Good Deal

Back to a serious post… if anything that goes on here can be considered serious.   We go from OMGWTF? to HAHA-AWESOME! in less time than it takes to butter a piece of toast.

The kids are starting to get a lot of our sense of humor (finally) and we haven’t even started indoctrinating them with Monty Python and Mel Brooks movies.  They have seen Down Periscope multiple times, so that helps.  It’s pretty awesome to see them crack cynical, sarcastic filled jokes and it’s even better to see them understanding and using puns.  LJ is a LOT like me – he says “puns work because of a misused homophone.”  Absolutely child.  Absolutely.

Me and LJ – we have an odd sort of relationship.  It’s been hard for me from the beginning with him.  There was a time where we almost refused placement with him – it was that bad.  See, I’m an alpha female.  I have been since the moment I was born and everyone in my family will tell you that.  LJ, when he first came to us, was under the impression that a woman’s job was to cook and take care of the younger babies.  This woman who will never exist was supposed to see a 7 year old boy as having more status in the household than her.  (I know I’ve written before about how the household is like a dog pack.)  Well… as you can tell, this attitude didn’t work.

So, over the 2 years we’ve known him and he’s come to live with  us and become our son, we’ve been working on this.  At times I’m overbearing and at times, he is.  For the most part, he’s figured out that he doesn’t get to tell A&E what to do and I try and give him responsibility over himself.  (I do get to overrule stupid things like wearing shorts to school when it’s 50 degrees outside.)

We meet at loving books.  He loves to read and so do I.  We’d rather read in our bed than talk to anyone.  The problem is that he’s not real sure where the lines between fiction and reality are.  He told some teachers at the school earlier this week that a dragon had bitten him on the neck.  Of course, no one believed him, but the counselor called home to tell me what was going on.  He’s had some pretty big stuff come up in the past few weeks so she knew this may be something we need to discuss.

He and I sat in the car and talked while in the carpool lane to pick up his sister.  We talked and talked and talked.  He didn’t understand that the words he says to people cause reactions – no matter what you say, you’re going to get a reaction.  We talked about how if people knew he just made stuff up all the time that no one would listen to him if something was actually wrong.  We talked about believable stories – dragon bit you?  Obviously not true.  (though, it’s probably better to make up a story that can’t possibly be true than say something equally untrue but believable.)

We talked about appropriate things to share with people (conditional boundaries) and what would happen if those boundaries weren’t respected.  We talked about kids in the foster care system (when we were picking up our AA check at DFCS, he saw some classmates in the waiting room) and the different things that could cause a child to need care.

We spent a lot of time talking about severity and differences – not all kids go through the same thing he did.  For some kids, they had an easier time of it.  For some, they had a time that was much worse than his.  We talked about how everyone, everywhere has something in their past that hurts and how we deal with it determines the kind of person we are.

After all that – we made a deal.

Until November 15th, he is not allowed to either make up fantasy stories or read fiction novels.  He still has to read every night – but he gets true stories.   He’s involved in a biography of Cal Ripken Jr. right now.  I’ll probably go to Goodwill today or tomorrow to pick up more kiddo friendly non-fiction books.  If not that, then we’ll visit the local library.

Things have been moderately better since then.  He’s been meeting my eye and making jokes with me.  He’s been helpful and respectful to the little bits.  Last night, we even put everyone to bed with the sound of laughter even though it was an emotionally difficult day for everyone.  He woke up this morning and told me – amazed – “I didn’t have any nightmares last night, Mommy!”  Awesome.  Pure awesome.

This morning we talked about how to say “its not your business” to people who made them uncomfortable with questions.  We talked about whose business it is – the family’s and the doctors.

After going through foster care and adoption, this is something all of us need to rebuild.  We all need to work on appropriate levels of privacy for ourselves and each other.  We’ve all just gone through so many years of having to report every little thing by phone and in writing.  There were always people in and out of our house – I couldn’t let the laundry go or not load the dishwasher because at ANY moment, someone could pull up and get to judge our worthiness.  This is partly why I’m so open on the internet – it would be hard to rape our privacy and background any more than what it took to become a foster/adopt parent.

Now, we’re having to work on telling people it’s not their business.  Truth is, most people aren’t looking to help – they’re looking for gossip.  Shaun and I are also having to relearn to trust our own judgment.  We’re both grown but we’re too used to having every move picked apart.   That causes stress and anxiety for all of us – we can’t just relax and have normal everyday fights.  Everything is a possible catastrophe.  Everything is caused by this event or that event, and everyone has a different opinion of what caused what.

I mean, I just want my child to feel free enough to scream “I hate you – you’re the meanest mom EVER.”  Right now, we’re still all worried about what we’re saying and trying to use proper communication skills.  In foster care, if they said “I hate her – she’s so mean” to a case worker it wouldn’t be about whether I confiscated the Nintendo DS – it would be “are you feeding them properly?  Whats your discipline policy?  We need to have a face to face meeting about this placement.  I need to talk to my supervisor.”   Basically, if you get mad and immature, your whole life could be turned upside down  (and immature is probably 30% of my personality.)

I want to be able to say “I don’t even want to see you right now” without it meaning “she may not love me enough to keep me.”  No, I just need some time not seeing YOU.  I’ll get to where I want to see YOU again but first I need 5 minutes to look at something else.  Every word that I say has to be examined from how they’ll receive it and how it will sound if they repeat it or how it will sound when I tell the therapist about it (because I can’t lie worth a shit and they can tell when something is going on.)  Then the kids see that I’m uncertain and they start thinking that maybe I don’t know what I’m doing and maybe they don’t have to listen to me.   Or something.

For now, it’s just repeating “I’m your mom.  I was your mom yesterday and I’ll be your mom tomorrow.  I’ll be your mom next year and the year after that.  I’ll be your mom when you get old and have babies.  I’ll be your mom no matter what.”   If we say it enough, maybe we’ll all start to believe its not fiction or fantasy.

your hard work is about to pay off

I’m consolidating all the little “do this” lists that are on my workstation, and I just found a fortune from a fortune cookie:

your hard work is about to pay off

God, I hope so.  I’m so damn tired.  I’ve been trying to stay upbeat and focus on the blessings instead of the distance we still have to go, but it’s so fucking HARD.

We’ve had some major breakthroughs these past couple of weeks with regards to LJ’s therapy.  He’s finally starting to talk about what happened to him at the group home he was in.  He’s been doing therapy two or three times a week since there was a BIG ISSUE and he finally started to talk about it while we were dealing with the BIG ISSUE.

It’s really too much to know… I couldn’t imagine living with that secret inside me, thinking that terrible things would happen if I told.  Now that I know part of the “secret” its hard to see it in a non-emotional way.  I’ve counseled and mentored sexually abused children for what seems like forever and this is by no means the worst I’ve heard.  It’s a fairly common story.

It is really just hitting me hard.  This is MY kid.  MINE.  I could decimate every person or circumstance that enabled this to happen.  I could sit down and cry for a week.  Neither Shaun nor I are able to sleep without nightmares and we’re always listening through the baby monitor because he’s been having nightmares.

Thank God for our therapy group, though.  This center has been the absolute best place.  They deal with foster and adopted kids, and they know the system.  They also haven’t lost their ideals.  This isn’t the first time they’ve had to report to the state about something that’s come up in therapy and mostly it goes without ever being checked out, but this time they flipped shit.  The proprietors involved with running the home didn’t seem to care one way or another what was going on.  They actually said that LJ was “a damaged, retarded kid” and was probably lying. (This is from the home that had him classified as autistic and mentally retarded.  He’s not autistic and his IQ is in the 120s.)

When this asshole said that to the lady who runs our local center, she… well… the Bible says “vengeance be mine, saith the Lord” but God sometimes subcontracts.  I would not willingly set foot in her path while she’s pissed off – and I’m one of those people who would stare down a hurricane.  So, now the COO of the national treatment center is making a report to the group that runs the DHR – which is over DFCS.

(Yes, this is the same home that called DFCS on me because of a facebook status where one of my friends joked that I was a dominatrix.  Didn’t you know that I’m a harlot because I have short hair, wear makeup, and have tattoos?  Well, I am, and that means any sort of deviance from the straight and narrow means I’m a BLASPHEMER!!!! AND OMG, I HAVE KNEE HIGH BLACK BOOTS!!!  I’m obviously a tool for the Devil himself and my facebook updates should never go unnoticed.)

So, back to LJ.  He seems happy during the day – almost carefree.  He’s a very somber kid so this is really a shock.  He has gone back to soiling his drawers and hiding them, throwing tantrums, and forgetting personal space b0undaries.  It’s expected… it’s not acceptable behavior, but it’s expected.

We’ve been talking a lot about what to do when you have scary memories that seem real.  (PTSD flashbacks, for us grown folks.)  We talk about how to get to a safe place physically where you can’t hurt yourself or other people, and then find someone who you can tell about it.  I told him the important thing is to talk.  It doesn’t matter who – and we’re not going to spread it around like “oooh, guess what LJ remembers!”  He just needs to get it out before he does something stupid.

We also have been talking a lot about other people having scary memories that seem real.  A (chickpea) has flashbacks during October and last year scared the living hell out of LJ, so this year we’re talking about how its normal for people who remember scary things to have this happen and also what to do if a flashback does happen.

I’ve had to tamp down most of the talk about Halloween.  LJ is so excited about it, but because he was separated from chickpea for so long he doesn’t realize what Halloween means to her.  Her little brain learned the routine: dress up for Halloween, get candy, eat dinner with family, then get sent to live with a new mommy.  She LOVES pumpkins and getting dressed up and the pretty colored leaves, but she gets so amped up thinking that she’s about to have to leave again.  She’ll get in trouble and scream “I’m bad so I have to go to a new house!”  I told her that I’m much worse than she is and I’m not in a new house yet.  If she doubts it, she can ask Grandmommy and Grandpa exactly how bad I was.  So, we’ve been talking a lot about how adoption means she’s my kid forever and how hard we worked to get her and that no one was taking her without a fight.  A very messy, nasty fight.

It seems like we’ve talked about good touch/bad touch 500 million times and its still an issue.  We’ve talked about “games” that predators play to make a kid think its ok to touch each other, we’ve talked about safety plans, we’ve talked about the rules that we have to have while they’re having scary memories… we’ve talked about secrets and about personal space and being respectful.

We’ve talked our little throats hoarse and still, we have to keep going “omg, wtf” then keep on saying it.  One of these times it will sink in and hopefully be remembered.

And E… poor little guy.  He’s taking a lot of crap from LJ and chickpea during this and he’s getting so mad.  He’s 4, but the size of most 7 year olds.  He doesn’t know how to process all this drama right now, so he’s acting out and destroying things.  He’s yelling and kicking and throwing tantrums.  He’s stealing food and lying.  Gah… It’s hard to even work with a 60 lb preschooler, much less try and peel him off the ceiling.

Next on my list is to write a post on my post-op appt with my OBGYN.  I won’t put it here because it’s absolutely not male friendly.

boundaries, part 2

The kids had therapy last night and Shaun brought up the stuff I talked about here.  Apparently, we’re not the first people to complain about that nurse or to feel like she stepped way out of line.  The therapists had another point I hadn’t considered: her job is to take vital signs to make sure the doctor can figure the right dosage of medication.  Period.

Shaun sat down with the therapists for a while to fill them in on what’s been going on with the kids.  It’s a lot and we asked them to make some changes in their strategies with the kids.

A seems to think that therapy is for her entertainment and after she gets home from it, her behavior for about 2 days after is unbelievably bad.  I feel sorry for her therapist because she’s being manipulated big time by a 5 year old.  A has been doing the “I’ll go along with what you say to do so we can get down to the playing part” to perfection.  She doesn’t need to hear about good touch, bad touch again.  She knows it word for word.  She’s just letting the therapist go through it again because it’s easier.  Absolutely ZERO goes into application when she gets home.  She acts like she’s the shit and a bag of chips.  She’s got an ego bigger than Kanye’s.  Listen to Mom?  Why?  She’s way too smart for that listening to mom crap.

LJ is the grand-master of passive aggressive.  Open defiance would be easier for me to deal with but this whiny crap gets on my last nerve.  He’s been throwing tantrums too, and for a kid my size, that’s just ridiculous.  It’s back to where it was last year before he moved in – the chauvinistic little boy who should be spoiled by mom, not disciplined by mom.  At least he’s not regressed with the encopresis any further.

I’ve got to go sign A up for school today and I almost want them to assign her to the most strict, hard-ass teacher they can find.  Someone who is like 100 years old and seen every kind of little bad ass possible – twice.   I have a feeling I’d be shooting myself in the foot on that one though.  We’ll just leave teacher assignments up to fate.

The rest of it though, is a struggle to the last!  Have no doubt, I’ll come out on top.  It’s my job as Mommy!

New boundaries, therapy edition

The kids appt went well enough – everything is about the same.  The psychiatrist let us know that today was her last day and they should have a replacement by the time the next appt comes around.  It’s too bad, too.  I like this doctor (all three times we’ve seen her) but I understand the position she’s taking is much better for her.  Hopefully our next psych will work out as well.

The center we go to does monthly health screenings at the same time as the psychiatry screening and it’s done by a nurse.  She’s always a little aloof and distant but today it was just weird.  It’s hard when they fit both kids in at once because I can’t be with them when they do the health screening – I’m with the other one with the doctor.  They have this form they fill out every month and it’s a little intense for elementary school kids.  Stuff like “do you have discharge from your nipples?”

So the first thing that happens when I go in to check on Alyssa – the nurse comes out in the hallway and says “Alyssa says that a male cousin tackles her a lot and he does it because he loves her.”  Ok, they have to ask about this – I’ve actually counseled a number of children who were abused by a relative.

I asked her “did she say anything else about it?”

“No, she thought it was fun.”

I’m trying not to laugh at this point.  The nurse HAS to ask me about it.  Apparently, she didn’t ask Alyssa anything else after she said this, otherwise she would have known.  Alyssa has only one male cousin… and he’s two years old.  He LOVES Alyssa.  Alyssa was one of the first names he learned – right after Mama, Da, and Bob.  He calls me “Lyssa’s Mommy.”  Every time he sees her he squeals A-LYYYYSSSSA! and runs at her full speed.  If he sees me first, he goes “where’s Lyssa? An Cinny – where’s LYSSA?”

I filled the nurse in and she didn’t even smile or act like that fact relaxed her.  The rest of the visit was TENSE to say the least.  Like “did you know that LJ has been having pain when he pees?”  LJ was at the time giving her the silent treatment and staring at his shoes, only answering with a twitch of his chin.  “Alyssa says you gave her a laxative.”

Now – first of all, Alyssa does not know what a laxative is.  Second, she can’t tell last year from yesterday.  This is developmentally normal – and yes, if she’s constipated, I sometimes give her a dose of children’s medicine.  I’m allowed – they sell it, doctors recommend it, and I’m her mother.  She has a pediatrician she sees if it’s too often or if it’s abnormally colored.  Guess what, I don’t have to document it anymore and I really don’t remember if it was two months ago that she was last constipated or a week ago.

During this time, E is in with the psychiatrist, waiting on LJ to get done with the nurse.  He’s not allowed to talk today because he’s been willingly defiant.  So I hear the doctor in there asking him questions.  What part did you not get about me telling YOU that he’s in trouble and his punishment is to not be able to talk – which is his absolute favorite thing to do.  He’s sitting still and being quiet – just ignore him!  The kids are pushing boundaries BECAUSE of the adoption – they are testing me out as a forever mom.  I do NOT need people who should know better to undermine me.

Ethan does not (and did not) want to talk about Mom beating him up – which is what it felt like she was trying to get him to say while I was out of the room.  In my experience, that’s why caseworkers and therapists want to talk to children alone.  He wanted to talk about spider guts and how he stepped in an anthill outside when he was playing.  Those were the first words out of his mouth all at once. He didn’t even want to talk about his most recent reason to be pissed off – Alyssa gets to go to school and he doesn’t – or how he set a fire in the sunroom or how he’s been throwing violent tantrums.  I mean – he’s FOUR.  He’s supposed to be thinking and talking about spider guts.  You aren’t going to get him to talk about anything else by the time I get back.

I thought we’d stop playing these “are you abused at home” games once the kids were adopted – but apparently no.  At least now we don’t have three people a month coming into our house to ask them, but still their mental health workers get to quiz them every time they see them.  How long do I have to be their mom before people stop second guessing my judgment?

I know it’s just my perception because I still get asked when I go to the ER if my husband beats me.  I’m like “it’s a migraine… he didn’t cause THAT.”  It’s just something they have to legally ask so that they don’t come down on the wrong side of the media.  We all have seen the headlines and even judged people without the facts.  We have to believe that there are signs that point towards tragedy, and people are so scared of missing the signs that they lead this very scripted life.

What happens is that the kids end up thinking that they’re asking because I’m doing something wrong or that they need to be worried about.  My job is to give them safety and boundaries – that’s what they need right now.  They need to know that not only am I their protector, but I’m also the law-maker.  When I’m questioned in front of the children about such and such an event, they start thinking that maybe I’m not right.  Their experience has told them that adults aren’t right all the time and sometimes adults hurt little people.

Foster families are built on structure.  Everything is planned, everything goes on the schedule, there are rules for everything.  Everything is documented, everything is scrutinized.  Now that the kids are adopted, I’ve been loosening up the rules little by little.  Things like LJ can ride down the street on his bicycle instead of staying in the driveway.  The kids can spend the night at Grandmommy’s.  We can watch PG-13 movies when Shaun and I agree they’re safe (we don’t worry about curse words – we just don’t allow sex or violence on TV.)  I can walk out in the living room with only my nightgown and a pair of undies on – I don’t have to be robed from head to toe.  We can make stupid jokes when before we’d get disapproving stares from the caseworkers if the kids told one. We’re attempting this idea that we’re a “normal family” now.

The kids know this and they also know the “back-up plan” is gone now that they have forever family.  They’re testing the waters, seeing when how far they can go before they hit a wall.

Ethan hit that wall around noon yesterday.  He’s been skirting it for a week or two.  This morning, he had hit it by 7 am so I told him that I didn’t want to hear another word out of him for the rest of the day.  Then, I have to justify it to the center because if I don’t, I’m afraid they’ll make “that call.”

When we left, Alyssa immediately started in on me with the superiority BS and the defiance.  Before we even got out of the parking lot, I had to have a come to Jesus meeting with her.  Developmentally, this is on target, but damn.  If there was anywhere I should have been backed up on my choice of discipline, it should have been at the center.   Aren’t they there to make life easier on everyone?

So I’m not touchy feely baby-talk kind of mom.  Whatever.  That’s ok.  I tell em how it is and how it’s going to be.  There’s no hinting or “mommy would really like it if…”  These kids are too street savvy to fall for that pleasing adults bull.  It’s easier on everyone if we’re straight up about what’s the rule and what we can negotiate on.

One of the rules is that they don’t get to ask why I said something.  I don’t have to justify myself to a child.  I’m mom – that’s why. I know more than they do and I’m smarter than they are and think about more than they think about.  My decisions are based on reason and logic, but I’m not writing a thesis paper.  I don’t have to defend my choices and my choices are not theories and cannot be treated as such.  “Mine is not to reason why…”  They’re total noobs at this whole life thing.  They don’t get promoted until later on in life.

They better listen too because I control the video game system.  So, they’re adopted.  It’s not an excuse to get what they want.  Whatever -  “adopted” doesn’t mean I have to make up for something that happened to them.  I’m not going to let them use that term for pity or to be spoiled, just like I won’t let it be used against them by the school system.

I guess now I just have to set up the boundaries with the service personnel in our lives.  They didn’t get to go to court with us and they’re still in the habit of treating me like I have to answer to them.  I need to get it straight in my own brain that I don’t have to answer to them either.

Groceries

It’s hard to believe today isn’t Saturday.  It just feels like the weekend but tomorrow will probably be spent chilling out in the house or in our yard.  We could go to Chateau Elan or out to the Lake Lanier but that would take getting there at about 9 am to get a decent spot and dealing with the sticky heat, no good place to potty, then not getting home until 2 am because traffic gets murdered on both 85 and 9-85 and every single road that is in between the two. Next year, we may have to save up some money to get a suite inside the Chateau hotel and just chill out there all day.  On the other hand, we could stay at the resort at Lake Lanier Islands, but folks get a little crazy out near the lake.  Apparently beer and boats and too much sunshine make regular people turn into idiots.

I need to go get a bath and do the grocery shopping today.  I don’t feel too bad this morning, even though I didn’t sleep a lot last night.  Alyssa slept in the bed with me because we’re trying out this co-sleeping to form relationships thing.  It’s like a way to get used to each other in a very no stress fashion.  We hadn’t been able to try it until they were adopted and I’m hoping it helps to repair this mutual animosity between the two of us.  Watching her last night, I realized how much like me she is even in sleep.  It’s hard seeing her as a little person who is not just “me at that age.”  I see so much of myself in her that I forget she’s her own person with her own personality.

I’m realizing how hard it was and is on my dad to have two daughters who are so much like him and a son who is so much like his mom.  He makes that comment a lot.  “It’s strange that my daughters ended up like me and Bob takes after Kim.”  He watches us in that detached sort of analytical way that I catch myself using on Alyssa.

I need to spend some time thinking on what I want for her and if that really has any effect on what she actually wants for herself.  I want her to have the best education she can get to keep her crazy intelligence busy.  I can provide that with the charter school nearby until she’s in middle school – after that, she’s going to have to use her own ambition to select the classes that will either challenge her or will just get her through.

I want her to grow into a woman who is practical with the real world, without being so hardened to it the way I was.  With my generation, it’s hard to be an idealist when so much has happened to us as a culture.  Much of our idealism had to come from denial of the world as it exists.  I also don’t want her to be like the sheltered kids I knew in school and in church who never really understood the other side of the cultural equation.

I want her to be healthy and fit in body and mind.  Here’s where I struggle.  She’s definitely got the “fat gene” and I keep visualizing the only pic I have of her bio-mom… and it’s not pretty.  It’s not even close to “fluffy” or “sturdy.”  Right now, I’d say A is sturdy with some baby chunks.  Her legs are crazy muscular but she carries her softness in the middle.  The doctors have already scared the crap out of me about that:  childhood diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems.

She’s a big girl and it’s easy to see that when she’s around her classmates.  She’s taller, bigger boned, thicker.  She’s also more athletic and her hair and fingernails are much healthier.  I look at the other little fine-haired wormy looking kids and I have to admit I have that parental bias towards her.  I also look at the pictures we have from when she first moved in and she’s a lot healthier now that she’s on the “athlete diet” my mom always had us on.  It just works a lot better on her and E than it does me.

I keep picturing this girl I went to school with who was always so fat and her mom would send her to school with a plain salad with ranch dressing.  It was like singling her out as “the kid on the diet.”  I want Alyssa to know enough about nutrition and how to limit herself before she goes to school and gets exposed to all that crap.  Food takes up so much of our time that it’s ridiculous.  If she’s out of my sight, she’s begging people for extras.  At one point, she had a pre-K teacher feeding her 3 lunches a day!

I remember my mom yelling at my aunt to not feed us crap on the sly.  My aunt would yell back that kids needed sugar and fat in order to be kids.  Now that I’m grown – and I’m serious – weight is still talked about all the flipping time and the grown ups around me are flat out nuts.  My mom is 5′ 8″ and 135 lbs.  She hates being over 130.  She stands naked in the mirror and glares at her hips.  I know she’s not as slender as she was in high school or in the Navy!  She’s almost 50!  In school and in the Navy, she was a champion swimmer and would spend hours a day in the pool.  If she wasn’t in the pool, she was running track.  No one can keep up that kind of training regimen and actually have a real life.  Still, if you walk by and pat her on the butt, you’re liable to break your hand.  She’s got the hardest, most muscled body I’ve ever seen on a woman her age.

My sister is exactly the same way: former athlete who now bitches about being 125. My aunt: same way.  She was a swimmer and in the Army, but she at least doesn’t bitch until she hits 160.

And you know what, I’m the same way too.  I’m much shorter than them and I’m built for comfort instead of speed (my mom says I’m “dainty”) but still when I hit 130, my heart goes nuts with nervousness.  I was 129 at the doctor on Friday, but my mom informed me that since I still had a uterus that it was ok for this week to be about 5 lbs off.

I know after all these years of conditioning to eat a certain way and if the scale gets too high, to stress the fuck out, that I really have one mindset that bothers me:  I don’t respect fat people.  Why should they be allowed to not work as hard as I have?  If I ate what they did, I’d be fat like them but I’m not.  It’s not that hard, you just can’t eat that trash with all those toxins and fats. Try a glass of whole milk if you need some fat – at least it’s not processed into grease and you’ll get some of those complex dairy proteins.  And yeah – let’s talk about the protein that you’re not going to find in a chicken nugget.  Not that hard, people.  How about some fruit? Pay attention to what you put in your pie hole.  Seriously, now.

But is that better for me than actually being overweight?  Does it really make a difference?  When it comes down to it, I’m not on insulin but I am on 3 or 4 other prescription drugs.  That little thought in my head that says “at least I didn’t do it to myself” really bugs me because really – I do feel like it’s a trade off.  I could probably chill on the meds if I had this MVP diet down pat with no caffeine, plenty of water, and 60% organics or if I regularly took the omega-complex supplements, the CoQ10, the extra B, D, and E vitamins, and the extra magnesium and zinc like I’m supposed to.  I really don’t take care of myself “like I’m supposed to.”

In all honesty, I could easily be a vegetarian.  I just don’t like meat that much but my body gets to craving it because I have to have those extra meat proteins to keep the connective tissues that work the heart valves healthy.  I’d love to eat summer veggies and jasmine rice, pasta, and couscous with fruit all the time but if I do, I end up in the hospital with doctors staring at me like I’m stupid because my heart went nuts and I passed out in public.

So we’ve established that I’m nuts in regards to myself.  Is it any surprise I’m hard on Alyssa?  Is she going to absorb it from the extended family anyways?  If I do let up on her, will she hate herself for the way she looks?  Can she actually overcome the cravings without becoming anal-retentive?

So I need to go grocery shopping.  Yay.

Damaged

Damaged

or

Things They Should Tell You Before You’re On Your Own

Today has been a perfect storm of the kids acting out.  This has happened before – it’s not abnormal that the kids have behaviors related to abuse and neglect that we try to work through as they come up.  Normally, we make sure the child is safe from harm, call the caseworker, write up an incident report and then address it at home and in therapy.  For two years, this is how it goes.

But after finalization, there are no caseworker calls, no incident reports, no one person who can say on the phone “this is not unexpected and here’s how we work through it with the other kids who do this.”  It’s a support system that one day just disappears.

Thank God that the kids are still in therapy.  My therapy seems to be this two  cigarette a day habit I’ve picked up.  Shaun called the kids’ treatment center and they gave him some pointers on what to do for today and we’re going to try and get a family therapy appt for tomorrow.

So, here’s what happened.  This morning I wake up to the smell of smoke and Ethan is hiding something in his bed.  As soon as I make sure nothing is on fire, I ask him what he’s doing.  “I’m about to get back in bed and go to sleep.”  Um, no you weren’t.  I’m not stupid, bucko.

The kids know my routine – nothing is going to happen until I’m halfway into my first cup of coffee.  So, I get it and sit down, and I hear the girlchild saying “let me lay on top of you and tell you a secret.”  The oldest boy is going “no, I only wanted to tickle your feet!”  She says “But I have to lay on top of you and give you kisses and tell you secrets!”  This alone makes me want to cry.

We discussed good touch/bad touch for the zillionth time and talked about the kinds of girls who laid on top of people to give kisses and if it was appropriate for a 5 year old girl to be that kind of girl.  Hoochie Mamas and Stupid Girls get talked about quite a bit in our house too.

Then I separate them into their rooms and then I start to smell smoke again.  Match smoke.  I walk out and the oldest is in the kitchen pretending to play with the magnets on the fridge.  My nose traces the matches to an end table in the sunroom.  I hold them up and ask who lit the matches.  The oldest tells me the youngest did it, but the youngest has been in bed since I caught him stealing and lying to me.  I play along: so where did E put the matches that burned?  In the trashcan.  I look, and sure as shit, there are about 15 burned matches in there.

So, I go ask E.  Did you light matches?  Yes… he mumbles and makes square face.  How many?  Just one, then one with the red tip wouldn’t work so I put them back.  Ok, this fits with the story I’ve alreayd figured out in my head.

Before I woke up this morning E and L snuck out to the sunroom with a box of kitchen matches and tried to light one up.  It quickly went out because with the AC and the ceiling fan in there, you couldn’t light a zippo if you were standing in a puddle of gasoline.  They tried another and it didn’t light at all, then they heard me so they disposed of the evidence and ran back to their stations.

Then, after A was in trouble and E was still in his room, L snuck back out in the sunroom and started try trying again.  My bloodhound nose perked up and I caught him disposing of the evidence.

Add all this to the encopresis that has been flaring up again, and mommy needs another cigarette.  L is back in diapers full time again because he keeps pooping his pants.  Night, day, busy times, not busy times.  Is it a physical problem or does it have to do with the Oppositional Defiant Disorder or the ADHD?

Looking on the internet, all of these problems are fairly common but what’s getting to me is that my support system (that actually knows what they’re talking about) is gone.  The moral support system sees the kids as “damaged goods.”   I hope the therapists have something to tell us that will help.

I’m not Catholic, but St. Jude, Patron Saint of Lost Causes – here’s a prayer coming your way.

One week until Adopted!

We have one week until we finalize the adoption on our children!  It’s going to take the strain off of us in so many ways.  Our kids will finally have a forever family, we finally won’t have to report every little incident, we don’t have to worry about random people deciding that we aren’t good enough to parent these kids and calling DFCS about us.  I’m looking forward to having friends again.  I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy a beer in the same town as my kids’ school without people being able to say something.  I’m looking forward to my kids not feeling strange because they have different names from us.

I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts, as always, but this time more on the change of birth certificates.  A lot of people view it as identity theft.  Adopting at birth may be that way… but for my kids, it feels more like they’re going into Witness Protection.  Completely without our urging, they deliniate their lives before and their lives now.  Old mommy and new mommy.  Old life and new life.  It makes me think of baptism, really, and they did it all on their own.  No matter how much we or the therapists try and get them to understand that it’s all the same life, they still have that mental differentiation.

8 foster homes, 1 group home, and the longest court case in the history of mankind… and in 7 days we’ll be a normal family.  Well, as normal as we can be.

And if after 10 years of marriage, 8 years of TTC, 2 years of fostering, and now that we adopt – if I get mysteriously knocked up, I’m gonna cuss the hell out of God.  Only 3% of couples get pregnant after adopting and I’m damn tired of hearing “after you adopt, you’ll finally get pregnant.”  No, I don’t want to get pregnant any more!  I want a hysterectomy!  I don’t want stretch marks!  I do want a 4th kid, but I want to adopt him or her.

So, you hear that God?  No funny stuff with my ovaries, ok?