Winter Wonderland

Chloe’s Christmas program was darling.  She did such a good job!!  She had a chair to sit in right beside the risers.  She participated and did the motions to all the songs.  Yea, Chloe!  Too cute!

Notice when the children get messed up on “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” — the kids get ahead of the music.  Chloe knows they are messing up, and she freaks out a bit, putting her hands up over her head and arching her back.  The boy directly behind Chloe thinks she is doing some song motions so he throws his hand over his head for a minute!!  Funny!!  Didn’t know Chloe was such a leader, did you??

Preparations

Today:  Grocery shopping and baking, baking, baking!

I made the gingerbread men for Zippy.  He begs for them year-round.  I have some icing and sprinkles to decorate them with.  But when he saw them he was less than thrilled.  I wanted to tackle him or punch him in the gut!  (NOT REALLY!!  But how dare he not go nuts for the little guys!  I would’ve preferred a different kind. . .  .

Another Christmas Past

This is the same year as the one of Chloe from yesterday.  Precious boys!  Now THAT’S a handsome Santa!  I’d have to tug on that mustache to prove that it’s not real!!

A Christmas Past

Ooooo.  I found a precious photo to show you from a few years ago.  Believe it or not, Chloe was only a few weeks shy of being 2 years old!  She looks like such an infant.  Precious girl, totally taken by handsome Santa!

A Nugget

Give yourself permission to say NO to some things

so that you save your time, energy, and emotion

to do the things that only you can do!

Nope, not a chicken nugget.  A nugget of wisdom.  A nugget of wisdom whose truth screams to me sometimes but seems really difficult to follow most of the time.

I attended a seminar for parents of children with special needs a year or so ago.  I left the seminar with this nugget that I think about all the time.  Eventually perhaps I will weigh every decision and every commitment with the criteria from this nugget.  But for now, I oftentimes say, “Yes!” or make a commitment without considering the wisdom found in the nugget.

When I make commitments without weighing them completely or when a situation changes at home but the commitment remains, I go through seasons of being overwhelmed with life.  That’s where I am right now.  A bit overwhelmed.  It’s not huge or terrible.  I go through it now and then — being overwhelmed for a week or two.  But then my emotions and nerves calm, and I return to my usual happy self!  🙂

Give yourself permission to say NO to some things

so that you save your time, energy, and emotion

to do the things that only you can do!

But I considered the nugget yesterday and said NO to two things that I wanted to do.  I knew I couldn’t do them in our present state.  I knew that I needed to say NO to those two things so that I could save my time, energy, and emotion to do the things that only I can do.

What can only I do?  Love, nurture, and discipline my precious, out-of-control son.  Care for and nurture and connect with my sweet 7-year-old daughter who is a bit testy these days.  And work hard bringing some sort of peace to our household for Elliot and for Paul in the midst of all of it.  Those are things that I must do.  So I said No to two things — to two things that someone else can probably do.

I very much wanted to help my friend yesterday.  I wanted to say YES and step in and help her day go more smoothly.  But I knew I had to say NO this time.

I very much wanted to take the family to meet up with our extended family on Friday evening to start our Christmas festivities with them.  But I knew I had to say NO this time.  (Actually on this one I just had to postpone a day.)

So “Yea, Me!”  I said NO!  I used wisdom and restraint!  Little victories.  🙂

And you know what?  My friend completely understood and respected my decision.  And my family was totally supportive and encouraged me to do whatever I need to do.

Give yourself permission to say NO to some things

so that you save your time, energy, and emotion

to do the things that only you can do!

Do you need this nugget today??

The Daily Stuff

Chloe is getting a cold.  She’s sneezing like crazy.  When she gets a cold, it usually affects her body to the point that she lacks the energy to walk or to sit up.  A “little cold” really takes its toll on her little body.  I expect a call from her teacher in a little bit, asking me to come pick Chloe up early.  If she’s going to be plopped in the floor sneezing, she may as well be doing that at home with Mom.  That’s my opinion, anyway; and Chloe’s teacher respects that.

Zachary is completely weaned off of Zoloft, but we are still seeing lots of the manic behaviors.  He is nearly unbearable to be with.  I am maintaining my patience and my kind voice with him — those are very important things when dealing with him, especially when he’s out of sorts.  If you use an unkind voice with him or totally blow up at him, you can be sure that his blow up will be WAY BIGGER than yours!!  And I have found that it is not at all worth it.  So I keep my calm outwardly even if I’m exploding or crying inside.

But ‘Tis the Season!!  The season to be jolly!

It’s amazing how hectic and stressful the holidays can be.  At a time when it would be so nice to sit by the fire with friends and family and sip hot cocoa, I am running around like a crazy woman trying to get all my stuff done.

There are school Christmas parties to buy for.  The food, the crafts, the paper goods, the party favors.  And don’t forget the book for the book exchange!

There is a pretty long list of folks to buy gifts for.  Family, extended family, teachers, therapists, bus drivers, aides, bus aides, counselors, favorite nurses . . . .

The daily stuff like cleaning house, doing laundry, and cooking dinner seem nearly impossible to get done right now.  There’s no time for stuff like eating dinner or doing homework.  There’s no time for bathing the kids.  There’s certainly no time for playing with the kids or reading a book together.  A fire in the fireplace??  You’ve got to be kidding.  I don’t have time to carry in the wood and find the matches!

No wonder there are so many Bah Hum Bugs lurking around this time of year.  It’s stressful!

Add to that a little almost-8-year-old girl who is getting a cold and a precious 8-year-old boy who cannot control his little body or his actions right now.  If a mom didn’t have a good sense of humor about her, she might just sit in the corner in fetal position and cry until January!

Giving Gifts

We had a Christmas gathering with friends last night.  We had a wonderful time eating tons of yummy food, singing Christmas carols, and celebrating Advent together.

The children all participated in a Beanie Baby gift exchange.  We love this tradition with the children.  No one spends money on this one.  We all go digging in our homes in search of Beanie Baby-type toys that are in good shape.  We wrap one per child, and then the children exchange them at our party.  Fun!

Chloe opened a pink teddy bear in the gift exchange.  She immediately loved it and hugged it and made it roar.  It is a blessing to see such a thankful heart in her.  Then for the next half hour, she enjoyed putting the bear back in the gift bag, covering it up with the tissue paper, and pulling it back out for hugs.  Over and over, she relived the excitement of receiving and opening the Christmas gift.

Then on the way home from the party, Chloe wrapped the bear up in the tissue paper and gave it to me to open.  And she did it again and again and again.  Each time, I reacted with surprise and thankfulness.  She wrapped it up and gave it to Elliot who also acted surprised and grateful.  Then it was Zippy’s turn to receive the pink bear wrapped in tissue.  He, too, was excited and surprised when he opened it.  So went the gift-giving game all evening.

It was so cute to see Chloe play the giving gifts game.  It is such a common game for kids to play.  Usually children love to play that game when they are quite a bit younger than Chloe is.  They play it as they learn and experience gift-giving.

I remember my oldest nephew playing the game when he was around 4 years old.  His take on the game was to wrap up things that belonged to him and give them to people.  And he expected us to keep the gifts!  I remember being so torn with how to respond.  I wanted to honor his giving spirit, but I didn’t want to keep his gifts.  Besides that, I really didn’t have a need for a picture book or a Matchbox car.  What a giving heart!

It is such a cute, sweet game, and it is such a joy to play the game with Chloe.

She played the game again this morning before school, giving to me and to Elliot and to Zach.  And the toy she chose to take with her on the bus this morning:  the pink bear and a piece of tissue paper.  I have a feeling the bus drivers will receive lots of gifts from her during that 20 minute ride to school!

Rappelling

My boys — all 3 of them — are on a rappelling outing today.

And Chloe and I are hanging out at home.  We love the quiet of a girls day!!

Here are photos of the last rappelling trip.  The boys were so brave and had a blast!

What a great opportunity and memory for our boys!

Cold!!!

We went to the COLDEST Christmas party EVER last weekend!!!!

What??  I am NOT exaggerating.  I would never exaggerate about something like this.  It WAS the coldest Christmas party EVER!!

Each year we look forward to the ARC Christmas party.  They have the party at a different location each year.  Santa’s there.  Face painters are there.  Music therapists are there with their instruments and pretty voices.  There are presents for all the kids — those with special needs and their siblings!  There is food!  It is always a great time for the kids.

Well, this year, the party was held outside at the ball field where the Fort Worth Cats play.  The whole thing was literally a horribly painfully cold wind tunnel!!  Elliot and I both got splitting headaches pretty quickly.  Zippy was NOT a happy camper.  It was terrible.

We quick as lightning got some photos with Santa, grabbed our gifts, snagged a few snacks, played the drum for a quick Christmas carol, and sprinted back to our warm van!

I do have some photos.  You can’t even tell we were as miserable as we were.  And the Santa was not a handsome Santa this year.  The kids didn’t notice, but I think his mustache is in the wrong place. . . . and I don’t think he was smiling behind that beard!!

Update

I mentioned that Zach had an appointment with his psychiatrist in this post, but I never updated you on it.  At that appointment we told the psychiatrist about the big ol fits Zach was throwing several times a day.  After hearing all about our latest issues, the psychiatrist decided that the behaviors we were seeing were all caused by his anxieties.  He was feeling so anxious all the time that he was literally on the edge constantly, and any little thing that was unexpected or undesirable would push him over that edge into a big ol crazy fit.

She wanted to medicate for his anxieties and see if that helped him.  So she prescribed Zoloft, an antidepressant.  The kid is so medicated already, but if this medicine will give him some peace back in his life, then we were eager to do it!  We started him off on a low dose and then increased it after a week.  It didn’t take long at all for his huge fits to subside.  Now, let me assure you, he was still throwing fits, but they were more like the normal fits that kids throw. Big improvement very quickly.  I was a happy Mama. . .  for a few days . . .

But then I started noticing some disturbing behaviors.  The doctor had warned me to watch out for any manic behaviors, and if I saw any then I was to take him to ER for inpatient care.  Sometimes starting a child on an antidepressant may bring out some mania that is there but hasn’t been noticed before.  The doctor even mentioned Bipolar Disorder, which sounds like a very scary diagnosis that I hope we avoid.  Especially since we don’t know Zach’s birth family psych history, then she had no idea if we would see manic behaviors.  (In Bipolar Disorder or schizophrenia, the manic side is the happy, up-side as compared to the depressive side.)

Zach was very chatty, jumping randomly from one topic to another sometimes in mid-sentence.  He was having a hard time pronouncing some words or thinking of some words because his thoughts were coming so fast and his mouth (which already had some issues) was trying to keep up.

He was (and still is) nearly unbearably annoying.  Just literally out of control.  Yelling, chanting, hitting, bumping into everything, jumping on our backs.  He was very disrespectful, laughing or shouting, “NO!” when asked to do something.  But it was somehow obvious that he wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful; it was literally out of his control.

And he talked about death several times.  The doctor had mentioned that as a possibility, but I honestly couldn’t even imagine what that would look like in an 8 year old.  But Zach, in his chattyness in one conversation told me several different ways that you could die playing sports.  Most of those were hypothetical about just a person, but he did also make it a little more personal in one conversation explaining a scenario that could kill him.  And there were several other conversations about death that he had with me.  It just seemed weird and random.  It wasn’t really even alarming or morbid or anything, but it did make me think about the doctor mentioning “talk of death.”

When I asked Zach’s teacher what she was noticing, she reported that he couldn’t pay attention or sit still at all.  “It’s almost like he’s nervous,” she said.

So I called the doctor and told her what we were seeing.  After hearing the details, she decided to wean him off of the Zoloft — it’s not a good medicine for him.  Today is the last day he will take the medicine.  We will see the doctor tomorrow and see what she says and see which medicine we will try next.

She said the medicine will still be in his system for 3 or 4 days.  He is still out-of-control annoying, bless his heart!  And he has had a few big fits and is crying more easily than usual.  I suppose it’s all part of coming off of the medicine.

<sigh>  It’s all just part of the journey.  And Zach is totally worth whatever it takes!!