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Adoption Community Information
| 2 months after our adoption |
Date Posted: 06-28-2005 at 09:27 AM |
| We have just passed two months after adopting Tia and we've had so many changes! We're buying a house and moving to a new town (a whopping 4 miles down the road). T. passed with honors into the 3rd grade and started summer camp. I found, contacted and got a response from T.'s birth family. T. stopped wetting the bed again (for the last week anyway) and we've started openly discussing adding another child to our family. Everything is great! Tia cried when she found out we bought a home and was a beast for a few days, but we discussed over and over how we will all be together and all of our things and pets are soming with us. She's never had a move that didn't involve losing everything before and we know it is so hard for her. She also is very upset about leaving her school. She has made more friends and had more success there than ever before. But, I sent a stack of letters to school with her before the year ended and asked her classmates parents to send back their addresses and phone numbers so that Tia can invite them to her new house for a party. Now Tia knows all of her contacts and can't wait to invite them to see her new house, new room and even better, NEW SWIMMING POOL! She plans to invite her old friends to her birthday party next year too. She picked out the colors she wants for her new bedroom (pink and purple) and I painted her old loft bed and furniture to match her new bedroom. It looks adorable and she is thrilled. T. still does not know that I contacted her birth family. We can't decide or agree on the best time and way to share this with her. I sent her birth mother and grandmother letters telling them that Tia is adopted and doing well and sent them some photos. I know that they were not good caretakers for T, but I also know that they didn't intend the harm they did to her and she loves them regardless. I want her to have that connection and I feel good about helping her with that. We got wonderful letters in response from her birth grandmother and an aunt. They were so relieved to know that she is okay and adopted and thanked us for loving her and contacting them. I really feel good about sharing this with Tia, but we worry that it may be too much right now with the move and all. T. stopped wetting the moment she became a 3rd grader. Her allowance went up and she hasn't been getting it for awhile to help pay for pull-ups. One day I was thinking about that movie Dangerous Minds and how the kids were told that they started with an A and only had to keep it. I gave Tia her allowance with the raise and told her the same. She gets her allowance in advance and if she doesn't wet, she can spend it the next week. I put $3 in her bank and told her to just give me back a dollar everytime she wet. "I'll never wet again!" she said and although I don't know that I trust her, it's working well so far. We also told T. that the other bedroom next to hers (the one she wanted to make into her dance room) would not belong to her, but to a younger sister someday. She is thrilled and asks about when and how her new sister will come. She understands we cannot submit our homestudy until October and it's driving her crazy. She wants a sister now! She keeps changing the age she wants though. Somtimes it's a 5 year old and sometimes it's a 12 year old. Today she wanted someone her exact age, so that they could be in the same class at school. I told her that is a bad idea, because they would get tired of each other. She said, "I'll never get tired of her, because she will be my sister and I'll love her too much!" I should probably get that in writing! |
| A bad morning |
Date Posted: 06-29-2005 at 06:31 AM |
| I think I should just never say or think that things are going well, because as soon as I do that... This morning T. lied and stole and we had a big blow out before we even left the house. Well, it was a version of stealing, but not exactly. Here's the thing, T. has started to get her allowance in advance and has to give a dollar back everytime she wets herself so that she can buy her own diapers if she wants to wear them. This works better than giving her the money after she is dry, but the deal is she cannot spend it until the following Saturday, because it isn't really her money until she has stayed dry for the week. So, this morning when I ask her to put her shoes on, she goes into her room and I hear "beep beep" which is the sound her bank makes when she opens it. "What are you doing?" I say. "You know you can't have that money until after Saturday." She says, "I know. I was just playing with the buttons." Of course, that's not good enough for this untrusting mom, so I check and what a surprise! A dollar is missing and in T.'s pocket! I tell her, "I can't trust you with this money, so I am taking it back. If you stay dry, I'll give it back on Saturday. Also, I want you to tell me what this allowance is for and when you get it, because I need to be sure we understand each other." To this, T. shrugs like she does not know and refuses to answer the question. Plus, she is furious, like it's my fault she broke the rules. That really bugs me. But, I made her hold my hand all through the house for the rest of the morning and would not let her out of my sight, because I told her I could not trust her right now. When I dropped her off at camp, I did a search of her backpack and found toys she is not supposed to have in there either. Naturally she's been yelling that she doesn't want to live with us forever and what a terrible mom I am. Then she said the golden, "I'm not speaking to you," which is nice, because then when she tries to continue yelling at me, I can tell her, "Oh no you don't. You're not speaking to me, so shut your mouth." T. hates me today. Oh well. I know this isn't such a huge deal and honestly it doesn't surprise me that much. I probably would have tried the same stunt as a kid, but sometimes I feel it's important to make a big deal out of the small things, so that T. can understand that she can't get away with lying and being sneaky in our house. I know it was only a dollar which was almost hers anyway, but I hope she'll remember these times when she's older and she's considering trying to get past us with pot or alcohol. |
| Tia's new favorite expression |
Date Posted: 07-05-2005 at 12:49 PM |
| Yesterday was another great day of a great weekend. I really felt that Tia and I were having some good bonding. We went swimming and I helped her touch the bottom of the pool in the deep end, which required some trust on her part, because she was afraid, and made her really happy when she did it. She rode on my back underwater and we saw who could sit under water, lie down underwater etc. We had fun. When I got out, she wanted to get out too and we sat in the sun talking and telling jokes. She wanted to hold hands. Then she asked about putting her pajamas on when we got home. It was 5pm and I said that would be fine since we wouldn't be going anywhere else once we got home. She thought about that for a minute and said, "I want to go out for ice cream after dinner." "Well we're not doing that tonight," I told her. She immediately switched moods and said, "This family stinks!" That's her new favorite thing to say and she uses it EVERYTIME she gets mad or does not get her way. This is the first time she's used it over something so minor, however. Usually I hear that when she is furious. She hates our family. She wants to move back with her last foster parents and so on. Boy, am I sick and tired of that little phrase! This time she followed it with a "just kidding," which didn't make me any happier about it. I just ignored it, but am trying to think of a way to get her over that one. |
| Bad days... |
Date Posted: 07-11-2005 at 11:57 AM |
| I wish we could just close on our new house and get this move over with. We are all so anxious! Tia is acting up and acting out more than ever, because she is stressed and it is even harder to deal with it when we are stressed too. Overall, Tia is such a great kid, but she is going through one of the most difficult phases we've had with her so far. She is incredibly sneaky all of the sudden, breaking all of the rules and then becoming furious with us when she gets caught and there are consequences to her actions. She is moody, has an attitude and complains about everything. This morning I tried to talk to her about it and asked what's wrong lately she said, "I'm not reading my mind," and refused to talk to me. I don't even know what that means. She keeps insisting that she wants to move and we are a stinky family everytime she does not get her way when she wants it. She says she wants to live with her last foster parents. I know she doesn't mean it, but it makes it so difficult when there is a letter from her birth grandmother in my drawer that I really want to share with her. I'm just so afraid it will make things worse and give her something else to threaten us with. She is not allowed to sleep with anything other than one Tootsie roll pillow in her bed and the appropriate bedding, because bedtime is a problem with her and things in her bed cause trouble. If it's a stuffed animal, she pees on it or pulls the insides out. If it's anything else, she stays up playing or she chews on it or she breaks it into tiny little pieces and scatters them around her bed and floor. So last night she gets up to make something up to complain about which is pretty common for her at night. She tells my partner that she is hot and she has already taken off her blankets, so my partner takes Tia back to bed and sees her blankets on the bed. When she goes to remove them, Tia gets weird and tries to pull them away. Under the blankets Tia had hidden half of her bedroom. So my partner takes out the toys and stuffed animals and removes the blankets, because Tia said she was too hot. Tia throws a massive hissy fit and screams all night. My partner goes in and asks her if she wants to tell her something instead of screaming like that, because she can't understand her. Tia has nothing to say, but goes on screaming when alone in the room again. Why did she even bother getting up? Why would she complain of being too hot with all of her toys hidden in her blankets? It's like she wants us to catch her breaking the rules, so that she can get get in trouble and blame us for something. Yesterday she complained about getting too much cereal for breakfast and having a stomach ache. This morning we gave her less and boy was she mad. Now we're starving her. She tries to tattle to me on my partner all the time and gets increasingly furious when it doesn't work out in her favor. Their relationship is really strained over this right now. I think this is just a moving thing and hopefully it will settle down as we settle into our new house. |
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