Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Special Mail

The chore of going through the mail is one that I get done every 2 or 3 days.  There are lots of catalogs, offers to give us credit cards of all sorts, things telling us that we have won this or that, and a couple of times a month there is a bill or 2 which needs to be paid.  Mail fills up the shredder and recycling bin regularly. 

While going through the usual garbage I came across something unusual, a large envelope, decorated with snowflakes, a snowman, and plenty of glitter.  When I opened it gift cards fell out of it, (lots of gift cards).  The card enclosed with them read in part "spreading joy to people who are special in the lives of adopted kids.  All of us are wishing you happiness this season and good things in the coming year"  It was signed with "thank you from all of us.

The post mark on the envelope was from this area.  We have no idea who sent it, but it feels wonderful to know that there are people out there who appreciate what we do every day of the the year.   We very much treasure our adopted kids, yes, even when they are being rather challenging.  We are glad that others have taken notice of what we are doing, but we never expect to be thanked for it.  Anyway whoever you are THANK YOU! from all of us.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Making Adjustments

It is about time I get around to posting something here.  I know it has been awhile, but really I have been busy with all the tasks involved in being the mom of 4 kids with special needs.

Allen and Paul are doing just fine, as is usually the situation.  Rene`, Allen, and I took Allen`s Mum (birth mother) out for lunch.  She so much appreciates us letting her be involved in his life.  That is not the situation with her other kid, though and the whole thing is very sad.

Lauren had a seizure just before Thanksgiving so we had to adjust her medication and shunt a bit.  She is doing fine and hopefully that continues for a long while.

We have a new psych doc. for Hanna and I think this will work out, but it is going to take some time and the psych resident has got to go, lets just say that this resident does not get Hanna and does not know how to communicate with me.  The first thing was to take Hanna completely off her ADHD med.  She is just a bit off task, has a shorter attention span and is not able to attend to details.  She is sorting things into color categories so we have a bin with Elmo, a red crayon,  a red car, some red puzzle pieces, a red ball, red Duplo blocks, etc. in it.  We also have other bins filled with things of every other color of the rainbow just like that one and for all of the things that are to colorful, which she has not been able to decide what bin they should go in there is a pile that she calls the rainbow group.  She not only did this with the toys, crafts supplies, and games, but she did it to my pantry.  Needless to say I can`t find a thing around here right now.  We are going to have to straighten all of this out, but I have the feeling that there will be crazy land to deal with when we do it.  Taking her off this med has not done anything to lessen her extreme anxiety which is what we were trying to do so we will soon be trying something else.

The other day Hanna came home with a small candle which she had purchased from the "school store" for Jared.  Trying to explain to her that we can not send a candle to him in his Christmas box because he is in the Army, in the Middle East, where they work with bombs, guns, dynamite, and other things that can be blown up is not sinking in at all.  I will have to get that box sent off one of these days while she is in school otherwise there will be trouble to deal with.

Anyway things just keep moving along one day folding into the next.  It is all okay because very soon I am going to leave this routine behind for a week of vacation.  I am so ready to go!