Wednesday, October 1, 2014
We had to face a great battle before Samuel came home. We had to go through the most painful times in our lives before we became parents. We went through the ups and downs of adoption and we fought through them and he came home. Emma started out easy. We were already parents so the pain of barrenness was not present when we started adopting the second time. We started the adoption process in February of 2007 and we were matched as her parents in June of 2007, four month wait for a referral was unheard of! Then Emma's adoption did not become so easy and this momma went into battle. Those of you that know her story know that we actually had to get our state Senators involved to get her home. Chloe, however, was basically handed over to us. We got the call asking if we would want to adopt her because she was the sibling of Samuel. We had a little hiccup, but at the point we really didn't know anything about her and we were in the heat of battle to get Emma home that we didn't really focus on that hiccup. We officially started Chloe's adoption process in May of 2008 and that child was in in my arms November 2008. Yes, a six month adoption timeline, that DOES NOT HAPPEN! I guess because we did not have to fight for her to get home we were much more relaxed when she came into our family and it never dawned on us that she might be the one that was fighting her own battle.
From the night Chloe came home we knew that she was going to be much more strong-willed than the other two. She also displayed very common signs of an adopted child that we did not really see in Sam and Emma. She was very possessive of her food and toys and anything that was in her hand or around her. She seemed to always be looking around for possible danger or that someone was going to take things from her. I would take her plate at dinner time to get her some more and she would yell and scream and go into a panic. She also did not like to be restrained in any way. Hated the car seat, would not lay down in your arms or even have your arms around her to cuddle, and for the first month she was home she would not let us sit down on any type of furniture with her in our arms, We could sit on the floor with her, but not on a piece of furniture. I do not want to rehash all of her younger years and most of you know that she was a challenge. Many tears of failure as a mother fell from my eyes because nothing seemed to help her behavior. Over the past few years her behavior improved some as she got older. Our biggest battle was taking things that didn't belong to her and hiding them somewhere (stealing) and the most heartbreaking, lying.
This past school year was hard. From the third day of school until the second to last day was the most difficult time being Chloe's mom. I never once stopped loving her, please don't think that, but there were times I just gave up on trying to help her be better. There were months that I let Jeremy take complete parenting of her. I didn't ignore her, but he handled all the discipline and homework time because I was done doing the same song and dance. I was done having the same conversation and I was done fighting with her every afternoon when she did her homework. I know that some of her problem last year was that she had major problems with the teacher, but that could not excuse her behavior at school and it had nothing to do with her behavior at home. I also got kind of tired of people pointing out other kids at school that acted like that when I knew that those kids had a terrible family life. They were surrounded by violence and uncertainty of when they would eat next and they were possessive of their things and stole things from others because they don't have many things. My child has a good life. Parents that love her, food whenever she is hungry, and too many toys to even name, why is she acting this way.I was broken and she was broken and I didn't know how to fix either of us.
I promise this post did not intend to start this way, I guess in sharing some of the background information makes the victories of this past summer and so far this school year so much sweeter. A few weeks before school ended something happened in my heart. Chloe is my daughter, she needed me to find a way to make things better. Please, once again do not think in any way had I ignored her or stopped being her mom, our relationship was just really strained. We still had sweet cuddle moments and reading stories together, I still hugged and kissed her and tucked her into bed, but we also had conflict almost every day. One day after school I sat Chloe down and I asked her to forgive me for all the times I got angry. Jeremy and I got some Bible verses together about having a truthful tongue and being kind and we started going over them with her. Chloe and I decided that we were going to have a fresh start. We are going to forget about all that happened this year and just make it through the last two weeks of school and start each day trying to do our best and try to make Jesus happy by our actions. We made it through those last few weeks with a few days of misbehaving but we finally made it out of 1st grade. Chloe had a great summer. We had a few days that involved her completely losing it and my mom actually witnessed an episode where she was literally kicking me and throwing punches at me, but I remembered my promise to get through these episodes without me losing it as well. The truth is that the first 5 1/2 years she has been home we almost daily had something we had to deal with concerning major unacceptable behavior. This past summer we maybe had 6 or 7 times we had to work though something. We have made it through an entire month of school with ZERO times of misbehaving at school. We are so blessed that she got the teacher she got this year. This teacher is loving but structured and firm. She is exactly the type of teacher Chloe needs to succeed. I also have noticed that before and after school other kids are playing with her on the playground. Last year nobody wanted to be her friend because she was just so mean to people, so I know that she making friends at school this year. At home we are still working on always being truthful (but we all need to work on that) and she really likes to go into Samuel's room when nobody is around and take his gum, Legos, or anything else she can find. The other day we discovered that she had been sneaking gum out of Samuel's room for the last few weeks and he was left with four empty boxes of gum. I took one of the empty boxes and asked her about it. I was so calm that I think I scared her into spilling the truth :).
Before I close this post I just want to say that despite the issues we are working on, Chloe can be the sweetest of all three of my kids. She is the most helpful and you can count on her to do any task you ask her to do. She is responsible with her toys and puts them away, unlike the other two :). Chloe makes her bed every morning before school and she really does have a servants heart. Her love language is definitely words of affirmation!We started doing a short Bible study every night around 8:30 as a family and she reminds us if we forgot. She loves having that prayer time together and she always shows up with her Bible in her hand, She loves to sing and despite her struggle with speech and reading she always tries her best to read. She loves animals but we have to watch her because she wants to get right up in the animal's face and it sometimes ends badly for her. Her new favorite pastime is watching Netflix. I think she actually likes just finding and clicking on shows because she will watch 5-10 minutes of show and then pick something else :). She is also playing soccer for the first time ever this fall. She gets a little better each game, but the most important part is that she is having fun. Chloe has a great smile and laugh and we are thankful that we see a lot more these days.
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From the night Chloe came home we knew that she was going to be much more strong-willed than the other two. She also displayed very common signs of an adopted child that we did not really see in Sam and Emma. She was very possessive of her food and toys and anything that was in her hand or around her. She seemed to always be looking around for possible danger or that someone was going to take things from her. I would take her plate at dinner time to get her some more and she would yell and scream and go into a panic. She also did not like to be restrained in any way. Hated the car seat, would not lay down in your arms or even have your arms around her to cuddle, and for the first month she was home she would not let us sit down on any type of furniture with her in our arms, We could sit on the floor with her, but not on a piece of furniture. I do not want to rehash all of her younger years and most of you know that she was a challenge. Many tears of failure as a mother fell from my eyes because nothing seemed to help her behavior. Over the past few years her behavior improved some as she got older. Our biggest battle was taking things that didn't belong to her and hiding them somewhere (stealing) and the most heartbreaking, lying.
This past school year was hard. From the third day of school until the second to last day was the most difficult time being Chloe's mom. I never once stopped loving her, please don't think that, but there were times I just gave up on trying to help her be better. There were months that I let Jeremy take complete parenting of her. I didn't ignore her, but he handled all the discipline and homework time because I was done doing the same song and dance. I was done having the same conversation and I was done fighting with her every afternoon when she did her homework. I know that some of her problem last year was that she had major problems with the teacher, but that could not excuse her behavior at school and it had nothing to do with her behavior at home. I also got kind of tired of people pointing out other kids at school that acted like that when I knew that those kids had a terrible family life. They were surrounded by violence and uncertainty of when they would eat next and they were possessive of their things and stole things from others because they don't have many things. My child has a good life. Parents that love her, food whenever she is hungry, and too many toys to even name, why is she acting this way.I was broken and she was broken and I didn't know how to fix either of us.
I promise this post did not intend to start this way, I guess in sharing some of the background information makes the victories of this past summer and so far this school year so much sweeter. A few weeks before school ended something happened in my heart. Chloe is my daughter, she needed me to find a way to make things better. Please, once again do not think in any way had I ignored her or stopped being her mom, our relationship was just really strained. We still had sweet cuddle moments and reading stories together, I still hugged and kissed her and tucked her into bed, but we also had conflict almost every day. One day after school I sat Chloe down and I asked her to forgive me for all the times I got angry. Jeremy and I got some Bible verses together about having a truthful tongue and being kind and we started going over them with her. Chloe and I decided that we were going to have a fresh start. We are going to forget about all that happened this year and just make it through the last two weeks of school and start each day trying to do our best and try to make Jesus happy by our actions. We made it through those last few weeks with a few days of misbehaving but we finally made it out of 1st grade. Chloe had a great summer. We had a few days that involved her completely losing it and my mom actually witnessed an episode where she was literally kicking me and throwing punches at me, but I remembered my promise to get through these episodes without me losing it as well. The truth is that the first 5 1/2 years she has been home we almost daily had something we had to deal with concerning major unacceptable behavior. This past summer we maybe had 6 or 7 times we had to work though something. We have made it through an entire month of school with ZERO times of misbehaving at school. We are so blessed that she got the teacher she got this year. This teacher is loving but structured and firm. She is exactly the type of teacher Chloe needs to succeed. I also have noticed that before and after school other kids are playing with her on the playground. Last year nobody wanted to be her friend because she was just so mean to people, so I know that she making friends at school this year. At home we are still working on always being truthful (but we all need to work on that) and she really likes to go into Samuel's room when nobody is around and take his gum, Legos, or anything else she can find. The other day we discovered that she had been sneaking gum out of Samuel's room for the last few weeks and he was left with four empty boxes of gum. I took one of the empty boxes and asked her about it. I was so calm that I think I scared her into spilling the truth :).
Before I close this post I just want to say that despite the issues we are working on, Chloe can be the sweetest of all three of my kids. She is the most helpful and you can count on her to do any task you ask her to do. She is responsible with her toys and puts them away, unlike the other two :). Chloe makes her bed every morning before school and she really does have a servants heart. Her love language is definitely words of affirmation!We started doing a short Bible study every night around 8:30 as a family and she reminds us if we forgot. She loves having that prayer time together and she always shows up with her Bible in her hand, She loves to sing and despite her struggle with speech and reading she always tries her best to read. She loves animals but we have to watch her because she wants to get right up in the animal's face and it sometimes ends badly for her. Her new favorite pastime is watching Netflix. I think she actually likes just finding and clicking on shows because she will watch 5-10 minutes of show and then pick something else :). She is also playing soccer for the first time ever this fall. She gets a little better each game, but the most important part is that she is having fun. Chloe has a great smile and laugh and we are thankful that we see a lot more these days.
Miss you guys--Chloe too!
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