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!

Small but Huge victory

I know this sounds like a small thing, but take my word for it, for Genea, this has been climbing Mount Everest without shoes. Today, she started to cry, and when I pointed out that it sounded like she needed to let some crying out, she got up and walked into her room and shut the door and cried. And when she was done, she came back out and took up wherever we left off.

!!!

I have blogged about this before, but the short version is that this child has the capacity to let out one of the most brain crushing ear begging heart twisting cries that I have ever heard. It is impossible to fully describe what this sounds like. If you imagine 100 hands dragging 500 fingernails down chalkboards next to a microphone in a box full of 300 hungry kittens, for hours and hours without letting up, you have an idea. It is different from a frustrated kid cry or a tantrum cry, it is a cry without reason that feeds off of itself and rarely does it end with intervention. Most attempts at any kind of help make it worse, Genea herself has to beat it back.

Early on, I was told, and had learned from reading that we should never leave our adopted child alone as a consequence. If she was having a meltdown, or if she needed a time out, it should be in the room with us and she should always be able to see us. This makes absolute perfect sense. Of course you never would want to isolate a child you are trying to attach to! Common sense! All the books said so! But it is obvious anyway!

Lawdhy, I tell you, it became quickly obvious that none of my fancy books had ears. It also became unpleasantly obvious that if this child was going to make that sound on a regular basis she was going to be able to hold our family hostage with it. You couldn't talk, or hear or do anything else. You could hear it in the driveway it was so loud. We, and especially I, tried to sit with her in a time out. Tried to put her where she could see us. Tried all of the above. Holy hell there was no way this was going to work out and this is serious, there was no way this was going to work out. So the past year and a half have been dedicated to managing that unholy sound by a series of steps and chances and choices that end in Genea being sent to her room to shut the door until she is done. All along we have told her if she feels this coming on, don't instigate or pick a fight, don't break a rule and ask us if we saw you, if you feel you need to cry (and she rarely knows why, this is much different from a regular cry) just go to your room, let it out behind the door and then you are done.

Today, she did it.

I find myself hesitent to post this. I don't want people to think that I just let this poor kid cry and sob from sadness. That is not what this cry is. It is not the kind of thing you can hug or convince things are ok. It is like its own entity. It comes for no apparent reason, and leaves the same way. No external efforts have helped, she has to handle it herself. Mostly she instigates or picks a fight to have a reason to hang the cry on, then we are stuck with it.
But not today!