SPD, FAS, and more!

 

Well, I’m still working on a post from Disney.  That’s a lot of pixelating.

In the mean time, I’m not sure I ever posted an update on Tootaw’s assessment and services.

In her assessment with the school district, they essentially decided that she had global delays.  They decided to send the early childhood special education teacher out to our house twice a week.   Initially I thought, wow, they see the same things that I do and we’re actually getting services!

After two months of them coming out I’m thinking, wow, I hope I can get out of this in the fall!

Mostly they’re doing some interactive play with her – but it’s nothing that we don’t already do at home on a regular basis.  I’m not seeing the benefit.  I think that in general, they’re a little off target on what the real issues are.

After a lot more research, most of what Tootaw displays looks like sensory processing disorder.  I don’t know if it is just straight up sensory processing, if it is the fetal alcohol syndrome displaying that way, or both, but either way, we address it in the same way. 

We also have cognitive hurdles to jump and a lot of retention issues still, which I can only assume is part of the FAS.

I think we’re going to go forward with getting an assessment done by a child development team at the university hospital close by.  They have a specialized team that I think will be more helpful in possibly getting some occupational therapy that is better aimed at the issues at hand.  The only thing that makes me a little nervous about this route, is that it’s possible it will require a diagnosis for services. 

There is not a question in my mind that she has sensory processing disorder.  We’ve been told as much by three different professionals that she has FAS (without a formal diagnosis).  I’m just not sure I want a formal diagnosis.  What if we can overcome most of this and she can move forward without ever remembering?  What if we can get to a point where it doesn’t matter that she or anyone else knows about these issues?  If we can, I don’t want a diagnosis following her forever, or her feeling like a diagnosis is at all who she is.

So, we’ll see.  If I think they’re going to have to do a formal diagnosis, I may back off.  Or maybe not. 

Through a training that we’re in the middle of (more on that later), we have learned a lot about sensory processing disorder, and I actually feel pretty empowered to work with it at home.  But, I’d feel better if I had someone outside of us deciphering if she’s making progress.

Speaking of progress, though, she has made quite a bit.  We’ve seen lots of changes, even in cognition, in just the last few months.  That gives us so much hope.

I think that when it comes to schooling, we’ll have some difficulty.  I’ve actually decided to homeschool (more on that later too.), and this is one of the big reasons.  I can go at her pace, repeat things as needed, and she can be upside down while I’m teaching her if she wants to be.  I think otherwise school would just frustrate her, and I don’t want that. 

Anyway, that’s a very short and somewhat jumbled summation of what is going on in that arena.  I know that there were a few of you who were interested in the route we were taking for getting her needs addressed because you see some of the same needs in your kids, so I wanted to do an update. 

We’ll just keep at it. 

One strand at a time.

 

 

Two years ago today we got a phone call.

There was a little girl, three years old, very sick, and in need of a home.  God softened our hearts.

“Can you take her?” 

“Of course.”

A thread passed through the loom and was pressed in tight as to never come unraveled.  A thread of a different color.  A thread of unknown origin.  A thread of anxious preparation, unknown challenge.  What would it look like in our tapestry?

We went and picked her up at the hospital, so sad, so scared.

We didn’t think that she could stay.  Not what we had planned for, not what we had been told.  What if it wasn’t good for our family?  But God made a way, he provided, and she stayed.

Another thread passed through the loom and was pressed in tight.  A thread of trust, a thread of faith, a thread of change.

 

We went through treatment after treatment.  ER trips.  Scary illness.  Improved blood counts. Healing.  Healing.

We went through visits.  Up and down.  Back and forth.  Trauma after trauma.

We went through vomit.  Refusal to eat.  Eating challenges and, well, not eating challenges.

Painful bedtimes.  Trauma tantrums.  Disregulation.  Hating us.  Loving us.  Confusion.

Whump.  Whump.  Whump.  Thread after thread pressed tight into the weaving.  Different colors. Some light, some dark.  Some thick and hard to weave in.  Some silky and soft.

 

Finally trust.  Finally attachment.  Finally smiles.  Finally food.

Joined by her sister. 

Threads of sparkling beauty added to The Artist’s creation.

Final goodbyes.  Painful last experiences.  Ties damaged, but hopefully not broken.

Threads woven with blistered fingers.

 

What was it that The Artist was doing?  As we watched one thread woven through at a time we couldn’t tell.  Sometimes it seemed like things would turn out ugly. 

Sometimes our ideas of what our tapestry would look like were stretched. 

Sometimes we couldn’t see past the thread being woven to remember who was weaving.

 

But now.  Now looking back.  Look at the beauty.  Look how they all fit together.  A story told to be retold, revealing the beauty that The Artist had in mind.  It is gorgeous.  Not without it’s pulls in the thread.  Not without sweat and tears staining the weaving.  But all for the glory of the Artist.

Faith that He knew what he was doing.  That he had a plan for how all the threads would look together.  Looking back over the last two years I wouldn’t change a single thing. 

 

And look now.

 

 

It’s beautiful.

And we’re not done yet.

Thank you Jesus for weaving things in that we would have never considered.

 

I love you Bella.  My Bella.  My daughter.  Forever.  Happy two years.

Daddy-Daughter Dates.

 

 

  My hubby takes our girls out on dates regularly.  He does one date night per week, and we rotate between the girls.  They LOVE IT.  We did father’s day presents where the girls had to answer questions about their Daddy.  Three quarters of the questions were answered with, “Going on dates.”.

What’s your favorite thing about your daddy?

Going on Dates.

What’s Daddy’s favorite thing to do with you?

Go on Dates.

If you could do anything with your Daddy, what would it be?

Go on a date to…

  They build lots of special memories while he’s winning their hearts.  Meanwhile they are learning how guys should treat them, show them respect, and love them.

 

  The day of their date, Brian calls them in the afternoon to ask them to go on a date with them.  And he always tells them to ask my permission – just in case the answer is no. ;)  As soon as they hear that someone is on the phone for one of them, they all get excited.  “You get to go on a date tonight!  Daddy’s on the phone!”  It’s adorable.

  Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures of date nights recently so that we can keep them in the memory bank. 

Naomi just turned two in April.  Two is the magic age where you get to start going on dates, so she recently had her first.

Out to dinner.

And to the pool.

She was very proud that she got to go on a date.  She kept telling me, “I go on date with Daddy!  We go pool!”

 

Sylvia’s most recent date was a picnic at the park and going on a flower walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And ice cream…

 

Bella’s most recent was going to a ceramics studio and getting to paint her own piggy bank and then going to dinner with Daddy. 

 

 

 

  Tootaw’s up next and I’ll post her pictures then.

 

I love my husband.  They love their Daddy.

6 Months.

 

Vida-Loo.

You are loved.  Obsessively.  Rarely do you have a moment when you aren’t being smothered in love and attention. 

The life of a fifth child in a house full of mommies.

 

 

Sometimes I wonder what all this overstimulation is doing to your little brain.  But you seem happy enough – I think you’ll survive.  I think.

 

This month has brought all kinds of change for you.  All of a sudden you’ve figured out that you can move.  If there is something you want, you roll to it.  If you can’t roll to it, you squirm to it.  And, as the most recent development, if you can’t squirm to it, you army crawl to it. 

First time in the swing!  Sharing with your sister of course.

Five and a half months and you learned to army crawl.  It’s like you have four sisters to keep up with or something.  You also get up on your elbows and knees and rock, so I don’t think it will be any time at all until you are legit crawling.  Let’s repeat this together, ‘stationary is good. stationary is good.  stationary is good.’.

 

You’ve also started babbling this month!  It’s adorable.  No bias.  Much to your Daddy’s chagrin, your first babble was not ‘Dadadada’ like it was with your sisters.  It’s an unintelligible ‘Lablablabla’.  Definitely not Mama, but it’s not Dada either. Ha!

One morning when I went in to get you, this is what I found.  I think they love you.

 

You still do your awesome giggle.  Anytime you get remotely excited about anything you start to chuckle.  Huuuhhuuuhhhuuuhh.  I love it.  You’re a happy girl.

 

Essentially, as long as you are being held, you are happy.  You’ll do a few minutes in your exersaucer every once in a while.  But mostly you just like to be with Mommy, always facing out so you can see what’s going on.  Maybe you’ve just figured out that it’s a safer vantage point than on the floor with your sisters – but if your being held you’re happy. 

 

You love your sisters.  You giggle at them at the drop of a hat, and (most of the time) you love it when they hold you or make some silly attempt at entertaining you.  They love you too.  So much.  They are constantly singing to you, kissing you, hugging you, begging to hold you, and bringing you toys.  If you are upset, there is immediately at least one little mama there to try to make it better.  This morning when Naomi woke up, she crawled in bed with us and said, “Oh, I love you Vi-Vi.  Sissy’s here.”, and gave you about 200 kisses.  It’s adorable.  Sylvia is always singing to you and entertaining you with silly dances and sounds.  You think she’s hilarious.  She loves that you think she’s hilarious.  It works out well.  Tootaw is so sensitive to your needs.  She’s always telling me what you want when you’re upset.  Bella loves to hold you.  She looks out for you too, and is quick to reprimand anyone who isn’t treating you like a princess.

Oh, there’s that too.  This month we found out that Bella and Tootaw will be your sisters forever.  They were there the day you were born, and they’ll be there for your first birthday and every birthday after.  You can’t talk, but I know you’re rejoicing.

 

Bella snuggled up reading to you.

 

I’ve not given you any food yet.  I think we’ll wait a little bit.  Although, holy cow, you’ve gotten grabby.  I can hardly hold you when I’m eating because you pull anything off the table you can.  I think you may start exploring food all on your own by stealing mine.  Like last night when you stuck your hand in your sisters ice-cream cone and then put it in your mouth.  You approved.

 

You’ve gotten a little picky about who is holding you.  Right now you mostly like Mama and Daddy, which is just fine with me.  Daddy and I are learning a lot about attachment right now, and I’m just fine with you being securely attached to us.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  I’ll hold you all you want.  We tried to leave you with our friends for the first time so that Daddy and I could go on a date, and we ended up picking you up about an hour into the date because you weren’t as gung-ho about the plan as we were.  That’s ok,  we’ll have plenty of time to go on dates without you.  For now we’ll just soak up that you want to be with us.

 

 

We’ve started putting you in your crib at the beginning of the night and bringing you in with us when you wake up.  You usually make it until about 1:00…which is almost too long for me.  I love snuggling you, so don’t get too used to that crib!  …mostly kidding, I don’t think you aim to stay in your crib all night for a while yet.

 

 

 

Your smile is contagious, as is your laugh.  I can honestly say that you bring joy to each and every member of our family.  We are so thankful that God gave you to us.  Anyone who might think that a fifth+ child might get less love and attention has never seen the adoration that you get.  We love you little lady.  So. So. Much.

 

Love you, love you, love you,

Mama

Goodbye and forever.

 

Last Wednesday the girls had their ‘goodbye visit’ with their mother.  Ever since the hearing we’ve been debating how to go about all of this.  Do we prepare them ahead of time?  Do we wait until after the visit so that we can be the comforters vs. the bearers of bad news?  How do we talk about something so traumatic?

Well, it turned out we didn’t have much say in the matter, because they called us Tuesday night to let us know the visit was on Wednesday.  Well then.  So much for preparation. 

Brian took the girls to the visit (an hour and a half away) so that one of us could be there for them afterward.  Also, I had recently e-mailed their birth mom a bunch of pictures from Disney and never heard back, so I wanted him to ask and make sure I had the right e-mail. 

 

The visit actually went relatively well.  Mom didn’t even discuss it being the final visit, but did give the girls some pictures of the family before leaving.  I have a lot of respect for her ability to not make it an emotional blood bath – because, really?  I can’t even imagine.  The only thing that could have gone better is if Mom would have taken some time to verbally give the girls permission for us to be their family, for them to love us and move on.  But, having been in this field for a while, none of us were really expecting that.

 

When they got home from the visit, we went ahead with bedtime.  Bella was clearly contemplative and a little quiet.  Then she asked it,

“Was that my very last visit with my Mom ever?”

I’ve been thinking about, praying about, preparing for this conversation for so long, and still it was like a punch in the gut.

“Yes sweetheart.  Yes, it was.”

Knowing that if at any point it is appropriate for the girls to have contact with their mom that we would be all for it – it was difficult not to want to comfort her with that.  But, from what we’ve learned (purvis, purvis, purvis) it is better to be straightforward and not give hope for what might not happen, at the risk of implanting a hope in a child that they could hang on to for years without any resolution.

She went on to ask all the questions.  Why?  How long is forever?  What is adoption?  Will I ever see them again?  Are they dead? 

Tootaw doesn’t understand what is happening at all.  Not at all.

Lots and lots of questions.  Lots of tears.  Some obvious relief for having some concrete answers.  Some relief that she does not have to say goodbye to us.  Lots of heartbreak. 

 

Since then we’ve seen a huge resurgence of trauma behaviors.  Trauma tantrums with hitting, kicking, spitting, biting.  The difference between a year and a half ago and now is that she trusts us, so with lots of help from Empowered to Connect, we are able to work through it.  We are able to provide comfort.  We can love her through it and connect through the pain.

But jeez, what I wouldn’t give to not have to go through all this trauma again.  We had worked through so much.  So. Much.  And now here we go again.  But this time around we are investing in forever. 

Forever. 

Thank you Lord.

 

Prayers for the hearts of our sweet girls are coveted.  Healing will come.  It will.

Popps in 2013.

 

Yesterday was the permanency hearing for the girls, to follow up the termination hearing we had in May.  I wasn’t really expecting to get any news from this hearing – the purpose was just to legally change the goal of the case from reunification to adoption. (!!!)

 

 

But…

I got an e-mail from the caseworker today letting me know that the judge actually set a hearing date to finalize the adoption, saying that it should give the agency plenty of time to complete the adoption. (When I imagine it, the judge has a whip in his hand and snaps it as he gives the order.)

And so it’s set.  We will legally become a forever family on

                    December 5, 2013.

 

It seems like we’ve been waiting for so long.  Waiting for some kind of light at the end of the tunnel.  Some kind of permanency.

Not only for the last two years, but for our entire fostering journey our mindset has always been, has had to be,

we’ll see what happens.

who knows what will happen.

we’re just not sure where things are headed.

we can’t be sure until it’s over.

It’s kind of just become a way of life for us, and now, all of a sudden, we know what is going to happen.  We know what is going to happen, and it is adoption.

It seems so surreal.  I don’t think we ever really thought we’d get here.  We’ve been foster for 5 years and have never been in this place.

We’re adopting.

They will be ours.  Our daughters.  Forever.

When?

December 5, 2013.

And you better believe that as of then, I will be posting their beautiful names, and posting hundreds of pictures of their beautiful faces.  Faces whose names will end in Popp.

They’ll be Popps.

 

5 Months.

 

  Oh little Vi, you are such a joy.

You’re not really very little for your age.  You are in the 75% for weight and 90% for height!  Weighing in at 14 1/2 pounds, you are definitely not struggling for growth!  I love your roly poly little body.

  What defines you is your smile.  Pretty cool thing to be defined by, eh?  You have a smile for anyone, anytime.  You give them away freely, and they are beautiful and full of joy!  It fills my heart to bursting every time you smile at me.  You are a gift from God.

 

  You make lots of noise, talking and jabbering with your sisters, or giggling at something silly they’re doing.  Your signature sound is this little chuckle that you let loose at anything reasonably funny.  Any time you get excited you start your “huhuhuhuhuhuh” laugh, and we can’t help but smile!  You jabber all the time – and you’re LOUD!

 

  You’re in a hurry to get moving, just like Sylvia was.  You’re rolling all over the place, front to back and back to front.  I can’t keep you on a blanket, so I just gave up and you roll all over on the floor.  Even though you know how to roll, your favorite position right now is standing.  If you’re being held, you like to be standing.  I’m afraid this is a sign of early walking.  No need for that.  Immobile is good. (This should be your mantra.)  You’ve started playing with toys, and you’ll even try to scoot to get to them.  Your working hard to catch up with your sisters, and I’m sure it won’t be any time at all before you’re running around with them, just as crazy as they are.

 

  You’re a big time thumb sucker.  This is new in our family.  You love. your. thumb.  Which I’m pretty ok with.  You put yourself to sleep with your thumb and in general are pretty happy as long as you have it.  And you can’t drop it.  It’s great.

  You are SUPER ticklish.  It’s very fun.  I can tickle you and easily get a belly laugh, which is all I need to brighten my day.  It makes you happy too.  I’m not torturing you for my pleasure or anything.

 

  You’re such a happy baby.  We trekked you all over Disney World for five days and didn’t hear a peep out of you unless you were hungry.  You’re a trooper.  It’s good.  You’re number five.  Happy is good.

 

  Your sisters love you.  Bella loves to hold you and sing to you.  She asks to hold you all the time.  When you’re unhappy she gets you toys, she picks out your clothes.  She just loves you.  She’s going to be your protector. She’ll be by your side, and she’ll have your back.  She’s a good big sister.

  Naomi laughs and giggles anytime she sees you.  She gives you kisses all. the. time. and she loves to snuggle you.  She sings to you in the car, and hugs you when you’re sad.  I think you two are going to be good buddies.  Naomi can hold her own, and I think she’ll stand her ground for you too.  You’ll never have to worry about having someone there to watch out for you.

  Sylvia is still your biggest fan.  You look so much like her I can hardly tell your pictures apart – it’s crazy.  She loves to snuggle you.  Loves it.  She’ll do anything to make you smile and laugh – which is why half the time I’m holding you, Sylvia is in front of me making funny faces and dancing.  She just loves to hear you laugh. 

  Tootaw loves you so much.  She loves to hold you.  She loves to ‘read you books’.  I think she’ll be the first to teach you to do really dangerous things.  Everyone needs a sibling to teach them to do dangerous things.

  Your sisters love you – but that doesn’t always equate with them being gentle with you.  But they love you, I promise.  Someday you may have anxiety at the feeling of being squished, but it was all in the name of being loved.

 

  You’re still great at nursing.  I recently started teaching a MAPP class, and your Daddy has kept you those nights.  You take a bottle like a pro, even though you hadn’t seen a bottle once until you were four and a half months old.  When I lay you down in my bed at night to go to sleep you giggle, because you know I’m about to nurse you and then snuggle you all night.  I love it too.  We love to snuggle.  Of course, as much as I love to snuggle you, you’re not really snuggly unless you are nursing.  Other than that, you like to be facing outward taking in the world.  You are interested in everything and loving life.

 

 

 

  I can’t imagine life without you.  Not even close.  You bring me joy even when I am at my wits end and completely frustrated.  I love your snuggles, I love your kisses, I love your smiles, I love your giggles, I love seeing your sisters love you.  You are a gift.  I love you.  So. So. Much.

 

Love you, love you, love you,

Mama