Another Day

Olivia and CJ went to bed nice and early last night so I finally got some sleep. I'm becoming an expert at multi-tasking so I had one child in each bathtub. I love having two bathrooms. It makes things go so much faster. Yesterday was a good day for us. I worked an hour of overtime at work and had to rush home to pick everybody up and get my son to football practice. It is at a park with plenty of room to run so it is one of the few family outings that we can take Olivia on and actually be able to get some enjoyment out of it without being too stressed out. My mom came out so she watched CJ practice while I watched Olivia. My ex-husband said he would come, but he was late as usual. I don't even know why I hold my breath anymore. He still doesn't understand why my mom hates him so much. He doesn't realize that the slack that he drops off, my mom picks up. There's no way I could do this by myself. You see, he quit his contracting job where he was making really good money, really good money, but he was gone all of the time. The advantage of that was I always god my child support on time. Since he quit that job and went back to school full-time, he now works part-time and I am lucky if I get anything. FOr example, this month I got $160.17 for two kids. I know he thinks he is doing his best, but it's not good enough. That barely pays for one week of daycare. I guess my sympathy level is low because when I went to school after the divorce, I worked full-time overnights, went to class during the day and worked overtime on the weekends. I had no life outside of work, school and the kids with the kids ALWAYS being the number one priority. I know there are good men out there, but I still think the saying that men do what they want to do and women do what they have to do still holds true--for the most part. I know he has good intentions, I have to believe that, but his priorities are misplaced. Enough about him and I will try to mention him less in the future. At football practice, several of the siblings of the players were playing on the playground. There was a group of young girls about Olivia's age playing together. One of them came up and asked me could she play with my kid. The funny thing is when you have a special needs child, that is the norm for you. Even though you see other kids all of the time-or at least I do in my line of work, you never really notice how different your child is until you see them around regularly functioning kids. The little girl said hi to Olivia as Olivia looked right past her, quietly sang to herself and proceeded off in her own little world. I explained to the little girl that Olivia likes to play by herself, but thanks for asking. The little girl proceeded to follow Olivia, until Olivia began to get agitated by the unwanted attention and bit her arm. The little girl walked off. It are these times that my heart breaks. I wonder who will be there for her after I'm gone. I know CJ loves his sister to death and is so worried about protecting her, but at the same time I've never seen a 7 year old worry as much as my son does. I want him to concentrate on being a kid. Moments like ones at the playground bring me back to reality and I realize that unless there is some sort of breakthrough, I will never get to plan a wedding with my daughter, never be able to teach her how to be a good mom and never be able to truly know what's going on in that little mind of hers. I sometimes wonder if she ever will know how much I love her. If I could chose one thing for her to know, it would be that-how much I love her. Every aspect of my day is based around that child. I would do anything for either one of my kids. She did decide to sit in the lawn chair eventually and watch her brother play football. She did get a little silly, but I was very surprised that she did it. CJ was happy too to see all of us watching him practice. Cornelius (my ex-husband) did make it out to see the last 15-20 minutes of practice. Olivia was glad to see him too and went into super silly mode. When we got home from football practice, Olivia went straight to her usual spot-the computer. She went straight to NickJr.com and was very upset when it was bath time. She did love the bubbles I put in her bath and stayed in there for almost an hour. I struggled with her to comb her hair when she got out, but she knows who's boss! After that, she watched CJ watch some videos on the computer and they both laughed and laughed. It is so special to watch them interacting together. I used to work at a state hospital that served people with just autism.  I know Olivia is capable of loving, learning, and forming deep attachments. It makes me keep hope alive that she will accomplish far and above expectations of her. Olivia didn't last much longer. She is on medication to help her sleep so she climbed in my bed, pulled the covers back, lined up her sesame street babies and went to sleep. This is such a blessing and I thank Dr. Hopkins from the bottom of my heart. This is still new to us because there was a time when Olivia didn't sleep at all. No seriously, I mean at all. You had to stay up with her too because she would leave the house. Olivia still has no sense of safety and has left the house in the middle of the night. I installed alarms, but when you're a single parent and not sleeping very much, it takes awhile for the alarms to wake you up. There was one particular night where I was dreaming the alarm was going off and when I woke up, it actually was. It couldn't have been going off for too long, but it was long enough for me not to know which way she went. I had to call the police and luckily, I got her back unharmed. She was missing for about 30 minutes. There was another time a few years back that she left our hotel room when we were out of town in the middle of the night. They didn't know what room she belonged to (I always make the front desk aware now that she is mine!!!) so Olivia was placed in emergency foster care. After being interviewed by the police in the middle of the night, I was allowed to go pick her up. She was medicated that time, but obviously wasn't working. After the police saw I was a good mom and realized this wasn't a case of neglect, they let me pick her up. I still sleep with one eye open til this day. Those of you that I gone on the link on my page already know that I am having a service dog trained for her and he should be ready very soon. It has been a long process, but Olivia is already very familiar with her dog. We used a rescue dog that we chose out and have visited several times. Olivia has already been exposed to her dog on several occasion (the advantage of using a local trainer) and I can't wait til we get him. This dog has no idea how special he is and how much he is already loved. To think, he was at the shelter for over a year. The trainer said that we were very lucky to find him and that will probably never happen again. I just had that feeling about him. Anyway, that is about all for today. It is my brother's 34th birthday today and we are having a party for him. Besides that, Olivia just got home from school and will want her spot on the computer back. The teacher said she had a great day at school and is getting more and more comfortable with the routine. Until tomorrow.