Apple Stars

I mentioned in a previous post about my oldest son’s journey with understanding his anxiety and depressive nature.  About a year and a half ago, it escalated into a full blown crisis.  Ever since then, we’ve partnered together as I support him as he tries to understand how to get it under control, first of all, then learn to understand it, and finally how to manage it.  We finally got the “under control” part accomplished just this past December.  Now, we’re at the understand it stage.

One thing we discovered at the same time everything else came together was how his crazy right-brained sleep patterns negatively impact his depression, anxiety, and mood.  A right-brained person tends to be a night owl.  This is because creativity often is heightened in the evening hours, for some reason.  However, when puberty hit for this young man, his traditional night owl sleep patterns didn’t seem to follow his normal predictability.  At the same time, puberty is when we first noticed his mood differences at a larger scale.  Now, I see the correlation.

To describe how my son’s sleep patterns didn’t follow a traditional night owl pattern, I will delineate.  I am a night owl.  I enjoy staying up until about 1:00 a.m. and sleeping in until 9:00 a.m.  Over the last five years or so, my oldest son would stay up until 1:00 a.m. one night, 3:00 a.m. another night, stay up all night yet another, and back to any ole time he felt like.  Waking up was the same.  One day it might be noon, another 3:00 p.m., and yet another he might sleep the entire day away.  That was red flag number one.

Red flag number two was his inability to wake up when he wanted to.  I remember for the year he was 17, he joined a Kendo class that met two days a week.  This is a Japanese sword fighting martial arts, and it was something he had thought of doing for some time.  One class time was in the evening on Wednesday.  That was never a problem.  But, the other was a Saturday morning, at 9:00 a.m., and the class was 1.5 hours away.  As much as he wanted to participate, half the time, he just couldn’t get himself functioning to awaken.  This part of the equation particularly started at 16-17 years old and continued until now, at 22 years old.

The last red flag that got him wondering what was wrong with him was the fact that he was tired all day long.  He might sleep 13-14 hours, and he would yawn all day and feel wiped out.  He suspected sleep apnea, so we had him tested.  Although he did test as mild, and we were able to obtain the machine, he quickly realized it was not impacting how tired he felt all the time.

I had tried to encourage him to create a predictable sleep schedule for his body in order for it to function properly, but he just hadn’t developed a testimony of it yet.  Frankly, I thought it might help a bit, but didn’t think too much about it.  However, when depression and anxiety hit so hard that he had to be hospitalized, it was time to get really serious and do anything and everything I could think of that might impact him positively.

The first thing I did was ask him to trust me for at least a month with his sleep patterns.  That included first moving him up out of the complete blackness of the basement and into a well-lit upstairs bedroom.  Once I committed him, he has really enjoyed it now, and the natural light from the four windows helps his body’s natural “feel good” chemicals emit from exposure to light.  Step Two was to collaborate with him about what time might be best.  We decided 2:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m., but then switched it to midnight until 10:00 a.m.  Sometimes he fluctuates to 2:00 a.m., but shouldn’t go past it.  But, for that month, it was midnight until 10:00 a.m.  Step Three was taking melatonin.  My oldest son always had a harder time falling asleep, but it escalated to 2-4 hours during his depression/anxiety times.

It seemed to help along with everything else we were doing, so we didn’t think a whole lot about it.  That is, until he decided to do what he used to do, and that is take 3-4 days in a row and keep pushing the bedtime and the awake time.  Suddenly, his difficult mood appeared, depression kicked in seriously, and he became very tired again.  It became evident that his sleep patterns effected his body negatively in a serious and immediate way.  What was more important is that he “got it”!

Interestingly, one of the main things he likes to do in the middle of the night is his art.  A right-brained learner is usually engaged in one or more creative outlets in a big way in their lives.  My oldest son’s choice is drawing.  If he is not engaged in his drawing outlet in some way in his life, then he only half lives.  In fact, it was by his renewed interest in drawing, which had been dormant for a year or more, that prompted us to realize he was becoming more healthy.  He decided since he was actually feeling like drawing again, that it was a positive sign, so he could do more of this good thing late into the night.  Not true at all!  What I helped him understand is that even a good thing has to be put in balance with everything else.  In other words, drawing is a positive thing in his life.  But his sleep pattern is an important balance need in his life.  One good thing cannot override the importance of another thing.

So, my son is taking his sleep pattern needs seriously these days.  Sometimes, for one reason or another, he starts to push it.  Midnight is ideal, so finding himself near 2:00 a.m. means he will start to feel the effects.  He is now taking responsibility for the consequences of these choices.  He understands it is not fair to those he lives with, and he certainly cannot complain about being tired or not feeling well emotionally if he chooses to alter his healthy sleep pattern.  He now has full knowledge of its importance in his life.

William (9) and Joseph (8) are in YMCA sports pretty much year round:  spring soccer, summer baseball, fall soccer and winter basketball.  My hubby, Weston, coaches year round for their teams.  Because coaching is volunteer, the sports activities person at the YMCA is always grateful for people like Weston.  So, it was a nice surprise when Jamie, the YMCA sports guy, called me up and let me know that Weston was receiving a coaching award for his time with his basketball team in 2008 at the 2008 YMCA award ceremony at the beginning of February.  We were all going to make it a surprise, so I partnered with Jamie to send pictures of Weston and our family, let the children in on the secret, and planned to all come to see his shock.

I should have known.  All the signs were there, but I was so focused in on creating the surprise for Weston, that none of us saw it coming.  Jamie encouraged us to bring our entire family (and when we arrived at the ceremony, Jamie had a table ready for us by an exit).  Yet, no one else had their families, but no, I’m oblivious.  Jamie starts his award portion and begins with the 2008 Strong Family Award.  So, I listen, thinking, that sounds like a nice family.  Then, the BIG cues come:  homeschooling, seven children, what!?  Jamie turned the tables and surprised me, and everyone, as recipients of the 2008 Strong Family Award!  Funny, the first thing I thought about was, “Is Weston still getting a coaching award, or was it all a guise?”  He did.  Here are the awards:

What’s funny, my best friend and her family received this award a few years previous and she had told me all about it.  If I had opened my eyes, I would have noticed.  She told me about her family being the only ones with children; I noticed, but I just didn’t let it register.  Jamie had asked me all sorts of things about each child.  Jamie’s wife, while at the table, mentioned reading my blog, but I just figured they were asking to highlight the family of a coaching award recipient.  Jamie asked me to send four pictures of Weston, and four pictures of the family; again, I figured it was to show his family as well.  My friend had mentioned Jamie approached her at the YMCA for information about the family, and I let it slide.  So, you see, it was all there.  The coaching award was the perfect “cover” for me to be surprised.  Here are the pictures of all the award recipients.  The first picture was Weston, me, Eli, William and Joseph, and the second picture, we managed to convince Adam to join us (Abbey was there as well, but must have been cut from this picture) (Eric and Alex had stayed home . . . not knowing all of this, of course).

What A Surprise!

It’s an honor.

There are so many different aspects I need to blog about as it pertains to Abbey’s path to college.  I may be able to touch on a few in this post.  Abbey has never attended a formal class before, unless you count driver’s education classes at the local high school.  As mentioned in a previous post, Abbey decided suddenly last summer that she wanted to pursue college.  As mentioned in that post, she was late by a few days in the colleges of her choice receiving her ACT scores, so she officially missed the deadline.  She applied to Brigham Young University, Idaho, as her primary choice, and they asked her to reapply because of the missed deadline.  We didn’t pursue what that meant because of what happened to her second choice:  Brigham Young University, Provo (the main campus).  This institution simply qualified her for the next available term or semester, which happened to be Spring Term, and she was accepted!  Provo is fairly competitive, so we weren’t sure she would be accepted.  Plus, Idaho had a great creative writing program, which is what she thought she would pursue.

(The “Y” on the side of the mountain near BYU, Provo.)

However, because of the immediate acceptance into Provo, we decided to look around their site and see what kind of Creative Writing program they offered.  But, we couldn’t find it anywhere.  So, we ended up looking at every category of degree until we found a “writing emphasis” degree under a General Studies category.  Yuck!  But, this process got us thinking.  If she were to pursue a creative writing degree, the type of job she would need to pursue would be something with magazines or newspapers and the such.  But, she wants to write novels, and there really isn’t a job out there except as an entrepreneur, which is the way Abbey wants to pursue it.  Soooo, as we had perused the site, we ran across special education teacher, and it really popped at us.  Abbey has been working officially through an agency with her brothers with special needs for the past year, and she’s a natural at it!  We got to talking, and some of the benefits I pointed out in pursuing this degree as it pertains to getting an actual job are these:  it is not year-round and one gets liberal vacation time (scheduled, though); she wants to homeschool, so a teaching certificate often bypasses certain legalities; she could tutor from home; it is in high demand so if she does it temporarily or needs to move often, she should be able to find employment easily.  Those were the things that came off the top of my head.

Abbey wants to be a stay-at-home mom.  She wants to homeschool her children.  She wants to be an author of novels.  All of these things she knows she can do as an autodidactic.  Pursuing college has a couple of purposes:  she wants to have more of a social life.  Having been a homeschooler all her life, she just was different.  It was hard for her to find teens that wanted to be associated with different.  Abbey was comfortable, but she is really interested in the dating scene.  She started off thinking of unschooling her career path into authorship, but finding peers in her position was hard to come by because so many go off to college.  Sooo, thus, her decision to put herself where everyone is.  Again, she thought of pursuing her unschooled career next to a large university, but she decided against it because of her second reason: the world values degrees, so she felt that it might be useful to have one in case she needed it.  In other words, it gave her options if she needed it beyond her career of choice.  And, special education appears to be a perfect way to enhance her ultimate goals as a stay-at-home, unschooling mother.

Because Abbey was not able to start university for Winter Semester like she had hoped, she had time between November when she found out, and June (we ended up postponing to Summer Term, which made the most sense) when she would start.  I suggested that she take a couple of classes at the local community college in order to have at least one experience with a classroom setting before going into such a competitive schooling environment.  So, she chose Expository Writing, since so much of college is writing, and Spanish I, since it had been a while since her self-taught Spanish learning in her unschooled years, and BYU has a requirement to pass a second year language level.  So far, Abbey has learned to budget studying time, learn study skill habits, and understand the logistics of a classroom setting and the requirements of an instructor.  She is receiving top scores at this time, which she feels good about since she anticipates that BYU will certainly be an increase in difficulty from a community college level.

So, that brings us to our recent trip.  It was spring break for community college, and I decided last minute that Abbey and I should take a trip to BYU, which she had not visited yet.  Airfare rates were good, so we jumped on it.  It was just what she needed to make more informed choices about on-campus housing choices and meal plan options.  Abbey also enjoyed just getting to “feel” the student environment as we walked around the campus amongst the hustle and bustle of the student body.  We started off with a tour of the campus.  We waited in their visitor’s center for our student tour guide:

(Abbey standing in front of an aerial photo of the BYU campus)

Naturally, the student tour guide was a well-spoken young man who drove us around in a zippered protected golf cart (back to a winter state!) and answered any of our questions.  Some of the extra-curricular programs Abbey may be seriously considering once she gets out there is intramural sports and working on the BYU newspaper.

The BYU Bookstore was awesome.  The first thing we saw when we walked in were a table of modest undershirts.  Abbey and I have clocked in hours at the malls trying to find these!  And, here we are, in modest city, with a whole table laid before our eyes in all different colors.  We snatched up several.  Naturally, we also had to buy something to get her in the spirit of her next adventure:

(Isn’t she adorable?!)

My latest repetitive question I get from people are, “I’ll bet you’re really going to miss her, huh?”  These people know how close Abbey and I are and she is absolutely my best friend.  But, it’s funny.  At this time, I don’t feel like I’m going to “miss her”.  I’m totally excited about her next stage and this adventure she has chosen.  As I have contemplated why I don’t feel like I’m going to be crushed with her leaving is this:  I am confident in our relationship we have.  It is strong and solid.  Distance will not threaten it.  We know we will be as close as ever.  She already has me set up for Skype and her Christmas present was a cell phone on our calling plan.  She will share her journey every step of the way as she always has.  I have always enjoyed the privilege of walking alongside my children on their own personal journeys, and it will continue when they leave our home as when they are here.

The strength of our relationship bonds us across the miles.

I have received a few “blistering” comments on a few of my Life Without School blog posts over the past month.  Usually, when someone comments in a highly negative and generalized manner, it can be best to leave it be.  This was true of one of the comments when I followed the link to his blog that was all about taking various topics and “tearing it up”.  So, it wasn’t worth responding.

Sometimes, even though a negative comment seems to be filled with common misconceptions and generalizations, it is worth considering a response because of the commonality of the generalizations.  This was true of this comment.  And so, I decided to take my time and write out a response to all those people out there who may hold the same perceptions without taking the time to understand the topic.  That response is my Life Without School post called The Myth of Credentialism.

And, sometimes, I respond to a comment expecting absolutely no resolution, but I decide to make at least one well thought out comment in return, with maybe a follow-up to anything that is said in response, and you get totally surprised, like in this short exchange.  (Find the comment from “I Put In The Legwork” near the bottom, and my response that follows, and the follow up remark that concludes.)  What this exchange showed was that the person had been legitimate in the comment created and was really wanting to understand why it looked the way it did to them.  Since it was a recent comment made to a post that was significantly older, a search of “unschooling college” must have found the commenter at my post.

Anyway, negative comments are always interesting.  Sometimes it can be used as fodder to help clarify; sometimes it’s just best to leave it lie, and still other times, surprise resolution may occur.  Blogging is such fun!

So, it started on March 1, and this is what we woke up to on March 2:

This wouldn’t be so unusual if we weren’t in North Carolina.  The last good snow like this we remember is probably from 2001, and it certainly wasn’t March!  But, the saying goes in North Carolina, “if you don’t like the weather, wait a few days.”  And, true to form, by Friday, it’s supposed to be 70 degrees!

So, we play while we can . . .

Sledding with five children and two dogs.

William and JoJo cooperatively(!) build a snowman.

Finding a natural snow fort.

And, of course, ending with hot chocolate!

I have had three children navigate their version of experiencing dissection in the category of biology.  My first child, Eric, took a class at our Natural Science Center shortly after moving to North Carolina, so he was probably around 14 years old.  This was a “homeschool class” that was said to be designed to fulfill this and that educational requirement in this and that.  You know the stuff that is normally said that would be appealing to school-based thinking, but doesn’t matter at all to me.  But, it did mention dissecting some things and I felt that Eric would be interested in the whole biology aspect and could tolerate a smaller version of dissecting.  Eric tended to like a class situation for something like this.  He attended and if I recall, they were in groups of two, and they dissected a cow eye and a pig fetus, I think.

Abbey, my second born, was interested in delving into hands-on experiences to determine what type of animal-based career she might be interested in for her future.  An opportunity was discovered to attend an eighth-grade veterinary camp at Michigan State University when she was around 14.  She had to fill out an application with essays, along with my having to fill out forms and essays as her “science teacher”, in order to be accepted into the program.  Abbey was accepted and spent an intensive week doing a myriad of diverse hands-on activities to help her understand what it would take to succeed in the university program as well as the field.  It was there that she had several opportunities for dissection, as well as observing a variety of actual surgeries.  Here is a picture of one of her dissection opportunities:

Eli, my third born child, is my latest to go through the biology dissection.  Science is one of those subjects for him that was right in the middle.  He has a basic interest in science, especially since the hands-on aspects of the experiments makes sense to him, but the textbook aspect of it, or the verbal explanations, could be a bit of a struggle since language is difficult for him.  Because he has been my first child that knew as a teen that he wanted to go to a university as soon as he could for computer programming, I thought science was a great subject for him to explore learning through a textbook.  Eli had enough interest/knowledge from the hands-on aspects of science in order to help him potentially do better with the print material typical of college, so it would be a good experience for him.

So, at 14-15, he worked through Apologia’s Physical Science, and at 15-16 he worked through their General Science, and at 16-17, he made his way through the Biology text (he is currently finishing up with Chemistry).  I ordered the traditional dissection package from Apologia’s recommended site and a dissection kit came in the mail followed closely by the specimens of an earthworm, a crayfish, a fish, and a frog.  Now those brought me back to my biology days in high school, along with the smell of the preservative!  Eli followed the textbooks directions for dissection and answered the questions.  Here is a picture that, as noted, also attracted interest from others:

Three children; three different biology dissection experiences; it all works based on their strengths.

Just when I thought I was finished having to learn more than the average person with the children I have been blessed with, I got to continue learning over the past year especially.  Because we are finally at an uphill place, I wanted to take the time to share some of what I have learned as it pertains to anxiety and depression.

Since puberty, my oldest son, Eric, has been prone to depression and anxiety.  Because of the strengths based environment he was raised in, it was fairly easy to manage.  However, at 19 years old, he decided to pursue a full-time mission for our church.  It would encompass many of his weakest areas, and he needed to be prepared to manage everything.

In retrospect, anxiety to a higher degree emerged first, with depression a close second as he approached his mission report date.  Eric was so out of balance that a week before departing, he postponed because we all realized he just wasn’t ready to successfully navigate what would be expected of him.  I believe that he had his serious doubts deep within himself, and it emerged through this anxiety and depression to deal with it (because he wasn’t dealing with it).

Up until now, we had worked through our amazing pediatrician.  This health care provider knows exactly how to balance caring, empathy, respect for parents as partners, and trust in parents to partner.  This is way more huge than I ever realized when I always had it and had to find adult providers in the various forums.  Anyway, Eric was ready to figure out what was “really wrong with me”, so I had to find a psychiatrist able to take new patients and our insurance.  I got referral names from our pediatrician, and tackled the first few to no avail.  In the meantime, we got a name from a friend to a therapist to start things rolling.

Eric quickly connected with this man and felt comfortable sharing his difficulties with him.  However, over time, I realized that the therapist was too empathetic.  He seemed capable of pulling out minutae details from Eric that made him and Eric begin to think he was more crazy than he was.  In other words, there is a level of pathological viewing of details that can warp one’s perception of things.  I didn’t realize this until going to the psychiatrist I was finally able to procure.

The psychiatrist is a very laid back man who speaks softly and slowly.  He had Eric fill out a bunch of questionnaires to determine probability of “disorders”.  He then spoke with Eric about various details and gathered additional information.  He then had myself and Eric come in and he proceeded to go through each “disorder” and rule it out.  He then concluded that although Eric may have “mild depression”, it was more that he was “comfortable” with his lifestyle and that he simply needed to get out of the house and move forward in life.  I know, it sounds maybe bad, but in the case at the time, I think it was exactly what Eric needed to hear.  Of course, with Eric’s typical straightforward nature, he looks at the psychiatrist and states, “So, you’re saying I’m spoiled.”  We all laughed, but it was his general opinion at the time.

So, we had one therapist who concluded that Eric must be full of psychosis, and then a psychiatrist who decides that he’s spoiled.  What a pendulum to choose between!  On the other hand, Eric is prone to being easily influenced about these types of psychological fears, so I think he needed the exact opposite extreme to balance out an unfounded perspective from the first therapist.  This was my first foray into mental health providers.  Because Eric was not at any serious mental state yet, it was easy to take what was useful and throw out the rest and not think too much about the lack of consistency in the field.

It seemed the “spoiled” conclusion catapulted Eric forward and he went from weekly meltdowns up to six months prior to this (again, I think in anticipation of the mission call), to being more himself again from that moment forward.  About a month later, he also went off his SSRI medication (which had been prescribed for “black clouds” beginning at puberty).  In one sense, we thought this was our “mission miracle”.  From time to time, Eric and I would talk and he would bring up his anxiety over the mission, but moving forward into adulthood generally speaking.  I found focusing on it worsened things, so I began to validate quickly and move on.  It helped at the time.

Now, I see it as the bandaid time it really was.  Eric will always have a depressive and anxiety nature, and he had yet to really confront, as none of us had, the reality of its true existence.  Neither had the mental health providers yet discovered the extent he endured.  Fast forward to his second start date for his two-year full-time mission which began positively enough.  Eric had to face anxiety-producing activities such as talking on the phone at a call center, to once out in the “field”, switching companions anywhere from 6 - 12 weeks as well as areas.  In hindsight, the most difficult changes were in companions.  He realized that he used people that he formed trusting relationships with as a support mechanism, and every time he had to change, he was thrust out in the abyss again for a while.  And not every companion would be worthy of his trust to depend on.  Nine months into his mission, the anxiety exploded and he was experiencing consistent panic attacks; something he had never had before.  Thus began the process of trying to get him mental health support far from home with wheels that seemed to turn interminably slow for someone who is suffering considerably today.

At 11 months, we all realized it was time for him to come home and work out the anxiety and depression from the support of home and trusted relationships.  The thing is, Eric needed to travel a path of self discovery, so it wasn’t the straightest route to help.  But, I will fast forward to the mental health provider portions for the sake of this post (though I will be writing a few more posts about the other things we found useful on this journey).

Eric wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to either the original therapist or psychiatrist, because they obviously didn’t understand what he was enduring.  But, I encouraged him to go back to the psychiatrist because it was still difficult to find someone quickly, and because we had seen him before, he would be considered a “current patient”, so we could get an appointment quickly.  What is the most frustrating thing about mental health providers is the slow process of finding answers.  I think it is slower when the provider doesn’t trust parents or supports to be effective partners.  To give some credit, apparently I am not your “normal” parent, so they react based on statistical experience.  I feel partnering is so important because what can you learn about someone in a short appointment?  And Eric has always been excellent at presenting himself as a “with it” individual.  He is well spoken, good looking, tall, and charming.  It infuriates me in these circumstances because it isn’t helpful.  What I learned through encouraging him to go back to the psychiatrist is that they are people, and depending on each situation and current circumstance, they can be helpful in different ways.  Slowly, over a nine month or so period, we would become partners with the pyschiatrist and he became useful to us on this journey.  But, it took my research and advocacy abilities to get to this point with him.

Some of what I did to get where we are were:  first, Eric would go into his sessions alone with the psychiatrist.  The problem with this was that Eric usually had to be at a good place to even get to the session, so he presented well enough.  I finally was able to drag Eric into an appointment when he was at a really bad place so that the psychiatrist would “get it”.  He did.  From then on, I went into every session with him because together we were able to share the best picture of what was going on.  Luckily, I think our homeschooling relationship that was developed came into play here.  I have a close friend with a daughter of the same age going through a similar thing.  Her daughter wants her mother to have nothing to do with anything that she needs to do to get healthy and balanced again.  Eric is very open and even wanting me to be part of the process because he accepts his need for effective support.  (That’s another post to ponder over . . .).  I started researching myself the medications being used and really asserting myself during the sessions about what was working, what was not, and what we felt we wanted to pursue.

In the most difficult moments, a psychiatrist can only do so much.  I greatly appreciated that this provider encouraged our calling him if we needed anything, and I did have to do this a handful of times.  He always made me feel completely comfortable and at ease doing so and as I was in that moment.  He seems to totally embrace the “emergency aspect” of mental health, which I greatly appreciated.  In those difficult moments, I had to trust myself though, and what I knew of my son.  I didn’t always feel comfortable about changing medication and such with this provider.  But, I did it anyway because when you are in the moment, and there are no other choices, you do what you have to do, but I didn’t like having to defend my choices or feel like I was going to be berated over it.  With time, I think he now “gets” that I don’t do these types of things lightly, and that I respect the traditional protocol for doing so, but having to take care of the situation in the moment and go forward with hope was essential and the psychiatrist had to trust me to be a partner he could trust as well.

During this timeframe, we have also used two therapists who use cognitive therapy.  I wrote a comment at Woodstone Prairie about a month ago when Maura talked about her dread of seeing her son’s pdoc for various reasons.  Those comments reflect some of my experiences with what one can gain from a therapist, so I will share that here:

What I have realized is that you can really like the person as just that, a person, but they don’t work at all as your provider. That’s kinda what I got from your post in the middle . . . you like her as a friend, neighbor, etc., but not as a provider. You have to sift through that and recognize why you feel a need to stay with them . . . you like them . . . but that has nothing to do with the effective care or not.

The thing I realized is that a provider may be just what you need, until they aren’t what you need anymore. Again, it sounds like this provider may have been good at the front end, but is no longer working for you. Sometimes a provider has only so much to, well, provide, and then their effectiveness is satiated. It’s then time to move on.

We’ve moved on from a therapist that wasn’t working for us, but we hung on for quite a time because “we liked her.” A situation forced us to consider someone else at the same time, and he was the best thing since sliced bread. Luckily, not only was I going to drop the first one, but she initiated it as she really did want what was best for my son. But, though the next therapist has been fab, I know his effectiveness may diminish in time. As long as we gain one good piece of information at each session, we’ll stay on. Once a couple sessions come and go with no benefit, then I know to move on now.

The last mental health providers we have experienced over this past year is when we hit our worst:  hospitalization.  We expected big things from choosing to go the hospitalization route when we were at our wit’s end, but it seems to be more of a holding tank and a “safe house”, if you would, than a place to move forward.  On the other hand, it certainly created credibility for everyone involved in his recovery, and there are some amazingly knowledgeable employees there who are really passionate about educating those with depression and anxiety, if you can seek them out individually.  Again, I was disappointed that the support persons were not included in our particular place of hospitalization (and I realized through my friend that different hospitals provide different things, but one doesn’t have time to “shop around” in the middle of the crisis that sends you in the direction of hospitalization).  However, I took the opportunity to approach Eric’s nurse who took a half hour to educate me.  It was extremely important and part of another post I will be writing.  What was SO frustrating was that he was describing Eric to a tee when he was talking about depression, and yet no one had really given credibility to the idea that he was in major depression before then.  Ugh!  Like I said, that’s another post.

Bottom line when it comes to mental health providers, I had to educate myself once again.  I had to research and advocate.  I had to develop a mutual trusting and respectful relationship with the providers in order to achieve optimal effective care.  That required me to keep pressing myself into the picture by proving I could be trusted to understand their protocols while sharing valid research and information that was pertinent to the individual circumstance.  I had to recognize when to move on from each provider, understanding the limitations of each role in the holistic picture of my son’s management of his depressive nature.  There are stages to understanding and self-awareness and management, and it simply takes time and a variety of insights from diverse mental health providers.

I had to trust my instincts more than ever before.  And I had to help the primary mental health provider trust me. In the end, it is Eric’s personal journey.  I have to support him where he’s at and offer good information when he is ready to receive.  It’s a tough balancing act for everyone involved.  I feel it took a tenacious and faithful approach to get where we are today.  We are still on the journey.

I tried to get William (9) and Joseph (8) to pay attention to the inauguration of Barak Obama on Tuesday.  They just couldn’t be bothered with a man, even if he is brown, that just sits and talks.  Finally, I thought I saw my “in”.  As Barak and Michelle were walking down the street in front of their limo, I remembered all the secret service “policemen” all around them.  So, I called the boys over again, and pointed them out and explained their role.  I let them know that the president of the United States always has secret service policemen.  Now, that got their attention.  What surprised me, though, is that instead of William, my most prolific pretender between the two, pretending to be the secret service, he became “William the President” and hired Joseph as his secret service.  Ah, ha!  He liked the power to hire instead of the act of protecting . . . LOL!  So, William went and got his Sunday best on, grabbed a chair to put on another chair as a podium in which to give his speech (he was paying attention!), and Joseph is in his army outfit, and hippo is holding the arsenal:

This said, I can’t help but talk about the topic that Barak Obama is a president of color, not a “black man” as president.  It’s funny, because I absolutely know what is going on because of my own two boys.  It doesn’t matter what nationality you really are.  What matters is the color of your skin, just like Martin Luther King, Jr., points out.  It really hasn’t changed in many regards.  So, Barak Obama is half African and half caucasian American.  But, his skin is brown, so he will be treated as a black man.  William and Joseph are also biracial.  Their mother is caucasian and their father is African-American.  But, it doesn’t matter because their skin is brown; therefore, they will be treated as “black men”.  And I knew this.  And it is true.

Tiger Woods took it upon himself in the beginning to continuously bring up the fact that he is only one-quarter African-American.  His father is biracial that includes African American (50 percent), Chinese  (25 percent) and Native American  (25 percent) ancestry. His mother, originally from Thailand, is also biracial that includes Thai (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Dutch (25 percent) ancestry. This makes Tiger Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Thai, one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch.  But, probably much to his dismay, our society doesn’t accept it.  Because he has brown skin, he will be treated as a “black man”.

I personally think it’s more wonderful that Barak Obama is biracial.  Biracial people have a rough time of it beyond the scope of the typical African-American, because they tend not to be accepted by any people.  The white people don’t accept them because of the color of their skin, and the black people don’t accept them because they are “not black enough.”  That is, of course, until they become president of the United States.  Or a super star golf player.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying any of this in a disgruntled way at all.  I’m a realist by nature and I just see things as they are, no judgment attached.  Barak Obama becomes even more of a role model for my boys because he is biracial.  He is a role model to all people of color, in my opinion, not just African-Americans.  And certainly I believe Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, original message that people of color be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin won out in this election year.  I think most people voted based on character and political agenda, not race or color.  America truly has grown up.

It’s been a bit over a year since we moved into our new country home.  There are still some areas that need sorting through, and overall, I think everything needs a good going over now that I know how every area works.  That said, although this is not an official New Year’s resolution, I hope to take a room a week and do a thorough cleaning and any small organizational detailing.

I have always lived with the “lived in” idea as well as giving priority to my mothering responsibilities over my housekeeping responsibilities.   Here is a poem that hangs in my home that attests to this adage:

But as I’ve grown older, I tend to tolerate the “messy look” a bit less and actually have grown to appreciate a clean space.  Maybe the shift in mothering responsibilities as the children have grown has contributed to this?  Moving into a smaller living space area probably adds to this feeling.

The best space in my new house is most definitely the laundry room.  Let’s see, over the years I have experienced the following with laundry/spaces:  doing a laundry room in an apartment building (yuck!), doing a Laundromat (another yuck!), laundry in an unfinished basement (it just doesn’t feel nice, even if there is room), laundry in a closet (definitely doesn’t work effectively or efficiently with a large family), laundry in an entryway from the garage (also doesn’t work well space-wise), a laundry room with a laundry chute in the finished basement in its own room (loved the chute, not bad for comfort, but still needing to walk through children’s spaces that slept in the finished basement area and the room still wasn’t that big, though I was able to begin my first mini-sorting desire).

What makes my current laundry room the best ever?  Let me share my first picture first and tell what I love:

The very best thing I love is the window!  It brings in full sunlight and makes the whole room bright.  No flourescent lighting or dark and dim dungeons.  The next best thing is the laundry room is self-contained on the main floor in a logical location with ample space!  I was able to go out and purchase some perfectly suited laundry organizers enough to actually do the job with my large family.  I have from left to right:  blankets/sheets/type stuff, whites, towels, reds, warms, colds/durable, colds/gentle, jeans.  I have another black basket at the end for children to throw their things in who don’t know how to sort, or to hold other miscellaneous needs.  Talk about efficient and effective!  Love it, love it, love it!

Now, to know that things don’t work out perfectly, or what will look nice, I’ll add the other picture and share some of my “go with what works” flexible strategies:

In the first picture, you will see some clothes stacked on the wire shelf above my laundry organizers.  Those are Eli’s clothes, and now Abbey’s clothes.  It used to be all of Eli’s clothes, and it was overflowing.  Now, if you look above, I cleaned out some of the plastic bins and put his shirts, pjs and underthings in three drawers.  I just left his pants on the shelf.  The reason for this is that he and two others sleep in the basement.  It is unfinished and has no bathroom.  So, when they get dressed, they do so in the bathroom next to the laundry room, thus, it makes no sense for him to take his clothes down in his room in a dresser just to have to haul it back up.  So, he would just not take his clothes down, and this continued.  So, my adage is, go with what is efficient.  I could make him be inconvenienced, but I just don’t usually work that way.  Now, Abbey is also in the basement (she let her big brother take her upstairs room with all the windows to help him in his battle with depression), and she takes most of her clothes down to her armoire because, well, she’s a girl and doesn’t like her stuff hanging around for all to see, I think, but she will periodically let some start piling up.  So, I moved that pile from on top of the dryer to this wire shelf as well now that Eli’s clothing is thinned out.

There are three more plastic bins that I use for the following:  one for the little boys’ socks, and two for their shoes.  Again, the boys’ bedrooms are upstairs and I can guarantee you that they will not go all the way upstairs to get these items before they would be willing to go outside, inside, outside, inside . . . well, you get the picture.  This way, it is all in one area, right near the side door they mainly use.  On top of the plastic bins and above them on the other wire shelf is where I put the towels to be used in the downstairs bathroom.  There is no linen closet in there, so this is right next to the bathroom, and this is where people are coming for their clothing anyway who use the bathroom, so there are the towels for convenience.  Further down that particular wire shelf will be all the usual laundry supplies of soap, bleach, dryer sheets, etc.

Back to the first picture you will notice two stacked buckets next to the laundry organizers.  The bottom one holds the large bag of dry catfood and the bags of rat food.  They had to be put in buckets because my (grown) kittens would rip into it otherwise.  The rats are in the outside garage, and this keeps the wild rats from getting into it if left out there (yeah, welcome to the country!).  The bin on top is there only during the cold weather as it holds all the mittens, gloves, hats, and scarves of all sizes, shapes, and colors to be used as needed.

And, last but not least, I had our family friend put in a new outlet in order to perfectly fit in our second fridge in this convenient space.  We couldn’t survive without one!  Well, we could, but it’s a nicety we enjoy.

So, there’s my laundry room; my best space in the house.  As I clean up/out additional spaces, I hope to share those with you in upcoming posts.

I originally had this post titled Possessions, but I changed it to Acquisition, because I think Possessions is another category I would like to post about a bit later.  Sara and JoVe set the scene with their thoughts from their blog posts:

Sara shares a quote near the beginning of her post on this subject:

From The Hundred Dollar Holiday by Bill McKibben:

Since we live with relative abandon year-round, it’s no wonder that the abandon of Christmas doesn’t excite us as much as it did a medieval serf.  We are - in nearly every sense of the word - stuffed.  Saturated.  Trying to cram in a little more on December 25 seems kind of pointless.

JoVe replied in her post Christmas blahs:

Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself. It seems pointless. If we need anything, we go and buy it.  And we end up with a pretty loose definition of need.

And if Tigger needs new pyjamas or coloured penciles or sketchbooks, why should she wait another 6 weeks for them just because they would make good presents? The definition of need tightens up considerably at this time of year. Pyjamas she has already because her others were too small.

I’ve mentioned before on-line that I consciously chose in the beginning of my homeschooling journey to try to raise my children “the old-fashioned way”.  This stems a lot from my own childhood (funny how much what we do can often lead back to our early shaping).  We didn’t have much growing up, but what I had I treasured.  I wanted my children to have that same appreciation, and I knew that too much acquisition would hinder that.

It came more easily to do this because we started our family very young (my first was born when I was 21) while we were in university (I supported my hubby through six years to complete his undergraduate degree that included a two-year “live-and-learn” stint).  We had our first three children during his university years while I either provided daycare to children in my home, worked an evening job at a law firm, and/or my hubby did part-time work on campus to make ends meet.  Our goal was to raise our own children giving value to our time to our children as our greatest gift and sacrifice on their behalf.  Being able to afford “things” didn’t come often.  I found that the gifts for birthdays and Christmases were the main source of gift-giving times at that time, so our saturation level, as mentioned in the posts I referenced, wasn’t an issue.

Once we left university and my hubby began his first degree-earned job, I came home and student loans came due, and money was still tight.  Another child was added and simple family togetherness was our center-point.  I remember taking family walks around our neighborhood and walking a couple blocks down to the small town outdoor ice cream shop.  Getting the ice cream cone with the candy faces put on them was the only expense put out to enhance our excursions and build memories.  Friendships were another acquisition sought after during this time period.

For my three oldest, this type of viewpoint was their foundation.  Only my oldest would have consistent figures bought for him (about $3-5) at the time that seemed to be important to him in a “collection” sense.  (I have since found out through the book “A Mind at a Time”, by Mel Levine, that some people have a stronger sense of “insatiability” to objects that can be best supported through collections; my instincts seemed to prove well for him!)  I helped this child know how to hold off on “needing” something through financial self-limitations and the greater understanding of common sensibilities toward balanced acquisition.  For the most part, birthdays and Christmases were the gift giving times.

The exception was the purchases for personal growth items such as the colored pencils and sketchbooks JoVe referred to in her post.  Though finances still kept this in reasonable check, books and paper and craft items were consistently found in our home.  We still were frugal on how these were acquired, however.  My hubby was able to often supply us with paper from the used printer paper from his work that was to be discarded (do you remember the continuous feed paper with hole punched sides?)  Boy, do I remember those boxes of paper my children would go through, and use easily to create books!  We would save everything from cereal boxes to paper tubes to egg cartons to use to build things.  So, imagination and creativity were also a center of our acquisition perspective.

Things shifted when we discovered that three of our children were struggling on the autism spectrum in 1996.  Interestingly, acquisition was not on the radar of these children.  Once I did my research on how to help each of these children develop to their full potential, exposure to all the things they didn’t notice became high on the list in helping them engage in the world around them.  Because objects were the safest things for the younger of the boys to trust, heavy doses of acquisition of things began in order to help them develop the breadth of knowledge of the world of objects.  Instead of creating saturation, for my boys with autism, each purchase was a step on their path of understanding.

So, the first three children were raised with carefully chosen and treasured objects of interest that enhanced the development of their gifts and passions.  The next two children were raised to recognize the value of how objects can be used to develop their gifts and passions.  And then we adopted in two young children into a houseful of prized and respected interest items as well as buckets of various developmental toy objects.  They neither understood how each object was purposefully chosen over time to find their place in the home, nor were they part of the developmental choices of adding each object.  On the other hand, they had their own issues to work through.

As many foster children experience, the older of the two was quite “lost” with the transition of his former home of need into this new home of abundance.  He didn’t have any developmental understanding of playing with toys nor the framework of possessing them.  Destruction of items is common in the early stages of fostering children.  He needed to have all objects removed from his use and recreate the acquisition process in order for him to know how to use and possess each thing.  It was quite an interesting phenomenon.  On the other hand, because he often would receive whole collections of common objects, saturation still often occurred to overwhelm his ability to understand how to possess in a healthy way.  It’s been a process.  All in all, we try to keep acquisition of things to the special occasions in order to help prevent oversaturation as a common theme throughout the year.

In today’s world of abundance, I think it takes a conscious, mindful choice on the part of parents to observe and utilize our instincts to determine what is most useful for each individual child in our care in developing a healthy emotional relationship with the world of objects and acquisition.  Most important is how we help them take ownership by empowering them with their own personal understanding of these things in their own lives as they make their own choices.