A Day at the Zoo

I hope no one will be offended by that title. I not refering at all to furry creatures such as lions or tigers or bears (oh my!) It's just that life at my house is sometimes rather crazy. We have five children because I have very seriously considered the adoption option and I love it! I love children. I love being a Mommy. Without adoption I would be childless.

Mostly our kids are just kids but you get a few diagnoses like 4 kids with ADHD, 1 of those with PDD as well, some sensory integration difficulties and auditory processing challenges and attachment concerns and fetal alcohol exposure and mild cerebral palsy and most recently Down syndrome tossed into the mixture and things are rarely dull. Don't get excited--it's not NEARLY as bad as all those words sound--but it's not boring either :) Oh, there ARE actually two furry creatures who reside here-a dog and a cat and I really think the dog has ADHD, too.

Last night I took the kids with me to Bible study as usual. Kevin had a City Council meeting so could not be there. Of course I gave everyone a stern "Now I don't have to remind you how we are supposed to act here, right?" before they streamed out of the car. In Bible study our crew sits on the back two benches with children spaced widely apart to try to minimize how distracting we are to everyone else. Also everyone else sits in the middle of the auditorium while we sit in the section to the pastor's right. My oldest who is 14 bought time-out within a few minutes (his misbehavior was already well in motion before we ever got to church) so I put him in a side room that has a big window to the auditorium and told him to stay there. I went back into the service and sat down. The daughter beside me was scribbling all over her notepaper, flipping it loudly back and forth, laying on the bench, patting me, reaching behind me to Caleb, etc. The daughter in front of me and to the left was gesturing rather wildly that she had some kind of problem. Unbeknownst to me she had a DEAD KITTEN wrapped up in the pocket of her sweatshirt and it was stinking. (please roll your eyes here!) My middle son James arrived from football practice and sat down directly in front of me with pads and cleats still in place. About that time the oldest son showed up beside me and told me he wanted to try again. I told him that I'd told him to stay there. He didn't budge so I again got up to escort him back to his bench in the side room. Back to Bible study. Not too long later I notice the lights going off and on in said side room. Back to side room. Correct son. Back to Bible study. And where is Caleb all this time? the one with Down Syndrome whom we were warned about that would be such a wild horror of a child? He was quietly sitting in his place on the pew looking at his Bible story book, and writing on some paper even with me getting up and down so many times.

Thankfully God gave everyone at the zoo a good night's sleep and I woke up this morning feeling much less stressed. OK, so I did find an open can of peaches sitting neatly on the cupboard shelf in front of my Total Raisin Bran this morning. Thankfully, they were freshly opened and still tasty and thankfully they were IN the can and not decoratively, stickily poured on anything. Wow! I had 3 servings of fruit in one meal--peaches, raisins in cereal and apple juice. Not bad for a new day at the zoo.