Get Your Girl Back

Parenting takes a lot out of me. Especially parenting kiddos with special needs. From 2010 until now, I have really struggled with my mental, physical, and emotional health. Recently I attended the Thirty-One National Conference in Denver, and I heard four amazing motivational speakers. The one that really spoke to my heart, however, was Traci Bild, author of Get Your Girl Back. She talked about prioritizing life and taking deliberate steps to get your life back to the way you want it to be. We can't do everything, but we can prioritize and really focus on what is important to us. When I sat down with myself and figured out what "girl" I wanted back, I came to these conclusions:

• Fitness and Health - feel better, stronger, and fit back into my clothes. This includes having time to work out and the resources to eat healthy. 
• Parenting - spending time actually playing with my kids, cuddling, reading, and interacting one-on-one in a fun way every day for at least 10 minutes. Sometimes I spend an hour with one kid, but it is on homework or a project. I want to enjoy my kiddos. After all, I spent years trying to get them, right? Ten minutes doesn't seem like much, but ten minutes of one-on-one attention for each of my lovelies is a lot more than I have been giving.
• Marriage - We obviously married each other because we loved one another. Somewhere over the last few years, we have become a bit disconnected. It happened in little steps with events in our lives: miscarriage, moving, fostering, adopting, parenting, recruiting trips, etc. In the last few months, we have been more intentional about spending time together and remembering why we enjoy one another. We are even going to start "dating" again! 

Wow! My Thirty-One business and my teaching career didn't even make the list! What is truly important to me has nothing to do with money or prestige. It is health and family. Traci has emails, a dream journal, and a book coming out soon. I can't wait to dig further into her challenge to get my girl back! 

Belly Laugh

As I read through my posts from the beginning of our foster adoption journey, I think I have lost some of my perspective. For two over two years, I prayed constantly for my children. I had faith and hope. 

Tonight, listening to my daughter tell about her field trip, I was reminded of the joy in my life that arrived with my children. S is an amazing story-teller. She has great inflection, detail, body and hand movements, and wonderful humor in everything she says. I could listen to her tell stories all day! Her class trip to the zoo today involved a very detailed description of a baboon's appearance, her time in the petting zoo area, an inattentive parent whose children were digging in the gross "poop and pee" sand while she checked her phone, and explanations of why the lion area isn't near the zebra area. I laughed. In fact, I belly-laughed. Many times. Great big guffaws, little snickers, maybe even a snort. Meanwhile, D listened to her story intently, asking questions and enjoying her narrative. J, on the other hand, took a sheet of stickers and covered his face. I love my family. 

Despite all of the tough days and challenges that come with parenting, especially parenting in our situation, my kids bring me joy, laughter, and love. 

PTSD and Vacation

I am not an expert in trauma or PTSD. In fact, I really only started caring about it last spring when I discovered the depth of 6-year-old's trauma during a birthday party . We have been pretty 'incident free" since then. Yes, trauma affects my child's behaviors and thought processes, but we haven't had any major incidents since last June…until yesterday.

Spring break is here, and my in-laws offered to take my kiddos for for four days so I could pack the house for our upcoming move to the big house. The kids would get to see their uncle and have some special experiences with the in-laws while I pack the house and take care of some appointments that are difficult to schedule when I am working. Knowing the kids get nervous about "new things," we explained that they would be on vacation with the grandparents for four days, and then return home. Immediately my oldest said he didn't want to leave me because I might be lonely, and I shouldn't have to pack everything myself. This was a warning sign that I didn't pick up on.

Flash forward to yesterday. At lunch time, my phone had several messages on it from school and my husband. My son had an earache and needed to come home. My husband would pick him up and take him to work with him. Upon pickup, my son lost it. He sobbed and screamed, unable to explain the problem. His "earache" turned out to be a bleeding ear from him scratching it raw. My husband is very calm and patient, and he was able to get my son calmed down. They called me, and I asked some questions, discovering that he was very concerned about going away. In his mind, he was moving to his grandparents' house, and would no longer have any parents. He began hyperventilating and sobbing again, so my husband brought him home and called me again. I decided that, although my son wasn't sick, he really was sick. I went home for the day.

By the time I arrived home, my husband and son were settled nicely. He was ready to eat lunch and play. We decided he needed to go back to school….and he needed to stay with us. So, I did what any mother of a child with PTSD would do; I called the school to see if I could stay there the rest of the day with him. They made a nice table in the hallway for me to do work while he returned to his first-grade classroom. About every 15 minutes, he found a reason to come out and check in with me. This continued for three hours. I started to feel a bit paranoid, surely all of the paras and teachers thought I was overprotective and a bit crazy.

The day ended without incident, and my children and I got into our car to head home. I always drive with the windows down when we leave school so that I can hear what is going on around me in addition to looking out for little ones running around. As we got to the crosswalk, a teacher approached my window and said, "You are a wonderful mother." I was quite surprised and stammered something like, "I…I just felt he needed me here today." She nodded her head and repeated, "You are a wonderful mother." At that moment, I realized that my paranoia and worry about what others think will never keep me from supporting and comforting my son. Even if other people think PTSD is an excuse, I know that I am doing what is best.

Will he decide to go on vacation or to stay home with me? I don't know, but I am okay with whatever he decides.

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.