Standing on this mountaintop, looking just how far we've come; knowing that for every step, you were with us.
Kneeling on this battleground, seeing just how much you've done; knowing every victory was your power in us.
Scars & struggles on the way, but with joy our hearts can say:
Never once did we ever walk alone.
Never once did you leave us on our own.
You are faithful, God, you are faithful.
Those are powerful words to Never Once, a beautiful song by Matt Redman. I encourage you to look it up on YouTube & listen, if you're struggling with anything (and who isn't?!) it's so moving!
What brought that up? Well, this morning I was eager to go to church, but also totally not feeling it. It's been such a rough week with Kman & I've fallen to my knees (yes, literally) many, many, many times this week, begging, pleading, crying... The bad behavior marks, the "oops slips", the comments by other people, the chaos of our daily lives, the frustration of living with a child who doesn't hear & respond to things in ways that most people do, the disappointment (once again) in not being able to do "normal" holiday stuff like "everyone else" gets to... I just don't understand how I am suppose to get through this, I don't understand why I was chosen to be his mother, I don't have a clue why God thought I could handle even a fraction of all that we struggle through every day with Kman - yet here we are. So, as I was getting ready this morning & debating if I really wanted to drag the kids to church or not, a quiet voice (not literally for those of you keeping tabs) said to just go. If nothing else, it's a little over an hour of free babysitting. :p (That's mostly a joke, even if it's not a good one.)
We got the kids dropped off, got the hubby ((more)) caffeinated, and settled into our seats. When the music started, I still wasn't feeling it. Then came this song. I was holding back the tears as best I could, but a few still managed to leak out. I have felt SO alone SO often lately. Nobody else understands my exact struggle. Sure, there are other parents of special needs kids - some battling bigger obstacles, some smaller, some similar - but every journey is unique, so none of us can completely understand the battle of another. Sure, there are other people who truly love Kman & feel true sadness, frustration, worry, exhaustion, etc - but none of them feels it the same as I do because I am his MOTHER. Not even his dad takes it on in the same way that I do. Oh, I could go on & on with comparisons, but the point is, no matter who else might be able to kind of understand, to empathize with me, to support me, etc, nobody else is as knee deep in this exact struggle as me. I have felt so very alone!!
Then, this song.
Never once did I ever walk alone - never once did God leave me on my own. God is faithful. It's me that's not being so faithful. I fall to my knees & beg for him to help me, but, I'm looking for him to erase all the hard times, wipe away all the tears, make the heartache go completely away. It doesn't work that way. Can any of us, as parents, make life so that our children never feel pain, face difficulties, or have their heart break? No. He is not leaving me alone, He is my father & here to hold me, to listen to me, to comfort me, but He's not ever going to just take it all away. Every time I've fallen down & pleaded for help, I'm sure it has been given, but I've been looking for it in the wrong way.
It's time to quit being so full of "whoa is me" & start finding contentment in what I have on my plate. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. (You may know this better as "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength".) I can make it through anything, and the struggles of my life are certainly something. That doesn't mean I won't cry out in frustration, pleading for an easier day ahead. That doesn't mean I won't ask for help when I'm drowning in the midst of emotional turmoil. That doesn't mean I will cease to feel the pain or that the burdens of my day will become obsolete. It simply means that no matter who hard any particular day, hour, or moment is, I will be okay in knowing that God has me in His hands & it will all work for His greater will.
Kman will do great things in his life. I have no doubt of that. We will all survive his childhood. I do often have doubts of that... but I trust that God has that all worked out. Right now I'm tasked with teaching him how to trust in God & not worry about what any man thinks or says about him. That's a hard lesson for a young guy, but you can't even imagine the struggles he faces every day. I stumbled across a website written by a young ADHDer (adhdkidsrock.com) & found the young man's purpose statement so fitting for Kman, as he often complains of these problems. In fact, I think he could've written this himself. Stop and think about these words coming out of the mouth of ADHD kids next time you're quick to judge the actions of kids you don't know...
"My life sometimes has been ridiculously hard because I have ADHD - mostly because people don't understand me. They think I'm bad, what they don't see is how much I struggle and how hard I'm trying to be good and to fit in. In turn this has taught me compassion for others who are different. They think I'm stupid, but if they really got to know me they would know how incredibly intelligent and caring I am. They think I'm going to be a failure and I'm going to prove them wrong."
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Pass the BonBons, Please.
6:40am - a little voice yells at me from the top of the stairs. "Mommmmmmmy!" Why does this happen every morning? Some days I seriously consider changing my name! Then, that sweet face looks down at me & with all the energy & enthusiasm a 2 year old can have, he blurts out "GOOD MORNING MOMMY! I WAKE UP!" (He also does this when he wakes up in the middle of the night, and it's just as cute then.)
By the time I get him settled (Mickey Mouse turned on, sippy full of milk in his hands, blanket adjusted just-so), and sit down next to him, the dogs start up.
I let them out, I feed them, they growl at each other & the kiddo, sometimes I let them out again... then I sit down again.
BUT! Here comes big brother. Big brother is full of big demands. He wants a smoothie, he needs some pants - because he didn't bother to take his laundry upstairs the night before, he doesn't want to watch Mickey Mouse again...
I get him settled also, and this time opt for a cup of coffee instead of sitting down. Sweet, precious nectar of the mommy gods. How any mom (or dad, or human for that matter) can manage through a morning without coffee is way beyond me! Every once & a while I get to finish a whole cup while it's still hot. Today was not one of those days.
I take a sip of my coffee & realize I have to make lunch for Kman. I put the coffee down & stare at the options for his lunch. I really should go back to making his lunch at night. <--- I think that every morning, but by the time everyone is in bed for the night there's just no way I want to do a single other thing. No. I decide on crackers, meat, cheese, tomatoes, olives, & a chocolate milk. ((By the way, he came home with ALL of that, except the chocolate milk. Can I just not send a lunch, or is that frowned upon?))
Now Sweetie Pie Sparkles is torturing the dogs. I have to stop that. Man, I really want some coffee. I NEED some coffee! Where did I put the coffee? Oh, man, it's too close to time for school to search for my coffee. I send Kman to make his bed, brush his teeth, and get his socks. He does 1 of these things. I send him back to do the other 2. He comes back with a book & a toy. He didn't accomplish either task. Now I'm frustrated & desperate for my coffee! I find it, take a gulp, and send him back to brush his dang teeth & get his socks! He comes back down, having accomplished both tasks. At least he says he did. Who knows if he actually brushed his teeth. That's his problem, not mine. Nobody wants to be friends with stinky-breath boy!
Sweetie Pie Sparkles takes a potty break, I gather all the stuff we need to get in the car, and off we go. Holy monkey cow! (That's an old saying of the hubby's, weird, eh?) The carpool line is ridiculous this morning. Where did all these people come from? I never can figure out why some mornings are busier than others in the carpool. It's a strange phenomenon, but it's carpool, it'll never make sense.
I finally get Kman to school & get SPS & I back home, where I FINALLY get to eat breakfast. It's 9am. Gosh already! I eat, SPS eats yet again (I think he averages 3 breakfasts), then we're off for a walk. I take my coffee with us. The wind makes walking pretty miserable, so we have friends over & play.
Before we know it, it's 11. Guess who is hungry again? When I go to feed him, I realize I never did finish that cup of coffee. I dump it down the drain because I don't want to drink it now & be up all night long! (I have a strong love-hate relationship with caffeine.)
Once he's fed I turn on Mickey ((again!)) & go to take a shower. Oh, did I mention, it's now 11:30 & I'm finally changing out of the clothes I wore yesterday? Yeah, that's pretty typical. How does that even happen you ask? Exhaustion my friends, pure exhaustion.
They day continued on pretty typically. You get the idea. I'm sharing all this for a few reasons.
1 - stay at home moms DO NOT have time to sit around watching soap operas & eating BonBons (unless I'm doing something terribly wrong??).
2 - I need to get back to waking up at ridiculous-o-clock, just so I can finish a cup of coffee before the munchkins wake up!
3 - I think I've decided that *right now* I can't homeschool. I feel like I barely make it through the day with any sanity left as it is. I can't add Kman to that. Not right now. I WANT to homeschool. I love the idea of it all. The lifestyle, the ability to teach him what he wants to learn, the chance to spend more time instilling the values & morals I want him to have, the opportunity to really know him, the chance to share more time with him before he's too cool for me... I can't do it right now though. Since I had SPS & we moved away from all of our family, I can count on 1 hand how many chances I've had to be ALONE for 2+hours. Yes, I know that's part of parenthood, but I'm exhausted. I need a break. My sanity is on the cusp of breaking, if I throw in another child 24/7 it just might happen. Of course I can still change my mind at any given moment (and I probably will!), but right now I just can't. He's doing better in school & I'm trying to take a more active approach to helping him form real friendships because I think that will help him tremendously. I'm also working on the areas of education that he's struggling with (handwriting!!) and that's he's super interested in (science & reading), hoping to influence his educational passions. For right now, this is what I have to work with. This is all I have in me to give. I'm looking forward to summer, when I can attempt a little schooling to see if maybe I have it in me more than I realize, then I can decide what to do from there. Especially since he'll likely be slated to start YET ANOTHER new school that will open next year. (That will be his 5th school (3rd elementary), the 4th school since we moved here. Poor child could use some stability!)
Now, I'm off to put Kman to sleep,eat some BonBons (I actually wish I had some of those right now!) drink some wine, and sleep like a baby! -Just not like one of MY babies, since we all know how that goes. hehe
By the time I get him settled (Mickey Mouse turned on, sippy full of milk in his hands, blanket adjusted just-so), and sit down next to him, the dogs start up.
I let them out, I feed them, they growl at each other & the kiddo, sometimes I let them out again... then I sit down again.
BUT! Here comes big brother. Big brother is full of big demands. He wants a smoothie, he needs some pants - because he didn't bother to take his laundry upstairs the night before, he doesn't want to watch Mickey Mouse again...
I get him settled also, and this time opt for a cup of coffee instead of sitting down. Sweet, precious nectar of the mommy gods. How any mom (or dad, or human for that matter) can manage through a morning without coffee is way beyond me! Every once & a while I get to finish a whole cup while it's still hot. Today was not one of those days.
I take a sip of my coffee & realize I have to make lunch for Kman. I put the coffee down & stare at the options for his lunch. I really should go back to making his lunch at night. <--- I think that every morning, but by the time everyone is in bed for the night there's just no way I want to do a single other thing. No. I decide on crackers, meat, cheese, tomatoes, olives, & a chocolate milk. ((By the way, he came home with ALL of that, except the chocolate milk. Can I just not send a lunch, or is that frowned upon?))
Now Sweetie Pie Sparkles is torturing the dogs. I have to stop that. Man, I really want some coffee. I NEED some coffee! Where did I put the coffee? Oh, man, it's too close to time for school to search for my coffee. I send Kman to make his bed, brush his teeth, and get his socks. He does 1 of these things. I send him back to do the other 2. He comes back with a book & a toy. He didn't accomplish either task. Now I'm frustrated & desperate for my coffee! I find it, take a gulp, and send him back to brush his dang teeth & get his socks! He comes back down, having accomplished both tasks. At least he says he did. Who knows if he actually brushed his teeth. That's his problem, not mine. Nobody wants to be friends with stinky-breath boy!
Sweetie Pie Sparkles takes a potty break, I gather all the stuff we need to get in the car, and off we go. Holy monkey cow! (That's an old saying of the hubby's, weird, eh?) The carpool line is ridiculous this morning. Where did all these people come from? I never can figure out why some mornings are busier than others in the carpool. It's a strange phenomenon, but it's carpool, it'll never make sense.
I finally get Kman to school & get SPS & I back home, where I FINALLY get to eat breakfast. It's 9am. Gosh already! I eat, SPS eats yet again (I think he averages 3 breakfasts), then we're off for a walk. I take my coffee with us. The wind makes walking pretty miserable, so we have friends over & play.
Before we know it, it's 11. Guess who is hungry again? When I go to feed him, I realize I never did finish that cup of coffee. I dump it down the drain because I don't want to drink it now & be up all night long! (I have a strong love-hate relationship with caffeine.)
Once he's fed I turn on Mickey ((again!)) & go to take a shower. Oh, did I mention, it's now 11:30 & I'm finally changing out of the clothes I wore yesterday? Yeah, that's pretty typical. How does that even happen you ask? Exhaustion my friends, pure exhaustion.
They day continued on pretty typically. You get the idea. I'm sharing all this for a few reasons.
1 - stay at home moms DO NOT have time to sit around watching soap operas & eating BonBons (unless I'm doing something terribly wrong??).
2 - I need to get back to waking up at ridiculous-o-clock, just so I can finish a cup of coffee before the munchkins wake up!
3 - I think I've decided that *right now* I can't homeschool. I feel like I barely make it through the day with any sanity left as it is. I can't add Kman to that. Not right now. I WANT to homeschool. I love the idea of it all. The lifestyle, the ability to teach him what he wants to learn, the chance to spend more time instilling the values & morals I want him to have, the opportunity to really know him, the chance to share more time with him before he's too cool for me... I can't do it right now though. Since I had SPS & we moved away from all of our family, I can count on 1 hand how many chances I've had to be ALONE for 2+hours. Yes, I know that's part of parenthood, but I'm exhausted. I need a break. My sanity is on the cusp of breaking, if I throw in another child 24/7 it just might happen. Of course I can still change my mind at any given moment (and I probably will!), but right now I just can't. He's doing better in school & I'm trying to take a more active approach to helping him form real friendships because I think that will help him tremendously. I'm also working on the areas of education that he's struggling with (handwriting!!) and that's he's super interested in (science & reading), hoping to influence his educational passions. For right now, this is what I have to work with. This is all I have in me to give. I'm looking forward to summer, when I can attempt a little schooling to see if maybe I have it in me more than I realize, then I can decide what to do from there. Especially since he'll likely be slated to start YET ANOTHER new school that will open next year. (That will be his 5th school (3rd elementary), the 4th school since we moved here. Poor child could use some stability!)
Now, I'm off to put Kman to sleep,
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Hello Indecisiveness!
This week has been very much un-fun. Kman came home from school Monday with a fever. A fever that finally broke today. At first, I saw it as a great opportunity to sell him on the idea of homeschooling & I may have even been a bit too pushy about it. :p We did "school" on Tuesday. It took 45 minutes tops. What kids wouldn't be ecstatic about the possibility of spending just 45 minutes doing a full day of school work? Well, mine. ha. He was very upset about missing school because it was library day. So, a few hours into the day (and long after we'd finished that pesky school work) I decided he wasn't really that sick, so running into the library to get new books would be okay. The books we already had were due, so we had to drop them off anyway, so why not. We went in & got the books he was really wanting & we were back home reading them before lunch time. I made sure to draw his attention to how awesome it would be if he weren't sick because at this point we'd have all afternoon to go PLAY! Yay. He wasn't really buying it though. We made a robot, we painted, we read books, we looked up random things on the internet... it was really what a homeschool day would be for us (except that there was no play time). Of course by Tuesday night he was super sickly - lethargic, whiny, achy, and just blah.
Wednesday I skipped pushing any kind of work on him because neither one of us got much sleep on Tuesday night. We did go to the doctor because I have no idea how much school he is allowed to miss without a note, and I was concerned about his cough & general ick. Of course it was a waste of money, it's a viral "flu-like" something-or-other. We spent most of the day laying around watching tv & trying to rest. The boys & I were all quite bored, but Kman was sick enough that there was no effort to be put into doing more than laying around.
Today (Thursday) Kman started right up with being ornery & mean to his brother & I woke up not feeling so great. Not a good combo. At all. I decided there was NO way I could homeschool him. He's too dang stubborn & often mean, it would be a bad idea to take it on, especially while dealing with a 2 year old that suddenly feels the need to be VERY 2. I decided I was done. No way. Not gonna humor the idea of homeschooling anymore. When I finally had had enough of the boys fighting, of Kman being intentionally mean to me, enough of being stuck in the house, enough of feeling so confined, I packed us all in the car. We couldn't go anywhere since Kman is possibly contagious, but we could drive around & get out of the house!
Then, as we drove down the road (after I may or may not have totally lost it, and before I may or may not have felt ready to go drop them off at anyone else's house), it happened...
He said "so, if I were in homeschool, I could..." and he listed several great things. Then, he said "no matter what, I am not going to school tomorrow!".
Wait, what?
Well, of course that made me stop & rethink my rethinking! Are you confused yet? Yeah, me too!
I realize I don't have to make a decision about this RIGHT NOW, or even in 5 days... or 5 months. I realize I can decide what's right at any time, but will I ever decide?! As soon as I figure it out, something changes my mind. Sheesh. I am an indecisive person, but this is ridiculous even for me! Granted, I'm a mom & we stress so much about doing right by our kids, and I'm so afraid of making the wrong choice, but even then it's ridiculous that I can't just decide something!
All that said... who is tired of the ping pong game I'm playing here? Should I shut up now? Yeah, probably so...
Wednesday I skipped pushing any kind of work on him because neither one of us got much sleep on Tuesday night. We did go to the doctor because I have no idea how much school he is allowed to miss without a note, and I was concerned about his cough & general ick. Of course it was a waste of money, it's a viral "flu-like" something-or-other. We spent most of the day laying around watching tv & trying to rest. The boys & I were all quite bored, but Kman was sick enough that there was no effort to be put into doing more than laying around.
Today (Thursday) Kman started right up with being ornery & mean to his brother & I woke up not feeling so great. Not a good combo. At all. I decided there was NO way I could homeschool him. He's too dang stubborn & often mean, it would be a bad idea to take it on, especially while dealing with a 2 year old that suddenly feels the need to be VERY 2. I decided I was done. No way. Not gonna humor the idea of homeschooling anymore. When I finally had had enough of the boys fighting, of Kman being intentionally mean to me, enough of being stuck in the house, enough of feeling so confined, I packed us all in the car. We couldn't go anywhere since Kman is possibly contagious, but we could drive around & get out of the house!
Then, as we drove down the road (after I may or may not have totally lost it, and before I may or may not have felt ready to go drop them off at anyone else's house), it happened...
He said "so, if I were in homeschool, I could..." and he listed several great things. Then, he said "no matter what, I am not going to school tomorrow!".
Wait, what?
Well, of course that made me stop & rethink my rethinking! Are you confused yet? Yeah, me too!
I realize I don't have to make a decision about this RIGHT NOW, or even in 5 days... or 5 months. I realize I can decide what's right at any time, but will I ever decide?! As soon as I figure it out, something changes my mind. Sheesh. I am an indecisive person, but this is ridiculous even for me! Granted, I'm a mom & we stress so much about doing right by our kids, and I'm so afraid of making the wrong choice, but even then it's ridiculous that I can't just decide something!
All that said... who is tired of the ping pong game I'm playing here? Should I shut up now? Yeah, probably so...
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