It’s been over a week with all the kids home sick.

When I started feeling under the weather, did I do anything I would tell someone else to do to boost their immune system?

No, I did not.

I so infrequently get sick that I thought that would be unnecessary.

Well, after spending three and a half days in bed while my husband took off from work to take care of me and the kids, I can say I was wrong.

A nice thing about having to rest is it gives one a lot of time to think. My mind has been churning on a few topics and I’m making significant progress on them all. It’s quite exciting.

In my last post, I shared that we will be having a surprise visit to check on our home and the kids. This was very stressful for me to think about.

The first day everyone was home sick, the kids were all sleeping in the living room and on the patio outside for hours. I couldn’t go anywhere, but I didn’t need to do much for them because they were all sleeping all day long. I got lots done in the kitchen, and as I was working throughout that day, I was picturing what it would look like if someone would come in at various points.

Even though I was on top of everything and the kids weren’t active so they didn’t make any messes, it became clear that even in the very best of circumstances my house can never be spotless when people are actively living in it.

I cook everything from scratch, so there’s constant peeling or slicing or whizzing in the food processor. I don’t use disposable dishes and combined with cooking from scratch, that means there are constantly pots and dishes being used and needing to be washed. I don’t have cleaning help. I do kitchen projects like making pickles or homemade apple cider which take up counter space (I strained my apple cider that very afternoon). I often get large quantities of produce that can be sitting around waiting to be processed or put away. That afternoon I put two huge pans of dried chickpeas on the counter to soak to prepare for canning.

One gaping flaw in the design of my home is that when you enter, you walk directly into the kitchen. It’s beyond absurd to have the mostly highly used room in the home be the first thing people see. Do you know how unrealistic it is to always have your kitchen company ready? It wasn’t actually designed like this, but the contractor took a shortcut in all the houses and reversed the location of the living room and kitchen rather than sticking to the plans.

At the end of that day of watching myself doing all that I do, it was clear to me that I could not and would not allow this woman in my home on the spur of the moment. It doesn’t matter how organized I am, how hard I work – it’s just impossible for me to have a home that looks like people don’t live here when so many people do. I called my social worker the next day and informed her that person is welcome to come any time she wants, but as would anyone else who wants to visit, she can call me to set up a time.

That was very freeing, and took away most of the stress I was feeling. While things can get very messy in the course of the day, I don’t have a problem having the house very clean for a scheduled visit.

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I wasn’t sure how this boundary was going to be received and in fact didn’t set this sooner because I felt hamstrung by my concern for the kids. I don’t want her to get so angry that she would feel she had an excuse to pull them from us, but I have to protect my boundaries. My home is my sanctuary, my safe place, and I can’t allow that to be taken from me.

I’ve had to make my peace with her threats to remove them. My social worker said she’s never going to be able to find someone else to take both children, but that was scant reassurance for me. I know it’s not a priority to her if they stay together or even if they end up in a family home. I believe she would be fine with placing them in an educational institution as soon as they’re old enough (I believe some children’s villages accept children at the age of six).

During the day I’m pretty matter of fact about the threats to remove them if I don’t do exactly what she wants, but twice in the last ten days I’ve had intense nightmares involving the twins being taken away. I woke up a couple of nights ago to my husband very worriedly bent over me – he said I was screaming in my sleep. I’ve never, ever done that in my life. This brought me to contemplating why I was reacting to this threat like this, to try to create some emotional distance.

I look at the twins sometimes and my heart clutches knowing how vulnerable they are.
Since they have challenging behaviors that require a lot of patience and understanding that most people don’t consistently have, the likelihood of abuse is high if placed somewhere else. They are so trusting of us, and it’s because they feel safe that so many of their behaviors have calmed down or disappeared. It pains me knowing how limited my ability to protect them is.

All of this criticism of me and worry about the kids is bringing me to the same place – to let go of my ego and fears, and to turn to Hashem (G-d), knowing this entire circumstance is being orchestrated for the highest good of everyone involved. I wanted to raise them to be healthy adults, and it’s very possible I won’t have the opportunity to do what I thought I would. It’s possible they’ll experience having to be different places that I would want to protect them from. But that’s also part of the plan. Thanks to all the thinking and processing time I had while I was in bed sick for a few days, at this point I feel pretty solid with that, not just intellectually but emotionally.

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I’ve shifted to being irritated at the demands and insinuations that I’m not careful enough about their hygiene, to accepting as a fact of life that you have to put on a show when dealing with the system. I hate that kind of thing, particularly since it seems incredibly unnecessary since everything is so good without making a special effort to try to impress anyone. But now I’m embracing the challenge and even see ‘playing the game’ as fun. Why shouldn’t I learn to do something better or in a different more efficient way if it will benefit me?

I asked myself, what make a child look more well-cared for then what I already do? Maybe more involved hair styles, different styles every day? Dd6 has waist length hair, and usually I make two long ponytails and braid them both. Dd is very sensitive and screams a lot when her hair is brushed and styled; this style takes ten minutes every morning and I haven’t wanted to ask her to stand still for something more involved than that.

Now I have a reason to spend more time on her hair. To get her buy-in, I let her watch a couple of braiding videos with me and then she requested for me to make those styles for her. To keep her calm while I do her hair, I let her look at a video of someone’s hair being styled. I’ve been doing this a week and she’s gotten used to fifteen minute sessions.

I often made French braids for my older daughters when they were young, and for a few days I’ve made her French braids on each side of her head. Now I’m learning new styles – I’ve just mastered a fishtail braid today – and I even created a new hairstyle for Shabbos thanks to getting my creative juices flowing by watching different braiding techniques.

My oldest daughter mentioned there’s a way to fold clothes so they don’t get unfolded when a child moves things around. Now I’m learning about pocket folding and once I better understand how to use that method, the drawers will stay neater with less need for me to rearrange the drawer.

I decided that the night before they have visitation will now be their regular nail cutting time for them both, and scalp moisturizing time for ds6. I already give ds6 haircuts a couple of days after visitation, so that his hair grows out a little before his parents see him. Then it’s harder for them to feel if he has a little dry patch on his scalp (which I was taking care of for months before they noticed it and complained about it).

I take them directly from kindergarten to the visitation, and now I’m going to build in fifteen extra minutes to fix dd’s hair so it will be freshly done, and make sure she’s wearing her nicest clothing. It’s ironic that their parents complained about their clothing, because I was dressing the kids on the day of the visits in the clothing their parents bought them, thinking the parents would have pleasure seeing their children wearing it. The social worker told me that the parents commented that they really liked seeing the kids wearing the shoes and clothes they gave them – but it was just a week later that they made the specious complaint to the committee about me not dressing the children in clothing that fit them properly.

I’m a visual person, and I like when things are clean. I like when things are organized, and I like when children are nicely dressed – it gives me pleasure to see that. I’m going to enjoy raising the standard of whatever I’m doing because I want to do it; no one is forcing me to do any of this. I don’t feel like a victim of ridiculous dictates anymore. I’m choosing to see it as fun and expansive for me. Believe me, that feels worlds better than the way I was previously looking at it.

Avivah