Get Your Girl Back

Parenting takes a lot out of me. Especially parenting kiddos with special needs. From 2010 until now, I have really struggled with my mental, physical, and emotional health. Recently I attended the Thirty-One National Conference in Denver, and I heard four amazing motivational speakers. The one that really spoke to my heart, however, was Traci Bild, author of Get Your Girl Back. She talked about prioritizing life and taking deliberate steps to get your life back to the way you want it to be. We can't do everything, but we can prioritize and really focus on what is important to us. When I sat down with myself and figured out what "girl" I wanted back, I came to these conclusions:

• Fitness and Health - feel better, stronger, and fit back into my clothes. This includes having time to work out and the resources to eat healthy. 
• Parenting - spending time actually playing with my kids, cuddling, reading, and interacting one-on-one in a fun way every day for at least 10 minutes. Sometimes I spend an hour with one kid, but it is on homework or a project. I want to enjoy my kiddos. After all, I spent years trying to get them, right? Ten minutes doesn't seem like much, but ten minutes of one-on-one attention for each of my lovelies is a lot more than I have been giving.
• Marriage - We obviously married each other because we loved one another. Somewhere over the last few years, we have become a bit disconnected. It happened in little steps with events in our lives: miscarriage, moving, fostering, adopting, parenting, recruiting trips, etc. In the last few months, we have been more intentional about spending time together and remembering why we enjoy one another. We are even going to start "dating" again! 

Wow! My Thirty-One business and my teaching career didn't even make the list! What is truly important to me has nothing to do with money or prestige. It is health and family. Traci has emails, a dream journal, and a book coming out soon. I can't wait to dig further into her challenge to get my girl back! 

Summertime

I have been very quiet on social media lately. Part of the reason is that I needed to complete two graduate courses this summer, and one of them was extremely labor intensive. I mean, 8+ hours a day for three weeks straight. No joke. We also had a nice trip to see my family. The kids did great. They were flexible during changes in routine, they got along with cousins and extended family, and they were so much fun! D ended up picking his legs, but they did well overall. They are amazing travelers! We did boating, fishing, four-wheeling, water park hotel, amusement park, mini golfing, tubing down a river, and more. Memories to last a lifetime!

In other news, D grew 3 inches in the last year! That means, although he is still very small compared to his peers, we do not have to look at human growth hormones. We are so thankful! We will just keep up with high protein, high fat, and lots of fruits and veggies. D lost another tooth, and S finally lost her first tooth. It has been super exciting around here.

One of the biggest changes is that we acquired a second dog. It took eight years for me to agree to the first dog, and now we have two. A seven year old blue heeler mix joined our lab retriever mix. They get along fabulously, and the new dog loves to cuddle with the kids. She is actually more therapeutic than our dog has ever been. Although I am not enjoying the extra dog fur, it is great to see my kids experience unconditional love from an animal.

D continues working on his farm, and the big two went to a therapeutic horse camp this summer for kids who have experienced grief and loss. The sessions were full, so they actually created a separate camp for kids who are in similar situations to my kiddos (adoption, foster care, divorce) rather than death. It has stirred up some emotions, but it is also making them stronger. It is so cool to see my kids leading around these huge animals and gaining confidence. They have all decided to be vets now.

Tomorrow D will experience respite for the first time. His case manager is providing the respite for four hours, so he decided he could give it a try. They will be going hiking or playing at a park, eating lunch, and then playing games. He used to say that he didn't want to do respite (because he didn't understand what it is), but now he is excited to hang out with his friends from summer group. I hope it goes well! During the school year, he can go one Saturday a month to do some really neat activities like skating, the YMCA, movies, going out to eat, and more. I don't think any of us are interested in overnight respite, but I think he will enjoy the time away from his parents. It will be nice for the little two to get some more attention as well.

Next week the kids are going to their grandparents' house for a week while Dad and I get ready for the beginning of school. We will miss them, but I think it will be nice to have time with Nana and Granddad and get spoiled a bit. When they return, it is back to school with a Kingergartener, 1st grader, and 3rd grader! Crazy!