This past week was a hard one. I try to substitute 2 days a week, this past week I ended up with 4. On top of two visitations for C, mutual night, acro jazz, and taking orders for a fruit delivery. I was exhausted. I was so completely overwhelmed that I didn't get the phone calls made that I needed to set up appointments for this coming week. Which I did this morning. Call to the counselor, call to the WIC office, call to the doctor and a check-in about a play date.
I knew this week was going to be full of appointments, but really. I had no idea. And the weather is nice. Which means that I want another trip to the beach, but my freedom has been revoked. And we just went the week before. The weather can be so mild one day and scorching the next. Never tired of that, it keeps you on your toes. But it also makes a person want to be so wishy washy and maybe not show up for an appointment due to some great weather that you have to take advantage of.
C has gotten super hard again. Not pull my hair out crazy yet, but I do believe we are on our way. I think there's a couple stages that need to be noted. People talk about the 'honey-moon' stage where your foster is all peaches and roses because they want to please. Well, not sure if we have ever had something that is peaches and roses, but looking back in hindsight, I can see the honeymoon stage and it has come and gone. And what makes me most desperate is it was still so rough, I didn't recognize it as the honeymoon stage.
So here is my new theory. There's the adrenaline high of having a new person in the house. Patience is abounding and the new little person is figuring out how things work. Testing boundaries and running into them and bouncing off, only to be flung to the other side where they run into another boundary. This will end with desperation and a fear of, "What did we get ourselves into?" and lots of questioning of your stamina. But you will have hope that it gets better, so you hang on.
Then there's the honeymoon stage. Which could also be disguised as, "This is finally working!" stage. But hold on to it. Because it's not going to stay.
When that stage disappears there's the, "Wow. I don't know about this. And it's not just like, I don't know. It's like, we already did the hard stuff, is this what it is really like? Are you being for real right now?" And we carry on with our heads held high and our pride rather shaken and instead of saying anything else, we call it "the ride". We are on the ride right now and just hanging on, trying not to get bumped off. It's not super enjoyable but I've invested too much to let it get the best of me. There has got to be more improvement somewhere.
And that is where we are right now. Right at the start of it. C won't listen to me. She ignores me. When I ask her to do something that is not butterflies and giggles I get resistance. And if she really has her heart set on something, she'll do limp noodle and dead-weight on me. This is the time for all my tantrum training to shine. I hope I can get it right. She argues most everything and my new tag line is, "I am done talking about it" and I try my best to move away from her or busy myself with something else.
Also - this whole past month has been spattered with kids being sick. I have stayed home, predictably, from church every other Sunday with someone sick. Most often C or Talmage. It has gotten old really fast and I haven't been to the gym in about two months because you can't take sick kids to the gym, either. And I am nervous about starting up again because it seems that without a doubt they get something within in the first couple days of me going back. As if they need a little time to adjust their immune systems to the new environment and I just can't do it. I don't have time for sick kids.
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