Sweet Shayna

I got home from the grocery store to find Shayna sitting on her bed with tears in her eyes. My first reaction was to ask Kelsie what happened. (Which now I feel really bad thinking she had anything to do with her sister crying, but she's usually involved one way or another.) When no one knew what happened I turned back to Shay to find out what was going on. I know, I should have comforted her first, but looking at her record I figured she would try her best to get the offender in as much trouble as she thought they deserved. (And again I feel really bad for jumping to conclusions.) So finally she was ready to open up and explain her predicament.

(this as close to quoting her as I can get):
"I want to go to Mathew's house and Karlee's house and Nana Papa's house and Oma Opa's house and Dad wants to go to Crazy Sean's house. But I also want to go to school. So we need to have everyone come here so I can play with them. But then we need a bigger house so they all have beds (side note: beds are very important to Shay). And I don't have money to get a bigger house."

Oh man, I can't tell you how sad I felt for this poor little girl. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and just couldn't figure out how to make it work. :( She has always been my planner and organizer. She is always prepared when we go out..she put clothes, underware, bandaids, juice and a can of oranges in her backpack when we went to the park once, just in case :) After calming her down I tried to explain that she didn't have to worry about anything, Dad and I would find a way to visit everyone. She wasn't satisfied. So together we talked about having a reunion with all the family. My fam has already started talking about going camping so she had a sliver of hope this would work. At this very moment, she is "writing" invitations to Marks fam to come to our unplanned reunion. So Cheney gang...lets start thinking about a huge reunion maybe next summer!?!? ;) Shay has already decided what food we can bring and the games/crafts we will do. :) One thing (of the many I probably should have learned) this conversation has taught me is that Shay really needs to be incharge of something. I know she will be much happier if she has a job and purpose in the everyday activities. Hopefully I can find the right job that she can do without feeling overwhelmed with life.