In real life I’m sometimes hard to take, super intense and usually in motion, I’m finding it difficult here to keep under the word limit, dividing it into parts would strain my own hyperactive mind, so I’m attempting a more concise approach, but with 39 kids and their issues and eventual progress, I seem to overflow with words and thoughts.

In everything I say and do, my kids, and their needs, are foremost in my mind. People ask me often, “Do you ever get away from all that?”

And the answer is no, if I had the need to get away, I’d have to say I’d would have chosen to stop adopting years ago.

My only away time is outside working in my gardens, but even then I’m producing food for the table, flowers for their rooms, and thinking about what all they’ve asked me to grow which is usually the fruits such as strawberries, figs, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and pears; but they even tolerate the vegetables as they’re so much better when homegrown, and we make and bottle salsas and pepper sauces that are out of this world.

The drudgery of the gardens bores them, but I love the mindless hard work, as it clears my mind and allows me to process the events in our home and family, of which there are many.

The gardens also allow my kids to wander out there and talk to me privately, sometimes they’ll “help” for awhile, and season by season, the predictability of the gardens also helps my children in their own issues of stability and security.

I’m looking at a discontinued, rock-bottom price , sat-there-too long-hothouse, been looking for 34 years overall, wanting a greenhouse with all my heart, but the one I’ve found will do for now.

An older child, now a married mother expecting her second baby immediately remarked, “Well we will always know where to look for you, we’ll just aim for the hothouse.”

Like I’m not always home? She’s 26 years old with a Master’s Degree in Social Work, yet she too will be the first to say, she still has abandonment issues; and her husband, a very understanding man would agree.

I’ve written some fairly scary posts lately about severely troubled children of mine and I’d like to filter all that with the good news about the majority of my children. They’ve been blessings to me, rewarding, loving, doting even on their mama, giving me tremendously positive feedback that I need as well, on a regular basis.

And now, even more so, with my dozen grandchildren, unscathed by what their parents went through, protected by their parents from the hurts sustained in childhood, these grandbabies are maybe even over compensated for, over-protected, and given excess love and attention. But what is excess? Who can have too much love?

Someday the parents can, or might chose to share their stories, someone’s going to have to explain why Abuelita, as they call me, has 39 kids. But for now, I live in the fun house, where they’re allowed to ride scooters and trikes down the hall, where there’s a ton of kids only slightly older to play with, and a still halfway young, definitely energetic grandma proudly doting on them as well.