Hanging in....

I am hanging in there with fingertips grinding blood into the volcanic ash turned rock turned mesa. OOOOOH, my.

Shit has hit the fan. It splattered all over the walls and into the lighting fixtures. There have been blatant attempts to give my daughters an eating disorder. Obvious, in my face, using the phrase "I'll say what I want to say". Despite my husband and I asking my mother in law several times over the past year to stop trying to control, manipulate, guilt and shame our children into eating their food, our words have wafted into the wind. Deliberately and specifically making an issue out of the food they eat over and over.

Sadly, I just cannot cope in a passive aggressive world. I am unable to make those sly nasty comments the older generation is so prolific with. That way of insulting the crap out of you while smiling and using nicey-nice voice. Unfortunately, I am a direct and to the point sort of person. So I have been. Direct. To the point. It seems my skill for clarity is just not appreciated. I don't know why.

Anyway, there will be no further attempts to give my daughters any type of eating disorder. So far, since 3 days ago, it has held.

In other news, it has been cold here in New Mexico but pretty. The girls are doing fabulously. Some kids like Genea freak out when on a trip away from home. If there is a background of trauma, especially trauma in primary caretaker, the kids can really flip out when going to another house. Other houses in the past have resulted in new parents. Genea is the opposite. She flipped her lid before we left. Oooooh my. She held a refresher course for us in every single gross and obnoxious behavior she ever invented. It was nice to be reminded how far she has come. So, once on the plane to leave for our trip, here comes Uber Genea! The best, most calm and pleasant and helpful, well mannered, thoughtful, kind, quiet child you have ever met. I believe this is to ensure we do not leave her anywhere. Look how great I can be! Make sure you keep me! In fact, I have a backpack puppy leash for Teena and Genea made me go get her monkey pack leash out for the airport. I am serious, it is so cute. She is 6 for crying out loud! She can take it on and off herself! She hands me the leash every time it leaves my hands for whatever reason. I had expected to get some rude comments from people since she is obviously so big so I had a response all ready: "Listen lady/mister, you have NO idea what you are judging here" etc. curse, etc, but no one was rude! Several people said, what a great idea, and a few even asked politely where they could get them. Unreal! I could have used to go off on someone. Why does the world conspire against me?

Teena is of course fine. You could drop that child into the rain forest without shoes and she would manage. She would talk with the parrots and take a nap with the iguanas. I have said this before, I know, deal with me a minute. I am so proud of her confidence and independence. I love that she has always been safe and secure and is so capable and adventurous. Then, when she stays overnight at her grandparents house and we go to get her the next day, she barely flicks an eyeball to us before going back to her fascinating activity, without even saying hi. Little shit.

I went yarn shopping in Taos at http://www.lalanawools.com/ . Get a bucket out first for your drool so you don't short out your keyboard. Their website is a little janky, but if you can find it, check out their Forever Random colors. Then, go rob a bank so you can buy some. I blew my whole yarn budget so cannot go yarn shopping in Sante Fe. However, I did not tap into my handbag budget at all, nor my Liz Claiborne budget. Wheeeeeee! Going tomorrow to the fancy outlet stores. Although last year, Liz had clothes surely beat by the ugly stick so I am not going to get my sorry little hopes up. Cut price, seconds and returned items at Coach will more than make up for the sad Liz clothes.

This has been my first chance to get to the computer for some time. I have been reading blogs in my minutes of free time and keeping up with everyone by reader but have not been able to get into comments as my time is being sucked into a vortex from hell (yeah, no I have no idea what that means but it sounds really bad which is my point).

I'll be home in a few days. I have a LOT of great stories, one that includes Genea being so brave she decided she never needs to be brave again. She has done it. LOL!

Ding ding ding

Genea found out when we are going on our trip to New Mexico.



All my own fault. She and Teena were watching tv for 5 minutes so I could talk to my mom on the phone and I told my mom when we were leaving and I heard Genea hollering "Yay, we are going on Wednesday Teena, YAY!!!". So for the past several days we have been dodging the Molotov cocktails hurled at us with a lot of different emotions. However, now that we are at a point where Genea has a half second of control, the half second to think before the action takes place, now we can get in there in that half second and get down and funky with it.



At dinner the other night, here comes Genea to the table sporting Look #3 all over her beautiful face. Not the dissociated look, and not the incessant crying look (numbers 1 and 2). Number 3 is the half awake dopey regressed sort of look. Where her tongue hangs out of her open mouth and she looks like she might have just woken up, if that were true. Her eyes are dull and mildly vacant. She climbs into her seat and starts off- loading Crazy immediately.



"Ewwwww, I don't like thisssssssss". Sigh. Yes you do, you have had it 100 times but that's okay just don't eat it then.
Genea 0
Mama 1

(for the record, she ate it)



Interrupts thru dinner, pouts when reminded. Chews with mouth open etc. Drinks out of her cup and dribbles an entire mouthful of milk down her chin and onto her clothes as if she were vomiting. Why?

"It tastes spicy and I don't like it". No.

"I always do that at school". No.

" I was trying to get the milk into my bowl". Nice try Genea. Are you trying to make us mad? (NO!) Are you feeling nervous inside and so you are trying to make things nervous on the outside too? (NO!) Well, it won't work. We are not going to get mad at you.

Genea 0
Mama 2



Here comes Look #2, also known as Cry Face. Precludes all crying but does not necessarily lead to crying or meltdowns anymore. Shoots out the elevated frustration sound with scrunched down eyebrows and cramped up mouth, ehhhEHHHuu WAAAAH uuhERR ehhhhh! Continues with dinner.



*COUGH* choke HOOwah *GAG* Genea chokes on her milk and spurts it all over. Sigh. Genea, are you still trying to make us mad at you? Do you want us to yell at you? Because we are not going to do it. Sometimes you act like this when you feel nervous but everything is okay and we are not mad at you.

Genea 0
Mama 3

Cries.

GENEA. Are you serious? You are going to sit there and cry because no one will get mad at you??? Here, hold my hand. Come on, give my hand a hug. You will feel better. Come on, don't just leave my hand laying here looking all silly alone on the table!

Genea 0
Mama 4

Genea. Why are you crying. Tell me why.

Because I want to sit on your lap and I cahaaahaaaaan't.

Okay, we can fix that. I can move my chair back. Done.



Now, it rarely works out like this. In fact it warrants its own blog post and a scorecard because I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever really fought off The Crazy combined with an incoming Wango Tango and come out ahead. In our house, this was a massively successful but hard fought battle!!!!

Will it happen this way next time? I hope so. Is there a good chance Genea will expand on her repertoire and come up with new stuff? Oh yeah. Do I hope like hell that we will get the chance to divert it all? Oh YEAH! I know she was not crying because she wanted to sit on my lap the whole time. She is still a little girl and a lot of times she does not know why she is upset and will just think up something random to hang her feelings on. However, it is a huge sign of progress in my mind that she was able to express and ask for something that would help her to feel better!

In the past few days that she has known when our trip would be, she has also been back up on the toes. She has been sleeping a lot more. Last night she developed a rash on her back, neck to butt. And of all the dreaded, dreaded activities of stress, she pee'd on herself during the day. The first time that has happened in at least 5 months. Ever since Potty Boot Camp back in the spring, she has been dry as the desert on a hot windy summer day.

What's funny, funny odd, not funny haha, is that she has been otherwise delightful. Pleasant, nice, polite. Definitely fits of demanding and the usual incessant unending nonsense questions thrown in for reminders sake. (Mama? Is this the table you want me to clean? Mama? Should I use a towel to wipe this? Mama? Which towel? Mama? Do you want me to wipe up this pile of goo? Mama? Where should I put this garbage?). But generally cooperative and calm. Enjoyable and enjoying herself.

Less Crazy, more Genea. Woo Hoo!

Holidays and the disrupted adoption

When the holidays come around, especially kid oriented holidays, I think of the original family that adopted Genea from Ukraine and disrupted. The first parents have divorced and had no other children and the mom at least has been alienated from her extended family although I understand they are working on repairing their relationship. In a vicious twist of irony, the original parents had decided to adopt children into their family because of the significant mental illness on the part of one of them. That parent was determined to not pass on the genetics of a psychological disorder to their potential children. I guess it is like a turn of the bingo ball cage, you never know what will pop out! There are probably not accurate statistics on what percentage of adopted children may have emotional or mental disorders, but it has to be at least what it is in the general population. In the same roll that everyone gets, they got the one thing they feared the most.

It is easy to demonize the original adopting couple and I have been tempted to join many times, but you know, they did the best they could with the ball they were handed. Their intentions were not to spend years of their lives dedicated to the care of a child and then pass her off.
So when these milestones come around, like the first day of school or Christmas or Genea's birthday I think of 3 moms. Myself of course, and I like to take lots of pictures and set aside sentimental notes or things for Genea to save, but also things that she can show others. She got her first note from a boy at school recently and I not only saved it, I took photo's of it. The second mom I think of is the original adopting mom. I try to remember little parts of our day to day lives and email her an update every few months. I also post pictures for her to follow along on a photo site that is also open to my extended family. I don't have to do this, and no one asked me to. When we were still in the process of finalizing, before their termination hearing, she was a rigid and unrelenting pain in my ass. We had all agreed to weekly phone calls until the term hearing. To me that meant at some point between Monday and Friday, I would call her and let her know how things were going. To her this meant, since we made the first call on a Tuesday at 6:00, bring on your hell and your high water but you better darn well have that call made with your lips flapping before 6:01 strikes.
The third mom is the birth mom. I wonder if she has other kids now, if she is married or not, if her circumstances have changed since she let Genea be adopted. I wonder if she has any way of knowing Genea was adopted to the United States and how she would feel about that. When I save things for Genea I think sometimes, is this something her birth mom might want to see someday? I am interested in knowing about her, but I see that as exclusively Genea's information to obtain or disregard. The birth mom is for her alone.
For all the moms, I think of these things much more around the holidays because that is when I imagine them both struggling with memories and hopes for this child.
The first adopting mom and I have kept up contact and she has been admirably respectful of us since her rights were terminated. The annoying demanding behavior on her part is gone entirely and she tells me she is grateful for the news I send. In turn, she sends cards with a little short note on big days, usually with a gift. I keep these for Genea but I do not show her the cards and do not tell her who the gift is from. I emailed her about a month ago to ask what things she would like Genea to know when Genea starts asking about them and why she does not live with them anymore. For the first time I got dead silence. She sent a card with a note for Christmas but did not answer the question. I guess it was too much for her or she was not ready for it.
The first moms parents, Genea's original adoptive grandparents, put on a huge show for everyone. The court, the agency, the therapists, us, their own psychologist, everyone. They were determined to get their grandparent rights (which do not exist). It was like being in a Broadway production. I had a lot of empathy for them, this was their granddaughter! They had lived every day of the adoption process with the parents, and had helped significantly with fundraising and planning and support and were now being shut out. They had memories and dreams for Genea too. I tried to put myself in their place and I understood they were not coming from a place of aggression and hatefulness, they were worried about their granddaughter. They managed to interfere with just about everything, costing us thousands of extra dollars. They even had their lawyer send us a letter begging to be able to give both girls Christmas gifts last year, and family heirlooms they wanted Genea to have, and dozens of photos from her first few weeks of time here, letters and cards from extended family, all of it. I was suspicious that for all their caring, these grandparents did not ask about Genea and when I introduced the subject of how she was doing, they said oh! yes! How is she? Oh! uh huh! Now back to US.....We spoke, and The Husband and I agreed that we would be happy to accept all of it, and would introduce it to Genea when she was ready. This was last Christmas by the way. Do you know it was August (AUGUST!!!) before they contacted the agency again to deliver these precious gifts. I told them, keep it. And if you insist on delivering this stuff to the agency you should know I intend to give it all to charity. They left the stuff anyway and they had waaaaaaaaaaay overblown the sentiment and value of the whole lot of it. Cards and letters? 2 cards with nothing written on them. One letter, from an aunt that was 7 pages long, handwritten, that was 100% about herself. Not a single 'hope you are well' or the like. 3 photo's. With themselves prominent. I would not have shared further with them anyway but after that, well, they shut their own door. Because I feel firmly that this is the first moms loss and she should be in full control of all information she has and who she shares what with. She lost her motherhood and she has felt it, the agonizing hurt, more than anyone else in her family, including the first dad who seemed to be along for the ride and not much else.
Genea does not ask about them, any of them. She used to for about the first 3 months. Her therapist made her a beautiful memory book that she looks at, oh, every few months probably for about 10 minutes. She has no questions, just asks me to put it back for her. It is where she can see it but where she and her mangling little sister cannot get to it. I intend to be as honest as I can be when the questions start to come, but I don't know many answers. I guess people will have to speak for themselves, and that won't be until much later.
From my perspective as Genea's mom, I see her sadness every day. I see the results of orphanage care in her, and the results of a failed adoption in her. She struggles every single day just barely hanging on sometimes. The chaotic care has annihilated the child she would have been. Who she will become will have to wait. It is as possible that she will be a better person for it, as it is she will become a damaged person.
Wow, I really had no intention of going so deep into all of this. Genea has been taking a rest, and Teena has been watching Thomas so I had the holy grail of momhood- a short period of time to think and focus!
Well, now it is over. Genea just came out to tell me she flooded the bed. Ah, oceanfront property.
Next post - the after effect of a sibling hospitalization on your attachment disordered child who needs to be in control control control! (sigh, my attempt at seeing the humor. sigh.)