I work third shift. I tend to get up at 17:00 and then I'm up until after I take the twins to school (Monday through Friday), which puts me in bed around 08:30 every day. On Thursday morning, one of the twins said that she didn't want to go to school because she just wanted to snuggle in bed with me, so I told her that if she went to school, I would pick her and her sister up from school and we could snuggle on the sofa during tech time and into the evening. That was acceptable to her and she got ready for school without further complaint (and had a great day).
Because I had said that I would pick them up from school a couple hours before my regular wake-up time, I didn't take my sleeping medication and wasn't tired, so I didn't sleep. Not long after I got home from taking the girls to school, I realized that I had another reason to stay up: Husband Extrodinare and I had an appointment to see my oldest's home advocate on a video conference. (Neither of us could remember the time, though, so we had to get clarification. I actually had the time written down differently in THREE LOCATIONS: 11:00, 13:00, and 14:00. Why? Because I'm amazing and Past Abebi was fucking with me.) The home advocate let us know that she had the time written down as 13:00 on her calendar and asked if that was still good for us. It was, so I set the alarm and settled in to watch Adolf Titler (my baby sister that lives with us and works with me) play some Animal Crossing.
While she did that, I journaled and went through tarot readings that I'd done for my tarot journal (I treated myself to the Writual Planner with stamps last year and it is wonderful) but hadn't actually written down interpretations for. (If I'm doing a reading before work or on a break while at work, I don't always interpret the reading because I just don't have the time.) I also scrolled through WAY too much Facebook. >.< Unfortunately, I couldn't get my brain to cooperate, so I couldn't actually read anything. :(
At some point, Adolf Titler switched to watching one of the shows on Netflix that she is into right now, Alias Grace. For someone that was already dealing with an anxiety issue triggered by a photo of an older gentleman at a doctor's office (thanks for the trauma, Dad!), this show - even though I wasn't actually watching it - was triggering me and I had to ask her to turn it off and do something else.
13:00 came and Husband Extrodinare and I joined the Google Meetings video chat to talk to the Home Advocate. She brought up something that we had been talking about since before the IEP meeting when it was *officially* brought up: moving the oldest to a local ED classroom as a trial to see if he is ready to be re-integrated into a regular school in our town instead of an ED school about an hour away. We both have concerns about moving our kiddo back to a local school, though, because we haven't heard the best things about the ED classroom in the school that we are closest to (from a parapro that worked at both of the local schools). The home advocate suggested that we request a visit to the ED classrooms in the area that Blueberry would be attending to see if we liked them ourselves and whether we thought either of them would be a good fit for Blueberry. (I think that is a great idea and didn't even know that you could make a request like that. I thought that, if you were in the area that a specific school covered and they had the type of classroom that you needed that you didn't have a choice whether your child attended that school or another.) We also requested something from the home advocate and Blueberry's current teacher: could they please send examples of the academic work that Blueberry has been working on recently home so that we could see what he is learning academically as well as the emotional and social things that he is learning. (The school that he attends now doesn't send work home as they keep it all in a binder to keep track of what each student is working on and how they are doing academically as well as socially/emotionally.)
After the meeting, Husband Extrodinare went back to work and I got ready to go pick up the twins. Adolf Titler went back trying not to die after taking pain killers and muscle relaxants because she'd hurt her back trying to get the battery out of her SUV. (Poor thing. :( )
When I left to go get the twins, I discovered that even though I'd left 20 minutes before school got out (we only live about 5 blocks away), there was a line of adults waiting to pick up their kiddo that was THREE blocks long. I handle drop-off every morning and don't tend to leave the house until 20 minutes before drop-off starts, sometimes only 10 minutes, and I had NEVER been in a line this long in the morning. I pulled over (instead of getting in line) and had an anxiety attack. I sent a message in our group chat that said there were WAY too many cars here for me to feel comfortable and I wanted to cry because the line just kept growing. Adolf Titler laughed and Husband Extrodinare said that he usually parks a block or two away and walks up to get the twins instead. (Note: Neither of them were being malicious. They didn't realize that I was *ACTUALLY* having an issue.)
About 5 minutes before school let out, I started driving home to tell Husband Extrodinare that I couldn't do it. I didn't have any anxiety medicine with me because I don't keep anything in the van and I had left my purse (which has the medicine) at home. I didn't think that I was going to need it and I was only driving 5 blocks, so I didn't think I'd need anything from my purse.
I was a block from home and I turned back to the school, did some breatheing exercises, and got in line.
I have to hand it to the school: they have got it down pat. Despite being blocks away when school let out, I was out of line with the twins buckled into their seats in less than 10 minutes. I took longer than Husband Extrodinare ever does, but I was home before Blueberry usually gets off the bus, which was amazing to me when I think of how long that line was.
The twins sat on the sofa and floor next to me and played on their tablets for tech time. It was calming and I was back to being ok pretty quickly after getting home. I was *DEFIUNITELY* feeling loopy, though, and I couldn't eat anything. (I hadn't eaten in more than 15 hours and I'd only been able to eat 2 small chicken strips when I ate then.) I was trying really hard to think of something, anything, that I could eat that didn't make me nauseous just thinking about it, but I couldn't. >.<
At about 18:30, I couldn't do it anymore and told Husband Extrodinare that I couldn't make my brain function and that I felt like I was to the pass-out or throw up stage of drinking. He told me to go to bed and that he would have the twins come to snuggle me for a couple hours after he got them ready for bed. (He's the best.) He even made the bed with my new weighted blanket and I went to sleep *SUPER* fast.
Unfortunately, though, I didn't get good quality sleep that night. The weighted blanket kept slipping down and because the fan was on, I was freezing so I kept waking up. I also couldn't remember how to disable my alarms before I went to sleep, so they kept going off through the night to remind me to take my ADHD medication which woke me up. When I finally got up the next morning to take the twins to school, I was still feeling fuzzy-brained and I was starving. Husband Extrodinare asked me if I was in pain, because I'd been making noises on every exhale from about 01:00 that morning in my sleep. I told him that I wasn't hurting or anything, but that I'd gotten really poor sleep and that I couldn't wait to go back to sleep.
Adolf Titler and I took the twins to school, got breakfast, and went home. I ate some of my breakfast and fell asleep on the sofa doing that. Around 11:00, Husband Extrodinare woke me up to let me know that he was heading out to get the twins (early dismissal) and that I might get better sleep if I go down to our bedroom. (He had remade the bed with both of our regular blankets and the weighted blanket after I'd told him that I was too cold the night before when the weighted blanket would slide down from the other blanket on the bed. <3 )
Around 18:00, Husband Extrodinare came down to let me know that he had gotten me a two cheeseburger meal (extra mustard) with a Dr. Pepper (no ice), if I wanted to come get it. He made sure to tell me, though, that I didn't have to come eat it right now since I'm usually not hungry when I first get up, but I was starving again, so I ate it all (unusual for me). At 19:30, just before bedtime, I went back to bed to read because my brain was working enough to do that. At 20:00, I got the kids ready for bed and went to snuggle with the twins and set an alarm to snuggle with Blueberry.
At 02:55 I woke up. Wide awake and clear-headed. I drank some water and then went to the office to keep Adolf Titler company. I wrote in my journal, did my daily tarot reading (which I missed doing yesterday), and got something to eat. I finally feel human again and I'm so glad that I was able to get up when I did so that I would have a better chance of getting my sleep schedule straightened out before I start work tonight. :P My over-30 body and brain need more than 2 small chicken strips and no sleep to function!
Did this turn into a ramble-session? Yup. If you made it this far, you deserve a trophy! Blessed be.