On a good day, parenting will test the integrity of your character. On a bad day, parenting will test your will to live. Parenting children with trauma histories will cause you to test the integrity of everything and everyone you thought you knew, for the rest of your life.
~J. Skrobisz

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Praise God, my child has been healed!

After weeks of rage, a hospitalization, a second ER trip, her second most violent rage last Saturday, our announcement that she's going back to RTC, building a safe room and another full week of rages complete with sleeping in school during the subjects she doesn't like and her gen ed teacher saying "HOW can it be psychoses, she really was sound asleep" and me replying, "exactly, that IS psychoses - falling sound asleep in 2 seconds flat as a way to deflect"...

Sissy is now being spot on perfect.

And that's supposed to make me happy? 

Instead, I must admit, it makes me more exasperated.  Clearly she has the capacity to behave accordingly.  Clearly she chooses not to.  Clearly we are all on pins and needles waiting for her to decide it's time to be a royal pain again.

So I did what any reasonable woman would do under such dire circumstances.  I watched the foundation piecing video 501 blocks[1] recommended (It's HERE in case you're interested), I bought the add a quarter ruler, I picked up some steeply discounted + end of bolt neutral fabric for the back and binding of my Thanksgiving wall hanging quilt and I laid down more lines in my companion pillow sham.

Then hubby and I winterized the back yard and I raked.  I raked and raked and raked.  Darn pine straw.  Sissy watched.  She sat on the trampoline and told no one in particular all about what she was going to do when she played.  Finally, I said, "Sissy, stop TALKING about playing and do it."

"I AM!"

"You're playing?  You're sitting on your bottom on the trampoline."

"I'm playing with WG!" 

"Does WG know you think you're playing with her?"  WG was running laps around the yard, leaping over the various piles of raked pine straw.  "Hey WG, are you playing with Sissy?"

"HUH?  I'm a rottweiler and I'm doing a dog race.  I don't know what Sissy is doing."

Sissy's turn, "WHAT?!?  WG, we're PLAYING!  Remember?"

"Well Sissy, I'm running.  You can run with me, but I'm in a race and I have 5 more laps to do so I can win."

My turn, "So, you can run laps and play with WG or you can rake pine straw and work with me. Or you can sit on the trampoline and talk about how you're going to play."

Sissy got off the trampoline and began leaping over pine straw piles.

Praise God! My child has been healed!

[1] did you know that 501quilt blocks is watching the waters mom?

3 comments:

Kelly said...

Sooooo very glad you are getting a break but I would be a nervous nelly. I would be scared to death, on egg shells wondering what is next. It's this kind of unpredictability that drives me so crazy.

Enjoy your break!!!

GB's Mom said...

Hallelujah! Rejoice :)

Happymom4 aka Hope Anne said...

WOW. I know that's inadequate, but I'm wondering . . . did the "safe room" actually make her realize you meant business? That she could be safe and yell, but it wasn't going to change anything with you guys? Dunno. Whatever the case is . . . I'm glad you are getting a break. I hope it's a permanent one. My Dd would take longer and longer "breaks" from her bad behaviors, and then they finally seem to have pretty much quit. We've had a decent 6 month PLUS stretch now. Minor things, but I can calm her with appopriate "normal Mom" stuff. She is accepting comforting quickly, and de-escalating. Our Sw says she's showing GREAT signs of attachment and being able to regulate with a little assistance from me. Anyway . . . as I said, hope this is the beginning of a longggg break, that will lead to even LONGER breaks, which will lead to permanent peace!