Posts from — December 2008

Today, L had his first playdate.  Ever.  In his life.

Turns out, one of his classmates lives on our street – it took forever for me to get hold of the address, but today, we walked down there just so I could introduce myself to the kid’s mom.

His mom was thrilled to find out that her son had a classmate that lived on the same street, and since she volunteer’s in L’s classroom, she already knew him, and L of course knew her and was comfortable with her.

And instead of a simple introduction, she wanted L to stay and play, promising to bring him home in an hour.

I wish you could have seen the smile on L’s face when he was invited in, and then when he got home.

Hurrah for play dates!

Today is our “gotcha day”.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we are not celebrating this day – we’ll celebrate the finalization date instead. But its a significant anniversary nonetheless.

At this very moment, one year ago, M and L flew into our lives.  It was everything we wanted and nothing we expected.  And today, while its easy for me to remember the stress I felt, and imagine the fear they must have felt, I am going to choose to celebrate.  Celebrate their growth as individuals, and our growth as a family.  Celebrate the miracles, large and small.  Celebrate the healing that has occured.

I will never forget the jumble of emotions of that day.  But I will choose to celebrat that on THIS day, the healing began for M and L, and our journey as a family began as well.

A year ago, our M and L’s lives were being turned upside down – and they didn’t know it yet.

The decision had been made by their foster parents and their adoption agency that their foster parents were NOT going to adopt them – yet M and L still thought they were already in their “forever family”.

The decision had been made for M and L to move to our home – but M and L had no idea who we were.

The therapist was planning to tell them the bad news – they thought they were just going to therapy.

Their sister thought they would be together forever – she didn’t know she was about to see them only a few times a year.

The 21st is our “gotcha day”.  In many fost-adopt families, this is a happy day.  The kids have been waiting in placement, waiting for their forever family.  And when they move into their new house – even though there’s still a ton of issues to work out – there is a sense that they are finally “home”.

Not in our family.  In our situation, M and L had 24 hours notice they were moving (there’s a lot of good reasons for that, too lengthy to discuss here).  Can you imagine what that was like for them?  Going from thinking they were “home” to being told they were getting a new family?  Imagine if that happened to you, right now.  Seriously, try to  imagine a social worker telling you that your current family just isn’t working out, and tomorrow, you’re getting a new one.  As crazy as that situation would be, at least as adults, we have learned ways of coping.  Now imagine you’re 5 and 6 – how do you cope with this sudden change?

One year ago, M and L’s lives were turned upside down.  And as much as I love them, as much as I thank God daily that I get to be their mom, I must never forget what they went through to become my kids.

When we began the process of fost-adopt, we first told our families our plans.  We weren’t asking permission, just letting them know what to expect.  We were as honest as possible about what they could expect (and not expect), making sure they understood that older child adoption was NOT a bed of roses.

Fast forward to today.  Our family has exceeded every hope we had when it comes to accepting our children.  As far as they’re concerned, they are as much a part of the family as my nephew (birth child of my brother).  You might be thinking “well duh!  YOU’RE adopted, so don’t you think they already get it?”  Yes and No.  Because I was adopted as a perfectly healthy infant – I was six weeks old – and was adopted during a time when you just didn’t talk about adoption.  Our kids were much older (5 and 6), and came to us with a significant – mostly negative – history.

The biggest surprise has been my mom.  She came up for a visit this weekend, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  She helped L read – and was so patient and clever in how she helped him.  She also helped L prepare for his poetry recital, even teaching him about projecting his voice – again, showing tremendous patience.  Later, I overheard her having a conversation with M about M’s sister E – and sharing how she (grandma) too misses her sister, but loves visiting her.

I don’t remember this woman.  I was pretty independent as a kid, so never really needed my parents help with school – so watching her help L with his work was a revelation.  And she was never one to talk about my adoption with her friends – I think most of her friends don’t even know! – so watching her talk about the difficulties M was having missing her sister was heartwarming.

I am so blessed to be be able to see this side of my mom.  And my kids are so blessed to have her in their lives.

On Friday, we went to the home of some good friends, enjoyed some pizza and cookies, and watched the kids exchange gifts.  It was a night filled with laughter, and the sounds of children playing.  After much fun, we left at about 8:45, got the kids home, and tucked them into bed.

Insert sounds of the Hallelujah chorus here.

You see, whenever we take the whole family out, we usually have to leave no later than 7:30, because that’s the time that M and L begin to lose it.  And by “lose it”, I mean, they start crying, yelling, hitting, stealing, whatever.  Their normal bedtime is 7:00 (yes, I know that seems early, but there’s good reason for it, which I might cover in another post), and anytime after that, things get iffy.

The fact that they were able to stay up almost two hours past their bedtime, and have absolutely no signs of a meltdown, is just amazing to us.  J and I sat there after we got home, just overjoyed.

When dealing with older child adoption, especially fost-adopt, you’re trained to expect the worst.  And when that happens, your idea of “miracles” changes from feeding the 5,000 with 7 loaves of bread, to something more like enjoying an additional two hours at a friends home.  And each small miracle is just as meaningful and important as any large one!

Oy.  Its 9am, and I’m exhausted.  Why?  Because our daughter, M, had another of her morning meltdowns.

I’ve said this before, but please don’t confuse a meltdown with your standard temper tantrum.  M woke up crying.  She drooled.  She screamed.  She refused to get dressed for school, and when we tried to put her clothes on her ourselves, she kicked them off.  This went on for a full hour.  I ended up taking her to school without her having had any breakfast, or brushing her teeth.

And she’s had 4 of these in the last 7 school days.

So here’s the question – do we push her to get ready (after all, my husband and I do have to go to work, and she does have to go to school), or do we let the meltdown run its course.  Thing is, I don’t know how long that course is!  Would she go on forever?  And does she need the reality check of being forced to get ready?

And another question – how do we force her to get ready?  Clearly, we can’t dress her when she’s like this.  I don’t want to spank her – and even if we did, I don’t think that would help.  Do we take toys away?  Do we give her a consequence when she gets home from school, or is that too far away from the time of the incident?

Do we do the reverse, and basically bribe her to get ready (with nickels, treats, toys, other rewards?).  Yes, its bribery, but is it more important to snap her out of the meltdown, or be “right”?  If we bribe her for getting ready, do we do the same with her brother?

I know, its our crazy season, so I should expect more of these, but still, there’s GOT to be a way to manage them better.

As I’ve discussed before, L is on psychotropic meds.  The latest cocktail (Focalin, Risperdall, Depakote) has been working pretty well, especially the Focalin, which is for his ADHD.  He’s finally able to manage the school day successfully, which is just awesome on so many levels.

Well, the psych has been pushing to take L off the Risperdall, as there just isn’t as much long term data on it.  And, our overall goal is to get him off both the Risperdall and Depakote (his ADHD will probably require long term treatment).

We took L off the Risperdall about 10 days ago.  At first, we thought everything was going great.  But now, we just don’t know anymore.  The last few nights have been really rough.  It almost looks like a form of bipolar – one minute, he’s giddy, the next minute, he’s sobbing.  Last night, the meltdown occured because I told him to close the refrigerator door.  Seriously.

But here’s the thing – is this change in behavior really due to going off the Risperdall?  Or is it because its our crazy season?  Or is it because its the holidays?  Or something else entirely?  And if it is the Risperdall, is it time for him to learn to manage these emotions anyway?  Or is it too soon?

Psychotropic meds are so hard to manage.  Its part science, part art.  And often leaves one with more questions than answers.