Road Trip with My Wallflowers

We have nine children, and four of them seem to get the spotlight the most, especially on my Facebook page.  Amelia is naturally outgoing, she always jumps in to help, she loves having conversations, and we run together.  Leif is our awesome little man who has no idea that his siblings are defined as "different" or "special"...he just loves them and loves life...and has so many innocent yet wise moments.  Kimberly is the baby of the family and naturally gets a lot of attention.  Dante takes a lot of time because he has the double diagnosis of Down Syndrome and Autism, so he would come in 4th for attention received.

And then there are Micah and Sunny.  They just go with the flow, fly under the radar,, and I think they actually try to stay in the background.  Sunny wants to be included, but she also insists on being coerced into participating.  She will ignore all verbal attempts to include her, and if we give up and start without her she will start to cry.  She wants to be taken by the hand and led to the activity and needs to be helped every step of the way.  She is so hard to figure out! She's nonverbal, although she will very occasionally spout something, and I hear her talking to herself in her room. If we insist she will repeat us word for word, to make a request for something.  And Micah, honestly he's just plain lazy and completely content to be so.  He would watch TV all day if we let him, although now and then he will randomly sweep the floor or put away the dishes. The only thing that really gets them going on their own volition is Sunday School and dance class.  Honestly, Micah and Sunny don't get less attention because I love them any less, they just seem to prefer less attention.

Recently my Sailor asked me to help him move some of his stuff from Georgia to Massachusetts, and since I love road trips I did not hesitate to say yes.  I also decided that Micah and Sunny would be the ones to go with me.  They needed a chance to shine.  So this past week, during Spring Break, we packed up and headed south.

 Micah and Sunny each ordered their own meals as we ate our way south.  I did have to repeat Sunny's choices because she spoke so quietly, but she did speak!  Micah also got mad at me halfway through the week because I stopped letting him get fried tenders and french fries with soda for every meal.  He even refused lunch (grilled chicken tenders and green beans) during our ride home on Friday.  

 They were thrilled to see Zachary, even so, Sunny placed herself in the background of the group photo.  She really enjoyed watching the birds on the water.

 Micah does not enjoy being cold and wet, which is what he considers swimming pools and beaches to be.  We did get him to put his feet in the pool.

 Sunny absolutely loved the pool!  She got right in and spent an hour playing.  I went in with her for a few minutes and helped her do some actual swimming, but she preferred to bob up and down on her own, smiling the whole time.  This was a win!

 We played tourist for a bit and went on a boat tour of Cumberland Island, off the coast of St. Mary's, Georgia and Amelia Island, Florida.  Sunny enjoyed seeing some dolphins, but all she said was "Oooooh" multiple times.  

 Another win for Sunny, she loved Fernandina Beach!  Micah sat down and would NOT budge.  It took at least 15 minutes to convince him to get his feet wet, by having him pretend to be a penguin and walk to the water.  (Kimberly and Leif would have been up to their necks in the water in the blink of an eye, Micah and Sunny were a welcome relief to not be recklessly running into the water.)

Micah and Sunny did have a good time on this trip, but there were no "it's my turn to shine" moments like I hoped.  I guess my kids all have their different personalities, and these two are content to hang back and do more viewing than participating in life.

I'll admit I missed having my active ones along.  When going up a mountain in Virginia on 77 the van was slowing a bit-- yelling "everyone start pedaling" would have been a lot more fun with Amelia, Leif, and Kimberly along.  Micah and Sunny couldn't even muster up a "mom's crazy" look.  I never thought I'd miss Leif peppering me with questions from the backseat where I can barely hear him. (He's currently peeved that not all the letters of the alphabet follow the rules for reading, and wants "C" and "X" to be tossed.)

All in all, it was a good trip and I'm happy Sunny and Micah went with me.

Next Fall Leif and Kimberly with both be in school (sigh, a whole other blog post for that), and I will be focusing on academics, life skills, and social skills with just Amelia, Micah, and Sunny.  I'll have a whole school year, instead of just five days, to pull Micah and Sunny away from the wall they prefer, and get them participating in life.

Put On a Happy Face

I have been asked many times since Spring Break how our trip was...and almost every time all I can do is smile and say, "The weather was beautiful and the children had lots of fun."  That is the truth, but not in it's entirety.  I cannot keep telling the story of how one stupid event cost us our time with our boy, which was very painful and frustrating for all of us since seeing him was entire reason for making such a long trip.

Our second son (I'll refer to him as 2 of 9 since he doesn't always like to be named) has been in Georgia for a year, and we all miss him.  In February Jamie and I decided that we would take a road trip to visit 2 of 9.  Our first thought was to just take Dante, Leif, and Micah- leaving the girls with family, but that was not a possibility.  We went back and forth for a few weeks trying to decide if the van would make the trip (it has over 200,000 miles!), and if we would survive a 17 hour drive with 6 kids, then doing the drive all over again to get home.  There were also the logistics of finding someone to feed and care for all of our animals while we were gone.

In the end, the desire for all of us to see "2 of 9" won out and we started planning the road trip to Georgia.  We would stay at hotels on the way down, and we rented a cabin at a KOA for our 3 nights that was near our son's base.  We planned to visit a beach, do lots of talking, and visiting with old friends who drove 5 hours down from their Georgia home.




We arranged for a housesitter, packed our clothes and prayed for our van to survive!

The drive was beautiful, and blissfully uneventful.  Kimberly did not always appreciate all the hours strapped into her carseat, but in the end we were all thrilled to arrive at the campground.

We were reminded how much Dante absolutely loves to swim.  He was so mad every time we had to tell him swim time was over.  In one hotel on the way home again he screamed so loud and long about getting out that I was surprised no hotel staff came in to check on us. (Although maybe they had security cameras and saw it all? Or maybe someone had experience with Autism and knew Dante was fine?)

Unfortunately, not everything went according to plan.  Something went very wrong for 2 of 9, and we were given very little time with him.  We were supposed to be together from Monday morning through Wednesday morning, and instead we saw him for a few hours on Monday, a few minutes on Tuesday, and not at all on Wednesday.

I was torn between anger at the military system, grief for not seeing my son, grief for my kids not seeing their brother, and grief for 2 of 9 not getting to see us.  It took a lot of effort for me to put that aside and make sure the children were still having a good time, running around, swimming,  going to the little playground, and roasting marshmallows.

Honestly, I'm still a bit frustrated about the whole thing.  I know I should have just been grateful for the time we did get.  Clearly from these photos it can be seen that the children still had fun.  We did not go to the beach as planned, since we were hoping our Sailor would suddenly arrive, but a day of waiting at the campground resulted in only a 15 minute visit.  I feel cheated, and I feel that my kids got cheated, and the timing of the situation could not have been worse.  And my poor boy is still suffering the consequences of someone else's actions.  That really angers me.

I know that some day we will look back and this will have been a small blip in the big picture, but at the time, and still now, it is hard to rejoice in all circumstances.

Since Leif barely saw his big brother and we never made it to the beach (or anywhere!), I am saving tip money and hoping to fly down with him for a weekend visit in the Fall...too soon to drive again!

Next April we will likely make the trek again, Lord willing and van still working, and next time will be different, or at least the way I handle the any frustrating turns of events will be different.

In the end, it was a good trip if I look at it as a family vacation and not a pointless drive to and from Georgia.  We spent some time with good friends, spent a few hours with a son we had not seen in a year, and we learned that the children-- Dante included --can not only survive a road trip, but enjoyed all the different hotels and eating out.  The weather was beautiful, a nice change from the cold of Massachusetts, and everyone we met in our travels was pleasant and friendly.

God is good...even when I have a tantrum and ask him "WHY?"