Where do I even begin a discussion of my grandmother's 8 year old son? Perhaps I should begin by explaining why she has an 8 year old son. I can sense your raised eyebrows and mental math session currently in progress. No, my grandmother didn't jump on the IVF train like the 66 year old mother-to-be in Britain, her baby making shop closed up for good back in the 80s. She has a semi-little one because she decided to adopt for a second time. Yep, a woman who should have been enjoying the early retirement she was forced to take and her grandkids, instead decided to take on a 5 day old baby girl back in 1993 and then a 9 month old boy in 2001. Her daughter and son, now 15 and 8 are actually our cousins. They were given to my grandmother practically straight from the womb by a mother who didn't want them. Taking in children to insure that they remain within their family... a noble gesture, right? Yes and no.

My grandmother got way more than she bargained for with these kids. While she was trying to save one baby from being aborted and the other from a life in and out of foster care, she didn't consider the long term effects of being born drug addicted, neither did she consider the fact that she was getting older and would be solely responsible for these kids until they were 18. Thank God that her teenaged daughter will be 18 soon because she is quite the monster. I would go into all the ways in which her full name and picture should be in the dictionary under the word Monster, but I don't have enough energy to even go there. I barely have enough energy to talk about her son without my eye starting to twitch. He has some extreme emotional problems and it is a lot to deal with. And she expects ME to become responsible for them if she passes before they are able to care for themselves. I don't want that responsibility. I haven't told her that yet, but I don't. I don't like her daughter AT ALL (again, not enough energy to go into all the reasons why... lets just say, the day she jumped in the driver's seat of my grandmother's van, "accidently" put the car in drive and mashed on the gas as my grandmother was standing at the door, dragging said grandmother down the street leaving a big ass knot on her head and multiple buises, I was completely done with her!) and her son is just too emotionally unstable for me to deal with. Hell, I have enough problems of my own in that area as it is without adding another insane person to the mix.

This whole rant had a point before I started writing it... it wasn't even suppose to be this all-over-the-place rant, but more of a release of my frustrations with mothers who continue to use drugs while pregnant. Not only does this damage an innocent child, but it alters the lives of everyone who is involved with the child. My grandmother is under a lot of stress trying to love and support a child that she doesn't know how to parent. She's read books and consulted therapists, but she still lacks the parenting tools to effectively make a difference in his life long term, and I fear that in the end, he wont have a very bright future. My grandmother should have never taken on the responsibility in the first place in my opinion. The good that she thought she was doing, has not turned out to be good for anyone. Both her kids need more help than she has resources and I just don't want all of that burden falling on me suddenly. Its so bad I don't even wanna visit her sometimes the majority of the time. I leave her house with a headache and I leave her with one.

Sigh... all I can do is hope they don't send her to an early grave.