Princess CoCo

I have been a very naughty blogger!  If I’m lucky I might get a little spanky, LOL.

I have been a slave to Princess CoCo of the Pee-Pot and her porcelain throne!

First we get MRI results, and then she commences to decide to finally learn to crawl (after walking) at almost 3 years old. Now this…

The other day she says “I have to go potty.”

“Oh yeah...I’ll be there in a minute”  

“No, RIGHT NOW” (yep she learned that phrase from me.  I end every statement to her 12 year-old sister with… “Right Now”)

Ok, I drop what I am doing and I kid you not, I put that kid on the potty and she pees!

About an hour latter she says “I have to pee” and again…she does.

Now I don’t know if this happens with anyone else’s kids but with mine it happens like clock work.  First comes the whining, irritated, and generally needy kid.  Then comes the emergence of regression in behavior, I was sure we were well beyond, me wanting to pull my hair out, and wondering WTF is going on with my poor kid.  Around the time I think I am about to lose my patience I think “This always happens before a break through, I wonder what developmental, emotional, or intellectual leap this kid is about to make.”

Now maybe that is just a mental game I play with myself to keep myself from setting my hair on fire and putting it out with a sledge hammer, or running away from home to join the circus (I have one hell of a high wire act), but it works.  I steel my resolve to get this kid over what ever whatever proverbial hump they are facing.

A good 2 or 3 days into childhood insanity, it happens…they walk, they crawl, say their first words, they get a back-walk-over on the high beam, they get an A on their algebra test.

I don’t know why this happens, but in my experience it always does.  Maybe the brain can only handle so much.  But in a few days I get my old kid back and I am glad I didn’t runaway, or bash my own head in.  

If you see me in the next few days it is safe to assume I will be wearing Princess CoCo of Piss-Pot on my hip, in the sling that I thought I had put away for good.  But her pants will be dry…so it’s all good.

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Will You Wednesday: Children Aren't Puppies (revisited)

She is right, there really are NO words!   Will You Wednesday: Children Aren't Puppies (revisited)

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Lesson Learned

The other day I was talking to my mother about one of my posts, and we got on the subject of one of my biggest pet peeves in the adoption (foster care) world…

“Your mommy loved you so much she gave you away…”

“The most loving thing a mother can do for a child is to give them away…”

(Every time some one says or writes such nonsense it truly pisses me off.  Let me tell you as the one on the giving away end it doesn’t feel very loving at all.  It feels like awful, overwhelming rejection!  It doesn’t look loving on the receiving end either it looks selfish.)

It is funny sometimes I can "get" and understand my mother’s adoption issues, and I can get my foster care experiences, and I know that a lot of her pain and inability to parent come from the pain and chaos of her childhood.  Sometimes I don’t always connect the dots.

As we were talking about the fallacy of “the most loving thing a mother can do for her child is to give them away”, and what I crock we both thought that was, that I said “How many times were you told that growing up?  No wonder you kept trying to get rid of us and dropping me off all over creation, that is what loving mothers do after all.”  I was kind of laughing, because I was over come with the absurdity of it.  I don’t think my mother thought it was so funny, but what are you gonna do, it can’t be changed now?

You never know which of the lessons you teach your children are going to take hold, or how.  So keep right on saying that “the most loving thing a mother can do is give her children away”, especially if you are looking forward to raising you grandchildren too.

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At Least she's Got A Pot To......

CoCo is a good Momma

I think Mad’s cough is finely calming down a bit.  She started antagonizing her little sisters yesterday so I packed her up some cough drops, gave her some codeine and dropped her 12 year-old butt off at the bus stop…hey at least I waited for the bus to get there before I gave her the boot!  (All day I was waiting for a call and lecture from the school…something like ‘WTF were you thinking sending her here with the plague’ but alas, they kept her.  –Thank God!)

The first blog I ever read was this post Cerebral Palsy Baby in January 2009, just after bringing CoCo home from a 3 day stay at the hospital for what they called a febrile seizure.  In my heart I knew what the deal was after reading some of Shannon’s posts, but she gave me a real sense of comfort.

Which brings me to…drum roll, please – CoCo peed on the pot today!  (Not that I’m too hopeful, but she said she had to go.)  Along with all of the other stuff I was reading about CP, even Mild Cerebral Palsy and or Global Dyspraxia, I had read that potty training could be challenging because of the lack of motor control.  I have never pushed it much because I feel like kids let you know when they are ready (18 & 20 months for my other ones) at 33 months I haven’t really had the impression that CoCo was any where near ready.  Besides if you saw the video of her crawling, you may have noticed she is very unsteady, it would only take one glance down at her shoes and she could do a nice gainer right off the pot face first.  And goodness knows I spend enough time in the ER as it is! 

Amélie has decided she doesn’t want to live with me anymore; I am the meanest mommy ever!  I asked her who was gonna fix her bowls ice cream, PB&J, and go get her juice for her?  She said “MAD!  You can go and we’ll stay here!”  I think she forgot that even the meanest mommy in the world is nicer than her Big Sister.

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What's Not To Suck?

I got a comment today that said “I’m sorry your experience sucked”; I thought it was cute and sweet.

…But, for me it was not the foster care experience that sucked, it was the fact that I was there at all was that sucked.

Not that I am saying it was like going to a 7 year sleep away camp filled with fun activities…oh, maybe it was JUST like a 7 year sleep away camp.  And the best thing about it for my parents it was FREE.  Good thing they wised up and learned how to use the system between the years they sent my sister to boarding school and me to foster care.  Imagine all the extras they were able to afford for them selves with all of the boarding school tuition they saved.  

I am very grateful to all of my non-parents and the influence they had on me, most of whom were amazing selfless people, and I credit those strangers for who I am today. 

So, I didn’t have a bad foster care experience –being in foster care IS a bad experience. 

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What about U.S.?

Another illuminating post by Malinda AdoptionTalk: "Get out of my way, I'm entitled to adopt!"

"Those 100,000+ foster kids are waiting for ya'll to get as excited about adopting them as ya'll are about protecting your rights to adopt ANYONE but them!

Um, yeah, as an American Foster Care Alumni, I definitely would have preferred my life in foster care over being shipped out of my country, no matter how much junk my new family could have bought me or how much they loved me. I'm so glad you asked since US foster kids seem to be the last thing on the majority of perspective adoptive parents minds!"

"Another thought: I wonder if the 100,000+ children eligible for adoption in the American foster care system would recommend permanent foster care as preferable to adoption."
a commenter asked",

I said:

...On the other hand maybe the Swiss would be willing to take some of our foster kids, since they seem to be the last thing on the minds of most of the Perspective Adoptive Parents, here in the U.S.

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I Owe You Nothing

“I owe you nothing!  …You did what you were supposed to do!”  I love this scene from guess who’s coming to dinner, I can so totally relate.  Except for that in my case my parents DID NOT do what they were supposed to do, but expect the gratitude any way.  Oh, well...

I am catching up on some reading, I thought this was an interesting post Adopted children as emotional assets by O Solo Mama

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