We are in the midst of a month-long visit to St. Louis, MO visiting family and friends here. It is both stressful and joyous, invigorating and exhausting. I am seeing Kiernen advance in some areas and regress in others.
In August we packed up everything we own and sold our house. We put all of our stuff into storage and after our visit to St. Louis, we are house-sitting in the Columbia Gorge for a month. The house we sill be sitting has chickens and three cats including our own, who is living there while we are here in St. Louis and then the month we’re house-sitting as well. After that....?
When we originally planned to move out of Windsong, it was spring, and two of Kiernen’s best friends had just moved away. Kiernen is the only free-flowing homeschooled kid at Windsong - the rest of them go to school or are homeschooled on a schedule that doesn’t allow for playing. Leaving in the spring when Kiernen had just lost these two friends and another boy who had a rigorous homeschooling schedule. UIt seemed like an opportune time for a change.
And then it took the entire summer for our home to sell. And summer is when Windsong wakes up, all the kids are home from school, there are fires in the fire pit in back and trips to the beach and BBQs. And it becomes very very difficult to leave. We had a summer of gatherings, of trampoline jumping, then of packing to move - which made things quite stressful.
We have talked and talked with Kiernen about and during this process - each time we see things escalating for him, I take the time to sit with him, be present with him, empathize with what is coming up for him: “This is stupid! We never should have moved! I don’t want to move away from Windsong,” and the heartbreaker of all, “I want us to keep this car, Mama, because when I am older I can drive it back to Windsong and live here again.” Ouch.
I am trying hard to avoid the “about me” part of this journey, which would include the why, etc.
I’ll just say that we are making every effort during this trip to make things as smooth for Kiernen as we can. The regressions I am seeing are his going non-verbal: letting himself escalate emotionally without ever using words, then screaming at the top of his lungs to let everyone know his pain. And for as long as he can manage. The when I approach to try and offer him support and empathy, he will hit me and say to get away and don’t talk to him (though were I to actually leave he would grab me and not let me go).
But there are advances, too: Kiernen is much more willing to enter new situations, provided he is fed and we are nearby - or holding his hand tightly. He has met so many new people on this trip, largely in part because unlike previous visits of 10 days divided equally between our two families, this trip is a luxurious 30 days, and we’ve been seeing lots more people than we would have. He has had his cousins, our close friends and their children, his grandparents, and many many more friends at BBQs and potlucks and Shabbat dinners and family get-togethers.
Kiernen has been way more willing to jump in and play with these new kids, and even with these new adults. We’ve been very fortunate to have several of said adults be either parents, grandparents, or uncles who just love to play, and Kiernen has warmed up so much more quickly than I’ve seen him do in the past. I’ve noticed he prefers kids younger than him (well, he told me, actually) and/or his own relatives, with close-in-age exceptions. Interestingly, the kids he played with most at Windsong were younger than him, with some close-in-age exceptions. I hadn’t really considered it as a preference before as much of a circumstance, but there you go.
The adventure continues, and there is probably a bunch more to tell...it will all unfold as time goes on.
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