Back to the college grindstone

Sometimes I wonder to myself, Am I crazy??? Trying to go back to college while taking care of these children. There are some days when I never stop cleaning, changing diapers, breaking up fights, feeding something or someone,laundry, dishes, etc.....This is admist a large amount of unnessasary and random screaming, the kind of ear-piercing noise that makes your ears ring and you wonder how does one little boy make such a noise and not go hoarse? I am also trying to continuing listing on ebay, which is beginning to help pay some bills, during all this hub-bub. It does not leave much if any time to help at the farm, read any books for recreation or spend quality time with another adult.
I love learning! Call me a nerd or bookworm or geek, whatever, I love filling up my brain with knowledge. I also get a gigantic personal buzz off of being on the Deans list or on the President's list. Kinda tells the world,"See, this crazy, overwhelmed mother can do it, so can you!"
13 credit hours, thankfully all online, a full class load as required so that I can receive student loans that helps to pay the bills. Otherwise I would just take a class or two at a time, reducing the amount of self inflicted stress....
Someday my family will benefit from all the late nights I see in my near future...

Stress

Everyone is exposed to some sort of stress in their life. How they deal with it, how much they let it affect them and ways they try to alleviate it differs from person to person.
It seems I like to take on too many things upon my plate, therefore increasing my probability of stress. Three children, one under a year, my almost 4 year old son, supposedly on the spectrum of autism, a 12 year old daughter who can not process the sound of my voice through her ears. Pretty sure she is allergic to my voice.....
In January of 2008, my boss, trying to save a buck or two, put me on a layoff. I was managing the resturant/bar, my boss's job was eliminated from his company and therefore he was going to do my job and save the money he paid me. It was time for me to make a change. In my personal life as well as my career path. My job was DEAD-END, all that was missing was the tell-tale dead-end sign. My now ex-boyfriend was leaving, he just didn't know it at the time. So I pushed him out the door, began to receive unemployment benefits and took a emormous leap of faith and began the most important relationship of my life with my best friend.
I had never been able to stay at home with my first daughter and I had to bring my son with me when I worked my manager job. So this is a whole different world. I felt that I needed to return to college and finish what I had not when I was pregnant with my daughter 12 years ago. I had to do something with my "Time off", so I felt attending college online would fit into my schedule. Plus the student loans help through this tough time. By the summer of 2009 my youngest daughter is born and I am wondering what I was thinking about fitting this college stuff into my overwhelming schedule.
My son is not yet three and showing what we know now as Autism, but we were puzzled at all of his strange behaviors, obsessive tendancies, lack of toliet training, and almost unbearable meltdowns. I was sure that I was going to go crazy and have a meltdown myself.
Added to all these normal mom duties and daily household chores, I was helping my boyfriend at his dairy farm by relief milking, herd health records and bill paying. He had filed for bankrupcty due to his divorce and his debt had been reorganized so that he could pay his bills in the aftermath of the long court battle with his divorce and that added paperwork as he needed to report monthly to the court.
It may seem as if I am complaining a bit...maybe a little,but I am actually truly blessed even with all of my chaos in life. Could do without the greying hair and lack of sleep. I really do appreciate all that I have been given. I have three beautiful children, I am in love and sharing my life with my best friend. It is said that anything in life of any worth doesn't come easy. I believe in that....

A little pearly white tooth....

Breastfeeding your baby is amazingly easy, once you get past the first month. Concieving, being pregnant, birthing children are all enough of a power trip individually, but also providing all of the new little person's nutrition for their first year of life is hard to rival as a very vital responsibility. I am proud to say that I have been successfully nursing my infant daughter for 10 months now. No bottles, no pacifiers, just me au natural. I don't plan on weaning her until she is good and ready and I have no idea as to when that may be. But,now I am afraid of this tiny little tooth that is poking out from my little, sweet Laurel's gums. I think about it everytime she needs to feed. I know it is silly, but more teeth will follow this first one and I am putting a sensitive part into her little mouth, even though now it is a safe mouth. But for how long.....

Sharing of some Old Farmer's Advice:

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.

Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer..

Live a good, honorable life.. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don't interfere with somethin' or someone that ain't bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around..

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.
Speak ki ndly. Leave the rest to God.
--
Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight,
he'll just kill you.

Sleeplessness

My son has a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep where he usually keeps the whole house up or at least hinders our quality of sleep. Being tired or exhausted does not make it easy to tolerate and handle properly his tantrums and obsessive behaviors. I believe that he does not understand what the feeling of being tired is. It confuses him and he becomes easily set off into one of his tantrums or worse yet one of his meltdowns. I wish I could explain it to him or rock him to sleep when he gets into this condition. Of course he fights being held and rocked and he is too strong to make him let you do it anyway. One night of poor sleep is felt for a day or two by his whole family and his bus drivers, teachers and kids in school. He is a grumpy bear to be around when the boy is sleep deprived. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen too often.

PETE, REPETE, PETE, REPETE……….
A little window into my son’s world, he has autism and therefore he repeats nearly everything, what he says and what he does. I mean EVERYTHING. Did you ever have to learn to tune things out? For example when reading in school and there would be background noise……WELL, being around my son it is nearly impossible to tune him out. He makes sure he is heard by turning up his volume or getting in very close proximity to usually your face and trying to get his point across. In the morning, when he wakes up it’s “CHOCK MIK, CHOCK MIK, CHOCK MIK, CHOCK, MIK….” Over and over and over until you get up and get it for him.
Opening and shutting the door, “OPEN, SHUT, OPEN, SHUT…..ETC” for hours.
Pushing any of his push toys back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth….etc.
Leading our dog, Nell, around by her collar for hours and hours, and she follows obediently.
Lining his Matchbox cars and ertl tractors and machinery on the tables and counters, continuously hooking and unhooking them together.
With his limited vocabulary and tendency to just take you to what he wants it is hard to sometimes please him, therefore he becomes frustrated to the point of screaming and then a meltdown. More about meltdowns in the near future.
His repetitive behaviors are very comforting to him, and they are sometimes go unnoticeable to others who don’t understand what autism is. His “stimming” is usually not bothersome to me, but to others in the family it is hard for them to tolerate. I have a hard time dealing correctly with his meltdowns……later on that subject matter.
Patience is indeed one of two most important virtues when being a parent to a special needs child. The other is SHOWING them you love them…..because loving them is a given.

BEFORE I WAS A MOTHER....

I the spirit of Mother's Day, another horribly over retailed holiday, I decided to do something for myself as an overworked mother. I have been wanting to get some therapy for the stressors in my life. I cannot afford the retail therapy, don't have time for massage therapy, worried that they would commit me if I went in for pysch-analysis. So I hope that this blog will touch others around the world who deal with the same things as I do. For me this blog will be my public journal, a therapy of sorts to help preserve my sanity. Hopefully to those of you that read this regularly, it will make you smile, cry or even laugh out loud.

Before I was a mother...........
I was selfish,
I had free time,
I used the bathroom ALONE,
I walked out the door with only my purse,
I didn't know what I was missing.

Now that I am a mother.........
I have become unselfish,
I now have very little free time, if any,
When I need to use the facilities, I have little people watching,
When I leave to run errands, I need more than two hands,
my heart is now complete and full of a love I never understood until now........
now that I am a mother.