So much has been happening.  Let me give you a quick recap and rundown…

I am still… STILL… suffering with back pain from a 2+ year old car accident.  In the midst of a summer of travel, my rehab chiropractor RE-INJURED ME.  I have been gun-shy about returning.

But the traveling… first I took my BigGuy to a summit for kids like him for a long weekend.  The next weekend I went to a home reception for a childhood friend that got married on a cruise a month earlier.  Then I was home a week.  Then I was gone a week for Science Olympiad coach training in AZ.  Then I was home a week.  Then I was in Michigan while BigGuy went to his first ever week-long no-contact sleep away camp.  Then I was home for a week.  Then we cashed in over a decade of flyer miles and we all went to Italy (where our lodging and a LOT of food were covered by staying with family for the majority of our trip).  The irony:  it was the cheapest vacation we could take.  And it was pretty awesome although my pain levels made me really nasty for chunks of it and I”m kind of sad about that.  But it’s over.

We came home and started our BigGuy on a biomedical protocol that was doing so wonderfully we enrolled him in a college course.  He had such a serious adverse reaction that I actually thought we were going to land in the Emergency Room.  My husband took a day off of work to manage him while I taught and we had to remove him from a few activities.  It’s hard to know what to do to help him when you have exhausted the capabilities of mainstream medicine and are now challenging the best of what you can find in alternative medicine… which is costly.  Not to mention what it does to my BigGuy’s self-esteem and sense of hope when he’s not doing well and we can’t find him help.  I’m really hoping that he follows the neurotypical path and “grows out of it” around age 16, but when you have a special needs kid–you can’t really just sit back and ride it out.

Girly joined up a second Girl Scout troop for homeschoolers that is really more her speed.  They meet more often and are more structured.  She feels more like she is part of something.  We have also made enough progress on her emotional well-being that she has become pretty firm about returning to soccer.  I’m thrilled for the emotional progress that led her there, but man… soccer mamas–I know you feel me on this being bittersweet.  #playinthesnow

Mama and Papa have had our own challenges coming to terms with some medical diagnoses for mama and harsh realities of life for Papa.  We have come together to navigate them best we can and have called in outside help where possible–including a financial planner and estate planner to get our affairs in order and help us make some life decisions.  Part of that is Papa finding permanent work with health insurance coverage and Mama bringing in more money through bookkeeping work and possibly teaching online more than in person.

At the moment, we are knee-deep in clearing out the basement and finishing home projects and entering the season of quiet as we await finishing out some of our life planning and figuring out directions.

In the meantime, we are trying really hard to love on these kids and each other and have faith that it will all work out okay… which is a tall order.