Re: To Rochelle - Re: Announcing myself: Rochelle

[Guest guest]

Hi Rochelle,

It's good to hear from you.

I'm doing o.k. Coming out of a long period of marital & family drama. The last several years have been in upheaval. We've had to deal with my husband's family. All sorts of nasty stuff (abuse) has come to the surface so it's been good in the sense that we were able to disengage from the family and I've seen what they really are and that it is ok to not cater to their controlling nuttiness at the same time withdrawing from them has been hard on my husband. He's had to deal with all sorts of junk he would rather have pretended never happened. Then of course in all this the family exploded at us and they are all (except one) mad and have nothing to do with us because we will have nothing to do with the parents. So while my husband is in upheavel I have had to deal with him changing and for the first time in his life being honest about who he is. He is doing a lot better now though and is I think finally healing. He recently got a letter from his dad and was able to just get mad about it (his dad is a nasty jerk) instead of shoving it aside and pretending it never came. So the big picture is all this is good but the immediate picture is all this is awful. LOL If that makes any sense!

Funny you should mention my house, it has been a great comfort to me in all this. It is so nice up here. Quiet, pretty, windy, roomy.... etc. I've been having lots of fun landscaping. If I stay here long enough I would probably have the whole five acres made into a park. LOL

The kids are doing good. My oldest has improved a lot in school, both in attitude and in grades. We put her in a karate class and that has helped her a lot with self discipline (controlling her anger) and she loves the class. She still struggles with wrapping her brain around certain things.... like the other day the front brakes on her bike broke and there was a tear on the seat so she announced she was throwing her bike away as it was junk. (no anger/frustration just factual)She couldn't see the difference between something little breaking and not being worth enough to pay to fix it and something more expensive breaking. Also she has only recently been able to understand that not all the cars on the road with you are going to the same place you are going. She's doing a lot better socially though and seems to be fitting in reasonably well with the other kids. It helps that they are all homeschoolers so have that in common. Yesterday she made cookies all by herself without a drop of help from me and they turned out wonderful, it's good to see her motivating to do something on her own and then being a success in it! She's 11 now.

My second born is extremely intelligent and seems to be able to do everything well. She does math in her head quicker than me much of the time. She's a good writer, she is testing for her 1st belt in karate even though she has not been in for 6 months yet. (Most kids have to be in longer than that before they are ready to test.) She has excellent memory, etc and so forth. Cassidy's problem lies with social ability. She is very silent which in and of its self is fine with me but she is showing a tendency of being angry at people because they are not reading her mind for her. She tends to be standoffish and expects others to come to her, talk to her, reach out to her, basically wants others do all the work socially. She also tends to assume attack when it's just an accident and has a hard time seeing the difference. I haven't had her IQ tested but I figure she's easily more intelligent than me. LOL She's 8.

I struggle with trying to keep her separate from her older sister so her Raissa doesn't feel dumb. I have explained to my oldest that Cassidy is an exception not a rule so... But at times as mom it is hard to not get frustrated with my oldest when her little sister is doing without effort what she refuses to even try.

My youngest is 5 now and is refreshingly average. She's reasonable smart, but would rather play. She's fun but throws a good sized fit fairly regularly. LOL She's more social than either of the other two. She's actually very relaxing most of the time since as of yet no major issues (good or bad) have shown up. Which I figure mean there probably isn't anything too major as with my other two I saw the problems coming when they were very young. When she was born I objected to the middle name we had picked out for her at the last moment. Then it just came to me that her middle name should be Joy and it has been prophetic about her personality and what she brings to others.

You mentioned your sons traits have increased of late. This is what happened to me as well. I know that technically according to diagnostic criteria AS isn't supposed to show up in adolescence but while I can look back and see it from the time I was very young I also can see I fit in reasonable well until teenagerhood. My sensitivity to things increased, my ability to fit in decreased. Etc. I haven't seen any professional view on this but I think it has to do with hormones and personality. Like my personality skated me along when I was younger but with the onslaught of hormones (mine are out of wack) my AS traits got intensified. Also at that age the stress in life increased dramatically and I know now for a fact that stress greatly reduces my tolerance for sound, light, smell, etc. I hope things go well for your son and am glad to hear things have improved for Inge.

Good to hear from you again,

I hope you find a nice home!

Jennie AS