Door Alarms, Pee, and Tantrums, Oh My

I was in denial! I thought our little RADling was having a pretty good run until this last week. I knew starting Kindergarten would set her back a ways, but I was unprepared for how it would affect her and the rest of our family as well. It has affected EVERYONE!

Lets begin at the beginning. Miss P was having a good first week at school, and even a pretty good second week. This last week she let it ALL hang out! She started last week with the usual pee/hygiene issues. We try not to let those get to us for the most part, but come on, after a while you just start to lose it! By the weekend it had progressed from hygiene to flat out peeing in her bed and sitting in it for hours- on purpose people. She woke up early and decided to pee her clothes and bed... while wearing a pull-up! But, I'm getting ahead of myself. On Thursday, I went to get her from her room time after school, and looked around to see quite a few things in her room that did not belong to her, most of them chewed beyond repair. I asked about them, and of course, received a lie. "They were here when I got home" ummmm... yeah, sure they were! Some time later, I got what I believe is the truth. She was sneaking out of her room at night, taking toys from the play room, and hiding them in her room to chew on later. This after her clogging the toilet with toilet paper in the middle of the night. When asked why she thought it was ok for her to get up in the middle of the night, she replied...

"I heard the bath water, so you and daddy were in the bath" (Yes, we bathe together most nights, it's our only time alone all day). Upon further investigation, she has been getting up most nights to do who knows what! And better still she had been pack ratting all kinds of things under her dresser that didn't belong to her! So off I went to get an alarm for her door. I thought we had a better handle on things than we do. I was wrong. One of the first things I read when I figured out Miss P had RAD was to get a door alarm. Silly me, I thought that was just for the serious hard core kids... guess I was way off base. I took all of the things she could destroy away, and left her with a few very basic toys. I feel like such a meanie! So, by Sunday morning when she peed the bed and laid/wallowed in it, and told me it was because she was too scared to open her door and go to the bathroom... let me tell you I just. about. LOST IT! Just in case you are wondering, I have ALL the kids pee before they go to bed, and we get nothing to drink after 8 o'clock. She had peed, by my estimation of the dampness of her bed and clothes, around 3 hours earlier... WAAAY before she usually gets up and has to pee! I know for alot of you this is TMI, but if it helps some of you out there understand where we are, then so be it.



To add to this little gem of a week, Lil C is going through a really tough adjustment period. He has started Pre-K two days a week and is going with us to Co-op on Fridays. He is very unsure about being away from me so often. Sadly, that usually means when he is around me, I get beat up on, whined at, and generally abused. He has been so very hard to take this last two weeks. I know it sounds like the usual three year old stuff, but if you could see the loathing in his eyes, you would know different. I spend most of my time with him trying to hold and comfort him while he rails against me and whines that he wants me at the same time. All the while, he is trying to throw himself on the floor and pitch a tantrum. His little brain is so conflicted. His impulse control is almost nothing these days, little people have been flying in all directions, so we mostly duck and cover! It's crazy!



And poor A2 is not handling these transitions much better, although, he is coming back around the bend much faster than we expected. He misses his little brother and sister dearly when they are gone. He mopes around here like a lost ghost. Unfortunately he has headed back down the familiar path of telling you what he thinks you want to hear anytime you ask him a question. That usually leads to lies and fabrications on his part, and much gnashing of the teeth on his parents part. I have been distracting him with lots of new school work, and he seems to be coming through it, so we're just keeping our fingers crossed.



So, now you know, and knowing is half the battle! Just so you know, this week is starting out a little better so far. No major tantrums and no PEEEEEE! Yea me!

I missed you... and a REAL hug

For those of you who aren't well versed in RAD, Let me give you a little back ground. Miss P has been with us for over two years now, and I can count on two hands the times she has given me a sincere hug. I can count even fewer times that she has displayed a true REAL emotion besides hurt and anger towards myself or Big Daddy. Don't get me wrong, she pretends quite a few emotions, like sorrow, joy, happiness, but rarely are they REAL emotions. They are usually what she thinks you want to hear. BUT TODAY I GOT BOTH!!!!!!! And they were so very real!


Miss P started kindergarten last week. This was a choice that we put a lot of prayer and thought into. Today when she came home from school, I was just cleaning up and she walked right up to me, put her arms around me, and squeezed like no body's business. Not a shrug hug, not a creepy hug, not a stiff hug, she melted into me and REALLY hugged me. And then the impossible happened... she said "I missed you today mommy" in a real voice, with real emotion, and I was able to tell her I missed her too, because I HAVE missed her. Not the crazy Rad induced her, but the real her that I get to see so very rarely.

And then it happened... I felt it, and I cried. I cried so hard I had to leave the room. I cried so hard my kids asked if I was OK. I laughed and told them they were happy tears! I've been doing the happy crying dance all evening. The Lord has blessed us richly indeed! Funny how the hardest kid to love, brings me to tears with the sudden realization that all our hard work to show her love is finally paying off!

She then asked if she could sit with me through our Family Movie Night. And she did, and it was REAL, not stiff and weird! I'm not saying we're out of the woods, but it's nice to see a little progress once in a while. I'm hoping for a few more good days before we have a back slide. I know it's coming. I'm not a pessimist, this is progress, but with progress most of the time we regress a little after. I'm holding tight to the light God shined upon me today through that little blessing. It's going to get me through the darkness!


Lori

RAD kids

Ok, so I may be a bit slow, but I've come to the realization that I have two kiddos that are stuggling with Reactive Attachment Disorder. My youngest daughter is the most affected, but my oldest son is also working towards healing. When we started on this journey, I was blissfully unaware that my beautiful children were not mentally healthy. I fought that idea tooth and nail. I wanted "normal" kids who functioned without issue. I still fight the idea that my kids are not fully integrated into our family, and can't trust us or recieve love. It seems so unjust that after surviving the atrocities of their infancy and toddlerhood, and going through the uncertainty of being in a group foster home, that they cannot allow themselves to be loved by us. Especially when we have so much love to give them. I am working on getting a therapist that understands reactive attachment as well as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and has a real plan for dealing with these issues. Currently I am just trying to deal day to day in the stuggle to give love to all my little herdlings in a way they can process. Even my Bio kids need love in different ways. So for now this momma is feeling stretched, pulled and downright torn by all the needs my kids have for me.

A Little History

We started out like any other family, a husband and a wife who desired to have a boy and a girl. Long before they were born, our future children were named... Aubrey* and Zachary. The beginning and the end, A to Z. We had a plan! Ok, so we were young, and thought we controlled the universe, but we had a plan!

Fast forward a little, we were on our way to achieving the Grand Plan. I was pregnant(and monstrously huge) with our first child. A girl! All was going according to plan so far. Aubrey was born and turned out to be the poster child for Lactose Intolerance. She was a screaming little bundle of... well, joy I guess. We were tired and very, very unnerved, but we figured it's like the saying goes, if the first one is hard, the second one will be a breeze. Fast forward another two years or so, and MAN we were right on track! I was pregnant with our second child, who just so happened to be extremely modest in utero. But we were confidant in our plan! We planned on Zachary completing our little family soon before the purchase of our "castle" as little Aubrey liked to call it. Up until two weeks before the arrival of our little bundle we were positive it was our little Zachary. Well, as you can imagine, we were shocked to find our precious plans thwarted by a precious little girl.

She was named Laura*, and she was perfect in every way... until we brought her home! With that stellar combination of my digestive system and her daddy's temper, we were in for a wild ride! Where was that fabled "easy" child? Little did we know, that for us, that child would not exist! Both the girls finally leveled out about the one year mark, but well before that, we had decided that we did not want any more of our own "spawn". My husband gallantly decided to go "under the knife", and our plan was put aside for good, or so we thought.

We had talked on and off about adoption for years, even before we were married. We still wanted our Zachary, but weren't quite ready to admit that our family was not complete. Time passed, and we became very comfortable in our little life. But God had MUCH bigger plans for us than we had dreamed up for ourselves. He had to do some serious legwork to accomplish it all, including financial ruin, the loss of our "castle", a house fire when we were on the brink of financial recovery, and finally, living in a two bedroom apartment with two beautiful little girls for one year. Aubrey and Laura were both happy and well adjusted 6 and 9 year olds when we moved into a home of our own again. The house was exactly what we had asked God for down to the size of the backyard and layout of the house. The drapes even matched our furniture!

We had started the adoption process back before the house fire, in fact we were in line for our home study when it occurred. The fire obviously put things off a bit, but now, we were ready to start again. A year passed and we were well on our way to actually fulfilling our dream. Little Zachary here we come! During the process, we had been asking our small group to pray for patience for us, as the process is long and taxing. The last day of the home study was upon us, and we passed with flying colors. Our case worker presented us with a few options at the end. We had said previously that we were open to a sibling group of two boys( I kept telling my wonderful husband that that may not be what God had in store for us!)and she told us she did have a sibling group, but that it was a boy and a girl. She let us know that she had been thinking all along that these two had been a good choice for our family. We discussed it a bit more and my husband asked their names... in hopes of the boy being a Zach ;). And that's when God began to REALLY work in our lives. She said " Their names are Andrie* and Patience". UUUUMMMMMM Seriously!? We had a quick conference and it was decided, we had prayed specifically for patience and we got... wait for it... Patience!

So I'm guessing you're looking at our picture and thinking to yourself, "but there are 5 children in that picture, you've only got 4 so far!" Yep, you're very observant. Six months into the foster to adopt process, we got the call. Our case worker asked us to take an eleven month old little boy for two weeks until they could find a permanent foster placement for him. We had another little conference, and decided that if God wanted us to take care of his children, that meant all of them He thought we could handle. Boy were we in for another wild ride! Carden* arrived 2 hours later, followed by a truck full of baby stuff(we had nothing in the way of baby needs). He was cranky, and we later found out he had an ear infection, developmentally delayed by about 5 months, and well, he was a baby! We told the case worker that we would happily give him back when the time came, but GOD had other plans as usual. We were told he could stay with us if we chose, and the time came to choose. The day we had to decide, my husband asked God to help him with his choice. That day, he was the PERFECT child, no tantrums, sweet and loving, I mean PERFECT! Rewind a little bit, Earlier in the week I was praying about little Carden. God frequently speaks to me during these sessions and that day was a real eye opener.

He said "He is my gift to you",
I asked "what's the return policy?"
Silence... dead Silence.
"So how long is this gift going to last"
"For a time" -God

Really??? More specific PLEASE! God didn't say another word! I spoke with Him again and told Him if He wanted this to happen, then He needed to change my huband's heart, because I wasn't going to be the one to push it. Lesson for those of you considering adoption, or even having kids of your own... If you aren't both on board, don't do it, it will end in heartbreak for all those involved,especially the child. So back to hubby's decision. Well, lets just say his heart turned to pudding and little Carden got to stay. We struggled with it frequently, and just had to keep trusting that God knew the path ahead far better than we did.

We still stuggle. We still have hard days. After two and a half years, there are many days when we question if God has the right parents for this job. They are all legally ours, and we are working daily to stay on the path God has set before us.

The posts you read here after will detail each of our childrens stuggles as well as our own to learn to be the family God has planned for us. We're still waiting on Zachary, wondering if he's out there waiting on us, or even waiting to be born. We're just waiting on God's timing.

* some names changed to protect our little herdlings from being found...