Mother's Day - Plants and Blankets

We had the second week of our adoption plant-sale fund-raiser yesterday. Since this was really our first fund-raiser, I was pretty thrilled with how well it went. We definitely earned a sizable amount towards our up-coming travel expenses. A friend of mine is also going to host a Norwax party at the end of the month for us (they are awesome non-hazardous cleaning supplies) and another friend made two lap quilts that I get to raffle towards our adoption expenses. Exciting progress!

I found out today that our hold up traveling for court is that Isabella's mom that is too sick to travel; she has to appear in court as well. The adoption agency is going back into regional court with a power of attorney and then we hope to be able to advance on to federal court soon. We are getting down to the wire for JD to be able to travel with me, so I just pray that it is soon (like this week soon)! 


I told a dear friend at church that I wanted soft blankets to leave with the girls on my first trip. She told me that she would make me two. She gave them to me yesterday and they are so precious that I don't want to risk losing them. I think I'll buy two Walmart ones the first trip (and leave them) and take these for their airplane blankets on the second trip. The blankets are identical except she stitched Bella and Selah into the middle and the corner of each blanket. 

Can you see Bella? How sweet is that; it's in the middle of a flower and the name is repeated at the corner with a cross. I can't wait to give them to the girls!

Speaking of sweet girls, I went to a Mother's Day tea at Julia's K class today; she knew the songs and had sweet little crafts for gifts for me. 

 I'm happy that she is doing well at school. I just read another Mom's blog about schedules and security and I'm realizing more and more that Julia can not handle any flexibility. I am trying to get it together enough that our schedule will be a security for Selah and Bella when they come home as well. 

I am hoping that JD and I can attend a weekend seminar on attachment parenting this fall (in addition to the trip to Ethiopia). It seems unreasonable to try to do two trips, but I really think it would benefit all of us!

A Few Other Things

There's so much that goes on around here that never makes the blog, like last Saturday when JD and I hauled the three youngest kids, three dogs (one large one that suffered such trauma in his early days that he can't handle a collar or leash), and three cats to stand in line for two hours at the rabies shot clinic. I bet the little guys won't be begging to go next year - it was long and hot. 

The humorous part was when we were leaving and trying to carry the four carriers, lead Magnum and drag Lincoln over the hill back to the car, we saw a lady that JD works with and she yelled, "My word, JD, you have as many pets as you do kids." I am not even going to enter the debate of whose crazier when  she was wearing a dog in a pet Ergo around her neck.

I also discovered one of my new favorite things - the pressure washer. I had no idea how wonderful that thing was that JD pulled out occasionally. Now that I know how much I love it, the porch will never turn that moldy green again! You know what's cool about 11 year old boys? They still like to help whenever there is power behind the tool, so they each did a set of steps and I did everything in between. 

We also had a plant sale as an adoption fund-raiser. We were sold plants at whole-sale by a nursery and were able to sell them for the regular cost. We bought 150 and sold almost 100 of them last Sunday; we are going to attempt to sell the rest this Sunday on Mother's Day. 

Lastly, I painted the front door red. All the kids then joked about living in a barn - that sure would explain the mess they leave around the door.


I liked the look for about one day, now the dogs are leaving streaks of white where they scratch to come in. I foresee some gorgeous Plexiglass on the lower one-third of the door in the future.

One of my next projects is to try another idea with the million pairs of outside shoes. I can't take the mess anymore. I am thinking a cabinet with doors and labeled shoe shelves inside (and I make whoever is too lazy to open the door to put their shoes in write hundreds of sentences until they learn...).

Oh yeah, on the school front, Julia came home all excited because they are going on a field trip to see George Washington. (It's really one of his homes).

My Cowboy

I have a little cowboy that has been without cowboy boots or a hat for almost a year. He has seriously been asking for new cowboy boots since this time last year when I gave away his too small pair. While I intended on finding him a pair for his last birthday, and then Christmas, it just didn't happen. The other day JD took him to the craft store and found him this acceptable brown cowboy hat. 

Alei and I then searched the Internet for brown (he did not want black and they seem to be much more abundant) cowboy boots. The longer we searched, the higher my cap price became, because reasonably priced cowboy boots are way harder to find than I ever dreamed. After all our searching, I decided that I wasn't going to make him wait the two months until his birthday, so when the "present man" (UPS, Fed Ex...) showed up with the box, we handed it to him. 

I am the mom of one HAPPY cowboy and since he has seen these pictures, he has been playing "the present man brings my boots" and I've had to re-pack them in the box a half a dozen times. I love the joy little people have over little things!

Overdue Thoughts and Tough Decisions

I have heard that the definition of an idiot  is someone who does the same thing over and over and hopes for different results. That is the point I feel I am at with some of my children and their behavior. While I haven't written about Julia and her challenges in some time, I assure you they are alive and well. The toughest thing about Julia's behavior is that I really don't have a clue what is causing it and how to improve it. We have tried many, many things (even professional) and nothing seems to make much of a difference. Her issue manifests with screaming and crying. On any given day, she makes tons of demands that are not doable and when she doesn't get what she is demanding, she cries and screams. There are days that she cries and screams three to four hours of the eight that JD is at work. There are other days that it may only be a few rounds of 20 to 30 minutes. We also have issues of her just picking trouble with the other kids; she seems to have the goal to make them angry and then will come and tell on them, (often telling me that they did whatever she actually did). 


I am also not able to ever leave Julia in the care of Moriah or Alyssa; I do with Gabriel and Alei, but it's tough on them (as it is on me). JD is really the only person that she doesn't perform her extended screaming displays for. This presents quite the problem when I need to take other children to places that aren't equipped for Julia. 


Over time, it is obvious that Julia does the best with complete structure. She does great when she works with me in the kitchen or out at the garden and I keep her completely busy. While I do that as much as humanly possible, it is REALLY, REALLY difficult to home school the other children with her present. If my attention is not on her, she is usually screaming. We have done hours and hours of school with her on the couch screaming. To put it nicely, it tries all of our nerves and seldom helps with a learning environment.  


I decided that I want to provide as much structure for her as possible in hopes of "resetting" her habit of demanding and screaming. I also want a home environment that is more  conducive to learning for my other children. The only logical combination was to send Julia to school. While I would have loved to send her to a Christian Montessori school, there is nothing of the sort in our area; so for the first time in 20 years, I enrolled a child in our local public school. 


When I told my mother-in-law, she seemed rather shocked. That is because I used to be one of those people that thought they had found the superior method of education and was planning on homeschooling all my children all the way through. It may of taken 20 years and eight children, but I am far less sure of my beliefs at this point. It is easy, easy to see that some of my children have done well with the experience. I am also quite convinced that homeschooling is the only hope for James and Ben to actually get an education. I also have a few other children that all my energy is put into constant power struggles and arguments and I often wonder if the strain of homeschooling them will intimately hurt our relationship. 


The reality is that I have many children from  many backgrounds and traumatic beginnings. There is not going to be a clear "best" that fits all of them; I am really just going to have to pray for them and do what I feel is best for them as individuals. In Julia's case, right now, it's going to school. I am only planning on sending her to 1st grade next year and then I hope to be able to pull her back out and home school her along with Elijah and the new little girls. 


Since yesterday was Julia's first day, JD stayed home until Julia was at school. She was very excited heading to the bus with her new back-pack and lunch-box, but the bus never made it's scheduled appearance. JD took her to school and I went to the transportation office to work out the kinks. 

First day - I pinned a note on her with her name, the teacher's name, the bus number and "This is my first day" plea to anyone who saw her standing around looking confused. I figure that they aren't walking kids to class at this point and she would need a little extra guidance!

Today we walked down the drive way and the bus indeed came at the scheduled time. Julia hopped right on and I was relieved, (because there would be little hope of me getting her on unless she wants to go).

She sure is cute for being such a stinker!

Julia still carries Magnum around like when we first got him; it won't be long that he is as big as her.

I intended on taking a picture of Julia boarding the bus, but I was too distracted trying to remove Lincoln and Magnum from in front of the bus wheels so the bus driver could actually drive off. 


Tori, Elijah and I took a little walk on the way home from the bus stop (and I only cried a little). 

Way More than Hair

This has been my day - 

I worked at the kitchen counter from about 10:30 until 4:30 taking out Julia's "old" hair and putting in these new braids. While I did have a few math breaks (teaching the boys how to find area one more time) and a quick trip to Sheetz for Julia's reward Slurpee, for the most part Julia's hair consumed my day! This was an important hair session for Julia because she has a big approaching event that will be a blog of its own. It's really not near as much about the event itself as it is about my view of success and failure and how I think we, as people, view the world. 

Here's the kitchen floor after our hair session; uh, really it's way grosser than the picture shows. There is always hair and broken rubber bands as far as the eye can see once I'm finished. And beads, do you know how many of those I pick up every time I vacuum? They hurt stepping on them at night too (and people complain about Legos).

Julia's big event is Monday; I'll try to capture my thoughts then. In the meantime, we are sharing about our adoption at church on Sunday, so I need to focus on that!

                                               Jenny

 

Yesterday and Today

Let me start by saying that my Y work-out buddy and I decided to alter our normal schedule to complete P90X with Alei for the next three months; so instead of going to the Y, she comes here and we start in the basement by 6:00 a.m.  Today was only day two, but Alei was up to 3:00 a.m. doing school work and I told her to sleep and Denise and I would go it alone. Alei left me a note, but I logically used the second disk in the program. When Alei showed up, as we were finishing, she discovered that we were doing a work out from week #4. If you know anything about P90X, you just hope to live to week #4! Lets just say that every muscle I have from the neck down hurts and I'm not even sure if I can walk down the stairs much less do another work out tomorrow. 

 I have spent the better part of the last two days dealing with paper. After paying the bills and filing the pile, I started in on our medical bill pile. My neglected pile was huge since insurance companies insist on three to five pieces of paper per doctor visit and we seem to have way more than average visits. This time I had three different bills that the insurance company did not pay because of errors from the doctor offices, (like filing with JD's name and my social.) It amazes me that they do their job poorly, then send the penalty to me to pay like I'm not going to question an extra $700 bill. 

This is my current medical bill file, just since October. I think I'm going to have to add a second file once the two new little girls come home; newly adopted children from Africa have lots of initial doctor visits!

On a more fun note, I laminated pictures for Isabella and Selah and put them in the mail to a lady that is traveling to adopt a little boy from Selah's orphanage this week. She is going to try and find our girls,  give them the pictures (telling them that we are coming for them) and take a few pictures of them for us! So exciting! I still don't have a court date, hopefully, it will be any minute!

While I was at it, I laminated the pictures of Alei and Beneta (in Uganda) to send to her. The poor sweet little girl still is not adoptable because the workers of the orphanage are not doing what needs to be done to clear the children. Alei has a friend who is traveling to Uganda in June and is going to take our care package to Beneta as well as buy rice and beans for the kids who live in her orphanage. I put Beneta's pictures on a key ring. 

 We are hoping to get pictures back of her with her new clothes with her bear that says, "I love you." We want her to know that she has people who love her; it's such a sad life in an orphanage in the slums of Uganda!

Lastly, I was looking for a "coffee cup sippee" for Elijah when I discovered that he already had five stashed in the bottom of the fridge. When I commented that he had five in there, he glowed and said, "I know...that's my collection. Isn't it cool?" I also have a stick gun collection on my dresser and a rock collection on the kitchen counter courtesy of Elijah. That's my boy!

BIG Kids, BIG Events

I finally had the opportunity to download JD's pictures to show Gabriel's big event. It happened to fall on the same day as Alei's big event, so they are sharing a BIG event post. (They are good with sharing; they've been doing it all their lives). 


My oldest son swore into the United States Navy a little over a week ago. He was able to go into the department that he wanted and get the job that he was hoping. At this point, he will be leaving for Boot Camp at the end of October and then will be attending training in Florida. While I do believe it is the path he is called to take, it is hard to see him grow up and move away from home for good. My Navy ties are pretty deep at this point - my dad, my husband and my son.


JD was able to swear him in - 

Signing the official paperwork - 

Yesterday, my second oldest turned 18! Not much is radically changing in Alei's life since she is already attending college and working, but she does get to take the little M (for minor) off her name tag at CVS and become a shift manager. 


We had a fun day, but sure didn't get many fun pictures. This is about all I have to show for the day - she was eating her requested cheese-cake. 

We would be feeling pretty old right now if we had stopped at the normal two children, but since we have another nine children that will turn 18 over the next 16 years, we are choosing to continue feeling young (most of the time).

Happy Birthday Alei and Congratulations Gabriel - we are proud of both of you!

 

Smaller News

 While I intended on posting my children's big news today, I can't, because I can not find the cord to JD's camera to down-load the pictures of Gabriel at his event and I am waiting for a friend to email me pictures about Alyssa's accomplishment; so I bring you small, less important, but fun-never-the-less news. 


The first is that Elijah has been busy building houses and roads out of scrap-wood all over the deck - 

He is able to do so only because the deck stairs have been framed and are now being built. There are no railings yet, so Elijah knows he can only go as far as he is in this picture. 

The second exciting news is I posted our family on the new van.  A few people (like older children) thought that it might be slightly embarrassing, but I obviously disagree. I think it adds some character to an otherwise very boring "church" van. 


Check out these stickers. This one says, "Adoption is about Love - Does your family tree have room for one more?"

 This one was made for us - "Family - many colors, lots of love"

And lastly, I put JD and I and the 11 children and the 4 dogs across the back. We decided to omit the cats, since we didn't want to appear CRAZY. 

Don't worry about the fact I'm posting the license plate - it's on it's way out since we thought of a great personalized plate. We had blessedw8 before Elijah and we've had JDJen9 since then, so I wanted to go with no names and no numbers and JD thought of a great one. 

More Happenings and Additional Feelings

My husband pointed out that there were some important things that have happened around here that haven't received any blog attention; I agree and am planning on a post for them tomorrow, because I just have to share what went down around here yesterday. I began writing yesterday's post first thing in the morning, but it took me until evening to post it due to life. Yesterday evening, before I even posted,  I took Julia (and Elijah) to Julia's gymnastics. I received a phone call from Alei that she was investigating a crime. 


As a bit of background, we have had a continual problem with people's items disappearing from our second fridge. Lately, the issue was that Alei buys meal replacement shakes to take to work and they were continually missing when she went for them. We have questioned several people several times and never come up with the guilty party. We hoped that we resolved this problem by letting Alei spend $100 on a mini fridge for her drinks so that they won't be stolen. Last week,Alei went shopping with me and bought a case of Red Bulls and Mt Dews (both bad, bad and I don't endorse) and put them in her fridge. The next day she decided to give up caffeine, so didn't open either of them. The amazing thing is that yesterday, when she got in there, they were almost gone. Someone had raided the fridge and consumed about two cases of high-caffeine beverages in secret. Before I even got home, JD had interrogated any and all possible thieves and had no one cracking. While he continued to talk, Gabriel and Alei went on a room hunt and found an entire book bag and back pack of empty can evidence on the guilty child's bed. (I'm not even going to go into the obvious lack of common sense of the criminal at hand). While the guilty party continued to declare innocence, Gabriel and Alei plopped the bags in front of JD. 


Once the gig was up and damages assessed, it was determined that there was $35 worth of stolen items in those bags alone; they admitted to throwing many others away. All of a sudden, things made sense, but what made the most sense is why the two guilty children were plagued with night time insomnia and had a hard time getting up in the mornings - Red Bulls at 9:00 p.m. when you are supposed to be in bed will do that to you! It also confirmed that I'm not as nuts as I sometimes wondered, because there was evidence of other things I thought I bought that had disappeared before I used them. 


In case you are wondering, we have a policy of paying back double. At this point, they owe Alei and I $70 for the damages; good thing they had recently earned $80 that I had not let them spend! They are also grounded from everything (electronics and desserts) for a full week. We are concluding with a few months of grounding from sodas at any occasion. (I have another child who is currently spending the next six months without gum for stealing it a few months back). I honestly think the punishment needs to be intense enough that it makes them stop and evaluate the next time they are tempted. There will also be a careful assessment of the tempting items in the fridge to make sure an additional infraction will not go unnoticed.  


On the feeling side - this is really hard for me. I grew up as basically an only child and am continually discouraged to have my children treat me and their siblings with so little respect. (I have never even heard of the idea of locking up things until I attended foster parent classes, but now I have a locked storage room!)  After extensively talking to these children, it comes down to SIN. They wanted what they wanted and decided it was worth the risk to have it. All I can do is train and teach while I make the consequences very painful. I guarantee that next Sunday when we pass out our traditional "Sunday soda" and they are handed water, it will be a good reminder of the cost involved. When we walk through Costco and the item that was being saved for is staring at them from the shelf (and now will never be purchased), it will serve as a reminder of choosing more wisely. If you are wondering why it will never be purchased, that is because one of these children has had extensive cavity issues due to poor dental care before our home. I am anticipating a pretty ugly cavity total at our next visit since these sodas were consumed before bed and didn't involve another teeth brushing. The next several months of allowance is going to have to be saved towards those fillings! 


The consequences of sin are always far more than we think when go down that path. Getting and paying for those fillings is far beyond any price they considered; it is much like the adult that is staring at divorce papers from what seemed like harmless flirting. I pray my children learn these lessons while they are young - that will be how I can gauge true success in parenting!

Happenings and Feelings

 Yesterday was my birthday - JD and I went to dinner and the movies (October Baby - so, so good) on Friday and then yesterday we cooked out and a group of girls and I played Spoons. All in all, it wasn't too traumatic for turning a year older. The last few weeks have been pretty rough, however, due to the reality that I have a few children that seem to cycle between me feeling complete despair at their behavior and other times when I feel we are making progress and I feel hopeful. Honestly, I have no idea what causes these fluctuations, but the day to day dealing with their current behavior and the anticipation of bringing new children home has me feeling rather desperate.


Alei got me this card for my birthday yesterday - I thought I'd share - 

While I found this card humorous, at the same time it tends to be true. It seems at 100 different moments of the day, someone is fighting with someone over something (usually something stupid that isn't worth a fight.) I have a few huge tattle-tales and others who would not tell if the house was burning around them. One that baffles me to no end is a child that talks back to almost everything I say, yet will immediately, and without question, do anything that another child tells him to (even if it's the wrong thing and will get him in trouble!) At times I feel we could baffle an entire team of child psychologists. 


I have been down this road many times before and the major crisis of my feelings is that I have two new children that are coming home that, fair enough, will have immediate major needs. Looking at my current life and demands, I'm not seeing how they are going to fit. I want to have everything arranged here (including my current children's behavior) so that I feel I'm in a place to handle new challenges and my current children are not helping me out by being cooperative. This makes me seriously question my own logic and reasoning in thinking that I'm capable of parenting two additional little girls. I do have some ideas of things that I'm going to do to lighten the crisis load around here and I'll be sharing some of those over the next few days. 


I'll end with my thought that parenting can cause the greatest emotions on each end of the spectrum. Only my spouse and children can produce the greatest of joy I've ever had and also the latter once and a while the worst feelings of hopelessness. 


I'm hoping that my little "sharing" only helps people know that we aren't adopting because we are feeling so successful with the children that we currently have. We are only adopting because we are willing! Although the road is hard, very hard some days, and I often feel completely beat down by the same little people that also bring such joy, we are confident that we are a way better family than no family at all. I also have to remind myself daily that I am not the one who determines who my children are, neither am I the one responsible for every decision they make. Unfortunately, they have all been proven sinners, just as I am, and my job is only to teach, train and God will take it from there. In the natural, I tend to feel responsible for each short-coming I see and blame myself for their mistakes; I'm afraid God knew that it would not be easy to teach me that lesson, so he gave me many people to reinforce it daily. 


Here's my little Buddy in Gabriel's jacket from years ago. Gabriel was always very impressed with police officers and he collected several patches from the police chief in Norfolk that we used to go to church with. Elijah is equally thrilled with police officers and was pretty excited to see and try on the jacket. Elijah is also wearing Gabriel's first cleats that he played soccer in at five; they are way too big on Elijah but he wears them frequently anyway. 

Here's my little darling, being a little less darling -