It has been eight weeks since we brought J. home.
It feels like much longer.
Though things are much better than they were at first, we are exhausted, the other kids are regularly melting down, and adults feel overworked and overwhelmed. We are still struggling to do our regular paying jobs and get any time alone together. Time just to have fun alone seems like a crazy dream.
Every weekday is a massive struggle about school.
Evenings are often a massive struggle about dinner and going to bed.
Mornings are a struggle to get people off to school and work with decent attitudes and all the stuff they need.
Weekends can be a struggle in that they break from routine, and put all of us into this small space, getting on each other’s nerves.
So there’s a lot of struggle.
And we don’t totally know how we’re going to get through the next few weeks and months.
But we’ve had some good times too. We’ve had a number of good evening meals where people talked and joked together. We’ve played board games and hide-and-seek. We’ve spent time reading together. We’ve done some yard work and some shopping and some bike-riding. And though meltdowns are still frequent, they involve less shouting and much less violence than previously, so we feel like we’re making progress. At least a little.