Two very cool and exciting topics this week! We even made a volcano with the usual vinegar and baking soda lava, which impressed the kids, although Drew thought it would have been more exciting to use matches and somehow blow the clay mountain apart for real. :-) Next week I am packing all the school things up and it will be a couple weeks before they emerge again, so this has been a fun week to end things on.
But speaking of volcanos... Aimee's issues have been improving in the last couple months so that things have been much more tolerable for everyone; interestingly, this has been in the midst of a time I would consider pretty stressful and I would have thought might have actually made things worse. At any rate, we had backed off the counseling/therapy path for a time, and had stopped talking about different school options. But this week, as I mentioned before, all the kids have been acting a little like they've been let loose out of cages, and last night Aimee's behavior in particular culminated in an explosive episode the likes we haven't seen in some time. Fortunately we hadn't forgotten the things we've learned in dealing with all that, and it went as well as it could have. But it reminded me that I will need to get back on top of things soon after we move - maybe not a strict schedule (just too stressful and exhausting to keep that up), but definitely more structure and less flexibility.
Of course structure is nothing I can even think about now. We are living among a maze of boxes, and the packing is tiring, as well as seemingly endless! :-)It seems like I work and work and work, only to turn around and see what looks like the result of an explosion - where is all this stuff coming from? And why is something irrestible to little eyes and hands just because it has been put into a box? If I don't tape up a box quickly, they start pillaging like the Vikings we've been reading about! I'm excited about the move and so happy everything is turning out well, but I am already so tired! Not looking forward to the work that will just escalate in volume and intensity next week.
2 comments:
Wow, Anne, the memory of our last move is still fresh in my mind so I can readily sympathize with the stress and exhaustion ... so I'm impressed that you were able to handle Aimee so well. Would love to know some of your tricks for when Eliza falls apart -- I always just feel like walking away. Keep up the good work!
We're studying Vikings too, by the way!
I'd love to hear some of the techniques you use when Aimee has a meltdown, I need all the help I can get with that!
You're definitely in the home stretch as far as the move! Hang in there!!
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