I got a card in the mail Saturday from one of the kids old social workers from our state. It made me feel nauseous. It was just a thinking of you card but...
I was puttering along just fine pulling my house back together when it felt like a ton of bricks had hit me. All my projects scattered throughout the house mid way through... it's a train wreck here. I am rearranging my room, rearranging the kids rooms to move them into separate areas. I'm also still staining and polying my desk and the new kitchen table. The big round one that is supposed to encourage sharing, teamwork, and equality.
The computer/game room is a disaster. I'm pulling Hubbins' computer and desk out of there and moving it into our room and setting up that room as a classroom with computers and everything.
With my RA flare ups, I have to do as much as I can while I can still move because in most cases I lose like three days. Not to mention the fact that mornings are pure sluggish hell for me to be able to get my body to do anything.
I don't plan to start school for my kids until after labor day and end in mid June. They've been working all summer on math and reading and are going to get a break, even if it doesn't coincide with the other schools in the area.
I guess what all this amounts to is I feel fear. I know if they were to come here they would not be happy. They would not like the way I am raising my kids nor would they understand it. They would not like the condition of my home. Even though I am obviously working on things and making changes. Some how, in the past, it seems I was expected to snap my fingers and get things done.
I hate this. I hate it with everything. I am tired of being judged. I hate having to open up my home to the judgement ( Hubbins' also has a caseworker who makes visits.) I want my privacy back and I want to be able to work on my home and feel secure. If I can't feel this in my own home where am I supposed to be able to feel it at?
I KNOW I am probably blowing things out of proportion but a huge part of how my house ended up like this was trying to hide clutter and stacks of paperwork (that I hadn't been able to get to) from the social workers to begin with. My house was pristine when the kids came and as they got comfortable my house began to look, well, like kids lived here. There was constant comments about the clutter, when before there was comments about the neatness and how I did it with 5 kids and taking care of Hubbins.
I'm trying to pull it together. I really am. We've outgrown this house and there is nothing I can do about it but organize and unfortunately with organization, at least as far as I know in my own case, comes what may look like destruction before the end result. Ya know?
If anybody would be a good judge of my home, it would be Hubbins' home health nurses who come out twice a week. I was embarrassed to have them come to my house but as projects are being completed they notice and tell me how well it's going. They also know that I am the only one doing things around here and that I am just one person and they tell me so. One of the nurses did foster care for special needs kids in the past so she knows the drill. Of course, they also see the new projects that take the place of old projects too. I joked with them last time that maybe I would have a project done when they came this coming week.
Do any of you guys feel this way or do you not have this problem?
6 comments:
I can so relate! I am trying real hard to not get any others started until I can get a few finished. It is really hard though.
What I hate is how often they undo what you have done before you can get it all the way done. Like the staging gets dismantled. all the things in the cue get mixed up.
I thought I would de-lurk... I read all the time, and I'm sorry I haven't posted.
I have Cerebral Palsy and it amazes me how well you do looking after Hubbins and all the kids...
I hope it's okay that I read for so long without commenting...
If you had seen some of the houses I've been in you wouldn't worry a bit about the way yours looks.
My husband and I invested in real estate back in the 80s when we got married. Some of the properties we looked at were in horrible condition. You wouldn't believe people were actually living there, let alone that they were trying to sell the places so one would imagine they had made some minimal effort to tidy up.
One place, that hubby and I refer to The Cockroach Experimental Breeding Facility was so nasty that we stripped off all our clothes in the garage when we got home (fun times!), bagged everything, including our shoes, and placed it on the curb for the trash man to dispose of. We still felt yukky after taking long, hot showers.
Another place that we called Chateau Dogshit had heaps of dog shit all over the rugs. The people had four dogs and never walked them. They just stepped around the piles of poo,
Then there was the House of Cats. The smell was so bad that it seemed to have an actual physical presence. I swear I was still smelling it a day later.
Those are a few highlights but really, there are some disgusting houses out there. I'm sure yours is not that bad, plus you have all those kids and everyone knows that kids produce mess.
Donetta- I've tried to stop starting anything new too because my projects seem to take on a life of their own...new table sand/stain/poly...now led to 6 new chairs sand/stain/poly...etc... because we had a counter height table set up and now that Hubbins' wheelchair is lower we are switching back to a normal height table...and boy the kids are good at touching and moving things...drives me up the wall.
Ashley -Welcome to my blog. Sure it's okay for you to read my blog without commenting. It's nice to hear from you though. I read a lot of blogs and don't comment. The only people I don't want here are the kids bio parents. lol
Miz- Wow... my house is nothing like that. I mean I have pets and stuff but still. Mainly stacks of homeschool papers, mail, papers to file, dirt ( I live in the desert with out an air conditioner, that's another story in itself, but the windows are always open.) No roaches, no shizz, nothing like that.
Just paper clutter and clean laundry stacks, books everywhere, and still about 10 boxes not unpacked from the whole "we are buying a house, oops, not anymore..." incident.
Right now I have the staining projects going...they are huge and take so long because each step needs to dry, etc...I wish I had a garage.
right now my house is a flat out disaster.
When Nana was here I was running around taking care of her...plus trying as much as I could to be on 'bedrest' while there was a revolving door of people in and out of the house.
I have done very little for the last month and you can tell! Its awful. It had been spotless since we moved in, but over the summer I completely lost control.
I'm going to do flylady to try and get back in control.
I know exactly what you mean!!!!!
With all the animals, and the "drowning in pee", and the fact that DH doesn't do much, and DD helps, but not enough....the house is always a shambles....things don't get done, there just isn't time!
And I don't have RA at all, either.
But....DD's therapist, who has special needs kids of her own, told me once, "Sometimes it's a "good" day just because nobody died and nobody went to jail." And she's an expert!
Oh. And she also told me that when she feels like things are out of control, she always makes sure she has milk in the fridge, because if CPS came to her house, the first thing they would look for would be milk in the fridge :-)
Not sure if that's the truth, and I'm not convinced things ever get that bad there, but you and I are just novices compared to her....so I think we're doing ok....
(I love DD's therapist)
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