One of THOSE days

Typically on a Saturday morning we are at the barn, riding and hanging out with our friends.  This week I have been out there nearly every day so today is a day off.  It's unusual for us to have a quiet Saturday morning.  It is quiet and we are lollygagging.  There is always so much to do but it can wait.  There are two days left of relaxing before we begin the mad dash to the end of the year, Christmas, finishing the second quarter and swinging head long into a new year.

Thus, I had one of my I'm-overwhelmed-feeling-alone-can't-breathe-holy-cow-am-I-really-doing-all-of-this-by-myself-all-the-time?!? moments.

October 13th was the last time I felt like this.  A brisk walk with some tears followed by a quiet moment of being still, soaking up the sunlight while listening to the sounds of nature were enough to settle my nerves.  Today I'm opting for letting the chores pile up while I quilt and watch movies.  Which is a double edged sword because it is a beautiful day so part of me will be looking out the window at the leaves and pinestraw in the backyard thinking *i SHOULD be outside working in the yard*.

Some days I have to stop.  Take care of me.  And that has to be OK because who is taking care of me if I'm not?  No one.  Which is why days like this pop up.  When I contemplate all that I am responsible for by myself, every day, all day, without ceasing, it's too much.  I get lonely and scared.  It feels hopeless and helpless.  I'm wonder woman - brave, capable, strong, hard-working, loving, kind, vivacious, fun, happy, patient - I'm this all.the.time.

Some days I don't want to be.

Some days I want to be a helpless, hapless soul that is needy and clingy and desperate for attention and companionship and returned love, patience, kindness, happiness and strength.  Some days I want someone else to do the thinking, planning, parenting, cooking, cleaning, juggling and fixing.  Some days I don't want to be the only one that is available to trouble shoot the daily issues that pop up with two challenged teens and an energetic preteen and a geriatric lab and a yippy-yappy chihuahua and a 36 year old house and an 8 year old van and a yard full of loblolly pine trees.

I'll get over it.  Today is just one of THOSE days.

Split pea soup going in the crock pot, quilting happening while laundry and dishes pile up, movie watching while the last of the leaves and dead straw fall from the trees.  None of those things will kill me today.  And neither will time.

All Warmed Up

It rained for two days.  Long, hard rain that chilled me to the bone.  I hate when I catch a chill like that, it's so hard to shake it.  But I have lots to warm me up lately so it's all good.

This week I'm helping out my friends who have nine horses between them.  I'm sharing the responsibility for eight.  Watering, feeding, blanketing, etc.  Horses have been one of the saving graces in my life the last two years of recovery.  That and the horsey friends I've made in the process.  I am so blessed.  Giant four legged creatures with long manes and tails and whinny and hoof stomping when they are hungry, nose nudges and neck snuggles and warm, musky smelling coats of horsey goodness make me happy and warms me up when I'm feeling lonely or scared.  I feel full when I get to take care of them because I like hard work, being useful and accomplishing things even if it is simply to muck stalls.

Other blessings that have warmed me up:
1.  My fully mustached son
2.  Sissy home for the holidays AGAIN (second holiday season without hospitalization)
3.  WG's energy (i'd be a wealthy woman if I could bottle and sell it)
4.  My two dogs, Grace the lab and Roscoe the chihuahau
5.  My family - so grateful for open adoption and extended family and reconnecting with the kids' first mom and her family
6.  music - I'm singing again!
7.  my home - and it IS mine now.  it softly speaks "this is a woman's space"
8.  my van - still a reliable vehicle
9.  my jobs - teaching is such a joy and now I'm also certified to provide respite for adults with special needs - no end to the laughter
10. my health - no panic attacks in a very.long.time. and I'm finally losing weight.  Happiness.  It does a lot for a body!
11.  my smile.  I'm happy.  so very happy. FINALLY. happy

There is so much more.  OH SO MUCH MORE!!! but that's all I feel able to talk about today, on this Thanksgiving day that I am spending with just me and my kids. And honestly?  I like that.  A lot.

Thanksgiving

On December 3, I will mark the two year anniversary of living abuse free.  I think I might have a private little party for myself to mark the occasion.

On December 16, Sissy would have made a two year anniversary herself - discharged from long term care.  Sadly, she just finished a week-long acute care stabilization.  Regardless, that is the longest stretch between hospitalization since I began this blog in November 2009.

Being in the EBD classroom has helped her immensely.  She is now focusing more on her behaviors: cause and effect, following directives and obedience.  It goes without saying, she is a very bright young lady but her challenges will always nip any academic successes in the butt.  My new goal for her is that she spend the rest of her middle school years sorting out these behaviors with the hope that by high school she can pick up the slack on her academics.  I accept that academic pursuits will likely never be a priority for her but as mom, I have to set some goals for her.

She has a long, hard road of puberty and changes ahead of her and I know that will mean lots of stabilization time too.  I hope to finally get us out of this area and to a region of the U.S. that will have more resources and appropriate support for her.  I have many short and long term therapy and medication goals for her.  In the meantime, I have changed up my parenting strategy.  I am providing all nurturing and care giving for her as though she were a toddler.  It seems counter intuitive but I was never going to win those battles with her and actually, after so many years of her fighting me about every little thing and refusing to let me nurture her, it is a nice change of pace.  Tough?  Yes.  No one WANTS to be dressing and bathing their nearly 14 yo daughter but it's what she NEEDS right now.  So I do it.

WG is sowing her oats, back in public school this year.  She is learning that she can have a bad day too and still be loved.  She is learning how to navigate her own bad days and how to recover from her mistakes.  She is understanding more and more each day what her older siblings struggle with and how to steer clear.  Of course, that means she has also gotten good at provoking so I am putting out fires a lot.  As a whole, a typical fourth grader!  I keep reminding her that I was a handful at that age too - smart as smart could be but testing the limits all.the.time.

AB is on a new medication.  The Resperida.l was causing mild tachycardia, tardive dyskinesia and weight gain.  The Abilif.y has  given me my happy, smiley son back.  And he's creating again!  He has always been such a good artist but in the effort to suppress his other issues, the medication inadvertently suppressed his creativity too.  He smiles, hugs, laughs, talks, swings, and is actually very social comparatively.  He will be 13 in January.  I can't believe it!  And to be honest, knowing I will have TWO teenagers after this holiday season, I am tickled pink.  I really do love teenagers with all of their P.I.T.A. ishness.

For me?  Well... I'm happy.  Happier than I've ever been.  Just so happy.

Thanksgiving - so many things to be thankful for.  Heart to overflowing with joy and happiness and hope. 

32 months later...

Since I posted about being so crazy happy, I decided to go back and read about how UNhappy I'd been.  And I stumbled on this one: http://peaceinpuzzles.blogspot.com/2011/02/fix-this.html

That's a whole lot of unhappy.  And I'm nearly there - nearly to the daydream of happiness described in the post.  Of course, The Dad is no longer in the picture but I'm happy at the breakfast table by myself.  And who knows, maybe life will add someone to sit at the breakfast table and play footsies with me while he reads the paper and I flip through a quilt magazine. A girl can dream...32 months later.

Crazy Happy

Oh dear.  I'm singing! pbft

You know?  Sissy being in the EBD class finally has made an incredible difference in our home life and peace of mind.  Oh how happy we are!  Darn, that girl just screams and wails and tells me all about her woes and ... gosh, that child is never happy with anything or anyone at anytime.  Me?

I just smile and laugh and giggle and sing and say "PICKLES!" and I talk in my pseudo English accent as my alter ego, Petty Dodds.  No matter what I do, that girl is going to be mad so why should I be mad?

I'm not.

In fact, quite the opposite, I'm feeling sing-songish!

Good gravy, singing used to be the one thing that got me through a hard day.  Once upon a time I was quite the songbird.  It's hard to sing when you're unhappy, scared, in pain and burdened beyond belief.  *big cheshire cat grin*  I'm singing.

Ergo, I'm HAPPY!  Can that actually be true?  I keep shaking my head.  Happy?  Me?!  My family NOT in crisis?  Sissy finally in the correct educational environment?  What?  How did we get to this beautiful, glorious spot in our life?

I think I'm going to lose my head.  I keep trying to be sensible and serious and stern and stoic and... I CAN'T!

Maybe it's the weather.  Yeah. That's it. I love fall.  And I'll be having a birthday soon and going on my annual quilt retreat with the kids' grandma and all the fantastic other gals I love to hug and hang with (ladies, let me tell you, if you're filled with angst, spend your free time with a room of old broads.  It will fix that gloom in a skinny minute.)

I think it's because I'm listening to Adele. 

I want to go apple picking!  How fun is THAT?!  And camping.  And running through the leaves (wait, we have pine needles here - alas).  I want to watch Monty Python until i pee myself laughing.  I want other people to laugh as though I'm throwing them a cup full of my happiness and it's splashing all over them, soaking them with suds of love and joy.

Joy.  What a great word.  I always hoped to have five children and I had long ago decided that I wanted a daughter named Joy.  Who can be unhappy when they're saying "JOY!" all the time?  *snickers*

I keep trying to figure it out - what cause do I have to be so gosh darned happy and carefree and there's no figuring it.  I'm just happy.  Happy because it was so damn hard and hellatious and OMG-wouldn't-wish-this-on-my-enemy and I survived.  We survived.  And we're better for it.

Relief.  Sweet, precious, amazing relief.  I'm alive.  And my life is MINE.

So in this moment, I have a head clouded with glee and bliss and relief and hope and yes, songs and even a few dreams.  I still wake up from nightmares about the roads I've passed through.  I still have to put on the burden of being single-mom to three kids, two with disabilities.  I still listen to Sissy scream and tantrum and disobey and disrespect.  I just do it all with a smile.  I'm crazy happy.

Die Frau

This past weekend I bumped into a former student.  I taught her and her two younger siblings.  She has a PhD in Biology and her siblings each have Master's degrees in their various fields.  She inquired about me and I just shrugged and chuckled.  "Eh. You know. Still teaching.  It's what I do."  I walked away feeling proud of my students for achieving so much and to have been one small stepping stone on their journey to success. But I also felt sullen that I haven't accomplished more in my lifetime.

39 is a month away which means I'm 13 months from 40.  I understand that midlife crises can be tough and I don't think I'm dodging that bullet but great scott, I really thought I'd be on a different life path at this stage in my life.  All of those "What do you want to be when you grow up" essays in grade school and beyond have been nothing more than fairy tales.

I am certain that most adults get to this point in life and feel roughly the same as I do now.  Things happen. Kids arrive, economies falter, countries go to war, disease filters in, loved ones die, relationships end, jobs are lost, new jobs are found, investments fail, houses burn, lakes flood, cars crash.  I listen to the clock and it just keeps ticking.  I look in the mirror and my wrinkles get deeper.  I have pictures on the walls of tiny babies but the bedrooms are filled with adolescents.  I keep teaching science to high school students in the same grades but somehow the children behind the desks get younger every year.

Some days, I feel so old.  Other days I feel so young.  What a weird place to be in life.

Duol!ngo is an app that will teach you many languages.  I've decided I want to learn German.  Actually, learning my father's native tongue - a Ukranian dialect - was on my bucket list but since he was born in Germany when Poland was occupied, I have dual citizenship there.   So I downloaded that app and I'm slowly working my way through the German lessons.  Today, during some downtime in the lesson plan, one of my students was on his device...practicing his German with the same app, just one lesson behind me.  I felt excited to have someone to share my journey with.

My bucket list also includes:
Learn Polish German
Get a PhD in education
Buy a truck, a horse trailer, a farm and my own horses
Run an organic food co-op that is employed by special needs adults
Write a book that is published
Take a cross country tour
Own a boat and an RV
Take a cruise
Visit all the continents
Get a hunting license and kill my own meat
Leave an indelible mark on humanity
Be scrapped for spare parts, the remains burned and tossed to the wind

Maybe I'll find love along the way.  Maybe not.  I don't particularly like being alone but being single sure beats being in an abusive marriage.  One way or another, I'm certain to make great friends along the way that have one or two of the same items on their bucket list.  I can revel in the fact that I have assisted some students toward achieving their goals and I know that in everything I set my mind to, I'll be teaching others along the way.  It's what I do, It's who I am.

Die Frau hat eine Pferd.

One week Later

At the meeting, I was told that my daughter's referral for the EBD program was unusual and atypical because she didn't have all of the necessary elements.

What elements? I asked.

Well, she didn't have a behavior plan or a functional assessment.

OKAYYYYYYY

Is it MY fault the school never did a behavior plan? And hello?!  How many functional assessments does she need?  I could have provided about five from private sources. It was right there in her IEP - she thinks like a five year old.  *rolls eyes*

Then they told me how she would have to enter at the highest level of restriction and the class only had boys and the teacher is male and she would only be there to stabilize with the goal to reintegrate her to the general education setting again and all of her behaviors are RAD (uh... duh) and and and

When they mentioned that they wanted her to work towards transitioning back to the general classroom the assistant principal interjected with "That better be a SLOW process"  *enter my cheeky grin here*

Here's how this monkey game works:
The school knew my daughter needed to be moved out
The bus driver knew it (the asst. principal was late for the meeting because bus driver was writing a D.R. on Sissy)
The resource team knew it.
The EBD teacher that had Sissy in grade school knew it.
The EBD teacher that evaluated her for the middle school program knew it.
The EBD referral specialist knew it.
The catch?  No one could out and out say, "uh. yeah.  This kid is a mess.  A liability.  We can't handle this.  But we have to cover our butts and not actually say that because then mom could sue us."

So they paint the picture as though MOM is the bad guy, demanding a referral and placement into a program that on paper, my daughter isn't qualified for.  And then they ask, "So is this what you want for your child?"

YES

Are you prepared to sign and accept the restrictions this entails?

YES

Is your daughter aware of this change?

YES

Then they called Sissy into the meeting.  (She had been outside the school office door at 7 am pacing and demanding to be allowed to attend).  And my daughter sat next to me and began to talk.  In five minutes every adult was hiding their giggles and biting their lips so Sissy wouldn't think she was being picked on.  At one point Sissy got angry and started shouting that we needed to stop laughing at her and several adults chimed in and said it was how she said it that was funny, not what she was saying and in all of those giggles, papers were passed around and signed without further ado and badda boom badda bing, she was enrolled as an EBD student.

She started the new class last Monday.  She was stealing and pushing limits with the EBD teacher by Wednesday.

When I spoke with the bus driver about her DR later, I told him that she could be back later this year because the school said it was a stabilization placement with the plan to reintegrate her.  Bus driver laughed.  "She won't be back!"

OK.  So if the BUS DRIVER knows my daughter can't handle general education, what's the big to do all about then?

It's a liability thing.  Bottom line.  School doesn't want to get sued.  Because I COULD be the mom that says that her poor little child darling needs the same privileges as every other student and that she shouldn't be discriminated against because of her disability.  Because I COULD be a chameleon that says one thing and then turns around and slaps them with a lawsuit that would render the county penniless.

I'm not that kind of mom.
I know what my daughter needs.
My daughter knows what she needs.

Her home behaviors were still rough this past week, due in large part to transition issues but right now she's happy as a lark, being compliant and sweet and tomorrow is another school week.  Hang in there mommas.  Don't let the system win.  Don't let them make you back down.