Special Needs Collision

Sometimes in our house a whole bunch of individual special needs collide and we end up in a big mess. This morning was a perfect example.

We have several kids who do not understand boundaries whatsoever. And so we lock our bedroom door. If we don't we are in trouble because kids are in our room, taking our things, stealing our money, and basically just causing chaos in there. It's bad enough the chaos we create by having be that the last stop for many of the things in the house that need to be kept safe. And when we are in there we always have two or three or five or six kids in there with us. We don't need to have any more people in there when we aren't there. So our bedroom is locked and we each have a key on our key ring. So the special needs of several of our kids in regards to boundaries is issue number one.

We are down to two vehicles. This is due to the damage that incurred when Mike, 19, with FASD was given custody of the vehicle after Salinda, with whatever special needs she had/has at the time, stole it. He took a joy ride and basically destroyed the car and now the engine is dead.

Rand drives for us. He is 20. He has FASD. Since he now has to drive our vehicles he has to borrow our keys. HIs driving is pretty safe but he for the life of him he can't seem to keep the van key on the key ring after he uses it. He lays it wherever.

Dominyk has ADHD and is scattered. This morning I asked him to start the van. He took my keys. I didn't know the van key wasn't on the key ring. Dominyk was resourceful and found the van key in my bedroom but left the rest of the keys in the bedroom and went to start the van. And, since Bart was home this morning (his day off) you guessed it....

both sets of keys with the bedroom key on it were in the bedroom and some well meaning person, knowing our room should be locked, pulled the door shut.

Fortunately, Salinda also has experience breaking into our bedroom window. At first Wilson tried with Rand's help, but the window was frozen shut and he wasn't strong enough to get it open. We put in a manic call to Kari's husband Mike but before we needed him, Salinda figured out how to get the window open.

But during those few frustrating minutes I'm standing in the kitchen with everyone looking at me to solve the problem. And their special needs seemed to be just spilling all over me. Tony of course, whose biggest special need is that he can't keep his mouth shut, had to make a zillion comments. Dominyk was obsessively (OCD) apologizing over and over again. And I just stood there, caught in the cyclone of special needs.

And only now am I actually able to laugh.