Adoption Update

We met with our adoption worker Erin this week. I have a bunch of paperwork today but she's met AJ and I've done my fingerprint check so we're on our way!

When I became a foster parent I had to be fingerprinted and checked. Now that I'm adopting a child out of foster care, I have to get fingerprinted and checked again! That doesn't make any sense to me!

On other news... I got my cell phone bill and was surprised to see $140 in charges I never made. All the charges were on the day my phone was stolen. I'm on the phone right now with my service provider...they better remove these fraudulent charges!

Adoptive Mom to Be!

Well, it's finally happening!

The adoption worker from the state talked with me today. We set up our first meeting for Monday!!!

Things should move pretty fast from this point so I'm still hoping to have the adoption finalized by the beginning of summer. At this meeting the adoptions worker will give me AJ's file as a disclosure to the pre-adoptive parent. We'll go over the adoption support stuff. She'll direct me to go get FBI finger printed. I'll find out if I need a new home study. All sorts of stuff.

Yippee!!

This is really good news since AJ had a really bad visit with her birth mom yesterday. Her mom hasn't seen AJ in 6 months and she comes to the visit drunk. Amazing. On the one hand I'm calloused and angered by the birth mom's actions. On the other hand, I realize what a powerful hold alcohol has on this woman's life.

AJ was understandably quite upset by the visit though she was very happy to see her mom and they did share a few laughs together.

The next visit is not until September and will be under the open adoption agreement. Which means that I'll be the supervisor. And if birth mama comes drunk, this mama's going to go into serious mama-bear mode to protect my child!

Great Weekend!

As Jenn so generously reminded me, I have not been keeping up with my blog. So here's some news and highlights.

This weekend was quite a doozie. Someone broke into my house while we were sleeping and stole the contents of my purse and went through the file drawers in my desk. The first thing I heard about it is when I got a call Saturday morning from the police department saying they had some of my "personal effects" and had I experienced a robbery lately?

Yeah, that'll wake you up in the morning.

So another thing to keep from AJ. Since the robber took the contents of my purse but left my purse in its usual spot (!), I didn't realize I had been robbed. Anyway, I woke up Andrea and took her to a very compassionate friends house on the pretense I needed to shop for a surprise for her. I called my mom and sent her on and Easter basket hunt and spent the rest of the day giving a report to cops, changing the locks, canceling all my credit cards, placing holds/fraud alerts on all accounts, trying to get a new cell phone, etc., etc. So all was well on the surface when my friend brought AJ by later that afternoon.

That afternoon I got food poisoning so I laid on the couch a lot and I basically didn't eat until dinner today (gotta love diet 7-up and crackers!).

Helped AJ deal with the twin tragedies of a bleeding toe on her guniea pig and the death of her water snail (then lost my cookies yet again).

Went over to my parents for an Easter/belated birthday dinner of grilled chicken and potato salad (totally yummy but which I couldn't eat).

Then I desperately tried to do 8 hours of weekend office work in about an hour but experienced internet connectivity issues so couldn't send the documents I did manage to do to the office for the important meeting this afternoon.

So yeah - that was my weekend. How about you?

Monday Update - AJ still has no idea anything bad happened over the weekend - yeah! What I did manage to create for work over the weekend and this morning still enabled me to look totally prepared for my important meeting and I kicked butt! I got a new cell phone - a Motorolla Razr - ooo oooh! Was able to get some cash from the bank so I don't feel like I'm completely without resources for the next 10 days while new debit cards and checks show up. Feeling a bit better and enjoyed some leftover grilled chicken and potato salad for dinner.

Confession

OMG! She confessed!!!!

AJ has a horrible, pervasive, compulsive lying problem. She will deny taking the cookie while she's still chewing it.

A month or two ago she came to me all freaked out because she had these painful, itchy bumps under her arm. Well, low and behold, there's a shaving rash under her arm and no hair!

I asked her if she shaved. Oh no. She hadn't shaved, she cut the hair with scissors! I told her I didn't believe her and that it was obvious she had used my razor without permission. She yelled, stamped around, slammed the door, loudly proclaimed I never believed her, etc. And that was the end of round one.

So tonight she comes in and is worried about her arm pit hair. She's afraid it will grow so long and never stop and people will see (remember, she's 10: young woman's developing body, little girl's head). I suggest I could teach her to shave. "Ehwee, that's gross mommy!" I pointed out to her she has shaved once before and I didn't believe her "it was the scissors" story and, if she confessed, we could talk about teaching her how to shave. She stamped off yelling about how I always think she's lying, she's never shaved, etc., etc. Hmmm. End of round two.

So tonight during bedtime prayers she asks God to forgive her for lying to mommy. And, after tuck-in tickles, she says she wants to tell me something - "very big honesty". After lots of hemming and hawing and a long irrelevant story about calling another kid a name while playing tetherball, she finally confesses.

YEAH!!!!

It is so sweet to watch her heart grow and change.

I don't get her

AJ get frustrated VERY easily. When confronted with any new task she immediately says she can't do it, gives up, and walks away. If pushed a bit she gets frustrated, defensive and angry. If cajoled, teased, mollified, encouraged, persuaded, etc she might try but still with lots of frustration.

For example, AJ has been playing violin since Sept. She loved playing in her Christmas concert and performed very proudly for the family on Christmas day. Well, now it's time to learn new songs. Instead of being eager to learn something new, she "practices" all the old songs. When I sit down with her and break down the new songs note by note (let's just play this first note, D. OK let's just play the second note, E) she becomes hostile, disrespectfully and bit verbally abusive.

this is not ok behavior in my book. I get that learning new stuff is hard. I get that it's frustrating. I even get that she has self-esteem, self-concept issues. But to not even try? That I don't understand.

Today we went over to my parents house to clean. AJ was vacuuming. The study had a bunch of books of the floor so she skipped it. And when I asked her if it was done she lied and said she did it. And when I showed her why I new she was lying (obvious dirt still on the carpet, no vacuum tracks), told her I wouldn't be mad and invited her to just say she hadn't done it yet she yelled and stormed about proclaiming her innocence. Difficult task = no trying and lying about it.

I'm really at a loss about this. Even the neurophsychologist who just did a bunch of testing on her called her "rigid". Learning how to approach new tasks is a fundamental skill. How I'm going to help her learn this without loosing my cool or my mind remains to be seen.

Love my child

I love my child - I really do. But sometimes I could strangle her - she is soooo stubborn! This must be a test mommy's patience week.

Earlier in the week the 15 minutes clean out the guinea pig cage turned into 2 hours. The 45 minutes of weekly chores stretched to 8 hours!!! She's been so slow all week that she hasn't done her required 30 minutes of reading so she has 3 hours of reading to do today!!

(Internal mantra: I love my child. I will not be upset by her choices. I love my child. I will not allow her to get to me. I love my child. I will not loose my cool over this!)

=-)

Done Deal!

Well, I'm the proud new owner of a 2007 Kia Rondo. Pictures will follow but since it was dark when I got home, there didn't seem to be much of a point.

It's an LX V6 in Navy Blue with a gray interior. It has only 10,000 miles and it still under a 5 year, 60,000 mile manufactures warranty. You know, I've never had a car with a manufacturer's warranty! I love the fact that it's blue. I test drove three cars and sat in a half a dozen other models. The Rondo fit me and my needs the best. To get it in a color I like is such a sweet, unexpected plus!

It's looks kind of small from the outside but I picked up my friend and her two sons for a test drive and it holds 5 comfortably. There is almost as much cargo space as my Passport. The second row folds flat for a very large cargo area. The visibility is great from both the front and back seat. In fact, I'm thinking about tinting the back windows to prevent some of the solar gain in the summer and help AJ who seems to be pretty sensitive to sunlight.

It has all-wheel drive, 8 air bags and Electronic Stabilization Control which, when I learned what ESC was, would have been very nice earlier this week. I think I'm getting a lot of car for the money.

They dropped the sticker price by a couple thousand for me and I financed at 5.5% which seemed to be the lowest in our area. I will forever sing the praise of Hertz Sales and Service. They really have done a fabulous job taking care of me this week. I had a great sales guy named Joseph - super easy to work with, no pressure, let me take test drives on my own for hours at a time... Just a really good experience.

I haven't heard from the insurance company but no matter what they do, I'd still be getting a new car. I'll never drive the Passport again. And Hertz dropped the price some more to get the deal done today, so I'm pretty satisfied with the financial price. Can't say that I'm happy since I now have a car payment for a few more years! But, all in all, a good day's work.

It's very nice to have it done and over with. Hopefully this week I can get everything finalized with the insurance company.