Anxiety and Sibling Visits

Kiddos anxiety and other issues have calmed down so much in the past 6 months.

She's loving school this year.

She's no longer binging in the middle of the night almost every night.

She's been so calm and normal.  (knock on wood)

She had a doctors visit the other day and she's lost 30 lbs since middle school let out, and the only change made is not getting up every single night and binging.

There have been a few instances, but not very many and I'm so proud of her.

I started to share something on kiddos facebook wall and realized it sounded like she was my birth child so I only showed her and said "for a minute I almost put this on your wall, I forgot you were adopted".  She laughed and said "I forget that sometimes too"  Ding, ding, ding, anxiety down, she's normal.

I'm a little worried about the upcoming weeks and through year end.  Her baby sis called her a few weeks ago on my cell phone on a Friday evening as we were leaving dinner.  They talked a good 15 minutes or so and all sounded well.

The problem? Baby sis called again the next two nights.

Baby sis called the next week twice.

All this contact is starting to get to kiddo so I didn't give her the phone last time.

Friday night we were at a concert and baby sis called during intermission. I didn't answer since I knew we wouldn't be able to hear well and kiddo couldn't really talk to her.  She called back twice more, so the 3rd time I thought something must be wrong and I answered.

She asked kiddo to ask if we could come pick her up and bring her here for Thanksgiving.  Kiddo said she loved that idea and to call the next day so we could talk about whether it's possible.  Her sister is in a group home nearly 3 1/2 hours away. If we picked her up and brought her here and had to take her back, that'd be 14 hours on the road in one day.

Kiddo said she'd have to spend the night.  Last time though kiddo ended up in the ER with anxiety of the idea of that, so clearly that can't happen.

I reached out and asked if somebody in the group home or one of the social workers could bring her here and we take her back.  Nobody is available.

I think we may go there for Thanksgiving and have lunch and come back. Then Saturday we'll do our own at home Thanksgiving.  I hate that she's so far away and I hate that we have to break it to her that no, she can't visit for the weekend and no, there is no way to just come for Thanksgiving day.

As much as I would love to be able to, my first priority is to our daughter.

It's such a good sign though that she called and asked that.  She usually doesn't put much importance on people, nor does she have a history of being able to ask for what she needs.  I'm so proud of her and that's why we have to play our cards right on how we handle this holiday upcoming.

Then we'll need to set the tone at that point for the expectation of holiday visit at Christmas.  We are NOT going there Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.

They love each other, but she's very obviously a trigger for kiddo.  Finding that happy, healthy medium is a balancing act.