addendum

Right after I posted below, I called my dad. He walked seventy feet with his walker!!!!!!!!!
He is tired,but he did it! I am encouraged for the first time in a month. If he continues to work this hard he can come home where he belongs.

too much of this and that

My husband is out of state visiting his folks for a couple of days.My thirteen year old son (who just returned to even keel from my unexpected trip out of state) is completely sideways. He is so bad he is holding his mouth sideways (hence the term). I am trying to keep our schedule going and reassure him often. His dad will be back. His dad always comes home. Etc.Etc. I made him drink his hot tea (for the caffeine) and eat a good breakfast. I had to insist on lunch and will probably have to make him eat supper as well. The other two forget to eat from time to time. This son is mad and trying to refuse to eat. I’m just not going to let him do that. He still weighs less than seventy pounds and is almost five foot tall. He needs to eat.
The older teens are not having the issues they used to have when one of us is gone. They seem to be past the abandonment fears. This is good. They forget they used to(and still do from time to time)get out of sorts when one of us are gone more than usual. (in my case,more than a couple of hours)they are not helping their little brother at all. In fact,they seem oblivious to the fact he is listing sideways. Peer haps they aren’t doing quite as well as I thought…..
My daughter has done nothing to get herself a cell phone and we are not pushing it. She is so much more pleasant to be around when she isn’t doing the constant texting.
She is right were she should be emotionally-if she were thirteen or fourteen. I am thankful we have her trust (most of the time) and happy she isn’t hitting early adolescence and moving out with the local lowlife at the same time. She is much happier when she isn’t trying to keep up with her peers. I know it sounds as if we are holding her back. Honestly we are not. If anything, we are gently pushing her forward. It is a balancing act,a dance that we do;providing the structure and the helps she needs, while encouraging her to be as independent as possible. Her next younger brother has the same issues but without the angst.
My youngest son has been placed in the county program. He called last night. About five minutes or less into the conversation it became oblivious he was no longer participating,or listening. I began to tell him about purple frogs and green skinned brothers and various other bizarre inanities. After a minute or two of me spouting utter nonsense I ended the call. I told him I loved him and I would be more than happy to talk to him when he was willing to participate.
My dad seems to have given up. He is recovering from his surgery and his DVTs seem to have been dissolved. He is simply refusing to lift a finger to help himself. He is not confused. He was 100 percent independent before surgery. He wants my brother and I to make decisions he is still perfectly capable of making. He wants to be waited on hand and foot and will only do the bare minimum to get well. He has gone overnight from my dad and friend, to wanting to be parented himself.He is resenting that my brother and I still have families to care for. My poor brother is at the hospital daily,working,running his house and scrambling to make sure his eleven year old is picked up from school and cared for on the evenings he has to work. He is getting the brunt of my dad’s new personality and it is hard. We are doing our best to keep my dad moving and to encourage him to be independent and come home. He seems to be resenting us in the same way teens resent being held accountable.
I told my dad last night he was scaring me. I told him that he had to make the decision to come home or go into another rehab/nursing home.I am not comfortable making that decision for him. My brother wants him home. I want him home.We do not want him in a nursing home. I had to tell him he was not helping himself by playing helpless. He is physically capable of sitting up and rearranging his own covers. He has to do more than he is asked, not less.
I do not understand these changes in my dad. I am too far away to be much help to my brother. My dad lives with my brother,so he doesn’t live alone. He has family that loves him and needs him. He is acting like a spoiled child and I am scared he is talking himself into a nursing home for no other reason than it is hurts to move. He isn’t permanently infirm, just weak from lying in bed for the last month.
He has started antidepressants. I am hoping they will kick in and help him. He is cutting down on his pain meds,but is still taking quite a bit for being a month post-op on Thursday.
I am very worried.
There is also a situation with my stepsons that I do not feel I can write about. They are breaking their dad’s heart for no real reason other than drama. If they were teens,I would be more understanding. They are young men, however, and need to start acting that way again.
Too much stuff in to many directions.

appointments and school stuff

Youngest son had his psych evaluation for the new program they are considering him for. I was told it was at 11:30. I was at the appointed place at 11:25 only to find out they held the evaluation without me. I live fifteen minutes away. If they would have given me the new time,I would have been there. I was not a happy camper. I was more than a little annoyed. Damage control was then done by the powers that be. They had a meeting just for me. When I entered the room I had to extend my hand first. I know that may seem petty,but these are supposed to be professionals. We are supposed to be a team. (it would be a first,but in theory anyway,a team we should be) At least neither man gave me a fishy handshake. I was at that point at a bit of an advantage. They screwed up and they now knew I was a parent that cared. Unfortunately,damage had been done.
If this meeting was held without the earlier subterfuge,I would have left feeling somewhat optimistic. At least I felt listened to when it came to behaviors seen at home,and fear for my son’s future if he cannot resolve them.
They asked for my son’s CPS file (the one that isn’t complete) and I told them that if he were accepted into the program,I would allow them access. I was told that I should just bring the file in and I politely told them that I had no intention of having his records floating around detention. If he was accepted,then I would allow access. Several times my intelligence and ability to articulate were complimented. (why??????). I made it clear that we did want our son home as long as it was safe to have him there. Etc,etc….
As I was being walked past the locked doors,I was again apologized to for being bypassed initially. “We didn’t realize you were involved”. Was the reason I was given.
How exactly should that be interpreted?
If at all possible,my husband and I will be together when dealing with those involved. It will cause less chance of misunderstanding.
Court is on Monday. We shall see what we shall see at that time. I am assuming my son will be put in the program. I was told that my son has the honor of being the most disturbed child they are considering. I haven’t been told it is a done deal,however.

School went well for the older two this week. I could tell they actually studied for their tests. My thirteen year old had a very hard week. At one point I had him running up the stairs ten times at a shot. (it was cold and raining -I couldn’t have him bounce on the trampoline). He was either very stuck on his math;or doing it wrong on purpose.His answers made no sense whatsoever. The fourth time I kicked his work back for the same mistakes, I told him he would run the stairs ten times for each wrongly worked problem.
He had no more mistakes.
Imagine that.

My dad is doing a little better. He was able to walk with the walker for the first time on Friday. Please keep praying.

If anyone has adopted after adopting a child as difficult (and potentially dangerous) as my youngest please let me know the good,the bad and the ugly. If you know of where we could get good council on a decision of this magnitude, please let me know.

fas isn’t much fun-or maybe it is

My thirteen year old is slipping backwards again. He is a bit upset that we did get that new TV and he is grounded from all electronics. He was offered the opportunity to “earn back” some time. We nearly always offer the kids a way to buy back time when grounded -once we think they have gotten the point. The deal is: the child/teen in question has to come up with service or chore related offers and the adults will negotiate with them for time off for good behavior. My currently grounded son can not seem to come up with one extra chore to help him earn back his time. Suggestions were offered. He is still at a loss.
He is spending his time feeling quite sorry for himself and doing the time honored way of getting back at mom. He spent the morning doing his school wrong on purpose. I spent the morning kicking his work back.
I did spend some time trying to walk him through his emotions. He has such a hard time identifying what he feels and why. I also let him know that if on the off chance he thought it was bothering me when he got the wrong answers (on purpose),he was sadly mistaken. It bothered me not at all. Well,it did make me sad that he was waisting another day,but in the end it was his business how many years it takes him to complete the seventh grade.
My kids have the hardest time identifying their emotions. They still have trouble knowing when they are upset-even when it is obvious to the rest of us. To this day, even the older two teens will not own up when they have made a mistake or have been caught dead to rights. Remorse isn’t high on their to do list.
I believe this is because they don’t have very well developed cause and effect,more than residual attachment issues. It is probably a combination of both,but the main culprit is the way they process (or don’t proccess) information. That is why their dad and I spend so much time trying to walk them through their feelings and reactions. This is also why we are not just an external brain for them,but also an external conscience. With most kids you can use role playing to help them learn how to handle tricky situations.My kids cannot connect role playing to real life. They just can’t.
Still,they are great kids who do try hard (most of the time).
If I had to choose to either live in my older thirteen year old’s world in his head or his younger brother’s;I will chose the older boy’s world. His world is usually a happy place that occasionally intersects with the real world. It is full of bananas and eyeballs and other silly things. It is violence free and happy. Think Teddy in Arsenic and Old Lace.
Youngest son’s world is not a happy place. You couldn’t pay me to spend time in his head. It is very,very scary in there. His world is brother Johnathan’s from the same movie.
I love the line when they are discussing having Teddy be someone else and he just hides under the bed and won’t be anyone at all.

back on even keel,and some interesting things said around the house.

My thirteen year old is back on a more even keel. It has taken a week of reassurance,schedule,helping him judge the weather. ( Son it’s 70 degrees out,take off your hoodie. Son it’s cold today,wear your hoodie and some socks.),and listening to the word banana.
” Banana”.” Banana eyeballs.”" You’re a banana” and the all new: “Banana butt.”
He has also been very silly and almost manic in his happiness.
He is such an easy child to love.
My older teens bought themselves a new laptop to share. I am not quite sure how they are divvying it up,but they don’t seem to be having any conflict. My daughter spends most of her time watching movies or hula when she has control. She has lost sleep watching movies in her room.
For this reason, her dad almost lost it yesterday during a discussion about a new TV we may be buying. He and the boys were talking about plasma vs LCD in our price range (think small here) and our amount of usage (think weekly,not daily) when this daughter announces in her most superior tone “I don’t obsess about television the way y’all do” He did manage to keep a straight face. Her brothers just stared at her.
I received my phone call from youngest yesterday. When he picked up, I said my normal “Hi son,how was your day”
He responded with “I didn’t call you. I called my lawyer”
I retorted with, ” You can’t just call your lawyer,son. Besides it is Saturday and your lawyer doesn’t work on weekends.”
He came back with several renditions of “I don’t want to talk to you I just want to talk to my lawyer”
I ended the discussion with “Your lawyer is with his family. Besides, we are the ones paying for your lawyer,so he is really our lawyer anyway. Now…what did you have for lunch?”
It was very a very funny conversation. Instead of having the effect my son wanted it to have (upsetting me),it had the opposite. I didn’t do the best job keeping the amusement out of my voice.
Tonight he talked to me without games,or attitude.

My dad is not doing well. He now has a DVT in his leg. This is not a good thing. Prayer is appreciated.

an anniversary is coming up

Next week youngest will have been our son officially for one year. If you would have asked me a year ago today where I thought we would be at the one year mark, it wouldn’t be close to where we are. There is no way we foresaw this outcome. We never thought he would be an easy kid. We anticipated epic battles and defiance.We anticipated an enormous amount of work to help him heal. We truely thought we would have a modicum of trust-at least enough to work with-by now.We did not anticipate attachment,or reciprocated feelings. We just thought we would have had the foundation laid. We thought we would be stabilized.
Instead, my youngest son is once again in detention. He has only had a few hours in our home since April. His time in institutions has not helped him. I am uncertain if it has harmed him-he was pretty messed up to begin with. All of our parenting is done via the phone and visits. That is not quite what we had in mind a year ago.
I know we are not the only adoptive parents to have taken on a child this dangerous. I know we aren’t the only ones to under estimate the damage done by substances in utero, years of abuse, neglect and multiple placements;not to mention being separated from siblings. We never thought love would be enough. We did think unconditional love coupled with hard work and therapeutic parenting would help. We were very naive.

We have another unanticipated problem. The other kids are refusing to claim him as their brother. I am unsure how far to push that one. He isn’t really all that likable from a kid standpoint. We are letting it ride for now,but it bothers me.
My other thirteen year old is over some of his mad. I know he is reacting to abandonment issues. He only knows he is mad at me. Think preschooler and you have his emotional state. He has never been able to identify emotions,let alone what they are stemming from. I am doing my best to help him sort out his feelings. Once again I look for the tick and his eyes filling with tears to tell if I have guessed right. It is like playing twenty questions in a foreign language with an alien from outer space.
My husband is going out of state in two weeks. That is going to make it all the harder. Before my dad became sick,we had a night at a local bed and breakfast reserved. Now it will be the end of February before we can go. There is no way this son will be able to handle that many times of being “abandoned” in one month.
This is one of those times I wish we had neuro-typical children. I need some time away (without critically ill family members to care for).
My dad is still very ill. He now has VRSA cultured in his wound. He is not walking and has had some personality changes that have us worried. Please,please pray for my dad.

sorry for the absence,life has been complicated

It has been a little busy around here lately. I had to leave state in a hurry two weeks ago. My dad had emergency surgery for a GI bleed and we nearly lost him. He is doing better,but he still has a very long row to hoe before he is back home. I am thankful I could fly up and be with him and my brother. My oldest went with and spent the first weekend with us. I was grateful for her help. She left her son with her husband for the first time. It was even more a sacrifice for her as my dad lives in the city where she suffered the worst of her abuse. Just being there was difficult for her,but she came anyway without being asked. (it was hard on me as well,for that matter)
Of course mom being gone was not easy on the kids left at home. The teens did pretty well and I haven’t had much fallout with them. My thirteen year old is a completely different story. I am having quite a bit of anger (of the passive aggressive variety) and a fair amount of regression out of him. Abandonment is still a very large issue with him. He is currently sitting at the table refusing to do his school. He lied to his dad on a daily basis the entire time I was gone about his school. He is now grounded (for the lies,not the lack of work)for a month from just about everything. Lying has been a huge issue these last few months. We just can’t give grace for untruths. He has also been given hugs and a lot of reassurance.
While I was out of state, Youngest was removed from the RTC and placed back in detention. He was deteriorating so fast his probation officer brought him back. He stayed on restriction and was escalating while he was there. The current plan is to place him in our county’s new program which starts int he next week or so. It will only contain six children/teens. It will be very intensive. I am relieved he is back in county. We were having a very difficult time keeping tabs on him where he was.At least this way he is fifteen minutes form the house and we have a relationship established with nearly everyone involved. If he blows this placement, he will more than likely be kiddie prison bound. When asked if that is what he wants,he just shrugs his shoulders and half smiles.
I would love to shake him until his teeth rattle sometimes. He has no clue as to how serious this is.
The last time he was in detention he tried to refuse to talk to me. This time he has been trying to refuse to talk to his dad. His current excuse is he can only be good for a little while then he can’t help himself.
Our litany remains unchanged. “You are making choices. There are consequences for your choices-good and bad… etc,etc”
I would appreciate prayers for my dad.
Back to the salt mines for me.

hope

It has never been my intention to infer I have “given up” on my youngest son. Being aware of the severity of his issues does not mean I have left all hope behind. I have to be realistic as to where his head is at. In the end, it doesn’t matter that it isn’t his fault he is as he is. Even the most incompetent of all the professionals admits that if he kills,he will be responsible in the eyes of the law and more important that person he has killed will be dead.
Years ago I knew in my heart my oldest three children had been abused by my ex husband. I wanted to be wrong in the worst way. I wanted to it to be me being melodramatic, blame laying,anything at all but being right.
I was right about my older children. In fact, I had underestimated the depravity of what had been done to them tenfold. What mattered from that point on was finding away for them to heal.
It is the same with my youngest son. I want to be wrong about the severity of his behavior. I want to be over exaggerating the threat he is to my (and other’s life). I want to be melodramatic and perhaps even alarmist. He is very small for thirteen. How could he harbor such thoughts? How could we not handle him at home? Perhaps we really are part of his problem and not helping him at all. Perhaps we are making his issues worse.
All of that goes through my head,our heads, as we ponder what to do. I have done more soul searching and self evaluation since youngest has hit our doorway than I have since my oldest three began to fall apart twenty years ago.
Hope I have in Christ.
Hope that somehow we can make an impact in our son’s life.
Hope that somewhere,somehow someone can find the key to begin his healing.
Hope that if we can’t,he doesn’t follow through on his threats and plans and take a life.
Hope my son can find the strength to face his largest fear- which is being loved.
I cannot will him better. I cannot love him better. I cannot parent him better. I cannot pray him better.
That doesn’t mean I don’t spend my energy over-thinking,loving,parenting and praying for this son.
My husband and I have parented therapeutically for so long it is no longer counter intuitive. It is how we parent.
I cannot make him want to heal. He has to want it himself. He has to want it bad enough to work past his fear. I work very hard to not react to my son’s anger,threats and general stupidity in his choices. I try very hard to keep things factual. I rarely react emotionally. I point out consequences good and bad. I try and give him the power of choice instead of slavery to reaction. I honestly don’t care if he hates me because I am white. He doesn’t though. He hates what I represent. He hates that he can rarely manipulate me.He hates that I am still around telling him he is, in fact, worth loving.
I must see him as he is,though. I am a fool if I take his threats to kill me lightly. I am a fool if I allow him near the grandchildren without very close supervision. I am very worried about those who may come in contact with him once he is “on the free”. Those are rational worries given his thought proccess.
It isn’t how I want it to be. I am willing to turn whatever cartwheel will help my son heal-but not at the expense of the innocent. That isn’t helping anyone,least of all this son.
I want him home.
I am afraid to have him home.
I love him.
I am afraid of him.
I am afraid for him.
I and my husband are giving him all we know. We are loving him unconditionally. But,he can not come home until he is safe.
I can handle the rages,the threats,the manipulation and the hate. I can lock my sharps and alarm doors. I don’t get all that excited about pee and poop. I don’t have to be loved. Our rules are very simple. Our consequences for the most part natural. Our ability to handle the unusual is pretty high.
With all that said,this son is beyond our ability.
If you think that is an easy thing to admit, you are dead wrong.
And you know what? It isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair to my son,to the other children,or to ourselves. It isn’t fair,it isn’t right and I hate it.
It is the truth,however;and the truth,no matter how painful,can and must be dealt with.
We are dealing with it the best we know how.
It sucks.

all is well (alibet still cold) at home and a disturbing conversation.

The kids actually completed their school work last week. Each day they were done at a reasonable time and I could tell effort had been placed. We still had our normal brain glitches and disorganization. That is much easier to deal with when I (and they) know they are giving me their best. It is easier to re-set when they want to succeed. No,I have no idea what has made the change in attitude. I am assuming the end of the holidays and perhaps abject boredom with the lectures and no free time. It also helps that my daughter broke something that her father held dear. She had to clean the mess (which was substantial) and that was it. We did, however, question whether or not it was an accident. It hurt her she was not trusted. The consequence would have been the same irregardless. We told her that. If it would have been deliberate (and we do think it was accidental),we would have been more concerned with her heart. Why would she break something of her dad’s? We also talked about what it was like to know you wouldn’t be believed because of past lying. Perhaps something sunk in-at least until the next bout of crazy lying.
This daughter has also settled on being fourteen for now. She is so much happier when she isn’t trying to be who she is not. Fourteen is about right for her. She doesn’t have to pretend when she is with younger kids. She can just be herself. This may all change tomorrow. I am hoping she can settle in and just be herself. I think she will someday mature if she takes her time. Perhaps in her mid to late twenties she will be able to reason enough to deal with life. Considering she didn’t come home until she was going on eleven,that would be just about right. Kids need to be parented to succeed. We have to find a way to not enable her,not hold her back,yet not push her out of the nest too early. Thankfully with today’s economy, many young adults are still at home. She won’t feel too out of place.
My seventeen year old son purchased a nasty rap cd. Considering he has a MP3 player in which we would never know he was listening to it, he purchased it for the shock value. He knows we despise rap-especially that form of it. His dad pulled him aside and told him he was old enough to choose his own music,but he was not allowed to play it when his little brother could hear it,and we did not want to have to listen to it either. I am not even sure if he has taken it out of the packaging. It’s hard to rebel when you don’t get much of a reaction. My husband would have reacted differently if this son had gangsta’ ambitions. He doesn’t.
My youngest son does,however. We had our monitored phone call on Thursday. It seems my son was down right disrespectful to his PO. He told her he was getting on restriction on purpose and had no intention of behaving himself. Unfortunately,he wasn’t that polite about it. He told his councilor he only wanted to come home if we would get rid of our rules. He wanted to go to public school like a normal kid. He wanted friends and thought it unreasonable that we would not allow drinking and drugging etc,etc.
I asked him if he was in public school now. He told me yes. His therapist told him than he was not. We both told him the behaviors he was displaying would not be allowed in public school. He told me he wanted to go back to CPS and be a foster kid again. I told him that wasn’t an option and he would be right where he was anyway. He was too old for his behaviors to be accepted in a foster home setting either. I reminded him he signed the papers to be adopted. He then told me how much he hated white people. I reminded him he knew we where white when he signed the papers. The conversation turned to his wanting to kill me. He initially said that if he had succeeded in killing someone it would be their own fault for not defending themselves. His therapist made him repeat that one. He told her if he hurt me it was because I was stupid. I reminded him of all the saftey measures we had taken and how many times I had restrained him and how he did not succeed in hurting me (badly). That took some wind out of his sails somewhat. I was not stupid and I had defended myself and I had called the police when I felt someone would get hurt. He then told me it would be fifty-fifty. He would be fifty percent to blame (if he killed me) and I would be fifty percent to blame (for not fighting him back) I asked him how he would feel if it were his brother who had tried to hurt him. “I would kill him” he told us matter of factly. This is how he reasons.
I asked his therapist just what was her priority with his therapy. She told me it was to have his behavior be acceptable in society. I did not laugh out loud.
I told the therapist that we would be telling him he did not have to come home to visit;even if he earned the privilege.That might give him some impetus to get off restriction and perhaps to have some success.
To be honest,I am afraid for him to come home.
We have nine children.Three are married with children and handling their lives well. Two are grown and doing the independence tap dance-making stellar decisions and not so stellar decisions,but doing well overall.
Three are for the most part attached and are doing the best they can do. They have added more joy than heartache. We have been blessed by their addition to our family.
One is homicidal. We aren’t feeling all that blessed with him. We are very much afraid he will hurt someone. He is not getting the help he needs. I don’t know it it exists.
It breaks my heart.

I’m cold

It is way too cold for this part of the country. My nose is cold. My toes are cold. My fingers are cold. I find it ironic that we went from having one of the hottest and driest summers in a hundred years,to having one of the coldest winters in twenty plus years. The only thing that makes me feel warm is knowing I’m not in Minnesota and dealing with below zero temps Of course the Yankees didn’t have nearly seventy degree temps just a couple of weeks ago….

School is going better than it has in a long time. The boys are actually kicking it into gear a bit. My daughter is still giving me death glares,but she is not spending quite the energy pretending to work when she isn’t. I am confiscating electronics at breakfast and returning them when I see the day’s work completed. I get dirty looks each morning from my daughter. I take that to mean I was right with the sneak texting. If she was chronologically the age she is appearing emotionally I would just forbid the darn thing. Since she is an “adult” and has her own contract,I cannot. If she is as consistent paying that bill as she has been taking the medication she requested,she will be losing service periodically. We have explained that if she does not pay her bill on time she will wreck the credit she is building. There is no way she can understand that. Unfortunately credit reports are pulled for just about everything- including permission to breathe. It shouldn’t be that way,but it is.
On the whole,the week has gone very well.