Feeling a bit stressed

Mom sold her house. She sold it after just two weeks. It was purchased by a local family who I guess had always admired it. In the paper work they agreed that Mom could stay until the end of May. Sis and I are flying out on the last day of May. Presumably we will be spending one or maybe two nights with an aunt or Mom's BFF. Then we will drive back to Idaho. The people who bought the house are finding it difficult to be patient. They now want Mom to move out by the end of April. That's not going to happen.

When I found out that Mom sold the house I had a couple small moments of panic similar to moments I had late in the second pregnancy when for some reason or another it all became very real. You know, that what-in-the-world-was-I-thinking feeling. I kept reassuring myself that I had meant it. I mean, I wasn't just trying to score good-daughter points by saying, "You know Mom, you can always come live with me."

No, I really did mean it. Really.

Anyway, Andrew is here for spring break. He and his girlfriend, whom I call Alice on the blog, are helping with some de-cluttering and reorganization of the house. Yesterday we sorted through books. A&A took three large laundry baskets of books to the used book store. Roland is taking one basket to church and two to his school. That means that all the books that are currently on the ground floor (the house has a ground floor and a finished basement) are now on the bookcases in the basement, which are again close to full.

There is much more to be sorted, sent away, and moved, but I will spare you the details. In the end, Mom will have the corner bedroom on the ground floor. It is the largest, and has lots of windows. I wanted her to have a room that would be comfortable to use at least some as a sitting room. I know she will need to be able to get some privacy during the day. Roland and I will have the slightly smaller bedroom on the ground floor.

Brian is going to be going off to college in the fall. He is definitely going to the college where I teach, a whole half-mile away. He will come home for holidays and maybe more, but starting in September, the bedroom would be mostly empty. Gary says he can't sleep unless he has a room of his own, but he has always regarded this as a fair option because, you know, he was moving out in two or three months anyway.

Alice has been unhappy with her living situation. She lived in the dorms her freshman year and liked it but decided that she couldn't afford it her sophomore. So she moved back home with her two sisters, mother, and mother's boyfriend. She doesn't complain much, but it is taking a toll on her. Andrew plans on living at home for a couple or three years so he can get take the courses to become a high school teacher. Alice would like for him to find a part-time job so they can rent an apartment together. Andrew sees no reason at all to spend money on an apartment while he is a student and he can have free rent at home.

I talked to them and told them that it would be helpful for me if they lived here. My mother is used to a much cleaner house. Andrew already knows that he will be paying for his rent by cooking dinner more often than not. I gave them a list of other things I would really like done, including be available to drive grandma to appointments. We've agreed on a limit an average of 5 hours of work a week each.  They would mostly have the basement to themselves, and could arrange the rec room however they liked to make it comfortable for them both.

I feel much less stressed about it all when I think of them being here. Alice says she has to bring her cat who doesn't like other cats. We agreed she could bring it and assured her that cats learn to tolerate each other. I know she is nervous about moving in here, but she also agrees that it is her best option. I believe that Andrew has told her that if it really doesn't work out they will find another option.

So far, so good. All is well. Brian will mostly be in college but will have his basement bedroom whenever he wants to come home. Andrew and Alice will be living mostly in the basement and helping with the work.

And Gary? Well, when I talked to him about this happening last summer I told him he could share Brian's bedroom. He agreed, but did not really think about what that would be like because he was going to move out in a couple of months anyway. In the summer I didn't think it would be a couple of months, but it would probably be in January. In January I thought it would certainly be by May. I know Gary doesn't want to keep living here. Now though? Well, currently he still has no job, no savings, and some debt. He gets a student loan payment in a few days, but after that nothing.* And for the icing on the cake, yesterday his car was repossessed. He is upset, but mostly I think he wishes he had given the car back to the dealer months ago instead of spending so much money on it. (No, I don't understand why he spent so much money fixing it and did not make any payments on it at all. I know he was counting on it not getting re-possessed before he got his second loan payment.)

He is applying for jobs and still wants to move out in a couple of months, but is now taking seriously the idea of moving into Brian's room.

Except of course he will not really move into Brian's room. It will not become "Brian and Gary's room." It will be the Brian's room with Gary's stuff in it. Gary will live and sleep in the rec room. This, by the way, is main reason Brian has no problem with the plan at all. Sure he can make room for Gary's stuff. Not an issue. I have been confident that since Gary planned to move out anyway and would hate not having a room to himself, that he would surely get his act together and move. Now I think there is a real possibility that he will stay, live mostly in the rec room in the summer and then take possession of the bedroom in the fall when Brian leaves.

We talked seriously about his staying the other day. I wanted him to know that he was not being kicked out of the house. He was losing his private room, but this is his home and there is room for him here. I also told him that we needed to be clear on what chores he did to pay for rent. He has not been doing much, and that really did need to change. I explained that Andrew and Alice would be doing about 5 hours a week each, and he needed to commit to something similar. He agreed he still would prefer to be responsible for the yard. There had been little to do through the winter, but that would probably mean that he would be making it up during the summer. He agreed, although so far he has been far better about agreeing to do work than actually doing it.  I also expect that he agreed because he is still imagines moving out soon.

So I'm stressed. Partly this is because I worry about other people's stress and I have been assuring Alice that living here will be acceptable for her. We have all been imagining the basement as something of a semi-apartment for them. Of course, Brian would be there sometimes, but otherwise they would have a bedroom and good size general room to themselves. As I imagine life with my mom, me, Roland, Andrew and Alice it feels very doable. Mom will like and get along with Andrew and Alice. Everyone living here will be committed to pitching in and making it work. There will be stress and difficulties, but mostly it feels right.

Gary here is not the same dynamic. He says he will pitch in, but doesn't. He doesn't even seem to understand that as a young adult getting free rent it is really, really tacky that he still leaves dirty dishes all over the basement and only brings them up when I demand that he does. He is still a teenager, acting like a teenager, expecting assistance without really believing he needs to do anything to contribute.

On the bright side he did yesterday announce that he has decided that getting drunk every weekend with his friends is stupid. This behavior has not had a much of a direct impact on our lives as he tends to just be gone for the entire weekend, returning with the tail end of a hang over. (Of course, this is not taking into account the emergency room visit, or the affect that this behavior has undoubtedly had on his ability to move on.)

So I hope that Gary will actually move out. Then I feel guilty about welcoming Andrew back and wishing Gary gone. Then I remind myself that I am counting on Brian leaving too, and that I would NOT be happy about Andrew moving back if he didn't have a clear plan for independence. Andrew and Alice will affect household expenses, but they will be responsible for all personal expenses. And because Andrew knows how to cook on a budget, my grocery bill is often no higher when he is here then when he is gone. (Having a reliable second cook also means that we almost never do things like order pizza because I just don't feel like cooking).

Gary does not seem to be any closer to independence. I know he is trying, but nothing is working for him. Right now he is talking about applying to living in the dorms at Boise State University in the fall. That he does not have the academic record to be accepted to BSU does not seem to factor into his computations. I understand that letting him live here is providing him a safety net so that his life doesn't sink in the ways his sister's has, but it also is not helping him to become more capable.

So I find myself hoping that the changes in the family motivate Gary to move. He will no longer have the house to himself when everyone else leaves for work or school. He will no longer have a private bedroom. I find myself hoping he hates it and figures something else out.

Then I feel guilty. I know it looks like all the related-by-birth family is welcomed with open arms while the adopted son is being pushed to leave. So I reassure him that he is not being kicked out. This is his home. He is welcome here. Meanwhile I hope that he moves on.

So yeah, a bit stressed.

And  in case you are wondering, I have no regrets about adopting him, although I do sometimes wish we had waited until he was out of the home like the other boys. The social workers from Casey Family Programs** were so very helpful during transition. I did not realize how difficult this part would be without them.

I don't know. Maybe it would help to be more formal about the work that Gary is supposed to be doing to pay for his rent. Maybe if he had to log the hours it would be more real.

____

* My current thought about Gary's medical bills is this: Roland and I take responsibility for them but insist that Gary pay us $500 out of his student loan distribution he is expecting in the next week. We then put that money aside and tell him that when he moves out we will give it back to him so he can spend it on his various expenses.

**That is not a mistake. I'm not worried about anonymity so much anymore. I live in Idaho. We worked with the Casey Family Programs.

"I just want to be taken seriously"

Gary has had 4 ER visits in the past year.

The first was for an injury he sustain in MMA practice. He was afraid he had broken a rib. He had not.

The second was for a panic-attack-from-hell that he had as a result of consuming something (or several somethings) at a party. He thought he was dying. He had his friends call him an ambulance which took him to the ER were they gave him IV fluids and an anti-anxiety medication.

The third was 10 days after he had his tonsils removed. He hadn't bothered with the routine anti-biotics he was prescribed and he was spitting up blood. He could not wait a few more hours to go to the doctor's office. At the ER they gave him sympathy, considered giving him antibiotics, but got an afternoon appointment with the surgeon. He was prescribed antibiotics which he did not take because "the doctor didn't think it was an infection." I argued that the doctor must have thought it was an infection, because he prescribed antibiotics. Finally I just started handing them to him on schedule.

The fourth was yesterday. Friday evening he was at a bonfire with friends. He was drinking, did something foolish, and hit his head hard. At noon he felt he had to have medical attention because he had such a terrible headache. We took him to the urgent care clinic, but he reported symptoms of a concussion and they sent him to the ER. There he was given Tylenol, had a CT scan and was told he was fine.

He has this pattern with his health. He has a symptom, is afraid he is seriously ill and must see a physician. The physician sees him, prescribes some treatment, and Gary goes home, ignores the treatment and usually feels better very quickly. He seems to have a strong need to be seen by a professional. This does not translate into any desire to follow up on the treatments.

And I have noticed at every emergency room visit, at some point when we are waiting for something or other, he will say, not necessarily to me, "I just want to be taken seriously."

My usual approach won't work with this one. I cannot just let him do what he is going to do and deal with the consequences himself.

Okay, I wrote that and then thought "sure I can. I just don't want to."

I can't imagine going back to yesterday and saying, "Sweetie, you have no bruise, no bump, and your eyes look fine. You are severely hung over and you hit your head. Of course you feel miserable. Drink some water and take a pill."

I wanted to say that. I think I would have been right to say that. On the other hand, what if I had been wrong? What if he had had a concussion? I no longer trust his reports of his own health. I don't think he is lying. I think he is genuinely frightened by what he is feeling. He needs the reassurance. Maybe he needs the attention from me. Even if I am right about that, he still could be seriously hurt.

Only the thing is ... I seriously cannot afford this. Roland and I are living on a very tight budget paying off debts from last year. Two thirds of that debt is a combination of Gary-related car expenses and Gary's medical bills. Before this latest ER visit I had hoped we would pay off all the debt before my mother moved in, but thought more realistically, we might make it by the end of summer. I know that "can't afford it" is relative. I know that if he had had a concussion and needed surgery I would be resigned to paying off a higher debt load. I would be worried, but I would cope.

Right now though? Right now I am angry because even if he had been seriously injured, it still would have been the result of getting drunk. He doesn't seem to think that is a big deal. When he was in the emergency room after taking the stuff at the party he seemed quite sincere when he said that he learned never to do that again. This time he says that drinking is just what teenagers do. (Does that mean that when he turns 20 in the fall he will change? I'm not holding my breath.) He won't try to do acrobatics and land on his head though. I do not want to be responsible for this bill.

On the other hand, he really can't afford it. He has to be at least $1000 behind on his car payments. He doesn't have a job and wants to move out. I want him to move out too, and saddling him with more debt won't help.

We've pretty much decided that we are going to take responsibility for the larger portion of the bill and make him responsible for a smaller part of it. The easiest way to do that will be for us to pay the money owed to the hospital and make him responsible for the bills from the docs. (We will get one from the ER physician and from the radiologist who looked at the CT scans). That feels right to me. It means he has to deal with the real-world consequences of his actions, but we have soften the blow enough that it is not going to destroy him. It will hurt real bad though.

Roland and I are getting resentful and that is not a good thing. Gary has been talking about wanting to buy a tablet computer. In the ER he told me that he was thinking that maybe all he could afford would be a Kindle Fire. I ranting about how much money he owes and our struggles to pay off the debts, but I didn't. On the way home I did tell him that the changes that he was seeing in our lifestyle were a result of trying to get out of debt and that I did not think Roland and I were going to be willing to take responsibility for the $800 (or whatever) the ER visit was going to cost. I told him we would help, but he was going to have to be responsible for some of it.

Right now the very best thing about my mom moving in is that Gary is determined to move out first. I warned him last summer that if this happened he and Brian would have to share a room. He losing the private bedroom when my sister shows up in the middle of May.  Since I started this post he has told me that he called his social worker to learn about getting assistance moving out. He just has to find a job first. (He also told me that he is feeling great and he googled his symptoms. He is sure he had a severe concussion. CT scans can't always pick those up, you know.)

I love the boy, I do, but I am past ready for him to move.

I'm angry that he agreed to do chores to pay for his rent and he has not. I'm angry that he leaves dirty dishes in the basement and I have to nag at him to get them back up. I'm angry that he doesn't understand that not doing chores and making messes is something I can tolerate in a high school student, he has passed into a different realm for me.

I'm tired of hearing about all his fantastic plans. I'm tired of feeling resentful.

So I think it helped to rant to y'all.

Maybe.

But I still feel like slapping someone.

My Mom

Plans are being made to move my Mom here at the end of May.

Last June I made the offer to Mom and she seemed to think it was a definitely possibility. I suspected that Mom would keep putting it off, agreeing that it was a good thing to do in a year or so. She couldn't delay moving indefinitely. She lives in a small house with a bedroom on the second floor and laundry in the basement. As the Parkinson's progresses she simply will not be able to handle the stairs. She says she doesn't want to live in an assisted living/retirement community, and that does not leave many options.

The big change is that her BFF is going to retire and move next fall. That decision wasn't expected, but it makes sense given the events in the BFF's extended family. Mom has become very dependent upon her friend for all sorts of things. Her friend drivers her to most of her appointments, takes her shopping, and carries the laundry up and down the stairs.

My sister is finishing her class work for college in early May. After that she does and internship and then she plans to get a job. Sis can take a month off early this summer to help with the move, but doesn't expect to be able to take that kind of time ever again.

So right now, here is the tentative plan. Sis is a meticulous housekeeper. I'm not. Sis will be flying out here when she finishes classes and will spend two weeks bossing me around and whipping my house into shape. I am by the way, pleased with this. I am getting professional-quality home organization service free. Well, I have to give her room and board and be her staff-of-one, but it should be worth it.

Then Sis and I hope to be able to fly to Mom's house. If all goes according to plan, Mom, with the help of her BFF, will have the closing of the house finished. Most of the furniture is going to a local auction place. Some will have gone into a small moving van. Lots of things will have gone to a thrift store or the dump.

Sis, Mom and I will then drive back here. It will take about four days. It could be done in less, but neither Mom nor Sis do much driving and I think 9 hours a day is about all I can expect of myself. Maybe we will take five days. The main advantage to driving is being able to bring Mom's almost-new car back with us.

We have not finalized all these plans, and Mom is still thinking about whether she would prefer to do it another way,

***correction: I just got an email from Mom's BFF. Mom is sending a check to Sis to help pay for travel. We're on.***

My niece will be coming along with Sis. She will help with the grunt work in my house and with the driving on the way back. With niece to help with the driving, maybe we can make it in 3 days.

I guess I am moving on to the next stage of my life. I haven't been a foster parent for more than a year. Soon things will be different again. Maybe it is time to start a whole new blog. I imagine there is probably a community of bloggers who are living with or at least caring for their elderly parents. I don't want to lose y'all, but it might be good if I connect with them too...

Catching up

(I just read the post below. Damn, it makes me feel depressed about my life. I think this is why I haven't been writing much at all. I don't really feel depressed. Actually, I feel pretty good. But there is not a lot of good news.)

Hi all, just in case you were wondering...

Gary has started taking classes at community college. It is too early to know what will become of it. One of his main motivations is financial. He qualifies for a significant amount of federal aid, and he needs it pretty desperately. He has car-associated bills that are unpaid leaving him in a very difficult place. If continues to live at home, goes to school, gets all the aid, maybe gets a part time job also, he might be able to be out of debt by summer. He wants to move out, but it is unclear whether and when he will be able to afford it. 

We gave him a rescue in the fall. We put a new clutch in the car and made an insurance payment so he could keep driving. Roland tended to wonder if this would "work," meaning would it get him set on a path that would lead to stability. I said that I did not expect it to work, but I needed to know that I had done it. The first time he got in over his head, I would bail him out. 

So, I don't know what will happen to him next. He can stay here and have free room and board indefinitely, but we are doing less and less for him outside of that. He is supposed to be paying all of the rest of his expenses, so mostly that means he does without. I get irritated with him sometimes and then do passive aggressive things like put onions in whatever I am cooking so he won't want to eat it. 

But he is trying. He is struggling with growing up. He makes poor decisions, but I know he wants to be independent. His plan is not to live off of our grudging generosity indefinitely. Eventually he will pull things together. 

His sister Helen is spiraling out of control. My theory is that she just rushed into adulthood too quickly. She did so well in high school. She graduated early, went to college early. She made a couple of really bad decisions which cut her off from her last foster family. Then she got sick and could not or did not ask them for help. She ended up not going back to school and is struggling in ways we all hoped she would never have to. There are people who will help her when she is ready to ask for it. Hopefully she will ask. I don't know how much I can do for her, our resources are pretty stretched. 

We don't get support from the agency anymore, which I am not complaining about, but the reality is that we are living on a tighter budget than we have in a long time. I've got out all my old vegetarian recipes and am enjoying meals with beans (which Brian hates) and onions (which both Brian and Gary hate) and loving it. I'm not doing it to make them angry. It is more that the budget issue has over-ridden my desire to cater to them and so I can enjoy eating things I like without feeling (very) guilty. Today I will be making pizza dough and baking up individual-sized pizza crusts. The boys can dump stuff on them and bake them when they want.

You may remember that Andrew is graduating from college this year. He wants to move back in and attend the college where I teach to get his teaching certificate for high school. It will probably take him two years. After cooking for himself at college, he is very good at eating on a budget. He cooks when he is here, and I am looking forward to that.

My mom's Parkinson's is progressing as Parkinson's does. Her best friend is planning to retire in the fall. She will be moving out of state, which almost certainly means that Mom has to move this summer. She has become very dependent on her friend. Without her Mom will have to either live with us or move into assisted living. So the chances are very good that she will be moving in with us this summer. I'm hoping she can manage the business side on her end ... putting the house up for sale, arranging for most of her furniture to be auctioned off. I'm not sure how exactly we will handle it if she just isn't up to it. The Parkinson's makes her tired. The disease may also be why her hearing is failing so badly. I know her friend will help her make the phone calls so she can get things done. Still, Mom must make the decisions and she is fighting depression. 

Ideally, it would be best if she and we sold our houses and bought a new house with a master's suite for her. After a decade of foster parenting, I've gotten fairly good at adjusting to new people in the house. The most difficult part is going to be Mom's obsessive need for things to be tidy. We will adjust our habits some, but most of that will have to be hers. I will need to remind myself of that frequently. The bottom line is that even if we worked very, very hard, we would never be able to keep our house as meticulously tidy as she does hers. This really is the only part that I am anxious about.

My sister is finishing up college. She is still living with her husband. He has a job that requires travel and is only home about one day a week. Sis says they get along really well that one day. Officially, Sis is still "giving him a chance." One factor is certainly that Sis cannot support herself until she finishes college. I have wondered if she is genuinely trying to make it work, or if she is just trying to hang on until she graduates with no expectation that it will succeed long term. I suspect she goes back and forth between the two thoughts. When she is done she should be able to get a job which will require her to move. I don't know if her husband will come with her or not. 

And I am doing far better than I would have been had I had to deal with all of this a few years ago. Somewhere along the line I just got better and not making other people's problems mine. When I don't need to think about them, I don't. 

Work is going very well for me. The two other members of the department retired in the past two years and we just now finally hired a replacement. We will be a department of two for the foreseeable future, but I am very happy about the person we have hired. For the first time in a couple of years I am not flying by the seat of my pants. The regular work of long-term planning and assessment is no longer the meaningless act of fiction it has been. 

My new colleague is so much younger than I am. I've decided that is what it means to get older.  I don't feel like I am older. I do notice that my body is not as cooperative about some things, but other than that, I feel about the same. What I do notice as that other adults are getting younger. Increasingly I got to professionals that are barely older than my children. Most of the profs we have hired recently seem hardly older than the students. It's weird, but not bad. 

And all this isn't as depressing as it might sound. The children have to follow their own paths to adulthood. I can't travel it for them. All I can do is provide some basic level of safety net so that things don't get too bad for them. I have confidence that eventually they will find their balance. And things will work out with Mom. I get frustrated living with the young men because they do things like leave dishes all over the house. Now I am nervous about living with a woman who will try not to be irritated at me for not washing every pot as soon as I finish using it. There is a stand-up routine bit in there somewhere.

I don't need your permission...

.. I just need you to rescue me from my mistakes.

I'm too tired to be writing. The new sleep specialist was very apologetic when, after I told her that I was feeling GREAT, that she had to say she had to change some thing and I might feel pretty bad for a while. Actually I think part of the reason I'm feeling bad is that I started feeling depressed as soon as she told me that I was going to feel worse. But see, that is totally irrelevant to the story, although it might be relevant to why I am telling the story.

There has been a certain theme lately.

Gary talks to us about some outrageous, unrealistic plan to see what we think.
We say, "If you do that, X will probably happen and that would be bad."
He says, "X is NOT going to happen, and even if it does, I have two great back-up plans. So what do you think?"
We say, "We don't think it is a good idea."
He does it.
X happens.
Our suggestion that he use his back up plan is met with incredulity. THAT won't work.
He indicates what he needs from us to fix the problem.
We indicate that he is not going to get it.
He tells us how truly horrible his life will be if we don't fix his problem.
We agree that it sucks to be him, but whatever happens he knows he has a place to live and food to eat.

And I am beginning to feel worn out. I know it is the sleep thing. I've been not-tired for a couple of months and it has been WONDERFUL, now I'm tired again and feeling pissy.

And I swear, if he comes up and says, "Question. I thinking it would be a good idea if I..."

I am going to scream
or hit him over the head with a hammer
many times.

I think 18 might be my least favorite age.

Thank you for listening to me whine. Sorry I haven't been writing. I kinda feel guilty not writing at all and then coming here just to whine, but well, I figure you will take it from me.

I'm going to bed now.

Strange Conversations Today

Conversation 1
Sis, "Are you sure you are okay with everyone going to your house for Thanksgiving? Because if you are not, I'll tell Dad we can't make it."

Me, "Everyone's coming to my house for Thanksgiving?"


Conversation 2
Setting: 3pm, Gary emerging from room for the first time (still in pj's)
Me, "Honey, this is is me asking for the 3rd day in a row that you bring up all the dirty dishes from the basement and get them in the dishwasher."

Gary, "I know. I know. I have more important things to do."

Me, "Like what?"

Gary, "Um... like fill out these job applications?" (said in the "parents are so stupid voice")

Me, deciding not to comment on the fact that he has apparently been sleeping all day, "Okaaay, do you think you could fit dishes in sometime in the next hour or two?" (I admit, there was a tone.)

*****
In case you are interested:
It is okay with me if my sister, her husband, 3 young adult children, my father and his wife all show up here for Thanksgiving, particularly since they will be staying at a hotel and I long since figured out how to cook two turkeys in one oven.

Also, Gary did get all those dirty dishes up into the dishwasher. It wasn't a full load, but...

Still growing up

Gary is still working at the frozen yogurt place. He has been there several weeks and yesterday he was called in to talk to the manager about his performance. This is a new shop and Gary was one of the younger people hired. Because of the way he presents himself, he was hired as a team-leader or assistant-manager.

There have been two sorts of problems. One has to do with irregularities with respect to money. It could be that someone on his shift has been lifting money. It is more likely that they have been making some small mistakes in the cash register. Gary himself has been making a fairly big mistake regularly. He has been adding change or singles without taking out larger bills to replace it. So when he adds $10 in quarters the register looks as though they made $10 in sales. It also looks like someone stole $10 in quarters from the safe.

There were other things, like not leaving the store properly stocked and prepped for the morning. The store has been very clean. It is obvious that Gary has not been rushing what he believed he needed to do, but that for some reason he did not recall that he was supposed to the other work.

So Gary has been warned. He is one part defensive and one part committed to making sure he proves himself and gets a good recommendation from this place.  am very glad that the manager gave Gary the talking-to and the second chance. He has left or lost other jobs and based upon what he told me I have concluded he was let go because of job performance, but nobody seemed to tell him precisely what he was doing wrong. This is of course speculation on my part, but it is based upon him telling me about his work.

 The point is, that it occurred to me this morning how really terrible it would have been for Gary if he had been encouraged to move out last fall when he turned 18. So many foster kids do, even when they legally are not required to. (In my experience it is difficult to convince them to stay, they do not like being in care.) Gary is still not ready to take care of himself.

Oh, he sounds like he is. He talks about savings goals, criticizes friends for not having a budget and saving money, talks almost reasonably about how much he expects to need when he lives on his own. Much of the information is there, but the habits of life are not. Not all of the knowledge, of course, he has been appalled at how little money is left after taxes and gasoline. When he calculates the added cost of car insurance he wonders if he can afford to work.

He is making progress, at least a little. I do have hopes that he will be able to move out within the next six months.

He still thinks he is going to be going to community college in a month ... even though he has not actually applied or done any of that other stuff. He simply doesn't believe me when I tell him that the classes there fill up quickly. He seems to think it will work like high school. You show up the first day, register, and get your scheduled.

Anyway, I am glad he is still here. I am the adoption made him comfortable with the idea of staying longer. He needs what I am beginning to think of of stage-two adolescence. He thinks he is an adult. He is doing what he thinks he needs to do to actually become one, but he still needs the safety net of parents.

Wait, he doesn't just need to safety net, he needs us to hold up all the ropes.