Birthdays, birthdays!

Birthdays are hard for kids adopted from foster care on a normal year.  Add uncertainty to it and it's going to be even worse.

Why would their own birthday be hard?

Why wouldn't they be?

Birthdays are reminders of family.  Birthdays should be happy occassions celebrated with family and friends.  But for kids in foster care or those that were in foster care, it can trigger memories that they should have been able to celebrate with their first families, they shouldn't have been let down.

Different families celebrate different ways.  Not knowing what to expect is difficult for most people.  Change is difficult for most people. Why would a child with so much trauma be different in that aspect?

My poor child has another layer of trauma surrounding birthdays.  This is the 8th year anniversary of the day she was removed from her biological family.  Just a few short weeks away from her 7th birthday, she was torn from the only family she ever knew to bounce around in foster care for awhile.

This month is also the 4th anniversary of when her first adoption disrupted.  Disrupted adoptions.....that's a story for another day, but short version....you think you found your forever family and then it falls apart and you're back in the same situation as 4 years previously.

So many triggers, so much for a child to have to deal with emotionally.  When you hold yourself together through so many big things, sometimes it's the little things that have you falling apart.

Pool liner had to be replaced this year.  Normal pool guy died and we had to find a new place to service us.  They just showed up this past weekend, already in June, just long enough to make us worry it wouldn't be done in time for the party.

Crisis averted.

Invited bio sister to the party again this year.  She's doing much better this year than last year, so we were hopeful.  We were told probably so and that they'd try to make it happen. She's still in residential currently, but they had plans to find somebody to bring her here and supervise like they did for kiddos 13th birthday.

This week, we found out she's not going to get to make it after all.

Kiddo was not a happy camper about that.

But, something positive out of it.....sis will be missing the party so she can attent an adoption match event and we will be getting together at a waterpark a few hours from here to have a joint party for just the two of them half way between their birthdays.

So, they'll get to celebrate, just not the same way we originally planned.

I think we'll get through all of this without the crazies hitting.  The stress was starting to show prior to solutions, but my child is in her calm brain again for the moment and hopefully for the rest of the time.