Glad that’s over

(First of all, before we get started here, I am NOT a fan of Jetpack. I reject the idea of forced change to begin with, and the Jetpack interface is annoying me right now. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but right now it bugs me. Thoughts on that from anyone else?)

This weekend was ROUGH. Usually, I love weekends. My husband is home and gives me a break from the kids. Or at least the older 2, and I just hang out with the baby. But since my 6 year old started school, weekends are now something I kind of dread.

Things have been hard lately. I thought that him starting school would fix some of the behavioral issues we’ve been having…but I feel like this month has been harder (in different ways) than ever. It’s hard. And I definitely do feel myself pulling back and disengaging within my relationship with him.

Which is strange.

Because, yes, that’s my typical, predictable behavior within relationships. Things get weird, and I disengage. I get numb. I allow myself to be abused or hurt. But to have (a certain degree) of that that happening with your own child is a weird experience. And it is something I’m working hard to not do. All of my children deserve me at my best, and that means present and engaged. Even when I don’t always want to be.

My day is crazy today. Here’s what my day looks like today:

7:15am – take Christian to school

7:30am – Atlas has swallow study at hospital

11:30am – pick Christian up from school and take him to therapy

1:15pm- take Christian back to school

1:30pm -leave to take Atlas and Phoenix to PT

3:00pm – leave straight from PT to pick Christian up from school

5:20pm – leave the house so I can go to my own therapy

I’m currently in the hospital waiting with Atlas for his swallow study. And tomorrow morning he’ll have an ENT appointment. This is just one example of what a typical day could look like when you have 3 special needs children. It’s a lot. It’s just always a lot.

We’ve been working on mindfulness and stuff in therapy, and she wanted me to practice “observing without judging”. Like, just see things without making a judgment like “oh, that’s a cute baby” or “oh, I wonder why that’s happening”. That’s been hard for me, because we always do form judgments of some sort. But I’m trying to do that this morning while I’m the hospital waiting room waiting to be called for the swallow study. It’s easier said than done.

Alright. Step one of my very busy day is done. He half passed his swallow study (which is honestly more than I was expecting!)

It will be a long day. I’m just glad it will end with my own therapy. Hopefully that will help. Because I haven’t been feeling too great in my head lately. Maybe staying so busy today will help.