Foster Further

 I'm puzzled by what I've just observed and so I'm going to record my observations here to try to work out what happened.  1. Today is Tues. It's the 5th of a 5 day stretch at home for Kate (regular Fri off school, then 3 day weekend plus a snow day). Very cold weather and storms so we haven't left the house. 2. Last week was a turbulent school week--special dress up days, Valentine's Day parties/crafts/activities, half-day schedule, etc. 3. Last week there was a lot of talk of "love" due to Valentine's Day. 4. Last week both girls seemed pissy, irritable, hyper, jealous, cranky when playing with each other, etc. 5. Six days ago Kate began pooping in her underwear. Filling them with poop. Sometimes she'd finish pooping on the toilet, sometimes she told me she only pooped in her underwear and never went on the toilet--just kept on playing. She did this every day for 5 out of 6 days.  6. Six days ago I discovered what was happening when I did the...

 I really should just change the title of this blog to The Jane Show, shouldn't I? She's the only one I need to write about anymore.  Everything, and every one, else is doing so good right now. I'm happier than I've been in a very long time. For some reason, over this last month I have just felt the anger melting away. Anger I didn't understand, didn't know where it came from or why, anger I couldn't control. It's gone. I'm quiet and calm even when one of them breaks the TV and the other messes with my computer.  Kate is in one of those adorable phases. She flipped the switch from 3 and stubborn to 3 and sweet and it's just so much fun. She is cute and funny and says those things that make adults smile all the time. She's happy and affectionate and just...normal. Completely and utterly normal.  James is also growing in all good ways. Suddenly his vocabulary has blossomed and he's developing a sense of humor. He's full of jokes and bur...

 I like to think it's a sign of healing that I'm beginning to get my sense of humor back. It's been two long years but I'm finally, finally, starting to feel more relaxed and fun around my younger kids. One thing that's helping is finally really discussing what I see with my husband. Cuz look! He just discovered there's a problem! Coincidentally, that discovery came after spending more time with a certain someone! What a surprise that enforced proximity has led to new awareness! Maybe two years of being the prime (sole) caregiver led me to make observations not available to those spending less than 5 minutes a day with certain someone. Maybe I was right all along and while dismissing all my complaints sure was convenient, it didn't actually help! Well, now I've gone past humor and into snarky. I apologize.  I truly am grateful my, "I'm leaving home until you decide to parent ALL the children" stunt last summer paid off. Only 3 days gone an...

 For continued disobedience yesterday Jane had to spend part of this afternoon in her room while the other two played. She cried bitterly. After she settled down I opened her door to talk.  She looked up at me, her face blotchy and tear-streaked, and it all came pouring out. Her articulation and phrasing and vocabulary were like talking to a 10 yr old, not a 5 yr old. This is the true Jane who I believe is her real, honest, authentic self. It is the Jane we so rarely see.  She said everything. Yes, she knows she's lying and she plans to do it because she likes to, "keep things inside myself". Yes, she knows she chose the negative consequence and she knew even before it happened that that's what she was going to choose because she doesn't want to "give in and do what you say, mama." She went on and on. Rehashing every single moment from yesterday and confessing that she knowingly created the situation. Confessing (in even more detail than Kate had shared ...

 It's Friday after five full days--after six months of nothing much--and wow, I have three exhausted little people. They haven't protested a bedtime one night this week. Here's the rundown on what I observed.  At pick-up the second day Kate jumped in my arms exclaiming, "Mama!" She was relieved I was there to pick her up, still a bit unsure of her new schedule and when she'd see me. Once in my arms she got a bit weepy and whispered in my ear that she'd been looking for me alllll day long . I sat down and cuddled her on my lap and assured her that I loved her and would always come back. Very poignant moment.  James also ran to me, hugged me, and said how happy he was to see me. He held it together in school but in the car he used a lot of big facial expressions and sad words to tell me about all the hard times in his day. At one point his voice got very sad and he said his teacher was, "not nice to me" because she wouldn't let him look at the ...

 Last week James turned 5. It's been a hard week with too much going on. (Prepping a house for sale, my grandmother dying and then her funeral, my niece's wedding, Seth's twice postponed graduation reduced to a cheesy drive-by event.) We did the house, the funeral, and James' birthday and missed the wedding and the graduation. But, still, it was too much and I can tell the girls are feeling neglected.  How do I know? Because Jane started singing tonelessly and incessantly to herself on the car ride home after James' birthday celebration. She hasn't done this in almost a year. Her face, when I looked back at pictures of James blowing out his candle, is pure hatred. She is so jealous she looks like she wants to scream and throw his cake on the floor. For some reason birthdays and birthday parties are a source of intense focus for her. Getting stuff is always how she feels validated and loved and the constant positive attention she receives from people absolutely e...

We were on vacation at the beach for a week. All the kids love this spot and the three littles played nonstop in the water and sand. Jane was swimming without her floatie by the second day. She went to the beach twice each day--morning and evening--and had to be lured out of the water during the heat of the day with promises of food and cartoons. The big boys love that she's fearless and were helping her jump waves and even tossing her about in the water. It was the most fun I've seen them have with her. By the sixth day she was exhausted. Sleeping 12-14 hours each night. She even told me she wanted to go home. Honestly, I could relate...that much fun IS exhausting. We get home and everyone takes a day or two to recover. Pretty much just laundry and laying around. By day 3 post-vacation everyone else is back to normal. Not Jane. Today is Day 4 and she's still all out of sorts. Yesterday she was non-stop naughty in that passive-aggressive, under-the-radar way she has. She ha...

This month Kate is 3 years, 2 months old. She is the exact age that Jane was when the girls came. Kate was 20 months old when she came. She is now 38 months old. July will mark the turning point where she will have lived half of her lifetime as a member of our family. From July 30th onward she'll be more ours than not. Jane won't hit that kind of milestone until she is 6 years, 4 months old so...January 30, 2022. Wow. That is so incredibly far away. And what a clear illustration of how many more years of unhealthy living Jane experienced and thus, why she has been much more effected. But, after the growth of these last few weeks, I feel like we have sped up her transition to healthy living exponentially. (Horray!) These milestones don't really matter to the girls, or anyone else in the family for that matter, but they feel really significant to me. Marking the girls movement from their old life to their new life. Perhaps because it is springtime and there is new life blosso...

...an organized mind. Planning, finding patterns, predicting outcomes, maintaining focus long enough to follow through creatively--I am suddenly seeing mental skills I've never observed in Jane before. This week Jane began lining up her dolls when playing with them. She played school with them for the very first time in her life, ever.  In the sandbox area Jane has begun putting on tea parties. Each container (all identically holding mud, but some decorated with leaves while others have stones or twigs) is a different food. There are even condiments such as salt and paper and sprinkles. She does an elaborate explanation for me while inviting me to sit down and partake. It's so earnest and intentional and creative and REAL to her. She's enthralled. She began writing "storybooks" which consist of multiple pages with pictures and scribbled lines that she tells me are the words of her story. She tells me what she plans to write before she makes a book. Her stories hav...

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had since the girls came to us. For no apparent reason. Jane just decided to be really naughty all day long, about five minutes after she was released from each time out session. The past week we've been talking about anger, triggered by some incidents that occurred during her last therapy sessions. I had been telling her it's okay to show anger for a few days now. Well, she sure as hell took me up on the offer. Except not the way I meant it. I meant she should have a tantrum, yell, scream, even hit. Get it out! Express it! Be honest! Be real with me! Trust me enough to show a single authentic emotion already! Nope. She decided to do the most sneaky, underhanded, devious, manipulative, destructive things her little 4 year old brain could think of. I think she spent every minute of her time outs just planning what she'd do next. I was patient, calm, and creative in my consequences for the first two events. Then, she took Kat...

We are approaching the end of the hardest year our family has endured since, well, it's very first one. (In our first year of marriage Theo and I coped with the death of his mother a week before our wedding; an unplanned, high-risk pregnancy; two moves; and struggling to live on one salary that didn't cover both rent and groceries. Besides being newly married and having no clue how to actually live together. Really nothing we'll ever face will be harder than that year. Honestly.) But, back to present day. Things are winding down. 1) The house painters are gone. Eight days of "final touch-ups that will just take a few hours". Eight days of watching them patch a spot sloppily with putty so the putty got on the green trim. Then repainting the green trim to cover the putty. Then repainting the yellow house paint where they slopped the green trim paint. True story. Now multiply by every inch of a two-story house with a porch, chimney, and 19 windows and three ext...

Today was better. Kids felt calmer. I think being at the cottage with Grandma for 3 days really disturbed Jane's equilibrium...but I also think that she has resettled quicker than she once would've been able to. One small, but HUGE thing happened this morning. Jane rode all the way to church and back, 20 min drive each way, without any singing. I know I sound like a curmudgeon but I have to clarify that it isn't really singing. It's toneless, mindless, repetitious droning of the same few syllables for miles and miles and miles. Even the therapist said it'd drive her batty when I demonstrated it for her once. I'm guessing that Jane rode in cars where the radio was blasting all the time. I'm guessing that no one ever spoke with her as she rode. I'm guessing that, in her need to orally process every single thing, and witnessing that she talks to herself endlessly while playing, the lull of the moving car reduced her to one sing-song phrase as she tried ...

It's summer; we live next to a farm; there are flies. By this time of year I'm well into the habit of tossing a towel or cloth napkin over any food sitting out for more than a second or two. Today everyone ate dinner at a different time--just one of those days. I called Jane into the house last, told her to wash her hands, and then said, "Your food is on the table. Go eat when you're done washing your hands." Five minutes later I'm walking through with a laundry basket of clothes to fold and there she is, in her usual spot at the table, looking lost and hungry. Sitting directly in front of her where her plate and drink always go, is a plate and drink...but covered with a cloth napkin. Same old cloth napkins we always use and that she's seen tossed over other food dishes. There is not one other thing on the table top. It is otherwise 100% empty. Her food is 2 inches from her hands. She can't find it. I kinda lose it. There's something about ...

I'm focused on Jane's lying because it seems like the next opportunity to forge a trusting, meaningful relationship between us. We lie to those we don't like or respect or need; or to those we feel afraid of. We tell the truth when we feel safe enough to be vulnerable. As long as she keeps lying there will always be a lack of trust and connection. But, just as her finally reaching out to us for comfort during medical events gave us the opportunity to meet her physical needs in a loving way; I want her to change her "muscle memory" of reflexively panicking and lying and treating us like someone she's afraid of, and work through the process that leads to trusting. It's going to be intensive work and require lots and lots of opportunities for practice. Luckily I'm pretty much a human bull dog in my tenacity and working kids through a process of intrinsic behavior change is my actual profession. Also, she's super young and stupid and tells ridiculo...

It's 2:15 and I've already run through the full gamut of daily experiences with Jane so I thought I'd use these, while they're fresh in my mind, to highlight what it's like to live with this particular child. Annoying Behavior She Knows Not To Do 7am she's at my bedside saying, "Mama, can I go downstairs?" I say yes. (This happens every morning and is a nut I cannot crack. We used to have her stay and play in her room when she awoke but now she wakes up Kate. Then I let her go downstairs without asking but then I discovered she was waking up super early for the delight of getting into mischief unsupervised downstairs. Now if she wakes me then at least I can either send her back to sleep if it's too early or roll out of bed soon after her.) This morning Theo was already downstairs so I told her to go and stayed in bed to try to sleep some more.  7:30am she's at my bedside saying, "Mama, can I feed the cats?" Now I'm pissed. I...

Something shifted on Saturday. We are in a new stage I cannot yet name. (I'm sure it's in a book somewhere but it is really, really hard to read books about trauma when you are living with trauma even though obviously that's the key time to read those books. I know, I know.) But, back to this shift in Jane...Theo and I took a trip out of town Wed-Fri while my mom came to stay with the kids. (There was a great conference but also we just needed some time alone. I've never felt so depleted in my life as I have these past few months. So, we got a fancy hotel, ordered room service and/or slept every moment we weren't at the conference. Best thing we've ever done for ourselves and our marriage. Self-care is no joke, people. It's mandatory.) I'd made a picture calendar and showed it to the girls a few days before we left and together we'd crossed out the days while I answered their questions but, still, I knew they'd be upset that we were gone....

We were at a family reunion last weekend. There was a pool out back and a road out front and I couldn't see both places at the same time. So, my husband and I took turns essentially gluing the girls to our sides. (Even with this level of precaution Kate smeared poop all over the relative's pristine bathroom in an attempt to go potty "by SELF!" as she adamantly insists now. And, Jane fell about five feet from one tree branch to another and got wedged in the tree and needed to be rescued by several big boy cousins and is full of cuts and scrapes today. This was all under Theo's watch, of course, while I chatted with the ladies. No poop or scrapes while I was on duty! Just sayin') Anyway, so my mom notices that we've got eagle eyes on the girls while James wanders around totally unsupervised or only under the care of his 12 yr old brother when he's in the pool. Why the double standard? Here was my explanation: Jane is like a 1 yr old child in both...