Momma's Time Out

Parenting special needs children can wear thin on a mom from time to time.  There's doctor appointments, psychiatrist appointments, therapy appointments, then of course you have the special education teachers that you have to deal with when it comes to IEP time.  Every once in awhile I just need a time out, I found this picture on my Facebook wall which I thought was perfect, but do you know how many pins I would need to hang up all of my kids???  Geesh!  I would also need a long drying line, which of course I don't have, so I guess my only alternative is my hot bubble baths that I take to de-stress from the day.

Sure I can run my errands by myself if I wanted to, and sometimes I do, but most of the time, my oldest daughter likes to tag along.  She's 24, so she's not bad to shop with.  Plus we have our mother-daughter dates, but it's also nice that she's old enough to watch the kids so my husband and I can have date night as well.  Date night helps keep our relationship going strong.  It gives us time to ourselves without the interruptions of kids.  My boys (almost 10 & 11) are very attached to my husband, so they take up most if not all of his time while they are home.

It also doesn't help that their room is the most haunted in the house with the most activity and ever since my dad died 7 months ago, the boys refuse to sleep in their room.  So what does that mean?  Yep, they've been "camping out" in our room at night at the foot of our bed.  Makes for 'great' quality time between Jon and I. 

The one thing that I guess I have the hardest time dealing with are the meltdowns.  They are hard to deal with because most of the time you never know when one is going to happen.  Sure I know some of my kids triggers, but not many and with children with autism spectrum disorders, you don't need a trigger to have a meltdown.  My youngest son has them daily and most of the time we don't know why.  We just try and do damage control while he's in the process of melting.  He also has no problems having meltdowns at school either, I get emails on a regular basis about his meltdowns and having to be removed from the regular ed classroom and put into the special ed room for his safety and the safety of the other kids.

No matter the stress or chaos that is apart of my life, I would never trade it for the world.  My kids are my life and I love my life for what it is and the challenges that it brings with it.

Until next time....