March 2011 ~ To Tell The Truth

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Momma’s Super Girl

I am taking CoCo back to have the school district tomorrow to have them re-evaluate her to see if she qualifies for Special-Ed services now that she is 3. They had “graduated” her from early intervention right before I got her MRI results back. They felt like she was right on the cut-off for services, so they went with graduating her (giving her the boot as I say). I spent Monday and Tuesday trying to track down the actual report, they hadn’t sent it to her doctor and after every appoint out here in the satellite office, they transport all of the charts back to Children’s downtown. I was finely able to get them to fax them out here to our doctor...

Blogger: To Tell Truth - Please Stand Up - Stats

Search Key words Search Keywords sunday koffron blogspot (112 Xs since I began my blog) blue koffron sunday koffron adoptee foster kids detachment i cant stand foster kids my life in foster care and orphanges.com taylor laugner penis Blogger: To Tell Truth - Please Stand Up – Stats Every once in a while I check out my blog stats, sometimes it is a kick to see what words of phrases people searched that led them to my site. This is what I saw when I looked today. Some are amusing, some slightly disturbing and one confusing. sunday koffron BlogSpot (112 times since I began my blog) – Really? I have only written about 150 posts since I started my blog in was it in August? Since they are not just searching for Sunday Koffron, but rather Sunday koffron...

The Life of a Mom

This morning somebody had thrown all of the clean clothes onto the living room floor and was using the laundry basket as a stable for their horses. I said to Amélie, “I need you to take those horses out of the laundry basket and put the clothes back in.” “I didn’t take them out. Why don’t you make CoCo do it?” “She is sleeping and she is too little any way.” “That is not fair!” “Now you see how Maddie feels when she has to clean up messes you have made, just because she is older.” Says Mr. Sunday. I say, “We are a family, and that is what families do. We help each other out and we do things for each other when the other can’t do it for...

The Cone of Silence

My kids graze constantly. Apples, oranges, bananas, cheese, yogurt, PB&J, you name it as long as it is semi healthy they can have it whenever they want it. Our neighbor girl comes over after school to play but her mom has asked me not to let her eat anything here because she doesn’t eat her dinner when she gets home. Fair enough, she is their kid, I don’t mind, I am not offended. My kids always want this or that to eat while she is here and I try to put them off because it is rude to eat in front of our friends if they cannot eat too. I have suspected on occasion that it is actually their friend asking them to ask for food so she can...

Everyone’s A Comedian

The other day I saw the neighbor man just getting home from work, pull in the driveway. Right as I was heading to the basement to flip the switch of the fuse I had just blown. Me being a big girl had no issue flipping the blown fuse, flipping the fuse box door shut…oh…drats…did Mr.Sunday say not to shut the door? And with a shrug of my shoulders I headed back up the stairs. Oh well it wouldn’t be a problem unless I blew another fuse. Like I did the very moment I turned the blow dryer back on…. I trudge back down into the dungeon, otherwise known as my basement and the darn fuse box door just. Won’t. Open! I try pulling up it up, pulling it down, juggling it. “Hey, I just shut the fuse box door.” “Why did you do that? You can’t do that, it is really hard to get it back open, just jiggle...

It Was Bound To Happen, She Said “I Wish You Were Dead”

Her little sisters have been asking if I was going to die or why I’m not dead yet. Yep, I knew they got that from somewhere. I knew it was coming and Sunday it did. “I wish you were dead!” She said. I said, “Be careful little girl, you never what can happen in life. You never want to have to live with knowing that those were the last words you said to anyone. This I know firsthand.” “Well that wasn’t your fault, saying that didn’t make that kid get hit by a car, you were just a kid yourself.” “I was your age…almost exactly. And I still feel awful about it all of these years later, I never want you to have to live with that kind of guilt.” And with tears in her eyes she looks up at me and she says, “Can you take me shopping to look for some shoes?” “No. If I were dead I couldn’t...

Build Our Own Foster Family Tree Together

Way back when a friend and I were talking about how there were support groups for everything under the sun, but none for foster children or foster care alumni. She got the ball rolling found some other former foster kids and we started a small support group and a Foster Care Alumni Association in Michigan. We met for a while at The Church of Today and at each other’s homes. I became a new mom and fell away from the group as I got drawn in to my new role of a mother. But all along, though the pregnancies, carpools, school concerts and gym meets my heart always leads me back to my foster kin. My foster brothers and sisters especially the young ones who find themselves lost and alone in the world. Anxious and frightened about just who they are and how they are going to make it in a world, who...

All In A Days Work-Out

So at the gym one of my girls who always has a bit her undies hanging of her leotard was apparently wearing granny style bloomers today. They were really bugging her because every time she did anything she would stop and try to stuff them back in. Finely she says, “these underwear are making me crazy!” Another girl says, “that’s why I never wear any!” Coach Sunday says, “Oh, I know me either…I can’t stand them!!!” At which point every kid in my class completely stopped, stunned and shocked looking at me like I had lost my mind. It took me a minute… I meant when I wore a leo…like 20+ years ago…when I did gymnastics myself (it is a deduction...

Score One For Puberty.

I knew that one day it would happen and today it did! My 12 year-old got up, on her own, took a shower, washed her hair and blew it dry – all in time to make the bus. I am supper stoked. Of course this will still be the predominate scowl look on her face. In turn I expect to see more of these types of expressions on the faces of her sisters (and I). But today mommy’s face looks like this, because I believe that at least the, “you need to wash your hair today” argument will be one we won’t be having on a regular basis anymore. Score one for puberty....

Than this picture needs no explanation. Life with three girls… I am done for the day. Calgon, take me away!...

Colds and Conversations

At work tonight every one of my kids showed up with runny red nose - that is except for the one with the strep skin infection. (It was covered and she had been on antibiotics since Thursday...but still.) Yuck! I called my husband on the way home a little miffed that he hadn’t called me at all yesterday, what’s up with that? “Yesterday?” “Yeah, what was that about?” “Um…Honey…today is Monday…I was home, with you all day yesterday…” “Ooohh! Never mind” I got home to find MY two little ones with runny red noises. Mad and I got ours over the weekend. CoCo was absolutely bouncing off the walls, which is typical for the nights I work. She has...

The Anywhere but Here Girl...: On Adoption and Belonging...

Adoption, the institution that gives and takes for generations to come. I think many people forget or have never thought about how adoption affects the next generation. Whether it is just wondering where you came from or if it is having to survive being parented by someone who is suffering under the burden of unresolved/unrecognized trauma its affects carry over. Katydid talks about finding her mother’s original family: I know it is not the same as being the adoptee herself but I always felt out of place, like I didn't belong to anyone and would be completely alone in the world when my parents were gone. I feel the the ripple effects of adoption are tremendous and not much thought is given to the second generation who misses out on grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins... The loss...

A Note To My Fellow Foster Care Alumni

Bad stuff happens to good people, it is not fair but it is true. You deserved better than you got. From your original parents, from your workers and from the system, they let you down. That is not your fault. You did not make this mess you are currently sitting in, nope you didn’t. Where you are at is not the wrong place. It is exactly where they dropped you off and left you to your own devices. I would say you are exactly where you would be expected to be. But the truth is if you are not currently incarcerated, homeless, and pregnant by 20, or have lost custody of your own kids, you have already beaten the statistics. Got a job? You are a raging frigging success! I commend you, that is no small feat for folks like us. Some of us have had it worse than others. Some of us go on to be academically...

Jiggle Dance

Those of you who follow me on FaceBook or Twitter may have seen my 2 am-ish post asking what the heck was banging around in my attic. I got lots of great guesses, ghosts, the wind, benign trolls and my niece claimed it was her. But if you guessed: You were right, that is him, our uninvited guest. If you know me and my attachment “issues” you know I was seriously trying to figure out how we could all cohabitate. He was so cute the my girls wanted to keep him, alas Mr. Sunday and common sense prevailed and he went for a little ride in the wee hours of Monday morning, the way I hear it he took off running as fast as he could…right back...

Attachment, How Disordered Is It Really?

What do I have to say about attachment? I am not an adoptee. Nor am I an adoptive parent. Me? I’m just a former foster child and the daughter of a former foster child/adoptee. I think I may have a thing or two to say about attachment. I have been told that I had intestinal issues when I was a baby and that nobody wanted to change my diapers and that they avoided being around me, that apparently I took that personally and because of that they said I never properly bonded to my mother. That all sounded like a bunch of baby doo–doo to me at the time (I was still a kid), and it still does now. (Although just now writing this I recall one of my mother’s go to phrases about how I “walked around as if my shit didn’t stink” so, maybe not total psyco- dookie after all.) The...

The Secret Life of Bees

I really suck at picking out movies. That’s why movie picking is Mr. Sunday’s job. But I yesterday I took a stab at it. I wanted something that Mad and I could watch together. You know – she’s 12. And, well, it is hard to feel connected with a 12 year old. I am connected all right, but she is in the process of trying to hate us enough so she will be compelled to support herself move the heck out of our house by the time she is 18. I’d say she is well on her way. Anyway I chose a movie I thought was family friendly, heartwarming, you know “feel good movie” The Secret Life of Bees. She is old enough to understand the social commentary and the story of the teenaged white girl showing up on the doorstep of a black family and how she came to belong to them, has some parallel with MY own story....

Sidelined in Ethiopia

Ethiopia to Cut Foreign Adoptions by Up to 90 PercentPeter Heinlein | Addis Ababa March 04, 2011 Photo: AP Aaron Lieberman holds his son Theodore, 2, adopted from Ethiopia, as he shows his citizenship certificate, during U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Adoption Day ceremony in New York, 18 Nov 2010 Ethiopia is cutting back by as much as 90 percent the number of inter-country adoptions it will allow, as part of an effort to clean up a system rife with fraud and corruption. Adoption agencies and children’s advocates are concerned the cutbacks will leave many Ethiopian orphans without the last-resort option of an adoptive...

Just What I Mean

"If your mom was a hardworking woman and is your hero helped you no matter how bad you were or is just the best mom ever, if you are blessed to still have her or if she is an angel in heaven, paste this to your status and let everyone know You are PROUD of your Mother. You can replace a lot of people in life, but you only have one Mother"Facebook How many times do you see statuses like this going around Facebook? Or the equally sappy ones about the dad who worked so had to provide you with all the advantages in life? Even if I were big in “chain” statuses, I would not be copy and pasting any like these. Do you know how hard it is to attempt to acknowledge Mother’s or Father’s day, even with just a card? You sacrificed so much for me You were always there for me Unconditional love… Blah,...