The Time I Thought Would Never Come, Did. Or, The End.

AAAaaand, it's a wrap folks. Not the chicken kind, the kind where I am done writing this here blog. I finally ran out of things to say.

I have loved writing here, and sharing my stories. I really love all the people I have met, in real life and the "people of the air", those folks who I have never laid eyes on but who have become friends in almost every bit the same way as those I have met. It has been so fantastic to write this and have people read it- what a rush! Winning a few awards here and there- so cool! People who have read and read quietly, and people who have read and supported and helped with their own words, and lived this all with me, it's been wonderful. I've never even attracted a troll, though I can't imagine why not (am I not troll worthy?). Some amazing people have shared really personal things on this blog and I am extra grateful for that. You never know who might be reading that will connect with what you have written and it will help them somehow to make their way through.

It's not so much that I am out of things to say, it's more that I am out of new ways to write about the same stuff. I have written about my disgust with turkey on Thanksgiving 3 times now. First day of school, last day of school for the kids, also 3 times (or is that considered 6? Or even like, 11 for both kids?). My children continue to think of new and inventive ways to have tantrums and freak out, but even a clever tantrum is still a tantrum and dang if I haven't typed my fingers to death about tantrums. They still do cute and funny and delightful things, but again, when I try to start a post about it, I keep getting a "been there done that" feeling.

I've spent the past several years sort of living in my head. I found myself a stay- at- home- mom of 2, one of whom was not happy about any of it. My brain would spin like one of those centrifugal force rides at the amusement park. Constant, constant queries ran through my head. How can I make this better, how can I help this, fix it, change it. What is causing this, where does it come from, why why why. Writing helped me immensely in so many ways. Laying it all out, thinking it through, forcing an end point to the thoughts that would otherwise whirl around indefinitely. It also made me reframe so many things because often I would be in the middle of some kind of crazy Wango Tango and have a humorous thought, and I would then think- I can blog that!  It pushed me to see things in a much different light than the one of bitterness I was holding otherwise.

Anyway, I've been thinking about wrapping up my blog for a while now.

Genea has taken a dramatic turn for the better, after the worst 6 month span of them all this past winter and spring. I made a huge mistake in judgment last fall, went against my instincts, and allowed her to be medicated for ADHD. Though to be fair, at the time I would have danced naked in the yard during mosquito mating season if someone had hinted it might help. She became out of control. She became violent, verbally aggressive and her hair trigger emotions became even more labile. She could learn nothing, I mean nothing. Unable to even try to use a coping strategy. Somehow I missed the connection, partly because she was better able to focus at school and they stopped complaining about her distractibility, and partly because it was not a 1:1 give/take sort of thing. Finally after about 6 months I put the pieces together and stopped the med. There was no detectable difference in her focus that I could see and The Husband agreed. We let it go a few more days, and her multiple daily rabid explosions all but ceased to just one a day. Or even none.

Around the same time, I started giving her Omega 3 supplements. I have done this in the past with success, but the results always faded and I stopped giving it to her. This time, I gave her a full dose and stuck with it even when she hit a patch of regression. The regression was short lived and minimal, especially in comparison to the past. It really helped that she is able to swallow the capsules as intended, instead of my trying to sneak the liquid I would squirt out onto her peanut butter sandwich.

Last thing I attribute to her abrupt turnaround, which incidentally has lasted far beyond any previous period of "remission", is the oxytocin I started giving her (look it up, not the same as Oxycontin!). I do not exaggerate when I say that has had a dramatic effect. The first day I gave it to her she had been going on for hours about her homework, doing all the little RAD things with it, and the supplement arrived in the mail. I gave it to her and she went back to re-do the same math problems she had re-done 45 times already. She came out again a few minutes later yelling, I am SO MAD I CAN'T do this I HATE it but she was smiling and laughing. I was like I could see the supplement taking effect right there. The anger dissipated and was replaced with smiles and real (real!) happiness. No day since then has been such an immense testimonial but we give it to her when we think she needs it. It seems to have jump- started something in her brain that had gone horribly awry.

Genea's attachment to me has evolved some with the positive changes in her neurology. She has always been partially attached, but in that ambivalent and insecure way. Push- pull on steroids. She would beg me to hug her then grunt and shove me away when I did, then she'd shriek in a primal, infant way, that I moved away after the shove/kick/whatever, for example. We are getting stronger finally. Finally! 


She is far from "cured", and probably even far from "better". But for us, it's big. It's do-able, livable. We can breathe.

Teena is still Teena. My child who has never had an un-met need is as secure as a child can be, I believe. I'm a little worried that she will never learn the real word for "pea finger". I have had a few opportunities to correct her terminology, and she says, uh huh, uh huh, you mean the pea finger?


I'm nervous to pull the trigger here. I don't want to click publish! But I am not the sort of person to fade into oblivion. I'm more of a put a stamp on it and be done sort of person.

I would be more than happy- excited even!- to do the following:

Guest post for any blog
Write for an adoption publication
Write for any publication that pays
Answer any questions a person might have by email theaccidentalmommy@live.com
Help prop up, coach, or support any person who needs it going through any part of the adoption process including the "after"
Any other interesting thing you might be able to think of that I might be interested in!

I'll keep my domain open for a while and will probably shoot out a few posts here and there just to keep it alive. So please keep me in your reader- it won't cost you a thing! People seem to enjoy the archives. Currently, someone is going through and reading old posts a lot. I will get 40-50 hits on one single post from like, December 2009 out of nowhere! I still fully plan to keep up with blogs I read so I'm not going to disappear.  I'm just retired from blogging as a regular part of my life.

The End.