideration.

However, I am going to try to not think about it today. She's wacky, I'm not, and we'll just go along and try to keep the drama to a minimum.

ION, the outside cat decided the shoots of catnip sproutingg up are strangely alluring. Guess I'm going to have to move it until it matures a little more.

Let's see, I need to weed, water and mulch today, get some more potting soil. I think it is tomatoe planting time! And I need to soak the morning glory seeds from last years plants and plant some in the back garden and some more on the front fence. The morning glories from last year are already a decent size.

It's going to be hot, though. I may just try to get some weeding and watering in, and then wash the dog. STINKY dog!

What Jilli and Trudy said especially. I am awed by your ability to remain calm under such circumstances. You are my hero.

PS Did I mention that I consciously thought about channeling Vortex and Erin yesterday? Totally did.

Oh course, I am now officially going to the the bitchy stepmom who turned her son into a freak.

You're going to be that anyway. You could be an actual craxy-ass raging bitch (in other words, what she's projecting of her own behavior) or you could be the most sane, reasonable human on the planet, looking for a solution that's best for everyone, most especially, M, (which is what you actually are, which is massively threatening to her), and she's going to paint you as the bitchy stepmom.

So embrace it. I mean, you don't have to do anything more than what you've been doing, which is be sane, supportive, and acting in the best interests of the most important parties involved.

And, you've got us. :)

Rice Krispies:

Nate did his first portfolio review at school on Thursday and he did great. He might have done better if he'd actually prepared a bit more, but he was in massive, nervous denial about the whole thing and had rebuffed his supervising teacher's help in preparing (oh, child...).

But he showed off ability in all of his subjects and showed us examples of his work: My goodness, y'all-- the kid who at the beginning of the year absolutely balked at writing more than one sentence at a time presented us with several different examples of essays he'd written-- of particular note were the ones on the history of Magic: the Gathering and a compare and contrast of three WWII-era tanks, whereupon he presented an argument and a conclusion with supporting evidence.

Most importantly, he was able to articulate why he loved this school and why, for the first time, he enjoyed going to school.

Can I say again how flippin' happy I am we moved? I have my kid back.

Barb, that's great! I'm so glad Nate's in a place that works for him now.

Barb is so very wise.

{{{Erin}}}

also yay Nate