Let The Good Times Roll

  There has been much drama in my life lately and it's been stealing my sunshine.
  I decided to drag the family on a vacation (not really, we were all actually excited to go!) so I could re-center myself.  My focus needs to be My immediate family: The Hubby, A, and Bug...and me, of course.
  It's been hard to keep that perspective with so many other things trying to demand chunks of my time.
  Vacation was just what we needed.  Even though we were tired when we got home, we had a wonderful week together.  No other worries, just spending time with each other!
  Things have been falling into place for me since our return home.
  I was really struggling with A and found myself doing more research, reading, digging, discussing, etc, to try to find a solution.
  She grew 1.5 inches in about 5 months, and as a result, her psychiatrist increased her anxiety medicine about 3 months ago in order to catch up with her growth spurt.
  I saw some difference at first, then we stalled out, but the last 4 days have been amazing!
  A has been happy.  Genuinely happy for more than 30 percent of the day!  She's giggling, making up her own jokes, and acting goofy.  Quite honestly, the first day she was like that, I was convinced I was living in the Twilight Zone.  It really threw me off not having to tiptoe around her.
  She has been taking initiative.  This kid who had to be regularly coerced into doing even the piddliest of chores is now racing me to the kitchen so she can set the table without being asked.  She's putting away laundry without being asked.  She's cleaning up without being asked.  Notice a trend?  Initiative.
  A has been helpful.  She has done what I ask when I ask without whining and carrying on like I'm killing her.
  She has been affectionate.  Running up to me, The Hubby, and Bug at random times and giving us hugs, kisses, or words of encouragement--"You're the best little brother, ever!"
  Honestly, even her hugs and kisses were awkward for me because it was so foreign.  She's never enjoyed giving or receiving kisses--I always assumed it was an SPD thing.  Perhaps it still is, but it's obviously not as big a deal anymore.
  It's times like this when I remind myself *this* is why I never stopped asking questions, digging, searching, and getting evaluations when I wasn't happy with the answers I was getting.
  *This* is why I sort through my own traumas and work hard in my counseling sessions: so I can be there for A and support her like I need to.
  *This* is why I'm ok with my 7.5 year old seeing a therapist regularly, being on anxiety medication, and seeing a psychiatrist.
  *This* is the A who has been buried under SPD, anxiety, timidity, etc.
  I live for moments when I get to see that precious, kind-hearted baby girl.
  The last 4 days have been well worth all the struggles we have endured together over the years.
  I love my little girl!

Logic In My House 101

  I found this gem in a journal entry of mine from about 5 months ago.
  Since the last post was a bit heavy, I thought I'd follow it up with a funny story.
  A little history before you read: A had been struggling with her SPD, which led to this (something I can laugh at now...)

"This morning we were getting ready for Church and A wore a new dress.  She tried it on without an undershirt first.  Then she put a t-shirt under it.  That worked, but it was a VERY delicate situation.  
Apparently I messed that up when I touched the tag. It took her 10 minutes to settle down after completely melting down.  When I fixed her hair, she *gently* reminded me to be careful of the tag.

So I was very careful.  And when we were done (we made it without a complete meltdown) I said “look, I didn’t even touch the tag.”

Ya know what she said?????

“What tag?”

What the….?

What just happened there?????  

I know, “WHAT TAG?!”  The blasted thing wasn’t touching her because she had an undershirt on to serve as a buffer.

Oh for crying out loud."

  And that's how logic works in my household...

Tough Love

  My family seems to be getting a head start on the whole "winter is the season to be sick" mentality and so we've started in late August/early September.
  Over the last six weeks, I have noticed that while the maternal instinct in me wants to cuddle A and pull her onto my lap when she says "I don't feel good," I can't do that.  Not with A.  We, as mothers, can easily fall into the trap of thinking that we are a bad mother if we don't pay attention to our child's every ache and pain.
  For a lot of parents, that's an ok approach.  Unfortunately when it comes to me and A, I can't afford a reaction like that.
  Let me explain:  A comes to me multiple times a day with various complaints from tummy aches (could be anxiety, could be gas, could be a stomach bug), to her eyes not working right (she saw an eye doctor last year--her vision is perfect), to bumping her toe on something and now not being able to walk right, to miscellaneous scrapes/bumps/bruises.
  Don't get me wrong. I don't brush her off.  I know that won't send the right message.  I do, however, have to make sure that my reaction is a good balance of loving concern and confidence in knowing she'll be ok.  I acknowledge her discomfort and offer an appropriate low-intervention (read: not medication) solution (usually ice or rest), and go on.

  Not only have I had practice in tough love w/ A lately, but with my mom, too.  Life hasn't been easy for the past month, and one of the issues has involved Mom's health.
  I have come to the hard realization that I don't actually know how to love my own mother (another post for another time).  As a child I was shown conditional love.
  Over the past month people who know my history have been saying "hey, you've gone above and beyond the past few weeks for your mom,"  while the child in me says, "she's your mom" and encourages me to say yes to things I shouldn't agree to.

  I've had to set some hard boundaries that seem cold to others.  I've had to stop being concerned with what other people might think of my choices, and draw the line.  I've come to realize that this is in the best interest of everyone involved (me, A, Bug, The Hubby, and Mom).
   The best way I can show my mother deep, unconditional love is to set boundaries and let her figure some things out on her own.  Enabling her to be dependent on others isn't helping anyone.
  Whew.

  Positive take away:  I'm doing what's best for everyone involved...even if it is hard.

A Bit of Creativity

  I am naturally a creative person.  In the past I've been so bogged down by emotional junk, that I haven't been able to accomplish much...or I would go through spurts where I was productive, shortly followed by being intimidated by projects.
  I finished a project a few weeks ago, and true to my nature, I put off the finishing touches for a while (not avoiding it this time, just busy).  I'm finally Almost finished (just waiting on The Hubby to hang it).  So in honor of this momentous occasion (I may be exaggerating slightly ;) I thought I'd post pics.
  One reason I'm so pleased with it is because I only had a picture I found on line (I'll post that, too) to go off of.  No how-to instructions.  No tutorial.  Just a photo.  And I'm happy with the outcome.
  IF any of you beautiful readers would like a written tutorial for this (or any other project I post...because I plan to post loads now that I'm so productive!), let me know and I'll do my best to put one together.
  I have another project to work on, and will be excited to share it with you when it's done.  But it may be a bit time consuming....

  This one is the image I found on line.

 

                          This is my version (PS--It's a peacock, in case you had a hard time seeing it... AND it's made out of toilet paper rolls!)

Never a Dull Moment

  So in light of me feeling better, I thought I'd write about something funny instead of the usual "heavy" stuff.
  So today I had 5 kiddos which makes my van Full (all are boys, except A).  But we like to get out and go whenever we can.  There was a park play date I was planning to go to...
  Things didn't quite go according to plan so we ended up arriving at the park 15 minutes before it was "over."  I figured it was a laid-back kind of thing, lots of families were supposed to be there, so my crew would just enjoy the park even after the others left.  We had a picnic lunch and were set to go.
  When we got there, I discovered there was only one other mom who came.  Oops.  They sat with us and chatted, and then had to get on with their day.
  My kids finished their lunches and then begged me to take them on some walking trails.  I had never been to this park before, but some friends were leaving the trails earlier and assured us that their 2 yo made it just fine.  We should just stay to the left and it would just make a nice loop back around.
  I figured, we're in the middle of the city, a 2 yo can make it, what can go wrong?  So we headed out.
  Well the first 20 minutes were enjoyable.  It was shady, there were bridges over a creek.  The kids dipped their hands in the water.  We even saw an owl in a tree.
  The unfortunate thing was that about 3 feet into the hike there were 4 forks.  We went left (the lower left, I think).  We stayed left-ish.  But there were Tons of intersections and such that had at least 3 options.  No maps.  No "easy trail, this way" arrows.  No "snail trail .10 of a mile that away" signs.
  Finally I decided we should turn around.  We took a break.  I encouraged the children to sit, drink their water, and chill.  What did they do?  Played tag.  Then we started walking...and walking...and walking.  The kids were sweaty, tired, and whiny.  We found the only other trail head and a map!  It was THE WORST map EVER.
    I took a picture of it with my phone in case I needed to refer back to it.  According to that, we stay right... So we did.  I even stayed so far right that I led us all up a steep embankment (I promise you, it looked just as worn as the paths we'd been following), only to find it was a dead end.
  So the kids trekked back down.  One was in flip-flops, one was in rain boots, one was in tennis shoes, one was in crocs, and one was in well-worn play shoes.
  We wandered and wandered and wandered.  And wandered.  The kids were whiny.  Their legs were tired.  We were dripping with sweat.
  There had been absolutely no other people on the trail, but I found myself thinking "if only we could find someone to point us in the right direction."  And around the next bend (to the right.  We were staying right!) there were 3 teen-age kids putting hammocks up.  YAY!!!
  I totally interrupted them and admitted my stupidity and begged for directions.
  Turns out we were a stone's throw from our trail head. One of the kids started to give me directions, and then just said "here, I'll just show ya.  I'm headed back that way."
  And naturally the minute we arrived back at the park the kids had tons of energy and ran around like little lunatics (cute little lunatics) asking if we could stay around for a while to play.
  After 40-ish minutes of wandering around in the woods, Miss Alexis went with "no."
 

Still Alive...

  So some of you might be wondering where I've been.  To be honest, I've been avoiding my blog.  I was intimidated.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I really liked the 30 day photo project I did.  There were several reasons, but we'll just leave it at that:  I really liked the project.  Just the thought of trying to come up with something to follow that was intimidating.  So I did what I do best:  I avoided it.
  Thankfully, even though I've been quiet on the blog, I've done a Lot of self examination.
  I've had a couple of great counseling sessions, and I've made a lot of changes in my perspective.  Somewhere in the last 3 months I hit a major turning point, and it's been nice!
  I realized that these past few years I've still been depressed, just not nearly as badly as I was initially.  Now I'm even coming out of that and it's nice.  It feels good to be happy.  It's nice to have a clean house.  It's nice to have happy-ish kids and a happy dog (yes, on bad days I even felt guilted by the dog).
  I am blessed to have a husband who has loved me when I didn't even love myself.  I've always thought he was amazing, but to realize that he saw something in me that I didn't even discover in myself until 10 years after we got married....that's almost unfathomable.
  I feel like I'm finally coming into my own.  I'm becoming happy with the person I am.  I'm a little socially awkward, and that's ok.  I have quirks, but that's what makes me fun!
  In some ways I feel like I have been mature beyond my years, but in other ways (like being comfortable with who I am), I feel like I was Very immature.  I've finally started to grow out of that phase in my life, and I like it.
   

Hello Monday!!

  Ok, so technically today is Tuesday.  I must admit, I forgot about posting yesterday.  Oops!
  But I'm only one day off, so I thought I'd go ahead and post for the weekly segment =)

  This week I am saying Hello!! to:

• Getting the ball rolling on taking care of A's cross bite, even though it's not going to be an easy process for her (or us...).
• Making some potentially hard personal discoveries that will help take care of these anxiety-induced chest pains.
• My birthday.
• Doing some more spring cleaning and organizing.
• Crocheting.  I have a fun project I've been working on for the kiddos in my life and am looking forward to Finishing it!

  What are You saying Hello!! to this week?

  ~Alexis