Parent teacher conferences

This year make me smile.  What a difference a stimulating, encouraging, nurturing, loving environment makes.

Our main goal for school this year was getting Blitzen to love school and to feel like a valued, successful member of a community of learners.  All are agreed – A+ (except our school doesn’t give grades but the many pages of thoughtfully written narrative tell the story).

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Clementine and fosterhood

Because it is all about me and my kid, I am so happy for Rebecca and Clementine.  We had mentioned that to Blitzen that Rebecca was adopting a baby and that it was the forever kinda deal.  And Blitzen was so so excited.  Couldn’t wait to meet the baby and help out and her genuine joy about the forever-ness of it all was wonderful.

So when Rebecca shared how everything had gone terribly, terribly awry, I was really dreading telling Blitzen — how do you explain that?  Caring, thoughtful adults did exactly what they were supposed to do and random bureaucrats screwed it up. So thank goodness for the happy ending.  Woo-hoo.

On another note, a good friend of ours announced the happy news that she and her husband are expecting.  Blitzen was, again, so excited.  But after some consideration of the situation, sighed and said in a slightly disappointed voice, “So they are not adopting, huh?”

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consequences are for everybody

A Saturday morning with no ipad and no tv.  Because of, you know, consequences.  Consequences suck for everybody not just the consequenced.

The following conversation started when I reminded Blitzen that her consequence for unacceptable behavior the night before was no screen time in the morning.

Blitzen to Carrie, “So I never get to watch tv again?!?”

Carrie, “You do not get to watch tv this morning.”

Blitzen, “I never want to see you again.”

Carrie (feeling spiteful and crabby and remembering when she got to sleep until 10am on Saturdays instead of waking up at 6:45am to argue about ipads) replied, “I am sorry that you hate living here so much.”

Blitzen to Carrie, “I didn’t say that. You are always putting words in my mouth, all the time.”

Carrie, “You do that too Blitzen.  Maybe we should work on not doing that to one another.”

Blitzen, “You put words in my mouth all the time, Carrie, I just do it often.  You work on it by yourself! And if I can’t have my ipad, you can’t have your kindle.  That is your consequence for trying to poke my eyeball out!”

The evening before, I opened a door and bonked Blitzen on the head — her interpretation is that it was a deliberate act of aggression where I tried to blind her for my own amusement.  So clearly, I also deserve a consequence.  And being verbally tortured by a 10 year old all morning instead of getting to quietly read the Times while sipping my coffee is clearly not consequence enough in this child’s opinion.

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Trauma parent

There are many things that unite people as parents.  So much of the caring for and guiding and loving of a child, any child, is universal.  But….

Andrew recently told me the only thing that bugs him more than people implying that we are doing something extraordinary by fostering, is when people imply that we are not doing anything different from any other parent.  Now I don’t think fostering is extraordinary, I really don’t.  I think anyone who has the capacity to be a good, loving parent, could be a good, loving foster parent.  It just takes a leap of faith or a little courage or a little naivety or a little something but nothing extraordinary.

But it is different.  And I guess I’d start by replacing the word foster parent with a term that I think that I am just now making up or perhaps plagiarizing from some other blogging foster parent or child development specialist out there - trauma parent.  The more I learn about the impact of trauma on young children, the effects of PTSD and the issues that come from lack of secure attachment, well, the more I think being a trauma parent is very different from being any other kind of parent – a non-trauma parent.  Not better, not worse, not necessarily harder, certainly not more extraordinary or special than what every parent does (or attempts to do) every day but definitely different.

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Support, support and more support

We’ve decided to pile it on.  The more people around to love Blitzen and show her cool stuff and help her work through her issues, the better.

We’re making the move to new therapist who, hopefully, is good and has committed working with Blitzen for 2 years.

We’re adding pet therapy to her list of things to do.

We’re hoping to get a mentor through big brothers/big sisters.

We’re looking at hiring a tutor for math and reading – looking for someone who is open to a lot of different learning/teaching styles with the patience of a saint.

We’re continuing with at least 2 athletic activities a week although we could probably add a couple more.

There just are not enough hours in the day to get this kid everything she needs but we’re working on it.

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Lockets, lockets, lockets

Blitzen’s love language is gifting and getting gifted (and quality time, and praise, and well, frankly, she needs and responds to it all but I digress).

After our drama earlier in the week, Blitzen conned my Aunt B (who was babysitting for the day) into taking her to the store to get us matching lockets to fill with fairy dust.  And then she was so excited, and anxious and Blitzen-ish,  that they showed up an hour early for the parent, student, teacher conference because Blitzen just couldn’t wait a moment longer.  She was so proud of the locket and couldn’t wait to give it to me.  It was lovely and sweet but I sure do wish that we could break her of this obsession with giving and getting material objects.  It puts such an emphasis on stuff and I don’t like it. I mean, I like stuff as much as the next guy but the stuff is just stuff.  It seems to always take on monumental importance with Blitzen.

This weekend, she wanted to bring her mermaid tail on our little road trip to visit friends.  But she didn’t want to share the mermaid tail and she was looking to start a fight.  So, out of the blue, she announces that she won’t share it, it belongs to her, it is special and basically, I am not the boss of her, so there.  I am sure you all can picture it.  Well, I wasn’t biting, so I just nodded and said, ‘Yup, I agree.  Sometimes it really sucks to share. You can choose not to take your tail so that you don’t have to share it.’

Well, then we were off to the races, as they say. Blitzen was going to reason with me, break it down, explain it all but in a highly agitated and overly emotional way. She would illustrate once and for all why I had it all wrong and no one should have to share, ever, whether they bring their tail or not.

Blitzen to me, ‘Haven’t you ever had any thing really special to you?  I mean really special.’ Me to Blitzen, ‘Sure and I didn’t always like to share but my mom usually made me and now I know that it is the best thing to do even when I don’t feel like it.’ Blitzen, knowing that stuff is not so important to me, says, ’No,  I mean really special.  Like J, how would you feel if you had to share J?!?’

Now, J is my mom.  And I am the oldest of 4, the youngest being 13 years my junior.  So, um, I totally know about sharing and certainly know about sharing J.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  This was so loaded.  Of course a person shouldn’t have to share their mom.  Seriously, if you are Blitzen, what could be worse?  But I did not laugh or cry.  I simply said, ‘Honey, I share J every day with my sisters and my brother and now I share her with you too.  That is just how it works.’

Blitzen to me, ‘You are not listening!’

Me to self, ‘Oh yes I am!’

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Blogging for 13 months

When we started this blog, Andrew and I, I think we mostly wanted to force ourselves to produce a record of what we expected would be an unusual, amazing, heartbreaking, confusing, joyful journey.  And it has been those things.  It has been a little bit of an electronic lifebook of the past year plus, a public journal of our attempt to parent/love/engage/give to a creative, bright, sad, angry little girl.

For me, the blogging has been way more.  It has been something that I have done for myself in a way that I did not anticipate.

I really enjoy writing – who knew?  It is cathartic and liberating and forces me to be mindful and experience this experience now, as it is happening.

It has also built a community of support.  When I feel tired or like I am not a good parent or think to myself, why on earth did I sign up to do this exhausting, maddening job? Somebody always hears me and responds in a way that makes me take a deep breath and reminds me that I can do this.  That I am doing it and I am doing it pretty darn well, actually, so I should let go a little bit and accept and relax.  And often the responder is a total stranger which is oddly validating because, wow, someone that doesn’t even know and love me, is taking time to send me good internet vibes.  How thoughtful, how kind, how helpful it is to hear from you, internet peeps.  And I also feel, as corny as it sounds, that creates an atmosphere of love for Blitzen.  She doesn’t know about it but I do — a kind of shockingly large number of geographically diverse people are rooting for her and interested in her story.

All this to say, thanks for talking me into blogging, Andrew.  It has totally been worth it.

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Fairy Houses, the new xanax

Blitzen is really anxious about our move.  Wednesday is the big day.  There have been so many interesting moments leading up the move, it is hard to remember it all.

First, it was the box delivery.  She was obsessed with it, didn’t want to go to bed until the boxes arrived, woke up early to inspect them and insisted on starting to fill them right away.  And so we started with items like books.  It has been a little hard to convince her that we shouldn’t pack everything until the night before we move because we still need to live and some things, like underpants, will come in handy over the next few days.

We went through her books this weekend and convinced her to discard or donate a few items.  The child has a hording tendency which is absolutely understandable but she was reluctant to part with anything.  And I have the opposite  tendencies and I am like, get rid of it, get rid of it, it is clutter, ugh!

She continues to have lots of questions about what we are taking and what we are leaving behind.  We had originally told her that we were taking everything but she is clever and precise — are you taking the sink, the dishwasher???  Well, no.  So now we are careful as we discuss the items to go and those to stay.

But Blitzen has really channeled her considerable fear and trepidation into her fantasy life, reinvigorating an old creative outlet – the fairy house.  While we were packing up books, we uncovered a really lovely book of photographs of fairy houses.  Very elaborate constructions, a book of inspiration to Blitzen during the height of her fairy house building craze this spring.  So we carry the book around the house, consulting it often, and adding to the long list of construction materials and amenities necessary to build the best fairy house ever.  We’ve also started writing to our fairies again.  This, I am sure, was partially inspired by a skype conversation last week with our niece, K, who now has fairies of her own and had recieved a locket with fairy dust in it. So, we got a locket, and it was left out overnight and magically it was filled with fairy dust.  FYI – sea salt, blue decorating sugar and a few crystals that look like diamonds is a great fairy dust recipe.

In our notes to our fairies (we have 3 new ones, by the way – ocean fairies named Ripple, Waverly, Stella Sea because we not only love fairies, we love the sea and mermaids so….) we told them everything that they need to know.  We were sure to give our fairies our new address.  We described the new fairy house that we will be building for them and assured them how wonderful it will be, better even, than our current home.  The notes are almost mantra like in their intensity, a little girl’s whisper – it will be ok, it will be ok, it will be ok.

And, of course, it will be ok.  But I expect it will be a bumpy and stressful week.  Thank goodness for our fairy friends.

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The art of conversation

We skyped with our niece and nephew last night.  Blitzen adores them and is always so excited to talk to them.  She is slowly, VERY slowly, getting a little bit better at the art of conversation.  Now, sometimes, other people are also allowed to talk while conversing with Blitzen.

Blitzen also loves to talk to my mother on the phone.  She often asks if she can call and then will announce the topic of conversation before even saying hello.  The discussions go a little bit like this:

My mom, “Hello, Blitzen, what are you doing?”

Blitzen says, excitedly, “Let’s talk about what we are going to do when you come visit me next time!”  And they are off, chatting away, with Blitzen doing most of the chatting.

We ran into a colleague of mine at the park with his family the other evening.  We were having a chinese food picnic and listening to a free, outdoor concert.  We made small talk for a bit, then moved away to settle ourselves on the grass and have dinner.  Blitzen, a few bites into the sesame chicken, says to me, “Can they come sit with us?”  And I say, “Sure, why don’t you go invite them?”  Off she goes to invite these 2 adult strangers and their newborn baby to join us in the grass. No one can refuse Blitzen so they stroll over and join us.  Blitzen, always excited for a new audience announces, “I am obsessed with mermaids and college!”  Well, she is, so I just laugh and nod.  They encouraged her and she regaled them with many mermaid facts and debated the merits of attending college in Arizona or North Carolina or where I work.  About half way through the conversation, my colleague’s wife smiles at Blitzen and says, “You are very articulate for a 9 year old.”  And Blitzen is curious and slightly suspicious, “What is articulate?” So Andrew explains and then Blitzen agrees, “Yes, I am.”

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Poconos quotes and fun facts

Me to our friend E, “Umm, why is everyone naked?” after walking into the ‘girls’ room to tell them for the 4000th time to settle down and go to sleep.  E to me, “Sometimes these things just happen.”  It was all very lord of the flies, little girl slumber party style.

Blitzen to me, very angrily, “You and Andrew only pay attention to each other. Whenever you get mad, he rubs your back!”  Blitzen to Andrew, who upon hearing this quote attempts to rub her back, “Get away from me.”

Blitzen to Dancer, “You should taste Andrew and Carrie’s pets!”  Dancer to Blitzen, “What?!?” Blitzen to Dancer, “You know, when I can’t sleep they pet my arm and it feels nice.”  As if that was completely obvious.  Dancer simply stared at Blitzen with a mixed look — part you are so crazy / part you are the luckiest kid ever.

Blitzen to a young member of our vacation party, “We should name these snails, we can write their names on the water bottle,” pointing to the water bottle full of rapidly expiring river snails.  Young companion to Blitzen, “But they will move around.  How we will know which one is which?”  Blitzen to young companion, “They’re snails, they don’t care what we call them!”

Fun vacation facts:

Blitzen swam in a river, a creek, a very green private swimming pool, a community pool with a waterslide and a lake.

Blitzen loved her new friends so much that she bought them all BFF necklaces with her own allowance savings.  (Coming your way soon, Poconos pals.)

Blitzen mostly thought that rafting was boring except for the tiny tiny amounts of white water (and use that phrase oh so loosely) that we encountered.

You can fit 5 children under the age of 11, in their bathing suits, into a giant whirlpool jacuzzi bathtub if you really wedge them in there good.

 

 

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