Our Christmas

Here is what Christmas is like at our house...

Our elf visits all month long -
He likes to hang out with the policeman nutcracker :)

Baking cookies?
Nah, baking shrinky-dink ornaments of course!

...I have no idea...
looks painful though...

We decorate our gingerbread house train

The Sunday before Christmas we go to Grandmas
and look who rode the horse all by himself!

And Santa always visits Grandma's house too! 

On Christmas Eve it is just us...
so we head to the mountains to find snow. 

And we go sledding!
Here is Josh, Jason, and David...

And Sammy and Chris!

Then of course we need some hot chocolate after sledding...

On Christmas Eve we have Jesus' birthday cake after dinner, and we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.
No pictures of that, though. Bad Mama!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be...
Hey dude! He already was there!

And #1 got up at 5:30am... quickly followed by his brothers.
As heard over the baby monitor at 5:32am:
David: "~~unintelligible mumbling~ HO HO HO! ~~unintelligible mumbling~~ HO HO HO!"
Sammy: "What David?"
David: "HO HO HO!"

I think he was telling his brother that Santa came the night before~ too funny!

And on Christmas morning we opened the curtains to find this outside...

And our family room quickly turned into this :-)

We hope and pray that you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

(((hugs))),
chris


Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son,
and they will call Him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’
                               Matthew 1:23

Visit to Santa!

We visited the Colorado Railroad Museum last weekend. And guess who we saw?

Our most adventurous son David walked right up and asked for toys

This was Josh's 1st time sitting on Santa's lap. Ever. In his life.
He asked for Legos. (What else would this one ask for?)

And Sammy didn't ask for anything.
In fact, I am surprised that we actually got a picture of him smiling.
He just kept trying to get away from Santa...

(((hugs))),
chris


But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles.  They will run and not grow weary. The will walk and not faint.           ~ Isaiah 40:31, NLT

School Dilemma

Choices.

Choices are good.

In our culture, we seem to have SO many stinkin' choices. For example, have you paid attention at the grocery store lately? Really - do we need 312 different choices for what flavor juice we want? Cranberry-grape vs. apple-strawberry vs. cranberry-apple-orange vs. pomegranate-cranberry-peach??? Do they really taste that different?

Choices.

We have choices of where we can send our kids to school.

I don't really remember this from when I was a kid. I know there were some kids who went to the local Catholic school. But it seemed then you just sent your kid to your local elementary school, and then they continued to the local junior high, and then to the local high school.

Today we have home elementary school vs. private school (secular and religious) vs. charter school vs. homeschool vs. open enrollment at an out of your area school...

So many choices. Sometimes I want to opt out. "Can someone just tell me where to send my kids? Where they will do the best? Be the happiest? Learn the most? Be taken care of and loved on and nurtured?"

I have been praying. Asking God for clear direction. Crikey, so many prayers lately for clear direction.

So here is our dilemma. We have a great home elementary school. People rave about how they love it and oh, aren't you lucky to be in THAT school's area... Yes, we are! So when we were registering J for kindergarten, we decided to try to send him to a charter school near us. We love the curriculum at the charter school (let's call it "C-school") and it has a great reputation and great test scores. Much better test scores at C-school than at H-school too. And we figured if Josh didn't get in during the lottery system, we would be no worse off sending him to our home elementary school (let's call it "H-school") because that is a good school too.

We got Josh in on the first round of the lottery at C-school. We figured that was where he was supposed to go.

So after Josh started kindergarten, we heard rumblings about how there were problems at C-school. Parents were not happy. Teachers were not happy. Families were leaving. Teachers were leaving. But we didn't see any of this. Well not much anyway. Perhaps because we were in our little very-early-elementary cocoon or something? And there were families that we spoke to who were happy with the school.

Josh's kindergarten teacher was a nice enough person, but, um, not a fantastic teacher. Unenthusiastic. Not particularly fun. No positive reinforcement for the kids, just a LOT of negative. But Josh did OK and he made friends and he learned in spite of her. Many parents complained about her to the administration. I was shocked that she worked there for a second year.

So Josh started 1st grade and his teacher was FANTASTIC. Like the kind you want your kid to have every single year of his life through post-graduate school. She was a gift directly from God, and she restored our faith in C-school.

...Thinking back, there was one incident early in the 1st grade year that still makes this Mama Bear ticked off if I think about it too much. At the beginning of school, Josh was understandably having a really hard time. We were gone for weeks to China, and had just gotten home one week before school started. You know the first week home is all about jet lag and screaming newly adopted kids. Josh was crying a lot at school, which was disrupting the class ~ especially his first period music class. The classroom teacher was working with us to help Josh. So on the 4th or 5th day of school (I was still in jetlag-land), the music teacher had Josh out in the hallway and the dean walked by. From what I can tell, Josh's classroom teacher was there too. The dean saw Josh crying and started yelling at him. Telling him that if he didn't stop, he would be sent to the office. Telling him to cut it out. It went something like that (since I wasn't there), but the classroom teacher told us that she thought the dean came down way too hard on Josh.

Here is our the C-school mission statement:  C-school..." provides students with the foundations of virtue and character, building cultural literacy through a rigorous, content-rich curriculum in an encouraging environment."

Hey Mr. Dean, so much for creating an encouraging environment. Way to go modeling good character. You really sucked at it that day that you dealt with my 6 year old.

But our most awesome 1st grade teacher continued to work with us, and Josh soon did really well and thrived in her class. He was excited every day to go to school, and would come home happy after school.

Isn't that what we all want?

So now that we are in our 3rd year at C-school, we are seeing more why we hear parents and teachers have been dissatisfied. Josh has not been particularly happy. He doesn't come home happy after school, and isn't super excited to go to school like he was in 1st grade. Before 2nd grade started, the 2nd grade teacher Josh was supposed to have left. Like a week before school started. So Josh's current teacher was officially hired THE DAY OF BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT. Yikes. He has been doing a good job, and got his classroom together in record time. When I see him in the class he handles the kids well though many of the kids are disruptive, and he teaches enthusiastically. Of course the skeptic in me asks if that is just because I am in the room... but anyway, Josh continues to learn. He is quite an advanced reader and mathematician. And I am not just making that up to brag on my kid :-)

So has Josh been doing well and continuing to learn because of C-school and his education there?
Or because he is naturally a quick learner and has a love of learning?
Or because Jason and I have the philosophy that we are our kids' teachers first and it is OUR responsibility to teach them?

So in the meantime our two munchkins are in preschool at H-school. And they love it. And their teachers love their job. Like LOVE love their job. And the school environment there is loving and nurturing. And the staff turnover is very very low. And people even walk around H-school smiling.

My thinking last year was that we were just at H-school for preschool, and then we were moving the boys over to C-school. I did not get that invested in H-school. I didn't get to know the other parents much, didn't attend any meetings or (sorry to admit this since the munchkins' fantastic teacher reads our blog hehe) didn't pay much attention to school happenings that were outside the preschool class. Now since we have been questioning C-school, I have been paying closer attention this school year to H-school, and I realize it is a great school. For more reasons than test scores.

So Jason and I have been having this dilemma... WHERE SHOULD THE KIDS GO TO SCHOOL? especially now that D needs to register for kindergarten.

Our concerns for D were based on our experiences with C-school, as well as the fact that we want D to be in a nurturing environment. He tends to shut down if he is overwhelmed, and he will never learn if he is not in a nurturing environment.

So....

Out of the blue and unsolicited... (does this sound like a God thing to you?)... another preschool parent who also teaches at H-school approached me. She said that she heard we were going to register D at C-school, and she wanted to strongly suggest that we think about H-school for him. This parent used to teach at C-school too. She talked to me for a half hour straight about her experiences as a parent to her own kids at both schools, her insight since she has been on staff at both schools, and the rumblings she is still hearing from C-school. That's all the detail you will get about my conversation with her here. Let's just say it was eye-opening.

We are going to register David at both schools, and keep praying.

What would you do?

(((hugs))),
chris

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
             Proverbs 27:17


So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.
             1 Thessalonians 5:11

Obturator

I haven't given you a clefty update in a while!

We are chugging along with speech therapy. Sammy is getting more intelligible all the time. We have a most amazing private speech therapist (let's call her Miss C) who has been one of our gifts from God. She has so much experience as a speech pathologist, and she knows kids with cleft issues. And she loves our kids. And she loves us too.

Hang on, I need a Kleenex. Tearing up now because I can't even believe how blessed we are. She is really MOST AMAZING.

I actually have makeup on today and am leaving in a little while to take David to the hospital. Don't want to ruin that...

My makeup, that is...

Anyhoo, speech therapy has been going well for both munchkins but Miss C had some concerns about David's hypernasality. She said maybe he would need a p-flap surgery (to make his flappy soft palate at the back of his throat work and actually close) or maybe an obturator (which is a plastic piece that plugs up the fistulas toward the front of D's mouth~kind of looks like a retainer if you ever had braces). Miss C wasn't exactly sure, so we all took a trip to the speech path who coordinates our cleft palate clinic to get her opinion. Let's call her Miss T.

And this tells you how amazing Miss C is. I always admire health professionals with tons of experience who reach out to other professionals to get their advice. My dad's cancer doc did this, and our fertility doc did this, and now our Most Amazing Miss C did this.

So we all went down to Miss T's office which is about an hour south of us. Miss T is like a cleft-palate-guru-goddess. I imagine the members on the cleft team listen to her advice like gold. I can see why an acquaintance of mine makes the one hour drive down to Miss T every week with her daughter. I know I am gushing, but these two women are so amazing.

Miss T saw David and had him make sounds and checked the air leaking out of his nose during different sounds and looked at his soft palate while he made other sounds with his mouth open. That's my nutshell explanation. Her diagnosis: Let's start with the obturator. She thinks there is some movement in his soft palate (this news is major hugeness) and she thinks his soft palate may be long enough (yay!). You really need a scope done to say this for sure, but Miss T thinks that D's fistula in the front is so ginormous that he is compensating with incorrect speech patterns to make intelligible sounds. And that tells you how smart D is. So Miss T suggests that if David doesn't have to compensate for air leaking out of the front of his mouth, he may be able to learn to use his soft palate properly and then we can see if he actually needs the p-flap surgery.

From Wikipedia: A palatal obturator is a prosthesis that totally occludes an opening such as an oral-nasal fistula (in the roof of the mouth). They are similar to dental retainers, but without the front wire. 

Dentists make obturators. And we are blessed with a dentist with tons of experience, and who actually has experience making obturators. We will meet him this morning at the O.R. where David will have the mold for the obturator made under anesthesia. The dentist will take the mold to his obturator-making-person and then next week we will go back to the dentist's office and David will have his obturator fitted.

This is so exciting.

David didn't sleep well last night. He was worried. Poor guy. Please pray that things go well and that he doesn't feel too sick from anesthesia and that his throat doesn't hurt too much.

I think David will love his obturator, and that his speech will be so much clearer.

(((hugs))),
chris


But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

Jeremiah 17:7


*****
P.S. I was not able to post this until after we got home ~~ David did great in the O.R. and our dentist made two great moulds... obturator should be fitted and coming home next week! Yahoo!

Picture Day!

Enough of my ramblings! Here you go:

Apparently D got poked in the eye, so J got him an eye patch to help him.
D didn't want to take this off all. day. long.
Aaaaaargh!

Yes, he does stop moving occasionally.

Isn't he cute!

Wrestling with Daddy.
It's all fun and games until someone gets poked in the...

JUNK!
Daddy taught the boys that their ding-dongs are called their "junk".
And apparently running around with an ice pack on it helps.

To the Swetsville Zoo with Grammy.
It is a "zoo" of metal statues made out of old tractor parts ~ very cool!
Lots of people and animals and dinosaurs everywhere

Mama and the boys with the band!

(((hugs))),
chris

God’s voice is glorious in the thunder. We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power. He directs the snow to fall on the earth and tells the rain to pour down. Job 37:5-6

Trauma ramblings

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) for the diagnosis of PTSD is that "the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person's response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine that you are a few days old, and you wake up alone on the sidewalk on a bridge or in a train station. Instead of the familiar smell, heartbeat and arms of your mother to comfort you when you cry, no one comes for what seems like forever. When someone finally notices you, it is a stranger. Imagine then, that for the next 6 months or a year or more you are confined to a crib where you are cared for sporadically by many people who also care for many other babies. No one picks you up when you cry. You are not fed when you are hungry, but fed when it is convenient for your caregiver. Your bottle is propped in your mouth and if it falls out you may not get more until the next bottle 8 hours later. Your diaper is dirty. You are cold. You are not held enough or loved enough if at all. And when you are scared at night because of the dark and the crying of other babies, you are left to comfort yourself.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trauma occurs when an event elicits fear, helplessness and overstimulation in a child.

I think institutionalization always causes trauma.

There are many studies out there that show that trauma and stress cause physiological and chemical changes in the brain. When the trauma is experienced in children while the brain is still developing, the effects have huge consequences. Trauma can affect a child's cognition, gross and fine motor skills, language development, social interactions, attachment and trust, and self-perception. I am not smart enough or articulate enough to explain all of this, and there are whole books written on this topic. But I think the most important thing for adoptive parents to know is that their kids' brains are different than other kids' brains. These little brains are both physiologically and chemically different because while their brains were developing, these kids were living in a place of fight-flight-freeze-dissociation. Their brains and bodies lived in a stress-induced cortisol bath for weeks or months or years. This can cause behaviors such as aggression/rage, depression, attention/hyperactivity issues, anxiety, or withdrawing/avoidance.

The kind of behaviors that teachers call home about.

From the Post Institute website:

"Any family adopting a child from an orphanage should be informed that regardless of the age the child is going to have challenges in forming healthy, secure attachment for some time. They should be informed that their neurologic development is most likely challenged in key areas regarding social development and this will take time to repair, and their stress response system is highly sensitized and reactive."

"Highly sensitized and reactive". I wonder why.

We have stress reactions in our house. I will share just a couple of them here. One gets stressed and freezes and has a deer-in-the-headlights look (dissociation) ~ maybe triggered by fear of being "bad" or doing something wrong or making mom mad. One increases his neediness and clinginess exponentially and needs mama/baba several times a night and cries about missing whoever is not with him (fight) ~ maybe triggered by fear of losing those people close to him which has happened several times in his life.

I am not sure if we fit the APA's definition of PTSD or not. Thank God we do not have RAD in our house (Reactive Attachment Disorder). I pray God's blessing over all those families dealing with RAD. What we do have is persistent and pervasive issues related to loss and trauma that we deal with daily.

I think this is just an inherent part of adoption.

I think it is really important to always keep this in mind when our munchkins are struggling with anything.

I expect we will be dealing with this for years if not for all their lives to some degree.

While I am talking about these issues caused by trauma, these issues do not DEFINE who are kids are. These issues are just one part of them, and as their parents we need to be aware of the adoption-related issues and remember what caused them. Then we can love them and parent them and help our kids heal from their trauma, while nurturing and appreciating our kids' other amazing parts like
   a great sense of humor or
   an incredible memory or
   a loving attitude or 
   great imaginative play or
   a natural musical aptitude or
   a new addiction to Legos
   a love of books or
   great athletic ability or
crikey I could go on and on.

They are kids first.

Like I mentioned in my last post, these hard places we have been do not define us, but rather that those hard places get woven into us and shape us and become a beautiful part of us. 

Thank you, Lord, for answered prayers.

(((hugs))),
chris

Give your burdens to the Lord,
and he will take care of you.
He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Psalm 55:22


*I can't remember where I saw this story, so I can't appropriately credit the author.

A Year Ago this month

I was ANGRY.

Pissed-off.

Black-cloud over my head.

Stick-a-fork-in-me DONE.

I was angry at myself (How could I not instantly love the poor little, former-orphan child? Am I a monster?)

I was angry at God (Why did he take so many babies from us? He brought these munchkins here, where is He now? Why aren't we just clicking?).

I was angry that we had to adopt at all (Why couldn't we just have just given birth to one of those six babies we lost? WTF? Just one?).

I was angry at all the books I ever read about adoption (Why didn't someone mention that I could be the one having trouble attaching?).

I was angry at anyone who said we looked like we were so happy. Anyone who told us how lucky the boys are. Anyone who said oh the boys are doing so well. (Really? Come home with me and I'll show you. Happy, shmappy.)

Because outward appearances are easy. Because seeing us for an hour or a couple hours only gives you one small snapshot of us. What's happening the rest of the time and inside your heart and head can be polar opposite.

And who was I to complain? I felt like I should just shut up and suck it up and just appreciate that God gave me the opportunity to be a mother again. I desperately wanted, cried for, prayed for, pleaded with God for another child. And here they were.

Shut up, Chris. You got what you asked for.

A year ago in November I was an angry person. I was ashamed of my anger, so I tried to fake it. "Fake it 'til you make it" was my motto. My mantra.

One day at a time.

I was barely surviving.

Hanging on by my fingernails.

But in the middle of "faking it", I felt pretty crappy. And I had to walk around being crappy-me whilst trying to be a good mama to my three boys.

Polar opposites.

A year later, and God gives me perspective. He has shown me over this past year that He has been there the whole time.

          Duh.

I will never forget my lowest day. On this lowest day, my get-me-outta-here-I-give-up day, #1 was at school and #2 and #3 were running all over the house playing. I sat at the table with the black cloud over my head and the computer on and tears streaming down my face and sobbing, looking up "post-adoption depression" and "post-adoption blues".

Did you know there is such a thing?
(insert a ray of sunshine through the black clouds here)

So on this lowest of low days, I talked with my hubby on the phone and well, I probably hung up on him because that's how I roll sometimes but I don't remember exactly... So he showed up at home. He left work to come take care of me.

I think he loves me.

Fast forward to our next visit with our social worker in February. She asked all the social workery questions about the kids attaching, and medical stuff, and how is our older son handling things, then she actually asked if we were having trouble attaching to the kids. I wanted to scream, "WHY DID NOONE EVER MENTION THIS BEFORE WE BROUGHT THESE KIDS HOME? WHY DIDN'T I EXPECT THAT I MIGHT BE THE ONE HAVING TROUBLE???" But time had passed since my lowest-get-me-outta-here day so I handled it a bit more tactfully. (insert thanks to God here)

I wonder if it was in some of the books that I read prior to adopting, and maybe I skipped over it? It could happen. After all, why would I expect to NOT attach right away? We wanted these kids so much and went through so much just to be parents again. We have an older son who we adore. Why would it be different for us, the parents?


So let's talk about a few places where God showed up over the past year...
1)  D starting school in November right around the time I was so angry - God gave me three mornings a week break for me, and David loves school so it was good for him too.
2)  Jas coming home from work on that meltdown day. God poured a little more glue in our marriage that day.
3) Books - especially The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforeseen Challenges of Adoption, by Foli and Thompson. I recommend it to anyone who is adopting. Seriously. Go to Amazon and buy it. Or you can borrow my copy if you like.
4) Our church's adoption support group (praise God for L & L who organize it :-) and the adoption mom's coffee group that I went to a handful of times.
5) Another adoptive mom sharing this bit o' info from an adoption counselor: attachment for the adopted kids averages 6-9 months, and attachment for parents can average 12-18 months. That was my 2nd eye-opening, I saw the sun breaking through the clouds day.
6) Our friends who loved us and supported us and prayed for us. And who listened to me vent. A lot.
7) God using our Sunday morning service, as well as some adoption blogs I follow. He has used these sources so many stinkin' times to speak directly to me.
8) My mom-in-law sharing her experience being an adoptive parent. Letting me know it is going to be OK.
9) With the social worker in February.


Once I started talking with my husband and other adoptive parents, I didn't feel so alone. God put so many people in my life who "got it". It is always so cool to get a glimpse at how He orchestrates our lives. God placed people in our lives to help us get through this. What I was feeling was not uncommon in the land of adoptive parents.

I pray that He uses me to help other adoptive parents.

I pray that other adoptive families have their eyes opened to the side of parental attachment issues and post-adoption blues before their kids come home. I pray the social workers will include this in their pre-adoption sessions. Being caught off-guard by this really threw me a curve ball. It could have been very dangerous for our family.
......................
So fast forward to today. I am in a good place. The black cloud started lifting sometime around January-February of this year, and the hard months turned to good weeks and bad weeks, turned to good days and bad days. It continues to be a process. Now I have mostly good days sprinkled with some really difficult hours. I know it is OK to not like my kid sometimes. I know I won't ever love them all exactly the same. I know it will be a long road to teach the munchkins to not operate from a place of fear or desperation.

I know that the hard places we have been do not define us, but rather that those hard places get woven into us and shape us and are becoming a beautiful part of us.

Best of all, I know God has been there the whole time carrying me, guiding me, healing me, teaching me, and loving me.

(((hugs))),
chris


But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.
             Psalm 42:8

Happy Halloween

Here are pictures of the wild & ca-rayzee boys from last night:

Josh the Ninja

Dave the Racecar Driver and Sammy the Elmo
Why are their mouths open? you ask.
So they can YELL, of course ;-)

All three of the wild childs... Sam is punching the back of D's car...
'cuz that's what brothers do

So then I go looking through the rest of the Halloween pics and I find these four all in a row...

See any similarities between the four males in my house???

(((hugs))),
chris

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
     and this is what he requires of you:
  to do what is right, to love mercy,
     and to walk humbly with your God.
                        Micah 6:8