When It Don't Come Easy

It's been another 2 months since I updated. Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run. There are times it seems like a complete blur. Sweetie was doing really well in the IAFT and it appeared she was ready to come home. Her treatment team talked to me about the potential of it being in February.

We had 3 good weekend visits over the span of 2 months, which I don't think has ever happened. She was doing great in her therapeutic home and school. Communication with us has been limited by her choice. We talked maybe once or twice a week. This is what she seems to need to stay in a good place. For Christmas we had a 5 day visit scheduled. This is the longest span of time she has been home in over a year. And sadly it was too much. No matter how I try to keep myself removed and in the "coach" and "case manager" roll, I still love her and I still want her to do well. I find myself wrapped back into the hope that she is healing and can love us. Then I get snapped back to our reality. The hard reality that loving her "don't come easy", it probably never will be easy and it will never look like what we ever expected. I still wrestle with that loss, especially at the holidays.  Dreams of decorating together while drinking cocoa, wrapping gifts together and singing carols with my daughter are dreams I have to let go of. I have to accept these are things that are beyond what she can handle with me. The same with most anything a mother and daughter would do together.

I know this all in my head, but my heart really struggles with these things. And I Still try, oh how I try. I keep asking God to show me what she needs. I guess her behaviors are getting her what she needs. It takes the decision out of my hands. I am hit again with the reality that she may never come back home permanently. So, now we have gone backwards again 6 months in treatment and she is refusing to talk to me again. I have no idea what to do for her to truly get that she is loved. I don't know if there is anything. I am really having to give this to God, because I have truly exhausted every ounce of what I have.

Even though I am so very tired, I am still trying to relish in the Joy of Spartacus. He truly is God's gift of respite for my weary soul. His head has healed up well and we a just watching the bills roll in. That is what it is and we will figure it out. That is why hospitals do payment plans. So, I am not worrying about that. He is growing in leaps. He is super active, he loves to crawl and climb. I mean LOVES to climb!!! He scoots along furniture and has a tooth that has come through. He is babbling like crazy. It is a fun and exhausting time. Like most moms of toddlers I walk around in a fog and I normally have some dried fluid on my clothes. No matter how tired or emotionally spent I am, it just takes one of his smiles and everything is ok, even if for just that moment.