Before and After Trip

Babygirl really begged daddy to let her stay out of school to take me to the airport for my meeting.  It ended up snowing, so she got her wish and we all went together to the airport.

She did GREAT!!

When we got there, she said "momma, I'll let you have a hug, but don't try to sneak in a kiss".

She wanted to leave pretty quick after we got there, she doesn't do drawn out goodbyes well.

Hubs said she behaved really well while  I was gone and they had a good time together. It snowed off an on all week, sub zero temps (rare for here) and she was out of school all week, so so much change to the routine and still did great.

Night one she didn't want to talk to me on the phone, just told daddy to tell me she loves me and oops, I mean tell her Lucifer loves her.

She did talk to me a couple times while I was gone and had the animals each get on the phone.  She said they missed me and said to tell me they loved me.  She doesn't like telling me that often, but I know she talks thru the animals so I took it and loved it.

They picked me up at the airport Friday night and she got in the way of daddy so she could get the first hug and even let me kiss her in public on the head.  She enjoyed teasing her daddy about getting the first hug and told me she MIGHT have missed me just a LITTLE.

Love that kid!!

(and she loved her gifts I brought her home and claims she's going to wear her hoodie every day and not take it off, I asked her to PLEASE not do that, let me wash it before she goes to school.....it's not that great of a hoodie, just an overdone way of thanking me!)

I Don't Do Love

It's Valentines Day and despite that my child doesn't "do love", she sure acts like she loves being loved.

Hubs got her a dozen roses (her favorite flower as her middle name is rose) and put a few other flowers in the mix too and a heart shaped box of Reese cups.  She was so excited (he gave it to her yesterday) that she wanted to rush in her room and put her flowers away. Hubs had to convince her to wait until I was home so she could show them off first.

The card we got her was funny.  Mushy wouldn't be her style.

The gist of it was mocking cupid hitting people in the butts with arrows, but hey--even if Valentines is weird, yum, candy and a chance to say what a great kid we have.

I always have to put in a hand written message to and I said "I know you don't do love, but suck it up buttercup, we love you"

She was cracking up, loved it so much, she refuses to put it in the scrapbook we have for each year where we normally keep her little mementos, receipts, photos, etc.  She said she wanted to hang that in her room.

She woke up this morning and asked for pancakes for breakfast and when she was play fussing that I wasn't quick enough getting the butter over there, she said she loved us.  Then she said "AACCK, I didn't mean to tell you that, I don't do love"

Yes, it's a good day!!



(she's fussing that my chocolate box is larger than hers, hubs said "mommy is nice to me" and she said "Hummm, maybe I could start being nice")

Her's is the yellow, mine is the red:

we're not spoiled, just well loved.

I love holidays, it's an opportunity to spoil our baby.  Bring on Easter, heehee!!

Her love language is gifts, so we love to pick up little things from time to time for no reason, but on special days, it's usually bigger than normal. We can't help ourselves. ;)

I even made her a custom made Valentine hot cocoa mug with pics of her animals, her bff and us and her full name on it <3 

She immediately put it on her nightstand and wasn't amused that I went in and took pics and moved it

Med Update

Hoping relief is soon in sight.

We went to the pysch today.  He increased the dosage of  kiddo's zoloft, which is for both depression and anxiety.

We go back in 6 weeks and give him an update on whether it's helping. I hope it does, because if it doesn't, we may need to change meds altogether. Stimulants can decrease effectiveness of anxiety meds, so it requires a larger dose in general. If a larger dose doesn't work, then the stimulant may need changed.

Changing meds completely scares me, but I guess it'd be worth the risk if we don't see improvement.

I hurt just thinking of how bad my baby has been hurting.

Poor kid and her big feelings......

Monday, kiddo opened up within minutes of my asking on what was going on. So Super Proud of her!

Tuesday, she asked for help with homework.  She normally tantrums over homework, but was calm and even let me help.  Not triggered at all. So super proud of her!!

Wednesday, humongous anxiety attack at school, right before the class with the teacher that had posted her grade for the class to see.  Coincidence? Kinda thinking not.

We had therapy tonight though, so that was good timing.

At therapy the following things came out

• When the boyfriend said he was moving, it triggered her because instead of just thinking he was moving away, she was also afraid his adoption was disrupting and it stressed her
• Boyfriends mom is pregnant, he's like her and struggles with little kids, she's fearful that he'll mess up the family he has
• Seeing baby sis S Saturday also triggered big feelings again, she's worried both about her messing up the family she has, but also about staying with the family she has
• nightmares about S physically hurting the new mom
• worried that she'll like her new family so much that she will not want to see her anymore
• worried that S still fantasizes about being with us
• all that triggered the irrational fear about us giving up on her too, her head knows we are forever, but things like this trigger fear
• the whole school stuff still has her extremely anxious. She got a bad grade on a project and is worried she'll fail 7th grade, regardless of never having anything below a C on her report cards

Her teacher actually e-mailed us.  Kiddo had called when she got anxious and hubs tried to talk to her and calm her down, but wasn't going to pick her up.  One of her teachers said 1/2 hour later that it still was no better and she needed our help.  

Tomorrow, we have an appointment with the psychiatrist.  I'm going to request he consider either changing the antidepressant/anti anxiety med or change the dosage.  Her anxiety and depression have been so extreme lately.

my heart breaks that she feels this much pain and that I can't fix it.

Her therapist found it funny when I said I knew she wasn't faking it because she called me mommy instead of momma and didn't hesitate when she said she loved me back when I told her I loved her.

Her therapist asked her what coping skills she was going to use tomorrow at school. When sher said she was going to talk to her boyfriend, the therapist looked at me and said "Call the boyfriends parents and see if they'll adopt her".  Babycakes was stunned, but then she got it a minute later and started laughing and said "Oh, I should call momma, good idea!" The therapist said we'd last longer than any boyfriend, so we'd be first pick to rely on and good to talk to her boyfriend, but better to talk to us.

The therapist asked why she was worried about boyfriend and sisters placements and she said because they get angry and have tantrums.  The therapist said "I thought you got angry and had tantrums too".  She admitted she does. Then the therapist said "Well, your momma and daddy always stick it out and you stay family, why would a tantrum and anger disrupt a family?"

I love how she tries to turn her concerns into a way to show while addressing that concern that we're here for her.

I hope the anxiety eases before next week.  While she didn't say it, I suspect my leaving for a business trip next week isn't helping her anxiety at all.    

Change is Hard

Yesterday, kiddo got upset right before I got home from work because she'd tried to raid the fridge the 4th time and I was going to be home for dinner just minutes later.

She went and sulked in her room, but didn't meltdown.  Tantrum, yes, meltdown, no.

I peeked in on her before dinner and asked her if she was okay and if she wanted to talk. She ignored me and I started finishing up getting dinner together.

Within 5 minutes she came out and yelled for me to come in there and IMMEDIATELY told me what was wrong.

I'm so proud of her for not letting it fester.

Her boyfriend is moving.  She got so upset when he told her he was moving that she ran off to class without asking where.

She let me hold her and let her cry.

Such progress.

More about the school and teacher situation.....

You may remember I wrote about kiddo crying her eyes out because the teacher posted her bad grade for the class to see.

We went to the school and the teacher was at a funeral, so we spoke with the guidance counselor only, who agreed to take care of things.

I fell in love with my husband all over at the letter he wrote to the school.  He told them that she has special needs, one of which is PTSD and that's what was relevant to his concerns. He proceeded to tell what happened and kiddo's reaction to what happened, which is consistent with her diagnoses.

The assignment was telling about herself, which was triggering in itself.  They decided that she wouldn't have to do the rest of the assignment (which wasn't my goal, I was willing to help her with the assignment, I just wanted the grade being posted addressed with the teacher and a little extra time since she'd have to do the work at home instead of during class). She was given an alternate assignment to do.

The guidance counselor claimed a few days later than the assignment wasn't posted on the wall for the class to see. Kiddosaid we should ask to see the video camera in the room for that day, that it definitely happened.  The guidance counselor said he looked at it and it didn't happen and that they checked her other classes and she never gets bullied either. Her alternate assignment was to write a page paper on what happened that day.

I *may* have believed the grade thing if he hadn't said she never gets bullied.  I don't believe it because of that. Her facebook messages refers to enough things that it's obvious the bullying happens. I also really DO believe her about the grade, she was genuinelly triggered by it.  I don't necessarily think it was on purpose as kiddo claims, but  I do believe it happened and the counselor is covering it up.

Moving forward.....I received an email last week that she wasn't working on another assignment in that class. Her teacher requested my help getting her to work on it and said since her anxiety over public speaking is so extreme, she'll allow partial credit for turning it in even if she doesn't present it.  Kiddo and I discussed it and she said she is working on it and will turn it in. I told her to show her teacher how far she's progressed because when she doesn't check in, it looks like she's not working on it and we want her to understand she's not ignoring assignment, just nervous she'll be forced to present.

Yesterday morning she showed me her speech and it was amazing. So well written and I'm saving it forever, for real.

I got an email from the teacher yesterday:
Kiddo did a wonderful speech just for me in the back of the room. It was so sweet.

She only got an 85 for lack of eye contact and technical points on the presentation, but 100 on the written portion.  I'm so proud of my baby for not giving up and giving the speech her best and not letting the anxiety about presentation prevent her from doing any of it.

More on Attachment

We had another attachment session Thursday, which wasn't as "calm" as the last, but productive, nonetheless.

Sharing exercises here, some of which we're going to do when we graduate to keep those bonds strong.

• mirroring each other. Kiddo would do something and I'd copy and I'd do something and she'd copy. We'd do this for awhile and then her and her daddy would do this too.
• We measured feet, arms, legs and smiles with ribbon.  Each of us had a different color ribbon and after she measured us and we measured her, we compared to see who had the longest and shorted ribbons in each one.  Daddy has longest foot, I had shortest arms by a long shot and her and daddy's arms are similar in length. They're legs are also similar in length and my legs are longer by a ton.  She found that very amusing since hubs is the tallest.  (it's really funny to see him in the convertible in the summer, with that long torso his head sticking out of the top
• We washed each others hands and fed each other again
• We played simon says with a twist, we had to each have 5 books on our heads while we did that. This was the exercise that was the most fun.  Each of us took a turn being Simon while the others followed. I was so good at this that when we were through with the session, kiddor requested to play this one more time and I told her I was so sure I could win again that I'd compete with 7 books on my head to 4 on hers and my top book was "showing off".
• I sang lullaby's to kiddo, while holding a doll and then she did that
• Hubs read a book to her, one of the Little Critter books about running away

After the session, our facilitator asked us each which activity we enjoyed the most and which made us feel the closest to each other.  ALL of us liked simon says with the books on our head the most.  A family that laughs together, stays together.

Sibling Visit

We met kiddos baby sis today for lunch, paint your own pottery and then ice cream.  A really good time was had by all and I'm feeling pretty good about this placement for 'lil S.

The mom asked for some advice on a few things and told us about the first major tantrum, but overall I got the impression they're in it for the long haul. I so hope I'm right.

Kiddo wasn't near as dysregulated as prior visits either, so I suspect she's feeling the same. We've been invited to the school play in March, that 'lil Ms S is in.  We've invited them to come for a swim when the pool opens.

As S's new mom was telling us things they're planning and things they're working on, I'm struck but how similar her and kiddo really are. I found myself calling her Kiddo Jr more than once.