An Unwelcome Visitor

We've had so much rain that the lake was out of the banks. This doesn't happen often. Many docks were under water. We had to walk up to the floating dock instead of down the plank as normal.

At lunch time G was taking a nap on the porch up at the house. I was standing on the walkway at the dock as J walked down the steps into the lake. I was directly behind her and saw a 4 ft. snake in the water behind her. Between me and J. Oh dear lord. I'm not afraid of much but I really don't care for snakes. Snakes on land. Not so much a problem. A snake in the water between me and my child. This is not good.

Thank goodness these days J will actually do what I say. NT practice sessions are essential to staying safe at times. There was more to this precarious situation than getting my child out of the water. I had to get her out of the water without her noticing the snake. Y'all know how hard this is with a radical kid that misses NOTHING. If she spotted the snake I would never get her back into the lake ever again.

I told her to swim to the end of the dock (away from the snake). I ran out to meet her on the dock, watching as the snake is now ON the dock between me and the way to safety. I pull her onto the dock as carefree as nothing was at all wrong. Have her sit watching the lake while I am spying on the snake. As soon as he gets into the boathouse I send J up the 150 stairs to get Daddy G up from his nap. I chase the snake through both of the boat stalls and out of the boat house onto the other side. She comes back down. Gets in the water and we repeat this whole little performance again as the snake comes back to the steps and up onto the dock AGAIN. This time he slithers onto the seawall on the far side of the boat house and I throw rocks at him. I keep throwing rocks (big rocks) for about 10 minutes.

Later we're all in the water on submersible floats. All I can think is "please, for the love of all that is holy, don't let that snake get in the float with any of us."

As soon as we got home I had to find that booger on the internet. Water moccasin (cotton mouth). The internet (and so do many of my outdoor loving friends) will argue till the cows come home that they don't live this far north. They lie. Liar, liar pants on fire.

The raised water levels must have pushed them out of their den. I'm ready for the water to recede now.

Catch Up

Playing catch up on blogs. The internet was s o o o o o o o o o sl l l l l l o o o o w w w w that it just about drove me over the brink. I swear it was slower than last fall and I didn't think that was possible. Way slower than dial up. Click on a page. Cook dinner. Click on another page. Load the dishwasher. Click on another page unload the dishwasher. No joke.

J had a blast. I found 138 shark teeth. Tons of sunscreen but we all got burned a little. The waves were huge this year. G & J had a great time riding the waves. I stayed by the pool. I only get in the ocean when it's windex water and I can see what's in the water with me. Yeah. I'm a chicken. Way too many jelly fish stings.

Glad to be home. Tickled pink to have my computer and dsl too.

Holes

Way too cold to hang on the beach or by the pool so we did the dreaded mall thing. I am NOT a shopper but it was warm. Big news: I finally let J get her ears pierced. She sat still as a mouse, didn't flinch, or scream. Yay!

She's been responsible enough lately to earn it. She's been admiring herself all afternoon in the mirror. ;-) She even managed to keep it a secret from Daddy G during their "good night" call so that he can be surprised in the morning when he sees her. Now if I can just keep my big mouth shut.

Pics when we get home cause this computer is slower than molasses.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to 73. Hoping....

Crossing My Fingers

This internet thing is about to get on my very last nerve. Y'all know I don't have many left. Every.time.I.do.every.single.little.thing. A O L pops up and takes 3 forevers to go away. So I uninstalled it. Have to shut down the pooter to make the changes. If I don't reappear tomorrow you'll know things went badly. Of course you'll probably all hear me screaming on the west coast shortly if this doesn't go as planned.

Here we go....

Beach Sweet Beach

Ffffffffffrrrrreeeeeezzzzzzziiinnnnggggg. No joke. Glad I brought sweats.

G will be here tomorrow. Hoping he brings some warmer temperatures with him. J ate 5 sets of crablegs. On top of everything else. She went to bed at 7 and was snoring at 7:07.

Something is really freaky with the internet here. Trying my patience. What is left anyway.

Reminder

Don't forget the Katharine Leslie webinar is tomorrow at 10:00 AM CST till 11:30 CST. I'll be there.
It's not too late to register.

Click here for the link.

Beach

Apologies for neglecting this blog. It hasn't been intentional but so much has been going on with the new addition. After our adoption drama filled lives of the last month or so (drama details on the other blog), we are leaving for the beach in the morning. Yahoo!

I'm packing on the down low so that Puddin's (furry child) anxious attachment isn't activated. Sneaking around the house and tiptoeing stuff out the door and into the car.

J is doing amazingly well. Pretend I'm whispering because I don't want it to blow up in my face. This will be J's 5th trip to the same house in North Myrtle Beach. The new tapping thingy seems to be working like a charm. And without meds.

Preparing to totally veg out, put the brain on standby and come back with a tan. Expecting to come home feeling human again instead of a paperwork puppet.

TAT & New Tapping Spots

Kristy gave J a new tapping thingy. She does it twice a day. First you place your index fingers at the inside of your collar bones. Then feel down about one inch and tap 20 times. J's new phrase is:

Even though I feel so mad and scared about adopting Special K that I push my mom away, I choose to feel happy about adopting Special K and I choose to let my mom love me.

Repeat the phrase again (not the tapping). It's written down on a card and J has to pick it up, tap, read the phrase twice then forget about it until it's time to do it again.

Christine, this tapping made me think of you. Wonder why????

I'm happy to report that J is doing much better now but tomorrow morning she's sleeping in and I'm going to be quiet as a mouse.

TAT:

I'm copying directly from my treasured emails from Tapping.com Take what works and leave the rest.

One thing that often surprises people who meet me is that
I'm not attached to Tapping at all as a way of releasing
negative feelings.

Tapping is just the quickest, easiest, most reliable way
that I've found to activate the body's releasing mechanism.


That's the thing I'm an evangelical fanatic about - holding
on to negative feelings is the biggest thing holding you
back, and you should release negativity any chance you get.


So, I'm constantly on the look out for the something easier
and faster than Emotional Freedom Technique... a few things
have come along, and the most exciting so far is TAT -
'Tapas Acupressure Technique'.

This is based around a pose where you hold some acupressure
points... when you do this, some sort of circuit is
connected and negative feelings just drift away... and no
tapping, or anything!

Tapas Fleming brought it to the western world. She teaches her own
framework for using it, but the basic idea is simple: Focus
on a negative feeling, hold the pose, and let it go easily.


The benefit over EFT-style tapping is that you don't have
to tap feelings one by one. You can focus on a particular
memory and the layers and layers of feelings just peel
themselves away.

It seems to release negative feelings faster than tapping,
because Tapas says to only do a maximum of 20 minutes a
day, while most people can do a couple of hours of tapping
before their brain gets tired.

So the TAT pose is a very useful tool to add to your
toolbox. Tapping is more appropriate when you have a
specific feeling or belief you want to get rid of, and I've
found it's more effective than TAT to use that way.

When I found how easy TAT was, right away I sat down and
produced this video for a friend of mine in Iraq, who is
rather haunted by some of the things he's seen. The
counselling he's having is helping, but TAT instantly made
him feel better about a particular event he'd witnessed.

I'll be filming some shinier-looking videos soon, but in
the meantime, check out 'Tapping for the Troops', it's
enough to learn the pose and try it for yourself. Click here.


Of course, TAT is perfectly compatible with the ideas in my
book, anything you can tap, you can release with TAT.


ANOTHER fun and surprising technique is called Doyletics...
in a nutshell, find a feeling, and say out loud:

"I'm 29 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 25 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 20 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 15 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 12 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 10 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 8 years old and I have this feeling..."
"I'm 5 years old and I have this feeling..."

You should notice that the feeling disappears. Don't ask
me how it works, I'm still working it out, and results are
a bit sketchy with this one - sometimes it doesn't work on
feelings that tapping shifts easily.

But it does work and it's quite fun as a party trick!

Be specific - substitute 'this feeling' for 'this sharp
headache' or whatever...

If it hasn't released or changed by '5 years old', carry on
for 4, 3, 2, 1 years, and then 9 months, 6, 3, 1 months, 1
day old... minus 1 day old, minus one month, minus 6
months.

Magnus

This might be particularly helpful with our kids who suffered trauma in the womb. Just saying....

Where'd My Kid Go????

Yesterday I had a practitioner come into therapy with us and do cranial sacral with J. OOOOOooooooooo bad decision. I think it was too much for her and threw her energy all out of whack.

It's been all downhill since then. Still sleeping at 7 this morning (should've let her sleep.) Disprespect, not listening, not following directions, bossy, defiant, slow-mo, and on and on and on and on..... Had to leave the 2nd swimming lesson. (There was one at 5 and another at 6 to make up for the problems the aquatic center had last week.) It took her till 9:30 to get breakfast!!!

Good grief! I am tired.

Edited to add: New tapping sequence

Rubbing on sora spots while saying 3 times:
Even though I don't like my kid right now I want to be a loving and kind mom.

Then tapping through the whole sequence:
I don't like my kid right now.

Followed by "I choose to be a loving and kind mom." Full sequence.

Then I did the TAT thing on feeling like a craptastic mom. (Martha, this is on the private blog but I will post about TAT on this blog soon.

Feeling much better now.

Woo Hoo!

Katharine Leslie is going to be doing a webinar. May 18th. 10 AM to 11:30 AM CST. $30.00 Grab all your fellow Radical mom's, invite them over for tea and split the cost. Continuing education credits will be issued if you need/want them. Dr. Leslie gets rave reviews every where she presents so I think you'll love it. Also a parent to radicals which gives her big stars in my book. ;-) She doesn't just "get it", she lives it. Please steal this and post it on your blog. You never know...there might be a radical mom out there that could really use this!


Parenting from the Trenches
Do you have a child who lies, steals, sneaks, stalks, hordes, chatters non-stop, or urinates in places other than the potty, etc? In this webinar Dr. Leslie will teach you essential, sensible, safe and effective solutions to your child's behavior problems that can also increase positive behaviors in your child, create an attachment friendly environment, simplify daily life, reduce family conflict, and even get some of your parental needs met. Dr. Leslie will weave lecture material around questions from the audience.


AGENDA
This is a 90 minute Webinar


Quick overview of attachment and brain facts

What children are supposed to give to the parent-child relationship

What do you really want from your child?

Preventing negative behaviors

Rehearsing positive behaviors

Punishment vs consequences: What's good for you?

Click here to sign up: Parenting in the Trenches

For Sale

I am trying to get Special K's closet cleaned out as it has become a home for various items since Chrissi left. During the cleaning I found a brand new boxed Wi i Fit. G & I both bought one without knowing that the other had already purchased one. Such is our communication skills. ;-) It is for sale if anyone would like to buy it. $80.00 plus shipping. Just email me to let me know.

J has been doing really well lately. She's had some interesting worries about her birth mom and a lot of anger. Apparently we've worked through those. Even though I'm still having her tapping on the anger surrounding BM and using the TAT method for trauma release. Dramatically better.

Also, she's starting to get more creative. It used to worry me that she couldn't pretend anything. No fantasies or creative mind things ever popped out of her mouth. Then I started to understand that in her world of trauma, who had time for a fantasy life or the time to be creative or inventive???? It was life or death man! It's was all about staying alive, protecting the heart....Couldn't waste time on wishes, dreams or fairies. Now I'm starting to really see her imagination come to life. It's so much fun to watch and listen to her these days. You just never know what might pop out of her mouth but it's almost always entertaining. ;-)

Last Tuesday the chemicals at the aquatic center were horrible. They're changing over from chlorine to salt and they were seriously screwed up. Wednesday J's hair was so brittle that it felt like it would break in your hands. I gobbed aussie mir*cle conditioner on her hair and left it for 45 minutes. She rinsed it out and I gobbed it with tons of mayo for 30 minutes. It was only slightly improved. Does anybody have any ideas to overcome the damage?????

This little cutie patootie is NOT for sale. ;-) Spring at the lake is glorious and the azaleas are in full splendor. So is J.