Change

Change.
Change can be good or bad.

There are some things changing around The Butler Diaries, for the better and for the worse.

I mentioned in a previous post, Neglected, that my blood pressure is slightly elevated.

The first step in change, the teenagers no longer will run this ol' girls life anymore. Wednesday, I decided that since my pressure had been so high that we would not stay in town for church. I wanted to rest. I knew the battle would be hard when I broke the news to YARM13YOL. She told me that I was going to make HER look like a liar to her friends because she had told them all she would be at church. It doesn't bother her to lie to me. I've decided to hold my own Bible Study at The Butler Diaries kitchen table when I feel bad and want to be home, that way neither kid will miss the Bible Study on Wednesday, this would be compromise don't you think?

The next change is that I'm putting my foot down on SUPER STAR YARM13YOL's basketball career. She played her last game on Thursday. She was told the only reason she could play ball was for the grades to come up. The grades haven't come up and one of them actually went down. You can only imagine how fun that was, telling her that I am actually enforcing what I've telling her for almost 3 months now. Some statements made by YARM13YOL...
Fine! I'll go to school and tell everyone I have to quit because I made bad grades, that will be embarrassing. How do you like that?
Won't embarrass me, I didn't push the pencil and make the bad grade.
I won't quit. I'll find a ride home.
She doesn't have any friends that DRIVE at 13.
I've got too much stuff in my head all the time.
What kind of stuff?
School stuff.
Then freaking write it down so you can study.
I can't, I'm only smart once a day.
Do what? I think my ears aren't working, did I hear that right?
You ruin everything.
My pleasure.

You all know that I'm not her mom. That's always thrown in for good measure.

Taylor is not innocent. She does her share of whining, on the upside right now she is not smart mouthing me yet. I have problems getting her to do things for me, the usual "I don't want to" whines, which sometimes get unbearable, to where she won't do the chore and gets grounded. She tattles WAY TO MUCH. She touches or looks at YARM13YOL on PURPOSE and starts fights. She breathes and starts fights. Because our world revolves around what Mary Margaret wants to do, things that Taylor wants to do gets pushed to the back burner. I've even canceled her piano lessons so that we could attend YARM13YOL's ball games.

One more thing I can't stand is for the girls to mean to each other. That drives me crazy. Why be nicer to your friend and complete strangers than your own sister? YARM13YOL tells Taylor every chance she gets, how everybody at school hates her and can't stand her. AND she seems to do this in front of people. These people are supposed to be YARM13YOL's friends, its like she chooses them over her sister. Are these people really her friends? No. If they were real friends, they would realize that this kind of talk could hurt someone. Will those people be there in the hard times? I don't think so. I'm grown, I know. When this kind of stuff happens, I know I have failed and what I'm saying is not sinking in and that is embarrassing.

I also don't like lies. I detest lies. I seem to get a lot of lies. I get lies about stuff that there is NO NEED TO LIE ABOUT. And that is why people stay grounded.

To anyone who graduated from Wynne High School, the bottom photo is of the boys gym...it hasn't changed at all.

This is the last game she attended, the team still has 3 more. She warmed the metal chair (no bench) the whole game. She has 30 days to get her grades up in order to run track.