Home…Different Feelings, Different Days

I learned a few years ago about an app for my phone that can tell me where my children are at any given moment.

I can set beeps for me to know when they arrive at school, leave school and I can send them messages as well

This has proved to be quite a nice security as I can take a quick peek to see that Elizabeth is on campus or that Emily made it safely to her destination.

I am grateful for the ability to know that they are safe when our days were busy and we were all headed in a number of different places. It was nice to glance down and see that they day was sort just where you expected it to be. And sometimes, Okay I have to admit, a lot of the time, it was nice to take a final look right before bed only to let myself see the word “Home” near everyone’s name.

Home!

Safe!

Secure!

I have always liked the word and I have always wanted my kids to see home as their safe haven, the place they look forward to at the end of the day. And according to my kids, they do, or should I say did? Maybe a combo of both because due to COVID I think home has started to have another emotion associated with it.

I can’t completely define it but I can tell you that Elizabeth is feeling what ever it is it for sure.

I remember how happy and so relieved and achieved she used to be when we got home at the end of a busy day. With her special needs of global dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder, her days are hard work. So the relief she feels upon knowing she can relax and stop was pretty great. But since outings are by far less than before and her schedule is really different, she doesn’t have those exact feelings anymore.

As I said, I can’t tell you exactly what the emotion is but I will tell you some of the words she said, forgive me for lack of quotation marks.

I can’t take being in this house anymore!!

I need to get out of the house today.

It is best to do some errands to get out of the house.

I miss my work and school and getting out of the house.

Note the theme that is always present: Getting out of the house.

House=lack of choice and opportunities,

I am sure we all share these sentiments as we know the pandemic is just not stopping but sometimes her emotions really get the best of her and I can see the internal struggle she is having to be OK.

Last week was simply not a stellar week for us. She was full of emotions, some sad, some mad…ok a great deal were mad. And it makes me want to help her so badly. We talked a lot and changed her days plans around. Even decided some ice cream for lunch was a good thing one day. All those things helped a bit on their own, in addition, she knows we all love her and support her. I am sure that helped a bit more too! But in truth, those feelings simply needed to be felt by her for a bit. I think that holds true for all of us, no use pretending we don’t feel this or that…right?

This week, Elizabeth’s emotions are different. So much less frustration and anger. And so far, not too many comments about leaving the house….So I will take it and take her lead this week.

This pandemic has challenged us all, everyday. Emotionally, physically and on and on….

I know for one, I want to have back the time when looking at the app on my phone and seeing “Home” by all my family member’s names elicits the simple emotion of grateful and nothing else.

I wish everyone a peaceful week

A Little Dip in Mood!

Where we live, the season of Fall brings gorgeous colors of trees as the leaves change, it is cozy sweatshirt weather and being outside is chilly but smells so good. Until

We get our first batch of rainy days.

The trees are still pretty, but against the dark sky they are not as vibrant. Chilly becomes plain cold, and the sweatshirt is replaced by a heavy raincoat. The rainy days seem to come in batches which means we all know that good days will follow and the pattern will continue as we segway into winter.

There is something about these rainy few days that have created a dip in Elizabeth’s mood. I have noticed it pretty quickly. Probably because we are spending so much time together due to COVID. The weather, which is actually on T.V. as I write this, with the local news people laughing in a sad way about today’s “total washout”, would not have bothered her prior to COVID. It would probably not really even get noticed because she was doing so many other things in her days and going places during the week.

However, since COVID erased those plans long ago (and although we made new ones…pretty good ones ), it just seems that this is one more loss: not being able to go outside to sit, swing or take our walks has hit Elizabeth with the reality that being inside, inside and more inside is how she will face this change in seasons.

For those who do not know, Elizabeth is my daughter with special needs. She has global dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder (SPD). Those with dyspraxia can find an open ended schedule to be anxiety provoking and therefore, she needs to have a loose outline of her days activities. I might see a day free of obligations as a nice rest from the busy but she will probably see it differently. Hence the anxiety with inside, inside and more inside.

I sat with her last night before she was going to bed to talk…again……. about the shift in her mood. Just to help set the scene for you: She is in bed, listening to her music she puts on to…sort of spa music as I come in she flips over, sits up, wide eyed and with so much irritation in her voice, says ” I hate this rain, its really getting to me…you know?” followed by ” I can’t go outside, I hate this rain!”

So we talked about things we can do instead of walking outside, what we can do instead of being outside and the importance being able to adjust to things. I told her again that having her feelings is fine and that we all have ALOT of them lately. But we need to try to help ourselves find the things we need to do to make us happy for a bit and to find joy. We promised to talk more in the morning and make a list of things she would like to do now that things are changing here

It was a nice conversation at 10:30 at night. But Elizabeth fell asleep quite a while later, I knew this because I could her her faint music being restarted. This really got me thinking about the continued effects of COVID on our special needs children and how they have had to adjust to changes and losses, remote learning or no therapies, not seeing friends or going places. It has been a series of losses for them., all of us really, but for them the adjustment is that much harder. But maybe it is this one more loss/adjustment that is challenging her reserves and making her see such loss of what she could do…..once again.

As I write this, she hasn’t gotten up yet and I am wondering how she will feel. I share this story because as much as we see the challenge of the big changes, sometimes it is the little ones that carry a lot of weight too. I hope that she will be feeling calmer in herself…but with the rain hitting the window, who is to say.

I know as we continue this COVID journey, her emotional needs will be changing as they have since the beginning and I will remind myself that for Elizabeth it is the little things that can carry the great significance now.

I wish everyone a peaceful week. Please wear a mask! I do for my mom and others who could get really ill!!!

Thankful For What Is

For those of you who know anything about Elizabeth, you know that she loves to have her favorite foods, that she is prone to food jags ( thank you to my mom for this inherited trait:) and she is hungry more than she is not.

So with that being said, Thursday this week, Elizabeth came home from a busy day like always.  She took her few minutes to relax and change, like always.  She told me she was hungry, like always.   Well since we had a long weekend off, courtesy of something our school likes to call “mid-winter break” I said “Hey, do you want to eat and watch T.V. as a treat?”  Well guess that answer to that one?

So I make her favorite dinner, spaghetti.  I bring it in with a nice salad, fruit and warm bread.  She thanks me, sits down, we say grace and I hug her and go to the other room.

I return in a while to see NOTHING touched.  NOTHING was eaten.  HMMMM, I thought What is going on?

Me: “Elizabeth are you sick? Does your stomach hurt?”

Her “No, I am fine.  Just not hungry tonight.”

Me “But you said you were hungry. Are you sure you are fine?”

Her ” I am NOT sick.”  Side bar here:  Elizabeth absolutely hates to be sick….I mean HATES to be sick.   So much so that once when she actually threw up in her room.  She told me ” Don’t worry about that, it is just a burp.”

So I was getting kind of concerned, then concerned turned to worry when she did not eat her snack later that evening.

I thought we should talk about this, so we did.

Turns out she was sad.

Sad about missing my dad who died almost three years ago.

Sad “that people go away”

Sad ” that things are so hard for me to do”

Sad “that Emily is not home tonight”   Emily is her beloved big-sister who moved away to medical school.

So we talked through ALOT of things.  She talked, I talked, she hugged me, I hugged her.

She looked a bit better.

The next day she woke up,  Looking a bit better, We talked more.

Elizabeth asked for breakfast…she ate it so quickly.  My heart was so very happy seeing her normal return.

We talked more that day and the next.  But I must say that until what you know and have are taken away, even for a day or so, you really aren’t as thankful for what is as we ought to be….I put myself on top of the list.

I am not sure the moral of this story, or what it means to you.  But to me, it is a reminder that what we have in our children are wonderful, beautiful people.  Made so uniquely, that when those things change in them, it is a bit unnerving.

I am thankful for what is…..

I wish you all a peaceful week.

Michele