Sunday, July 19, 2009

When do I breathe?

I feel like I am so busy that I haven't even had time to breathe! This past week especially. I have barely looked at blogs and facebook. Life is so crazy and this is summer! I have no idea how I am gonna keep up this fall and later in the spring when I will have all the kids playing baseball again. Oh well!

I have spent the last week running a "camp" for my mom's two foster girls that she has had for years. They are older girls, ages 22 and 21. They have special needs, which is why they are still in the foster care system. Due to these needs, they have been kicked out of every camp they have ever attended, so my mom came up with the idea of me running the camp. It went better than I thought, but it was really hard on my family. They felt like their whole lives were invaded, and they were. The girls were difficult and ornery at times and sweet and grateful at others. Mostly, they are really hard to be around for extended periods of time. Some of the activities we did were: makeover day (getting them hair cuts and TRYING to teach them that 21 year olds don't wear blue eyeshadow and glitter all over their faces!!) They act like they are about 9 or 10 years old, so that is a really hard concept for them to grasp and makes taking them out in public potentially embarrassing!! Then we had some cooking classes and basic instructions there. We had movie day and took them to see the newest Harry Potter movie. They laughed and made all sorts of noises at weird times so I am glad the theater was crowded and they had to sit a row behind us! (I know I am a little bit of a jerk there, but I can't help it!!) We took them to Saguaro Lake on the boat and let them do a lot of tubing. Which they loved and I so wished that I had a camera to take pics of how funny they looked bouncing up and down on that tube! And finally, of Friday we took them camping overnight. They had never been and really did enjoy the experience.

It was a really busy, hard and frustrating week, but worth it. I am so glad it is over! Anyway, now I need to de-stress and get my house/life back in order. It's also time to get the kids ready for school. All 5 of my kids should be in school this year. Alex is enrolled in a preschool program, although I had a small snag in the registration for it, hopefully it will work out. He will go 4 afternoons a week for 2 hours. It will be weird having my kids all gone for a part of the day. It's almost too bad I have to babysit, cause I will still have kids in my home. Unfortunately, I still need the income. Oh well, gotta do what I gotta do.

Anyway, that is why I haven't returned emails, calls, posts, rsvp's and such. I do feel bad about that and will hopefully be back on top of things again!

4 comments:

music lady said...

Sounds like a busy interesting week!
I glad you had this opportunity though because it really makes one appreciate how everyone is unique. And then it makes you appreciate your own family and all their personalities. I really am starting to appreciate my small camera because I take it with me when I do different things and I will have it at school for those fun (Funny) moments that one picture can explain it without words. I hope this makes sense.

Anonymous said...

That is so great that you did that camp. That is awesome. Next time I would love to help you. It is definitely hard to have kids around the house even after all your kids are in school, but you will get used to it I promise.

Leslie said...

I am sorry for being so anry about the whole rsvping stuff...At least I have a good excuse right...no not really!!

Next time you go to heber I am sure we would love to tag along with you guys...It would be a nice place to camp.

School is approaching too fast and I am not sure I will be ready but I am ready to have some peace. What little I will get.

I hope you get some peace during nap time or something!!

Richard said...

It was fun to tag along with the girls and get to know them. It was also fun to be part of some of those activities. You should feel proud that you accomplished so much with the camp and helping the girls out. I do hope that things will fall back into the peaceful placeand that life will let you breath for a little bit. Keep your chin up!!1