Sensory processing and me

Well this is more like it.  It is hot hot hot.  Thunderstorms in the evening and not even windy.  My garden is finally coming up.  The grass is going to seed but at least it isn't brown - just enough rain to keep it alive.  One more full week of school and the last week of soccer, although again Heidi is missing tonight.  She missed going to the Melfort Wave Pool today and yesterday a really fun birthday party as she is struggling with a really bad virus.  She's been sleeping a lot.  This is the third one in a row and it is getting really tiring.  I think there have maybe been two or three days in the last month and a half where all our kids have been in school.  I have been a Mom on duty pretty much full time for a very long time.  Just in time for summer.  At least then I won't have to get up quite as early to get the healthy ones to the bus.  Levi did get antibiotics but no dice for Heidi.  I understand that they're overprescribed but after 6 weeks of being sick . . . come on.  How much school should kids miss?  The fact that Levi was amazingly better within 24 hours of starting his pretty much convinced me that they were the answer.  Course now he is back to his incredibly energetic self and seems even that much more larger than life after being sick and calm for so long.

Dan and I were working together with a child with Attic Therapy and afterwards he questioned why I had paused for such a long time at a certain point, when the child was obviously "frozen".  He felt that at that point it would have been more helpful to give clear directions, but I was waiting for the child to unfreeze and start processing again.  We had a long discussion afterwards which was interesting because it made me realize how "sensory" I am and how not everyone is (including him).  Sensory in that I am very very affected by my environment and often feel that it is "too much" or alternatively that I need more input to stay awake or to deal with information at all coherently.  I can be very controlling of certain parts of my environment and I guess I assumed most people are or would like to be, although I know that he isn't.  He is controlling in other areas of course but things like temperature, lighting, background music or lack thereof, and general "busy-ness" don't really register with him.  For me they are absolutely crucial to how I am able to function.  It often happens (probably once or twice a week) that I begin to shut down just because my brain is too tired to handle all the incoming sensory data and so one by one my sensory systems go "off-line".  It's almost like blacking out in stages. At that point I have to get away (usually just by curling up on the couch and reading or something very calm like that), and I certainly can't be driving!   Anyway, this is such a common occurrence for me that when it happened with that child I knew that the best thing would be to give him time without a lot of information until he came back "to his senses".  Which he did, and you could see him slowly start to register sight, then hearing, then position, then movement, then touch.  Pretty neat.

Most of what I do with kids I do because occupational therapy has an entire language and knowledge base that gives a framework to understand this kind of process.  I learnt the language but the therapy part is extremely intuitive.  OT just taught me why certain things work with me and why I feel pretty certain that a certain thing will work with a kid.  I know because I can look at them and at their eyes and just try to figure out "if I was in that space, what would I do to get myself organized?"  And because I have been in an awful lot of those spaces (disorganized, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, needing to crash into things, needing not to be touched, needing to move, needing not to move and so on) it's usually pretty easy to give them what they need and then get on with the fun stuff. 

My point is that I have been wondering how many other people function like this - constantly fine-tuning the environment around themselves and the people they love to keep it at exactly the right "temperature" for whatever needs to get done.  I find this process very tiring when there are 3 kids and myself and a husband (who isn't picky but sometimes gets his back up about the oddest things - for some reason I can't get into his head at all) to keep track of.  Makes me shut down quite early in the evening even though I am naturally an evening person.  I'd like to know what it would be like to parent without worrying about that stuff all the time.  Is it a lot easier?  Or do you just worry about different things that never occur to me?  Dan would say yes, like all the practical details of life such as closing the door, turning off lights when you leave a room, and remembering your grocery list.  I can never remember that stuff.  

Ah well, now I have to remember to make supper.  Getting fed is a pretty important part of my kids daily sensory routine.

Things I like

(This picture is "Hidden Lake" where all our kids really learned to swim - it used to be deeper).

I like the claw foot tub on our deck full of flowers.  I like John Lyon's training methods for horses.  They are so not stressful.  I like Friday afternoon when the kids come home all tired and I realize I don't have to get up the next morning and make porridge and sign agendas.  I like the colour of leaves against the sky in the morning and I love the look of swallows swooping around our yard in the evening when their tummies light up because the sun is low and syrupy.  I like writing without thinking such as this kind of writing instead of developmental reports describing the results of standardized testing!  I like really good piano playing.  Speaking of which, I really like Keith Green.  I like running when my knees don't hurt.  I like watching water run.  I like getting really dirty and then getting really clean.  I like the smell of horse sweat.  I like it when my house is sort of clean although the process I don't like so much.  I like going on a tear.  I like Nickelback really really loud although that cannot happen around our kids.  I like good boots and old jeans (as anyone who knows me will find obvious).  I like wool socks.  I love ice cream, especially with chocolate and nuts.  I like really well done movies that aren't really about serious topics - like Spiderman (although not the third one, that was awful) and Pirates of the Caribbean (although not the second or third ones - too wierd and dark).  I like talking for hours about feelings and dreams and ideals (except now that I go to bed around 9 that doesn't happen often).  I love sleeping.  I like riding really fast so you feel like you're flying.  I like it when everyone around me is having a really good time and no one is upset about anything.  I like being outside as much as possible and if you're inside having all the windows open.  Even in winter although that's not practical.  I like wood heat.  I like rototilling a lot.  I often rototill too much.  It's probably not even good for the garden but our quackgrass justifies it.  I like it when people are really honest.  I like black humour.  I like it when kids "get" something for the very first time.

I am feeling a lot better now!

Summer is here!!

It is so ridiculous to try to garden in this climate.  I have finished planting a huge beautiful piece of ground and so far in one week it has been dried, blown away, frozen and baked to a crisp.  It has NOT been rained on to any great degree and our water pressure is such that with a soaker hose (really the only option when it is 30 above and windy) it would take approximately 3 days to cover the entire garden changing the location each hour or so during the day.  And I had better not slack off either because by three days the first rows are bone dry again.  I tried mulching with straw around the peppers and tomatoes and now straw is flying everywhere. 

Furthermore we have a nice new inflatable pool that we have been waiting and waiting to set up until the little sticky poplar buds have all been dropped.  Today I looked up and saw waving green leaves and thought "great! I could set this up today since it is brutally hot and have it ready to go by the time the kids get home from school."  And since then the entire deck has been coated with sticky little pieces of tree gum including my carefully placed and rolled out pool. 

However, on the upside, I have been going at a moderate pace all day and it's almost 2 and I don't feel like keeling over, so I might be getting better.  It's hard to judge sometimes between normal morning tired (I am NOT a morning person) and stay horizontal as much as possible or you will pay tired.

The horses are really getting annoyed with me as not only are they bored stiff - I haven't done a thing with them for a week and a half - but I am not letting them out on the grass.  That is because the grass is not really growing.  I let them out for a total of 6 hours on our one acre pasture over two days widely spaced and the grass is probably shot.  There's no moisture.  We are back to a drought with a vengeance unless something changes.  I am just worried about the forest.  The Canwood fire is apparently still burning although under control.  That was bad and could have been worse.  I think there will be a lot more fires this summer at this rate.

Anyway, I am considering my energy and whether to try to work with Jetta this afternoon.  It is very hot but she really really needs it.  If I can I probably should.  On the other hand, if I do too much today I will not really lick this virus and working with horses means I completely forget about time passing.   Hmmm.  Oh!  Time to go move that soaker hose!

Smoke etc.

Well, another weekend, and another forest fire on the horizon.  This one was about 40 kms away but still in the same forest surrounding us and for a while the smoke was billowing quite spectacularly over the trees.  It's becoming a regular Sunday afternoon thing.  It is out today for which I am very grateful.  I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I am just draining from a terrific head cold that seemed to completely plug up my neural synapses as well as take away any vestiges of energy I had for the last week.  On Dan's birthday last Friday I temporarily felt better and made the big mistake of doing a full day's work including cleaning my fridge, baking an angel food cake from scratch, and vacuuming the whole house as well as laundry and dishes.  Plus I made a picnic supper which we had at "Hidden Lake" with the kids getting turns on the dirt bike and Dan taking a few adult style spins.  That was apparently a bit too much excitement and so the next two days I could not really function at all.  I finally went to the Dr. and thanks to Nasonex am enjoying a constant slimy feeling in the back of my throat which convulsive swallowing does not help at all.  However, occasionally I can feel my ears crackling again.  I guess they were completely blocked.  Heidi has been enjoying this same journey with me with the addition of wheezing in her chest that had the Dr. mention the asthma word.  Oh great.  I thought that was something the new house was supposed to keep at bay.  However, weekly forest fires probably don't help either.

Our internet cable is buried and the land smoothed up to the house (from the barn) and none too soon as Seth has been going crazy on the dirt bike and it was a near thing several times as he tended to forget about the existence of the overground cable.  That could have been bad.  We also now have a nice smooth "front lawn" thanks to Dan's Bobcat finesse and I have all sorts of energy rich ideas for landscaping.  That is the problem as usual - where to start? 

Now that a website is a real possibility I would love to practice with a personal one before attempting a professional one.  Both are big projects at least the way that I do things.  When it is raining like today I could go nuts but I hate to start something that I will not get back to for several months if ever.  Especially if I forget to do more important things as a result.  So I'll let it simmer and see how the day goes.  The rest of the week is very busy with both my jobs and that is likely to continue for the month.  The Waskesiu weekend with my whole family is coming up very quickly and I have no idea if we even own a tent.  Not to mention that most of our camping stuff spent the winter in the barn and the cats seem to have peed on everything of value in that structure.  They are really the most unhygienic, disgustingly dirty animals I have ever encountered.  But they kill mice.  And birds, and squirrels and the occasional rabbit.  Again, evidence in the barn.  There's a really pressing project, to completely clean that out and put absolutely everything in it on the wall somehow.

I wrote a poem last week for the first time in a very long time!  For Dan's birthday.  I wasn't sure if that part of my brain had completely atrophied but it's still there in the background.  Waiting for retirement, most likely.  

Well, anyway, it's been lovely blogging but I do need to get on with my day.  In some direction or other.

High speed!

Wow! After only 8 months of having water in our new home we finally have high speed!  This feels like the last convenience - almost as great as a dishwasher!  It sure took long enough.  Dan had to badger several companies for months before some tech guys finally showed up.  Then it seemed to go remarkably easily.  We now have a pretty inconspicuous mast on the top of our barn and Dan is busy digging the wire in a trench to our home so we don't immediately wreck the whole system.  However, this page popped up immediately instead of the usual 5-10 minutes to get dialed up and load. I cannot believe how wonderful this will be.  I can finally consider a website.  I can access Facebook and all the people that have recognized me but I couldn't acknowledge because that process could take up to half an hour.  We can surf and even check the weather without a ten minute commitment!!  Hooray!  Not to mention iTunes!

I am so sick this week which is unfortunate because it is also finally lovely weather.  I planted some of my bedding plants this morning because it rained last night and so the soil was nice and moist, however that was enough to require an hour lying down.  I had to cancel one of my little clients today because I don't want her catching whatever this is.  Also I can't think all that clearly and certainly can't move all that fast.  May has worked out to be almost a holiday for me from Attic Therapy.  Lots of cancellations because of sickness.  I guess it was my turn.  That's good because of my often hinted at need to consider my future and options.  I've had time to think and talk with Dan more than usual.  And get the garden in!  It looks so nice right now - all black and soft and even.  I love the first two months when everything behaves and nothing is too tall and untamed.  Everything green and healthy growing in straight lines.  Very lovely.

Dan thinks that I try to be all things to all people and I should stop. I don't think that's possible.  I just need to decide where to be so the people I am with are the people I should be with at any given moment.  No problem. Most of the time the decision is made for me anyway.  However broad strokes are up to me - volunteer at school or not?  Work more or less?  Spend time with friends or family?  I think too much.  Now I'm going to be online too much.  Hooray!!

puzzle before supper

What a week. I am trying to understand my place in the world.  I am trying to figure out what piece I fit into and I feel all corners.  It's like having a blue piece of a puzzle of the sky that doesn't fit anywhere at all.  It almost does and it is enough to drive one crazy because the urge to snick it into place is almost physical.

I'd talk more about it and vent but of course everything is so darned confidential when it comes to employment and business.  I am turning 40 and feeling needed (and kneaded) in all ways and in all directions.  Suffice it to say that everywhere I look there are things to do, urgently, and all of them go off in contrary lines of sight and many are completely mutually exclusive.  I'd love to spend my life writing, at times like this.  Once you put words on paper they begin to sort themselves out into some sort of order.  But actions just go on rippling in the universe with consequences and counter-consequences and cross-consequences.  Life in theory is so much simpler.

I just heard from my hairdresser today that we are probably entering another 7 year drought, supposedly drier than the '30's.  She heard that by the end of it the entire Nesbit forest (which surrounds where we live for miles in all directions) is most likely going to be completely burnt by more forest fires.  This is unfortunately the only way to clean it up after a succession of smaller fires and drought or flood or tornado-killed trees have fallen over and are carpeting miles of dry forest tinder.  The new trees only start after enough heat bursts the cones, as most people know.  They need a good fire.  That's not a comforting thought.  Especially after last night I dreamt an extremely vivid dream where we lost our home to a forest fire, although we were all safe.  That was before my hair appointment!

Probably this is all on account of the weather, which is extremely unsettled for spring even, swinging wildly from 20 above to windy and cold and 3 below with freezing rain (as in this morning).  Two of my kids are home sick and I'm being pretty cautious with them given there are now two non-Mexico related cases of swine flu in the health region.  None of this makes me feel wildly optimistic and adventurous.  I don't even feel like going to a theatre and escaping.  I just need to sit still and think.  But thinking requires some sequential logic or more preferably intuitive wisdom which for me requires writing.  Thus here I am.  Unable to write about details but venting all the same.  

I know what I love to do and I know what Dan loves to do.  We both know our capabilities and limitations much better than 10 years ago.  We have a clearer idea that our kids will continue to need us in different but no less intensive ways.  It is hard to come up with a plan to make payments that covers all these bases.  Maybe we should just admit defeat and do what makes us tired but which brings in enough money.  However that approach is so dispiriting that everything in me rebels.  I can't believe that God does not want us to be ourselves or to dream, even after 40 when we know so much more.  So I keep sliding the puzzle piece around and around, trying every different way to snick it into place.  And that's all the time I have now, because I need to make supper! 

Chance prickly encounter

It's almost the middle of May and it is SNOWING for Pete's sake. Well, I guess it has died down at the moment, but I went running today through Christmas-y scenery.  Although on the edge of our driveway the green spring grass was poking bravely through.  Since I last wrote here we have been to the flooded part of Manitoba, visiting our great friends the dairy farmers (now organic dairy farmers, no less!) the Zacharias' in Reinland, and then our sheep farmer friends the Schatzleins.  Soo good to see both of them.  You guys were so encouraging to us on so many levels.  

The trip ended eventfully when we ran over a beaver in the dark near Yorkton.  Turns out those creatures are solid.  Our radiator was pushed well back and bumped into fans and other fairly crucial structures and we coasted to a stop next to some sleepy cows in the pitch dark.  This adventure required an extra night in Yorkton and then a cozy trip home towing our car with all 5 of us cuddled up together in the front of a rented U-Haul.  So we got home eventually but having spent a little more than intended.  This was followed by another accidental forest fire about half a mile from our yard, on the other end of Crutwell.  Thankfully the wind blew the fire away to the river, but it covered a lot of acres and provided us with a Sunday afternoon airshow complete with two tracker planes and two huge waterbombers.  We enjoyed this once we were pretty sure we weren't going to have to be evacuated.  Again.

After this soccer season started with games on MTWTh as well as me finishing up my proposal to the Health Region for a new OT position (unlikely to be successful but hey, I tried!). We had a wonderful birthday party for Heidi (7) and her entire Grade 1/2 class with a rented hot tub on probably the nicest day we'll have this summer, given the current weather.  Thanks to Carrie for the excellent idea and making sure I actually went forward and rented the thing and planned the party!  Whew!  Now it's Seth's turn and he is turning 12 so we do need to do something special as well!

I have been riding I think about 4 times in the last month on Jetta.  She is getting better at direction changes but still has no idea about speed control so I lurch between very fast and very slow for now.  She's a nice horse but a little childish.  I guess that is understandable.  I am getting impatient to go again and was planning for it today but it is freezing cold and I may wuss out.  Thus I am actually blogging next to the cold gray weather outside.

Last night soccer was cancelled (weather!) and so Dan and I went out and left Seth in charge. We have taken Conrad's suggestion (Zacharias) and put our kids on a monthly salary instead of paying by the job and the hour.  I think this will work out really well on average although when it is really busy at school and sports it is hard to give the younger two enough work.  Hopefully on holidays and weekends they can earn their money.  There certainly is enough to do.  Anyway, Dan and I walked around Little Red park for about an hour because I was restless and couldn't handle the thought of sitting still in a movie theatre or restaurant after a full day at work in front of my computer.  We talked and talked and then were pleasantly surprised to notice a porcupine in a small shrub just next to the path.  It was holding very still and hoping we wouldn't notice it from about 3 feet away.  We backed up a few more feet (I know those things can't throw their needles but you can't be too careful) and just watched it.  They're actually very adorable.  They look just like a stuffed animal or overgrown hamster with bristles.  It finally got disgusted with us and waddled off.  I do mean waddled.  I couldn't believe its gait!  The front legs traveled normally but the back legs looked like they were stepping over a large branch each step, or that one of its prickles had got caught in its underwear and it was trying to work it out.  It was so funny.  No wonder the species is protected so as to be available for "easy meat" if you are lost in the wild.  Anyone could take a large stick and just knock it on the head.  They're very slow and unafraid.

Anyway, we are again as usual contemplating our lives and what we really want to do.  I think it's mandatory as Dan is 40 and I am turning 40.  Life is so short! and at this point you begin to really feel it.  I know I felt it running this morning.  Not quite as springy as I used to be.  It will be interesting what we hear from God on various fronts in the next little while.  Our basic problem is that both of us like to take any reasonably good idea and stretch it into oblivion and total impossibility.  Then we paralyze ourselves thinking of all the possible things that could and probably will go wrong.  If we just took a good idea and actually did it, on the other hand, without first making it much bigger and better, it would probably work out.  Or part of it would.  In any event we would move forward.  Ah well.  It's hard to change.  But at this age, we should be mature enough to change just a little!

This is enough posting I guess.  I should take my own advice and resume my life.  I'll try to actually keep up with this in the next little while.