Living with Challenges

Today John suggested we go get Hannah and take her out to dinner. I think her dad is missing his "little girl", who has been working away at a summer camp. Many weekends she is busy doing things with the other counselor on their day off and doesn't come home. She is young and even though we miss her, I have encouraged her to enjoy this time, because all too soon she'll have the responsibilities of a home and job. For the average family this would be a great whole family activity but when you live certain disabilities, it is extremely hard to have even a simple family outing as this.

After discussing this, we decided it would be a much more pleasant experience if Noah did not go. Then became the question of who would stay home with him. Since I had talked on the phone with Hannah for over and hour this morning, we decided that I would stay home. One problem solved.

As I was sending the other two to bath and get ready to go new challenges popped up. The other two kids rely so much on me to help them with social issues that they began to worry about eating out without me. Libby was easy to solve, I gave her the responsibility of caring a bag of items Hannah wanted from home to Hannah. This gave her a purpose and made her feel important. She desperately wanted to see her sister so that help a lot also. Two problems solved.

Then I was hit with a third one, Nathan's. Sometimes since he is so high functioning when you get hit with him having trouble it throws you off track. This was a change in his evening routine and I was not going to be there to help him walk through it. I gave him the choice of going to see Hannah or staying home with Noah. Bad idea on my part. Nathan does not fair well with decisions that don't have a definite right or wrong answer. He began to stress out and hit himself in the head. Finally, I got him to take his bath. This solved the problem because once he was dressed to go the decision was made. I did find it funny when I was trying to talk him through this that he said he didn't want to go because he'd be all alone in a social situation. He was going to be with his dad and two sisters! Some days I just have to wonder about his thinking process.

John, Libby and Nathan had a great time visiting with Hannah at dinner and Noah and I had a nice quiet evening at home. This would not have been possible if Noah had went. He does not like places with crowds and noise and he would have been begging to leave within 10 minutes of getting there. I missed not getting to see Hannah, but like I told John I will be picking her up next week and will get to see her then. Also, if I had gone it would have been a lost opportunity for Hannah, Nathan and Libby to spend time just with their dad. 

Life is not easy living with challenges but through them we are given opportunities to grow and develop in ways we never would have without them. Many times I have desperately wished the triplets did not face the issues they do, but without them we would all be very different people who had not been given the opportunity to grow in areas of compassion and acceptance of others.