Fun with Lilyana

After my depressing post yesterday I thought I'd share some fun conversations with Lilyana.

Lilyana:  What's that noise?
Me:  Sump pump
Lilyana:  Washing machine.
Me:  You're right.  It's the washing machine.

On a trip to the grocery store:  I want to go to church.  I want to go to church.

At the grocery store I let her push the little cart.  She did an excellent job but every once in a while I had to help steer from the front.  When I did that she said:  Move the hand.  Move the hand.

Tonight she came up to me with a box and said "happy birthday."  The box was filled with letters.  It was not my birthday but she gave me something that was precious to her ... letters.

And finally, we have one pull up left and so we've been scrounging around the house to find anything that might work for a pull up or diaper in her size.  We have some Goodnights but they are too big for her right now.  I was surprised when I found a diaper in size 5, wondering how that had gotten past and not used.  So while Dan was putting the diaper on we found out why it hadn't been used.  One of the tabs had pulled off.  So he used packing tape to keep it on.  I tried to keep her distracted so she wouldn't get tape on her skin.  So I put a Goodnight on her head (it was clean, brand-new and never used).  She called it her monster mask. 

And we did not let her wear it to bed. 

My mood of late

Disclaimer:   I am very proud of Calsey and what she's accomplished.  She signed up for National Guard when she was 17 at the end of her junior year of high school.  She then went on to basic training and passed with flying colors.  She then worked hard to complete her senior year of high school but was unable to graduate.   She left for AIT after that and worked hard to get her GED.  She is now an active member of her Guard unit driving form Sioux City, NE to St Peter, MN to complete her drills.  She is a single mom and doing extremely well.  What I have to say next has no reflection on Calsey's choices.  It's just a loss I have to grieve and in no way do I want Calsey to feel shame or think that we are disappointed in her.  With that said:


I've been a little depressed and antisocial lately.  I realized last weekend that it is the season of graduations.  Even though I didn't feel that loss the year Calsey was to have graduated, it came fast and furious this year.  All the failure that I've taking upon myself came back to me in my failure to help my daughter graduate.  I wanted to be able to tell people and write on facebook and tweet that my daughter graduated high school and we would be holding a party to celebrate.  But I couldn't and will have to wait 15 years to be able to do that with our 3 year old.  By then all the friends my age will have adult children and we may well have drifted apart.  So that is another loss that I didn't think about that I will have to grieve about.

Another thing that has been depressing me lately is my job.  There have been some major changes, new retraining.  It is worse than prison because we cannot have paper, pens, book or calendars at our desks.  Lately the call volume has been very slow and usually we were able to read while we weren't on the phone.  But that has been taken away so we sit there waiting to take a call.  It's going to be hard to keep from wanting to quit.  This weekend I've been pondering a decision about whether to continue with this company with all the change going on.  I have a very challenging bookkeeping job at home and I really don't want to have my call center job become challenging.  After much thought and prayer I decided that I would continue working there.  I can use the down time to pray.  But I will now switch my 3 tens for five 5 hour days.  It might help with the boredom.  So until God says otherwise, I will still be working at YA.

And if that weren't enough to add to my depression is the fact that my house is a huge mess.  I feel overwhelmed (and that's an understatement) about cleaning it.  I know that there are things I cannot take care of and it's just so much that I hardly feel like starting. 

So that is honestly where I'm at.  I'm trying to figure out a way to get through this for Lilyana.  She deserves a clean house, sitting around a table as a family and parents with energy to play with her and do things with her.  Right now I feel we are old, tired and depressed parents and Lilyana deserves better.  It doesn't help that I'm in constant pain whether I'm sitting or walking.  I've also got a tingly feeling in my hands and feet and my feet are also numb at times.  So I know that I will be seeing the doctor again and again to try to get better and be able to be what Lilyana needs me to be.

I know this has been a depressing post but it's what's in my heart tonight and I needed to get it out.

Random Thoughts

New things learned this week (I know it's Wednesday but it seems like the weekend since we've been gone for the last 48 hours):
1.  Lilyana can spell her name (verbally not written).
2.  Lilyana knows to add one S to get 2 of something (we'll work on more than 2 later).
3.  Lilyana learned a new body part:  ankle.

On the way home from Zumbrota she saw a Z in the clouds.  And while we were passing through a roundabout in New Prague, she noticed that the "mighty machine" was gone.  Several weeks ago on another pass through New Prague we saw a machine planting trees in this roundabout.  She has quite the memory.

And other non-Lilyana related thoughts:  Chuck Swindoll has had a few posts this last week about the journey and wilderness on the way to the Promised Land (scroll through the archives to see other posts).  And then today my friend, Claudia, asks "What is my wheelchair? What are the things that I view as difficult in my life? Am I running away from the purpose God has for me in them? Or am I willing to accept them and grow closer to God because of them? Will I allow them to produce fruit in me? Am I really willing to participate in His suffering, as Paul wrote, in order to experience the power of his resurrection?" 

So maybe I should find joy in the journey, through the trials, aches and pains, and the hard road of relationships, instead of plodding along only thinking about the joy at the end.

Conversations and Praises

On the way to church today Lilyana talked all the way.  Some of the things she said:

1.  She sang the alphabet song several times.
2.  "Add s to cows and get 2 cowses" (sometimes she doesn't understand it's only s)
3.  She spelled her name.
4.  "Add s to Lilyana and get 2 Nanas"

It's always interesting to listen to her talk.

Praise God!  Josh Lord was in church today.  If you've been following his story you know he was on the brink of death on April 10.  He is making a remarkable recovery.  Please continue to pray for him. 

Mother's Day

I have debated about blogging about Mother's Day.  I am not a fan of celebrating people only on certain days.  My husband and I have an agreement that we do not give gifts to each other for birthdays, Mother's or Father's day, etc.  We just do not have the extra money to spend and since neither one of us has a love language of receiving gifts, we don't miss it.

I find Mother's Day especially difficult for different reasons.  When I was younger, it was difficult because I wasn't married or have kids.  During that time, my sister would send me cards on Mother's Day because I was an aunt.  It was nice to be recognized for that.  Thanks, Brenda. 

After I got married at the ripe old age of 32, it took us 5 years before we had kids.  We adopted Calsey and Seth at the ages of 11 and 8, respectively.  We were blissfully unaware of the war that would culminate in 6 years.  Adopting kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder means that Mother's Day and mom's birthday will not be reasons to celebrate.  Many kids with RAD blame the mom figure for the loss of their birth mom.  If I didn't like Mother's Day before this, I liked it even less now.

By the time of 11 years of marriage we were anticipating the birth of our only biological child.  Someone who we would be able to form into a young lady that embraced our values and respected us as her parents.  She would not know the trauma caused by abandonment, neglect and transiency.  She will be attached.  But during that same year of marriage we "lost" a son.  Because of some false allegations we were forced to terminate our parental rights to him.  So he will now age out of the system in less than a year at age 18 with no legal parents.  And while our daughter is still legally ours, we don't see nearly as much of her or our grandson as we'd like.

There is so much for me to grieve over about Mother's Day and so it still fills me with dread.  I grieve for the loss and abandonment Calsey and Seth had to suffer in their early years.  I grieve that those feelings were transitioned to me and they were never really able to see me as the mom figure that they should have.  I grieve for the hopes and dreams that I had before I had children of how the lives of those children would be.  I grieve that I was not able to hold them as babies, meet their needs, and teach them how to trust.  I grieve that Lilyana will probably never know her brother and sister like "normal" siblings know each other.  She is, for all practical purposes, an only child.  It grieves me that she will miss learning how to get along with others which is taught by having siblings.

But there is joy.  There is joy in that Calsey and Seth's birth mom gave them life.  She had another option and had she taken it, we would not have known them and been able to share in 6 years of their lives.  Through adopting them I have learned books worth of knowledge about RAD, FASD, PTSD and other acronyms.  And God, knowing we would need some serious joy, gave us that miracle baby we call Lilyana.  Had we not had Lilyana, we would have sunk into deep depression and maybe never returned after the loss of our son. 

But, now, as far as I'm concerned I have three children and one grandchild.  The older two are doing their own thing but I am still their mom and will be there for me whenever they need me.  The younger one, I hope, will allow me to be the mom I was meant to be and will allow me to guide her so that one day I can say about her "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you.  Thank you for all you do for us and the sacrifices you've made for us.

Happy Mother's Day to my mother-in-law in heaven.  I wished you could have met Lilyana.  I know you would have loved her and she you.  We miss you.

Third Birthday

I cannot believe three years has passed since we brought home our 3 lb 12 oz baby girl.  Time has passed so quickly. 

After an eventful week of illness for me we traveled to Zumbrota to celebrate with Grandpa and Grandma.  Since I had been in the hospital overnight and was pretty frazzled I totally forgot to pack church clothes so I did the unthinkable and brought my little girl on her birthday to church ... in jeans (gasp). 

Mom and I made cupcakes and since Lilyana is in love with Word World she sees cupcakes and says "share the pupcakes, don't eat the pupcakes."  

We celebrated with Grandpa and Grandma and Lilyana's great Aunt Rosella.  We had a great time.  Next time you see her ask her how old she is.  She'll say "free." 

She is so fascinated with letters.  She sorts them, lines them up.  She'll even bring letters to you and lay them.  Sometimes they will be put in the correct order for whichever word she wants but always she will have the correct letters and tell which word it is.  And she will be great at spelling bees because she always says the letters and then states what the word is.  Truck and water are two of her favorites.

We haven't made it in for her three year well check yet.  We had anticipated letting it lapse because her pediatrician told us last year that she could skip it.  But we have some things we want to discuss with him so after that's done we'll have a new weight/height to update you on.

But until then we'll continue with reading and spelling and playing outside which are three of her favorite activities.