"Self Care"

Tink's therapist holds me accountable for taking care of myself first throughout all of this craziness, and each week when he asks me what I did to take care of myself, I struggle to answer because I don't know how to put myself first. I am a mom of 4 kids, one of them requires extra care, and the other three get the short end of the stick and I am left trying to make up for the fact that I have nothing left to give them. In addition to this I am in school full time, and maintaining a 3.96 gpa. In addition to that I have personal responsibilities to be a good wife, to a husband who is at work five days a week from 7 am to 7:30-8:00 pm. When is this "self care" supposed to happen? The evening bed time routine is essentially the only time my three "healthy" kids get without being interrupted by a screeching, angry or pouting Tink. The therapist said that if I don't do self care he won't continue to see Tink, and we need for him to continue to treat her. I can feel when I am getting burnout that I am less patient and less of the mom this traumatized kid needs, and the best way to avoid that burnout is self care. The rules of self care are that it can't be kid related no reading books on RAD, or childhood trauma, no electronic devices and nothing school related. I don't know how to do that so I shuffle through "self care" pins on pinterest, and "me time" on the internet and I find nothing helpful, and this mama doesn't know how to do those things? So I turn to comfort food, which is probably why I have gained 25 lbs since taking on Tink. Maybe self care is a long walk by myself in the evening, or maybe it looks like 25 mins an evening on the eliptical. I don't know, I suck at this.

"Be OK"

INGRID MICHAELSON

"Be OK"

I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok
I just want to be ok today
I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok
I just want to be ok today

I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today
I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today

[CHORUS:]
Open me up and you will see
I'm a gallery of broken hearts
I'm beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts

I just want to know today, know today, know today
I just want to know something today
I just want to know today, know today, know today
Know that maybe I will be ok

[CHORUS]

Just give me back my pieces
Just give them back to me please
Just give me back my pieces
And let me hold my broken parts

I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok
I just want to be ok today
I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok
I just want to be ok today

I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today
I just want to know today, know today, know today
Know that maybe I will be ok
Know that maybe I will be ok
Know that maybe I will be ok

Just like any other mom and daughter in the world

"The important thing for you as a mom is to be there for your daughter, and let her know the door is always open if she wants to talk, now or in the future." Unknown Author

I saw a glimpse at who Tink is underneath all that "stuff" today, and she was amazing. We have been working really hard with boundaries and watching what we say to and around her so for the day I let her be free from the blanket (hey we all need a free day right?) partly because she has earned it and partly because I just didn't have it in me today. She was amazing! She had a genuine personality with a real smile to match, I say real smile because it was the kind that came from her heart. While I was working on homework at my mom's house, I could hear Tink starting to get worked up and instead of reminding her to settle down I asked her to bring a coloring book and crayons and come color beside me, "just me and you time?" she asked, "sort of, I still have homework to finish" I explained, but it didn't seem to matter I am wearing doterra's "balance" on my spine, wrists and heart and the scent helps me keep my emotions "balanced" but I think it and the fact that I was regulating her, so we sat there coloring and making small talk about crayons and mom's artwork on the computer, just like any other mom and daughter in the world...

My Lovlies

A friend of mine just opened up a clothing boutique and asked two of my girls to model some of the dresses...I heart my lovelies!

So do I baby, so do I

The past few days have been filled with lots of screaming, anger, sadness etc. I'm not sure what sets off a cycle like this but the past few nights Tink has been getting up and playing, well last night The hubs had lost enough sleep, he went in and got her and said cmon Tink since you don't want to sleep we're going to do chores, which was fine with her till he let her know the chore would be picking up dog poop in the back yard, this sent her screeching back to her room letting him know that she would rather go to bed the whole way there, and back out they went they spent about an hour in the freezing cold in pj's while she scooped poop. She came in and told him that he had never gave her that "worser" of a job.
Today she was filled with anger, not just the grumbly type but the resentment type, towards everyone and everything. I went in to clean her room and learned that part of the reason she is up at night is because she had a my little pony stash hidden in her heat vent. What 5 year old thinks of this? That is teenager hiding their marijuana stash level of thinking. So we cleaned her room and the more I cleaned the stranger things I was finding, I found that she had taken 4 of the nuts and washers that hold her bed together and stuffed them in and under her pillow...I am baffled at how she thinks this advanced but socially and emotionally acts so much younger than her age.
Fast forward to this evening, I felt impressed to have a heart to heart with little Tink, she just has been struggling with so much anger. I basically told her that I know that she has been hurt, and not just like a scrape or a bruise but that I can understand that it hurt to have to come and live with us and leave her old mom and dad behind, that it probably hurt when her grannie gave her to A & K, that it probably hurt to live in foster care, and by this time she was in full out real tears...and then she opened up to me about foster care for the first time since ever...she said she didn't like foster care, that the moms (she was last with a lesbian couple from what I have gathered) didn't read the scriptures or say any prayers, and that there was a bigger girl who took the toys she was playing with and the moms let the big girl. Then I let her know that I know that she thinks her bio mom and dad gave her away because she thinks she's bad. I let her know that it was their fault, not hers. She deserved to have a mom and dad and a family, and to be happy. At this point she melted into my arms and told me that she wishes she grew in my tummy, and all that I could do was hold her and cry with her comforting her with a "so do I baby, so do I".