Mama tell the story?

For whatever reason this week Gabby and LM have asked me several times to talk about what happened the day they moved in and the day JB and MM moved in. Gabby also started calling me Mama this week. She had been calling me Mom for the past 6 months. This week it's been Mama or Mommy. In foster parenting classes and adoption discussions the experts always tell you that the day kids come home is just like the story of their birh for kids who are not adopted.

Maybe it's the attachment work we are doing in therapy. I hesitate to call it attachment therapy since we will have to "break" the attachment if they go home but it's work to allow them to feel safe and loved and process through some of the things they missed.

Little Mama was only 3 1/2 when her 2nd sister was born. And by the time she was 7 she was left at home overnight to care for the two other girls. Part of what we are working on is letting her be mothered. Allowing her to be the little girl even though she is 11. Encouraging play with dolls and things that seem babyish so that she can work through these stages and not get stuck there emotionally.

Today we will be carving pumpkins- for the first time for at least 2 of the kids. We made a big deal about going to the pumpkin patch and they are excited to create their own designs. To be honest I'm excited too as I loved doing this as a kid.

You Member...

Mr. Mohawk says "Mama? Member when we went there? You Member?" at least 3 times a day. I love that he can remember outings and places such as the birthday party at the park near our house. But telling me the story EVERY time we pass by which is at least twice on school day assuming we are driving anywhere else- it gets slightly annoying. Also slightly annoying? A 10:30 am phone call from day care telling me he can't keep his hands to himself and they need someone to pick him up.

Thank God my Mom quit her job last week because I don't know what I would have done without her today. I was the only person in my department today and nada bunch of high profile projects to get done. (Guess who will be working while kids are at their visit tomorrow.)

Tomorrows 5 hour visit with their Mom should be real interesting.

Plan Ahead

I'm a planner by nature. Not so much that I had a strict timeline of needing to be married by 27 or having my second child at 32 but enough that I think to figure out what tasks I need to handle and what I'm going to cook for dinner. This week I'm trying to plan for next week and to be completely honest I'm scared. Not because it's Halloween but because my husband is going out of town. For a week. And it will be me and the kids....for a whole week.....by ourselves.

They ate me alive last week while it was just the 5 of us. I was crabby, tired, and angry. I'm determined lot to be this way this time around. I anticipated that any task will be hard so I'm working to get everything that could be an issue out of the way. Costume shopping for the girls was completed tonight. If they couldn't handle it on Sunday after their visit and with my husband home there was no way they could this Sunday. I also had to give up celebrating my Mother in laws birthday because a family dinner an hour away at 7pm on Sunday was going to leave me with cranky kids Monday morning. Not to mention the car ride fighting that could happen in 2 hours.

And all the grocery shopping will be done Saturday while they are at their visit so I can cook Sunday and have meals ready for the week. I feel just a little bit stronger and a little bit wiser. Perhaps I've learned something in the the last few months. Sometimes a SuperMom just knows when her cape is going to make her fall and stays on the ground.

My favorite word...

WHATEVER. So simple a statement and can be used in EVERY situation as evidenced by Jelly Bean and Little Mama. We had all kinds of attitude this afternoon post visit. We are a little heavy handed with the sarcasm in our house. Mainly because we have 3 highly skilled drama queens and the prince of theater living in our home. The best way to deal with them sometimes is mockery and overdramatization. Mirroring.

So today we were having a particularly challenging time breaking down LM's wall of silence when confronted with poor choice behavior. And when we asked a question we got whatever and I don't know (my second favorite phrase - because is third in line). So after we got through the stone wall and dealt with the temper tantrum over shoes by JB. We left to go to dinner with family. Since there were 6 adults to 4 kids we had no problems with competing for attention. But we did have several trip to the bathroom.

During the first trip Mr. Mohawk says to me while on the potty "Mommy your favorite word is whatever right? You said that at home. You said it sounds like a dying cow."

Oops. There was my mirror. "I said the way your sister was whining sounded like a dying cow."

"Oh."

Luckily there were no more questions or I don't know would probably have come out of my mouth...