Balance

The subject of what is okay for kids who happen to be teenagers and happen to also have special needs to be exposed to and who makes those decisions was brought up by a friend of mine over at her blog Coffee Catharsis?

This is a tough matter to deal with because on the one hand it would be nice for them to have the experiences that their neurotypical peers would have, yet they are not able to do that because they do not learn things at the same rate as their peers do nor are they able to grasp the same concepts. As their parents we have to make choices for them as best we can and while we are making those choices we also have to remember that they will become adults and will have to learn to fly on their own too.

We had a school issue come up not long ago where the class wanted to watch The Blind Side. I think the boys, which make up the entire class except for my two girls were more interested in the football then what the story was really about. Anyway the teacher asked for my opinion knowing that all three of my kids were adopted and had come from traumatic pasts. I told her that I did not want Hanna watching the movie. We deal with the adoption and trauma issues here on a daily basis. They did not watch the movie. This is what should happen. When teachers and parents are able to communicate honestly we can come up with what is best for the kids.

We also have a junior, Lauren here and this weekend is prom. Now as much as I would like her to experience this event with her peers it is not going to work, at least not this year. They also have an after prom party which she will be attending. We have a PCA who is willing to work midnight to 4:00 am to accompany her to the event. She is so excited about going. This allows her to participate in a manner which she can handle.

Sometimes I feel like I am saying "no" a lot. I know that we as parents had rules for our neurotypical kids too, but they were able to make choices of who their friends were going to be, what games they played, what they read, how they were going to earn and spend their money, etc. With these kids parents, teachers, PCAs, and older siblings are really making these decisions for them because they are not able to do it for themselves. Four of our kids will never be able to decide for themselves how to run their day to day lives.

We let them have some control over what happens by letting them make simple choices. Even with these sometimes I want to step in and say 'hey do not do that, you are messing up', but I don`t do that of course I let them mess up. This morning we had such an experience. Hanna had not brought her dirty clothes to the laundry so she did not have anything to wear to school. She chose to borrow a pair of navy blue, basketball shorts from Allen and wore that with a long sleeved Minnie Mouse shirt, low socks, and sneakers. Lets just say that as a teenage girl I would have never, ever left the house looking like that, but she could care less. Will she learn anything from the experience? I doubt it, but I always hold out hope that some how she will catch on.

I guess keeping all of this in balance is a full time job when it comes to raising these kids. We want them to fly, but in order for that to happen we have to teach them how to do it very slowly. We also need to realize that there will be many, many obstacles along the way. To watch them succeed is oh so worth all the work.

Jokes And Concrete Kids

Since non of our kids who have special needs get jokes it is some times fund to tell them anyway and see what they do. We were in the van and Rene`Trevor, and Dad were telling dumb jokes. The sort of silly things one finds on the Laffy Taffy wrappers. Paul was listening and laughing at these jokes that he did not understand.

Finally Paul says that he has a joke. "Why are the mommy blue car and the daddy blue pick up truck shiny"?

Trevor asks "why"?

Paul, "because they are really, really funny".

Everyone laughed at Paul`s ridiculous joke because it was funny coming from him, but then he told us the same one a dozen tines before we got to where we were going.

wow, this concrete thinking kid needs to work on his joke telling skills just a bit more.

Computer Crash

Well our computer crashed as you might have guessed since I have not been keeping up with things here lately. The thing was doing crazy things and as time went along they just got a littler bit worse so we finally took it into get it looked at since Rene` (our Navy tech chic) thought it was likely toast and would cost to much to fix. She was correct there, it was going to cost at least as much to fix the old one as it was to replace it.Since we could no longer get anything done on the internet we had to get a new one . I guess we can not live long without a computer when we are running a small business. The guy at the store kept saying how much faster these new ones are then the old one. Really I do not need things to move faster here. I can live in the slow lane were it takes a whole second for the computer to do what I need it to do. Anyway I am back to life in the computer lworld.

Just One Day

I wanted the day off yesterday since I had a sinus congestion thing going and my head felt terrible. When our neurotypical kids were teenagers you could say give me a break and they would. They would feed themselves, keep the noise level down, and maybe even throw a load of laundry in or do the dishes. I got the what are you talking about looks from these four.

I told them that they could warm up leftovers or make a bowl of cereal for dinner. Lauren and Allen had cereal and bananas. Paul decided to just have a banana, and then you have Hanna who was going to stand by the window and wait for Dad to come home and cook dinner. Our PCA Angie explained to her several times that Dad was working late and he was not going to be home before her bedtime so she had better decide to eat something or go without. She finally decided to have cereal, slamming and banging very loudly throughout the process.

Allen went back outside to swing and was refusing to come in for a shower so I told Angie to jest get his teeth brushed and meds in and forget the shower.

Paul was looking for his tires (shoes) throwing all of the shoes out of the basket and yelling over and over that he needed his tires to go outside. What he really needed was to get ready for bed since it was past going outside time.

I do not even have a clue when the last time I took a break from parenting these kids was, probably never. There needs are so great that you just can not take time off. I do know that they can`t pick up on the very obvious clues that they need to back off at times. As soon as they went to bed I took my throbbing head there as well. The noise this morning did not cause nearly as much pounding in my head and I guess it is back to work for me today.

Heard From Our Soldier

We got a call from Jared yesterday afternoon. He is doing well. He likes shooting guns, throwing grenades, and doing obstacle courses. He likes to do this hands on type stuff. He is totally bored with the classroom stuff. He says he has to make himself pay attention so he can get it done. They have had severe storms and tornadoes there. He says one minute it is freezing and then all of a sudden it gets to hot.

He is ready to come home and cook with me, that is he does the cooking and I clean up the mess afterward. I wouldn`t mind letting him in on the cooking action. I don`t enjoy it quite as much as he does.

It looks like some of us will be heading to Missouri for his graduation ceremony the second week in May. That is not the best of times to be going anywhere (like everything in the military you go when and where they tell you to go). since Rene` and Trevor have finals then and will not be home yet and Karre in making costumes for the spring play which is performing that week. Karre will miss one of the performances so she can go. We are leaving Lauren, Allen, and Hanna here with PCA staff. We will take the little guy with us since I don`t think he is ready to be left here.

Still Here

I am still here, just been a little busy dealing with the 100 thing all week. According to the school I am a crazy mom and then when the medical people come around I know what I am doing. Now is that just a bit confusing for anyone? It sure is for me. If you want to know where I stand on this, I strongly agree with the medical people here. We have been here, done this before with another kid, special needs or not they figure out how to work this sick thing quickly.

The kid in the middle of this is REALLY enjoying his vacation time. He has watched cartoons, played cars and trucks,gone outside, had a whole day with Dad, and gone out to lunch. We have done two strep cultures, both rapid test and extended. They are all negative. The kid will be back in school next week. I have a piece of paper from a physician here (I will make several copies of this one), that says there is nothing wrong with this kid and he needs to be in school. I have far to much on my schedule to have my shadow fallowing me any longer.

A 100 Thing

Yesterday morning I was about 3/4 of the way through my "me" time when the phone rang. It was Paul`s school. "Paul has a temperature of about a hundred so he needs to go home, can you come get him"?

I felt like saying who me, I know no kid named Paul, but I just told them I`d be there. I grabbed a banana, my cell phone, and a jacket and headed out the door.

When I got to his school Paul was in the classroom so they could not have been to concerned about him being contagious or anything. When Paul saw me walk into the classroom he ran over to where the para was giving me the scoop and yelled "hi, mom I got a 100 thing in my ear so I get to go home with you, ya hoo"! That is Paul speak for they took my temperature.

He chattered and bounced as we walked to two blocks home. He did not appear to be ill in any way so when we got home I took his temperature and it was 98.9. Paul played cars, trucks, and Mickey Mouse until to other kids came home from school. At that time I needed to take someone else to the clinic for some work on orthotics so I decided to take Paul along and have one of our nurse friends take his temperature. She took it twice and came up with 98.6 both times and as she put it "that is about as normal as it gets".

According to Paul his 100 thing fell out of his ear while he was sleeping last night and he would like to go with me today. He is not going with me since I am taking Lauren to a medical appointment which is very time consuming and requires some hurry up and wait time. It also involves 2 1/2 hours in the cars. Since I can not be around to wait for the school to find another 100 in his ear Dad gets to take a day off from work to stay with him. Lets just say that Dad is not to excited about the situation. I told him he could stay with Paul or take Lauren. Since he does not do this appointment thing unless it is a life or death emergency, he gets to play cars, trucks, and Mickey Mouse.

Cookie Monster

I had five dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies all ready to go in the freezer so that the kids could have them in their lunch boxes for the rest of the school year. I should have taken them downstairs and locked them up, but I had something to do upstairs so I ran up there first, because you should not have to worry about a box of cookies disappearing, right? Dad went outside to check on Allen and Paul who were playing in the back yard. Karre was reading a book in the family room and Lauren was sitting on the couch in the living room with the dog. Hanna was drawing at the table. When I discovered the cookies were missing we made a quick search for them. Even before we began looking for them I had a pretty good idea that our usual thief, Hanna, had something to do with the disappearance. She headed upstairs yelling that she was to busy to look for cookies,and did not help us look for them. I found the box in the refrigerator with ONE cookie left in it. The other fifty-nine have vanished and I have no idea where she put them. Since we can`t find any of them, she likely has consumed them.

Now she is trying to talk Lauren into saying that she took them. I hope the kid turns furry and blue and maybe she will sprout some of those big, bulging eyes too, Wouldn`t that look cute. Oh, I hope she enjoyed the cookies, yum, yum. and maybe her tummy is feeling a bit full as well. She did not want any of the applesauce cookies that we had for dinner.