TWO months.
Oh my gosh. I cannot even believe… I’m writing this purely
for my memories, I cannot imagine it will be any fun to read—I may even make
lists because….
*1. I am
swamped. I’m having a hard time
balancing working/running my business/transitioning the 3 kids (yes, it is MUCH
MORE than transitioning just Verlande)/ seriously--- these people I live with
also seem to need dinners every single night… (and yes.. we still are having
oatmeal every Wednesday night, you would think that would help make things
easier… it does.. but I am still overwhelmed)… I’m trying to keep a bit of the
things I love (swim/bike/run/gardening/reading/just BEING!)... so yes… the days are packed, and I’ve been
exhausted. As packed as the days have
been, I also have been so fatigued that I’ve been napping. Yes, I am to the point now if I get my work
done and I have 30 m inutes until my next person, I will set my alarm and sleep
for 20 minutes.. I can fall asleep within 3.2 seconds, I swear.
So that was all to say that.. this may be in the form of
lists.
Verlande is really amazing.
I always knew she was. But, even
when I have a hard day with her, she really has been remarkable at adjusting
from such a DIFFERENT Place.
Amazing. She has told
us more of her stories from Haiti- about her life living w/ her dad and
brothers, the chickens and roosters, how they got water, where they would go to
use a bathroom, her time at the “orphalina”… but at the same time, she somehow
accepts this new life here very easily.
School—she is LOVING it. She
loves her teacher, she comes home explaining 1000% of the things they do (and I
… do.. mean… 1000%... sigh…. Long long conversations and millions of words
to get the point of really a 5 word
sentence of “we play voll eyball in PE”…
she loves telling me about “all her friends”…she loves her teachers—she
loves her PE teachers—of course this is important to me! And she made them special cards for teacher
appreciation week, she loves music and art, and sings the songs they learned
and loves bringing home her artwork. If
anything, I sometimes cringe that she is so overly dramatic about how much she
loves school, because it leaves absolutely zero time for Forrest or Phoebe to
pipe in with the things they did…. And I worry that all of her over-enthusiasm
kind of “squashes” Phoebe’s and Forrest’s “space”…. Just overwhelms everything.
She does well with soccer team… somewhat well—well in the
fact that she goes out there and “plays soccer”… she sometimes is super
aggressive and sporty and really goes after the ball. She even has been known to pull some pretty
sweet “soccer moves”… but also she has
times where literally her foot jjust MISSES the ball and kicks the grass…. Or
she is like 3 feet from the goal and it literally goes 5 feet away from the
goal- just not even sure how she will not be able to kick the ball…. It is
funny.. she is such a mix of great coordination and being athletic, but then
also a bit unfocused. Not sure what to
think about it.
She does really well with her food eating— in SOME
regards. She really has done a great job
learning that in this family, we simply must eat our vegetables. She knows that if she is hungry, she will
have to come back to the broccoli because we have saved it for her. She really has been a rockstar at “getting
that”.. but at the same time, I don’t really tell her that since I act like it
is not a choice. I also have to be very
hopeful and careful that phoebe and forrest don’t act like they want to get
“out of” eating their vegetables….
She seems to already have become somewhat “Americanized”…. She
complains of small thing that she thinks will get her some attention- she
really is an ‘attention suck”… she simply knows how to get all eyes on her. I have to say that annoys me. She will act like a scrape is life threatening
at times. It would annoy me with P and F
doing this also, but I feel bad saying this, but it annoys me more because in
the back of my mind, I think, “hey… you have it so good here, we have medicine
and band aids… and frankly… the tiredness in your legs or whatever she is
complaining about, will go away.” I
wish I didn’t feel negative like this, I wish I was just doubled over in love
with taking care of a “fake booboo.”… like I might do for a baby… she didn’t
have this experience of being loved on and taken care of fully as a baby/child…
so I feel like I should give her this extra “grace” and softness… I’m trying to
be the best I can for her.
She loves when I do her hair in great styles.. I am proud of
myself for really trying so hard, and so thankful that she seems to think I am
pretty decent at this!!! Seriously.. so
thankful! I didn’t want this to be an
issue.. I wanted her to accept me as her mom, to not think of me as clueless..
(although honestly.. I am in terms of hair)…
A few funny things:
*she calls her diary of wimpy kid book her “diarrhea book”…
she can’t quite see that these words are different. (since I originally wrote this.. it is no
longer under the category of “funny”.. seriously, over and over she keeps
calling it that and we are tired of reminding her that diarrhea is her watery
poop from her worms in her stomach. Grrrr.)
**Forrest is having some troubles.. but also is loving
having her as a sister. He loves to just
get ON her for any little thing. Verlande’s
“foot touched him”… she “stood on the grass of the people’s lawn at the bus
stop” (I don’t let the kids play on that persons yard.. and seriously.. I will
never move to a house that has a bus stop in front of it)… any thing he can
find… He loves to tell me.. AND HER.
Verlande, you’re not able to use that pencil, you can’t hold the fork in
your left hand, silly annoying stuff.
She takes it well, but we have to tell Forrest that he cannot just tell
Verlande what to do all the time. And
she plays unfairly back with him.. she cheats in games and thinks she can push
stuff past him and it just gets messy…
it gets FREAKING REAL.. that is all, reg. brother and sister stuff. We are real… I love this. We’re in it.. AREN’T WE LUCKY!?? Seriously,
we waited so so so so so long for this… it is so good.. even when I’m
complaining here about their silly ole stuff!
**Phoebe is having some troubles too. She has just been randomly all grumpy
grumpy. Yuck! And she cries over nothing. She is just in a rotten vinegar mood, and
then cries…. And I do feel bad for her.
She is so sensitive. She has given
up her own room, she shares with VVerlande so well… she has prayed for Verlande
for so long… She is so generous. Oh .. I could cry. And then when Phoebe cries, Verlande cries
for her. It is sweet.. but also
annoying.. that just amplifies all of the crying we have.. yuck.
**and of course Verlande has her troubles. She does things specifically we tell her not
to. She threw a book the other day for
the first time, and then answered back to me like a true 15 year old attitude…
I nearly died. She gets bossy, she
crosses her arms and HUFFS when she doesn’t get to watch TV or do something…
well, she is a kid, huh. It is ok… it
is. It is easier to see this when I
write this. In the middle of it, I mentally freak myself out thinking, “oh NO…
she expects to get everything she wants” but in writing this, I see that this
just makes her NORMAL! She went to her
first birthday party this past weekend and she was definitely nervous when I
dropped her off. We spent a good 15 minutes talking to her about what to
expect, how to behave, etc. She
definitely was a little clingy and uncharacteristically worried looking. 1.5 hours later I went to pick her up and she
was having a BLAST! I heard for 1 full
hour afterwards how much fun she had (well, her first words were “we had such a
good CAKE” (I thought the word would be
time.. but no, it was CAKE… more on that shortly).. It was a birthday party that phoebe also went
to, so I was slightly trying to get Verlande to talk less about it and make
sure to get phoebe to talk a little bit about.
Then I got the real information on the party…. From the mom of the
birthday girl… that Verlande picked a small fight/power struggle with another
child, that she took 2 juice boxes (after we specifically told her only ONE of
the drink and cake)(yes, we were quite specific based on earlier instances that
we have needed to do this), and also that she wouldn’t leave the table where
she ate her cake and sat there licking the plate with her tongue. Damn I was mad. Seriously.. mad and sad and shakey.. trying
to not take it “personally” but I did. I
did because Verlande is smart and it isn’t new to her, this isn’t the first
time we have told her these things, because I knew darn well she would not have
done this in front of us. She knew
better, and I know that she was basically trying to get away with it, so I was
mad… hurt, worried, I don’t even know…
We had the same thing on her first field trip with school- she had a
water bottle and big lunch in a bag- enough to definitely keep her full through
the trip. But of course I wasn’t there,
and even after being instructed that this was hers, that she was not to take
someone else’s water or food, that she had to use these through the 6 hours..
apparently it was quite an effort through the day for her to continue asking
the adults for more food. Two steps forward,
one step back.
It is all okay.. it will be.
She is trying to bike now without training wheels and very
excited. She is in love with
caterpillars. She is still trying to act
too physical with people. She sings in
church honestly way too loud, and we remind her all the time that when we sing
and pray that we are not trying to be the loudest or ‘best”… that God can hear
us even when we are silent. She is an
attention seeker. I am not, and it makes
me completely uncomfortable…
OK, so I am trying to just write this all down and this will
be it since I am again 2 weeks left for a “2 month” update!
