Another Birthday

Maggie turned 9 today.  Yesterday we celebrated with her siblings and one of her Uncles, an Aunt and two of her cousins.  It was a good day for her.  She received a new bike from us and a doll from her cousins that she had been wanting.  However, for the past 2 months have been spent telling her she cannot have a slumber birthday party.  She has one friend she could invite and her cousin who is 4 yrs the younger.  When she was in first grade we were able to have a swimming party at the park districts indoor pool for her with all the girls from her class.  This was the year she spent in an inclusion classroom and had really grown as far as attending school went.  She had a very disciplined teacher and a special education teacher that had gone to a seminar to understand her primary diagnosis, Sensory Processing Disorder.  She was doing INCREDIBLE in this classroom. She had an absolutely wonderful time.  She was, well, a normal kid on this day.  She was a normal 7 year old.  The stimulation didn't bother her, her auditory was on track, her maturity and social skills were both completely age appropriate.  This day was nothing short of MIRACULOUS.  By the time she entered 2nd grade a lot had changed at her school and change is not a good thing for Maggie!  After a rough start, classroom changes and med changes we eventually had to remove her from her school to an out of district school.  She spends her days in a classroom with other children that have diagnosed behavior, emotional, neurological and mental impairments and disabilities.  These children are all there from various school districts surrounding the school, and they are ALL boys.  You can't exactly have a princess party with a group of boys or a slumber party for that matter.  It has proven heartbreaking for me to continually tell her no.  To try and reason with her.  To try and reassure her.  I honestly thought that having the day off of school for her birthday would be considered awesome to her.  Not so much!  It isn't that she wants to be at school, but it has been nothing but an emotional roller coaster ride today.  She was sure that she was having a party even though we had not invited anyone over and there were no invitations.  She was sure that even though I had said no several dozen times over the past 2 months that there was in fact going to be a slumber party.  She is in fact devastated by it all!  Another birthday of feeling like a complete failure as a parent!  Another day of not having a clue how to make it all better.  Just another birthday!

Nightmare Weekly Appointment

We made our weekly outing to Planet Chiropractic last night.  It is the same routine every week.  We go in, do our exercises, get adjusted, spend 5 minutes with head weights, maybe pick up supplements or pay and go home.  I remind Maggie to not touch things that she isn't suppose to and don't go in rooms, specifically the x-ray room, that she is not allowed in.  This week I forgot the reminders, but you would think that after 14 months of going weekly that it would be a habit.  Not so much!  Here is yet another example of Impulse Control Disorder!  I hate this disorder!  Not that I like any of her disorders, but I really hate this one! 

Another difference with this visit was that we were having our re-exams.  A simple and quick scan of our spine.  Maggie, Lilly and I went in first while Annabelle sat with Murdoch.  Maggie finished and I sent her out to get adjusted and then told her to go sit in the play area, then Lilly and I sent her out to get Annabelle and have her adjustment.  I had my scan and Annabelle came in the room.  They gave Annabelle her scan, Dr. Wolf left the room so we could get dressed and CRASH!  "I hope that wasn't Maggie!"  I said to Annabelle.  (Insert scary Annabelle face.) I leave the room and Dr. Majors says "She broke a picture in the x-ray room."  UGH!  Once again I feel defeated, lost, angry, stressed and ultimately embarrassed!  I want to cry, bury my head and crawl away never to be seen again.  Maggie is with Dr. Jenna and I ask her what happened.  She doesn't really have an answer.  Excuses basically.  I can't even manage an "I'm sorry!" to Dr. Majors or I will break down.  I send her back to the front, I do my head weights for 5 minutes, which involved Lilly coming in three times to tell me how much Maggie is annoying her and won't leave her alone.  I send her out three times.  I walk out to the front to find them in the chairs pushing and shoving as Annabelle is oblivious listening to her music and Murdoch is running around like a banshee! I sit down to talk to Maggie and Lilly and next thing you know Murdoch is crying!  Really?  I look at Annabelle and she said he hit his head on the ground.  So I am trying to quiet him down and Maggie is up and in everyone's way.  I feel like I have the world watching me, judging me, convicting me of motherly stupidity and negligence!  I just need to get them out!  Get myself OUT!   NOW!

Finally out the door and into the van, I am buckling Murdoch and I say, "Why can't we just be NORMAL for 30 minutes!"  I knew as I was saying it that I shouldn't be saying it.  I couldn't believe I said it, but it was out there! 
Annabelle, without missing a beat, "We aren't NORMAL MOM!  We will NEVER be a NORMAL family!" 
I whisper, "Yes I know!  What I meant, Annabelle, is normal, in the sense of behavior!" 
Annabelle whispers, "Oh, sorry!"

Again, UGH!  Finally home, I ask Maggie again about the picture.  I ask her what was on it and she tells me words.  I asked what the words said and she said she doesn't know.  I ask how do you not know what it said?  If you were close enough to knock it down, you should know what it said.  Her response, "My brain told me I needed to touch it!"  I wanted to fall to the floor and cry.  We haven't heard the words "My brain...." in eight months.  She hasn't described anything using those words for so long and I was so happy to have them gone!  I know that when she uses those words that her body is in chaos and it breaks me!  All I could do was hug her and remind her about not touching, not being in the room, etc. 

At 8 years old Maggie is so immature, yet she is so smart and aware of what her brain and body are doing.  Hatefully aware!  I will do everything I can to keep the cycle from repeating, but this is where the anxiety and anger increase, and any self-esteem she has disappears!  Meltdowns become dominant and self hatred presides!   Her impulses are stronger, her sensory system unregulated, and her mind on overdrive.  We will conquer, I will cry, a lot, and things will get ridiculously frenzied.  Everyone will feel jilted, but we will come out much stronger than before!  During these chaotic times I have to remember that we are still better off than most and look to the positive of everything my kids are!

Anybody There?

This, by the way, is not meant in any way to make any of our friends feel bad.  It is merely meant for others to know they are not alone!  It may even bring some awareness to others.

I often times ponder what happened to all those awesome friendships we had before kids.  Well, really there was never a "before we had kids"!  Cam Jr. was there from day 1, he was 2 when Camron and I started dating.  Now, granted, he wasn't a 24/7 child for us, but he was just easy!  We could take him anywhere with us and he was happy.  Hanging out at the park, playing pool, going to friends, camping, fishing, canoeing, cooking out, it didn't matter.  He was a constant to our weekends.  We could take him to the car shows and boat shows, things like that.  Eventually though our friends just started to dropped off, some because their lives got busy with their own families.  Some because the older the kids got, the harder it was to go elsewhere and actually count on having a good time. It was actually pretty simple to take Annabelle & Lilly out of the house.  With a four year difference between them, Annabelle was self sufficient and pretty mature for the little 4 year old that she was.  There is a 9 year difference between Cam Jr. and Annabelle, so when he was with us, he actually was very helpful.  It wasn't until Lilly turned 1 and I found out I was pregnant that it became difficult.  Of course!  I was constantly fatigued, and maybe it just became habit, but I didn't want to go anywhere!  Maggie came along when Lilly was just 20 months old.  We really didn't have many difficulties with her early on, but it was just simply hard to get out of the house in an organized, non chaotic manner that didn't stress me out.  Most of our friends already had kids, most of them older than ours, and they had their routines.  It seemed we were always headed to someones, for something.  Eventually it got to the point that I was just declining the invites because it was difficult to get out.  We were NEVER on time, EVER!  The older Maggie got, the harder the hits.  People just didn't get that it would be so much easier for them to come to us.  We didn't know what was going on with her.  We just knew it was hard.  A kind of hard that made it grueling and exhausting just to think about it.  No one really understood!  I always felt I was under judgement.  I was actually told once that I made everything more difficult than I needed to.  Murdoch came along when Maggie was 5,  just 9 months into our discoveries of her alphabet soup of diagnosis'.  We tried to put the invites out for our friends to come here and it was always "But we have more room.  Come over here!"  The difficulties, especially with Maggie, grew more and more frustrating.  I can't tell you how many times I had to go off on my own to release the tears, recompose myself, and come back with a smile.  I cry now at the very thought of those days.  You couldn't take your eyes off of her.  There were times that I thought things were going well while we were out and I would relax a bit, but someone would always come back with "Maggie is...."  or we simply wouldn't be able to find her.  We didn't enjoy being out and the other kids had to suffer because of it.  I would be naive to say it didn't affect them.  I know that it still does.  It's not like I can just pack them up and run out with them on my own.  They feed off each other way too much, then everyone is frustrated, angry or crying.  You can't take them into a store or to the mall.  It is either take one of them or leave them all.  The only places we go together now is to gatherings at relatives and to church.  Thank God church is only an hour long, because it is arduous!  Holidays have become much easier with Maggie, but her maturity is still lacking.  She does things socially that you would expect out of a 6 or 7 year old and she is almost 9.  Things that people often times question and children don't understand.  Did you know that there is actually a diagnosis of Impulse Control Disorder?  Maggie is the epitome of Impulse Control Disorder.  She seriously cannot help herself.  Of course, I have been told that I make excuses for her also.  So, who really knows!  I always thought that I would spend my weekends with my friends and their families hanging out.  Kids playing together, some great adult conversation (that I so desperately need), and some compassion and understanding to boot!  That hasn't worked out so great for us!  Friends are few and far between these days.  Even though Belle is old enough to babysit,  we really can't expect her to be able to handle the chaos that the younger ones dish out, just so we can go hang out with friends.  I know, deep down, that the most important thing is, that we have gained so much more through our children, but I miss our friends!