Learing about Ireland and Germany

Last week Bubbas and I studied Ireland and Germany.

I am having so much fun with this.

For supper one evening we had Irish Roast Pork with Potato Stuffing,

Scones, and an Irish Apple Cake for desert.

I got all the recipes from here.

It was really good, but different.

Not a real colorful dish, but I didn't use fresh sage and thyme like it called for.

I was afraid if my kids saw something green in it they wouldn't eat it.

I just used the seasoning, I'm sure if I would have used fresh it would have looked prettier.

Then later in the week we made a German cookie.

 I didn't think to take a picture right when they were done so the cookies,

 like the Irish Apple cake were gone before I knew it.

and two steps back

Yesterday we took Tator to church with us for the first time in about 5 months. I think I blogged about her problems with church awhile ago. She hates it. She says she doesn't want to hear about God and that she doesn't believe in him.

Sitting in church with her has been a struggle. We give her paper and pencils to write with, I even used to take crayons and she still isn't happy. She has threw herself down on the floor before and crawled under the pews. She has kicked the people sitting in front of us from under the pew. She has pulled her dress up around her belly and sat, not caring at all about embarrassing herself, just trying to upset her dad and I. One Sunday morning she ran from us and it took us 20 minutes, 3 ushers and 1 Sunday School teacher to find her. The Sunday school teacher found her upstairs hiding in a dark hall way inside a dark closet.

Some Sunday mornings it has started before she's even out of her room. She will wake up very early and jump off her bed repeatedly. Or slam her dresser drawers. You get the picture. Awhile ago she woke up in the middle of the night for 4 Saturday nights in a row and she would jump off her bed, slam her register open and closed, slam dresser drawers, and growl like a wild animal. Telling her to go back to bed was pointless and trying to talk to her was our of the question. She would literally keep herself up all night.

We just continued to go and deal with the fighting. I remember going one morning taking her in without any shoes on because she had kicked her little brother so many times in the car we took them off her.

For the last 6 months Tator has raged daily, when we would get to Sunday it would just be easier to stay home with her. Neither Shawn or I would feel like fighting with her. I wanted to go to church and enjoy myself and Shawn always had enough to do at the new house that he would go and work taking her and I would go to church. Except I wouldn't enjoy myself, I would cry through the whole service because my husband was not there.

Then we started using respite and that gave us a chance to all go to church together. Of course, she would go to church with the respite provider, sit in the service and be fine. No surprise!

This week we decided we were going to try it again. She went and did well. I was not surprised, I know she is very capable of sitting through church, she had done it for many years up until now. As soon as we walked out of church I could tell by her body language that things were about to change. On the way home she had some attitude with the other kids, but she wasn't going to get out of line because she knew take out pizza was at stake.

She ate lunch and then was told she needed to go lay down in bed. This is something she does every weekend, she is totally used to. It gives all of us a break, plus the other kids all lay down.

I could tell as soon as I said it she was going to start. So I followed her upstaris as she yelled and carried on that she was not gong to lay down. She ran in and jumped on her bed. I told her if she didn't lay down I would be leaving and not tucking her in. I said this 2 more times then turned around walked out and shut the door. She then threw herself down and started to cry. She loudly cried this fake cry for awhile then started to very loudly kick her dresser. Then from that she progressed to slamming her dresser drawers and growling like a wild animal.

I just kept thinking she'd calm down.I did not want to have to go into her room, she is unreasonalble when she's like that. She kept being so loud and I knew she was going to wake Sissy so I finally went in. I tried talking to her to find out what was wrong she just kept jumping on her bed and telling me no she wasn't going to lay down. I tried to hold her and she started kicking me and hitting. She ended up kicking me pretty hard in the stomach and biting my wrist. So I left.

She ended up jumping on her bed and yelling for a couple hours. Then came down and spent some time sitting in the living room with dad. Then I gave her supper and put her back to bed.

Tonight she wrote sentences for kicking and biting me.

One step forward

 

Tator's new haircut. Sorry the pictures are so bad, I took them with my Ipod.

 

Yesterday Tator had a Fall Festival at her school. She was so excited and talked about it all week.

When she came home from school I was upstairs putting away laundry. She came running upstairs to show me all the things she had made at the festival. A kit to make a dream catcher, papers to make a totem pole, left over food(?), and a kit to make a bag like the Indians carried their medicine in. I'm not sure why none of it had been put together at school. But anyway, when we were done looking at it I told her she should go downstairs and put her stuff in her drawer right away so her little bothers didn't get into it.

Anytime she brings anything home from school her little siblings love to look at it and this makes her very upset. She was already VERY dysregulated and I knew if they started touching everything she was going to get mad and escalate very fast.

When I came downstairs she was sitting on the kitchen floor with her stuff all over the counter and on the floor all around her, including her little brothers. I got down on her level and took her face in my hands and said, "you need to put this stuff away and get it back out later when your brothers are doing something else." She continued on with what she was doing. I let it go about a minute and a half and as her brothers were grabbing stuff and she was yelling I got back down and said it all over again only telling her if she didn't put it away it was going to be put up for awhile.

I let it go for about another minute then said, "Ok, now you need to go put it in my room." She grabbed everything yelling and crying as she carried it to my room. Then she threw herself down on my floor crying and carrying on. I got down and took her chin in my hands and asked her, "didn't I tell you if you didn't put it away it would be put up for awhile?" She just continued to cry and carry on so I told her she needed to go to her room for awhile and calm down.

Then she stood up and went. No fighting or arguing, no running away from me, no throwing things, or hitting and kicking me. I gave her about 10 minutes then I went back up and sat down on her bed. She was laying across it crying. I asked her if she was calmed down now and she said she was still a little sad. When I asked her why she crawled up onto my lap and said she was afraid I was going to throw her stuff away. I told her I wasn't going to throw it away it was just going to stay in my room until tomorrow.

She hugged me and started to calm down. I went over with her again about why I wanted her to put it away and knew how upset she would get if something happened to her things. I told her I knew how days like this, that were different from the normal days, left her feeling very out of control. She hugged me again and said she was trying to take one day at a time.

We came back downstairs and she was very calm. We were able to run her brother to town without her having any problems in the car. After dinner I rocked her for awhile then we sat on the couch together and watched T.V.

So far today everything is going pretty good. I sure hope this is how the rest of the weekend goes.

Some updates and a really good recipe

Buster had a follow-up appointment with his ENT Dr. yesterday. He said everything looked good.

We're so relieved his speech has returned to normal.

Duckie told us tonight that he has all A's on all his first college midterms. We're so proud of him. He's been working full time and going to school full time.

Tator also had a very good evening tonight. Which means everyone has a good evening.

We realized we are in way over our head with the house. It is way more work then we can do on our own. We had a contractor come and give us a price on finishing it up for us, but it was way more than we could afford. We have no idea what were going to do now.

We do have someone working on the upstairs (the downstairs is what needs most of the work). These pictures are of a bedroom that we knocked the walls out on both ends. The top picture we knocked the wall out between the bedroom and bathroom. We are putting up a new one that will  make the bathroom about 3 feet bigger.

The bottom picture (I realize its not a very good picture) we knocked out the wall between the bedroom and a huge walk in closet. We are putting up another wall and making the walk in closet a laundry room. So I can have my laundry on the same floor as all the bedrooms. I'm really excited about that.

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I tried a new recipe tonight that someone my dad works with gave him. It was for Italian Cheese Bread. I cut it up and we ate them like they were bread sticks with our Upside down pizza. They were awesome! Everyone loved them.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour                    

1 tsp. salt                                                 

1 tsp. sugar                                              

1 Tbsp. yeast

1 cup warm water

1 Tbsp. veg. oil

topping

1/3 cup Italian dressing 

1/2 tsp. salt                                                                          

1/4 tsp. garlic powder 

1 tsp. oregano 

dash of pepper                                    

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1 Tbsp. Parmesan chesse

1/2 c. mozzarella cheese

Combine first four ingredients. Add warm water and oil, mix well. On floured surface knead for 1-2 minutes until smooth and elastic. Cover and let rise in greased bowl for 20 minutes. Punch down dough and pat into 12" round greased pizza pan. Brush with Italian dressing. Combine seasonings and cheeses and sprinkle over Italian dressings.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. This makes excellent bread sticks served with warm pizza sauce.