"The work of a housewife is never done," the husband said to me on Saturday night as I quickly got to work processing 20lbs of blueberries seconds after I tucked the kids in bed for the night. I giggled and thanked him for finally noticing. He is right though. I spend most my day running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. It is not even 9:30am and I have made blueberry muffins, a loaf of bread, folded two loads of laundry, watered the garden, and kept 5 kids in line. Oh, snap!
Things have been harder than normal around here. Z's explosive aggressive behavior has finally decided to make an appearance. You are told of what a kid's behavior can look like and then you meet the kid and can't believe they are capable of such aggression. It is a shock to the system once you finally experience it. I also struggle with the policy that the agency I work for has: you may not physically intervene with an escalated child. I have a residential background. I believe that when a child is physically acting out and is a threat to themselves, others, or property, I should help them be safe by doing a hands on intervention. My agency believes that if a child is physically acting out to the point where it is a threat to safety, the police should be contacted. I don't want to call the police because a 7 year old child is angry, you know what I mean? They have bigger fish to fry.
Z enjoys music. It helps him calm down. My game plan is to start playing music on my phone (Thank you, God for smartphones!) when he becomes escalated. Its kinda hard to stay angry when listening to calm and uplifting music, right?
I have discovered that Monster is part fish. That kid has no fear of water. We went to the pool yesterday and Monster was essentially diving in and not wanting help (obviously, we helped the kid out cause he sinks like a brick) but he doesn't panic if his face is underwater for a few seconds. In fact, he loves it. Bean is also turning into a very competent water creature. He was learning to tread water and jumping into the deep end and springing off the bottom of the pool to came back up to the top.
The canning season is upon us as well and I have been busy putting things up. I have done 20lb of blueberries, pounds and pounds of zucchini pickles, peaches, 30lbs of green beans, and strawberry jam. I just got another 30lbs of peaches that I need to process tonight. Soon enough pears will be in season, and then apples...I will have a very well stocked pantry this winter. I think I am going to experiment with making dill pickles as well. My supplier has a pretty good deal on pickling cucumbers.
Alright, faithful readers, I am going to quit while I am ahead. I fear that if I continue to ignore the kids for much longer I will hear screaming.
Happy Monday!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
A season of change
Our family has gone through a lot of transitions recently. It all started at the end of June when the bio boys went on vacation for 10 days with my mom, followed by D moving out the next day. Husband and I enjoyed the next 8 days in blissful kidfree splendor. A week after the bio boys came home, Z moved in.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before but whenever a new child moves in, I question if we are doing the right thing for our family by agreeing to have a child in our home who has significant behavior issues. The mama lion in me comes out and wants to protect my babies from potential harm but my desire to help those who need it the most also comes into play. Needless to say, my brain is working overtime the first 48 hours of having a newbie.
Z has transitioned well so far. We are on day 5, I think. So far so good. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the honeymoon to be over. Z has a lot of anger (and believe me, he has a lot to be angry about) and he struggles with expressing this anger appropriately. We are talking aggression and long tantrums. A lot of kids aren't aware or pretend not to know why they need a different type of foster care. Not Z. He can tell you why he is here and what he needs to work on. It is pretty refreshing. He and Bean get along really well and Z has a two year old half sister so he understand Monster.
I talked to D just the other day. Things are going well enough at this new home. Apparently he is struggling at bedtime and can still have issues with anger/tantrums as well but his new foster parent seems to be handling it well. Melts my heart when he tells me he loves me before saying goodbye. I love that kid.
The kids and I decided to learn about medieval times this summer. We are going to take a look t the feudal system and build an epic kingdom. There will be a castle, manor for the lords and lots of little houses for the peasants. I'm thinking popsical sticks and hot glue maybe the building medium for this project.This week we will draw a preliminary map of our kingdom and learn more about castles so that the following week we can make an indepth (as in depth as a 7, 5, 2.5 year old can be) map of our kingdom's castle before we begin construction. I just think this is so cool! We can even make a flag for our kingdom. I am really getting into this! We are going to spend a week or so studying knights and then "train" to be a knight. We will practice sword fighting, archery, jousting, take the oath of chivalry, heraldry etc. Another week we will focus on food/manner/holidays. The best part about studying the middle ages is there is so much you can do with it. Not to mention all the renaissance fairs that occur during the summer ;)
My garden is doing fantastic right now. I haven't written much about it this summer as it was a little touch and go in the beginning of the season. Slugs destroyed a lot. I eventually tried the beer trick (put a little dish of beer in your garden where it is easily accessible for the slugs. Slugs are attracted to the beer, slime their way in and drown. Bam!). It was a thing of beauty. I am annoyed that I waited so long to try it.
Things I have growing this year :
-bush beans
-pole beans
-8 zucchini plants (two different varieties)
-10ish tomato plants
-pumpkins
-acorn squash
-two varieties of watermelon
-two variety of cucumber (I think there are over 10 plants. yikes!)
-green pepper
-banana pepper
-carrots
-lettuce
-basil
-spinach
I think that is it
Oh! Strawberries. Duh!
My mother in law got me a pressure canner for my birthday. OH MY GOODNESS! I can can everything (and I have!) I just processed 15/16lbs of green beans. I am giddy like a school girl! I am almost out of jars. It is pretty exciting to have your pantry full of beautiful glass jars full of fruit/veggies/etc that you got locally and processed yourself. It makes me feel all homemakey and self-sufficient. I stumbled across a wicked baked bean recipe the other day and my next canning project is to try that. MMMMMMM
Yesterday we did a day trip to the beach with our friend's the Brooks' family. We went to the beach of Gearhart where you can drive on the beach. This is a great thing if you have kids as you don't have to schlep all their beach crap from the car to the beach. Basically you plop of out of the car and your are done. YES! The kids interacted well together which mean't the adults had time to have adult conversations. I needed that. The highlight of the trip was the Brook's van getting stuck in the sand on the way on the beach and the way off. God bless the nice residents of Gearhart who were willing to help them both times they were in this pickle :)
I don't know if I have mentioned this before but whenever a new child moves in, I question if we are doing the right thing for our family by agreeing to have a child in our home who has significant behavior issues. The mama lion in me comes out and wants to protect my babies from potential harm but my desire to help those who need it the most also comes into play. Needless to say, my brain is working overtime the first 48 hours of having a newbie.
Z has transitioned well so far. We are on day 5, I think. So far so good. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the honeymoon to be over. Z has a lot of anger (and believe me, he has a lot to be angry about) and he struggles with expressing this anger appropriately. We are talking aggression and long tantrums. A lot of kids aren't aware or pretend not to know why they need a different type of foster care. Not Z. He can tell you why he is here and what he needs to work on. It is pretty refreshing. He and Bean get along really well and Z has a two year old half sister so he understand Monster.
I talked to D just the other day. Things are going well enough at this new home. Apparently he is struggling at bedtime and can still have issues with anger/tantrums as well but his new foster parent seems to be handling it well. Melts my heart when he tells me he loves me before saying goodbye. I love that kid.
The kids and I decided to learn about medieval times this summer. We are going to take a look t the feudal system and build an epic kingdom. There will be a castle, manor for the lords and lots of little houses for the peasants. I'm thinking popsical sticks and hot glue maybe the building medium for this project.This week we will draw a preliminary map of our kingdom and learn more about castles so that the following week we can make an indepth (as in depth as a 7, 5, 2.5 year old can be) map of our kingdom's castle before we begin construction. I just think this is so cool! We can even make a flag for our kingdom. I am really getting into this! We are going to spend a week or so studying knights and then "train" to be a knight. We will practice sword fighting, archery, jousting, take the oath of chivalry, heraldry etc. Another week we will focus on food/manner/holidays. The best part about studying the middle ages is there is so much you can do with it. Not to mention all the renaissance fairs that occur during the summer ;)
My garden is doing fantastic right now. I haven't written much about it this summer as it was a little touch and go in the beginning of the season. Slugs destroyed a lot. I eventually tried the beer trick (put a little dish of beer in your garden where it is easily accessible for the slugs. Slugs are attracted to the beer, slime their way in and drown. Bam!). It was a thing of beauty. I am annoyed that I waited so long to try it.
Things I have growing this year :
-bush beans
-pole beans
-8 zucchini plants (two different varieties)
-10ish tomato plants
-pumpkins
-acorn squash
-two varieties of watermelon
-two variety of cucumber (I think there are over 10 plants. yikes!)
-green pepper
-banana pepper
-carrots
-lettuce
-basil
-spinach
I think that is it
Oh! Strawberries. Duh!
My mother in law got me a pressure canner for my birthday. OH MY GOODNESS! I can can everything (and I have!) I just processed 15/16lbs of green beans. I am giddy like a school girl! I am almost out of jars. It is pretty exciting to have your pantry full of beautiful glass jars full of fruit/veggies/etc that you got locally and processed yourself. It makes me feel all homemakey and self-sufficient. I stumbled across a wicked baked bean recipe the other day and my next canning project is to try that. MMMMMMM
Yesterday we did a day trip to the beach with our friend's the Brooks' family. We went to the beach of Gearhart where you can drive on the beach. This is a great thing if you have kids as you don't have to schlep all their beach crap from the car to the beach. Basically you plop of out of the car and your are done. YES! The kids interacted well together which mean't the adults had time to have adult conversations. I needed that. The highlight of the trip was the Brook's van getting stuck in the sand on the way on the beach and the way off. God bless the nice residents of Gearhart who were willing to help them both times they were in this pickle :)
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