Behavior Issues

Henry is having some behavior issues. I know this is pretty normal for an active three-year-old boy, but he is having problems in school. Today was a particularly bad day. He had to go sit in the director's office for a bit. One of the teachers told me that they felt like one of them had to stay with H and be one-on-one with him and that left the other teacher to deal with all of the other kids. He is openly defiant and doesn't respond to consequences.

They know I know this. He is like this at home. I am pretty consistent and do the time out thing and I can, with time and effort and endless patience (sometimes), get him to do what I need him to do.

He is also really fine sometimes. If we go to a playground, he is usually pretty good. He is very active and loves to climb.  He is a little handsy at times, but if I put him in time out at the playground he will stay in time out and usually be a bit better afterward.

The thing is, he has biological relatives who have some serious behavioral issues. Some of this stuff must be genetic. I am a little afraid.

I don't want him to get kicked out of school. I don't want him to have no friends.

Today I am worried. I left a voice mail to my old therapist to get some advice. I really, sincerely hope he grows out of this, but I am concerned.

He can be so wonderful sometimes. And he's adorable. Why can't he just listen a little bit?

Three is hard

Three is a tough age. I'm exhausted. Everything seems to be a fight. Sometimes I fear H is turning into a psychopath, but I think that's just how 3 is.

In the moment I am constantly frustrated, but in most cases everything is hilarious in retrospect.

I am so tired.

And yet I still want to do it again.

Happy & sad

Going through a pretty hard core "feeling so very happy & elated for other people and totally feeling so sad for myself" mixed feeling kinda thing here.

I know that's ok. I know it's normal. I know it will never 100% go away.

But feeling it still kinda sucks.

Family Tree already?

So, it's H's third full day of preschool and I'm handed a paper by the teacher that says "H's family tree." Oy. The teacher says to "put pictures of your family on it. It's like an 'all about you' activity." So I'm going to ignore this and just put pics of me, H, T, Bdog and R cat on there.

That's ok, right? H is totally not able to talk about adoption on his own right now and I think it's pretty safe to do just our family at home because, really, that's what this thing is for. It's about who you live with. Right?

I didn't expect to have to deal with this already!

They should just label the paper "H's Family" and I'd feel a lot better about it.

Oy.

A Different Expectant Mom

We got an email asking us if we wanted our profile shown with a small amount of background information. Long story short, we had our profile shown to an expectant mom.

She chose a family that didn't already have a child. We expect this to happen a lot.

Our profile has lots of pictures of our happy family. I wonder if we should have fewer pictures of H in there? But I don't want to be dishonest. We *do* have a child. And I imagine there are expectant parents who want their child to have siblings.

It's still kind of disappointing and I'm not sure what to do about it. I suppose we'll just leave things as they are.

But all of the paperwork is off and we are 100% waiting. Before we know it we will have to renew our home study.

But I guess it's good we've already had two chances to show our profile (though we chose to show it only once)?

So now

So, now that we decided to say no to this special situation, it put a fire under my butt to complete the profile for our adoption attorney in Florida. I'm 95% finished with it and that will get us really, truly waiting for a placement.

The expectant mom that we are not showing our profile to is due in January. January would have been a perfect time to welcome a new baby into our lives. I can't say that I'm not still sad about it, but I know it was what was right for us.

I know someday there will be a sibling for our H and that I will be a mom again. It might not be as soon as I would have liked, but that's just our lot in life.

Meanwhile, 3 is really, really tough but still really good.

Sleeping on it

We were presented a situation and I think we're turning it down. It involves drug exposure and HIV. My heart skipped a beat when T told me the attorney called, but it feels like more risk than we are willing to take on and I'm not excited at the prospect of being chosen. We think that means something.

Still, it's leaving me feeling a bit empty and sad.

We'll sleep on it but don't think we'll change our mind.

Almost 3

I cannot believe it but our Henry is almost 3 years old. We are officially waiting (our homestudy has been approved) for a sibling for him. I took him to the adoption agency to drop off our booklet. We talked a little about adoption then and he told me that "we adopt another baby" so I guess he listens. I know he has no idea what that really means, though.

I can't believe he's such a big boy. Sometimes it feels insane to want another child as our house feels so chaotic most of the time, but at the same time I definitely have the baby bug and am ready. The not knowing is still awful and I still need to work on paperwork to expand our search further to hopefully speed things along a little bit.

Our boy is a lot of work and such a love. Sometimes I get so frustrated I want to cry (and get a job), but mostly I feel so lucky that I get to be this boy's mama.

It bums me out

It really sucks that someone having a baby makes me sad. It's supposed to be something happy.  And I am happy for the people that have the baby, but I'm usually more sad for myself.  I really hate that.

Home Study Complete

I was feeling pleased that our home study is finally complete, but I see it's been 6 months since we started. Oy. That doesn't make me feel so great, but it is what it is I guess.

I'm starting to worry about the wait again. I don't mind 12-18 months of waiting, but I know around month 16 I'm going to be freaking out a bit. Hell, I'm freaking out now. But I have to let it go because I just have no control over this.

I just feel old. (I turned 40 earlier this month.)

Anyway, I guess we're officially waiting.

We pulled it off

Before the end of 2011 we sent in the first part of our paperwork to the adoption agency. They cashed the check, so I know they received it. We are slowly headed toward our wait for kid #2. We still have a bunch to do, including our photo book, but I feel like the first step has been taken.

Labels

When I die, am I going to be labeled H's adoptive mother and CC his mother? I don't begrudge her that title. She is truly his mother and gave him life. I would never recognize her as anything else.

But I'm his mother too.

(It was this article that made me write this.)

Paperwork

H slept over my parents' house so I could try to get some paperwork done for baby #2. This paperwork is so awful. It makes me want to cry. I hate doing it SO MUCH. I'd rather go to the dentist, and if you knew me, you'd know that means something. I cannot stand the dentist.

I'm sitting here trying to complete this crap and not cry. I just cannot stand all this intrusiveness. We are not that organized and getting all this information is really difficult. I just hate it. I HATE IT. I hate doing this. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.

But every night I feel guilty that it's not complete. I need to complete it. I will feel so good when it's done.

It's just so very difficult. So difficult. I hate it.

Most days

Most days I love being a stay at home mom. Most days I feel remiss for not having completed the paperwork for another adoption. Most days I feel tired, but know what I don't do today will not hurt anyone and can be done tomorrow. Most days I can find a little patience. Most days I feel okay.

Today is not one of those days.

I must be nuts to think I can take care of another baby too. I feel like I'm going to explode.

Also, I want to kill my cat. Seriously. I think I'm capable of breaking his neck. He howls like a banshee CONSTANTLY. I cannot get a moment of quiet. Henry has a cold and has already woken up from his nap once. I got him to go back to sleep, but the f*c&ing cat keeps howling and won't shut up. I need to do some cleaning but all I can do is try to get the animals to leave me alone. They both whine and make noise and follow me around. I want them to LEAVE ME ALONE. Let me do something while Henry is asleep.

Also, I cannot believe that 3 might be more of a challenge than 2. I am losing patience.

This has not been a good week. I hope next week is better.

Not much to say

Still haven't done the paperwork and I'm feeling guilty about it every day. We really, really need to do it. I feel I am doing a disservice to myself by not completing it. I need to light a fire under my a$$ really, really quickly. Sigh.

On the evil FB, I'm part of an Adoptive Families (a great magazine) group, and the people on that group talk about God so very much.

I just want to announce that personally, I feel that God had absolutely nothing to do with my son's adoption. When you talk about adoption and God together, I no longer want to talk with you about adoption.

You may have whatever your beliefs happen to be, but leave me and my family out of it.

Thanks.

Heard from them

I heard from CC and O. I don't feel like I can go into details here, but they are still interested in the sibling thing, they just can't do it right now. They will probably approach the idea again in November or so, though possibly before. But it's not 100% out the window. Not sure where that leaves our paperwork. I still should just get it done.

Feeling a little weird about other parent friends recently. I'm finding it semi-easy to get along with people and have our kids play, but pretty difficult to be really close with anybody and to be on the same page about most things with other people. It's difficult to explain without going into specifics, but I'm not good at being lonely. Today I'm feeling a bit lonely. Today it's mostly because I'm a planner and I'm finding that people, or at least parents with young children, are often not very good at planning. I find this frustrating.

Anyway, things in general are pretty good. It's hot and that wipes me out. I'm not good at keeping up with my chores when it's this hot out.

Here's Henry and his grandad on a recent sleepover there. He really, really loves my dad. It's so cute.

I feel like I should post

I've been thinking about my abandoned blog lately. I don't feel like blogging anymore, obviously. I am busy parenting and I'm not sure I have any useful insights about adoptive parenting or parenting in general or whatever.

We never heard from CC and O. about the potential next baby. I will call them within the next month or two, but I no longer think this will happen. It bums me out a little, but it's fine. Regardless, we need to complete our paperwork for kid #2. Doing so while parenting is proving more challenging than anticipated. It's also bringing back some emotions I thought I was rid of. I'm angry that I have to do all this paperwork. I'm annoyed that I need to have a notary to have a kid. I'm frustrated by the financial aspect of this all.

I need to put aside some time to fill out the paperwork, but I'm just having a difficult time. I need a kickstart.

On the positive side, I have the absolutely best almost 2 year old ever in the whole wide world. Really, that's objectively true. His grandmothers agree with me, so it must be.

Five years

Lavender Luz reminded me that it is my blogoversary. It's been 5 years since T was diagnosed with a balanced translocation and since my first miscarriage. I cannot believe that much time has passed. It truly boggles my mind.

My family did not end up where I expected it to at the beginning of this journey. These days I sometimes wonder if I could go back and not endure infertility and wonder if I would. I have always said that I wish I didn't go through all of our trials and tribulations, but I honestly believe all of our trouble has made me a different kind of parent than I would have been had my family come easily to me. I wouldn't be completely different, but I don't think I would be able to as easily take a step back during the tedium, minutia and frustrating moments of parenting and realize how lucky I am.

So, here's to appreciating the wonder of children. They're exhausting but so very worth it.

Lucky

A woman who is 7 months pregnant told me today that I was "lucky" to not be able to be pregnant and give birth. Happily, at this point I mostly just get annoyed at comments like that. I simply told her that being an adoptive parent has its own distinct difficulties.

But I'm still thinking about it and am still annoyed. People have no idea.

That being said, I am lucky. But not for the reasons she thinks I am.

Not a blogger anymore

I'm not sure why I'm not into blogging anymore. I just rarely feel like blogging my emotions and happenings. Occasionally I need to get something out I suppose, but in general it's been feeling like a nuisance lately.

We went to FL to visit my parents. Henry had a lovely time and it was nice and relaxing. We did go to see CC and O. We had agreed (I thought) to meet at around 1pm. I called at 2 an they said they were an hour (!) away, so we had to entertain a busy toddler in the middle of nowhere for 2 hours while we waited for them. We were quite annoyed at how long we had to wait for them, but once they arrived, it all went well. They were happy to see Henry. Henry and O. got along quite well. CC was a little more distant. We got some pictures and they each held him. I was glad that we were able to get together and see each other.

We did discuss the possibility of a sibling while we were with them. They are still interested in doing it, but they want to do it sooner rather than later. Our agency found a social worker and I have spoken to her twice and sent her phone number for CC and O. to contact her and set up a time to talk. I don't know if the talk will really happen, but I will call CC and O. next week to follow up about it. I have a feeling that this might actually happen. I still feel a little tentative about it sometimes, but I still can't think of a reason to not do it. It's still really freaky, though.

Would this child's birth story be too weird?

Me and my H man.

Now that the weather has changed, things with Bdog are much better. The rescue did eventually call, but I told them we decided to keep him. She pushed a little for me to return him, but in the end he's still here. He seems to be doing well.