One Year Later

Blondie and Bubbles came to live with us on November 11, 2005.

It's been a heck of a year.

We're still having a lot of ups and downs, with bad outweighing good. I haven't lost hope, not at all, but it's just tough when you're going through it.

Boaz and I are a good team. We support each other and are able to take over when one of us has had it up to here ^. We still fall into the trap of trying to find the magic pill that will make the behavior issues go away. Then again we realize that it's just going to take time, and us being consistent with our discipline. The things that worked on our birth kids don't work on our adopted kids. Our birth kids got their needs met. Our birth kids had the right inputs at the right developmental stages. Our birth kids think before they act, because they know there are consequences to their actions.

Our adopted kids don't think. Even when they know they are doing something wrong, they just don't think they will get caught. It's always worth the risk. They have no conscience whatsoever. They don't care if what they do hurts someone else. It's hard to teach that to someone.

People always exclaim over how happy and well adjusted the girls seem. But they have "acted" that way since day one. They don't ever open up and express their real feelings. Who knows what's going on in there?

My biggest fears are about the choices they will make in the future. How can I best prepare them? I tell them the same things I told my older kids, but it doesn't have the same effect. I think the only thing that will get through is years of consistency. But I'm so impatient. I want to see results. I'm a problem solver by nature, and I have a problem here I can't solve. I have to accept that the only thing I can do is love them and teach them and be here for them, and then let them go. But it's so hard. If they end up pregnant at 12 years old, I'll feel like it's my fault. If they end up strung out on drugs when they are teens, I'll feel like it's my fault. If they wind up in prison as adults, I'll always be wondering if there is anything else I could have done.

I know, I need to give it to God. I'm trying. I just want what's best for my little girls.

On another track, we're going out tomorrow to celebrate. We're having breakfast at a restaurant, and then heading to a museum, then we're going to the craft store to let each child pick an ornament to hang on the Christmas tree, then we are attending a cousin's birthday party. Tomorrow night Boaz and I are going to a wedding and Babygirl will be babysitting across the street. The three youngest kids will be spending the evening with Papa. The girls have been talking about the "one-year party" for weeks, since that is what we have labeled it. It isn't really a party in the usual sense, but for us it is, as we will be spending all day running around having fun.