Friday 24 February 2012

Archived Post 2012 - Subtle... Well one of them is.

Kevin is healing, he is a great kid who has worked so hard to overcome his early trauma but lately he has begun to slide into old behaviour patterns. Yes I know that the behaviours are because he is worried and stressed about all that is going on in our lives. His concern over the impending changes in our family are subtle, so subtle in fact that you might not even notice them if you were not with him on a daily basis, but I am and he is starting to drive me over the edge. Let me rephrase that, he has driven me over the edge but I think I can climb back up with the help of a few deep breaths, a bottle of white and friends who get it.

He does little things like refuses to eat or hides half eaten food, he accuses his brother of looking at him or of thinking mean thoughts about him. You know, cause he can totally read his brothers mind. On their own each of things is small but when put together they start to add up and I am slowly going crazy with his antics.

On the bright side, he is not raging or actively trying to hurt anyone so I do have something to be grateful for because I do not miss the raging boy at all and this is so much easier than dealing with that.

Randall on the other hand is little less subtle, instead he is just clingy, he follows me around the house like a lost puppy wanting to be in the same room as me at all times and as much as I love the boy having him act like a second shadow is getting old really fast. He is way less subtle than his brother when he expresses himself and freaks out if anyone gets an ounce more attention than he does. He is concerned about adding Kate means for his relationship with Jack and frequently tells me that Jack needs to work less so that Fudge can see him more often. He told me last week that sisters are to much work and that he would rather have a brother cause little brothers are better and why on earth did I choose a girl. There is no reasoning with him, so I just acknowledged his feelings and moved on. But the poor kid is really having a hard time.

It is a bit crazy around here right now, I started this post yesterday and then all hell broke loose ( everyone is fine) but we had 2 boys and 1 young adult all having meltdowns ( one of which was life altering sort of meltdown)  and in the midst of all that another friend called to say that a friend is having a midlife crisis. A midlife crisis that might mean I have to do something I would not want to do... all of that made this post feel a bit pointless cause yesterday there was nothing SUBTLE about anyones behaviour. 

Friday 3 February 2012

Archived Post 2012 - More transitions

I am sitting here listening to my boys yell and holler as they try to get our dogs out into the pen for the day. They do it every morning and some days it is really amusing just to sit back and listen to them banter with one another and the dogs. They are a bit like a clown troop in a circus and it frequently involves lots of spilled water and a cat who tried to get in the way. This morning they are particularly excited because they are meeting Kate tonight.

Transitioning Kate to our family is a complicated process because of her issues and the fact she lives 5 hours away. Jack has that funny work thing during the week and the boys have school and so that means we can only go there on weekends. Her foster parents ( who are fabulous) are both teachers and they have to do that funny working thing as well, so it means that they can only come here on weekends as well.. All of that means that this transition process is going to be long. We transitioned the boys in 2 weeks, which in many ways was not long enough but we saw them almost everyday for those 2 weeks.

Starting last week and for the next 5 weeks, our lives be a mix of some combination of us coming and going in order to make sure that we see Kate every week till she moves here in March. As frustrating as it is for us, the adults, I can not even begin to imagine how hard it is for her. The boys are bigger, have healed more and can understand the process but she is 6 ( her birthday was yesterday) and the planning of all this coming and going has her expressing a lot of mixed emotions and even though she is a bright and articulate little girl it is pretty confusing.

So today we go back with the boys in tow ( they are excited, which makes me happy) to spend the weekend with our daughter so that she can get to know us all a little better before she moves here
and all hell breaks loose, she is stuck with us, and finally knows that she is not going to move again. I have no fantasies about this transition being an easy one, or that the move will go smoothly but I do know that this is going to be a whole lot different than our last adoption because there is little that princess can do that we have not already got the t-shirt for. We have a lot of been there, done that t-shirts, the boys made sure of that!