Back to Normal?

I thought I'd say that we are back to normal around here, but I'm not sure that you could ever actually label us as normal.


We are, however, back to everyone sleeping in the correct bed, other than Julia. JD had to leave on travel for the week and that is always enough to throw Julia into the depths of despair at bedtime. I thought that I would help her out and let her have a turn sleeping on the inflatable bed that was set up on Alyssa's floor. She was so tired at 8:00 p.m. that I got her into bed. I tried everything! By 11:00, she had been in the inflatable bed, her bed, my bed and the couch. She had also ripped all the sheets off of several beds and was still screaming. At times like this, I know we are dealing with way more than just strong will. In spite of her passing the attachment testing in Charlottesville last year, my gut tells me that she is suffering from attachment challenges! Today I called two closer places to at least have an evaluation done; I really think we need some therapy or something. (If she doesn't qualify for it, maybe they can provide the rest of us with some advice for dealing with hours of high-pitch glass-shattering screaming, because our nerves were a bit shot my the end of the session last night!)

I'd also like to point out that JD never sees these episodes, although he has heard many of them across the phone lines. She just doesn't act like this when he is home. And from what I've heard, it's even worse if we are both gone. I'm supposed to head north to meet JD for the week-end this Friday. I really hope it improves this week because I"m not sure that I would even leave her with a sister I didn't like!

So, that's my question of the hour. Do you leave attachment challenged children that freak out anyway? Or do JD and I never go anywhere without Julia because she has a tough time? She adores my sister and my sister is the one here with her, so it's not like I'm leaving her in a strange environment or anything.

Parenting can be so tough!