I'm Not Gonna Lie

I'm pretty sure we will be able to give Dillon a safe and happy home life and help him become a successful adult. However, the amount of grace and dignity we do it with still remains to be seen. I'm not going to lie to you. Adopting a six-year-old with special needs is not an easy task. Neal and I often debate with each other at the end of a hard day about who's first six months in our home were the most work – Dillon's or Halle's. Dillon isn't quite at six months yet, but we still can't decide.

Both times we have been in the school of firsts for learning new parenting skills. Halle as a new baby was a lot of work. She wasn't one of those kids that could sit contently somewhere and watch the world. In fact, we only tried once to take her through the grocery store still strapped in her car seat. She wouldn't have it because her social nature demanded human interaction at all times. The multiple nightly feedings, the diapers, the excessive laundry from a whole bottle of spit-up or major diaper blowouts, and everything else that goes with a newborn was certainly very exhausting.

However, Dillon challenges us intellectually as parents as we are constantly searching for the best way to parent him. Conversations about his types of needs don't often come up in play group conversations or basic parenting materials, so we have to gain our insights from specialists who have helped us tremendously. His high level of ADHD combined with what's called Reactive-Attachment Disorder (commonly found in children of abuse) as well as his high IQ make for a perfect storm of unique parenting situations on a daily basis.

For example, the things that don't work so far for discipline – time outs, sticker charts, losing toy privileges- you know, the usual stuff every parent uses. We have discovered, however, that running laps in front of the house does seem to work. I'm not sure what the neighbors think because there are days he gets about two miles of running done out front, but at least he's working off some extra energy. In fact, when we started attending the Love and Logic classes offered by our school district a couple of weeks ago, the teacher brought us special materials to read and listen to. Apparently love and logic is not quite enough for us, but I do think it's helping and the materials on RAD have been very insightful.

I don't believe there was any way for us to fully prepare for this experience of bringing Dillon into our family, but I do know that the Lord had a hand in giving us what we've needed to get this far. Had we been presented with Dillon even a year or two ago, I can confidently say we would not have been ready for him. However, through our major trials with Neal's unemployment two years ago and a lost adoption opportunity, we became so much stronger as a couple and discovered some valuable strengths we didn't even know we were going to need.

The Lord sees Dillon's potential as much as he also sees mine. I am grateful for this opportunity to be stretched a little (or a lot), and I am also deeply touched to have a spouse who has been willing to learn and grow right along with me.

It's only the third day of school and he's only in first grade . . .

I found myself chanting this over and over and over again by Friday afternoon last week.  Dillon started school on Wednesday and I was a nervous wreck.  I wanted some sort of reassurance from the heavens that Dillon wouldn't get overlooked or abandoned this year in terms of the extra help he's going to need - and I promise you he will need it.  Knowing nothing about his school resources or teachers, I just had to hope for the best.

 

Last week was a rocky start.  The first day was pretty good.  I dropped him off and then met him outside his class after school.  His teacher said he did fine in the classroom.  The second day wasn't so great for him in class.  And at the end of the day, I met him outside his classroom again so I could show him where to meet the shuttle that will take him to therapy every day- but the shuttle people forgot him.  I called, they apologized a million times, and then they finally sent someone to pick him up- but the point had apparently been completely lost on Dillon by then. 

 

Day three - Friday - I finally get a month's worth of medication to the school (an entirely different fiasco by the way) and while I was there, his teacher came into the office and said that Dillon didn't come in from recess.  She had to deal with another child so she only just noticed.  The bell had rung about 40 minutes ago and they panicked that he may have walked home.  I reassured them that it was more likely that he was still just playing outside.  Sure enough, I found him off playing by himself filling a plastic bottle with rocks. 

 

With that over, I was exhausted and needed a break.  My surgery had only been a week ago so I took a chance that the shuttle would find him today and headed down to my parents house to rest.  Apparently the shuttle did eventually find him because he was at therapy when Neal picked him up.  However, through Dillon's typical honest confessions, we learned that after school he had walked half of a block to Main street where the crosswalk lady was helping kids cross the street.  I don't know how they discovered him because the shuttle never called me and the therapy place didn't know anything about it.

 

And that's when I started chanting to myself.  "It's only the third day of school and he's only in first grade. . . " I drove Dillon back over to the school that evening and we walked from the first grade door to the front entrance where he's supposed to wait -back and forth, back and forth.  And then we went from the playground to the back door - back and forth, back and forth. 

 

Do I think he will remember today where he's supposed to go and when?  There's a 50/50 chance.  He knows the rules word for word when you ask him, but impulse often has greater pull in the moments he's supposed to remember them.  I know we will survive this first year.  It's just a matter of how graceful I can be about it when Dillon decides to challenge us.

Having a sister might make you a better person

I read this article today on MSN (below) and thought I would share it.  After raising Halle for four years as an only child, and then adding Dillon into our family, I can definitely say that siblings do make a difference.  It's such an important relationship, and I think I can also agree that sisters in a family really do make a difference too -although the claim that they make you a better person is a fairly generic statement.

 

 

Though siblings can sometimes be a pain, having a sister might be good for kids' emotional health, according to a new study.

The results show young adolescents who had sisters either younger or older were less likely to experience negative feelings, such as loneliness and guilt.

"Even after you account for parents' influence, siblings do matter in unique ways," said study researcher Laura Padilla-Walker, of Brigham Young University in Utah. "They give kids something that parents don't."

The study is part of BYU's Flourishing Families Project and included 395 families with more than one child, at least one of whom was an adolescent between the ages of 10 and 14. The researchers gathered a wealth of information about each family's dynamic at the study's start and then followed up one year later.

Sisters seemed to help siblings avoid negative emotions. Those adolescents with sisters were less likely than those without sisters to indicate feeling lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful. It didn't matter whether the sister was younger or older, or how far apart the siblings were age-wise.

Brothers matter as well, though their positive influence manifests in different ways. Having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbor or watching out for other kids at school. In fact, loving siblings fostered charitable attitudes more than loving parents did. The relationship between sibling affection and good deeds was twice as strong as that between parenting and good deeds.

"For parents of younger kids, the message is to encourage sibling affection," Padilla-Walker said. "Once they get to adolescence, it's going to be a big protective factor."

Many parents worry about the seemingly endless fighting between siblings. Indeed, the study found hostility was associated with greater risk of delinquency. But Padilla-Walker also sees a silver lining in the data: The fights give children a chance to learn how to make up and to regain control of their emotions skills that come in handy later in life.

"An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict," Padilla-Walker said.

The study is published in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology.

One Month and Counting

The transition for foster children coming into a new home has a pretty predictable pattern to it.  In fact, they even have a name for the first phase called the Honeymoon phase.  The first few days or weeks, they try to be extra good and appear somehow to be angel children because everything is new and different. 

 

Once the newness wears off and they realize they are staying for much longer than they expected, it becomes a "crash" time (for lack of a better word since they didn't actually name that period that I know of).  All their trouble behaviors seem to appear all at once.  It's only after this "crash" happens that you can really start working with them.

 

Dillon had about a week of honeymoon, then about two weeks of crashing - literally and figuratively- and now it appears that we are finally at a point where we are making some progress with him.  During his two weeks of crashing, we felt like all we were doing with him was putting him in time out.  I needed a system to help me reward even the smallest good behaviors, so using my accounting instincts, I came up with a dollar system.  They could earn fake dollars for even the simplest things like making their bed, getting dressed and brushing their teeth. 

 

The first few days were brutal for Dillon as I walked out the door to the car in the morning and he's still pulling his pants on and carrying his shoes.  Then he would hit someone at daycare again and lose one and then another.  But he's finally starting to see the rewards now and he's getting really excited.  They both had enough money to buy a happy meal at McDonalds last week at the high price of $20 per meal. 

 

I suppose we will probably have to get into a discussion about currency exchange rates when they figure out how much things really cost :-)

 

Anyway, the good thing is that he's responding to our discipline and structure, which will hopefully translate into more enjoyable family time.  It's just that his impulsiveness (often called Elly- his stuffed elephant) seems to get him into trouble more than he would like.

A Family of Four - Act 1 Scene 1

So we have finally had the opportunity to have a successful adoption placement. His name is Dillon and he is six years old (19 months older than Halle). We were really nervous and had so many questions this time about the impact Dillon would have on our family and whether or not we could handle the change.

He came to us through the foster care system. I inquired on him when I saw his picture back in November 2009. We were one of about 4oo other people who also thought he was something special. Somehow it came down to us and another couple, and they initially chose the other couple. But in May they called us back and wondered if we would still be interested in him. The other couple had flaked out on them.

After one weekend visit with him, we really felt like it was right so we agreed to take him. The three weeks it took to get him moved to our home were probably the most difficult. We had so many doubts about what we were doing and experienced everything from panic attacks to complete euphoria. Fortunately we were kept extremely busy trying to build a room in our garage to move our office to, so there wasn't too much time to think.

The transition so far has been awkward and exhausting, but when I look back over the short three weeks he's been with us, he has made incredible progress. He no longer complains about what we are serving for dinner since Neal simply explained our expectations to him about meal times. He doesn't require melatonin to fall asleep at night, nor does he require a bare mattress to sleep on. Again, we explained our expectations and we've stuck to a bedtime ritual.

My biggest worry even became the least of my concerns. I thought it would be a nightmare trying to expect a boy with ADHD who can't sit still to behave for three hours of church. Neal and I are so busy on Sundays that I thought we would be pulled in all directions trying to keep him focused. However, I realized that church has a very predictable schedule even down to how we do our sacrament meeting and Dillon thrives on that. He's been doing great.

It's funny because I feel like each one of these small changes have been little victories in our parenting experience, and it encourages me to keep trying on the more difficult behaviors he needs help with. As I am thinking of implementing a behavior plan for Dillon to reward his good choices, I wonder if Heavenly Father gives me these victories to "reward" my good choices and help me to feel encouraged and keep pressing forward. The irony sort of struck me and helped me understand how important even the smallest successes can be.

It's then that I really do feel like a child because He knows Dillon's needs much more than we will ever know. We weren't there for him for the first six years of his life. There are experiences in his past that he may not ever be able to tell us about. We are truly in the hands of the Lord to know the best way to help Dillon overcome his past and become a secure and happy little boy.

A New Possibility

We have an adoption possibility forming that we are pretty excited about.  We had been considered for a 5-year-old boy named Dillion back in February, but between us and another family, the other family was chosen.  Last week I received a call from his caseworker, wondering if we were still interested.  I answered that we were.  We are now waiting for the decision process to take it's course with the state to know if it will really happen.

 

Their first meeting today was apparently "really positive."  She only left a message on our home phone and we didn't get it until it was too late to call her back. We aren't exactly sure what she means.  We only know that we need to schedule a time to go meet him in the next couple of weeks. 

 

We are excited about what this will mean for our little family, but we are also anxious to know what this will mean.  Who knows, but we will keep you posted as we learn more.

I Guess the Wait isn't THAT Long

Neal's business partner, Jerry, recently went with his mother for her first time to the temple. Her husband wouldn't allow her to go through while he was alive, so she waited the one year necessary after his death and finally was able to go and be sealed to him. She was in her nineties.

I think about how long she waited to have the blessings of a sealed eternal family and think to myself, "I guess I haven't waited nearly as long as she did, so I can wait a little longer." And then I think about Abraham and Sarah and I sure hope we won't be asked to raise a toddler in our 90's out in the wilderness. No thank you. I will settle for a few more years of waiting for my family. It's so hard not to worry, though, that they might not find us, but that just boils down to my extreme lack of faith.

Mother's Day is this Sunday, and although we have a beautiful, charming four-year-old daughter, it doesn't make the holiday any easier to bear. I have marked and accepted my limits on certain activities related to babies and mothers, and going to church on Mother's Day is one of those things beyond my limits. Baby showers is another place where the line is drawn. Acknowledging those circumstances that make me a depressed, self-wallowing mess and avoiding them without excuse has made life a little easier to deal with.

People are often unaware that just because we have been able to adopt one child, the pain of not being able to adopt or conceive another child is still there. I guess it will always be there, more intense at some times than others. However, I realized a little later than sooner that we all have to figure out our own ways to live beyond the pain and still find joy, or else we will waste our time waiting when we could be living.

So to that, I say "Happy Queens and Priestesses Day." To the mother who gave birth to me and has taught me so much, to the birth mother who gave us a beautiful child, to the mothers who are my friends even on my darkest days, to the mothers who are still waiting to be mothers, and to the mothers who are my in-laws, grandmothers, and my sisters in many ways. I love you all for the parts you are playing in my life.