If you are anything like my husband you read that title and immediately concluded that there is no way that God ordained and dentist could ever be in the same sentence! It is the only way I can explain my experience this morning. I was talking to the hygienist, who knows that Oksana has some issues but knows nothing about her diagnoses. We talked about all kinds of things....people who don't brush their teeth, demon possession, parenting.....yeah don't ask but somehow it all flowed together, not that I'm saying they are connected ;)! At one point she told me of a friend who has a son who has bipolar disorder. I perked up a bit and told her that Oksana has bipolar as well. As she shared more with me I realized I HAD to get connected with this woman. Our kids are the same age, we both have degrees in special ed, we've been through many of the same struggles, we are both Christians, and she was desperately needing someone to talk to who understood. The hygienist and I were so excited that as soon as I walked out the she sent this friend a message on Facebook telling her about me and giving her my phone number. Within 5 minutes of walking out the door I had a text from the woman introducing herself.
We spent some time texting back and forth and decided we wanted to meet in person. We decided on a date and a meeting spot. Then we jumped on Facebook and started sharing our stories with each other. OH WOW! We realized we have a handful of mutual friends, which was crazy, but it was the stories that blew my mind. She gets it....she really gets it. We could relate to each other on so many levels. We understood our kids, our fears, our own emotions, our battles with God. We are both so excited to meet each other. We are meeting Friday evening for dinner. Something tells me we will close the restaurant! I'm so thankful for my God ordained dentist appointment!
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Summer fun....Survival style
What do you think of when you hear "summer fun"? Do you think lazy mornings hanging out in your jammies, no schedule, flying by the seat of your pants, relaxing, etc? Well if you do then your idea of summer is the exact same as mine and the boys'. Unfortunately Oksana and Anya fall apart under that kind of summer "fun". I've had to totally shift my thinking this summer in order to survive. Considering that I just lost the rest of my summer school break, and may never have it again, it was time to build in more of what the girls needed and less of what I consider summer to be. I started by creating a schedule. This is how our day goes:
7:30-8:00 breakfast
8:00-8:30 get dressed and ready
8:30-9:30 learning activities/devotional
9:30-10:30 Craft/cooking activity
10:30-11:30 Free time
11:30-12:00 make/eat/clean up lunch
AFTERNOON
1:00-2:30 outside time/swimming
2:30-3:30 tv time/snack
3:30-4:00 Chores
4:00-5:00 Free time
EVENING
6:00-7:00 Family activity
7:00-8:00 – medicine/ bath/ pajamas
Now...do I follow this to the exact minute? No, for example today was about an hour behind on everything and that worked out great. Truthfully my girls can't do learning time and craft time for a full hour and that's OK. This just provides structure to our day. Oksana will ask "what is next on the list"? This keeps things predictable and running smoothly. She can't wait for TV time today. She has discovered a new Disney movie that she is excited about. I need her to watch that in the afternoon because that is the best time for me to get stuff done. With the schedule she knows that no matter what the movie is coming, and I don't have her arguing with me all day to do it immediately.
Here are some extra things in our schedule:
Every Monday Oksana has therapy in the afternoon.
Every Tuesday we do a cooking activity
Every Thursday we will have lunch with Dad at work and then head to PT and speech
Every Friday is a field trip
We also got a pool. It's not permanent, and it's not anything extravagant but it is big enough that it needs a filter and the boys can enjoy it too without feeling like they are in a kiddie pool. That has bee a life saver. My kids all LOVE it. It has been a wonderful thing to have available through the summer so that we can get outside and have a ton of fun without a ton of work on my part. Best money I ever spent!
Here are a few of the things we have done so far this summer:
MORNING:
7:00-7:30 wake up 7:30-8:00 breakfast
8:00-8:30 get dressed and ready
8:30-9:30 learning activities/devotional
9:30-10:30 Craft/cooking activity
10:30-11:30 Free time
11:30-12:00 make/eat/clean up lunch
1:00-2:30 outside time/swimming
2:30-3:30 tv time/snack
3:30-4:00 Chores
4:00-5:00 Free time
6:00-7:00 Family activity
7:00-8:00 – medicine/ bath/ pajamas
Now...do I follow this to the exact minute? No, for example today was about an hour behind on everything and that worked out great. Truthfully my girls can't do learning time and craft time for a full hour and that's OK. This just provides structure to our day. Oksana will ask "what is next on the list"? This keeps things predictable and running smoothly. She can't wait for TV time today. She has discovered a new Disney movie that she is excited about. I need her to watch that in the afternoon because that is the best time for me to get stuff done. With the schedule she knows that no matter what the movie is coming, and I don't have her arguing with me all day to do it immediately.
Here are some extra things in our schedule:
Every Monday Oksana has therapy in the afternoon.
Every Tuesday we do a cooking activity
Every Thursday we will have lunch with Dad at work and then head to PT and speech
Every Friday is a field trip
We also got a pool. It's not permanent, and it's not anything extravagant but it is big enough that it needs a filter and the boys can enjoy it too without feeling like they are in a kiddie pool. That has bee a life saver. My kids all LOVE it. It has been a wonderful thing to have available through the summer so that we can get outside and have a ton of fun without a ton of work on my part. Best money I ever spent!
Here are a few of the things we have done so far this summer:
Enjoy our pool....with 2 very silly boys
Celebrate Evan's 12th birthday. He loves having his picture taken with me ;).
Had our family pictures taken. Now that was an adventure!
Gone on field trips. These are from Purina Farms and the zoo.
Met Belle at the 4th of July parade!
Cooked treats. Here is today's treat, Rice Krispie treats with chocolate and sprinkles! The picture on Pinterest was very different but we had fun and they were good!
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Summer
I dreaded...I mean really dreaded this summer. Last summer was so awful that I feared a repeat. Granted Oksana is in a much better place than she was last year....still, lack of structure and routine are very hard for her. I am thrilled to say that this summer has been much better. Don't get me wrong. We have had our ups and downs. Oksana had one solid week that I honestly thought we were seeing the end of her stretch of stability but somehow she pulled out of it. Now we are getting 2-3 pretty rough days a week but it's still so much better than last summer!
Back in March we got a letter from school telling us the dates, times, and location of this summer's extended school year program. Both of my girls qualify based on the fact that it has been determined that having school in the summer would help them retain what they have learned. The letter asked me to check a box to tell whether or not the girls would be at summer school and sign it. I asked Larry if I could write "Hell yes!" on Oksana's paper. I knew this was the only break I would get all summer. We had vacation the week after school let out, then there was 2 weeks of summer school, 1 week off, and 2 more weeks of summer school before a 3 1/2 week break leading up to the beginning of the new school year. I was so nervous about that stretch. A week here or there is one thing but that is practically a month with a child who thrives on structure and routine and has MAJOR mood swings when her life is out of whack.
So summer school started and the first few days were fine. Then the fun ended. First there was a rough day, then a display of aggression that left a speech teacher with claw marks on her chest, and it went on from there. I was told that the class she was in was big and had a lot of kids with behavior problems. She knew 2 people in the whole class...a para and a kid. The teacher in that class was very well trained but I can only guess that because of the number of kids it seems that the para she knew was the one who primarily dealt with her, and she had other kids to care for too. Because of that I think the goal became to do whatever needed to be done to keep Oksana from raging. This led to problems at home. When ever I didn't give her what she wanted or do what she wanted she started screaming at me that I was bossy and eventually told her therapist that I'm too bossy and that's why she likes her para. In other words I don't give in to her to keep her happy. I told the therapist that I had considered pulling her out of summer school and she agreed that if not this year, I probably need to rethink it for next year. It just was not a good situation for anyone at that point.
On Wednesday she had another very rough day where she was so obsessed with the para that she spent her day screaming at people if the para was with them too much. She refused to go to speech because she would have to leave the para and so they let her skip it. This is a nightmare scenario for a parent of a child with RAD. That day I told the para that I would let her go one more day to finish out the week (these are only 4 day weeks) and then she would not be back. By now she had already been in for 3 of the 4 weeks. There was hardly any time left and quite frankly I'm not sure she got a darn thing from the 3 weeks she was there. It's hard to learn when you are in fight or flight. So I pulled both girls out. Anya's class was fine but if I pulled Oksana there was no reason to keep Anya there. Considering that I'm teaching her sight words at home there was no academic value to it that she couldn't get at home.
So after all of the fears about this summer, and especially that long stretch before school, I just added another week to it. I feel good about it though. I have very structured and predictable days planned with lots of fun as well as time for us all to learn, play, swim, cook, etc. I'm hopeful that this will be good for her because I may not be sending her next year. We will see what the year brings.
I'll do a summer update with pictures and more fun stuff later. :)
Back in March we got a letter from school telling us the dates, times, and location of this summer's extended school year program. Both of my girls qualify based on the fact that it has been determined that having school in the summer would help them retain what they have learned. The letter asked me to check a box to tell whether or not the girls would be at summer school and sign it. I asked Larry if I could write "Hell yes!" on Oksana's paper. I knew this was the only break I would get all summer. We had vacation the week after school let out, then there was 2 weeks of summer school, 1 week off, and 2 more weeks of summer school before a 3 1/2 week break leading up to the beginning of the new school year. I was so nervous about that stretch. A week here or there is one thing but that is practically a month with a child who thrives on structure and routine and has MAJOR mood swings when her life is out of whack.
So summer school started and the first few days were fine. Then the fun ended. First there was a rough day, then a display of aggression that left a speech teacher with claw marks on her chest, and it went on from there. I was told that the class she was in was big and had a lot of kids with behavior problems. She knew 2 people in the whole class...a para and a kid. The teacher in that class was very well trained but I can only guess that because of the number of kids it seems that the para she knew was the one who primarily dealt with her, and she had other kids to care for too. Because of that I think the goal became to do whatever needed to be done to keep Oksana from raging. This led to problems at home. When ever I didn't give her what she wanted or do what she wanted she started screaming at me that I was bossy and eventually told her therapist that I'm too bossy and that's why she likes her para. In other words I don't give in to her to keep her happy. I told the therapist that I had considered pulling her out of summer school and she agreed that if not this year, I probably need to rethink it for next year. It just was not a good situation for anyone at that point.
On Wednesday she had another very rough day where she was so obsessed with the para that she spent her day screaming at people if the para was with them too much. She refused to go to speech because she would have to leave the para and so they let her skip it. This is a nightmare scenario for a parent of a child with RAD. That day I told the para that I would let her go one more day to finish out the week (these are only 4 day weeks) and then she would not be back. By now she had already been in for 3 of the 4 weeks. There was hardly any time left and quite frankly I'm not sure she got a darn thing from the 3 weeks she was there. It's hard to learn when you are in fight or flight. So I pulled both girls out. Anya's class was fine but if I pulled Oksana there was no reason to keep Anya there. Considering that I'm teaching her sight words at home there was no academic value to it that she couldn't get at home.
So after all of the fears about this summer, and especially that long stretch before school, I just added another week to it. I feel good about it though. I have very structured and predictable days planned with lots of fun as well as time for us all to learn, play, swim, cook, etc. I'm hopeful that this will be good for her because I may not be sending her next year. We will see what the year brings.
I'll do a summer update with pictures and more fun stuff later. :)
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