Oops I forgot to give this post a title!

I’m long overdue for a post as is my sister hint hint… phew… I’ve been kind of busy lately! A good busy though…. Where to start first…

Still trying to wrap my head around: we are still mentally and emotionally processing Missy’s diagnosis of autoimmune hepatitis. I’m happy that it can be controlled with medication but it’s a bummer that it is a condition that will never go away. But praise the Lord her liver isn’t showing any signs of cirrhosis which I was pretty worried about. So it seems they discovered and diagnosed her condition in a very early stage so yay! The last couple of weeks as Missy was going through all the tests and waiting for the news, Jimmie and I couldn’t help be flooded with the memories and feelings that we experienced a few years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer. Things like this really bring a couple closer together as they face the unknown future together. So say a prayer with me for Missy and Scott as they adjust to their new “normal”.

So here’s a recap of my family members these days:

Austin & Hannah: Their baby boy was born on Monday April 18! Mommy and baby are both happy and healthy. I just ask for prayers for them and their new little one and their journey in life.

Matthew – he is the little boy I always wished for. I love Calvin and Hobbes and I always wanted a little boy like Calvin. I could change Matthew’s name to Calvin for real. He is funny, witty,smart, sarcastic, creative, imaginative, ornery, challenging, and most of the time a sweet sweet boy. LOVE him so much! He is loving preschool and he’s recently started t-ball – so cute! I’m excited to be a t-ball mom!

Cali – omg I love that little girl so much. She’s my girl… she’s my cuddle bug… she is a DIVA, PRINCESS, and tom boy all rolled in to one. The terrible 2’s have officially entered our household but she’s too cute to be too mad at! She has changed the most between the two since they have been with us. She has a lot more confidence and she is growing like a weed!

Jimmie – I love that man o mine. There was a time in my life a long long time ago when I thought I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who I would spend the rest of my life with. When that relationship ended I was devastated and convinced that I would never find someone as perfect for me as I thought that guy was. And then along came Jimmie Johnson, my complete opposite in most ways and completely opposite of what I thought I wanted in a partner. But after our first date there was just this I don’t know I guess we just I can’t even explain it… but I thank God for every curve, bump, pot hole, u-turn, hill and valley in the road that caused our paths to cross because I can’t imagine my life without my Jimmie Johnson. Now don’t get me wrong, it ain’t roses and honey every day. He’s just as aggrevating as any man can be. But I couldn’t ask for a better partner to have by my side in this journey of life.

Can we be farmers? So that man of mine has had many hair brained ideas over the years and this past year he’s been trying to talk me into buying a farm. Actually about 3 years ago he wanted to try to buy a farm that was for sale for one million dollars. Haha… as we didn’t have one million dollars I said sure honey you go ahead and see if you can make that happen… lol… so this past year he talked to our realtor neighbor and she showed him a few farms with crappy houses on it. I said nuh uh, if you are going to start looking at farms, mama is looking too cuz I don’t want to end up living in some shack. So I got in on the looking at farms and houses and slowly I’ve caught his vision and excitement and all of sudden I’m kind of excited to find a farm and take the leap. We have found a farm, a beautiful piece of land with breathtaking views of the hills and valleys of Kentucky. The house is kind of tiny but move in ready. We would definitely be adding on or building our dream house very soon. There are a lot of variables to consider but we are considering it… exciting and scarey but people who don’t take chances in life have a lot of what ifs to think about right… anyway… I’ll keep you posted on our new adventure…

What I’m learning about these days: Jimmie and I had noticed some subtle violent behavior in Matthew especially toward his sister but also like pretend punching or chopping on us for no particular reason. So Jimmie more so than I decided we needed to at least have Matthew evaluated for behavior issues. The counselor seems to think he is just trying to deal with his emotions about all his experiences in his little life and also that he may be having some troubles fully trusting and attaching to us as his parents. So Jimmie and I have been attending counseling for about a month now to learn how to parent hurt children. I think somewhere in our training that we went through a few years ago, I remember the trainers saying as foster parents we are going to have to become attachment experts. I never really knew what they meant until now. The counselor, Kim, suggested we read a book called Parenting the Hurt Child. That has been very helpful and I’ve seen a lot of Matthew and even Austin in the book. When I went online to Christianbook.com to order that book I also found a book called Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. I haven’t been able to decide which book I wanted to read first so I’ve sort of been tandem reading them. Within the first 3 pages of this book, I had tears streaming down my face and I was so wishing that this book had been written about 30 years earlier and read by my sister (who was adopted at birth) Janice and my mother and father. Like everything else, the research and things we know today would have saved so many people such pain and heartache if they’d known it in the past. I fully intend to buy both my mother and my sister a copy of this book because it just gave me a whole new understanding of what Janice has struggled with all these years. The woman that wrote the book was adopted at 10 days old and you would think that she wouldn’t remember that or even feel loss of her birth mom. But those of you who have carried children in your tummies for 9 months… think about how you and your husband talked to your belly, maybe even sang to your belly, or read to your belly, knowing that the little gift inside you could hear you and as a result when they finally entered the world they knew you by the sound of your voice. They loved you because they had been bonding with you from the moment they began developing. You loved your baby and were happy about it coming in to the world but think about the mother who doesn’t want their baby or who is using drugs, alcohol, or who is being beaten on a daily basis, etc. Think about the environment that that unborn child is being grown in – what they hear, what they feel, what their mother may or may not be saying to them. I know my sister Janice’s birth mother wasn’t exactly overjoyed about being pregnant and even moved away from her family to hide her pregnancy, pretending she was sick. So what sort of messages do you think she was sending my sister. And even then my sister, as a tiny developing baby, probably loved her birth mom and then all of a sudden she’s in the world and this voice of this person she had been bonding with for nine months is just gone. It’s not really a loss that one concretely recognizes but as the author of the book states, a lot of adoptees are just living with this sense of loss that they can’t quite put their finger on.
The key and the solution to this adoption loss problem is that the adoptive parents need to be sensitive to this issue, recognize that that is what is going on, which I think probably is what is behind a lot of Matthew’s behaviors. The mere validation of those feelings and allowing that loss to be grieved and talked about openly goes a long way to healing that wound and opens the child up to be able to bond with the adoptive parent.
Gosh I could go on and on and I’ve probably rambled on too much but I’m excited about what I’m learning and to me it’s exciting because these are issues that I’m going to be dealing with with my children as well as the fact that it gives me a better understanding of my sister and a lot of the issues she has dealt with over the years. I’m excited to share the book with her.
The counseling sessions are helping too and giving us some great tools in our parent tool box to not only help with Matthew and Cali but any future foster children who come in to our home.

Well for now I’ll end this post before I need a publisher… thanks for reading my ramblings especially is you made it all the way to the end!