Stuff to Do

I have four kiddos doing remote learning right now. It's not my favourite thing.  Each of them need individual supervision, and they cannot be in the same room at the same time. The older girls each get 90 minutes of my time. They're supposed to be doing 3 to 4 hours a day, according to their school. The younger two each get 60 minutes of my time, which is also less than they're "supposed" to be doing. That's 5 hours of supervision, leaving 1 hour a day for me to take phone calls, organise NDIS funding, send emails, attempt to do training for a potential job. If there are extras, like behaviour management, conflict resolution, canine enforcement (she will not stop grooming the chicken?!?), birthday preparations, lunchtime visit to McDonald's drive-through or "Mum come look at this Minecraft thing/Piggy cut scene/help me fix this slime which went wrong", well, I'm just going to have to forgo sleep.  Prior to diagnosis and treatment, during las...

Think about the following scenario:  You feel hungry, so you decide to make a sandwich.  You get the bread, the fillings, the condiments out.  You assemble the sandwich.  What is your next step?  If you have ADHD, you probably eat the sandwich. You also forget the bread, fillings, condiments, and knife even exist, because you only got them out to make the sandwich. Putting all that stuff away is a brand new task, completely separate. And cleaning isn't exciting, it's not fun. You were meeting a need (hunger), and putting away the stuff you used has nothing to do with hunger.  Here's another example, from my own experience -  I put my desk together, and it was rewarding. I have a beautiful desk, and I love it. Putting all of the things away that came off the old desk was not part of building the desk, and without a late afternoon medication boost, I would not have done that job, because it was tedious.  Part of the difficulty with that sort of thin...

How has ADHD impacted me as a mother? Prioritisation- Before I started medication, (or when it wears off) I could not prioritise anything. I literally could not look at my epic and delusional to-do lists and make a decision about things I could let go of or put off for another day. I could not prioritise household tasks. I would see all of it, get overwhelmed and not be able to start.  Procrastination- I have always been able to achieve incredible things under pressure. What I've learned is that I need adrenaline in order to help me focus, especially in tasks that are less enjoyable, or unpleasant. I would rather get up at 5am and race to clean the kitchen than go back to it after I've finally got the kids to bed. Yes, I hate getting up early, but I need that adrenaline burst to help me get started.  Caffeine- We've all seen the memes about motherhood and coffee, right? I had four children in five years. Of course I'm obsessed with coffee! When demands are low, a strong...

 I changed my Facebook profile picture for the month of October, to acknowledge ADHD Awareness. A profile picture doesn't get the conversation happening though, so I thought I would take it further. I'm in between university sessions, so I have some time.  Growing up, I was 'the space cadet'. I was chatty, I asked a billion questions, I was always busy reading. I explored the woods behind my house, engaged in music, theatre, band, dance. Rearranged my bedroom ALL THE TIME. Forgot assignments, or procrastinated like a champ. Lost things, misplaced things, couldn't keep my room clean to save my life. My grades were average, with the possible exception of music, which I loved. Struggled with binge eating, too. My emotions were all over the shop. As a young adult, I missed deadlines, was perpetually late, and my apartment was a hot mess. As a new parent, I honestly don't know how we all survived. Adding sleep deprivation to an already maxed out brain seems cruel som...

 Some houses have attics, some don't. A place for dust, mice, spiders, Christmas decorations. A place to keep all the things people don't know what else to do with, or things requiring decisions that people aren't ready to make. It's a place for the "some days" stuff of life.  For me, the attic was so much more. It was a passage to another world, very Narnia-esque. There were books to read, old clothes to try on, things that came from a different generation. There was an antique baby carriage, vinyl records, boxes of cards from people I didn't know, photo albums, suitcases, and all manner of things. The attic, to me, told the story of my family. It seemed like if I looked, I could find my entire family history in there, and figure out just who I was supposed to be.  I would sit in the summer, dripping with sweat, poring over books whose titles I can't remember, reading about everything and anything. I would sit in the cold, imagining myself to be Sara ...

 Yesterday was an extremely low-key day. I did end up doing a bit of assessment work, but I also organised and labelled my pantry.  *side note: if you're going to procrastinate, at least do something useful? Then I made dinner. Then? I made sure the food was put away, and put the kiddos to bed. And I went to bed too. Today? Uh, I pottered around. I got up, loaded and ran the dishwasher, put a load of laundry in, and then just kind of hung around. Took a kid to a play date, did a bit of research for my assessment, had a good chat with a friend, and not a lot else. Tomorrow? We'll see. I'm not making plans that I won't follow through on, and for all my talk about doing, I want to make sure I have capacity for doing. Tonight, that looks like finishing this glass of wine, putting the kids to bed, and putting away the pasta with sauce we had for dinner. The rest can wait until tomorrow, because choosing rest is an act of doing too.  Good night, Sarah

 I did an obscene amount of stuff.  I woke up early, and rather than go back to bed, I sat with my coffee and began the first day of my year long devotional effort. Then I listened to a couple of podcasts while dismantling the Christmas tree, boxing up the decorations, sweeping the floor, putting the furniture away. After a while, the family woke up, and I started cleaning in earnest, dusting everything, organising the Lego cubes and the DVD cubes.  It felt really good.  I've had "defrost freezer" on my list for so long I thought it would be permanent - but not today, my people. I went out to the camper trailer and grabbed the esky (I think Americans call it a cooler? I never really went camping much over there, so I'm not sure.), and with Lachlan's help, unplugged and emptied the freezer. Then it was time to get SERIOUS. Over the sink we have a shelf, and it's been a clutter catcher since we put it there. It's been bugging me, so I moved some things there...