Things that need to be said...

I just watched the 20/20 show tonight on foreign adoptions and reactive attachment disorder. I made the mistake of going to the website and noticing the comments section.

Quite frankly, it's amazing how many people think they have all the answers and just how far up their heads are lodged in their asses.

They talk of "Typical American Naivety", yet they don't understand how on the flipside of the coin, those of us with RAD children can see them as those typical naive americans as well.

We did the neuropsychological evaluations, we tried to find out the kids backgrounds, we did therapy, we asked for help. We did everything we could. Not because we wanted "perfect children" but because we wanted to make sure we could provide what the kids need. After all, if we weren't going to be any better than their biological parents, why bother?

These kids are my family. They are my nieces and nephew from my screwed up half sister. I called CPS year after year and nothing. In fact, only two of my calls were ever documented and I was told it was the mother's perogative to have her children living out of a car with a drug addict.

Our kids problems didn't surface until after a year and a half and they didn't escalate until after the adoption. When I started to voice my concerns I was threatened that they would be taken from me. Yes, for asking for help.

Then I was reassured that it was normal. It would pass. But after finding out my kids had RAD through a post from a person on my blog and reading about RAD. It's not true.

I battle with being able to handle these children, I wonder if I am doing the right thing for them when I can't give them what they need. There is a place that can help them for $250 a day for 18 months. I have 4 kids with RAD. How am I supposed to do that? Had I known they were going to need that I would have fought for it BEFORE the adoption when they are wards of the state and the state is required to pay for them. I wouldn't have adopted them because I would have known that I wouldn't be able to pay for their treatment therefore be unable to help them in the way that they needed. It's truly about the kids and their needs.

This is my family. My blood and it kills me to have to think that I can't do this. I can't keep the family together. I don't think it's much different for non relatives but I can't understand how there's no accountability.

People really need to keep their mouths shut when they can't understand. This life...it isn't a life at all. It's not that any one expects perfection and there is no true preparation for RAD or PTSD, ODD or any of the others. It is the responsibility of the agency to provide training for these types of things. They are failing the children and the parents by not doing so.

For me, everyday is a day of mourning for my kids. They are so young and they have been through so much and no matter what I do, I can't tell if I am getting through. If I am doing the right things, or if I am making it worse. They have lost their childhood and I foolishly believe it's something I can try to give back to them. But they won't let me. They aren't living. They are constantly struggling. It hurts more than words can ever express to see them this way and to feel so helpless and worthless because I am unable to get through, to reach them, or to let them know it's ok.

The things that were said about that family by people who have no clue and those who should know better are just plain ridiculous. RAD needs to be put out there, it needs to be addressed and something needs to be done about it before many more families are damaged beyond repair.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!



I've got my turkey brining. Hubs and the oldest made the pies and dips and a whole bunch of other stuff earlier while I was putting up the Christmas lights on the house and well...we're trying to pull it together. The oldest and I went and picked up a lot of the kitchen stuff from the storage so now my house looks like I'm just moving in. *sigh* I have a load dishes washing as I type.



We haven't heard from our realtor yet about the other house and the earnest money. But we did get an e-mail today that there is a person interested in possibly buying our house. Go figure! Our house never went up on the market and isn't for sale. I'm tempted to find out if they are serious and if they are willing to pay what we are asking for. I'm so drained with the whole thing, I don't want to get my hopes up, I don't feel I can be anything right now. I feel like it's a bad joke.



In fact I am so afraid of posting what I am thankful for because the minute it comes out of my mouth everything I say turns to shit. So just know that I am really THANKFUL. lol





Happy Thanksgiving Everyone...oh, and I can't believe I haven't done my annual turkey butter post. But yes, I secured my Turkey Butter weeks ago. lol Reading about my mission last year makes me believe I really am crazy. Oh, what I would give to have those days back when that was my greatest worry. *grin*

Just Call Me Miz McGyver

Me: Guess what's fixed?
Hubs: MS Office?
Me: no.
Hubs: Your USB?
Me: no. It's huge!
Hubs: The dishwasher? (note: yep, they broke that too and that's not even a year old either.)
Me: NO. Bigger than that.
Hubs: The back door.
Me: Geez. Thaaaaanks!
Hubs: Well, there's a lot of stuff broken.

*silence*

ARGH!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, a wire stripper, some electrical screw thingies and a massive amount of electrical tape, plus kitty supervision and the freezer is back to running. I used the concept of ceiling fan installations to figure out how to seal the connection with the wires. Sure, I'm nervous I'll burn the house down. That's why I wrapped it good and tight with a gazillion layers of professional grade electrical tape. I also rerouted the cord so that it isn't bent over a sharp piece of metal


and actually comes out of the side I think it was intended to come out of.




It is now getting icy cold as I type.

Whoo Hoo!

Strong Enough?

So, apparently the powers that be aren't done shitting on me.

I started to move along and get things back in order and I truly felt happy. It has been a loooong time but I recognized it as happy.

The other house company had decided that they would take our earnest money and pay for the majority of things except for the appraisal. Which I was so excited about it. Our realtor suggested we add the appraisal and see what they say, if not they were already covering everything else with our earnest money. Which can I just say, I totally had no problem with.

I had thought things were going better with the kiddos,except for Poufy of course. Things just seemed to be looking up or so I thought. We even went out to dinner on Friday as a family.

But then Thursday night Hubs got like the stomach flu or something, except we didn't know it. So the flu shot he got Friday probably didn't help how sick he got Friday night. Spewing everywhere...ewww.

He was sick all weekend. This means I have to be by his side constantly practically all night holding the bucket for him and cleaning him up, eww. (No he's not a momma's boy, he's a quad, in case you didn't know.)

Then on Saturday, when I went to take out something for dinner, I discovered my very expensive large upright freezer was no longer working. On further inspection, I realized that CDQ had severed the power cord. You may be asking how does an 8 year old girl sever a power cord? I asked the same question including a stream of expletives. Turns out, when you have an 8 year old begging to help you clean the laundry room and you think the safest thing she can do is sweep the floor....it's not...

I'm still unclear considering 1.) I was in the room and 2.) she only had a broom. But the fact remains that she was the only one near the freezer and all she was doing was sweeping. So now I have a heap of dead metal in my laundry room. You know what else, I think the freezer is only like 4 months old too and it was full. $%^#!

Rewind back to early Friday because I am getting ahead of myself. Friday morning I finally found the source of stench in CDQ's room. She had taken a crap and folded it neatly into Poufy's clean clothes. I should take this moment to tell you that the smell had been there for three days before I found where it was coming from and CDQ insisted she didn't do anything, even though she is now the only one staying in that room. Liar!

Speaking of Liars, I called the former adoption social worker who lied to me like crazy. Telling me that other kids lie and steal. That it's normal. She told me that *I* was taking on too much. I highlight the *I* because when I tried to talk about disruption she moved me into other areas. I want to know about disruption damn it! I asked about residential but apparently I am the problem.

Don't you know I shouldn't have a pee bucket in the rooms. Uh uh... I should pull up my berber carpet and paint the fucking floor until they get past it. Just let them piss on the floors.

Maybe I am not cut out to be a mom, or may be I just think that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. These are humans, not animals and yet we are all supposed to just put up with their shit and live in too?

I can't do that. Family or not. I refuse to. NOBODY should have to live like that.

And if my feelings above are supposed to match some table of love equivalents, then I guess I am a heartless bitch who can't love anyone or anything.

I'm tired of being steered away from my feelings. I wish I would have stood up for myself before the adoption and told them NO! MY FEELINGS ARE VALID TOO!

I need to find the strength to stand up for all of us who are living through Poufy and CDQ's destructiveness. We have the right to live too.



PS. We must've pissed off the other house people because now they aren't paying for anything and want all our earnest money.

Dusting myself off and getting back up...

I've written several posts but I haven't posted them for fear you all would think I was depressed or suicidal, which I am not. I'm not in denial either. LOL!

Today I will spend my day putting my house back in order. It is a disaster. It has been for a couple of months. First I was packing, then I didn't think I needed to, then I thought I should, hence the storage and finally I just gave up the whole deal and spent my time running around like a madwoman looking for paperwork, etc...

It's supposedly not quite over, but in my mind it is over and I guess I've known it was over for a while. If you ever come across a mortgage company called America Home Key, run like hell and never look back. They are the true reason we lost everything. They will kiss your ass like crazy until they know you chose them and then they don't care anymore. Honestly, they said they could close in two weeks and that was in August. We are almost at the end of November.

Examples, the woman putting the paperwork together did nothing, let's call her DB for the sake of clarity and what her name should really be. We did all the legwork. We had to find a licensed inspector to do a foundation inspection. Which Hubs thought he did because the woman at the inspection place said she was. I heard it. We gave that number to AHK and the DB called and set it up. 280 some dollars later we come to find out that DB never double checked to make sure we were getting the right thing that they needed on their end. Who do you think should eat that? Sure, the company lied to Hubs about being licensed or maybe they didn't, maybe they just didn't have the right license. But who should have double checked that? I would think the person who is in the field (DB) and knows exactly what they need.

So we are at the signing and we contest that fee. We think AHK screwed up. We hear the title lady telling DB since she believes she (DB) was misled and she (DB) contacted the company and placed the order she (DB) should talk to them.

Here comes the threat... well it's an invoice that needs to be paid or else they can put a lien on their house. The poor title company lady said "Well, nobody wants that."

After we cancelled everything we get a call from an AHK "partner" letting us know that the guy who signed us up was in the hospital having surgery...blah blah blah. He wanted to know what went wrong and why we cancelled but he made sure to drop that little tidbit about not wanting to have our house auctioned off for back taxes.

Uh...let me just take a moment to say "Fuck you sir."

I feel really bad and sorry for people who are losing their houses and the way people must treat them. We have been treated like we are at the brink of losing everything by idiots who have no clue. We are fine. We aren't about to be foreclosed on, we don't have creditors chasing after us, and we are not even late on any payments for anything. But they tried to threaten us. Well, wait, I take that back.

One good thing that came out of this is that we found out our taxes weren't being paid with the mortgage like we thought they were. So we are behind on taxes and they tried to use that to threaten us and intimidate us into signing their bad loan. I ain't worried about it.

I'm just going to call the nice people out there in property tax land and see what I can do about it. They were really nice when they told me I was an idiot and that I should have been opening the notices I was getting every year. ( I am an idiot, I opened the first one and thought it was all good and any ones like it, I never opened, just put them aside thinking it was better that way so they would be all together.) At any rate, I don't think our house will be auctioned off or anything, our taxes aren't that bad, even three years later. *blush* It will take a good chunk of our money, no doubt, but I already did our Christmas shopping a month ago-- yep, sure did!

I guess I should start on getting my act together for Thanksgiving. I have the turkey and the pumpkin for the pies...

It's not bad... It could be worse,we could be in trouble. We could be losing everything, not just our sanity.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Lisa. So here it goes...

The Rules are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules. (check)
2. Share seven random or weird facts about yourself. (check)
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post with their links. (uh oh...7)
4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven random/weird things...

1.) I'm addicted to Sonic Cherry slushes WITH whole cherries. I have been known to send it back for more cherries...if I can see them put them in. lol

For the record, my slush from yesterday had 14 cherries in it. *sigh* I *heart* happy hour.

2.) Speaking of Happy Hour, I've never drank any kind of alcohol in my whole life by my own personal choice I made when I was young.

3.) I have no family, except for 1 sister that I keep in touch with. But it doesn't seem like a sister thing...more of a friend thing.

4.) I think I have RAD. Relationships are something that I am not good at. I don't like to be around people. I don't even like to drive by the crossing guard in the morning when I drop off my oldest at school... because he's going to wave and smile at me and expect me to do the same. (weird, indeed!)

5.) I don't use my real voice. My real voice is really soft and low. I got tired of being ignored so I started projecting it and now when I talk, I talk from my stomach up. Like pushing my voice out. Weird, I know...

6.) I got married in my church wearing jeans and a veil. I had been postponing our wedding date forever (hey, I was proud that I was even looking for an actual day. I never got that far in my other engagements.) I told myself I was setting the date and it was a done deal, no exceptions.

Well, shit. Turns out 4 of my kids were having their baptismals a week before. I had no money back then and I had to make 3 of the girls dresses. Did I mention, I had never sewn anything in my life before? Well, I got their dresses done in time AND I still had to work on mine.

The night before my wedding I was working on the last piece of my dress, the zipper, it would not sew on right to save my life. I tried all night and I cried all night. I had worked on it all week. What made me cry was the spiders. I had finally found respite for the kids and was able to work on the dress that night after I dropped them off. I picked up my dress and set it on my lap with the zipper and started to get to work. This big thin spider (a daddy long legs maybe?) crawled out from inside and came out with like a dozen babies trailing behind it. I freaked!

I jumped and apparently they bit me because the rest of the night I had the chills and I felt like I was burning up.

Hence, just leaving and going straight to the church in the clothes I was wearing. When I got home I crashed on the couch only to discover while I was sleeping my cat (Purries) thought she needed to rip my veil to shreds. Lovely, no?

Good thing I am not superstitious.

7.) I love my Hubs madly and deeply but he doesn't even know it probably. I won't show it. He hurt me really bad in the beginning of our relationship and I started distancing myself and then he almost died and I cut myself off. I try to let my wall down but it's just so hard. Which is one of the reasons for # 4.

Ok, so, seven people might be tricky for me. Especially since I looked in my google reader thing and see a bunch of tagged posts. lol

1.) I tag Kether this one should be easy for her. LOL
2.) Do cats count?

I'm telling you, I do read blogs. I have 41 feeds that I am moving from bloglines to google reader... but I just started commenting... Is it rude to tag people you stalk lurk?

How about this... I tag you! I'll even change the rules a little (yes, I do think I am that special that I can just start changing the rules. )

Just leave your strangeness in the comments.

How's that? That way I can tag Hubs too!

You're it!

Maybe the fat lady hasn't sung?

I don't want to get too excited over this but it appears it may not be over with the house situation.

I think I'll know more tomorrow. But if this could work out, it might just be win-win.

I'm not holding my breath on it though.

But then again, it's not over til it's over.

Ok, so I am a little bit excited. It's what I had hoped for when we first thought of selling the house. But I know I am pushing it. But still if it could work, it's a possibility...

I truly hope this is what God had in store for us.

Sorry, I know I'm rambling but I don't want to say too much until I know more for sure.