where do i begin!?

where do i begin!? today has been such a roller coaster of events... i still feel a bit numb. the day started out with my being awoken to sounds of my daugher crying, you see, we had my niece overnight and she had grabbed the prized possesion of my daughter, that she had just purchased on friday with her own savings, a videonow, which is basically a cheap version of a portable dvd player, only you have to buy their dvd's to play on it, back to the story, my niece snatched it up and flung it in the toilet. my daughter was devastated. i stumbled out of bed, and tried to reprimand my niece, comfort my daughter and clean up the mess, it was a disaster. i told my daughter i would replace it after we took the baby home, so we loaded up the car, took the baby to her house and waited, noone was home, finally my mother-in-law shows up and asks where the baby's mother is, i say i don't know she was supposed to meet me there, i stay for a little while, my father-in-law and his brother return from their bike ride and i say my good-byes and start to leave, as i am backing up i noticed the three adults waving their arms and screaming at me, at this point i look in the rearview mirror and realize i was literally inches from totaling my uncle-in-laws brand new corvette! i felt so stupid for doing that, but i was tired. no excuse though. my daughter and i have a great time shopping and eating lunch, although we went to the cheesecake factory, which had only passion fruit iced tea, strike one, no childrens menu, strike two and the fries don't come with most meals, strike three. we are driving to our last stop of the day when the cell phone rings and my mother-in-law tells me that they have just kicked out the baby's mom, but that they were keeping the baby. turns out after i left and she got home they were reprimanding her for not being there when i got there with kennedy, when there was a knock on the door and six cops were at the front and back doors and came into the house, searching it from top to bottom, they woke kennedy up from her nap and it was then that they discovered that her mother had been seen with a wanted man hours earlier, and then she admitted to going back to the meth, furious they threw her out of the house and made her sign the pinkslip over to her car. i knew that something like this might occur so it wasn't a huge surprise, however, a few hours later i get another call, this time my mother-in-law is hysterical and tells me that kari is taking kennedy and moving to sacramento tomorrow. now you have to understand, we have had that baby in our lives since the beginning, most weekends, and the kids are so attached to her it isn't funny. i tell dave and we decide to tell the kids. we call them in and as soon as i say the words, tynin collapses to the floor and they are all crying, sobbing, writhing around like they are in pain, it was the most painful thing that i as a mother have witnessed in my children. i started to bawl, i as a mother could not take away this pain or make it better, all the stuff moms are supposed to be able to do. it is decided that the in-laws will bring the baby by to say good-bye, the kids start finding stuff to give her so that she will remember them, it is so awful, i can hardly breathe. they get here and everyone is crying, except the baby, who has no idea and keeps asking why we are sad. it is heartwrenching as the kids keep running in the other room to bawl. after about an half and hour the phone rings and kari wants to come over. she gets here, sees her daughter playing with the kids and all of us crying, and runs outside, i follow her and we talk, long story short, she agrees to give me the baby while she gets her life together and finishes school if i can get the in-laws to give her car back. she also wants to be there when i tell the kids that kennedy is moving in with us. it was the lowest of the lows followed by the highest of the highs. they were thrilled! i am a little nervous, we have three kids already and not much room, the finances are tight, we were used to having the freedom of older kids and now we are going to be raising a toddler, and we need to be supportive of kari and help her get clean again. it is going to be interesting the next few months! after they left and we got the kids to sleep, my father-in-law called and started crying, he is very unemotional and we are not very close, but he tells me that he is forever indebted to me and that he thinks that i am amazing at what i did and how i handled everything and that they will help us financially with the baby. it is also at this point that i am informed that the baby's dad had sent the cops out a second time to get kennedy because he didn't want his mom to have her. bad story there. but he had signed off on the custody so he had no rights, they told me that tomorrow they will get me a copy of the custody papers in case he tries to have the cops come get kennedy from me. he is a major druggie and i am hoping and praying that he won't cause problems. so this is my day. i am exhausted and tomorrow begins a few months of our new family. please pray, i need energy, strength, compassion and patience, god came through tonight, we had told the kids that it wasn't what we wanted but god's will that we needed to ask for, when they were hysterical, they were so happy that god's will included them! and the best thing, at bedtime they said "mom, you did make it better, you said you couldn't make this better and you did, thank you!" tonight i became a hero in my kids eyes, just for doing the right thing. it felt great!