Pity Party: Table for One

Spring is usually my favorite time of year; the sun is shining more and more, the temperatures are warm but, not too hot and so on. This year, I’m not enjoying it as much.

First off, I’m still recovering from my sprained back. It’s a slow process and I am a very impatient person. I spend much of my time “resting.” I’m so done with it but, every time I add a bit of work to my schedule, I start to feel it and I have to rest again. I need to be the tortoise in this race and not the hare.

Meanwhile, I’m well enough to start my normal schedule again but I find that I’m exhausted. Then it dawned on me that I’m still dealing with mono. I had actually forgotten about it because I have been feeling pretty good overall. Except that I was feeling great because I was resting so much. With my back injury, I spend a lot of time laying around, not doing much so, my body felt rested. Now that I’m back to my (somewhat) normal schedule, I’m tired and running fevers again. It’s May now and I feel like I’ve been sick for the entire year because there is always something going on health wise in this house.  I’m so sick of it but, I’m stuck with it.

This time of year brings the added stresses of the approaching end-of-the-school-year. E actually did state-mandated standardized testing for the first time, which covers Math and English. We weren’t sure how it would go because he’s never had to take one before. Our previous end-of-school-year process involved putting together a portfolio of work, to show his progress over the year. I thought that was hard but, the stress I had for him for these tests was way worse. They covered one subject each day and had 5 hours to complete the questions. The first day was English and E was done in an hour. He was the first one done. The next day was Math (his favorite subject) and he was done in 20 minutes. Again, the first one done. He felt that he did his best, which is really all I care about but, I am still anxious to learn his score, just to see if I’ve done my job well this year. I know it isn’t that big of a deal because he’s only in 3rd grade and can easily move forward or backward to cover his needs, but I’m still nervous. After testing on both days, he had major sensory meltdown issues from his own nerves. The first day he was very hyper and loud. The second day he was mellow and low-key, and was nauseated all day. Poor kid.

We know C has been identified as a 2E (Twice Exceptional) child but we still don’t know exactly what else we are dealing with. What we do know is that, so far, all the time he spent attending public school caused sensory overload and he needs time to decompress from this overload. It’s almost like he needs to detox his body from the stress. However, this will take time to do. He was under intense sensory overload for about 7 months, so we can’t expect it to be better overnight. The result is that he has a very hard time focusing and getting any work done at home. For home school, we have enough to satisfy the weekly requirements, but he’s not being challenged at this point to try harder. He just couldn’t handle that and honestly his teacher doesn't get it.

For C, being in Kindergarten, there is no state testing so, we have to work on an end-of-year portfolio. The struggle I’m facing is that I’ve only had him home for about a month. For most of the school year, he was actually in school. Now, I have only so many worksheets and activities to choose from to present in his end-of-the-year portfolio and the due date is fast approaching. (In fact, I really should be working on that instead of posting, but I’m a procrastinator.) The school wants the students to pick a work sample and then do a self reflection on each work sample for each subject. A 6 year old in sensory overload is only going to answer "I don't know" to everything.

Added to the end of school stresses, we have our remodel to deal with. We still are waiting for our permits but, we want to be prepared to hit the ground running as soon as they’re issued. The problem is that I’m not allowed (physically) to bend and lift objects over about 20 pounds. In fact, I can’t even bend/stretch forward right now while my back sprain is healing. That means all this prep work falls on the hubs and the poor guy is so busy. He’s busy with his daily out-of-the-house job, then doing the housework and yard maintenance that I can’t get done, and now all this extra prep work. There are only so many hours in a day and he needs his sleep!

Waiting is not my strong suit and this whole process is killing me inside a little every day. Under normal circumstances, I would have already started moving the firewood out of the construction zone, prepped and started building the storage shed we bought to hold our stuff during the remodel, and work on my office. Oh, how I am excited to have my office back! I used to have it set up so nice. It was “my” room; a space that could be as girlie (or not) as I chose; a place where I could shut the door and distance myself from the chaos of the house. A little more than a year ago, the boys got to a point where they needed separate rooms for a while so, I gave up that space and we put C in that room. It was small, with only enough room for his bed and a dresser, but he was thrilled. They still played in the bigger room, but they each had their own space to retreat to. After the remodel, they will still have their own rooms but, during the remodel, we needed to move them back in together so that my office space could house our pantry that would, otherwise, be in the construction zone.

It's all wheels within wheels, and waiting. Our contractor is waiting on the permits and the excavators, the excavators are waiting on the weather and their schedule, and so on. However, much of that waiting time has passed while I’ve been recuperating, and now I have the anxiety and stress that comes with needing a schedule but not having it set yet.

So, with all this stress and anxiety, to be in the warm sun, safely soaking up the vitamin D, would be a wonderful relief. However, everywhere I turn there is work to be done that I can’t do. On top of that, my two boys are afraid of bugs. E has a phobia of bees which has led to a fear of bugs in general, and any bug he sees, he considers huge. C has picked up on this and now he too has a “fear” of bugs, unless he’s around his best friend. This friend is an outdoors kid; I love it. It really helps C get over his “fear” because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed to be afraid. I’m all for it. The more they are together, the tougher C seems. It’s really amusing; positive peer-pressure. However, his buddy attends public school so they have limited time together. In the meantime, I’m basically stuck in the house, anxious over things I can’t control and hunting down tiny bugs that may or may not be in the house.