Catching up on all this mess.

Oh man.  Summer is definitely here, and with all three of these crazies running around all the time, getting posts up is like planting flowers in the middle of a hurricane.  I am, however, loving summer time.  I love actually having time to do fun things with the boys, going to the pool, not being constrained by a school schedule, and getting to see the boys experience all kinds of new things.

Zee is really doing so well.  We still have issues on occasion, but overall he generally gets about 2 out of 4 marbles a day – which is huge!  He is very open about his emotions, which I think is helping him to deal with and get through his situation pretty well.

Of course then at their last visit, their caseworker (who I’m beginning to think is a genius.  A regular Einstein.)  talked to them about the next court hearing.  I’m not sure exactly what she said, but they came home saying, “On the 28th, we are either going home with our mom, going home with our dad, or we are being adopted by someone.”  Now, obviously none of these things will be happening on the 28th.  So we’ve had lots of conversations about what the court does, and that it is likely that nothing will happen on the 28th.  So the boys have taken sides, Jae wants to go with mom, Zee wants to go with dad.  But pretty frequently Zee will say thing like, “Maggie, when you adopt us, will our last name be Popp?” or “Brian, when you adopt us, will Nana and Grandpa be our real grandparents?”

Talk about ripping your heart out.  Adoption isn’t even on our radar screen yet – we’ll just have to see.  So we also have lots of conversations about how we don’t know what will happen yet, but that we’ll find out together.  And of course that we love them no matter what happens.

Speaking of ripping your heart out, Zee came home yesterday from Vacation Bible School and told us that he’s pretty sure a girl there has just stolen his heart. 

Awwwwww.

It went something like this:

Zee:  There’s this girl, at VBS, and I’m pretty sure I like her.

Me: (Holding back all of my awwww’s and motherly grins.)  Oh really?  What’s her name?

Zee:  Well…..I’m not really sure.

Me: I see.  Well, how do you know you like her?

Zee:  Well, she’s really nice.  She let me wrap her like a mommy. (aka mummy – Egyptian themed VBS)  And she’s cute.

Me: Well what does she look like?

Zee: She has brown hair, and it’s pretty long.  It’s really pretty.

 

Awwwwwww.

I just keep pumping him with the ‘girls are trouble’ routine.  He’s only 8.  No girlfriends yet.

 

Jae is having a lot more trouble.  He’ll do fine for a while, and then he just. explodes.  It is a fury in his eyes, and he loses control.  He screams and throws and hits things and makes threats.  All we can do is send him to his room until he cools off, and then try to talk to him about it.  I’ve had some intense conversations with his therapist about it, because he just makes me a little nervous around Sylvia sometimes.  Right now he just doesn’t have the capability to feel very much but anger.  My heart hurts for his.

Of course, last night we were on our way home from Brian’s softball game and he randomly says:

“Look how beautiful the city looks at night.”  And points out his car window.

I could have cried.  I mean, this kid has himself and his heart sealed up with super glue, and then out of nowhere he is commenting on how beautiful the Days Inn looks against the night sky. 

 

Anyway, this has turned into a ridiculously long post.  If I posted more often I’d keep them shorter.  We’ll see what I can do.

Now I have to go finish packing all five of us for our seven day vacation in the mountains in Colorado!  Jae, you’ve not seen beautiful yet, you just wait.