Today Might Just Be the Day...

What happens in the daily life of the family.. the drama of foster care, the adventures of parenting, & pictures to share with everyone!

Changes

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I am *finally* on our desktop sitting down–the last couple of blog posts have been from my ipad while I was either hanging out with the husband or on the go with the kids. I think the term summer “break” is a total misnomer! There has been no “break” in our days!

We have been filling the time with friends and swimming and outings. We have been so busy that I’ve forgotten to send out the typical e-mails inviting our friends to join in. So, if you’re local and free, drop me a line and I’ll fill you in on where we’ll be. This week we have 4 play dates planned already!

But, before we jump into another crazy week, I wanted to take the time to post photos from the end of the year. Little d’s teacher was so sweet this year and on the last day sent them home with a card for the parents.. on the front there was a photo from the first day of school, on the inside there was a current photo. It was adorable. And my how much d has grown this year! So, I thought I’d do the same sort of thing for you all…

First day

Last day with her teacher

First day of school (this photo is my desktop photo!)

Last Day!

 

 

Pride

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Nana is in town which means that there is lots of game time. Bean has been her typical drama queen self… So, she usually plays a round or two, then has a meltdown.

 

Anyhow, during one round of UNO, things were going her way and she was in good spirits. She gets a chance to play one of her “mean” cards (I think it was a draw two). And, of course, she wants to do a little taunting… And her line was, “You guys are not going to be proud of me!”

 

That kid cracks me up.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

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With all of the drama in the media regarding stay at home moms lately, I often ponder my role in the world. I definitely think that I can have an opinion on politics and the world, even if I don’t bring in a paycheck.

And sometimes I do think that it’s the hardest job in the world. Other times, I think I’m downright spoiled.

But, no matter what kind of day it is, I know that the next day will hold something entirely new.

Yesterday, Bean and I were at Costco (she was my adorable helper as we figured out the self-scanner) when I got a phone call. The reporter who interviewed us for the last piece wanted to know if he could come by again. We loved the segment he did last time so we were happy to participate again. However, that meant a change in plans. In the morning, I’d been pulling out drawers and sorting through them and making all sorts of messes. It seemed that now I had to reverse gears and clean. Nothing helps me crisis clean like a deadline and a television camera headed to my house. I succeeded in cleaning the entire middle floor and most of the downstairs before the kids even made it home from school.

The kids were all well-behaved for the reporter and we are looking forward to seeing the piece–I will, of course, share when it airs.. But, it should be a couple weeks.

And as a reward we took them out for dinner & dessert!

And then we crashed.. for a couple hours. V woke up in the middle of the night though. He had a pretty high temp (103.5) so B and I went to work getting it lowered and trying to get him comfortable. And then a couple hours later Maggie decided that it was time for her to be up.

So, that’s where my mind is. Everyday is something new, but it’s all in a day’s work as a parent. Never a dull moment.

V is feeling better this morning and we’ll be off to the pediatrician as soon as he can fit us in. But, we’ll be able to nap in a nice clean house in the meantime 🙂

 

Putting the Pieces Together

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It seems like the more that I *need* to blog, the less that I do.

There are a million things going on with us right now. The other day I e-mailed my mom and on my second page or so I realized that it was too much stuff for just an e-mail and warranted a chat on the phone. Wish I could call some of you to bounce all of this stuff off of, too.

One of the reasons that I haven’t blogged is because this feels more personal somehow. I have shared so much of myself and my family on here already that I cannot imagine it being more personal. But, I think it’s my “mama bear” instinct.

D has been having issues in school. Now, that’s not new. If you’ve ever met him, you know that he is full of energy. From about the first month that he was with us, we knew that there was something going on. But, it’s been a puzzle for us to solve. When he started preschool, he wasn’t well behaved enough to attend the preschool near our home. They suggested he be screened for special needs. Well, just like we knew, there wasn’t anything going on as far as his motor skills and he was right on course academically.

In preschool, we met with the teachers and the mental health side. He’s such a wonderful, caring little boy, but so full of energy. We tried some play therapy at the end of preschool and kept on just tyring to teach him how to manage his own behaviors.

As he entered elementary school, he was up against the same challenge. It’s so obvious to everyone that he wants to do the right thing, but sometimes those impulses are just too much for him.

So, in first grade, we again pursued some behavioral health help and he was formally diagnosed with ADHD. And we were paired with an amazing behavior coach. His coach met with him and with us. He thrived with the extra attention and worked hard to impress his coach. And we learned more tools to work with him, too.

Throughout our parenting journey, we’ve read tons of books and attended classes and have really worked at learning how to be our best.

But, there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer.

D did so well with the behavior coach that the services were closed out after only six months. Throughout this time D has done o.k. in school. He’s always very close with his teachers, he loves school, and is a fun kid. But, homework is a struggle. Sometimes it’s a battle. On a few nights, I have felt like I was in the middle of a war. Both of us have ended up in tears on more than one occasion. So, even though things have been o.k., there’s always been some room for improvement.

As concepts became more difficult, so did the issues with homework. In third grade, D started slipping behind his classmates.

So, back for help we went again. This time we made the difficult choice to medicate him. I am a believer in better living through chemistry, but it’s hard when it’s your kid. I will say it has been a really good choice for him. He’s done better at managing his behaviors and school work is much easier when you’re able to sit still to get through it. We actually were incredibily lucky because we’ve seen no ill side-effects on him. We’ve read and heard stories of kids and adults having to try medication after medication and dose after dose, but we were able to get something that worked right away and have pretty much stuck with it.

Then we threw another wrench in the plan. We moved.

Our new school has some huge positives for a kiddo with ADHD. They have school uniforms, there’s a ton of structure, and there’s modified year round schooling–all of these are really great for kids with ADD/ADHD. However, they’re also about a year ahead of the typical school academically, not so great for a kiddo who was already struggling. On top of that, last year we started to see some alarming things with D’s school work. He was still flipping around some numbers and letters, he couldn’t seem to lock his basic addition and subtraction facts into his memory despite hours and hours of practice.

So, we all ended up seeking more answers. And it has been a very slow process.

Thankfully, we feel like there was a bit of a breakthrough last week! The school district came in and screened him for learning disabilities, issues with his motor skills and speech issues. And the findings were just what we were seeing and feeling at home. He’s doing well in almost every area… but, across the board he had some problems with his short term memory. The school has also told us that these issues are common for kids with ADHD. And the best part in this is that he qualifies for an IEP (Individualized Education Program). Basically, the school will work with him and us to help him be successful in school. We’ve been very fortunate to have teachers since he started school that have been willing to work with us and him. Now, they’ll all have to in the future, too. And, hopefully, with the added help, he’ll continue to learn the skills that he needs to have to cope with ADHD. Because, like it or not, he will have to learn how to manage this.

The next step for us will be learning what else we can do to work with him and the school.

We know that this was just the next little piece to the puzzle. And there’s still hard work ahead for all of us. But, we left the meeting last week, for the first time in awhile, with hope for him to do well at the school he’s currently attending.

Wow! Long post! But, it’s been a lot of little steps to get here. And that’s only one small area of what all has been happening at our home… more to follow soon!

Parental Duties

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O.K. There are some things that you have to do as a parent. You need to feed and clothe and bathe your kids. You have to provide them with shelter and protect them and keep them safe and all that good stuff. And, as we are learning, you have to do a ton to help out with their education…

But, those aren’t the only requirements. After all, just being an adult who is fed and has a home does *not* a good person make.

One of the first ways that we knew that our boys were our boys was hearing our sense of humor mimicked back to us.

At only 2 & 3 they were already learning about pranks and sarcasm and all of that humor that has kept us from killing each other after all of these years.

So, obviously, I think that teaching a kid how to laugh is important… Humor, seriously (pun intended!) is what allowed us to succeed in the crazy world that is foster parenting….

Humor isn’t the only escape that we used though… Daddy, more than I, is a huge movie buff. When we went from 3 kids to 4 (and then from 4 to 5 to 4 to 5 to 4 to 6 and finally back to 4) we realized that we needed help and time. We made a huge effort to have a date night every.single.week. Now, some of those dates ended early so we could sleep. But, movies were an escape for us. A chance to not think about the laundry and work and chaos of daily life.

Teaching the kids our love of the cinema has been about the easiest thing ever. Although, I have to say that their taste leaves something to be desired. Then again, I am a sucker for a romantic comedy… Not just the good ones either, I’ll pretty much watch anything that’s romantic and remotely funny.

The real thought that sparked this post—just like in real life, on my blog, my thoughts wander, too–was music.

When B and I met, I remember him looking at my CD collection (kids, CD’s were what we used before iPods existed) and approving me based on my taste in music. One of my favorite things in the world is a road trip and I love them because they give you hours in a car with music and conversation… What could be better?

We have wanted to pass a passions for music onto our kids as well. But, it’s a challenge… So many songs have questionable (to put it lightly) lyrics. There was a song that was popular when D & D were little called “Smack That”. We convinced them the real lyrics were “Snack Pack” and then started changing what was on the car… One easy solution is country music… The lyrics, most of the time, aren’t as risqué. But, I don’t think that B has ever willingly listened to country without me in the car. So, I remember thinking about oldies. I wanted the kids to listen to the oldies that I did when I was a kid.

But, those oldies are all but gone. They aren’t on the radio anymore… So, we sought them out. Bean’s favorite song used to be “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and all of the kids love the song “Lollipop”. Thanks to the movies, the kids not only love Abba songs, but they can identify the band!

It’s a little more work, but I think it’s worth it to expose the kids to different music. They still love new stuff… And we hear those questionable lyrics still… Nothing quite like hearing your little girl sing, “brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack”… But, I think we’re at least creating a little bit of balance.

Perhaps the band who the kids have had the most exposure to is the Beatles. Big D is far too shy to sing it in front of anyone, but he can sing “Black Birds” very well. All of the kids have been singing “Yellow Submarine” non-stop the last couple of days… And last night the Beatles, in a way, were the big boys’ first concert experience.

Daddy took the boys to see The Fab Faux. Now, I have blogged about this band before.. They copy, to perfection, the recorded sound of the Beatles. And last night was Daddy’s 6th time seeing them. Tonight will be my 3rd. And I will tell you that all of the boys were very happy about last night’s show. I am sure I will feel the same way in a few hours!

And, if you spin things the way I do, we get good parenting points for the exposure!

Hope you all are having a great long weekend!

And, if you get the chance… Check out this site: http://www.thefabfaux.com/wap/

Wha?

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I wish I could get the scanner to work so I could prove that I am not making this up. But, you’ll just have to take my word.

The other day, Bean comes home with some work she did at school, one paper was a little “book” she made called, “My Feelings Book.” And here’s what it says on the inside:

 

I am happy when I get flowers.

I am sad when aliens punch me.

The End.

Shhhhh!

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So, V comes up to me when we’re doing laundry and gestures that he’s zipping his lip and motions that he has to be quiet…

The next time he runs down stairs he makes a deal with me, “O.K., Mom, I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t tell any of the other kids. We’re playing the quiet game and I’m winning because I’m not telling any of them we’re playing.”

The kid is brilliant.

???

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So, I am back to being a slacking blogger.

But, in my defense, I have four kids who are not in school.

Summer is chugging right along. D will be done with summer school in 2 more days & I think that we are all excited about being able to sleep in and not having to rush out the door in the morning.

Flag football didn’t have enough players so the season was cancelled. The littles are playing indoor soccer and it’s a train wreck, but very funny to watch. This week was the first time that B didn’t cry at all.

Whew.

Our days are very full and busy on top of those. Typically they’re full of friends and play and errands.

Tomorrow I plan to have a huge post with pictures and everything! I’ve been growing my hair out to donate for literally years and tomorrow I have the big chop scheduled. I still haven’t decided if I want to go for a shag or a bob, but either way my hair will be much, much shorter tomorrow. And I’m hoping that it will make me cooler. It’s finally cranked up as far as heat here and we’re in the 110+ range. So, of course, our AC is having issues. Ugh. We just add that to the craziness!

Today we have friends over to swim so I’ll try to remember to pull out the camera and share some photos soon.

Hope you’re keeping cool.. and if you have a hair suggestion, send it quickly!

Gotcha!

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So, I know, I *told* you that it’d be awhile because we were moving. And I lied. It has been awhile, but we’re still in the same house. Boxes are piling up around me, but no move has happened. In our new economy, things just don’t go the same way that they used to in the house-buying arena. So, the close of our new home has been delayed.. I hope (well, I know it’s been delayed, I just *hope* it’ll still go through).

Anyhow, it will be o.k. This gives us more time to pack up all of our stuff. Have I mentioned how much stuff we have? We have a lot of stuff! I’ve been plugging right along packing a box or two a day.

In the meantime, we have had a little more excitement. Our little Princess is now 4!

Her birthday was on Sunday, but we just keep the party rolling… We celebrated on Saturday by going to go see Yo Gabba Gabba!

Bean with the Gabba Gang

 Bean Enthralled by the Show

Before Going with Bean in her Mommy-made Foofa Shirt

Then on Sunday we celebrated with cupcakes (Bean is still waiting on a *real* cake.. she might be waiting for awhile) and her Aunt Brandy…

Lots of Helpers

Which brings us to today. Today is another special day. Birth parents get to have the whole 9 months to prepare. They can have a pregnancy journal and a shower and all that sort of stuff. Adoptive parents get a “Gotcha” day! It’s a little controversial in some adoption circles, but for us, with our long waits and uncertain future as foster parents, we choose to celebrate. Today is the day that our little girl came to our home. I believe that I shared the story last year, so I won’t bore you, but it’s pretty cool how quickly she became our daughter. Happy Gotcha Day, Miss Bean! We love you!