Saturday, February 25, 2017

The word for this week is tired. I have been so very tired this week. My fibromyalgia has been flaring a bit. I haven't been in a great deal of pain thankfully, I just have been so tired. I have been out of Diet Coke since Tuesday and I have been too tired to go to the store to get more kind of week, We had the day off of school on Monday. I was able to sleep in a little, but then I decided that I was going to clean and organize every room. Not a good idea. I managed to destroy every room and then only have the strength to put two of the rooms back together the way I wanted. Tuesday I somehow managed to get through the day. Tuesday night is usually my "clean like crazy" night because we have community group at our house on Wednesday night. This past Tuesday I didn't have the energy to really care what my house looked like (absolutely unlike me). Wednesday I came home from school and tried to clean as much and possible. I did put the kids to work too. Despite how bone tired I was, I was once again rejuvenated after our Bible study on Wednesday. I love our group on Wednesday night. Thursday night we had a spaghetti dinner at school and the science fair. Friday was a teacher professional development day, so we did not have students. This gave a little relief to my tiredness. Last night was spent with some friends celebrating a birthday. I did sleep in this morning and I am spending the day doing as little as possible until I have to get ready since we are having dinner with friends tonight. It has also been a rough week for Chloe.

Our dear Chloe. We really do not know what to do. She is doing things that are destructive and just plain mean. She is mean to friends at school. I use the word "friend" really loosely, because the truth is I don't think she really has any friends. The girls that have tried really hard to be her friend and include her have only been treated badly by her. She calls them names, takes their things, throws their things in the trash, and the list goes on. It just hurts my heart and she will not (or can not) express to us why she is doing these things. She has been obsessed with having her nails painted. I may have mentioned this before, but she is not allowed to have her nails painted because EVERY time someone paints her nails she gets into the nail polish and ruins clothes, blankets, ect. I might sound unreasonable, but she has had numerous of chances to stop this behavior. She has started coloring her nails at school with markers or highlighters. She has been told many times to stop doing this. She is doing it during class when she is supposed to be listening and she has done it so many times with so many colors that her nail beds are stained and her fingers look terrible. It now has become direct disobedience, she does it every day despite me telling her every morning not to do. She tried every day to rush to the bathroom when we get home to wash it off. Every day she gets caught and gets in trouble, every day she continues to do it and it is exhausting. Her new thing the last two weeks has been coloring her nails in the bathroom at school and then she would throw the marker in the toilet. I just cannot figure out her logic, why wouldn't she just throw it in the trash 😞. She is mean to her siblings and to me. I ruin her life every morning when I ask her to brush her hair or brush her teeth or tell her she cannot wear her flip flops to school.She has been breaking things at home. Most have been minor, but yesterday while my friend was keeping them since they did not have school she shoved the Roku into the HDMI port in our TV and totally broke it and it cannot be fixed. She wouldn't even say she was sorry. She then got into some of my markers that I use for school stuff. She knows that they are my markers and that they are not washable. I had them put away in a place that she had to move stuff around to get them. They were not just laying out and she decided to use them. She put most of them away. She tried to hide the purple marker in the couch. Minnie (our dog) found the marker. Minnie chewed it up and now the couch in the basement has a purple stain and Minnie has a purple paw. These are just a couple of the shenanigans that have been taking place since yesterday. Once again, no remorse for her actions. We really need prayers on the next steps we need to take. She was tested in the public school and only speech issues were found. Our pediatrician also checked her out and said it was just a delay with some sensory issues, but every day we are more confident that there is something else that has not been diagnosed. Please pray with us on her behalf. It has been a very overwhelming week because every day it has been something. I talked with her teacher yesterday and we are praying about keeping her back in 4th grade. That would be a hard decision to make, so we would appreciate your prayers as we try to make decisions that will be best for Chloe. Part of me feels like some of the issues are caused by the fact that her and Emma are in the same class. I don't know if she will every be successful living in her sister's shadow. It would be hard enough to compete with a sibling, but Emma is in a different league for any 4th grader. I am actually subbing in the girl's class on Monday and I am hoping to get a little better picture into what might be going on in the classroom with the other students and how she works in class. She has had pretty good weeks, but something has sent her into this state of complete disobedience and misbehaving.

With all the weariness this week I have been reminded over and over again the Lord is my strength. So, I hang on to the fact that I serve a God that loves me, loves Chloe, and wants the best for us. He knows the inmost part of Chloe's heart and mind. He knows because He is her creator and whatever it is, He has a plan for her. On these hard, discouraging days I must remember that He chose me to be her mother. The days that the tears are flowing freely and I question my ability to be her mother the Lord reminds me of the events that surround her adoption. Events that erase any doubts that God gave her to me because I could handle whatever each day brings. But some days I am just not sure...