Part of preparing for our upcoming trip is getting Ruby ready to be boarded. In order to do that, she needed a check up and a vaccine for kennel cough. Emmett was with me at this point and we took Ruby to the vet together. He was a big help and Ruby did awesome. She didn't need muzzled and that is always a good thing. Ruby is a really good dog but the first time she met the vet, she was really freaked out and kept growling. She had to be muzzled as a precaution. Since then, she's done great and yesterday was no expection. Afterwards, we figured we'd take her for a short walk and sorta reward her for doing such a good job. We ended up at the…

I'm getting very close to the end of my rope today and teetering on the brink of insanity. My kids are amazing and I love the completely. They are, however, struggling a great deal and it's impacting every aspect of our lives. Elliott has been in a horrible mood, all day long. He's being mean to his brother and refusing to cooperate at every turn. I happen to know that he's very angry, scared, confused and heartbroken. I also know that he's desperately trying to regain some control in his life and is taking it to an extreme. I get it and I'm not angry but this isn't productive and we need to find better ways of managing our pain. Emmett had a massive emotional breakdown tonight. He was trying…

A rough night lead to a challenging morning but all was not lost. Emmett had nightmares all night long. They were particularly cruel and unrelenting this time. To make matters worse, he woke up around 5:30 AM with a nose bleed. By the time the alarm went off, he was pretty much on the verge of a panic attack. He was shaking, nauseous and exhausted. He was already convinced that he was not going to be able to manage school today. We were supposed to bump things up to 2 hours a day this week and he was freaking out. The poor kid was completely over his limit and it wasn't looking like a particularly good start to the week, even by Monday's standards. Rather than give up, I encouraged…