Help my son learn to make wiser choices in his life

I can’t help but worry that his baby girl will suffer the loss of her Dad.

When they were little we believed life would be easier when they grew up and it turns out life is harder and the problems are bigger.

In the end, as much as I love him, the fact that the little one will pay the price for the unfortunate mating between him and his wife just breaks my heart.

Brian has been living with us for a couple weeks. I think he “wants” to be a better person, however, old habits die hard. This is very challenging. Mr Hippiechick is surprisingly more tolerant and patient than I am right now. What ultimately happens remains to be seen.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!!!

that my friend is going to move into shortly. It was a lender owned property in pretty rough shape, but it was also only $74,000.

He is trying to have it ready for her to move into by the 1st of the month. He has so far had to make a roof repair, major plumbing repair and extensive electrical. Today he was hanging drywall and needed an extra set of hands. Brian decided he was going to work with Mr. HC. (I was concerned…)

Turns out he did a really good job today, took direction well, paid attention, hustled and didn’t mouth off, all of which is contradictory to his normal behavior. Mr. HC was actually impressed with his performance and trust me . . . Mr. HC wouldn’t say he was impressed if he wasn’t.

My boy apparently is trying to get it together.

Brian came over and we had a pretty nice visit. I was working in the yard, getting ready for Dee’s birthday party at the end of the month. Brian talked with me while I worked and we made some lunch together and then went back outside.

He said some pretty positive things during our chat. One of the best things he said was that he now realizes that many of the things that have happened to him were due to poor choices that he made for himself. That was a first coming from him. Brian has always blamed other people for his “misfortunes”.

Yesterday was a great day in my opinion.

I have re-ordered my 43 things, because this is all I can think of. I can’t focus on any of my other goals. Brian is comsuming my entire mind right now. He has become my number 1 goal. I don’t know if that is good or bad…

Brian is 23 years old and he is a mess!!! He didn’t start out life under the greatest of circumstances. He was born in Las Vegas, Nevada and his birth mother left him at the hospital. He was placed in foster care until he was 1 year old when my ex husband and I adopted him. He was just the cutest chubby little fireball you would ever want to see!!! We brought him back to Phoenix and from that point on we started out life together. When Brian was 6, a very unfortaunte series of circumstances occured and his father had to leave the house. Actually I am being polite here, his father was sentenced to prison and was for all intents and purposes out of Brian’s life from that point forward.

Brian is/was one of those young men who seriously needed a male figure in his life. I really struggled with him. He had/has ADHD and depression. He has a temper. He is defiant and it was very hard to keep him under wraps. I was forever getting calls from the school, he was getting thrown out of school, He even got expelled from Mary Moppets Day Care Center!!! I had my hands full. I took him to counseling for years. I tried everything to get through to him, to help him. It was very stressful on him, on me, on his sisters. His sisters resent him a lot for the negative attention that he drew on himself and on the rest of us. But he is still my son and I love him no matter what, I especially have to keep loving him when he is unlovable, which is quite often.

When Brian was 14 he got in very serious trouble with the law and he was tried and sentenced as an adult. I had to retain a criminal defense attorney to keep him out of prison of all places. As a result of all of that, he ended up being on adult probation for four years. It felt like a lifetime. He was always in trouble with his probation officers, and even had to be in jail for four months as a result of probation violations. That year he was in jail for Christmas and New Years. That was very hurtful for all of us. He has “gang” affiliations which is very frightening. A couple years ago he was stabbed in the chest and I had hoped that that incident might be a wakeup call:NOT!!! My beautiful baby boy has gang tatoos all over him—He has his “street name” tatooed on his neck. My Brian Thomas, my beautiful baby boy is “Dirty Bird”. What the hell?????

Just when it seems that things are getting better, they take a turn for the worse. He finally graduated from High School when he was 20. He has not gone to college (his choice) and doesn’t want to work (not fun), so he seldom has a job. He doesn’t want to do anything but play basketball. He has had several brushes with the law one of then includes a major DUI which he is currently paying off fines on, however, he recently lost his job this week due to attendance issues so I am not sure how he is going to deal with the outstanding fine issue. I told him I was not going to pay them for him, I simply cannot continue to bail him out of trouble.

Today Brian was arrested again, this time for marijuana and paraphanelia possession (might have spelled all that wrong) He is being charged with two felonies. I have a bad feeling that he may actually go to prison this time.

My heart is breaking for him. I just want him to really see that the choices he makes are not wise and that he can still turn his life around, but he will have to make new friends and really put his mind to it and start making some serious changes.

I am rambling and I have glossed over alot of the issues here, but I just wanted to try and put something down It is 2:30 in the morning and all I can think of is that my son is in jail and my heart is broken.