For $1.50

You too can own this amazing toy from McDonalds. After you have put the “buzzyear” back together for 15,726,632 time so a toddler can pop him into the pool- you might reconsider the “best $1.50” you could ever spend

One summer I decided to paint my son’s room. The following happened:

Went to Lowes yesterday to find a paint color for Son’s room

Looked at the guy who could not have been more than 30 and said “I am looking for gir green”

Needless to say, sadly, despite explaining invader zim, dude still did not have a clue

0.o

What has the youth of today come to if they do not know the joy of this cartoon

While lamenting over this fact, my oldest just stated that I was a dork

Guess even as an adult, I am not one of the cool kids.

Oh well

I always tell people that in order to be a foster parent – you have to have a sense of humor. The night before a new worker visits-

Teens and I have Conversation about upcoming worker visit:

Me – I feel like we should make up some bad things to freak out your social worker – they say it shouldn’t be this easy – like man you have been too well behaved

Her – yes we should – it would be funny

Son – if you go evil – I am locking myself and my cat in my bedroom

Me – dammit – your social worker has enough stress – though I can fake any injury with makeup

Commence evil plotting and giggling – and this is breakfast at my house

#adventuresofateenageadoption #pitymyworkers #wegotthis

ATTACK LLAMAS AND THE MOST AWESOME NAME IN THE WORLD

The day that my daughter came to our home was a crazy one. Why wouldn’t it be? That is the backdrop of my existence. Always this shy of crazy.  So one month before the 25th birthday of my oldest son, my husband and I were hitting the road to drive two hours away to pick up a teenager.  We had spent the week prior trying to make all the pieces fall into place so we could bring her home. It was a lot of work and a lot of people working toward the goal of getting this young lady into my home.

I have been a mom for 26 years. My oldest will be 26 in two weeks. When I had him, I was a senior in high school at the time. Yeah, I probably should have mentioned I was a hot mess as a teenager. Wild. I made my poor mother question her sanity. Everything comes around. Because now I am a mom to three teenagers. So much angst. So much drama. A lot of amazing.

So I guess this part of the story starts with the laughter of a small child and my concept of wanting an attack llama. An attack llama (?!?!)- you say while questioning my tenuous grasp on reality. Yes. I want an attack llama. Ok let’s veer off the road of my foster/adoption story for just a second. Just imagine donning your Sunday best for a stroll through town. A beautiful and majestic llama walking at your side. You run into someone you dislike and with one word, Felix the Attack Llama just hauls off and spits right in the face of your enemy. Brilliantly Diabolical you say! I agree wholeheartedly and so did a sad small boy the week before we picked up my daughter.

I have already stated that I work with foster parents. On occasion, I get to hang out with the kids. The week that the daughter came to us, I was doing both. One day that week, while waiting on foster parents to show up for training, I had the immense joy of hanging out with a giggling 12 (ish) year old boy. I bring up the giggling because the last time I interacted with this small thing of a child,  he was hysterically crying, just having spent his first night in foster care. That crying day, we watched a pig on YouTube eat a cupcake. (if you have not seen Esther the Wonder Pig, do so … it might just shine a little light in your life) and he watched, through his tears. No words were spoken. Just the sounds of a cupcake eating piggy. It was heartbreaking. But he went to an amazing home. And his story will one day have a happy ending.

That week, the week of the daughter, it was truly wonderful to see this small thing smile so brightly after the buckets of tears he must have cried back in the beginning of his foster care story. I wanted to see more of that smile. So my diabolical llama plan was hatched and giggles were abundant. Life was grand for a moment. I think I might have mentioned that I have a flair for the dramatic.

I went from enemy attacking llamas to foster parent training where I discussed the behavior of foster children and why they act as they do. I can break it down in a few sentences.

Children need healthy ways to express the sadness or anger they feel about the losses they have experienced. Some of these behaviors are direct responses to the trauma they have experienced.  Children use behavior to show what they are feeling. They also use behaviors to get attention. Sometimes this is the only way they have learned to get attention, to get their way or just generally relate to the rest of the world. Usually, behaviors are learned responses and children need time to learn new ways of behaving. New ways to deal with and heal from their trauma.

Behaviors are the language of the child’s emotions and the symptoms of their needs. Everything that we expect and believe – about ourselves, other people and about the world we live in – is learned through experience. If you experience violence, guess what you will display. It is sickening that kids experience violence. That is why foster parents are so important. To allow children to be children. To weather their hurt and to get through those dark moments where all H-(E Double hockey stick) is breaking loose. Because you get through the storms, there is always light on the other side. That is why foster parenting is necessary and worth it. For that light.

I have spent the better part of over 5 years teaching people how to possibly navigate through these moments with a smidgen of grace, patience, laughter and decorum. Sometimes it works. Other times, you had better get creative because our kids do. Someday I might tell you about our “Cursing Wild West” – but that is a story for another day.

The year prior to our kiddo coming to our home – we had two disruptions. One we could control and the other – not so much. It broke me. I actually closed my home. My husband was ok with this decision as he needed a break too. The loss was too much. My expectations were way off and I needed some time to process the heartbreak.

When we decided to open back up – we were very clear that we wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with teenagers. Especially teenage girls. Yes let’s all share a collective laugh. My daughter does. However when we learned that there was this special kiddo who needed a safe place to land that a bunch of people thought would fit perfectly in our home – well – how could I say no?

So began the craziest 48 hours I have experienced as a foster parent. Social workers were called, therapists were called, EVERYONE was called. There was a process. There was paperwork. There was stuff that had to be done ……yadda yadda yadda.  But, obviously – it happened and here we are over a year later and something awesome has occurred. I mean something REALLY REALLY COOL!!!!

Last week – we went to court for a very good reason. She was legally allowed to change her name to whatever she wanted. Huge decision for a teen. Guess who now shares my last name? Guess which mom cried in court? This one.

One more thing. There are no llamas in my home. We do have quite a few rescue animals though. And we foster doggies too.  Guess which kiddo wants to grow up to work with animals? Maybe one day, she will figure out how to get her mom a fluffy attack llama. A beautiful and majestic one.

CREATIVELY TACKLING THE ISSUE OF THE LIE

Alright, so for years, my friends and colleagues have stated that I have some unconventional parenting techniques. I have been a parent for 26 years and a foster parent for 3.5 years. So today, I want to share a silly little technique I call THE BIGGEST LIE.

First though, we have to discuss why children in foster care may lie. There could be a myriad of reasons. Let’s explore some of them. This is by no means an exhaustive or comprehensive list – it is just a way to hopefully get you to look through a trauma lens when dealing with a potential behavior.

Trust

Ideally our childhood is spent learning to trust our environment and the adults in our lives. We trust that they will care for us, love us and make sure we make it to adulthood with some core values and skills to survive being a grownup. Now for our foster kiddos, this essential foundational component of childhood is severely lacking or nonexistent.  If you grow up in a chaotic and abusive household, why would you ever trust strangers with your darkest stories, thoughts and scary moments? The previous adults set a precedent that they cannot be trusted, why should these kiddos trust a foster parent, social worker, judge, teacher etc? It can be easy to escape into a made up world because exposing our inner truths makes us vulnerable. Being vulnerable is scary to foster children.  Telling THE LIE might be easier than exposing their vulnerability.

Survival

Imagine you are a five year old and your dad is a heavy drinker. The slightest thing can set him off. Say you didn’t clean your room. Dad comes home, drunk as a skunk. Looks at you – asks if your room is clean and your gut reaction, to avoid being physically or emotionally hurt, is to say “yup”. Now imagine if you had to lie to make it through the day to survive. There hasn’t been food in the house for days. One day there is a cupcake just hanging out on the counter. You know you will be beaten if you eat it. But you are starving. So your childhood brain weighs the options of not starving or getting beat. Tough decision for a kiddo. The path of survival is marked with scary things when you are in a bad environment. You give in. Eat the cupcake. When asked, to save your skin, you lie and say you don’t know what happened to it. And the cycle grows and continues. It becomes second nature. The trouble you could face is way worse than the risk of getting caught in THE LIE.

Emotional Warfare and Secrets

Kids who have been abused, especially those who have been sexually abused, are often groomed to keep secrets. They are often threatened with extreme violence or even death if they tell anyone what is happening to them. Oftentimes if they do tell someone, they are not believed. The path of survival for these kiddos is keeping the secret and telling a lie to everyone around them about how they might have received an injury. Again THE LIE becomes a means to an end to survive. This is why we preach to never allow secrets and to always believe victims.

So with the above reasons and the potential for a 100 more, how can we combat THE LIE which has become an ingrained behavioral pattern for our kiddos?

Well one day, probably in a moment of frustration and potentially genius creativity, I came up with the idea of encouraging my children to lie. WHAT?!?!? DOESN’T THAT DEFEAT THE PURPOSE OF STOPPING OR CURBING THE BEHAVIOR?

Well you wouldn’t be wrong if this was your reaction. However, I recognized that my kids didn’t even notice that they were telling a lie. It was part of their makeup from their childhoods of trauma and had become a defense mechanism. I mean they would lie about EVERYTHING! Is your name “——“? Child: “nope” – (insert eye rolling for dramatic effect.)

So my thought was to make them realize it. I had to have this realization before I could tackle to morality of the issue at hand. How did I do that? I set up a rule about telling THE LIE.

If you were going to lie, you had to make it the most outrageous and creative lie on the planet. So if you didn’t do your homework – the story shouldn’t just be “I did it” – or you will get in trouble.

The story had to be amazing and I had to believe it. “I was walking home from school and suddenly, Abraham Lincoln appeared from a portal and asked me to go on adventure to help him with some issues he was having with redecorating his suite in the white house so in traveling with him, I lost the homework that I already did”

Now the consequences for telling a lie that wasn’t creative were age based. Those are a whole different blog as I am equally as creative and educational in my consequences.

So once I instituted this new rule, it was like an avalanche of fictional storytelling. In essence this encouraged creativity, helped develop a sense of humor and INTERRUPTED the second nature behavior. They had to think about it. They had to stop, evaluate if the lie was worth the effort of creating a story I hadn’t heard and then proceed. It also allowed them to trust me. They learned that I was going to be a safe harbor in their stormy life. Once we tackled the defense mechanism, we were able to focus on the values of trust and telling the truth.  I don’t know if this is best technique or one that is even a good one, but I can tell you that the telling of lies in my home greatly diminished and the creativity was nurtured to the point that is blossomed and became something beautiful.

This was 2013 and my son was 12. I gave my son the choice to stay or go while we put oatmeal our kitty to sleep. She wasn’t going to recover from her injuries and it was the right choice.

He said “we are her people, it will suck to stay but wrong to go” …

I am proud of him for having the courage and strength to see his cat through! Kids with Aspergers bond greater to animals than most and though it was hard, he saw her to the end.

I rescued oatmeal despite the ridicule of others and at great loss, but I did it because I taught my child that kindness to others, especially to animals, is so very important, and that lesson will remain with him through the lessons he teaches future generations.

Standing up for those less fortunate is a worthy life lesson. At least that is what my mommy taught me and I was glad that I had the courage to carry her lessons through to my kids.

This story is circa 2018…..

6 weeks ago, I told my kid that she could have a corner of our yard to plant a garden. She could plant whatever she wanted but she had to do the work. She spent every weekend digging a hole to China (removing the topsoil) and then prepping the dirt.

Today I walk into my kitchen to find a monster incubating on my sink. I swear that there were flower seeds on Sunday. They now resemble something that will spawn a demon capable of eating your face.

How long until it wakes and utters the words “feed my Seymour”?

This is parenting.

#sciencekidsrock

Today is Prom. Shortly there will be a gaggle of teenage girls in my house.

However – Panic is: random teenage girl showing up at your house while you are in jammies, hair a hot mess, no bra and no clue who she is while your child is out getting her hair done for prom.

So said girl will smile and introduce herself and you will wonder what you are supposed to do now as you are not fluent in teenager speak. You won’t let her in your house because the floors are wet and she might slip, fall and break a leg on the day of prom.

So it will be awkward until your kid shows up. The next 24 hours will not have nearly enough wine ….

Parenting lesson #2386

If your child has a wasp in their bedroom, understand that wasps are akin to Lucifer. In fact, these nasty creatures come from the depths of hell and you will need to prepare yourself for battle. One teen will be waiting, frightened by this entity and the other will be upstairs ignoring her cries of help. It is up to you to save the day. You got this. You are a parent after all.

You will first look for RAID. And then your sensible side will kick in and you will realize that you don’t want to poison your whole family whilst battling Satan’s sidekick.

You will look around your house for suitable weapons. My weapon of choice today was one old gardening flip flop and a can of Aqua Net. I opted against the 80s trick of aqua net and a lighter for obvious reasons.

Back to the lesson. You will don your armor while you brandish your weapons of choice and head in to said bedroom to prepare for a battle destined to go down in history.

It is you against the Captain of Beelzebub’s army. He with his stinger and inherently evil intent & you with an old flip flop and some hairspray. He will be hiding as is his nature. This is now your arch enemy. You must be prepared.

Raise the blinds, poke through the piles of clothes that are always present in the room of a teenager, and lift up the papers cluttered on shelves. It is the bedroom of a teen – it is already scary.

Old scratch will be waiting for you. You will be ready.

My advice is to strike first. Hit that offspring of the Prince of Darkness with your Aquanet of power.

The fiend will stop in his tracks, his wings stuck together. This is your only chance to strike the foul creature before you face what will be a stinging demise.

Strike and strike fast with your flip flop. The hell beast won’t see you coming.

He will perish with little fanfare and you will stand victorious in the eyes of your child for saving them from this usurper of happiness. With your adversary dead and gone – your child will then bravely enter her room, scoop up the demons body into an old deodorant bottle and light will shine in through the blinds and all will be well.

On to fight another day!! #parenting