Seeking Peace

We did in fact travel up to my Mom's Sunday, after it appeared everyone was well, and the visit was a good one overall. We went to church at BCCC (the one my Dad pastored until this year) first as per my Mom's request, and that was a little uncomfortable - they have a new pastor (whom, ironically enough, we met first at the church we're attending here!), and seeing him behind the pulpit gave me the strange and unhappy feeling that the past 20 years of my life, the ones spent growing up in that church and living that reality of being the pastor's daughter, have just been a passing breeze, gone now and irretrievable. Amazing - and unsettling - that time behaves that way. But once that was over, we went to my Mom's apartment, and then to my sister's house, and it was a pleasant day. The following day, Christmas Eve, was terrible, I'm afraid, and the Christmas spirit was far, far from me, but Christmas yesterday was better, and we enjoyed staying home and just enjoying time together as a family. Now that all the craziness is over, I'm looking ahead to restoring some order in my life, and in our household. I read The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood (by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett) last week, and identified completely with the symptoms of burnout she decribes in one section, which I think helped me gain a clearer perspective on why my coping abilities have dwindled to almost nil lately. The major upheavals that have taken place this year and the strain of dealing with some high-need children (Aimee and Ryan in particular right now) have combined to make just the ordinary, daily challenges of mothering four young children feel overwhelming. Hannah's Ship of Doom (someone in the know please tell me how to create links - you know, where the word or phrase is highlighted!) really struck a chord with me - that was such a fitting way to describe how I, too, feel so often, but I don't think I should want to escape all the time. So I've been working on a list of problems, in order to try to identify things I (or we) could change in order to help gain some control over the chaos on the outside, and the feelings of despair and frustration on the inside. For instance, every morning begins with Ryan waking up literally kicking and screaming as he asks to nurse. If I am already nursing Chase and ahve to ask him to wait, this turns really ugly and is just not a happy way to start the day. In fact, most of the morning is spent dealing in various ways with Ryan, who is obviously not a morning person! When school is part of the equation, the frustration is compounded, as he often begins screaming or in other ways demanding things as soon as I begin reading or helping someone. I have worked on trying to give him extra atention first, etc.- he just seems to need so much more of everything, as a classic spirited child. And if, speaking of school, Aimee also decides to dig in her heels, it makes for lethal combination. So much of my time is spent working on behavioral issues with these two that I feel I am not able to create the happy learning environment I would like. I confess I wish I felt peace about sending Aimee and Drew to school for a time, because I fantasize sometimes about what I could do if I didn't have homeschooling looming over my head all the time. I don't have that peace yet, BUT I feel I can't continue on the current path. For too long this year we have ben in survival mode, especially concerning school, and I want us to thrive peacefully instead. Part of this solution has to be getting some help for Aimee again, but that's it's own issue that I don't have time to discuss at the moment :-) So anyway - Aimee and Ryan, while not the problems themselves, have issues that contribute to the major stressors of my daily life. I need to address those issues. Other major problems concern daily household chores - nothing is simple right now. It takes us thirty minues jsut to find clothes for everyone to wear because of laundry problems, I spend a disproportionate amount of time sweeping and mopping the floors, we can't move around the house easily because things aren't really organized for this new set-up, we can't deal with trash properly because we don't have an outside trash can yet (Dave has to take to to work every morning, but what to do I do with it in the meantime!?), my vaccum cleaner broke, et. etc. I haven't even unpacked all the way, so often there are still things (like the pencil sharpener!) that we can't find. In short, there's so much time wasted looking for things and cleaning up the same things over an over, and that's a continual source of frustration. I need to be able to go through at least the minutae of my day with some smoothness, and so I need to re-organize as necessary for this house. I need to finish unpacking! But I need time to do that, and with Dave going out of town and working long hours, that's hard to find. In the meantime, I need to be able to cope better, so I am working on my inner peace first and praying that the Lord will also help me restore some peace in everyone and everything else. Ryan's awake, so that's it for now!