My husband left to the US again, this time for a family wedding and taking ds14 with him. Several weeks ago, I stressed to the foster care agency that they must have schooling arrangements in place before he leaves, because I. cannot. do. this. myself.

Well, the arrangements for school transportation still haven’t been made. Clearly G-d knows this is the best situation for all involved despite my preferences, and since the external situation hadn’t changed, I needed to consciously shift the way I was thinking. I focused on gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to raise all of these children, and told myself, “I get to be with them” rather than “I have to be with them”.

For the first two days, ds5 and ds6 had a fever and were out of sorts. Waking up on day 4, I told myself, just one more day to get through.

I planned a trip to my daughter’s pool for the afternoon, after insisting everyone had to rest first because they were so irritable. Miracle of miracles, for the first time ever, ds5, dd5 and ds6 (who stayed home from school because he didn’t feel well) all fell asleep. It was clearly very needed, and though I didn’t sleep for long at all, the ten or fifteen minutes I slept was very helpful.

When I got up, a fire had broken out on the mountain across from us. Within ten minutes, all of the children had woken up. It was dramatic and interesting, to watch local citizens rushing to help, beating back flames as huge black clouds of smoke rose into the sky. As time passed, fire planes came to douse the mountain with water from above. This was fascinating and exciting. It also became an opportunity to learn about ds5’s capacity to tolerate noise.

Seeing he was becoming distressed from the sound of the airplanes, I went inside with the twins, then shut the doors and windows to block the sound. It wasn’t enough. The drone of the planes over the next hour drove him to crying and tantruming with almost no breaks for the next three hours. He was irritated and annoyed by everything, unable to be soothed or comforted, but insisting he needed to me to hold him.

As I held him, he twisted and turned restlessly, whining and crying. After an hour or so of holding him, I told him I was going to stand up and would put him on the couch next to me; he collapsed even further, lying on the ground screaming before shifting to jumping up and down screaming about whatever it was he wanted in that moment.

I gave him some lunch, which he turned around and fed to the dog. (I allow them to give appropriate leftovers at the end of a meal, but not before that.) Then he began crying he had no food; when I gave him more, he cried it was too hot. When it cooled off he screamed he didn’t like it. And so it went.

It was clear he was in a state of sensory overload, and while holding him was able to tone down his distress a notch, I was feeling stretched very, very thin. I was also now experiencing sensory overload.

At some point, I realized if I was going to be able to continue to be compassionate and helpful, I needed to have a few quiet minutes to myself
without someone yelling and rubbing snot all over me. After giving food, drinks and hugs, I went into my bedroom, letting them know I’d be out in a few minutes.

Within ten seconds, our dog was at the closed door wanting to be let in. When I go to my bedroom, if the dog is in the house he always follow within a few minutes. If the door is closed, he jumps on the door handle repeatedly until he gets the door open or until I let him in. I quickly let him in.

Less than a half a minute after entering my room, ds5 had moved from jumping up and down screaming next to the couch to doing so next to my bedroom door. Dd5 helpfully banged on the door, telling me ds5 wanted me, than kicked it to try to get the door open. At the same time, someone called to let me know ds10 and ds6, who had been outside watching the fire with some neighbors, had migrated to her house and didn’t want to leave. That was my five minute break.

Sometimes you just have to find humor in a situation!

I spoke to ds10 on the phone, told him we were going swimming soon and asked him to bring ds6 back with him. I couldn’t leave the house to get them myself, since I couldn’t leave the twins alone even for a few minutes, and taking them out with me at that point was an impossibility. When he got home, I had him give ice pops to everyone. While ds10 doled them out and they all slurped away, this created ten minutes of blessed quiet.

It was now the time I usually began winding down to lead into dinner and the evening routine. It so late that I really didn’t want to take them swimming, but I had told them if they took a nap that’s what we’d do, and I really try to keep my word.

Within five minutes I got everyone dressed in swim clothes and off we went. We were out for a short time, which three of the children enjoyed – one little boy was having a hard time relaxing. But I was still glad to have done it.

We came home, had dinner, and before putting the children to bed, I needed to milk the three goats (since ds14 went to the US and ds15 went to a wedding that evening, I didn’t have their help). This wasn’t something that was optional to do, since it would cause suffering to the animals to leave them unmilked, and I couldn’t wait until after the children were all asleep, since I was already late for the usual time.

When one goat began pushing at me with her head and a second began lifting her leg and repeatedly kicking my arm in the same place I had gotten cut a day before, my tolerance was gone. I pushed each roughly against the wall they were standing by and told them to stop it and stand there. When one stood very still and gave me a hairy side eyeball, I realized I was being unreasonable and I better calm down before interacting with anyone or anything.

I took two minutes to sit there quietly, then apologized to them, patted each for a minute, and continued milking them. Though the children were running in and out of the house arguing and complaining, this time gave me the opportunity to emotionally detach from all the overtired behavior and the stresses of the day before putting all of the children to sleep.

Bedtime was delayed, but it went smoothly and peacefully for everyone. Soon after I finished, we had our weekly parenting discussion group, which is always a nice opportunity to connect with adults.

I’ll be going away for the next day and a half to a retreat for mothers of children with special needs. The hotel where it is being held is twenty five minutes from here, so I’ll be going directly there rather than joining the chartered bus leaving from Jerusalem. I was disappointed last night to learn that I’ll miss a half a day of the planned activities since additional trips are planned on the way to the hotel, so they won’t get there until late in the afternoon. But I’m looking forward to the opportunity to connect with other mothers, and recharge with some quiet and fun.

Avivah