A Slap in the Face*book

I got "unfriended" on FB by my own kid. Kind of amusing.

If I didn't buy groceries, make food, give rides, provide a bed and a roof, pay for hot water, electricity, heat and A/C, I'm sure I wouldn't be on the radar at all.

Ixnay on the Esttay

This week the kid's start the state standards testing in school. Squeaker has been obsessing for weeks about it to the point of being extremely irritating. The teachers are really building it up and putting the pressure on and she has been freaking out about it which for her takes the form of tears, temper, non-stop talking, and a full blown rage last night as we tried to get her and Lucky settled into their new room.

Possibly brought on by the stress, she has been increasingly mouthy and mean to the Boss, a favorite target. Although her treatment of him had improved somewhat she's on the downward skids again. He's afraid to walk past her or go into a room with her unless someone comes with him. She says unkind things to him and calls him names when she thinks no one can hear. And lately even in front of us as she herself pointed out last night.

In the horrifying early days of her diagnosis and botch job by the psychiatrist prescribing totally wrong meds, she was especially mean to him and would punch him, block his path, and steal his toys when I wasn't looking. He was two and she was eleven. Is it any wonder he is permanantly glued to my hip? I had to keep him constantly with me so he would be safe from her and other emotionally traumatized kids. Now he freaks out if he is not with me all the time. That plus his minor developmental delays gives her lots of ammo for hatefulness towards him.

Very frustrating as much of my time is still spent making sure that the two of them are never alone together even though he is now five and has quite a little mouth of his own.

That Explains A Lot

Last night The Boss and I were sitting together on my bed watching a movie. Well, I sat. He bounced and jerked, flailed his arms, kicked his feet, and repeatedly thwacked his head against the pillow. No, he wasn't having a tantrum. That's just how he sits.

My repeated requests for him to be still and stop moving were met with "okay" but little movement reduction. Finally exasperated after getting elbowed again I said, "Can you PLEASE knock it off? Why do you do that?"

He laughingly replied, "Because I'm a kid."

Oh. Of course.

They're Good Kids, Really

Despite the fact that the kids are driving me a bit buggy, I am feeling especially fond of them all this week.

Tomorrow Will Be Better

Not a great end to the day for me.

The middle girls have been running around and shrieking since this afternoon and I have not been very patient with it. They didn't do the few things that I asked them to do before bedtime and their giggly shrillness is irritating every last nerve.

I was unintentionally snappish with Shorty on my way to shush them and put them back on task. Squeaker slammed the door twice when I told her not to go into the bathroom with Lucky and then told me she didn't slam anything, saying snottily, "You just hate everybody because your little kid got hurt." Yeah, whatever. She said I was mad at her all weekend and so I did tell her that I actually was pretty annoyed that she slammed doors and talked rudely to me repeatedly when I asked her to do things she should already know. This morning she slammed the door because I called her out on a lie. She lies and then she's the one who gets to slam the door? Unfair, I say.

The Boss is a horrible patient and I am a short-tempered nurse. He asks...or whines rather...for things all day long. When I'm lifting, carrying, holding him he immediately begins whining for me to do something or get something else for him. Did I mention how heavy he is with that cast on? I finally told him to knock it off and give me a break. He's going to have to be way more patient so I can schlep him where he needs to go then run around and get all the stuff he needs.

I'm feeling very aggravated with myself tonight and I'm sure the kids feel the same. I'm going to try very hard to do better tomorrow.

Gimpy

This time it was The Boss visiting the ER. The scene in the X-Ray room was a familiar one. Lots of screaming, kicking, grabbing, freaking, not cooperating, etc...

Yesterday The Boss was jumping on the trampoline with Shorty. He suddenly fell screaming and grabbing his leg. The X-Ray shows no breaks but some fluid on his knee so he's in a hip-to-toe splint and will need to be seen by an orthopedist in a few days. He may need an MRI if the pain persists. Somewhat concerning is the fact that he was complaining about pain in that leg two days before the trampoline incident. He also seemed kind of feverish so I attributed it to that and gave him some Tylenol.

Hoisting him around the next few days should be fun and back-straining. Just propping him to use the toilet has been an interesting adventure. When I laid him back on the bed this morning and got his clothes put right again he said, "Thank you for helping me with that, Mommy". Awwwwwwww. He's just the sweetest. He whimpered and thrashed all night but is refusing any medicine. He does seem to be in a lot less pain today now that the leg is immobilized. I've had to move him up so I can get him in and out more easily and pile up pillows to keep his leg straight out in front.

Where Credit is Due

Last Sunday I felt some twinges of guilt and regret as our pastor talked about honoring others and gave an example of honoring your kids. Ouch. Often I feel very dishonored by my teenaged kids, especially my middle child. I go into "survival" mode and it becomes difficult to honor the good things about them the way I should. I decided last week that I would do better at that even when it is not reciprocated.

So Squeaker went ahead and had a gnarly, hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it week as if to put my fledgling commitment to the test.

She screamed, stomped, sassed, cussed, slammed, eye-rolled, over-reacted, ignored, cried and even got kicked out of after-school tutoring after just three days for her "nasty, negative" attitude.

However, this week she also reconciled with her adult sister, offered to help out in the kitchen, got along with Lucky, recovered from a tantrum and improved her behavior, pulled a failing grade up to a passing one, got an A on project that she completed without any prompting, did all of her chores every day, and braved school each day even though she hates half her teachers and she feels like she has no friends.

I'm pretty proud of her.

And in Other News

Ana will be leaving on Tuesday to spend a few months in the Washington DC area helping care for our niece and nephew while our sister-in-law is at work. Our little brother (sorry can't help it even if he is 25 now!) is in training in the Army and has been away from home for a while and they find themselves in a bit of a childcare crunch at the moment.

This week we must scramble around and do all those silly little projects we have been procrastinating on for so long. It's not that I can't do them without Ana it's just that I don't wanna.

All seven kids/young people here seem reasonably stable at the moment so we'll hope that lasts the months that I will be alone and outnumbered--- which I know sounds pretty Twinkie compared to some bloggers I read with kids numbering in double digits beginning in two and three.

I already have an idea for a new blog but, sadly, Ana may not have daily access to internet. I may just have to amuse myself with it.

On Birthdays

Our birthday flowers from Friday are all dead so I guess it's official....the party's over and now we're forty.

Birthdays are always kind of sticky events around here. Drama Boy, Sparky, and often Squeaker have a difficult time if anybody gets anything that they do not get. They are of the mind that they are always getting gypped in some way if anybody else gets attention.

On Friday, we got cake and flowers and that was it but if Sparky had been here he still would have been a raging, cursing mess. Non-eventish as this one was we still did not get off scott-free. Drama Boy had a big crying fit when Ana would not drive him to his friend's house nor allow him to walk all the way across town to find him. He spent all afternoon blubbering over the phone book trying to find his friend's listing since he had neglected to ask for his phone number. He did okay at dinner then screamed at Squeaker when she asked him to come downstairs for cake.

We've had crying, screaming meltdowns on every birthday so far this year. This snarkiness is not limited to birthdays. Both the boys were on the receiving end of the "it's not all about you" lecture on Squeaker's adoption day last summer and Squeaker has already demonstrated that she will need it an upcoming adoption day next week. Drama Boy even cries when we take the other kids out to dinner while he is visiting his grandma.

And on the bright side, we were both pleased that no one had a major tantrum and no one called us ugly names which is how we celebrated the past few years. The girls not only wished us happy birthday, they also helped us clean the house before our family came for dinner. Lucky got Ana a card. One of the girls put up some streamers and gave us each a key keepsake on a shoelace (which we wore all day and I plan to wear on birthdays and new year's from now on). I bought a mix and the girls made and decorated a cake. That's more than any of our kids have ever done for us and was entirely sweet of them.

Ahead: The Boss, Lucky, and Drama Boy all have December birthdays. Since DB particularly dislikes the other two we'll be bracing ourselves for plenty of nastiness and bad attitude on their days.

Out and About

On Saturday we all went to an Oktoberfest at the local animal shelter (where we previously got two of our four dogs). Lucky and Squeaker were to perform with their cheer group with Squeaker on stage again later with her school choir.

Outings with all of the kids are always an interesting challenge. For starters, the kids are a wide range of ages so interests and attention spans vary greatly. Also, the kids are not really bonded as a group so taking the whole herd out often means having to deal individually with all the kids rather than enjoying the camraderie of being out together as a "family" of even a bunch of friends or even friendly acquaintances for that matter.

I hate to say "I told me so" but Saturday was a typical day out for us. The first hour was fine because there were animals of all kinds and booths to look at. Everyone maintained pretty well for the cheer performance. Then we walked a few blocks to get lunch and so Squeaker could change from her cheer uniform to her choir outfit. The day inclined slightly downwards from there.

Drama Boy and The Boss begged for money and tickets. Lucky made a connection (her words) with an ugly little dog at the shelter and then fell apart when she couldn't have him, leading Drama Boy to tease her in the car on the way home.

The general crabbiness continued at home until DB and Squeaker were shouting at each other and slamming doors while Lucky continued to cry over her dog. I talked to Squeaker and I sent DB to Ana. He made the common Squeaker mistake of turning his anger and shouting on the adults instead. Total meltdown ensued when he was sent to his room to get some self-control.

Knowing the emotional overwhelm would continue unless we got back into more of our regular routine, we canceled dinner plans that we had for the evening. Disappointing since it had been a very long time since we had a kid-free night out but it seemed unfair to dump a bunch of grumpy kids with the cousins even for a few hours and part of our childcare plans had already fallen through that morning.

And they wonder why we rarely go out and do "stuff". Ana and I both agreed, as we often do, that we would have enjoyed the event a lot more if we had been there without all the kids.

24 Hours

Squeaker and Drama Boy got into a fight on Friday over what movie they were going to watch next. When it started to get ugly, I stepped in and told them they lost the privilege to choose so move away from the tv so I could put something on for the littles.

DB had to be told twice but finally shut his mouth and moved on. Squeaker, as she often does, turned the fight on me when she didn't get what she wanted. Never a good move. She can get pretty gnarly pretty quickly and it's impossible to get her to reign in her temper once she gets going.

I had her sit out for the remainder of the evening and she lost all privileges until she could go 24 hours without talking back or being rude to me or anyone else. Since her "time" was on Saturday she did it easily as we had no other plans that day.

She has maintained a pleasant demeanor through the rest of the weekend and this morning. I wish we could continue this way but her mood changes without warning and often with no apparent provocation. During the week is often the worst because her stress level is higher.

It's tough when you don't enjoy your kid very much a lot of the time.

Food Issues

Issues with food are a common theme with traumatized kids. Stealing, hoarding, gorging, not eating...we've seen it all as have many foster parents.

While not unexpected they can still be very irritating especially with kids who have been here a while and suddenly make it a control issue.

Squeaker frequently does not eat at school. Last year she got free breakfast and lunch so I wasn't that involved in it, knowing that she eats well enough at home. Except when the aides in her special ed classroom got concerned with how many times she did not get her free lunch and sent a letter in the mail about it. Again, she eats quite a lot at home and since we rarely allow junk food, it's a good variety of healthy foods so I wasn't overly concerned. This year she eats breakfast at home. Often she mopes first but if I insist she will eat. I gave her the responsibility of making her own sandwich for lunch. She often forgot her lunch or would eat the sandwich and stuff the lunchsacks with everything else into her sock drawer. She has made a sandwich only one day and even on that day she didn't eat it. I found two old nasty lunches in her backpack this morning. She gets angry when I ask about and says "Why do you care anyway? You never cared before. It's none of your business." Whatever. She'll get a consequence for her snotty tone but not her words because she's right. I don't care. I'd rather have her not pack anything than take something and waste it. I can't make her eat it and she's not even close to starving herself. I remind her that she'll be in better emotional control and learn better if she feeds her body and her brain but if she's not going to I can't force her.

Drama Boy spent too many mornings snuffling and crying over what was offered at breakfast so he is not allowed to eat it at home any more. He eats free breakfast and lunch at school. He's pretty picky but we've gotten him to expand his food horizons a little bit. We eat vegetables or salad at every meal and usually he can get through it now without difficulty. Other times he drools, gags, and pretends he's going to vomit. He's a food stealer. He takes food and sometimes eats it but other times he'll throw it under the sink in the bathroom, under his bed or in a drawer. Last night I got sent a text message "There's cheese in the toilet". DB had taken four pieces of string cheese and threw them, plastic wrappers and all, into the downstairs toilet. He ate one of the containers of yogurt that I was saving for breakfasts. He ate a good-sized roll and left the bag open. He ate directly out of the fridge from the leftover spaghetti leaving curly noodles dropped all over and the spoon still in the refrigerator sticking out of the container. Sigh. He says he's getting enough to eat but sometimes he still wants more. Fine. Ask. And for goodness sake DON'T WASTE FOOD. It's driving me up the wall. Some foster parents keep a stash of snack food that the kids can eat whenever they want so they will always feel secure that there will be enough to eat (many neglected kids including DB were left home alone with no food in the house). We tried that. A cabinet for snacks they could have whenever they felt hungry. They ate it all in one day. So now we offer snacks and meals and if they don't like what's offered then they must wait until the next one, but they may eat fruits or vegetables any time they are hungry.

Lucky doesn't like vegetables at all but is otherwise a pretty good eater. But she keeps up a running commentary so we'll know when things are not up to snuff. Last night she ate all her dinner and seconds but still said, "You know what sounds good right now? Pizza. Cheese pizza. With pineapple. Doesn't that sound good right now? I feel like eating that now."

The Boss eats almost like a real person now after years of chicken nuggets and yogurt.

We try not to make a big deal over the food issues. Our dinner rules are if you don't want to eat it that's okay but don't complain about what you are served, if you serve yourself you must eat it all, on nights we have dessert you must eat veggies first. Outside of dinnertime it is much harder to impress upon the kids how we can little afford so much food being wasted all the time.

Cousins

The Boss picked this picture to post of him and two of his favorite cousins (all his cousins are his favorite). I think this was way back at last Thanksgiving.

*TGIAM

More emotional outbursts today. Squeaker seems to be reverting back to some of her old behaviors in many ways. She blames it on me saying she was doing good but I still treat her like a child so she's going to act like one. Yeah, well...not much I can say to that.

Her initial snarky outburst snowballed for much of the afternoon picking up a pretty nasty collection of sticks and stones along the way. By the time she really got going she was shouting at me "I'm going to kill your stupid sister." and "You're the worst mom in the world."and "I hate you!" to the both of us, throwing in plenty of profanities for good measure punctuated by door slams.

When I went upstairs to see if she was calm enough to come to dinner she acted like everything was fine, being silly and trying to chat with me at dinner. I wasn't feeling especially friendly yet.

She can be so unpredictable and volatile, feeling completely justified in her anger, and then calms down and expects everyone else to move on without comment or consequence while they are still pulling out barbs and licking their wounds. She cries to me frequently that her friends turn on her no reason, not seeing the connection at all, blaming others for situations she herself creates.

It's been an exhausting weekend with more sure to come this week, but at least there's school to give us all some space.
*Thank God it's almost Monday.

Find a Happy Place, Find a Happy Place

Mega-emotion day around here. I had to have several conversations with Squeaker about how she has been treating the other kids. Talks like these always bring up a flood of emotions. Today it was tears, anger, frustration, major attitude, hatefulness, anger, fear, and yet again more tears.

For the record, I am not all that comfortable with over-the-top displays of emotion. Which is funny as they are a major occupational hazard for foster/adoptive parents of traumatized kids. Also kind of funny considering I felt like a bit of an emotional freak when I was a kid. I told Squeaker tonight that I was a lot like her when I was around her age. I cried a lot...when I was sad, scared, embarrassed, or angry. I was depressed a lot. I had (well, have) a hard time focusing. I was agonizingly shy. I hated meeting new people. I was afraid of new situations and afraid of going to school because I might do something stupid, which I did pretty much daily...and actually still do. I should probably point out that I had a very good childhood. I have wonderful, loving, Godly parents and terrific siblings. I just have one of those quirky little brains that doesn't want to balance it's chemicals right or something. With a great deal of painful effort I have gotten over most of these things. But my comfort zone is pretty small and I'm outside of it almost all of the time.

So ,despite my discomfort, I really do understand a lot of the emotions that Squeaker is going through. I know her mixed-up emotions are coming not only from mental illness but also from her very abusive history. The physical abuse was bad enough but the reports on the emotional and verbal abuse she suffered made me cringe when I first read them.

Needless to say, we spend a lot of time in messy, chaotic emotional overload when working through past and present issues. In some respects my instinctive desire to distance myself can be helpful because my feelings are not easily hurt by hateful comments that seem inevitible from traumatized kids. There is much I could just let slide in order not to deal with the constant barrage of emotions. But for her sake, I must jump in with both feet and muck around in it with her. It stretches me too because I must get over myself and my reactions in order to help her. I'm not all that good at it but I empathize and hug and correct distorted thinking when I can. She reveals more of who she really is each time and each time I tell her I love her no matter what. And we reclaim lost ground and sometimes take a few tottering steps towards healing.

And I feel uncomfortable and stupid but I psych myself up to do it all over again the next time, because inch by precious inch we're somehow moving forward.

Follow-Through

Some way-too-big bites at dinner prompted a reproof that "If you have to angle your head all around to get the food into your mouth, it's too big of a bite."

Which launched a smattering of reminders from around the table:

"If it smears food all over your lips, it's too big of a bite."
"If your food hits your face, it's too big of a bite."
"If your cheek bulges out when you chew, it's too big of a bite."
"If you can only chew it with your mouth open, it's too big of a bite."
"If food is partially hanging out of your mouth when you take the fork away, it's too big of a bite."
"If you have to unhinge your jaw like a snake to get it in, it's too big of a bite."

Naturally, they all continued to do these things but at least they know their material.

Attachment in Older Children

Earlier this week we attended a training on Attachment, Developmental, and Therapeutic Parenting. Much of this we've heard or read before. It does allow the opportunity to feel some guilt over many of the things we do wrong but also to feel understood that we can't parent normally because our kids are not "normal" in their development and attachment due to their past trauma.

Adoption blogger Claudia has written an excellent post on the cycle of attachment in pre-teens/teens. The idea that bonding in older kids is most strengthened following an angry outburst or acting out by the child was covered again in this training. The child screws up, acts out towards the parent, apologizes and is forgiven, and then trust develops. This cycle must be repeated over and over and over again for a secure attachment to develop between older kids and new parents/caregivers.

Sadly, it's at the point that an older kid is repeatedly spewing hate, calling names, defying rules, and trashing the camp that many parents begin to think that maybe things aren't going to work out after all. It can spell the beginning of the end of a placement for a lot of kids when actually it could be the tentative start of developing trust and attachment. The difficulty in not parenting "normally" is that a "normal" reaction to being treated so hatefully is to withdraw and get away when what the child needs at that moment is to be pulled closer. I know that's been a toughy for me over the years.

Then again, the balance between the needs of that hurting child and the safety of other children in the home has been a challenge as well. Hearing that my little guy told his Auntie that Sparky chased him into his room and punched him really hard, makes me think that maybe we made the right decision about moving him. But knowing that Sparky is a hurting kid who likely feels rejected again (even though he asked for the move) is painful too.

Tough issues that adoptive/foster families deal with every day.

Who's The Best Dad?

Tonight Drama Boy, who measures relationships based on what he can get out of them, asked me who I would rather have for my dad: Bill Gates or the President.

He would have picked Bill Gates, for obvious reasons.

I told him, "I would rather have my dad than either of those guys." Lucky me.

One Week Countdown

Final week before school starts! Yeeeeee-haw!

I wish it had been a more calm and enjoyable summer with the kids and I had mixed feelings about sending my babies back to school. But nope. Can't wait to get them all out the door and back into the routine.

This had promised to be a quiet week with the big boys at camp and just the girls and the littles home, but sadly, it looks like it's not to be. The girls have been meanly sniping at each other all morning. They have now made up and are shrieking through the house to put on swimsuits so they can run through he sprinklers.

We have to run around all week finishing up registration and last minute things for school. We have a "Team Decision-Making" meeting (TDM) tomorrow regarding the older boys. Usually I find these TDMs to be entirely pointless, but at this one we will discuss whether Drama Boy will stay and where Sparky will move. This should be pretty intense because bio mom will surely oppose DB staying even though he has stated quite strongly that that is his wish. Sparky is all over the map--one moment wanting to stay the next snarling his desire to leave. The social worker has asked that Ana consider keeping him here but safety concerns must rule on that score and we already agreed that we cannot do it. The TDM falls during Squeaker's registration so I will have to try to make it up later in the week. Just finding child-care for the girls and the littles while we are one county away took most of the evening last night. The results are not entirely satisfactory but the best we could do.

Okay, so NEXT week will be calm and peaceful, right?

Jumble

Drama Boy is almost slappy-happy at the idea that he might get to stay. This is after weeks and weeks of screaming, crying fits that he had to live here. What this kid's birth family does to him is maddening. Being happy here makes him disloyal to "the family" and they let him know it constantly.

I found Sparky crying yesterday when he was supposed to be coming to the table for dinner. I asked him if he was sad and he said yes so I told him it as okay to have mixed-up feelings about what was going on. I rubbed his back for a while and then asked if there was anything I could do and he said "No, that's okay". He came and got his dinner shortly after that and thanked me and Ana for making it.

Except for coming back after dark an hour late from a friend's house (a stranger helping emphasize the need to be where you are supposed to be by saying to them as they passed "Boys, I have your names tattoed on my a**."), they have had exemplary behavior the past few days.

Sad what it takes to get that from them.