October 26 - A Comment from a Dad

From an Adoptive Dad of Multiple Kids with Special Needs 

When asked about how he feels about society's vision of large adoptive families with children with special needs, one adoptive dad very frankly shared this from his heart to a group adoptive parents. The other adoptive parents appreciated his insight and validation, but felt that we aren't the only ones that needed to hear this. Written candidly, here are his thoughts:

The general population of America is mostly ignorant and oblivious to the reality of anything beyond what they have seen/experienced in their lives. While I acknowledge that having multiple adopted children is unusual, I do not worry about, nor am I offended by the general idiocy we face as a family. In my opinion, adopting multiple special needs kids will teach several lessons: 

1. Who your real friends (and family) are. Many friends and family can't handle "it". In my opinion that's their problem and if my life is too much for them to handle they can pound sand. I've got too much going on to baby them. Fish or cut bait, all I've got to say about that. Go for quality friends, not quantity. 

2. There is more to life than the McLifestyle. We have a lot of friends with two kids, three cars, big TV and a big fancy house in a neighborhood of houses that look exactly the same. Most of them are up to their eyeballs in debt. They can keep that life because self-glorification just isn't for me... (yes there is some generalization here, but not much). The reality is that special kids don't belong in the McLifestyle - and that's NOT a bad thing. 

3. Do what works for you. (And no one can tell you what that is.) I don't know why people love to give unsolicited advice. But man it's annoying when a one-child mother of a one-year old tries to act like she's "been there, done that." when it comes to our lives and our family. (The caveat to this is older grandmotherly women who raised large families - they're like the Oracle in the Matrix.) The only person who can make good judgements for what your children need is the parents - everyone else should just shut up and stand aside. 

4. "Let me know what I can do to help" = "I don't really care enough to really help, so I'm just throwing out this bone knowing that for you to call me would be to admit that I'm right about adopting all those kids being a mistake." Boy this is common isn't it folks? If a friend shows up at your door with brownies, they're golden. If they show up with a mop bucket and cleaning supplies, they're your best friend (or a maid.) 

5. Accept the fact that some folks just can't fathom what you do. They'll try to do the math, they'll try to figure out how you fit in the house, how you make the meals, how you handle the medical needs, etc. The reality is - we just do it... we don't think about the math, we don't wallow over ourselves when we deal with medical issues. One foot in front of the other every day... it just happens. 

Final caveat - I've found that it is important to surround yourself with people who understand and accept you, your family, and the special needs of your children. For us this has created an environment of stability and safety that helps our children grow and develop. We have a strong support system through church and (parts of) our family.

October 25 - Staying Busy

I was hoping to have some good adoption news to share today. But I don't have any news at all. Figures, right? I figured I might not hear anything, so I tried to stay busy.

It's fine for me to be busy when Ralph is at school, so I try to get as much done in the mornings as possible. He's really a good boy, don't get me wrong. He plays with Ruby and watches his favorite shows on Netflix in the afternoon.

But...

Ralph knows. He knows when I'm preoccupied and that's when he makes his move. That's when he disappears. Poof! Gone!

One day we looked for him for 20 full minutes. Upstairs. Downstairs. Garage. Front yard. Down the street. Finally we found him in Boo's closet, under some clothes, drinking a juice box!

Today he got into my bedroom and found my toy stash...toys that I have picked up on clearance and have stashed away for Christmas and birthdays. He was so excited!! What could I do?

I broke out the philips head screwdriver and the AA batteries! It was almost as fun as Christmas morning, except that no one took these toys away in order to shove yet another present in their faces. It was precious.

A new batch of granola...one of my projects today.

My kids are cereal pigs. I try to keep cereal stocked, especially when I can match coupons up with a decent sale. My stockpile has recently been exhausted and I haven't found any great deals lately. Maybe I'm just too busy to look?

Anyway, I have planned to make our own granola for awhile. I even ordered a 50 pound bag of organic rolled oats from Azure standard about a month ago. I'm serious!

I found a nice simple recipe and made it my own. I use good quality ingredients. I hate the idea of my kids eating soy anything, canola oil, high fructose corn syrup or preservatives. So here is what I came up with:

18 cups of organic rolled oats
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
6 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup melted coconut oil
2 cups honey
6 tsp vanilla
optional: nuts, dried fruit

Thoroughly mix the oats, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. In another bowl, blend the coconut oil, honey and vanilla with a hand mixer. Pour the oil and honey mixture over the oat mixture and mix completely. Spread the sticky granola mix in an even layer on a cookie sheet. This recipe will cover 4 cookie sheets. Bake at 300F for 10 minutes. Take out and stir. You may add nuts at this time. Bake for 7 - 10 minutes longer, or until the granola looks toasty. Take out and stir, add any nuts or fruits that you like. Let the cereal cool completely, break up and store in an airtight container. Shh! I use plastic ziplock bags. :)

My big kids absolutely would not wait for this to cool. They all had yogurt with hot granola for an appetizer tonight! I'll let you know how long this recipe lasts.

October 24 A Week of Firsts

We have had a wonderful week of firsts around here!

I got this note from Theo's teacher yesterday, "Theo ate lunch in the lunchroom with the gen ed.kids today. He did such a great job. We will start having him eat in there unless we are really working on a skill."

So what, right? He ate in the lunchroom, big deal. You cannot even fathom what a big deal this is unless you have spent time with Theo. For as long as I have known him, he has been OBSESSED with food and water. He has a history of grabbing food from anywhere he can on impulse. He hangs around the stove, he has grabbed fistfulls of food off of other people's plates to many times to count. Grabbing food, throwing dishes, dumping drinks is all typical behavior for him...driven by obsession and lack of self control. 

I actually wept when I read that note from Theo's teacher. For him to have developed enough self control to eat in the lunchroom with other children is a miracle. 

Zhen had a big first this week, too! He went on a field trip with his kindergarten class!!

This one got me a little choked up, too. Zhen went to the pumpkin patch with his regular ed kindy class at school. He got to eat a sack lunch, play in the dirt and brought home two cute little pumpkins! This is just so far removed from his former life that it blows my mind. I'm so thankful that he has the opportunity to go to school and participate in these events alongside the typical children at school. 

I wanted to share this story before, but I'll do it here. I was helping Zhen participate appropriately in Sunday school a few weeks ago. He had been in an unstructured play room at church for too many months, and it did him no good. Taking the boys to church is really stressful, but I'll talk about that another time. Just know that I was feeling pretty blue that first day back in the classroom with him. I was helping Zhen with his coloring and making sure that none of the crayons got eaten, when the last girl to arrive sat down to color her lesson page. Zhen was grumpy and noisy. The girl looked up from her work, and noticed him, and very matter of factly said to the whole group, "hey, I know you, Zhen. He's in my class at school."

She didn't say anything else. She didn't have to. Those simple and pure words of acceptance healed my hurting heart that day. 

And finally, my little Boo had a great big first this week, too!!

Out of concern for my nine year old daughter's rapid development, I signed her up for Girls on the Run this fall. This is a confidence-building program for young girls that incorporates running. The program culminates with a 5k run in November. Daddy has signed up to be her running buddy, an encouraging runner to stay on pace with her throughout her 5k on race day. Since he couldn't be with her for the practice group run, he took her out for a 5k run last night.

I was so proud to hear that she completed the 3.1 miles with her daddy without stopping to walk one single time! She was so bubbly and cute when she tole me, "daddy encouraged me the whole time. He told me I could do it!" 

So now I'm crying again, thinking how special it is for Boo and daddy to have each other. What I wouldn't give to have had a daddy like that for my very own! What a difference a daddy can make.

Sorry about that...

I just about fell off the face of the earth there for a moment.

The past month has been unbelievably stressful and blurry. Homestudy, immigration approval, four trips to Topeka, one trip to Kansas City, calling my social worker over and over for new copies, hunting down notaries on a Sunday, 25th high school reunion, no sleep, driving, puke, rental cars, notaries, tears, grandma's memorial service, tears, driving, poop, laundry, emails, more documents, you get the picture.

In the middle of the storm I experienced some real love and encouragement. We received some of the most heartfelt donations ever...one out of the blue from a high school acquaintance, one out of the blue from a long lost high school BFF, one out of the blue from a current dear friend.

Another dear friend was available by phone to help me figure out paperwork, shipping, and talk me off ledges in general.

I got to hang out with my cousin and his sweet little son. I got to cry with and love on this devoted dad and enjoy watching him care so tenderly for his little boy.

I got to watch my childhood girlfriend walk her handsome son out onto a football field and cried with her as he was named homecoming king! I got to hug her tightly later and do some catching up.

I learned a few things, too. Things that I though I knew. I'm not good in noisy crowds, just not my element despite the crew that lives in this house! I learned that I'm not in control. Really. How many times to I have to learn that one?

I'm looking for some more positive adoption news this week. But if I don't get good news I won't be surprised. I won't be crushed either. God's in control, not me. I'm just along for the ride. Storm or no storm.

October 19 - Special Guest Post

Hi! My name is Angela Kosmicki and I am married to Steven Kosmicki. We have been married for 14 years and have 3 amazing kids. Jonathan is 12, Katelyn is 11 and Mackenzie is 10. When I was 25 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had to have a hysterectomy. My heart was broken when this happened because I realized that I would never be able to give birth to another child. I prayed about it and I realized that I just because I couldn’t’ bear a child, I could always adopt. There are so many children that need lifetime mommies and daddies. My husband and I have talked and prayed and we do really feel GOD is calling us to adopt and love more children. Steven has been in the Air Force for 11 years and we love this lifestyle. The reason we need this $3000 is because Steven is leaving for deployment in 11 days, and will be gone for 4 months. We need to get the lawyers paid this amount before we can start any of the paper work with the birth mother, so that Steven can sign all the necessary documents. I have ran my own in home daycare for 10 years now, we love having lots of children in our lives. I have had children living in our home on different occasions while parents are deployed or just having financial hardship. I have helped out a dear friend of mine when she went through a financial hardship, she didn’t have electricity or running water for her children. They were getting baths from a neighbor’s water hose, so we volunteered to take her child in until she could get back on her feet. He lived with us for 5 months and we loved every minute of it. We also have enjoyed having another child live with us for 6 months while her single mom had to go on a deployment with the military because her family wasn’t able to help her out. Our whole family loves having lots of children in our house.

We were blessed this past week by a wonderful person asking us to take her children in as our own. Here is our story. The birth mom is an 18 year old girl that is a senior in High school. She was kicked out of her parents’ house when the parents realized she had a “baby bump”. Her parents told her that she was dead to them and to never return. The birth mom started staying at friend’s house from that day on and continued to go to school and keep up her straight “A” grades. She didn’t know what to do or where to go, so she went through her pregnancy with no prenatal care. Her water broke on 10-10-12 and she thought something was wrong with the baby because she didn’t feel any movement, so she went to the hospital. The hospital staff hooked her up to the monitors and they realized that there were 3 babies! One of the babies was transverse. They took her in to perform an emergency c-section to deliver the babies.

The birth mom had been undecided on her decision of adoption for a few days, until Thursday October 11, 2012 the babies’ father came to the hospital to see the birth mom and babies. There was a heated discussion and the dad was arrested. He is currently on a non-bondable hold in the county jail. On Saturday October 20, 2012 the birth mom tried to call her mom to see if her feelings had changed. Her mother proceeded to tell her that her children were bastard abominations of Satan and that she should get rid of them as soon as possible. She then proceeded to tell her daughter (the birth mom) that she is dead to them and not to contact the family again. The birth mom got upset at this conversation and decided that she wanted to give the babies to a family that would love them and never show them the kind of anger and hate that her mother had shown her. She was so distraught over her conversation that she checked herself out of the hospital and gave one of her friend’s temporary guardianship of the boys until she could get the adoption finalized.

On Sunday October 13, all 3 boys were flown to a bigger hospital because they became very ill and remain in intensive care isolation today. The pediatricians cannot figure out why all 3 boys are so weak and not gaining weight. On Monday October 14, the birth mom started back at high school again but midday she passed out and had to be rushed to the hospital. The hospital staff couldn’t control her bleeding which resulted in her having an emergency hysterectomy. When the birth mom woke up on Tuesday she was complaining of a severe headache, they did a CT scan and found she had a brain bleed, then on Wednesday they found a blood clot in her lung. The hospital staff started her on a blood thinner which made her bleeding severe again. The doctors seem to have things under control for now.

The triplet boys are still in the hospital in isolation and cannot be held or loved on due to the illness. So they are just laying there without a mom or dad supporting them! We have always wanted to adopt, but we were going to wait until my husband got back from his deployment so we could save all the money from his deployment for all of the adoption fees. Since he is leaving in 11 days, we don’t have enough time to come up with the money. I believe with my whole heart that God has brought this family into our lives so that we could be their forever family. It makes my heart so sad knowing that the only thing holding us back from being mommy and daddy to them is the money.  I want so badly for these boys to be ours, and I believe that GOD will allow this happen because he is SO very good!!

Thank you for reading our story. ~ Angie

**************************************This faithful family needs $3000 fast to expedite the adoption paperwork so her husband can sign them before he leaves! This opportunity fell into their laps and they said "YES!" to God in faith. Donations through this link are tax deductible.

http://gracehavenhome.com/?page_id=4

October 10

Ralph at the age of six months or so. Still so squishy-cute. Still loved and doted on by everyone. Still insulated from the big bad world.

I was prepared to fight for him, to the death if necessary, for his inclusion and acceptance. But I wasn't really concerned at that time. We still had time, right? He wouldn't be in school for years, right?


Well, I learned early and at a place that I never would have expected, that inclusion and acceptance don't always come easy. Can you guess where?

October 9 - Brotherly Love

Today was the last middle school cross country meet of the year, the league meet. I like to attend as many of my children's sporting events as possible, especially when dad can't be there.

Ralph and Theo had their therapy at Heartspring this afternoon, and Ruby always comes along. Since we were already on the other side of town, my plan was to stop at the meet before heading home. I had grandma coming over to care for the other kids after school.

We did a quick trip to Sam's Club for dog food and snacks before driving to the coliseum. When I opened the back of the van to load the dog food I saw, to my dismay, that the stroller was not there! Heavens! How could I take those three little kids to the meet without a stroller? Could they even walk that far?

Well, we managed. Theo wanted to sit and play in the grass...or the gravel...or the asphalt...wherever we were, he wanted to sit and lick it, grab it, or fiddle with it! I carried him a little way, but mostly I strenuously insisted that he walked, meaning that I was often holding him by one arm as he lifted his legs and refused to walk.

Thomas ran a great race today, a personal best by about 20 seconds! After the run, he shared snacks and drinks with the little ones.

Thomas knows how to keep Theo from dumping the whole water bottle on his head. 

And he knows when to put it away.

And he's not embarrassed to be hanging out with babies, eating animal crackers when his friends are watching. He is the kindest, and coolest 7th grade boy in the universe. Love these kids. Love my life!