So, ok, we’ve got Oldest Son going to work everyday at the job he got immediately after moving home. He and Second Daughter are talking and texting back and forth day and night, like they have to cram the missing years into just a few days. The Ex-Girlfriend is calling jumping all over Oldest Son’s buttons, trying everything she can think of – guilt, pleading, threats of suicide, the baby she’s carrying, anger, you name it – to get Oldest Son to come back ‘home’. And the Jerk is becoming more and more irate at the lack of attention paid his direction and just who the hell is this ‘childhood friend’ that’s popped up out of the blue?

Add in, for good measure (and for you astrology fans), a New Moon Solar Eclipse coming within 24 hours. As my friend, Nancy, posted:

It’s a time when you can clearly choose how you want things to be in your life from here on out — what to keep forever, what to discard, who to become. All of that.

Yeah, well, I could have told you that without reading Nancy’s post, just based on the activity at my house!

Thursday evening, Second Daughter calls asking if we’d come get her and the baby – the Jerk is on a rampage and she wants to leave. BFF Kelli lives 25 miles north of us and probably would have gone to jail if she’d been within a mile of him, so Second Daughter called here, instead.

Friday, I babysat while Second Daughter went to work. She works at the office at her apartment complex and the Jerk is the maintenance man.

Friday night, BFF Kelli and I have dinner with my BFF Patsy, and while we’re out, Second Daughter goes to my house to pick up the baby, but decides after several irate phone calls from the Jerk that she’s not going back home. So when BFF Kelli and I arrive at my house, we find Second Daughter in a quandry as to how exactly to pull off moving out without inciting a riot. Meanwhile the Ex-Girlfriend has resumed the phone calls to Oldest Son, which he’s ignoring, so she starts having members of her family call.

And if that’s not enough entertainment for ya, thrown in for good measure, Completely Clueless shows up on my doorstep at 11pm, drunk, and hands me $100 for part of his August child support for PDD. Holy cow. That’s a first. Child support – delivered – on the 1st. Knowing that I had to take Oldest Son to work by 7am, and somehow or another Second Daughter and I were going to have to deliver the Jerk’s truck back to him in the morning and extract her belongings from the apartment and get them to her mom’s, on that note, I reeled in all the children, battened down the hatches, turned off the porch light, called it a day and went to bed.

I no sooner return from taking Oldest Son to work, but he’s calling me telling me the Ex-Girlfriend has called his boss’s phone and left a message that she’s at the hospital, dilated to 4. “What do I do, Mom?!?” he asks. We talked it through and determined the best thing, in the long run (and all other runs, in my humble opinion) was for him to stay at work. The whole reason he landed the job as fast as he did is they had someone who kept calling in not wanting to work on Saturdays. It would not be cool for him to ask to leave work as soon as he got there on the first Saturday since getting the job.

I made a pot of coffee and stood drinking the first cup staring out the kitchen window marveling at the pace life takes on sometimes. Second cup in…third cup…ok – maybe I’m ready to wake Second Daughter and start the potentially dramatic part of the day. We conscripted Second Son into babysitting (not a tough chore – he’s pretty fond of SD’s little squirt. Fond enough to change poopy diapers, even – I’d say that’s pretty fond for a 14y/o boy. Little Squirt probably doesn’t have a clue at how much he rates!)

Our plan was to park the truck in the parking lot, get her in my car, leave and then she’d call him to let him know the truck was back. Nice plan…no drama. Didn’t work. Just as I was about to turn into the complex, the crazy idiot jumps in front of my car…literally. Like Superman, or something. When he realizes she’s behind me in the truck, he runs around my car and I see her in the rearview mirror bailing out of the truck trying to get to my car before he gets to her.

No dice.

He grabs her and starts telling her he’s not going to let her leave him. Some big ol’ guy pulls up behind the truck (now, mind you – we’re on a street, ok? Not in the parking lot of the complex…) and gets out. He walks up to the two of them and asks her if the Jerk was hurting her. She said, “He won’t let me go.” He asks if she needs help and she says, “Call 9-1-1, please!” As soon as the guy pulls out his cell phone, the Jerk lets go of her, she bolts for my car, and I burn rubber getting out of there. We thought the Jerk would follow us in the truck, but instead he turned into the complex on two wheels.

Time to come up with a plan for getting her stuff out. Time to call in reinforcements ’cause I’m not tryin’ to go to jail or the hospital. So, we called BFF Kelli and told her she wasn’t allowed to go back there with us (because a trip to jail AND the hospital would be the likely result), but we needed step-dad to come go with us. They all came, including the two little brothers – one close to Second Son’s age, and one close to PDD’s age. Step-dad, SD and I went back to the apartment and in 45 minutes relieved it of all her belongings. Thankfully, the Jerk was not there, nor did he make an appearance.

We came back to my house, found Oldest Son home from work, cooked dinner for the entire crew, and then BFF Kelli, step-dad and the boys went back home with their truck full of SD’s stuff. No room for Second Daughter and Little Squirt, so she spent another night and we made plans to take her home the next day and spend a leisurely Sunday hangin’ in the country.

In all the melee, we forgot about Ex-Girlfriend. Not to worry, though – she called reporting she was dilated to 5 and said they were going to induce her. This was about 8pm. I assume what she meant was that they were going to put her on Pitocin to speed things up, but who knows with this girl, and I didn’t ask any questions. I told her I’d relay her message and hung up.

Sunday morning we set no alarms and slept in. Well…ok…when I say slept in, that means everyone but Little Squirt and me. lol But that’s ok, because I’m seriously challenged in the sleeping-in department these days, anyway. 8am is “sleeping in” for me.

We took our time getting around and packed everyone up in the car and headed north to BFF Kelli’s place where we spent what felt (to me, at least) like a vacation day away from the drama that had been life of late.

…to be continued…