Sunday January 8th

Today was an okay day. It always is when Ellie goes to play at someone elses house. We just came off a rough Saturday. She spent the night at a friends house on Friday night and had gluten. Will I ever learn? I need to send her food that she can eat. I always feel like I am so high maintenance when I do that. Do I call and ask what they are having for dinner and breakfast and send her something she can eat that is similar? Do families plan a menu during the weekend? I doubt it. So do I send her with gluten free food and just make her yet again be different from what everyone else has? Maybe I should let her chose what she feels like eating so even if it is different she at least likes what she is eating? That is an idea. So anyway when she came home on Saturday she was irritable and cranky. I Attribute that to three things. One she had gluten, two she stayed up late as is standard and expected at sleep overs and three she seems to go into a slight depression after she has playmates/sleepovers with friends. I know it seems weird but I do think she experiences a lull in her attitude. Maybe it is because she was having fun and now has to put up with all of her sisters again. So Sunday she had gotten a good night sleep before and woke up ok. The babies were gone Sunday morning at a friends house and Bob took Abi to church early and we met them there later. So the morning wasa easier than normal. I have learned that she needs a warning for everything under the sun a reward system works the best. So she got ready and started playing on the computer, I have to set the timer for her and let her know I am setting and she has to shut it off when it goes off. That gets her away from her activity and makes the timer the bad guy and not me. She struggled to get out of the house like always even though her shoes were by the door. She forgot to put socks there and it sent her over the edge. Yelling and crying, I got the socks and we were off. She went home with my sister that day after church, they went to Costco she had to get a salad and seemed to do ok with that, probably because she was with her Aunt and not me where she would have complained. She went to bed fairly good Sunday night. So the difference in Saturday and Sunday was sleep, and gluten.

Daily Battle

Life around here is a daily battle lately. Between 5 kids, homeschool, planning for our new house, owning a business, boot camp, cooking, cleaning, playtime, family time, vision therapy, occupational therapy, husband time, alone time, church, extended family time, doctor and dentist appointments, school functions, and the list goes on. How do you fit it all in? You don't! What to cut back on is the battle. Add to that a child who isn't your typical kid it sucks you dry of any emotional energy you may have had and that makes the battle even bigger. Now I am not complaining, I am grateful for my life, my 5 kids and even my even draining child with special needs. There I said it. She is a special needs child. I have always felt bad for saying that because I have always pictured special needs kids as down syndrome, why I am not sure. I don't want to minimize the struggle that families with down syndrome have, I have no clue what it is like, but at times I think it would be a slight bit easier because people know what down syndrome is and can empathize better with children and parents of down syndrome kids. My kid has sensory processing disorder. All of this is explained in my previous blog. Not to be rude but I don't feel like explaining it again. Let me just say that she was diagnosed this summer after me just really not likening her for 4 years. Mean. Horrible. Bad mom. I know...but I have to be honest. We have gone through steps to have her diagnosed so that we can learn how she ticks to help her in life and make life a little easier for her. Don't get me wrong I love her with all of my heart, but sometimes she is hard to like. Again I am not complaining, I have had many trials in life, some were just the cards I was dealt and lots were through my own stupid decisions. All of them God has used for his glory and shaped me into who I am today, and for that I wouldn't go back and change one of them. So for the next while this blog is going to be my journal. I know there are things that I am doing well with Ellie and things that I need to work on. My hope, prayer really is that by journaling each day here on this blog I will see patterns of behavior in both her and I that I have overlooked. I am hoping to see where things have gone well and maybe I was to exhausted to notice. Or progress we have made that I wouldn't have seen if I didn't chronicle it somewhere. You get the point. My pastor at church (Canyoncreekonline.com) yesterday said that God can use the temporal for the eternal. Maybe that is his plan here. I am not sure but I know he has a plan for me and my sweet Ellie Mae. So you have been warned and I don't blame you if you don't read my blog again, this is more for me than you, selfish I know but sometimes that is what it takes.