Here are some pictures of us at or going to the pool. We love the pool and wait for it ALL YEAR long! Lubbock was cool and rainy mid-summer, which is sooo weird, and we did not get to go as much as we usually do. Now both kids are waking up asking if we can go to the pool! Ummm, hello, school, anyone? I would skip if we could....or if the pool was still open. So on this cloudy day, I just wanted to say...We Miss You, Pool!!!
3 comments:
Right there with you sister:)
Please come visit our pool anytime. It is always open (at least for another month), even after school!
About your Makenna post (sorry I'm commenting on this one, I didn't know you had a BRAND NEW BLOG until today!) I had one thing to say. Not sure if it will be helpful or not, but here we go either way! (P.S. This will be long!!)
My whole life (ESPECIALLY when I was a kiddo) I have struggled in a major way with what I finally learned was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Anyway, that would present itself when I was younger with things JUST like you're giving as examples that Makenna does.
I would have to have all the hangers turned the same way in my closet, or I couldn't even breathe right. If anyone around me, or anyone I *knew* had been sick, I became CONVINCED that I was going to get sick, and I wouldn't touch them or anything they touched or anything I *thought* they might have touched. For weeks! I wouldn't eat anything if I didn't know EXACTLY what it was, where it came from, and had seen it be cleaned and cooked with my own eyes. I would take dishes out of the cabinets (as a 7 year old!) and wash them over, if I thought they weren't de-germed well enough. If my parents were even 5 minutes late coming home from somewhere and I was at home alone or with a babysitter, I would make myself (literally) sick, coming up with all these horrible scenarios of how they were probably dying in a fiery car crash.
I could go on and on, but the common factor in all of those examples (and the ones you gave for Makenna) is an inability to stop FOCUSING on one, tiny thing. Or, in other words, OBSESSING over something. It's really strange - super hard to explain to someone who doesn't have the same thing going on in their brain - but it's extremely frustrating.
Here's what I've found that explains it the best: you know how sometimes, when you're just totally worn-out and overwhelmed and maybe it's also total PMS time and your hormones are going crazy, one little thing can happen and it makes you GO INSANE? Like, you see yourself screaming at your husband and you kind of float out of your body and think "wow, I am really not handling this well!" but you can't seem to stop it. That's what having OCD is like. You KNOW (well, as you get older you realize this) that whatever you're obsessing about ISN'T the end of the world. You KNOW you're obsessing, and you try to stop. Sometimes it works; you can get your brain back under control. Sometimes it doesn't, and you have a really, really hard time.
Anyway, it breaks my heart to read that Makenna seems to have some sort of the same thing going on, because I know how frustrating it is! But it also makes me SO THANKFUL that the Lord gave her you guys as parents, and that you already are understanding that her poor little heart and brain are trying as hard as they can to just take these issues and NOT allow them to take over. She IS brave! I totally agree with you there. It's such a tough thing, especially when you're younger and can't really reason through it as well.
Anyway, I am not gonna get into all the supposed cures/medications/etc for OCD/anxiety. Those are just too personal and I would never attempt to give advice on something like that. I will say though, that what you guys can do to help Makenna when she comes up against something that causes her to start the Obsession cycle, is just UNDERSTAND her. Ask her questions, and try (geez, I know it's hard - I know I get SO unreasonable) not to get frustrated if her answers all seem overly dramatic and frantic. Help her reason through it; help her express WHY the issue bothers her so much (i.e. "what makes you so scared about being sick? what do you think might happen? if you throw-up, the worst thing that will happen is you'll feel bad and then it will be over with in just a minute!").
Understanding her, letting her talk it out (even if a lot of the talking is crying and upset-speak) and going through the ROOT of the obsession (what is the worst that could happen, how the Lord knows already the end-result) will really go a long way towards helping.
Of course you probably already know all of this and do it better than I am suggesting! I know I am a child-free non-parent, so I almost 100% of the time steer clear of advice-giving, but in this case, I recognized myself IMMEDIATELY in your description of Makenna, so I felt like I might be able to offer a tiny bit of insight!
Great job on the blog; can't wait to keep reading it!
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