So, what is it?

I have been learning a lot on the road of life… Not things I ever dreamed I’d learn.  Or ever had any desire to learn.  It’s good things.  Things that I never knew I needed to learn. 

God has a way of doing that when we have the desire to do what He has asked of us.  Funny how simple it feels to pray that prayer & then how hard it is to actually live out a life that does that.

Been struggling with trust again.  Been struggling to try to figure out things that I just might not ever figure out.

You probably know that my youngest daughter was diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome a few years ago.  More recently we have added Sensory processing disorder to her diagnosis.  And now we are on the verge of adding an Autism label to her list.

A new therapist we have began working with puts it well when she says “it doesn’t really matter what you call it, you still have to deal with the behaviors”… so true.

The humanness in me want to get a name to it.  Then I want it fixed.  I want a solution.  I want a pill. 

Uhg.

Sorry, if this is a repeat for many of you to read again. 

I feel like I am learning more & more about her… but still have a boat load of things that I don’t understand, & I don’t know if I will ever understand.

This is what I know.

• Transitions are hard
• Change is hard
• Language understanding & communication & comprehension are hard
• social interaction is hard
• friendships are hard
• judging right & wrong choices is hard
• overstimulation leads to melt down tantrums
• she is getting stronger & her violent outbursts are getting scarier
• medication is not helping much at all
• Shes on a ton of vitamins & it’s hard to know if they are helping much.  The best one I have found has been Gaba.
• Shes extremely defiant & strong willed.
• there is no cure
• emotionally she is at about the 2-4 year old range.  She has matured in the past year for sure, but still isn’t where she should be.
• Occupational Therapy is extremely helpful.  It’s needed on a very regular basis… sometimes every 15 minutes depending on what is going on.
• When she’s having a tantrum if I pray she says things that make me feel there is a very real Spiritual aspect to this also.

I am in way over my head, I know that.  I have been blessed with incredible support at school, but they feel over their heads too many times.  We have began work with a new counseling/therapy place & discontinued working with the one we were with after months of really know progress & 3 people leaving that facility.

Specific prayer requests.

• Help, healing & support for all of us.
• Wisdom
• Safety for her & those around her when she goes into tantrum mode.
• A MIRACLE

“God lead us to Your plans & Your path for this baby girl.  You have a plan.  We need help to know how to follow that plan.  Bring us the help & support that You have for us.  Open the door that no man can open & close the doors that do not lead us to the things that are Your will”

Pam

Choosing to blog to get my thoughts in order?

Might not be the best choice?  Maybe I won’t publish?

Kiahna has went from “horrific” to “very manageable” over the past week.  I give the credit to God & the prayers.  He gives wisdom when we ask.  He keeps me asking.

Took her off of one medication. Added some more vitamins/herbs. 

Medication we came off of was the steroid inhaler for her asthma.  Behaviors had declined after getting that back into our lives with the allergy season upon  us.  Her asthma symptoms (she has never had an attack) appear to be related to her allergies.

One of the vitamins we added to our lives was Gaba.  If you have a kid or yourself with behavior issues, anxiety issues.  Run, don’t walk, & get some Gaba.  Seriously.  I have never seen an immediate result in a herb/vitamin like it appears I am seeing with this.  Very inexpensive.  I ordered mine from this site.

Tomorrow is the last day of school.  Kiahna woke up this morning & said to me, “Is today I am going to second grade?”  Poor kid!  No wonder she has anxiety!  Even when she’s been told over & over, she still doesn’t understand what’s going on sometimes.  The world she lives in is very confusing.  It’s hard for me to remember that.  I’d have anxiety too.

Zach is ending his junior year.  I am struggling to trust him.  I am struggling with anger at some teachers/coaches for their impatience with him.  I am struggling with fear.  I dread his senior year.  And I hate all those things in myself.

Quote from Zach last night “In one year I will be in college and you won’t have to worry about me any more”….   oh Zach you have no idea/

My biggest concerns right now for him are his self esteem.  Self worth.  God being allowed to work in his life as we go through the hard days ahead.

Hard in ways like, the 3 game suspension he has hanging over his head for the football season that is up & coming.  The football season that meant everything to him.  Hard in a way that I am not sure that even after the suspension is over that the coach will allow him to play.

Hard in ways like the fact that I am very involved with the mother’s portion of the team.  Very, very, very difficult for me to watch my son be treated a certain way for discipline I don’t agree with & pour my heart & time into working on.

We both have some tough days ahead.  Consequences are hard.  But even harder if they are consequences you are facing for someone else's decisions.  HARD!

Lucas had his 14th birthday last Friday.  He is growing up in his quiet way in a house full of a lot of “stuff”.

James is home for most of the summer & working hard.

Everyone else seems stable at the moment.

Working hard on my business.  God is blessing it.  I am loving it. 

DEEP BREATH.

Summer break will be good.  Right. Right?  Right.

Pam

A Mother’s Day post

I’ve been absent again… too much to do to take the time to sit down to write about it all again…

It’s Mother’s Day.  It’s been good.  I ordered a gift for my mom early…

It was a gallery wrap of all of us on the beach this spring break…

She’s easy to buy for, pictures of her family are her love… she is everything that anyone could want in a mom.  Devoting all her life to her family.  We are blessed indeed.

Mother’s Day as a single mom is something that I have tried very hard over the years to not lose my focus.  I keep my expectations low… & then I get some surprises.  Leah got up and made breakfast… all the boys remembered to at least say “Happy Mother’s Day” so that was good.

Its good.  I don’t need things.  I don’t need attention.  I don’t love the day.  I have learned not to let myself get worked up with unmet expectations.  It’s a trap. It’s from hell.  It’s not where I am going to let myself go.

Yet, I found myself in the midst of the day, dealing with my daughter & her emotions.  Her tantrums that have been on the rise.  Her anger.  I found myself weeping.  Unable to stop.  Unable to let the disappointment go.  Not necessarily because of the day, but perhaps that why it was harder.  I was working so hard to keep myself under control & not give in to those unmet expectations.

Kiahna’s behaviors have grown worse.  I have been working with medications yet again to try to help her level out.  I thought I had it figured out.  Today when she ran from me in church and hit me & told me how much she hated me.  It was sheer disappointment that ran through me.  I thought I had figured out what was going to help my baby girl. 

I don’t know.  I don’t know what’s going to help her.  I don’t know what the future holds.  I don’t know how long I can keep parenting her with these fits of anger.  I just don’t know.

I know the ONE who does know.  He seems a little quiet & slow to my human mind on this one. 

I am trying to wrap my head around parenting a child who is showing more & more autism signs.  Keep her sensory needs met, especially when she refuses the treatment, which is virtually impossible unless I just let her run & chase after her… which works here at home, but not so much in church in heels & with people watching.  UHG

She’s a gorgeous girl.  We recently got her hair relaxed.  She looks so much older.  If only there was a way to do that same thing to her heart & mind.  Relax.

 

 

Prayers are needed…. Thanks so much.

Pam