Since I last posted, things have been very tumultuous.  At times more than I could stand to have on my plate, but somehow, someway, I have made it to this point.

Memama continues to convalesce.  She is doing very well and is down to a single pain pill per twenty-four hour period.  Her biggest problem is that since Michelle with home health care quit coming to do therapy, Memama will fight tooth and nail not to do it.  The other thing is that Memama is not as active as she once was, and I don'[t see her making a comeback.  Now her idea of cooking is making a fold over pimento cheese sandwich.  So for the last two or three weeks I have become more involved in the kitchen.

I am not bragging when I say I can cook almost anything and I can darn sure follow a recipe.  I find that Memama eats much better when I cook something good. 

If I roll back to Rian and his boys last visit, I cooked chicken fried steak with baked fries and cream gravy, and I even did some pan fried pork chops.  One night I cooked breakfast for supper and cooked two pounds of bacon, eighteen eggs, bacon and biscuits.  On a morning that stands out, I cooked 25 Cinnamon rolls, and none were left!

I have bought a roasted chicken and fixed stove top dressing, green bean casserole, yams, biscuits and cranberry sauce.  Chicken with rice and green beans went over well. (Noble loved to steal green beans off Memama's plate)..  I have done hamburger helper, spaghetti with meat sauce, scratch enchiladas (With eggs on top), baked chicken with baked beans, and off course anything off the grill is usually appealing to her.

So I'm trying to kept her built up and strong.

The thing I hate is the cleaning, because I can make a mess.

A week ago this past Monday I received a phone call from Merrit, ordering me to drop what I was doing and get to San Angelo and pick her and Noble up.  I told her I don't jump at her command and she has cried wolf one too many times.  She called several more times during the day, but about three I got a call from Rebecca Stanley with Child Protective Services.  She asked if I was going to pick up Merrit and Noble because if I wasn't CPS was going to take the baby.  I explained to her that when Pat returned from Abilene I could head that way but it would be about five thirty to five forty before I could be there.

It seems Merrit and Brad had a fight, Merrit called the sheriff and Brad called CPS.  This is their normal operation.

When I arrived in San Angelo, I was right on time and went to Makai's house to get Merrit and the baby.  Rebecca with CPS came and I had to sign for Noble.  We were quickly on our way.  My instructions were to keep Merrit out of San Angelo for two weeks and that Brad and Merrit were not to be together.  One more call to CPS and they would take the baby.

On our way in, Merrit called in a prescription to Walmart in Sweetwater, although it was doubtful we would arrive before the pharmacy closed.  Merrit told me she had no diapers and no wipes for Noble. 

Merrit's behavior was somewhat odd.  She was almost acting stoned.

We stopped by Walmart and I gave her a check, telling her to get what she needed and to pickup a package of hamburger meat and some cobblestone sub rolls.  She was gone about forty-five minutes and came back with a bag.

We arrived at the house and unloaded and I began supper.  I told Merrit to change the baby"s diaper and she told me she didn't have any.  I told her that was the main reason we stopped at Walmart.  She said "You are a liar, we didn't stop at Walmart."  I went to the car and found a dozen diapers and some wipes that Makai had sent and brought them into the house.  I told Merrit to look in her purse because she had my check and a receipt from Walmart.  Sure enough she did.  In fact she had gotten twenty dollars cash above the purchase, but all she bought was a package of hamburger meat.

Later in the evening Kyle came in from work.  He fixed a plate of spaghetti and came to the living room to eat it.  Merrit told him hello and they visited a little.  A while later I went to take my night meds and heard a ruckus so I returned to the dining room to find her confronting him.  She told me he was Brad and he didn't deserve to live and had the worst trash mouth I have probably ever heard from a female.  I didn't learn it until the following day but she struck Kyle too.  Kyle was totally shot over this.

The next day Merrit wanted to go to Vickie's to buy bracelet charms to replace the ones that Brad stole from her.  I wasn't about to let her loose in a vehicle so she walked into town on Tuesday morning.  She didn't have her card with her and wasn't able to buy the charms so she walked back.  When she came in Pat was here with Chloe and Carson.  She decided that we had switched babies on her and that Carson was hers not Noble.  Pat loaded her butt up and took her to the ER where she asked for blood panels and a urinalysis be done.  The first urinalysis was water right out of the tap.  MHMR was called in, and I arrived to relieve Pat.  MHMR decided to hospitalize Merrit in a facility for a mental assessment, minimum three days.  We stayed at the ER until after 7 and MHMR could not find any where that would accept her, so they released her back to me, while making her an appointment for the following day with a MHMR doctor.  By the way, the blood work and urinalysis came back pretty good.  Long story short, at eleven o'clock she informed me she needed to go to Walmart to pickup some feminine hygiene items.  So to Sweetwater we went.  I gave her a check and she spent another $76 dollars plus got another $20 cash.

During the night she got up and went to the bathroom but when she returned to bed she turned the wrong way and went to Kyle's room not hers.  Kyle moved to the couch.  Later in the day he moved home to his Mom's.

Merrit missed her appointment even though I gave her two hours lead time, so we rescheduled for Thursday.  On Thursday morning she walked to and from town again, still trying to buy those charms.  When she returned to Memama's she sat down and wrote check to everyone she had borrowed money from in recent months.  $2000 to her Mom, $1700 to Lou Ann, $700 to Memama, and $1500 to me.  I am not quite sure where she came up with these figures because I had spent $1800 for a dog, $1000 for a bondsman, $1500 for an attorney, and paid two months of probation.

I took her to her appointment and she she emerged she told me she was perfectly normal.  She wanted to go to Louy Ann's to give her her check so I dropped Merrit and Noble off and drove to Roscoe to pick Memama up for date night.  We returned to get Merrit and the baby and met Pat, Chloe and Carson and Kyle at Pizza Hut.  Merrit was having an anxiety attack from the people coming and going and got up twice, going outside once and into the restroom once.

We returned home and she was talking to Brad's Mom on the phone and basically working herself into a tizzy.  I told her to get off the phone and turned off the television and began turning off the lights.  She told me she wasn't ready to go to bed and kept talking on the phone.  I went to my room and was taking my night meds when she came in cussing and screaming, "Why do you allow him to do this!  You are on his side!"  and once again her mouth was horribly trashy.  I followed her from my room and asked her what she was talking about and she told me "You know Brad's not supposed to be here".  I asked where and she told me he was in her room.  I went in there and no one was in the room.  I told her no one was there and she called me a liar with some very choice adjectives and made another comment and I had had enough.  I slapped her across her mouth and told her she was not welcome here any more.  She decided to try to jump across the bar cabinets onto the dining table and I grabbed a handful of hair just after the launch and began dragging her to the door.

Memama walked in about that time wanting to know what was going on and told me to let go of Merrit's hair.  I did and out the back door she went to sit on a porch swing on the patio.  I went and told her she left me  no choice but to go get my crisis hotline card and call MHMR.  When I returned, Memama told me when you went to your room to get the card she slipped in and got the baby and went out the back door again.  I made the call and got a guy named Daniel who was no help at all.  I waited to see if Merrit and the baby came back but they didn't and I fell asleep.

The next morning I learned that she had walked barefoot with the baby to Chillerz and called Lou Ann from there.  When the lady working began closing down and Merrit and Noble were still there she called the Sheriff's office.  The deputies got there just before Lou Ann.  When Lou Ann arrived Merrit told the deputies she wanted to talk to her grandmother alone.  She asked Lou Ann, "Mawmaw, you see him don't you?"

"See who?", Lou Ann asked.

"Brad.  He's dressed up like a deputy!", Merrit replied.

Lou Ann assured her it was not Brad,  The deputies agreed to ;let Noble go with Lou Ann and they took Merrit back to the ER and MHMR was called again.  About five in the morning MHMR called Lou Ann to come get Merrit, they were releasing her.

Lou Ann called Melody who was scheduled to come through that morning anyway, and Melody called Brad.  They both converged on Sweetwater.  Merrit was asleep and let Brad take the baby and she came over here to get Merrit's and Noble's things.

When Merrit woke her mother took her to her apartment in San Angelo.  This was Friday afternoon.

I called CPS to advise them of Noble's status change, because I had signed for him.

About midnight Friday night Merrit called me and told me she wasn't going to hold it against me that I beat her up.  I told her I had a problem with it because if she thought I beat her up I wanted another chance, because I know I can do better.

Before midnight Saturday Merrit was arrested for public intoxication  and fighting.  She stayed in the drunk tank until 5 when her mother came and got her.

Between 8:30 and 9 Sunday morning I got a call from an office Rios who said they had taken Merrit into custody and he needed me to come get Noble.  He said she appeared intoxicated although she didn't smell of alcohol and she had failed to identify herself.  When he found out I was in Roscoe he told me they couldn't keep Noble that long so I gave him CPS's number and called Melody.

CPS took Noble and late Sunday night they placed him with Brad's sister in Celina.

Merrit remains in jail.  MHMR was supposed to transfer her to a mental facility for a ten day evaluation but once again MHMR has dropped the ball, even though we have a judges order telling them  too.

Thing is, I believe Merrit is becoming more and more lucid with each day she is off her medicines.  I think Dr. John Snuggs was over medicating her and giving meds that fight each other.

So it has been crazy.

Makai had been sick and spent a few days in the hospital, so Sunday morning I had one in the hospital, one in the jail house and one in the church house.

Do you know where your kids are?