How many times have you guys heard the quote "cleanliness is next to godliness?" People quote it like it's gospel, when in fact, it's not in the Bible. Or at least not in the one I've read. If you've got chapters and verses, please share them with me. That's one of the things that I grew up thinking was in there somewhere, and as an adult, I've discovered it's not. Which is probably a good thing, given the way my house looks the majority of the time.
I'm not saying it isn't important to take care of your stuff and have a clean and organized home. I'm just saying I'm still struggling in this area. Proverbs 31 gives us a great idea of what a godly woman is like, and I'm afraid I'm lagging behind in many of those areas as well.
I have so many excuses--and some are even pretty valid! So much going on, a child that is aggressive and destructive, the list goes on. But we are getting ready to make some changes around here. We are about to implement a visual schedule for Korban, which will hopefully ease his anxiety and lower all of our stress levels. That's something we should've done a long time ago, and I'm anxious to hit the ground running with it and see how it goes. It's not going to be easy for me, because like I've mentioned a couple of dozen times on here, I'm not naturally an organized person. But I figure I must have the capabilities somewhere in me, or else we wouldn't be getting to our multitude of doctor and therapy appointments, so maybe there's hope for this house yet.
We're in the process of reorganizing Korban's room. We used to put him in his room for time-out, which he hated. He tried numerous things to make us let him out of time-out: Screaming, crying, biting and hitting himself until there was blood, making himself throw up, peeing in the floor, throwing things. But the final straw came when he threw a toy hard enough to break one of his windows. It didn't shatter, it just cracked it, but it was still scary. So now we are trying to make his room more of a calm down spot for him in hopes that we can meet his sensory needs and relieve anxiety, which will hopefully equal less time-outs period. We're blessed because one of his closets is deep with shelves in it--we use it for toy storage and his other closet for hanging clothes. Storage is at a premium in this house, so we're really happy that his room is set up like that. I'm planning on keeping the toys put away in the toy closet when he isn't actively playing with them so that will give him less projectiles to send through the air. He isn't nearly as bad about strewing his toys as Selah is--mainly because he doesn't have traditional play for the most part, which we are working on. We are trying to set his room up sensory wise to meet his needs. Of course it still has the furniture in it: His race car bed, desk, a train table, and a toy box. We got the swing we ordered from Amazon today. I'm so excited about it! It's not a "therapy" swing, but I feel sure it will have the same effect but without the outrageous markup price. It's a hammock swing, but I think it will cradle him the same way and I really think he will enjoy it. The therapy swings cost around $200, this one cost $20.00. We still have to pick up some materials to hang it with from Lowe's, but I think it will be a good thing for him. He loves to swing.
We were outside playing when the UPS truck came to deliver the swing. Korban was pretty amazed with the UPS truck. He first asked me if it was his ABA guy. (Because he normally drives a UPS truck?!? Not sure where he got that one.) I explained that it wasn't, and he walked with me to get the package. When the driver handed it to me off the truck, Korban said "I want more!" Cracked me up, because he doesn't even know what it was we got.
Selah does though. Korban was already asleep tonight, and I was fixing her a bedtime snack. She asked me what was in the box, and I excitedly told her it was a swing for our house. She was happy, and asked me where we were going to hang it. I told her in Korban's room. I went about my business fixing her snack, and when I called her to come eat it, she didn't come. I peeked back into the living room and found her sitting on the couch, in full pout mode. I asked her what was wrong and she said "That's so mean!" Clueless, I asked her what was mean. She said "You're gonna hang that swing in Korban's room. I want a swing for MY room!" Oops. Good thing those swings are cheap, huh?
But back to our plans for Korban's room--I thought about doing a ballpit. He loves those. And we already have the stuff to do it with. The problem is, he adores inflatable things, but he wants to squish the air out of them 100 times a day and beg us to blow it back up for him, so I'm thinking that might be a source of frustration. Maybe I could seal the opening to the ball pit with duct tape? Thoughts, anyone?
I just need to get things in better order for all of us. I love Pinterest, I really do. My husband doesn't understand this. I'm not sure why. Every night when we have a few minutes of down time, he always asks me what I'm looking at on my Kindle, and I always say "Pinterest," and he looks all pained and rolls his eyes. I don't see what the harm is. Maybe he's worried it's gonna make me want to spend a lot of money, or make a really long honey-do list, or maybe he thinks I should be DOING and not PINNING so much. (If he's thinking that last one, he's probably right about that.) But it is an excellent source for ideas, and there's even all kinds of stuff relating to autism and sensory issues on there. So I'm not sure what his grievance is against it. Maybe I do tend to get a little overwrought with things sometime. I don't need to judge what our family is doing by what all I see on Pinterest, or I would probably be dissatisfied. But discontentment is not really the issue for me. I don't think so anyway. I think it's more or less worry about me not measuring up. Remember what I said earlier about being a Proverbs 31 woman? I don't care about keeping up with the Joneses, but on the whole Proverbs 31 business I tend to think everyone is doing it better than me. I'm all like "Oh hey, I want to budget, coupon, plan our meals, stock our freezer, make our own clothes, churn our own butter" and pretty soon I'm like "How am I going to churn our own butter? We don't even have a cow yet! WE NEED A COW!" Which is probably not healthy. Because we don't need a cow. Maybe I am too into Pinterest. At any rate, whenever Brad asks me what I'm looking at one the Kindle, I think I'm just going to say "Robert Pattinson" from now on.
I need organization. I need calmness. I need peace. And it probably wouldn't hurt if I got back into meal-planning and maybe threw a few meals in the freezer. I want our home to be a haven for us. My number one goals right now are to get Korban's room sensory friendly for him, and to get my house not spotless, but clean enough that I don't go through the Five Stages of Grief every time I know someone's going to see it.
Not familiar with the Five Stages of Grief? I learned about it in college when I was studying to be a social worker. Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief are as follows:
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4 )Depression
5) Acceptance
I could be wrong, but I think I may be the only person ever to relate this to house-cleaning responsibilities, but at any rate, here it goes.
1) Denial--They aren't coming over until next week. I've got plenty of time!
2) Anger--My husband is a pig! I am a pig! And we are raising little piglet children!
3) Bargaining--To my mom "If you will keep these kids so I can clean my house, I won't ask you for anything for a week!" To my husband "If you will clean up your man-cave, I will cook roasted peppers and sausage for dinner and then rub your feet." To my children: If you don't pick up these toys, they are going to some other kid's home so their parents can trip over them and not me!"
(Wait, I think that one might be a threat and not a bargain...)
4) Depression--It's never going to get any better. For the rest of my life, I will have to open my kitchen cabinets and run from the immediate onslaught of mismatched plastic storage containers and lids, which by the way, do not fit anything! How does that happen?!?
5) Acceptance--They are coming to see my slovenly ways, and there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe they have bad eyesight.
I seriously went through these stages last week before Korban's ABA guy came to observe and help us develop a plan for behavior management in the home. I'd had a rough week and the house really was a hot mess. I dreamed that he came in and told Brad to take the kids and then took me through the house room by room and told me what I needed to clean! Thankfully that did not happen.
I think I'm just stressing because we've lived in this house for an entire year now, and I thought we'd be more settled by now. So, so thankful that we moved and we love living here, but I need to learn how to sort the chaos. We are working on it. I attacked the kitchen today. Even scrubbed the baseboards. Brad didn't know what a baseboard was or why one might need to get scrubbed, but when I showed him, he was proud of me. Good night, everybody. I'm going to go look at Pinterest. :)
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