One Week Down...

Having all the kids with me is definitely different.  I text my friends earlier this week that the quickest way to invite spiritual warfare into your life is to blog and give God glory for helping you have a good attitude in a bad situation.

I tried to make the most of every day.  We went to the children's museum, the zoo, the pool, the beach, the library, shopping, watched movies and went out to eat.  That sounds like super fun mom to me.... you?  The kids did have fun doing everything but they were also at each other's throats most of the time and we had the worst fits we've ever had from our new guy.  Thankfully I covered this trip in prayer and God helped give me some extra Holy Spirit in my ear to battle all those thoughts that Satan was trying to throw in there.  I know I may sound like a weirdo but our minds are a battlefield.  A few times I literally said out loud "Satan will not steal this summer from me!"  I wanted to quit and let one or two of the kids stay home with my mom this week or tell them no more fun and we would just sit in the room all day but I didn't.  I want this time with them and it won't be taken away.  I'm also starting the book Unglued this week so that will be interesting and hopefully helpful for me to see what I need to change in myself.

I expect this week to be better.  Now everyone knows the new routine.  RJ also knows now that I mean what I say when I tell him that we will see Daddy on Friday and everything will be fine.  I'm really hoping that helps with his behavior this week.

I even had a few that told me they are excited for homework again this week.  Of course that leaves a few not so excited....... What we're doing, in case anyone is interested, is 3 - 20 minute rotations:  Read for 20, computer learning game for 20 and 20 minutes of workbook pages.  I find our evenings are hard to fill the time so that is when we do this.  I'm doing other fun activities with oral motor and fine motor with Laila during this time too as well as working on her letter recognition and phonics.

Laila had a good week back at CLC.  She is walking around this house like a mad woman (holding my hands or with her walker).  She does not want to be in her chair and every transition we make she asks if she can walk.  Not a new skill she has learned since being here but the confidence just builds tremendously with having teachers who believe in her and expect that she can do these things and it is also a huge part that she is again with peers just like her.  She has also been wearing big girl undies with me in the evenings and did at home this weekend as well :)

As far as my previous blog and talking about the attention between the children...... God's working on me.  After I posted that blog and then looked back I realized something.  This is the environment I have created.  This blog turned into mostly about Laila when we adopted her instead of everyone and then we adopted RJ and he got his own website and t-shirts and facebook page.  We made "celebrities" out of these two and that coupled with their obvious societal differences in looks and abilities, how could they not stand out?  So, I'm gonna sit on that for awhile and figure out what I need to change.  I do think God just laughs at me sometimes (all the time) when I think I have something figured out....

CLC Summer......

So I crawl back to my sadly neglected family blog with my head down in shame.  Wow seriously, haven't written anything since last August.....

Well a lot has happen and most of the time that's why I don't blog.  I'm busy and then I get overwhelmed by even thinking about getting caught up on blogging and it's a vicious cycle.  I have done some blogging on our adoption site but have been slacking on that somewhat lately too.  It's such a battle because I want to live each day to the fullest with my amazing husband and kids and don't want or even have time to sit down and write about it.  I know though how much I need to because of my horrible memory and I want to have these memories written down.  Ah, the internal struggle continues.......

So we're back up in Michigan again for another session at the Conductive Learning Center.  This is our first time trying their summer program but I know other families have raved about it.  We had hoped to return this past April but after our adoption, our new son was in kindergarten and the half days and the newness just didn't allow us to.  So, summer it is!  But..... with summer comes the extra adventure of having all four kids with me....... in our one room..... for five weeks.

I do have to say it took me a long time to get on board with thinking about taking on this adventure this summer.  When we put RJ in school I knew that meant no CLC in the spring and it would probably be moved to the summer.  I spent a long time having a bit of a pity party thinking about how this would take over half of our summer and how I would probably have a nervous breakdown having all the kids to myself for this long during the weeks.  I spent A LOT of time praying for the Lord to change my attitude and guess what.... He did!  Did you know that this means I get my kids all to myself for most of the summer?!?  You see how he changed my attitude from I HAVE to have them to myself most of the summer to I GET to!

We spend a lot of our days running from place to place to place and some days I go to bed wondering if I even looked them in the eye that day.  Isn't that sad??  With this opportunity this summer I get them to myself.  Not only that, but I get to have them to myself in one room.  Again, different attitude.  I only have one room to take care of for most of the summer instead of a whole house.  This frees up so much of my time to actually sit down and do their summer school with them (yep, meanest mommy ever), and read with them and play.  Also where we are we have passes to almost anything that we want to do so it's almost like a vacation.  Now yes, it is only the first day so I will probably be singing a different tune when these five weeks are up (but again why I blog to remind myself).

Laila has her first day back  to CLC today.  She's been gone for 14 months.  She seemed to jump right back in.  They said they could tell she was weaker from having been gone but I'm not so sure about that.  I'm sure she would've been stronger had she been here more consistently but I absolutely know she's so much stronger than she was 14 months ago.  It'll probably just take her a few days to get back used to this equipment and routine.

While I love to post about CLC, I'm not going to say too much this time.  I'll of course give updates every couple of days but there's something that's been on my heart for a long time now that I feel it's the right time to write about it.  I was asked about a year and a half ago to write an article about trying to balance siblings getting lost in the adoption process.  I have felt a tug about it for a long time but never felt the right time to write it.  As I come into this summer of being able to focus aside from doctors and never ending therapy and wheelchairs and post adoption visits, I want to talk about the siblings.  The siblings that most of the time never even get a hello from people who immediately give attention to the "special" children who have joined our family.  We have two of the most heavenly beings in our family and their names are Emma and Jackson.  They walk through life unnoticed a lot of the time and they never even complain.  So, I will be writing more about that throughout the summer so be prepared that you may be one of the ones offended by me this summer.  Not to hurt but to educate.  Who knows, maybe a few of you out there in the blog world also have some kids who get lost in the special needs, or adoptions or whatever other circumstances you may have going on.

We'll see who keeps reading...... ;)