I apologize if this post comes across grumpy. I am feeling more than a little grumpy but am trying to keep perspective.
We are in a Sunday School class right now on the book "What Did You Expect?" It is a book on marriage by Paul David Tripp and it is EXCELLENT! I am very happily married but am still finding a lot of great information in the book. Mostly I am trying to think of the information more broadly than my marriage and focus it on how I live.
A message the first week was asking when an open water bottle gets shaken what comes out? Water. Milk, juice, Pepsi, or whatever cannot come out. Water comes out. So, when life "shakes" us, what comes out of us? If we claim to be _______ (calm, loving, kind, anchored to God and His plan for us, whatever) and we get "shaken," is that what comes out?
So I have been spending a lot of time considering the moments when I am "shaken" and how I respond. What comes out of me?
A second message was, when we are feeling grumpy we should examine what we are really grumpy about. It is usually that we are worshiping/idolizing something that is the created rather than the creator. While I have known about this concept before, I have been striving to be more intentional about it and really key in on what I am idolizing in my life. Quite honestly that has not been a surprising find but it has been uncomfortable.
You know when you pray and ask God to grow you...and he answers? Well, we got water in our basement from our rain gutters being blocked and now it looks like we will have to replace at least 1 bedroom's carpet. That is a minor annoyance, but I am worried about our kids who have allergies and their tendency to be affected by airborne allergies. Today we are ripping out carpet and my husband has decided that he is going to try to replace the carpet himself. There was a time 12+ years ago that I would have argued and rolled my eyes. But my husband is amazingly handy with all projects of a home improvement nature so I am more curious this time around how it will go.
But then...I began to fret about the cost. About why water came in. About the kids' health. About how long it will take to fix this. About the project outside my husband wants to do before the carpet gets laid to hopefully prevent the problem again (we have not had water in the basement in over 10 years, since we got new rain gutters on the house).
We have been talking for over a year about a new a/c unit. We put a new furnace in 10 years ago and they put an A-coil on it so when we got a new a/c unit we would just have to replace the outside unit.
We had a quotes come in last year and found out that the a-coil will have to be replaced again due to the new unit designs. Sigh...
We did not act on it last year but yesterday called the person and told him to go ahead and replace the unit and a-coil.
Last night our a/c unit QUIT WORKING! Sigh...
So now we have a stinky basement with wet carpet and no way to get the humidity out of the house. I have a headache that I fear is from the wet carpet. I am hot. I am sticky. I am grumpy.
What was that, God? You are shaking me and wondering what is coming out? You are showing me what I idolize? Ahhh, yeah, that isn't pretty. What is coming out is fear. Fear of health issues. Fear of where the money will come from. Yep. Pretty much I am not relying on God but on my own flesh.
It was also sad for me to realize what I ran to when I felt stress. Did I seek out the Lord in prayer or stop to fret and engage in immediate comforts. Yep, that was convicting too. So, after spending time with the Lord in prayer asking for him to take care of these issues but recognizing His sovereignty I am, at least in my heart (even if my mind keeps trying to work out logistics) submitting to however He resolves this issue...and whenever.
It is quite ironic to me, and I have to believe that God wants me to see the joke in this, that it is our fund that we are saving to go to Indonesia that we will have to use to fix the a/c unit. A place where there is limited and spotty electricity and whole lot of heat and humidity. I am grumpy about not having my "comforts" that I idolize when we plan to vacation in an area without those comforts AND I am placing something that is very "created" above what I should be valuing and appreciating as gifts from God. For example, in light of the recent tornadoes in our state and complete devastation, the loss of some carpet and an a/c unit is utterly and pathetically minor. At least our family is intact and well. We have the house as a whole.
I knew it would be dangerous to pray that God grow me, but what did I expect? I am sure I will get through this stretched and more focused on my Creator. While I admit that I am quite grumpy about this today, I am working on counting this trial "joy" and reminding myself that it really is not a trial at all in light of the evil and tragedy in this world. My husband is going to get a window a/c unit to at least cool the living room and we can all camp there tonight and create some memories. And, hey, I won't be able to cook and heat up the house so we can all eat sandwiches and reduce my time in the kitchen. It's all good;)
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Sunday, May 25, 2014
We Have Been Sick:(
Monday Grace came home from Field Day and was sick. We pondered if she was dehydrated from her morning experience or if it was the stomach flu. It is a running joke in our house that my husband ALWAYS blames stomach ailments on "it must have been something s/he ate."
I had a blinding headache Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The kind that is like knives in my eyes and I am light and sound sensitive. We finally went to the Chiropractor on Wednesday morning and by that evening my headache was gone:)
Just in time for...Buddy to get sick! Nope, wasn't dehydration. Miss Ellie started something fun lol! Beautiful was sleeping in tent with 4 of her friends (the Furious Five) that night at a friend's house. We got to bed after midnight (like usual with our night owl 3 year old) but when we heard the thunderstorm we got up at 3:30 and watched the news to see if there was risk of a tornado like the devastating ones last weekend (there wasn't). We got back into bed a little after 4 and...in staggered JJ with...the flu. He was sick for 8 hours, frequently. The whole time I kept thinking that if I got it I would not be handling it nearly as well as he did. He started eating late afternoon insisting that he should also play outside-his energy level was back to almost normal. I told him that he was sick so couldn't play outside. He responded, "but I ate my strawberries, I am better!" When another child decided later that she had an upset stomach and JJ had to hand over his bucket, he asked "why?" I told him he wasn't sick anymore so didn't need it. He said, "if I'm not sick I can go outside!!" He is always quick on the uptake.
Friday we all felt well and did well. My husband walked to the nursing home 6 blocks away to wheel his mother to our garage so she could go through some of her belongings. We can't get her into the house as we don't have wheelchair access. I am glad she couldn't come in the house because...Friday night I got it.
Silver Lining: When I was feeling yucky and knew what was coming I asked my husband to please clean the toilet for me. He went far and above using the new toilet pumice stone to clean ALL of the toilet rings in the house! Isn't he awesome! I love our new toilet ringless toilets;) I love my awesome husband too:)
My husband slept on the futon in an attempt to stay away from my germs. Ha! Early Saturday morning he was sick too. I think there should be some kind of Murphy's Law that does NOT allow both parents to be sick at the same time. But...no such thing appears to exist.
Silver Lining: As my husband and I spent the entire day unable to get vertical, or even sit up, I was so impressed with our newly 14 year old Buddy. Beautiful is a bit of a, well, hypochondriac and if she thinks that someone around her is sick she thinks she is sick. So...that put the oldest 3 of us confined to our bedrooms and Buddy in charge (she still hasn't gotten sick by the way). He fed the 4 youngest children, entertained the children, and disciplined the children. He did GREAT! If you know Buddy personally you know that being around people (especially his younger siblings) for long periods of time requires a retreat to solitude for a time before he can re-engage. He really stepped up to the plate though and we are so proud of him. Even today, when my husband and I are still not doing well, he has once again fed and cared for the younger ones. Granted, the kids have watched 4 Star Wars movies and played a lot of Wii, but he did great lol! In typical Buddy style he also watched Frozen with them...with the language turned to French! His sense of humor is...quirky;)
Last night my husband I finally ventured upstairs to lay there after supper. I thought it to be a major feat that I was able to stay vertical for an entire 5 minutes to finish loading and start the dishwasher without fainting! That was my major accomplishment of the day:) We had Superman keep JJ outside as long as possible to make him tired so we could get him to bed at a decent hour (10:30) so we could sleep again.
Today I have remained quite weak and standing for any length of time, or even sitting up, has been difficult. The severe body aches that I had yesterday and today were thankfully symptoms that only I have had out of everyone who has gotten sick. Once I felt safe enough to try Tylenol it didn't even touch them. I just kept laying there thinking that I was fortunate that this would pass soon and it was not like I have morning sickness that lasts for months or nausea/illness from cancer treatment, etc. I keep thinking about Grace's aunt who is on a ventilator right now and very, very sick at a transplant hospital awaiting a possible double lung and liver transplant. Surely I can survive 2 days of severe body aches compared to what she has persevered with in her 26 years with Cystic Fibrosis.
But...I digress...
Silver Lining: 48 hours into this I am able to sit without feeling like I will faint and stand for longer periods of time. I am thankful that this is Memorial weekend and I will have another day to recuperate before I have to go to work on Tuesday:)
More Silver Lining: I have enjoyed the uninterrupted time sequestered with my husband. Even though we did not talk much and slept a lot it was time together. We did express our appreciation that our youngest is almost 4 and we don't have any "babies" that would have made this more difficult. Now that Buddy has proven his ability to watch his siblings well we just may have to utilize him more...especially with his older sister working full time this summer...Hmmmmmm;)
5 down...will the last 3 get it? We shall see!
I had a blinding headache Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The kind that is like knives in my eyes and I am light and sound sensitive. We finally went to the Chiropractor on Wednesday morning and by that evening my headache was gone:)
Just in time for...Buddy to get sick! Nope, wasn't dehydration. Miss Ellie started something fun lol! Beautiful was sleeping in tent with 4 of her friends (the Furious Five) that night at a friend's house. We got to bed after midnight (like usual with our night owl 3 year old) but when we heard the thunderstorm we got up at 3:30 and watched the news to see if there was risk of a tornado like the devastating ones last weekend (there wasn't). We got back into bed a little after 4 and...in staggered JJ with...the flu. He was sick for 8 hours, frequently. The whole time I kept thinking that if I got it I would not be handling it nearly as well as he did. He started eating late afternoon insisting that he should also play outside-his energy level was back to almost normal. I told him that he was sick so couldn't play outside. He responded, "but I ate my strawberries, I am better!" When another child decided later that she had an upset stomach and JJ had to hand over his bucket, he asked "why?" I told him he wasn't sick anymore so didn't need it. He said, "if I'm not sick I can go outside!!" He is always quick on the uptake.
Friday we all felt well and did well. My husband walked to the nursing home 6 blocks away to wheel his mother to our garage so she could go through some of her belongings. We can't get her into the house as we don't have wheelchair access. I am glad she couldn't come in the house because...Friday night I got it.
Silver Lining: When I was feeling yucky and knew what was coming I asked my husband to please clean the toilet for me. He went far and above using the new toilet pumice stone to clean ALL of the toilet rings in the house! Isn't he awesome! I love our new toilet ringless toilets;) I love my awesome husband too:)
My husband slept on the futon in an attempt to stay away from my germs. Ha! Early Saturday morning he was sick too. I think there should be some kind of Murphy's Law that does NOT allow both parents to be sick at the same time. But...no such thing appears to exist.
Silver Lining: As my husband and I spent the entire day unable to get vertical, or even sit up, I was so impressed with our newly 14 year old Buddy. Beautiful is a bit of a, well, hypochondriac and if she thinks that someone around her is sick she thinks she is sick. So...that put the oldest 3 of us confined to our bedrooms and Buddy in charge (she still hasn't gotten sick by the way). He fed the 4 youngest children, entertained the children, and disciplined the children. He did GREAT! If you know Buddy personally you know that being around people (especially his younger siblings) for long periods of time requires a retreat to solitude for a time before he can re-engage. He really stepped up to the plate though and we are so proud of him. Even today, when my husband and I are still not doing well, he has once again fed and cared for the younger ones. Granted, the kids have watched 4 Star Wars movies and played a lot of Wii, but he did great lol! In typical Buddy style he also watched Frozen with them...with the language turned to French! His sense of humor is...quirky;)
Last night my husband I finally ventured upstairs to lay there after supper. I thought it to be a major feat that I was able to stay vertical for an entire 5 minutes to finish loading and start the dishwasher without fainting! That was my major accomplishment of the day:) We had Superman keep JJ outside as long as possible to make him tired so we could get him to bed at a decent hour (10:30) so we could sleep again.
Today I have remained quite weak and standing for any length of time, or even sitting up, has been difficult. The severe body aches that I had yesterday and today were thankfully symptoms that only I have had out of everyone who has gotten sick. Once I felt safe enough to try Tylenol it didn't even touch them. I just kept laying there thinking that I was fortunate that this would pass soon and it was not like I have morning sickness that lasts for months or nausea/illness from cancer treatment, etc. I keep thinking about Grace's aunt who is on a ventilator right now and very, very sick at a transplant hospital awaiting a possible double lung and liver transplant. Surely I can survive 2 days of severe body aches compared to what she has persevered with in her 26 years with Cystic Fibrosis.
But...I digress...
Silver Lining: 48 hours into this I am able to sit without feeling like I will faint and stand for longer periods of time. I am thankful that this is Memorial weekend and I will have another day to recuperate before I have to go to work on Tuesday:)
More Silver Lining: I have enjoyed the uninterrupted time sequestered with my husband. Even though we did not talk much and slept a lot it was time together. We did express our appreciation that our youngest is almost 4 and we don't have any "babies" that would have made this more difficult. Now that Buddy has proven his ability to watch his siblings well we just may have to utilize him more...especially with his older sister working full time this summer...Hmmmmmm;)
5 down...will the last 3 get it? We shall see!
Saturday, April 26, 2014
A Day In My Life...need a laugh?
Yesterday started yet another busy weekend in our home. I tried to finish up home school for the day and it got later than I wanted. Beautiful had a home school spring formal last night so I took her to the beautician to get her hair done, and once home lost track of time. Her date came over and I was not ready for pictures. However, Beautiful had some ideas so we raced around town to take some out of the ordinary pictures. Thankfully my husband chose to drive them and 6 of their friends to the prom so I got to stay home. Well, don't think it was too much of a sacrifice on my husband's part...he and Buddy dropped them off and they went to Cabelas lol!
I decided to sit on the deck and watch the kids play. While Grace is getting better with her behavior, she still needs a lot of supervision. A friend stopped by and we chatted on the deck while the kids were...less well-behaved than usual. JJ locked us out on the deck when I told him to stop standing on the railing, Grace whined about wanting to jump on the trampoline with Superman and not Faith, or some other such "s/he won't play with me" scenario, and JJ found pieces of aluminum that my husband is wanting to keep for "someday when I get the recycling place" and was chasing his siblings around with it. Yep, just a normal evening.
We went for a walk and got a few errands done. We came home, watched a movie as a fun extra since the big kids were gone, and I put them to bed.
Then I enjoyed a movie about Queen Victoria. One of my favorite books is Pride and Prejudice. I love the Regency era. I don't like to think too much about the downsides of that era, but the rest is fascinating to me. So, I stayed up late BY MYSELF! It was glorious!
The rest of the crew got home around 2ish. Our church happened to be having High School lock in over night, so Beautiful and her date went to the lock in until around 6:30 this morning. They apparently, in addition to the fun of getting no sleep (I personally don't see the fun in that lol!), had some excitement when one of the leaders got a head injury from playing an "in the dark" game and had to go to the ER for 7 stitches. That will keep you awake with adrenaline! Anyway, they came home and slept for a couple of hours. Thankfully we have an extra bed in Buddy's bedroom so it is convenient to have an extra person sleep over (if they are male;)
This morning I was awakened by Grace yelling "I gotta go potty!!!" I immediately jumped out of bed to tell her to hush, not wake everyone else, and ask why she didn't just get up and walk the 10 feet through the 2 open doors like she always does...when I realized she was in a deep sleep...
About an hour later JJ, who has been sleeping many nights all night long in his OWN BED!!! but last night came in around 5, called out "WANNA GO OUTSIDE!" Whaa? I realized that he, too, was yelling in his sleep.
We got up and around and decided to go down town to a special deal with independent consultants and see what there was to look at (I had to mail a card and pictures to my grandpa anyway who will be 93 tomorrow!). I found a couple of new items at the Tupperware table (I love organization and storage stuff - hate shopping for clothes, etc but I love organizing stuff although you would not know it anymore by walking into my house lol!) Then we continued on to the library where I got the book that has kept me moving all day long...a biography on Queen Victoria!
But before I could enjoy the book I forced myself to be productive...so...
The older two had a home school teen night event today. I was going to take them but then my husband offered. I was thrilled! My favorite day is the day that I don't have to leave my house. I got to stay home lol! But...alas...I supposed that I needed to actually be productive today and not just read the book that I can't stop thinking about...sigh...
So, I took the kids to the park for a picnic lunch and playtime. We spent a couple of hours there. JJ loves to be outside. My husband finally has the son who will hunt and fish with him from sun up to sun down lol. He is so adventurous and curious. We have a hard time keeping him inside. Anyway, the kids all had a great time. We even hit around baseball and had them all run bases (yes, you see my hidden motives don't you...I did run with them;) then...
I decided that do a reverse on my normal motto of "work before play" since I have been reminded by my children that I always find something else to do, thus the work never gets done so the play never gets started...
So after the park...we deep cleaned bedrooms!!! I dragged out the totes of their summer clothes and had them try on every piece of clothing they have and that we found in the totes. The kids were...well...I had to keep reminding them to stay on task. That took several hours but the bedrooms are clean, the clothes are exchanged, and the floors are all vacuumed.
However, we had a few distractions during that process. I tend to be "in the zone" when I do things like that and lose track of time. Apparently our 3 year old, who has finally figured out that a rumbly tummy is remedied by actually eating food, decided that food was necessary and I was not available. Also, he was wanting to be like his big brother, Superman, and try on clothes too (and was being pushed out of rooms for dragging Superman's clothes all over out of piles, etc. So, the last time I saw him he had some kind of Superman's clothes on.
Then, in walks JJ with a 1/2 eaten doughnut that belonged to his biggest brother's stash. It wasn't enough that he was eating his big brother's doughnut...but JJ was now wearing his birthday suit. He was a sticky mess so I sat him out of sight of the other kids and told him to finish the doughnut. Then I washed him up and got some clothes back on him. I was frantically trying to bag up odds and ends clothes and figure out where to repack things so didn't really notice when JJ left for awhile. Then he returned with...yep...another doughnut. Big brother's stash is now...gone. When I asked him what he was doing he matter of factly responded "I hun gee, my tummy hurts!"
And in the last 30 minutes...
(screaming coming from outside - looking out the window at Grace running I assumed that she was not hurt and JJ was looking behind him while running so I assumed it was fear). " MOM! Buddy (the dog buddy, not our son;) almost got the bunny! He is going to EAT the bunny!" She was quite hysterical that the dog was chasing a rabbit...quite hysterical.
Grace: MOM! You said today that I didn't need a band aid unless blood was running down my leg (she scraped her knee falling off of the merry go round at the park) and now it is because we have to get rid of the sticks because JJ and Superman brought the sticks down and I tripped over them!!!!!
It is only 7. I wonder what the rest of the night will bring;) I am soooooo looking forward to my biography on Queen Victoria and I think I did enough "productivity" and stuck to "work before play" for myself to not feel guilty sitting down to read a book for fun lol!
I decided to sit on the deck and watch the kids play. While Grace is getting better with her behavior, she still needs a lot of supervision. A friend stopped by and we chatted on the deck while the kids were...less well-behaved than usual. JJ locked us out on the deck when I told him to stop standing on the railing, Grace whined about wanting to jump on the trampoline with Superman and not Faith, or some other such "s/he won't play with me" scenario, and JJ found pieces of aluminum that my husband is wanting to keep for "someday when I get the recycling place" and was chasing his siblings around with it. Yep, just a normal evening.
We went for a walk and got a few errands done. We came home, watched a movie as a fun extra since the big kids were gone, and I put them to bed.
Then I enjoyed a movie about Queen Victoria. One of my favorite books is Pride and Prejudice. I love the Regency era. I don't like to think too much about the downsides of that era, but the rest is fascinating to me. So, I stayed up late BY MYSELF! It was glorious!
The rest of the crew got home around 2ish. Our church happened to be having High School lock in over night, so Beautiful and her date went to the lock in until around 6:30 this morning. They apparently, in addition to the fun of getting no sleep (I personally don't see the fun in that lol!), had some excitement when one of the leaders got a head injury from playing an "in the dark" game and had to go to the ER for 7 stitches. That will keep you awake with adrenaline! Anyway, they came home and slept for a couple of hours. Thankfully we have an extra bed in Buddy's bedroom so it is convenient to have an extra person sleep over (if they are male;)
This morning I was awakened by Grace yelling "I gotta go potty!!!" I immediately jumped out of bed to tell her to hush, not wake everyone else, and ask why she didn't just get up and walk the 10 feet through the 2 open doors like she always does...when I realized she was in a deep sleep...
About an hour later JJ, who has been sleeping many nights all night long in his OWN BED!!! but last night came in around 5, called out "WANNA GO OUTSIDE!" Whaa? I realized that he, too, was yelling in his sleep.
We got up and around and decided to go down town to a special deal with independent consultants and see what there was to look at (I had to mail a card and pictures to my grandpa anyway who will be 93 tomorrow!). I found a couple of new items at the Tupperware table (I love organization and storage stuff - hate shopping for clothes, etc but I love organizing stuff although you would not know it anymore by walking into my house lol!) Then we continued on to the library where I got the book that has kept me moving all day long...a biography on Queen Victoria!
But before I could enjoy the book I forced myself to be productive...so...
The older two had a home school teen night event today. I was going to take them but then my husband offered. I was thrilled! My favorite day is the day that I don't have to leave my house. I got to stay home lol! But...alas...I supposed that I needed to actually be productive today and not just read the book that I can't stop thinking about...sigh...
So, I took the kids to the park for a picnic lunch and playtime. We spent a couple of hours there. JJ loves to be outside. My husband finally has the son who will hunt and fish with him from sun up to sun down lol. He is so adventurous and curious. We have a hard time keeping him inside. Anyway, the kids all had a great time. We even hit around baseball and had them all run bases (yes, you see my hidden motives don't you...I did run with them;) then...
I decided that do a reverse on my normal motto of "work before play" since I have been reminded by my children that I always find something else to do, thus the work never gets done so the play never gets started...
So after the park...we deep cleaned bedrooms!!! I dragged out the totes of their summer clothes and had them try on every piece of clothing they have and that we found in the totes. The kids were...well...I had to keep reminding them to stay on task. That took several hours but the bedrooms are clean, the clothes are exchanged, and the floors are all vacuumed.
However, we had a few distractions during that process. I tend to be "in the zone" when I do things like that and lose track of time. Apparently our 3 year old, who has finally figured out that a rumbly tummy is remedied by actually eating food, decided that food was necessary and I was not available. Also, he was wanting to be like his big brother, Superman, and try on clothes too (and was being pushed out of rooms for dragging Superman's clothes all over out of piles, etc. So, the last time I saw him he had some kind of Superman's clothes on.
Then, in walks JJ with a 1/2 eaten doughnut that belonged to his biggest brother's stash. It wasn't enough that he was eating his big brother's doughnut...but JJ was now wearing his birthday suit. He was a sticky mess so I sat him out of sight of the other kids and told him to finish the doughnut. Then I washed him up and got some clothes back on him. I was frantically trying to bag up odds and ends clothes and figure out where to repack things so didn't really notice when JJ left for awhile. Then he returned with...yep...another doughnut. Big brother's stash is now...gone. When I asked him what he was doing he matter of factly responded "I hun gee, my tummy hurts!"
And in the last 30 minutes...
(screaming coming from outside - looking out the window at Grace running I assumed that she was not hurt and JJ was looking behind him while running so I assumed it was fear). " MOM! Buddy (the dog buddy, not our son;) almost got the bunny! He is going to EAT the bunny!" She was quite hysterical that the dog was chasing a rabbit...quite hysterical.
Grace: MOM! You said today that I didn't need a band aid unless blood was running down my leg (she scraped her knee falling off of the merry go round at the park) and now it is because we have to get rid of the sticks because JJ and Superman brought the sticks down and I tripped over them!!!!!
It is only 7. I wonder what the rest of the night will bring;) I am soooooo looking forward to my biography on Queen Victoria and I think I did enough "productivity" and stuck to "work before play" for myself to not feel guilty sitting down to read a book for fun lol!
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Disney World 2014!!
We went on a spontaneous, last minute, throw it all together with a weeks notice, vacation to Disney World! Beautiful has always wanted to go, we had promised her we would go before she graduated, it all came together...so we went:)
This will be essentially my journal of the trip so be prepared for length and silly details;)
If you want the short version, here it is:
We drove, drove/walked, drove, walked, walked, walked, walked, walked, drove, and drove.
Very long version:
Day 1: Well, last night we finally got packed up, all of the clothes washed and packed, and everyone showered. We ran out of hot water and I ended up having to heat up water to give JJ a sponge bath. He is at the lovely stage where he hates baths so that was a joy...
We got on the road early and drove through many states. I had backpacks made up with snacks, water, and activities for each kid. Everyone was responsible for their own backpack for the duration of the trip (repacked daily). Beautiful and my husband had wired up the connected portable DVD players so we could all see them and wired the sound to the van's speakers. Beautiful insisted that we only pack Disney movies to get us on the mood:) We were set. We each had thoughts about the states we traveled through on the trip. I'll skip ahead and share those here:
Iowa: Long. not much to see.
Illinois: the worse roads of the states we drove through.
Indiana: it was dark, we were watching a movie, not much notable
Ohio: Only saw a bit of it, nothing of note
Kentucky: Nostalgic for me since we had lived there for a year right after Beautiful was born. It was much more modern and developed than I remembered. Good roads.
Tennessee: Beautiful AND good roads! It was FINALLY WARM lol!
Georgia: loooooong, the people where we stopped were mostly very hospitable
Florida: loved seeing palm trees, roads were decent but there were TONS of toll roads!
Alabama: The most beautiful. I had a lot of preconceptions of what Georgia and Alabama would look like. I was wrong. Alabama was gorgeous.
Tennessee: The western side of the state is just as beautiful as the eastern side:) Roads are good too!
Kentucky: Good roads, very pretty on western side too.
Illinois: Wish we could avoid that state lol!
Missouri: Pretty, long state but at least we had something to look at;) The kids loved getting to see the Arch
Iowa: Thankfully brief this time, we stopped to get something to eat on the border and it was our LAST STOP before home! Yay!!
OK, now that we have that out of the way. Grace was so funny about "rating" the states, she rated them based on how "messy" they were lol!
Day 1 ended in Kentucky where we stopped at the most amazing hotel we have ever stayed at. It was a Hilton suites and each of the rooms were two rooms so we were able to spread out well. The beds were so comfortable! We stayed there because it was recommended by the Creation Museum and we got a discount for that.
Day 2 we went to the Creation Museum. The Museum was very well put together and the gospel presentation was so clear and well done. We only did the indoor exhibits as it was raining outside. The animatronics were so realistic. It was definitely an educational display of story telling rather than just a presenting of "things."
We left there and drove to Lexington, KY where my husband and I lived when Beautiful was a young baby. I had finished my coursework and was doing my predoctoral internship working at the federal prison there for 12 months, then graduated. That is where Beautiful first crawled, walked, and did all of those cute baby things. It was emotional for me, and very sweet that we got to show her the house/town. We even went to eat at Fazoli's, the first Fazoli's that my husband and I had ever eaten at (our family is very fond of Fazoli's ;)
We drove through Kentucky and Tennessee. It was a very beautiful drive. We got into Georgia and stopped to eat. We were thinking that we wanted to get south of Atlanta before we stopped to avoid traffic during morning rush hour. Some locals confirmed that so we drove on through the large and busy city of Atlanta getting to our hotel around 11.
Day 3: The biggest problem with Day 3? I forgot my cell phone in the hotel:( :( In trying to be philosophical about it I did enjoy the rest of the vacation without being tied to my phone and "reality" responsibilities. However, now that I am home and apparently the woman who promised to ship my cell phone to my house last Monday did not do so I am still phoneless is a little irritating.
I did not live down this mistake the entire trip. I doubt I will live it down for the rest of my life. My husband is the "final check" guy (which slows us down and I make fun of him for). His foot was hurting so badly that he went to get the van and did not come back up to the room to do the final check. I had called him to see if he was ready for us, then laid my phone down instead of putting it in my pocket since it was still "on" and the keys weren't locked (I didn't want to pocket call someone). But, getting 8 of us out of 2 hotel rooms was apparently more than I could handle as I then neglected to pick the phone back up. Sigh. I lost my husbands house/car keys once about 7/8 years ago. I have not lived that down either (I am convinced that I laid them on the counter and Grace knocked them into the trashcan). So...yeah...my husband did not let me hold any keys or phones throughout this vacation. Thankfully we all laughed about it...a lot...;)
We made it to the house we rented around 6. We had gotten the recommendation from my brother to check out www.vrbo.com for a house. We had looked into AAA for flying down and staying at a value Disney Resort. We could have had 3 days at the Disney Parks and 4 nights in their resort (with food and Disney tickets included) for what ended up being just a few hundred dollars more than our 10 day trip with 4 days at the Parks, Kennedy Space Center, Creation Museum, 4 days of drive by "sight seeing" ;), and having a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house for 6 nights with a pool and room to spread out, sleep comfortably, and make noise without bothering someone on the other side of a wall. It was a good choice! Anyway, we got there and settled in.
Day 4: We drove to Cape Canaveral to the Kennedy Space Center - the first of 2 of my favorite days on the trip. It was an overcast day. It was a very emotional experience for me and very educational. I love historical stuff:) It stayed dry while we did the outdoor exhibits, then we got on a bus to do the tour of the launch sites, etc. They took us to another building where we sat through a simulation of the first launch of American's into space, then saw some other museum like things. Those of us who had cell phones got a tornado warning alert. It was really raining hard outside. We got on the bus and drove to the main site and ran through the rain to the Atlantis building (the actual shuttle Atlantis was in there!) We were locked into that building due to the weather but it was very, very educational and fun filled. Several of us went to a space shuttle simulator - soooooo neat! Even being in there a couple of hours we did not get to see everything. When I asked the kids what their favorite part of the Space Center was, they talked about the Angry Birds exhibit where there was a mirror maze lol! Oh well, hopefully they learned something from the rest of it!!
Day 5: First of day of Disney Parks - Animal Kingdom. The overwhelming memory that I have of it...the crowds. Yuck. I prefer vacations with not many people. Anyway, Grace enjoyed dancing to some African music with some dancers. We lost Grace briefly when she stopped to watch the dancing/musicians and I thought she was still walking behind Buddy (keeping track of 9 of us in the crowds was insane. Thankfully Buddy usually was in front and could take care of himself and JJ stayed strapped to me 95% of the time (although I will say that I wished that he would have walked more. My back held up amazingly well on this trip, especially with 5 days of my carrying him all day)). Grace realized she was alone and freaked out a bit but saw us 10 feet away and came to us (Beautiful had gone ahead thinking Grace was still walking and tried to find her and I stayed put in case someone doubled back). The next thing I knew, Grace was crying and clinging to me. She never let us out of her sight again. It was a lesson in sticking together that was well learned (everyone had their names and my husband's cell phone number written in two places on items on them in case they got lost). We all went on a Safari and the kids got a picture with Rafiki. The big highlight in was the 3-D film with Flik from A Bugs Life. It was a very fun experience (even though it really freaked Faith out!)
Day 6: Epcot...my other favorite day on the trip. FAR fewer people the day we were there. We spent about 13 hours there. Everyone was given a backpack for the day with PB roll ups, water, and snacks that sustained us for the day and each person was responsible for their own. Everything was so expensive it was the only way to do it.
Anyway, the highlights of this day (LOTS of them - after all this was my favorite day!!):
Rides - Soarin' - sitting in rows suspended above the ground in front of a screen so the experience is as if you are hang gliding over California - including olfactory experiences. It was really cool. The wait was 1 hour but it was worth it. JJ could not ride on it so my husband took the kids first, then I was given a "fast pass" to go through once my husband got back. I don't know if my husband will every forgive me for having him go on that ride. He is scared of heights. Very scared of heights (some of you remember him falling off of the room and hitting his head a few years ago? That didn't help.) I had been told that the ride involved just getting your feet a few feet off of the ground so the seats could move as if you were moving with the scene. Yeah. You are much, much (much) higher off of the ground than that. Not such a happy husband...but still a very neat experience!
Test Drive - "designing" a car then "test driving" it. The wait was also 1 hour but VERY worth it. Once in the car you go through "tests" to see how well it can brake, accelerate, etc. We were going 70 mph at one point. Oh yeah. Very cool.
We went on a boat ride through some testing areas of how to use natural pest control, fertilizer, etc. Essentially thinking outside the box on how to grow things. It was quite cool.
It was dark and late when we all finally got through the Soarin' ride - were supposed to leave then. I walked past the place where Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie were. It was a very long wait all day long and I saw that at that hour we could get in right away. So...I changed "plans" (see being spontaneous again lol!), went and got the rest of the group, and we got to get pictures with them. Epcot was not the place I was expecting to see so many characters, but it is where we saw the most! We also saw Cinderella's wicked step mother/sisters, Chip and Dale, Donald Duck (got pictures) and Belle, Alice, and Cinderella (no pictures). The kids (in particular the girls) were thrilled to get pictures with the characters.
Captain EO: This Epcot Only 3-D came out about a year before the last time I went to Disney World...25 years ago. It was so fun to see it again with the kids. However, it was even funnier with the comments from the girls. Captain EO is Michael Jackson. Faith was on my left and when Michael Jackson came out she got a quizical look on her face, tilted her head, and said, "so...he is a girl?" Then Grace, on my other side, after Michael Jackson said his first words also reiterated, "so...is he a girl?" Six or 7 years ago after Beautiful and Buddy had heard the song after the Free Willy movie argued and argued and argued with me that a woman sang the song. I finally had to get on the internet and prove to them who Michael Jackson was (and that he was male). To have the girls do that again during the movie was very hilarious to me - since I am of the era where Michael Jackson was such a huge icon it is interesting to see him through the next generation's eyes. Anyway, even Buddy enjoyed the flick and laughed as he commented that he has never heard of using music to defeat ones enemies before:)
Figment: Sigh... When I went to Disney World at age 15 the thing that I remember more than anything else (besides that I got to see Captain EO;) was Figment. It has been significantly updated (just like everything else) and it was so fun! I had gotten a stuffed Figment back then and have kept it for 25 year not letting it get lost or wrecked. It was my "memory" of that family vacation. It was very special to get to share it with my own children:)
The sculptures. Wow. Wow. Wow. It was the International Flower and Garden Festival - I don't know if they have all of the gardens and sculptures made up just as beautiful when it is not this festival but it was incredible. To take shrubs/hedges/I don't know what, but living growing vegetation, and sculpt/clip/cut it in a way to make the Disney Characters was sooooooo amazing. To have even different colors/textures of plants growing on them. I can't put words on it. Aside from the fireworks at Magic Kingdom it is what we by far took the most pictures of.
Finally, the World Showcase was wonderful. To walk around the lake and see all of the buildings where the architecture looked like the country it was showcasing was fun! Superman did a great job of knowing what country we were "in" by the architecture. Very, very interesting and educational. Beautiful.
Then, after we got out of the Character place with Mickey Mouse, etc the fireworks started. I was so thankful that we impulsively stayed longer to see Mickey, etc or we would have missed them. I thought the only fireworks were at the Magic Kingdom. They were beautiful and amazing.
Day 7: (aren't you glad I am finally done with Day 6 lol?!?!?!)
Magic Kingdom. To be totally honest, by the time we left at 6ish this day I was thinking that I would have had more fun pulling out my own teeth with a pliers. It was hot, crowded, and...well...crowded!
Highlights: (yes, I think I can come up with some;)
We were in a Presidents historical exhibit (very, very, very cool) when Beautiful leans down to whisper that we know people standing 10 feet away. Sure enough it was a family from Maine that we know! The wife/mom is a sister to a friend of ours here so we know them from when they travel back to visit in the summers. How cool was that?!?! It was also ironic as when our family went on vacation to Florida when I was 15 (I lived in MN then) and in KEY WEST, FL we saw MY GRANDPARENTS (who lived 10 miles from me) who were on a separate bus tour at that time. My mom had known that they may be there about the same time as our vacation but didn't want to tell us in case we didn't see them. It was CRAZY! There were lots of little "God" moments like this for me on this trip (e.g. the Figment ride at Epcot, the house having the same tile as our house, plate pattern as us, bowls as us, and that the county we were in was the same name as our county here, and the name of the development we stayed in was the same as the name of the town that our friend that we brought with lives in, etc).
Watching the Disney Princesses dance/put on their show in front of the Castle
Jack Sparrow show.
Pirates of the Caribbean ride/Jungle Cruise ride. The first was a fun "ride." The second was educational and funny. The guy running our boat spoke the entire time from his script of...puns. Almost every single comment he made was a pun. I found it absolutely hilarious! The jungle stuff was nice too...
The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse/fort thing. It was especially fun for Superman who had read the book whereas the girls have not.
Riding on the Ferry Boat.
"driving" on the race track with Grace. She steered the car and I had the accelerator. It was one of those cars with a piece of metal down the middle of the track so you can't run off of the track or into someone...but you sure can run into it and jolt yourself a lot! Imagine Grace driving on that. "nuff said. Uff Da lol!
OK, I don't think I can find anything else nice to say about that day. Oh, we left and went out to eat (the only time as a family we went and sat down to eat on the trip) at IHOP:)
Day 8: I really, really did not want to go back to Magic Kingdom this day. I really wanted to go back to Epcot. I could have done 5 more days at Epcot. But, the kids wanted our last day to be a 2nd helping of Magic Kingdom so I psyched myself up, got out my pliers (just kidding) and we made a PLAN for the day. Yes, no more spontaneity, I made a plan. It ended up being a very enjoyable day:)
We got up and packed a lot of stuff, ate a big breakfast, and got Fast Passes figured out via computer.
here is the one regret that I have from our spontaneous vacation:
In the rush of having 7 days to plan/pack for our 10 day Disney World vacation I did not have time to research everything like I would have wanted. I really, really wish that I would have understood the FastPass+ system. I didn't really understand that I could, from the luxury of my computer at home and not stand in line for up to an hour in the heat the actual day at the park, line up the rides we wanted to go on and the times. The FastPass+ system is really neat in theory and function. So you don't have to stand in line for hours you can pick up to 3 rides to get a "fast pass" too. You show up, scan your card (everyone at Disney World has a credit card like "ticket" that is set to your fingerprint to get you in the gate and to get onto rides that are Fast Pass rides. You pick when you want to go on a ride and then show up and get right in at that time. However, when you show up that day you may not get one of the rides you want (hence us standing in line at Epcot for 2 rides - we were lucky to get 60 minute waits. We watched throughout the day and they were up to 100 minute waits). If I would have understood how I could have done this from the house it would have made life easier. On the other hand, if we would have picked all of those days/rides before we went there we couldn't have been as spontaneous on what time we got to the park, when we left, etc.
OK, enough with my one regret.
We knew were were staying late until after the fireworks so we planned the FastPass+ accordingly and got there around noon. It was less crowded this day (YES!!!!).
We went on our rides and a few more due to short rides. We enjoyed a paddle board ride.
I took a raft ride with the 4 kids to Tom Sawyer's island. We walked around and got lost. Grace kept running around ahead of us and there were lots of twists and turns on the island (and in the caves). JJ kept running after her (of course - one of the few times that he actually wanted down!!) and I could not keep all 4 of them together. I got disoriented and thought I was on the other side of the island. Therefore, I was late meeting back up with the others. I was very happy to get the kids back on the raft and off the island lol! It was a fun island though:)
In Frontierland there was a Flash Mob and the 4 kids got pulled in to dance. I was so thrilled to see JJ actually go with the man (Faith was on the other side) and be separated from me. It was fun to watch and fun for them.
The Monster's Inc Laugh Floor was really cool. It was set up like a stand up comedy club...but the virtual "monsters" were the comedians. They took live feedback from the audience and did spotlights on various people. Then they showed the spotlight on Superman! He got to answer some questions and the monster made some jokes in response. I was enthralled with the technology of it all.
We went on the car ride again. Yesterday Superman drove Faith in the car (he did pretty good!) and today Faith got to drive. Oh My! Yeah...neither Faith nor Grace will ever drive while we are responsible for their car insurance. Sheesh. We all got a big laugh out of that!
I loved, loved, LOVED the Fantasy Parade. Apparently it is a new parade that is at 3 p.m. The floats and people on the ground were wonderfully and creatively decorated/dressed. But the story of the character was told through the people and the float. It was so artfully done. For example, they had a Prince who was being "talked to" by the fairy godmothers (who were gliding along on something individually, fairies wouldn't "walk" you know!) The Prince then turned and "fought" with several characters dressed up as if they were thorn bushes. Behind the thorn bushes was a large fire breathing dragon (and it looked like REAL fire!). It was indescribable so I won't attempt to fumble through any more description. It was...wow...
Then at 9:00 was the classic electric light parade. That was really neat too, but not as neat as the Fantasy Parade. At 9:45 was a light show projected onto The Castle with music. It depicted many of the famous characters. Very creative and well done. Very cool.
Finally, at 10:00 were the famous fireworks over The Castle. We got standing room fairly close to the castle and it was amazing. Just amazing. Yep, that about sums it up.
We took the Ferry back to the parking lot and went home, packed, and slept some.
Day 9: We packed and got out of the house at 10:30. We decided to drive through Alabama and Mississippi to get home rather than the Georgia route (and thus Atlanta) again. Alabama was so beautiful. I had some pretty wrong misconceptions of what the deep south looks like. I would like to go there again. Very pretty. We made it through FL, GA, AL, then the GPS took us to TN rather than through MS so we missed seeing that state. We knew that there were some tornado warnings around us but also wanted to get north of Nashville so we didn't hit rush hour. We checked into a hotel at midnight.
Day 10: We got going at 8:30 and it was already humid. Over breakfast we watched the news with the tornados and flooding not too far east of us. We were glad we made it as far as we did the night before. We drove through KY and stopped in IL. It was cold. I made a note to myself where the "line" seems to be for warm/cold weather. I will move south of that "line" someday lol! We drove through St. Louis and the kids got to see the Arch. We made it through MO and finally got home around 10:30. It was SOOO good to be home.
Some other items worth mentioning.
There is no way we could have taken this trip without Grace being on the new supplements. It was by far the easiest trip with her. We had excitable behavior and only 3 meltdowns (one was leaving Disney late at night Day 8 - but we were all tired, cranky, and it was 11 p.m.). But her meltdowns were less than 1/2 of what the "old" Grace would have done. She was enjoyable for the vast majority of the trip. She was in awe of all of her surroundings but mostly did not get overstimulated by it. She did not get distracted and wander off (just that one day but she really thought we all had stopped to watch it, she didn't wander off). When she was difficult it was verbal rather than behavioral. Essentially she would argue. The 4 and I (are you noticing a pattern here? How did I end up alone with the 4 and that was when trouble would happen?!?!?!) anyway, the 4 and I got separated from my husband and we had to get up to the predetermined meet up spot and I kept telling them to look for his red shirt. She argued the ENTIRE length of the park that he was wearing a grey shirt, her feet hurt, she was thirsty, she was hungry, she was hot, she was tired...and she...would...not...stop. I was carrying the 40 lb kid and trying to keep us together in the crowd (yes this was day 7...the day where I would have rather had the pliers...). Anyway, we finally made it to the spot and my husband showed up about 10 minutes later (in a red shirt)...and I had help again:)
I might add, that and one other time were the only times that wished that I had my cell phone. I really REALLY enjoyed not being tied to it this week.
It was absolutely delightful to see Buddy enjoy himself. Buddy does NOT like people, crowds, noise, or anything new. He strongly detests waking up early. He had FUN! He enjoyed himself, was a delight to be around (the vast majority of the time), and laughed and joked with us. I had expected him to be more difficult and he was the one who actually liked the Magic Kingdom as much as, or more than, the rest of the kids lol! We joked with him that it was all of those Princesses;)
Finally, we had Beautiful's friend with us on the trip. He is a delightful young man. I will be honest with you and admit that there are very few people with whom I think I could get along on vacation, much less the stress of over 50 hours of driving and 10 days together (are you surprised?!?). Most of the time I am trying to find a way to hide from my own family and get some breathing room lol! He was (is) a gem. It was a blessing to have him with on our trip. It was a good vacation, a magical time, and many memorable memories were made. I am so thankful that God pulled it all together, kept us safe and healthy, and provided for our trip. We were (and are) blessed!
This will be essentially my journal of the trip so be prepared for length and silly details;)
If you want the short version, here it is:
We drove, drove/walked, drove, walked, walked, walked, walked, walked, drove, and drove.
Very long version:
Day 1: Well, last night we finally got packed up, all of the clothes washed and packed, and everyone showered. We ran out of hot water and I ended up having to heat up water to give JJ a sponge bath. He is at the lovely stage where he hates baths so that was a joy...
We got on the road early and drove through many states. I had backpacks made up with snacks, water, and activities for each kid. Everyone was responsible for their own backpack for the duration of the trip (repacked daily). Beautiful and my husband had wired up the connected portable DVD players so we could all see them and wired the sound to the van's speakers. Beautiful insisted that we only pack Disney movies to get us on the mood:) We were set. We each had thoughts about the states we traveled through on the trip. I'll skip ahead and share those here:
Iowa: Long. not much to see.
Illinois: the worse roads of the states we drove through.
Indiana: it was dark, we were watching a movie, not much notable
Ohio: Only saw a bit of it, nothing of note
Kentucky: Nostalgic for me since we had lived there for a year right after Beautiful was born. It was much more modern and developed than I remembered. Good roads.
Tennessee: Beautiful AND good roads! It was FINALLY WARM lol!
Georgia: loooooong, the people where we stopped were mostly very hospitable
Florida: loved seeing palm trees, roads were decent but there were TONS of toll roads!
Alabama: The most beautiful. I had a lot of preconceptions of what Georgia and Alabama would look like. I was wrong. Alabama was gorgeous.
Tennessee: The western side of the state is just as beautiful as the eastern side:) Roads are good too!
Kentucky: Good roads, very pretty on western side too.
Illinois: Wish we could avoid that state lol!
Missouri: Pretty, long state but at least we had something to look at;) The kids loved getting to see the Arch
Iowa: Thankfully brief this time, we stopped to get something to eat on the border and it was our LAST STOP before home! Yay!!
OK, now that we have that out of the way. Grace was so funny about "rating" the states, she rated them based on how "messy" they were lol!
Day 1 ended in Kentucky where we stopped at the most amazing hotel we have ever stayed at. It was a Hilton suites and each of the rooms were two rooms so we were able to spread out well. The beds were so comfortable! We stayed there because it was recommended by the Creation Museum and we got a discount for that.
Day 2 we went to the Creation Museum. The Museum was very well put together and the gospel presentation was so clear and well done. We only did the indoor exhibits as it was raining outside. The animatronics were so realistic. It was definitely an educational display of story telling rather than just a presenting of "things."
We left there and drove to Lexington, KY where my husband and I lived when Beautiful was a young baby. I had finished my coursework and was doing my predoctoral internship working at the federal prison there for 12 months, then graduated. That is where Beautiful first crawled, walked, and did all of those cute baby things. It was emotional for me, and very sweet that we got to show her the house/town. We even went to eat at Fazoli's, the first Fazoli's that my husband and I had ever eaten at (our family is very fond of Fazoli's ;)
We drove through Kentucky and Tennessee. It was a very beautiful drive. We got into Georgia and stopped to eat. We were thinking that we wanted to get south of Atlanta before we stopped to avoid traffic during morning rush hour. Some locals confirmed that so we drove on through the large and busy city of Atlanta getting to our hotel around 11.
Day 3: The biggest problem with Day 3? I forgot my cell phone in the hotel:( :( In trying to be philosophical about it I did enjoy the rest of the vacation without being tied to my phone and "reality" responsibilities. However, now that I am home and apparently the woman who promised to ship my cell phone to my house last Monday did not do so I am still phoneless is a little irritating.
I did not live down this mistake the entire trip. I doubt I will live it down for the rest of my life. My husband is the "final check" guy (which slows us down and I make fun of him for). His foot was hurting so badly that he went to get the van and did not come back up to the room to do the final check. I had called him to see if he was ready for us, then laid my phone down instead of putting it in my pocket since it was still "on" and the keys weren't locked (I didn't want to pocket call someone). But, getting 8 of us out of 2 hotel rooms was apparently more than I could handle as I then neglected to pick the phone back up. Sigh. I lost my husbands house/car keys once about 7/8 years ago. I have not lived that down either (I am convinced that I laid them on the counter and Grace knocked them into the trashcan). So...yeah...my husband did not let me hold any keys or phones throughout this vacation. Thankfully we all laughed about it...a lot...;)
We made it to the house we rented around 6. We had gotten the recommendation from my brother to check out www.vrbo.com for a house. We had looked into AAA for flying down and staying at a value Disney Resort. We could have had 3 days at the Disney Parks and 4 nights in their resort (with food and Disney tickets included) for what ended up being just a few hundred dollars more than our 10 day trip with 4 days at the Parks, Kennedy Space Center, Creation Museum, 4 days of drive by "sight seeing" ;), and having a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house for 6 nights with a pool and room to spread out, sleep comfortably, and make noise without bothering someone on the other side of a wall. It was a good choice! Anyway, we got there and settled in.
Day 4: We drove to Cape Canaveral to the Kennedy Space Center - the first of 2 of my favorite days on the trip. It was an overcast day. It was a very emotional experience for me and very educational. I love historical stuff:) It stayed dry while we did the outdoor exhibits, then we got on a bus to do the tour of the launch sites, etc. They took us to another building where we sat through a simulation of the first launch of American's into space, then saw some other museum like things. Those of us who had cell phones got a tornado warning alert. It was really raining hard outside. We got on the bus and drove to the main site and ran through the rain to the Atlantis building (the actual shuttle Atlantis was in there!) We were locked into that building due to the weather but it was very, very educational and fun filled. Several of us went to a space shuttle simulator - soooooo neat! Even being in there a couple of hours we did not get to see everything. When I asked the kids what their favorite part of the Space Center was, they talked about the Angry Birds exhibit where there was a mirror maze lol! Oh well, hopefully they learned something from the rest of it!!
Day 5: First of day of Disney Parks - Animal Kingdom. The overwhelming memory that I have of it...the crowds. Yuck. I prefer vacations with not many people. Anyway, Grace enjoyed dancing to some African music with some dancers. We lost Grace briefly when she stopped to watch the dancing/musicians and I thought she was still walking behind Buddy (keeping track of 9 of us in the crowds was insane. Thankfully Buddy usually was in front and could take care of himself and JJ stayed strapped to me 95% of the time (although I will say that I wished that he would have walked more. My back held up amazingly well on this trip, especially with 5 days of my carrying him all day)). Grace realized she was alone and freaked out a bit but saw us 10 feet away and came to us (Beautiful had gone ahead thinking Grace was still walking and tried to find her and I stayed put in case someone doubled back). The next thing I knew, Grace was crying and clinging to me. She never let us out of her sight again. It was a lesson in sticking together that was well learned (everyone had their names and my husband's cell phone number written in two places on items on them in case they got lost). We all went on a Safari and the kids got a picture with Rafiki. The big highlight in was the 3-D film with Flik from A Bugs Life. It was a very fun experience (even though it really freaked Faith out!)
Day 6: Epcot...my other favorite day on the trip. FAR fewer people the day we were there. We spent about 13 hours there. Everyone was given a backpack for the day with PB roll ups, water, and snacks that sustained us for the day and each person was responsible for their own. Everything was so expensive it was the only way to do it.
Anyway, the highlights of this day (LOTS of them - after all this was my favorite day!!):
Rides - Soarin' - sitting in rows suspended above the ground in front of a screen so the experience is as if you are hang gliding over California - including olfactory experiences. It was really cool. The wait was 1 hour but it was worth it. JJ could not ride on it so my husband took the kids first, then I was given a "fast pass" to go through once my husband got back. I don't know if my husband will every forgive me for having him go on that ride. He is scared of heights. Very scared of heights (some of you remember him falling off of the room and hitting his head a few years ago? That didn't help.) I had been told that the ride involved just getting your feet a few feet off of the ground so the seats could move as if you were moving with the scene. Yeah. You are much, much (much) higher off of the ground than that. Not such a happy husband...but still a very neat experience!
Test Drive - "designing" a car then "test driving" it. The wait was also 1 hour but VERY worth it. Once in the car you go through "tests" to see how well it can brake, accelerate, etc. We were going 70 mph at one point. Oh yeah. Very cool.
We went on a boat ride through some testing areas of how to use natural pest control, fertilizer, etc. Essentially thinking outside the box on how to grow things. It was quite cool.
It was dark and late when we all finally got through the Soarin' ride - were supposed to leave then. I walked past the place where Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie were. It was a very long wait all day long and I saw that at that hour we could get in right away. So...I changed "plans" (see being spontaneous again lol!), went and got the rest of the group, and we got to get pictures with them. Epcot was not the place I was expecting to see so many characters, but it is where we saw the most! We also saw Cinderella's wicked step mother/sisters, Chip and Dale, Donald Duck (got pictures) and Belle, Alice, and Cinderella (no pictures). The kids (in particular the girls) were thrilled to get pictures with the characters.
Captain EO: This Epcot Only 3-D came out about a year before the last time I went to Disney World...25 years ago. It was so fun to see it again with the kids. However, it was even funnier with the comments from the girls. Captain EO is Michael Jackson. Faith was on my left and when Michael Jackson came out she got a quizical look on her face, tilted her head, and said, "so...he is a girl?" Then Grace, on my other side, after Michael Jackson said his first words also reiterated, "so...is he a girl?" Six or 7 years ago after Beautiful and Buddy had heard the song after the Free Willy movie argued and argued and argued with me that a woman sang the song. I finally had to get on the internet and prove to them who Michael Jackson was (and that he was male). To have the girls do that again during the movie was very hilarious to me - since I am of the era where Michael Jackson was such a huge icon it is interesting to see him through the next generation's eyes. Anyway, even Buddy enjoyed the flick and laughed as he commented that he has never heard of using music to defeat ones enemies before:)
Figment: Sigh... When I went to Disney World at age 15 the thing that I remember more than anything else (besides that I got to see Captain EO;) was Figment. It has been significantly updated (just like everything else) and it was so fun! I had gotten a stuffed Figment back then and have kept it for 25 year not letting it get lost or wrecked. It was my "memory" of that family vacation. It was very special to get to share it with my own children:)
The sculptures. Wow. Wow. Wow. It was the International Flower and Garden Festival - I don't know if they have all of the gardens and sculptures made up just as beautiful when it is not this festival but it was incredible. To take shrubs/hedges/I don't know what, but living growing vegetation, and sculpt/clip/cut it in a way to make the Disney Characters was sooooooo amazing. To have even different colors/textures of plants growing on them. I can't put words on it. Aside from the fireworks at Magic Kingdom it is what we by far took the most pictures of.
Finally, the World Showcase was wonderful. To walk around the lake and see all of the buildings where the architecture looked like the country it was showcasing was fun! Superman did a great job of knowing what country we were "in" by the architecture. Very, very interesting and educational. Beautiful.
Then, after we got out of the Character place with Mickey Mouse, etc the fireworks started. I was so thankful that we impulsively stayed longer to see Mickey, etc or we would have missed them. I thought the only fireworks were at the Magic Kingdom. They were beautiful and amazing.
Day 7: (aren't you glad I am finally done with Day 6 lol?!?!?!)
Magic Kingdom. To be totally honest, by the time we left at 6ish this day I was thinking that I would have had more fun pulling out my own teeth with a pliers. It was hot, crowded, and...well...crowded!
Highlights: (yes, I think I can come up with some;)
We were in a Presidents historical exhibit (very, very, very cool) when Beautiful leans down to whisper that we know people standing 10 feet away. Sure enough it was a family from Maine that we know! The wife/mom is a sister to a friend of ours here so we know them from when they travel back to visit in the summers. How cool was that?!?! It was also ironic as when our family went on vacation to Florida when I was 15 (I lived in MN then) and in KEY WEST, FL we saw MY GRANDPARENTS (who lived 10 miles from me) who were on a separate bus tour at that time. My mom had known that they may be there about the same time as our vacation but didn't want to tell us in case we didn't see them. It was CRAZY! There were lots of little "God" moments like this for me on this trip (e.g. the Figment ride at Epcot, the house having the same tile as our house, plate pattern as us, bowls as us, and that the county we were in was the same name as our county here, and the name of the development we stayed in was the same as the name of the town that our friend that we brought with lives in, etc).
Watching the Disney Princesses dance/put on their show in front of the Castle
Jack Sparrow show.
Pirates of the Caribbean ride/Jungle Cruise ride. The first was a fun "ride." The second was educational and funny. The guy running our boat spoke the entire time from his script of...puns. Almost every single comment he made was a pun. I found it absolutely hilarious! The jungle stuff was nice too...
The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse/fort thing. It was especially fun for Superman who had read the book whereas the girls have not.
Riding on the Ferry Boat.
"driving" on the race track with Grace. She steered the car and I had the accelerator. It was one of those cars with a piece of metal down the middle of the track so you can't run off of the track or into someone...but you sure can run into it and jolt yourself a lot! Imagine Grace driving on that. "nuff said. Uff Da lol!
OK, I don't think I can find anything else nice to say about that day. Oh, we left and went out to eat (the only time as a family we went and sat down to eat on the trip) at IHOP:)
Day 8: I really, really did not want to go back to Magic Kingdom this day. I really wanted to go back to Epcot. I could have done 5 more days at Epcot. But, the kids wanted our last day to be a 2nd helping of Magic Kingdom so I psyched myself up, got out my pliers (just kidding) and we made a PLAN for the day. Yes, no more spontaneity, I made a plan. It ended up being a very enjoyable day:)
We got up and packed a lot of stuff, ate a big breakfast, and got Fast Passes figured out via computer.
here is the one regret that I have from our spontaneous vacation:
In the rush of having 7 days to plan/pack for our 10 day Disney World vacation I did not have time to research everything like I would have wanted. I really, really wish that I would have understood the FastPass+ system. I didn't really understand that I could, from the luxury of my computer at home and not stand in line for up to an hour in the heat the actual day at the park, line up the rides we wanted to go on and the times. The FastPass+ system is really neat in theory and function. So you don't have to stand in line for hours you can pick up to 3 rides to get a "fast pass" too. You show up, scan your card (everyone at Disney World has a credit card like "ticket" that is set to your fingerprint to get you in the gate and to get onto rides that are Fast Pass rides. You pick when you want to go on a ride and then show up and get right in at that time. However, when you show up that day you may not get one of the rides you want (hence us standing in line at Epcot for 2 rides - we were lucky to get 60 minute waits. We watched throughout the day and they were up to 100 minute waits). If I would have understood how I could have done this from the house it would have made life easier. On the other hand, if we would have picked all of those days/rides before we went there we couldn't have been as spontaneous on what time we got to the park, when we left, etc.
OK, enough with my one regret.
We knew were were staying late until after the fireworks so we planned the FastPass+ accordingly and got there around noon. It was less crowded this day (YES!!!!).
We went on our rides and a few more due to short rides. We enjoyed a paddle board ride.
I took a raft ride with the 4 kids to Tom Sawyer's island. We walked around and got lost. Grace kept running around ahead of us and there were lots of twists and turns on the island (and in the caves). JJ kept running after her (of course - one of the few times that he actually wanted down!!) and I could not keep all 4 of them together. I got disoriented and thought I was on the other side of the island. Therefore, I was late meeting back up with the others. I was very happy to get the kids back on the raft and off the island lol! It was a fun island though:)
In Frontierland there was a Flash Mob and the 4 kids got pulled in to dance. I was so thrilled to see JJ actually go with the man (Faith was on the other side) and be separated from me. It was fun to watch and fun for them.
The Monster's Inc Laugh Floor was really cool. It was set up like a stand up comedy club...but the virtual "monsters" were the comedians. They took live feedback from the audience and did spotlights on various people. Then they showed the spotlight on Superman! He got to answer some questions and the monster made some jokes in response. I was enthralled with the technology of it all.
We went on the car ride again. Yesterday Superman drove Faith in the car (he did pretty good!) and today Faith got to drive. Oh My! Yeah...neither Faith nor Grace will ever drive while we are responsible for their car insurance. Sheesh. We all got a big laugh out of that!
I loved, loved, LOVED the Fantasy Parade. Apparently it is a new parade that is at 3 p.m. The floats and people on the ground were wonderfully and creatively decorated/dressed. But the story of the character was told through the people and the float. It was so artfully done. For example, they had a Prince who was being "talked to" by the fairy godmothers (who were gliding along on something individually, fairies wouldn't "walk" you know!) The Prince then turned and "fought" with several characters dressed up as if they were thorn bushes. Behind the thorn bushes was a large fire breathing dragon (and it looked like REAL fire!). It was indescribable so I won't attempt to fumble through any more description. It was...wow...
Then at 9:00 was the classic electric light parade. That was really neat too, but not as neat as the Fantasy Parade. At 9:45 was a light show projected onto The Castle with music. It depicted many of the famous characters. Very creative and well done. Very cool.
Finally, at 10:00 were the famous fireworks over The Castle. We got standing room fairly close to the castle and it was amazing. Just amazing. Yep, that about sums it up.
We took the Ferry back to the parking lot and went home, packed, and slept some.
Day 9: We packed and got out of the house at 10:30. We decided to drive through Alabama and Mississippi to get home rather than the Georgia route (and thus Atlanta) again. Alabama was so beautiful. I had some pretty wrong misconceptions of what the deep south looks like. I would like to go there again. Very pretty. We made it through FL, GA, AL, then the GPS took us to TN rather than through MS so we missed seeing that state. We knew that there were some tornado warnings around us but also wanted to get north of Nashville so we didn't hit rush hour. We checked into a hotel at midnight.
Day 10: We got going at 8:30 and it was already humid. Over breakfast we watched the news with the tornados and flooding not too far east of us. We were glad we made it as far as we did the night before. We drove through KY and stopped in IL. It was cold. I made a note to myself where the "line" seems to be for warm/cold weather. I will move south of that "line" someday lol! We drove through St. Louis and the kids got to see the Arch. We made it through MO and finally got home around 10:30. It was SOOO good to be home.
Some other items worth mentioning.
There is no way we could have taken this trip without Grace being on the new supplements. It was by far the easiest trip with her. We had excitable behavior and only 3 meltdowns (one was leaving Disney late at night Day 8 - but we were all tired, cranky, and it was 11 p.m.). But her meltdowns were less than 1/2 of what the "old" Grace would have done. She was enjoyable for the vast majority of the trip. She was in awe of all of her surroundings but mostly did not get overstimulated by it. She did not get distracted and wander off (just that one day but she really thought we all had stopped to watch it, she didn't wander off). When she was difficult it was verbal rather than behavioral. Essentially she would argue. The 4 and I (are you noticing a pattern here? How did I end up alone with the 4 and that was when trouble would happen?!?!?!) anyway, the 4 and I got separated from my husband and we had to get up to the predetermined meet up spot and I kept telling them to look for his red shirt. She argued the ENTIRE length of the park that he was wearing a grey shirt, her feet hurt, she was thirsty, she was hungry, she was hot, she was tired...and she...would...not...stop. I was carrying the 40 lb kid and trying to keep us together in the crowd (yes this was day 7...the day where I would have rather had the pliers...). Anyway, we finally made it to the spot and my husband showed up about 10 minutes later (in a red shirt)...and I had help again:)
I might add, that and one other time were the only times that wished that I had my cell phone. I really REALLY enjoyed not being tied to it this week.
It was absolutely delightful to see Buddy enjoy himself. Buddy does NOT like people, crowds, noise, or anything new. He strongly detests waking up early. He had FUN! He enjoyed himself, was a delight to be around (the vast majority of the time), and laughed and joked with us. I had expected him to be more difficult and he was the one who actually liked the Magic Kingdom as much as, or more than, the rest of the kids lol! We joked with him that it was all of those Princesses;)
Finally, we had Beautiful's friend with us on the trip. He is a delightful young man. I will be honest with you and admit that there are very few people with whom I think I could get along on vacation, much less the stress of over 50 hours of driving and 10 days together (are you surprised?!?). Most of the time I am trying to find a way to hide from my own family and get some breathing room lol! He was (is) a gem. It was a blessing to have him with on our trip. It was a good vacation, a magical time, and many memorable memories were made. I am so thankful that God pulled it all together, kept us safe and healthy, and provided for our trip. We were (and are) blessed!
Monday, February 24, 2014
3+ weeks into the "new normal"
I have had a lot of moments in the past 3+ weeks where I have been struck by the changes we are seeing in Grace. I cannot describe how much calmer things feel in our home as a whole. I cannot explain how emotional it has been for me to catch more and more glimpses into the "real" Grace while the "noise" of her behaviors is reduced.
It is hard for me to articulate exactly what is different. If you do not have a child with ADHD, or do not know our Grace well, you would not think that the changes that I describe here are any big deal. I have tried to think about the difference of "before" these supplements and "after" the supplements in qualitative terms and will try to share them efficiently here.
Some of the things that we are noticing are:
* yesterday in church she, for the very first time, actually filled out the sermon notes sheet and was not even asked to do so. She did not doodle AT ALL and KEPT HER ATTENTION for the entire 45 minute sermon (focused on writing out the sermon notes). She turned around to look behind her exactly ONE TIME. If you know our Grace, this point right here is enough for you to know how changed that she is.
*yesterday afternoon she was crying and talking about her adoption situation. She sat, focused and attentive (and tearful), while I explained to her the situation and my understanding of why what happened happened. She sat on my lap and clung to me. I left for Bible study later and when I returned I found a note from her in my slipper that said in part, "I'm glad to be with you mom and dad." Not only is she now able to actually feel emotion, but she is able to process and contemplate. Normally she just has unmodulated emotions that she is unable to process and would not be able to actually sit attentively and thoughtfully through an explanation and then assimilate that information and heal.
*She is starting to notice how her "friends" treat her and that some of their behavior may be due to her behavior. Insightful...and very new.
*She is initiating letting others go first. Ok, another example of something huge to us that probably means nothing to anyone else.
*She is initiating letting others go first. Ok, another example of something huge to us that probably means nothing to anyone else.
*We have been able to take her off of one of the sleeping pills! We used to have to give her one of the sleeping pills at supper time just to attempt to get through the evening (the ADHD meds wear off at suppertime) but no longer. She is have very calm and lovely evenings!
*She is eating better and gaining weight!
*We purchased a trampoline for inside the house. Between using that when she is getting a little wired and switching from a shower to a bath again she is getting good sensory input and those things are really helping to calm her. Before we would try these sensory things and she would not necessarily be calmed and rebelled against the efforts feeling that they were discipline rather than trying to help her.
*She is much, much more physical. She wants a lot more reassurances and hugs and touches. Before she seemed to need them but was flipping around and moving so much that it wasn't real cuddling. Now she asks for it more and it, again, seems to actually calm her.
*She talks less. YAY!!!! lol:)
*Mornings are SOO much quieter and calmer. Although she does seem to being having an increase in nightmares... :(
*She can still be pretty oppositional, but it is nothing like it was before. We are now dealing with more "normal" rebellious behavior of a 7 year old rather than the frantic impulsivity of the ADHD.
Some of you have asked me about the supplements that we use. We are using a company called Neuroscience. Their website is www.neurorelief.org if you want to check it out.
Some of you have asked me about the supplements that we use. We are using a company called Neuroscience. Their website is www.neurorelief.org if you want to check it out.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Our Calm (Yes! I said CALM lol!) Saturday:) A first of its kind of day with Grace.
We have had such a calm day. I actually do not have a memory of a day that has been so calm, and for so long, when I was actually in the presence of my children. Well, actually, with Grace. I have been contemplating all day why it is so calm and what is really different. I realized that posting about what is "better" may actually be a better post than writing about what is usually...well...not so great.
Last Saturday was my birthday. It, too, was a very special and calm day. However, the reality is that Buddy stayed home with Superman and Faith and a very, very dear friend took Grace for 5+ hours. My husband and I went to a couple of basketball games that Beautiful couldn't play in due to her broken finger but we wanted to support the team nonetheless. It was so different to talk with adults instead of containing children lol! JJ sat quietly and still with my Kindle:) Then we took Beautiful and her special friend out for Chinese food for lunch. My love language is acts of service so I had asked my husband to just pamper me for the day and I didn't need anything else. He did a very nice job:) However, I do feel a probably unhealthy amount of guilt that I do not usually have such relaxing days when I am actually in the presence of all of my children... After all, children are a blessing from the Lord, so He says!
So...back to my purpose for this post lol!
*Grace was blessedly calm when she woke this morning. She did not make extra noise and did not come to my side of the bed insisting on some request (demand) that she knows she cannot have.
*Grace did have a bit of a problem before breakfast. My husband and I took her to task and would not accept her sullen responses, hiding under the table from us in opposition to our scolding, plugging her ears so she could not hear us, interrupting us saying "I know! I know!", etc. We realized that she had just taken her meds so it would be a bit before she could "function." She, however, did "function" much quicker than usual and actually...well...heard us. She stopped her behavior and turned it around. I also have no memory of her ever doing that before. Usually she escalates and ends up in her bedroom for awhile (or long while) while the rest of the family attempts to lower their blood pressures.
*When I had told her that she would not get to do a special thing due to her behavior and a hour later after she had turned her behavior around I gave her the special thing, she would not take it, looked me in the eye, and said "I am not allowed to do that today" instead of just doing it and trying to get away with it thinking that I forgot. I smiled and told her that was "mercy" and we had a great talk about grace and mercy as a result.
*My husband drove Beautiful, Buddy, and Beautiful's basketball team to the UNL women's basketball game today. That left me home with the 4. JJ woke up very slowly this morning and clung to me for 2 hours before he finally got off of my lap to play. Grace did not get into trouble during that time even though I could not have my eyes on her constantly. I have been really excited to actually be getting things done while not so bogged down with behavior control and frustration. My husband actually had to make me go to bed at 12:30 this morning because I was full of energy and cleaning the bathrooms. It is such a weight lifted to have the house calmer. I can not explain it well.
*My husband got me a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package for Christmas. There are only two in a package and I had no idea that they made them so HUGE! I have eaten about 1/2 of 1 in 6 weeks. When life is really tough I go to its hiding place and take a bite. Is there anything more amazing than chocolate and peanut butter...especially when you are on your last nerve? I didn't think so lol! Anyway, I realized today that I have not taken a bite in over a week!
*Once JJ finally felt safe/happy/awake/whatever enough to get off my lap it was after 12:30. I have made such progress on projects in the past 10 days that I had decided today was time for a fun project (and was wondering if he would be on my lap all day making me get nothing done!). Over the past 10 days I finished out the 2013 paperwork and am ready for taxes. I got the 2014 paperwork all switched over. I went through the budgets and all of that mind frying stuff, and I actually cleaned my desk off and filed. Yes! The floors were all vacuumed, the dishes done, the bedrooms clean, the bathrooms clean, and Faith's hair is done (it was soooo much over due...she had extensions falling out it was so far overdue!) So, the girls have been begging to learn to sew. I had cut a bunch of flannel and denim squares 3 months ago that I have not had time to sew so decided that today was the day to start it. I don't think I have sewed a quilt in perhaps 6 or 7 years. I can't sew anything else at all lol! Denim quilts are super easy:)
*I set up my sewing machine close to the dining room window (I may not need glasses but I sure do know I have better sight in bright natural sunlight with my increasing age;) and told Grace she got to be my helper and she was thrilled. Superman and Faith played Wii with JJ.
*She did NOT talk constantly.
*She set out the squares for me so I could just keep sewing. She was able to actually remember and follow my directions on how to do it.
*She was able to multi-task between putting the squares together and organizing them where I could reach them.
*She stayed on task throughout the ENTIRE project (until the squares were all used up - man it takes a lot squares for a quilt! I have much more cutting to do!)
*When Faith came in and offered to help Grace actually suggested a task for her to be able to help as opposed to pushing her off and saying she could not help.
*I ACTUALLY TRUSTED THE CHILD WITH A SCISSORS...AND SHE DID WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!
*OK, that one actually makes me cry. You.have.no idea.
*she cut apart the fabric squares carefully, never getting careless or impulsive or losing focus.
*She had Faith stack the squares after cut.
*When that pile was done she, yes SHE, suggested that next time Faith get to cut and they would TAKE TURNS! This from a child whose impulsivity demands that she is first to do all things and will push her siblings down the stairs in an attempt to reach the top first.
*Then, THEN, she said, "Oh Faith, I should have let YOU cut FIRST. I will give you my NEXT TWO TURNS since I did it first and did not think of you."
*Yep, more tears.
*When she offered to feed JJ a piece of cake (he is goofy about not getting his hands dirty with food and 90% of the time insists that we feed him) and he said "no" she ACTUALLY STOPPED AND DID NOT FORCE HIM! Usually the word "no" means "do it faster and harder" to her.
*when told "no" she did not ask the same question 10, 20, 30 times or whine about being told "no."
*When her brother hit her she came directly to me to solve it rather than fight back. She was calm, not whining or accusing, and she totally handled it well!
*When she saw that something was moved she actually ASKED (genuinely and honesty) how it happened rather than accuse one of her siblings of being naughty and trying to get them into trouble.
*We then had the issue when I ran out of flannel and searched the closets thoroughly for the rest. I was sure that I had not cut all of it, but it was 3 months ago. That got me incredibly sidetracked. I spent the next 3 hours going through 6 boxes of miscellaneous "craft materials" after I could not find the flannel in the fabric box (but the other boxes were sitting next to it and just driving me crazy with disorganization!) I have not gone through or used anything in those boxes for over 7 years. I threw away 2 boxes of junk and organized the rest into type (painting box, beading box, etc). Grace handled the distraction all very well. She played Wii appropriately without causing problems with the other kids. I thought that getting her off of an organized task would be bad news, but it all went extremely well. JJ saw the paint and wanted to do that, and sat very calmly painting for awhile. Then he and the girls played with some modeling clay that I found and did well sharing and being creative. That was probably a 3 hour process. I am so thankful for the organizing I got done and that she handled the unstructured time so well!
*While she was playing with the clay with JJ she made a couple of interesting comments. "It has been so quiet today!" I marveling at that myself but to have her notice it was very interesting. The other comment was about JJ's speech. She is around him all of the time, yet tonight during the clay shaping she was listening to him try to stay words and after awhile said, "you know, he really can't talk very well." I think that she is always talking "at" him and not "with" him and really has never noticed.
*I only had to discipline each kid 1 time today. Superman and Faith got a little worked up competing at Wii and each had to sit a bit. Whenever I had to scold JJ he actually stopped immediately, looked at me, and said, "sorry mamma" ...right away! Clearly it was a reminder to me that he is usually mimicking what he is seeing and today he saw something much different than usual. Also, it just speaks to the general low-key emotions of the day. Tonight Grace went to her bedroom playing (they ran crazy through the house for an hour playing some game together NICELY, I never had to stop them due to getting out of hand. It was a FIRST!) and slammed the door. When she got upstairs I called her to me and started to remind her about the rules with no door slamming. She walked away and I called her back. She came right to me, looked me in the eye, and honestly said she was sorry. I could "see" in her eyes that she was hearing me and not just blowing me off...if that makes any sense.
*Then, I am sure due to the general calmness of the day and the safety that it allowed Superman came to me, USED HIS WORDS, and ASKED ME FOR SNUGGLE TIME!!! That is a major, major deal in our house. It speaks very much to the change in the feel of our day.
I hope that this lasts. For the sake of all 8 of us. It was a beautiful and precious day to experience:)
Last Saturday was my birthday. It, too, was a very special and calm day. However, the reality is that Buddy stayed home with Superman and Faith and a very, very dear friend took Grace for 5+ hours. My husband and I went to a couple of basketball games that Beautiful couldn't play in due to her broken finger but we wanted to support the team nonetheless. It was so different to talk with adults instead of containing children lol! JJ sat quietly and still with my Kindle:) Then we took Beautiful and her special friend out for Chinese food for lunch. My love language is acts of service so I had asked my husband to just pamper me for the day and I didn't need anything else. He did a very nice job:) However, I do feel a probably unhealthy amount of guilt that I do not usually have such relaxing days when I am actually in the presence of all of my children... After all, children are a blessing from the Lord, so He says!
So...back to my purpose for this post lol!
*Grace was blessedly calm when she woke this morning. She did not make extra noise and did not come to my side of the bed insisting on some request (demand) that she knows she cannot have.
*Grace did have a bit of a problem before breakfast. My husband and I took her to task and would not accept her sullen responses, hiding under the table from us in opposition to our scolding, plugging her ears so she could not hear us, interrupting us saying "I know! I know!", etc. We realized that she had just taken her meds so it would be a bit before she could "function." She, however, did "function" much quicker than usual and actually...well...heard us. She stopped her behavior and turned it around. I also have no memory of her ever doing that before. Usually she escalates and ends up in her bedroom for awhile (or long while) while the rest of the family attempts to lower their blood pressures.
*When I had told her that she would not get to do a special thing due to her behavior and a hour later after she had turned her behavior around I gave her the special thing, she would not take it, looked me in the eye, and said "I am not allowed to do that today" instead of just doing it and trying to get away with it thinking that I forgot. I smiled and told her that was "mercy" and we had a great talk about grace and mercy as a result.
*My husband drove Beautiful, Buddy, and Beautiful's basketball team to the UNL women's basketball game today. That left me home with the 4. JJ woke up very slowly this morning and clung to me for 2 hours before he finally got off of my lap to play. Grace did not get into trouble during that time even though I could not have my eyes on her constantly. I have been really excited to actually be getting things done while not so bogged down with behavior control and frustration. My husband actually had to make me go to bed at 12:30 this morning because I was full of energy and cleaning the bathrooms. It is such a weight lifted to have the house calmer. I can not explain it well.
*My husband got me a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup package for Christmas. There are only two in a package and I had no idea that they made them so HUGE! I have eaten about 1/2 of 1 in 6 weeks. When life is really tough I go to its hiding place and take a bite. Is there anything more amazing than chocolate and peanut butter...especially when you are on your last nerve? I didn't think so lol! Anyway, I realized today that I have not taken a bite in over a week!
*Once JJ finally felt safe/happy/awake/whatever enough to get off my lap it was after 12:30. I have made such progress on projects in the past 10 days that I had decided today was time for a fun project (and was wondering if he would be on my lap all day making me get nothing done!). Over the past 10 days I finished out the 2013 paperwork and am ready for taxes. I got the 2014 paperwork all switched over. I went through the budgets and all of that mind frying stuff, and I actually cleaned my desk off and filed. Yes! The floors were all vacuumed, the dishes done, the bedrooms clean, the bathrooms clean, and Faith's hair is done (it was soooo much over due...she had extensions falling out it was so far overdue!) So, the girls have been begging to learn to sew. I had cut a bunch of flannel and denim squares 3 months ago that I have not had time to sew so decided that today was the day to start it. I don't think I have sewed a quilt in perhaps 6 or 7 years. I can't sew anything else at all lol! Denim quilts are super easy:)
*I set up my sewing machine close to the dining room window (I may not need glasses but I sure do know I have better sight in bright natural sunlight with my increasing age;) and told Grace she got to be my helper and she was thrilled. Superman and Faith played Wii with JJ.
*She did NOT talk constantly.
*She set out the squares for me so I could just keep sewing. She was able to actually remember and follow my directions on how to do it.
*She was able to multi-task between putting the squares together and organizing them where I could reach them.
*She stayed on task throughout the ENTIRE project (until the squares were all used up - man it takes a lot squares for a quilt! I have much more cutting to do!)
*When Faith came in and offered to help Grace actually suggested a task for her to be able to help as opposed to pushing her off and saying she could not help.
*I ACTUALLY TRUSTED THE CHILD WITH A SCISSORS...AND SHE DID WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!
*OK, that one actually makes me cry. You.have.no idea.
*she cut apart the fabric squares carefully, never getting careless or impulsive or losing focus.
*She had Faith stack the squares after cut.
*When that pile was done she, yes SHE, suggested that next time Faith get to cut and they would TAKE TURNS! This from a child whose impulsivity demands that she is first to do all things and will push her siblings down the stairs in an attempt to reach the top first.
*Then, THEN, she said, "Oh Faith, I should have let YOU cut FIRST. I will give you my NEXT TWO TURNS since I did it first and did not think of you."
*Yep, more tears.
*When she offered to feed JJ a piece of cake (he is goofy about not getting his hands dirty with food and 90% of the time insists that we feed him) and he said "no" she ACTUALLY STOPPED AND DID NOT FORCE HIM! Usually the word "no" means "do it faster and harder" to her.
*when told "no" she did not ask the same question 10, 20, 30 times or whine about being told "no."
*When her brother hit her she came directly to me to solve it rather than fight back. She was calm, not whining or accusing, and she totally handled it well!
*When she saw that something was moved she actually ASKED (genuinely and honesty) how it happened rather than accuse one of her siblings of being naughty and trying to get them into trouble.
*We then had the issue when I ran out of flannel and searched the closets thoroughly for the rest. I was sure that I had not cut all of it, but it was 3 months ago. That got me incredibly sidetracked. I spent the next 3 hours going through 6 boxes of miscellaneous "craft materials" after I could not find the flannel in the fabric box (but the other boxes were sitting next to it and just driving me crazy with disorganization!) I have not gone through or used anything in those boxes for over 7 years. I threw away 2 boxes of junk and organized the rest into type (painting box, beading box, etc). Grace handled the distraction all very well. She played Wii appropriately without causing problems with the other kids. I thought that getting her off of an organized task would be bad news, but it all went extremely well. JJ saw the paint and wanted to do that, and sat very calmly painting for awhile. Then he and the girls played with some modeling clay that I found and did well sharing and being creative. That was probably a 3 hour process. I am so thankful for the organizing I got done and that she handled the unstructured time so well!
*While she was playing with the clay with JJ she made a couple of interesting comments. "It has been so quiet today!" I marveling at that myself but to have her notice it was very interesting. The other comment was about JJ's speech. She is around him all of the time, yet tonight during the clay shaping she was listening to him try to stay words and after awhile said, "you know, he really can't talk very well." I think that she is always talking "at" him and not "with" him and really has never noticed.
*I only had to discipline each kid 1 time today. Superman and Faith got a little worked up competing at Wii and each had to sit a bit. Whenever I had to scold JJ he actually stopped immediately, looked at me, and said, "sorry mamma" ...right away! Clearly it was a reminder to me that he is usually mimicking what he is seeing and today he saw something much different than usual. Also, it just speaks to the general low-key emotions of the day. Tonight Grace went to her bedroom playing (they ran crazy through the house for an hour playing some game together NICELY, I never had to stop them due to getting out of hand. It was a FIRST!) and slammed the door. When she got upstairs I called her to me and started to remind her about the rules with no door slamming. She walked away and I called her back. She came right to me, looked me in the eye, and honestly said she was sorry. I could "see" in her eyes that she was hearing me and not just blowing me off...if that makes any sense.
*Then, I am sure due to the general calmness of the day and the safety that it allowed Superman came to me, USED HIS WORDS, and ASKED ME FOR SNUGGLE TIME!!! That is a major, major deal in our house. It speaks very much to the change in the feel of our day.
I hope that this lasts. For the sake of all 8 of us. It was a beautiful and precious day to experience:)
Friday, February 7, 2014
Our new supplement adventure with Grace
We are on a new adventure with supplements with Grace. Her behavior over the past 6 weeks has gotten so bad that I was at the end of my rope (as was everyone else in the house). The school was telling us that they were having significant difficulties with her as well and, just like at home, they were not able to make progress with her educationally. In my January blog post I did a synopsis of how things were going and her behavior (check that out if you didn't read it yet). We have all been very stressed.
When I went to the Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) training at TCU just over 2 years ago I learned about neurotransmitter testing. I was very interested in learning about the neurochemistry of kids who have prenatal exposure and early exposure to trauma (traumatic births, early hospitalizations, early trauma/abuse, etc). The effects on a person's neurochemistry can be altered in a way that we see a lot of "behaviors." TBRI taught us how to work behaviorally with a child/family to help alleviate behaviors (mostly with "trust" interventions), but it also taught us about the building blocks of a person's behavior being neurochemical. So...I did not know how to go about testing our kids for this. I knew about the company but not how to find a provider. With several cases that I am dealing with right now I consulted with several people who use it in other states (in particular with kids with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome) and they had very promising results.
We decided to try it with Grace. We are at a point where we are grasping at straws for out household's sanity. I contemplate writing a post about the realities of living with a child with ADHD but just can't quite pull it off yet without sounding like I am complaining. It has been a very, very hard month and I was stretched very thin. Since we did this testing and Grace's behavior has improved so that she doesn't need as frequent of interventions and the household as a whole is calmer I have made a huge dent in my project list and life feels calmer for all:)
Essentially, a person submits a urine, saliva, or blood sample to the lab company (we do urine). The test kit is dependent on exactly which neurotransmitters are being tested. Everyone has both inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters. Think Serotonin and and GABA as "calming" and Histamine, Dopamine, Epinepherine, etc as "exciting." The lab then gives a specific recommendation of supplements that work directly on the neurotransmitters. These aren't vitamins but are specifically targeting neurotransmitters.
When we got Grace's results back to say I was shocked was an understatement. I knew the results of others' profiles coupled with their behaviors and they had 2 or 3 neurotransmitters either too low and/or too high. We tested 9 for Grace...and all 9 of them were extremely high...way too high. We started the recommended supplements and for the first week there was no change at all. We were very disappointed. The second week we doubled them...and thankfully we have seen some very calming results!
The times of the day that have always been the worse are before the ADHD med takes effect in the morning and after it wears off around supper. Those times have seen the biggest improvement. Her nightmares are less frequent so we are all sleeping better. A huge problem has always been the morning as she wakes early and cannot be quiet (or compliant) so disrupts the household and gets the day started on the wrong foot for everyone. She is now calmly and quietly (yes!! I said QUIETLY!!!) laying in her bed until I get up and she helps me make breakfast/reads the Bible with me/etc. Her nighttime temper tantrums are less frequent. It so much more pleasant to not have her screaming for 30 - 90 minutes at bedtime preventing others' from falling asleep. She has been on two sleep medications for 9 months that have greatly helped with this as well, but recently it was worsening again and her general agitation at night was escalating. In AWANA (after supper) she has been very disruptive and cannot recall her verses (if she has actually even been able to memorize them). She hasn't been to AWANA since we started this so we will have to see if this is better.
Over the past 6 weeks the time frame she is actually on the ADHD medication has also become increasingly difficult. Home school and the time she is at the public school for intervention has been almost a futile effort. She simply cannot sit still long enough, and cannot focus at all, to be able to retain information. She is also getting more emotional and lamenting and understanding more that she hurts others and cannot control her impulsivity and hyperactive behavior. It is affecting how she thinks about herself. It is affecting how she feels about herself. It is very hard to watch. She was hurting her siblings with her inability to think ahead that behaviors may be dangerous, she was much more argumentative than usual (ALWAYS present but it was more exhausting than usual), and so many more behaviors than I have the energy to go into now.
So, we will continue to watch this and pray that it helps her neurologically so that we have more real change than just a bandaid for the problem. We are hopeful that if she can be biologically calmer then we can have more impact behaviorally and spiritually.
This neurotransmitter testing can be so helpful for so many types of symptoms and behaviors. Depression that is actually biological, those on the Autism Spectrum, ADHD, survivors of various types of trauma that has affected their biochemistry, etc. I am very hopeful. My DVD's on the topic are loaned out to a psychiatrist right now who is very interested in this and I am hopeful that he will also be able to impact others with this option.
We shall see...but in the meantime I am soooo thankful for a week that has been calm (for our house) and everyone's agitation has come down from about a "10+" to maybe a 7 or 8 just with Grace being calmer. It has been delightful:)
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