crazy love words

Summer vacation is going fairly well. I’m not completely burnt out. Yes, I realize that we are only 4 days in, but we have a child that can easily burn you out in that amount of time. Also, we are with him 24/7 right now, whereas there are camps and swim lessons and things later this summer. It is exhausting, though, because Little Man is intense, in everything. He is intensely happy, intensely silly, intensely angry, intensely fearful, intensely ridiculous. He does nothing halfway. This will surely be a strength of his one day, when we help him channel it.

Ima and abba are only semi-sticking. Mommy and daddy are popping up a lot more. We keep using ima and abba to refer to each other, so I hope that they stick with time. I don’t know why but I just am so much more okay with ima. 

I really need a week on an island where NO ONE needs me. I feel like I am needed by someone every five seconds and it is starting to make me want to combust.

Feeling frustrated with my kid today, and with myself. I don’t feel like myself. I am annoyed by his neediness and his complete inability to just follow a damn direction. And my relationship is starting to take a hit. Sigh. We need a break.

Bridging the gap.

I love my darlings. I love them dearly. I am so glad they are in my life. But being adopted from foster care doesn’t make them lucky. Being adopted by us doesn’t make them lucky. You know what would have been lucky? To be born in a place where their family would have had the supports to stay together. To be born into a family where they could stay together and be happy from the beginning. 

It is a tragedy that they are not with their birth mom and birth dad. No, it is not safe for them. Yes, this is the best alternative. Yes, they are our family. Yes, they are my kids. But it is a loss that they will grieve forever. A loss that most people in the world will not even recognize. A loss that some in the foster care and adoptive communities do not even recognize. I will never let them feel alone in that loss. 

I can’t believe how much of a behaviorist I used to be. I also can’t believe Skinnerian is still the driving force behind so much of teaching and parenting.

I am so glad that I have deepened my own teaching in a way that sees the whole child, the whole person. It is a process, learning to live from that place of connection. It is hard but it feels meaningful and worth the effort. It is how I want to be treated. I want to be understood. I want empathy and compassion. I don’t want time out or points or big hurrahs.

It’s also not that simple, most of the time. I want to do more yoga. Rewarding myself with a night out or a special outfit doesn’t get me on my mat. I just feel bad, and a bit like I’m a bad person, for not doing it. Thinking about what my need is… That’s the way to go.

Yes, today included naps for everyone. Except Little Man. Never Little Man.

I am so incredibly unhappy with our child’s special education and general education programs. I’m unhappy with their haphazard and not-specific data collection. I’m tired of their delayed responses to my questions. I’m tired of their defense of practices long abolished, and their unwillingness to see our child from a different angle. I’m sick of the know-more-than-thou attitude, and the “but you weren’t there to see it” statements — as if I do not know my child at all. I’m just sick of it.

I am frustrated. I think that I should let it go, for now, because it’s summer and we are home and I can do what I know needs to be done for him. But it’s hard to let go such shitty special education practices when I am a high-caliber special education teacher myself. It’s hard to let go of their general attitudes towards my family, as well as their lack of trust in my discussions of his challenges at home. It’s hard to let go of the clear way that they blame us for any challenges at home, and believe they are the amazing child whisperers who “get him” so much more. It’s hard.

I knew that this might happen. It’s not uncommon when parenting children with reactive attachment disorder. It’s not uncommon when parenting children with bipolar disorder. It’s especially not uncommon in the lower grades, where the social and academic expectations are not that high. But it still stings. It stings to have a shitty relationship with my child’s school. It stings that we are not really partners working towards his best future. It hurts because I loved school. I work in schools. I want to have a good relationship. And we have a crappy one. We have a crappy one that I cannot do anything to fix, because I refuse to accept shitty teaching and shitty data collection and shitty treatment of parents. And it sucks. There really is no better word than that: sucks.

This has been one crazy freaking year. Last day of school today. I can’t believe that it has been 23-25 weeks with Little Man and Diva. It doesn’t seem to be a number big enough to encompass the space they have taken in my heart.

I also said good-bye to two students that I have had for three years.

I am exhausted.

We got our hands on baby pictures! You have no idea how exciting this is to a foster mom.