Hugs, Laura.

sj, she expresses her opinions very decidedly for one so young. She's been sick since just after Christmas, so it's been extra-emotional around here. How is yours?

My year in review:

We're still in Nashville, and growing more weary of the city. It's our 10th year here, and that feels like a good long time to have been in a place where we never particularly intended to set down roots. The heat bothers me more each year, the traffic is only getting worse, and our neighborhood feels less safe now than when we bought our house six years ago. It's not a place I can see letting our kids roam around anytime soon, nor do they have any friends' houses to walk to nearby, and that all makes me sad. The area has its benefits for sure, but more and more I feel like it's not where I want to be raising children. On the other hand, my job and my school are a really bright spot, especially with Rose in first grade there and loving it.

We talk regularly about how to move elsewhere, and where, and when, but I feel like it's reached a new pitch this year. I'd definitely be sad to leave my job, but otherwise I'm very ready to move on, and M is increasingly dissatisfied with his job. He's got an interview for a job in Kansas in a couple of weeks, which I was initially not thrilled about, but I've come around to it and am now more or less hoping that it comes through -- which, of course, is still a pretty long shot at the moment.

So I guess that's my biggest hope for 2019: a move to Kansas, or failing that, another job that would take us somewhere else. Ideally somewhere further north and/or east (closer to my family and colder weather), or else out of the country altogether...

The girls are growing by leaps and bounds, and are mostly delightful. Rose (6) is quite strong-willed (much like I was as a child, as my mother loves to remind me) and continues to challenge us, I mean teach us, to learn how to parent with both compassion and firmness. Jane (3) is much calmer and more willing to go with the flow. I have to say, her threenager stage is SO much easier than Rose's was (thank god!).

I can't think of any big news. We took a few small trips, mostly to visit family. We are all in basically good health, although M has persistent sleep issues that I wish we could get a better handle on. (Yes, he finally did a sleep study, which resulted in him getting a CPAP that he hates and isn't convinced he needs.) Still have all our parents with us, and our cats.

It's been a year. Here's to forward motion in the year to come!

So 2018 was a kind of weird year, and I don't really know how to sum it up. Aidan got stuck in a loop that included "what is suicide?" and "What happens if I act out?" and "What is therapy?" and so on, and so he began to act up in school. He'd been doing it at home, but he was still trying to make everyone at school think he was perfect until he hit a point where he realized they were on to him and he wasn't absolutely perfect and they KNEW! and began to talk about killing himself, and then asking others to kill him, and then got up from his chair and rammed his head into the concrete wall of the classroom, and then being sent to the hall, and having to be wrestled to the ground by the school safety officer and the counselor. Oh joy.

When he started acting out, we got him a therapist who said she knew all about autistic kids and she knew he didn't need to be hospitalized, and then after that incident, the school called her first, and then called us in, and then they told us that they had to try to find him an in-hospital placement because of his behavior, and so we sat there for several hours while the therapist called and called and called and hospital after hospital said he wasn't a good fit and didn't need them. And finally, we realized that we'd followed the letter of the law with the first hospital that said he didn't need any further assessment and we took him home.

An in-hospital stay is not a good idea for Aidan. He gets more and more upset when he's away from his family and his safe space at home. I think it would have caused more harm than good. We switched therapists. The new one got him talking about consequences, and thinking things through, and what he really meant when he said he wanted to die (I'm stressed and I don't want people to think badly of me!), and so on, using his ideas about creating video games, and he got switched to a new class this year and is doing so well that he only has to check in with the therapist once a quarter now.

In the meantime, Kara started actually thinking about how she'd kill herself, and we got her a therapist, but her therapist was a little narrow-minded and not very broadly educated, I think. Anyway, she was a really sweet lady (who now turns and walks away from us in the grocery store when she sees us), but she actually thought that gays and lesbians were going to hell, or something, so that wasn't good. Kara really liked Aidan's therapist, who is a buffista-in-training or something (Loves Dr. Who, Monty Python, and all kinds of fandoms, used to play tabletop RPGs), and so we switched Kara's therapist to her, and Kara came out, and got on some Anti-Ds, and is doing so much better that I am constantly ambushed by how beautiful she is and how wonderful it is to see her happy. Of course, at the same time, she missed half of the first half of this school year because of health issues, and was flunking her senior year. Not a problem because she's a year younger than 99% of her classmates, but a problem for her mentally. Thankfully, the school is working with her to graduate on time and she will only have to go to the school 4 hours a week, but can go more if she wants to. The counselor expects that she'll also end up with one or more scholarships because her ACT scores (except math) are pretty phenomenal.

In the meantime! I started therapy in part because I was applying for disability, and in part because... holy shit! This year! and my therapist told me all about his inability to emotionally connect to his wife and children, and then he canceled on me twice, on the day of therapy, because he was sick once, and because he decided to try to connect with his wife once, and then he invited a student in to my therapy sessions without asking me, who told me all about her coupon cutting ways and her favorite grocery stores. Yeah.

So, I liked Aidan's therapist too, and I started going to her, and it was awesome. We could finish one another's sentences. Lovely. I like her, and it's been great for a lot of reasons, but I've been really wishing I could go (continued...)

( continues...) back to what I was doing before Aidan freaked out because, really, it was a lot more comfortable pretending I was perfectly mentally healthy except for a few charming quirks (not charming at all). And now we're doing ego-state therapy and I have to tell you that it's not at all fun to be living in my head right now. I dressed by committee yesterday! Nothing matched because they all wanted me to do something different. I feel like the grinch. The noise, noise, noise, noise!

Whew. There's more, but I think that's enough to be going on with right now.

Oh Deena, I do believe teens have a lot more stress than existed when I was a teen. Possibly aggravated by social media. It sounds like you are on top of it. It is a lot easier to handle your own stuff than watching your kids suffer.

Also, note to self, many therapists suck.

Wow, Deena, that is a lot. It sounds like a lot of good moving towards goodness for all of you! And it's so good to see you here!

I had no idea y'all were so ready to relocate, Kate. I hope something works out for you!

Yikes, Deena! I think you had a crazier year than I did!

Goodness, Deena. That's a lot of a lot. I hope 2019 is less stressful for you and yours.

That is a huge pile of stuff, Deena, but as you tell about each thing, then tell us how you explored it more deeply and how things evolved toward solutions, it's almost like "Light broke, a choir sang chords of hope" so that's the impression I'm left with. It was pretty deep, and you all climbed out, boosting each other along all the way.

I wish you a more gentle climb, from here.

Deena, you are a fiercely strong and beautiful creature, just to have held it all together through all that.

But can I also say, I died laughing at all of you inevitably ending up with the same buffista spirit-baby therapist?