my little girl felt good enough to be bad! yay (i think)!

today em wanted a snack (or she'd dieeeeeeeeeee), so i said it's almost dinner time, but since i don't want you to die, you can have raisins. (she hates raisins and was bored, not hungry). after whining (and doing 10 pushups for whining) she went to look for the raisins. she came back and said they were gone (i heard her rustling the bag they were in and had seen them earlier so i knew they weren't gone). so i said i'd be happy to help her find them. to my surprise they weren't in there! so i moved some things around and found them hidden behind a box (in a non-accidental place) and was completely SHOCKED. i said wow, i'm very surprised that you lied to me and hid the raisins. she said i didn't. i said i didn't ask if you did, i know that you did, i'm just surprised. i heard you and know you did it. and she was shocked that i knew and hung her head and admitted it.
now, as a RADical, you know that telling lies isn't out of character. BUT for em, hiding something, doing something sneaky and conniving, is WAY out of character. if you've read her (very long) bio, she is a perfectly perfect perfectionist who is afraid to do anything bad for fear of having to leave.
so i'm thinking a possibility is she felt secure enough to take a chance on being rotten! to lie about something ridiculous is a RAD thing. to lie to stay out of trouble is a normal thing. to be sneaky and rotten i think is a normal thing too! *i* would have done that as a kid! :) i really think she (at least at that time) felt like a normal kid that just wanted a yummy snack instead of yucky raisins so she tried to figure out how to tricky that mean mommy into it. and she forgot to stop and think oh, i could do that but if mommy catches me, she'll make me leave like before.
i'm sure some RADicals are sneaky, but my RADical is SO not! it was so out of character for her that i really think it meant something. might not last the rest of the day, but i'm claiming it as a good moment!
oh, and the pic is of her caterpillar friend who spent the day with (mostly on) her the other day!

our hysterically-giggly-when-she-feels-feelings girl, and our proud boy

whenever em starts to feel love, she gets insanely giggly. like a weird maniacal completely out of control fit of the strangest laughter. it's a little scary, and quite annoying, especially if *i* am feeling love! (cause many of you know as a RADical mom you just want to GET to feel love sometime, dangit!)
tonight at dinner we were all just talking quietly and enjoying each other's company and she broke out into the crazies. she couldn't figure out why and we told her she was feeling love and that just scared her brain and she didn't know how to handle it. we said we'd keep giving her love and eventually she'll get used to it. but still, knowing why doesn't make it that much easier to tolerate. and while annoying, it's also just depressing knowing that she really doesn't feel loved like an 8 year old should.

yesterday mr had OT and mr jeff (therapist) really praised his behavior and self-control (yay!) with a good explanation and examples. so of course i gave lots of pizazz about that and he was all proud (something he's really digging lately). when we saw dad, he said mom tell dad what mr jeff said! so i said very excitedly that mr jeff said matt was really good today! but that wasn't enough. mr said mom, tell him all the other stuff too! :) it was so cute. i'm so glad he's finally feeling pride!

no love :(

tough day (for me) at therapy today with em. she was filling a heart (container) with feelings (black rocks for anger, puffs for hugs, pricklies for hurt, hearts for love, blue rocks for sad, etc) and saying about this week, i feel ___ because ___. of course she always needs help because she doesn't feel. but she couldn't think of one time where she felt love and finally only came up with i felt love when mom gave me pop. i'll admit it's very rare around her, but pop??? she said she didn't want to feel love and didn't want to admit it if she did. i understand why and i wouldn't either if i were her! but it's so hard for me, after trying to give her love for 2 years. just hard to take some days. :( i feel sad because my daughter doesn't know what love is. i feel sad because i don't get love back when i give it. just hard.
on a positive note, she did have some weird cries for no reason this week. we celebrate ANY emotion coming out, so yay. :) she also got to end her time there today with some fun. she's being tested by the occupational therapist and got to play in the crazy fun room that mr "gets" to "play" in weekly.

i'm buying my daughter's love with milk duds

i know it's not exactly buying her love, but sometimes it feels that way! i'm sure some of you can relate. (hopefully) i understand the whole milk and sugar and sweet and nurturing and all that stuff her brain needs to attach, and i understand that she missed that as a baby, so i do it. but some days it just feels like i'm bribing her to like me. :) but em decided in therapy that food was the way to her heart, so we're going with it. any way to get to that deeply hidden, walled up, closed off heart!
but i had to share one success from last night. em's been doing some extra laundry helping because she's made more work for me by putting clean (folded still!) clothes in the hamper instead of away in her room. so last night i told her she had a load of socks to match up and she threw a little whining fit. i got a "but i don't like doing it" and my "well i don't like it either but i do it all the time, even for your clean clothes" lecture wasn't effective of course. it was the end of the night so i was fried, tired, and irritated and really wanted to yell just stop whining and do it! but i tried to be a good RADical mom, took a deep breath, and thought how can i salvage this? so i went back in, gave her a milk dud to make it easier, then stayed to help her do it. and it turned around completely! she kept saying this is so much fun, it's like a matching game, i love doing this, this is cool... so i was very pleased! small success, but still a success! and i think it's more of a success for me, for sucking it up and acting like a good mom no matter how she was acting. that's hard for me! anyway, just had to share. :)

take time to be a dad

i've so missed reading my RADical pals' blogs! and oh my goodness, this is such a cute commercial for dads! this is posted by simply moms on the attaching hearts blog and i loved it! love the blog too, it's very encouraging and insightful. check it out! my husband is a great dad. not sure if he's *this* great or not though!!

yikes! it was ike!

although we're nowhere near texas, or any ocean for that matter, hurricane ike almost blew us away! we lost huge limbs, shingles, power, cable (no internet *gulp*), then my computer crashed (blaming the power surges), and it's just been chaotic with schools and businesses closed. it's almost back to normal now though. we cleaned outside for days then inside for days reinstalling programs and such (although i backup regularly, it's still a pain!).
we'd sent the kids outside to play in the windstorm. told them if they ran really fast into the wind they might fly (they're easy like that!). but then they ran back in yelling about branches falling so we kept them in. it was dangerous out there! we didn't realize how bad it was going to get. they had a ball cleaning up though, well playing in the big branches and fighting with all the sticks. i actually did a good job of lowering my expectations too and just worked and expected them *not* to work very hard. so i wasn't disappointed! and it got clean eventually.
em actually worked quite hard and was very proud of herself (unusual). usually cj (my normal) is the hardest worker and gets that title. well she wanted that title by golly and she sure got it! :)
i'll try to catch up on some of the happenings from the last few weeks soon!

Coffee Cup Cake

A friend sent a fun recipe and since all three kids were home (yet another power outage from the storm), and since CJ was begging to experience a little homeschool too, I thought we'd try it. The kids loved it! They did addition and multiplication with all the ingredients, made a huge mess, and drove me insane. So then they were sent outside for a long, long, recess. : ) I guess we could also have done a history lesson about the leaning tower of cake. : )

MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
1 coffee mug
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
1 small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla and mix again. Put mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

sad feelings and movies

friday is family movie night, so always pizza, popcorn, and a movie. my two RADicals drive me INSANE during movies because they can't handle the emotional parts. i get into movies and love to identify with the characters. k, i cry like a baby. :) but as soon as a movie get quiet, you know the part where they WANT you to feel sad and emotional, those two get loud, bored, need something, jump up, ask questions, etc. to the point where i hate watching movies with them. i'm always shushing trying to get them to be quiet so 1. i can enjoy it and 2. they can learn to feel sad like normal kids. our AT's suggested we watch sad movies with them and really help them feel the sad. i try but man it's hard. i do better in all other areas and i (also suggested by our AT) empathize and say how i would be so sad too, and say wow you do look so sad, look at your face, etc. but it's hard during movies!
anyway, tonight we watched bridge to terabithia (highly recommended if you're also working on sad) and i was dreading them ruining it for me as usual, but trying to stay focused on helping them. so as it got close to the sad stuff, i quietly kinda prepped them so they'd stay quiet, then cuddled, rubbed backs, held hands, and very quietly talked about what was sad (kinda talking so they couldn't). and they did great! mr's getting better about saying that's a sad part, it's sad when that happens. seems more like he knows he should say it then he actually feels it, but he's getting it! em still thinks i'm weird for being sad, maybe she'll get there one day. but i was proud of them for staying quiet and quietly talking about sad, and didn't want them to ruin the moment, so after what i thought was enough time of sad, i offered cookies. and after a break, they still did really well when we got back to the movie. so i think it was a very successful night of sad! and happy, it does have a happy ending, which is a must for me to like the movie! :)

another crazy hair night...

we love these nights at church! it was crazy hair or silly hats, and they all opted for crazy hair. em's hair is so easy to tease. of course she looks like albert einstein. :)

more RADical blogs, i need more! :)

i have some links to some of the RADical blogs i've found or been pointed to (thanks so much!) on the left side over there. << i love being sad and happy with total strangers who are dealing with the same stuff i am. mostly because no one in real life gets it, it's nice to have some pretend friends who do. i've learned and have been encouraged greatly by many of you, thanks! if you have a RADical blog or know of others, please share! if the idea freaks you out a little, go make an anonymous one. i'm SO glad i did. it's free therapy for YOU. and if you're a RADical parent, we all know you need it more than your kids! :)
by the way, is RAD the only disorder in the world where the parent needs the bulk of the training and support because it's pretty much their job to fix it??? hmm, your homework: share any RADical blogs and ponder that question!! :)

the moment it clicked... love

i think i mentioned this once, but i wanted to share the sweet moment when my little mr finally felt love. for over a year in therapy we've worked on "feeling their feelings" because they just don't comprehend feelings. they kinda sorta get happy, sad, mad, and scared (though they often confuse mad and sad and they can't identify them on my face or make them on theirs). but we've added love as one of the feelings to work on. i've shared that mr is doing much better in the attachment department. he really enjoys the regressive stuff and has been just a sweet little toddler (though he's 6) and loves that kind of attention. geesh, long set-up...
anyway, one day we were acting silly, and i was being sweet, baby-talking, cuddling, encouraging, can't remember what was said, but he was into it.
giggling and almost concerned, he said mommy, i feel like i'm going to explode inside?!
i said mr! that's what love feels like! you're feeling love right now because i'm giving you lots of it. doesn't it feel good?
he said wow, yes!
it's so hard to fathom growing up and never feeling that feeling. not even understanding what it is. never feeling a good emotion welling up inside of him like that. but he's learning. my poor RADicals. i just hope they get it and hang on to it tight!
i just love to read about a-ha moments! hopefully we'll have more around here. please share if you have any too!

art class: make a hat out of nature

em's homeschooling has been going unbelievably well! she's loving it and learning at a much faster pace than we expected. and not hating spending all the time with us either! but today was one of THOSE days. you've had them i'm sure. she was just out of sorts, resistant, asking dumb questions, purposefully annoying, just not at all open to anything. so to get her out of my hair for a bit (sorry, being honest!) i told her to make a hat out of nature, but that she could only use things she found outside. no glue or string or anything from inside. she went out for 2 minutes and came back in whining and i said no, you need to spend about an hour, just look around, get ideas, i'm sure you'll figure it out. dad said you know she won't even try right? i said yep, but she's outside, that's good enough for me right now. (hey, i gotta work sometime!) so, no expectations, no worries!
we hear her singing away out there and are glad she's at least cheering up and enjoying it. after a while she comes in and we're both shocked to see her looking like a cute little fairy from a movie with a very creative hat! she'd found a huge leaf for a visor and carefully tied the stem and sticks all together with blades of grass. it was very well done! i said wow em, if only you got grades at homeschool, you'd get an A+ for sure!
just amazing that one of THOSE days actually didn't end up so bad afterall! of course maybe it's just her awesome teacher?? nah! :)

a RADical vacation that was mostly radical with lower case letters!

alrighty, finally a few minutes to blog! we had a doozy of a camping trip this weekend that was a blast with very few RADical issues! of course the usual nonsense crap, no logical thinking, loving all the strangers, and all the things that are more like givens than symptoms we hope will go away! but those don't phase us nowadays. :)
but there was kayaking (by dad only), rafting (a surprise for us all one day, ack! but fortunately dad knows his stuff and it was great), hiking, repelling, swimming, and of course my favorite, picture-taking. :) no major incidents besides the crazy towel thief lady. mr even had one day of waking up dry (celebrated with candy of course)!
the kids did tear up the camper in the short time i indulged in a shower (with a new towel) so i was SUCH a nice mom that i didn't mind waiting for the kids to clean it up before we went to do something fun. i'm just so nice like that.
em had a ball and she's had a few more crying and not knowing why spells, so i think her hard heart is just beginning to crack! once mr's cracked boy it was insane! emotions spilling out all over the place getting everything all messy. :) em will be similar i'm sure! but we're ready for ANY emotion from her!
mr has a new i'm afraid to go to sleep routine at night now. not sure what happened there. he does do this from time to time but we haven't quite figured it out. might stem from a scary movie, but the one he watched was so tame. they've seen REALLY scary ones (before they came to us of course), but all the slasher ones, freddie, jason, chainsaws, they were exposed to all that (before age 3, that's sucky parenting for you!) so being scared at night and bad dreams were dealt with from the beginning. but it's cropped up again for some reason and we're trying to be patient, but it's so annoying when you have logic.
i can't remember another thing from our trip, so either i'm really tired, i've repressed the memory it was so bad, or our RADical vacations are getting to be more normal!
here are some pics if you're bored!

help with some press efforts

there is an important link on heather forbes' blog that other RADical moms might like to read.
here's a link to the wcco story with a place to contact them with more info (and request them to interview heather). here's how to contact kstp. you'll have to google the minneapolis newspapers. it would be nice to see a followup with info about RAD or at least how stressful it can be to help get the word out. now go hug your kids tight!