Life is going at full-throttle again.
I keep telling myself that a year from now things will be easier and the
only reason I think that is because I won’t be in school any more. So, maybe it will be easier. But I’ll be
working – so maybe not.
Normally, it seems like our professors “ease” us into our classes. Not this time. Both are lit classes and both have copious
amounts of work. For this week, alone, I had to read Hamlet, The Rover, the Illiad, and Ducitus.
Not only do you have to read, but then you have discussion questions
and responses and then you have papers to submit on each…it’s killing me. And then you do the same thing the following
week and the next – for 8 weeks! On the
other hand, I am getting a crash course in all these great classics I probably
should have studied long before now. And
so far, I’m acing everything. My one
professor is especially effusive in his praise.
I suspect that I answer things more in depth than a lot of my
classmates. But that’s me – I’m a
writer. And once I’ve turned in one
paper and gotten my professor so excited then I kind of hate to let him down
with work more on level with the 20 year olds who are in my class.
I worked a couple of days this past week and I’m scheduled to work 3 next
week. I’m not going to take any more
days because I need the time to do school.
Besides, I’m working 6 days straight in mid-Feb already. I agreed to this last fall before I knew what
these Lit classes would entail! And I
have two out-of-town trips planned for back to back weekends in Feb which is
going to limit my time even further.
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I was watching the news the other night and they were all excited about
a big lottery drawing that was coming up.
One lotto customer they
interviewed exclaimed, “I could have bought a beer with this money, but I
decided to do something constructive, instead!”
My eyeballs could not roll back far enough…
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I found out this week that the schools – well, at least our school – no longer
sends kids home when they find lice on them.
WHAT?!! Apparently, it has been
deemed “too humiliating” to the children. So, let me get this straight – to protect
a buggy kid’s tender feelings, I have to risk my child getting lice by continually exposing them to the
child? Give me a stinking break…It
reminds me of a segment yesterday on talk radio where the host, who is
originally from England, was talking about how over there now, elementary
students are no longer allowed to have “best friends” because it hurts other
kids’ feelings and I don’t know, somehow stunts their own personal development.
Lice are my biggest parenting fear, next to losing my child to
death. I have never had to deal with
them and I don’t even know what I’d do if the kids got them. I know it involves combing every single strand
of hair, using some chemical shampoo, covering the head in mayonnaise and
plastic wrap, washing every single blanket and pillow in the house with boiling
water after keeping them sealed in bags for 6 weeks, etc. It sounds like a living nightmare to me. And can you imagine if the girls ever got it
with their tight, 4C kinky, curly hair?
Holy buckets… (hair is “graded” by number and letter to classify its
coarseness/curliness/kinkiness). 4C is
the “worst” and that’s what the girls have, I believe, based on the charts I’ve
seen. Lizzie may have 4B, but it’s not
that different from 4C.
Oh, speaking of hair…the gal that did the girls’ hair last summer for
the wedding is closing her shop. I’m not
sure why, other than it being a revenue issue.
But, she is going to start making house calls to do hair, instead. I’ve been thinking of getting their hair done
again, so I may call her. She actually
lives just 10 min up the highway from me, so I shouldn’t think it would be a
problem to arrange something.
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David’s senior pictures are finally all taken.He and Arien went out this
morning and got the last of them done.
Between him getting sick, breaking his nose, and Arien moving it’s been
a bit of an ordeal to get them done! But
she did fabulous work and I can’t wait to see them all. I know some kids who don’t get their senior
pictures done until right before graduation, so we’re doing pretty well to get
them done in January, I think! I have a
friend who never got around to getting her homeschooled daughter’s pics done a
couple of years ago. She finally ended
up taking a couple of snapshots before her daughter headed off to college and
called it good!
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I had a day last week. It was a
Monday. Literally, it was on Monday,
too. It was the worst day. But it wasn’t the worst as in it was this
awful, horrible day. It was almost just
odd because these back-to-back incidents kept happening, all one right after
the other.
The first thing that happened was Ellie lied to me. That’s not terribly unusual. But this was a humdinger. The thing that is so difficult with her is
that she is so sincere when she
lies. She even cries copious amounts of
tears while sobbing, “I can’t believe you don’t believe me!” And since I don’t see every single incident I
begin to doubt myself, even though I know I can’t be wrong. Or am I?
Ugh. I went through that again
this week one day with her. Fortunately,
this week we had therapy right afterwards so I was able to lay it all out for
the therapist and ask her – how am I supposed to deal with this? I’ll write more on that here in a bit. I feel like I am losing my mind when she does
this. I read a parenting tip the other
day that said you should tell your toddlers that when they lie their ears turn
red. That way, in time, they’ll learn to
cover their ears when they lie and then you’ll always know when they are
lying. It’s probably too late for that
with Ellie. Anyway, I felt on that Monday
like I should have handled things a lot better.
Then, in the mail that day came a sympathy card for Paul’s death. I got a lot of sympathy cards when Paul
died. In fact, I have a 2 ½ gallon ziplock
bag full of them in my hope chest. But
they all arrived within the first couple months after his death – not four and a half years later! It was disconcerting to say the least. I’m not saying it wasn’t a nice gesture and
perhaps that’s all it was. But to me,
it seems a bit calculated. Years ago I
used to go to this eye dr in Des Moines.
But I quit going because his office was so aggressive. They would do things like send me reminder
cards repeatedly letting me know it was time to come in for my yearly exam (I
get my eyes done every 3 years, not every year.
That may change as I get older, but so far, I’ve been good with every
3). Once they even called to remind me
of an upcoming appointment. When I told
them I didn’t have a scheduled appointment, the receptionist cheerfully told me
that she had gone ahead and scheduled me because I was due for an
appointment. I didn’t go. So, this year on Paul’s birthday they sent a “happy
birthday” text. I don’t even know how they got his birth date. I don’t think he ever saw them unless he
visited when he scratched his cornea so badly during a seizure. Maybe he did, I don’t remember. Irritated at this text, I texted back, not
even knowing if they would get it.
Sometimes these business texts are automated and they don’t get
replies. I wrote back, “Paul died 4
years ago” – sweet and simple. I hoped
that would end any future birthday texts.
And the next thing I know I’m getting this sympathy card signed by
everybody in the office. Argh!
Later that day I was driving Ben to the tux rental place (Night to Shine
is coming up) when I realized that my windshield wiper was no longer
working. In fact, it was dangling like a
badly broken wrist. Hmm…I knew I hadn’t
done anything to it. Two days earlier I
had my key cylinder replaced at the Kia dealership. The cylinder is located directly below the
wiper lever. It was fairly obvious to me
what had happened. The dealership is on
the north side of DM – about 40 min from my house. Fortunately, the tuxedo shop is just down the
road from them. So I figured I would
swing up to Kia after arranging for the tux, which I did. They had me drive in, a guy peered at it, and
then told me that because I didn’t have an appointment they couldn’t do
anything. Excuse me? You people broke my lever and you can’t find someone in that entire shop to
fix it or, at the very least, check and see if you have the part in stock? I was not happy. I ended up making an appointment to bring the
van in when the technician who did the original work would be in. Well, I got a call to to work that day and I
wasn’t about to turn down income for this.
So, I had David call and reschedule.
That was on the books for last Sat when I got a call Friday from Kia
saying Sat. would not work because the technician would not be in that day,
either. Grrr…So, I then made an
appointment for this past Monday. The kids
didn’t have school because of MLK day and I had scheduled therapy for the girls. So, after therapy we went to the dealership
and sat around for awhile. The guy I’ve
been dealing with comes into the waiting room after about an hour and says, “Well,
do you want the good news first or the bad news?” I think I gave him a death glare at that
point. The box that was supposed to hold
my new lever was mislabeled. They didn’t
have one. I pointed out to him that it
was not exactly the safest thing to be driving around without a working
wiper. I think he did a little shrug as he somewhat appeared to agree with me. But, hey, he pointed out – we washed the
outside of your van for you! (that was the good news). SO, I
went back yesterday and now I finally have a working windshield wiper. And I hope I never have to deal with that
dealership again.
And then late that same afternoon David asked me to come down to the
basement. There he showed me a very
dead, very torn up Butterscotch, the gerbil, on the laundry room floor. While we didn’t catch her red (literally)
handed, we’re assuming Olivia is the murderer.
She had become quite interested in the gerbil lately, perching on top of
the cage, intently watching the rodent.
We don’t know if she knocked off one of the tubes that ran outside the
cage or if the gerbil just escaped somehow and she found her and killed
her. It was gruesome – she completely
ripped open the rodent’s back. I’m just
thankful that David found it before one of the Littles did. Sam was upset, naturally, although he told me
at bedtime that he was “75%” over his pet’s death by then. He has wanted to replace the gerbil with a hamster
for awhile . These gerbils we bought were never very pet-like in that they
liked to bite and were very fast. You
couldn’t hold them. And they were mean
to each other which is why we had to put them in separate cages and they chewed
up all the plastic stuff in their cages – real pains, to be honest. But I explained to Sam that it just isn’t
safe to bring a hamster into the house right now. We need to wait for Olivia to get declawed
for one thing and I think it would be good to get her closer to her 1st
birthday when she’ll be less kitten-like.
He wasn’t happy about having to wait.
In the past, when his hamsters have died we’ve always replaced them within
days. But that’s mostly because he took
the deaths so hard.
So, anyway, that was a day I hope I never have to repeat!
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I feel like I had a “break-through” with Ellie this week. Maybe not so much with her, but with me. So we were at therapy this week and every
week I keep a journal on the girls and then the therapist reads my rambling
reports at the start of each session.
This time I also told her about the latest lying incident and just asked
her, “What am I supposed to do”? She reminded me that, emotionally, Ellie is
functioning at a lower level. I get
that, I do. But I never let my
preschoolers lie to me, either. But then
she started talking about how the girls are not feeling a connection to me when
I am upset with them. I have a hard time
wrapping my mind around that because I know that still love them no matter
what. Well, the therapist told me I
should tell them how much I love them even when I’m upset with them – right then
and there. It was awful because I started
crying as I tried to express that to the girls and that made me so embarrassed.
I hate to cry in front of people.
But I realized that, while I do say, “I love you” to the girls it’s
usually just at night and honestly, that’s more of a a relief, “I love you”
because I’m finally getting a break from them!
I even protested to the therapist, “They know I love them!” and she
replied that if I had them from birth, they would know that. But when I get upset, it plunges them into uncertainty. I don’t know. It seems to plunge them into belligerence, actually.
But the very next day in my Christian RAD Facebook group one mother
mentioned that her RAD child tends to “fall apart” when corrected, even when in
the most mild of ways, such as asking her to hang up her coat. Other moms chimed in saying that their
adopted children are the same way. A
lightbulb began to suddenly flicker on for me.
If a child does not have the connection with their parent then it makes
sense that any sort of criticism is going to feel like an “attack” because they
don’t have the relationship already cemented in place that would allow a
connected child to accept criticism or even punishment from a parent. Normal things like this are going to make the
RAD child very fearful, upset, and angry.
And I wonder if that’s some of what I’m dealing with. So that evening I sat down with Ellie and
addressed this lie she told me again.
But first I explained to her that it doesn’t matter what she does or says – I will always love her and I will always be
her mother. I am wondering if I am going
to need to coach all my criticism in layers of these kind of reminders to get
anywhere with the girls – that seems like a lot of work! But, Ellie was finally willing to address the
lie. I could not get her to completely
confess, but she did allow that she could understand how I might think she could
be the culprit and perhaps it was possible that she had done the deed and just
didn’t fully remember it now. It’s not what I was hoping to hear from her,
but it did feel a bit like progress, anyway.
I wonder if anyone would choose to adopt if they knew how potentially
hard it might end up being? I’m not
saying I would not have done it. For us,
it was so clearly directed by God that I never questioned that his was His plan
for me. But if people knew what their
life might look like I kind of wonder if there would be fewer willing to adopt
anything other than a newborn. It’s
probably a good thing we don’t know. But
parenting RADS (and, again, I’m dealing with more mild levels of it – my life
is not the nightmare of many I read about and hear from) puts you in a position
of understanding God’s love from a totally different perspective. He died
for people that He knew that would hate Him and spend their lives railing
against him. When a RAD child gets to
18, they are responsible for themselves.
I know parents in my group who are counting down the days to their kid’s
18th birthday so that they are no longer legally responsible. Some take on responsibilities beyond that,
such as raising grandbabies born to their adopted children or continuing to
bail their child out of jail, but at some point, they do have to let the child
make their own choices. And I guess it’s
that way with God. He keeps loving, but
eventually, those that reject Him do face the consequences of that rejection by
going to Hell. It is one thing to love a
child who loves you back, but it’s another to choose to love a child who seems
to hate you.
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The cats are wrestling with each other on my bedroom floor right
now. They do that several times a day
and it is always entertaining to watch.
Olivia always starts it by jumping on top of Bella or biting her
tail. It used to be that Bella would
just stalk off but now she gets right on top of Olivia and puts her face on top
of her, sometimes growing. They will
roll all over the floor and I think that even Bella might be having a little
bit of fun with it.
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I had to put this on Facebook the other day because it tickled me: I worked at the school one day this week so,
afterwards, the kids were in the van and we were headed home and Ellie, so
seriously, asked, “Mom, is it true that there’s a hot tub in the teacher’s
lounge?” Ha, ha, ha! I think that would be a marvelous idea…
And I have a couple more Ellie funnies. These are just from tonight. We all went to DQ after church to celebrate Sam and Lizzie's baptisms. We were talking about different travel plans we have in the next few years and Ellie asked, "When are we going to get to go to North Korea?" I have a feeling she meant North Dakota but it was funny. And then she excitedly said, "Do you know that they are making a new land?" We just looked at her kind of funny. I have heard that California may be splitting into two states for political purposes, but I would not think she would know anything about that. Then she says, "Yeah, it's another England. It's called 'New England'" We were rolling!
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A week ago I had a huge blessing – a very unexpected one. In recent weeks I’ve had to have some work
done on my van. An older lady asked me
at church one day how my week had been and I told her, well, I had spent $500
that week getting an alignment and a couple of new tires. I remember she asked if I could afford
that. I explained that I have some money
left over from Paul’s death and that covers things like car repairs and the
like. I didn’t tell her that the next
week I was scheduled to get my key cylinder replaced. A few days later I had that work done and that was another $300.
So, in the course of about a week, I spent over $800 on my van. I’ve had to do that before – it’s just part
of vehicle ownership and management. And
when you don’t have a husband that can fix that stuff – well, you don’t have a choice. I have to drive and I have to a reliable
vehicle to do it with. So, anyway, last
Sunday I was sitting in the pew before the service started and our new pastor
came up to me. He handed me a check and
said, “The deacons heard that you had to have some new tires put on and we
wanted to help you out.”
It was a check for $800.
I felt like absolutely bawling. I
didn’t expect God to return that money to me.
It wasn’t that I was in a desperate situation where spending that money
out of savings meant I could not buy groceries or make an insurance
payment. God loves to work in those kind
of instances, too. But this to me was a
reminder that He still sees me. He still
loves me. He still cares.
Things are different now than they were in the beginning. Then, I felt like I could barely breathe
without God’s help. I’ve never before or
since experienced that deepness of connection and communication with God as I
did in those first few days and weeks. It’s
not that I don’t need Him now, because I do, but it’s different. I’ve learned to stand again, or at least,
wobble somewhat independently, anyway.
But every so often God just shows up again in a way that’s different
from His normal, quieter presence.
And I’m blown away, all over again.
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