Fresh Strawberries

Rene` and Karre took Lauren and Allen with them to pick strawberries. The kids will come home dirty, but that is just fine with me as the strawberries will taste so good that the hassle of the dirt is worth it. We will have them on pancakes, ice cream, and cake, and we will have some plain, too. Fresh strawberries are a summertime treat here in Minnesota. Sorry grocery store guys, yours just do not taste as good as those straight from the farm

Sumday Afternoon

It is a beautiful summer day here in Minnesota the sun is shining in cloudless blue sky, the humidity is low so there is little chance of a thunderstorm popping and there is a little breeze so spending a few minutes laying in the hammock without being attacked by bugs is possible.

Jerry, Rene`, Karre, Allen, and Paul went to a small community near here that is having there annual summer celebration. They will get some junk food for lunch and take in the parade.

Jared has gone up north to spend the day with his girl friend and her family at the lake.

Trevor is here and capable of finding something to do on his own. I most likely will not see him unless I go looking for him.

Lauren is with a PCA.

Hanna is up in her room and it is really, really quiet so I am sure she is being inappropriate, or destroying something. I don`t care what she is doing right now. I am enjoying the silence for the time being. I will deal with whatever she is up to later.

I think I will find that hammock and my iPod.

Could It Ever Happen?

Could we have a day where there is no screaming, kicking, pinching, hair pulling, biting, tantrums, or all out meltdown behavior? Just one day like that would be so wonderful around here. We used to have those days before kids with FAS came into our lives. They are just so impulsive, have such poor boundaries, and do not understand how much they are hurting people. They do not learn from their mistakes so even though they have direct consequences for their action they just keep doing the same things over and over again.

Hanna has the most obnoxious behavior on earth! She hits all the time without thinking first. She picks on things such as the couch where she will just sit and mess with a corner of the fabric until it has a hole in it and then once she gets the hole there she just keeps making it bigger and bigger even though she has been told to stop and been removed from the area many times. She claims to be bored all of the time and when we find things for her to do they just are not any fun. She completely melts down on a daily basis and then there is no reasoning with her at all. It does not help matters that she also has attachment issues and can not stand it when things are going well. She really loves chaos and can create it readily. There was a great deal of chaos in her past and it some how is comforting for her to live like that.

Paul does not have many tantrums but he is very rough even when he is trying to be nice. He does not understand that there can be to much of a good thing. There is not an attachment issue with him and I thank God every day for that.

Allen our other kid with FAS has a huge issue with transitions and we just do not do anything any faster then he chooses to do them or we will get nothing accomplished at all.

Maybe some day we could have a nice, calm, drama free day. When that happens I will be sure to blog about it just to say it actually happened.

Cake Cake And More Cake

It is amazing to see what can be made from lots and lots of sugar, some other ingredients, and creative people. This is what Jared does with his time. He is just finishing up on his education to become a Baking and Pastry Chef. He makes all of thees wonderful creations. The next thing will be to see if he can find a job and put his talent to work to earn a living. Good luck Jared!

Playing Uno

Lauren, Allen, and Hanna are playing Uno by themselves, and not being directly supervised. I can clearly see them as well as a PCA. Allen is sitting on the couch with his cards laying face up in front of him so everyone can see them. He does not care who wins the game so he will do whatever his sisters tell him to do. Lauren is "helping" him. What she is doing is playing the reverse cards and then giving Allen the draw cards to play next so that Hanna has to draw. It is pretty clever for someone who is not supposed to be very intelligent. Lauren can think ahead and plan things out. Hanna who who is just as intelligent as Lauren can only think out one step at a time and only do one thing at a time. So far she has not figured out what her sister is doing, but when she does there will be a massive explosion. Get ready for some action.!

No Swim Today

We just got back from to pool. Oh boy was it a blast.! We got four kids with special needs dressed in swimsuits, shoes, and sunscreen too. We loaded the van with kids, three PCA`s and me. We got to the pool only to find out that the it is closed due to the fact that there is no power across town. That meant that we had to reload the kids, now not very happy and not understanding why they can not swim, bring them home and attempt to settle them down for bed. What a trip!!!

Friends

Friendships for the older four kids just came along as they grew up. They chose their own friends and have made good choices. They were never kids who had lots and lots of friends, but the ones they chose were intelligent, well behaved, fun to be around kids who had boundaries and morals.

For our younger four kids having friends becomes much more complicated.The rules as a parent change. Do you say "no" to letting them be friends with someone who you know is going to get them into trouble? Do you let them be "friends" with that person and then deal with the trouble they get into when it happens? It has become a situation where some of each of these has occurred.

Allen has friends in that people in the community and at school acknowledge him and talk with him and given his disabilities that is what he wants and needs in friends.

Lauren has disabilities that are clearly visible to the world. She has friends that are much like those which the older kids have chosen. They include her without any adult intervention. These are people who do understand that everyone in the world is not the same and they are not scared away by Lauren`s differences. It is so nice to see that there are teenagers out there who really get it!!!

Hanna chooses "friends", as she calls them, very poorly. If there is a kid who is causing trouble that is her friend, if they are breaking the law that is her friend, if they are hurting other people they are her friends. These are kids who will sneak around and wait for just the right time then they find something stupid to do and they talk Hanna into doing it for them. She ALWAYS gets caught and then they are making fun of her and telling her that they are not her friends and they did not do anything wrong. Well they really are not her friends because they are hurting her and the saddest thing about it is that she will go back again and again to be hurt some more. She just does not understand that this is not what real friends do.

It is not clear how Paul will do with this, I have a feeling that this will be one of those things that will create problems for him given the fact that with his FAS he does not have very clear boundaries and he is pretty impulsive.

There is always something happening when it comes to parenting kids with special needs in our society. The adventure continues.