I may have a vampire in my house

The boys were playing so nicely upstairs with their Bey blades.....that is until the blood curdling screams!  That's right my newly nine year old son bit his five year old brother.  You may ask why he would do this, we'll apparently he had told James not to shoot the toys under the bed.  James did it anyway and he thought that warranted sticking his teeth into the apparent offender, ripping a giant hole in the shirt and puncturing the skin.   Nobody has bit in this house since Joel was in his terrible two phase!  


The offender had to write an apology note and will be using his money to buy a new shirt tomorrow.

Report Cards!

My oldest son Matthew's report card came in the mail today, for the first time ever he had all A's and B's!!!!!  I was so excited and proud for him.  This coming on the heels of an unfortunate fight at school this week where he pushed someone in tag and was then punched in the stomach...Ugh he just does not get how his actions played into this at all. BUT putting that aside YEAH!!!!  We all proceeded to dance around the house singing "O HAPPY DAY".  It was fun and I even got him to laugh a little by my silly dancing :)

Christmas Challege Week 2 and a Great "Date"

We are still trucking along with our Christmas Challenge.  I did MUCH better at getting hugs in this week.  Matthew still pretends to resist physical contact but it is clear he needs and enjoys getting hugs.  I had a babysitter coming to the house on Friday night and no real plans on what to do, so I took Matthew out for a Mommy and Me date.  We had a great time.  We went to a movie and then over to Dave and Busters for dinner and games.  He really is such a great kid!  I am constantly amazed at how far he has come.

Balancing Openness in Adoptions for kids who suffered Early Childhood Trauma

The other night Matthew and I were watching "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" on TV.  As riveting as the movie is, I was scrolling through face book at the same time.  I ran across a post from Matthew's birthmom that she was watching "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."  Three years ago I would have just kept scrolling.  Three years ago I wouldn't have wanted to deal with the fall out from mentioning his birthmom.  I figured it would be best to just ignore it, he doesn't bring her up, so why push the issue. 

What I have realized over the last three years is that even though he doesn't bring it up or talk about her, there is still a connection.  It doesn't matter if that connection is rooted in trauma and hurt, it is there deep within his heart.  That connection can grow in his heart towards resentment and confusion, anger and guilt if left alone to fester without guidance.  If the fall out isn't dealt with now while he is young and can be guided, imagine how large that dark stain on his soul will grow.  Trauma like that when not dealt with is not easily contained when we are adults.

So I shared with him that his birthmom was watching the same thing right now.  He was giddy and excited that evening, it grew to a manic episode over the next few days.  BUT it was manageable, contained.  We discussed big feelings and holidays and missing birthfamilies.  We discussed that it is okay to be mad and sad and happy and curious and all the things that come with adoption and trauma, but it is not okay to hurt others, to be defiant and disrespectful, to be unkind and unfun to be around.  We discussed that he has all the tools he needs to handle his emotions, to sit with them and feel them, acknowledge them, and to be okay.

Three years ago I would have kept scrolling, today I relish the chance to practice everything we have learned, to look at how far we have come, to appreciate the fact that despite everything his birthmom will always be connected to him and love him even if she wasn't able to keep him safe. 

Balancing openness in adoptions with kids who have suffered early childhood trauma is difficult, but worth it.

So your kid draws a scary picture.....

Here's the picture I found this morning on our coffee table:

This was MY interpretation:
In the top left corner is a boy scribbled over in black, he has an arrow next to his feet pointing to a heart and breathing fire onto the house.  I interpreted this to be Matthew burning the house down and not having a heart.  At the bottom of the house is a boy smiling holding a bloody knife, which I interpreted as Matthew.  There are three ghosts with stabbed hearts in the house which appear to be throwing up blood, I interpreted this to be myself and Matthews two brothers.

I started freaking out......I contacted some of my other Moms who get "it" and they calmed me down.  They told me to take a breath and just ask him to tell me about the picture when he gets home.  Don't react, thank him for sharing his feelings with me and keep the conversation open.

So tonight after Matthew and I played a few rounds of Speed, I pulled out the picture and asked him to tell me what was happening in the story.

Here is the explanation:
There was a Halloween drawing contest at school. He drew this picture of a black crow shooting lava at a house.  The good guy is going into the house to kill the evil vampire ghosts.  The ghost have broken hearts because they asked a girl out and she said no.  He didn't win the contest, another kid who had a picture of evil zombies won.  He was pretty mad he didn't win.

I totally overreacted,  MY PTSD took over, LOL.

Let this be a lesson for you, don't freak out till you get all the facts :)

Getting ready for Christmas...one day at a time.

We spent the morning decorating our tree, putting up the ornaments and hanging Christmas things around the house.  Other than a few broken ornaments as we were hanging them, things went relatively well.  After the decorating was a different story!  Matthew somehow thought it would be a good idea to chase his brothers around and throw a glass ornament at them.  This of course resulted in chards of glass ALL over the living room, in blankets, in the carpet, all over the coffee table and stacks of papers.  James of course proceeds to run through the broken glass to tell me resulting in bleeding feet.  Then Matthew began the lying, he didn't do it, nobody did it, the dog did it, Joel did it...blah, blah, blah.  I have to admit this one pushed me over the edge, we had JUST gone through what a pain it is to clean up the broken ornaments when we were decorating the tree. We had JUST gone over the fact that the broken ornaments can hurt somebody.  For goodness sakes you are almost nine years old, don't throw crap!!!!!!! 

Deep breaths momma, deep breaths.......

Ok onto our gift giving this year.  I am not going overboard this year.  For the first few years the boys were home I bought tons of stuff, partly because it was fun and partly because of the guilt factor of all the crappy Christmases they had before me.  However, they don't take care of their stuff, they don't appreciate anything, and it just ends up being a total waste.  This year I am only buying four things each:  Something they Want, Something they Need, Something to Wear, and Something to Read.

Something they Want:  I told them I was only buying one fun present/toy each.  Surprisingly so far they have been totally fine with it, maybe it will hit them on Christmas, but I'm sure they will get tons of fun stuff from my family.  They each have put in their requests.  Matthew wants a new Nintendo DS, but this would be his 5th DS in three years.  I happened to have found the extended warranty I purchased on his last one, so I just shipped it off to be fixed for him...shhhh, don't tell him!  I will be "giving" it to him for Christmas with the new Pokémon X game I bought at GameStop (It was used so I saved 20 bucks and the man shrink wrapped it for me so it looks new!) and the Pokémon 'skin' to put on his DS.  James wanted BeyBlade stuff which I had found a bunch of on clearance last summer and Joel wanted drums, so I ordered a VTech drumset off Amazon.

Something they Need:  There really isn't anything the boys "need", so I decided to get them lessons/memberships for this category.  Matthew is getting a family Zoo Membership, James is getting a online subscription to ABC Mouse, and Joel is getting ice skating lessons.

Something to Wear:  I hit up Gap's Black Friday sale of 50% off everything and got Matthew a new sweatshirt and James and Joel got new super hero sweaters.

Something to Read:  I have been on the look out for really nice hard cover new or like new books at goodwill.  You cant beat it at .50 a book!!  I have found some REALLY nice classic new hardcover books for each of the boys this year.  I even found a couple of series of books for Matthew that he has been wanting.  I splurged and bought the new Diary of a Wimpy kid book for Matthew.  He has been reading like crazy lately and that makes a momma proud!

Christmas Eve we always get new pajamas and a movie and of course there will be the stockings on Christmas morning.  This year I have some dollar store items and will be getting gift cards for fast food places for the stockings.

Now I just have to stick to my guns and not buy all the good deals I see :)