Sleeping beauty

I think that Brad is starting to relax a little bit.  When I got up this morning, he was sawing logs like nobody's business!  He did opt to sleep out on the couch the last two nights instead of in the bedroom.  That's interesting, but not worrisome.  Bill said something to him last night about what time he wanted to go home today and I think that he was hoping that he could go ahead and stay with us until school started.  There's a part of me that doesn't think that's such a bad idea.  But, the part that thinks that lessons are learned the hard way thinks that if he continues to have to deal with the situation at home - it will make more of an impression on him that decisions and actions have consequences and that not all of them are pleasant.  I don't know.  It's hard to fight that inner war between wanting to protect the kid from himself and allowing him the room to learn from the school of hard knocks.  I guess that's hard for all mom's, but it sure does seem that I'm quick to fly in and try to fix everything.  Maybe if I/we hadn't done that with Billy, he wouldn't be facing all of the court issues that he is today.  I can't help but wonder...