I don't know why I was worried

I was so worried that I'd run out of things to write about in between big updates on our move.  Silly me.  When one has kids, it's almost guaranteed that when it seems as if things are going smoothly the chit will eventually hit the fan.  This happened over the holiday weekend in my little world.

I have a lot of kids.  I've always said that they have meetings to decide who is going to be the troublemaker of the week (or day... sometimes of the hour).  With four of them grown and out of the house, I figure I'm on easy street with just the 3 year old to deal with.  My mistake was letting down my guard.

Today, we're going to talk about my oldest son.  R and I have always had our issues; he's a high maintenance kid but while he lacks in common sense I don't think he's a bad kid.  He can be loving and kind as well as selfish and irresponsible.  Lately, I thought things were going so well with him.  He'd come out of a long string of bad decisions and was finally taking care of his responsibilities and acting (for the most part) like a grown up.

Back story:  he got his high school girlfriend pregnant senior year and I have a beautiful grandson who just turned 3 (6 weeks older than Princess B).  Up until the last 6 months, he hadn't been taking responsibility and had not been able to keep a job longer than a few weeks.  He burned all his bridges with family and friends.  Then, after ending up in a homeless shelter 6 hours from home, he joined the Army.  It was a struggle but he overcame everything that came his way and graduated boot camp and AIT.  He paid his back child support.  I thought things were on the upswing for him

Then he came home this weekend for his son's birthday.  He brought his girlfriend (I'd met her once).  In the midst of party preparation he dropped the news completely out of the blue that they had gotten married.  That's right.  I said married.  And he can't understand why I am upset that I found out after the fact.

I hope that one day he can understand the why.  I really don't know how to explain it to him so that he'll understand.  I hope that his understanding isn't brought about by the actions of his own children.

I don't know right now when or if I'll get over this.  Even if I don't, I really hope this works out for him simply because I don't want him hurt.  He may have hurt me but he is my son and I would protect him from pain in any way I could.