Week 31 ~ What a week!

We are hanging in there and riding the wave of life as best we can right now. If you read my last post, Homeschooling Through a Crisis, you know that Goldilocks was admitted to a psychiatric hospital this week. I have spent 5 to 7 hours on the phone every day trying to get Goldilocks help, find out about placements and funding. I am really emotionally exhausted, so this will be a short post.

Monday ~ Our son Timothy turned 24 on Monday. How is that even possible? He never wants very much and isn't demanding in the "stuff" department. He wanted a calm,  at-home family party. He took a German chocolate cake to his day program (for brain injured adults) and then we had Pizza Hut pizza and deviled food cake for dinner at home. We hadn't had Pizza Hut in years. We gave Tom Sawyer all kinds of supplements to counteract the wheat and corn, but it still wrecked him for a few days. Timothy's favorite presents were a subscription to Netflix and a box filled with 24 snacks! He also loved getting the complete set of Indiana Jones movies.

Tuesday ~ Tuesday started off normal. I went off to meet with Goldilocks' therapist. However, her mental health team ended up deciding that Goldilocks was so unstable that she needed to be moved to a psychiatric hospital. The process to get into the hospital is by way of the ER. It was a long and sometimes frightening 7 hour process. I am so thankful that Goldilocks' respite care provider stayed with us and helped smooth the way. She is great at the mental health side of things and I am great at the medical side of things, so we made a good supportive team for Goldilocks. Giving your child to a facility like that and watching the big locked metal doors clang shut behind her knocks the wind right out of you!!

Wednesday to Friday ~ The rest of the week was a blur of hours and hours and hours of phone calls. I have visited Goldilocks once and will be allowed another visit later today. She is allowed a 5 to 10 minute phone call each day, depending on what level of privileges she has earned. I can call the nurse to check on her whenever I want, but communication with her hospital social worker, doctor and therapist has been slow and scattered.

Homeschooling...What's That?! ~ We have limped along and done about a half of a week's worth of school this week. We finished Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and started Dead End, which our librarian assures us will keep us in stitches of laughter. We managed math every day and read a wonderful book called The Journey that Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey. Little Red Riding Hood wrote several papers about her favorite holiday (Easter) and finished a workbook. Tom Sawyer read three short chapter books this week. Grandma came over and helped the kids get through about a dozen Language Arts workbook pages and we managed two spelling lessons. We also watched South Pacific. Lastly, Little Red Riding Hood made several Disney princess rubber band figurines (art).

Accepting Help And Counting Blessings ~ I am thankful for the homeschooling and babysitting help my Mother gave me this week. I also reached out and asked my adoption support group for a few freezer meals. We received the first one last night and we are grateful for the kindness. According to some of our team, this will be my life for the next 3 to 5 weeks -- hours of phone calls and transitions
 -- so the meals will be a great help. I am grateful that we are being heard by the professionals and that the doors are opening. I also appreciate all of my blogging friends for their kind words and prayers. I am grateful for my side kick, Boomer. He recognizes that my stress level is very high and has sat at attention next to me for days to protect me. He even fell asleep sitting at attention next to me a few times! What a loyal dog. We are so blessed!

Blessings, Dawn