Fun Fridays

Around here, we call our Fridays, Fun Fridays. The boys have occupational therapy every Friday afternoon at Children's Hospital. So we go and do something fun for the morning until it's time for therapy. We typically end up with a play date with friends or doing something in Forrest Park, since it's so close to Children's. The boy's favorite thing right now is the Science Center. Boy do they love the Science Center, and since it's free, I do too!! :)

Fridays have been a huge learning and growing experience for all 3 of us. It's amazing to see how God uses different experiences to make us grow, and you wouldn't think a Fun Friday would do that, but it has. Fun Fridays started back in August, when the boys started going to occupational therapy. At first, Fridays were our favorite day of the week. We did something different every single week, and we all loved it. Then in Early October, Christian developed a sensory processing disorder. Daniel already had a sensory processing disorder, which is why he needed (and continues to need) occupational therapy. When Christian's SPD developed, Fridays were no longer fun for any of us, it was more like torture.

What would happen is that Christian would hear a loud noise, and unusual noise, see something he wasn't familiar with or if something wasn't well lit and he would go into a full blown melt down. And with him being the big brother, Daniel would follow suit because if it something his big brother was afraid of, then he needed to be afraid too. Trying to get out our front door was so difficult for us because the boys could hear the traffic from the highway, and it was like torture to their ears. They'd go into a panic, and it was take all the strength I had to wrangle them into their car seats so we could go somewhere. As if that wasn't exhausting enough, I'd still attempt to take them somewhere. I was NOT about to give up on our Fun Fridays, but they were slowly breaking me. I'd just pray and pray for a good morning with no panic attacks.

We'd go somewhere like the zoo. That turned out to be a bad idea as there was construction going on, and the noise of the trucks was sheer torture for them. The Magic House has dimly lit areas, which would cause a screaming frenzy. Science Center wasn't well lit, and there are those scary moving dinosaurs, which they use to love. Anything outdoors was out of the question because if the boys heard an airplane, large truck, motorcycle or any other loud noise, a meltdown would occur. Anytime we went anywhere, I was a nervous wreck, waiting for the moment a panic attack would happen.

God really used this time to challenge my patience with the boys and to better learn to comfort them. It's not that they were behaving badly or unruly children. They are hyper sensitive to noise, and the noise level is magnified for them and their brains can't fully process these noises, causing a panic. I couldn't tell them to knock it off or to stop crying. I had to hold them tightly, do my best to remove them from the situation as quickly as possible and assure them that Mommy and Daddy keep them safe, tell them those noises can't hurt them. We'd also end up sitting somewhere praying together, which always calmed all 3 of us down.

During this time I had to (attempt to) stop caring what other people were thinking as they watched my kids go into full-blown meltdown mode (as I'm sure they thought I just had bratty kids). I'm still not at the point where I really don't care, but I'm growing. I had to learn to stay calm and be patient with both of them screaming in terror of the noise they heard. This was not easy and my heart was resilient to what God was doing during that time. In fact, at the time, I didn't realize God was working something in my life, I just blamed the sensory processing disorders. By the time we got to therapy every afternoon, I was crying myself. Angry, frustrated, emotionally spent. Why? Why did they have to have such a hard time when all I was trying to do was have fun with them? I felt like a terrible mom for still making them do something every Friday when it always ended in torture for them.

A couple months passed before we found relief. The boys finally started to remain calm when they heard a noise. They started using the self-soothing techniques we taught them. They'll hear a noise, and start to repeat "I'm safe. I'm safe. Mommy and Daddy keep me safe", which is rather cute to me. They still freeze in their tracks and won't move until the noise is gone, but they no longer meltdown, for the most part.

So perseverance (which I only had through God's grace) paid off, and we continue to have our Fun Fridays, which are a little more fun now. If I had my way, we wouldn't have gone through those difficult months, but God's way is so much better than our own. His plan molds our characters and uses difficult times to help us grown. I tell ya, I think God is going to give me patience of steel by the time these boys are raised. ;)

'Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand' Isaiah 41:10

P.S. For any of my friends that had the pleasure of being a part of my nervous-wreck-of-a- mommy time for those few months, I thank you for still continuing to be my friend now! I'm sure I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around, and at the time it wasn't easy for me explain what was going on. :)