This blog is my place to vent and share resources with other parents of children of trauma. I try to be open and honest about my feelings in order to help others know they are not alone. Therapeutic parenting of adopted teenagers with RAD and other severe mental illnesses and issues (plus "neurotypical" teens) , is not easy, and there are time when I say what I feel... at the moment. We're all human!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

School Count Down

2 weeks, 7 hours, 40 minutes



I can't wait until school starts. Even my kids can't wait. Most of them need the structure and have had to act out to get the restrictions that regular Summer days don't provide.



Bear started football practice at 12:01am Monday morning. What idiot decided midnight was a good idea for the first football practice of the new school year? Poor hubby had to take Bear to practice, hang out for 3 hours, drive him home, and still get up for work in the morning. Bear now has practice every afternoon for 5-6 hours for the rest of the Summer, and he's fighting with his girlfriend, so I shouldn't have much more trouble out of him.



The kids are loving the aerobics every morning. It gives them such a feeling of accomplishment and a reason to get up every morning. Not to mention how great they feel that they're doing something good for them that is so much fun... OK, that's bull crud. They hate me for it, whine the whole time, try to fake their way through it ("my knee hurts," "I am too moing my feet,""I'm only going to do it for 20 minutes and then I'm stopping"....) , but at least they've stopped fighting me quite as much.




I have found one great way to keep them moving. If they don't do it well (and I keep them moving, but am not demanding perfection) or if they stop? They get to do the Gilad tape with me! Gilad is HARD! So far I've only had to make each of the girls have to do it again once! Ponito loves it and is always enthusiastic, energetic and really excellent! Bear does it all wrong and might be hurting himself more than getting any benefit from it, but now that football practice has started I'm done having him do it anyway. Have to give him props though he went after it without complaint and worked through to the end without stopping (once we switched to Gilad).

I've called and left messages with Nebraska repeatedly. No one is returning my calls (at least I don't think they are, I lost my cell phone last week so they might be calling that number. I turned off the service (beause I was afraid Bear had taken it again), so hopefully they hadn't left any messages on it before I shut it down. I have no idea how to check it remotely.

America's Got Talent is over, and I better get some sleep. I'm single parenting it for the rest of the week while Hubby teaches scuba diving after work every evening and does check out dives over the weekend.

2 weeks, 5 hours, 55 minutes

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

Yes, child protection services around America and the world are absolutely on the line, all the time.

Glad to see the aerobics has a positive effect and gives the children and you a good reason to get up in the morning. Physical education is going down in the schools (sometimes only two hours a week) and it is good to have a non-competitive way to move your body.

Midnight practice of footy ... now that is something else again!

What were some of your favourite America's Got Talent events/people?