Put a Fork in Me, I'm DONE!

Oh my goodness! Please, Please, Please pray for me right NOW! Today I am struggling. It is absolutely, positively ridiculous that I had such a frustrating day. I was with my children probably a total of 5 hours today (compared to the usual ALL day thing) & it was a no good, very bad, terrible, rotten day.

For every minute of that 5 hours someone was crying, whining, or yelling. I have no clue why but I have no patience. As I type this I can hear Isaac on the monitor yelling at the top of his lungs. Why, you ask? Well...at bedtime we said prayers & I kissed him on the nose (which is what I usually do). He laughed at the time. Then, when I bent down to pray with Brian all heck broke loose. Isaac decided that he was torked off that I kissed him & has now been crying for 20 minutes about it. I even (in a moment of desperation) asked him what exactly crying about being kissed was going to do. Was it going to negate the kiss? He agreed, through sobs, that it would not take away the kiss but,doggone it, we Frengs do everything we can to the best of our ability. 110%, every time. Some call us overachievers, Some call us passionate, Right now it feels a lot crazy and a lot zealous!

I lost it with Brian earlier tonight & behaved in a manner not very fitting of any mother but defintely not a foster mother. I asked him to forgive me for my impatience but the damage has been done. He has seen too much in his past to let this one slide. Ugh....this is hard.

Please pray for us. We signed all the papers to file the petition to adopt Brian & Jasmine. Paperwork, paperwork, glorious paperwork. It feels like buying a car or a house, or something. Whenever I feel depressed about my life-I just have to be thankful that I am not a county worker. Ugh-could you imagine getting up everyday to be grumpy and rude to people? Oh wait-I do that. Amazingly-they didn't ask us if we wanted an extended warranty plan or GAP coverage. Our court date for Shamie is April 6th. The end is in sight! I will miss my conversations with county workers. I'm always able to slip in some good sarcasm and they don't even notice it.

Will keep you all posted on the adoption process. So close-yet so far away!

Me NOT Tired

Anyone hear those words lately? Me NOT tired? I hear them 8000 times a day. Usually there is a yawn in the middle so it sounds more like Me (YAWNNNNNNN) NOT tired. Why is it that all kids refuse to be tired? And refuse to sleep in? I know plenty of adults who would absolutely love it if someone came and forced them to take a nap! Me NOT tired-it is even better when you stomp your foot afterward for emphasis. I need to remember these words in a few years when I'm dragging them out of bed. Right now-Me VERY tired.

Hallelujah!

I have a few aquaintances that have recently adopted children from Haiti & also from the foster care system. I decided to look up their blogs and "catch up" on their lives a little bit. Reading their blogs was manna from heaven for my heart and soul. I finally felt like I wasn't alone and that I wasn't imagining all of this stuff. You see, adopting, while very exciting, is STRESSFUL!!! No one can argue with that. However, once you get into the details of adding new members to your family (and you to their family)-it gets a little bit sticky. People don't really want to know the details-they just expect you to be perfect and do it. Others paint us as saints. Most try to compare it to their parenting process of their own biological kids. Pretty much everyone who reads this blog has not adopted-so bear with me (this is absolutely not a post to put you down or make you feel bad-remember that!). As "prospective adoptive parents", you start to feel a little bit (actually, A LOT) crazy. You spend months and months learning to love children who didn't come from your womb-kids who don't want you to love them and don't want to love you. Eventually, yes, they will want us to love them & will want to love us but that comes later, much, much later. The crazy feeling comes due to the attachment issues. Most children have a wonderful attachment experience starting in the womb-they are cared for, fed, kept safe, etc. Obviously, children in the foster care system did not have that wonderful start. Kids are brilliant and they learn quickly what they need to do to "survive". Control issues become center stage-if you can control your environment then you can pretty much guarantee your survival. Unfortunately, those control issues don't just go away when placed in (what we believe is) a safe, loving home. I feel crazy because I have to "fight" with my kids to use the bathroom, put on shoes, sweatshirts, what plate we are going to use, etc. Now I know a lot of you are saying, "well-my kids do that, kids do that". Yeah-kids do that-Noah & Isaac do that. But....average, stable kids know when to say when. If it is a choice between having the exact plate they want & not eating the meal-they are able to rationalize out that the plate doesn't really matter. Isaac is the definition of strong willed, so I know strong willed. Hear me well-I don't want robots, I don't want stepford children. I just am tired of fighting over things that don't matter. But I have to fight-because if I don't the kids will never need me, they will never begin to trust me, they will never attach to me. I have to help them learn to trust adults-learn to trust us. However, as I said above-kids are the masters of doing what they need to do to survive. So-this is where the really crazy feelings start-they are perfect ANGELS when anyone else is around. We have all watched those sitcoms where the family is yelling and screaming at each other & then the doorbell rings. When the person enters the house they don't find chaos, they find a perfect-looking family sitting together having a love fest. Yeah-I feel like that is my life when anyone comes over. I don't necessarily try to hide what is going on-it just all seems to vanish before my eyes. Then when the company leaves-the chaos restarts! The behavior change is so radical-so much so that friends, teachers, church-goers, etc tell us over and over how WONDERFUL they are & how LUCKY we are to have them in our lives. We had one person tell us that Brian was perfect & could we believe how lucky we were and if we weren't going to pursue adoption to let her know because she would love the chance to raise him. ARGHHH....what do you say to that??? Well, actually what I said was no child is perfect, yes we are lucky, blessed actually, and that we were in fact, adopting Brian but on those days that he wasn't behaving "perfectly" that I would be glad to let her babysit. Oh the look on her face was priceless! We are so blessed to have Brian, Jasmine, and Shamie-and we love them (control issues and all). I feel like I spend half my time explaining that the kids are not perfect and the other half advocating for their needs. Reading those blogs just further helps me understand that I need other people. I am not crazy-what we are going through is real. I choices we make are based on the fact that we know these kids better than anyone else in the whole world. We are not mean, controlling parents. Ahh....it feels good to be normal again. But I now realize more than ever that I need a break, I need to be around others going through this, I need to keep perspective, I need to keep my eyes, heart, and mind focused on Jesus.

Crazy Day

Today I spent a few hours in the ER with our youngest due to respiratory issues. The reality is that I spent time in the ER because the world lacks good providers for people with medicaid (all foster kids have medicaid until they are 18-adopted or not-one of the "perks" of adopting!!). We saw a provider on Wednesday who looked at her & said she was "fine" & when I asked for some cough medicine with codeine so she could sleep got a 12 point presentation on the abuse of narcotics and drug seeking. Of course, I did look a little strung out after a few nights of no sleep with a couple of sick kids. So-Shamie has been getting worse (higher fever, more coughing to the point of throwing up, etc.). I spoke with the clinic here in Littleton that accepts medicaid (yes-pretty much there is 1 clinic here that takes medicaid). I told them her symptoms & my concerns & they told me that their next available appointment was NEXT TUESDAY!! Are you kidding me? The nurse in me knew that she wasn't bad enough to go to the ER but I also knew it was the only place that she was going to get an adequate workup and a nonjudgemental staff. We spent a couple hours there & she got a complete workup. We got sent home with an albuterol inhaler and some "good" instructions rather than "she's fine". Then tonight-I dropped of Jasmine at dance camp and we're going to go watch her perform at halftime of the basketball game tonight. Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be excited about watching my little girl dance. A few months ago the idea of pom squad, cheerleading, dance team, etc would have made me nauseated (not cause there is anything wrong with it, just because it has never been my thing). I am hopeful to get some video that I can post soon. It is so much fun to watch Jasi have so much fun. What a blessing both of my girls are! Please keep Shamie in your prayers for her complete healing & some restful sleep for us all.

Question for the group

Okay-so this question assumes that people are actually reading my blog. I don't know if any one is or not-this post will probably prove that no one is. I have a question. How do you keep yourself and your family organized? Right now I have a wipe off calendar, pocket calendar, work schedule, etc-I try to keep writing everything on the wipe off calendar but there isn't enough room & it doesn't have Dan's stuff and I forget to write things like pack Noah a lunch for the field trip to the zoo. Arghh.....any ideas? I do realize that this is actually the easiest time in my kid's life (planning wise) because they don't get to go anywhere or be involved in anything without my knowing it. IF ONLY I could convince Dan that he needs my blessing before he does anything. Hmmm...does anyone note the control issues!?! Oh yeah-they are there baby, they are there! But they are so subtle-it's hard to miss. Ha, Ha-I crack myself up.

The blahs...

Today I'm tired. Yes, I know. Wah, Wah-we're all tired. I'm feeling especially overwhelmed & frustrated today. Not really even sure why. Probably because almost everything I know to be true about people-ends up not being true. That is exactly why you don't ever, ever place your faith in people. JESUS is the only thing we should really ever place our faith in. Why is it that I forget that so easily? I'm also realizing my shortcomings more & more. That is actually a good thing because once you can recognize them you can start the process of working on them. However, today is a day that I really just want to be oblivious. I would prefer (for today) to live in that Pollyanna world I love to live in & tell myself that it is everybody else & I'm just fine. Ha! In my feel sorry for myself mood, I've decided to look back (quickly) at the past 6 months and point out some progresses that I have seen. It is super important to do because when you are in the thick of it you don't see those everyday progresses & you can tend to get very disenchanted. So-here is a short list. I know that there are probably 100 more but these are what I can think of on the limited amount of brain I want to use right now. They are in no particular order either-just as I thought of them.
1. ALL of our children are potty trained-completely. No pullups at night-just the potty all of the time (when they hit it-otherwise it is the floor!!). This has been a very big feat as 4 of the 5 kids were not completely potty trained 6 months ago. I'm writing a book on potty training called-"When they want to do it-They will do it". Unfortunately, it would be more like a pamphlet so my profits would be pretty little. Oh well...
2. Time outs & tantrums last on average about 3 minutes these days. 6 months ago they would AVERAGE about 45 minutes-not exaggerating or kidding. My ears are still ringing from a few of the tantrums.
3. All 5 kids call me Mom. Brian will occasionally call me Kelly when he is trying to get under my skin but other than that-I'm MOM. It's cool. We are working on the kids calling Dan "dad" for some reason that is coming slower.
4.All of the kids use a napkin & with gentle reminders eat with their mouth closed. I have a very sensitive gag reflex and 6 months ago I often almost "lost my lunch" when all the kids were eating. Won't elaborate any more. I can feel the gag coming just thinking about it.
5. All of the kids pray to Jesus every single night. Obviously, their faith is our faith at this point but they all have an understanding of who Jesus is & why He is so important to us. I love to hear Shamie pray at night-she says the same prayer every night but it is well thought out & very cute. I should videotape it sometime-I'm sure that when she is 30 years old I would love to look back at it.
Well-that's a short list. I have so much to be thankful for. I need to remember that this process is not so much about "behavior modification" but more about helping people who need to be helped & loving others like Jesus loves me. Please keep us in your prayers. Hopefully I wake up in a better mood tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.

Family Pictures

So-here is one of the family pictures we just had taken. Obviously, the quality of the finished product will be better. This is the "fun" one we got a copy of. The pictures all turned out awesome. It is so great to have nice pictures of the whole family. It really means a lot of all of us to walk in the door and see that we "belong" somewhere to someone. Can't wait for them all to be done!!

Clarification

I want to write a little bit to clarify my blog, the purpose, and just me in general. I am in LOVE with my kids. Absolutely adore each & every one of them & could not imagine life without them. However, I am a human being that has been thrust, or more acurately, jumped into a completely different life 6 months ago. Life as we knew it blew up in so many ways. We multiplied 1.75 times! I went from being basically a stay at home mom who was involved in everything my kids were doing to working 2 nights a week. In my former life, I ALWAYS (and I mean always) knew where things were. The difference between us and many other large families is that we didn't have the opportunity to shape our children from the womb on. The best way to describe our life as adoptive parents is that someone dropped off a 1000 piece puzzle without a box, a picture to go by, or any guidance. We are working to put together the pieces but once you get into the puzzle you realize that it actually a bunch of puzzles thrown together, and some of the pieces (the really important ones) are missing, and others are bent and broken. Is this puzzle any less beautiful? Absolutely not. Yes, I know, that is being a parent. We signed up for this. Blah, blah, blah. The way I deal with things is to just talk about them in real life terms-when things stink, I say so. Not everyone who reads my blog is going to appreciate my sarcasm or my candor. I am who I am. A sinner saved by Grace who is working towards being more like Jesus but failing miserably. Please, please read my blog with an ounce of grace. I love my kids, I love my husband, I love my family. I am just honest. Too honest most times. Oh, Did I mention I'm sarcastic?