Bullets

• Sunday saw a very mentally unstable child screaming and raging for 8 hours straight. She made herself sick to the point of projectile vomiting.

• I have wonderful teenagers who took their turns with Missy and gave me a break.

• James and I started a journey in Random Acts of Kindness.... I'll try to include Missy as she is able. So far we have packed two Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. One for a boy James' age and one for a girl Missy's age.

• Monday was a LONG day in the big city over the Pass for our NR appointment. James has made tremendous gains... there's miles more to go. We are dropping two patterns from our routine and adding two new ones, plus adding an exercise to his creeping and crawling.  They are trying to address his anxiety and left brain issues that are actually visible on his right side.

• Missy made a few tiny steps in the right direction. It is felt that she is keeping herself from being able to make progress with the rages and all that.... keeping herself in a state of high stress and possibly actually retraumatizing herself. Not sure the underlying cause but there are suspicions. We have some new ideas to pursue. Much of the old patterns and plan was thrown out the window in favor of a totally new plan.  I was cringing the whole time we were being shown and taught the new exercises. There's a whole lot of lap time and hugs and very labor intensive exercises. She doesn't like me a whole lot right now.... there will be a lot to fight. Also, I'm not exactly excited about that. I know it is needed and I am willing, but it's going to be hard to follow through when she's having a hard day. I'm not going to feel like doing any of it then. The whole appointment took 3 hours. It was intense and emotional... florescent lights make my head swim... I had a migraine almost instantly.

• We arrived home back over the pass just in time for me to go to our English as a Second Language School to do crafts with 30 kids.

• Tuesday I got up with the worst kind of migraine. It was bad enough to try something out of the ordinary. BUT in my fog I made a mistake and took two... HUGE mistake. Paid for that!

• That was also  parent/teacher conference day. It actually means half days for the whole week. The kids are home by 11:15 AM !!! James conference was exciting. He has made so much progress that he's surprising a lot of people. It is projected  that by the end of the school year he will be working at grade level in all areas. His IEP goals are all being mastered and he's putting forth more than required effort in his work. I couldn't be more proud. He has an AMAZING teacher. I know I keep saying that, but it is the truth. She treats him like gold.

• Missy's IEP shows Insufficient progress in nearly every category except math and reading. In those two areas she is moving up. She is at a grade 1.2 in reading so far. I like her teacher. Very nice lady... obviously a Christian woman who was telling me that the Lord would give us wisdom and strength and insight in dealing with Missy. I heard some interesting stories of Missy plugging her ears and closing her eyes to block out teachers she didn't feel like listening to, and I heard about her digging her heels in and giving people a hard time. . . but still they have not seen her tantrum or rage. 

• That evening I picked up "our three girls" once again. They are here for a week. Actually, they sort of camp out here at night. They are at school/ daycare for up to 12 hours a day. Unreal. I was back in the car early this morning driving them to each their own school/daycare.

• Today I was in charge of crafts for the homeschool group. We made sheep. Then it was choir time.... I have fewer kids this year. Older ones have moved on. I have a group of 5 -13 year olds and two teenagers. Ellie and Enjoli have become my right-hands - or apprentices, or whatever you want to call them. I am having them direct each certain songs and play the piano on others. I have a couple of boys playing piano as well. Then I have a group of girls playing chime bars and a few little soloists that I'm working with. Believe me in that hour and 15 minutes each week we WORK HARD! 

• I left choir to start picking up kids... took me nearly 2 hours to round everybody up. As soon as I arrived home I had to dump them on Vanessa and Christina and head to the Buddy's house to babysit until 9. 

• So anyway.... if anybody was wondering why I have been writing "so much" these days feel free to make an assumption or two based on my description of the past few days.