Busted Bear?

You know it couldn't end there!

Remember the note that the neighbor girl wrote? The one about the condoms? Well Bear broke up with the girl she was referring to and knowing him it probably wasn't a smooth break. So the neighbor girl and her best friend now hate him. They've joined up with another of Bear's recent ex-girlfriends and now they're all apparently getting in his face and calling him names. This has been going on for several days now. The school is proud of how well he's been handling it. (Since this is nowhere near the first time he's had to deal with emotionally disturbed angry ex-girlfriends calling him names, I'm less impressed).

Today the girls apparently stepped it up a notch and told a few of their guy friends. The first one walked up to Bear and called him a name. Bear, not in a good mood already, grabbed him by the backpack and pulled him to the ground, but left it at that. The girls immediately ratted him out to the on campus behavior program staff. The staff investigated, found neither boy hurt, made the other boy apologize to Bear for the name, and dropped it.

Then the second boy got involved. This one is bigger than Bear. He told Bear he was going to fight him at lunch. Bear apparently went for help (good for him!). The staff stopped the lunch fight, but this boy rides Bear's bus home so they had him call me to tell me he would be on the late bus. I didn't know any of this, so I figured it was Bear's way of manipulating the system (he's done it before!). I told him no. He grudgingly told me about the boy wanting to "kill" him. I told him Grandma would come get him and to tell me where he would be exactly and she would come get him.

He insisted that the boy had lots of friends so he couldn't wait outside. No problem. I told him to wait in the main office. He said just forget it he'd ride the regular bus. We argued back and forth and I finally told him it was my way or else. Then I called the school to tell them why he'd be in the front office, and get the real scoop on what was going on.

I got hold of one of the behavior program staff. The one who'd "searched" Bear for cigarettes (he just asked Bear if he had anything on him and visually looked for cigarette packs). Bear confessed to having been smoking, but claimed he had nothing on him. At first he pretended he'd "found" the cigarette, but then he said he had a stash hidden in our garage (he knows I search his room).

The guy believed him. *sigh* We talked about the probability that Bear is smoking marijuana (he's noticed the personality change too).

So I had Ponito look outside, since Bear was "hanging out" outside this morning and I didn't think he'd gone in the garage. Ponito found more butts and a piece of a pack outside, but no stash.

(this is not our garage. Ours is much messier. These guys can actually fit a car in their garage!)

I started searching the garage and cleaning as I went. *eek!* It started as looking for the cigarettes, but I knew our three car garage was so messy that he could hide thousands of cigarettes (and other contraband), and I'd never find them. I spent a couple of hours in the hot garage. I took out 6 boxes of trash and 10 garbage bags of leftover garage sale junk (you know, the bottom of the toybox toys that were all the kids were willing to give up , the stuff that didn't sell in the last garage sale but was "too good" to get rid of, all of the stuff that the kids have outgrown - toys, clothes, and the things that were too big to trash. A dresser we kept thinking we could fix, but never did. The refrigerator we were going to use in the office at work, but the new kitchen is upstairs and no one wants to take it up the stairs. Wood, the lawnmower, thousands of tools... what was I talking about?! Oh yea.

So I'd barely made a dent in the garage before Grandma got back with Bear. I asked him where the stash was. Sometimes it helps to act as though you know everything and expect him to tell you... but not today. He told me that he was keeping his stash, over there (waved his hand toward an area I hadn't even touched), but that today's cigarette was his last one.

****BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP!*****

That is my B.S. meter going off!

So here's the fun part. We can't discuss what happened this morning because Bear is having the "worst day of his life!" *boys can be drama queens too!* He tried to disappear into his room, but I made him run errands with us.

Hubby was home when we got back. Bear went to the bathroom for his usual 1/2 hour and Hubby told him to get out. Bear started yelling at him for jumping on him after the day he's had. They ended up talking for hours. So at least they had some male bonding. I'm glad he talked it out with Hubby, because frankly I get irritated just looking at him.

So now I have to finish cleaning the garage before I let him out of my sight.

But don't worry, all the trees Bear has thrown up will not make me forget that he needs consequences for his actions.