The 6 most important things we have to do this week

We have a few important things going on this week above and the usual overwhelming list of important things we need to do. Just to give you a brief idea of what we're looking at, I list the big ones: I have my doctor's appointment this week. We're going to discuss removing a couple of medications I'm still on. I don't know when I'll pull the plug on them but I just want to be on the same page as my doctor and have a plan in place. Elliott desperately needs to get into Akron Children's Hospital for psychiatry. They begin scheduling for November on August 1st. I have to call just before 8AM to get an appointment. Also on August 1st, the boys have appointments with their pediatrician. This…

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Things settled down last night and we woke up to a better day

Things settled down last night and we were able to go to sleep without any further disruptions. I will say that our room is directly below where the raccoon trap is set and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit freaked out by that. As far as I can tell, the raccoon never came back last night. I thought I heard something moving around up there but I didn't see anything and the trap remains untouched. We'll have to see what tonight brings. Having said that, we went about 2 weeks between visits the last time. I'm not sure how frequently this thing stops by but it's certainly not every night. Unfortunately, we have no way to predict when it will be there so we're in a…

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Why can’t we catch a break?

I'm having a really hard time falling asleep after what I shared in the previous post. I'm laying in bed, just getting more and more pissed off because I can't change our course right now. We can't move and I'm feeling like a complete failure as a result. As I'm laying there getting more and more frustrated because I can't sleep, I heard loud noises coming for our attic. I've been talking about trying to get rid of squirrels in our attic for the last couple of weeks. We've even placed a live trap up there but haven't heard anything since the trap was placed. Of course, tonight would be the night that the noises returned. The noise was right above our room and it was really loud. I brought…

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Someone tried to smash in our window tonight

I'm trying to remain positive tonight but it's not working out. I've mentioned over the years how badly we need to move. Our neighborhood is not safe and as time goes on, things get worse. It seems like there are periods of calm, followed by an increase in either violence or crime. The violence has been bad. We've been involved in a drive by shooting, where I was nearly rundown by the gunmen fleeing the scene and they threw their loaded guns out the windows of their car at my family as we were walking into the house. Shortly after that, a young male had his entire belly split open during an attempted robbery and he collapsed in front of my house. I held his organs in place with my…

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I’m going to practice some self-care and you should as well

I've been really stressed out lately and the last few times I went walking, I had the kids with me. Walking with the kids is not the same as walking without the kids. I need the time to myself in order to decompress and deal with my stress. I'm leaving to go walking in a little bit and I'll be doing it alone. It's gonna be just me and my earbuds. ☺ Look, folks, self-care is not easy, especially when your kids have so many demanding needs but it's incredibly important that we make it happen. Self-care isn't always the same thing for everyone. For me, it's writing, walking, running, hiking, eating better and trying to get more sleep. Those are my big self-care activities and they are hugely beneficial…

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It looks like he’s going to be diagnosed with #Bipolar disorder

Lizze and I have begun accepting the reality of something we wish we wouldn't have to. That reality is the likelihood that Elliott will be diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Elliott had some testing done eariler in the week at his physiologist appointment and it came back with a high likelihood of Bipolar disorder. That in combination with patterns of behavior over a very long period of time, and it looks like we may have to begin accepting the reality that Elliott has Bipolar Disorder. When I say accept the reality, I'm simply mean that in the sense that we don't want this for him. The fact that he likely has Bipolar disorder doesn't change him in our eyes at all. It does explain many of the behavioral challenges we face,…

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The big reason I’m really frustrated with Gavin right now

I'm going to make this quick because I need to go to bed. The big reason I'm really frustrated with Gavin right now is very simple but also extremely complicated, all at the same time. Ever since Gavin began going on missions as a result of his Schizophrenic hallucinations, there have only been a couple rules that really matter. The first rule is that his missions only take place on the other side of the portal. The portal is what he refers to his bedroom door as. This keeps them mostly contained to his bedroom and limits the chances of them spilling out everywhere else. This has been mostly successful at both keeping him physically safe and shielding the boys from his missions. The second rule was that he never…

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I can’t let this drag me down too far

Another day, another challenge. I'm having sort of a rough start to the day. Nothing bad has happened but I woke up feeling overwhelmed by anything in my life. It's a terrible way to start the day because I know things are going to begin piling up and I'm already buried. Anything that gets thrown on the pile is only going to make things worse. There are days where the weight of everything feels so much heavier than it does on others. On any given day, I have to make decisions about how to spend my limited pool of resources. Sometimes everything just seems to click into place but other times it's like trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I'm worn out.…

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