low on compassion and high on frustration

Usually I try to wait to write a blog post until my frustration has decreased and I am in a calm state. I am not there yet and this post might end up being a mistake later. We will see.

I have been at home all day with little girl after she threw up twice in the middle of the night. No fun being sick and no fun cleaning up puke in the carpet, on the blankets, in buckets, in the bed and on the clothes. Yuck. The up side is that there was no visit with birth mom today. And no subsequent regression of behavior. Yay! I don't think we will have any visits for the next 3 weeks and that leads me to hope for no more visits indefinitely and hopefully a continual recovery from neglect and emotional abuse for little girl. There will be no visit this week due to sickness and none next week because we are taking little girl on our family vacation to Phoenix. Then there will be no visit the week after that because of mom's next court hearing.

I am frustrated by a misbehaving child who hasn't really acted sick all day. Unless her sickness is causing her to misbehave and have lots of peeing issues. They could be related but I am out of compassion. I have done countless loads of laundry today and it wasn't to wash the full hampers in our house. That laundry will have to wait while the pee and puke laundry is taken care of.

Bryan is hopefully having fun with the boys while I continue to be at home. We had about 2 hours of off and on screaming from 4-6pm with 2 peeing accidents on the carpet. Little girl has been really good about not peeing on the carpet or furniture, surprisingly, so that has made that a little harder to deal with today. I really do know that potty training can be much worse because it was with my two boys. She has been relatively easy to train but today was no fun. I had enough and a pull-up is now being used. I do not plan on regretting that later.

It is really hard to express the frustration and stress level that is induced in our house because of having our first foster child in our house. People see her at school, church or out and about and they think she is a little odd but still cute and wonderful. She is not cute and wonderful very often. That is the exception. She has induced a lot of problems in our family life and it is hard, very hard to not take any of it out on her. Sometimes I am able to blame the birth mom for little girl's problems but that is not easy. I know I need more compassion for little girl and in my best moments, God comes through with more compassion than I could ever muster up. Right now I am out of compassion and need a break. I am looking forward to escaping to the grocery store once Bryan is home. Who knew that grocery shopping could feel like a reward!

bottles and attachment

So my judgment is still pending about my latest idea with our little foster girl. I bought baby bottles. I have read in multiple places and been encouraged by multiple people to try bottle feeding with little girl. We know she has been neglected and was not well cared for as a baby. She acts like a baby often and wants us treat her like one more often than we would like. The experts are telling us that is encouraging because she is trying to form attachment to us. I am not convinced but they do know more than I do about this. So I have tried a bottle twice with different feelings about it. I think it is good for her and will keep trying but not sure for how long. One bottle a day is good for her to be held and good for eye contact and good for her to get the nutrition of milk in her body. She does not drink very much and could use some more hydrating so the bottle feeding is helping with that too. She is not the biggest fan of milk so I wonder if that is because she wasn't given that much of it...who knows.

We continue to work on attachment with her, which really just means being very intentional about loving her and meeting her needs. On top of that there are lots of discipline issues remaining. Multiple daily tantrums/outbursts/emotional breakdowns or whatever you want to call them still remain a part of our life. On top of that we are still dealing with the negative behaviors that have developed in our boys after she arrived.

The last 3 weeks have been rougher than the previous month because birth mom entered the picture again. This made little girl have more fear and more bad behavior because of that fear. She doesn't know what is going on. Who will she live with and what is in the future? We reassure her with our best ideas and explanations but we know she can't understand all of what we are saying to her. Her mom is trying again and states that she is off cocaine and only using marijuana. She is seeming more normal and talking and interactive but we will see how long that lasts. She is still living with her boyfriend who uses and sells cocaine and there is physical abuse between them. Very bad environment for little girl. I can almost say with certainty that she will not be returning to her mom. Mom has only 3 more weeks to prove herself and move out or get into treatment or the process to remove parental rights will be started. The parental rights will most likely be terminated in April or May and little girl will be available for adoption.

astronaut application completed

Today I completed my application to be an astronaut. It has always been a goal of mine to apply even though I may never become an astronaut. It feels good to check that off my life goal list. If there is any additional post about this application, it will only be because God has had his hand in my life. I am a long shot and don't expect to hear anything back about my application.

I have wanted to be an astronaut since I was in 2nd grade. I was inspired by my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Paulsrud to be a teacher and I loved space. Christa McAuliffe was my hero as a teacher and an astronaut. I wanted to be her. The Challenger explosion and her death did not deter me at all. I continued to dream big and the dream has never died. I always wanted to meet the minimum astronaut requirements and I have. So, why not, just apply. It can't hurt. There is no time like the present.

I was explaining to Jaden today that I applied to be an astronaut. His immediate response was, "No!" Then I tried explaining to him that I am not going to be an astronaut but I would like to be but it will not be happening. I told him that over 3000 people apply to be astronauts and only about 10 people get chosen. Then his little math brain was working and he responded, "That means that 2,990 people don't get chosen." Thanks, Jaden, I know it is a long shot.

still in transition

I have not intentionally been putting off writing about our little foster girl but my emotions and feelings and thoughts about our whole situation seem to change daily. I'm not sure if my thoughts are becoming more consistent or not yet but I feel inspired to write again. (Thank you to the movie The Help. So inspirational on so many levels.)

Life still seems incredibly hard around our house. I am sure I am making it harder than it really is but our family is still in transition. I am generally grumpy. Grumpy to my husband, my boys and little girl. Sometimes more angry than grumpy but I don't want to admit that. It is difficult to enjoy the good moments and I linger in the bad. I am a pessimist.

Little girl's behavior is improving. Her behavior is seeming normal for a 2 or 3 year old, even though she is 4. She cries at times (when she didn't use to let it out) and asks for lots of hugs when her mood is escalating instead of jumping to screaming right away. I am continually faced with her deficits from potty training issues to missing vocabulary to the multitude of bruises on her legs (gross motor issues) to rising anger when I can't figure out a word she is trying desperately to pronounce. She is developmentally delayed. She will be getting special education because of deficits in five areas. She needs the extra help. She may end up being a learning challenged kid the rest of her life. She does not have an easy life ahead of her whether she stays with our family or not.

There is continual talk of adoption. Birth mom dropped out of the picture over a month ago. Breaks my heart. We continue to pray for mom's health and her life. We were able to let the social workers involved know that we would really just like to focus on foster care as long as we can handle it and defer any adoption conversation. There were some emotional conversations in mid December about possibly needing to end this sooner than we thought. We are done with that thinking, hopefully, and we are focusing on making our family healthy no matter what the outcome is for little girl's forever family. Birth mom's parental rights will be terminated, most likely in April and little girl will be available for adoption. We will either adopt her or help in choosing a better family fit for her. This is undecided and I don't see that decision getting made any time soon (not at least for another month).

Even though little girl has improved, we are waiting to see the boys behavior improve. Jaden is stuck in a perfectionist world that is so hard for him to let go. He has trouble following the simplest commands at times. Clay has anger toward little girl that we are trying to decrease. We have a new set of goals (not rules) in our family and it is helping us all. Here are the most common repeated adages in our house. No hurts. Ask not tell. Listen and obey. Eyes. Hugs.

Christmas memories

We had a great Christmas. We got to open presents at 4 different times and that was by far the highlight for the kids. The boys' favorite present initially was the mini foosball game. Jaden now will say his favorite present is the Battleship game (thanks Kevin and Nicole!). Clay's favorite is a box of kitchen science experiments. Little girl loved everything she got! She displayed some of her best behavior while we were in North Dakota with family. It was nice to have extra help with the kids from family and there was extra entertainment from being in a new environment.

The boys can tell you why we celebrate Christmas but the presents continue to be overwhelming. I'm not sure how to change this focus on presents. I know some people think that is what Christmas is about for kids...the presents. I don't want it to be that way. I tried to be minimal on the presents from us to the kids but they have a lot of loving family that blesses them with many gifts. Maybe our family of 4 or 5 will do things differently in 2012.

Notice the picture of the lights hung nicely on our house. I got around the house to halfway through the garage door on the right when I fell. I keep saying it was halfway but looking now, there was only one strand left to do after I had already hung 3 strands. I am recovering nicely now and have only a little pain remaining in my left upper rib and my right elbow and wrist. I am now 5 weeks post fall. I am happy to have full range of motion of my arm back. I was a little concerned it wouldn't return after the doctor tried putting the scare into me that I might lose some range of motion if I didn't use my arm.

yearly summary from Bryan

2011 has been a year filled with challenges, growth, and adventure. Highlights from the year include a return mission trip to Honduras with Raquel’s parents as part of the team, a family trip to Disney World, three trips for Raquel to watch the last space shuttle launch with the last trip being successful, a new role for me helping deploy an electronic medical record at Fairview Southdale Hospital, Raquel becoming the volunteer aerospace expert for the upcoming space station exhibit being created by the Science Museum of Minnesota, our church changing to a new pastor, Jaden jumping into first grade, Clay starting kindergarten as the big man on campus without his big brother around, and a cute little 4 year old girl named Alexis joining our house and trying to overcome the difficult start to her life.

In May we collected an amazing 14 bags full of medical equipment including a ventilator machine and went back to Loma de Luz hospital in Honduras. Raquel’s parents, Oscar and Judy Vilhauer, came along and put their carpentry, sewing and teaching skills to use throughout the hospital grounds. They were truly a gift from God to the people and staff down there and it was a blessing for us to be able to serve with them. I made a video tour of the hospital grounds on YouTube. You can search for Honduras Jarabek to find the video or use this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q40bZptRC7g. You can check out Raquel’s blog in May and June for more details on the trip as well.

In June, Clay had a parachute birthday party with a blow up bounce house in our back yard. My wife is an amazing party planner and my kids are so blessed to have her as their mom! Clay is doing kindergarten at Sunrise Montessori and is starting to add, read tons of books and make us all laugh on a daily basis. He brings so much joy into our home! Jaden started first grade this year at Olson Elementary school and continues to excel at math, reading, and every sport he plays (hence the YMCA gym party in November). He is high energy, competitive, and wicked smart like his mom. He can add and subtract two digit numbers in his head, knows about half of his multiplication tables and is reading at a second grade level. Over the summer Raquel continued to volunteer at the Science Museum of Minnesota and was asked to be the aerospace expert for a multimillion dollar space station exhibit that is being designed over the next few years and will be traveling through many of the large museums throughout the country. She loves the opportunity to share her passion for space and they really enjoy having a volunteer aerospace engineer to help them with the project. I continue to work at the hospital helping patients get well, families cope with loss, and doctors navigate our new electronic record. Our family did escape the busy schedule to go to Disney World in August and loved every minute, from the luxury Disney resorts to Jaden going on the Expedition Everest roller coaster. Bryan also escaped on a Canada fishing trip and South Dakota pheasant hunting trip.

As many of you know Raquel and I have been taking classes for adoption and foster care for the last year and in October we got a call asking if we would take a cute little 3 (almost 4) year old girl named Alexis into our home. Alexis’s life has been filled with drugs, neglect and probably some abuse. She has speech delays, physical delays, attachment issues, fits of rage and self-harming behaviors. We are struggling to cope with the rage, adjust our behaviors to avoid tantrums, and try to explain to our boys why Alexis is how she is and that they are loved and safe. They have struggled behaviorally with the change, but we are trying to make extra one on one time with them to meet their needs and help them adjust. Our primary goal for Alexis is to provide a stable foster care environment for Alexis and get her as many school and medical services as possible to try to start improving her delays and behavioral issues. Please pray for us and our family! We pray that God will be with you this year in a special way that brings you joy & peace in abundance!

Bryan, Raquel, Jaden, Clay and Alexis

Do not fall off a ladder

The boys have been asking for us to hang lights on the outside of our house at Christmas ever since we moved into this house 3 years ago and we had a bunch of free lights from my brother (Thanks, Kevin!). So I thought, why not this year! We had been getting the lights ready throughout the day on that Saturday, a week ago, and when we finally had them ready after replacing bulbs and buying one more set, I just wanted to get the lights hung and didn't care that it was snowing and dark. The boys came outside to play in the snow while I hung lights. I warned them to go get dad inside the house if I fell. I was not feeling very confident about my ladder skills. Clue #1. It was snowing and everything was slippery. Clue #2. What are these clues leading to...do not hang lights today.

Bryan had just come outside to help me and I told him, just let me fix this one light. Bryan walked around to the side of the house where the boys were playing. And that is when the big fall happened. I was about half way done and the ladder slipped on the driveway and it went crashing to the ground with me landing on top of it. I cracked a corner piece off the ladder and smashed a few light bulbs in the process. I yelled as soon as I caught my breath after having the wind knocked out of me. I fell on the ladder and gravity hurt me badly.

I felt like everything was broken at that moment and did not want to take a breath. I yelled for what seemed like a minute, probably just a few seconds. I didn't want to stop letting air out of my lungs because I was terrified how much it would hurt to take a breath. The boys and Bryan were very concerned. Jaden later asked twice if I was going to die. We reassured him I would be ok but at that moment I didn't believe it. Bryan helped me get into the house and I almost passed out in the entryway. I laid on the floor to recover my sight and hearing. Then I moved to the couch. There was no comfortable position to lay but I couldn't move. Partially out of fear and partially out of everything hurting. Bryan checked me out and at first he thought nothing was broken. The more I sat, the more I knew something was really wrong with my right arm. I couldn't hardly move it. There was discussion about going to urgent care and Bryan informed me that they wouldn't cast me if it was broken so we should try to wait it out until Monday when I could see an orthopedic doctor who would put on a cast if needed. Later that night he got a sling for my increasingly painful and possibly broken right elbow. Clay asked if I broke my funny bone. I wish I could've laughed but the pain was too much. As time went on, we were both convinced it was broken around my elbow and we planned on seeing an orthopedic doctor on Monday to get an x-ray and potential cast. I was hurting everywhere which made it hard to pin point what was really hurting. My sternum hit the ladder and was in great pain and so were my ribs. We are pretty sure now that I probably broke a rib on my left side because I still have a lot of pain there. I have bruises all over but they took awhile to appear. I have bruises in parts that I didn't know I hit.

On Monday we found out that my arm is not broken. Many prayers of thanksgiving have been said over the last week. I am so glad I can use my arm even though it is only partially working. The doctor told me to quit using the splint then and that I needed to move my painful arm to get it to heal and regain my range of motion. So I have been using my right arm as much as possible but I only have about 90% range of motion and it hurts a lot to move it still. I probably only have about 25% muscle control in my right arm. Everything is painful from pumping soap to putting on my seat belt but I am gritting it out. I want my healthy arm back and the more I use it, the better it will get. I am taking it easy on carrying things. I can't lift any small children or heavy items as the doctor ordered. Lifting could make the damage take longer to heal. Hopefully in 3 weeks time, I will be lifting items again. Bryan is taking on the task of physical therapist now and forcing movement when it doesn't seem possible. I appreciate his help and hope that I get better sooner because of it.

I am still not sleeping well. My ribs are hurting so badly that they wake me up at night repeatedly. I am still taking ibuprofen and acetaminophen throughout the day and night for pain. This is not great timing when I really could use a good night of sleep every night in order to take better care of the 3 challenging kids in my house. Lots of prayers going up for healing, sleep and for little girl tantrums to end in our household. Thanks for your prayers.

Celebrating Jaden

We got to celebrate Jaden's 7th birthday a little early this year. His birthday is actually on November 23rd. It usually falls near Thanksgiving so he got to have his party 4 days before he turned 7. He chose to have a basketball themed party at the YMCA. The kids got to play all kinds of games at the Y and they all had fun. They got to eat lots of orange colored snacks and drink lots of Gatorade. Everyone had fun despite the 3 inches of snow we got during the party.

This is an interesting age for Jaden. He is getting to be so independent. He is able to play outside by himself and follow the rules. He requests to play with friends all the time and rings our 2 neighbor boys' doorbells often. One time he rang the doorbell a few too many times and caused a neighbor boy to call 911. That will be quite the story for him to live down. I am sure Jaden will hear that over and over again. Jaden loves his friends, has lots of them and is very extroverted. Jaden just had his first outing with a friend today when they left to go watch high school basketball together.

He still has issues with hugs and people touching him so we continue to work on this as it seems heightened with a new little girl in the house. He is very organized and enjoys a controlled environment. His need to control things has increased as our house stress level has risen recently. He is fully aware of the changes in our house and has taken that stress more on himself than out on anyone else. He needs his life structured and predictable and if it's not, he must fix it. This causes him to obsess about some things that he shouldn't and this has made family life even harder. He could definitely use some prayer in this area.

Jaden seems to love all things "boy," cars/trucks/bikes, legos, Star Wars, super heroes, particularly Iron Man right now, sports, being physically active, along with reading, games and music. He became interested in the ukelele this summer when he saw 2 very cute older teenage girls playing them for one of his favorite songs, "This Is the Stuff" by Francesca Battistelli. Hopefully we have encouraged his love of music with his new uke.

Jaden is still very energetic and quite talented physically. He enjoys racing and competing with anyone at all times. He loves winning and knowing he is the best at something. I think he is a great reader and love listening to him. He is still very skilled at math and hopefully his love of math continues.

Jaden's personality is very similar to mine and I love that about him. I know he is my son! I see my weaknesses and strengths in him and I am very proud of him. He continues to teach me new things and I love that. Just today he showed me that he has a huge heart for the little girl in our house by trying to calm her down. This melted my heart. I want to squeeze him close like a little baby but he only wants to push me away and continue growing up and older. He is growing more compassionate and caring and growing in intellect. I love watching him change and love seeing how he changes me for the better. Happy #7, Jaden!

learning delays

Here are a couple pictures from little girl's birthday party last weekend. We had my brother and his 3 kids over for dinner and cake and presents. She loved her dress up clothes from them! We inflated a bunch of balloons for her, which she calls, "moons" and she loved them too.

On Friday we took her to her special education evaluation after she needed further assessment from her preschool screening. I had to get over the lump in my throat that she would be going to special education and we were beginning to face development delays. Then yesterday she was having a very "smart" day. She performed very well on all the testing. The evaluator was quite impressed with her and said she was a teacher's dream but that she definitely needed speech help. I don't think she saw what we see and deal with daily. Then when we were about to leave the behavior issues started coming out. She didn't want to go and did everything she could to stay. We got through it and got her in the van. This was not the result of the evaluation we were expecting.

We know little girl is mentally delayed. We still don't know if that is because she just hasn't been taught (although she was in daycare from 1 to 3 years old) or because she has some severe learning difficulties. She might catch up completely but it is unknown. There is a lot of unknown with her. It is unknown how much speech progress she can make and it is unknown how her behavior will change as she ages. We know her learning is delayed and she will need extra help and the professionals agree but she looks smart compared to other special education children. What the evaluation did show me was that some of my efforts are paying off. I have been practicing a lot of the skills that were tested with her. And she performed them very well. She can now understand "what's missing," same or different and play matching games. She can write better and has learned more shapes. Her deficiencies still exist but they were not tested yet, other than her speech.

I was also reassured that having her at Clay's Montessori school is the right thing for her. We met with the 2 Montessorians (teachers) yesterday for Clay's conference and they reminded me that Dr. Montessori originally designed this program specifically for kids like our little foster girl. Dr. Montessori was the first female physician in Italy and she was put in charge of the "orphaned" children in Italy because it seemed like they didn't know what to do with her. The teachers agree with us that little girl needs lots of love and it is great to know she is getting more love while she is at school too. We have had her at school only one day a week but will be increasing it to two in December. A little more freedom for me and education for her. I am looking forward to getting involved again at the science museum.

birth mom

A birth mom is what is known as the mom that gives birth to a child. She used to be known as a biological mom but now the correct term is birth mom. Less science-y and a shorter word to use. We are dealing with birth mom interactions and complications from those interactions or lack of them.

This afternoon was hard. Little girl can't understand why her mom doesn't show up to see her and she doesn't have the words to talk about it. We just say it is hard. I try to explain to the boys why she had a hard afternoon. We try to relax, share a treat and have some fun on hard days like today.

Today was the 4th visit that has been scheduled for mom to interact with her daughter since she has been in our house. The first visit mom showed up and left early. About 20 minutes into a 2 hour visit because little girl threw a tantrum and couldn't calm down quickly. Second visit mom didn't show up because she was in the hospital after a pretty serious suicide attempt. Third visit mom showed up late but had about an hour and half successful visit. Chips were shared and she got a stuffed gorilla. There was no mention of little girl's upcoming birthday. Little girl turned 4. Fourth visit was supposed to happen today and mom didn't show up. We lingered extra long in the waiting area of the supervised visit building, mostly because little girl wanted to finish coloring. I kinda wonder if she was hoping that her mom would show up. Not sure. I know she knew why we were there but it is very hard to talk about and it just makes her angry when we do talk about mom visiting. We got in the van to leave. Got a treat from Starbucks. Avoided a screaming melt down after the cake-pop (lollipop made of cake) was gone. Little girl had the saddest look on her face. Made me tear-up. She fell asleep on the drive home. Breaks my heart.

I am praying for mom to show up at our next visit on Monday. My life is harder whether mom shows up or not because of the emotion, fear, uncertainty and anger in little girl that results when thinking about her mom and knowing the possibility of seeing her. I pray her mom is still alive and that she has the will to try to get better.

3 kids is harder than 2

We are still adjusting to having three kids in our house. For the first two weeks, the boys were on their best behavior. I appreciated their perspective sooo much. When little girl was throwing a fit in the van, Clay said, "It's ok that I don't have toys on one side of my car seat because I have enough on the other side." We had to remove toys from little girl's car seat and from one side of Clay's because she can reach his toys when she gets angry and throws a fit in the van while strapped into the seat. She likes to throw things when she gets mad. She also screams very loudly which has caused her to lose part of her voice the last couple days. That is actually refreshing because she can't be as loud. When she was at her ear-piercing loudest, Jaden and I were riding in the van with her on the way to school and Jaden had perfect timing as I was trying to mentally and physically block out the screaming. I was wishing for ear plugs. My ears were actually in pain. Jaden said in between screams, "Mom, it's ok. It doesn't hurt my ears because I have my hood up." So sweet. I wish I could make the screaming stop and I wish that he didn't have to suffer through it also.

We are over three weeks into this process and last week the boys got difficult. They snapped out of their good behavior and seem to have lost track of house rules and boundaries. We are trying hard to love each of them in individual ways and figure out what they need most. Dealing with three misbehaving kids is hard and exhausting.

We celebrated little girl's 4th birthday this weekend. We had fun and again it was exhausting. For once she got away with saying, "Mine!" as much as she wanted. Her birthday presents belonged to her. The 20 balloons Bryan blew up, belonged to her. Her birthday cake was hers and she enjoyed the mine-ness for a short while.

Tantrums

It has been two weeks now that we have had our foster girl in our house. It has been quite an experience. More work and a bigger challenge than we expected. I think we have had 3 days that have been tantrum free with 1-3 tantrums on the other days. This is the hardest part of life with the little girl. She gets violent to herself and with Bryan and I so we have to restrain her. It continues to shock me how much she tries to hurt herself - kicking and hitting walls and furniture, hitting her head on anything around her, pulling out her hair, digging in her fingernails into her hands and the list will go on. When she gets angry she has a very difficult time calming down and it takes her up to 40 minutes to calm down and stop screaming and yelling. Bryan and I have figured out that it actually helps for us to talk to her intermittently throughout the tantrum. This shortens the screaming time. We have also noticed that she is ready to be done when she starts screaming "Please..." and requesting whatever she wants to do. It is amazing how quickly she stops screaming and becomes the sweetest kid possible. There are lots of hugs and kisses and lots of holding and reading books in the calm period.

The tantrums are very difficult. We have not really seen notable improvement in the tantrum area. On the other hand, I have noticed improvement in other areas. She can share sometimes and can take turns. She can react to "No" without screaming now. She responds to threats with good behavior and doesn't throw a tantrum (all the time). She learned a new shape, square. She now can say some numbers even if they are in the wrong order. She can match and sort colors. She uses the toilet occasionally (even pooped once in the toilet). She will repeat her words and almost always tries to pronounce the word correctly when prompted. These might seem like small things but it is so encouraging to see any improvement.

I have been praying so much over the last two weeks. I need more patience. She needs to feel loved and given attention. She needs to be able to use some calming techniques when her anger or emotions are out of control. Her mom needs help to recover from drug addiction. We need to get services set up for developmental delays, speech therapy and possible physical therapy.

Thank you for your prayers. We feel them and it is neat to see God answering some prayers. She had her preschool screening last Wednesday. It didn't go well, as expected but now the ball is rolling to get her some help that she needs.

Her birthday is 6 days away and it will be exciting to celebrate with her. She will be 4 years old which is hard to believe. We often feel like she is a 2 year old in many ways but is the size of a 4 1/2 year old. I continue to be taken by her affection and sweetness. She has a soft heart and needs a lot of love and help from people around her. I continue to pray that we can provide some of the help that she needs.

Foster the change

There are times when I just need to write to express all that is going on. This is one of those times. There is so much going on inside my head. My house is a mess and there are dishes to do and mail to tend to and laundry to be done. I guess that is what happens when you add another child into your house. I did plan for this as best as I could with the one week notice we had that our first foster child would be arriving in our house.

A little 3 year old girl arrived calmly to our house around 1pm on Monday, October 24th with her social worker. She was sweet and instantly affectionate. A sign of how love-starved she is. Cute but also very sad. She strokes your hair. She says, "Nice shirt. Nice hair." She gives wonderful hugs. She needs lots of love. She is quiet but not silent with a cute little high pitch voice. She is chatty and makes lots of little noises. She is curious. She will stick her in your pocket and point to everything saying "What dat?" or the latest, "What color dis?"

She turns 4 soon but does not know her colors or numbers and can not count even one. She does know she is three and responds promptly when asked. She plays extremely well by herself. She seems most interested in building anything, blocks, train tracks, kinex, etc. So that makes her fit well with our boy toys. She doesn't seem to know what to do with a doll or barbie doll beyond hold it. She really likes quiet and when Jaden and Clay are around she is often heard saying, "Kids loud. Kids noisy."

She is probably delayed mentally and physically. This is yet to be assessed. Her speech is very hard to understand but she is great at charades and repeating her words. She falls a lot and can't walk a straight line. She has a lot of problems with stairs. She did not have a great start in life and has not had anyone helping her progress so hopefully we can make up for that some.

We are still working on getting her to learn our names; Raquel, Bryan, Jaden and Clay. She has figured out the quickest way to get my attention is to yell (in her quiet voice), "Mom!" It is pretty cute but also makes me think of her mom every time I hear her say it. Sometimes I correct her. "You can call me Raquel or Quel."

She has blond hair and very fair skin with greenish-gray eyes. Very cute little chubby cheeks. She looks and acts like an angel most of the time. She is big for her age and already looks about 4 1/2 years old. She seems heaven sent at times. She couldn't be more loving and cute. I actually calculated (my engineer-side) that she is quite amazing about 96% of the time that she is awake which is even better if you account for sleeping time. There is that 4% which is causing me to write. It is good to remind my pessimist self that it is only 4% of the time. So that 4% of the time she screams and yells and cries at the top of her little bitty lungs. Which is amazingly loud and excruciatingly painful to my ears at times. She has started to act-out violently in the last 24 hours. Kicking, hitting, grabbing, scratching, pulling hair. That is not fun. It is exhausting. I have been completely calm and amazingly disconnected until I see the pain in her eyes as she is screaming. I guess others might not see it as pain but when her eyes light up all red from the crying, I swear I can feel a little bit of her pain. It has brought me to tears a few times while I watch her scream and yell and just not know how to calm down. Usually it has been as dramatic of an end to the tantrum as the beginning. Once she is done, on average about 15 minutes later, she is pleasant. Says sorry and gives hugs and is ready to play calmly. It is amazing to watch it all unfold. I didn't know that could come out of such a cute small package until now.

She has gotten more challenging as the week has went on but her life has only been more complicated because of our family. I would love to think we are doing an amazing thing for taking her in but her hurt and wounds seem so huge that our contribution seems so small and may not amount to much even over time. This has brought me to tears and prayer many times this week. God is my fuel and my motivation comes from Jesus and the love and grace He shows me continually.

We know quite a bit about what she has endured and what her mother's life has been like and that just makes me hurt. Why are some people dealt such a hard life? I would like to think that maybe we can help change the generational pattern in this family but it seems quite impossible. More prayer. I met her mother just briefly today for our first supervised visit where I dropped her off. After the visit that did not go well and ended early, she said, "Mom mean. Me sad." Out of her three year old little mouth. Me sad too.

Journey to Space

It has been too long since I posted. I was waiting to post something about my new gig at the Science Museum of Minnesota but then I waited too long and this post is long over due. I have been volunteering at the museum since February of this year. I started out as a school group greeter and then moved on to be an exhibit gallery volunteer doing science demonstrations with visitors. About the beginning of August I started helping with some exhibit development. They are working on a new exhibit called "Journey to Space" about the International Space Station. I am the "aerospace engineering expert" which is fun but really I just want to contribute in any way I can and have fun doing it. I am loving it! I am at the museum 2 days a week (half a day in the exhibit gallery still) and the other time I am contacting people at NASA and asking them for help and researching the space station for exhibit ideas. It has been a blast! I feel like I am part of the team. I am enjoying being a volunteer for now and being able to come and go as I please. There is potential that this could turn into a job but I am trying to take this new adventure slowly. The exhibit is planned to open in St. Paul in the summer of 2014 and then travel to at least 14 museums around the country over 6 or more years. The exhibit is going to be huge if all goes as planned. Potentially $8 million spent on 15,000 square feet of exhibit space. There are large simulators or rides planned and many smaller engineering and science interactives. I love being a part of all that is going on at the museum, especially when it is space related. I have lots of free tickets to the museum. Let me know if you ever want to go!