A Week, Briefly (8/23/21)

The babies love doing school with Brother.  When I have to separate them from him, they are so sad!

We are still working on establishing a school schedule.  This week held too many other activities to be very good for meeting that goal.  

 

Monday--Two telehealth therapy appointments and an in-person dentist appointment

Tuesday--Three telehealth psych appointments 

Wednesday--Visiting family

Thursday--dance

One thing I did to help us get settled into a routine was print a master check list.  All of the kids and all of their subjects are listed.  The printed page is in a page protector and hung next to my dry erase markers.  As kids report to me, I check off what I've seen and remind them of what's left.  

I'm liking it . . . a lot.

The bad news is that Brother's psychiatrist got the full story of the behaviors that I only alluded to here, and she sorrowfully told me that it was time for residential care.  She said she'd have to chart our appointment very carefully in order to ethically allow us more time to arrange wrap-around services.  After much discussion, we agreed that if I could get wrap-around services in place sooner rather than later, she could wait on pushing the residential care order.  I promised to call her the same day with information.

One hour later, I was able to talk with Brother's therapist who promised to submit an urgent request for services.

Three hours later, the wrap-around services coordinator called me, and we have an appointment for tomorrow.

I called the psychiatrist, and she's waiting to hear what we learn tomorrow.

In the mean time, we're making too-frequent use of our safe room, but we're very, very grateful for it.

I've also ordered a couple different kind of locking safes/cupboards to hold items that will help us feel safer.  Nature Angel and Little Princess were looking over my shoulder as I researched and placed my order; both of them said, "Oh!  Thank goodness!"

We did lots of ordinary things, too.

*Beowulf finished reading and narrating Amazing Arctic Animals as part of his reading/literature.

*We finished reading Viking Tales for bedtime read alouds/early American history.

*We read several picture books for our Mexico geography study.

*Because so many of our books were about Día de los Muertos, we did a lesson from Art Hub for Kids.

You can see the torn and taped skull in the center top--Beowulf's days are not much easier than Brother's.

*Belle started her communications class at the community college.

*Nature Angel and Belle started seminary.

*Other than Saturday, we took only one walk a day--in the mornings because it was painfully hot here this week.

     37.4 miles + 6.4 miles = 41.8 miles

*Nature Angel discovered Google slides, and she's making awesome biology flashcards.

Thursday was so hard that I sent the kids to dance with Belle again.  It was a great service that she did so, and I spent the time they were away quietly folding laundry and caring for our babies.

 

It would actually be really nice for Belle to be part of dance this way for the rest of the year!  She's teaching and helping and getting social time.  It could count as volunteer hours for college applications.  We'll have to see how she feels as the semester progresses.

 

However, Brother's evening after that was devastatingly bad, and the older girls had to handle dinner and kid care while I managed Brother in the safe room.

 

One late afternoon as we waited for parents to arrive, we set out some shaving cream for baby sensory play.

 

 And on Friday afternoon, Sir Walter Scott did the weekly library run.  I'd ordered as many books about dinosaurs as I could, and the kids dove in . . . not coming up for air until Saturday night when they'd gone through them all.

Last week, Sugar Bear developed a nasty fever while she was in our care.  Three days later, her brother did the same.

This weekend, Lola was down for 24 hours with a fever that knocked her flat.

I have expectations that we will have more feverish children in the coming days!