Crazy lying...

is making me crazy too. I'm starting to think I'm imagining things. Perhaps it's like that old Bette Davis movie "What Ever Happened to Mary Jane". You know the one where her sister (Joan Crawford) keeps moving things around and making Bette Davis' character think she's going crazy. I can't remember the entire plot but some days I feel as if I'm living it.

My daughter with FASD seems so typical is so many ways. She looks typical, she's pretty much stopped the toe walking and arm flapping, and can function most of the time like a typical kid. So when the "crazy lying" starts happening, I have to really stop and remind myself that this is normal to her. She truly believes what she is saying is the truth. I'll bet she could even pass a lie detector test.

For example, when we were at my parents' house in Kamloops my two daughters and I shared a bedroom. One morning I heard my younger daughter get up and head to the washroom, then return back to bed. After she was settled and back to sleep (or so I thought), I got up, showered, dressed, etc. When I came back into the bedroom my other daughter was furious. "As soon as you left the room she (the FASD child) started kicking my bed and waking me up and saying my name over and over and over even though I told her to stop."

My middle daughter's response was "I was just getting up to use the bathroom and I bumped the bed." And then the argument is on between them.

Had I not known that she had already just been to use the bathroom before me, I might have fallen for that one, but I knew better. And with her, there's no point in discussing it (or so our behaviorist says). So I tell her I know she's not being truthful and her behavior is not ok. But I seriously believe, that she believes what she is telling me is the absolute truth. It's crazy!

And if you've never spent any time with a child like this, it's so easy to fall for it. And other people rarely believe us when we tell stories like this. I'm sure they think "perhaps if you weren't so strict with her you'd have a better relationship with her", or "whatever do you mean? She's a perfect angel around us" or "maybe you(meaning me) should see a counsellor or someone for parenting advice".

I'm getting better at following the behaviorist's advice and not explaining it. As he said "How many years have you been trying to explain everything to her? Is it working? Then forget about it. (Say this with a heavy accent as if you're on The Sopranos). Just deal with the behavior and shut up." (I am paraphrasing of course).

I keep thinking there must be a career path for her that would make use of her wonderful skills.

I'm home, I'm home!

Yea! I'm finally home after 5 days in Kamloops at my parents' place, without wireless internet access, and their computer would not let me log on to my blog or on to Facebook. How crazy is that?

I did get lots accomplished while I was there though. I took my middle daughter with me on Thursday so she could spend Friday with my mom while my dad came with me to check out some locations for our November workshop and spaghetti dinner. Plus he helped me pick up the rental tables we needed for our AFABC picnic on Sunday, and the bbq we needed to get. Somehow all that stuff would not have fit into my Honda Civic so we used Dad's big Ford pick up. Plus he knows all the short cuts. And, when I offered to buy him coffee he took us to this little out of the way place that served the best, yes the best, cinnamon buns with gobs and gobs of cream cheese icing.

Plus we stopped in at the MCFD office to drop off a Welcome Home Basket for a family with a newly placed little guy, and we did a drive by of the picnic location so we knew where we were supposed to be going.

Then back out to where my parents live to drop Dad off, check in and see how my daughter was doing (kinda bored), change into something clean and head off to my next meeting.

But before that, I make a call to my supervisor in Burnaby, to find out what has happened to all our picnic supplies that Wendy's Restaurants was supposed to be supplying and delivering to my parents' house. I left a message on her voice mail and cross my fingers that she hasn't left for the weekend already.

Now you have to understand that it is at least 35 C in Kamloops at this point, and for some reason I can't seem to get much cold air out of my air conditioning in my car. So I'm sweating big time. And cursing the thing too of course. And I'm jonesing for my email, so I try and access it at a Starbucks but for some reason my computer wouldn't connect to their free wireless. Grrrrrrr!

Back out to the hot sweaty car and I head off to my meeting with the Kamloops Boys & Girls Club whose office is blessedly cool. I'm hoping to partner with them to bring the True Colours Mentoring program that's been so successful in Kelowna, to Kamloops. And they were thrilled to partner with us! The meeting was a huge success and their facility is perfect for us. Now the real work begins trying to recruit mentors of colour for the program, but I do seem to love a challenge.

As I head to my parents' place, giddy with the success of my meeting, I finally figure out why I'm not getting very much cool air out of my air conditioning. The temperature dial is set in the middle of cold and warm. Duh. I am such an idiot. How could I not have noticed that, or thought to look at the stupid thing right in front of me.

Ya know, I sometimes wonder how I manage to function in this world at all.

Building Skills For Transracial Adoptive Parenting

Yes - we're coming to Kamloops in September and October! Here's the info:

If you are parenting a child of different race/culture or you are considering transracial adoption these Saturday workshops are for you.

Come to AFABC, network with other families and learn what you need to make your family's journey a little smoother!

Series of 2 workshops can be taken individually, in/out of order.

Workshop ONE: Sat. Sept. 12th 10 am - 4 pm MCFD Training Room 1165 Battle St.

Motivation to Adopt Transracially/Family Identity/Sharing Family Stories/Celebrating Family Diversity/Talking to Your Kids - Ages and Stages/Being Your Child's Best Ally.

Workshop TWO: Sat. Oct. 3rd 10 am - 4 pm MCFD Training Room 1165 Battle St.

Frame of Reference/Stereotypes/Your Child's Positive Racial Identity/Dealing with Racism/School Issues

Costs: $55.00 per person per session for AFABC Members or $65.00 per person persession for Non-members

To register go to: www.bcadopt.com and click on "Workshops and Resources"

New book

I picked this up at the library the other day and I can't put it down. It's called "Song Yet Sung" by James Mcbride and it's a novel about a young woman who is a runaway slave in the deep south just prior to the Civil War. She is trying to evade the white and black slave hunters using the codes used by slaves to communicate.

It's definitely fiction but much of the story is drawn from actual historical events. The author also wrote "The Miracle of Santa Anna" that was made into a movie recently. Have you seen it? It's quite long but very much worth watching.

And speaking of movies, we just watched "The Soloist" last night with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. Ok, they didn't actually watch it with me, but you know what I mean. I had heard it was a tough movie to watch, but I didn't find it too bad. There are definitely some scenes that are quite emotional for a variety of reasons, but overall it was a pretty good story and certainly brings the issues of homelessness and mental illness to the forefront. It's also very interesting how Robert Downey Jr.'s character keeps insisting that "Nathaniel" be diagnosed and forced to take medication, when Nathaniel is quite clear that he is choosing to be homeless and doesn't want an apartment or to be forced to take meds.

Tonight we're watching a movie from 1988 called Chocolat (no, not the Johnny Depp movie, although I could watch Johnny Depp movies anytime!). It's set in colonial Cameroon and centres around a young white woman who befriends their African house boy and the racial tension that erupts when boundaries are crossed. I'll let you know how it is tomorrow.

Unwelcome visitors

Life in the Okanagan is always wrought with challenges; forest fires, summer traffic, and of course the uninvited, unwelcome visitors. You know, the "friends" you haven't seen or heard from until they got your change of address email, then all of a sudden they think "hey, free room and board in the Okanagan - let's go!"

Fortunately the unwelcome, uninvited visitors stopped coming a few years after we moved here. Perhaps it had something to do with our requests to make their own daily plans, do their own laundry and help with the grocery bill. Our house is not an all inclusive resort with daily concierge and maid service.

For anyone who doesn't know our area, we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by fruit orchards and vineyards. However that also means that from July thru Oct, we are also subjected to a large transient population that sweeps through the valley looking for work. And because our house is somewhat isolated from our neighbors, I am usually quite security conscious especially when I am home alone or home alone with the kids. (Although, let's face it, even if my husband was home he wouldn't hear anything over the sound of the tv anyways!)

But I let my guard down when we were unloading the beach stuff from the car. I left our front door open and suddenly there was this very scary, very large, very scruffy looking man knocking on my open door. He tells me he's working in the orchard next door, and him and his friend have lost their ferret and ask if I've seen it/her.

Bizarre I know, but hey, this is the kind of stuff that happens around here. So after I tell him I haven't (not that I really would know what a ferret looks like up close anyways) I firmly close the door and lock it and go back to unpacking my cooler. Have you ever had the feeling that you should look behind you cause something's there, but you know it's not a person?? As I turned around, the ferret (who had obviously come in through our open door) ran by me and headed for the living room to hide under the chair my daughter was sitting in.

I told them all not to move, and then the ferret made a run for the safety of the couch. My son yells "It's a weasel!". My daughter screams. I head for the door to find the two guys still looking around my yard. And yell "Found it!" So they come and rescue "her" and let me and the kids pet her.

Yup, just your average day here in the Okanagan. The moral of the story is; always lock your door.

What do your kids argue over?

Today it seemed like every little thing was something to disagree over. From who got to use the milk first for their breakfast to someone "copying" someone else's choice of coloured straw. Man, it's annoying.

And it didn't get any better throughout the day. Just a few of the arguments were over; who got to go in the pool first, who was using the green towel, who should have flushed the toilet but didn't, who used someone else's toothbrush; it just went on and on.

Is it the mid-summer boredom setting in? Did I not have enough coffee? Finally I couldn't take it anymore and sent them all off in separate areas. Now I know the Gordon Neufeld groupies would say I should keep my kids close, especially in times like this and not send them away from me. And usually I would agree, except for the fact that keeping all three of them close to me would have resulted in total and complete chaos. Plus they would have probably violated our city's noise bylaw.

Finally I took the girls with me to get groceries and my husband took charge of our son, much to his disappointment because it meant he didn't get to sit and watch tv, play video games or go on the computer, he actually had to help Dad do yard work which really isn't that difficult.

I'm in this frame of mind that I should be feeding my kids less sugar and more whole grains, so most of our "close bonding time" was spent reading labels at Save On Foods. Man it's tough to find snack food that is appealing to kids and that they will actually eat, and that is reasonably healthy. (Of course, if I was able to do my own baking I wouldn't have to buy snack food. But that would require me to have an oven, which is still not fixed since May. May!! Apparently the part is on order and should be in "soon". Yeah, and I'll be cooking Christmas dinner in my microwave at this pace.) The girls were a great help actually and loaded the groceries on the thingy to the cashier, and put the bags in the buggy too with only minimal arguments over whether or not the juice boxes would fall through the holes in the cart.

Then in Walmart we ran in to our adoption social worker who has been on leave for quite some time with some health issues. Man, she looked so relaxed and non-stressed. It's been a few years since she had seen the girls and she couldn't believe how much they've grown. Of all the social workers we had over the years, she was the one who was the most supportive and who really fought for us when we needed her too. It was great to see her again. Really it was.

But back to "National Argue With Your Sibling Day". It didn't take long for the three kids to be back to the bickering once they were all together again. By now I'd given up and as long as no one was physically arguing, I put my earplugs in and shifted into ignore mode.

Bedtime didn't come soon enough today. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will be better.

Comparing worst to best

Do you do this? I know I do. It seems I'm always comparing my worst moments of parenting, eating, dressing, etc. to everyone else's best. Why do we do that to ourselves? Over and over?

I'm sure there's some deep and meaningful reason that involves costly psychoanalysis and probably boils down to low self esteem. (See...there...I just saved myself tons of money and countless hours.)

When I finally pull myself away from my own personal "pity party", I can take a step or two back and look more objectively and sometimes, yes, sometimes I can even remind myself of the little successes I've had and acknowledge that I'm not a total and complete loser.

All the "experts" have tons of advice on how to parent better, how to be a better person, etc. I'll sometimes pull out one of my many self-help books on the topic of my current failure and flip through looking for some divine inspiration to get me back on track. After a chapter or two I usually will come to my senses and realize that I am doing some things right, and start letting up on myself just a little bit.

Then, because usually I have very little time to focus on my own "failures" I have to get back to the usual, whatever that is. Sometimes we have to go backwards in order to go forward. At least I seem to anyways. Although I may never outright congratulate myself on my successes I can at least acknowledge that I'm not a total and complete screw up.

Here we go again..

Just another day in the life with a child with FASD.

It was only 3 weeks ago that we invested $150 to have her hair put in to extensions by Wendy and Locadia while we were at Harambee camp in Naramata. And, she has pulled more than half of them out. And as usual, she blames her brother for pulling them out. It looks ridiculous, so today she is taking the rest of them out.

It's just another one of those things with a kid with FASD. We try something like this, we hope for the best, but we're not really surprised when it doesn't work out.

The same thing happened when we got her ears pierced for her 10th birthday. For a few weeks she looked after her ears, then once she could actually take out the studs and put new ones in it only lasted for maybe two weeks. Sometimes she would put earrings in, sometimes not. Then she would blame someone else (usually me) because the earrings were broken and she couldn't get them to work. So not surprisingly, the holes grew over.

Part of her challenges too are the fact that she does not do well with positive attention, so when people mention how pretty she looks with her hair done, or how cute her earrings are, she will say "thank you", but as soon as she gets a moment alone she'll do something to sabotage herself. Over the years I think it's been marginally better, but only marginally.

If only I could get inside that brain of hers and rewire it!