That is what I was thinking in the middle of the night last night, about raising kids with issues. You are in all this pain and anguish, just wanting to get through it, and then the terribly hard stuff is over and you forget about the pain and stress. Here you are with a baby you love and you just want to be the best Mama you can be. When you are raising high maintanence kids you go through these times of exhausting work and pain and stress and you just want to get through it and move on. And then you realize you have had several days relatively stress free, and you all of a sudden have energy again and are anxious to do those things that will bless your kids and make your home and your family a great thing.
I am thankful to say that I am in the "Gosh maybe it wasn't that bad" end of things right now.
Praise and thanks to God, Jaime has not had one severe or violent incident for the last FOUR DAYS! That is HUGE for her. Suddenly I have energy for other things... regular things.
I fixed the top of my chick pen yesterday so the pheasants can't fly out now and the cats can't get in. I grazed a horse for well over an hour on a picket line (I was the picket, and man is that relaxing to sit in a beach chair, hold a lead rope and listen to a horse munch grass with the sun shining on your face... yes there was sun for a bit yesterday... what??!) I was the one who made lunch yesterday (yes... I have foisted that off onto others every chance I have gotten). I watered and grained horses, watered and fed chicks, chickens, dogs and cats, picked ticks off dogs, worked on a VBS sign for church and took 8 high maintanence kids (and Pete!) to church and was only about 1 minute late :)
We are having some big obedience issues with a few of the high needs kiddos at home AND at school, but with Jaime's behaviors under control for the moment, I am actually coming up with ideas and plans to implement over the summer to get some better habits formed in that area. As is usually the case, I need to start with myself. I find that I have been saying WAY TOO MANY TIMES whatever it is I want done. I am saying, "Please pick that up" until I am crabby and then I am yelling: "I KNOW YOU HEARD ME!" So the first thing to change is this: "I will say it once, if you do not act at that time I will not say it again, you will get another job." And yes, lots is getting done over this Memorial Day weekend as I try hard to break my bad habit of giving kids too much opportunity NOT to comply ;)
Five of the big help kiddos are gone this weekend, at a graduation open house for a dear friend who lives a state away. That leaves John and Pete and me (the adults here) and the 8 kids I took to church yesterday (the ones with the behavior challenges). Still it was a very good worship and aside from the fact that the Old Pastor made me cry with his Memorial Day observance video, church was relaxing and behavior event free :D as was most of Sunday.
Ahhhhh... thank you Lord for a break in the action. Help me accomplish something worthwhile during this down time!
5 comments:
for the record I cried every time I saw it. That is why I knew they both were good.
The Old Guy
Breaks are nice. Glad you got some things accomplished. :)
Do you find it easier dealing with the new high-needs after having experienced the first high-needs, or is it just as hard?
Yes, Definitely much easier... Likely because we had a better idea of what to expect and we had definitely ditched the rose colored glasses :)
Also the newbies do not have Fetal Alcohol issues, and that makes a big difference too.
Well, I'm glad to hear that. I've read so many blogs of women who adopt as many high-needs kids as they can find and then go "why are my kids so much trouble?" I knew you were wiser than that when you passed up a group of... eight? that one time. You're awesome. :)
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