A Weary But Good Life

Curtis and I attended a Strengthening Your Marriage meeting last night. It was the second "date" night in a month, something Curtis and I have ever been able to experience. Our nights out alone are more like two nights a year. It was good to get out and good to hear some much needed information. At the very beginning, one of the speakers joked "If you had attended a child rearing or marriage class we had several years ago, you would know we were such experts in the area. And then we had kids. Now we feel like we get dumber and dumber every year." Her advice for raising kids was to go hang out with a mom of teenagers. I have to say I feel like I get dumber every year too. New situations pop up and I feel lost. When do we ever have all the answers?

We've been in our new house for almost a month. Given all the disruption to our family over the last two months I insisted we get down to business and establish our school routine. Unfortunately, I feel like this was met with resistance on both parts of the children and myself. While I was ready to start, I wasn't looking forward to juggling 6 different ages at the same time, even though we were covering the same information. Ammon (2) and Joshua (almost 4) were into everything and when that wasn't distracting enough, they were crying, fighting, and screaming. Finally, I gave up, made lunch, put them down for naps and resumed school for a pretty productive afternoon. Hannah who can't stand change complained through the whole morning's activities. She spent her morning spinning on an office chair watching her hair drag on the floor, rolling around on the floor or plugging her ears and glaring at me as if sharing the 3 crop rotation schedule in farming was the most offensive thing she had ever heard. Jesse and Simeon continued to fight over the same chair, even though there were plenty of chairs for everyone. Isaac was doing alright for me, but eventually he got wrapped up in the distracting activities. How many of you would have said "That's IT!! I quit!!"?

5 years of homeschooling has taught me I can't let one bad day make me throw in the towel...or book, which ever. I knew this was just the beginning. If we could get a few good days in a row, we'd be back on track and doing well. Then Friday arrived. I laid in bed that morning doing the happy dance in my mind, thinking of how great the day was going to be and how much we were going to get done. This is really how the day went down.

I have to go back to the night before. Curtis and I were up late because we kept smelling something burning. We were led to the furnace, and for what ever reason, the furnace smelled like it had just been started after months of non-use and it burns up the dust that has sat for just as long. In fear, I turned off the heater at 1:00 a.m., thinking if there was some kind of fire or damage to be done, I would rather it happen during the day when we could handle that kind of emergency a little better. We woke up to a cold house.

My morning routine begins with letting the dogs out, checking my email, and getting breakfast ready for the kids. This morning, for whatever reason, we were off on that routine. Kids were trickling in at various times, no one ate together, the dogs were in and out and not contained, so for awhile, they were left to roam freely in the house.

Jesse goes to use the bathroom. Its flooded, someone had used a whole roll of toilet paper and clogged up the toilet. He starts to clean that up. I go back to help him and happen to pass the babies' room. One of them had sneaked a can of fruit nectar into their room and poured it all over the carpet. Great! Now we have two emergencies at the same time!! I get the carpet cleaner and get to work on the spill while Jesse mops up the bathroom. As soon as we get both rooms clean, Ammon shows up without a diaper on, but poopy. Another emergency! We all start searching for wipes, diapers and the offensive diaper too. I couldn't get mad at him because he figured out how to take his diaper off and was trying to go potty on the toilet. (Side note: how can my barely 2 year old figure this out but the almost four year old does not?)

The phone rings. I answer and am venting to my friend, who has vents of her own too. I go to walk back to my bedroom and guess what? The dogs left to roam on their own got into the bathroom trash and its spread all over the room I just cleaned the carpets in!! Trying to stay in control, I clean that up, clean the carpet again, and decide I'm going to take a shower, because during that time maybe I can have a break to regroup and refocus on having a better day.

No. Not to be.
"Mom?!" bang, bang, bang!
"What?!"
"Mom?! Joshua kicked Ammon."
"Mom?!" bang, bang, bang!!
"Yes?!"
"Mom?! mumble, mumble, Isaac, mumble, mumble!"

It goes on like this for the entire length of the shower, which took a whole 4 minutes, because I heard crying and am worried someone is seriously hurt.

No, no one is hurt, they are just arguing over who found who's shoe and helped who last time and this time is not their turn to help said person

Then I get a bright idea! I need to get trash bags and a roll of paper. Ikea! Ooh, and they have a drop off daycare. Yes! This could be the perfect break for just 1 hour, which is all I needed...one hour of peace. Even if the bags are printed in words I don't understand, I am certain that Walmart does NOT offer a child watching service.

I load everyone in the van. Maybe we were all tired of being stuck in the house all week. Maybe it was the weather: windy, flurries, rain mixed with sunshine. Maybe this mama was slowing going insane at the hands of her own children.

I get to Ikea. Ammon is soaking wet from a cup of water he opened and dumped on himself. Change Ammon. Simeon has no socks and is wearing high waters. Joshua is wearing no coat. They all have lunch remnants on their faces. Oh, and lunch was served promptly at 1:38 p.m. We traipse into Ikea and stand in line at the daycare counter. I had never been there before so I did not know that diaper wearing children could not enter the daycare. As we were checking in the lady announces that she is very sorry, but the ball pit is closed as they just caught two boys peeing into the ball bit. Sounds like she was having a morning like mine. I chuck three kids that were not wearing diapers but were within the height limit into the daycare. This still left me with three kids, two of which were high maintenance. *sigh* I blew threw Ikea in 35 minutes, picked up the kids with 15 minutes to spare. We pile into the van and I remember they had a primary activity at 4:00. We can make it! I get even more excited thinking "they have an activity to go to that I don't have to be at and I know the babies are sleepy, so I can lay them down for a bit and have some quiet!"

We were late to the church by 15 minutes. I still chucked them out and went home (3 blocks away). I cart the babies into the house, change them, get them a drink and lay them down. Hear that?! Nothing! No screaming, fighting, crying, yelling, barking, or sniffing (we're all either sick, getting sick or getting over being sick). 10 minutes of quiet until....

*squeak*
"MOM!! I MADE IT HOME AND I'M HERE!!!!"
*slamming of the door*
*stomp, stomp, stomp up the stairs*

Its Simeon. Two minutes later here comes Joshua with "I just couldn't take a nap!". I ask Simeon where his brothers and sister are. He doesn't know. I look outside and they are no where to be seen. I wait about two more minutes, still no one else shows up. I'm getting ready to get in the van to go look for the kids and the phone rings. It's Jesse and they lost Simeon. I don't know how he got home, if he walked or if someone dropped him off. To their credit, the older kids were trying to make sure they kept track of each other. Eventually everyone trickles home and then I'm reminded of just how tired and exhausted I am. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too. On days like this, how are you supposed to get homeschooling done? How are you supposed to get cleaning done? When it seems like emergency after emergency, how does anyone get anything done? Where do you find the reserved patience, because by that point, all of my patience was used up.

And it didn't get refilled. We missed church that Sunday because Curtis and I, plus three kids were all sick. Today I realize we have gone another week. We started out doing pretty good, but Wednesday was spent cleaning the house, Thursday was spent at appointments and today was spent listening to screaming.

The medications that Isaac is on sometimes helps, sometimes it doesn't. Lately he's taken to screaming when he's frustrated, when he's upset, when he's having to do something he doesn't want to do. Now, I know that a lot of us has wanted to scream in frustration. To be honest, when I've tried this method it only makes me more tense and my eye twitches, or I drool on myself, which doesn't exactly put the fear of God into your children. If Simeon gets hurt he has a scream that sounds like a 5 alarm fire drill going off. And if Hannah joins in with her screaming, it just sounds like a complete nightmare in here.

How do I fix this? I put everyone in the van and drive around for a little while. It seems to calm them down and if screaming occurs in the van, I've pulled over, taken the offending child out of the van and waited until they were ready to go on. Then it's early bedtime. This sometimes backfires on me too because some of the kids just do not know when to quit. If falling asleep in my bed helps, if they have to fall asleep with another sibling, so be it. I have given up the strict "this is your bed" mentality. You do what works. If they can't go to sleep I give them chores until they are ready to go to sleep. Things like folding laundry, feeding animals, picking up toys. I also make sure all music, tv and computer activity stops,and we have quiet time. No noise, no loud voices. For Isaac and Simeon who respond to pressure and brushing, sometimes that helps to calm them down as well.

As Curtis and I walked home last night I asked Curtis why I bring this extra stess upon myself by choosing to homeschool my children. I could send them off to school every day and have 6-8 hours of quiet. I could let someone else have this burden of education I take upon myself, along with "how to get along with other people" and "how to eat your meal without wearing most of it". Even though we have horrendous days, usually about once a week, I know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing for my kids.

A few weeks ago in church a lady got up and bore her testimony. She said that she knew each child sent to a mother and father was chosen for that family. As parents we would be able to give that child the things he or she needed. I have a friend that is up every night to check her daughter's blood sugar levels that was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I have many friends with children that have disabilities and the parents pray over that child, loves that child and still have a glimmer of hope that one day their child will be alright, functioning and happy. Maybe that child won't ever be functioning 100% but a parent's hope that they will be, a parent's willingness to wake up every morning and do the whole routine over again, a parent's seeking mind and heart for what things will work or will help will eventually give way to a peace in them and their child that everyone is where they should they be.

Four years ago I had no idea I would have three kids on the autism spectrum. I had no idea what life would hold for us as we struggle with each child's issues on a daily basis. Yesterday I spent an hour and a half at a mental health clinic hoping to get Isaac in for therapy, whether that was therapy for me, or him, or other medications or schools, I have hope that we will find something to help with the screaming and dysfunction. Unfortunately, as I sat in the waiting room beside Isaac (who sat curled in as tight as ball as possible in the chair) I observed other parents in there. Some sat without interacting with the child next to them. Some were aged beyond their years. A mother sat on the steps outside the office sobbing. I can't say I haven't been in all their positions either.

As Isaac and I drove home we talked about life in general. I told him how we have a good life. We love each other. We laugh together (most of the time I can find something to laugh at). We have enough food. We have a home. We have good friends and friends in each other. We may not have a lot of money, and we all know none of us is perfect, but we have a good life. And for that I'm thankful.