It has been over two years since I have been actively blogging for Hellobee. I stopped for a number of reasons. First, juggling four kids and a job is a mixture of mostly chaos with a few brief moments of rest, during which I usually fall asleep on the couch pretending like I am actually going to make it through a 20 minute show. Second, I feel like most of the time I am just winging it. I am no expert; I am just trying my best to not screw up too badly at this whole mom thing.  Third, life can throw a lot of curve balls at you. We have had quite a few and some days I wonder how we made it to bed time without the house caving in on us.

Let me catch you up. My three boys are now in fifth grade. When I started with Hellobee they weren’t even in school and they are about to move on up to middle school. All three are on IEP’s. We started the process with my oldest son right as he started kindergarten. The twins followed suit in first and then second grade as their struggles in school became more pronounced. Although they often get grouped together as a trio, they are so different. Watching them become young men has been an interesting and wild ride.

My daughter is 8 and in second grade. I believe one of my first posts here was her birth story. She loves art and science and driving her brothers (and subsequently her parents) nuts, because let’s face it that’s what little sisters do. She tries to not only keep up with her older brothers, but she likes to leave them behind in her dust. Last year, as a first year cub scout, she decided she was going to hike the most out of any other kids in our group. 37 hikes and 50 weeks later we made it to 100 miles of trail under our feet.

Mr. Train and I are coming up on 14 years of marriage. Our kids once told our social worker (because we are also foster certified) that we fight all the time. When asked about what, they said, “Oh you know things like how to eat an artichoke right. Dad likes the leaf up to maximize the butter scoop and mom likes it point down.” So I guess if that’s the sort of stuff we argue about, we must be doing pretty well. I am still an elementary science teacher and he is still a software engineer. So the nerd power is strong in our family.

I am not going to use as many pictures of my kids in them. As they get older, I want to have some privacy for them, but I wanted to share some of our story. I want to tell you about our ups and downs with school work and IEP’s. I want to express our struggles with therapies and finding the right balance between helping a child with special needs, and letting them be a kid. I will let you in on a secret — I haven’t quite figured this part out yet. I want to share with you our adventures as a family and getting kids out in nature. I also want to show how I have been failing miserably at self care and the steps I am taking to rectify that issue. The mental load and mommy stress is a crazy beast that I battle with daily.

So I will end this post with a Hello, and a nice to be with you again. I can’t wait to jump back in and share the ups and downs of raising older kids with you.