7 Hours but not 5

I used to need nine hours of sleep. Lately I've been living on seven. But last night I only got five and I've only been up a half hour and I'm already dragging.

I realized after talking to Bart last night that I shouldn't have even let Salinda think that she might get to follow her plan this weekend. So i came down to my office wehre there is a space heater (I get really cold when I'm stressed out) at midnight to write her a letter letting her know that the answer was no.

As I look over my parenting journey in the last 10 years, since we started parenting older kids, I have gone from one extreme to the other in some areas. Years ago I was so consistent and hard-nosed, focusing on behavior and not relationships, that I felt i really messed up, especially with the kids with FASD. But over the last two years, I have leaned too much in the other direction and thus the kids do not feel safe enough to attach well. Fortunately, most of the children we have are already fairly well attached, so this isn't as crucial as it might have been years ago, but it still causes a lot of stress in the family system.

I hve been fascinated in reading Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife beneath, the importance of complete structure and consistency complimented with much love and fun. Recently in a section of the book I am reading how, the author because of several reasons, loosened up on that structure and it is not going well. If you have kids with attachment issues, it is an important book to read

I know that I need to toughen back up, but I have set into motion some difficult patterns that will take a long time to break. I know that the results of "cracking down" will put our family through loads of stress because we have a few people who really make us pay if we say no.

And it seems that this happens to me every time. Every night that I stay up late processing my life and determining a need to do things differently, I get so little sleep that I wake up the next day feeling like I'm too exhausted to even consider beginning a new plan.

And this morning that is certainly the case. I am simply exhausted.