Two years

April 6th will be two years since my girls came to live with us forever.  I will never forget that day.  They were so tiny and frail.  They are still small, but they have grown so much, in so many ways.  For the next six months of my life, I advocated for my girls.  I became "well known" among social workers and office of adoption workers.  I am sure they thought I would never give up.  I didn't.  I had God on my side and I have no doubt he was guiding my steps.  We were blessed to have a great counselor come to our house once a month.  She met with all five of my children.  Morgan really like this time.  She would assure my husband and I that we were doing the right things with our children.  She would spend about 2-3 hours with us.  We need that assurance during that time.  As I reflect, I am reminded at how far we have come as a family.  We still have rough days and many hard decisions to make regarding our children, but one thing stays the same, my God is greater than all of our problems and diagnosis. 

I was reminded of this over the last few days because I received an email from a mother that has had a sibling group of three placed in her home.  They have had some unexpected surprises since placement and her world has been turned upside down.  Well, our state worker suggested that we get in touch with one another.  My state worker, which is hers as well, told her that I am a "ball of fire" when it comes to advocating for her children.  I did fight all the way to the top for our famiy, not just my adopted children.  I fought for things I would need to make our adoption placement successful for our entire family.  If our entire family doesn't have success, then the adoption isn't successful.  I have to look out for all of my children, no matter how God blessed me with them.

 So, eventhough I drove them all nuts, showed up at their FAS seminar to hear Kari Fletcher speak and sent numerous emails with a great amount of research on FAS, my state worker recommended me to another family for help.  God is so good!!!  I have emailed the family and am praying for them to have peace and to receive help quickly!! 

It isn't petty...

Yes, I agree with Acceptance with Joy in her response to my last post..

It might seem petty -until you add up how many times a day this kind of thing takes place. . . And the energy it saps. Lies piled on lies. The emotional drain on a mother wanting the best for her children but knowing the child is doing everything possible to con you. ... And then it's not petty at all!

I also am going to try using Sophie's new motto:

"Seeing it for what it is"


Thank you ladies for your comments.  It is so nice to have friends that understand this crazy life of ours.  It is also nice to know it isn't me because sometimes I start to wonder if I am the crazy one around here.


Also, after reading my last post again, I left off the fact that when I started brushing Hannah's hair, I looked down and she had a huge tear in her tights that went all the way down her leg.  So, we are worried about our hair, that looked fine, but not about how awful our tights look?  I don't get it.
 

Attachment or manipulation??

I just typed an entire post and somehow deleted it....here we go again.

This may sound petty to some of you, but when dealing with hurt children, my view gets blurred by the manipulation. 

Today, the twins were getting ready for dance.  They wear pink tights and black leotards with their hair in a ponytail. Haylee comes out dressed with a huge blue sequenced bow in her hair.  I tell her we aren't wearing that to dance and take it out.  I think she had about four knots in the bow and two hair bands.  (Sensory stuff??)  I tell her I will help fix her hair when we get to dance.

Hannah walks in and looks very nice.  I tell her she looks nice and she did a good job fixing her hair.  It looked really good!!

We all load up to go to dance and swim team.  In the car, Haylee asks if I will fix her hair at dance.  I tell her yes; even though, I had already told her in the house. 

We travel the five to ten minutes to dance and start unloading to go inside.  Hannah asks me if I can fix her hair also.  As I am getting out of the car, I turn back and her hair is down.  I asked her why her hair was down, it had looked so nice.  She said that it got messed up and the back was coming down. 

Thoughts are swirling through my head as she tells me this.  We all walk inside and the older three head to the pool for swim team.  I take the twins to the bathroom to fix their hair.  I asked Hannah why she took her hair down.  The story I get this time is that she had bobby pins in the back and she didn't know if I would like them. What??  Why would I have a problem with bobby pins in the back under her ponytail.  I never have in the past.  The only thing I can ever remember saying about bobby pins was that they aren't meant to be worn in the front on top of your head, they are meant to not be very noticeable. 

I fixed Haylee's hair for dance.  I start fixing Hannah's hair.  I asked her why she told me a story about why her hair was down when I would much rather her say that she would like me to brush and fix her hair because she likes it.   I asked her why she feels she has to manipulate the situation to get her way.  ( I realize she can't answer that question, but it is what I said.)  She just continued to make up reasons.  I told her to stop because she it just lying and going to get her into trouble.  She kept trying to tell me different versions of the story.  Of course, she says I am not and I didn't take my hair down on purpose.  Explain to me how her hair can get messed up traveling 5-10 minutes in the car.  She had even wet her hair at home when she was fixing it, so I know it didn't come down on its own.  Haylee chimes in and says that Hannah just took it down, it didn't fall.  She is the master at keeping a straight face and making eye contact when she is manipulating or lying.  It is getting harder and harder to tell the truth from lies.  She whines a little and says, "But Momma, I am not lying."  It is so hard, because all of our friends believe her and say that she doesn't mean to lie.  Obviously, I ignore their opinion. 

Training

Rarely do we have a dull moment in this house.  It is not easy parenting children that are from a life of trauma and neglect.  My girls are so much easier than so many, but I am just amazed everyday at someone of the things we have to deal with.  My husband said the other day that we are constantly training and teaching the girls all the time.  We rarely get a break.  It is never easy.  For example, we went to Sam's the other day and they walked right out in front of a car.  I was shocked.  I thought we were past that.  Obviously not.  The training never stops.  I wish I had something that told me each morning what age I am going to be parenting that day.  Is it 5, 7, 10?  I never know from day to day.

Another question...

Can you have children tested for sensory issues?  We see a lot of this with Haylee.  A friend of mine has triplets that were preemies like my girls.  Her boy acts a lot like Haylee.  She has him in therapy for sensory issues.  We have talked about this since the girls have been with us, but didn't really know where to begin.  Is this something you learn by watching or is their a test to determine is they have issues?  Does it just come with ADD and FAE?

Father Daughter Dance 2012

The girls had a great time at the Father Daughter Dance again this year.  I believe this is one of the highlights of the year for Haylee and Hannah.  Fortunately, the attendance increased this year.  If it hadn't, we weren't going to do it again next year.  My husband feels that God gave him a vision for the dance in our town.  God has provided great speakers each year which talk about the importance of the father daughter relationship in their lives.  We are blessed to be a part of such a great event!

Birthday Fun

Morgan's birthday party went pretty well.  All of the girls slept in the family room right outside our bedroom.  Haylee and Hannah were more than excited about the sleepover.  However, they struggled in their own ways leading up to the party.  As we were eating ice cream, I noticed Hannah didn't look right.  I felt her head and she was warm.  She had a low temp.  She cried and cried because we told her she had to sleep in our room on a mattress instead of with the girls.  It is interesting how God takes care of things.  We let her stay in with the girls, but sitting by herself, for the first movie.  My husband stayed up for the second movie and Hannah and I went to bed.  She didn't like that either.  My husband handled telling her that she had to go to bed because she was sick.  She was very sad.  I explained to her that she wasn't in trouble and she didn't do anything wrong.  Of course, she was still sad.  I tried to make it a big deal that she got to sleep in our room, but she didn't care. When my husband came to bed an hour or so later, she woke up and started crying and sniffing again.  I suspect it was partly attention.  I got up and got her some medicine for congestion and amazingly, the sniffles stopped immediately, not about twenty minutes later when the medicine started working. 

After the guests left the next morning, a friend of mine kept Haylee and Hannah for the day and Morgan and I went to my mother's to go shopping.  Haylee and Hannah had a blast playing with our friend's daughter and Morgan and I had a wonderful time.

My mother, Morgan and I shopped and shopped and shopped.  We didn't purchase much, but we had a great time!  I am so glad I listened to my friends and spent time alone with Morgan and my mother.  As my mother said, "We were even able to eat at a grown up restaurant."  It was refreshing for all three of us!!  I truly enjoyed the day!!  We love desserts!  Look at what we had...

Morgan and I had a great trip!!  I was so happy and refreshed on our ride home!  Morgan and I talked about the other children some.  We got back home shortly after lunch.  The arguing among the girls started within five minutes of getting home.  Oh well, the low stress environment was nice for twenty-four hours at least. 

I discovered that Hannah slept without a pillow case.  Bless her heart!  Hers was being washed, but we have plenty.  She said she didn't want to ask for one.  This breaks my heart!!

Morgan's Birthday

Morgan will be eleven this Friday.  My, how time flies!!!  She is having a spend the night party again this year.  Last year Haylee and Hannah had to sleep in our room and Morgan and her friends stayed in the girls room.  However, this year I am going to have all of the girls sleep in the family room, which is right outside my room, so I can hear them.  I am going to let Hannah and Haylee stay with them.  Unless something happens between now and then for them to lose the privilege.  I think they will be okay and get to participate.  Sometimes when they are anticipating something like this, they struggle.  I pray they do okay.  We haven't had many girls spend the night since the girls have been in our family.  The dynamics are different and it makes having girls spend the night more complicated.  

Saturday morning after the guests leave, Morgan and I are going to visit my mother and go shopping.  Morgan asked to do this for her birthday.  I struggled with it for awhile because of not including the girls, but Morgan should be able to do this without the girls.  They can ask for the same thing for their birthday.  I have struggled with this type thing ever since the girls came.  I feel like Morgan should be allowed to do things without the twins sometimes.  I guess I am still trying to convince myself this is okay.  We will be home by lunch on Sunday.  It will be a short and sweet trip, I hope!