Letters From My Children

When John and I were married we brought five children together under one roof.    The three oldest are mine from my previous marriage.  The two youngest are his.  Now we are a blended family and torture them all equally.  No one escaped the daily dysfunction of our household. 

This is the only relatively normal picture I have with all of them together.  Typically one of them has another in a head lock, or they are blurry from swearing at each other.  This was shot last year - after we were on vacation for a week.  They were all too sunburnt and sore to smack or punch each other.  

 Picture shot last year at Long Beach, WA

Left to Right:  Amy 23,  Zach 17, Evan 15 and Grace 12, Jacob 19

With three teenage boys we have seen our share of trauma. 

With so many kids in the house we started communicating through notes.  For many years the notes were left on a chalkboard, then we moved to a dry erase board on the fridge.  Lately they have taken to leaving notes on paper left in odd places.  Mostly on my desk. 

Over the years I have gotten some whoppers.  Ones that would put the notes featured on Passive Aggressive Notes to shame. 

One of my favorites from my son was  "I HATE YOU!  I need lunch money."   I took that to work and hung it up in my cube for a couple of years.  It made me giggle every time I looked at it. 

My relationship with my daughter has seen it's ups and downs.  As with most teenage girls they think their mothers are set upon this earth only to destroy their life.  I did my best to ruin hers with rules, boundaries and Oh MY doG...CHORES!    My daughter epitomized passive aggressive and I never knew what I was going to get from her.

She used to get angry with me for asking her to do the dishes.  So she decided to throw them away instead of wash them.  I was not a happy camper when I realized she had chucked all our silverware and half my tupperware into the garbage.  She learned mothers can be passive-aggressive too.

Some days the chalk board would say "I Love you Mommy".  I knew she was mad at me if it was crossed out in big bold lines.  

But every negative note she ever left me was erased by this amazing gem of a note.   This one is framed and hanging on the wall.   Not very often do you see your daughter commit "you will always be right" to print.  All mothers of daughters will recognize the absolute value of this note. 

Of course, two weeks after she wrote this note, she stopped talking to me for months.  *sigh*  Daughters....the joys of womanhood. 

My middle son, Zach,  has been blessed with a wicked sense of humor. 

A couple of years ago my son got ahold of my camera.  This is what I found when I downloaded the pictures. 

Right after we found out my daughter is expecting our first grandchild he wrote this doozie.

Teenagers - its what drives a person to surround themselves with Border Collies.