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I just wanted to share with all of you that Leona has just mentioned that she would rather have stayed at the mission (the orphanage she came from). WHY??? In her own words, "It was easier to make them mad than here(apparently we are doing a pretty good job of hiding our irritation!) and they did not give me hugs and kisses." Pretty sad, huh? Oh, did I mention that I giggled when she said this and she burst into tears? |
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Well, I heard the "I love you" again. Twice before bed she gave me a hug and said "I love you, Mom." I think we're really in for it now-please pray! |
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I'm so new to this concept of attachment problems that I'm really not sure what progress is! I do know that it seems there has been progress in some areas. In fact, two weeks ago, she ran to me and gave me a hug and said "I love you, Mom!" I have NEVER heard those words come out of her mouth before! Now, anyone that has a child with attachment disorder can guess what happened next: a lot of days of bad behavior! And I got so exhausted from those days, I just wanted to QUIT!! But we got through it, with the Lord's help. And she is now back to some pretty good days. There is always some silly thing she does each day...some things worse than others. And she has even said a few times (to make up for her "I love you" slip), that she, in fact, DOES NOT love me!! She tends to seek negative consequences from me, so she can think I am a "mean" mom. It's been a real challenge for me to balance some consequences with doing nice things for her "because I love her". She also seeks things which she can control. For instance, in our house, if you don't eat your food, you get it for the next meal and you don't get to have dessert and lots of times Mom gives you more of what you don't like (see last year's post about BOOT CAMP). This was a big thing for her the past week. She decided to try the "refusal to eat" trick which I hadn't seen in a LONG time! This was something she could control. So I had to rethink my normal "consequences". I won't bore you with all the details...I just began to vary the consequences so she could not be in control. It worked great and she is back to eating normally. Consistency is not so good for a kiddo who seeks control...they learn to manipulate that way. Weird, huh? Normally, being INCONSISTENT is NOT a good way to parent! But weird is the new normal here! We have done some of the weirdest things to make sure she thinks we aren't bothered by some of her behaviors (even though we are bothered!).....screaming contests, bad manners meals, burping contests, etc. On another note, the kids have decided that our next vehicle should be a bus. Just last week, Josephine told me that we should get a big yellow bus. So I did find a smaller one-it's even yellow, complete with the stop sign and flashing lights. All the kids wanted to go look at it right away. You know your family is getting big if your kids start begging for a school bus! Seriously though, we are considering a shuttle-bus type vehicle, just not yellow! School is finally over and I am trying to get the portfolios ready for the eval. It's taking a loooong time! I guess that is because I find other things to do (like blogging) when I have time to work on it! Thanks so much for keeping us in your prayers over the past few months. We can't tell you how much we appreciate this. It has been a very difficult time for our family. We are excited to see what we think is some progress but I do have to say that yesterday was one of the worst we've had for a while. She just could not snap out of her bad mood and it just escalated (into pooping in her pee bucket in her room and then wetting in her pants while she was cleaning the bucket-YIKES!). Later, I was able to have a nice talk with her before bedtime and her anger was resolved. So keep those prayers coming! Have a great night! |
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Friday and Saturday Leona had 2 days of backsliding with the wetting issue. Today she was dry again. But I have not had to "hold" her while she is letting her anger out since Wednesday. She is enjoying more privileges and our home seems slightly more relaxed as compared with Jan.-March. I have given her a few privileges that she didn't earn "just because I love her". I've had a few emails asking what to do about those annoying behaviors....well, being so new at this, I don't feel qualified to answer that question but I will tell you some things we have done that seem to help. For example, yesterday I told her she should come in to the kitchen from the dining room and she just stayed at the table. I was pretty sure she heard me. When I told her to go to the kitchen, I was on my way to do something quick. When I got back into the kitchen, I said "Oh, I see you aren't obeying today (you have to say it nicely, without irritation!)". She said "What, I didn't hear you!", I said "Yes you did!", She said "No, I didn't, if I would have heard you, I would have come in there!" (Yes, she really thinks I am that dumb!!). So I calmly told her that it seemed like her ears needed some exercise so she could hear better so I would give her an extra 5 minutes of running to help her ears hear. I make her do 10 minutes of running and 10 minutes of jumping on a mini-trampoline each day to help tire her out because she doesn't sleep well. A few months back, I would've second guessed myself and thought that maybe she really didn't hear me but, now, I know better. She can be very convincing. But, this is just another one of her controlling behaviors. Today, it seems that she "forgot" how to stay on the trampoline and "fell" off twice in the span of 10 minutes (she's been doing this for a month now and has never fallen off). I gave her an extra 5 minutes of jumping to "practice" not falling off. If she does not want to do her running, I give her the option of doing "bad running" for 30 minutes or "good running" for 10 minutes. Usually, when she "forgets" something it is just an act. Like when in the last row of her math work, she suddenly "forgets" how to do the work. If I circle the problems she has wrong, she might do something like changing the answers on all the ones that aren't circled. The first few months she was home, I actually believed that she truly was struggling to learn. She does have a visual disability and nystagmus (her eyes move quickly back and forth due to her albinism) and I thought this was part of it. I now know better! I quit the battle with the schoolwork by telling her I didn't think she was ready for school and I would let her know when I thought she was. I don't think this is the best option but I could do it because, in our state, she doesn't have to be registered for homeschool until age 8. I have since realized that I need to start working with her again and take her control away in this area also. I will probably be doing some summer school with her. Courtney, the mom I gave a link to in my previous post, says if they want to battle like this during school or even for chores (scrubbing the same spot for hours, refusing to work etc.) that you should just tell them you will do the work for them because you love them so much. This REALLY works. BUT, believe me, this is the last thing you will feel like doing!! I still get irritated (but I don't let it show!). If you let irritation show, they are winning! At first, we used many ideas in the Nancy Thomas book (When Love is Not Enough) but I can honestly say they did not work as well for us as Courtney's idea does. Some things, in the Nancy Thomas book did work well for us. Such as giving Leona "practice time" for annoying habits. Like burping, slobbering, sticking her tongue out, repeating certain words A LOT etc. I told her "Oh, I see you have a new hobby, I want you to get really good at it so I will give you 15 minutes outside (or in your room) to practice it." This has stopped most of the annoying behaviors pretty quickly. It even worked temporarily for peeing her pants. I gave her 15 minutes to stand in the bathtub or outside and pee her pants so she could get really good at it. She never did pee at "pee practice time". One thing in the Nancy Thomas book that really didn't work was the idea of earning certain privileges. She did not care at all and did not want any privileges. She only wanted to make us mad! So, I started giving her some unexpected privileges and telling her that I did it because I love her. This really causes her to have a downward spiral sometimes but she is getting better at handling "fun". The most recent battle we took care of was her hair. When I did her hair, it was sure to be wet with pee. So I only did it occasionally. Last week, she purposely lost the new hairband I gave her and so I told her "Oh, I see you didn't want those braids in, I will take them out for you, It's OK." Eric decided she should get a hair cut which I thought was a good idea but I didn't want it to seem mean and make her look goofy. We did eventually decide that the haircut was the best option. So, Eric shaved her hair to 1/2 inch. She was mad at first but then asked me if I ever saw any girls with short hair. I told her I did and she got over her anger pretty quickly. We did this in love, telling her that we wanted to help make it easier for her to take care of her hair. Motherhood does take quite a bit of self-control sometimes. Not only with Leona but also with our biological kids. Two nights ago, Ian was sick with a stomach virus. He came downstairs and told me that everything he touched felt funny (strangely enough, I actually think I have heard one of my other kids say that before but I wasn't prepared for his next statement...)and my mouth feels really big. It took all the self-control I had to hold in my laughter over that one! I quickly got him a drink and put him back to bed so I could roll on the floor laughing. After all, a merry heart doeth good like medicine! Have a great day! |
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The title of this post contains actual words that came out of Leona's mouth on Monday (she was not talking to me..I just overheard!). It is truly a miracle that she is beginning to think this. I tell her this almost every night and every time I need to "hold" her while she lets out her anger. Usually while she is "letting it out", it includes insulting me, calling me a liar and a mean Mom and telling me how much she doesn't like me! Later in the day, after she said the above words, she made herself vomit (new trick!) and then had much anger to let out. She has been slowly improving but has made a large leap that I am hoping will last. I think I mentioned that we put a door alarm on her room and she had to wait to be let out to use the bathroom. I know this made her very angry that she had to wait and she wet her bed almost every morning before I came in. We tried using diapers but she just wet through them (she pees very fast and it leaks out before soaking in). I decided to give her a 5 gal. bucket with a lid to use to pee in her room if she wanted. She has been using it every day...which means DRY clothes and bed!! YAY!! She is very happy about it and so are we. In fact, she was so happy that she just couldn't calm herself down for a few days. She was very annoying! But annoying in a way that I haven't seen for a while! I did have to send her outside to practice some new habits she acquired in her "happiness" like saying the word "bummer" every 2 minutes, slobbering, and sticking her tounge out. Thankfully, she decided she didn't want to fully develop these new habits, and chose instead to dance in the yard and forget about them. Which brings me to the real reason I wanted to post! I know many of my posts have probably been portraying adoption in a mostly negative light which I don't mean at all to do. I really think adoption is a wonderful thing-it has taught me many things and given me a little bit better understanding of God's unconditional love, But it hasn't been easy! I think every adoptive parent should know this! At first, I thought "Oh they're just kids, how hard can it be-I mean we have 8 biological kids(well, 7 at the time)?" Well, it can be hard! The bond is definitely not the same as it is for your biological children. I wasn't prepared for it to be so different! I certainly wasn't prepared to have a child who would try ANYTHING to make sure I don't love her! This ANYTHING included: wetting her pants and lying (which were the ones that really got me!), but it also included some of the dumbest things you would never think of! It did begin with chewing a huge mouthful of food for a LONG time and refusing to eat. At the time, I thought she was just copying my picky eater (he didn't chew forever though). She would do many other little, yet irritating, things too. Like "forgetting" how to button her shirt, zip her coat or sweater, buckle her seat belt, how to do the math school work she had been doing for weeks or months, how to write her letters, how to put her clothes on facing the right way, how to put her shoes on, how to open the door, and how to do her chore that she had been doing fine for a while. She also farted (sorry if anyone is offended by that!) A LOT! And picked her nose and ate it. Now, imagine this if you will.....your biological child is doing something irritating...we'll just use the picking your nose and eating it example, you get grossed out and say something like "That is so gross, stop it!". So they stop and may even say a half-hearted "sorry". Picture the same scenario with some adopted children (who have attachment issues)...only what they will do (instead of stopping) is make sure that they do it 10 times more to irritate you!! That is their goal, to irritate you and make you angry so they can be in control--they want to be in control! No one who hasn't been through will understand either. People will think you are crazy...perhaps even your husband because Mom's are usually the target. Their old Mom gave them away and they are MAD and the new Mom gets to pay for it!! If you have an adopted child who does any of the above things, think attachment problems! We wasted months thinking it was just really weird kid behaviors and disciplined her for some of the things she was doing. This just made it worse....don't waste that precious time. Start now! Take the control away from them so they can start to heal. When you do, it will get worse, but then it will get better a little bit at a time. And you will hear them say "Mom is keeping me forever and she's not going to send me away." I've recently had the privilege of talking with a mom named Courtney who has been through attachment problems and her children have healed. I am so thankful for her suggestions and encouragement. Her blog is at http://storinguptreasuresinheaven.blogspot.com/. She feels the Lord is leading her to help struggling families like us! Thank you again for your prayers! Have a great evening! |
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Well, I didn't get to write the update I wanted to exactly WHEN I wanted to! Life around here is never boring and I don't get to the computer much! A few days before my last post, we had a small breakthrough with Leona. In short, she admitted that all the naughty things she was doing were because she didn't want anyone to love her. It went something like this: Leona,(in a very loud crying voice)," I DON'T WANT NOBODY TO LOVE ME, I DON'T WANT YOUR GUYS TO LOVE ME OR NOBODY TO LOVE ME!!"(excuse the bad grammar!) Me: "Oh so that's why you've been doing all these naughty things.....?" Leona: " Yep, 'cause I don't want nobody to love me." After this, we had 2 VERY BAD days and then we actually had a string of 4 really good days. Now it's mostly ups and downs. One thing that I have noticed is there are some things she is obeying about. Such as, I asked her to spread the rag out over the bucket when she was done cleaning so it doesn't start to smell bad and she has done this EVERY time without exception. Although, this seems small, it's actually a big improvement since most times when I asked her to do something, she did the EXACT opposite. For instance, if I asked her to scrub a certain spot on the floor, she would scrub every place BUT that spot!! On the other hand, we've also had a few more days where she needed restraining so she didn't break a window or something. We also installed a door alarm on her room because she had been making threats, mostly to do "something naughty" but also to "run away down the street". I am thankful that I will know if she leaves her room (she only tested this once during the day). She is not happy about it at night and has decided to give up the wetting during the day in favor of wetting in the morning so she can blame me for not getting there soon enough to let her go pee. Well, that was until 2 days ago, when she admitted that she was wetting in her bed on purpose (um, no suprise!!-my older daughter said she wet each morning a few minutes before I went in! She would hear Bekah move around in her bed and then...the flood would begin!). It was actually kind of amusing how she admitted this-I even got some of it on video! I went into her room where she had been scrubbing to make the room clean and fresh smelling. She had missed 2 large areas of the floor (on purpose to make me mad!). I went in and told her that, because I love her, I was going to scrub those 2 spots she missed. She was mad! She said I was a mean Mom! I said "Why, because you didn't make me mad??!" She got very agitated (but amazingly she wasn't screaming!) and said "Yeah, I been trying really hard to do all these things to make you mad so you don't love me and it's not working!" "I peed in my bed for 25 days and it isnt' even working cause you won't stop (loving her!)" I didn't have the camera on at first so the part we recorded was more me asking her questions and her answering them in the same way! It's very eye opening to watch. Imagine, feeling like you need to try SO hard to make people NOT love you! A few days prior to that, I helped her get a bath (ater she wet-I usually don't help her clean up at all) and told her I'd do it because I love her. She screamed and cried at the top of her lungs "I DON'T WANT A MOM TO LOVE ME!" over and over for the whole bath. Each night, we have cuddle time. At first, she did not like this at all. I think she actually likes it now although I don't know if she would admit it! At first, when we tried this new approach to her attachement issues, she was VERY ANGRY, treating the other children very mean. She doesn't have many privileges right now and I don't allow her to play with the smaller kids unless she is supervised. I make all her decisions for her-what she eats, what she wears, what she does and when she does it. Kind of like you do for a baby or toddler. She has no toys or clothes in her possession, I keep them all and give them to her when she is allowed to use them. The only thing she has are her glasses and a hairband and she has tried multiple times to break the glasses! She needs this control placed on her so she can feel that she is safe and we will take care of her. We are praying that will happen soon and that the Lord would heal her heart and allow her to receive, and eventually give, love. We are grateful to have many people praying for us and we go through this challenge. I do need to add a story about Josephine here because I think it's pretty amazing (and completely opposite of Leona). She made a picture with everyone in the family's name on it and wrote "love" underneath all the names (she has never signed "i love you" in return, although we sign it to her every night) How sweet! Have a great evening!!
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For a change, I am going to write about something other than Leona! But keep those prayers coming on her behalf (and ours)-we may have had a bit of a breakthrough. At this point, I think it's too early to tell so I will fill in the details in a few days! Today, I am writing about some awesome alternatives to cable TV and all those movies that you want to watch but...well, they just aren't appropriate. A few years back, we decided to cancel our cable TV. We found a wonderful alternative to it called Sky Angel, which at that time was a satellite based company with Christian programming. They have since turned into IPTV-Internet TV, brought to you through your cable modem. They offer 2 different packages, a faith package for 14.99 per month which includes about 30 TV channels and 20 radio channels and a family package for 19.99 per month which includes channels like Fox news, Hallmark, Discovery and a few sports channels. You can get both packages together for 24.99 per month. This is a wonderful alternative to mainstream TV with many Christian channels. I still need to tell the kids they can't watch certain things and I don't really like the evolution viewpoint presented on Discovery channel but it is FAR better than what we had with cable. There are many good creation science shows on also and many Christian movies and worshp services. It has been a blessing to our family. Find out more at www.skyangel.com. A few years ago, we rented edited DVD's but the companies are no longer allowed to edit the movies because they got sued. Now, there is a great alternative called Clear Play. We got one of these for Christmas and it is great! It's a DVD player that filters the movies while you watch them. See more at www.clearplay.com . You download the filters onto a USB stick and plug it into the DVD player. It's great! Of course, even with the filtering, some movies still aren't appropriate for children (or even adults for that matter!). We all joked about how some movies would probably be only about 15 minutes long when all the "bad" things were cut out! |
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Well, today Leona had her first WHOLE good day. From what we've been experiencing the past few months, it is a miracle that we are very thankful for. She has had a few days that were partially good but it never lasts long. For instance, just last week, we had a "Mommy meltdown" day. I didn't get much sleep and had some sort of virus and Leona was at her "best" (um, worst really!). She needed to go outside to "cool off" from her very loud annoying fit. She was sitting semi-quietly on a chair when I left her and came in to make a phone call to Eric (went upstairs so I could hear). He asked the wrong question (How is your day?) and I started to cry. Then kids started yelling that the neighbors were at the door and I came down to realize Leona had been beating her fists against the back door and screaming (no, I really didn't hear her!). So, while I was still crying, I had to go apologize to our "neighbors" (employees from the business next door) since Leona had disrupted their workday. How embarrassing! Two days ago, she had a huge fit so I was holding her and she was screaming at me ("I don't like you" "You are naughty" "I am going to run away down the street" "I want water"). We decided to break out the video camera. She has stopped wetting in her bed. Well, sort of. She has taken more to peeing during the day. A few times she was sitting on her bed when she wet. She has been getting a lot of cleaning practice. Yesterday, she broke her deodorant (all over the floor). She had to clean it up and I told her to put the pieces in the trash can. Later I realized that she put the pieces in the other girls' clean clothes pile. I told her she would have to wash the clothes in the bathtub. She said she "thought it (the pile of clothes) was the trashcan." Um, OK, sure! We have all taken to singing songs with the word "happy" in them. It helps us get less irritated (well, at least helps us not show our irritation!). It works very well. We sing "Happy Day (when Jesus washed my sins away)", "I have the Joy, Joy, Joy down in my heart", "If you're happy and you know it", and others. We are praying that the Lord would heal her hurt and help her to trust us. It is only through Him that this can occur. |
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Hi! I had a few requests for the titles of the books I read so here goes: When Love is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas Can this Child be Saved? by Foster Cline Building the Bonds of Attachment by Daniel Hughes Parenting the Hurt Child (there is also a book by the same author called "Adopting the Hurt Child") I liked the first 2 books I listed the best and found them to be the most helpful. They offered many suggestions on how to deal with the abnormal behaviors that I found most irritating (wetting and lying for us but many others are also listed). There are a few websites also: ATTACh.org, and more materials by Nancy Thomas at her website (nancythomasparenting.com) I just saw a few excerpts from the book 99 Ways to Drive a Child Sane and it looked kind of fun. Hope this is of some help! Have a great night! |
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Attachment disorder, Reactive Attachment disorder, Post Traumatic Stress disorder etc. These were all mentioned briefly in the "adoption educational" materials we were required to read during our homestudy. After we got a real agency, we were also required to read a few books about Liberia. Since the above disorders were so briefly mentioned, I guess I thought they were pretty rare. I didn't think most of the behaviors listed applied to Leona (except the superfically charming and crazy lying) until someone recommended a few books to me and I read some real-life examples! I was very surprised when the book mentioned that kids with attachment problems actually pee on purpose (when angry etc.)! Our adoption materials said "bedwetting" is common (I don't consider bedwetting the same as peeing on purpose!). Another adoptive mom clued me in on the fact that adopted children are often feeling miserable and do things to make those around them feel the same way. Well, it worked for Leona! We were all a bit irritated with her wetting and lying! They also try to sabotage family activities (hence, her wetting every Sunday morning). So, we've found some answers I think! We need to be UN-irritated. This is very difficult sometimes because now that it's not so easy to irritate us, she needs to try harder. AND SHE DOES!! For example, on her sisters birthday, she woke up drenched in pee up to her hair (I don't really want to know how she does this!). None of us got irritated or made any comments (like EEEW GROSS!). I told everyone to be extra nice to her. She was MISERABLE! She was yelling at everyone, calling names, trying to constantly provoke and irritate while she cleaned up herself, the bedroom, and the bathroom(this was pretty much the whole day since it takes her hours to get cleaned up on her own-I refuse to help other than getting her a bucket full of water and a rag). Last week, she went so far as threatening to hit me when she was angry. She has also mentioned that she would like to go back to Liberia and get a new mommy and threatened to call the police because I wouldn't get her a drink until she calmed down and asked nicely. She is just trying everything she can think of! What I am getting at, is that I really wish I would've read THESE books before we adopted (although they do deal with kids who are a danger to others-I may have chickened out if I read that beforehand!)! At least I would've know better what to look for. If you are a struggling adoptive parent one of the books is called: When Love is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. This one was the most helpful to me although one other book that I read had a wonderful suggestion for the tinkle problems: It is as follows: tell the child since they like gross things like pee (and/or poop) in their rooms and other places so much that you will be giving them the job of cleaning up after pets, cleaning toilets, etc. (I added diaper pails and toddler "pee" accidents too-we don't have pets.). So, we are trying a new approach. Please keep us in your prayers-it is not easy! |
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While I wish I could say this about Leona's issues (which seem to be improving), I am actually referring to our "learn to eat what mom cooks" boot camp! All the children were doing very well with eating what I cooked without much complaining for quite some time BUT I recently realized just how amazing the change was that took place, mostly in Samuel, age 4, who only liked pizza and peanut butter sandwiches-and liked NOTHING with a vegetable in it and who gagged on mashed potatoes. I recently heard him say the following phrases "I like salad", "Can I have MORE salad?", and "Salad is my favorite vegetable!". I was so excited!! But the best thing happened when, on New Year's eve, when we had snacks-veggies, dip, and chips. I let everyone pick the snacks they wanted (this means I did't MAKE anyone have veggies!). I looked at Sam's plate and he had cucumbers on it -6 of them even!! AND he ate them all!! YAY!!!!!! Ian (age 6) was eating carrots!! WOOHOO! Before I close for the day, I'll add a cute story about Sydney (2) and the baby. Jeremiah is "her" baby she says. It's a good thing too, since I might not know how to take care of my 8th newborn. (Of course, with each one I DO seem to get more forgetful!!) She is always telling me things like, " Mom, my baby's crying, can you nurse him?" and "Mom, I think my baby pooped, can you change his diaper?" She's so cute! Have a great day!! |
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The whole gang!
Jeremiah at 3 weeks in the little orange diaper that I sewed him (it no longer fits him!). It has a monkey print on the inside and Daddy says it's silly because he poops on the cute part! Bailey and Rebekah also sewed him some diapers that worked very well!
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The proud new big sister-and baby at 6 weeks--my how he's grown--from 7lbs. 14 oz. to almost 14 pounds ALREADY (he will be 8 weeks old this Wednesday)!! 
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It's hard to believe, but we realized that it has been 2 years now since we began our adoption journey! Wow! Time goes soooooo fast! I have to admit that adopting 2 girls with special needs has been quite challenging. Is it challenging in the ways I thought it might be? Not usually! I had visions of the possible horrific situations the girls may have faced and thought they would be extremely homesick. But these ideas weren't the case at all! They were happy to be here and DID NOT miss Liberia at all. Most of the things we faced (and in some cases still are facing) were just annoying kid behaviors (although sometimes taken to the extreme!!). Overall, I think they adjusted pretty well and it has been a joy to see them grow over the course of the year. Are we still facing challenges after a year of having them here? YES!! We are still not fluent in ASL but I do have to say that we are able to communicate with Josephine very well in spite of this. Josephine had many "orphanage" behaviors when she first came and was very rough-hitting and grumping A LOT! She does this rarely now although last week she did have a very bad day!! That was her first bad day in 4 months! When she first came, she had days like that at least a two times per week! She really has come a long way and I am always encouraged by her progress. She will be getting two hearing aids of her own soon and the audiologist was very excited by her response with the newer hearing aid in her right ear. She is not sure how much benefit she will get from this. Will she be able to speak? We don't know-actually, Josephine doesn't want to learn to talk and says "signing is better"!! She is learning to read and knows many more words than she did at the beginning of the year. The one thing we still struggle with (and probably will for many years) is food issues. She never hoarded food or anything but she will eat until she is stuffed full and complains her stomach hurts-she has even run to bathroom to throw up after eating too much. I have had to make many changes to our dining habits which include putting a reasonable amount of food on each childs plate (according to the size of the child) and not putting food on the table or offering seconds. I really struggle with having to control the amount of food a child eats but I was really tired of having Josephine tell me that her stomach hurt after she ate-obviously she does not know what "full" is yet. Some of the older kids seem happy that I am doing this because they are growing "up" and not "OUT"!! Usually, they have fruit after lunch and dinner and usually have an afternoon snack. But Josephine is still not able to say "no" to more food. Recently, in her junior church class, when snacks were sitting out, she ate 1 large cupcake 4 mini donuts and a glass of soda (this was after she had a large bowl of cereal for breakfast). I am suprised she didn't vomit on the ride home! Even though I began to limit her food intake, she has gained 20 lbs since she came home!! At first, it was only about 5 lbs. but then she really started hitting that puberty growth spurt and now has gained a total of 20 lbs. and quite a few inches. When she came, she was about 4 inches smaller than our 5 year old (he's 6 now) and now she is a little taller than him. With Leona, we are still having the lying and wetting issues although they are nowhere near as frequent. Josephine never had the bedwetting issue although she did use pullups for the first week here. I am sure many are wondering exactly how we came to realize that Leona wet her pants on purpose (I, myself , find it hard to believe that any child would WANT to do this!). As a mom of 2 bedwetting biological children, I knew that it was a very real possibility to have a child who is not able to wake up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night-two of my boys just COULD NOT wake up and wet the bed almost every night-one until he was around 6-7 and one until he was over 4 1/2 years old. They rarely woke up dry and we used pullups to minimize the laundry-sometimes they even wet through them. We used pullups on Leona at first and the pullups were always wet ,however, on the occasions when she forgot to wear a pullup, she used the bathroom in the middle of the night and in the morning and woke up dry. My two bedwetters would NEVER have been able to do this! When I forgot to put a pullup on them, they woke up SOAKED!! There were also occasions when she peed her pants in the daytime, only it was usually at a time when she was doing something she didn't want to be doing and wetting her pants was a convenient way of getting out of doing it. For instance, once she was in time out and asked to go potty and I said sure go ahead. Then no more than 10 minutes later, she asked again to go potty. I told her she just went potty and she immediately started whining and crying and peed on the chair (obviously she didn't go the first time! She actually did this same trick more than once!). On the other hand, once when we were in the grocery store, she asked to go potty and I asked her if she could wait since the potty at that store was pretty gross. She said yes but by the time we were done in the store, she had to go more. I told her to go sit on the bench while I checked out and try her best to hold it in because home was only a few minutes away. I made sure she could get out of the van and run to the potty (expecting that she would be wet since it had been over a half hour since she asked to go potty the first time!). She made it to the potty just fine without a drip in her panties. Recently, she had a dry bed for almost a month and then on Saturday morning, she woke up soaked. We were going to church to do some work and on Friday she told me she didn't want to go to church, she wanted to stay home. Normally, she loses the privilige to do anything fun for the day (like going out to the park etc.) and apparently she thought she would not have to go to church if she was wet because I asked her in the morning if she knew what we were going to do that day and she replied "Yes, we were going to church but I cannot go because I wet my pants" (of course, she went anyway). Do I think all children who are adopted and wet the bed have this same situation? NO WAY! But I definitely think , in Leona's case, it is a way of manipulation and sometimes for attention (she saw our 2 year old getting a lot of attention for learning to go potty and then her wetting became more frequent again!). We are thankful that she is doing quite a bit better than she was but are praying that she will realize it is not a good way to get attention and manipulate others. To her, we call it making the "right choice" to stay dry and try to minimize even mentioning wetting her pants (NO LECTURES FOR IT-that's too much attention and has definietly made matters worse in the past!!). One of the things I find most exciting about Leonas progress is all the questions she asks about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Of course, she has also come quite a way in her schoolwork-it's really been pretty amazing in that area. Do we think we'd ever adopt again? Well, if we though the Lord were calling us to adopt again, yes, we would. Although, I have to say right now, I am feeling bit overwhelmed just thinking about it! But, overall, our adoption experience has been a beneficial thing for our whole family. |
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My 10 year old daughter (and the rest of the kids) asked me to post this on my blog. It seems that Rebekah has figured out the secret number of licks that it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. They wanted me to post it in case that makes her famous. It turns out that it takes 1,259 licks to get to the center of the tootsie pop. This took approximately 2 1/2 hours just in case you have some extra time to fill up!! Aside from that, everything is going well here. Leona has admitted to wetting her pants because she is too "LAZY" (her word-not mine!) to go to the bathroom. So, we are now working on the toughlove/3 day reward boot camp program for her. If she goes 3 dry days she gets a big kid reward. It had been 7 days but this didn't work well because I don't think she could comprehend exactly how long 7 days is. We are hoping 3 days works better. First reward, deodorant!! (Don't laugh, she is actuallly happy about it! Everyone keeps telling her how stinky she is-even after she takes a bath daily!). The baby is doing well-growing like a weed already. I think everyone else is hoping to return to school work. We were going to start yesterday but we had technical difficulties. One of our computers is down and I had to move one student to another computer (we use switched on schoolhouse). Now, it's finally all taken care of and I think tomorrow can be the day! Should be interesting! There are a whole 3 flakes of snow outside and the kids are running around yelling "IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!" How silly! Better get going-time to nurse the baby again! |
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Our newest little one was born on Oct.29. His name is Jeremiah Thomas. He is doing very well. He is such a good baby that I worry about him!! I was not doing so well after he was born. They induced with pitocin and I got the epidural. They went in a little too far with the epidural and my spinal fluid was leaking a little. This caused a major headache that was barely relieved by the pain med. they gave me. It was not too bad as long as I was lying flat. Thankfully, it is over now! Leona has cut down considerably on her lying. But the peeing is continuing. She does stay dry when she wants to (like the week before her birthday!). We did try to ignore her after we realized she was doing it for attention. BUT then she started doing it LOTS more! I felt so bad for my oldest daughter that had to do the extra laundry that I decided to give Leona some extra consequences without giving her the attention she wanted. This has worked better and she is only wetting maybe once per week. Although she has been worse this week (twice so far). I really don't think it has much to do with the baby coming although I suppose it could. It's hard to figure this girl out!! Best I can figure is that it's just a bad habit she used to get attention in Liberia (both peeing, and lying). We didn't have these problems with Josephine but she came from the deaf home. Thanks so much for the prayers! |
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Hi all, if you're reading this I'd like to ask you to take a minute and pray for our adopted daughter Leona. She has been quite a handful lately (see previous posts). It really seemed like things were improving until a few days ago. She has been able to keep her underwear dry for months now, including at nighttime (although there were a couple of accidents at night-no big deal to me since I never really expected her to be dry at night-that was just a bonus!!). She has been testing us by lying about everything imaginable and sometimes throwing fits. I have sensed that she was doing this for attention (I thought the same thing about wetting her pants) and because I am sure those are 2 behaviors that she practiced a great deal in Liberia. The other day I was beginning to get sick and I just had enough of her lying and misbehaving and really lost my patience and screamed and yelled at her. I really haven't done that before (although I am sure I spoke in a frustrated tone quite a few times!). I don't know if that is what set her off, but I am guessing it was. A few nights before that she had wet her bed (someone was in the bathroom when she got up to go, so she just went back to bed instead of asking to use a different bathroom). She was made to clean up after herself and was fine for a few days. Then I yelled at her for lying and throwing a fit. Later that day she asked to go to the bathroom and 10 min. later (after she had gone to the bathroom) sat on the chair and wet her pants.. Since then we've had many more episodes (including that exact same scenario again). She has been wetting her pants more than my 2 year old who just got potty trained. And still the lying goes on too. Recently, I had been looking for every opportunity to praise her for good behavior (especially in reference to telling the truth). She has been misbehaving so much that it is difficult to find the good things to praise her about. Today, I tried something new that included dealing with her misbehavior as quickly as possible (to minimize the attention she gets for it) and employing the other kids to watch her while she cleaned up after herself (same reason). There were a few other things that I tried and I am just praying that some of them will work!! I can't even leave the house with a 6 year old who pees her pants this much!! We did discuss the possiblity of going to the park if she was miraculously a "big kid" and could keep her underwear dry again. I keep praying for wisdom from the Lord-this is certainly something that I've never experienced before (although I did have 2 kids who wet the bed until they were about 5-6, just none that purposely peed their pants during the day!). So, that is the long version of why we would GREATLY appreciate any prayers on our behalf (did I mention that the baby will be coming in about 2 weeks?!!). I have noticed something very good about all this though--(must be God's perfect timing!!). The kids loved playing with Leona right away when she came and no one really enjoyed Josephine much because she misbehaved an awful lot. But now the tables are turned, and it's been very exciting to watch Josephine blossom and also see how the others are enjoying playing with her more. Sydney (age2) used to screech everytime Josephine would touch her and now they are buddies! It is so cute to watch them sign to each other! Just so you all know, I was at my wits end for a while (from about Jan. through July) with Josephine also--For a while I thought I completely misunderstood what God had been telling us when we decided He wanted us to adopt her! Again, my new favorite verse: Galatians 6:9, Let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. |
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I am now 37 weeks pregnant! YAY! The baby will hopefully come on time (I'm not usually early-4 days early was the earliest!!). It is definitely a boy. Somewhere along the way, we decided that we liked the name Jeremiah but the kids have wrecked it by calling him "baby Jerry"! I'm not really fond of Jerry as a nickname but it's really stuck. I even find myself calling him baby Jerry (and I still don't like it!!). He weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz. at the last ultrasound (a little over a week ago). Leona seems to be making a little progress. She did go for 4 days without lying but then had one really bad day where she made up for it (lying 4 times in one day-not her record but bad enough!). So she is still training in "quit your lying" or "truth" boot camp. Her main motivation to tel the truth seems to be that she does not want to go to jail when she gets bigger. We have talked to her about how God wants us to tell the truth, how it can make a big mess of things when we lie, and if we lie all the time that no one will believe what we say (you should have seen her eyes when I told her the story about the boy who cried wolf!!). Then one day I told her about a girl I know who lies about a lot of things and how this girl lied a lot when she was younger but now she is big and still lies a lot. This girl lied so much that she had to go to jail because she lied (for writing bad checks). I explained to her that I would be very sad to see her grow up and lie so much that she would go to jail. That really stuck in her head! I never thought it would make such an impact-I was just trying to explain how much trouble you can get in for lying! |
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I guess it's time for my monthly update from Boot camp! We are still in training! Most of the kids now realize that they need to eat what is on their plate without complaining. But watch out for that inconsistency to creep in......and it just comes crashing down! If the Lord has taught me anything through our adoption experience, it is that I need to be CONSISTENT!!! Last week, Leona was very ill. Now Leona is still in her lying, making up stories, generally being dishonest phase BUT I don't think anyone could fake the way she was acting (although I did momentarily consider that possibility!! OK maybe it was more than a moment!)-she was practically delirious, couldn't keep her eyes open and focused, and was sweating like a pig. I thought she was going to faint at the breakfast table. I escorted her up to bed and called the doctor. We decided that she could be having a recurrence of malaria and he told me to give her the same meds. she had before. I did this and she seemed somewhat better in a few hours-but the eye thing really had me worried. So I took her to the ER. They decided she probably was having a malaria recurrence (she was doing quite a bit better after a few hrs. there and they said the malaria medicine probably was working already) and gave me some different meds and also some antibiotics since her ear was had some pus. Anyway, to make a long story shorter (about the consequences of NOT being consistent in parenting!)-she had actually lost 2-3 lbs. because she hadn't been eating well for a week or so before, so I decided to get her some meal replacement shakes at the health food store(to give as snacks). She drank all but two sips of one and gagged a little. I let her go without drinking the last two sips figuring she was still not feeling too well. BIG MISTAKE!! The next time I gave her one, she had a HUGE FIT! Needless to say she has been getting a lot of these and is now drinking them happily (or at least without complaining). And by the way (in case you think I'm extra mean!), all the other kids thought the shake tasted pretty good and were begging for me to give them some! Last week we had a little 2 year old houseguest (and his Mom). He demonstrated perfectly to my kiddos the reason why they are not allowed to hit and why they need to learn to obey! By the end of a few days, he was driving all the kids crazy with his misbehavior!! It was a very good lesson! Josephine was probably one of the most irritated by his behavior-and to think she acted just like that when she first came :) --TOO FUNNY! On a different note, we tried out some yarn extensions in Josephine's ponytail this week (I didn't have the nerve to try the full head of hair on the first try!). They look very cute and she loves them. I'll try to post a pic. soon. They were much easier than I thought they would be-10 of them took about a half hour or less. |
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I guess boot camp is taking up quite a bit of my time here! Again, it's been a while since I've updated! Carri...if you're reading this, please email me to let me know your success with the lying! I can't seem to find your email address anywhere-even on your blog! Thanks! Leona is doing great keeping her underwear nice and dry now! It's so odd how that minor little thing that we wanted her to work on opened up quite a few more issues. Mostly it is the lying. It is unbelieveable how many silly things she is lying about! It seems that when we tell her she should not be doing something (wetting her pants, lying etc.), she decides with all her little might that she will do it even more! Sometimes it's almost amusing-much of the time it's quite annoying!! It certainly has made me much better at being consistent when I discipline my kids! My new favorite encouraging Scripture verse has become Galatians 6:9-Let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Sometimes I do feel like "fainting"!! I think I mentioned this before in one of my posts! We are making progress though-eventually she does decided that we are really serious and she needs to get with the program! She doesn't fuss about food anymore and I've even heard her say that she likes green beans! And now she is keeping her underwear dry (I can't for the life of me figure out why on earth anyone would pee their pants just because Mom and Dad said they needed to get to the bathroom quicker!!--it doesn't sound like much fun to me!)--I am often reminded of the verse where Paul mentions that the things he wants to do, he doesn't do and the things he doesn't want to do, he does. (Sorry, I am too lazy to walk back to the kitchen and get my Bible and give you the exact verse and reference for that one!) Soon we will be starting school. I've been procrastinating for weeks! I wanted to start at the beginning of August but we are just having too much fun with boot camp!! No, actually, we have been canning and sewing and doing all kinds of fun stuff that I could count for school if I would at least write it on the calendar!! Well I better get going! Have a great night! |
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This is a record I think for not updating my blog! You see I've been very busy in our time off from school! No relaxing summers around here! We are having BOOT CAMP. All kinds of Boot camp. First of all, we had "learn to eat what mom cooks" boot camp. That's the boot camp you have when you are tired of all the complaing about what you've cooked! My children are so stubborn that they would rather starve than learn to eat some vegetables (I take responsibility for spoiling them all these years-I have no idea what I was thinking-so if you're reading this--don't make the same mistake!! You could have 9 kids someday and that is A LOT of complaining). We have successfully ended this boot camp and 98% of the time everyone eats their veggies and beans without complaining, gagging, pretending to vomit, and just general fooling around. Of course, there are still a few who find the need to test every now and again, hence the 98%. Next came, "quit fooling around after you get tucked into bed" boot camp. I have the kind of kids who wake at the crack of dawn no matter what time they go to bed, so I decided they needed to get to sleep instead of playing in their beds. They are doing pretty good with this one now, except for one who has decided to be very testy recently. The very testy one is Leona. I am guessing she just feels comfortable enough with us to begin testing us about many things. Josephine has settled down with her testiness and is doing much better. The biggest thing we tried to conquer with her recently was that she would be playing happily with Noah all day and then suddenly start grumping at him if he were to sit by her at dinner...she got to sit by him at dinner for a few weeks and has since gotten over her grumping. I did tell her she would be sitting by him until she got happy about it. Thankfully, it worked! She still has her moments but has come SOOOOO far since she arrived. Leona on the other hand went through a brief period at first where she was a little stubborn and then settled down and was fine for a long time. Now she has decided to test and boy can she be STUBBORN! For example, one night she ate a chicken sandwich just fine and happily and two days later (leftovers!!) she refused to eat the same thing. I kept giving it back to her until she ate it (that was one of our boot camp policies). Just as the food pickiness settled down, I came to realize that she had some other issues that needed some attention. Mostly she is getting herself in a lot of trouble for lying. About dumb things. Even things she knows she will not get in trouble for UNLESS she lies. I'm sure it will just take some time before she realizes that we really mean what we say. It took about two months with the food pickiness (by the way, when she came she ate ANYTHING I cooked and loved it!). We are hoping that the most recent issues will NOT take 2 months for her to learn that we really mean what we say! On a more positive and much more important note, Leona did recently ask Jesus into her heart and we are very thankful for that. She has been praying and asking for God's help to overcome her lying and the other things we are working on. The biggest one is making it to the potty before she pees her pants (something an almost 7 yr. old should be able to do). It turns out that she is not a bedwetter after all. We had her in pullups since she arrived but mistakenly forgot to wear them a few times and she miraculously woke up dry. Each night she had a pullup on, it would be wet. It turned out she had been lying in her bed and peeing while she was awake. She does not wear pullups anymore and the only problem she seems to have is getting to the potty in time although, she seems to be able to hold it when she wants to (more stubborness, I think!). Other than that, we have been doing some sewing projects and the kids have been enjoying the $8 pool I got for them at a yard sale. I've sewed a few newborn size cloth diapers for the baby and Bailey sewed me some cloth diaper wipes today (I ran out of the store bought variety and paper towels too!). She did a good job, it was good practice. Next project: modest swimwear.......scared about this one! Someday I hope to get our schoolwork for next year set up. I had wanted to start a few weeks ago! OOPS--just having too much fun with boot camp I guess! I'm sure I will win the meanest mom ever award after posting this entry! Have a great night!! |