We all have to balance our lives it doesn’t matter if we have kids with special needs or not. Everyone has to take time to balance their daily life! I am failing!
Parenting
This summer I have allowed too much screen time. What happened to my 30 minutes a day and figure out something else to do rule? What happened to making sure they get their chores and summer studying done before they do anything else? Yup, failing!
I have managed to get the kids registered for school and have taken the youngest to school so he was able to figure out where all his classrooms are located. We’ve done sleepovers and went on vacation, but to actually make sure the kids were active this summer, I didn’t. I had planned on it and then life happened and, well next thing I know it is a week until school starts.
School
I am not sure what drove me to go back to school, but this summer I decided to go back to school; of course I have decided to do online classes and they are eight weeks instead of twelve or sixteen. Yup, I have been focusing 80% of my time and energy on trying to get my degree.
The positive thing is when this is all through I will actually have a degree in special education. You know because eleven years of living with a son who has Aspergers and thirteen with the other one who has ADHD and auditory processing issues, well none of that counts. I am really excited that I will receive the degree and it will benefit AiN and the families we serve.
Work
I was laid off at the beginning of summer, though I was off during the summer anyway. However, as the first day of school approaches I am wishing I was going back too. Of course, there is AiN and I haven’t wrote a blog post in several weeks and the Facebook page hasn’t been updated daily either. Yeah, I totally dropped the ball. Can I blame school and the kids?
Exercise
I haven’t been spending my time at the gym like I was before summer which really upsets me, but going to the gym with my boys home and leaving them for an hour for me to workout makes me feel guilty, so I don’t go. However, I have been running and training to run a 5K. It just isn’t me taking care of myself like I normally do.
Housework
Ummm, yeah can I skip this one? I mean I am skipping it at home why not here on the blog? I should be trying a lot harder to keep the house up, but there is a lot of things that have to be done and does the floor really need to be mopped or do I really need to dust? Can I say though, we eat because my amazing husband is cooking all the time? It isn’t because I cannot balance cooking it is because he is awesome and he knows how much I HATE TO COOK!
So we all have these sub-categories that we have to learn to balance, and for me I just add more to the good old’ to do list.
volunteer for both kids school
sit on the committees and subcommittees
kid’s sports
making sure kids get their school work done and so much more.
I guess the big question is why I had such a hard time balancing everything this summer.
A big part of it was school work, but another part is being a mother of a special needs child.
I felt half the summer I was walking on egg shells with my son. Meltdowns were happening regularly. If he hadn’t ate a good meal he would meltdown, if his brother would look at him sideways-MELTDOWN, he was constantly running in to us as we walked down the street, If I told him no or yes at the wrong time he would become emotional.
I was finding myself drained and very stressed. But, what I found interesting is his behavior changed the night before school registration. He showed excitement for the first time in a while and hasn’t stopped talking about school. He knows all the classroom numbers and will repeat them throughout the day. He even has asked about his school breakfast, “mom can you make sure I have Oatmeal squares, and tea awaiting me in the mornings.”
It took me a little bit to figure out what he was talking about because what eleven year old boy asks for tea with breakfast; other than mine?
It is like he is back to himself.
So, I am thinking my son’s meltdowns were due to his unbalanced days not being at school and involved with sports and because he has matured so much these last few years I didn’t realize he was struggling emotionally being home for the summer.
So, I have figured my life is unbalanced and though a lot of it is if the kid is off it means I am off too. And, I have to remember that even though he has improved a lot over the years he isn’t his older brother and I have to remember what works for one most likely will not work for the other.