Crazy Straws

The harping about the importance of a RAD child "sucking" "with their cheecks" on a bottle is about to end. I promise. I remembered from somewhere that it can be helpful for them to use a crazy straw like you will see here. Because of yet again, the sucking motion. Now why I did not figure out that J had to "suck" on the bottle is still beyond me. Brain fart I suppose. So now I'm incorporating the crazy straws back onto the dinner table. We did it for about a month a year or so ago but I am dragging them back out of the booby-trapped drawer in the kitchen.

Really increasing J's baby time right now as she is still struggling and it seems to be very calming and soothing to her. G seems to think it's ridiculous and will not even sit in the same room while we have baby time but that's ok too. Reading to her while she's soaking in a salt/soda bath is calming as well. She sleeps soooo much better after a salt/soda bath. That is 1 lb sea salt and 1 lb baking soda which is about 2 cups of each.

Friday and yesterday were especially hard but trudging through as best we can.

Post Therapy

While therapy was a challenge yesterday...A. Big. Challenge. Great improvements since though. Count them...5 restraints. J was pretty scared too. Both of us and I am sure, Kristy too, were very tired afterwards. At the end it is customary for J to thank Kristy for helping her get the yuckies out yesterday she added..."Thank you for holding me too" because she was trying to hurt herself so much.

Home for lots of baby time with warm, chocolate, goat milk after a salt/soda bath. She was exhausted, as was I. After she was tucked in I fell in the bed shortly thereafter. Pooped puppy I was.... Could've slept till noon.

I prescribed lots of laughter to Jessi this morning as laughter always makes it harder for the yuckies to stick. More unschooling going on too and she has no idea that she is learning so much. Sssshhhh...it's a secret....don't tell her or she'll quit.

The fairy came to sprinkle her last night so she was very quickly enamored this morning when she saw all the fairy dust. That darn fairy! She just shows up out of nowhere! ;-)

She is getting better at her yoga poses that Kristy suggested to help her find her center. Mountain is easy of course but the tree pose is much harder. For me too...but I am learning that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks!

Thanks to each of you for all of your support. You really don't know how much I appreciate all of you. It's hard living in a RAD world at times but having great friends like you helps heaps!

It's Wednesday!!!!

Yesterday J did well all day with Jessi then as soon as I walked in the door....BOOM! Restraint time again. Really upping the ante for her and keeping her right by my side All.The.Time.

Well...the good news is J did well in the Reiki session last night and this morning was started without a restraint. Yeah! Salt/baking soda bath and baby time after session.

I am always excited about Wednesday's because it's THERAPY DAY!!! Woo hoo! Doing a little happy dance! A big session is planned today. Chris is coming to do Reiki and we'll start the session off with all 3 of us doing Reiki on her. I just dropped off the Reiki table at Kristy's office so that J won't have a clue.

There's alot I can't explain here but I am asking you to trust me and to pray that a large amount of yuckies will turn loose and leave today. Praying for miracles and expecting them.

Wishing

It's amazing to me that our Radish lives (behaviors) are so parallel. We all live in different areas of the country and yet our kids seem to be pulling out similar behaviors at the exact same time. Interesting indeed....

I have spent several days wanting and wishing to blog about some things that are happening in our household but know that I can't right now.

2 restraints unavoidable this morning. 2 restraints necessary during AT yesterday. 3 hour AT session scheduled tomorrow. Something rattling (so much that it woke me up) my (locked) bedroom door at midnight while J was sleeping soundly in her room. J's prayer has become our mantra lately and it's said on an almost hourly basis.

My Mom and more

Thanks for all the prayers. It's been really appreciated.
Come to find out Mom's regular doctor prescribed a diuretic to go along with her blood pressure meds since her b/p meds haven't been working as well. This is a BIG problem because my mother has another condition that makes her have to drink water All.The.Time. (honestly...that's what her heart dr prescribed). If she doesn't drink water constantly she immediately passes out. She melts like a puddle onto the floor. So it goes without saying the diuretics were working against having to drink all the water so her sodium level bottomed out. By the time my dad got her to the hospital her b/p was 195/124. Very scary! They gave her an additional med to go with her b/p meds and told her to drink nothing but pedialyte or gatorade and eat extra salt. Today she goes to her heart dr and I am hoping she will inquire about a regular physician that will COMMUNICATE with her heart DR!

On the home front, we are still struggling. J is struggling with losing Chrissi and some days it drives me bonkers. Pushing to get in lots of baby time (remembering that she has to suck on the bottle) and snuggle time. Also using crazy straws with her mealtime drinks which is helpful for the sucking motions for her brain too.

I am still struggling because I. Miss. Chrissi. She was my daughter and friend for a year and now she is on another continent and it HURTS. Chrissi is not doing too well herself and is struggling too.

Lots of stress going on to with John having heart surgery, my aunt dying, then my mom, I've had the flu or some silliness. I am tired folks. Linda put it well here.

By 8:30 this AM I already had a phone call this morning that J was trying to be mean to Puddin, then threw a holy roller meltdown with the beating of the walls, doors, etc.

It is Monday.

Please Pray

Please pray for my mother. My dad is on the way to the hospital taking her to the emergency room. We think she may have a blockage in her heart. She has been going downhill fast this week. I am so scared. Leaving now to go to the hospital.

Puny

Thanks for the emails but I am really puny right now and just don't feel like typing. Just a very bad cold. Plus I miss Chrissi. Chrissi's sad, we're sad....we're all a sad lot at the moment. We were supposed to talk on Skype Monday night but I just felt too much like crap. Would've let J talk with her but I feel so yucky that I just didn't think I was up to managing behaviors.

God bless Chris....she did Reiki on me too last night. Weird stuff with J's session and really bad behavior afterwards.

I'll be back....just got to start feeling a little better.

Progress

Chrissi left yesterday and J had appropriate sadness and cried a lot off and on for the rest of the evening. Only a RAD mom would be so excited that their kid was sad. This is really great progress for J. I did lots of holdings with her yesterday and baby time (now that I know important it is that she SUCK on the bottle instead of chewing it) with chocolate goat milk (you already know that most RAD kids are allergic to bovine milk/cheese and it doesn't mimic lactose intolerance but meltdowns/behaviors instead) and chocolate oatmeal cookies. When you're sad you can never have too much chocolate. ;-)

Lordy I was sad to see Chrissi go home. Hugs at the airport and pictures made then I had to turn and start walking before I lost it in the middle of the airport. I sure do love that child and she was such a wonderful blessing for us this past year. She will be back to America of that I am sure. Probably before she expects to. She's going to have a hard time with a lot of things but she will persevere because she is not a quitter. Yes...Chrissi....I know that you are reading this so get out your American dictionary and look up persevere. ;-) Ok...enough about Chrissi cause I'm about to start crying again. :-(

Jessi is only going to let J have fun for the rest of the week to help her cope some with Chrissi leaving. A plan formed by AT, Chris & I and I think it's a good one. Jessi knows that if she's having a really hard time to bring her to my office so that we can cuddle and I can console her. I sure do wish I could be at home today. Friday afternoon 4:15 our time and 10:15 Chrissi's time we'll be talking on Skype. Thank God for Skype! If you don't know about it you need to check it out. All you need is a webcam with a microphone and you talk for FREE long distance anywhere with anyone else who has Skpye. It's in real time and it's a wonderful way to keep in touch with loved ones and the bonus is to be able to see them too. Check out www.skype.com.

Chrissi, J has carried Bo Peep everywhere and is convinced (hoping) you'll be here for a visit at Christmas! Selfishly wishing you were here too.

Winding down -edited

Emergency attachment therapy with Kristy (AT) yesterday proved to be very helpful. While there it was discovered that since we've uncovered all these new demons J is having another internal struggle believing that I will not give up on her. Her energy was flipped again and Kristy was able to flip it again. Here is a direct quote from AT to Chris on the other blog we keep to just focus on therapies:

Lisa will probably want to add to this, but the session was very positive. We worked on straightening out J's energy; she was able to relate to being afraid her awesome mom might not be able to handle the evil yuckies (and her fear is higher, so her basic fear of not trusting her care-giver - awesome mom - is ratcheted up). She received reassurance from mom.

When Lisa first adopted J, J would eat other people's food and restaurant food, but not Lisa's food. Lisa took her for mexican before our appt, just to see, and J gobbled up her food. We processed this as well. Then we did some regressive work with J sitting in mom's lap, being fed warm, soft cookies with a baby spoon and drinking apple juice. It was hard for J to maintain eye contact with Lisa, but she did relax and I thought the energy/aura around her was much more peaceful than I have seen in awhile.

She is still really scared and as a result gets giddy/silly when we work on the heart connection with Lisa. But, at the end of the session her energy was strong and more focused and she was determined, at least for tonight to be strong, good and kind to her awesome mom. We called on AA Michael and J called on her angel, Sarial, who brought her thousands and will stay with her all night holding her hand.

I did regressive (bottle feeding & spoon feeding) while cradling ALOT when J first arrived but thought she was past it as it no longer had the great affect. I still do regressive work with J at home albeit not near enough and I am going to make a concerted effort to do this more often right now. Kristy also pointed out that it's VERY important that J SUCK on the bottle's nipple to get the juice out rather than chew on the nipple. It is REALLY important for her brain to suck while looking in my eyes. I did not know that. Just assumed that it was ok to do this. Point taken and correction made.

Chris has given her a new prayer to say to the yuckies:

“ 'I am a child of God. You will not influence me any longer. You are no longer welcome. You must leave. I command this in the name of God and in the name of Jesus Christ.' ”


"Say this 3 times whenever she seems to be at her worst. Say it also, three times, before she retires in the evening and once she awakens in the morning – before anything else. It is important that you keep commanding, as opposed to demanding.

There are more details to this prayer that I'm not going to blog about here but Texas Mary & Gerri, you know what I'm talking about.

J now has the prayer memorized as we worked diligently on it last night.

We are winding down to Chrissi's last days in America. We will leave to take her to the airport at lunch on Monday. Sad to see her go but it is the best for all of us and I know she's excited to see her family. Her family is going to be shocked at what an independent woman she has become.
I am taking avantage of the last days by taking a break this weekend so that I can come back recharged & revitalized.

More winding down in that my aunt, Cheryl (father's sister) is now in a coma and it's only a matter of hours that she has yet to fight.

John is still in CCU and waiting to see if the doctors can come up with a plan.

To end on a high note I discovered this site by total accident. The 30 Day Gourmet is a woman after my own heart. I have been making and freezing meals from all my favorite recipes for years now to make life easier. Folks....I even freeze mashed potatoes!!! So why bother getting this cook book??? Because I loved that she had grocery lists that I can download (keep me from having to write All.That.Stuff.), ways to organize my freezer meals and that she had a wonderful set of freezer lunches that can be used for kids that go to brick and mortar schools and working parents. I'm going to try doing the latter and save some money on lunches. She even has some vegetarian meals I'm going to try. It's wonderful to be able to have a REAL dinner on the table in 15 minutes or less and it'll be even better to have some new freezable recipes. So if you want a huge timesaver give this a try. She led me to another site that had wonderful ideas on frozen breakfast because that's when I really stress. Trying to have a healthy, filling breakfast and get me out the door to work at the same time. I may have to put another freezer on my wish list. :-)

Don't hit publish before you finish

My butt is draggin and I am tired. I know J is going through some stuff. I am not going to quit on her or the therapies that I KNOW will help her in the long run. Nope. Even though I know it would make it easier right now. I am not a quiter. But I am butt draggin tired and frustrated and sad (probably mad too if I'm REALLY honest) and just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I am soooo out of patience but I try not to show it to the princess.

Last night when we got home after AT and she walked in the door in front of me saying, "Iggy goes first!" On the inside I said, "oh no she just didn't!!!!) (Iggy is her pet name that I call her that is short for Ignoramus since she STILL isn't going to school and NO she has no idea what it means and I don't use it in a sarcastic tone of voice. Sometimes it's Wiggy Iggy when she's wigging out.) She got the pleasure of sitting outside in our glorious fall weather for a bit. Again...patience has left the building.

This morning she threw a screaming, kicking fit on Jessi and I am thankful Jessi didn't get hurt. G goes over to my house and tries to talk her in his Oh J is soooo pitiful voice. Now J....we don't hit our teacher....we need to go to school now honey.....now let's just see if we can do what the teacher says for just an hour sweetie.... Wonder what part of "we" did that???? For 30 minutes she was actually able to follow Jessi's directions but she never made it school. *heavy sigh*
Y'all did notice that I wasn't in on any of that right????

I'm so scattered I hit post before I was through.

J is now refusing to eat again and refusing to poop again. Control on crack is what I'm talking about.

A very dear friend of mine was supposed to have a heart cath done yesterday. Dr's refused to do it. The whole bottom of his heart is blocked, he has blockages in his legs and emphysema. Doing more tests today. Before this happened he was already running on only 40% of his heart due to damage from a botched heart surgery 15 years ago.

This morning J was all of sorts. Couldn't do power sitting to save her life. Couldn't find her good attitude either. When I left to go to work she still couldn't find either. That's an hour of struggle. A morning filled with lovely (I'm being facetious here) devil inspired "I'm waiting on you to turn your head so I can kill you and drink your blood" looks from my dear child.

I have no idea how "babysitting" (formerly known as school) time went because you know I gave that up. I do know that it was pretty darn ugly for Chrissi yesterday afternoon. G came over for dinner. He had bought some beautiful filet mignon's that just lit up my carnivorous life. I threw them on the grill and Chrissi had baked potatoes so life was complete. An hour later J is still eating. Push, push, pushing those buttons. Opening her mouth wide to let us see the masticated steer in all it's glory. Yum! Groaning, whining and complaining dramatically to all who would listen.

Thanking God that Chris got there when she did because 4 days of this unrelentless behavior was making me want to just pinch her little head off! Things were much improved after the Reiki session. During snuggle time J said, "mama, I don't want my yuckies to leave but I DO want them to leave." Trying to be understanding because I know how hard it is to give something up even though you really want to. It's become really comfortable so it's hard to release sometimes.

This morning when I went to get her up she was STILL in a deep sleep. Yahoo! No dark circles under her eyes. (She does have a long scratch across her forehead where she must have scratched herself during her sleep.) She said that she was only up to go to the bathroom one time and then went right back to sleep. J was very in control of the yuckies today. Sweet, strong, brave J was back! Very good attitude, trying hard, being helpful, etc. No more evil, "I'm going to kill you" looks.

Whew! Another storm weathered!

Oppositional Defiant

This weekend was a very (ODD) weekend for J. As all you RAD moms know that if you just tell them to do the opposite of what you actually want them to do they will do what you want. Didn't. Work.

Frustrated.

Very clingy with G. Would walk on the other side of him to keep from holding my hand, etc. Sitting next to him at breakfast.... In essence trying to push my buttons. Didn't. Work.

Yeah for me!

I was off yesterday and J stayed with Chrissi. I layed in the bed until noon (not asleep) at the lake! Gasp! Watched Gustav on CNN all morning.
At noon I finally got out of the bed at noon and dragged my sorry fanny to the couch and watched 27 Dresses. Finally got dressed at 2:30 just before G got home from work at 3. Enjoyed some quality time with him until 6ish and made it home just in time to kiss J goodnight.

Your Funnies for the Day

These were posted on a forum for RAD many months ago.


You know you're a RAD Mom when...

you suspect that the cat is limping because your child hurt his paw.

you panic when someone says your daughter is in the other room with a
baby.

you're cleaning up poop that you've found under the bed (and it's not
a pet's poop!)

you hear a child cry in the same room as your child, and you wonder
what your child did to that child.

your child goes up to strangers to ask them to buy her something
because Mom won't buy it for her. (Mom knows that she really doesn't
even want it and will destroy it anyway.)

you get upset when people give her things that you know she will just
destroy in a few minutes.

your child says she's hungry five minutes after she's eaten and makes
others believe that you're refusing to feed her.

you suspect your child of stealing whenever you can't find something
(and you're almost always right).

you don't believe the first answer your child gives you. You'll get
quite a few answers and may never get the truth from your child.

you cringe when someone (who does not know your child well) says that
you have a such a sweet child.

And you tuck your child into bed, turn on the alarm to their room and turn in yourself, locking your bedroom door behind you..............

You know you're a RAD mom when you take one child to be tested for STD after
molestation by another one and find yourself thinking, there one more task
off my to do list.....

you know you're a RAD mom when the threat of a snow day sets you into
panic..........

you know you're a RAD mom when you know all the locks, alarms and security
devices and where to find them in your area

You know you're a RAD mom when you have 4 different phone numbers to get in
touch with the therapist and have the police on speed dial!

you know you're a RAD mom when you automatically check under your child's window in search or urine or feces

you know you're a RAD mom when you've contacted the fire dept to find out what locks you can LEGALLY put on your child's windows

you know you're a RAD mom when you purposely cut down a tree because it's too close to your child's windows

you know you're a RAD mom you your child's timeline is 4x as long as yours - and you're 3x older!

You know you're a RAD mom when you know all the psychiatrists in your city
and a 30 mile radius and which ones take medicaid........

You know the names of most psychotropic drugs

You know you're a RAD mom when your money is being spent on replacing things
your child has broken, medications, shelters, attorneys, RTC's

You know you're a RAD mom when you dread holidays and birthdays........

You know you're a RAD mom when your:
*Every adult at your child's school knows him by his name and hug.

When you look at your bookcase and it's filled with books on attachment,
trauma, adoption along with other books on various learning disabilities and
a copy of Wright's Law and you have yet another book on trauma waiting in
the wings to be read!

When your friends ask you what you've been reading and you rattle off the
name of some research article and you're actually excited talking about it!

Mine:
You know you're a RAD mom when...

you find a pile of caramels vomited under her bed and don't even gag.

You're kid can projectile vomit on you from 6 feet away.

You're 5 y/o can take an entire door frame off in 10 minutes or less with her bare hands. 100+ nails

You're 7 y/o will stand looking at you and pee right on the carpet instead of walking 5 ft to use the bathroom.

You're kid looks like their head is going to spin around on their shoulders at any moment.

Now here are Torina's additions.

Still a little shaky

Things are still a little shaky but much improved over Tuesday and Wednesday. Reiki Tuesday night and AT yesterday. J's a little out of sorts and I'm trying my best to help her and most of the time she is receptive to the assistance.

Still not caring about school and she's still not going to school. Basically just rolling around on the floor from 8-12 with mini-tramp jumps every 1/2 hour or so. My kid is stubborn ya know. That's all I know and that's all I want to know. AT went just like last week where Jessi and J went in to deal with their stuff and then I went in with J for regular AT. Only 1 hour this week due to a scheduled root canal for the AT. Bless Kristy's heart. I hate only 1 hour appointments though.

Salt/soda bath again last night and I thought it was going to be a repeat of the one she had a few weeks ago. Texas Mary and Gerri....you know what I'm talking about. I was reading Little Women to her while I was sitting on the toilet (with the lid down folks). You could see it coming. The cloud came over her face and then things started getting scary. Out loud I kept calling on Jesus and Archangel Michael to remove the yuckies and help her feel better. I called for Christ to shine His light on her and into her soul. She had a bunch of crystals in the bath with her (she loves to take crystal baths), amethyst, quartz, pink quartz, etc and she started frantically grabbing all of them and putting them on her stomach. She said the crystals would protect her. She had turned beet red again in the blink of an eye. A few minutes of calling for all the angels to help her she returned to normal. Whew!

Afterwards she asked me if I would smudge the house and I did. She was asleep 15 minutes after her head hit the pillow. This morning the dark circles under her eyes were almost gone so she slept a little better at least.

Going through some stuff

I knew it was coming and trying not to blame it on the progress report but things are shaky all over here. Will blog about it later when I get my thoughts together.


On a lighter note, 12.4 inces of rain in 2 days! Yahoo!


Y'all I have an announcement to make. Drum roll please.....

My dear friend Texas Mary, (a/k/a Squeak and Mary the Mom) has FINALLY started blogging. Please give her a warm welcome and a big hug. She is an awesome woman and has lots to share so please go show her some blogger love at Muddling through Mayhem. Mary is the mom to 4 and 2 of them are little radishes.

Nice Quiet Weekend

No lake this weekend just a nice, quiet, peaceful weekend at home. No drama. I was really afraid that after my post on Friday night that she might prove me wrong. Sometimes that happens you know.... She's working on a little project in her spare time. She's writing down all the things she has to remember. It's alot! All the nitty gritty little details. Thought it would be an interesting project for those times when she wants to "involve" herself in other people's business. Cause if you think about it...when you mind your own business it's a full time job. I'll use the bathroom as an example.

1. Go to bathroom
2. Turn on light
3. Lift toilet lid
4. Sit on toilet and do your business
5. Make sure all your business is deposited into toilet
6. Check to make sure you've done all your business
7. Remember to wipe appropriate areas
8. Make sure areas are clean
9. Remember to throw tissue in toilet
10. Put toilet lid down
11. Flush
12. Apply soap to hands
13. Wash hands while singing ABC song.
14. Rinse hands
15. Dry hands
16. Turn off light

Life sure does have a lot of details when you think about it. She has been impressed with everything she has to remember too.

Reiki last night and J said 3 yuckies left. Whoo hoo!

Folks, a miracle happened here last night. It's raining! Not just a sprinkle that doesn't even leave water under the trees. A real rain. 3 inches according to my parents who live about 4 miles away! Even my poke weeds had wilted so I am sure that they're doing a little dance. Funny how weather changes the mood of people. Complete strangers in the post office this morning had little grins on their faces and were making happy comments regarding our rain.

Paring down my hyperlinks to just one today. Thought it was really cool so I had to share. I'm still so new to the blogging world so I love getting help on how to manage, etiquette, etc.

Gratitude & Comment Replies

Gerri, I do believe our girls are conspiring against us. Haven't you noticed Alyssa's on the phone with J late at night while we're peacefully sleeping? We need to be checking our phone bills. ;-0 It does seem to go in cycles. Maybe it's the moon cycle or something.

Yep, Thorn, I can wear something out. While emailing CJ a little stuff yesterday, I just discovered that you can do it in Outlook Express. Don't you feel sorry for all my email buddies now? ;-) Actually, Lauri taught me to do it several months ago. Aren't you glad you weren't reading my blog then!? I was really over the top! But then again, I am a Freak (see comments from Gerri in the last couple of days - she knows me really well). No, I'm really a Super Freak. If you're going to do something do it really big. CJ will verify that for you too!

Gratitude is the foundation for everything that I do. If hadn't been well schooled (thanks Priscilla) in gratitude before J, I don't think we'd have ever made it. I have to be really conscious of the progress that she has made and for all the little things that she's accomplished or I would've drowned in depression a long time ago. It's so easy to forget from where we come. I get lost in the drama, rages and well...just life in general if I don't make a concerted effort daily. You do NOT want to be around me if I'm not doing the gratitude list. Heck! I don't even want to be around me. It's not a pretty picture. Yuck! I keep all my lists in a journal and look back on them sometimes. Then it's really astounding! I've been remiss in posting some of our gratitude lists on here. I'm going to rectify that at the end of this post.

Torina, I am so tickled that you liked the Therapy Shoppe! It might really be a big disappointment but this therapy tool looks like it might prove to be very helpful. They had a lot of cool stuff I wish I had known about a long time ago.

Just in case you're new to my blog here's something you need to check out. This was Friday, April 4, 2008

This progress from that post to this one is this:
1. She hasn't had a true rage meltdown at all on me in months. (Notice I said "me")
2. She hasn't hit the doors or walls in months.
3. I haven't been bit, kicked, spit-on or hit in over 4 months.
4. She hasn't tried to hurt Puddin since March 2008.
5. She now LOVES to sit in my lap and give hugs on my terms.
6. She has earned the privilege of petting Puddin almost daily. (Always supervised)
7. She has earned the privilege of feeding and giving treats to Puddin.
8. She is an absolute joy to be around 90% of the time.
9. No longer does she sleep with the covers pulled so tightly around her face that I wonder how she breathes.
10. She is willing to work hard on her life. (most days)

That folks, is a lot to be grateful for!

Here's J's Gratitude:
1. Awesome Mom
2. Ms. Chris doing Reiki on me.
3. Play date with Roman & Siena
4. Mom reading Little Women to me.
5. 204 jumps with the jump rope. (non-stop)
6. Lots of people helping me heal my heart.

My daughter has beautiful spirit that is fighting to come out. I am so proud of her!

Since my discovery of The Therapy Shoppe, I found a couple things I got for J. Hoping they prove helpful. One of them was this which is a struggle for a lot of kids. This was the other thing which will hopefully just help accentuate all the tools that she is already using. I'll let you know if they are helpful at all.

As is always with a radalicious kid it is 2 steps forward and one back. Tuesday & Wednesday she made about 5 steps forward and has now taken about 2 back. But that's still 3 steps up so that is wonderful!

There's a good bit of whining going on for some reason and just general out of sorts but nothing major. When I went in her room this morning she was giving Reiki to herself so that was encouraging. Anything she can do to be a part of her recovery is a good thing. Plus being willing to do something different.

I love Pioneer Woman and I stalk her site regularly! One of this morning's post was about chores and she bragged about this book, Choreganizers. We don't typically have a problem with this but I thought it was a very clever idea so I thought I'd share. Especially how it tells the child "how" to do the chore. Boy! I sure could've saved some work for myself if I'd had one of these a couple of years ago! Pretty cool!

So Much Progress

AT was very impressed with the progress that J has made in the past couple of days. I am still so grateful that she's open-minded about J's treatment. She has known since the beginning that J would require many interventions to help her heal due to J's severity on the spectrum of RAD. It was the first time EVER that she checked her energy and it wasn't flipped. She checks it first thing before each therapy session by muscle testing.

There's so much to this energy business and I am still confused by most of it but I can give you a little tip (if I can explain it right). Have your spouse hold their arm straight out by their side. (If they put up both arms like this they would be shaped like a letter t.) Put your hand on their wrist. Ask them to say, "My name is ________ (insert their correct name here)." Once they have said it tell them to hold their arm up as you press down on their wrist towards the floor. It won't budge. Then ask them to say (with their arm still out and your hand on their wrist), "My name is Suzy Q." Tell them to resist (hold their arm up) and press down on their wrist. Their wrist will push down easily. Hint: You can always check to see if someone is lying with this. Once you've tried this on your spouse or someone other than your Radalicious kid (sorry Christine-had to steal that one) then try it on a kid. You might get some interesting results.

J worked really hard in AT today. During dinner she said that she really wanted to get all of the yuckies out and she wanted to work hard on her life. We talked about how many people she had in her life that was working so diligently to help her get all the negative energy and yuckies out of her. We talked about the AT, Ms. Chris (reiki master) and me. Then I told her that sometime soon that Ms. Donna (who did the pastel of angel Sarial), Ms. Donna's husband, Dudley, Ms. Chris, Ms. Kristy (AT) and I were going to have a Reiki session to help all the negative energy and anger to leave her body. That we were all going to work with her at once to help lots of yuckies leave. J's response, "Really????? Mom, I am such a lucky girl to have so many people helping me." Yep she is but I was shocked that she saw herself as lucky. That was really neat.

While she was jumping rope her side started hurting. She sat down and I asked her if she remembered that she could give herself Reiki to make the pain go away. Oh yeah mom! So she started givingWhile she was jumping rope I asked her if she thought she should take a shower or salt/soda bath. Immediately she said salt bath. While I was running her salt/soda bath she asked if she could put some crystals in the bath with her. Ms. Chris (she is a Reiki Master and an ordained minister) had told her yesterday that she could put crystals in the tub with her and they would give her positive energy and help the yuckies get out. I was so over the moon that she is using the tools she has been given to help the yuckies move out. She is choosing to be a part of her healing and making a conscious choice to work on her life. As most of us know, that half the battle is to admit that something is wrong and to want to change it. Once you become willing to change lots of little miracles start happening.

And just in case you're wondering, Day Three is a success too! Not a word or a peep out of me.

Still me...letting go....turning loose...giving it up.

Pseudo-crunchy woman, Christine, has been added to the blogroll. Go check her out.

Oh and my confession of the day is that:

I. Hate. Shopping!


You see... now you're asking yourself if I am really a woman. A woman that hates shopping & ice cream. There has to be something wrong with her. Yep. But y'all already knew that.

C.J. Merrell, you are a hero!

Thanks Joy for letting me know it's actually a chain link on top of the world instead of a little hat. :-)

Another Quick Tip

This is another quick tip to new bloggers, to go with the other tip, I blogged about earlier this morning. It changed my life. ;-) I kept missing new comments because people would comment on a post that happened several days before and I didn't know about it until I would "just happen" to be looking back on past posts on my blog. Then I discovered the new tip.

Go to Settings then click on the Comments tab. All the way at the bottom it will give you a place to put your email address. Add your email address of choice. No one sees it but you if your worried about spammers, psychos, etc. Every time you get a comment on your blog you'll get a nice little email with the nice little comment that some sweet person left you. Then you feel all loved and special and stuff. No kidding...you really do!

That's my tips for the day. Two posts in one day! See how much time I have when I'm not spazzing out about being the education enforcer?

Have a blessed day!
Given up