B-Day

Hanna turned 14 today, but since she has not figured out that today is her birthday we will leave it that way. (She does not understand time very well). There will be less chance of drama if she does not know it is the day. We will celebrate tomorrow when we go to the lake with grandma, Dave, Kris and the 2 kids. We are planning on spending the day playing in the sand, swimming. and tubing. Hanna enjoys doing all of this stuff so hopefully she has a good time.

It is difficult to keep celebration for her to a minimum, but she can not handle it any other way. I find it especially difficult because I know that as a young child she did not have an opportunity to celebrate her birthday or anything else so we want her to know that she is worth celebrating.

Playing The Game

I have been playing a game of Life With Disabilities for a very long time. It is a rather complicated game where much thinking, planning, and strategies are involved. There is lots of legal mumble jumbo to figure out along the way and then of course there are the many, many rules to follow. I thought I was doing pretty well playing this game, but now the rules of the game keep changing. Those rules do not apply to all the players equally and I do not even have them in writing so that I might have a chance to figure them out.

The game is one that I can never win and if my kids could possibly function at all without services I would just give up and throw the game board and all of its pieces at my opponents. I would stop trying to play this very unfair game and find something less stressful to do with my time and money. I guess I better just figure out my next move in the game.

Moving Time

Right now we have two couches, a love seat, a kitchen table, two large book shelves, and a chair sitting in our living room, along with the furnishings that really belong there. Needless to say we can not use our living room at all.

We have college kids and with that comes this endless cycle of moving from home to the dorms, to apartment, and then every nine months or so you just do it all over again. Now we do not have just the usual moving routine we have a kid who will graduate in the spring with three degrees, who will either get a job or go to graduate school and of course this involves some more moving, but now we are likely to have a long distance move. We also have a kid will will be doing two long term internships which means she will need to make three moves in nine months.

Karre is staying put with us for now, but she is serious about getting a town house. She has the money to do it and I guess we will move her when the time comes. I think she needs a break from her siblings and this will give her that.

Just to add to the moving fun our soldier is moving from Missouri to Georgia and shortly to deployment so he has stuff all over the place, too.

Yet all of this stuff is okay with me because they are moving forward and doing things they want to be doing. They have goals which are with in reach and real progress can be seen. They are just normal, young adults.

We just need to get our muscles ready for some work.

Sunshine And Socks

Hanna has destroyed clothes, toys, books, board games, walls, closets, computers and so much other stuff and now add to that list SOCKS. All of the female people in this family share a large basket of socks since we all have about the same size feet and there is no point in trying to keep the socks separated. Rene` went looking for socks and she found that the seems had been taken out of them so no ones toes were going to be covered. There is nothing safe with this kid around. It is a good thing that it is summertime and we usually go barefoot or wear our sandals.

Paul told me this morning that he is my son and that hot thing in the sky is the sunshine, not the sun.

These two kids are such complete opposites to parent, one is so much fun and brings us a great deal of happiness and the other is stress and chaos all the time.

The Law

Today we are involved with the law. Someone damaged Dad`s truck so he had to fill out a police report. There have been several issues with this type of thing in the neighborhood lately.

Earlier this morning we had to be in court to secure conservatorship and guardianship for both Allen and Lauren who will turn eighteen this year. (It is really hard to believe they will no longer be kids). This has been a paper chase, but not complicated for these two. They are both fully cooperating with what we are doing and no one who could legally protest did so all we had to do after getting our paperwork done was show up and get the paper signed by the judge.

The Judge had a good laugh in court, when he finished reading off the case number and name.and Allen said "that`s me".

Shut Down

Minnesota is still shut down. I wish we could get the state working again and shut down some of this nasty heat instead. It is just to hot to let kids who are not able to regulate their activity level and liquid in-take be outside. Our favorite swimming hole is shut down because it is in a state park and well they are not open. The local pool is so crowded that there is no room for anyone to swim, besides they do not allow life jackets or any type of floatables in the pool so that makes it off limits for some of our kids.

This morning the PCAs took the kids to the $1.00 movie to give them something to do while Rene` and I got what we needed from the store and she got her computer fixed. When I asked Hanna about the movie she said it was good, but then she always says that. Then I asked her what it was about and really she has no idea. At least it was cool there and we were able to get our shopping done, too.

These are the days of summer when I start looking forward to kids going back to school.

The Solution

Supposedly a budget agreement has been made. It does not solve the problems at all. It just puts them on hold to be solved two years down the road.

Why could they not put all their two year old behavior aside and come up with this before June 30th? Some times these elected people act just like my RAD kid does.

Back In RAD Land

we went on vacation ...
No one wrote BFF with toothpaste on the bathroom counter, nor did anyone smear stick people drawings all over the bathroom with shampoo. We had both toothpaste and shampoo left to bring home just for her.

No one was screeching or screaming or as she calls it singing at 2:30 am. All of us slept all through the night until about 7:45 am every day.

No one left entire rolls of wet, disgusting, wadded up toilet paper on the floor behind the toilet.

No one said "this family is dumb" or "you are stupid" or "I am gonna run away".

No food, cell phones, money, computers, or toys disappeared.

No one screamed, kicked, pinched, or poked anyone else in the van.

We only have this stuff going on day in and day out when we live with a RAD kid, that is exactly why we need to go on vacation every once in a while. Our family needs a break from RAD life. We need to experience what it like to live without the chaos a traumatized kid creates.

Cars, Oh My

Paul is still totally obsessed with cars and trucks. He plays happily for hours with the same ones day after day. Using his obsession we have been able to teach him some basic concepts such as in front of, behind, and beside. He also learned his colors with cars. He plays the same things over and over again and then every now and again he figures something new out. The last big thing was realizing that all cars and trucks have a license plate. Now he goes around looking at them, hopefully he will learn to read letters and numbers from them. A couple of weeks ago he was very interested in the doors of the vehicles. In Paul`s world there are drivers doors, and pass out doors. and vans and cars have a backedy-back doors, too.

Now he is always asking who is getting in the drivers door and who is getting in the pass out door. When he hollers "can I get in the pass out door" very loudly we get quite a few funny looks from other shoppers in the parking lot. This kid is just so much fun!

Summer Vacation

Trevor and I spent some time checking out this gorgeous college campus at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is on his short list of places to attend graduate school.
Trevor and Karre found some of Paul`s favorite friends to pose with.

Kids with very long sticks are dangerous.

we found some beach and went swimming and played in the sand and then went swimming some more.

It is a guy thing, this arm wrestling. Allen thinks it is great fun.

Oh yeah, we found some more beach and went swimming some more.

We had a much needed break from the usual stuff that goes on around here. We had lots of fun and are looking forward to the next adventure.