I’m thankful that LuLu is such a hard worker. I have friends who are parenting challenging children who are more the passive type, who appear to make choices not to work on their issues or try to conquer whatever their special needs. This is not the case for LuLu. Even though as her outbursts sometimes look very purposeful and full of malicious intent, it doesn’t take very long being around her that you see the internal struggle she has to maintain stability and how hard LuLu is really working.

She doesn’t shy away from hard work of other forms as well. Yesterday was Thanksgiving Celebration at our church. Super Dad and I were in charge of coordinating and preparing a huge dinner (potluck, plus we provided turkey, dressing and potatoes). We had amassed a group of adults to help us with the preparations. And there was LuLu in the middle of it, cooking and washing dishes.

Twice during our event (which started in early morning and wasn’t finished until around 2 pm – by the time we did cleanup, etc.), she started to meltdown. Once I’m not sure what the trigger was, as I was busy elsewhere and she came to me during the peak food preparation time. “Uh oh,” I thought…and flashed to scenes of total meltdown and needed to leave just as I was really needed in the kitchen. But she pulled it together and eagerly helped two men make the instant mash potatoes (and took great pride in it afterward). The second “risky time” happened when she thought she might get to go over to a friend’s house in the afternoon. This is another special needs child who she loves dearly, but as the dinner wore on, he became overstimulated and his mother said he really needed to go away from the crowd and calm down. Telling LuLu “no” even when you haven’t told her “yes” on something she’s locked in on is a dicey proposition. I quickly tried to talk her back down, but was pretty sure one of us was going to need to leave to take her home. Next thing I knew, she was turning it around and washing pots and pans with Super Dad.

I’m thankful that LuLu is learning the valuable lesson that contributing to an effort and accomplishing something can help to calm her emotional state. The physical act of working, plus the act of doing something for others really helped her switch gears and focus on something besides her own worries and emotions. And it give her mom hope that this girl may be able to put enough tools in place as she grows to really overcome her challenges.

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