MMOB or not?

My mom had a major freak out tonight in front of my nephews. Major as in screaming, cursing, and breaking shit.

This is going to be long.

Ok, so my mom has always been, well to put it nicely, a little off. She claims that she has been battling depression her entire life. Well, she won't go see a shrink and the pills our gullible doc prescribes her really don't seem to ever work. As soon as she decides that the pills aren't working, she takes herself off of them. Doesn't go back to the doc so he can wean her off of them or anything, like a normal person would.

She also does this thing where whenever she feels like she isn't the center of attention all of a sudden she is deathly ill. The best was one Christmas when I was a kid, she decided that she was sick and went to the ER. She convinced some poor ER doc to admit her overnight for observation and missed Christmas. Sadly that is one of the few Christmas' I actually remember.

Anyway, sometime over the weekend, she decided that her current meds weren't working and took herself off them. On Tuesday, my dad had to go see a specialist about his shoulder in the city 3 hours away. My mom was supposed to go with him but ended up staying home so my baby sister didn't have to pay a sitter to watch my nephews. She HATES it whenever my dad does anything without her and makes life miserable for for anyone who crosses her path for a couple of days afterwards. So I expected her to act all bent out of shape when I called that afternoon to find out what the specialist said but I underestimated how bent out of shape she really was.

I called the house and my oldest little sister answered the phone. I asked to talk to my mom. She gave the phone to my mom and this was the conversation:
Mom: Who is this?
Me: Who do you think it is, it's me. How did Dads appointment go?
Mom: I don't know. Ask him yourself.
And she hands him the phone. I talk to him for a minute and then go back to working.

After work, I picked up the boys and they wanted to go over and see my nephews. I saw my mom standing at the front window when we were walking across the sidewalk. By the time I got the boys inside, she had ran off to her room. I go into the living room where everybody else is and the first thing they tell me is that mom is "sick" again. Ok, well, whatever. We said hi to my nephews, I tell my dad about how the cat caught his very first mouse and we leave.

So now it is Tuesday. The boys wanted to stop by to see my nephews again so we did. My dad was standing at the stove cooking dinner and as I walked by, he told me that I probably shouldn't stay long. I asked if everything was ok and he told me to go talk to my sister.

According to my sister, my baby sister dropped off the boys before she went to work. My mom must have been shitty to her yesterday too because she had a "talk" with her. My baby sister left and my mom comes roaring into the kitchen, screaming and cussing (my mom isn't a curser) about something. I have no idea what that something was, my grandma butted herself into the conversation before I could find out. This is when I find out that my mom had decided to take herself off her meds. Anyway my mom started grabbing the kitchen chairs and hitting them on the ground. She broke 6 out of the 8 chairs and ran back into her room. My sister said it was chaos.

That whole meltdown happened in front of my nephews. Now, the baby is barely 4 months old but Ollie is 2 1/2. He doesn't need to see that shit. I know I would have flipped my lid if my boys had seen something like that from my mother. My oldest little sister is 24 and was scared. I can't imagine how scary that nonsense would have been for a 2 year old.

It makes me sick to my stomach that I didn't pack up those boys and bring them home with me. But the only thing I was thinking about was getting my own boys out of that house before something else happened. If we are ever in that situation again, I will be bringing ALL the boys over to my house.

So now I need advice. Do I talk to my baby sister about finding a different daycare situation ASAP or do I keep my nose out of it and hope that she does the right thing?

Do I try to talk to my dad about maybe forcing my mom to get some real help (an intervention or maybe even committing her temporarily) or do I keep my opinion to myself and hope somebody figures it out?

My Friend

There is this guy that I am friends with. His name is Jesse. I have known him my entire life. We went to church together. We went to school together. We graduated together. But after graduation, we went off to do our own things and lost touch.

Well, right after I started working at the body shop, he was in town on leave from the Coast guard to visit his dad and just happened to stop in to see my boss. I was SO surprised to see him. We have run into each other a few times and talked on the phone a little since then. Now he is a friend on Facebook and his status update yesterday made me proud to be his friend.

His status said that he has decided to do a fundraiser to raise money for breast cancer research. I don't have many details other than he is going to ride his bike a crazy long distance (like across the country) and it will start sometime in September when he gets discharged from the Coast Guard.

His mom died from breast cancer when we were 9. I can still remember how frail and tired she looked right before she lost her battle.

Anyway, he was asking for suggestions on how to get it all started and tips to make sure the fundraising goes smoothly. He also wants to write about the whole process from the beginning. One of his sisters suggested creating a blog or website to help spread the word about what he is doing as well as somewhere to record his experiences. I suggested he create a paypal account for it and get that paypal donate button/widget. I also told him that I would do whatever I could to help him out, whether it be going to the local businesses to ask for donations or building him a blog or helping him get a non-profit thing together. Anything.

If anyone has any suggestions or advice, I would be happy to pass it along to him.

Uh oh

Shit. I just remembered that Hubbs' birthday is in 14 days and I haven't gotten him anything. Ooohhhhh, bad wife.

He is SO hard to buy for. I have already maxed out the summertime type gifts like BBQ sets and games like croquet and boccie ball. He REALLY likes beer so one year I got him some home-brewing books but those didn't go over so well. I am at a loss.

So help me out? He likes golf, the Yankees, WoW, cooking, Jeff Gordon, the lawn, beer, chick flicks, and stupid jokes. Yes, he is borderline hillbilly. No, we have nothing in common.

What do I get him? I need 3 gifts. One from me and 2 from the boys.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On a more positive note, I bought the first Christmas present this morning! Amazon.com had a smoking deal on Guitar Hero World Tour Kit thing for the PS3. Complete with the drums, 1 guitar, a microphone and the game. It was $100 off regular price and my amazon gift cards made the deal too good to pass up. So Monk Man is getting Guitar Hero World Tour Kit thing for the PS3. If I can keep myself from opening it up early. We bought all the games and the PS2 kit a long time ago but the drums broke, the neighbors borrowed the guitar, the microphone never did work, and all the games are scratched now so it is pretty much useless for the PS2.

I LOVE Guitar Hero and Rock Band. We have wasted many many many hours playing those silly games. I am probably more excited about it than Monk Man will be.