Organization

This weekend's theme is organization. I must find a way to streamline our lives. We get up in the mornings and it's run like a gazelle. We have meds to pull, food for medication to make, coffee to brew, carry her downstairs, diaper to change, gently brush her knotted bed head while she screams, and get the 13 pills down (she will spit them sometimes so you have to watch her like a hawk). Then, she's ready for 2nd breakfast, so we start making more food--the healthy food. We get her in the high chair where she resists feeding herself, so we commence with parental occupational therapy and get her going, then she starts to eat...maybe. Or she'll want down because meds filled her up, but she didn't get any protein or fruit with her meds. If she doesn't eat her "real" breakfast, she'll be hungry in 30 minutes, and the 2nd breakfast you made is cold and nasty, so you're making more food, getting her back into the high chair and trying to encourage her to eat herself. Or, you give up throw a blanket on the floor and try to feed her yourself while she spins around, lays down and otherwise avoids you while belting out screams that she's hungry. In between, we're trying desperately to get 2 cups of coffee down. As soon as that is done, we start sensory brushing, swinging, and joint compressions to prepare for school. Next, we get her clothes on which makes her irritable and then put on her orthopedic shoes that she keeps kicking off. We're exhausted already and it's only 9:00am. By the time she starts her one hour of school or therapy, I have a huge mess from the morning to clean up, doctors to call, lab work to have faxed over, meds to refill, seizure logs to fill out and on and on.

There must be an easier way...our day goes on like this, it doesn't get easier. By the end of the day, it is not uncommon to find that I have not showered, and on really rough days, I have realized that besides coffee, I've had nothing to drink...not one sip of water. How long can one maintain this pace? Well I've been at it for four years, but I look like hell, and I think that it's time to try and focus on ways that I can make this easier for all of us. I'm not sure how to do it, but tweak at a time, I need to make it better. We can rarely make a date to see anyone or do anything because we have no idea how the day will go. Breakfast casseroles instead of making 2 to 3 breakfasts? When would I cook them? I don't know the answers yet, but I'm determined to figure them out. My brain is always so preoccupied with medicine and development that I don't have anything left for the basics, but it's the basics that we need. I have to get better organized!!! And sometimes I have to learn to forget the house and just leave it a mess and go to the zoo.