Being Simon

#3's ADHD and sensory issues combined this past week in a spectacular meltdown.  The noise and commotion of 6 siblings, an out of town house guest, and scores of shrieking friends in the playroom triggered a reaction we haven't seen in some time.  He lashed out at the people he loves, calling them nasty names and locking himself away in his bedroom.

I ached for him.

As he curled up next to me on my bed later, he said that the noise and commotion combined into a fog of confusion and he just needed to make it stop.  Nothing he did was working until he started hurling insults, and then the noise lessened as the children around him froze into stunned silence.  He just needed to escape and didn't see a way out of the chaos.

It is easy to forget the burdens he carries. He spends so much of his life looking and acting normal.  I often slip into the routine of being his mother and forget the cross that he carries.  I lose sight of how hard it is to be him in a world that is loud and confusing and often moves too quickly for him to process.

The workings of his mind are the cross he has been blessed with.  They bring him to create fantastic inventions, but also to an easy overload.  God, in His wisdom, did not put him on this road alone.  He put his father and me there with him.  We are meant to be his Simon of Cyrene.

It's our role as the parents of a child with special needs.  It is our vocation to help him shoulder his burden, to help him carry that cross, and to walk on to where God intends for him to be.

In the tearful meltdown last week, I cried with my son and wondered how God could have so burdened this beloved child of mine.  How could he have made life so hard for him?  He's so tired of this already and he's only 11 years old.  Then I realized that it was because we, his Simon, were slacking on the job.  We have to be more mindful of his burdens.  We have to walk more purposefully at his side, put our arms around his shoulders, and lighten his load.  It's almost too much for one small boy to carry some days, but for the three of us together?  It becomes a much easier journey.

My Chocolate Heart!

You win the Mom Card Giveaway!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations!  Send me an email at shovedtothem (at) yahoo (dot) com with your name, email address, and adress so that I can send it on to PrintRunner!

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday - The Thankful One

Helping LarryD take over the internet one meme at a time!

1.
We went swimming at the home of some friends from church this afternoon.  They have 9 children, we still have just the seven.  When my 2 year old wanted to swim, the teenage girls let him jump off the side of the pool int their arms (repeatedly...really...a lot).  The girls never complained, and somehow managed to keep talking/goofing off the entire time he was with them in the pool.  I love big family kids!  #6 wasn't an annoying little brother, he was just a fact of life......and a joyful one which they loved.

2.
The neighborhood crazy lady has decided that she doesn't like me.  I'm a traitor to womankind....or something. (7 kids, no job, sponge off my husband, etc.) I can't even begin to explain how awful she is to me.  The other women on our street have noticed and now when they see her moving in my direction, they run to intercept her.  They put themselves between crazy and me.  I've never been so cared for by people I barely know.  They've had enough of her bullying ways, and are staging a clever and subtle protest.

3.
My dear husband has been working insanely long hours for months now.  It's been at least 6 since he was home early enough to have dinner with us, and it is rare that he gets in before the bedtime routines have started.  He kisses them goodbye in the morning as they wake up, and then barely sneaks one in before they go to sleep.  It is wearing him thin, and wearing me out.  So imagine my delight when he said that not only was he off for the entire week of the 4th of July, but that the office is actually closed so there won't be anyone to call him!!!!   Be still my heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We get him all to ourselves without the blackberry buzzing or the laptop open to work stuff?  It's like that star I wished on actually worked!  Here's to spending time with the guy I fell in love with and hoping he can unwind by the end of the week.

3.5
Steak for dinner.  Homemade bread. Yum.

It's Time For A Giveaway!!!!!

If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you know that I love a Mom Card!!!!!  LOVE THEM!

It's a business card for moms.  You put your name and contact info, plus the names of your kids, and voila! Mom Card!  I use them all the time.  They're perfect for when you meet new moms and want to get together again.  I put them in my kids' pockets at the zoo in case someone gets lost. (I safety pin it to the 2 year old's shirt) I hand them out to babysitters.  I hand them to publishers who might want a super awesome homeschool/mom/Catholic/whatever else they want book/article/whatever.

Which is why I was almost beyond thrilled when the online printing company Printrunner  contacted me about their business card services (theirs are super cute!) and offered to let me give some away!  And you know how I love a giveaway!!! 

So here's what they're giving away:

Business Card Size and Style Business Cards - 2x3.5 (Standard)

Quantity 250

Colors 4/4 Color Both Sides

Paper 14 pt. UV Coating on Front, 14 pt. UV Coating on both sides,

Proof NONE

Rounded Corners NO

*Giveaway is open to US Residents only, ages 18 years old and above.

Got that?  250 business cards.  You design them on their website.  You get them in the mail.  (If you win!)

You have from now until Wednesday to enter by commenting on this post.  My followers will get an extra entry.  Following them on Facebook or Twitter will get you a 3rd!

What are you waiting for?  You know you want them?  You only have until Wednesday at midnight to enter!

Good luck!!!!!

**********Thank you to Printrunner for hosting this giveaway.  I'm getting a set myself for giving them away!!!!  

* Giveaway does not include design services
** You can use them for whatever business card purposes you have.  Mom cards are just a suggestion....but they're a pretty darn good one

I'll Bet PETA's Behind This

I don't want to start widespread panic, but there's a tick out there biting people and turning them into vegetarians.

Really.

Go check it out.

Are you back?  Are you as scared as I am?  One tick bite and no more burgers?  Seriously? I'm not sure I could go on in a life without hamburgers.

I smell a plot here.  An evil, mad scientist kinda plotty plot plot.  PETA's behind it.  I just know it.

The crazy guy trying to ruin your 4th of July Bar-be-Que

I just know that their slimy hands are all over this.  It's so obvious!  And yes, their hands are slimy.  They don't eat meat, they only eat veggies.  Veggies are green.  Pond scum is also green.  Pond scum is slimy......Why do I have to explain this to you?  It's so obvious!

PETA got some mad scientist guy to cook up a tick and then as further proof of their evil, they named it after Texas.

The Lone Star Tick

  Because as we all know, Texas is where South Fork Ranch is, and South Fork ranch is where they have some cattle, and cattle are what we make into yummy hamburgers and PETA hates hamburgers!  So PETA hates Texas! and they mock us with this evil creature who makes people forever unable to eat those tasty burgers!

(Pant! Pant! Gasp!)

The horror of this is overwhelming to me.  There's only one thing to do about all of this.

Go shopping.  (That's right...I'm dealing with my fear through retail therapy....judgy judger person....)

But here's where I'm smart....that tick picture is on grass!  Know where grass is? Outside.  Guess what's not outside? The mall with its air conditioning and shoe stores.

Shoe stores!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's my happy place.  Truly.

If you need to find me, that's where I'll be....trying on some size 7.5's and looking for the perfect little black pumps.....made of LEATHER!  so take that PETA and your evil plot tick!




Seriously....I'm not going outside until the threat has passed, or until summer is over.....which is okay with me because this is Texas and it's just too darn hot here to be outside.

Because You Just Know Deep Down That You've Ruined Her Life

11 years ago, I looked at my sweet 4 1/2 year old daughter and decided to homeschool her.  I'd never met any homeshoolers. No one I knew had ever met a homeschooler.  In fact, the only person I knew of who was actually crazy enough to do it was that girl who played Blair on Facts of Life.

The only homeschooler I knew 11 years ago.

She'd said something about it in a People magazine interview a few years earlier.  I had thought she was a nut back then and had loudly said so.  The irony of my deciding to do this was not lost on me.

I'm not a great teacher.  Is it okay to say that out loud? I'm not sure what the ratio is between my actually teaching them and their teaching themselves, but they end up reading it and figuring it out long before I get the chance to tell them anything.  Which of course means I've ruined them all.

It's the secret fear of parents, no matter what decisions we make, that we've ruined our children. The fear of homeschooling is that we will ruin them and there will be no time left to fix it.  We will have literally ruined their lives.  There's not a lot of time for do overs when you've raised dumb a.....not bright at all children, and of course I've been watching the eldest like a hawk for signs of my failure.  I've thought deep down that if I could see that I had messed her up that I'd still have time to save the rest of them. (Of course it's irrational...if that surprises you, then you must be new around here.)

I also knew that if they were messed up, it was all my fault.  Literally.  I had talked my husband into this great experiment.  I had made the decision to do this.  He went along with it, but it was all on me.  (A fact of which I am very much aware.) It's really not like me to volunteer for more responsibility, which is probably why I have secretly dreaded the SAT and ACT.  I've had nightmares about them.  They are impartial judges of 11 years of effort on my part, and increasingly on her own. Those scores would show how miserably I had failed.  I was so afraid of them that when I dropped her off the first weekend of June to take her first ever standardized test....I drove down the street, sat in the car, and cried a bit.

 Just pure fear. The fear of failing her and fear being a failure.  This is my life. I've devoted all of my adulthood to educating my children.  What if I can't do it?  I wonder it all the time. Still.



Her scores arrived at the colleges of her choice this morning.  (University of Dallas, Texas A & M, and OU)  We still don't know what they are, but the nice lady at UD told me they were high enough for her to be accepted.  She's 15.  Somehow.....somehow.....she's managed to learn enough to score high enough on the ACT to get into all three of these schools, and high enough to maybe get a scholarship at one of them.

I didn't fail her.  She managed to learn it in spite of me.  It can only be through Grace.  Because there's no way my daydreaming daughter and her slacker mom did this on our own.

And They Did

Earlier today, I said "When was the lat time you did something just for fun?  Not because it had a purpose, or was useful, or even expected?  When was the last time you were silly?  When did you last dance?

Why don't you do a little of that today? Life is short.  You should spend more of it laughing."

This evening, I was thrilled to see that the brilliant author of Who Needs Green? had taken me up on the challenge.

Here he is....shufflin'



Thanks for the laugh to him and his sister/camerawoman!  And if you're not reading him already....what's stopping you?

Fun

When was the lat time you did something just for fun?  Not because it had a purpose, or was useful, or even expected?  When was the last time you were silly?  When did you last dance?

Why don't you do a little of that today? Life is short.  You should spend more of it laughing.

Unmedicated Summer

There's a boy living down the street from us who has the worst ADHD I've ever seen.  During the school year, he lives at warp speed, talks even faster, and will twitch if he's made to sit still.  And impulse control? Forget about it.  I feel for the kid because the way his body acts is the way my brain feels.  He drives me crazy, but he also makes perfect sense to me.  He's nutty but manageable for 9 months of the year.

And then comes the summertime.

For some reason I do not comprehend, his parents take him off his medication for the summer.  His mom says it's "to give his brain a break."  His father says "That stuff is just too d***ed expensive." It doesn't really matter what the reason is.  It leaves him a wreck.

His parents both work, and so maybe it's because they don't have to see what he lives with during the day.  Yesterday, for example, he saw me outside and lurched in my general direction with his head in his hands. 

"Do you have any Tylenol?" the 12 year old asked.  (I went inside and got him some.  His mom said it was okay last year and hasn't changed that.)

"Head hurting a lot?" I asked.

"It always does in the first weeks of summer.  Don't know why though. Maybe it's the sun." 

Maybe it's the withdrawals!

That's the part non-medicated people don't realize.  When you go off these drugs, you go through painful withdrawals.  So the first 2 weeks of every summer (and every weekend, because they don't medicate him then) are excruciating for him, filled with headaches, nausea, and confusion.

Then his summer begins, and his social skills deteriorate.  He loses the ability to focus on one thing at a time.  His frenetic behavior gets him into trouble.  His poor judgement and impulse control mean that by the end of July he'll be banned from every house in the neighborhood as a protection for our own children.

August he spends alone.  He's no longer welcome anywhere because he loses all filters when he talks.

School will come at the end of August and his medication will return.  It will take a few weeks to get him back to being the boy he was in May. 

Then Christmas vacation hits and the whole two weeks will be withdrawal.



Is it supposed to work this way?  Really?  I wasn't diagnosed with ADD until I was an adult, but I can't imagine being forced to give back my brain every weekend.  I can't explain to you the fog of confusion which sets in when I first stop my meds. (It clears eventually and returns to the continuous commotion and chatter that is my normal brain function.)  I just know how keenly I miss being able to think and function.  I know my own son notices immediately if he forgets his pill.

If you are the parent of one of these great kids (one of us!) and you do this....please reconsider.  Please don't take his brain away.  Ask him how it feels to be unmedicated, and I'll bet he'll say the same thing.  Please don't do this.

And if you're a medical person?  Shame on you.  You should know better.

Sweet Sixteen

To my own Computer Guy,
This morning around 2-ish as I walked and sang to our sweet #7, I stopped a moment to look at the picture from our wedding which sits in the dining room.  Have you looked at that picture lately?  Did you see how young we were? We were just babies!

Sixteen years ago today.

As I stood there staring at our shining young faces I could vividly remember that exact moment.  Standing in front of the altar, my hand in yours, as we said our vows.  Your big hands completely covered mine.  Your voice trembled with nerves and emotions.  I tried to remember how to breathe.

I had no idea on that day just how often I'd be holding your hands.  In labor with our babies as I tried to squeeze the pain away, it was only your touch which soothed the hurt and brought me calm. In joy and elation as we watched those babies be baptized, only letting go long enough for us to each trace a cross on their tiny foreheads.  In pain and sorrow, there was always comfort in your sure and steady touch, my port of calm in any storm. In quiet companionship as we just curl up together.

It is your hands which have cradled our babies and caressed my cheek.  They wipe away tears, soothe feverish bodies, and hold sick children close.  It is your hands which work to provide for our family all of the things we need and quite a few of the things that we simply wish to have. 

It is your hands which I have held onto as we've weathered the trials and excitements of the past sixteen years, and your hands I still hope to be holding for many years to come.

There are many gifts for which I thanks God daily, but none so often as being the Computer Guy's wife.

All my love, today and always.

me

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Just when we begin to think #4 is back to normal-ish...she comes downstairs and says "Mom, did you know that one of my ears is bigger than the other?"

"Most people have one bigger ear."

"Bigger like this?"

Here's the other for comparison

See how the other one has folds and ridges and the first one doesn't? She usually has a matched set.

 My first thought was "bug bite" but I can't find one.  (Okay, that's a lie. My first thought was "Oh crap!  What's wrong with her now?" then I calmed down and thought "bug bite")

Our whole JRA adventure started with a nasty swollen ear and bad infection.  (Malignant Otitis Externa.  We think.  There's no way to be 100% that this is what started it all.  That's my "I'm not a doctor" disclaimer.)

Crap.

What's wrong now?  He brother has been running a fever for days.  Is this a viral infection looking for a place to happen?  Is there a bug bite I missed?  Can a kid get arthritis in her ear? Is Batman going to be able to save Gotham from the Riddler?

Stay tuned.  Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

*****Update: it was bug bites.  Chiggers.  It turns out that with her wonky immune system, she just reacts more ferociously to everything.....including bugs.  

I hate being Paranoia Mom.

Purgatory Parades

“Offer it up” is the mantra of  my children’s childhood.  Don’t want to clean your room?  Hate the broccoli? “Offer it up.  Work on your parade!” My children hear it daily.  Your brother is annoying and you wanna kill him but don’t? “Offer it up!” You skin your knee trying to ride your bike down the hill and don’t scream because the baby is sleeping? (You’re my new favorite child!) “Offer it up!”
When I was a girl, my grandmother would tell me this all the time.  “Offer it up!”  I was never really sure why God would want me to suffer through not biting my big brother, or politely eating the cauliflower that made me gag, but I’d look up at Heaven anyway and think “If you want it, you’ve got it……why would you want it?”
It wasn’t until I was older that I figured it all out.  God doesn’t want our suffering.  He wants our obedience.  He wants our humility.  He wants our charity.  He wants our self-control. That’s why we offer the pain, discomfort, and sorrow that we experience up to Him. Not because He desires those things, but because our acceptance of our own crosses become a prayer of obedience to Him.

Go read the rest over at Ignitum Today.

Evening Engagements

She is 7 months old this week, and still not sleeping through the night.  Whenever I say this out loud to other mothers, they shake their heads and commiserate with me over how horrible it is to be sleep deprived and why won't those silly babies just sleep?

I nod along in agreement, and accept their condolences....but I secretly love it.  I love the 3 A.M.waking.  It is in the quiet darkness of my bed, with my beloved husband sleeping beside me, that I get to bask in the sweetness of being her mom.

My little one pats my cheek and lets her baby hands meander their way across my cheek. I whisper her name and she croons love songs back to me.  We quietly giggle at each other as I ruffle the downy baby fuzz of her hair.

It is in the late night darkness that I get to stroke the smoothness of her cheek and admire her plump little feet.  There is no one else demanding my attention, no chores to be done.  There are only the night time sounds of crickets and sprinklers outside, and the sleeping sighs of my husband nearby.  For this one hour of my day, there is calm and rest. I have nothing to do except mother my sweet girl.

She presses her body next to mine, hungrily eating.  As she does, I marvel over the size of her, and remember how small she was not so very long ago.  Her snuffly snorts are the music of my late night waking.  Her babbling soliloquy is my night time serenade.

The night will come when we do not wake until morning.  Her growing body will at last be able to make it through the night.  That night our evening engagements will come to an end.

Not yet, please, not yet.

Let her fingers skitter up my arm tonight.  Let her plant her slobbery kisses on my chin.  Let her tell me the wonders she has seen today in her own peculiar prattle.

Just one more night.  Please, one more night, let me have my 3 A.M.

Brilliant Mom Advice

My eldest child took the ACT yesterday.  It was nerve racking for me as I worried about whether or not I had taught her enough, and for her as she took her first standardized test.  She put so much pressure on herself as she walked around repeatedly telling me that this test could mean she gets into the college she wants or not and all the ways that not getting in would ruin her life.

It all culminated in the moment in the car as I waited to drop her off and she realized that she had no pencil sharpener.  "I was supposed to bring one.  Do we have time to go back home and find one? I'm not sure where it is, but I need to look."  Which left me wondering....didn't they have pencil sharpeners somewhere in the school where she was taking the test?  I can't imagine an entire school with no pencil sharpeners....but it has been 20 years since I was in high school..........maybe they just use something else now?  It made me a bit nostalgic for a simple #2 pencil.  I missed those guys for a second....and then she told me to stop being dumb.  We have a whole box of them in the drawer back home.

As she told me for the 3rd time that she was definitely going to throw up, I told her to just breathe.  It would be okay.  She could always take the test again.  It was not a life or death thing.  It's just one test.

"But mom.....pencil sharpener?  I only have 4 sharp pencils.  What if they break?"

I sighed a bit and rolled my eyes a bit....and completely understand her paranoia.  She is her father's child.  The worrying that makes him a brilliant Computer Guy was making her nuts.

"Just find a nerd boy or an art kid." I told her.  "They'll have pencil sharpeners.  If you ask nicely, they may let you use them....okay...they may sharpen your pencil for you, because they're never going to let you use their pencil sharpener.  Doesn't matter.  Sit by them.  Stay away from the cute jocks.  They won't have sharpeners, and will be lucky if they have enough pencils....they'll be looking to bum a sharpener themselves. Go with the nerds or the art geeks.  They're your best bet................................or the swishy boy.  He'll need one for his eyeliner."

Raising Saintly Kids When I'm A Big Ol' Sinner

“Your kids rock!” A friend of mine told me the other day, and she was right…they do rock.  They’re phenomenal children and more importantly, they’re really nice people.  I don’t think I’ve had a lot to do with that, it’s more in spite of me than because of my handiwork.  These children are the direct result of a lot of prayer.
A lot.
Huge.
Seriously.
There’s something about having 7 children which seems to fool people into thinking that I’ve got this parenting thing at least part of the way figured out.  I know the truth. I’m just beginning to scratch the surface on parenting knowledge and am just smart enough to get out of God’s way.

Read the rest over at Ignitum Today!

3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday....Actually on a Tuesday!

Helping LarryD take over the internet one meme at a time!

1.

Snapped this great picture of the "boy who loves his sister" yesterday and had to share it with you!

#'s 3 and 7

Did you notice her OU shirt?  Some of the people around here are still pining for Oklahoma.

2.

When she was a little tiny girl, #1 was obsessed with Cinderella.  She could quote the whole movie at 2 years old.  She used to tell me, "I'm going to grow up to be Cinderella someday," and we would laugh.

And then she did!

Which is okay, because her friend grew up to be the kinda girl who goes around kissing frogs!  (They started their own princess party business)

Don't talk to me about lazy teenagers, the kids I know are writing marketing plans and debating advertising strategies.  (I'm so incredibly proud!)

You should have heard this little girl squeal when she saw her "Mommmmmyyyyyyy!!!! It's Cinderelllllaaaaaa!!!!"

3.

#6 has started carrying a sword with him wherever he goes.  Our neighbors laugh and say it's cute (and it is) and call him a knight.

 But he's not a knight.  He's his brother's video game!

See the resemblance?

Our own master costumer, #3, helped him to gather the pieces and put it together.  A few days later? The costume is even better (but he won't stand still for a picture.) He runs through my house making all the appropriate sounds from the game.

That's right....I admit it in public......we are a nerd household.

 3.5

 And just because I like the picture of our tiny girly girl....

 next week....pictures of the other 3.  I promise!

Confirmation

It's that time of year again, the last week of school, where I feel the mental and physical exhaustion of an entire school year catch up to me.  As I crawl across the finish line, I wonder if I have the strength and stamina to do it again next year (or ever!)  In my mind I know that it's mere weeks until I start perusing curriculum sites and getting excited for the new year to begin, but for now I'm thinking that sending them to school next year might be a welcome break.  In the midst of questioning yet again whether or not I'm actually ruining my children, I got the confirmation I really needed.

A year ago this week, we moved to Texas.  My sweet #3 was not so sweet any longer.  He had spent his one and only year in public school (we thought we needed special ed help....we don't) and he had learned some new words, phrases and gestures that I know didn't come from my house.  ( I have a potty mouth, but even I don't say this kind of stuff.)  It was significant enough that I worried about him as I sent him out to play in his new neighborhood.  Reports came back to me of what he'd said or done, and I would cringe.  I spent a lot of time last June apologizing for him, and even more time lecturing discussing it with him.  I mourned the gentle soul we had lost in one year of traditional schooling.

It was yesterday, while talking to my neighbor, that I knew he had returned to me.

"He's a different boy. Completely different" She told me.  "Last year he was so angry, and so crude......but the boy he is today would never think to say the things he did last summer.  It's like the anger has come out of him.  It's amazing."

And it is.

Homeschooling detractors often criticize us for "brainwashing" our children.  I've never really been sure what they meant by that until now.  Now, I'd agree.  It took an entire year to wash the ugliness out of his head that his public school peers and that one nasty teacher put into it.  But here we are in June, the ugliness and anger are gone, and the boy we love has come back to us.

Every year I wonder if I'm ruining them by keeping them home.  Every once in a while, I get the reassurance I so badly need.  I'm not ruining them at all.  I'm preserving the people God created them to be.