We started the month with a huge scare! If you haven't heard our horror story with our 3 year old pup, you can read it by clicking here. April has been filled with crate-rest, meds every 8 hours, diapering a paralyzed dog, lifting all 37 pounds of her out of her crate multiple times a day, sitting outside with her as we wait for her to do some business, taking her for appointments. As for how things are now, we are seeing vast improvement and we have hope. The only question and concern I have will be pain. Reese is the life of our household, an energetic dog who brings joy exactly when we need it. She's my emotional support animal, and that's one title I would have scoffed at until I realized I needed (and had) one. Living a life of chronic pain is not what I want for puppy girl. So even though she may be walking now, I need to be certain she is happy and pain-free. I beg you to pray for the elimination of all aches and pains -- permanently!
Spring Break happened for our public schools and it was a challenge because the boys and I were still doing school. We like to wrap up the bulk of our curriculum by end-April, so we had much to plow through while Miss Quiet Tiger was home with us, enjoying a week off of public school. I normally would take a week off from homeschool around Easter, but this year we didn't do anything extraordinary for Spring Break. We just worked our tails off so we could wrap up our school year. More on that later.
Easter found us celebrating quietly at home. Nothing big to report. Not even cute Easter pictures of the kids. Nada.
Right after Easter we took clients to the Guthrie to see The Bluest Eye. Very interesting story! It was my favorite show at the theater thus far. I love our nights down at the theater!
After pushing extra hard this month, we finished our 5th year of homeschool on April 25. This year of homeschool looked quite different than years past! For 16 weeks, Super C did independent study and was also student-teacher to his little brother. Because we knew I'd be working for a good chunk of the school year, I chose 4-day curriculum versus the standard 5-day. It worked for us and we liked it. We were able to use that 5th day to catch up on anything we missed or to simply breathe from having so much on our plates. But we are now officially done with the bulk of our curriculum.
- Bible study - check (and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in 5 years of homeschool, we have read 37 books of the Bible, putting us over the half-way point).
- History - check.
- Science - check.
- Writing - check.
- Spelling - check.
- Geography - check.
- Cursive - check.
And if you read last week's post, I eluded to something big happening in April that I couldn't divulge. Well, as promised, here is what all that was about:
For the last week, we have been out of town, down by Rochester attending a "camp" of sorts for families with attachment-challenged kids. I still really don't have any idea how this actually came about because the camp is so expensive I couldn't even afford to go alone, much less bring my family of 5. Yet we were invited and we went and the majority of our bill was paid by someone (or multiple someones). Everything I had heard about this camp and it's therapist was summed up as: LIFE CHANGING. Friends, it did not disappoint! The kids and I went down on the 27th and Jay had to stay back for a work seminar that we were both supposed to attend. Out of fear I'd lose our spot at "camp," the kids and I went down as scheduled and Jay just came later. The camp offered therapists and counselors with experience with Reactive Attachment Disorder, classes for adults, kids, even special sessions just for the siblings of a RAD child. We had 24 hour access to help for any situation and we learned parenting techniques that WILL WORK with our RAD daughter (and none of it is traditional, so we are just babies in the learning process and it will look very different for our friends and family to see for themselves). Yet, mid way in the week, we got a course correction. Due to Quiet Tigers young age and tiny weight of 43 pounds, we were told she would respond better if we complete a different course prior to all the new stuff we were learning. I won't go into details now. I'm not ready to go there yet because it is absolutely grueling and devastating. People used to say, "Adoption is not for the faint of heart." Well, that couldn't be more true than right now. We have hope that this will restore our family and prevent us from having to face drastic measures in the future. The experience at camp is definitely worthy of it's own blog post, so stay tuned for that. I know so many who are so desperate for help, so I will share! But we are so grateful to the powers that be for providing this opportunity for us that we could no way afford on our own. I truly believe whoever those people/organizations are, they have saved our family!
Saving the best for last, my Super E turned double digits on April 30th! His big day happened while we were at camp and I had to pack all birthday celebrations into our car for the week away. His birthday was tearful though. Camp was not all fun and games, even for the healthy kids. My poor boy was in tears in bed on his birthday. That's no way to turn 10 years old! My poor boy! He has had to sacrifice so much, all because of his troubled little sister. I feel bad for having put him through so much! Now that we are home, I still have 1 more belated birthday surprise up my sleeve, yet even that will have to wait until these next 6 weeks are up. Happy 10th Birthday, Super E! I can hardly believe you are now "double digits." You are my favorite 10 year old on the planet and you will never, ever know how much I adore you!
