Can't Catch A Break....

This poor kiddo....if it's not one thing, it's another

she's breaking out really bad the past few days and itching.  Hubs found out she'd gotten a hold of an orange that had some mold on it and seems to be having a penicillin reaction.  She's allergic to penicillin.

I looked online for ideas of how to help and what we need to do.  While reading, despite that we told her doctor she's allergic, one of the meds prescribed, while not a penicillin is listed as a known medicine for penicillin effects, with many allergic.

Since we didn't know, we've been giving her that and the last few days more than normal.

I feel horrible. I normally look up meds, but with all the crazy we've had lately, I didn't check it out, I just assumed it was your average antibiotic that she normally responds to.

She's gotten close to tantruming tonight from the pain and itch of her rash.

On a positive note though, she had a doctor visit today BEFORE we found this out and her foot is healing on track. She had her staples removed today and has 4 more weeks of non weight bearing, but after that if she's still progressing well, it's on to physical therapy.

Also, that's just in time for pool season. In the meantime while she's not moving around, she's allowed to take the boot off and just use the boot while moving.

Why, oh why, though, can't my child just have some normal in her life?

So annoyed, ready for good things....bring on the good!!

Closing our Home

We've been keeping our license open all this time JUST so we could provide respite for baby sis and her family.

Today, we got a call from the other families agency. It turns out they can't use our home study for that anyway. We have to get a background check and the normal stuff that baby sitters have to do for foster kids with them done.

So.....good news is we can close our home and no more social worker visits

bad news is background checks can take awhile, so they'll have to tough it out for awhile before we'll be much help.

Sorta looking forward to it, nervous, but excited too.

We got kiddo a new bed, it was delivered yesterday. Her and her crazy pup broke her other one. The new bed has room for baby sis.

We will attempt to put it together this weekend if all goes smoothly.  It's hard to get things done because kiddo can't spend a bunch of time outside playing and we'd be working around her, but I'm excited to get her room done.

Her and her pup wore out her saucer chair in the play room too, so I went and picked up the one I had set aside for her birthday (I knew it wasn't going to be long, I just was hoping it'd last a little longer)

and new bedding....

We got new curtains too, she's outgrown the pink, and blue is her favorite color now so we'll be taking down her pretty pink curtains and replacing it with turquoise ones (my favorite color too)

Home Schooling

Not in the traditional sense, but it is schooling at home.

We went today to talk with the school board about kiddo being taught at home for the next 8 weeks. We have a teacher lined up and she'll be coming in to teach kiddo until she's physically able to return to school.

They said her electives will drop and she'll only be taught the core classes.  That's okay though, we can take her on field trips this summer and get her some more education in a fun way.  We have plans for Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, Cherokee, a train ride thru the Smoky Mountains.

What I find amazing is without the distractions of other kids, they feel that they can adequately teach her the core classes in only 8 hours a week.

If she were home schooled officially, she'd only be required 10 hours a week actually instruction.  That seems so far fetched to me, but with one on one attention, this is the projected time span.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes, what she learns, how she's does and whether she still triggers with schoolwork.

Through the end of this week, she'll do what she can at home on her own and next week, the teacher will start coming here in the afternoons to do official instruction.

I now understand why home schooling seems so easy when watching others do it.  I don't think she could handle that permanently, but it is a nice solution while she heals.

Attachment Therapy Homework

We had to cancel our attachment therapy due to kiddo's immobility, but the leader of our sessions sent us a copy of her outline that she uses and told us where she'd like to focus.

The categories are:

Structure: Safety, Organization, Regulation: Set Limits
Define boundaries, Keeps child safe, helps complete sequence of activities, relieve child of burden of being in control

Engagement: Connection, Attunement, Acceptance, Expand Positive Affect

Establish and maintain connection. Focus on child in intense way. Entice child into enjoying new experience.

Nurture: Regulation, Secure Base (safe haven), Worthiness

Reinforce message that child is worthy of care and that adult will provide care without child having to ask

Challenge:  Competence, Confidence, Support Exploration

Help child feel more competent and confident by encouraging to take slight risks and to accomplish activity with adult help

She said kiddo is doing very well with all the challenge activities and would like hubs and her to focus on some of the nurturing activities.

Some of the activities that promote nuturing are touching the child gently with a cotton ball while her eyes are closed and once she opens her eyes, she'll tell what she was touched at. Other is making jewelry out of play doh or other random items and placing them on the child; painting her face; applying lotion to her hands or feet; make a print on paper and shake powder on the paper to show the print; just applying lotion are powder in general, singing a lullaby that's tailed to your child, manicures and pedicures; painting hands and feet and making prints of them.

Our personal lullabys are:

soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur

sleepy kitty, pretty kitty, purr, purr, purr

soft puppy, warm puppy, little ball of fur

crazy puppy, cute puppy, grrr, grrr, grrr

one kitty verse for each cat, one puppy verse for each dog, and one of the puppy verses ends Lucifer, instead of grrr, grrr, grrr

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

what a special girl you are

beautiful red hair and soft, soft cheeks

big brown eyes from which you peek

twinkle, twinkle, little star,

what a special girl you are

I do one verse for each pet and then twinkle, twinkle little star, while rubbing her back at night to get her to sleep.

Every once in a while, when she's wound up or way silly I'll also sing:

soft monkey, crazy monkey, little girl of mine....

What activities do you all do with your kids to promote nurturing.  That's by far the area we have the most work to do in, although huge strides have been made.  

Engagement could stand some practice too, in my opinion, although she really hasn't made note of that.  She did say she's seen significant progress in kiddo over the time she's been with us and that we should be very proud of her (we are)

Play Therapy

no, not structured, real play therapy, but just playing with your kid

When kiddo first moved in in 2012, I didn't blog as much, we were in our bonding time and she was glued to me every waking moment almost.  Also, I had a tendency to just share random things and not get too deep. I had a journal for that at the time of things to update the sw on.

I was thinking about how we used to play with her dolls together.

It started playing as orphanage alot. Her first doll she bought while she was here was because she wanted to provide her with a home. Her box in the store was dusty and she'd been there for awhile, so she knew it was time she had a home.

We'd play with the dolls and she'd be an orphanage worker and we'd adopt the kids that we were playing with because we couldn't just leave them without a family.

Then we graduated to playing something along the lines of NCIS, where we were protecting somebody, trying to find the criminal and in the process finding the kids and saving them.

Later on, one of the teenagers would come in and say they were pregnant because somebody had raped them and we'd have to find the rapist.  The teen of course, was shown unconditional love and we constantly told her it wasn't her fault it happened.

We moved on to playing in the pool and the teen would end up raising her babies in the pool.  Once a sw came to get one of the babies because of a report of abuse and she started to drown the doll and said "If I can't have you, nobody can".  That was a moment of tears, because when kiddo was removed, her birth mom said she should just kill the girls because then she could visit them at the cemetary at least.

I had no idea her brain had heard any of that.

She worked through a ton of things with her baby dolls. I'm so proud of how far she came.  I'm also so proud that she's so protective of the babies and is good at demonstrating good, unconditional love. She took better care of those baby dolls than some parents do their real kids.

Our attachment therapist told us before she got to what happened in the pool with drowning the doll, that if she played out this the whole healing way, she eventually would have to abuse one of the dolls and not to be alarmed, that it was actually her finally dealing with it.

After that point, she was nothing but sweet with the dolls, but she also rarely had a need to really "play" dolls.  They're just there now.

I let her take the lead and she did a great job.

While I don't always realize how far she's come, sometimes something will happen and I'll realize she really has come a long way.

Pet Names

The last post was a very emotionally draining experience and dwelling on the negative is not a good thing, so I'm going to fake it til I make it by creating a fun, happy post.

One blogger I follow said if she'd had her baby her whole life, she'd have never learned her name because of all the pet names she has for her.  I thought that was funny, but then thought....yeah, I can see that with our baby too.

Here's some of the more used pet names we have for the monster, I mean kiddo:

• monster (obviously)
• Princess (hubs uses this one alot)
• first name ANGELROSE last name (angelrose is the middle name I wanted to change her name too)
• first name HAMMERTOE last name (the name we pretended we'd change her name to)
• Punkin
• Angel
• babygirl
• babycakes (from me)
• munchkin
• monkey (primarily hubs, but lately I've adopted that some too)
• cutie or cutie patootie
• beautiful
• sweetheart
• kiddo

you know how most people said using full name = being in trouble.  Here just the first name, real first name, is when you're in trouble. Otherwise is a combination or pet name.  first name combined with other names is "I'm saying you're in trouble, but maybe not really"

Trauma, Drama and Tears, oh my!!

That’s what yesterday was made of.

kiddo’s surgery was yesterday and while she was in very good spirits pre-op, post-op was a nightmare. She completely shut down and was trying to refuse to leave the hospital. She had an anxiety attack so bad and was crying so bad, she had a hard time catching her breath. 

In the recovery room, she was pushing us away, one minute claiming she needed her space, the next claiming somebody needed to fix her, that she couldn’t breathe.  All her vital signs were as close to perfect as it gets. The surgery was claimed a success. But her trauma brain was so upset that we didn’t go into the operating room with her (she didn’t understand it wasn’t allowed and they phrased it to make it seem like we would be).

• At the hospital, she said she wasn’t going home with us
• Told us to get away, we were crowding her, including in the car on the way home
• Refused to get out of the car when we got home. We went inside. She finally honked horn to help her out.  When she finally got out, refused help and then yelled because we didn’t help
• Yelled that she’s in pain and we don’t even care or love her
• Off and on yelling for a couple hours
• Went to bed? Got up for (snack?) fell, yelled at us that she was leaving and hitching a ride, claimed it wasn't for snack, but food is her #1 trigger, so I'm inclined to think it was more than that her hurting like she said.
• Hubs offered to look at her leg (she refused) and us take her to ER. After dressing, she was screaming and trying to stand on it and when realized not a need for ER for leg, asked to look at it again  (still refused). She said didn’t need ER. Offered to help her back to bed, she refused and said needed ER. Told her to go to bed.
• Then sheried to open the door and I was in the way
• Then started to head to the garage, which would be very dangerous and is off limits anyway, much less with broken leg
• Called hubs mf’er, leave her alone, don’t ever touch her, doesn’t want help
• Even RTC was better than having to live with us MF’ers.
• Yelled at dog, told her not to yell at my dog, she slapped me on the arm hard, I was ready to call police, hubs convinced her to go lay down instead and gave her a bell to ring if she needed us and put the crutches away so she wouldn’t be getting up
• Yelled at us for taking the dogs in the other room, explained it was for safety reasons
• she threw a chair across the room while sitting in the floor
• she tried to start taking her cast/boot/thingie off

Yeah, my heart was broken. This morning she said she slapped me because I pinched her, however, I hadn’t.  She was completely dysregulated and oblivious to anything going on and didn’t see the reality.

Then she said wanted to move out, doesn’t want to live with us because her leg hurts.

She called later and said “I’m sorry for hitting you”.  I’m not satisfied with that. I told her I loved her, but that we’d talk about it tonight and she could be thinking of ways to make this right.

Is it bad I dreaded going home from work tonight? E came in to work this morning and asked what I was doing here instead of at home and I just started bawling, fortunately before work hours started. She’s about the only one that ½ gets the trauma situation (she’s the mom of bff) so she sorta gets that it’s not a normal style tantrum because her daughter has seen it.  I was glad to get to work and get away and not looking forward to the weekend.

I'm hurt by all she said. I'm furious about the slap. I'm so exhausted, We all showed our butts last night and reacted instead of staying in our calm brains.  I got so little sleep and I'm purely exhausted.

I know it was 1) because of the fear from having to go in alone and 2) from the morphine, which is known to trigger anger, but it's still not okay. I'm sad.

Surgery? What?

Kiddo's MRI results were ready today.

Totally surprised when we found out she has to have surgery.  I fully expected the MRI to have just been cursory to rule out stuff, not that something would be wrong.

Kiddo's anxiety is pretty high, needless to say.

When hubs called from the doctors office to tell me the news, kiddo was in the background yelling "Momma!! You have to get tomorrow off, I can't do this without you"

As if I wouldn't take the day off for my childs surgery.

She was so happy when I told her I was taking the whole day off and I'd be with her every step of the way.

She's seemed a little out of balance today and making me a nervous wreck, she can't put ANY pressure on her right foot at all now, not just semi-guiding herself and I've been right behind her freaking out and ready to catch her.  She thinks it's hilarious. I'm a wreck and ready for bed.

The biggest challenge though is the food issue.  As much as she struggles with food binging at night when she's stressed, she cannot eat anything after midnight and surgery is not until 11 am.

She's in the middle of a hefty meal size snack and we've promised to feed her before even leaving the hospital after surgery tomorrow and stressed how important following directions is on this.

She'll also be homebound for 8 weeks, no school in a school setting.  She'll be doing school at home.  Given her past triggers around schoolwork and homework, it'll be interesting to see how this goes.  I'm very hopeful though, that this is going to be very therapeutic.

All my friends are saying "I know you're really stressed" and I am stressed, but not to the degree that they seem to think I am.

I actually think this is a positive towards attachment.  She HAS to rely on us for everything, 24/7, even school stuff.

It'll be a challenge, but we'll be all healthier than ever as a family when we get thru this.

She gets to go back to school just in time to get out of school for the summer.  She'll have physical therapy later and a summer full of pool therapy in the back yard. So glad she'll be cast free by summer.

PTSD

I worked for 26 years at a competing company to where I'm currently employed.

Last April I put in my notice and jumped ship to a "sane company".  The culture here is so much more pleasant.

Initially I was reminded of the early, good and positive days at my prior employer and loved it. Now I just love it and rarely think of my former employer.

At the first of this month, I had to draft an action plan on what I was going to do in March and how I would achieve it.  Yesterday, I received a quick note saying "I see you're up 79K for the month, what growth do you anticipate by month end?"  It's a very normal request and nothing weird about it, just positive management, recognizing a decent number and asking how good it will be by the end of the quarter.

I sent back my well thought out response with what I would achieve and why.

I received a response back a few hours later and when I saw I'd received an e-mail from this guy (upper management), I was temporarily triggered, remembering the e-mails from my prior employer that no matter what was going on, was always negative, despite whether the results were positive.  I had a sense of dread to open up the e-mail.

When I opened the e-mail it was very positive and just said "I believe".

Upper management was letting me know he believed in me and my plan.

As I sat there with my heart rate slightly elevated for a moment, I realized, if I'm still triggered almost a year later by weird things like that, why would I not understand that my baby girl will still be triggered by things that seemingly have no reason to trigger her? Why would I not understand that she had 11 years of turmoil and instability? Of course deviations to the normal day would trigger her. Of course if she doesn't anticipate a positive response, she will assume that any response will be negative.

I am reminded to show compassion, repeat positive feedback constantly and let her eventually (in her own time) realize that our positive treatments are genuine and she doesn't need to wait for the other shoe to fall, just as I can trust my present employer to not be a nutcase like the prior one.

8th Grade Registration

So proud of my baby girl.

She came home today with her registration form for 8th grade for us to review and sign.  She had already completed what her choices were for us to approve and asked our opinion on them.

She was completely insistent her first pic of elective be art. No surprise, after all, she is her momma's daughter.

What surprised me was the next 3 picks.  She was to choose 6 classes and while they aren't guaranteed, an effort will be made to accomodate the requests.

She picked Virginia Teachers for Tomorrow, Spanish and Leadership for her next 3 pics.  Then PE and Choir.

She's been talking choir so long, I assumed it'd rank higher, but she said PE was to humor us, but the rest she genuinelly wants.

She wasn't amused that I got so excited over the Leadership request, backing up when I tried to kiss her, lol.

She also says if she raises her grade a little between now and year end, she may can get into Algebra for high school credit and not wait until high school for it and promised to work really hard for it and seemed excited about it.

So proud of her motivation and excitement.

Feeling optimistic.

Given the triggers around homework, schoolwork, etc, this is a HUGE deal for us.

Social Worker Visit

I've been wanting to watch The Fault In Our Stars since it came out in theaters.  We didn't make it then, but it's on TV now.

The movie is sad and sweet.

We asked kiddo to watch it with us, as a family movie.  She declined.

She did, however, provide a movie review of it and her reason for turning it down.

Her comments:

2 people have cancer

2 people fall in love

1 person dies

other person is unhappy

The end.

To the point much.

She avoids things that will make her sad. I understand to a degree.  So much sadness is her little life, she doesn't want to feel pain.  On the other hand, if she'd occassionally let herself feel sadness without anger, and sadness from things that don't affect her.

Wonder how holding it in affects her.

This morning the social worker came out for her quarterly visit.  We're keeping our license open until S adoption is finalized so we can provide respite for her family and help the process be calmer for all involved.

I think the visit provoked some emotions though. After so long with no social workers and just being a real family with no weirdness involved, I saw some anxiety in kiddo this morning and her chat with the worker being so much like before.

I hate that she feels this.  I will be so glad when the adoption is final for little S.  Life can return to normal.  If I thought it'd help, I wouldn't keep the license and not provide respite, but that's a different set of complications.  So, here we are, back to social worker visits, but at least it's not frequently since we will not have a placement and just doing respite.

My Silly Girl

Random things she's said that cracks me up:

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"You can't do nothing with giraffes"

trying to decide if I'm buying that line or if she needs to look up words in the dictionary

I seriously thought she said "You can't do nothing with your A**" The look on her face when I turned around....priceless

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Kiddo:  "lucifer, you need to quit acting so much like daddy"

Daddy: "why, does it get him in trouble?"
kiddo: "gets me in trouble when I do that"
Daddy: "really?"
Momma: "with mommy"
kiddo: "yeah, momma doesn't let us have any fun, does she?"

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setting: driving along the river

kiddo: "What is that guy doing with his turn signal on?" yells: "dummy, if you turn there, you're going in the river"
Me: "Good night for fishing"
Hubs: "Yep, they all gather under the bridge"
kiddo: (giggle) "So they don't get wet"

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mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy"

me: "we're not doing this 15 times an hour today"
kiddo: "this is the last time"
me: "what do....." (interrupted)
kiddo: "for now anyway" (proceeds to make request)

I help her and then go back to what I was doing.

kiddo: "Mommy"
me: "didn't we just have this conversation?"
kiddo: "That was 3 minutes ago, mommy"

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kiddo:  "Daddy, come here, I want to show you something"

Daddy: "I'm fixing breakfast, it's going to be a minute"
Mommy: "What is it?"
kiddo:: gets ready to explain and changes her mind "I'll wait for daddy, you won't get it"

Sunday morning cartoons in our house

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kiddo: (opening stocking)
kiddo: "It's Peach on a cow"
Daddy: " Char Bear, are you even awake? Peach on a cow?"

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When King Kong climbed the Eiffel tower.....

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Char: "Momma, I got my period today, guess I'm not pregnant"

Me: "That better not be the only reason"

Char: "Momma, silly, you know I haven't done anything"

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kiddo: "Momma, no more wine"

said jokingly when I'm singing, referencing the "all about that baste" instead of all about that bass

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kiddo: Momma, I love you

Me: I love you more!

kiddo: Eek!! Don't get mushy, I didn't mean to say it outloud"

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Families and Dysfunction

I've written before about how maddening the dysfunction is in hubs family.

We no longer speak to his parents and not all of the siblings.  The bulk of hubs paternal family is toxic. The positive role models in his maternal side of the family are deceased and no communication with the toxic ones.

It's really amazing looking at the toxicity in his family that he's been able to attach to me and our child as well as he has.

Saturday though, a few of the cousins in his family had decided to have a mini-family reunion with none of their parents (as they were all the trouble makers in the batch).  We took kiddo and met up with them, had a potluck lunch and talked for awhile.

I wasn't very comfortable for the bulk of it, as the subject of several people that I don't approve of the way they view family were mentioned in a positive light and it made me question their suitability for regular communication.

I did talk to one of the sisters for awhile though and while it's the one that hubs has a trauma bond with and they trigger each other so badly, she's really trying and is now raising her granddaughter.  She has 2 sons, one of which is a meth addict and one is a convicted sex offender.  We obviously have no communication with them.  The grandbaby was removed from the home of the meth addict at age 4. She's now 6 and still is not verbal at all.

The trauma she's experienced is evident daily and she was not born with these deficiences.  She sees what damage has happened and why and is starting to understand. She's working so hard to find this child help and I think she's working to see this as a redo.

I hope she finds healing herself as a result.

Given the way we communicated, I was stunned by the difference in her already.  She's made some positive changes and I'm hopeful that one day they can recover their relationship.

If not though, as long as she can help that precious little girl, we'll be happy.

Special and Crazy Relationship

After all the drama yesterday, got up this morning to a very grouchy girl.

Finally headed out the door to school and on the way had to pull over for her to throw up.  I called hubs and asked him to come pick her up at my office.

I suggested just taking her home, give her pepto and gingerale and put her to bed.  He took her to the doctor though and turns out she was having a short term reaction to the pain meds yesterday and she's over it pretty quickly.

However, while they were there, he prescribed something for her acne, which is getting pretty bad.  The instructions cautioned her against hurting the baby.

Hubs gave her a horrible time about that, knowing that we've never let her go somewhere without us and pretended like he was saying the doctor claimed she was pregnant. They were dying laughing when she came by the office to give me an update.

When they left my office, he handed her the keys jokingly and asked her to drive home, because he wasn't spending 9 months taking her to appointment after appointment for her baby. He also said that's why she was sick that morning.

She took a bath when she got home and it took her so long, he knocked on the door and told her not to drown his grandbaby.

They laugh all about it.  I'm glad they can, because for me, it's a huge fear. I think to the texts that she gets from boys that she doesn't shut down and how hard of a time she has saying no there is going to translate to not saying no in real life when she gets of dating age.

I'm sure that it helps that her and hubs can talk so easily about things and she has always maintained that when she gets to that point, she'd talk to me ahead of time when she started feeling that way, but if you get caught up in the moment or don't see it coming, how would she?

Open communication, even relaxed joking is a good thing. He said joking about serious things is his way of helping her realize it's okay to talk about anything, no matter what it is.

I love when their relationship is good and not tense and they can laugh and be silly together.

Anxiety Relievers

What are some coping skills you or your kids use?

When kiddo first moved in, she had major school anxiety.  I'd forgotten our solution until today, but I had a little ring with mine and hubs birthstones on it.  We put it on a chain and she wore it to school.  If she started feeling anxious, she'd fidget with the necklace and it'd remind her we were there for her 100%.

She has her own choice coping skills as well, some good, some not so good. Here's a few of the good ones.....

• trampoline....she will jump for hours.  Unfortunately, that's off limits while her leg heals
• warm baths....if she's extremely anxious, it's not unusual for her to take 3 baths in a day
• MP3 player....lots of music
• sitting in the gazebo on the swing
• sitting in the hammock listening to music
• drinking ice water

She also started writing on herself to replace cutting when we had the cutting incident, but now that Zoloft has increased, she says she hasn't felt the need to cut, therefore, no recent writing on herself either.

She used to crochet and journal too. I wish she'd still do that, would be some good things to do inside in inclement weather, but scary movies are her current inside activity.

With the exception of music and ice water, all the coping skills she currently uses are ones she's developed since being here.  We've come a long way.

Hospital Visits

Because kiddo had walked on her leg for 2 weeks before we found out it was broken, an MRI was requested to ensure she had no ligament damage.

Her appointment was for 12:45.  At 1:30, they finally took her in. I had to go back to work and it broke my heart to have to leave her there.  Daddy said he had it covered, but kiddo said "But I need both momma and daddy support".

They had barely gotten home when she hit her foot on the bathroom sink cabinet and started yelling for daddy to come into the bathroom and help.  He walked in and a wide gash in her foot....whether it was from the cast or the cabinet, not sure, but it was at the cast line. At that point, the pain was shooting thru her whole leg up to her hip.

They get to the ER and call me from there and I leave work yet again to go back to the hospital.  By the time I got there, she was in the xray department and the ER department told me to just wait there for her.  She was so surprised to see me waiting on her.  I told her I had to come to my baby, I figured she needed momma there too.  Daddy said she had said when they went she wished I was there too.

Fortunately the wide gash wasn't too deep and nothing extra wrong.  She looked so cute on pain meds though, I guess it really shook her foot.  She said the toe actually hurts worse than the broken bone. Poor kid.

Can't catch a break....other than in her leg, that is.

I'm concerned about her going back to school tomorrow, but doc says it's okay. We'll see how that goes.  Even daddy isn't sure about that, so he's going to take her, go to the office and find alternate ways in and out of the school because the walk is going to be tough on her. Her classes are no where near the door and up several flights of stairs.

Mommy, mommy!!

"mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy" "mommy"

me: "we're not doing this 15 times an hour today"
kiddo: "this is the last time"
me: "what do....." (interrupted)
kiddo: "for now anyway" (proceeds to make request)

I help her and then go back to what I was doing.

kiddo: "Mommy"
me: "didn't we just have this conversation?"
kiddo: "That was 3 minutes ago, mommy"

rotten!! just rotten!! milking this broken leg
and what's with the mommy today, like that's going to help, lol

okay, maybe she did get away with it, but I love her!!

and this is AFTER therapy Wednesday when her therapist challenged her not to call momma for every tiny thing.  Her therapist says she asks me for attention so much because of the lack of attention she got in previous homes and she's trying to test to see if I'm going to give up on her. Kiddo said we passed the test and the therapist said if we've passed the test, she can quit this.  

I told the therapist that yes, I do  give her so many passes a day on this because of bonding and it's an exercise to prove to her that we're going to take care of her needs.  

She thinks it's overdone, I think it's important.  If it takes her longer to realize we'll fill her needs, then we'll give her longer. If she calls me and it's for something she can do herself and should be doing herself, I tell her she gets two more calls for momma before bedtime, so use them wisely.

We do have boundaries, it's not like it's 24/7 of "momma, momma" with my waiting on her hand and foot or at her beck and call.  I do wait on her more now because of the leg and I remember the challenges of a broken leg, but that's not about spoiling, that's about filling a need. 

One day this little girl will be secure and know that we're here for her no matter what. Until then, even if it's "inconvenient", this momma will humor some of the weirdness.  

How do you set boundaries in your household? How do you show your child you'll always fill their needs and that this home is different? Ideas? 

Sibling Update

The other family is having a lot of drama with S currently. I'm hoping that the nurturing that they'll need to do while S's ankle heals will help S calm down and see that they'll take care of her. Even more, I hope that they don't give up on her.  Every placement, the behaviors escalate.  Her recent behaviors have escalated to a new high and I'm scared and worried.

The nightmares baby girl has had are being lived out and hopefully they don't get further.

(although admittedly, I'm glad she's not here now and my having to worry for our childs safety, even though I doubt it'd be directed at her, I wouldn't be willing to risk it)

I do hope she calms down soon and gets the help she needs.  They've finally found a therapist. She is on her 2nd session now, so hopefully things will get better.

Alot of snow days and S thrives on schedules, all this schedule changing is creating extra dysregulation, in an already anxious body.

On a positive note though, I actually think she has a really good chance in her current home that they can help her heal.

Sister, Sister

These crazy girls. I mentioned before about K (the BFF) having a knee problem and being out of school 6 weeks.  At just the moment that she got to the point of being able to walk without crutches, Char gets crutches.  Char hobbling on crutches and K goes back to school Monday while Char is out of school Monday and Tuesday.

Weird kids.

Weirder.....I posted Char's pic on facebook of her on her crutches with her cast. Her baby sis, S, mom commented that they were in the ER with S at that moment because S had hurt her ankle.  Later she sent me a note that S had sprained it.

Yesterday, Char called us from school crying over the pain in her ankle. Hubs took her back to the doctor again and when the doctor found out what school she goes to, he said she'd never heal going straight back to school, that she needs to be out until Wednesday with her foot propped up and then at that point, she'll have made enough progress to walk that much on crutches and climb those stairs.

Her school is NOT handi-capped accessible. I'm not sure how that's even legal.  No ramps, no elevators, just challenges. I never noticed before.

Maybe this should be on my to do list. No handicapped child, temporary or permanent should have to suffer thru the school physical challenges. The other challenges of school are enough.

The Boy That Cried Wolf

So, despite that I feel like crap because I thought  my child was faking the ankle issue, still, it was a good learning tool for kiddo to see how her actions, exaggerating and making stuff up can have more of an effect on herself than others.

Therapy was Wednesday and her therapist asked what she did to her leg and when it happened.  She said it happened 2 weeks ago and I explained she'd just went to the ER the day before and why.  Her therapist looked at her and she said "I know your mom is feeling bad, but I'm sitting here thinking about the boy that cried wolf, do you know why?"

It was a pretty decent session, with lots of work on kiddo just being upfront and honest 100% of the time instead of making momma and daddy read minds to be good parents.

Her therapist told her that she knows she's very well loved and that both momma and daddy would move heaven and earth to make sure she's safe, but that she isn't being fair to us when she puts us in situations where we have to guess whether something is wrong and what is wrong.

She asked if she thought she could work on that and when could she start. Kiddo said "YESTERDAY!!" She almost always says yes, and right now.  I think it's very promising that she said yesterday, like maybe, just maybe, she gets it.

After the session, the therapist pulled me aside and asked how I was feeling about things. I almost cried. She said she knows I feel bad about it, but that her advice is quit spoiling that kid so bad.

Not sure how I'm feeling about that.

Things to mull over.....

Mom of the Year

Yeah, I so deserve it

/end sarcasm

Kiddo hurt herself week before last outside and came running in and said she hurt her ankle.  She's such a drama queen and does stuff like this often, so I just kissed it and made her prop it up.  It didn't look bad and I thought she was just exaggerating like normal.

She called from school today. I missed the call. Hubs went to pick her up and was mad, thinking she was faking again, because conveniently it was right before the class that she has such anxiety about. She told the school it had been hurting for 2 weeks, so as a precaution, he took her to the ER though. I didn't even go.

Yeah, imagine my surprise when he calls to say they're headed to the drugstore and then to home, she fractured her fibula.

I felt so guilty for not realizing my baby was hurt for real.

As much of a connection as we have and as easily as I can usually see through her, I totally miscalled this one.

She loves that she has a broken bone the same year of school I did.  The smile on her face. She loves those weird little similarities that we keep having.  At the hospital, she said some man asked what boy she kicked. She was in hysterics when I told her a teacher asked me the same thing in 7th grade when I broke my ankle.

Anyway, live and learn I suppose.  I guess I'd have known if it were severe, but still, what momma does this?

We had a talk with her about her tales and about keeping us in the loop when something continues to hurt past when it happens and how she can help us avoid this going forward. I'd hate to be in the ER every week just because she fusses about a small pain, but I'd hate to not go to the ER and find out later that she had a broken bone again.

EEK!!