On the 18th Day

Exercise

Snowballs

The fight is on

Crazy Fun

Dante and the Dishes

Walter the Reindeer

Funny Michael

Happy Mom

Sage because Walter get all the glory

Hi Y'all. The house is a mess. But I don't even care. Its been a good week. Michael even fixed our stuck letter Z.  We had our second date night and for the life of me I don't know why we have not always been doing this. The theme this week was snowballs. The timing was perfect since we got our first snow storm of the season that same day. The 15 year old started in with his grumbling and complaining again. Stupid baby stuff. I told him I got some frozen (Let it go Frozen. Not freezer frozen) brownie mix and he got excited.  First he said "No way. I'm never eating Brownies again" If you know the brownie story you know why. If you don't it's a knee slapper. I'll have to tell you another time. He likes to cook. I told him the only rule about the brownies was that he had to execute the recipe with no help from me and he had to let his little sister help. They took right to it.

Decided they wanted to do it their own way and not follow the recipe exactly. They had so much fun. Christmas music playing in the background ( I'm one of those people). Chris and Tori cooking and Dante at the table wadding up balls of newspaper and wrapping them with tape for our epic snowball fight. I had my doubts y'all about this snow ball fight. I thought it would end like every Nerf war, board game, basically most things that we try to do together as a group. With somebody crying because somebody went too far. Or somebody ticked off because they didn't win. But y'all it was so fun. Running, chasing. No one crying. Everyone laughing. That's rare for this family full of adhd kids. At the end I said game ends in 10, 9, 8 and threw my hands in the air all of the kids pelted me with the remaining snowballs and it was over.
Another idea I had this week was inspired by parent teacher conferences. I told the kids at dinner that I needed to schedule a conference with each of them individually in my room for 15 minutes. When each of them came in I had the Uno cards out and shuffled and we played a hand of Uno while we chatted about school and friends and grades and life. That short 15 minutes was really meaningful.  I think. Although when I asked Tori if she had a magic wand and she could change one thing in her life what would it be she answered "I would have a mom and a dad who was a spy and a talking spy dog" Too many Spy kid movies for that kid.
I decided to switch it up on the exercise. I really don't like the treadmill so its hard for me to make myself do it. I went back to jump roping. I like it because I can do it right down stairs with the kids. And they like getting involved too. I really suck at it. I miss all the time and mess up. But I figure I am teaching my kids persistence and resilience by learning from failure and not giving up. All the "Mom you are really bad at jump roping" statements have turned into "You got this mom. Just one more. Maybe if you do it this way it will help" Kinds of statements. We are learning problem solving together.
Don't think it's all roses over here. This house is still a mess (except the laundry room, my room and my bathroom. Nobody better mess up what mamma just cleaned and organized). And there some evening where I'm just tired and I have to force myself. And to be honest eating good food has been a struggle. Some days I rock it and some days I hit the Taco Bell. But I'm not being mean to myself y'all. I'm getting there. Because between of piano lessons and homework and mental health appointments and church and haircuts and teenage angst and IEP meetings and med checks I'm getting it done y'all. I'm making the calls. I'm talking the vitamins, I'm taking time for myself to enjoy books. I am appreciating my friends. I'm making time for my kid. I am loving life right now and its rubbing off on my kids. Some of you know my son, Dante, has FASD and sometimes life is a struggle for him and for me. The past three weeks or so it seems he has just been triggered by everything. Melt down after melt down after melt down in an endless loop. It has been hard on us. But this week has been so much different. I know there will be rough times again. That's the nature of FASD. But for now it feels good.  One of the reasons is that he has discovered dish washing. Our dish washer died and Dante has been volunteering to wash the dishes by hand in exchange for time on the computer. The sensory experience of water and soap is calming. And the pride of working hard shows. I think I am more relaxed and able to cope and that helps as well. Not always. This morning I about had a melt down myself when I could not find something I was looking for and Christopher refused to take his medicine because it was "gooey" and the dog was barking. I kicked a chair y;'all. I had to say I was sorry for not using my coping tools. The kids were all "calm down and breath mom, man." But most of the time when my attitude is better so is theirs.   More to come y'all. Stay tuned. My list of 50 tonight? 50 great recording artists:
1. John Mayer
2.Joni Mitchell
3. Alan Jackson
4. Alison Krauss
5. Anita Baker
6. Carly Simon
7. Chris Burns
8. Dan Fogelberg
9. DC Talk
10. The Dead South
11. Dwight Yoakam
12. Eric Clapton
13. Garth Brooks
14. Glen Campbell
15. George Ezra
16. John Denver
17. Terry Talbot
18. Johnny Cash
19. Keith Green
20. Kenny Chesney
21. Lifehouse
22. Marty Robbins
23. Matthew Ward
24. Michael Jackson
25. Mylon LeFevre
26. Nancy Cassidy
27. Nickel Creek
28. Patsy Cline
29. Quiency Jones
30. Randy Stonehill
31. Randy Travis
32. Sara Groves
33. Oden Fong
34. The Statler Brothers
35. Steve Taylor
36. Steven Curtis Chapman
37. Stevie Wonder
38. Sting
39. Susan Ashton
40. They might be giants
41. Toby Keith
42. Todd Agnew
43. Tracy Chapman
44. Waterdeep
45. Waylon Jennings
46. The Wealthy West
47. Weird Al
48. Willie Nelson
49. The Wiggles
50. Sixpence None the Richer

Team work Makes the dream work

Tori helps out