.....and I'm calling GRANDMA!!

Kiddo had a major temper tantrum, because we're SO MEAN!!! How dare we mistreat her like this.

We ordered DNA kits for all of us. We can find out her genetics, but have a little fun too.  She had to spit in a vial to send it off. She said we were mean for making her do that. Obviously she woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

While she was screaming about it, she screams that she's telling M about it (her social worker).  I told her they weren't open, but she could call later if she really wanted to. Daddy told her that M is actually the one that told us about this genetic testing so she might find that call amusing and to go ahead.

As I drove her to school this morning, she calmed down and when we got there, I asked if she wanted my phone to call M before going in. She said no, she was over it now.

I told her finalization was soon, she was going to have to find another threat than calling M. She said "Oh yeah", got quiet for a moment and said "Well, I'm calling GRANDMA!!"

I had to laugh. That moment was just what I needed after the tantrum before.

First Family Vacation

Yeah, it was a month ago, but still, just getting around to sharing. Kiddo keeps me super busy.

Mostly good.  But 'lil Miss trauma child has her moments. Total meltdown on day 3. Finally she said "I don't deserve all this. I should be at (insert name of residential center here that she was at). I don't understand why you love me and adopted me".

Oh, it breaks my heart to see her hurt.

As maddening as it is to go thru her tantrums, I have to remember where she's coming from and not take it personal. I'm glad when one of us isn't thinking clearly, the other is.  I started to say "of course you deserve it", but when your child is disregulated, telling them they're wrong isn't the way to go. My dear husband NAILED IT!! He said "Princess, whether you deserve something or not is irrelevant. Things we do as a family are because we're a family. Things we do for you are because we love you, not because you had to earn it".  I fell in love all over again in that very moment.

On a lighter note, 98% of the vacation was a blast and look at this PRECIOUS picture!

Petition to Adopt!!

Woot woot!!

The petition to adopt arrived in the mail today. All we have to do now is sign it in front of a notary, have it notarized and mail back to the attorney.

We're going to do the big celebration ceremony, so we'll be waiting on a date still, but wow, just having this little piece of paper in our hands makes it so real that we're almost at the end of this part of our journey and on to the journey of a forever family.

Can't believe I'm looking forward to Monday now so I can get this notarized!!

Can't believe our wishes really are finally coming true!!

Will Finalization Time EVER get here?!

May 24th, we signed adoption papers, June was adoption board, it's been in the attorneys hands ever since and she's waiting on info from the social worker.  At that point, it has up to 60 more days for the agency to respond to the petition and then a wait on the court date?!

grrrrrr, I'm so ready for this to be over with.

Baby girl is having extreme anxiety over this and worried that we'll back out of the adoption and I think it'd do her a world of good for this stage of our life to be over with and her go back to trying to be a normal kid.

Baby hid a box of cake mix in her closet and had eaten part of it, is binging like mad, easy to trigger to tears now and I just want her to be able to relax and realize that despite all the hardships and trials she's been through, that she's worth every minute of time spent on her and deserves to be a normal child that she's missed being before.

On a positive note, her baby sister is in the middle of visits with her new parents and it sounds like it's going very well.  Hope she gets to move in before her birthday!!

Happy Birthday Baby!!

we celebrated the Princess's birthday Saturday before last!
she said this was the first "real" party she'd had, with friends and the whole nine yards.

We had the BEST time planning for it and while we were all worried that our expectations would be too high, it went super great. Well, except BFF putting a frog on our baby! lol

Even the cake exceeded expectations.

We expected a meltdown after the party (she usually has her meltdowns after really good things happen), but it was a pleasant weekend the whole time.

She had a pool party, lots of yoshis and peace signs and her favorite colors, her crush, her boyfriend and her 2 best friends, as well as family and other friends. I wonder if her boyfriend realized she was crushing on another guy, lol

My baby is 12. I'm not ready for her to grow up.  I told her we'd start going backwards, next year she'll be 11, the following 10.

She said she wished we'd found her at 3 and she could have had her childhood back.

How it breaks my heart to hear that, and yet, cherish that she wants to be here.

I love that girl, Have I said that lately?

Odd Feeling.....

Adoptive placement papers are signed and our agency has requested knowing whether we want to keep our license open.

Given our babys history and how she's doing now vs prior placement, it's very obvious that she is just right as an only child.  We started our journey only wanting one child, and opening ourself up to siblings if the right match showed up.

Back to only child again.

My silly girl cracked me up, but just affirmed our decision to close our license.  One of her little friends baby sister called me mommy about 1/2 dozen times yesterday. Princess said "No, that's MY mommy".

She doesn't want to share us at all.

All that said, somehow after so long waiting thru this journey for our baby to show up, it feels VERY weird to close the license.  Shortly, there will be no more social worker visits, no required training (although our trainer said we're still welcome to come to the trainings we feel would help us, but that they could no longer send invitations, but she'd keep me in the e-mail loop).

What will life be like just being a family?

Triggers

Yesterday, we went to the last foster care court date and then afterwards met up with her baby sister for a lunch date.  Baby sister is matched with a family now and once she's out of the group home, she'll be going home to them.  We got to meet them.  It was the 2nd time the family had met with S. They thought by C being there, it'd calm S down enough to not be nervous with the new family there.  S & C have both responded very differently to time in residential.  S wants to stay in it. It's "comfortable" for her, while our baby always preferred the idea of permanent home and family. 

The visit was GREAT and they had a great time together, but OUR baby had a BAD case of the crazies yesterday after leaving.

  

We didn't get quite out of the area before the storm hit bad and a tree was down in front of us, the storm and the tree triggered her bad and apparently I totally stressed her out by putting it in 4 wheel drive and going thru the median to get around the long line.  (it was better long term to do that though, because otherwise I'd have stressed her for longer out by sitting there stressing and being in the storm, I felt like if we got her out of the storm, she'd settle) 

It took awhile to settle though. She still is feeling some anger at being separated from S. Daddy held her hand all the way thru the storm, we traded off driving and talked to the Princess about it not being either of their faults that they don't live together, but that having one on one attention is going to give both of them a better opportunity to heal and that we'll always support their continued contact.

  

She yelled and screamed and cried a good hour (at least) on the way home.  She said she's nervous about her birthday because she's never had a "real" party and wants it to be fun and afraid nobody will show up, she's upset that her and S don't live together (she admitted she thinks the F family seem good for her, but I think on some level, she thought as long as S was in residential, she still had a chance of her living with her, despite what she was told prior), she said she yells at us because she doesn't know how to love and that she's mad that she lost so much of her childhood and that when we do fun things together or do something nice for her, she thinks she doesn't deserve it and it reminds her of what she's missed. (she also physically is no longer a baby as of last week, and that triggered alot and she's mad that she's growing up, wants to be a baby and mad that we couldn't find her when she was about 3)

  

So, while the tantrum was HORRIBLE, we're both super proud that she could communicate that much in between her yelling/screaming/crying fits.

  

She wanted to play when we got home. I told her I was tired from being yelled at and that I loved her, but I needed a rest first, that she could either sit next to me quietly or play with the pets.  She chose to sit on my lap and rub the dog. Once she was regulated, we were able to do some bonding activities and ended on a positive note for the day.

  

And then today, the crazies started agan, lower key than yesterday, but so exhausted from yesterday and just want to sleep.  Say your prayers that we get thru all this with minimal damage to each other.  Right now, she's being super sweet and loving, and apologized, we had a good talk and trying to heal.