When will I ever learn?

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Yesterday more kids had colds. The last time I left my little Miss B. alone in her room, she wreaked havoc in there. This time, I left a slightly older sister with her, but one with RAD too. I thought perhaps the older one would keep an eye on Miss B. and all would be well. I know it is easier to pull someone down a flight of stairs than to pull them up, but I pushed the thought out of my mind…mostly because I saw a day without having to be hyper vigilant about watching Miss B.

My mistake.

By the end of the evening Miss B. had her sister doing all sorts of things that she NEVER does! I have no choice but to bring Miss B. out of her room so that I can supervise. I get so weary doing this and doing it alone most of the time. I HATE RAD and what it does to my children and to my life. I didn’t make this mess, yet I am the one who volunteered to clean it up! So…putting two RAD kids together and expecting them to choose to do the right thing is like putting two puppies together and expecting them to house break each other!!

Later on as I was reading my new local homeschool magazine I was struck by a sentence. The article was talking about living on one income and the blessings of limitations. The author was quoting Joni Earickson Tada who was discussing Philippians 1:12-14. “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has actually resulted in  the advancement of the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that MY IMPRISONMENT IS FOR CHRIST.”  I laughed out loud…my imprisonment is for Christ!!! All the weight of the burden that I feel is for Christ!! All of the RAD I deal with is for Him!! Doing it alone every day…is for Him!! This is all to some how further His kingdom…even with my shortcomings and my failures each day…it is all for Him!! My imprisonment is for HIM!

At that moment I saw just a slight glimpse of my mission here. I understood what I am doing here with all these children, alone. I don’t know how it is supposed to look in each situation with every child and I don’t understand why I am doing this alone. All I need to know is that this is all for Him.  Epiphany…revelation…hope.

Hope to face this new day and start again. Hope to dare to love those who can be unlovable and who will probably never love me in return.  Hope that the Lord I serve will be with me every step of the way, no. matter. what.

Hope!

damazur @ January 4, 2012

Back at it..

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Yesterday we were back to part time school. It is impossible for me to jump back in full time with Grandma still here…we want to spend as much time with her as possible.

Since a couple of the kids had colds, I left Elizabeth to baby-sit them and the RAD kid who couldn’t quite wrap his head around math ( 8+0= ?) even though he was doing two digit by two digit multiplication. The rest of us went shopping and out for lunch. We had a wonderful time with Grandma and then came home and relaxed.

The puppy is back out in the “ugly” house because the kids are just too distracted to watch her. I also noticed that a couple more kids are coming down with colds. Great.

Last night I asked two boys to take the other dogs out and they went outside and fooled around like boys do when you have more than one of them together. They assured me that the dogs didn’t have to poop…and you will never guess what I found in the living room early this morning. Yep…dog poop.

So, I woke the boy up who was responsible…VERY early…and he cleaned up the mess and took dogs out for a walk to end of the field. I am NOT happy! I have read that in the tween and teen years, there is a MAJOR reorganizing of the brain, which causes children to not be able to think. They do dumb things and when you ask them why they did it, they say they don’t know. The article said that they really DO NOT KNOW why they would do something so dumb…this is because of the brain upgrade that they are getting. All children go through this, not just boys, however, it is the boys that take longer for the upgrade. In fact, I think the upgrade may not be complete in the male gender until well into the 30′s or even 40 years of age. This could explain why my husband laughs hysterically at the dumb things his boys say and do while the girls and I don’t even smile.

Time to get going today….more later.

damazur @ January 3, 2012

The Christmas Holidays!

Posted in: Adoption, Cooking for Crowds, Discipline, Family, Fun Times, Handicaps, Order, R.A.D., Uncategorized | Comments Off

I keep thinking I should write a blog post, then the kids need me or I am just too exhausted to write anything down. Today is a “free” day…nothing to do and no where to go…so I am going to try and give you a glimpse into what has been happening in our house.

My mom has been here since December 19th and I have really enjoyed her company. We have had a lot of fun since she has been here. We have been shopping, bowling, and out for lunch. We have rented movies and been shopping and out for lunch! She will be here for one more week and I wish she could stay longer.

My RAD kids are still RAD…nothing changed just because Grandma was here or because we had some special holidays. In fact, it was worse having special things. Sometimes I don’t think I will make it to the finish line. I get so tired of dealing with the lying and sneaking and stealing and I wonder why on earth I have done this to myself. I mean, I actually chose to take these kids on knowing that other families had given it their best shot and couldn’t go on any longer. What was I thinking? What makes me so special? Did I actually think that I could succeed where others had not? I wonder what is going to become of some of these children. Will I have actually made a difference in their lives? Just this morning I found out about yet another incident with one of the children who continues to be on restriction. I feel like a yo-yo…giving them a chance and then pulling them back when they mess up, giving them another chance, messing up, pulling back…like a continuous, endless cycle. And to make it twice as hard, I do this as a single parent during the week. Only God.

Steve got sick the week before Christmas, yet couldn’t stand the thought of not being here. So, he came home. He promised to wear a mask and not prepare any food. He said he felt better on Friday, so he went to work and then came home. On Saturday, both he and my mom were not feeling well. She hadn’t slept well and was light headed. They each took a couch and pretty much laid on them all day while I made Christmas Eve dinner….lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and two desserts. Christmas Eve I took the children to sing at our neighbor’s Nativity service in her barn. We had decided to open gifts on the morning of Christmas Eve to kind of keep the RAD kids off balance and it worked!! They were not expecting anything and so did not have time to sabotage anything and the other kids got the benefit of not having to wait to open gifts…a win-win situation for everyone.

I was awakened at 4:30 Christmas morning by Steve yelling and moaning. When I got up to investigate, I found him standing in the bathroom unable to move. I guess he coughed and threw his back out. I helped him back into bed, where he promptly fell asleep and there I was wide awake. So,  I made cinnamon rolls and the kids opened their stockings and gifts from Grandma. Since we were also fostering 11 puppies, the children were kept busy with new toys and taking care of puppies out in the barn.  My mom was feeling better, but Steve was worse, so he pretty much laid around while I got the ham and potatoes ready. I asked the boys to bring me in some potatoes from the barn and they discovered that “someone” left the water on and flooded the puppies out of the barn!!! I went to Steve on the couch and told him I was sorry he didn’t feel well, but I was at my breaking point now and he had better get up and do something!!!!!

We got the puppies settled into the “ugly” house out back with a heat lamp…after the girls had given all 11 a nice bath and dried them in a towel. Grandma took over the dinner while I dealt with puppies and Steve supervised the boys getting things ready in the house. He came back and laid down and then we had dinner. Steve decided he was going to be unable to drive the 2 and a half hours back to work and called in sick.

The next morning, he was still not feeling well. So, I popped a new movie in for the kids and my mom and I went after Christmas shopping. Sometime while I was gone, Steve decided he needed a doctor and since no one was open, he left for Boise shortly after we returned from our shopping trip. I was sorry to see him go, but at the same time didn’t want anyone to get sick.

On Wednesday, Grandma took everyone bowling for our 2nd annual bowling fun!! Elizabeth beat everyone with a score of 100 and some of the boys’ egos took a beating with low scores. But, everyone had fun.

Yesterday, Luc came down with a cold…great. I hope everyone else doesn’t come down with this and especially not Grandma or ME! I also got a phone call that a transport was coming to take 5 of the 11 puppies. I met the transport and handed off the puppies. Now we were down to 6 puppies and it seemed so quiet. As I was finishing up making our dinner of ham and scalloped potatoes, the phone rang again. The transport had decided to take another 5 puppies along, which left just one puppy that was already promised to someone from northern Idaho. So, I jumped in the van with the other 5 pups and headed to the shelter.

One puppy is a lot more work than 11…or even 6!!!! We had decided it would be too cold and lonely for the puppy to be out in the “ugly” house, so we tried to put her in a kennel in the house and she was miserable. In the interest of everyone getting a good night’s sleep, we put her back in the house with a couple of stuffed animals. One of our barn cats came up and we threw him in there too. The puppy was happy to have the company and settled right down by her stuffed animals and went to sleep. The cat, however, is probably scarred for life!!

Tonight is the last night of 2011 and tomorrow begins a new year…2012. We will have special food tonight and my children will go to bed at their normal bedtimes because I am not about to try and stay up until midnight with RAD kids and besides…I’m just too tired to stay up.

What will the next year bring? I’m sure there will be blessings as well as hard times.

That’s just the way life is.

More later….

damazur @ December 31, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in: Adoption, Cooking for Crowds, Family, Fun Times | Comments Off

We have so much to be thankful for this year.

All of our children are healthy.

We have a house to live in and call our own.

Steve has a job that allows me to stay home and home school the children.

We are able to reach out and help others and volunteer at the local animal shelter.

We have friends and family that love and care about us.

There are just too many blessings to count this year and even though we all have bad days, I wouldn’t trade my family for anything.

I will let you in on a little secret that I finally discovered this year. I stopped making everything from scratch. Yes…I did. I bought some Pillsbury crescent rolls instead of making rolls from scratch. I bought pumpkin pies from Costco for $5.99 instead of making them from scratch. We cut down on the amount of food we prepared for our Thanksgiving meal and I relaxed and spent time with my family. It was wonderful not to have to be working in the kitchen AND trying to supervise 10 or so children in the living room. This is the first holiday that I can remember being SO relaxed when it comes to food prep! I don’t think my family will suffer because I didn’t slave in the kitchen making everything from scratch. I think they will remember instead the times we spent playing games together or watching our traditional “It’s a Wonderful Life” movie to kick off the holiday season. In a way…it’s been kind of freeing for me. I have learned that everything doesn’t have to be perfect and made from scratch to be good!

It was Rachel’s turn to help with the turkey this year and she did a wonderful job!!! GO RACHEL!!

The finished product!

We had a wonderful meal and finished with watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” together. What a great holiday!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

damazur @ November 24, 2011

Our Work at the Animal Shelter

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Ever since we adopted a dog from the animal shelter, we have been volunteering to walk the dogs and help in any way we can. We fostered a litter of 11 puppies for a week and this week we helped set up some November/Thanksgiving pictures of some of the dogs in hopes that they can find a home a little bit faster.

Poor Bentley just wants a home for the holidays!

This puppy was part of a sibling group of 3 that were just left at the shelter over night.

All he wants is someone to love him.

The children and our dogs, Lady and Charli, got in on the action too!

We even got Officer Mani to pose with everyone.

The children LOVE our work at the animal shelter and I have noticed that everyone seems happier when they get to get out and think about someone and something other than themselves. We hope to continue volunteering at the shelter and continue taking pictures in hopes of helping the animals that no one wants!

damazur @ November 10, 2011

Doing Special Things with RAD Kids

Posted in: Adoption, Discipline, Family, Fun Times, Ghana, Haiti, Liberia, Order, R.A.D., Sierra Leone | Comments Off

Last night our church had a special “game night” where we all came for dinner and then played games afterwards. Dinner was our choice of taco salad, hard shell tacos, or burritos with all the fixings AND dessert! Usually I stay pretty low key when it comes to special things we are doing so that my RAD kids can’t sabotage themselves or us, but they knew all week we were going to game night.

Everyone was looking forward to going and sure enough, yesterday morning there were several who intentionally sabotaged themselves to see what I would do. They know by now that I do what I say I will do and by lunch time we needed to talk about what was happening. I told them that from that point on if anyone decided to disobey there would be NO game night. Then, I arranged the afternoon so that it would be almost impossible for anyone to mess up!! I realize that they could have if they had really wanted to, but I also knew that they really wanted to go, AND I  knew that once we were there, they would behave very well.

We had a wonderful time of fellowship with the folks that were there and the kids enjoyed all the games. All too soon it was time to leave and as soon as we hit the door, everyone got ready for bed and the younger kids went to bed. So…no chance to mess up a fun time. This morning, however, is a different story….but that’s the way it is with RAD kids.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around their need to sabotage the good things that come their way. They just can’t relax and enjoy it because they don’t believe they deserve anything good. Because some of them have come from very hard backgrounds, change is also difficult and scary. So, in order to make things good for the other kids, we generally keep everything very low key and don’t tell them what is going on until we have to. That gives the RAD kids less time to react and they generally find that they have nothing to fear in the end.

The kids are also singing in church tomorrow and giving their cardboard testimonies. It will be AWESOME!! Steve is going to say a few words about adoption and we are going to tie it all in to being adopted into God’s family. I’m so proud of my kids and how far they have all come. Each one has a story and a testimony of God’s love for them that brings tears to my eyes each time I think about it.

damazur @ November 5, 2011

What I see….

Posted in: Adoption, Africa, Discipline, Family, Fun Times, Ghana, Haiti, Home School, Liberia, Order, R.A.D., Sierra Leone | Comments Off

It is easy to get caught up in the every day teaching and training of my children and not see things that are happening right under my nose. Sometimes all I can see is the disobedience and the trails and testing as each child is trying to heal from their past hurts. But, today, thanks to my friend, Pam, I carried my camera around with me and took pictures of my children to try and see something a bit different.

We start our day with Language, Math and CursiveNaomi is amazing. She tries SO hard in all her work.

Becca is learning how to write book reports in 4th grade and it isn't easy sometimes.

While Sean always does his best, what he really wants to know is that he is loved.