I need ice cream...lots and lots of creamy, chocolately, crunchy, ice cream! Yes, crunchy! Ice cream can be crunchy...well, if it's from Marble Slab and loaded with coconut, almonds, and fresh strawberries it most definately can be! I think I have decided that it will be my dinner...my teenagers will have to fend for themselves. I love them more than words, but today, I am just tired of being the one on which everything falls. Today, they can eat cereal or a sandwich while I drive thirty minutes in deep solitude to get the ice cream that my soul craves. 

I am tired, I am exhausted. I am overwhelmed at the moment with my responsibilities of being Mom to three teenagers and a young adult. It seems nothing that I can do is enough. Even with the most detailed planning, there are days when nothing seems to work out the way I planned. I just want them to make great grades, have great friends, have outstanding faith in themselves and in God and obey me with out a word of disagreement or discontent. What?

I know what you're thinking. I know that I am out of my mind if I think I can control four teenagers mind, body and spirit. A girl can dream cant she?

I have mentioned a time or two before the place in life where I find myself. Three teenagers, a young adult and a husband that travels alot...a 46 year old body that does not remember who I am supposed to be or what I am supposed to look like. My kids think I am not working so that I can be at their beck and call. Seriously, they do and I am to blame for this. I have made it my job to wait on them and be there whenever something goes wrong to pick them up and dust them off. I have made it my job to make sure they do not do without anything and heaven forbid they should miss a social event, sporting event or party for a friend; I am the "take them anywhere Mom taxi". Thank the Lord that my two oldest are driving...this helps alot but it is another stress in itself. Another reason I do not sleep at night. I wonder if that is the reason for the hot flashes too? NOT. 

My youngest son and oldest daughter are both severely dyslexic and ADD. They struggle beyond words and it is heartbreaking to watch. It is a source of neverending hopelessness for me. I simply cannot make their disabilities go away. And I cannot live with that somedays. My daughter is one of the most amazing young ladies I have ever met. She has brilliant insight and compassion for others and her wisdom is breathtaking. Her accomplishments are astounding for someone of her disabilities. She overcomes things that would take most people out of the race. To know her is to know someone who never gives up, someone who never takes "No" for an answer. She is someone who has the strength of steel, the courage of a Lion and the faith to move mountains.

She is a Senior this year, and has decided to be a teacher. I am once again in awe of her. I am taken back that she would choose a profession that has been the source of her pain and suffering for the past twelve years. She chooses to teach so that children that share her disabilities will not suffer as she has. She chooses to teach because she feels it is where she is supposed to be and these precious children need her. I am so proud of her.

Silently, I cry for her. I would never want her to see me cry and to know that I am hurting for her. She looks to me for strength. But, as I watch her check the mail daily for admission letters from the colleges she has chosen, I can only cry as college after college tells her she is not good enough, that what she has struggled to accomplish is not enough. If they only knew her as I do, as her teachers know her, as her friends know her...they would fight to have her in their presence. It is their loss as she is truly one of the most amazing people I have ever encountered and she will be an amazing teacher one day. They will have missed the opportunity to have known her and I am sorry for them.

My youngest son struggles just the same and yesterday we were informed that he has failed yet another six weeks in math. The heartbreak...and yet, again, I cannot fix this. Rather, I get the best seat in the house as I watch God mold another person with great strength and character beyond their years. So, when I scream for ice cream...believe me, I need ice cream and only Marble Slab will do. Thank you Lord for ice cream.