Older Child Adoption

It has been a week in my house.  More moodiness, arguments, bed-time horrors and the like have been happening here.  At our weekly session with our therapist on Wednesday she says, "So, it's Mother's Day."  Click...I have forgotten. Last year's Mother's Day week was wacky as well.  How do I forget these things?! I am convinced that whoever created Mother's Day had the best of intentions.  The problem is that not everyone has a mother who is here to give a card to.  Some have more than one mother, step-mothers, or maybe even a downright horrible mother.  For every possible mother scenario there is a child.  A child who may become more confused, hurt, sad, or angry when Mother's Day rolls around. I have… [more]

Summer is coming!  Last day of school!  Sleeping in and playing all day!   Yeah, won't everyone be happy now? Don't we wish!  As parents of older adopted children we know that a change in the "normal" routine can be very disturbing to our kids.  I learned this last year the hard way.  I had thought that the less demanding days would improve behavior as stress was decreased from having no school. It turns out that the change in routine was so upsetting that they had a really hard time transitioning into summer. I noted early during last years break that they were going through a sort of "mourning" with the "loss" of a beloved teacher.  Granted, the teachers were still alive and the kids… [more]

"Unfair" is a word commonly used in our house.  It is unfair that one sissy  has a green headband, it is unfair that Meg has 4 American Girl dolls, it is unfair that your peach and I'm brown.  Sometimes unfair is a silly little thing, and sometimes it is not. This time my heart is screaming unfair.  The latest change in our house is unfair to my two biological kids, yet this change has also improved our home life dramatically. To back-track here.  Our home-life has been hell for the past few months, with some improvements here and there.  Basically after intense counseling two of our daughters may start medication very soon.  One with ADHD medication, as attachment disorder apparently mirrors ADHD and so… [more]

I have had a lot of issues lately with anger, frustration, depression and being just plain old sick and tired.  We are almost two years into our having Mita and Enu home with us and it is as hard now as it has ever been for me.  I know that some of this is stemming from the fact that the girls are just now working through some tough issues themselves and acting out.  I also feel that I am just not as energized as I have been in the past.  I think I ran on adrenaline the first year and now my body is begging me to give it a rest, work things out with help from others and to give… [more]

Our trip to Disney World gave me a lot to think about.  Some of these things to think about aren't easy topics with easy solutions, but tough questions that have no answers. Mita is going to be ten in a week (on paper anyway, she looks about 13!).  In her years on Earth she has lost a mother to AIDS, lost a father through relinquishment and lost her country, culture and language through adoption.  That is  more than most of us ever lose in a lifetime.  I do treasure the fact that they can remember Ethiopia and their family, but with those memories comes the feeling of loss and the very real feeling of pain. If you add the pain of budding puberty… [more]

Hubby and I took our girls to Disney World for eight days.  We had successfully planned the trip months in advanced and were able to surprise the girls on Christmas morning.  When this trip was planned (and paid for) our house was as normal as it ever had been since the adoption.  Minimal fighting, whining no breakdowns or wig outs for months. As our trip approached however, a lot of issues started coming to the surface.  Hubby and I were worried our well planned trip may not be exactly what our girls needed at this time, but decided to keep up with our plans. Mita and Enu didn't enjoy the drive down and there anxiety surfaced as snottiness.  For example, " We would… [more]

Transitions or transitional periods seem to be buzz words with parenting all children.  If you have yet to be a parent, be forewarned and study up on how to make transitions easier for your future children. When I speak of transitions I am not talking about big, life-changing events like adoption, moving to a new house or gaining a new sibling.  Those are obvious transitions that we tend to work  at making them as easy as possible.  I am talking about simple daily activities such as the transition between school and home, dinner time and homework time, bedtime, chores...the list goes on and on.  Simple transitions that we have to do, we cannot get away from and transitions that are so routine that you… [more]

Hubby and I are doing the unthinkable...we are taking the kids to Walt Disney World two days after Christmas.  We will be there through New Years into the first week of January.  Why is this unthinkable you ask?  Because our girls have only been home for about 18 months, it's to soon by all the literature I have read and our therapist.  Why are we doing it them?  We know they can handle it and Disney is one of our favorite places on Earth! I'll start with the reasons why a trip to Disney (or any other amusement park) can be a bad idea for your older adopted child. 1)  The stimulation is overwhelming for everyone, let alone kids who have behavior problems triggered… [more]

I am an adoptive mom. I should say that I am a "new" adoptive mom as my two daughters  (then aged six and nine)were adopted a little over eighteen months ago.   We researched adoption seriously a year before starting the process and the paper chase/wait to bring them home  was about a year long .  I must state that all of the above made me think I was ready to be an adoptive mom.  Hubby and I had two biological daughters and had been parents for over eight years already.  With all of this study and preparation, I had never heard of The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier.  Maybe I had seen it before, but for some reason it didn't catch my eye… [more]

Enu threw a raging fit the other day.  The worst one ever regarding physical abuse (to me).  After all was calm and Hubby had come home to help me, we discussed what caused the outburst, what we did right and no so right.  It seems a tad bit humerous that I had been bitten and spat upon twice and yet we were excited over two things.  One was that it had been three months since her last outburst (the longest period of calm she has ever had) and two was that it was short lived (about 25 minutes) and she rebounding very quickly. Parents of older adopted children can see why we are so happy about the above mentioned fit.  My mom, however… [more]