Prayer Request

Friends of mine are going through a very hard time right now.  I won't share their names, in the interest of privacy.  They have six children; the three youngest were adopted through foster care.  One of the twin boys they adopted has bipolar disorder, and today had to be admitted to an inpatient treatment program.  He's five years old.  

As difficult as this decision was for them, they had to do what was best to get him stabilized, and for the safety of the other children.  I never knew until now that children could even be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, much less that it could be so, so bad.  It seems, from what I've read, that it's even more difficult to treat in children than adults.  

My heart breaks for this family.  Fortunately, they have an amazing support system, and incredible faith that God has a plan and will pull them through this difficult time.  If you believe in the power of prayer, please help me lift up this little guy and his family.  I think they could use all the prayer they can get right now.

Our Christmas So Far

It was a wonderful, tear-free weekend. I don't really have time to write a decent post right now, but I wanted to share a slideshow of our Christmas so far.

Feels like Christmas came early!

It has been a WONDERFUL day!

My husband started his new job this morning. It's part time, but it's work!

We got a new Christmas tree! I haven't put up a tree in about eight years, maybe more. Since it's our first Christmas together, and my first Christmas having a child in the house, we decided we should have a tree. So Larry got my old tree down from the attic yesterday, and last night we were going to assemble it so it would be ready to decorate with Lucas on Saturday. Opened the box - no stand. Missing. Now what? I was completely bummed.

So this evening I happened to stop in Linens 'n Things to see if they had any griddles left, since the store is closing soon. Well... just inside the door they had 7.5' pre-lit trees. They were originally $200, marked down 80% to $40. Had to get it. HAD TO. Never did go look for that griddle...

No tears at bedtime tonight!! Larry and I had a class at church tonight, so his mom babysat Lucas for us. We got home about 9:30 and he was still awake, of course, waiting for Daddy. So Larry went up and gave him a hug and a kiss, turned on his music for him, and got out of there before tears could start. And they never did. Nanny's babysitting again tomorrow night while we're at my office Christmas party. Wouldn't it be nice to have a repeat performance??

Just after 10:00 tonight I received an email from T's younger daughter. T is being moved to a rehabilitation center tomorrow, and T's older daughter may be having her baby by Christmas. What a fabulous couple of Christmas gifts for all of them!

I'd like to leave you with one final thought. With our current financial/job situation, we haven't been able to buy gifts for many people this year. In fact, I think Lucas is the only one we shopped for, and that includes not getting gifts for each other even though this is our first Christmas as a married couple. At first, this really bothered me - I love giving gifts at Christmas. But in a way it's been sort of liberating, and has allowed us to focus more on what the season is really about: Jesus. It's allowed us to take a step back and focus on how blessed we truly are. A friend of mine showed me this video a week or two ago, and I was really moved by it. It just fits so well with how I've been feeling, and so I wanted to share it here too.

In case I don't write again before... Merry Christmas, and may God bless you and your families!

Counting My Blessings

1. My husband amazes me. He loves me just as I am, makes me laugh every day, and is incredibly helpful around the house. If it weren't for the financial aspect, I could totally get used to him being at home. He does all the cleaning I hate to do!
2. Speaking of my husband... he found a job yesterday! It's only part time, but lots of people are having to take part time work right now because there's such a shortage of full time jobs. It's not enough to solve all our problems, but it'll do for now, and we're grateful for it.
3. Fall semester is almost over and I'm soooo ready for Winter break. Finals tomorrow and Friday, then I'm off til mid-January!
4. I have a job that pays well. I've been here for almost 11 years and I'm ready to move on (graduation can't get here fast enough), but in these hard economic times, when so many are out of work, I'm grateful to be employed.
5. I have great parents, stepparents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom I love very much, even if I don't call or visit often enough.
6. I have wonderful friends who have been there for me over so many years, and through so much junk, and love me even through my little quirks and scattered nature.
   
7. I am thankful that T is still with us. She is still in the ICU, had a trach tube inserted today to continue helping her breathe, and unfortunately had her right leg amputated a few inches below the knee today as well. But she is alive and we all love her and miss her and will continue to pray for her recovery.
8. I am thankful that my stepson is happy and healthy, and that we're making progress with the bedtime battles, even if it is just baby steps.
9. I am thankful for Facebook. Sound weird? I've reconnected with so many people through there and found an additional support system of other women - other moms - who can share their experiences and advice.
10. I am thankful that we have a home... a warm place and a roof over our heads. Not everyone has a place to sleep tonight.
11. I am thankful for my church and the wonderful people in it.
12. I am thankful for God, who loves me, forgives me, and amazes me more every day.

LCBC Worship - King of Heaven from Matt Goss on Vimeo.

Kids & Attention-Getters

A friend of mine is having some behavioral issues with her son, and for some reason this is stuck in my head. It's not all that relevant to the issues she's having, but it's in my head anyway, so I'll share it.

Before we got married, Larry would bring Lucas over to my place when he had him, and we'd all sit down to have dinner together. Every time we sat down at the table, Lucas, who was three years old at the time, would start to cry. It was puzzling, but even if Larry took him into the other room to talk to him about it, he wouldn't talk, just cry. The most we could figure was that he didn't want to eat what we were having. He wanted chicken nuggets & french fries, he didn't like what we were having, etc, etc. Most of the time he hadn't even tried the food yet. We weren't going to force-feed the boy something he honestly didn't like, but he had to at least try it.

One night I made chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner, for all of us. We sat down at the table, thinking all should be wonderful since this was his favorite thing, but just like before, Lucas started to cry.

I'd read about "extinction" and "planned ignoring" - completely ignoring undesired behaviors... and we'd tried talking to him, tried to comfort him in some way, but that certainly hadn't worked. We had tried before to ignore the behavior, but it worked on our nerves so much we couldn't do it. Still, we couldn't have him crying through dinner every night. We had to try this again. I said to Larry, "I-G-N-O-R-E him."

So while Lucas sat in his chair and cried, Larry and I began to eat and forced cheerful small talk between ourselves. Miracle of miracles, within a few minutes, Lucas stopped crying, played with his cup a little, and started to join in the conversation. Once his behavior wasn't getting attention anymore, he stopped it.

Has this worked with every other unacceptable behavior? I wish! But at least now we can sit down to dinner as a family without random tears.

As for the bedtime battles... we're still working on that one!

Great God

Four days ago I started a post updating my woeful Wednesday with a fretful Friday.

• How we didn't have Lucas for the weekend because he didn't want to leave his mom and wouldn't stay in his car seat (Buckle guard?? HA! I'll just climb out of the belt!). Larry finally had to just leave him there, since he can't very well drive 20+ miles with the boy not in a safety restraint. Sigh.
  
• How my car didn't start Thursday night even though it started immediately after getting a new battery Thursday morning. My husband was still chauffeuring me. Oh, and then his car sucked up $270 for new rotors. Did I mention how we have one income (plus a teensy bit of unemployment compensation) right now?
• How, more importantly, my friend T was still in the ICU, on a ventilator, in "grave condition".

I never finished the post. Just didn't get back to it. But TODAY... Oh, do I have wonderful news to report. 

Last night, much to the shock of her daughters, T came off the ventilator. PRAISE GOD!!!

Just a little while ago I had an email from T's younger daughter, saying they had much to be thankful for. Three days ago the doctors put T's chance of recovery at less than 50%. Yesterday the doctors took her off the ventilator and dialysis, and she was able to quietly speak to her family for the first time in over a week. She's still on oxygen, and there's a long, hard recovery ahead, but she is breathing on her own. 

So this Thanksgiving, T's daughters have so much extra to be thankful for. And I am so thankful for our church family, the many people who prayed their hearts out that T be healed, and God, who heard us calling.

Oh, and my car has run fine since Friday. Just like that.

That's faith, folks. Pure and simple.

God is good.

Stepmother Struggles

I became a stepmother on April 14, 2008. My husband has an adorable son named Lucas, who turned four just eight days before our wedding. Lucas and I have gotten along very well since Larry and I met, when Lucas was just a few months shy of being three years old. We have him every other weekend, and one night on the opposite weeks, and the transition to living at what was then "my" house went amazingly well.

Shortly after we got married we went to Lucas's mom's house and had dinner with her and her fiance, so we could all talk and make sure we were trying to be consistent with things across both homes. It went very well. At that time, Lucas had been giving her trouble at night - she told stories of crying, screaming, and kicking doors. I remember being so relieved at the time that he was going to bed well for us.

A little over a month ago, Lucas started giving us trouble at bedtime. He suddenly decided he wanted Daddy to sleep on his floor, and within minutes after going to bed, he cries. Some nights it starts the minute Larry stands up to leave the room. Then the crying turns to screaming. The screaming turns to opening his bedroom door and slamming it repeatedly against the wall. It's maddening. The first few times he did this, we tried to let it go for a while, but eventually Larry would go in and lay on the floor until Lucas went to sleep - usually a matter of minutes. But he's 4 1/2 and should be going to sleep on his own. Plus, if we do something like that here, it may carry over to his mother's house, and that isn't fair to her.

Two weeks ago Lucas's mom told us the way she finally got him over this in the Spring was that she just let him scream. Last weekend we tried that. Thursday night it went on for an hour, then he apologized and went to sleep. Friday night was worse, AND in the midst of his tantrums Lucas was banging his flashlight on his door, so now it's broken. Well... he doesn't need it anyway, really. We only got it for him the week before because we found out he has one in bed at his mom's house and thought it would help, but it didn't. His lamp is on anyway, so it's not even dark in his room. After more than two hours, we had to have mercy on our neighbors; Larry finally went in and laid on his floor. Saturday night I wasn't home at first. Thankfully, Lucas was asleep by the time I got there, but it apparently wasn't pretty. He wouldn't even stay in his room, so Larry finally had to lay on his floor again. And even that didn't work the first time he tried it that night.

Every day last weekend Lucas told me he was going to go to bed like a big boy, and each of the three nights we had him it was the same thing. By Sunday morning I had to tell him I'll believe it when I see it.

We know it's an attention thing, now we just have to work through it. I've been so thankful for my friends (some of whom I only talk to on Facebook, LOL) - other mothers who've been able to give me advice and encouragement. We have a plan of attack for at least keeping him in his room, but it won't be ready until next weekend. I think Larry has resigned himself to going in and laying on the floor when we have him tonight; there's only so much we can take. Hopefully by next weekend I can also have a sticker chart and some other plans in place.

So now here we are. The visits I used to look forward to are something I currently dread. And I love this child - I really do. But my nerves are shot, and knowing what is likely coming at bedtime each night he's with us right now has me tied up in knots. Every night I just pray for a peaceful bedtime. Wouldn't it be great if that started tonight?