Bob and his girls

My husband loves his children. He has that special ability to seek each child's heart, find the essence of who they are, and nurture that uniqueness. His relationship with his children is high priority.

One special way he tends to the relationship with his girls is the yearly Father Daughter Sweetheart Dance held by one of our local dance schools.

They look forward to it all year and even though it's quite a girly event, I know he secretly looks forward to it too. ; )

Every year I get the girls all dolled up in pretty dresses, hairdos, a wee bit of make-up and send them out the door with their handsome father who also dons his sports coat, which is usually taken out for only the most special of occasions, and gives each a wrist corsage.

The first stop, a nice dinner in a nice restaurant. This is a big deal because with 6 kids we never, I mean never go out to dinner. How nice they get to learn how to act like little ladies with a gentleman.

The next stop, the dance where they rock out all night long, eat total junk, and get their picture taken (reminiscent of bad high school prom photos and backdrops) but sweet, sweet, sweet.

Bob dances with each girl and loves to see their smiling faces. He talks about it for days after and laughs at how cute they are.

I thank God for a husband who is willing to step out of his comfort zone. I just wish I could be a fly on the wall and see him dance with his special little ladies.

The Hug

It was quick

It was solid

It was on my right leg

It was at preschool , last week on Thursday

It was the moment I've been waiting for for almost 2 years

Truly I almost missed it, almost. You see, my leg is used to being hugged by kids, a quick hug as they run passed me in the kitchen, a quick one on the way out the door to play, but my leg had NOT been hugged by one very cute albeit frustrating little Chinese boy.

I was picking him up at preschool ready for the usual brush off that my big smile usually meets but that day something magical happened and my smile was met with a hug. I was in shock, but trying to play it cool. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, but it is a BIG DEAL!!

It hasn't happened since but it will. His wall is breaking down, he's letting me into his heart inch by painful inch.

Maybe, if I''m lucky, he'll give me a kiss on Valentine's Day.

4 month recap

Sheesh, I can't believe it's already the first of February. We've been quite busy around here remodeling our house. Last August we had the basement gutted and they just finished with that remodel. At the same time we decided to have 3 bathrooms, the kitchen and the family room redone too. Basically we're nuts. I skitzed out last week but seem to have pulled it together this week, my husband is ecstatic! I haven't had a proper yell at my kids since August and boy are they due. ; ) Nothin' like a bunch of carpenters, electricians, contractors and various other angels sent by God to fix up my house to keep my attitude and tone of voice in check!

On other family news, we've celebrated 6 birthdays since October including my baby's 1st birthday. That along with all of the holidays and homeschooling and remodeling have sufficiently kicked this momma's butt, Oh, and we added a puppy to the mix a week ago. When we do things around here we go big, or go home! :)

Nate has been doing great in speech therapy. He had a little burst in his language development about a month ago, thank goodness, and right along with that we noticed a definite turn for the better in his behavior, PRAISE JESUS! We came upon yet another book that we LOVE and I so wish I'd read it before we started on this journey. The name is Coming to Grips with Attachment by Katharine Leslie . She is a PhD and has 3 or 4 children that are all adopted and have attachment disorders. Let me tell you how wonderful it is reading from someone who has been through what we have been through. I'm tired of authors who are well intentioned but have no clue what they are talking about. I passed it on to our therapist to read and tomorrow we'll see what she thinks.

I'll try to attach our Christmas photo. Next year we need to try and get our dogs in too.

Another approach

I would definitely call myself stubborn, even hard headed. Sometimes I would like to think those attributes are good like when I set my mind to doing something, I do it, no ifs ands or buts. Those attributes were helpful in the adoption process because as many already know, it can be quite daunting. Those attributes have their not so positive qualities too such as, I tend to not want to accept when I have to go another course, take another path, consider something other than what I'm already locked and loaded on.

Recently my husband and I have been coming to terms with the fact that we REALLY need to change our parenting approach with Nate. Like, totally throw out everything we know as parents specifically in the area of discipline and learn an all new ball game. Sounds fun, huh?! Not really. Lets see, our little guy has been with us since Feb. '08, that's 17mnths, and we have worked really hard at bonding, learning sign language, not to mention the physical issues with his cleft including therapies, birthing a baby and just the chaos of 6 kids. We, like many people newly parenting their adopted kiddo, fell back on what we knew. At the time we had 4 children when Nate joined our family so we most definitely had parenting experience and lots of experience with discipline. I know our experience with parenting was probably helpful but this little guy threw some stuff at us that we just weren't ready for. We fell back on what we knew and honestly, it didn't work. So why 18mnths later are we still basically doing the same thing over and over with the same disastrous results? The answer: we, and especially me, are stubborn and hard headed. We have been so busy we haven't taken the time to really incorporate new techniques into our parenting style.

I don't want to be too hard on us because we did the best we could but the reality is, our "best" is not the best thing for this situation. We are going to a great therapist for Nate and she has terrific ideas that we have been incorporating into our parenting style but we have not wanted to completely let go of what we know and move forward down a new path. We need to, the health of our family and especially of Nate depends on us seeking out an alternative way of discipline. Thankfully we are finally in agreement on this.

What are we going to do? Read, read, read! We have some great books, of course none of which I had before going to China, and we are going to get a new game plan going here. I picked up Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control by Heather T. Forbes and Brian Post and started reading. Bob picked it up and started reading. We like the gentle yet understandable approach to parenting kiddos that, lets face it, are damaged but thankfully can be healed. I took it to our therapist and she has read it and likes it too so it's where we are going to start.

We love this little guy and let me tell you, it would take one of our children to get us to go off the course we have been traveling. We're scared, we're excited. May God's blessings and grace be upon us as we venture forth.

What's up

We've been a busy group here. We had a great summer playing and visiting museums, schooling the kids and watching Isaac grow. What fun this little baby has been. Nate is doing very well. We started speech therapy this summer and got him into the child development center this Fall for school. He is in such a nurturing environment there and receives speech therapy once a week. We've already seen growth in the 2 short months he has been there. Just being in a different environment has really helped encourage more speech and vocalization.



We decided to keep the other kids home this year and give homeschooling a try again. So far so good. They were very excited to come home, I on the other hand was scared and very nervous. We decided to look back at our previous experience only to learn and really focus and the here and now. It's helping.



In the meantime we are giving serious prayer to another adoption. Here's hoping God will close doors if they need to be and give us peace and affirmation in His path.

It's not all in my head

I realize many of my posts have been about Nate, but reality is he is always on my mind. We love him dearly and have come along way this past year but there is something there, something I can't put my finger on. I went to a counselor yesterday and just let it all out about our struggles with him. I felt so scared she would tell me "of course he has issues, he's an orphan from China, your expectations are too high" or that she would give me a list of things to try to modify his behavior. Let me tell you we have tried just about everything we could creatively come up with and I didn't want to sit there and be a know it all to her, "yep we've tried that one, yep that one too and it didn't work..." Instead at the end of my free flowing vomit of words spilling from my mouth as quickly as I could spew them forth she said "Oh my Katie, you need help with him, from what you are telling me there are big warning bells here. He needs to be evaluated by a child psychologist." I could have fallen off the sofa. "Thank you Jesus" I said to myself, "it's not all in my head" I have a professional here telling me that something is just not right with this picture. My feelings are a strange mixture of "oh sh*t" and "thanks be to God."

I just want to cry right now. The stress on our family, including Nathaniel, has been significant and we're ready for some help. My husband who is a pediatrician is a little leery about having him evaluated because he doesn't want him labeled. He sees kiddos all of the time in his practice who have been labeled/diagnosed with a disorder and I'm not sure if it's out of his sense of pride or his sense of protection. Maybe a little of both. For me I just want to know so we can move forward with a plan of action. Give us something to work with here 'cause we've got nothin'.

We pray every night, "dear Jesus please bless our efforts and fill in the gaps." Hopefully soon one of those gaps will start to be filled.

Ahhh....Mondays

There have been times that I welcome Mondays. I see Monday as a chance for a new beginning, a chance to start anew each week. I like to plan my week, make my goals and try to accomplish them. The feeling at the end of the week when I look back at my list and see the majority of my goals accomplished is awesome and I feel like I'm living my life instead of just existing, succumbing to all of the external forces.

This past year my Mondays have been a struggle. I try to look forward to them as usual but get frustrated because they more often than not, end in behavioral issues with Nate.

Nate has been really making great improvements in his behavior over the past 6 months or so. The first six months after he joined our family were really, really tough for him and for us and we have worked very hard to help him adjust to a new family. One area though that is still really hard are Mondays. You see, he hates change. I mean really hates change. It totally disrupts his little world if something is out of order in it. It bugs him if a light bulb is burned out or if there is something on his bedroom floor before he goes to bed, or if the sheets are off his bed getting washed. Most of all he hates having his favorite person in the entire world gone, his daddy, and that happens every Monday. Bob goes off to work and the older 2 girls go off to school and Nate falls apart. He wakes up in the morning just sensing that it's Monday and is all gloom and doom. His behavior is just terrible, refuses to use the bathroom(control), is physically aggressive with Dominic, says no to everything, controls his food, on and on. He really struggles and it's he*l around here until Wednesday, then the heavens open up, the birds start to sing again and he is back to his happy, vibrant little self. The kicker is, I'm not. The first two days of the week are so emotionally draining that I'm still recovering and really trying hard not to be "ultimate disciplinarian mom" and relax into the family and the flow of our days. Thursday I'm back to normal then Friday is here before I know it, then the weekend, then the vicious cycle starts all over again. Yuck!

I don't feel productive at all. I don't even make a checklist anymore because I hate seeing all that I haven't accomplished. But really I have accomplished something. We are accomplishing love, security, trust and it's hard to check those items off my list. They are an ongoing checklist, forever. This little guy is trying so hard to love us and allow us to love him. To feel secure in our love and to trust that it will always be there.

So maybe Mondays aren't so bad after all. My checklist just needs to go by the wayside a bit longer because I am working on goals much more important than grocery shopping, laundry, organizing the kids clothes. I'm working on a family for Nate.