I wish I could vent about everything that's going on.
Sometimes government agencies are difficult to work with.
That is all.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Monday, May 14, 2018
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Full Disclosure
I have told you that I will not write only the happy sunshine. It's not all autonomous dandelions and perfectly fitting songs.
It was a bad week in regards to Lucas and me.
Life this week was ridiculously demanding for a hundred different reasons. Everyone had huge needs, and it felt like I was the only one who could meet them. I slept three hours or less each night, dropping into bed at 2 and getting up at 5. The details of it all are not important for the purpose of this blog. What is important is the way it affected my ability to manage all of the things.
Frankly, I did not entirely manage all of the things.
I struggled so hard to be upbeat and to approach him with an open and positive attitude. I try to respond to him in a way that is understanding of his trauma, but some days - lately I feel like it is most days - I just don't catch it. He is not able to identify outright when he is worrying about something, and so he says something that to me will appear completely random.
"I'm so excited! At the end of the summer, I can finally be adopted!"
My brain says, "Oh crap. It doesn't matter how much we want to, we don't get to decide that. I don't want him to have that timeline in his head, because it might not happen that fast."
I say out loud, "Here's hoping, Dude, but that's not our decision - it's the judge's."
From the bathroom, my wife hisses at me to stop. I am baffled, but I do. She tells me - slightly impatiently, as she does not understand how she can possibly be the only one who sees these things - that he was trying to get me to tell him that we, and more importantly I, want him and will fight for him when the time comes.
She gets it, and sees what I don't when it comes to his trauma. I am admittedly quite opinionated after having taught for twenty years and having worked with my at-risk population of teenagers for four of them, but I have seen the results on this, and I know she is right. She never has trouble with him to half the extent that I do, and she reads between his lines in was that I cannot.
This one moment leads directly back to this week.
Twice now I have had moments of, "I can't do this." I've had my own mini-meltdown, wrestling with all of it, locked in the bathroom crying into a towel to keep from being heard (edit, because I think it merits being said: there has never been an, "I'm done," moment in which I've ever even considered giving up. They've all been moments of feeling like I am a failure, like I should be able to make a decision and stretch farther to make it happen. They've not had anything to do with whether or not he fits in our house).
I look at him, and I see nine.
Emotionally, he is five.
His smartass, sarcastic, passive aggressive, attention-seeking snark is... god, sometimes it feels like thirteen. Sometimes t feels like nine. Sometimes it feels like three.
Emotionally, he is five.
The way he throws himself once or twice a week into a pile when he doesn't want to move in the morning, leaving me little choice but to dress him myself as he whines and grunts in protest, is two.
The way he leaves behind him a trail of coats, bags, clothes he has changed out of, toys, sweatshirts, is... I don't know. Four? A poorly trained six?
This is part of the issue, too. We were strict with my daughter. She grew up with it ingrained in her that she did not leave a path of debris. She wasn't perfect by any stretch, but she knew the expectation and had consequences if she did not meet it.
He does not follow a yearly readiness standard. He is not only nine or five or four or six or two. I don't know which standard to enforce and which to allow to slide by because he is simply not emotionally grown enough to handle it yet. I have grown impatient with it, feeling like the three months in which he has been in our home should have been enough to at least get down the basics of bringing your plate from the table when you're done eating and not leaving discarded clothes all over the bedroom or bathroom floor when the hamper is only a few feet away.
I know grown men who still haven't mastered the concept of putting the lid back down, so I'm just shaking my head at that... but it seems so simple a concept.
I just cannot read the way he cues me up for reassurance the way my wife can. It's so frustrating to me, because it's not as if I'm not making an effort. I myself was a kid who was very passive and backward in my approach to things, and I was rarely able to name what I needed... and that makes me think that I should be able to see it. I pick up on it maybe 25% of the time, when it is more obvious... when he is talking "to himself" and saying, "I could ask Mom something, but she would probably say no..." and even then, I tend to get irritated rather than address the need. He yells from the bathroom that he has diarrhea - something he no doubt has handled by himself in a neglect situation for five years - and I can see he is really asking if he will be taken care of if he gets truly sick and needs help. Maybe it's the fact that I still struggle with not being able to name my own complexities occasionally - we dislike in others that which we dislike about ourselves. I don't know. When it's named, I can meet it. If I know what he's feeling and what he's responding to, I'm solid on the correct response 80% of the time. Disclosing former abuse? Got it. Feeling like he has no roots and needs to know this is his home, not just where he's staying for a while? Got it. Under a veil of defiance and tantrum, it is so much more difficult to see.
Sometimes he is just ticked off at the world and wants to be angry and surly, arguing about anything and everything, just because he doesn't know how to put into words what he is really upset about. These are the hardest days, because even when I am doing everything right in the way I am approaching him, he is bound, set, and determined to make me into what he knows, all the while hoping that I won't become it.
On these days, I have those moments of wondering if I'm really cut out for this and if I'll ever really reach a point of "getting it."
My wife will often take over on these days, via facetime if she is already at work. He typically responds to her fairly quickly, which on some days is a relief, and on other days just makes me feel more frustrated.
I've taken to "meeting" with him after we've had an issue and both have had a minute to breathe. Most often, this happens on our way to the day care in the morning. How did we do today? What's one thing that you could have done better? What's one thing I could have done better? When you said xyz, how were you trying to make me feel? Did you think I was mad at you when I did x? It has helped a little bit, if only to show that I'm not just aggravated with him and wishing he didn't exist.
I do not have a bubbly demeanor to begin with. An ex from high school nicknamed me "Wednesday." It's true that I'm introverted and don't like to people. I think that my RBF probably figures into at least some of what's happening here. Again, he is emotionally younger. What would a toddler or kindergartner think seeing my at-rest face? There is not the balance of two year old omigaw-everything-you-do-is-so-stinking-cute to counter the tantrum, passive aggressive behavior.
This is the reality of fostering. So many times it's not about the kid... it's about you and how you choose to respond as the parent.
When you foster, it's not enough to yell encouragement as the kid picks his way through the flames. You have to jump in too, and some days, everything hurts.
Maybe that's what it comes down to, really. Some days, he feels that everything hurts and it feels like nothing can ever make it not hurt.
Sometimes I know to just pull him to me in a hug instead of debating the tantrum. Sometimes I recognize that he just needs an anchor in that way.
I just hope that I am learning these ropes at least as quickly as I am expecting him to. Otherwise, I am just another two-faced adult who does not live the words she speaks.
He cannot afford another one of those.
It was a bad week in regards to Lucas and me.
Life this week was ridiculously demanding for a hundred different reasons. Everyone had huge needs, and it felt like I was the only one who could meet them. I slept three hours or less each night, dropping into bed at 2 and getting up at 5. The details of it all are not important for the purpose of this blog. What is important is the way it affected my ability to manage all of the things.
Frankly, I did not entirely manage all of the things.
I struggled so hard to be upbeat and to approach him with an open and positive attitude. I try to respond to him in a way that is understanding of his trauma, but some days - lately I feel like it is most days - I just don't catch it. He is not able to identify outright when he is worrying about something, and so he says something that to me will appear completely random.
"I'm so excited! At the end of the summer, I can finally be adopted!"
My brain says, "Oh crap. It doesn't matter how much we want to, we don't get to decide that. I don't want him to have that timeline in his head, because it might not happen that fast."
I say out loud, "Here's hoping, Dude, but that's not our decision - it's the judge's."
From the bathroom, my wife hisses at me to stop. I am baffled, but I do. She tells me - slightly impatiently, as she does not understand how she can possibly be the only one who sees these things - that he was trying to get me to tell him that we, and more importantly I, want him and will fight for him when the time comes.
She gets it, and sees what I don't when it comes to his trauma. I am admittedly quite opinionated after having taught for twenty years and having worked with my at-risk population of teenagers for four of them, but I have seen the results on this, and I know she is right. She never has trouble with him to half the extent that I do, and she reads between his lines in was that I cannot.
This one moment leads directly back to this week.
Twice now I have had moments of, "I can't do this." I've had my own mini-meltdown, wrestling with all of it, locked in the bathroom crying into a towel to keep from being heard (edit, because I think it merits being said: there has never been an, "I'm done," moment in which I've ever even considered giving up. They've all been moments of feeling like I am a failure, like I should be able to make a decision and stretch farther to make it happen. They've not had anything to do with whether or not he fits in our house).
I look at him, and I see nine.
Emotionally, he is five.
His smartass, sarcastic, passive aggressive, attention-seeking snark is... god, sometimes it feels like thirteen. Sometimes t feels like nine. Sometimes it feels like three.
Emotionally, he is five.
The way he throws himself once or twice a week into a pile when he doesn't want to move in the morning, leaving me little choice but to dress him myself as he whines and grunts in protest, is two.
The way he leaves behind him a trail of coats, bags, clothes he has changed out of, toys, sweatshirts, is... I don't know. Four? A poorly trained six?
This is part of the issue, too. We were strict with my daughter. She grew up with it ingrained in her that she did not leave a path of debris. She wasn't perfect by any stretch, but she knew the expectation and had consequences if she did not meet it.
He does not follow a yearly readiness standard. He is not only nine or five or four or six or two. I don't know which standard to enforce and which to allow to slide by because he is simply not emotionally grown enough to handle it yet. I have grown impatient with it, feeling like the three months in which he has been in our home should have been enough to at least get down the basics of bringing your plate from the table when you're done eating and not leaving discarded clothes all over the bedroom or bathroom floor when the hamper is only a few feet away.
I know grown men who still haven't mastered the concept of putting the lid back down, so I'm just shaking my head at that... but it seems so simple a concept.
I just cannot read the way he cues me up for reassurance the way my wife can. It's so frustrating to me, because it's not as if I'm not making an effort. I myself was a kid who was very passive and backward in my approach to things, and I was rarely able to name what I needed... and that makes me think that I should be able to see it. I pick up on it maybe 25% of the time, when it is more obvious... when he is talking "to himself" and saying, "I could ask Mom something, but she would probably say no..." and even then, I tend to get irritated rather than address the need. He yells from the bathroom that he has diarrhea - something he no doubt has handled by himself in a neglect situation for five years - and I can see he is really asking if he will be taken care of if he gets truly sick and needs help. Maybe it's the fact that I still struggle with not being able to name my own complexities occasionally - we dislike in others that which we dislike about ourselves. I don't know. When it's named, I can meet it. If I know what he's feeling and what he's responding to, I'm solid on the correct response 80% of the time. Disclosing former abuse? Got it. Feeling like he has no roots and needs to know this is his home, not just where he's staying for a while? Got it. Under a veil of defiance and tantrum, it is so much more difficult to see.
Sometimes he is just ticked off at the world and wants to be angry and surly, arguing about anything and everything, just because he doesn't know how to put into words what he is really upset about. These are the hardest days, because even when I am doing everything right in the way I am approaching him, he is bound, set, and determined to make me into what he knows, all the while hoping that I won't become it.
On these days, I have those moments of wondering if I'm really cut out for this and if I'll ever really reach a point of "getting it."
My wife will often take over on these days, via facetime if she is already at work. He typically responds to her fairly quickly, which on some days is a relief, and on other days just makes me feel more frustrated.
I've taken to "meeting" with him after we've had an issue and both have had a minute to breathe. Most often, this happens on our way to the day care in the morning. How did we do today? What's one thing that you could have done better? What's one thing I could have done better? When you said xyz, how were you trying to make me feel? Did you think I was mad at you when I did x? It has helped a little bit, if only to show that I'm not just aggravated with him and wishing he didn't exist.
I do not have a bubbly demeanor to begin with. An ex from high school nicknamed me "Wednesday." It's true that I'm introverted and don't like to people. I think that my RBF probably figures into at least some of what's happening here. Again, he is emotionally younger. What would a toddler or kindergartner think seeing my at-rest face? There is not the balance of two year old omigaw-everything-you-do-is-so-stinking-cute to counter the tantrum, passive aggressive behavior.
This is the reality of fostering. So many times it's not about the kid... it's about you and how you choose to respond as the parent.
When you foster, it's not enough to yell encouragement as the kid picks his way through the flames. You have to jump in too, and some days, everything hurts.
Maybe that's what it comes down to, really. Some days, he feels that everything hurts and it feels like nothing can ever make it not hurt.
Sometimes I know to just pull him to me in a hug instead of debating the tantrum. Sometimes I recognize that he just needs an anchor in that way.
I just hope that I am learning these ropes at least as quickly as I am expecting him to. Otherwise, I am just another two-faced adult who does not live the words she speaks.
He cannot afford another one of those.
I choose you.
It was a leisurely, pleasant morning. After being sleep deprived for a full week, my wife let me sleep in till 8 and made waffles. All of that was cleaned up, and Lucas was coming down the stairs from getting himself dressed for the day. Through the cut glass window came tiny splashes of yellow.
"Whoa! Look at all those sunflowers! They look so pretty!"
I explained that they're dandelions... that some people think they're weeds, but I like to think of them as flowers that just pop up anywhere they want.
"That's so cool. They could go anywhere, but they're here. It's like they're saying, 'I choose you."
Leave it to Lucas to think this way. They are tiny seeds blown indiscriminately on the wind, with no control over where they end up, and he thinks they're choosing us...
... just like he did.
"Whoa! Look at all those sunflowers! They look so pretty!"
I explained that they're dandelions... that some people think they're weeds, but I like to think of them as flowers that just pop up anywhere they want.
"That's so cool. They could go anywhere, but they're here. It's like they're saying, 'I choose you."
Leave it to Lucas to think this way. They are tiny seeds blown indiscriminately on the wind, with no control over where they end up, and he thinks they're choosing us...
... just like he did.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
It Lingers.
Crazy busy week. I'm only here for a moment to try to clear out the muck clogging my head.
I had the opportunity this week to have a heart to heart conversation with a child who had just been adopted that day by a stepparent. The situation with her non-involved biological parent, with whom she has had no contact in many years, is an ugly one.
She said she felt let down and sad after the court adjourned... that she had expected for everything to feel bigger and more dramatic. She was glad for the outcome, but not overflowing with joy, and that confused her. We had a talk about it; the conclusion we came to is that she was extremely relieved that he can no longer take steps to make her miserable or keep her from opportunities in her future, but that the past wasn't going away. It doesn't all poof the moment the adoption decree goes out. The trauma remains. The anger, the grief - all of it. It wasn't something she anticipated. I think she expected a slammed door of closure and was very bummed when she realized that she still had to deal with her own head and all that is in it.
Now it's up to her to figure out how to work through it and how to leave whatever negative baggage can manage to set down on the side of the road as she travels.
I can see this same conversation happening one day with Lucas. His drastically black and white thought processes make me fully expect that he will be very baffled when adoption does not immediately result in a perfectly wrapped box of Over It.
I had the opportunity this week to have a heart to heart conversation with a child who had just been adopted that day by a stepparent. The situation with her non-involved biological parent, with whom she has had no contact in many years, is an ugly one.
She said she felt let down and sad after the court adjourned... that she had expected for everything to feel bigger and more dramatic. She was glad for the outcome, but not overflowing with joy, and that confused her. We had a talk about it; the conclusion we came to is that she was extremely relieved that he can no longer take steps to make her miserable or keep her from opportunities in her future, but that the past wasn't going away. It doesn't all poof the moment the adoption decree goes out. The trauma remains. The anger, the grief - all of it. It wasn't something she anticipated. I think she expected a slammed door of closure and was very bummed when she realized that she still had to deal with her own head and all that is in it.
Now it's up to her to figure out how to work through it and how to leave whatever negative baggage can manage to set down on the side of the road as she travels.
I can see this same conversation happening one day with Lucas. His drastically black and white thought processes make me fully expect that he will be very baffled when adoption does not immediately result in a perfectly wrapped box of Over It.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)