Unconditional Love

I listened to this wonderful program on NPR recently. It is about unconditional love and attachment. What an encouragement for my husband and I have been going through. This American Life: Unconditional Love explains a lot about what might be happening in our son's mind as he deals with his past and his future. It is a tragic story, but yet incredibly hopeful! Just listen and see!

Mommy Takes a Vacation

I took a vacation - alone. For the last few months, things have been pretty hard. Let's face it, things have been hard for a few years. I think it finally caught up with me. My family is my pride and joy, my reason for everything I do, but it is hard - a lot. About a month ago, my husband and I decided I needed a vacation without my family. So I went on a "retreat" to stay with a friend. I asked if I could hole up in her apartment for a few days with no commitments, no cooking, no laundry, no cleaning, and no expectations other than finishing a few projects.

Why not just have a night out with friends? Since December 24th of 2012, I have not had one day to myself. Seriously. By allowing my "bucket" to be so drained, I needed to take intense action to fill it back up. Everyone has an invisible bucket that is either being filled up by positive experiences or being dipped into when negative things occur. My bucket was nearly empty.

It wasn't easy. I had to leave my kids. I know that was kind of the point, but it was still hard. I have been the only person in their lives in the last year that they have seen every day. I even cried for the first three miles, deciding whether or not I should just cancel the trip and stay home with my family...but I forced myself to keep driving.

Was it worth it? Not only did I finish my projects, I had a great time with a friend and ventured to a movie. I ate popcorn until my stomach hurt and slept on a couch like I was in college. I feel rejuvenated and the best I have felt in several years. I will not let my bucket get so low again!

The First Thanksgiving

My oldest son's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. So here we are, Thanksgiving 2013. Our first Thanksgiving as a family. We celebrated differently than I would have thought. We didn't have a huge dinner with lots of friends and family. Instead, we celebrated with just the five of us. We had a pretty good menu:

Turkey - big hit

Mashed potatoes - the kids avoided them like the plague

Stuffing - see mashed potatoes

Cranberries - enjoyable

Rolls - our daughter ate two

Corn - delicious

Sweet potatoes - our sons ate seconds

Sparkling cider - aka apple soda

Cheesecake - YUMMO! 

We had a good meal together, and the kids were excited, and it was a great time to reflect on how thankful we are to have them in our lives. 

Conferences

I haven't had much to say lately. Quite honestly, things have been a bit of a struggle. But I think we are beginning to see the light again here. The turning point was probably attending the kids conferences this week. It was the first real set of parent teacher conferences we have attended. Hearing about the changes in our kids from 10 months ago when they arrived was seriously astounding. The boys' IEPs will have to be amended because they met their goals, and our daughter is doing wonderfully as well. Socially, physically, intellectually, and emotionally, they are doing so much better than when they arrived. Every day is a challenge, balancing discipline and love, dealing with tantrums and emotional baggage, and cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. Seeing my kids grow and develop in such amazing ways makes it all worth it though. Now I will continue taking it one day at a time.

Loneliness

When you decide to do foster adoption of a sibling group, you know you are going to face challenges. I never dreamt the loneliness would be one of them. I am lonely. I have no one to talk to about everything that is going on. Yes, I read blogs and read books, but I have no one to discuss how it feels to suddenly have three kids 6 and under. The only other person I know who did this is my husband, and sometimes he isn't who I want to be talking to. I need a friend who can understand. My friends are very supportive, empathetic, loving, and helpful, but they can't truly understand. Just like I will never be able to understand giving birth and having a newborn, they cannot understand adopting three preschoolers from foster care. I knew this would be a difficult path, but I didn't anticipate the loneliness.

In Poor Taste

Sometimes I wonder if I am too sensitive. Well, I know I am too sensitive, but sometimes I wonder if I am offended for good reason or not. For example, a relative posted this as their Facebook status today:

Well IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!! I have some AMAZING but at the same time shocking news! I'M EXPECTING!!!!! A little under 15 weeks and counting! I know, I'm shocked too. I can hardly believe it myself. I wasn't going to post it (on Facebook) but since y'all are my family and friends, I wanted to make it official. I'm too overwhelmed to keep it a secret!!! Who would have guessed that me of all people would be expecting again!! But I am!! I am expecting Santa in just 15 weeks! Repost if you have a sense of humor. Lets see how many people read the whole status. That's why it's good to read the whole story before you go run & gossip!!!

As I said, I know I am overly sensitive, but there are many people who have been unable to have kids, have lost a child after birth, or have lost a child while pregnant. I find this offensive and not funny. It isn't a joke to pretend you are pregnant. I find posts like this to be in poor taste. I hope I have never done something offensive like this. 

Now the question is, do I tell my relative how posts like this are VERY hurtful to people like me? Or do I drop it? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I feel like she should know. 

Discipline

I am the parent of two preschoolers and a first grader. I have known them for about nine months. I am a middle school special education teacher, and my husband is a college coach. I am home evenings and weekends, and he is usually gone those times. What this means is that I am a single parent about half the time, and sometimes I run out of patience.

When I was on adoption leave, I had a lot of patience. I returned to work at the end of February, and I a  lot of patience. Just a few weeks until it was spring break, right? After spring break, I started to lose some patience. Then, in April, we got a puppy. Patience gone! Finally - summer vacation! Patience returned. We spent two glorious months together where I could use my great parenting techniques. Then I went back to work. The last month has been quite the struggle. As we all are struggling to figure out our new normal, Daddy and I have been cranky, impatient, and have become yellers. Not the kind of parenting I want to be doing. 

This weekend Daddy left for his first recruiting trip. I was so scared to be alone with them because I didn't want to yell or be angry. So I decided to refresh my Love & Logic skills. Thank God for You Tube! Then I even purchased a book with a gift card I had for my birthday! In no time at all, I had my patience back! 

Did my kids notice? YES! My six year old had really learned how to push my buttons over the last few months, but he quickly discovered that I wouldn't be pulled into power struggles anymore! His first time out lasted 37 minutes. He tried everything to get a rise out of me: throwing toys, spitting, yelling mean things...and he finally gave up. His second time out lasted 18 minutes. How long was his third time out? 6 minutes. And he only needed gentle reminders after that. Whoa! That left me LOTS more time to love my kids this weekend! 

Seriously, I think it is saving my relationship with my children. It is an adjustment for me because sometimes they aren't "punished" for their behavior. Is discipline really about punishment and consequences, or it is about teaching kids how to behave and understand boundaries in a loving way? My idea of discipline had definitely turned into a completely different idea than how I started this parenting thing. I am thankful Jim Fay, Foster Cline, and Charles Fay were able to remind me of my parenting ideals and bring some joy back into my parenting. 

Tonight we had a small problem before bedtime. My eldest had to go to bed before the others. He was angry. He threw his animal off his bed, but he didn't throw his blankets because he was sad without them last night. He did say some mean things and tried to argue, but when I said, "I love you too much to argue sweetie," he replied, "I love you too." When I asked if he needed a hug, I got a hug and a kiss. His consequence of no stuffed animals stands, but he apologized (unprompted) and said he loved me. Then he told me where he had stuffed a couple more animals in anger. I love my kids!