I don't know if I mentioned lately what a "ladies little man" my younger son is. Whenever I take him to school he is always yelling hi to the little girls we pass along our walk and then when we get to the court yard they are always chasing him. When I picked him up yesterday his teacher informed me that he was caught passing notes to a little girl their that I know for a fact he likes. My God, this child is in 1st grade. It is cute but boy am I in for it as he gets older. Wait until the girls start trying to call this little charmer at our house. Forget about locking my girls in their room until they are 30, he is gonna need to be.
May is National Foster Care Month.
Kari is starting a list of ideas on how you can Thank a Foster Parent. We all should do our part to help out. My husband and I were foster parents for many years and know first hand how you sometimes feel all alone and unappreciated. There are so many children out there that need forever families. Maybe that isn't for you but I am sure there are other things that can be done to help these families that are on the front line.
I have been pretty behind on posting lately and before it builds up and I start forgetting things I thought I would play catch up. So much has been going on and I guess I have just been sticking with the safe comfy subjects and not getting into the meat of the matter. I guess when I do I start to feel weak or something. I am really struggling with myself as a parent. I realize my children have disabilities but whenever something happens I tend to take it to heart and feel that it reflects on me as a parent. Right away I wonder what I am doing wrong. I find myself becoming extremely anxiety ridden and wanting to close myself up in my bubble. It's hard because their disabilities are not visible physically. If an outsider were to look in I am sure they would feel that I had unruly children that are out of control. Out of control at times? Yes. Today I was reading Claudia's Blog and she had a post about Controlling only what you can control. This really struck home with me. I tend to be a control freak and freak out when things are out of control. I can't focus or function. I need to realize that I just can't control everything. I can model the behavior I expect for the kids but I don't control their actions or words. I can teach them what I expect of the them and raise them to be Godly fearing children but they have their own free will. If they choose to be disrespectful and disobedient that is there choice. It is them our job as parents to give them consequences for those choices. When they behave like this I need to stop blaming myself. I am doing the best that I can. I am not just dealing with one child with issues, I have three of them that do. It just seems like it is everything at once. I have one child who thinks he knows it all and is always quick to tell his father and I that we are stupid and he hates us and he wishes we weren't his parents. This is normal behavior I am sure but it just seems more intense then what I have seen. He is usually set off by being asked to do something such as clean his room ( which he refuses to do) or he is told no. We have taken away privileges and he just doesn't seem to care anymore. He is just downright rude.
My other child has taken to stealing and lying. He has taken candy from the corner store and other stores and has taken stuff from friends. At first he says they gave it to him. I always make him return things to the store and apologize but it is like he just doesn't get that it is wrong. No remorse. No impulse control. He flat out lies about it. No one is going to trust him and I tried to explain to him that people will always think it is him when something goes missing because he is giving himself a bad name. He is very angry. Especially at my husband. I have my guesses to what this is about but don't know how to fix it. We need some prayer over that.
To top all this off I have another child who is majorly lying and destroying property. She has taken her pencil and carved into my kitchen table and chairs, she has written on all my walls and she gets into everything and then lies. Yes I know to keep writing items away but it is hard to do in my house. I really try but the other kids use them and we have adults in and out of the house for different things and she will just sneak and find them. She also got into nail polish that was way out of her reach and eye shot and she painted on my couch pillow at 5 am. I woke up to the smell. She gets up at an awful hour every morning even if I put her to bed late. She is like clock work. She sneaks into food too. I feed this child. I have no clue why she is doing this. She has done this even as a small child. I had to get rid of her play refrigerator because she would sneak food and put it in there and I wouldn't know. I would open it and find bananas and yogurt and applesauce. When you ask her why she has done it she looks at you blank and says, I don't know! I didn't want to! I am trying so hard to have patience with her but we always will start out good and then she will continually do the same things over and over again even when she is told not to. No remorse and no emotion. She will only show emotion to manipulate to try and get something. Like she is sorry when she wants to do something. She has destroyed some property at school to and to be honest with you, She doesn't have friends. No one can stand her for long. It makes me so sad because she is such a sweetie but she is so controlling. I have tried to talk with her and work with her and role play but she doesn't get it. She doesn't seem to even notice when people are bad. I guess she senses something but doesn't read it right. For example we were at a practice for our year end show. She was trying to talk to one of the other little girls and was giving her a compliment. The little girl HEARD HER but didn't acknowledge her. I was so upset for her. I didn't say anything to her and she later told me she was upset and she said so and so doesn't want to be my friend. To be honest with you I understand why the child ignored her. It doesn't make it right. I just wish people would understand her and I wish she would understand how she pushes people away. It is such a touchy thing. I can only see it getting worse as she gets older. FASD Sucks!
With all this going on, I feel like I am drowning. I want to be the best parent possible but need help and just don't know where to get it. A lot of people just don't understand or even know how to help. Heck, I don't even know what to do sometimes.
How was every one's Mother's Day? Mine was low key. I did manage to sleep in until 9 am on Sunday and so I went to the second church service which is not my norm. I usually prefer the first service because it is not as crowded and it seems to have a more personal feel to it. This week it was not crowded because more people went to the first so they could get to dear old moms sooner. We went to our favorite diner for lunch and had to get back so my husband could sing in the 3 rd service.
My husband did surprise me on Saturday with a really pretty shirt he had picked out and the kids brought me flowers from school and homemade cards.
I did have one idiotic damper to my day. I had a woman come up to me and Wish me Happy Mother's Day FOR REAL. She said I am not officially a mother. Hold up sweetheart. I was a mother the moment I held my eldest in my arms. She had no tack and left me staring after her in disgust. I know I know, great Christian attitude but when I told her I was a mom when I got my first son, her reply was Well know you know what it really means to be a Mother. Believe me, it upset me but I took it as a grain of salt and concerned the source.
The little sweet potato is now 9 1/2 months old. Where has the time gone? She went to the Dr. last week for her check up. I am happy to report that she is right on track with her milestones. She might be a little peanut but she is caught up to where she should be for a 9 month old. She is now sitting up, rolling over, getting into a sitting position from both her tummy and her back. She also likes to stand and hold on to the furniture. She can't pull herself up yet but that will be happening before we know it. I lowered her bed down today because she likes to sit up in there. She weighed in at 15.6 pounds and was 26 3/4 inches long. She is in the 5 percentile for weight still and in the 25% for height. The Dr. was not too concerned because she is staying steady in the 5 % curve.
She loves to eat and is quick to take whatever is in any one's hand. A little girl was eating something in church behind her and as soon as she heard the crumple of a wrapper her head jerks around to see what she is missing out on. We are introducing more textures and foods. She will now eat peas but still refuses fresh green beans. She will eat the baby food ones but not the other. I have to bury it in a serious amount of carrots for her to eat it. It is so fun watching her eat. She is very passionate about her food.
She is also starting to really play with her toys. A friend gave us an exersaucer and she adores it. It has a lot to do on it. She also loves her shape sorter. She loves to bang the shapes together and of course everything goes into the mouth.
She is starting to go to bed alittle earlier and she loves to sleep. She doesn't get up through the night and wakes up about 7 am. Sometimes later if the kiddos are quiet.
I love this stage.
Ok who said we could only do one. I love this picture of the butterfly when she was about 9 months.
I am so disgusted by a
this. What is the world coming to? This child is in second grade. I would love to hear your opinions and find out what you would do if this happened to your child. This zero tolerance crap is unbelievable. The kids that are innocent get treated like this and the ones that are really doing something wrong slide right by.
What a week thus far. I was struck down with the dreaded Strep Throat for a few days and the house went into shambles. Mommies just can't afford to get sick. If that wasn't enough to make me cry my husband got stuck at work ate two nights and the kids were less than respectful in their behavior. Might as well kick me when I am down. YES this is a whiny post and yes I am seeking attention. I wish my mom was here. There is something about moms making everything ok. I just need a hug.
I have a lot to do and hopefully hubby can help me to get the house back together and get the kids back in their place. I hate spring. It wrecks havoc on their moods and behavior. I want to get everything down so we can actually enjoy some outdoors time this weekend. We went to the park last weekend and they had a blast. We need to get their new bikes out and let them skin those knees already.
Dominic refused to be in the pictures!!! He took them moving very very hard!!!!!
I have been up since 4 am. For some reason I couldn't sleep anymore. I prayed aimlessly for anything that came to my mind. God has woken me up before to pray and I usually will have a person laid on my heart but not today. Instead of going back to sleep I got up then and answered some emails and sorted laundry and cleaned up the house. Fran and Seth are stopping by this evening to see the kids before they move to the opposite coast. Dominic is really sad about it. He was ok until he heard how far they are going to live. We have been blessed with an Awesome Godmother for Dominic and Godfather for Kiarrah.Fran is Dominics Godmother and Seth is Kiarrahs Godfather. They love all of the kids immensely and have played such an active roll in there life. Most importantly I know that they are praying for the kids and model their lives to be a good influence on them.
I have a lot to do today so I am going to sign off for now.
I am totally amazed at how much my baby girl is now doing. It is almost like it just happened over night or as soon as she turned 8 months. She starting rolling over on March 21st. I had not seen it so told my dad that he must be lying. She actually did it for Pop pop several times while we were in Indiana. I finally saw it on last Friday morning. She is actually doing really well on sitting up. She can balance herself for quite awhile. She is also managed to roll around on the floor trying to get to her goal. Usually it is a toy of her sisters or to newspapers. What is it about babies and paper? Her two bottom teeth are almost all the way in. We have had a cranky few days. She loves to eat and is finally putting on some weight. She loves to watch her brothers and sister. They can make her belly laugh by doing the simplest things. She is really enjoying her time with Sophia. They make eye contact more often and will smile at each other. I am especially amused when they roll into each other. They both have this look on their face like " Hey how did you get here". They are going to grow up to be the best of friends. I am going to ask her mommy if I can share a picture on here of the two of them. They are so cute together.
The boys are taking their Terra Nova testing this week. Dominic was very excited about it and Reynaldo flat out responded with " I hate test". Sorry little buddy but this has only just begun.
KiKi wishes that she could take tests. I am still praying about what to do with her for next school year. I want to do what is best for her. That reminds me that I need to contact the child study team and speak to them.
Jim and I went out last night for a rare date. We were only out for two hours but man did it feel like heaven. We went to Wallie World and gazed into each others eyes as we walked through the health and Beauty department. LOL It doesn't matter what we do, we always managed to have fun. He was in rare form with his Johnny Bravo impersonations. We went and grabbed a bite to eat afterwards.
I must get back to work and get some things accomplished. Just thought I would throw an update out there for those of you sharing in my life, spying on my life and just plain living vicariously through me. Speaking of spying on me I am quite curious to why some of you wont just come out and say hi. I do not bite and would love to know who is reading my blog. I do know who some of you are thanks to site meter. I know that Elizabeth is checking it out and then I have some peeps from high school who are logging on. Just drop me a line. Lets catch up
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This picture was taken about 3 years ago when we had our kiddos dedicated.
