Grafting our Family Tree

 

Grafting is the process of fusing a branch from one tree on to a separate host tree, during which it becomes a living and fruitful part of the new tree, and that tree is forever changed.

I can not lie and say I always wanted to be an adoptive parent. I will always have a small part of me that will wonder what my biological child would have been like. Had I been able to have a biological child I would never truly understand real unconditional love. I would have also lost out on knowing so many amazing people through the adoption community. Each child has been grafted into our individual families and then our families have all been grafted together to create a wonderfully complex and beautiful tree. Like the tree above, we are woven together. Individually we were just weak branches, but grafted together we have become  a strong and beautiful creation. At times I am overwhelmed by the beauty that is coming from so many broken branches. I am constantly amazed at the depths of love I have for our Sweetie. I have never in my life imagined being so completely vulnerable or feeling such pain as I have over the last year and a half. But I never imagine how beautiful our family would become or how many amazing real friendships would develop. I am truly blessed with my friendships. They are much family to me as my parents or brother. I love their children as I love my nieces and nephews. For me I see adoption as the closest thing to how God loves us. It does not matter where our kids have come from, what tragedy they have lived through, or how bad their behavior is, we simply love them. We often ask for nothing in return. I guess we are all so used to just loving that it makes it easier for us to love each other, expecting nothing of one another. The friendships I have are genuine and honest. We can look at one another and say "I don't know what I am doing" or "I am messing up". We support each other in good and bad times.
Right now are some pretty good times for some of my beautiful friends. My dear friend is half way around the world, in the Czech Republic with her 3 1/2 year old daughter. Her and her husband are the first US family ever allowed to adopt from that country! What an amazing journey. Today they are legally clear to travel with her. However the US is holding up things. There are always detours in the adoption journey and they are on one, but they have their daughter! Another of my dear friends brought their soon to be adoptive 16 year old daughter to tour her new school today. Things have been challenging, but starting to move along. And the biggest event of the day today was Sweetie's beautiful nephew was officially adopted by his foster parents.  I am so happy for him to have parents who adore him as much as we would have. I had a small moment of regret that we let him go, but that was very short lived. I know in my heart that he is exactly where he belongs. His parents are wonderful people and they are so gracious to have open communication with us and are so thoughtful to think of Sweetie's feelings. My heart is happy knowing that we did not lose him . We just gained a family with him! So our family is growing in leaps and bounds. And then our own home will become fuller soon.
We submitted all of our paperwork to NC Mentor to start the recertification process. We have our Therapeutic Foster Care Class next week and then CPR and medication management the week after.
I have been so pleased with the social worker I am working with. She is quick to get back to us. The process seems to be a lot less complicated now and the agency we are working with definitely has their stuff together. I am not sure where our journey will take us or what challenges we will face as we take on being a family for hurt children. But, I am confident that with all of the skills we have learned and continue to learn from working with our Sweetie, we can handle anything.

Please Be My Strength

Ok so this is a picture of my skeleton after running! Ok, maybe in my dreams. My skeleton is probably larger than that. But it's all good, I own all this! This week I find myself just drained.
They increased one of Sweetie's meds and it is the anniversary of Sweeite's adoption tomorrow. You would think this would be a good day. But not for many of our kids. Many of our older adopted children have big bad feeling surrounding their adoption day. Yes it is great that they were adopted, but think of what they had to go through to need to be adopted. For this reason I try not to say we were meant to be a family. Because if she was meant to be my child, she was meant to be abused and neglected. I don't for a single minute believe that. I like to tell her that God has given all man free will. Unfortunately when people have not been showed God's love and chose to live lives that revolve around sin, bad things usually happen. But God loves us so much, that he makes a beautiful thing out of something broken and messy. He has taken your crappy situation and mine and created a wonderful beautiful family. I am always honest with my daughter. I feel I owe that to her. Most of her life she has been lied to. Now she believes everyone is lying. So when something sucks I say "boy that really sucks". I can tell her when I am disappointed or sad. She may not always accept it at first but she does eventually accept what I am telling her as truth. There is such a fine line with this as well. I do not tell her how angry I am at her parents for not doing the right thing. I always go back to "They did what they had been showed to do". They had not received real unconditional love growing up, they were completely broken and no one cared. I have such pity for her biological family. Her 15 year old sister is now in a detention facility and her 9 month old baby is being adopted next week by his foster parents. My heart is happy! He is safe and loved by an amazing Christian family. I am blessed to know the mom considers us family! That means so much that she is keeping contact with us.
I have digressed. Back to Adoption Day Anniversary. So, I am not sure if Sweetie's constant negativity and defiance is a symptom of that or what. But it is draining. I am trying to keep upbeat, but sometimes I want to just say "Yeah This Sucks" and climb under the covers and hibernate for a month. I know it is not realistic to even consider this but it really is a nice dream. Tomorrow we will celebrate by repeating some of the things from last year, we will get cupcakes from SAS and go to dinner to the same place. I hope it is a good day for her and us. I am in need of some serious relaxation.

Healing Begins

 

This past week had been a good one. We have been busy and Sweetie has managed to keep it together all week. Over the last few weeks she had been pushing hard and refusing any direction. This makes it very difficult to parent. I think she had an "Aha" moment in therapy Saturday. Her favorite phrase has been "I don't have to, you can't make me" and she is right we can't make her do most things. Ms. Dana put it a way that seems to have made an impact by saying "You are right, you don't have to and no one can make you do anything, but that is just part of being a part of a family". For the first time Sweetie could say without even a bit of pause that we were a good family and she wanted to be part of it. I really believe her. She has been trying so hard to control her anger and to do what is asked. I am celebrating every small victory. When Sweetie gets aggravated she storms off, usually with a bunch of mumbling and grumbling. Last night as she stormed away from the dinner table I calmly said "that's ok you can go to your room to cool off if you need to, but would you mind just clearing your plate first". I don't know why I asked, I just knew she wouldn't do it, but I tried. And to my surprise she stopped mid stomp through the living room, turned around and came back to clear her plate and put it in the sink. Now, she was stomping and grumbling like crazy, but SHE DID IT!!!
I made sure to praise her for doing it and tell her how proud I was that she could control herself to do that. We are having progress. I am getting more and more glimpses of hope for our Sweetie. I see here bonding more with Cris. He has been working with her on kickboxing. This has been a great outlet for some pent up energy and it gives them something that is for "just them". She is really enjoying it. I am happy she is starting to show interest in something other than driving me nuts. That has been her most favorite past time for the last year. I have learned how not to respond to the button pushing and she has found I am like a broken record with my rehearsed responses so she has finally stopped trying to push them so much. It's been quite a while since she has called me anything to awful. She is settling into this new routine with a lot of structure. We have to work so hard to stay out of power struggles with Sweetie. We have figured out that is what she is looking for. If she can get us to engage in an argument, she still has the ability to try to control the situation. One of my favorite sayings now is "It's not worth arguing" or "I am just to tired to fight today, but you can feel free to argue with yourself all you want" as I walk away. She has been going to either church with me or going up to Jr. High Small Group on Sunday mornings. I believe this has a big impact on her healing.
It is so good for her to be surrounded by our church family who loves us (including her)so unconditionally. I am grateful for the beautiful young woman in our Jr. High group who accept and support Sweetie, no questions asked. These sweet souls really embody the spirit of Jesus. This past week one of the boys made a comment to Sweetie that could have been hurtful. I know this boy and I am sure he didn't mean it that way and Sweetie actually wasn't bothered by it. But one of the sweet girls (Shea) could see how that could be hurtful and sent Sweetie one of the nicest text about how
she is beautiful and awesome just the way she is. I was so proud of both Shea and my Sweetie. A year ago, Sweetie would have beaten up someone that picked on her and a year ago Shea might not have been mature enough to deal this the issue. It is amazing to watch our girls grow into beautiful women.
That was last week. 
This week we are back to tantruming Sweetie. She tantrummed for 3 hours tonight, an hour and a half while the therapist was here. She was actually more escalated than usual in order to provide a better show for the therapist. She went from being completely manic and banging repeatedly on windows and kicking doors to sitting on the floor yelling to sobbing and back around again. It was exhausting. It started the minute I walked in the door. As she often does, when Sweetie does something she knows is wrong she rats herself out. This time it was that she friended a 19 year old guy on Facebook.
She knew it was against the rules and knew she would get caught when I checked the computer. As soon as I opened my mouth to say anything she started arguing and blowing up. The therapist asked that we start documenting her moods as she is starting to believe that  Sweetie's issues aren't all RAD and ADHD, but Bipolar. I have often thought that myself. Because she is either really really good or really really bad. There is no in the middle. She is an all or nothing girl. I will talk to her psychiatrist when we see him Thursday. This will be our first meeting since she was released from PRTF.

Last week we hit our first speed bump on our road to becoming therapeutic foster parents. But it was quickly rectified. The group we will be working with to get special authorization to accept us because of Sweetie's recent discharge from PRTF. We meet with our social worker next Tuesday night to officially get started. We do not have to take MAPP training again, which is awesome! My only worry now is that her therapist seeing her tonight may put a damper on things. I pray it does not.

Please continue to pray for Sweetie's continued healing, may she know God's love through me.
Also please pray for our strength and our patience. There are many days were it wears thin, but we are continuing to pour love on her even when she is acting her absolute worst.

One Thing Remains

We have had a long week. Lots of bumps, but some really good moments of growth for our Sweetie.
It has been a week of many "I'm sorry" moments. That phrase is said so much it has no meaning.
At one point I made a comment that I understand that she is saying it, but if you say and it and repeat the same action over and over again you are not really sorry. The next time she was harassing the dogs, she immediately said "I'm sorry, wait not I'm not". I couldn't help but to laugh.
My child is very insightful and overall very honest with me. I am grateful for that.
And even though she does not really mean she is sorry, I can appreciate that she is practicing saying it. It has been a week where I can really see how truly shameful my girl feels all the time. She doesn't accept the 100 times a day we praise her. But then goes completely off the deep end because we give a small redirection where she becomes defiant and argumentative. Things snowball from there. It always ends the same with her crying making comments about how we don't love her and don't care.
I can't even count how many negative comments she makes about herself and us. She calls herself stupid and states how she messes up everything. I try to comfort her and build her up. At times this is hard to do, especially when I watch her intentionally sabotage things. I am working so hard not to get triggered by her and not to engage in her arguing. She keeps coming back over and over trying to push more. I understand why she does it and I am able to stay calm with her. But I am screaming inside. Everything in me wants to shake her to make her stop. Stop pushing us away, stop being defiant, just stop arguing. Her newest thing is to refuse to do what is asked and say she doesn't have to and I can't make her. She is right, I can't make her do anything. She is 120 pounds of raging hurt child. Last night it was over going to her room at 9:00. She refused to go to her room, she stood in the middle of the living room yelling "you can't make me".  After asking her nicely several times and getting the same response I said "you are right I can't make you, but then again you can't make me drive you to your friend's house next weekend either". It's a logical consequence.
If she can't go to her room when asked, I can't trust her to follow directions while with a friend.
Today was another long day with similar interactions but thanks to the support and prayers of many of my friends I was able to keep my cool really well!  So now I will focus on something good from the week. This past week she was having an issue with a girl at school talking about her. to other girls. Sweetie told me about the girl being mean. I asked her to remember if she could have done anything to make her feel bad. She remembered a couple weeks ago making fun of her scratching  her armpit. I talked to her on the way into school about the power of a real apology. I asked her to empathize how it would feel to be her. I encouraged her to talk to the girl. And you know what? She did it! She apologized! That is huge for our girl! I am so proud of her! I know many adults who could not do that. I celebrate this positive moment. I also chose to celebrate the tender moment we had in church where she had her head on my shoulder and her hand on Cris' shoulder. I love how she held my hand during one of my favorite songs and looked up at me during worship excited that she knew the song. It made my heart smile when I heard singing the words while she was taking her shower and right before she went to sleep this evening. We are getting through! I know it is challenging most of the time, but she is coming to know our love and God's love. There is not much else I can do but that for her.

I have spent a lot of time praying lately. Praying for healing for my sweet girl. Praying for my own healing from the wounds that she can inflect on my heart. But I am also praying for the next chapter of our crazy journey. Back in January I went to the Create for Care Retreat I had signed up for several breakout sessions on older children adoptions, but somehow was put into one on foster care. To be honest I skipped the breakout session and went and took a nap. My friend Kim was picking on me that maybe that was a sign that I should be fostering. I laughed and said absolutely not. Then a few weeks back on Sweetie's last day in residential treatment I sat next to one of the younger kids who has been living there. There was a moment that we had to share our favorite birthday memory. The little girl looked up at me with these huge brown eyes and said in this little voice that she didn't have any. It was in that very moment that I felt in my whole body that fostering is what I need to be doing. Over the last year my daughter has shared bits and pieces of things that happened to her in foster care. I think of the total lack of medical and dental care she received. I think of her being treated like she was less than a person, that she was damaged. And I think mostly about how many times someone gave up on her and threw her aside like the garbage that was in the garbage bags she brought with her when she moved here. It breaks my heart to know there are hundreds of thousands of children living in the United States being treated like this. I know I can not help them all, but I can perhaps make a difference in some children's lives. And perhaps those seeds of love that will be sown will grow beautiful fruit that will then be shared with others. I know it probably sounds crazy to take on more when we are already spread so thin. But isn't that one of the greatest gifts back to God. To give to his children when it is uncomfortable. I am faithful that he will provide for us what we need to be on this journey. So with that being said Cris and I are going to become therapeutic foster parents through NC Mentor. These are the people that we are working with as Sweetie's Intensive In Home Therapy. The children we would have in our home will come from backgrounds like our Sweetie and with behaviors like our Sweetie. There are not many people with the skills to parent kids with these trauma histories. Sweetie has given me such a gift, she has shown me what my purpose is. What I believe to be God's plan for me. My journey with Sweetie has strengthened my trust in the Lord. There is no way I could be staying afloat without him as my life preserver. He has given me strength when I did not feel I could go on. He has given me patience when I had none. And he has continued to pour into me his love so that I could continue to pour into Sweeties heart. God has helped to pave the way in my husbands heart and in Sweetie's. Both have been completely on board with this. This has been and will continue to be an uncomfortable journey. But it too also has many rewards. And in the end it may even help Sweetie & other children to heal. As of Friday the agency was trying to reactivate our foster license. If they can, I will just need the therapeutic training. I am praying that we can do that. But if not that is OK too. There will be a reason that we are in that training class. I know I will be able to share our story with people that are wanting to foster just for the money. Maybe that will change those people's minds. Or maybe it will encourage someone to prepare themselves more. Or maybe there is someone in that class who will need to know that you can do this. That you can love a child even when they are acting unlovable.

So as I sit here typing this I am brought back to I'm sorry. But this time it is me that is asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness for ignoring what God asked of me. I want to show your love to those who do not believe they deserve to be loved. That they will know that your love never gives up. This it always remains.

The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Taking the road less travelled is windy and bumpy.
So when you get to a clearing you can appreciate the beauty that is in front of you.
Life with our Sweetie has definitely been a road less travelled. There have been great moments of sadness and hurt on this path. But the road has also brought me to such beautiful places with my dear girl. Sweetie's first week home was rough. She is really testing us right now. Trying to figure out the new structure in our home. She is looking for the smallest crack so that she can reinforce the belief that we will fail her. I will be honest and say that it is hard to be rejected most of the time, when you pour everything into one person. But then there are glorious beautiful moments like when I picked Sweetie up from school Friday. I should back up a bit...Thursday evening was really rough. It was one of those nights where she had a blow up that lasted a long time and included cussing us out and throwing things. The last thing she screamed at me was she hated me and that I will burn in hell. She would not come out of her room after that. The next morning she woke up as if nothing happened the night before. But I couldn't pretend it was all ok. I still gave her affection, even though I REALLY didn't want to! That afternoon I picked her up from school and I was just quiet. She asked me if I was mad at her. I told her no but I was sad that  she hated me and thought that I should burn in hell.
She started to whine that it is all because of you and at that moment I  snapped back that it has nothing to do with me. She started crying and said "no, I am crying because I hurt you". This was the first time that I saw genuine empathy towards me in my girl. I told her I forgave her for the harsh words and that I still love her. That I will always love her. In good moments and bad she will always be my daughter. She has been doing well since that happened. It is still difficult having to get through normal house routine with her, but it is a glimpse of hope for my girl. If she can have genuine empathy for me than that can develop into empathy for all mankind. This was a huge moment in our time together. Maybe the most important moment to date. I am proud of her for how far she is pushing herself. I know it is difficult to control the anger inside. Anger is easy and soothing to a soul that has always been surrounded with turmoil. Peace feels unsettling. She so wants to be loving and be happy. It is just so hard to be those things when you feel so awful about yourself and your past.
I know there will be many more blow ups to come, but I know in my heart that Sweetie is beginning to believe that we love her and care for her well being. And I know she is doing the best that she can right now with the tools that she has. Another positive is she has willingly been going to Jr. High small group at church. I know it is mostly because she likes a boy there, but she is excited to go each week. It makes me happy to have her there. I love my Jr. High kids and I am so happy to be able to share that with Sweetie.



We are on week 2  of Intensive In Home therapy. So far they are still working on building a relationship with her before they start pushing her a bit harder. It is difficult to have people in our house so much,3 times this week, 4 times next week... and it will be rotating like that for 6 months. It sure does make me tired.

I have taken the road less travelled for sure and it has made all the difference, for her and for me.

Save You

Almost a year ago Sweetie had her first rage with me, the following 7 months were probably the hardest of my life. I can't believe it has been 6 months since Sweetie went into PRTF.  What a crazy 6 months this has been. In less than 15 hours Sweetie will be returning home. I am excited and frankly, I am scared to death. Sweetie has learned so good skills to help her control her anger, but she has also learned some new behaviors that are difficult, like saying " I don't have to do that, you can't make me". Boy is that a trigger for me... I immediately think "What do you mean, I can't make you??? ". This will probably always be difficult for me to deal with. Both of us have the subconscious need to control things and have the last word. There is so much of my personality in my daughter. No wonder we clash so much. I have no doubt that if we had a biological child she would be just as headstrong, determined and stubborn.
Yes, the last 7 months has be so terribly trying, but I would not trade it for anything. Of course, I have moments when I asked myself "how did I allow myself to get in this mess", but there are many moments when I feel so much pride for how far my girl has come. I have had moments of doubt and regret. I have felt as if I have turned my back on my daughter when I admitted her to residential treatment. I felt like I abandoned her again. I know that it is what she needed, but there is still a huge quilt that I have carried. I pray that she sees we never left her, we were here the whole time. We have not given up on her. I want her to see how truly special she is and for her to know that she deserves to be loved. She deserves our love. I wish I could fix everything for her. I wish I could save her. But I alone can not. I do not know what we have lying ahead of us. I can hope for times of great growth for our girl and for us. I know we will have set backs and we will work through them.
For now life will be full of therapy and structure. 4 days of therapy a week, 3 are in home working with her on behaviors, Saturdays will be our trauma work days with Ms. Dana. I am excited to start working with Ms. Dana again. I have worked with many mental health workers in the last year and she is the only one who really understand Reactive Attachment Disorder. Our time working with her was the only time Sweetie was addressing any of her trauma history, which she so desperately needs to do in order to really begin to heal. I am excited that the Intensive In Home Therapy team is going to follow Dana's recommendations. I couldn't ask for anything better when it comes to treatment for Sweetie. Between the therapeutic team, her amazing school (that saved her spot for her to come back this year.)and Ms. Carmen (Sweetie's after school caretaker) we have our resources lined up. I really believe this is Sweetie's best chance at healing.

As always I am blown away at how blessed I am with amazing friendships during my journey with Sweetie. Friends who have been so supportive and so understanding. Friends who don't judge my Sweetie's behavior. There are not enough words to express my gratitude to everyone who has supported us and have prayed for our family. Without the support of each and every one of you  I could not be the mom I need to be for Sweetie. I have so much love for you all!

For You

This 6 months has flown by and in 15 days Sweetie will be returning home from PRTF.I am excited and nervous. She was home yesterday and we went school shopping. It was so much easier this year than last. Sweetie is much more in tune with getting dysregulated by loud noises and chaotic environments. She only had about 30 seconds of issue during our 7 hours of shopping. She immediately corrected her behavior and was able to acknowledge that the super loud music in the store was too much and made her feel irritated. She has really gotten into different fabrics and prints, which is completely opposite of the Hollister tee shirts and jeans kick she was on last year. She again did a great job budgeting her school clothing funds and did not go over her budget at all, she also made sure to spend every single penny... literally :) She had a great day.

So with just 15 days left before Sweetie comes home, I am super busy trying to line up resources.

I have found a care taker for her after school who will pick her up at 3 and bring her home, help get her homework done, hang out with her and help make dinner. Ms. C has a bunch of experience with kiddos like my Sweetie. She actually works for the only group home I would have even considered.

She is all about structure, which is honestly something I need to be better about. So we will have her and then 3 days of Intensive In Home therapy 3 times a week. And after we adjust we will go back to our attachment therapist Ms. D. I am going to have to get Sweetie a tutor for math the make up for her missing the last few months of school. We are going to do what ever is needed to give Sweetie the best chance at healing and for her to succeed in whatever it is she decides.

I will be honest that I am nervous and excited about her returning home. She has made such great improvements the last few weeks. I am working on myself to control my own triggers. It is hard to let go of the feeling that she is going to blow up. I need to shake this feeling. If I am feeling it, she will be able to tell and that will cause her to feel rejected and cause the blowup. I have been working on this in therapy myself. It is difficult to handle the rejection and stay therapeutic. I really struggle with this and I will probably always be a work in progress in this area.

I had a great opportunity to practice that this past week. Sweetie was singing a duet with one of her peers for chapel. She refused to perform if I was present. Since it involved another girl, I backed down and waited back in the therapist office for her to come back. Once she finished her performance she comes strolling in , looks me dead it the eyes and asked if I was mad about what she had done. I said  "no", even though my feelings were hurt. She did this during therapy so that we would not be addressing her safety plan, which she did not want to go over. A safety plan is guidelines to help keep her safe and others around her safe. It was hard for her to talk about this, because it is admitting she has issues. That is still too much for her to handle. The path too healing is going to be a long on with my dear child, but it is a journey that we can make! I have real hope that there is complete healing available for my Sweetie to have.  That is really all this mama can hope for.

525600 minutes

I can not believe I missed our anniversary of Sweetie moving in with us and becoming part of the V Family! It was last week. I have been so busy in life that I didn't even think about it. One of the biggest days of my life and I forgot to acknowledge it! I am feeling pretty rotten about that. I will have to make it up to Sweetie.

Every once in a while I dive in and reread Sweetie's records. Trying to truly understand her. It helps me to keep her actions in perspective. It reminds me of where she came from and why she does not know how to receive or give true unconditional love.

Tonight I find myself so humbled. Like rereading an intense mystery novel, I discover details that I hadn't really noticed previously. Each time I reread, I get a little more insight into what my daughter has survived.

 How strong my beautiful daughter must be to have survived for so long in such awful situations. My heart breaks for her. But I also have so much hope... As I read of past behaviors I think of how she isn't doing many of them anymore... How far my little one has come. When I look back over the last year, I see many low moments and many amazing moments. As an adoptive mom of an older child I get to experience many things biological families never get to experience. Even though times can be rough, I have found an enormous amount of love in my heart and have experienced the most amazing grace by being Sweetie's mom. My favorite moments have been the small quiet ones. Sometimes it was when she would allow me to rock her and read to her, other times it was just getting to be silly.

I mean real silly. Like wearing a mustache and driving through one of the roughest neighborhoods, waving to people and having them wave back. My absolute favorite moments are the nights she will let me tuck her in. Each time, I give her a hug and then snort and pretend I am eating her hair. She always squeals with delight and this makes my heart happy. Those are the moments of pure joy, with no agenda and they are moments when she lets her guard down, even if only for a brief moment.Those evenings are starting to spread out because she is a "teenager". But, boy will I grab that time anytime she will let me!

For the first time while reading her evaluations I did not feel dread. I felt hope When I read about lots of inappropriate behaviors that were happening on a daily basis and then I think about where Sweetie is now, my heart becomes happy! The defiant temper tantrums are so much better now. I am feeling that she is genuinely starting to care for us and beginning to let herself believe that we are the real deal and that we are here for her unconditionally.

So another 525600 minutes has passed in our lives and I find myself in in aww of everything we have survived together. Our little family has been plagued with trails, but we continue to pass through them. We find ourselves stronger on the other side of these battles. But the year was not only about trials. It was full of some amazing moments of friendship and love. God has not only blessed me with this amazing child, but he has provided me with amazing friends and amazing opportunities for her education. There have been mountains moved this past year to help Sweetie become the best Sweetie that she can be. We are loved and supported by so many wonderful people. This is something that blows me away. There are so many amazing souls in the Charlotte area.

Calm

We have been having a good few weeks with Sweetie. She has really been making great improvements. She still has her moments of snippiness. But what teen doesn't. Overall she is really fun to have around. This weekend was a pretty busy one. Friday night we went o a baseball game with our Friends Matt & Megan. Sweetie really enjoyed that! Saturday we spent the day with Shelli and her nieces. We hit the pool, watched a movie and grilled out. Sweetie helped bake a cake and she decorated it. I wasn't really up to par this weekend, I have an awful ear infection and sinus infection. Sweetie seemed to be a bit more empathetic and even  let me sleep in both days. I am so grateful to all of our friends who have supported us and prayed for us during our journey. I believe it is God who is healing Sweetie's heart. There is no other explanation for the sudden switch last month. She has never been able to keep herself together this long. I am so proud of her. She is really trying to be better. My only concern now is her and my husband's relationship. They are so much alike. They are both waiting for the other to be the first to make a move. It gets really tiring being the buffer between them. I am not sure if this is something we will ever get worked out. This is something I have no control over, I can not change either of their feelings or behaviors.
I am feeling more confident about bringing her straight home now that she has stabilized. We are trying to get hooked up with intensive in home therapy for when she comes home. Intensive In Home Therapy is when 3 clinicians come into our home and work with us 3 times a week. They become my support if Sweetie starts to destabilize again. I am praying she doesn't
 destabilize. She is really looking forward to starting school. I can't believe how quickly this year has went. It seems like yesterday that we were school shopping for 6th grade. Where does time go?
Over all things are much calmer, I am happy and I hope it stays this way for a little while.

Anything is Possible...Anything Can Be

During our journey to becoming a family I have found that indeed anything is possible. I have found my heart is more capable of loving than I ever imagined. I have found that I am stronger than I ever believed I could be. But more than I anything I have found that amongst the chaos and pain I have found an incredible grace and peace. Loving my Sweetie is difficult many times, but I find that I can still love her. Even when she doesn't believe she is lovable, I find her more deserving of my love. I have yet to meet anyone, including many professionals that has been able to say "yes I could do that". Most are quite the opposite saying that they couldn't do it and don't know how I do. I will let you in on a secret, I don't know how I do it, all I can say is that I am not the one doing it. I can only give credit to God for getting us all through each day. Most days I feel like the biggest failure of a mom, but I keep on trying.

Sweetie is still doing better. It is still very difficult, but she is not having the major tantrums right now. 

She was home for the last 4 days. Her longest stay since she went to PRTF in February. It was exhausting. She wakes up at 6 am and the minute she is up she will make sure everyone else is up. She does this by slamming doors. Thursday am when I couldn't take it anymore at 6:30am, I came out of my room and just said "that is so not cool" Sweetie proceeds to try to argue with me and tell me I am hearing things and lying. Then she starts crying. This was the kick off to my 4th of July. She had 2 more what I call mini tantrums before 8:15 am. They are much shorter in duration,which is progress. 

Over all the 4th went fairly well, but mostly because I just let Sweetie do what ever she wanted to do, just to keep the peace. The nonsense questions and chatter has really become nonstop. Most of it about shopping. She is obsessed with asking for us to purchase her things. It is the only thing she will talk about. And I am serious about it being the only thing. My uncle came from NY and she asked before he got here if she could ask him to take her shopping. I begged her not to ask him for anything and then she badgered him for 2 days asking for money. She asked me today to take her shopping with the money he gave her and I told her that I didn't agree with how she got the money, so I would not support her in spending it. Her response was "what the heck am I suppose to do with it?". I just responded "I don't know". I feel so mean being like that, but I can't condone it either. It is not like she doesn't already have us buying her things often. The picture above is of the new bedding she just got this week, In addition to new shoes and accessories. She is like a typical teen with her always wanting things and is already looking at the next purchase before the first is even cashed out.  Her sense of entitlement is insane. She believes and vocalizes that she should have better things than me, that she deserves it. I laugh at her when she says stuff like that and say ok, but it is scary to me. I fear for her as an adult, looking to fill the hole in her heart with items will lead nowhere. I am trying my best to show her real love and God's love is the only things that can fill that void. I try to show her how giving to others is more fulfilling than purchasing material things. This is hard for any early teen to comprehend, let alone one who has suffered as she has. I want to give her everything she wants, but I can't because it will only fuel the sickness. I am working on fulfilling her needs. The needs she can not even see. 

I am trying to create memories with her. Usually as things are happening she appears very unhappy, usually complaining. But later when telling someone else about them she brags how awesome it was. I guess it is good that her memories of these events are good even if she is not experiencing joy in the moments. Uncle Bill took us to a very nice restaurant.  Sweetie was able to get all dressed up, which she loved! She really enjoys wearing semi formal dresses. She beams when she does, you can see that she feels beautiful. I love that about her. Overall she did well there. We still have to work on her manners still, but she tried hard. I think this was a good experience for her to see what Cris and I are talking about, when we discuss using utensils. I have to remind myself this is the kid who was eating with her hands a few months ago. So, I give her credit for attempting to use her knife.  I am grateful for these small victories! 

On the baby front: 

I received an email from the baby's social worker that the foster family love him and want to peruse adopting him. That they will do what ever they have to in order to adopt him. All along I have said this was God's decision. I have had the paperwork ready to submit for our home study for over a month now, but I just couldn't submit it. I don't know why, it just didn't feel right. Once I heard that the foster family loved him and would do anything for him, I knew what we had to do. But I thought convincing my husband would be harder. He was in love with the idea of bringing the baby home. I had not seen him that hopeful since baby Leah was here. I have to admit it was nice to see him smile when talking about the baby. But thinking of baby Leah brought me back to the complete heartbreak I felt when we lost her. A pain, I can still feel in my chest to this day. The day we lost her, I feel as if I piece of my heart was removed. There is no way I could intentionally inflict that kind of misery on anyone. I prayed for God to help me make the right choice. The selfish part of me felt that this could be our only chance to have a baby. With Sweetie, no one would approve us to bring another baby into the home, but they would a relative. If we wait until she is out of the house we will be in our kid 40's and that would be more difficult with a baby. But I kept coming back to that ache of losing Leah. I know this is normally something about me that drives my husband crazy. I am always putting everyone else above myself. But this time amazingly he agreed. There was no argument. We agreed as long as the bay would be safe and loved that we would be happy for him. We shared this news with the babies social worker and asked her to ask the foster family if they would mind contact. I received her email and sent her the first message. I had no idea what to expect. Mostly I was thinking I would not get any response. But I did get a response and it melted my heart. This baby is what this family has been praying for. We became friends on Facebook and I could go back and see post that were just like the ones I had written about Leah. I know now that we have made the right choice. I feel happy that he is where he belongs, he is with his family. And in a way, our family has grown again. So, I have found that anything is possible, anything can be.