The Filming of Thumbalisa (Adaptation of Thumbelina)

Rebekah completed her last production with Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater (ACDT) as a high school student. She was the main character for the performance of Thumbalisa (Thumbelina). Because of COVID-19, they filmed the performance without an audience, using both inside and outside venues. I can't wait for the film to be released sometime in June. The last few weeks have been emotional for Rebekah. Growing up and transitioning to new adventures are exciting but hard. She has been with this dance studio since 2010 and has danced in performances with them for twelve spring seasons. There are so many memories. With COVID, everything felt and looked different from learning the pieces, rehearsals, costuming and the final performance. Rebekah worried that she didn't know the dances well enough and that everything felt very disorganized. However, in the end she felt good about it. I think it is going to be as wonderful as other performances from the photos I have seen. On to new adventures.... I am so grateful for all that ACDT did for Rebekah. They gave her a beautiful theater education and lots of dance exploration.

Flashback ~ Here is Rebekah in her very first performance with ACDT in 2010. She was a Cheshire kitten in Alice in Wonderland. I could hardly guess then what an amazing journey this child would take me on! Just as I can hardly imagine where she will be in a few more years. I look forward to the journey.

Blessings, Dawn

Coming Out of the Pandemic Thriving ...

I do realize that some of the news predicts that we may have a very rough fall/winter with COVID, but for now, I see great hope that the end is within sight. We are planning a vacation (not cross country or international, as we had hoped during Rebekah's senior year), but a vacation nonetheless! We are planning a graduation party and a few folks coming from out-of-state. It all feels so exciting and normal!

However, the pandemic was not all bad for us. We learned so much about ourselves. We grew even stronger as a family. 

Elijah had a perfect excuse to shelter in place and wait out the pandemic before looking for a job. He needed this year plus to rest, grow, mature, take a break from some of the negative forces/people in the outside world and to just be. He has turned into a much sweeter person with the pressures of life taken off his back. He is more focused on doing whatever he does do better and with less complaint because he has the margin to deal with it. We don't plan on making massive changes to his daily life just yet. We have added more cooking to his life, and he is still working with Grandma several days a week. His medieval sword play has returned, but it is more community-based instead of being run by one person. Elijah has stepped into one of the roles of running the program and is doing a fine job as a herald (referee) with some of the kid battles.

Rebekah kept the busiest schedule of all of us during the pandemic, but it was still less than her usual. She needed the break to have more time to think about what she truly wanted to do with her life. She was generally so laser focused on her goals and busy pursuing them that there was little time to evaluate if anything (even tiny things) had changed. She did realize that dance was the most important thing to her above all else. She basically new this, but thought that being a sign language interpreter was a close second. She has realized that it really isn't, especially when she realized how difficult and unwelcoming  the deaf community is to hearing people. So, going to college to be a sign language interpreter is on the back burner for now. She is only going to focus on contemporary ballet for now and just have a job to make ends meet. She can worry about college, careers and other future plans later.

Tim has also enjoyed his year plus at home. He starts back to his brain injury day program one day a week in the middle of this month after his siblings are fully vaccinated. He may increase his days there after a few weeks or try something new. He has realized that he may prefer doing something more purposeful with his time than going to a day program for entertainment and stress because of all the unique relationships. He had his physical yesterday and told the doctor that being home this year had been less stressful than his normal life. He felt that, overall, he had thrived during the pandemic because he has gotten back into making and painting models, become closer with his brother and feels less stress in his daily life. His doctor said that his experience was unusual, but she was very happy to hear it.  

As for me, I am so glad I concentrated so much on the house. I got a cleaning routine down that can be completed in about 25 minutes, not including meals. I have reduced our belongings a great deal and have much more understanding of what we would need/want to help us pass our days if we were stuck at home for a long time again. Let's just say, I was hanging on to lots of things for a rainy day and when that rainy year came, we didn't use hardly any of the things. I have even become cutthroat with books. If I read them and don't love them...they are gone. We are down to three well-stocked bookcases, and I am adding and subtracting books as I read them. I will keep our beautiful collection of children's books. I do intend to have young children in my life in the future, whether that be through grandchildren or providing childcare. I also got so much painting done and feel like I caught up a bit on home care.

So as we rejoin the world, I feel refreshed and ready to find our new normal. There are so many exciting things coming for Rebekah, and I do hope we find the perfect fits for Tim and Elijah. But I also see that they are content and growing just where they are. My little "garden" is growing strong. It is just some of my seedlings are meant to be mighty trees and most trees grow slowly and steadily. 

I pray you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Blessings, Dawn

A "Would You Rather" Challenge Birthday Party

Elijah asked for a "Would You Rather?" challenge party for his birthday. He got the idea from one of his favorite shows on YouTube called Team Edge. I was concerned that his idea could backfire wildly. We are not the bravest of people and don't tend to be much into disgusting food, pain or other such feats that may be dangerous. However, he has asked for some variation of this idea for years, so I decided to give it a try. I put weeks of thought into coming up with challenges that would seem gross or "painful' without really being all that bad from our family's point of view yet would still seem exciting to Elijah. Together, we came up with a pretty good list. I also declared that having someone cry at your party was not a happy party and that each person was offered a free pass card on one challenge. If they didn't use their free pass card, they received $5 at the end of the party. 

Our List of Challenges ~  We came up with 15 challenges and then doubled them so that each person had a 2 in 5 chance of getting each challenge. Each person got six challenges and picked them randomly from a jar.

Would You Rather ...

• Have a bucket of ice water poured over your head OR put your feet in an ice water bucket for one minute?
• Have hot sauce on half a donut OR eat four Blue Heat Takis?
• Have a balloon containing flour popped over your head OR have a balloon with maple syrup popped over your head?
• Have a small cup of buffalo wings-flavored soda OR have a small cup of butter-flavored soda?
• Have a small cup of pickle-flavored soda OR a small cup of mustard-flavored soda?
• Have a spoonful of apple-pineapple-sweet potato combination baby food OR a spoonful of ham baby food?
• Brush your teeth with Ooze candy gel (sour flavored) OR brush your teeth with baking soda?
• Drink Kool-Aid with Toxic Waste candy or Kool-Aid with Pop Rocks Popping candy?
• Eat Toxic Waste candy or Smog Balls Sour candy?
• Have two balloons containing glitter popped over your head or five water balloons thrown at you?
• Wear syrup socks for the rest of the  game OR have your toes spray painted?
• Have a rubber band snapped on your wrist OR get a rat's tail (wet towel) smack on your back?
• On your next turn, do both challenges OR let some one choose which challenge you have to do?
• Have live crickets put down your shirt for 30 seconds OR get tickled for 30 seconds?
• Have others play Tic-tac-toe on the bottom of your foot with a pen or have someone draw on your face with a washable marker?

The table of torture

Flour being popped on Elijah's head

Pop of glitter!

Glitter man

Tim's been floured

Sprayed painted toes

I got the ice water challenge

They loved drawing on Dad's face.

Maple syrup socks

They were hard to get on.

The crickets

It took just over an hour to get through all the challenges. It went much better than I thought it would and only Rebekah used her free pass. I can't blame her. I wouldn't have wanted to be tickled or have crickets down my shirt, either. Tim got the honor of having the crickets down his shirt. What a brave guy! There were no tears or angry refusals. A success!!

If you want to do something like this, tailor it to your family. The soda and candy was mostly found at a huge candy store we have in town called Rockets, but many of them could be found at Cracker Barrel. 

Elijah got a  new ukulele for his birthday, much to his delight.

He wanted donuts instead of cake for his birthday treat, and we had Chicken and Dumpling Family Meal Basket takeout from Cracker Barrel for dinner. We also played a rousing game of Uno with advanced rules.

I do intend to keep blogging after my kids are fully graduated. However, it will probably be more themed or event based like this post with less frequent updates. I will probably still post on Friday or Saturday.

Blessings, Dawn

A Plan Forming for Next Year

The last two weeks have sped past. Rebekah is nearing the end of her high school years. I ordered her graduation announcements and diploma. We are looking for a  picnic shelter in a park to reserve for her graduation party. It is getting very real, and we are feeling lots of emotions around here. While it is an exciting time, it is  also a bit bittersweet. The end of my homeschooling career is very close. I am entering a new phase with less clear guidelines and boundaries. To the outside world, I will simply look like a stay at home mother to four grown kids (two of which aren't launching very fast or at all). It is a tricky time of redefining myself to the outside world who seems to think that I should be racing out into the workforce to do something meaningful. Yes, I have heard that from several people, as if the last 23 years of homeschooling hasn't been meaningful and the very most important thing I could have done with my life. (Not to mention, in my humble opinion, the lack of stay at home parents in children's lives is a major reason we have so many issues in this country.) I feel completely content and certain that my time has been well spent. Fortunately, so do the family members closest to me. In reality, I am not returning to work for a good while yet (if I can help it). I am still very much needed here on the home front. 

Rebekah completed her art project for her college course. She had to follow certain parameters and use photoshop software for the first time. It was a big learning curve, but her piece came out great. It is called Mother Nature and Father Time.

In other huge news ~ Rebekah auditioned and was accepted to a professional training program at a dance academy here in town. The professional program is new and  has two art directors from Ballet West (a famous dance academy and company in Salt Lake City) who have joined the academy. The new directors are amazing and have created a professional training program for teens and college age dancers that will begin in the fall. She will be training upwards of 30 hours a week and will have opportunities to perform in multiple shows and dance competitions. Depending on her goals in a year or so, they can also help her find and audition for dance companies throughout the United States. We are so proud of her and I am so happy that she can remain living at home while she follows her passion at least for another year or so. She has decided to take a gap year or longer from college to give her all to dance. I couldn't agree more. I have been talking about a gap year for a long time. It just isn't possible to work (which is necessary), attend college and dance so many hours a week and still stay emotionally/physically healthy. She finally saw it my way. She will continue to work in the mornings and dance in the afternoons (six days a week). For the first time in more than six years, she will have most of her evenings off. 

We celebrated my mother's birthday this week. We went for a walk down by the river and then ate dinner and cake at home. We also played the adult version of HeadBanz, which was lots of fun. It was harder then the original version, with characters like Napoleon and George Bush, etc. We had a blast!

Elijah did lots of work at Grandma's home this past two weeks. She is finding him to be very helpful. He is also working some at home. He is a bit slower and distracted for me, so I am having him work for her more often. He did learn how to use a tiller at home and how to prepare our garden for planting. For us, Elijah has painted doors, fixed loose doorknobs, did landscaping, decluttered the cedar storage closet, maintained the cats' nails and maintained their grooming, as well as performed his regular daily chores. Their medieval sword play group has returned to playing a few hours on Sunday. Tim and Elijah are overjoyed and come home worn out, sweaty and filled with funny stories of their adventurous battles. It is all good!

I will leave you with a cute picture of our sweet and crazy clowder. Why can't they ever be cute on a fully made bed?

Blessings, Dawn

Easter, Covid Birthday Take Two and Accomplishments

We woke to a beautiful Easter morning. We had a very sweet breakfast display of treats and nibbled away at it. We ended up packing most of it up for desserts for the week. We just don't eat that much sugar around here. We then packed a picnic and headed out for Hickory (a town a little over an hour away). We were planning to visit and art museum which had told us was open on Easter Sunday. We were surprised, but headed out. Turns out it was closed when we arrived. I guess a volunteer or otherwise uninformed person had answered the phone.  But, we enjoyed the grounds and ate our lovely lunch. 

David and Grandma at the fully vaccinated table.

Since we had come all that way, we looked for an alternative and settled on a hike up Baker's mountain. We didn't put enough research into it and accidently started off on the hardest trail (we found out afterward). Grandma gave up very early in and headed back to the parking lot and some nice rocking chairs she had spotted. The rest of us forged on thinking that we were from the mountains and used to steep trails and it was only a bit over a half mile. This one was much harder, steeper then we were used too and filled with slippery rocks. It seemed like a mile straight up. Did I mention we forgot to bring water and that I had only had a few sips of liquid at lunch? Oy! 

We did make it to the top. Elijah laid down at the top and proclaimed that the view was not that stunning. We after all could have seen a more stunning view from the car on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I must admit I couldn't disagree with him. But, it was a relief to make it. We tried to spin the adventure to the top as a family challenge that we had conquered the mountain. That was mostly met with teen eye rolls. 

  The way down wasn't much easier and we were terribly thirsty and overheated. I turned beet red and became hot to the touch. My husband became alarmed that I was going into heatstroke. I must admit that I felt pretty awful and nauseous. His military training kicked in and he got us down and safely back to the car. So Easter was a true adventure and left us all grateful to be home safe and sound in the end. 

Tim had his second birthday in "quarantine" this week. We enjoyed our time outdoors playing darts for the first time. That was really fun and we will be doing it again soon. We also had barbeque and carrot cake. We enjoyed a bonfire and presents at the end. It was a lovely evening. Three of us (including grandma) are now fully vaccinated. Tim get's his second shot next week and the teens are scheduled for their first shots on Monday. 

All the Rest ~ Elijah has been earning money around the house and at Grandma's. He is strengthening skills and learning to work more steadily without breaks. Much past an hour is really a challenge for him. This week he put together some furniture, replaced outlet covers, helped lay a stick down tile floor, put allergy covers on a mattress and general cleaning. 

Rebekah continued to  plug away at school and work, applied for another scholarship and worked on her Depop  store. She was also asked if she could work more hours at the consignment shop after another employee quit on the spot. Since she only has two subjects left, she increased her hours to 25 hours a week for now.  Her boss is grateful and she is grateful to be able to sock more money into savings. 

Spring is here. I hope you all have a blessed week.

Blessings, Dawn

Taking Care of Myself

In the past two weeks, I have been feeling more sad and gloomy than usual. I am a pretty positive person and generally bounce back from gloomy moods pretty quickly (like within hours), but that hasn't been the case recently. I am not sure if I was run down or just struggling with all the changes I see ahead. However, it was time to get me back to a healthy mental state. Thus, we started operation Get Mom Back on Track this week. We started the week off with a beautiful Sunday picnic and walk along the river. Rebekah Anne went all out and packed our "picnic" china dishes. My husband stopped and picked up dessert at our favorite bakery. It was lovely.

We walked our city's labyrinth twice this week. I used to take my littles to walk this same labyrinth when they were really out of sorts. It worked well to help balance them. You are forced to walk slower and just follow the pattern which tends to bring one's breathing and blood pressure down. I also prioritized taking my two mile walks everyday. I always feel better when I get a good walk.

Instead of the more serious books I tend to read, I picked a children's chapter book to read this week, because I just needed a bit of fun and whimsy. I also made it a priority to get into bed by 10 pm and actually made it most nights. Lastly, I added back in my supplement, Holy Basil, which has always helped my mood. I had taken a few weeks off from taking it. I am feeling much more myself this Saturday morning. I will have to keep up the good work of taking care of myself. 

I have started formulating a plan to help Elijah break down the growing up process. We told him that for the next short while, he has to work two hours a day on career exploration, working for Grandma at $11 an hour and working on getting his learner's permit or exploring the bus system. He is also welcome to apply for jobs that we/he finds that might be a good fit. My hope is that adding in a bit of money to his life will help him get used to using his debit card, knowing how much money he has, managing and maybe even saving his money a bit more. I also want him to go back to having a daily routine and doing work that he may not love, but brings him some value (money, self worth). I am not sure how long we are going to do this plan, but we will do it at least until he gets vaccinated. If it goes on for more than a handful of weeks, we will have to increase the hours per day and get him used to more sustained work. 

He did apply for a job at Starbucks this week and has not heard from them. I am biding my time waiting for his standards to come down. I have been told by others that our local chain grocery store is always hiring and really does hire young people with no experience all the time and treats them well. Employees are also able to set their own hours within reason. We rarely shop in the chain store because it is more expensive and has less organics than the other three stores I shop at. He has resisted this store because his estranged sister (Katie) works in the one we frequent most often, plus it is downtown and has an urban gangster vibe. Next week we will be visiting some of the ones out in the suburbs so he can see that many of the stores are newer and nicer. I also saw that two other grocery stores in our area were hiring, and I had heard really nice things about one of them. We visited both of those this week. Elijah liked both of them and was surprised how clean and nice the one was despite it also being downtown. He also appreciated that everyone was wearing their masks properly. He is a real mask stickler and gets very upset when he sees people not following the rules. We have two major industries here, medical and tourism. I pointed out that both stores were on the "rich" side of town and that I had really noticed that the more educated and richer folks in our city who tend to be in the medical world were generally much more compliant with mask wearing. Actually, most of the residents in our city are doing very well with mask compliance. It is mostly the tourists who come in and just don't want to follow the rules.

We treated ourselves to this tart at one of the grocery stores. I realized that we rarely grocery shop as a family, and I wanted Elijah to get a more personal experience with some of the departments. Grocery stores have so many different jobs in them. 

April is almost here. I am ready to say good-bye to March. I always find it one of the dreariest months of the year. 

Lastly, Tim got his first Covid vaccine this week, and I can sign Elijah and Rebekah up on the waitlist on the 31st of March. The waitlist is getting faster now and only seems to take two to three weeks. We are making progress!

Blessings, Dawn

Thoughts of a Mom about Her Special Needs Teen

This post may be a bit of a jumble, because my thoughts are a jumble right now. In fact, I think I will just put my thoughts into bullet points and leave it at that. 

• Living with a household of people who have executive functioning delays is exhausting (my two sons and a bit from other family members who are just developing or overwhelmed with their lives and need support).
• Executive functioning skill deficits are especially evident when you are trying to make changes.
• I feel that I am sharing my brain with three or four other people much of the time. 
• Many people with FASD have average or above average intellectual abilities, as is true with my son, but still struggle with executive skills, social communication, self-regulation and adaptive skills.
• All of these qualities are important for adulting and my son struggles a great deal with all of them. 
• I wish there was a really good online or in-person support group. Even the FASD Facebook support group is mostly a whine fest. There just isn't much useful information on it most of the time.
• I wish my son could accept FASD as part of his being, so we could openly talk about it without it becoming a shouting match if his special needs are brought up.
• I wish he could accept outside support in a constructive way.
• I fiercely love my son and see so many wonderful qualities in him! I wish he could feel and absorb how wonderful he is instead of dwelling on his deficits (yet not admitting that there is a reason for those deficits and that something could be done about it...instead, calling himself stupid or a jerk, which gets us nowhere).
• How do you help someone manage their deficits without always pointing them out which just lowers their self-esteem and doesn't improve their deficits anyway?
• Vocational Rehabilitation failed us and I am still mourning that fact. I will get over it soon.
• Some research for FASD says to take 4 to 7 years off a person's age to get a more appropriate developmental age. 
• That would place my son at 11 to 14 years old.
• You certainly wouldn't expect an 11 to 14 year old to work an adult job.
• However, you would expect an 11 to 14 year old to have constructive days that lead to development.
• Maybe I should review the development of an 11 to 14 year old boy. 
• I feel like we have been on a summer break for a year with both of my sons. There has been limited growth and yet...
• In some ways they have grown a great deal. I see subtle improvements and growth in attitude, work ethic and relationships. But they are small and might not be noticeable to those who do not live with them.
• Are my current goals for Elijah too big? Do I need to cut them down into smaller bites? 
• I need to worry less about what the world expects and have more confidence myself.

Like I said, there is a lot jumbling around in my brain. So far, Elijah hasn't gotten past applying for jobs on the Internet and being rejected for unknown reasons. I think the market is flooded with much more experienced people and that he is striving for jobs in companies that are too glamorous or desirable because of their pay and environment. The process is stressing him out so much that it is very debilitating and takes over the day, even when we only spend an hour or two looking for jobs.

On the bright side -- My husband was struggling to put up crown molding in our hallway which was only partly done when we moved in years ago. I suggested that we have Elijah give it a try, since he has remarkable visual spatial skills. Sure enough, he had the crown molding up in a matter of hours. It isn't perfect or professional, but with a bit of caulking and paint, it will be more than good enough for me. We are paying him 11 dollars an hour for the job and looking at others that he can do.

Salem was very eager to help. She is such a curious kitten.

I got my first Pfizer vaccine this week, because I am a caregiver of a medically-fragile adult. That is a huge relief. I get the second shot on Tim's birthday. Tim is now on the county's waitlist. I hope they will call soon. Now I need to get the rest of my family signed up as soon as they are allowed. We might just have a vacation this summer after all.

Blessings, Dawn