Welcome back to my crazy house blog, there is never a dull moment when you’re a mom with ADHD, raising kids with additional needs from smiles and giggles to wiping tears and calming storms. It’s been an overwhelming week with the nice spring weather finally arriving, we’ve been outside a lot more. Walking our little pug Brownie, cleaning our neighborhood park, preparing our tiny garden and taking out the outdoor activities.
My son as you know is 14 almost 15 with additional needs. He has been wanting to ride a bike just like his little sister, but despite all my efforts to try to teach him, holding him while trying to get him to peddle beyond my own weight has been really discouraging. He just couldn’t quite get the hang of it. But it’s something he has always wanted. One evening when I was preparing supper, to my delight my daughter came running in the house with the biggest, proudest grin you could ever imagine. shouting he can do it mom!!! A bit worried about what was going on, I dropped everything to go and see and I couldn’t believe it. This little 4′ foot 10 year old girl taught her big 6’1 foot brother how to ride his bike. It was the most heartwarming moment ever, because these two generally fight more than cats and dogs. They were both so proud, mostly because they have finally found something they can both enjoy together. All week they just couldn’t wait till after school to hop on their bikes and ride around the block. Definitely a proud mommy moment indeed!!!
But its never long before the smiles turn into tears of sadness as we lost our dear guinea pig Skye, She will be forever missed. We’re not even sure what happened. She was playful early in the day, chirping for her veggies and ruining around. It wasn’t until their night feeding, my daughter found her laying on her side in very poor condition and immediately broke down in tears. I began scooping out the other guinea pigs right away to give her space and figure out what happened and how to help her. My son started ranting and laughing and making the situation worse. Trying my best to stay calm and keeping myself from shouting at him to stop because I’m in tears my self and trying to wrap my ADHD brain around the whole ordeal as my own heart is shattered for our poor Skye. After wrapping her up and patting her gently, telling her everything is OK and my daughter tried to get her to eat and drink water for her efforts to try to save her, she sadly passed away with us all around her, Collecting my self and finding my strength to stay strong to comfort my son, despite what he was saying and the utter look on his face. I knew it wasn’t at all how he was feeling. He has a really hard time expressing himself and showing the right emotion for how he really feels. I’ve learned that when he tries to make us more upset than we already are he takes it upon himself to redirect what ever we are feeling onto himself because he just doesn’t know what else to do. It’s another thing we are working on. But my daughter is young and she want’s her big brother to be the big brother so this issues causes a lot of fights beyond the normal sibling rivalry.
My two fight so much it’s a constant non stop battle to try to figure out why. Feeling like I’m always the referee, I’ve been taking mental notes to try to figure out what triggers them to fight the most. Because it’s just insane. I probably sound like a broken record because I’ve mentioned this issue more than a few times. But I just could’t understand. Like I mentioned before they do have some language delays due to my daughters CAPs and my sons ASD but generally they can communicate quite well or so it seems. I’ve notice they seem to be fighting for my attention. I felt like that was crazy because I’m a stay at home/working mom, I work while they are asleep or at school besides that I’m with them all the time. I barely leave the house. I just couldn’t understand. But I knew I had to do something. So like I mentioned in my last post I decided that spring was going to mark change. I figured the best way to shake things up was to change our routine completely!!!
My son has been struggling the most between being hit with puberty and stuff going on at school. I decided to change his schedule drastically, to see if that would help as his behaviors were getting concerning (depression, sadness, anxiety, talking back, increase in defiance, completely unmotivated and the constant need to upset his sister, myself and the young lady who lives with us). I started with cutting his school hours from 8:15-2:15 to 8:15 to 12:40 meaning he is now home at 12:50. So since his sister is still in school and doesn’t get home until 2:45 I take this advantage to somewhat home school him / indulge him with my full attention. We talk about what he doing in school, his YouTubers, and what’s appropriate and what is not using his YouTubes as examples. I also try to squeeze in some reading time, either I read to him or he reads to me. Surprising this has WORKED!!! He is even volunteering to wash windows!! When my daughter come in she usually has her routinely after-school overload explosion (screaming, throwing her stuff starting a fight with her brother or just anyone whoever may be in her line of destruction). For her I began taking her for a walk the minute she gets home. and surprisingly after a week the predicted explosions have transformed into little controllable storms that we are able to talk about during our walk. If the weather isn’t great for walking we take out our calming down box and chat while playing with aromatherapy play dough, slime, or sensory bottles or just have a old fashion colouring contest. This little added extra to our routine has made a world of difference for us. It’s got them to the point where they are able to spend a bit more time together like mentioned above as well as improve in other areas. Like making their own school lunches, offering to help out without being nagged (mind you leaving little notes of reminders have also helped a ton.
Cheers to a better week, I hoped you enjoyed and see you next time at my crazy house, If you’re new, don’t forget to subscribe. Please feel free to view my Friends, Family and other bloggers I follow š
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