Urgent Prayer Request: Hard Times in Precious Adoptions.......

A few weeks ago my girlfriend Julie (and her husband Mark of course!) brought their precious 13 month old son Isaac home from foster care (their #11 also - isn't it cool that we are not the only ones walking this road?) Since then it's been an emotionally draining roller coaster as they struggle to unravel his super-complex medical issues. Right now the biggest issue - and the reason for this post - is that he is in extreme, constant and unexplainable pain. To the point that he is now a patient at the Minneapolis Children's Hospital - stumping dr's as they scramble to find the source of his suffering.

Please join me in praying - my best-friend heart is breaking because I can't be there walking through this with them. I long to be planted with Julie at the hospital - earplugs in and tissues handy - but instead I am 1000 miles away calling out for mercy. For the details as they develop and more specific ideas of how to pray here is the link to her blog - blessed by 10.

Choosing Summit VI as My Mommy Vacation This Year...

Robert is good about understanding that I do a better job loving and managing the kids when I get to spend a few days away from our 24/7 family schedule. I'm always on the watch for family weddings, reunions and opportunities to be involved with promoting adoption - things that are cheap for one person to do but out of the question for a family of 13. These are usually long weekends (with the wonderful exception of two years ago when Carrie and Mike invited me to Korea to help bring their little Joy home) and they allow me to step out of everyday life and talk to other adults in full sentences for days on end.

This year I am headed back to Minneapolis for the Summit VI conference at the end of April. For those who are not familiar with the Summit's it is a call to the Church and the world to be aware of and involved with the plight of the orphan. As I am looking at the reality of the year 2010 there is no reason why orphaned children should be dying of starvation and preventable diseases today. We are rich (as individuals and as a country) and though it may not be cheap to care for the needs of the fatherless child, that does not remove the responsibility from us.

Our family takes it all very seriously. We partner with Patty and Weldon to help care for the medical and personal needs of a little guy named Noah in India, save our change for a feeding station in Swaziland, and have been willing to open our hearts and home to more than the average number of kids. We are always on the lookout for places to speak up for the fatherless and understand that it's too easy to follow the wide road and think 'we have done enough.' Enough will the day that no child starves to death and no one is alone and terrified. Until then there is always time to pray and the overwhelming opportunity to love the orphan creatively with what we have. With that in mind, I am headed over to Summit VI to encourage, be encouraged and sharpen my vision for what it means to really love the fatherless in our world today.

Who Needs a Washer/Dryer?

Day three in the new house and I am basking in the modern amenities of it. The refrigerator not only has water but ICE also at the touch of a button (realize that our MN house had neither and I was using trays...remember ice cube trays?) The dishwasher runs a load clean the first time and the dryer...oh the dryer..it drys clothes in under an hour! Which brings me to an interesting position that I need a little help with. Here it is.....

Out in the garage sits that beautiful new front loading washer/dryer set that we 'found' in our alley last summer and took possession of as unclaimed property in December. They are brand new, glossy white and chrome and only have a few dents from their ride in the police property truck. Our original plan was to install them in this house and find a new home for the existing ones. But I think it would be much more fun to use the ones that are here (they absolutely meet our basic needs) and find someone or somewhere that we could really bless with these new ones. Ideas? I have to check with Robert but I think this is one opportunity to encourage someone that he will be all in favor it.

Quick Catch Up...Now That I Found All the Power cords......

The last 56 hours has been a whirlwind of activity here - no Internet helped keep me focused but out of touch with most of the world. Our loan approval came through at the 11th hour (actually the 23rd hour before closing, which was one hour past the latest BOA could approve our loan - but I am not complaining because it all came together in the end!) Closing went fine- just us and 11 of our closest friends signing all those mountains of paperwork.

After closing I flew to the new house to meet the moving truck and all of our possessions that have been in cold storage since January. It took us 5 hours to get the truck unloaded and the beds put together. My dream that the warehouse had caught on fire didn't come true and everyone of those 300+ boxes has my name on it.

Overnight Friday we had snow blow in again and I wavered for a few minutes on the wisdom of moving from a rental with a hilly driveway into a house on a hill....but in the end I saw hints of blue sky above the snow clouds and stuck with the original plan. Crazy weather here. 8:00am I was driving 20mph through heavy snow and sliding around corners with the Uhaul by the time we had the truck loaded 2.5 hours later the roads were almost dry and by 11:30 most of the overnight inches had melted. Thankfully we had new friends from Woodmen Heights and Woodmen Valley that stepped in and helped us move or it would have been an overwhelming prospect.

Saturday was Joe's 3rd birthday - he got a house and a new hotwheels track. For dinner he had COSTCO trifle, sushi and sandwich rolls. Nothing like introducing the kids to Wasabi when they all have colds - it was sure a sight snot everywhere. :)

This is the view from behind the table. I'm not sure we will be able to eat in the kitchen for long because there are so many of us, but for now it works great.

You Don't Have To Always LIKE Your Children.........

I love how my girlfriend E is working out the realities of living and parenting her son with an extreme Asperger personality. Here is an excerpt from her post yesterday.

Elituq-She is Learning: "Wolf is hard to like. Socially strangled by his Asperger Syndrome, he is inappropriate, rude, and sometimes downright frightening in his behavior towards others. He is difficult to communicate with because all he wants to talk about are subjects of interest in Wolf's World, something most people tolerate upon first meeting him but after a while slowly retreat from. It's embarrassing and complicated to explain, and some days I get tired of trying it.

Listening to Wolf hem and haw and dodge and weave his way around any form of family therapy this morning, I was struck by a terrible thought: 'I don't like you right now..........'" Read the rest here.

FAS: Watching IQ Points Drop in Conflict.....

My friend Julie has also been blessed with several kids under the FASD umbrella. Here is her reminder about how conflict often affects their IQ - or put another way their ability to understand and work through the conflict is severely limited because they can not process/interpret correctly what is happening.

Home School Closed Today..............

Yesterday wasn't a lot of fun between the shifting weather causing pressure headaches on top of colds and the relentless crazy requirements of our mortgage underwriters on the new house. This is the first morning in two weeks that I haven't faced a new set of things they needed to have verified or explained in order to close on this house - which is an amazing relief.

The over night snow totaled about 9 inches in our yard with more on the radar for today....from desert dry and warm to winter wonderland again. I was up early checking the Universities status (about 2 hours behind) and took the opportunity of having daddy home to head out into the fresh snow. I didn't get far (about 100 yards) before I was joined by our neighbor and her wild dog Axel. In the spirit of fresh snow she and I took a long hike up the hillside through the wilderness. It was dangerous and fun...and exactly what I needed to shake off the last few days. The best part was that we stopped at the end of the trail and prayed together - she also has a son diagnosed with Aspergers and has walked a lonely road through his struggles.

Radical shift in Colorado weather - last Wednesday and then this one.

It't My Birthday (tomorrow) and Free Pastry Day at Starbucks!

Here is the link for a free pastry tomorrow at Starbucks. :) I plan to sneak out in the dark and for an early am birthday break how about you? :) Happy Birthday Jeni! (My sister in law and I share the same birthday except she gets it one day early over in Guam - how cool is that?)

There is no IKEA in Colorado!

I'm shocked that the closest IKEA is now 400 miles away and my shopping plans for the dining room at the new house are all but foiled by the cost of shipping. I checked before we moved and there were all sorts of details about the new IKEA in Denver being announced in 2006, opening plans in 2008 and I assumed that they were such a power house that the construction had gone on without a hitch. Not so - it doesn't even look like they are going to open any time in the next year. The best laid plans....on hold agian. :)

Two Houses, One Husband and Overwhelming Blessings.........

A lot has happened in our world this week and I wanted to catch up here so that none of my friends would accuse me of withholding anything new.

Two Houses:
House #1: We have an offer on the Minneapolis house with a closing date set for April 16th. After having two other buyers fall through earlier this year, this one looks and acts solid. I'm not counting those chickens yet since - but we are on the right path for a sale.

House #2: We close on the Colorado house on Friday and should be moving in over the weekend. Lord willing and weather permitting. On a side note: I have been excessively frustrated by the bizarre and outrageous things that the underwriters are asking us to document for the new mortgage. Yesterdays laugh was them being worried that the deposit to our account that said "Federal tax refund deposit" wasn't. Hu? How could I fake that one? And would I really go to that extreme to buy a 1972 ranch?

One Husband:
Thursday Robert turned 47 and we celebrated with an early morning run to Starbucks (Eeek....there wasn't a coffee bean in the house!) a COSTCO cake full of sugar (served on party plastic sent by Tara) and a family jam session to Rascal Flats. It's been a great season for Robert with this career move, a sustained weight loss of 20+ pounds and regular visits to the gym. He is much healthier at 47 than he was at 40.

Overwhelming blessings:

My Mom finished radiation this week! A year ago Easter morning she found that first lump and now 12 months later she is through surgery, chemo and radiation. YEAH Mom! We can't wait to see you soon!

My friends Molly and Abraham found out that she is pregnant with twin girls! To find out why this is so overwhelmingly exciting (even more so than usual) you can head over to her blog here.

Extremely practical helps have come this week by way of the US Postal service. One of my cyber friends Tara has a gently challenging blog over at Considerable Grace and a beautiful ministry of peacemaking. Over the past few weeks she has rallied her friends behind our family and has sent many encouraging things our way. The biggest hits? Tiny boy undies for Joe and Jerry, summer clothes for the three sister chicks, birthday in a box sets to cover this rash of parties we have in March and countless other things like packing tape (for our next move on Friday) and preschool coloring things. She also was the catalyst that God used to provide for a gap in our teaching materials this year with the donation of this great Real Science 4 Kids set from Home Science Tools. I think the lizards may have danced when they saw that UPS box arrive.

I know that there is more to share but I can't seem to remember it right now - which is most likely indicative of the fact that I am totally sleep deprived and ready to let baby Isaac try crying himself back to sleep rather than spending so much time with him in the middle of the night.

The Fog..........

Parenting kids with hidden disabilities is never easy and sometimes I find it's nothing more than a high-stakes guessing game as we try to unravel what can not be easily diagnosed. Last night we had one of those moments when an older child finally found words to describe his world and some of the behaviors that we have seen exhibited for years. I'm still trying to process everything he said but I wanted to share this with other parents of kids who share his multilayer FASD/ODD/ADHD/LD/SI diagnosis - in case your kids might be living in this world also.

These are the basic things that he shared and how I have been chewing on them today...

1. "When I have to stand in line or there is nothing interesting I want to do I go into the fog and it is like a dream - I like it."

-Wow. This makes so much sense. When he does this it's like he shifts from alive and animated to sleep walking in an instant. Mouth hangs open, eyes glaze over, he is unable to process simple commands and all he wants to do is lay down and suck his thumb - even in the middle of a sports class or math lesson.

2. "When I am afraid I go into the fog..." Bingo! From the time he was two years old. Any time he is singled out for discipline, instruction, or to preform in front of people, he has been paralyzed and unable to function - though moments before he was fine. Forbid I raise my voice - then he goes totally blank and talks as if he has cotton wool in his mouth and rubs his eyes and head compulsively.

3. "When I don't like what you are saying I do it too, or if I am confused by what you are saying." Yes. We have been calling it oppositional defiant, but what if it is an escape method rather than an oppositional one?

4. "When I am like that (in the fog) I can hear you talking but I don't understand what your words mean....it's like I am asleep and it's a dream...."
Oh yes...he loses 20 or more IQ points instantly when it happens, can't use multi syllable words, can't say letters or numbers correctly and is unable to understand simple verbal instructions.

So what does that mean? I'm not sure, but if the battle is to keep him present in our world and not allow him to spend lots of time in this dream state I have a lot of thinking to do about new parenting methods. Even the basic.."If you don't want me to use my loud voice- listen to my quiet one" will have to be redesigned. We use that strategy because we assume that the impact of using my loud voice will be to encourage them to listen to the quiet one next time. But what if the loud voice just shifts them off into the fog? What if the fog isn't a bad place?

The curious thing here is that for years I have understood that there are times his brain is just not running well - like a really old 286 computer on the Internet. But, if I lost my temper and yelled at him something happened chemically in his brain after he calmed down that made it speed up and run normally. I still have no idea why that works (adrenalin walking him up) but the fog concept makes sense because he was always stunned to discover he was in trouble. (Of course he didn't remember what had just happened - he was basically sleep walking!) Now we have the interesting challenge of helping him learn to not go off in the 'fog' but to stay present and start learning how to deal with the things that make him unhappy or uncomfortable.

The first change we put into place today - I promised to not scare him (my temper still has not been tamed and he is the target of the loud voice far too often) - and he promised to talk to me instead of getting angry and heading off into the fog. So far..7 hours into it we have had a good day which is saying a lot lately.

Tom Davis and Children's Hopechest......

We had the fun of visiting Children's Hopechest last week and meeting some of the staff that I have emailed and talked with during our transition to Colorado. The kids came bearing gifts (which always makes it fun) and after reading Tom Davis's books it was good to connect to faces behind the ministry. Does anyone want to read these next? I was blessed with them and would love to keep them moving....

E's Review Of The New NBC Show on Aspergers.....

E's been my friend for over 37 years - today she blogged over at Elituq on the new NBC serial program Parenthood. It's particularly relevant to her life as she is parenting a teen son with Aspergers. I would encourage you to link over and read her fair review and insight into what she has seen so far.........

Christian Alliance for Orphans: Summit VI in Minneapolis.

I want to go - how about you? Here is the LINK for more information...

Today for Science We Pulled the Tails off Lizards....

Nasty! I am the official lizard spotter and the boys then use every inch of their manliness to catch them and the girls and I all hoot and holler at the Lizard Rodeo. The tails coming off is my least favorite part. Perhaps it's time for us to get back to the science text books instead of all this field work. :)

Living With FASD: Toddler Rules of Engagement Can Extend Far Into the GradeSchool Years....

Part of FASD can be a serious delay in intellectual and emotional development. The average that we moms bat around is that our kids seem to function at about 1/2 of their chronological age in the emotional/developmental department. Simple as this might seem, it plays out in ways that grate against the very root of child rearing in America and makes life a constant battle to remember our kids are not as old as they look.

One of my favorite ways of explaining it is in regard to a basic tenant of Montessori teaching. The idea goes something like this "if there are enough resources to go around then conflict will be eliminated in the classroom." Which says to me that if there are 10 second grade kids in the room and 27 red pens then there should never be a fight over red pens. Makes perfect sense that by second grade the basic principles of sharing would be in effect.

Unless one of the kids has FASD - in which case the toddler rules of engagement might still be in place. Which means to that kid.... 'if I see it it's mine, if I want it it's mine, if you have it and I want it it's mine, and even if I have one identical I deserve it and I am going to die in order to get it!" Which throws adults into a tizzy because there are LOTS of pens available so what is the big issue? The problem is that to this child, it's not an issue of supply it's one of demand and they WANT that particular pen. It's not selfishness, or greed or control or bullying - it's simply the immature toddler response to 'I see it - I want it.' No matter how many times we have the talk with them about sharing and taking, it wont permanently change the behaviors until their brains (hopefully) grow out of this phase. Until then we parents have the fun of educating other adults about the costs of prenatal drinking and it's affects on the kids in their care.

US Census: Our Form Arrived.....

Our Census form came today with it's very clear "You are legally required to complete and return this form" reminder on the front of the envelope. It's been a long time since we filled one of these out and I have to laugh at the issues a family like ours poses for the bureaucrats who design them.

First of all it wants to know as of 4/1/10 who will be living in this rental house. Well, Lord willing we wont...but we could be, so I am going to fill it out as if we are because otherwise our family wont be included in the count at all and technically we are renting it until then so I am saying we live here (confused yet?)

Question #1: Number of family members in the home? 13. Number of slots to record peoples details? 12. Number of slots that ask race specifics? The first 6 which makes our family look mainly white (4 white 2 AA)- which in reality it isn't. (If you count everyone it's 5 White 8 Black and two with Native American heritage which isn't even asked.)

Oh well - I will drop it back into the mail box and wait for their phone call that asks all those questions that there were not places on the form for. I'm not exactly sure what they can gather from these pieces of our life, but is sure a large scale activity to find out how many people live in my home and the details about some of their racial backgrounds.

12 Days and Counting....

Living in the rental house has sort of been a vacation – in a sick and twisted “this could really be my life..but isn't” sort of way. The space is small enough that we have been happy without our furniture and every maintenance emergency has been someone else’s problem. What fun to simply call a number and say “the sewer backed up” “the electrical is shorting” and “there is bad dry rot on the porch.” After years of being the responsible party for our Minneapolis home it has really been a fun break.

In 13 days that shifts again as we move the crew into our 1972 rambler (72 years younger that the Minneapolis house but with challenges of it's own.) As I am starting to draw up plans for moving our furniture in, I am also thinking about what we need to do in order to adapt it from a grandma home into one that can meet the needs of a large family.

It really is fun to dream about the various things that could happen with the space. Some are immediate and strictly practical. The bathrooms are fully carpeted and so is the dining room. Too many boys to make that even remotely sensible so both will have to go pretty quickly (carpet not boys!) The toilets need replacing as soon as possible with high capacity ones to protect the ceilings below from overflow damage because we have a few compulsive flushers. And on the exterior here are some repairs to be done to the deck and fence and the play set to install. I suppose the truth is that the steel burglars bars on the basement bedrooms need to be removed for safety soon after we move in also, though leaving them is tempting!

After that there are some less urgent things on my mind: replacing the electrical panel, starting in on replacing the mid 70's cook top, dual wall ovens, and dishwasher. And some of those classic 70’s light fixtures - painted wrought iron and orangeish pendents really could be replaced quite reasonably. Perhaps modifying one section of the kitchen to manage an all fridge and all freezer as well as looking into instant hot water for our seemingly endless need to bathe dirty children.

The good news is that we don't have to do any of it right away except the bars on the lower windows and the toilets - the house is in perfectly livable condition and I am really excited to see exactly how our life will unfold over the next few months. I confess, as much as I have loved growing closer to each of my kids in the transition, I am ready to have a little more space to spread them out!

Held Back In Homeschool.....Two Very Different Sides of The Coin.

Part of homeschooling our kids is the responsibility of deciding what grade each of our children are placed into each year. For the kids with learning delays we weigh carefully the costs/benefits of moving them ahead each fall as they continue to make slow but steady progress though their basic learning objectives. Social promotion is not generally our goal so we operate a little differently than the standard school experience.

At the other end of our spectrum are the kids who are working ahead of their grade and age levels. In looking a few years ahead we plan for these kids to invest some of their Jr/Sr years of high school earning dual credit at the jr college level. They have the potential to graduate from our homeschool with both a high school diploma and an AA degree from the community college. Looking at that reality we are holding those kids ‘back’ a year also – it will be the difference between them entering a four year college as juniors at 19 rather than just turning 18. For those that are academically advanced it will just give them that extra year to develop socially and mature a little more before they need to swim in that larger pool as younger students.

And the best part? It’s all a grand experiment. If we wake up tomorrow and something is not working we can just change it – moving ahead or behind a year with nothing more than an agreement between Robert and I.

My Girlfriend P's Story on Pre and Post - Placement Struggles....

Hi Dorothy, please feel free to share this .................. (please note I removed some of the identifying things in this email but left enough for you to hear the story. It was written to me by a friend who's biological daughter was born very prematurly in 1996 and has multiple diagnosis including CP...)

"I can empathize totally. Before we went to our new post, I knew, I just knew that we would adopt a child there. From not wanting kids, after C, my husband wanted another child. I was so afraid, hesitant - my age and fertility complications and the chance of another difficult pregnancy with a high chance that I wouldn't carry it to full term. So, we didn't, but eventually started thinking about adoption.

We moved open to the idea of adoption, and with a thought of adopting a younger child. You pick and choose kids at the orphanages in this country - and we went through several, some of whom lived with us for a while. From the very beginning, even though I had wanted to adopt, wanted a sister for C, I couldn't, just couldn't accept them. I did at first, but then there would be feelings of anger, resentment - and then anger and pain at myself for having these feelings. We went on this way for three years, on and off, until in the end we adopted D.

That in itself is a long story - but she came to us in the spring, and while we both felt that she was the child that God lead us through, I had a hard time accepting her, loving her - and so ashamed of myself. Plus the timing was bad - we were going through bad times at work for B, and my dad died. I went for his funeral, stayed two weeks, and when I came back, D was in place. That was in April 2006, and her adoption was finalised in May, on C's birthday. I kept praying, Lord if this is Your will, help me to accept it.

After 10 years with a child with special needs, to whom you devote your entire life and being, your soul, your family as a unit, adding another child to it was traumatizing for me. I struggled with depression, anger, rage, jealousy - and still struggle with it to some extent. I saw a family counselor on a regular basis, my marriage nearly fell apart, I wanted to abandon it all, but couldn't because of C. D came to us at 12 years old. She hadn't been in the orphanage for long, her mother had died about a year before that, and her grandmother couldn't care for her - she too died soon after. She is a lovely girl, all teenager now, really has no 'institutional' problems, but she had been left to look after herself a lot, and came with her values and character set. That for me was hard, instead of letting her find her way in our family, I wanted her to FIT into ours. We had battles, and often still do. Teenage years are challenging in itself.

But I've also had a Christian friend - and friends, to talk to, encourage me, listen to me, help me understand all the angst, anger, and try and work/pray it out. As mothers we idealistically want to nuture and shelter, love those that are motherless and need love - but reality is not always what we expect, and thats where 'the rubber meets the road', so to speak. I love D, want to nuture, shelter, protect her - and there are times I get angry, and long for our past, calm life before her - and for the day she goes to college!!

I have a long way to go, still working at it, but for me, the key to getting on the right road, a long, working path, was understanding why I felt that way in the first place.

God is good, He gives us the grace, strength and peace we need - when we remember to turn to Him and ask - and oftentimes I am plowing full speed ahead on my own and get in trouble.

Blessings,

P"

Any Leads on a Good Vision Therapist........

Today's project is to locate a Vision Therapist here is Colorado Springs. Any good (or bad) experiences to share?

Happy Birthday Josh!

Yesterday was Josh's 9th birthday. Thanks to Tara and her families quick delivery of a 'birthday in a box' the day was saved. It's amazing how important plastic plates, forks and party favors can be to a displaced kid who has been all out of sorts this week.

In honor of the day we cancelled school, spent the morning playing at Focus on the Family followed by pizza and a birthday soda at Whitts End. In the afternoon we had our very first Colorado 'play date' with a family similar to ours that we met at church on Sunday. It was a good celebration and the tension that has been hanging over Josh has been revealed to be an underlying worry about his first birthday away from home.

FASD Full Moon....

Catching up with my blogging friends who also parent kids with FASD, I see a trend in this weeks posts....it looks like another one of those historic 'really hard' weeks all over the network.

Perhaps the moon aligned in a certain way and pulled us all out of our orbits or maybe it's 27 days since the last big sugar overload. What ever it was I had to appreciate what Julie had to share about the problems of Facebook and FAS and what Barb shared about the Worst Morning Yet - in a sick sort of way I fell better knowing I was not the only one who has been dancing a little close to the edge with their kids this week.

Age and FASD.....

One of the hard parts of parenting kids with FASD is learning to adjust my expectations to their abilities. If you are 10 but you are emotionally and intellectually 5 then our expectations really need to shift. I know it isn't fair to try and force my kids to 'act their age' because their age is not their reality...maybe someday the two will converge but for now it's a pretty fair guess to say that they are consistently running about 50% behind their chronological ages.

Just For the Record......

For the record and in case anyone was wondering..... moving 1000 miles does nothing to help the more difficult aspects of parenting kids with FASD/ODD/Autism. Chaos and disorder breaks down all the carefully constructed routines and chaos reins until structure can be reestablished. It's exhausting, it's discouraging and today my last nerve was getting danced on pretty consistently. That said, I think tomorrow will be better, or if not better at least different.

Living Alone With the Pain of Adoption....

Many of the moms I love and share adoption histories with are living with the hidden pain and shame of post-placement remorse and depression. I have shared a little of this challenge in other posts but there is a very real and very heartbreaking side effect of many placements that has nothing to do with the physical reality of adoption and everything to do with our tender, hopeful mommy hearts having to live with the truth of what adoption has changed in our families.

Theology aside on this one (though it is a total comfort to me to know that God built our family perfectly - regardless of what I did or didn't do) many of the perky, smiling adoptive mommies around us are grieving the loss of what life was 'before.' Instead of writing an essay here I am going to share some of the most common things I hear from these women when they share their hearts with me . Their only need in the moment being that I listen and not judge the words that come tumbling out of their mouths.

As you read each statement would you pray for the moms who spoke them - Gods knows exactly who they are and they desperately need Him as well as us in their lives.

"I just don't like this child much less love them. Isn't that horrible? I fought for so long to bring them home and now....now I wish they would just leave."

"At night I grieve how peaceful our home was 'before' we brought the children home. I resent the chaos and the anger that they bring into our home, I feel bad for our biological children because their world has been shattered."

"A lady at the grocery store today was appreciating how sweet my son was (after hours of horrible behavior at home) I almost offered to let her take him with her....I almost offered a total stranger my child - to keep!"

"I can't do this, I can't love my husband, my children or myself, I can hardly pray except 'why?' we thought we were walking in obedience opening our home to the child and now...our home is destroyed."

"We knew that 'special needs' meant things wouldn't be easy, we never dreamt it would be this hard...we can't ask for help or even talk about it with many people because their response always seems to be 'didn't you know what you were getting into?' We feel so judged - and so alone."

Reality Sinking In.........

It's been 45 days since we hugged our last goodbyes in Minneapolis and headed off into the freezing rain. In that time I have comforted my heart with the grieving tracks from the Beauty Will Rise cd, cracked the new Bible where many of my friends left sweet messages and read the quotes and photo on our leaving in the Rites of Passages column in the Star Tribune. Seeing it in print makes it somehow more real and more surreal at the same time.

We are settling in here. Getting to know streets and parks, new librarians and different grocery stores. Some of the names make the kids and I laugh...King Soopers is the grocery chain, I have a choice between Starbucks and Bikini Expresso for a cup of coffee (everyone in the van wants to know if they really wear bikinis because it's been snowing much of the time here but i haven't dared find out), then there is Tan Your Hide (tanning salon) which sends the boys into fits of laughter every time they see it. "So mom - that's where adults go for spankings?"

It is good to be here, and though our hearts ache for those we left behind and the comfortable familiarity of our life in MN, we know that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. The wheel in our life will turn again and I am sure that the overlay of Colorado will become more real every day. Thanks for continuing to pray for our adjustment and for the new life that is unfolding around us. We are even starting to pick up some of the pieces and return to potty training Jerry which is so much easier now that there is very little sugar in our diets. Amazing how motivating a single Nerd candy can be when your sweet tooth is starved.

Week Three Field Trip: The Denver Zoo.....

The kids loved the misting in the Tropical Discovery area...
John and Isaac hung out all day together - nice for me that he is big enough to wear the Ergo. And he enjoyed the positive attention a teen boy with an adorable newborn receive...

Leah did an excellent job managing Jerry on his Love Handle - even though he really wasn't in the mood to be contained and there were quite a few strollers to navigate.

So You Are Done Now...Right?

(A monologue in my mind from someone who might think that 11 is enough children........)


Eleven children is a lot,
You must be done now ....Right?

You have done your part,
and filled your arms,
and gone beyond,
what,
I would do.

Could do....
Should do.....
Because I can't begin to think
about the fact
that you don't sleep.
That children's needs
weigh more than mine
and children's hurts
take longer time
to heal...
and sometimes not.

Because the pain
Is not the same,
when left alone without a name.

I see you think
Each one is great.
Without a thought
About their fate..


Eleven children is a lot
I'm sure your done now....Right?

Unless a call should come tonight
and ask if there
is room again
for just one more
to wiggle in.

ATA Colorado Springs.....

One of my first priorities in Colorado was to find a Taekwondo school for our family to become involved with. In our first weeks here I visited or spoke with several Schools in the local area and the one who seemed most in line with our family goals, budget and personality was Mr. Wilcox at ATA Colorado Springs. I have particularly appreciated his patience and willingness to work with my three wiggly little girls as well as the rest of our motley crew.

Here he is in a serious pose....(photo borrowed from his site)

And in action with Lily - helping her unwrap a special treat after class this week.

Heart for Haiti Giveaway.....

This beautiful necklace is being given away to kick of the fund raising support of Habitat for Haiti by Tracy Hansen, blogger and artist. If you would like to enter the giveaway or order one for yourself head over to Junk Posse and see whats going on.

Are You Sure.........?

My girlfriend E- wrote a great post today on parenting her son who lives with AS and the crazy things people say to her. I have to take it one step further and expand the conversation to include people questioning and commenting on any of the diagnosis of FASD, ASD, LD's, ADHD etc..that run around our house.

I really have to laugh at how many people try to talk me out of my kids brain damage diagnosis...."Did you know that amazing things can be done with healing the brain nowadays....(insert here therapy, nutrition, medication, brain retraining etc...) if you just try them I am sure that they can be perfectly normal."

I know it is meant to be encouraging but the truth is that we are not desperately looking for the 'magic' answer. Just like E we are living in the reality of this moment. Trying our best as parents to be serious about healing, teaching and training our kids without running frantically from one place to another searching for the miracle that will make them look like everyone else. That just isn't our goal, and we are not afraid of embracing who they are. Even if that looks like a problem to the rest of the world.

Trust us, it's not that we don't want to hear about other families success in dealing with these issues, we just get a lot of outside input from people who pick up their information through skimming the Internet, infomercials and the newstand. As parents to kids with challenges we reserve the right to not be taken for a ride and to trust our own research and decision making regarding our children.

Answered Prayer......

Recently we discovered that the 'over the fence' neighbors at the real house (the one we move into at the end of March) are African American! What an answer to prayer for our rainbow family. Blessing upon blessing has been poured over on us in this move...from small details to big ones - every one is important to God and has been so well managed.

Adapting to Life With Autism.......Heavy Metals are Not Helpful.

Moving to Colorado has given me the opportunity to evaluate the thread work in our lives. Almost every old pattern has been disrupted (some for good and others for bad) and I am making it a priority to intentionally evaluate those questions that have niggled the back of mind for so long. One of those is the safety of my beloved Calphalon Anodized cookware.

Since we first noticed the autistic-like behaviors that Jesse exhibited as a baby I have been aware of and tried to limit his exposures to things that are suspected to trigger or worsen problems for those who fall on the spectrum. Heavy metal exposure is one of those things - and I have always wondered about my Calphalon pots. I cook seriously in them, simmering for hours on end, heating and cooling to extremes, and damaging them bad enough to have everyone of them replaced under their wonderful lifetime warranty. But what does cooking daily in them expose his already sensitive system to? I have never really found the answer in my Internet research but my mommy heart is asking why I haven't changed this part of our lives after 10 years of questioning.

Last week I was overjoyed to realize that I had landed within a few miles of the Chefs Catalogue Outlet store...when I stopped in I discovered that they were clearancing the one set of pots that blended the best of both worlds for me (stainless steel interiors with conducting easy care exteriors)the All Clad LTD series. And then another shopper offered me a 20% off coupon which brought these three beautiful pots down to 75% off! So 15 years into our marriage I have taken the plunge and am starting to replace my trusty Calphalon friends with their All Clad cousins.

Thanks for the Anniversary gift Robert! I promise to use them well......