A day in the life...

My Facebook status for Tuesday, April 24, 2012. A day in the life... Ella got up, peed on the ladder to Tava's bed, go into the linen closest and wiped a white substance on the closet door and played with After-Bite, had 4 time-outs by 9 AM, had a relatively non-eventful morning until noon when I went to change my shirt and looked outside to see her standing in the middle of the street, took her to school with the reminder not to tell her teacher she was stupid or that she should shut up, picked her up at 3:00 with a report that she had touched someone inappropriately, she told her teacher off and said she'd touch anything she wanted to touch (waving tiny finger in her teacher's face), more ordinary Ella stuff (needing constant supervision), peed on the floor in Chad's room, had a bath, dumped the hand soap from the sink into the tub, (did some other stuff that I won't mention), went to clean up a broken CFL bulb that she broke on the rug in her room, saw that she had colored navy oil pastels on her pink Dora sheets.... Aaaaaand, last but not least,  pumped hand soap into Tava's bed. Not saying it for sympathy. Some people haven't heard Ella escapades in a while, so there you go :) Some people wonder what the hell's wrong with me that I'm so frustrated, so there you go :) I also realize many people deal with very similar things or even worse things, so I'm not so arrogant as to believe that no one else has issues or that I don't care about anyone other than myself. And tomorrow we get up and do it all over again. Just a typical day and that's just one person in a family of five :)

Interestingly enough, this was my morning status update for that same day:

Why does everything, EVERYTHING, everything, every-frickin-thing have to be a fight? A wise friend of mine [a parent from an autism page] explained it perfectly: "it is called Exhaustion...and this does not mean being "tired" - it means Frustrated, Tired, Spent, Done, Patience in the Negative Zone, Fed Up, Feeling a bit Lost, Over Whelmed and basically your body and mind is saying to you - HEY - HELLO....it's me...I am DONE....if you push me any more...you will fall off that ledge! It is not a sign of weakness in any sense - we are human as well...sometimes we need a moment to gather ourselves and step back so we do not fall off that ledge!"

I will add... it's not the type of exhaustion that clears up with a good night's sleep. A few days earlier, I had posted this:

There's a risk involved with putting your life out there for others to read or hear about. People aren't necessarily careful with what matters most to you. But when God takes your experience, which probably came at a considerable cost, and uses it to help someone else, it's humbling and mind-blowing at the same time. When we demonstrate encouragement or compassion to others around us, it's because the Lord has done that for us first. When someone shares their heart with you, whether you understand or relate or not, stand beside them instead of on them.