Well, one of the interesting thing about raising children with special needs, is that sometimes they have extra things, like six weeks of summer school to keep them on track academically, behaviorally, and with their therapies. Which means a much shorter summer break for them. Friday was their last day of school, and on Sunday we headed out to visit A's family. A's sister recently bought a cottage on the shores of Lake Ontario. We did see it soon after they bought it, but they were in the process of giving it a lot of the TLC it needed, so it was in disarray and under construction projects to repair and rehab it. Now it is mostly done (the bathroom is in rehab still, but functional) and we spend Sunday night out there. I have never spent any time at the Great Lakes, but wow is it similar to the ocean in sound. The cottage is on a rocky shore, so the waves lapping the rocks reminded me (in sound) to one of my all time favorite places in the world--Bass Rocks in Gloucester, MA.
Though the waves are smaller, they were still impressive for a lake, a lake you can not see the other side of. It was beautiful. However it was a rainy weekend, and the storms from Sunday had the lake very choppy, so it was not really safe to take a swim at such a rocky shore, so the kids did not get to go with with their life jackets. But we did go down the steps and put our feet in the water sitting on the rocks, we got splashed quite a bit too as the waves sent up a lot of spray. The kids (and we) enjoyed the deck area overlooking the lake, and some of the waves were big enough to splash us even up there. hat night, with the windows open, we could clearly listen to the waves, and it was wonderful. As many similarities as there are to the ocean front, there are as many differences. It smelled like a lake, and felt like a lake. As absolutely beautiful as it is, it made me long for my great love--the North Atlantic.
I found myself longing for the smell of the sea, the call of the gulls, and the "feel" of the ocean. I miss the ocean, and have for the past 11 1/2 years, as I have only visited. Even when I lived in Florida, it was the Gulf of Mexico, and though I loved snorkeling and swimming in that warm salty water, I loved even more the idea that the water I was in would eventually reach the North Atlantic, so I felt connected, even in that warm Gulf to the cold shores so many miles away. I had hoped to take the kids camping this summer out on the North Shore, but alas it appears funds may be inadequate to do that. Winter is approaching, and my primary source of income has ended. Summer is winding down (and we are finally in a 3 week of vacation time), and so the window of opportunity is closing. We have soem other daystuff planned, and may camp out on my Dad's property for a couple of days. Had my IRS refund come in time, that little inexpensive vacation to Massachusettes would have been one of the things on the list that the refund would go to. But with this darn audit review, only God know when they will release my refund.
The kids did have fun, and we got to see the baby's (both of A's niece's have little ones now). We also got to celebrate some of the August birthdays as in addition to Josiah, A's niece S and her daughter M (who is celebrating her 1st birthday!!) are also in August. So we did a combined birthday cook out at the cottage and had salt potatoes, corn on the cob, hot dogs and hamburgers, and of course cake. Then Josiah opened a bunch of present from A's family, and we gave our gifts to the others. We finally got to actually meet A's other niece's little son, who is a couple of months old. He is a beautiful baby. A said it feels weird to have a new generation starting in the family. I imagine it does, but since A is nearer to my parents age than to mine, it makes sense that they would have the next generation coming up. Overall it was a very nice visit. I originally asked A to go without me, but a is nervous about the new job which is starting today, and so did not think that with that stress, could handle the boys alone all weekend in that trip. So I went too. It was good to see A's family, though they seem to be under the impression that we are still together, or at least just barely separated. Perhaps most people think that, as I suppose we appear to be that way, it is hard to let go, and it is hard to find the balance that allow a friendship without being an enabler. I think we are getting closer, and that it is finally understood between the two of us that friendship is our aim, not reconciliation.
A started the new job today. I am an optimistic person, but with so many job losses over the past couple of years, it is hard to think that maybe, just maybe, this job will be here to stay and A can get an apartment, move out of my father's house, and actually begin to be self-supporting, have time alone with the kids without me arranging it, and be able to rebuild a life. We can all hope and pray. Especially since I am seriously considering moving in with my father as finding a source of income (i.e. a job that works with my children's special needs or enough income generating from writing, blogging, and online clicks/sales) is proving to take a great deal longer than I expected or can really plan for. The economy is making this harder than expected. So the possibility of moving in with my father (who has a 5 bedroom house and heats with wood, and only he and my brother live there usually, so there are extra rooms) is a distinct possibility--as long as A moves out (the old "I'll only be there for a month, two tops" thing A said back in January is a little crazy given that it is nearly 8 months...). But that is just where we are...things to think about...
Showing posts with label Gonzo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gonzo. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Forming habits....breaking habits
Well, so....
My son says that all the time "well, so...." and I think I have mentioned this before, but I had wondered for a long time where he got it from. Then one day I caught myself saying it and realized that I say it ALL THE TIME without even realizing it. I have also realized that I type it often without realizing it. I am not even sure I think about it in terms of context or anything else. It is just something that I say unconsciously. Funny the way the mind works....
Anyway, SO....Habits!
Habits are so much a part of life that we tend to not even think about them until we are trying about to change something in our lives. Nearly everything we do in our basic, daily living routine is done by habit. That nice repetitive way we make our choices and structure our day. Even our interactions with our family, friends, and co-workers are based on habitual behavior and thought patterns. From what we eat or drink to what time we leave for work (are you always running late too?--its habit), to what clothes we wear, when we call our mother, and what we think about the weather.
According to the ARDictionary.com HABIT is "Definition: The usual condition or state of a person or thing, either natural or acquired, regarded as something had, possessed, and firmly retained; as, a religious habit; his habit is morose; elms have a spreading habit; esp., physical temperament or constitution; as, a full habit of body. "
According to the World English Dictionary Habitat is "the environment in which an animal or plant lives or grows; and the place in which a person, group, class, etc... is normally found."
Habits, the unconscious patterns that give each of us our individual habitat....Because it is by our habits that we end up where we are usually found.
So, why all this talk about habits--well, as we all know losing weight (or any other major transformation) required we make changes in the way we do things--the way we eat, the way we use our body, the patterns of our sleeping, etc... And for that change to truly be a lasting change and thus a transformation, it has to be a change in the habits of our thought patterns as well as our actions. If you only change the actions but the underlying thought patterns have not changed, it will not last. For example, if you want to lose weight and you go on, say the Atkins diet, doing low carb everything, follow the plan exactly as written and get down to your ideal weight, even if it takes many months. Well that is a great accomplishment. But if your underlying conscious and subconscious thought habits still think about food in the same way you did prior to starting the Atkins, you are going to eventually move back into your old eating patterns (say you still believe, even after Atkins, that you need a particular amount of grains in your regular diet as depicted by the food pyramid) then you will move back into eating a more habitual, grain heavy diet and slowly build back into the same situation you were in, or find yourself battling against the return of the weight instead of enjoying your new, healthier body with new habits and new habitual ways of thinking. It is why "dieting" is only marginally successful. You see it all the time, people lose the weight on this diet or that diet, only to gain it back a few months or years later. I think the major reason for this is NOT that the person had no will power or what have you, but rather that the basic underlying habits in thought did not change while the conscious actions of the body were changing.
I find this in myself as I am trying to create new habits. They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit, others say it takes doing something around 21 times over a 40 day period to create a habitual change in action. I believe that it is possible that both of these are true. There is something about that three week mark when doing something diffrent that it starts to really click and become part of you. I remember a sermon at chapel in college once that talked about praying the same prayer (a 3-6 word, succinct prayer) every day for 30 days, and how you could literally see the steps that were making that prayer come true unfold before you. It is the consistency of thought and focus that brings God's power and your awareness together so that you can open your eyes and see it. It is the change in the habit of your thoughts and spirit that facilitate that. The teaching in the Law of Attraction ideas are based on the observation that the more you focus on it, the more it comes into being for you.
So....I have found that after over 10 days of a vegetable, fruit, and algae smoothie a day (which I loved), I had a couple of days where I got up late and did not have time to make it, and low and behold I have dropped right back into my old habit which does not include a morning smoothie. Even though I LOVED the smoothie and have on occasion made one in the afternoon, that habit I had started building of getting up early and making a fresh green smoothie to take on the road with me has not become a habit. So I need to get into the commitment and motivate myself to overcome the habitual patterns that make me NOT get up and make a smoothie in the morning. This transition time is a time which requires persistence, motivation, and the brute force effort of will power to overcome those ingrained habits and replace them with habits that I WANT for my life...both externally and internally.
The smoothies is just one example, but my other eating habit changes are definitely still in a great deal of flux and I find it easy to slip back into old patterns rather than push forward in forging new ones. So it is time to redouble my efforts. What I really realize though is how much our HABITS dictate what our eventual HABITAT becomes.
So often I have heard people say "i don't know how my life got to where it is today." Sometimes they have a great life and are looking at it in awe going "how'd I get here?!" and it is a sense of wondering and joy. More often though, a person is looking at crap in their lives and where they have ended up and is wondering the same question "how'd I get here?!?"
Baring major natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, government screw ups...) or sudden traumatic personal/familial events (war, sudden death, fast developing medical conditions, arrival of a child with special needs, major accident with serious injury, house fire, running out of checks....), most people, if we are really honest with ourselves, can look at what our habits are and see how they led us to the habitat we find ourselves in. Whether we meant to end up there or not and whether or not we were aware of how our own actions and ideas brought about subtle changes in our lives which led to where we are today, very often we find ourselves where we are because of unconscious habits of thought and action. For example, if I am always thinking about how a particular person is going to impact my life, and keep expecting that this is what is going to happen when I see this person, stressing about it and focusing on it, that is what will happen, in part because I react to that person as though it has already happened. This perpetuates a reaction from them that validates my original thinking, which makes me react in a predictable manner, which in turn brings more of what i did NOT want, but because I focused on it and reacted to life in a way that would make it real, it then became real.
I am in debt far higher than I can pay right now. And you could say that it happened because of J's medical issues and the issues with his insurance during the first few months he was with us, and that would, in part be true. There were a LOT of medical bills that we were not prepared for and there was a major paperwork snafu which lead to him not getting the secondary insurance he should have had from the get go, that he didn't get until 5 months later. Thus leaving a lot of unpaid medical bills in the meantime. And the fact that his issues and needs really required one of us to be home with him full time (after we tried a handful of other options, so it was a good 7 months after he arrived before I resigned from my job). So the loss of income combined with the medical bills could fall under the acceptable "out of my hands/control" situation. Except for the fact that a good deal of the debt I am dealing with was incurred prior to his arrival. Yes it was incurred at a time when we had the income level that could make the payments and everything, but it was that whole "living the American dream" on credit as so many of us do. So when disaster DID strike in the form of Josiah (whom is a bomb I would welcome at any time and place and do all over again even though the next year and a half were a blurry hell filled with pockets of intense joy and light. He is my bomb that became a balm.) it landed on a lot of ammunition creating a bigger impact.
It was not Josiah's medical and paperwork issues that created the primary debt problem I am still dealing with. It was not even leaving my job that created it. It was the fact that we had been living on the economic edge prior to his surprising arrival in our lives, with our credit near the max and
having depleted our savings and resources on two adoptions (Rustam who never came home, and Gonzo's whose legal battle gave us the second mortgage on the house), we were unable to handle such an impact on our lives. BUT we were unaware of that at the time, and continued in our habits. If things had gone just a little different, the impact would have been different. If J's paperwork had been in order, he would have had secondary insurance from the get go and those first three months of emergency room runs, major brain surgery, and long stays in the ICU would have been covered. If A had not resigned two weeks into J's hospital stays (without discussing it with me), our income might have been more stable some issues might not have occurred. If we had found a nanny capable of handling J and G's issues (like a nurse or something) things might have been different. IF......if.......if.......
But it was our habitual thought patterns--X has to happen, Y is the way things should be, Z is how you handle ABC, and if you need more money, just borrow it, we can always pay it back later when things calm down.......(famous last thoughts.....)
My life is the way it is in so many areas because of the way that my habits and my conscious and subconscious thought patterns and beliefs have been. Yes, things happen in life we have no or very little control over, but we DO have control over how we react, and if we are not working very hard on changing our lives to be better, we react out of habit, and keep bringing ourselves into the same habitat. It is where we expect to be, and where others expect to find us. our habits create our habitat. To truly change our lives, to transform my life, to get into a new habitat, i need to change my habits at their core, that the subconscious and conscious levels of thought in addition to action....
It's a long road.....but a road none the less, and if I run out of road I can bushwhack a trail if I need to. Transformation appears to be a slow process....
My son says that all the time "well, so...." and I think I have mentioned this before, but I had wondered for a long time where he got it from. Then one day I caught myself saying it and realized that I say it ALL THE TIME without even realizing it. I have also realized that I type it often without realizing it. I am not even sure I think about it in terms of context or anything else. It is just something that I say unconsciously. Funny the way the mind works....
Anyway, SO....Habits!
Habits are so much a part of life that we tend to not even think about them until we are trying about to change something in our lives. Nearly everything we do in our basic, daily living routine is done by habit. That nice repetitive way we make our choices and structure our day. Even our interactions with our family, friends, and co-workers are based on habitual behavior and thought patterns. From what we eat or drink to what time we leave for work (are you always running late too?--its habit), to what clothes we wear, when we call our mother, and what we think about the weather.
According to the ARDictionary.com HABIT is "Definition: The usual condition or state of a person or thing, either natural or acquired, regarded as something had, possessed, and firmly retained; as, a religious habit; his habit is morose; elms have a spreading habit; esp., physical temperament or constitution; as, a full habit of body. "
According to the World English Dictionary Habitat is "the environment in which an animal or plant lives or grows; and the place in which a person, group, class, etc... is normally found."
Habits, the unconscious patterns that give each of us our individual habitat....Because it is by our habits that we end up where we are usually found.
So, why all this talk about habits--well, as we all know losing weight (or any other major transformation) required we make changes in the way we do things--the way we eat, the way we use our body, the patterns of our sleeping, etc... And for that change to truly be a lasting change and thus a transformation, it has to be a change in the habits of our thought patterns as well as our actions. If you only change the actions but the underlying thought patterns have not changed, it will not last. For example, if you want to lose weight and you go on, say the Atkins diet, doing low carb everything, follow the plan exactly as written and get down to your ideal weight, even if it takes many months. Well that is a great accomplishment. But if your underlying conscious and subconscious thought habits still think about food in the same way you did prior to starting the Atkins, you are going to eventually move back into your old eating patterns (say you still believe, even after Atkins, that you need a particular amount of grains in your regular diet as depicted by the food pyramid) then you will move back into eating a more habitual, grain heavy diet and slowly build back into the same situation you were in, or find yourself battling against the return of the weight instead of enjoying your new, healthier body with new habits and new habitual ways of thinking. It is why "dieting" is only marginally successful. You see it all the time, people lose the weight on this diet or that diet, only to gain it back a few months or years later. I think the major reason for this is NOT that the person had no will power or what have you, but rather that the basic underlying habits in thought did not change while the conscious actions of the body were changing.
I find this in myself as I am trying to create new habits. They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit, others say it takes doing something around 21 times over a 40 day period to create a habitual change in action. I believe that it is possible that both of these are true. There is something about that three week mark when doing something diffrent that it starts to really click and become part of you. I remember a sermon at chapel in college once that talked about praying the same prayer (a 3-6 word, succinct prayer) every day for 30 days, and how you could literally see the steps that were making that prayer come true unfold before you. It is the consistency of thought and focus that brings God's power and your awareness together so that you can open your eyes and see it. It is the change in the habit of your thoughts and spirit that facilitate that. The teaching in the Law of Attraction ideas are based on the observation that the more you focus on it, the more it comes into being for you.
So....I have found that after over 10 days of a vegetable, fruit, and algae smoothie a day (which I loved), I had a couple of days where I got up late and did not have time to make it, and low and behold I have dropped right back into my old habit which does not include a morning smoothie. Even though I LOVED the smoothie and have on occasion made one in the afternoon, that habit I had started building of getting up early and making a fresh green smoothie to take on the road with me has not become a habit. So I need to get into the commitment and motivate myself to overcome the habitual patterns that make me NOT get up and make a smoothie in the morning. This transition time is a time which requires persistence, motivation, and the brute force effort of will power to overcome those ingrained habits and replace them with habits that I WANT for my life...both externally and internally.
The smoothies is just one example, but my other eating habit changes are definitely still in a great deal of flux and I find it easy to slip back into old patterns rather than push forward in forging new ones. So it is time to redouble my efforts. What I really realize though is how much our HABITS dictate what our eventual HABITAT becomes.
So often I have heard people say "i don't know how my life got to where it is today." Sometimes they have a great life and are looking at it in awe going "how'd I get here?!" and it is a sense of wondering and joy. More often though, a person is looking at crap in their lives and where they have ended up and is wondering the same question "how'd I get here?!?"
Baring major natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, government screw ups...) or sudden traumatic personal/familial events (war, sudden death, fast developing medical conditions, arrival of a child with special needs, major accident with serious injury, house fire, running out of checks....), most people, if we are really honest with ourselves, can look at what our habits are and see how they led us to the habitat we find ourselves in. Whether we meant to end up there or not and whether or not we were aware of how our own actions and ideas brought about subtle changes in our lives which led to where we are today, very often we find ourselves where we are because of unconscious habits of thought and action. For example, if I am always thinking about how a particular person is going to impact my life, and keep expecting that this is what is going to happen when I see this person, stressing about it and focusing on it, that is what will happen, in part because I react to that person as though it has already happened. This perpetuates a reaction from them that validates my original thinking, which makes me react in a predictable manner, which in turn brings more of what i did NOT want, but because I focused on it and reacted to life in a way that would make it real, it then became real.
I am in debt far higher than I can pay right now. And you could say that it happened because of J's medical issues and the issues with his insurance during the first few months he was with us, and that would, in part be true. There were a LOT of medical bills that we were not prepared for and there was a major paperwork snafu which lead to him not getting the secondary insurance he should have had from the get go, that he didn't get until 5 months later. Thus leaving a lot of unpaid medical bills in the meantime. And the fact that his issues and needs really required one of us to be home with him full time (after we tried a handful of other options, so it was a good 7 months after he arrived before I resigned from my job). So the loss of income combined with the medical bills could fall under the acceptable "out of my hands/control" situation. Except for the fact that a good deal of the debt I am dealing with was incurred prior to his arrival. Yes it was incurred at a time when we had the income level that could make the payments and everything, but it was that whole "living the American dream" on credit as so many of us do. So when disaster DID strike in the form of Josiah (whom is a bomb I would welcome at any time and place and do all over again even though the next year and a half were a blurry hell filled with pockets of intense joy and light. He is my bomb that became a balm.) it landed on a lot of ammunition creating a bigger impact.
It was not Josiah's medical and paperwork issues that created the primary debt problem I am still dealing with. It was not even leaving my job that created it. It was the fact that we had been living on the economic edge prior to his surprising arrival in our lives, with our credit near the max and
having depleted our savings and resources on two adoptions (Rustam who never came home, and Gonzo's whose legal battle gave us the second mortgage on the house), we were unable to handle such an impact on our lives. BUT we were unaware of that at the time, and continued in our habits. If things had gone just a little different, the impact would have been different. If J's paperwork had been in order, he would have had secondary insurance from the get go and those first three months of emergency room runs, major brain surgery, and long stays in the ICU would have been covered. If A had not resigned two weeks into J's hospital stays (without discussing it with me), our income might have been more stable some issues might not have occurred. If we had found a nanny capable of handling J and G's issues (like a nurse or something) things might have been different. IF......if.......if.......
But it was our habitual thought patterns--X has to happen, Y is the way things should be, Z is how you handle ABC, and if you need more money, just borrow it, we can always pay it back later when things calm down.......(famous last thoughts.....)
My life is the way it is in so many areas because of the way that my habits and my conscious and subconscious thought patterns and beliefs have been. Yes, things happen in life we have no or very little control over, but we DO have control over how we react, and if we are not working very hard on changing our lives to be better, we react out of habit, and keep bringing ourselves into the same habitat. It is where we expect to be, and where others expect to find us. our habits create our habitat. To truly change our lives, to transform my life, to get into a new habitat, i need to change my habits at their core, that the subconscious and conscious levels of thought in addition to action....
It's a long road.....but a road none the less, and if I run out of road I can bushwhack a trail if I need to. Transformation appears to be a slow process....
Friday, July 29, 2011
seeking for calm...
So, Drama, drama, drama this week....I hate weeks like this, though it is my own fault. As with everything else in life, you may not mean for things to happen, but when you make certain decisions and open your mouth without thinking, you open the door for all sorts of things to happen. It is great when those things are life affirming and bring peace, prosperity, joy and faith. It is not so great when they bring drama, frustration, pain, and sadness. But, as with all things, this too shall pass, and I hopefully have learned to again be MORE careful with what I say and when I say it so that I do not inadvertently open a truck load of worms, and start a spiral of frustration, pain, and drama for myself, A, the kids, and everyone on the periphery.
Hopefully things have calmed down some today. I have not been posting much about my food related path to a better life, as I have been dealing so much with this emotional and relationship related path that needs to be worked through on this road to transformation. It all needs to happen, but it could happen in a better way (maybe?).
Stress increases my desire to eat. Stress also increases my blood sugar (stress releases cortisol which in turn tells the body to release stored sugar into the blood stream). So eating more than I should of the wrong kinds of food coupled with the cortisol induced release of blood sugar and the fact that I forgot to take my second dose of metformin 2 days in a row (I got the morning dose, but not the evening dose), is just not good. BUT with all that, both of my readings the last tow days have managed to stay under 280. Not great I know (the one I just took was 263), but they are under 300, which was my main goal this week.
The kids had one rough day, but we managed to keep the tension in the house down to somewhat reasonable levels even with all the turmoil between A and I, and the kids behavior and emotional responses tell me that we were mostly successful in not drawing the kids into the stress and turmoil between us. This may sound like a strange thing to be saying, but kids are greatly affected by the stresses between parents, and I have seen how drastically it alters their sense of emotional security, and thus their outward behaviour both at home and at school. Josiah, who is extremely empathetic and picks up emotions like a magnet attracts iron has been doing alright. Gonzo has too. So for this I am grateful. I also try to be open with the kids and explain to them what is going on so they are wondering and scared when they sense tension or negative emotions. And THAT has gone a long way to helping them feel more secure and be willing to talk about their feelings too. I know from experience that when you KNOW something is not right as a child and a grown up tells it that everything is fine and not to worry about it, you can't help but worry and wonder and make up things in your mind to explain what you see. So, instead of going the route many people take of just reassuring kids that everything is fine, I actual tell my kids things like
"I know it feels a little upsetting right now, we (meaning the parents) are discussing some things that make up both feel upset/sad/angry. Bubba (what they call A--long story) is sad and angry because I said I did not want to be married anymore but I still love Bubba as my friend and we are still all a family, we will just keep living in two different places like we have been. We still both love you and we are still both here for you. And yes, sometimes we disagree about things and we have to work out how to share our time with you, because we both want to be with both of you as much as we can. So we have to work on finding the best way to share and make our family work so everyone is safe, loved, and happy. Everything is okay, even if it feel really hard right now. And things will get better very soon."
Maybe I am too upfront with my kids and give them a touch too much information, but I find it helps the kids calm down to know the very basic gist of what is going on, and it gives them the chance to ask questions (which are sometimes hard to answer and sometimes not so hard). But overall, I see them be more calm and at peace knowing a little bit about what is going on, and feeling more reassured because of it.
Well, I have to go pick up J from school and then get G and then get home and I have a bunch of stuff I am doing this weekend. I'll probably write again on Monday. Have a great weekend.
Hopefully things have calmed down some today. I have not been posting much about my food related path to a better life, as I have been dealing so much with this emotional and relationship related path that needs to be worked through on this road to transformation. It all needs to happen, but it could happen in a better way (maybe?).
Stress increases my desire to eat. Stress also increases my blood sugar (stress releases cortisol which in turn tells the body to release stored sugar into the blood stream). So eating more than I should of the wrong kinds of food coupled with the cortisol induced release of blood sugar and the fact that I forgot to take my second dose of metformin 2 days in a row (I got the morning dose, but not the evening dose), is just not good. BUT with all that, both of my readings the last tow days have managed to stay under 280. Not great I know (the one I just took was 263), but they are under 300, which was my main goal this week.
The kids had one rough day, but we managed to keep the tension in the house down to somewhat reasonable levels even with all the turmoil between A and I, and the kids behavior and emotional responses tell me that we were mostly successful in not drawing the kids into the stress and turmoil between us. This may sound like a strange thing to be saying, but kids are greatly affected by the stresses between parents, and I have seen how drastically it alters their sense of emotional security, and thus their outward behaviour both at home and at school. Josiah, who is extremely empathetic and picks up emotions like a magnet attracts iron has been doing alright. Gonzo has too. So for this I am grateful. I also try to be open with the kids and explain to them what is going on so they are wondering and scared when they sense tension or negative emotions. And THAT has gone a long way to helping them feel more secure and be willing to talk about their feelings too. I know from experience that when you KNOW something is not right as a child and a grown up tells it that everything is fine and not to worry about it, you can't help but worry and wonder and make up things in your mind to explain what you see. So, instead of going the route many people take of just reassuring kids that everything is fine, I actual tell my kids things like
"I know it feels a little upsetting right now, we (meaning the parents) are discussing some things that make up both feel upset/sad/angry. Bubba (what they call A--long story) is sad and angry because I said I did not want to be married anymore but I still love Bubba as my friend and we are still all a family, we will just keep living in two different places like we have been. We still both love you and we are still both here for you. And yes, sometimes we disagree about things and we have to work out how to share our time with you, because we both want to be with both of you as much as we can. So we have to work on finding the best way to share and make our family work so everyone is safe, loved, and happy. Everything is okay, even if it feel really hard right now. And things will get better very soon."
Maybe I am too upfront with my kids and give them a touch too much information, but I find it helps the kids calm down to know the very basic gist of what is going on, and it gives them the chance to ask questions (which are sometimes hard to answer and sometimes not so hard). But overall, I see them be more calm and at peace knowing a little bit about what is going on, and feeling more reassured because of it.
Well, I have to go pick up J from school and then get G and then get home and I have a bunch of stuff I am doing this weekend. I'll probably write again on Monday. Have a great weekend.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
life in Transition for sure
Okay, so I have not written much in the past week. It has been an interesting one. I had a dr's appointment on Friday to go over blood work that I had done over a week before that. And the results nearly knocked me on the floor.
My A1c results (the test that gives an average of your blood sugar levels over the past three months by measuring the percentage of glycalation of your hemoglobin (how much glucose is attached to the hemoglobin)) were extremely high. 11.2% to be exact. Normal is around 5-6%, typical for someone with diabetes is around 7%, high is 8-9%. That correlates to a blood sugar reading of around 310 on average over the last 3 months, and my fasting sugar that day was 279 (normal is fasting is below 100, normal random throughout the day is below 140, diabetics should aim for below 180). overly high blood sugar is over 240, and levels over 300 are considered very dangerous. So I have been walking around with my blood sugar levels in the extremely high and dangerous range for a while, and I did not even know it. The last time I had an A1c and other blood work, my A1c was 7.1% and everything else was fine other than slightly elevated triglycerides. that was in February 2010.
Since that time my marriage had fallen apart, I walked away from a great opportunity in Rhode Island due to the afore mentioned collapse of the family, I have moved into an apartment and taken a job that I drive over 100 every day 5 days a week (for over a year, though only 3 weeks left until it is over with), I have gone through the custody process in the courts and have physical custody of my kids (with shared legal custody), I have allowed A (even though we are separated) back into our lives on a daily basis, and have been rebuilding a friendship (though not without a lot of difficulty and baggage), and I have been trying to make plans for the future with a lot of uncertainty. So some parts of my life are less stressful (my marriage was extremely stressful and the ending of that brought different stresses, but overall less stress) and some parts are more stressful (the fact that my primary source of income ends in a couple of weeks and the fact that I do not know where my relationship with A is going at this point in time--in the past week it has been a lot of ups and downs and trying to figure out if we can or even should try to put the family together again). I have been trying to get enough money incoming through freelance writing and through ads for things that I recommend on both my blog and my website, but I am not a sales person and don't want to be, so I post links to things I like and hope that others will click those links and bring in a few pennies for me. Literally, I have made $0.02 total through the ads that I share for things that I think my readers would like. So, as I have no desire to try to push people to look at things that they are not inclined to look at on their own, I don't think I will supplement my income much by my website or blog. Which is fine, I will still post links to cool things and books that I like and think others are interested in, but I know that I can not depend on it for any supplementing of my income. I have applied for a number of jobs, but they have not panned out so far. And taking a low paying job is not a viable option as I would have to pay out more in childcare costs than I could bring in, even if I broke even it would not change the situation. Having two children with moderate to severe special needs, means that I can not hire the high school kid down the street or even most adults to watch them. As it is, even family struggles to watch both of them together for short periods of time. Heck, even A struggles to have both of them alone for more than a couple of hours at a time. Because their needs are so different and both are intensive (I forget sometimes because I am just used to them), and because the sibling rivalry between them adds whole other layer of intensity, the best solutions would be to hire two different sitters, one trained to meet each other this needs, and possibly have one cared for at home and the other cared for at the sitters home. As J is an insurance liability (which I learned the last time I tried to work full time and put him in a day care center) finding care for him is very hard, and G has massive behavioural issues with peers which make it difficult for him to be in a group setting (hence the fact that he is in an 8:1:2 self-contained classroom and still needs a 1:1 aide just to go to school (8 kids, one teacher, two aides 8:1:2) and free time (unstructured without clear instructions for what he should do--like recess and lunch) are his hardest times of all. It makes me miss Becky, our favorite babysitter from when we lived in our house. She was a Masters student a the college, studying special ed--focusing a lot on autism and she herself had cerebral palsy--so she understood and knew how to handle both boys very well. But alas she graduated and is a great teacher in an autism classroom now about 2 1/2 hours away (from here and from our old house), and we left our old house to renters (who paid one month rent and then lived rent free for over 6 months before I was able to evict them, and they trashed the house in the process, knowing that if they did not pays rent we could not pay the mortgage, and by trashing it, made it impossible to rent to someone else was we did not have the funds to repair the extent of damage they did--so it is in foreclosure proceedings sadly).
Anyway, back to my lab results. Stress is one of the primary causes leading to high blood sugar. Being overweight puts a great deal of stress on the body, and them adding emotional and financial stress, pushed the body beyond what it can handle. So as the past few years have been fraught with high, high levels of stress, and the past year in particular has been stressful. Coupled with being overweight since my teens and not watching what I eat or exercising enough when things get stressful (being a stress eater--the more stressed I am the more I eat...) well, it has not boded well for my health. So I as mentioned before, I watched that movie "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" recently and felt inspired to get more fresh vegetable food into my diet, and have started drinking green smoothies. As a diabetic I can not do the juicing. Maybe once my blood sugar levels are normal, then I plan on doing a juice fast as portrayed, but until them, I can still do the smoothies and add lots of nutritious vegetables to my body in a drinkable way. But when I saw it originally, I could identify with the FAT part of the title, but the sick and nearly dead parts of the title I just wasn't feeling. However when I got my blood test results:
A1c 11.2%
Cholesterol 218 (a little high, but as I have NEVER had cholesterol issues it is shocking to me)
LDL-144 (too high)
HDL-40 (too low)
Triglycerides 184 (too high)
and 2 of my liver enzymes were just slightly past the top of the high range.
My blood pressure, heart rate, and all my kidney and other tests were fine.
When I saw the results, I suddenly identified with the WHOLE title of that Movie. Thought, Oh my gosh, now I know what it feels like to feel "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" (well okay that one is an exaggeration, but I could actually see the path leading to that, which is as far as I want to go).
So, I was more than willing to go on pharmaceuticals in addition to making some immediate changes in my lifestyle and eating. So on Saturday I started on Metformin 500mg 2x daily, and enapril once a day (to protect the kidneys as with that much sugar running through them can cause a lot of damage). I began tracking my foods in Spark People again. And am taking my blood sugar readings twice a day. The big thing is getting it below 300 and keeping it below 300 (that is step one, getting it below 240 is step two, and then getting it below 200 is step three, after that pushing it down to normal ranges is the ultimate goal, but transitions--quick transitions as this is what I consider an emergency situation). I was told not to check my fasting sugar as we already know it is really high. What I need to do it to check my sugar 1-2 hours after a meal and keep track of what pushes my sugar up and what brings it down, as each person is different, and your body reacts differently at different time of day, so over the next three months, I need to closely record my food intake, glucose levels, and activities to determine what food I can have when and what ones I need to avoid and when. I have my basic dietary guidelines from the diabetes educator, and my doctor told me to try eating a healthy cereal with milk in the morning rather than my typical sausage eggs and cheese sandwich. I forgot to check my levels Saturday.
Sunday I had a bowl of Special K cereal with milk. Two hours later I checked my sugar and it was 380!!!!. For lunch I had a turkey sandwich on WW bread. For a snack I had a green smoothie. For dinner we had a hamburger cooked on the grill (with a WW bun), some vegetarian baked beans, a couple of chips (I know I should not have), and a hot dog (no bun). I went for a nearly two hour hike around my Dad's property, with my Dad, A, Gonz, and Jos (mainly carried Jos either on my shoulders or just a front carry (he can't do a side carry on the hip as his hips do not open far enough). We were looking for a place for me to build a lean-to, which the building guy at the town clerks office said I did not need a permit for and told me the zoning distances I needed to stay within. I want a nice camping place for me and the kids that we can tailor to Josiah's physical needs and to Gonzo's need for clear boundaries. As much as we loved going down to Garnet Lake and tent camping, there were some things (like massive hills and very uneven rocky paths to get to the camp site, not to mention a road between the campsite and the lake) that made it difficult for us. So we got quite a bit of exercise that day.
I did not get around to checking my blood sugar again until late evening and it was still at 345. So I had two hard boiled eggs as a snack (high protein no carbs) and started to look for ways to quickly lower blood sugar, and did some of the water drinking and breathing exercises (breathing helps relax your body which reduces stress and thus allows blood sugar to function more normally). Before I went to bed 45 minutes later, my sugar was down to 295--yeah breathing and water. So Monday, having learned that too many carbs for breakfast was a BAD thing for my body, I ate sausage, egg , and cheese but only used the thin half of an english muffin, and had coffee with just cream, no sugar or sweetener, and just water. Then I went for my 45 minute walk around the pond. When I got to the library, I checked my blood sugar (1.5 hours after finishing breakfast) and it was 193!!! A HUGE drop. Protein works for me in the morning. I had sliced turkey for lunch (no bread) and a grapefruit. For snack after school I had bought a coconut as Josiah has been wanting a coconut for some reason, so we had a coconut for snack. IT was from a discount food place, and old, and not as tasty as I remember fresh coconut being. So not a good intro for him to fresh coconut that we had to break the shell to get. But that was my snack. Dinner was a stir fry with broccoli, cabbage, yellow squash, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and black beans with spices and vinegar. Then I did a boo-boo, I ate a piece of Digorno's pizza that A had picked up for the kids. I really should not have as it pushed my carbs over what they were supposed to be for the day. When I took my sugar after dinner though it was 262, so not great but under the 300 mark that I am aiming for this week.
Last night was an interesting night with A, which I will not go into on here, but it definitely added a lot for me to think about, that of course adds stress. A part of me would love for our family to be together again, and I really would love to try and have a biological baby and go through pregnancy and care for a baby right from conception. I love my kids, and always planned on having three kids total. So it was always part of the plan, it was just that adoption ended up being the first path we took, as there are so many kids waiting for families. But I still want to have one child from my own body. Which with the fact that I am almost 37, am still very overweight (thus greatly increasing chance of miscarriage), and now with my sugar issues--makes that possibility even lower. Add in the broken family and the idea that A and I might NOT be able to reform a family, well, it is a hard thing to let go of. I know that our relationship has not been healthy, and that A is not that much different now than 3 years ago, which is when A had picked up the bottle again, and has not put it down. I actually had a couple of drinks with A for the first time over the past week--Mike' Hard Lemonade. That was nice, but weird. As I don't drink often, but every once in a while will have a glass of while or a margarita, or a Mike's Lemonade (seems popular in my family these days), I have never had a drink with A. A was in recovery when we met, and one of the things we did was no alcohol in the house. I had no problem with that as a six pack of my favorite beer (I am very picky, as gross beer is just, well, gross) would take me a year to drink. I know that from a time before A when my best friend had brought me a six pack of my favorite beer (which I had trouble finding when I moved from that area) and it was nearly a year later when I had the last one with my brother in law. So, yeah, having a drink with A was weird, as for so long A tried to hide (unsuccessfully) the relapse in 2008, and then after my mother in law died, just crawled back into the bottle in 2009, and then after detox, and when I thought we were moving forward went back into the lying and hiding mode of drinking in 2010, which was when I decided I couldn't live that way any longer (lots more went on of course, but that is a bit of a nutshell pertinent to todays post, see a much earlier post for more explanation (from mid-March)). Lately A has been more moderate in drinking, a few beers a day or so. And behaving mostly. So when offered a Mike's I said Okay. but that actually, after typing it all out, really is a side bar that does not have much to do with what I was talking about, so I suppose I did not need to include it. I'll leave it anyway.
Point is, no matter how stressful life is, I need to make changes NOW to ensure a better future. More than ever before, I know I need to make some major changes, one of which has got to be in my eating/exercise habits. The other biggie has got to be in my levels of stress. Perhaps, after really realizing last night that while I love A, A is the other parent of my children, I am not IN LOVE with A, at all. I have said it for a while, but a part of me always just thought that I was still in love, that that spark was still there somewhere, that it was something that maybe could be rekindled and we could overcome all of the crap that has happened over the past few years. But the spark has gone out, and that actually makes me quite sad. And it's not like A's behavior and daily living has altered in a away that makes me want to try to light a new spark. There has been little transformation on that end, and I want a partner not another child, but with A I feel like I have another child rather than an equal adult partner in my life. And that has not changed. Most of the things that I did not like about A are still there, and only a few of the things that I fell in love with in the first place have survived the events of the past few years. Sure, maybe someday A will turn around, maybe someday the person I met will return, or a transformed person will emerge. But maybe not. It took my mother over 10 years to really recover from the death of her mother (and her daughter, grandmother and father--all in a 5 year period). And as my father says, when you lose a parent or a child, or anyone you love, you don't get over it. It leaves a hole in your heart. You just have to learn how to live with that hole. It is what I have called finding a new normal. Anytime there is a major life event (birth/adoption, death, loss of job, new job, moving, etc...) it takes time to find a new normal. I almost had found a new normal last fall before A returned. Now I feel like we are floundering around again. Part of it is the uncertainty of the future, most poignantly the uncertainty of income. They boys disability subsidies will still come each month to help offset the inherent issues in raising children with special needs (like the inability to work full time), but it is not really enough to live on unless I move back into the trailer, which needs SO much work (even though we already put a lot of work into it), or to move in with my Dad, which has its own set of issues, not the least of which is the fact that A lives there and I am not really ready to live with A again.
So anyway, my life of transformation seems to have a lot of areas that need to be transformed....
My A1c results (the test that gives an average of your blood sugar levels over the past three months by measuring the percentage of glycalation of your hemoglobin (how much glucose is attached to the hemoglobin)) were extremely high. 11.2% to be exact. Normal is around 5-6%, typical for someone with diabetes is around 7%, high is 8-9%. That correlates to a blood sugar reading of around 310 on average over the last 3 months, and my fasting sugar that day was 279 (normal is fasting is below 100, normal random throughout the day is below 140, diabetics should aim for below 180). overly high blood sugar is over 240, and levels over 300 are considered very dangerous. So I have been walking around with my blood sugar levels in the extremely high and dangerous range for a while, and I did not even know it. The last time I had an A1c and other blood work, my A1c was 7.1% and everything else was fine other than slightly elevated triglycerides. that was in February 2010.
Since that time my marriage had fallen apart, I walked away from a great opportunity in Rhode Island due to the afore mentioned collapse of the family, I have moved into an apartment and taken a job that I drive over 100 every day 5 days a week (for over a year, though only 3 weeks left until it is over with), I have gone through the custody process in the courts and have physical custody of my kids (with shared legal custody), I have allowed A (even though we are separated) back into our lives on a daily basis, and have been rebuilding a friendship (though not without a lot of difficulty and baggage), and I have been trying to make plans for the future with a lot of uncertainty. So some parts of my life are less stressful (my marriage was extremely stressful and the ending of that brought different stresses, but overall less stress) and some parts are more stressful (the fact that my primary source of income ends in a couple of weeks and the fact that I do not know where my relationship with A is going at this point in time--in the past week it has been a lot of ups and downs and trying to figure out if we can or even should try to put the family together again). I have been trying to get enough money incoming through freelance writing and through ads for things that I recommend on both my blog and my website, but I am not a sales person and don't want to be, so I post links to things I like and hope that others will click those links and bring in a few pennies for me. Literally, I have made $0.02 total through the ads that I share for things that I think my readers would like. So, as I have no desire to try to push people to look at things that they are not inclined to look at on their own, I don't think I will supplement my income much by my website or blog. Which is fine, I will still post links to cool things and books that I like and think others are interested in, but I know that I can not depend on it for any supplementing of my income. I have applied for a number of jobs, but they have not panned out so far. And taking a low paying job is not a viable option as I would have to pay out more in childcare costs than I could bring in, even if I broke even it would not change the situation. Having two children with moderate to severe special needs, means that I can not hire the high school kid down the street or even most adults to watch them. As it is, even family struggles to watch both of them together for short periods of time. Heck, even A struggles to have both of them alone for more than a couple of hours at a time. Because their needs are so different and both are intensive (I forget sometimes because I am just used to them), and because the sibling rivalry between them adds whole other layer of intensity, the best solutions would be to hire two different sitters, one trained to meet each other this needs, and possibly have one cared for at home and the other cared for at the sitters home. As J is an insurance liability (which I learned the last time I tried to work full time and put him in a day care center) finding care for him is very hard, and G has massive behavioural issues with peers which make it difficult for him to be in a group setting (hence the fact that he is in an 8:1:2 self-contained classroom and still needs a 1:1 aide just to go to school (8 kids, one teacher, two aides 8:1:2) and free time (unstructured without clear instructions for what he should do--like recess and lunch) are his hardest times of all. It makes me miss Becky, our favorite babysitter from when we lived in our house. She was a Masters student a the college, studying special ed--focusing a lot on autism and she herself had cerebral palsy--so she understood and knew how to handle both boys very well. But alas she graduated and is a great teacher in an autism classroom now about 2 1/2 hours away (from here and from our old house), and we left our old house to renters (who paid one month rent and then lived rent free for over 6 months before I was able to evict them, and they trashed the house in the process, knowing that if they did not pays rent we could not pay the mortgage, and by trashing it, made it impossible to rent to someone else was we did not have the funds to repair the extent of damage they did--so it is in foreclosure proceedings sadly).
Anyway, back to my lab results. Stress is one of the primary causes leading to high blood sugar. Being overweight puts a great deal of stress on the body, and them adding emotional and financial stress, pushed the body beyond what it can handle. So as the past few years have been fraught with high, high levels of stress, and the past year in particular has been stressful. Coupled with being overweight since my teens and not watching what I eat or exercising enough when things get stressful (being a stress eater--the more stressed I am the more I eat...) well, it has not boded well for my health. So I as mentioned before, I watched that movie "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" recently and felt inspired to get more fresh vegetable food into my diet, and have started drinking green smoothies. As a diabetic I can not do the juicing. Maybe once my blood sugar levels are normal, then I plan on doing a juice fast as portrayed, but until them, I can still do the smoothies and add lots of nutritious vegetables to my body in a drinkable way. But when I saw it originally, I could identify with the FAT part of the title, but the sick and nearly dead parts of the title I just wasn't feeling. However when I got my blood test results:
A1c 11.2%
Cholesterol 218 (a little high, but as I have NEVER had cholesterol issues it is shocking to me)
LDL-144 (too high)
HDL-40 (too low)
Triglycerides 184 (too high)
and 2 of my liver enzymes were just slightly past the top of the high range.
My blood pressure, heart rate, and all my kidney and other tests were fine.
When I saw the results, I suddenly identified with the WHOLE title of that Movie. Thought, Oh my gosh, now I know what it feels like to feel "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" (well okay that one is an exaggeration, but I could actually see the path leading to that, which is as far as I want to go).
So, I was more than willing to go on pharmaceuticals in addition to making some immediate changes in my lifestyle and eating. So on Saturday I started on Metformin 500mg 2x daily, and enapril once a day (to protect the kidneys as with that much sugar running through them can cause a lot of damage). I began tracking my foods in Spark People again. And am taking my blood sugar readings twice a day. The big thing is getting it below 300 and keeping it below 300 (that is step one, getting it below 240 is step two, and then getting it below 200 is step three, after that pushing it down to normal ranges is the ultimate goal, but transitions--quick transitions as this is what I consider an emergency situation). I was told not to check my fasting sugar as we already know it is really high. What I need to do it to check my sugar 1-2 hours after a meal and keep track of what pushes my sugar up and what brings it down, as each person is different, and your body reacts differently at different time of day, so over the next three months, I need to closely record my food intake, glucose levels, and activities to determine what food I can have when and what ones I need to avoid and when. I have my basic dietary guidelines from the diabetes educator, and my doctor told me to try eating a healthy cereal with milk in the morning rather than my typical sausage eggs and cheese sandwich. I forgot to check my levels Saturday.
Sunday I had a bowl of Special K cereal with milk. Two hours later I checked my sugar and it was 380!!!!. For lunch I had a turkey sandwich on WW bread. For a snack I had a green smoothie. For dinner we had a hamburger cooked on the grill (with a WW bun), some vegetarian baked beans, a couple of chips (I know I should not have), and a hot dog (no bun). I went for a nearly two hour hike around my Dad's property, with my Dad, A, Gonz, and Jos (mainly carried Jos either on my shoulders or just a front carry (he can't do a side carry on the hip as his hips do not open far enough). We were looking for a place for me to build a lean-to, which the building guy at the town clerks office said I did not need a permit for and told me the zoning distances I needed to stay within. I want a nice camping place for me and the kids that we can tailor to Josiah's physical needs and to Gonzo's need for clear boundaries. As much as we loved going down to Garnet Lake and tent camping, there were some things (like massive hills and very uneven rocky paths to get to the camp site, not to mention a road between the campsite and the lake) that made it difficult for us. So we got quite a bit of exercise that day.
I did not get around to checking my blood sugar again until late evening and it was still at 345. So I had two hard boiled eggs as a snack (high protein no carbs) and started to look for ways to quickly lower blood sugar, and did some of the water drinking and breathing exercises (breathing helps relax your body which reduces stress and thus allows blood sugar to function more normally). Before I went to bed 45 minutes later, my sugar was down to 295--yeah breathing and water. So Monday, having learned that too many carbs for breakfast was a BAD thing for my body, I ate sausage, egg , and cheese but only used the thin half of an english muffin, and had coffee with just cream, no sugar or sweetener, and just water. Then I went for my 45 minute walk around the pond. When I got to the library, I checked my blood sugar (1.5 hours after finishing breakfast) and it was 193!!! A HUGE drop. Protein works for me in the morning. I had sliced turkey for lunch (no bread) and a grapefruit. For snack after school I had bought a coconut as Josiah has been wanting a coconut for some reason, so we had a coconut for snack. IT was from a discount food place, and old, and not as tasty as I remember fresh coconut being. So not a good intro for him to fresh coconut that we had to break the shell to get. But that was my snack. Dinner was a stir fry with broccoli, cabbage, yellow squash, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and black beans with spices and vinegar. Then I did a boo-boo, I ate a piece of Digorno's pizza that A had picked up for the kids. I really should not have as it pushed my carbs over what they were supposed to be for the day. When I took my sugar after dinner though it was 262, so not great but under the 300 mark that I am aiming for this week.
Last night was an interesting night with A, which I will not go into on here, but it definitely added a lot for me to think about, that of course adds stress. A part of me would love for our family to be together again, and I really would love to try and have a biological baby and go through pregnancy and care for a baby right from conception. I love my kids, and always planned on having three kids total. So it was always part of the plan, it was just that adoption ended up being the first path we took, as there are so many kids waiting for families. But I still want to have one child from my own body. Which with the fact that I am almost 37, am still very overweight (thus greatly increasing chance of miscarriage), and now with my sugar issues--makes that possibility even lower. Add in the broken family and the idea that A and I might NOT be able to reform a family, well, it is a hard thing to let go of. I know that our relationship has not been healthy, and that A is not that much different now than 3 years ago, which is when A had picked up the bottle again, and has not put it down. I actually had a couple of drinks with A for the first time over the past week--Mike' Hard Lemonade. That was nice, but weird. As I don't drink often, but every once in a while will have a glass of while or a margarita, or a Mike's Lemonade (seems popular in my family these days), I have never had a drink with A. A was in recovery when we met, and one of the things we did was no alcohol in the house. I had no problem with that as a six pack of my favorite beer (I am very picky, as gross beer is just, well, gross) would take me a year to drink. I know that from a time before A when my best friend had brought me a six pack of my favorite beer (which I had trouble finding when I moved from that area) and it was nearly a year later when I had the last one with my brother in law. So, yeah, having a drink with A was weird, as for so long A tried to hide (unsuccessfully) the relapse in 2008, and then after my mother in law died, just crawled back into the bottle in 2009, and then after detox, and when I thought we were moving forward went back into the lying and hiding mode of drinking in 2010, which was when I decided I couldn't live that way any longer (lots more went on of course, but that is a bit of a nutshell pertinent to todays post, see a much earlier post for more explanation (from mid-March)). Lately A has been more moderate in drinking, a few beers a day or so. And behaving mostly. So when offered a Mike's I said Okay. but that actually, after typing it all out, really is a side bar that does not have much to do with what I was talking about, so I suppose I did not need to include it. I'll leave it anyway.
Point is, no matter how stressful life is, I need to make changes NOW to ensure a better future. More than ever before, I know I need to make some major changes, one of which has got to be in my eating/exercise habits. The other biggie has got to be in my levels of stress. Perhaps, after really realizing last night that while I love A, A is the other parent of my children, I am not IN LOVE with A, at all. I have said it for a while, but a part of me always just thought that I was still in love, that that spark was still there somewhere, that it was something that maybe could be rekindled and we could overcome all of the crap that has happened over the past few years. But the spark has gone out, and that actually makes me quite sad. And it's not like A's behavior and daily living has altered in a away that makes me want to try to light a new spark. There has been little transformation on that end, and I want a partner not another child, but with A I feel like I have another child rather than an equal adult partner in my life. And that has not changed. Most of the things that I did not like about A are still there, and only a few of the things that I fell in love with in the first place have survived the events of the past few years. Sure, maybe someday A will turn around, maybe someday the person I met will return, or a transformed person will emerge. But maybe not. It took my mother over 10 years to really recover from the death of her mother (and her daughter, grandmother and father--all in a 5 year period). And as my father says, when you lose a parent or a child, or anyone you love, you don't get over it. It leaves a hole in your heart. You just have to learn how to live with that hole. It is what I have called finding a new normal. Anytime there is a major life event (birth/adoption, death, loss of job, new job, moving, etc...) it takes time to find a new normal. I almost had found a new normal last fall before A returned. Now I feel like we are floundering around again. Part of it is the uncertainty of the future, most poignantly the uncertainty of income. They boys disability subsidies will still come each month to help offset the inherent issues in raising children with special needs (like the inability to work full time), but it is not really enough to live on unless I move back into the trailer, which needs SO much work (even though we already put a lot of work into it), or to move in with my Dad, which has its own set of issues, not the least of which is the fact that A lives there and I am not really ready to live with A again.
So anyway, my life of transformation seems to have a lot of areas that need to be transformed....
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Okay, so I HAVEN'T figured out how to post from the cell phone....
Well, It has been a busy week and I had thought I had sent a couple of posts from my cell phone, short ones, but little updates. However, it seems they never materialized on this blog, so I guess I have NOT figured out how to do quick blog posts via text. Oh well...
This past week, the kids were on a short summer vacation between the end of the regular school year and the beginning of summer school, which started today. We had a pretty low key week last week--hung out at home, splashed around in the kiddie pool on a couple of hot days, played video games and watched movies on rainy days, visited with my father, stopped down to coffee at my sister's house, walked up town for ice cream at the Ice Cream Garden (less than 1/3 of a mile, first downhill then up a slowly slopping hill). On the way there (which is mostly uphill) Gonzo said to me "mom this is way too far to walk", so I told him that he takes more actual steps running around the house than we were taking getting ice cream (the child never stops moving). Josiah was in his wheel chair. While he is getting very good with his walker and doing some amazing things, that is WAY too far for him to even attempt. So he got a nice ride. We walked past the lake, which is near our house, and which is always pretty. After ice cream we walked home, mostly down hill and past the lake again. Gonzo did not complain at all about walking downhill. We stopped by the little playground next to the lake and played--Josiah loves the swings and is strong and stable enough now to be on a regular swing, so he had a blast, and Gonzo climbed and crawled and did the monkey bars and slides. We then collected some rocks to toss into the water. Then walked the last 100 feet to our house. Gonzo was able to cut through the woods (a thick bunch of trees and large rocks at the bottom of the hill that creates a visual barrier to the road) to cross the yard when we were in sight of the house, which made Josiah a little jealous, as he wanted to do that too. But there was no way for me to get his chair through the little path, as you have to go over and around some boulders and between tree trunks.
Then this weekend we went camping at Garnet Lake, a little lake kind of in the middle of nowhere, except that a LOT of people have seasonal homes and such around the lake. My sisters grabbed a couple of the campsites, and between the two campsites we ended up with 12 tents and 27 people (if I counted right). In addition to my sisters and their families (One sister had she and her boyfriend and the two little kids, and the other sister had three tents--one for them, one for the girls, and one for the boys as her kids are in the teens & tweens, and brought friends too). In addition to family, another family that is a friend of one of my sister's and comes every year ended up bringing a lot of friends and family with them. I was glad that I was not set up at the big main site, as there ended up being a lot of people who did not have kids there, and they used the camping time as a drunk fest, which is so not what I want my kids around.
Overall, my family decided that next year, we are not camping with them again, as it really was not what we were looking for. My one sister and her friend have done this camping trip together on 4th of July weekend for over 7 years (this is the first year I have gone for overnight, I have visited to spend the day before). But the other group is just not a very family friendly group. So next year, my sisters and I agreed we would find a different camping spot for our 4th of July camping trip. Don't get me wrong, the trip was great. The boys and I got there late on Friday and set up our tent at the smaller site with my one sister and her kids (the one with older kids), my dad set up there too, then we cooked dinner at the main site, and I met a bunch of the people who were set up there. Most of them had been there since morning. After dinner we roasted marshmallows, made smores, and later went down to the beach area, and one of the guys set off a couple of fireworks. Then I put my kids to bed. At first I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to hang out with everyone at the main site, but it was actually very peaceful to sit by my own campfire and relax int eh calm. My one sister, whom I had had some strained relationship with earlier this year, came down too and we spend some times just hanging out by the fire (hers were the tents that were in that site also. Then Saturday we got up and went up to the main site, cooked breakfast over the fire, and hung out with everyone for a while. Then most of us with kids (and a few without) went down to the beach area. We swam and played in the water. some of us brought snacks and stuff down, my dad started the campfire that was at the beach area, and we canoed and kayaked and swam and tubed most of the day. Josiah got really sleepy, in the afternoon so I took him across the road to our tent, and layed down with him and Gonzo. My mom arrived as we were heading up for the nap. A little while later, while the boys were still sleeping she came up to the site and we chatted for a while. I had to wake the boys up for dinner when my nephew came down to tell us that dinner was ready in the main site. So we headed there for dinner and chatted with everyone. there was a steep hill that lead from the main flat area of the campsite up to a path to the outhouse and them up further to a couple more tent sites. Some of the kids had been going up and down the hill during the day, just playing, but then Josiah wanted to go up the hill. He was pushing his walker and started slipping and I said to him "bud, I know you want to go up there, but I don't think you are ready for that yet" (it was a very long, very steep hill with lots of roots and rocks, hard even for fully able bodied kids to walk up). He looked right at me and said "oh yes I am!" and I walked behind him as he amazed me, and everyone else by making all the way to the top of this difficult path. It took quite a bit of time and a lot of work on his part, but he did it!! I wished I had a video camera or even a regular camera. He was amazing. coming back down was actually harder because, well it is steep with rocks and roots, and he was walking with a walker. so I did a lot more catching and repositioning of him on the way back down taking it only 2-3 feet at a time so we didn't tumbled down the hill. He made it to the top ALL BY HIMSELF!!!! People clapped as he came back down, even people who didn't know him. Everyone was amazed by his determination--what a champion that boy is!!! He'll climb mountains someday, without my help.
We did fireworks at the beach that night, but Josiah and I stayed up at the main site, as he was afraid of the noise. He has a lot of noise sensitivity because he has some patchy hearing loss, making him oversensitive to certain sounds. So he and I watch through the trees with my hands glued over his ears so he could enjoy the fireworks. Last year when we went to the circus I brought ear plugs (actually I had my step father pick up ear plugs for Josiah). He could actually enjoy the circus without being terrified of what loud sound was going to startle him next. Gonzo is also sound sensitive, so he liked the ear plugs too. I wish I had brought them for the camping, but I did not know there were going to be fireworks. Overall, it was a great trip. We left Sunday morning after breakfast to go home so the kids could spend time with A. We got home and had dinner, and then went to the parade in town. The parade ended at the park by the lake by our house. They had live music, which we could hear from home, so we had free entertainment. The town fireworks are set off by the lake right next to our house (through the woods). and the fireworks actually go right over the house, so we just set up our chairs int he front yard and enjoyed the fireworks Sunday night from home with A. My brother came for a bit and then met up with friends down by the lake. the rest of my family was still camping. Like last year, pieces of the fireworks kept bouncing off the roof. Only one firework ended up coming in too low and still flaming as the pieces landed around the house and yard, but they went out quickly on their own (last year we had some we had to stomp on). On Monday we did some running around, I had left my tent at the camp site for my nephew to use and to dry out as it rained on Sunday, and we went to pack it up Monday (its about 45 minutes from our house) and A wanted to see the camping area. When we got there, my family had already cleared out, and did me a favor of taking my tent with them (which I did not know), so we stopped first at my one sisters house (only about 10 miles from the camp site and only 1 mile off the road we needed to take anyway), and chatted with her. I am glad we left on Sunday as the crowd got really rowdy and not pleasant with the addition of a couple of extra people on Sunday evening, and my sister and her husband ended up going to the little campsite with their kids early, while my other sister just took her kids to bed as they were set up at the main site. So I missed to less pleasant part of the camp trip. Then we just came home and made burgers and hung out.
I put the kids to bed early as they started their summer programs today and I wanted them to be well rested. J is in a different classroom for the summer, one more mainstream than the one he was used to , though he already knew the teacher and half the kids where in his room before, so not a huge switch for him. G on the other hand in in a totally new setting. As his self contained classroom is run through BOCES but housed in a regular school, he is normally at the smaller elementary school. But the summer program pools all of the kids from all five counties who need the summer program (as so few of them qualify for it) and they pool them at the main BOCES building. So it is a much larger building, totally different setting, different teacher, different kids, different aid, etc.... As Gonzo usually had a honeymoon period when faced with a new situation, and is a bit more withdrawn while he gets the lay of the land, I am betting he will do alright for the six weeks. Today and tomorrow might be little rocky, as he was quite withdrawn when I left. Which I suppose is better than full blown acting out. Ahhh....the joys of autism.... (said facetiously, of course)....
I think he will do okay. He had a one to one aid for the summer, and qualified teachers and assistants in the room. I am a little worried about what new behaviors he will pick up from the new kids, as he has a knack for adopting the most challenging behaviors he can find, and with all new kids,a ll who have issues, there are going to be new behaviours for him to test out and add to his already extensive repertoire. And I sure he will add some to other kids arsenals too--share and share alike. Enough with the truthful jesting now....I hope that he finds a friend in this program. He is starting to actually want a friend, and to realize that most kids have friends. With a new infusion of kids, I am hoping that he can hit it off with one of the kids and find a common interest. His pure fascination with bugs may find a fellow budding entomologist among the summer school kids. It would be great for him to make a friend.
Well, I best pack it up. The schedules for the kids do not work well. They both had to be dropped off at 8:15 and picked up at 1:45. And their school programs fro the summer are 20 minutes apart. The joys of having to be in two places at once. Well, G's program lets out between 1:45 and 2:00. So, after talking with the teachers this morning, I will be dropping J off first a little early and dropping G off a little late each morning, then picking J up a little early and picking G up a little later. So they are both offset by a little bit. Hopefully it will all work out. Today we have to pick up Josiah's new glasses at the eye doctor at 2:45.
AND my sister and her family from South Carolina arrives today for their annual summer visit (I have 3 sisters and one brother). They will be here five days. AND my mom's CD release party is on Saturday--her first CD--a life long dream come true for her. So it is going to be a very busy week....
This past week, the kids were on a short summer vacation between the end of the regular school year and the beginning of summer school, which started today. We had a pretty low key week last week--hung out at home, splashed around in the kiddie pool on a couple of hot days, played video games and watched movies on rainy days, visited with my father, stopped down to coffee at my sister's house, walked up town for ice cream at the Ice Cream Garden (less than 1/3 of a mile, first downhill then up a slowly slopping hill). On the way there (which is mostly uphill) Gonzo said to me "mom this is way too far to walk", so I told him that he takes more actual steps running around the house than we were taking getting ice cream (the child never stops moving). Josiah was in his wheel chair. While he is getting very good with his walker and doing some amazing things, that is WAY too far for him to even attempt. So he got a nice ride. We walked past the lake, which is near our house, and which is always pretty. After ice cream we walked home, mostly down hill and past the lake again. Gonzo did not complain at all about walking downhill. We stopped by the little playground next to the lake and played--Josiah loves the swings and is strong and stable enough now to be on a regular swing, so he had a blast, and Gonzo climbed and crawled and did the monkey bars and slides. We then collected some rocks to toss into the water. Then walked the last 100 feet to our house. Gonzo was able to cut through the woods (a thick bunch of trees and large rocks at the bottom of the hill that creates a visual barrier to the road) to cross the yard when we were in sight of the house, which made Josiah a little jealous, as he wanted to do that too. But there was no way for me to get his chair through the little path, as you have to go over and around some boulders and between tree trunks.
Then this weekend we went camping at Garnet Lake, a little lake kind of in the middle of nowhere, except that a LOT of people have seasonal homes and such around the lake. My sisters grabbed a couple of the campsites, and between the two campsites we ended up with 12 tents and 27 people (if I counted right). In addition to my sisters and their families (One sister had she and her boyfriend and the two little kids, and the other sister had three tents--one for them, one for the girls, and one for the boys as her kids are in the teens & tweens, and brought friends too). In addition to family, another family that is a friend of one of my sister's and comes every year ended up bringing a lot of friends and family with them. I was glad that I was not set up at the big main site, as there ended up being a lot of people who did not have kids there, and they used the camping time as a drunk fest, which is so not what I want my kids around.
Overall, my family decided that next year, we are not camping with them again, as it really was not what we were looking for. My one sister and her friend have done this camping trip together on 4th of July weekend for over 7 years (this is the first year I have gone for overnight, I have visited to spend the day before). But the other group is just not a very family friendly group. So next year, my sisters and I agreed we would find a different camping spot for our 4th of July camping trip. Don't get me wrong, the trip was great. The boys and I got there late on Friday and set up our tent at the smaller site with my one sister and her kids (the one with older kids), my dad set up there too, then we cooked dinner at the main site, and I met a bunch of the people who were set up there. Most of them had been there since morning. After dinner we roasted marshmallows, made smores, and later went down to the beach area, and one of the guys set off a couple of fireworks. Then I put my kids to bed. At first I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to hang out with everyone at the main site, but it was actually very peaceful to sit by my own campfire and relax int eh calm. My one sister, whom I had had some strained relationship with earlier this year, came down too and we spend some times just hanging out by the fire (hers were the tents that were in that site also. Then Saturday we got up and went up to the main site, cooked breakfast over the fire, and hung out with everyone for a while. Then most of us with kids (and a few without) went down to the beach area. We swam and played in the water. some of us brought snacks and stuff down, my dad started the campfire that was at the beach area, and we canoed and kayaked and swam and tubed most of the day. Josiah got really sleepy, in the afternoon so I took him across the road to our tent, and layed down with him and Gonzo. My mom arrived as we were heading up for the nap. A little while later, while the boys were still sleeping she came up to the site and we chatted for a while. I had to wake the boys up for dinner when my nephew came down to tell us that dinner was ready in the main site. So we headed there for dinner and chatted with everyone. there was a steep hill that lead from the main flat area of the campsite up to a path to the outhouse and them up further to a couple more tent sites. Some of the kids had been going up and down the hill during the day, just playing, but then Josiah wanted to go up the hill. He was pushing his walker and started slipping and I said to him "bud, I know you want to go up there, but I don't think you are ready for that yet" (it was a very long, very steep hill with lots of roots and rocks, hard even for fully able bodied kids to walk up). He looked right at me and said "oh yes I am!" and I walked behind him as he amazed me, and everyone else by making all the way to the top of this difficult path. It took quite a bit of time and a lot of work on his part, but he did it!! I wished I had a video camera or even a regular camera. He was amazing. coming back down was actually harder because, well it is steep with rocks and roots, and he was walking with a walker. so I did a lot more catching and repositioning of him on the way back down taking it only 2-3 feet at a time so we didn't tumbled down the hill. He made it to the top ALL BY HIMSELF!!!! People clapped as he came back down, even people who didn't know him. Everyone was amazed by his determination--what a champion that boy is!!! He'll climb mountains someday, without my help.
We did fireworks at the beach that night, but Josiah and I stayed up at the main site, as he was afraid of the noise. He has a lot of noise sensitivity because he has some patchy hearing loss, making him oversensitive to certain sounds. So he and I watch through the trees with my hands glued over his ears so he could enjoy the fireworks. Last year when we went to the circus I brought ear plugs (actually I had my step father pick up ear plugs for Josiah). He could actually enjoy the circus without being terrified of what loud sound was going to startle him next. Gonzo is also sound sensitive, so he liked the ear plugs too. I wish I had brought them for the camping, but I did not know there were going to be fireworks. Overall, it was a great trip. We left Sunday morning after breakfast to go home so the kids could spend time with A. We got home and had dinner, and then went to the parade in town. The parade ended at the park by the lake by our house. They had live music, which we could hear from home, so we had free entertainment. The town fireworks are set off by the lake right next to our house (through the woods). and the fireworks actually go right over the house, so we just set up our chairs int he front yard and enjoyed the fireworks Sunday night from home with A. My brother came for a bit and then met up with friends down by the lake. the rest of my family was still camping. Like last year, pieces of the fireworks kept bouncing off the roof. Only one firework ended up coming in too low and still flaming as the pieces landed around the house and yard, but they went out quickly on their own (last year we had some we had to stomp on). On Monday we did some running around, I had left my tent at the camp site for my nephew to use and to dry out as it rained on Sunday, and we went to pack it up Monday (its about 45 minutes from our house) and A wanted to see the camping area. When we got there, my family had already cleared out, and did me a favor of taking my tent with them (which I did not know), so we stopped first at my one sisters house (only about 10 miles from the camp site and only 1 mile off the road we needed to take anyway), and chatted with her. I am glad we left on Sunday as the crowd got really rowdy and not pleasant with the addition of a couple of extra people on Sunday evening, and my sister and her husband ended up going to the little campsite with their kids early, while my other sister just took her kids to bed as they were set up at the main site. So I missed to less pleasant part of the camp trip. Then we just came home and made burgers and hung out.
I put the kids to bed early as they started their summer programs today and I wanted them to be well rested. J is in a different classroom for the summer, one more mainstream than the one he was used to , though he already knew the teacher and half the kids where in his room before, so not a huge switch for him. G on the other hand in in a totally new setting. As his self contained classroom is run through BOCES but housed in a regular school, he is normally at the smaller elementary school. But the summer program pools all of the kids from all five counties who need the summer program (as so few of them qualify for it) and they pool them at the main BOCES building. So it is a much larger building, totally different setting, different teacher, different kids, different aid, etc.... As Gonzo usually had a honeymoon period when faced with a new situation, and is a bit more withdrawn while he gets the lay of the land, I am betting he will do alright for the six weeks. Today and tomorrow might be little rocky, as he was quite withdrawn when I left. Which I suppose is better than full blown acting out. Ahhh....the joys of autism.... (said facetiously, of course)....
I think he will do okay. He had a one to one aid for the summer, and qualified teachers and assistants in the room. I am a little worried about what new behaviors he will pick up from the new kids, as he has a knack for adopting the most challenging behaviors he can find, and with all new kids,a ll who have issues, there are going to be new behaviours for him to test out and add to his already extensive repertoire. And I sure he will add some to other kids arsenals too--share and share alike. Enough with the truthful jesting now....I hope that he finds a friend in this program. He is starting to actually want a friend, and to realize that most kids have friends. With a new infusion of kids, I am hoping that he can hit it off with one of the kids and find a common interest. His pure fascination with bugs may find a fellow budding entomologist among the summer school kids. It would be great for him to make a friend.
Well, I best pack it up. The schedules for the kids do not work well. They both had to be dropped off at 8:15 and picked up at 1:45. And their school programs fro the summer are 20 minutes apart. The joys of having to be in two places at once. Well, G's program lets out between 1:45 and 2:00. So, after talking with the teachers this morning, I will be dropping J off first a little early and dropping G off a little late each morning, then picking J up a little early and picking G up a little later. So they are both offset by a little bit. Hopefully it will all work out. Today we have to pick up Josiah's new glasses at the eye doctor at 2:45.
AND my sister and her family from South Carolina arrives today for their annual summer visit (I have 3 sisters and one brother). They will be here five days. AND my mom's CD release party is on Saturday--her first CD--a life long dream come true for her. So it is going to be a very busy week....
Monday, June 27, 2011
The first official day of summer vacation for the boys...
So today is the first official week of summer vacation for the kids. Well, they actually start summer school on July 5th for 6 weeks, but summer programing is more camp-like than the regular school year. So this morning we ran errands--We had to go over to the health department to get fill out my monthly transportation time card so I can get paid for June. While we were there, the boys chatted with their Grandma (My mom works for the health department nursing service in their IT department), and we bumped into the WIC program person. She had some bike helmets still from the early June bike helmet give away and so the boys got fitted for new bike helmets, which is great as they outgrew theirs last year. Now I just need to get G a new bike, as his was crunched under the trailer's porch when it collapsed under the weight of the snow this winter. J's tricycle was unharmed luckily as it was at the apartment. So now G needs a new (used) bike. I was going to go down to the transfer center where there is a little building where people can drop off items that are still good that they just don't want anymore. Hopefully there will be a kids bike there. We will have to wait until Thursday though as we just didn't make it there today, as they are closed tomorrow and Wendnesday.
Anyway, after leaving the county building with my card filled out and turned in, and carrying their new bike helmets, we then headed over to the post office. I finally got another letter from the IRS, and it was good news. The finished their minor audit/review and will be releasing my refund in 2-3 weeks. So HUGE sigh of relief as I have been waiting on that refund (which is larger than normal) for a few months now. As I did not get that jobI had ben in the running for (and no other applications have panned out), this refund is going to be used to pay our living expenses ahead a couple of months to give me more time to generate a way to bring in an income, as the transportation is done once summer school ends. Jos is going to regular, main stream kindergarten in September, and both boys will be transported by bus. SO I have a couple more months to get a couple more writing gigs that pay money and are somewhat stable, and find other ways to fill in the gaps. I could do a money making blog, but I really just like doing this blog, which is kind of like public journaling but with more self-control. I will have to think about how to do a secondary blog if I decide to use it to generate an income. I have a few idea of ways to incorporate more income generating things into my website (powerfulconsciousness.weebly.com), but I am unsure how much I want to focus on generating an income that way, as I enjoy sharing things on that website that mean things to me without the added pressure of making money. While I do have a few affiliate links, they are only for things that I really like and want to share, and some of my links on there have no affiliate kickback whatsoever. I just like to share things that I have found useful on my journey. Perhaps focusing on more articles and promoting the website more will generate some semblance of a useful income. Then there is always the books in progress, but those often take a long time even once finished to get published and start making an income from. I am not too worried, I will come up with something, God always provides, this is something that I know from experience., and the refund to pay ahead is going to reduce stress greatly in the daily living expenses area.
Anyway, after the post office we stopped over at Community Action to get a food box. I am worried that next week we will be hard pressed on gas money to get the kids to their programming, as it is another one of those 5 weeks between paychecks months (darn months with 5 Thursdays, they mess up my budgeting). So I am trying to stretch the funds I have to make it through the 8th. At least I don't have to drive this week, but I do need enough for next week's 400 miles of driving necessity. So we again made use of the food pantry. They were very low on food today though, I was surprised. but then again the economy is not bouncing back very well and here, where summer tourism drives the economy, people are just starting on the summer season. So I imagine there were a number of families that still needed it this month. It is also the end of the month, so pickings get slim as you get nearer to their restocking day. I look forward to when I can give donations again to them again instead of having to be the recipient.
After that we came home and I put a patch on their blow up pool thingy, then we spent a couple hours of fun with the hose and filling the little pool in the back yard. The patch does not seem to be holding very well, but that's okay. I borrowed a hand pump from my former neighbor to blow it up. At some point I want to find an electric air pump, which will make it easier to inflate every day. Time to check the free section of craigslist for both a bike for G and an air pump. I miss the freecycle community from the Ithaca area, what an amazingly active group that was. I both got and gave a great many things through freecyle. But alas, this very rural area does not really lend itself to an active freecyle list. Anyway, the kids had a blast in the kiddie pool, splashing and spraying with the hose. They played in the water quite a bit longer than I thought they would, as the hose is COLD water. But they had a lot of fun. We came in and got dry clothes on, and then the kids watched a video and ate some food.
A mother woodpecker ran into the window and stunned herself. She has a nest of babies in the woods on the other side of the driveway, and boy are those baby's LOUD. She and the father woodpecker work tirelessly bringing food back to the whole in the tree for the little ones. I am not sure how many, as the nest is in a hole in a broken off tree and is over 15 feet up the trunk. I just know that they are loud and the mother is always collecting food for them. They have quieted down over the past couple of days, so they must be getting bigger. Anyway, she was going after a green moth and hit the window hard. We went out to protect her from the dog and cat, who were both interested in getting a closer look. She was stunned but after a few minutes she came around, and was more alert. Nothing appeared broken, and she was not bleeding anywhere. After another few minutes she flew up to hang on the porch ceiling. Then a while after that she flew away. I was glad the kids could see the bird get better. The other day we came home to a dead robin in the same spot. His neck was broken when he ran into the window, the poor little dear.
It is now nearly 5:00. The kids are playing video games, and I was working on entering my food journal for the day. I know I originally started this blog with food journalling, but I got away from them and less consistent in my journalling. I decided to start food journaling in a way that game me more concrete information without having to do a lot of digging. So I starting using Spark People and now I am getting better at keeping track of my food because it gives you a lot of nutritional info tracking as well as calorie tracking and carb, fat, and protein gram tracking. I can even track my glucose levels and water intake, as well as fitness if I can figure that part out. So if you want to follow my food tracking and weight loss, it is on http://my.sparkpeople.com/truthfrees
I had gained back a few pounds from my initial weight loss that I started tracking with this blog, but since I started tracking again last week, I have lost over 5 pounds. So that is a good thing. I definitely have found keeping track of everything you eat makes a huge difference. I also am focused right now on keeping my calories down to around 2000 a day, with the hope that after that becomes the norm in a couple of weeks, I will then focus on the 1800 calorie limit my doctor would like for me. My pre-breakfast glucose levels have also been going down. Though I forgot to take my herbal and alternative supplements yesterday and I saw a rise in my glucose for this morning, so it seems my combination of supplements is having an effect. My doctor is willing to let me try this method for a few months, and if it shows good results, she may be less pressuring about being on certain pharmaceutical meds that I do not like the idea of being on. I told her that if I can not get it under control with diet, exercise and supplements (like cinnamon--that yummy stuff you put on your oatmeal and in cookies, and garlic--another amazingly flavorful food with great medicinal benefit), then I will go on the pharma meds.
Well, at some point I will get back to the story of how life changed when Jos came homes, which I had
started here : Thinking...Part 4
But alas it has taken me nearly two hours to write this post as I have been stopping and doing things with the boys, and dealing with the sibling rivalry issues that are rampant in my house. As well as swinging Jos and tickling the boys, and being silly, not to mention the bird thing and just other things that have popped up since I started this post. So I should end it and start thinking about making dinner...
Anyway, after leaving the county building with my card filled out and turned in, and carrying their new bike helmets, we then headed over to the post office. I finally got another letter from the IRS, and it was good news. The finished their minor audit/review and will be releasing my refund in 2-3 weeks. So HUGE sigh of relief as I have been waiting on that refund (which is larger than normal) for a few months now. As I did not get that jobI had ben in the running for (and no other applications have panned out), this refund is going to be used to pay our living expenses ahead a couple of months to give me more time to generate a way to bring in an income, as the transportation is done once summer school ends. Jos is going to regular, main stream kindergarten in September, and both boys will be transported by bus. SO I have a couple more months to get a couple more writing gigs that pay money and are somewhat stable, and find other ways to fill in the gaps. I could do a money making blog, but I really just like doing this blog, which is kind of like public journaling but with more self-control. I will have to think about how to do a secondary blog if I decide to use it to generate an income. I have a few idea of ways to incorporate more income generating things into my website (powerfulconsciousness.weebly.com), but I am unsure how much I want to focus on generating an income that way, as I enjoy sharing things on that website that mean things to me without the added pressure of making money. While I do have a few affiliate links, they are only for things that I really like and want to share, and some of my links on there have no affiliate kickback whatsoever. I just like to share things that I have found useful on my journey. Perhaps focusing on more articles and promoting the website more will generate some semblance of a useful income. Then there is always the books in progress, but those often take a long time even once finished to get published and start making an income from. I am not too worried, I will come up with something, God always provides, this is something that I know from experience., and the refund to pay ahead is going to reduce stress greatly in the daily living expenses area.
Anyway, after the post office we stopped over at Community Action to get a food box. I am worried that next week we will be hard pressed on gas money to get the kids to their programming, as it is another one of those 5 weeks between paychecks months (darn months with 5 Thursdays, they mess up my budgeting). So I am trying to stretch the funds I have to make it through the 8th. At least I don't have to drive this week, but I do need enough for next week's 400 miles of driving necessity. So we again made use of the food pantry. They were very low on food today though, I was surprised. but then again the economy is not bouncing back very well and here, where summer tourism drives the economy, people are just starting on the summer season. So I imagine there were a number of families that still needed it this month. It is also the end of the month, so pickings get slim as you get nearer to their restocking day. I look forward to when I can give donations again to them again instead of having to be the recipient.
After that we came home and I put a patch on their blow up pool thingy, then we spent a couple hours of fun with the hose and filling the little pool in the back yard. The patch does not seem to be holding very well, but that's okay. I borrowed a hand pump from my former neighbor to blow it up. At some point I want to find an electric air pump, which will make it easier to inflate every day. Time to check the free section of craigslist for both a bike for G and an air pump. I miss the freecycle community from the Ithaca area, what an amazingly active group that was. I both got and gave a great many things through freecyle. But alas, this very rural area does not really lend itself to an active freecyle list. Anyway, the kids had a blast in the kiddie pool, splashing and spraying with the hose. They played in the water quite a bit longer than I thought they would, as the hose is COLD water. But they had a lot of fun. We came in and got dry clothes on, and then the kids watched a video and ate some food.
A mother woodpecker ran into the window and stunned herself. She has a nest of babies in the woods on the other side of the driveway, and boy are those baby's LOUD. She and the father woodpecker work tirelessly bringing food back to the whole in the tree for the little ones. I am not sure how many, as the nest is in a hole in a broken off tree and is over 15 feet up the trunk. I just know that they are loud and the mother is always collecting food for them. They have quieted down over the past couple of days, so they must be getting bigger. Anyway, she was going after a green moth and hit the window hard. We went out to protect her from the dog and cat, who were both interested in getting a closer look. She was stunned but after a few minutes she came around, and was more alert. Nothing appeared broken, and she was not bleeding anywhere. After another few minutes she flew up to hang on the porch ceiling. Then a while after that she flew away. I was glad the kids could see the bird get better. The other day we came home to a dead robin in the same spot. His neck was broken when he ran into the window, the poor little dear.
It is now nearly 5:00. The kids are playing video games, and I was working on entering my food journal for the day. I know I originally started this blog with food journalling, but I got away from them and less consistent in my journalling. I decided to start food journaling in a way that game me more concrete information without having to do a lot of digging. So I starting using Spark People and now I am getting better at keeping track of my food because it gives you a lot of nutritional info tracking as well as calorie tracking and carb, fat, and protein gram tracking. I can even track my glucose levels and water intake, as well as fitness if I can figure that part out. So if you want to follow my food tracking and weight loss, it is on http://my.sparkpeople.com/truthfrees
I had gained back a few pounds from my initial weight loss that I started tracking with this blog, but since I started tracking again last week, I have lost over 5 pounds. So that is a good thing. I definitely have found keeping track of everything you eat makes a huge difference. I also am focused right now on keeping my calories down to around 2000 a day, with the hope that after that becomes the norm in a couple of weeks, I will then focus on the 1800 calorie limit my doctor would like for me. My pre-breakfast glucose levels have also been going down. Though I forgot to take my herbal and alternative supplements yesterday and I saw a rise in my glucose for this morning, so it seems my combination of supplements is having an effect. My doctor is willing to let me try this method for a few months, and if it shows good results, she may be less pressuring about being on certain pharmaceutical meds that I do not like the idea of being on. I told her that if I can not get it under control with diet, exercise and supplements (like cinnamon--that yummy stuff you put on your oatmeal and in cookies, and garlic--another amazingly flavorful food with great medicinal benefit), then I will go on the pharma meds.
Well, at some point I will get back to the story of how life changed when Jos came homes, which I had
started here : Thinking...Part 4
But alas it has taken me nearly two hours to write this post as I have been stopping and doing things with the boys, and dealing with the sibling rivalry issues that are rampant in my house. As well as swinging Jos and tickling the boys, and being silly, not to mention the bird thing and just other things that have popped up since I started this post. So I should end it and start thinking about making dinner...
Thursday, June 23, 2011
WOW, some days are just stressful.....
Well, today is one of those days. G finished up with school yesterday, but Jos still had a regular day today as his last day. I had to replace the rotors and pads on the front brakes. I actually bought the parts and my father was going to do it, but he could not get the rotors off. So I took it to the garage, and it ended up costing $112 JUST IN LABOR as I already gave them the parts for it. I also asked them to remount the tires on the front. as they are wearing unevenly and by switching them around you can get more mileage out of them before i have to come up with the money for new tires and an alignment. But they said they felt the tires were not good enough so they would not do it, which means I need to ask my brother if he can do it. And A's brake pads are completely down to the metal. I don't know why A let them get so far down. At this point the rotors will have to replaced too, when if the pads had been done a week ago, it would have only cost like $20 for the pads. I know it is not my vehicle and I have no reason to feel like it is going to come out of my pocket, but in the trickle down effect that I have from A, if something costs A money, I end up "lending" money for gas and other things to make up the difference. Normally I don't mind giving money to people as I know that in the end, if I need it, they will be there for me as I was for them. But lately I feel like with my ex, the fair exchange of favors has become very one sided. For a while, it was working out fine, I would lend A money to get to the next paycheck (weekly) and at the end of the month, A would get it back to me as I needed to stretch to my next paycheck (which is monthly), but lately the amount I give out and the amount I get back are getting further and further apart, which I can not afford. And A is getting more and more negative again, which just makes me want to scream, because I am trying to get away from the negativity in my life, not draw a whole bunch more in, especially when A has some really great prospects out there right now that should be bringing a MORE positive attitude and feelings. I suppose it goes back to choice, we each choose whether we focus on the negatives in our lives or on the positives. I guess today's post is more of a negative focus for me, from me.....something more for me to think about and adjust in my own attitude...
In order to drop the car off at the garage, I had to have A follow us down, and then ride with A to drop Jos off and then drop A off at work. Then Gonz and I had breakfast at the diner, and now we are hanging out at the library. Jos gets out of school at 1:45, but A does not get out of work until 8pm. So now I have to figure out how to pick up my car, as the garage closes before them.
It has just been one of those crazy, run around days. Gonz fell asleep in the car on the way to the bank. He was a bit difficult this morning for A in the ride down, but I think maybe he was just tired. I had to keep reminding the boys it was time to go to sleep last night, as they kept chattering away. An hour and a half after the lights were turned out I still had to go in and tell them it was time to stop talking and go to sleep. I had to threaten the removal of Jos' book in order to get them to finally stop. (the boys each have book and little led flashlight in their beds after lights out, but usually they settle down within a few minutes and I end up shutting off the little flashlights 30 minutes later when they are sleeping). So I think they were both tired this morning, and they also get affected by people's moods. And A was not is a good one this morning. Having to get to our house and leave 30 minutes early than usual added to it, but it is more about the job. Working on a total commission base is hard, especially when there is road construction in from of the dealership and thus very few customers. But A is also looking for a regular, full time position back in human services. overall pay is less, but it is more rewarding and the income much more stable. So A is going back to that hopefully. Then A can get an apartment and move out of my father's house, and start rebuilding a life. And I can get back to rebuilding my life more solidly as a single person.
So a sigh of relief, and I hope that A gets the new job and that it all works out. Well, I should spend some time with Gonz, who is playing a game on the computer next to me in the children's section of the library....
In order to drop the car off at the garage, I had to have A follow us down, and then ride with A to drop Jos off and then drop A off at work. Then Gonz and I had breakfast at the diner, and now we are hanging out at the library. Jos gets out of school at 1:45, but A does not get out of work until 8pm. So now I have to figure out how to pick up my car, as the garage closes before them.
It has just been one of those crazy, run around days. Gonz fell asleep in the car on the way to the bank. He was a bit difficult this morning for A in the ride down, but I think maybe he was just tired. I had to keep reminding the boys it was time to go to sleep last night, as they kept chattering away. An hour and a half after the lights were turned out I still had to go in and tell them it was time to stop talking and go to sleep. I had to threaten the removal of Jos' book in order to get them to finally stop. (the boys each have book and little led flashlight in their beds after lights out, but usually they settle down within a few minutes and I end up shutting off the little flashlights 30 minutes later when they are sleeping). So I think they were both tired this morning, and they also get affected by people's moods. And A was not is a good one this morning. Having to get to our house and leave 30 minutes early than usual added to it, but it is more about the job. Working on a total commission base is hard, especially when there is road construction in from of the dealership and thus very few customers. But A is also looking for a regular, full time position back in human services. overall pay is less, but it is more rewarding and the income much more stable. So A is going back to that hopefully. Then A can get an apartment and move out of my father's house, and start rebuilding a life. And I can get back to rebuilding my life more solidly as a single person.
So a sigh of relief, and I hope that A gets the new job and that it all works out. Well, I should spend some time with Gonz, who is playing a game on the computer next to me in the children's section of the library....
Monday, June 20, 2011
Crazy week....
Sorry I haven't posted over the past few days. I will get back to my story picking up with how life changed when Josiah came home. But for today, I just wanted to touch base.
Today was Josiah's moving up ceremony from preschool. He even led the procession with his walker. He is walking so well (albeit very slowly, but I love it, and so does he). His class was so cute. They did sing us some songs, and then the kids were each presented with a little diploma and a special trait of theirs was mentioned. Josiah was presented as someone who likes to be in charge and be the director of all activities (which can sometimes lead to trouble as the the teacher likes to be in charge too (his teacher said this with a great big grin--my strong willed, amazing little man)). He did great. He has a meet and greet tomorrow with the class that will be his kindergarten class. Most of them have been together this year in pre-k here at our local school, but he has been in preschool an hour away for a special needs program. He will be in a main stream classroom next year, and I think, after the initial adjustment to it, he will do extremely well.
Here are a couple of pics of him at his ceremony:
I took the boys canoeing this weekend. We canoed from the brook by my father's house down to the lake. We had a little picnic lunch on an island on the causeway, and then paddled back up the brook. The kids loved it, it was a great day. They are ready to go again anytime, so I think we have added another outdoor activity to our list of fun family things to do. It is great because as a kid, my family was always taking a canoe trip somewhere. It is great to be able to do it with my children. I was not sure how manageable it would be for Josiah, but he did great. His balance and ability to correct his movements has gotten great. We had wonderful time.
Here are a couple of pics from that day too (can you tell I replaced the batteries in my camera?):
I'll try to pick up our family story where I left off later this week. It is a bit of a crazy week though as it is the last week of regular school for the kids. Tomorrow after the meet and greet, J will have Kindergarten screening and I will have a meeting with the CSE people to finalize his IEP for the fall. Then Wednesday when G ends his last day, I will meet with his teacher and do a phone conference with our CSE to finalize his IEP now that he has had his adaptive technology assessment done (G has mild CP also and very delayed motor (both fine and gross motor) skills are extemely delayed). J has school thru Thursday. Then we have a school break from Friday until July 5th when the summer program starts for 6 weeks. I was hoping to get out to the Boston area during that break and visit friends and take the kids on a whale watch, but a check that I have been waiting for has not yet come. So, that will have to wait for a later time, Maybe in August after summer school ends.
Today was Josiah's moving up ceremony from preschool. He even led the procession with his walker. He is walking so well (albeit very slowly, but I love it, and so does he). His class was so cute. They did sing us some songs, and then the kids were each presented with a little diploma and a special trait of theirs was mentioned. Josiah was presented as someone who likes to be in charge and be the director of all activities (which can sometimes lead to trouble as the the teacher likes to be in charge too (his teacher said this with a great big grin--my strong willed, amazing little man)). He did great. He has a meet and greet tomorrow with the class that will be his kindergarten class. Most of them have been together this year in pre-k here at our local school, but he has been in preschool an hour away for a special needs program. He will be in a main stream classroom next year, and I think, after the initial adjustment to it, he will do extremely well.
Here are a couple of pics of him at his ceremony:
Here are a couple of pics from that day too (can you tell I replaced the batteries in my camera?):
I'll try to pick up our family story where I left off later this week. It is a bit of a crazy week though as it is the last week of regular school for the kids. Tomorrow after the meet and greet, J will have Kindergarten screening and I will have a meeting with the CSE people to finalize his IEP for the fall. Then Wednesday when G ends his last day, I will meet with his teacher and do a phone conference with our CSE to finalize his IEP now that he has had his adaptive technology assessment done (G has mild CP also and very delayed motor (both fine and gross motor) skills are extemely delayed). J has school thru Thursday. Then we have a school break from Friday until July 5th when the summer program starts for 6 weeks. I was hoping to get out to the Boston area during that break and visit friends and take the kids on a whale watch, but a check that I have been waiting for has not yet come. So, that will have to wait for a later time, Maybe in August after summer school ends.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Part 3...Thinking....
Sorry for the delay. The last couple of days have been busy. Lets see, where was I in the story...
Oh, we had heard back from some of the case workers about children we had inquired about. One was a little boy in Texas who was just over 2 years old with a number of developmental issues. We almost made it to the final three pool. Many agencies and foster care systems select the three most likely families for a final in depth evaluation in order to choose the best family. So making it to the final three is a really great step. Around the same time, we were in the final running for a child through Spence-Chapin, an infant with FAS. She was a beautiful little girl, and we were excited about the possibility of adopting her. But we were not the family selected for her, which was about a month later. Soon after that we were called about an infant boy through Adoption Star who had holoproloencephaly, but he would need to be picked up the week, and we did not have the funds available for the placement fee at that time, as the fees for his adoption were higher than we were prepared for (around $6000, about twice what we were prepared for). With infant adoption, even special needs, even with reduced fees some adoptions are more costly for a variety of reasons.
Soon after that the case worker from the Texas foster care system contacted us again. She said that the chosen family had turned down the little boy after getting his full disclosure information packet, and they were again selecting potential families and wanted to know if we were still interested in being considered for him. We said yes of course, however a couple weeks later we learned we were not chosen again. Around that time, we had heard about a baby boy in Louisiana whose issues I can not recall now. We sent in our home study and had some conversations with the case worker, and she with our social worker. We did end up in the final running for him, but were not the family chosen. Hurricane Katrina hit about a week after that. I remember praying that the chosen family had been able to get there, so that he was with his family during that stressful time.
An Aside: That is one of the problems with the adoption journey. You invest a little piece of your heart in each child, even the ones you don't inquire on. But you rarely, if ever, have a chance to learn what happened to them. Some kids in the foster care system that I have watched for a long time are still there, their pictures and descriptions being updated periodically, growing older and older without a family to call their own. Hopefully they have not been moved too many times. Multiple changes in family is NOT good for children. So I just continue to pray for them and hope that they are well and that a family match will be made for them soon. Often it is not that there are no families willing to accept them. More often, it is the case of overloaded case loads, or case workers that have decide that only a particular family will do, and so they bar matching based on a prejudice (family needs to make a certain income, family needs to be the same race, family needs a stay at home mom, family must have no other kids, family must be experienced, must be a two parent family, must be a particular religious denomination, must be a certain age, must be in a certain locale, etc...), without giving the child a chance to know the love and stability of family. While there are laws in place to protect children from the preconceived notions of caseworkers, it is hard to get them enforced. So some kids sit in foster care while literally hundreds of families have expressed an interest. On the adoption boards, it is heart breaking when you see a child that so many have expressed a desire to adopt, but they are rejected by the caseworker for no real reason. And for years the child loses out on having a good family. While I believe that the foster care system is far better than some alternatives (like institutionalization, which is not as bad in this country as it is in others), there is just so much bad practice, poor oversight, caseworkers and such that like the power and have forgotten about helping the kids, and so much bureaucracy that paperwork trumps the needs of the child very often. But it is a necessary function to keep kids safe. There are GREAT caseworkers out there, great supervisors, great, caring compassionate people in all levels that DO care for the kids and have to fight with the system they work for to ensure what is best for the kids. I have been honored to meet and work with quite a few of them. It is a system worth fixing. Okay, off my soap box now.
So, anyway, where was I, oh yes, after we were not chosen for little Lucas, we continued, as we had been, sending out our inquiry forms to any child's caseworker we thought we were a potential match for. We were in contact with The Cradle out in IL about a beautiful baby girl with Apert Syndrome. During the process, one of the people I talked to was surprised I had not seen her picture, so she told me the link to go to. She did not, however, tell me that it was a private link, as most of the agencies I had been working with had a handful of public photos with the child intros. She was such a beautiful baby, that I shared her picture on an email list as I child I was hoping to adopt. But when the agency found out, there was a lot of backlash, and we were taken out of the running because of it. I never thought to ask, as I had not run into many private pictures before that from the agencies I had been working with. And the few times we were given private photos, it was stated right up front that they were private and not to be shared. So that miscommunication ended that exchange.
During that time we were contacted again by the Texas case worker. For a third time, (once before we were in the loop and now twice since) the family who was selected for this little boy backed out once they got his full disclosure packet. There were doing another family selection and wanted to know if we were still interested, and to make sure that we understood what global developmental delays, product of a consanguios relationship, prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, and a benign cyst in his head meant. She was tired of people saying they were ready to parent him and then when they go the reports and such, realized he had more issues than they realized. So I said yes, we understand what that set of issues could mean for his present and future, and yes we were still interested. We moved on to the next level of selection and went to the three family committee (or rather our social worker got all of the information together and went to the meeting as out representative as is usually the case). A few days later we got a phone call. Our family had been selected for little G, who was now 2 years and 7 months old. The information packet with pictures and his full disclosure was being sent to our social worker for our review. (and we were told it was private info not to be shared until we signed an intent to adopt and the process was fully underway).
So about a week later we got a call from out social worker and went to her office, expecting a thick folder with his disclosure, after all he was only 2years 7 months old, how much of a folder could he have. When we arrived, she told us to sit down, and had an odd look on her face. First she handed us a stack of pictures and a letter that had come with it which was summary of his issues essentially. He was quite cute. Then she walked into her office and brought out a huge stack of papers, over 1500 pages. THIS was his full disclosure. half of the bulk of it was redacted reports of the early CPS visits, the allegations, the court findings, etc... Both from before he was removed from his home and after. There were the reports from the foster home she had been in and why after only a few weeks the foster parents requested that he be moved. This little guy, at not even three years old, had gone through so much. First his conception was not a consensual one, and was a very traumatic even for his 14 year old birth mother. As she had no way out, she turned to drugs (primarily any pills that a 14 yr old can get her hands on and alcohol) to deal with the painful and trapping situation she was in. He was actually fairly healthy when he was born, and was sent home with his young mom to home that was really not a safe place for either of them. My heart continues to go out for his birth mom, even today. She has walked a hard and rough road so young. The initial CPS call had been before he was born, but the findings were unfounded. During the first year of his life there were over 5 visits to the home. By the time he was 13 months old (when he and his mother and her sisters were removed from the home) he was emaciated, did not crawl, or walk, or talk, and had only two reactions when he came into foster care--if offered a bottle he would suck it down as fast as he could, and if someone raised their voice or their hand, he would visibly flinch (something he still does to this day). He did not play with toys, did not interact with other people, and as one foster parent described him "was like a wild animal".
G had bounced through five foster homes before his parental rights were terminated. He learned to crawl around 22 months old, and walk at 2 years 2 months old. He started to say words around that time. An MRI revealed an anacroid cyst in his head (left side), and genetic testing ruled out a number of possible disorders. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was 2, as well as his global developmental delays, hypotonia (very low muscle tone), weaker right side, and potential minor genetic issues not screened for due to his beginning. We read every page (1500 pages...) of his full disclosure packet. We could understand why he had been turned down by four families prior to us (one was a former foster family before they started family selection), his paperwork was daunting. But we talked about it and decided that we felt we could handle his issues. So a week after we first got his information (it took a few days to read it all), we sat with our social worker and discussed his issues, and then we signed the intent to adopt and set it back to Texas. That was in early October. A couple of weeks later we had a conference call with both social workers, his foster mom, his speech therapist, his occupational therapist, and his physical therapist. We asked a lot of questions and got more concrete information about him as a person, not just a report on paper. We even got to hear him on the phone for the first time. He was only saying one or two words at a time, but he had a cute voice. His echolalia was evident, as he would repeat what his foster mother said.
We arranged to go down to meet him in person and spend time with him a couple of weeks later. So November 2nd we flew to Texas, and spent 10 days with him, mostly at his foster home. His foster mom was great. She was the one who had gotten him into early intervention and worked hard with him on his developmental growth. We learned of his incredible fear of water, his love of pushing buttons, and his sweet smile. We even got permission to have him a couple of nights at our hotel, and took him to the zoo. He was very overwhelmed by the zoo at first (and by the fact that he really had only known us a week), but after we sat quietly by the duck pond and fed the ducks with the quarter machine duck food, he started to relax and was able to enjoy himself. We took him to a couple of playgrounds, which he had never been too, and he loved it. It was a great "get to know you time". I wish we could have taken him home then. But alas the process is long. We had to wait on paperwork and such. We also got to meet with his doctor while we were there, and got information to take back to the doctor we had chosen at home.
When we left, we had high hopes that he would be home for Christmas. Late in November, while all of our paperwork was in process (interstate adoption can actually be harder than inter country adoption, as I heard from someone in Belgium and someone in Canada, it was easier for them to adopt a child from the US than it is for someone from a different state to adopt a child within the US--something is wrong with that picture). We got a call from the international agency we had been working with. Our dear, dear Rustam was available again. Upon further medical testing, the family decided NOT to adopt him. So he was available. So of course we filled them in on the in process adoptive placement, and as both parties were agreeable, we made the snap decision to get our dossier translated and sent to the region in an effort to try to bring our boy home. The next day, we went over the new reports, some dated earlier than the ones we had previously, but with different information on them. We felt jerked around by that point with the whole international adoption issues, and since we had G firmly in process and he was coming home soon, we did not want to jeopardize his adoption by chasing a ghost. So we went above the agency's head to their parent agency, told our story and our concerns, asking for clarification of the information we were given and the discrepancies. We still wanted to move forward, we just wanted to make sure it was real. We got a reasonable explanation back from the parent agency, and were satisfied with their response. however, the subsidiary agency got very upset with us for asking our questions above their heads (questions that they had been asked but could not provide satisfactory answers to). They terminated our contract, and thus we lost Rustam again. In hind sight we could have fought the hard fight and tried to get accepted through the parent agency to try to bring him home, but as it was, our funds for adoption were low, and though we could get a second mortgage on the house to do it, we really had to focus on G in Texas, as he was a sure thing, and Rustam was not.
So we again grieved for Rustam. But we had to focus on preparing for G to come home. We had a travel date of December 22nd to bring him home. So our plan was to fly down on the 22nd, get all the papers signed, stay in Texas, with him with his foster mom, for Christmas (rather than rush him to unfamiliar territory right before Christmas, and then come home after that with him. We were awaiting final confirmation of the travel plans, when on December 19th we got a call that said that a judge blocked the adoption because he did not think the child should be placed out of state (enter the joys of ridiculous financial incentives given to the state for placing children in state even when the agency has gone to extreme measures to place him in state without success, and thus turned to out of state to find a proper home).
So began the most ridiculous and expensive part of our adoption journey. There was no way that this boy, whom had been given up on by so many people, and had spent the past two months with daily phone calls, videos, photo albums, and his foster mom preparing him to move to our home, there was no way we were going to allow some short sighted stuck up judge to deny him the family he had been being prepared for. So we fought, we called our adoption lawyer in NY, who could only advise as he had no jurisdiction in Texas. Then we called every lawyer we could find in the greater Houston area. Well, A did most of that work, I was focusing on my job a lot during that period as we were very busy at work, focusing on my job kept me sane, and it was our primary income to support our hopefully growing family. most of the ones we talked to said they felt our pain, yes it was unjust, and not right, but they would not take the case. The Texas agency had been told not to talk to us--though not all listened, because they hated the injustice, and they explained to us that it was a good ole boys club, and if they stepped on a judges toes, they would be "punished" by the judge ruling against them in the next few case brought to court, thus messing up foster care placements and adoptive placement just out of vindictiveness (of course they said this off the record, and I respect their need for privacy and the protection of their positions).
We finally found a lawyers ballsy enough to take the case, and who charged an exorbitant fee. A's niece was a new lawyer fresh out of law school and got us some information that we passed on tot he lawyer in TX. Then on the adoption lists, I got some information about the Child Placement Act of 1994, which states that you can NOT be denied placement merely because of geography (out of county, out of state, etc...). So the judge's ruling was illegal. We passed this paragraph of a huge, multi page bill (so easy to miss), on to our lawyer in TX. She was able to get the judge to recuse himself from the case (which saves face for him and fixed the problem for us as it went to another judge who was aware of the fight). The legal costs topped $9,000--so yes we did take out that second mortgage on the home. We were told that most of the time people just give up when they are denied. And if we had not already "lost" so many kids we had been preparing for through the international adoption process, we might have been more likely to give up. But it just was ridiculous NOT to fight against a prejudice and self-seeking judge. He later claimed, for the record (trust me we heard about some things he said off the record (primarily about our family make up) that make me realize he is NOT a good man), that he had not realized so many attempts had been made to place in the state, which was not true as he was told that at the hearing in December when he denied the placement.
That new judge said that he trusted the agency to make the right placement for the child. So they contacted us and within 10 days, I was on a plane to Texas. i spent a week with G so that he could get to know me again, and so I could try to explain snow to him as it was February and he had never seen snow like what we get up here--Texas was balmy to me in February (A had to stay home and work as we did not have the funds for both of us to be out of work and both fly down). To make sure everything was by the book, the state requires an overnight visit in the prospective home prior to final placement. That is usually waived for longer distance adoptions, but with all the issues the agency decided to make sure it was done. So a caseworker flew back to our state with us, inspected the home as required, G spent the night while the caseworker enjoyed the bed and breakfast that was down the street. She came over in the morning and we signed all of the final papers for his placement. We got the normal six month post placement, pre-adoptive time shorted to five months, and were able to finalize his adoption in our own state. July 31st was his finalization day.
So that is how Gonzo came to be our son.
I know this series of posts is entitled thinking, and you can think a lot more thoughts in a short period of time, but it take days to try to write it out. I will continue this story, as it is pertinent to what I am thinking about. But right now I need to spend some times with my boys. They are playing Monkey Ball on the game cube right now.
Oh, we had heard back from some of the case workers about children we had inquired about. One was a little boy in Texas who was just over 2 years old with a number of developmental issues. We almost made it to the final three pool. Many agencies and foster care systems select the three most likely families for a final in depth evaluation in order to choose the best family. So making it to the final three is a really great step. Around the same time, we were in the final running for a child through Spence-Chapin, an infant with FAS. She was a beautiful little girl, and we were excited about the possibility of adopting her. But we were not the family selected for her, which was about a month later. Soon after that we were called about an infant boy through Adoption Star who had holoproloencephaly, but he would need to be picked up the week, and we did not have the funds available for the placement fee at that time, as the fees for his adoption were higher than we were prepared for (around $6000, about twice what we were prepared for). With infant adoption, even special needs, even with reduced fees some adoptions are more costly for a variety of reasons.
Soon after that the case worker from the Texas foster care system contacted us again. She said that the chosen family had turned down the little boy after getting his full disclosure information packet, and they were again selecting potential families and wanted to know if we were still interested in being considered for him. We said yes of course, however a couple weeks later we learned we were not chosen again. Around that time, we had heard about a baby boy in Louisiana whose issues I can not recall now. We sent in our home study and had some conversations with the case worker, and she with our social worker. We did end up in the final running for him, but were not the family chosen. Hurricane Katrina hit about a week after that. I remember praying that the chosen family had been able to get there, so that he was with his family during that stressful time.
An Aside: That is one of the problems with the adoption journey. You invest a little piece of your heart in each child, even the ones you don't inquire on. But you rarely, if ever, have a chance to learn what happened to them. Some kids in the foster care system that I have watched for a long time are still there, their pictures and descriptions being updated periodically, growing older and older without a family to call their own. Hopefully they have not been moved too many times. Multiple changes in family is NOT good for children. So I just continue to pray for them and hope that they are well and that a family match will be made for them soon. Often it is not that there are no families willing to accept them. More often, it is the case of overloaded case loads, or case workers that have decide that only a particular family will do, and so they bar matching based on a prejudice (family needs to make a certain income, family needs to be the same race, family needs a stay at home mom, family must have no other kids, family must be experienced, must be a two parent family, must be a particular religious denomination, must be a certain age, must be in a certain locale, etc...), without giving the child a chance to know the love and stability of family. While there are laws in place to protect children from the preconceived notions of caseworkers, it is hard to get them enforced. So some kids sit in foster care while literally hundreds of families have expressed an interest. On the adoption boards, it is heart breaking when you see a child that so many have expressed a desire to adopt, but they are rejected by the caseworker for no real reason. And for years the child loses out on having a good family. While I believe that the foster care system is far better than some alternatives (like institutionalization, which is not as bad in this country as it is in others), there is just so much bad practice, poor oversight, caseworkers and such that like the power and have forgotten about helping the kids, and so much bureaucracy that paperwork trumps the needs of the child very often. But it is a necessary function to keep kids safe. There are GREAT caseworkers out there, great supervisors, great, caring compassionate people in all levels that DO care for the kids and have to fight with the system they work for to ensure what is best for the kids. I have been honored to meet and work with quite a few of them. It is a system worth fixing. Okay, off my soap box now.
So, anyway, where was I, oh yes, after we were not chosen for little Lucas, we continued, as we had been, sending out our inquiry forms to any child's caseworker we thought we were a potential match for. We were in contact with The Cradle out in IL about a beautiful baby girl with Apert Syndrome. During the process, one of the people I talked to was surprised I had not seen her picture, so she told me the link to go to. She did not, however, tell me that it was a private link, as most of the agencies I had been working with had a handful of public photos with the child intros. She was such a beautiful baby, that I shared her picture on an email list as I child I was hoping to adopt. But when the agency found out, there was a lot of backlash, and we were taken out of the running because of it. I never thought to ask, as I had not run into many private pictures before that from the agencies I had been working with. And the few times we were given private photos, it was stated right up front that they were private and not to be shared. So that miscommunication ended that exchange.
During that time we were contacted again by the Texas case worker. For a third time, (once before we were in the loop and now twice since) the family who was selected for this little boy backed out once they got his full disclosure packet. There were doing another family selection and wanted to know if we were still interested, and to make sure that we understood what global developmental delays, product of a consanguios relationship, prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, and a benign cyst in his head meant. She was tired of people saying they were ready to parent him and then when they go the reports and such, realized he had more issues than they realized. So I said yes, we understand what that set of issues could mean for his present and future, and yes we were still interested. We moved on to the next level of selection and went to the three family committee (or rather our social worker got all of the information together and went to the meeting as out representative as is usually the case). A few days later we got a phone call. Our family had been selected for little G, who was now 2 years and 7 months old. The information packet with pictures and his full disclosure was being sent to our social worker for our review. (and we were told it was private info not to be shared until we signed an intent to adopt and the process was fully underway).
So about a week later we got a call from out social worker and went to her office, expecting a thick folder with his disclosure, after all he was only 2years 7 months old, how much of a folder could he have. When we arrived, she told us to sit down, and had an odd look on her face. First she handed us a stack of pictures and a letter that had come with it which was summary of his issues essentially. He was quite cute. Then she walked into her office and brought out a huge stack of papers, over 1500 pages. THIS was his full disclosure. half of the bulk of it was redacted reports of the early CPS visits, the allegations, the court findings, etc... Both from before he was removed from his home and after. There were the reports from the foster home she had been in and why after only a few weeks the foster parents requested that he be moved. This little guy, at not even three years old, had gone through so much. First his conception was not a consensual one, and was a very traumatic even for his 14 year old birth mother. As she had no way out, she turned to drugs (primarily any pills that a 14 yr old can get her hands on and alcohol) to deal with the painful and trapping situation she was in. He was actually fairly healthy when he was born, and was sent home with his young mom to home that was really not a safe place for either of them. My heart continues to go out for his birth mom, even today. She has walked a hard and rough road so young. The initial CPS call had been before he was born, but the findings were unfounded. During the first year of his life there were over 5 visits to the home. By the time he was 13 months old (when he and his mother and her sisters were removed from the home) he was emaciated, did not crawl, or walk, or talk, and had only two reactions when he came into foster care--if offered a bottle he would suck it down as fast as he could, and if someone raised their voice or their hand, he would visibly flinch (something he still does to this day). He did not play with toys, did not interact with other people, and as one foster parent described him "was like a wild animal".
G had bounced through five foster homes before his parental rights were terminated. He learned to crawl around 22 months old, and walk at 2 years 2 months old. He started to say words around that time. An MRI revealed an anacroid cyst in his head (left side), and genetic testing ruled out a number of possible disorders. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was 2, as well as his global developmental delays, hypotonia (very low muscle tone), weaker right side, and potential minor genetic issues not screened for due to his beginning. We read every page (1500 pages...) of his full disclosure packet. We could understand why he had been turned down by four families prior to us (one was a former foster family before they started family selection), his paperwork was daunting. But we talked about it and decided that we felt we could handle his issues. So a week after we first got his information (it took a few days to read it all), we sat with our social worker and discussed his issues, and then we signed the intent to adopt and set it back to Texas. That was in early October. A couple of weeks later we had a conference call with both social workers, his foster mom, his speech therapist, his occupational therapist, and his physical therapist. We asked a lot of questions and got more concrete information about him as a person, not just a report on paper. We even got to hear him on the phone for the first time. He was only saying one or two words at a time, but he had a cute voice. His echolalia was evident, as he would repeat what his foster mother said.
So we again grieved for Rustam. But we had to focus on preparing for G to come home. We had a travel date of December 22nd to bring him home. So our plan was to fly down on the 22nd, get all the papers signed, stay in Texas, with him with his foster mom, for Christmas (rather than rush him to unfamiliar territory right before Christmas, and then come home after that with him. We were awaiting final confirmation of the travel plans, when on December 19th we got a call that said that a judge blocked the adoption because he did not think the child should be placed out of state (enter the joys of ridiculous financial incentives given to the state for placing children in state even when the agency has gone to extreme measures to place him in state without success, and thus turned to out of state to find a proper home).
So began the most ridiculous and expensive part of our adoption journey. There was no way that this boy, whom had been given up on by so many people, and had spent the past two months with daily phone calls, videos, photo albums, and his foster mom preparing him to move to our home, there was no way we were going to allow some short sighted stuck up judge to deny him the family he had been being prepared for. So we fought, we called our adoption lawyer in NY, who could only advise as he had no jurisdiction in Texas. Then we called every lawyer we could find in the greater Houston area. Well, A did most of that work, I was focusing on my job a lot during that period as we were very busy at work, focusing on my job kept me sane, and it was our primary income to support our hopefully growing family. most of the ones we talked to said they felt our pain, yes it was unjust, and not right, but they would not take the case. The Texas agency had been told not to talk to us--though not all listened, because they hated the injustice, and they explained to us that it was a good ole boys club, and if they stepped on a judges toes, they would be "punished" by the judge ruling against them in the next few case brought to court, thus messing up foster care placements and adoptive placement just out of vindictiveness (of course they said this off the record, and I respect their need for privacy and the protection of their positions).
We finally found a lawyers ballsy enough to take the case, and who charged an exorbitant fee. A's niece was a new lawyer fresh out of law school and got us some information that we passed on tot he lawyer in TX. Then on the adoption lists, I got some information about the Child Placement Act of 1994, which states that you can NOT be denied placement merely because of geography (out of county, out of state, etc...). So the judge's ruling was illegal. We passed this paragraph of a huge, multi page bill (so easy to miss), on to our lawyer in TX. She was able to get the judge to recuse himself from the case (which saves face for him and fixed the problem for us as it went to another judge who was aware of the fight). The legal costs topped $9,000--so yes we did take out that second mortgage on the home. We were told that most of the time people just give up when they are denied. And if we had not already "lost" so many kids we had been preparing for through the international adoption process, we might have been more likely to give up. But it just was ridiculous NOT to fight against a prejudice and self-seeking judge. He later claimed, for the record (trust me we heard about some things he said off the record (primarily about our family make up) that make me realize he is NOT a good man), that he had not realized so many attempts had been made to place in the state, which was not true as he was told that at the hearing in December when he denied the placement.
That new judge said that he trusted the agency to make the right placement for the child. So they contacted us and within 10 days, I was on a plane to Texas. i spent a week with G so that he could get to know me again, and so I could try to explain snow to him as it was February and he had never seen snow like what we get up here--Texas was balmy to me in February (A had to stay home and work as we did not have the funds for both of us to be out of work and both fly down). To make sure everything was by the book, the state requires an overnight visit in the prospective home prior to final placement. That is usually waived for longer distance adoptions, but with all the issues the agency decided to make sure it was done. So a caseworker flew back to our state with us, inspected the home as required, G spent the night while the caseworker enjoyed the bed and breakfast that was down the street. She came over in the morning and we signed all of the final papers for his placement. We got the normal six month post placement, pre-adoptive time shorted to five months, and were able to finalize his adoption in our own state. July 31st was his finalization day.
So that is how Gonzo came to be our son.
I know this series of posts is entitled thinking, and you can think a lot more thoughts in a short period of time, but it take days to try to write it out. I will continue this story, as it is pertinent to what I am thinking about. But right now I need to spend some times with my boys. They are playing Monkey Ball on the game cube right now.
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