Been a while ... I know.

It has been forever since I have put up a post. I guarantee it is not for the lack of desire. I have been doing freelance writing for so long now that when I sit at my computer, I cannot get creative. I am not able to create blog posts or work on my novel. Now that I have made that connection, I write by hand first. Hopefully, this will mean more posts will be put up.

Let me try to play a little catch up. However, I do have several posts that are planned for after this one so this is going to skim the top. We have been struggling with two of my four children who have special needs and are nearing puberty. This past spring, we decided to wave the white flag and get professional help from the State of Kansas in the form of Case Management. We had to apply for a SED waiver to get the state healthcare. Yes, we DO have personal health insurance. However, our insurance does not cover case management ... at all. We are extremely grateful that our kids qualified for KanCare so they could receive the services they needed.


Adella is battling ADHD and OCD. We were making huge progress over the summer and now we are almost right back to where we were before. I'm struggling as a parent because I see the medicine she is on really does help with keeping her focused and on task. However, we are noticing that she has fallen into a cycle of two great days, followed by 36 hours of hell. This "hell" consists of refusing to accept responsibility for her actions, extreme snarkiness, extreme disrespect for others, and so on. It's almost like she has an anxiety attack every two days over something ... even if there is nothing to trigger it!

It has gotten to the point where we are back to scratching our head and brainstorming. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know in the comments below. We are struggling with the defensiveness, disregard for other people, and refusal to take responsibility. It's almost like she is a possessive dog, who goes absolutely guanopsychotic when someone nears her space, but then is the cutest creature the rest of the time.

On the other hand, my son is doing loads better. He is headed to KU in just a few weeks to start the screening process for an Asperger diagnosis, but we have already started treating it as such at home. We were dealing with extremely volatile meltdowns at home and school. As our case manager worked with Bullfrog and an emotional therapy animal entered the home, he started doing better at home. We still have meltdowns, but he is getting better at sensing them and going to his room to begin the calm down plan. However, school was still a major problem. Thankfully, we sent the case manager there to start getting everyone on the same page because I felt they were not listening to me. We are finally seeing progress there, slow but definite progress. He is pushing himself in the social area and then working with his therapist when he begins to falter.

Anyway, that is the slimmed down update. I believe our family has come a long way, especially since we started looking at this as a family solution instead of pointing fingers at who was doing things wrong.

Jackie, our emotional therapy animal. She's a rat terrier who is between 5 and 6 years old.