New Countertops

At the beginning of 2021 I really wanted to get new counter tops.  Ours were falling apart.  The kids had sawed at them with a butter knife so that they were coming apart on the edges.  I could never tell if they were dirty or clean by looking at them.  Some might see this as an advantage.  Not me, I want to know my counter top is CLEAN before preparing food on it.  We started considering what it would take.  We got information from a home renovation contractor that our neighbors had used the previous year for their counter tops. The hubs had an idea of changing our bar into an island to open up more space for foot traffic, but we knew that to change the foot print of the kitchen we would need to do more than just counter tops.

And then our dishwasher started leaking.  Badly.  The floor in front of the dishwasher was warping and falling apart.  There were some other places that our flooring hadn't weathered very well, and it could stand to be replaced.

Then the cabinets started falling apart.  The front of one of the drawers came off.  The door to one of the cabinets came off in my hand while I was opening it.  I think our kitchen was trying to tell us we needed more than just new counter tops.  

So towards the end of May we contacted the contractor to see what it would take to remodel our kitchen.

Well I will just show you rather than tell you how it all worked out.   

Before

Kitchen Area

Before

Dining Room Area

After We Cleared it Out

Kitchen Area

After we cleaned it out

Dining Area

During Construction before the new cabinets went in.

During Construction after the new cabinets and all of the flooring went in

Getting the new furniture, counter tops, sink and dishwasher in

All Done

Circles Of Support

 Today I want to talk about an idea I am calling a circle of support.  This is an idea I got from talking with a therapist recently.  I don't remember her term, so that is the term I am using.  My definition for circle of support is the people who you regularly turn to to meet the needs you have in your life.  My therapist showed me a diagram with a center circle (me) and a bunch of circles coming off.  She said each of these circles are people you turn to in different needs.  For example, if my car brakes down who do I call?  If I want to talk, who do I go to?  If l need help or want to reach out for one reason or another who fits in that circle.  

Anyway, as I was evaluating my circle I came to realize that with the way I currently live my life (and I know Covid does affect some of this) most of my circles only have my husband in them.   There are a few my neighbor is in, and a couple of friends fill in in a few of the other spots.   But mostly it is just the hubs.  Now this isn't a healthy setup.   If he can't help me, or if he is already buried under his own load of stress, then I am left feeling like I am in a sinking ship.

Now I know that in reality there are other people in my life who could go in those circles.  But I don't live my life that way.  One of my biggest fears is being a burden on someone.   So I try to manage as much as I can, by myself.  Which really is a recipe for disaster.   

I have come to realize that right now with the limits we have on interaction due to the need to social distance, the people who I see most in my life, who don't live in my household, are therapists, and the staff at the school.   These people are great, but honestly they aren't the kind of people who you just call to chat, or get together with to have fun.  Ya know?   So I have been trying to think of what ways I can' extend my circles.  

The hubs has a group that he gets online with about once a week to play a role-playing game over zoom.  This has been really good for him.  I have found myself wondering if there is some kind of group I can join or start that meets online regularly (preferably more often than once a month,)  that I could get together with.   It doesn't have to be playing some kind of game.  It could be just chatting, it could be a book group, or maybe something I haven't even thought of.   

So I am wondering.   Does anyone have any ideas?   Is this a problem in any of your lives as well, that you would be interested in joining something to get more social interaction, and increase your circle of support?  Is this a need others are trying to solve?  Any other thoughts?

Miracles

You know the interesting thing about miracles is that you can't experience a miracle without experiencing something hard.   Because if you take away the struggle the miracle is just what happened.  There is nothing to make it out of the ordinary.

Therefore, when we have hard times happen to us, we can choose to look at it and see all the horrible things that happen, or we can choose to look for the miracles that are there.

This weekend we experienced a day of miracles.

A few weeks ago the hubs decided we should go camping.  We were going to Ferron Reservoir, which is a campground that my grandparents, and their decedents have been going to at least all of their married life.  The hubs had heard a lot about this place, but had never been there.  He was looking for a place to go camping saw it on the map, and thought "why not".  He invited some of his coworkers to join us, and we planned to go camping Friday through Monday.

On Friday we packed all of our gear into our van, and our pop-up trailer.  Loaded the canoe on top of the pop-up and hit the road.  Google maps told us it should take us about two and a half hours.  We left our home about 1:30/2:00 in the afternoon.   We were having a great drive, until we passes Manti, where google maps told us to turn off of the main road.   There was this dirt road that seemed to just suddenly appear in the midst of the farm land.  We turned onto it, and then realized it was really rough and rocky.   The hubs expressed a little concern, but my thought was, "we are towing a trailer, this road is really narrow, we can't turn around so all we can do is go forward."  So we went forward up the side of the mountain until it got so steep and bumpy our van could go no farther.

At this point the hubs decided to try to back down the mountain.  Which was working ok, until the trailer started to go off the side of the road.  Then it didn't seem to matter what he tried, it just kept getting worse, until the trailer jackknifed.  Scooter recalled the time a couple years ago that we had van trouble on a trip and called a tow truck.  He asked if a tow truck could help us now.  We couldn't think of any way that could help.

The hubs got out of the van and surveyed the scene from the outside.  He decided that if he got me, Cinderella, and Guy out there to help him, and we each took a corner of the trailer and he unhooked it, we could turn it around.  I thought this sounded like a good idea.  Not sure why I thought it was a good idea to have 4 people (2 adults and 2 teens) try to support a 2 ton trailer on a road that even our van was having trouble managing the trailer on, but I did.   Any way we had Guy, Cinderella and me on the back of the trailer, and the hubs up by the hitch.  He unhitched the trailer and we got it to move a little, but the front wheels were in a rut.  So the hubs had Cinderella get an empty box from the van, collapse it, tear it apart and put it under the front wheels.

 Once she did that the trailer moved.  I moved the opposite direction I was expecting it to go, and hurtled towards the hubs.  That is when our first miracle happened.  I was so terrified that he was going to get ran over, but the hitch ran into a ceder bush, and stopped.

For some reason, we decided to try again.  The hubs cut the ceder to it would be out of the way, and then we had the trailer tumbling towards 3 of us, because Cinderella and I moved to the front to help him.    That was another terrifying moment to have something so heavy I knew I couldn't push it way tumbling it's way towards me.  Now we had our second miracle.  Another ceder bush.

This time we used more reason that we had before and decided we needed some help.  We decided to try Scooters suggestion and call a tow truck.


3rd miracle, we had cell reception enough to find a towing company and get a truck to come help us.  The man from the towing company showed up with a truck with a wench on the back. 

He put big rocks behind his wheels, hooked the wench up to the axle, and pulled out the trailer.  It sustained some damage, but we were able to rescue it with his help.  That was our 4th miracle.  When the trailer slammed into the ceders the jack attachment near the hitch got all bent out of shape.  So it took some time to get the trailer, and van into a position where we could hook it back up again.

  The tow truck guy told us we couldn't access where we were going from the side of the mountain we were on.  We would need to go down to I 70 and over to Emery County to get up.   We thanked him and got on our way.   By this time I had moved farther back in the van to keep kiddo's from fighting.   When we got on the paved road again, I thought the trailer was possibly making a weird noise, but wasn't sure if it always sounded like that, and I just usually didn't hear it.  I asked the boys behind me, they looked back towards it and told me the canoe strap looked looser.  We tried to tell the hubs, but he was so stressed at this point, I'm not sure he heard. 

Then there was this truck that kept acting like it was trying to pass us.  The hubs was really frazzled, because we were in a no passing zone.    He pulled off to the side of the road to get out of the way.  The truck pulled up on our side, and told us that we had blown a tire on our trailer, and it was sparking like crazy and going to start a fire.   He asked if we had what we needed to change the tire.  The hubs said "yes we have a spare," and the guy drove off.  The hubs got out of the car and went to look.  I went out to help him a couple of minutes later.   He was leaning dejectedly against the side of the trailer.  The wheel was stripped completely down to the rim.  He told me he couldn't find a jack, or tire iron.    Our van is new enough to us, that we didn't know where to even start looking in it, plus it was loaded down with kids and stuff.   While we were wondering what to do, a pickup pulled off the road behind us.  A woman got out and asked if we needed some help.  She had the tire iron, but not a jack.  She was our 5th miracle.

Our 6th miracle was that I had enough cell reception to get in touch with my dad, who we had bought the trailer from, and the 7th miracle was that my mom remembered a jack being in the trailer.   It took a while but we were able to get the tire fixed and get back on the road. 

 We stopped at a burger place in Gunnison for dinner  (yes it was dinner time by then).  We decided to eat on the road so we could get to our campsite earlier.  Unfortunately the hubs had got a salad and couldn't eat and drive at the same time.  So a while later he pulled up to a rest stop so he could eat, and we could do potty breaks.  When we got everyone all in the car and ready to go, the car wouldn't start.  8th miracle, there was a moving truck parked next to us, that was able to get us jumped so we could get back on the road. 

However by this time we were getting low on gas.  We needed to stop.  We got to the town of Ferron, and the hubs pulled over, and looked at his phone for a gas station.  Google maps said their wasn't another gas station until Castle Dale.  This would take us a while, and we hoped we had enough gas to get there.  Then miracle 8.  We saw a gas station right off the road once we got started going again.  As soon as the hubs pulled the van into the parking lot of the gas station, the electrical on the van completely died.  We were able to fill up gas but knew it wouldn't be wise to head up the mountain that night.  Turned out the gas station was right in front of a hotel/motel.  I went to see if we could get some rooms for the night.  But I couldn't find a place to check in, or a clerk.  I suggested if we could find a trailer park, we might be able to pitch for the night, then figure things out in the morning. 

The hubs looked on his phone and found a possibility.  This was our next miracle.  The hubs called the number.  The man who answered, told us he had room, came and jumped us so we could get there, called his buddy who owns a shop in Price that could help us, and let us stay the night for free.  The next morning he jumped us again, and got us on our way to Price.  In Price we were able to discover our problem was our battery not our alternator.  Which was good news.  They were able to get a new battery put in for us while we had a picnic lunch.  At this point we needed to make a decision as to weather to try to get up the mountain or head for home.    We had decided to head for home, when the hubs got a text from one of his co-workers, asking if he was alive. 

He told us the road up was dirt, but well maintained, and he would even come tow our trailer up for us if we wanted him to.  Most of the kids still wanted to go camping so after some debate we decided to try it.  We successfully made it up the mountain about 26 hours after we left home.  And we had a great time with the rest of the weekend.  The kids really enjoyed going out on the lake in the canoe.  We all really enjoyed interacting with our friends we were camping with.   Overall it was a great experience. 

What is normal?

This time is a crazy time for everyone.  And it affects all of us differently.  For me it has been crazy to try to school 6 children at home following the recommendations from their teachers at school.  I had a much easier time when I was homeschooling my children a number of years ago.  True I didn't have as many then, but I also was in charge.  I got to choose the curriculum and how much time was spent doing things.  I could change things on a whim if needed, if I felt something else would suit the situation better.

However, I have teachers who love my children, and want what is best for them.  However I am the one on the front lines teaching them all different things.  The other day Cinderella decided she wanted to learn how to make some kind of french strawberry cake.  She spent a lot of time looking at recipes.  She then spent about 4 hours on Monday making this cake.  It was a work of art.

It was also a major learning experience for her.  If I was her homeschool teacher, at this point I could say she has done her school for that day.  However, I am not the teacher, and all of her classes are wrapping up, and getting ready for finals.  In fact I think it was the last week for some of her classes this last week.  I couldn't tell her she had done enough and call it good.  So she still needed to spend a few hours working on the computer.

Now don't get me wrong.  We are doing great.  We have adjusted to this new normal.  I have come up with a routine that we follow to get all of my kids through their school in a day.  Admittedly dishes and laundry don't get done as much as they should.  (Laundry especially.  Right now I have  a room where laundry goes to die.  Missing something?  It's probably in that room.  Can't tell you where, or if it is clean or dirty, but it is most likely in there somewhere.)   I have come to accept that especially with my elementary aged children, my kids might not complete all the assignments from their teachers.  However we try to do what I feel like we will succeed with.

But it brings me to my title. What is normal?  My normal is probably very different from your normal.  And my normal will be changing in these next few weeks as school wraps up, and we move into summer.  And who knows what that will entail.  Will we be able to travel?  Should we come up with activities we can do around the house?  How much can we get out of the house, and away from our cabin fever?  I am sure you all have similar questions you are asking yourselves.  

I wish you all the best as you work to adapt to the new normal in your lives. 

Child safety and incredibly bright children

I have a daughter who is 2.  This daughter in some ways is as smart as a 5 year old.  The problem is, she is still 2, and so other reasoning skills are that of a 2 year old.  Let me give you an example.

Recently said child discovered how to open her door with the child safety knob on it.  (Smart girl).  This morning I was woken up about 5:00, by the sound of her door opening, and I could tell it was her.  I figured I should go make sure she wasn't getting into anything.  I find her standing at the door looking angelic.  I asked her if it is light outside yet.  She told me yes, nope still dark time to still be sleeping, back in bed you go.  I do have a different room lock "called a door monkey" that I can put out of reach so she can't open it.  The problem is, it keeps the door open about 2 inches.  This let's in light and sound.  And if it is too high for Bunny to reach, Angel can't reach it either.  And I don't like the idea of locking a potty trained 5 year old, who mostly can stay out of trouble in a room.  The only reason I lock in the 2 year old is for safety, and admittedly a little bit of sanity.  Anyway I digress.  I put the door monkey on the door, and went to turn the light off in the kitchen.   In there I find, the pantry open (sometimes we lock it at night, not sure if we did last night or not). A chair is pulled up to the counter and there I find, a container of honey is openwith a butter knife sticking in it.  Next to the knife are the keys to the pantry. (There is a cupboard that we keep the keys in, there is a chair near it, and the door to it is wide open.  This cupboard does have a magnetic lock on it, however it is broken).  There is an open bag of bread, and over at the table I find the sugar bowl with a spoon in it, and some gritty texture on the floor under my feet.  It is still dark in the dining room, and I don't have my glasses on.  I figure there was probably sugar on the floor.  But as I look closer at the table, I find that one of the objects on it is a container of ground black pepper.  Except now it is empty and all over the floor, chair and table.  

Now what I found isn't that uncommon of a scene to find after discovering an unsupervised 2 year old.  The thing is, how do I keep a child safe who does what ever she wants, and finds a way to get around whatever safety measures I try to employ?  She is so smart she can figure out things like buckled, and child safety locks, but otherwise has the normal reasoning of a two year old, and five year old independence.

How can I foster the good, while keeping her safe?  I can't sleep outside her door every night just to keep her from roaming the house unsupervised.

Sleep! Why won't she sleep?

For as long as we have known Bunny she has had trouble sleeping.  Sometimes have been better than others, but it has been an ongoing problem.  When she first came she would wake up, scream for a few hours, and maybe go back to sleep.  My memory is hazy about when that changed.  But she reached a point that she wouldn't scream, if I was in there with her, but she would still be awake for hours.  I think we got past that for a while, but I really am not sure.  Nap times were also a struggle, but at least during that time it didn't interfere with anyone elses sleep.

Then I read that I wasn't supposed to have her in a pack-n-play, but that she was entitled to a "regular sized bed" which for her age could be a crib, toddler bed, or twin.  Because she was almost 2 I decided I would rather buy a toddler bed than a crib she would soon out grow.  That was a mistake.  Because now she had the freedom to roam the room and wake her sister.  

At this point we moved her sister to a different room, so at least her sleep wouldn't be interrupted.  Angel would start out in there, unless Bunny started out the night by not letting her even get to sleep (or stay asleep if she had already dozed before who ever was putting them to bed left.)  However we would move her at the first sign of trouble.  

Bunny didn't like that, so sometimes she would be better, simply because she didn't want to be alone.  Even when Angel wasn't in the room, Bunny would still wake up, scream, kick the door, have a total meltdown, if I wasn't in there.  Then, we decided to try having the hubs do in there instead.  That worked for a while.

We got a weighted blanket, and that helped.  Until she decided she didn't like it.  I would still try to use it but she would take it off.

When we cut off contact with bio parents that helped.  She started sleeping better, but it still was a struggle.  At some point we moved Angel back in, we were worried she might feel she didn't have a place she belonged.  And eventually things got better, at least at night time.  Naps were still a struggle, often she wouldn't fall asleep, and would tear apart anything in the room that she could find a way to tear apart.

We made a lot of progress, she got so she wouldn't wake up Angel, and she would often be content to lie quietly in her bed, looking at books during the night when she couldn't sleep.  However, nap times got rough.  I would go in with her, read her a story, then I would sit quietly until she either fell asleep or asked me to leave.  If I left while she was awake, I could pretty much plan on her staying awake.  

We were also working on potty training, and unfortunately right after lunch (nap time) was also the time of day she would poop.  I would try to encourage her to poop when we went to the potty before going in her room.  Sometimes she would, but it turned into a major power struggle.  Not worth it. 

The problem was, she didn't always poop during that time of day,  but usually did.  And when she would poop in her room, (sometimes this even happened if I got her to poop first), she would try to change the diaper herself.  Poop would get all over and she would start crying.  I would come and find a frustrated little girl covered in poop. 

This wasn't healthy, I asked therapists for advice.  Started checking on her more during quiet time, and this didn't happen as much.  Then she started taking off her pull-up if she even peed in it.  I know it is a good thing when a child who is potty training can't stand to be in something that is soiled or wet, but this made nap time all the more difficult.  At the same time, she finally started being alot more consistent in falling asleep during nap time.

I felt the time had come, that I needed to remove the child safety lock from her door knob so she could go to the bathroom.  The problem with this is that now she was free to roam the house getting into anything and everything she could find, when she woke up in the middle of the night.  And unfortunately she had discovered ways to climb and get into more hazardous materials than before.  She is not one who understands boundaries and safety.  She is fiercely independent, which can be a good thing, but it can also make it hard to keep her safe.

The girls went to visit their aunt last weekend.  When they came back on Monday, Bunny was more independent than before, (if that is possible).  This isn't uncommon behavior after a weekend visit.  The change in routine always brings some adjustments when they come back.  However, the break from them is much needed at times because if how emotionally and physically exhausting they can be.  (Kids with trauma take a lot more out of you).

When she wouldn't stay in her room at nap time and night time, I felt for her safety I needed to put the knob cover back on.

Lately she has been strongly rebelling against anything that feels restraining.  She refused to be buckled in at the table and often falls off her chair and gets hurt as a result.  And she knows how to unbuckle her table booster, so the buckle doesn't really help.  We even removed the booster, and she kept falling, because she would stand or kneel up on her chair so she could reach.  

I know this seems like a tangent, but I'm getting somewhere.  She also hates being buckled in in the car.  Thankfully she hasn't learned how to unbuckle herself there yet.  I dread that day.  

She hates wearing socks and shoes and takes them off any chance she gets.

Anyway, I think part of our current issue is kick back for putting the cover back on the door.  But she is back to waking her sister up.  The last 3 nights, I have been consistently woken up by Angel at 3:30.  Bunny won't let her sleep.  This also happened one other time this week.  We had 1 day of repeave in between.  Anyway 3 nights ago, after much dibackle we ended up moving Angel to our floor so that she could sleep.  Bunny never went back to sleep that night.  She screamed, she kicked the door, and she finally ended up playing with her toys.

The next night, when I told her I would move Angel to my room again if she wouldn't let her sleep, she decided to be quiet.  I could tell she was still having trouble getting back to sleep, so I gave her some melatonin, and softly stroked her face for at least an hour, then she went back to sleep.

Yesterday I tried keeping her up from her nap.  It was a very long day.  She needs constant supervision when she is out of her room.  And because she hasn't been sleeping well she is extra grumpy.  She wants to be held, no she wants to be held.  I put her in a carrier.  She was happy for a while, then started the up, down, up game again.

She still didn't want to go to sleep when it was bed time, and I was still woken up by Angel.  Only this time it was 4:30 because daylight savings time has started.  The hubs was kind enough to go in their, but I am having trouble going back to sleep, so I decided to write this instead.

Now I have to decide.  Do I put her down for a nap today, or keep her up?

Learning From Mistakes

Do you ever have one of those moments when you did the best you could and then shortly after learned you did it totally wrong? 
That was my last post.  That post was made on a Thursday, and then that night the Hubs and I went to our TBRI class.  I don't remember exactly what all we learned in class that night, however there was a moment when I was able to tell about my day and ask for advice.
The advice I got from our instructor was something like, "I would spend time with her, connecting and trying to figure out her need.  Maybe she is making herself sick because she is stressed over something. You have to figure out the need.  And be very careful with consequences.  Consequences need to be natural and directly related to the offence.  For example, if you have a 10 year old child who is riding their bike around outside late at night and you have no idea where they are and they don't get home until after midnight, a natural consequence would be to lose the privilege of the bike for a time."

Here I had a child who was pushing my buttons.  She as frustrating me, so I went and locked myself in my room to get away from her.  How is that helping her be better?  Sure it is helping me to not "flip my lid"  but it doesn't help her learn.

I am sure children have these kind of moments all the time.  They are learning so much, and know so little.  They often make mistakes to have us or some other adult or older child come and tell them how they got it all wrong.  It was embarrassing and humiliating for me to learn how wrong I had handled that day.  So I need to imagine how my children feel when they make mistakes that they didn't know better, or are still learning the foundation behind them.