No one told me that my new daughter might prove to have a difficult personality.
No one told me, that life as I knew it was going to be turned upside down.
No one told me that while I might be madly in love with my new daughter, I might not always LIKE her.
No one told me that there might come a point where I would find myself at a loss on how to parent this new child.
And you know the thing is, even if anyone had told me, I would not have believed it, nor could I really understand it. Till I walked through it all myself. But to be honest, I have read many blogs, and not many of them talk about things being hard. Are we all guilty of that? Do we paint this picture that all is so perfect and happy and refuse to open that window to let anyone see REAL life? I wish more would. I wish that during these months I knew I was not alone in my feelings.
Mavery has done REALLY well. She has come a long way in these 6 months. If you read my post on her blog, you can see some of the amazing ways she has changed. But we are still working through some issues. And overall, it is not like they are HUGE things, but they do wear on me, I am not going to lie. I am sure it is the combination of things. Not hardly leaving the house, dealing with 2 toddlers day in and out, not being able to get anything done, I am sure you get the idea.
Tomorrow we are going to the adoption clinic for a "behavior evaluation", our social worker suggested we go this route. We assume that her behavior is normal, but we are at a loss on how to deal with it. She is VERY jealous of Sage. If Sage gets medicine, or a drink, or in trouble or her nose wiped and you do not do the same for Mavery, be prepared. You might get a simple temper tantrum. (and when I say simple, I am being sarcastic) you might get spit at, you might get your floor peed on.
She does not talk, she yells. Riding in the car about gives me a nervous breakdown because she screams sometimes an entire 60 minute round trip ride to school. Thankfully this is getting better, MUCH better and just happens every once in awhile now. She has no patience, and if she demands something, you have about 10 seconds to respond or watch out. She does not sit, for anything. To read, color, not a thing. She moves non stop. Like I said, it might all be very normal for a 3 year old, but I am struggling with how to deal with it and how to help the rest of the children deal with it.
We had her speech evaluated on Friday and she tested at a 2 year old level. Which I think probably proves some of this behavior, which is typical 2 year old stuff. The speech therapist actually thought she was doing well overall and we hope to avoid therapy by working on some specific sounds and letters over the summer.
So, I am anxious to meet with the doctor tomorrow and get some advice. It is hard to find a balance, you are still trying to build a bond with this child, while teaching her boundaries and to live in a family.
We deeply love Mavery and we know that God has given her to us as a gift. We will do whatever it takes to help us all work through the frustrations. We know that in another 6 months, this time of challenge will probably be just a memory and we will look back and laugh! We ask that you pray for us as we listen and learn and that God will give us an extra dose of patience!
5 comments:
I totally understand every word you say!! Ava is a year younger but we deal with many of the same problems. The car is a nightmare and she is totally bored and nothing will hold her attention.
She is a living tornado at home and I can never clean or work on anything, the boys have to do homework behind a closed locked door! She has no attention span what so ever and cant sit for 5 seconds unless she is strapped in her highchair eating. We really want to take a road trip this summer and get away for a week but I cant even imagine being in the car for more than two hours with her. TV or movies dont hold her attention so that does not even help on long trips. Anything you hand to her she drops on the car floor.
I hope it gets better with age, we love her to death but boy has it turned everything upside down in our family. There is no such thing as baby proofing for her!! ha Also at naptime and bedtime nobody in the house can make a peep. She is such a light sleeper and always on high alert that anything well wake her up and thats it!! She has been home almost 10 months and the night time routine is very hard, she just does not sleep well at night which makes for grumpy parents. :-) It is slowly getting better but not fast enough. ha I am very happy at the gift God gave us and believe it or not I really want to go back some day and do it again. Like you said in a year we will probably look back and laugh but until then some days are pretty hard.
Thanks for your honesty and if you ever need to talk let me know!
I'm praying for you Shannon - I know God will work all of this out. I'm sure things will get better when you can get out of the house! Let's just pray that is very, very soon! Give her a hug for me!
Love ya
deb
Shannon! You are not alone! My 5 year old does many of the same things. I have begun taking one problem issue a week at a time and working on that. She usually begins to get it in a few days and then the rest of the week I reinforce.
I agree it is so hard to find a balance. I think I have gotten the point across to Jorja that Mama loves even when she is time out.
We are still working on Jorja learning to let little sister help her. Oh, we get a "simple" temper tantrum when Jailyn wants to help her.
I agree- we should blog more about the tough times too. I have blogged about this and was told that I was whining.
whatever!
I am working on a new post about the good, bad, and ugly too. :)
Praying for y'all!
I will pray for you and Mavery. She looks so adorable in her pictures, it is hard to believe her behavior. But as the previous posts stated, I am sure you are not alone.
Perhaps people do not write about it, because then it would be facing it in front of everyone, perhaps it is because when we adopt we feel WE need to put our best foot forward and seem like it is glorious and wonderful so more people will feel compelled to follow, maybe, just perhaps it is because in our writing we need to escape a bit of reality and rememebr the good. Perhaps it is because we feel we should have more compassion, more caring, more love and more patience with our adopted children because the procss is not easy, it is long, it is expensive and we are supossed to treasure more these gifts that were so much more complicated to come by. Maybe it's because people in general have a notion that we adoptive parents are in some way more special, more capable and better at this whole parenting thing-and we feel we need to live up to that notion. Then again maybe it is just because we need to convince ourselves that we are doing the best we can...maybe
And by the way may I just say I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shannon I am impressed by you and your willingness to believe and to talk and share, I am impressed by the woman you have become and the woman you continue to grow into. I am impressed that you care so much about your children-no matter what and no matter at what cost and I am deeply impressed that you continue to educate yourself, and you follow throug hwith options, and that you stand up for what you know your children need and that your values are your first line of defense in raising your family. I am proud of you and your ability to use your love in such a positive way. Thank you for being my friend, I treasure the way you challenge me to be a better person!
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