One Room Done....almost!

So this week, I had an amazing offer. Some friends of mine offered to come and help me out regarding painting the kids rooms. So today, we tackled Missy's room. Now I don't have a picture of her old room but it was a grey/pink and it had had horribly perverted and nasty things painted on it.

See, the kids haven't been able to sleep in their rooms because of the robbery. They haven't felt safe. So, as a way of helping them to feel safe, I figured that I would paint their rooms, how they have wanted them painted. So I worked with Missy on purging some things and cleaning her room up.

If you know my girl, you know she loves horses. She has a plaque in her room, that reads. "Cowgirl at heart." So, on Wednesday, she and I went to Home Depot to figure out what she wanted. Well, she decided on a western/horse theme so we discussed how that would look. Her thoughts were on a "barn" type look in her room and then decorated with horse accents. So we went to the paint chip and decided on a combination of two different browns to form a "leather" look and feel to the room. So that is what I did today, paint her room in browns to provide a faux leather finish.

And now, decorations can start to be gathered and put up. She comes home on Monday night. I can't wait for her to see. And now Jamie's room is next!

Making all things new

So, I'm sitting here looking around my house. MY house, but the house THEY were in. Today is therapy day for the kids. Hopefully, we can go back to sleeping in their rooms after today. OEI is a really good thing and I am hoping that the kids can focus on what happened and clear it. I am also hoping that the change in bedrooms will also help. But here's the thing, it feels that the entire house is violated. Which for me means a complete gutting and purging and rearranging. So this weekend is starting with painting Missy's room and rearranging mine. Going through boxes and assortments of things, and realizing what really is of value.

In an earlier post, I had written about looking for blessings in all this. Maybe this is one....I don't know. What I do know is that it feels a lot like work and it feels really hard and sad. It also feels somehow wrong that I am "forced" to go through my belongings and decide what I want and what I don't want, what is valuable and what isn't. Granted, I had already felt like doing that, but this presses it home so much more. Because whereas I felt like a spring clean up, now I feel like a gutting.

So here's to some gutting/cleaning/purging/new home (hopefully) today....

Trying to feel safe

So, so far my children have learned that life isn't safe and their home isn't safe. They don't sleep in their rooms. They fall asleep on the living room and floor and when I go to bed, I wake them/carry them into my room where the three of us sleep. I'm having a hard enough time trying to sleep let alone with two others in my bed. So the idea is to re-paint their rooms.

Maybe then it will be a new room for them.
It won't be the same.
It won't be the place where people came in and robbed them and went through their personal things.
Maybe then they won't feel or remember the horrific violation.
Maybe then they can rest and sleep again in peace.
Maybe then....

The kids are at their dads this weekend. I hope to get started on one room then. My daughter has chosen what she wants and it is the polar opposite of what it is right now.

Maybe then....

(pictures will come as the work progresses)

And the children do not sleep.....

It's 11:00 am. I am sitting on my couch. One of my babies is sound asleep on the living room floor. It's safe here. There was nothing to ransack in a living room. It's not safe in his room. They upended it. They ripped out his drawers. They tossed his clothes around. They destroyed his closet. They ransacked his stuffed animals. His stuffies.... So now it's not safe. We can't sleep in our room or our bed. For Jamie, his room and bed and night were already not good, night time was already traumatized for him. We had just begun to win that battle.....and here we are again.....



"Mommy, do I have to go to bed?"

"Yes baby, you do..."

I can't sleep in my room."

"Why, sweetheart?"

"Because they might come back.."

Do you want to lie down here?"

"Yes, please..."

"ok, and if I sleep in my bed, I will wake you up and take you with me, ok?"

"ok.

It's a weird process to walk out

So I have been living this violation in something akin to a detached manner. I have to function, and I have a list of things that I have to do in the next few days. One of those is to bring life back to normal as quickly as possible for the sake of the kids. And so I live this detached. When I feel like I have my space, I cry, I shake, I sob, I get angry, I shake, I sob and I cry. But those are my times, not when my children are around. For you see, obvious as this is, they feel violated. I'm used to that feeling so I know how to disengage from it and I do. I disengage so that I can live and cope and normalize life for my kids.

They aren't use to violation. They don't know how to quite handle it. And so it is left to me to show them how to continue living. Not an easy task. How do you deal with violation when you are 9? How do you understand it? How do you make it normal? The therapeutic answer is you don't. You can't. You don't have the skill set because you don't have the understanding.

And this is how they make sense of it....

"Mommy, I don't want to eat food anymore, because now that we got robbed, we are poor, and I don't want to waste money on food."

Easter...blessings and curses?

I wasn't sure exactly what to title this post so I am writing first and then maybe a title will come. Easter I was blessed. I was given a no expenses trip to stay at my girlfriends place. She was going to cover my expenses to travel up to her place and we were going to stay with her. My boys were going to be able to hang with her same aged kids and my daughter was going to be able to have little toddlers to "mother." It was a trip we were all looking forward to it. It wasn't to be a long trip but it was definitely anticipated. We got there and we had a wonderful time. My boys went dirt biking I got to relax and spend some time in some wonderful company. The Easter bunny came and a good time was had by all.

And then we left. It was a long trip back, the weather was crazy...hail, sun, rain, and the temperature was bobbing all over the place. I was really looking forward to sitting and unwinding.

We got home and all appeared normal. I went into the kitchen and started to settle in. And I noticed the computer tower had been moved and pulled out from under the desk. I looked over to the desk and there was no monitor and no keyboard. It took me three different times of looking at this situation to really realize what had happened. We had been robbed.

Immediately we started to look around at the rest of the house. The kids went to their rooms to see what was there and what wasn't. I continued to look around. Panic ensued and everyone started to race around from here to there as I tried to figure out what to do. I called the cops and while we waited the kids kept scattering trying to figure out what was gone. I found where they had broken in. I started to walk around the house. Every room had be ransacked, all the drawers pulled out and upended clothes strewn everywhere. Everything had been touched and everything of value that could be carried out was. The kids lost some precious precious items, their baptism and birth jewelery,their baptism jewelery, their Grad jewelery (in Jeff's case), their Ipods and docks. I lost all my jewelery, some that was given to me as a child. My first every ring, my wedding set, my grad ring and various other jewelery that was given to me on various occasions. Our electronics, the kids Wii system, our camcorder.....and that's only a start, that's the obvious things.

And we are all traumatized. None of us could stay here last night. The kids went to their dads and I busied myself. It was not a fun coming home to.

In trying to process all of this, a lot of various thoughts come to mind. One the violation. That's the obvious one for sure. But there are many others. I remember saying to someone, yes the things that were taken were "things" but for my kids it doesn't fall out that way. I'm a single mom, I don't have nor do I make a ton of money. The things that were taken from us, maybe other families would write it off as they could replace most of it. But that's not the case for me. I saved and saved for those things that my kids had. It was not simply a casual gift for them. Those gifts came at a cost of sacrifice on my part, to try and give them some things that their friends had, so they didn't feel so stupid or embarrassed to have friends over. I can offer so little. My kids don't go to summer camp, nor have they had a vacation, they don't get a ton of lessons in a ton of things. So our few precious items were just that...precious items. That are now gone. And I have no means to replace them.

I am looking hard for the Easter blessing in this.....so far I am not seeing one.

Some of you that are closer to me know of some other things that are going on in my life. This is so NOT what I needed on top of everything else.

And I am still desperately looking here for my Easter blessing......
Posted by Kristie at 1:14 PM

Thoughts and Ponderings

So this week has been a week of testing and it has left me with a myriad of thoughts and ponderings floating around in my head. This week seemed an echo of some things that I have lived for a number of years. Things that had caused a lot of destruction in my life and those around me.

I heard a sermon once, that stated that God will sometimes bring us through a desert multiple times to enable us to learn exactly the things He has for us to learn. And as I sit thinking back on the events of this week, this concept came back to me. And I wondered if this echo was to gauge my growth.

Don't get me wrong, this was not an easy experience for me to walk through. I screamed, I kicked, I cried, I yelled, I swore. I was very, very upset, hurt, and angered. And then I emailed my girls and phoned a couple of me. And they talked me down. And then I went through everything and picked it apart.

Picked apart the lies from the truth (there was no truth). I sat and picked apart every lie and found the truth of every situation. I then told myself the truth and held onto it. And every time this situation comes into my mind, I rehearse the truth again.

Taking captive of your thoughts, standing firm on the truth and yet.....

This has opened a whole host of questions that I ponder...which you can find in xistential girl...