A Series of Unfortunate Events...

I am so glad to see the end of this week!!! As many of you are aware, we had one of our sons run away. Gideon took off after Seminary on Tuesday morning, after being confronted by us the night before about some pretty serious issues. I think we (I ) went through every negative emotion imaginable in the space of four days: fear, anger, anxiety, rage, depression, insomnia (yes, I think that is an emotion!), grief, more fear and anxiety, etc. We met with a counselor (well, mostly me, but also Ammon, Ben and Vince) for three hours on Wednesday. Talk about exhausting. Gideon called us every night, but refused to tell us where he was or who he was with. We filed a report with the State Troopers. Once he found out about that, Gideon was on the run. Or so he thought. We mostly knew pretty much where he was and with whom. My sister Nadia has been here from Phoenix for two weeks. She called almost all of the kids in his cell phone and told them he had run away and to please let us know if they saw him or knew where he was. Amazingly, we got several return calls! Vince and I had lenghthy talks, read books, talked to people who had experiences like this. It was insane. Gideon had turned 16 on Sunday, and Ammon turned 16 on Thursday. Bless his heart, Ammon assumed we would cancel the huge birthday party that we had planned for Friday night. After telling him "No way, it's on!", I threw myself into preparations. We had a great time!!! Gideon, who had been telling us for hours that he was on his way home, showed up about half an hour after the party started. Coward. Oh, did I mention that one of my emotions was just plain pissed off??? Anyway, it was the party of the year!!! We had a Rock Band theme, as that's what they got for their birthdays. There were about thirty teenagers in our home. We had loads of nasty, greasy, indigestable junk food. And Jones sodas. It was so much fun! Ammon just grinned and blushed (he got a few "Sweet 16" kisses) the whole time. We had really cool fake tattoos, hair stuff and makeup, and Auntie Nadia did a great job turning relatively sweet looking kids into hard-core rockers. We all hung out with them the whole time. We had a rule that if anyone left the house or deck, they would have to go home. They were all great. Ammon said that it was the most fun he had ever had! Gideon said it was "all right...". Figures. Anyway, Ammon made it all worthwhile. So, what now? I guess Ammon is old enough to date! Gideon will be having several dates with a therapist. :) AIN'T PARENTING GRAND???