Guess What? I found out last week that I am going to be a grandmother. My son and his wife are expecting a baby. Right now the tentative due date is near the beginning of January. I suppose most women would be rather excited by the news. I want to be excited, part of me sort of is. However, I am not nearly as excited as I thought I would be when I received this news. My son still barely speaks to me, and he has already had some huge problems in his marriage (he and his wife have only been married since December). His wife is making an earnest effort to keep me up-to-date on what is going on with him and her, but I get the feeling that he does not really care if I know or not.

I love my son but I really dislike his behavior over the last few years. He has not treated his family very well. By family I refer to me, his sister, his Father (the man who raised him and loved him and adopted him), his grandmother and grandfather, great-grandmother, and Uncle and Aunt. It is as if he does not want to have anything to do with any of us anymore. From what I understand, this has become a bone of contention in his marriage. His wife very much believes family should stick with family at all times, and she is upset and perplexed by his behavior. I guess I am perplexed by his behavior. At one time I would have been upset, but I am long past allowing him to upset me.

In other news….

I have a niece who has had some trouble in the past.  As a result she is currently on probation.  The other day I had a chance to speak with her mother and she told me that the judge who had heard her daughter’s case said “You better be prepared to kick her out when she is 18 because she is going to be in and out of jail for the rest of her life.” Rightfully so, her mother was upset by what the judge said.  To me it was as if the judge was saying that this child 1. did not deserve a second chance, and 2. that she was incapable of turning her life around.

From what I understand, as part of her probation, she has to graduate, do some, in my opinion, very cool community service work, and deal with a juvenile probation officer.  Some of her community service has included working in an animal shelter run by a local not-for-profit animal rescue group, working in the office of one of the local churches, and I think even working in the office of one of the local court houses.  All of which she said she enjoyed.  Besides that, I think those community service projects were so much more educational and positive than having her pick up garbage on the side of the road.

Graduating from high school turned out to be more difficult than one would have thought.  Not because the young lady was not doing her work, but because the teacher’s, for the most part, stuck her in the back of the classroom and and basically gave her NO assignments.  Her mother went to the school principle about this and what he told the mother is that the teachers have decided that my niece had been labeled as a trouble maker and they did not see any point in giving her work they figured she would not do anyway.  After speaking about this to the juvenile probation officer, and the local school superintendent’s office, her mother placed her in a local alternative school.  She attends night classes there.

Her mother went on to tell me that not only is her daughter passing, her grades are in the A’s and B’s! Her probation officer is impressed with her turn around and the judge has been taken by surprise.  This child obviously needed the type of intervention she got from the state, probation and the probation officer, however, what really makes me angry is that other people who should have and could have helped her as well just flat out gave up on her.  What she needed has been the individual help she had gotten from the probation officer, the alternative school, and the positive role models she has had to to do her community service for.

I am very proud of her, she seems to be a happier kid, who has made a huge turn around in her life.  Not many people would have put the effort that she has put in to do things differently.  My hope and prayer for her is that she continues make good and positive decisions and actions about her life.