October

 

Somehow September slipped right by me and now October is more than halfway over too!  Since I last wrote, Hannah graduated from daily visits to the Severe Behavior Clinic to every other week once a day for an hour.  That is much more doable although I still feel like we spend all of our time in the van!  First grade seems to be moving right along for Hannah.  Her teachers really have no complaints and she seems to be enjoying herself. 

Report cards come out tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what her social skills are marked like.  She did, however, have her first incident of aggression at school for the year.  A little boy in her class pinched her (we have yet to figure out the reason-did Hannah do something to him first or was he completely unprovoked) so she bit him-hard.  Of course this meant another office referral and it came at the absolute worst time as we were about to leave for a trip to Minnesota that very afternoon!  After all the lying and omitting of the truth we think we finally got to the bottom of things.

  Then yesterday I found out that the incident wasn't completely over because Hannah had neglected to return the signed office referral to her teacher.  Apparently she had thrown it in the trash.  It took quite awhile to wade through all the lies on that one too, but I think we eventually got there.  After the biting incident we finally decided to give medication a try to help her control her impulses.  We actually start that this weekend.  I'm quite nervous about it, but I at least know that it's easy to change our minds and the meds leave no lasting side effects after they are out of her system if they don't work or we don't like what they do.  Wish us luck as we embark on this latest leg of our journey.  Last month we did a brief respite foster care stint with a little 3 year old girl.  She and Hannah got on pretty well and I miss her now that she is gone, but BOY OH BOY was she a ball of energy.  That kid went nonstop from the time she woke up until the time she finally crashed at night.  The sad thing about her was that she was now our 5th placement we've had that had no idea  how to cuddle and had never been read to or sung to at bedtime.  Again and again I am amazed at how many of the basic "rights" of childhood these kids have never experienced.  :(  While the respite munchkin was here we also hosted a series of guests.  My dad came to visit and then my best friend Sarah and her family stopped by for a night too.  I am reminded again and again at what a blessing from God our house is that we can house extra children as well as guests and still have everyone be comfortable. 

Hannah decided last night to try out for a speaking role in our church's Christmas program.  I didn't get to watch the tryout, but Kyle said she did a great job and was one of the strongest readers he heard.  He also said she was one of the youngest so that may very well affect her chances at actually getting a part.  Still whatever happens, I'm proud that she tried and at least she'll be guaranteed a spot in the chorus despite her off key singing voice! 

Next month I am participating in the Open Adoption Bloggers Interview Project again.  Last year I interviewed a  birthmom named Kate and it was an awesome experience.  I can't wait to see who I get paired with this year.  There is still time to sign up if you are interested and blog at least occasionally about adoption.  Simply click on the button at the top of my page and it should take you to the registration page. 

Photo Notes:  The pictures are from a weekend trip we took in September to a local wildlife preserve.  I think Hannah enjoyed chasing the chickens in the petting area more than she enjoyed the wild animals!

P.S.  I hate the new blogger format and I cannot make my posts look like I want.  My text and pictures keep getting all jumbled up.  Until I figure it out, I apologize for the inconvenience of having to read the disjointed text.

First Grade

Once again I let months go by without updating the blog.  When last I wrote we were a family of 7.  Now we are back down to a family of 3 again.  First the toddler left in July and then the new girls left the first day of school.  The house feels so empty  now.  We are all already itching for our next foster placement.

This summer we spent our days pretty much in the van.  The girls had therapy and summer school and Hannah finally came up on the waiting list at the Severe Behavior Clinic.  That made for a TON of driving.  In fact, we are STILL driving to Omaha every single day.  Hannah started first grade a few weeks ago and things seem to be going fairly well so far, although the honeymoon did not last nearly as long this year as it did for kindergarten!  She's already had 2 stealing incidents in the first 2 weeks of school. 

Lately Hannah has been hounding me for horseback riding lessons.  I've done some searching and hopefully we'll check out a few stables next month.  That should make her insanely happy. 

We Got In

Well, we got into the Severe Behavior Program. Now we sit on the waiting list. The wait could be months and months or it could be a few weeks. We don't really know. I'm just thankful we got in. I was so worried that, as scary as it's been here lately, it wouldn't be bad enough to qualify us for the program, but that it was too bad to be helped by the regular psychologist. They've prescribed a 3 day a week treatment to start with for 1 1/2 hours a day. This means that we won't have to pull her out of school, at least not completely depending on the time slot we can get into. The doctor assured me that they have ways of recreating the behaviors we see at home in the clinic, but every once in awhile they have a kid that plays "nice" and won't repeat what they normally do. He said in that case they wouldn't be like the mechanic who, when you take your car to them when it's making that funny noise and it doesn't make the noise for them, tells you there is nothing they can do if it doesn't make the noise when they drive it. He said that if she won't display her behaviors in the clinic then they will put cameras up in our home and tape the behaviors. He said in no uncertain circumstances would they discharge us from the program until her behaviors are actually better. That just made me feel so good. I feel like so many professionals have either not believed what we have said, have given up on us, or just passed the buck and said "here, this person can help you better". I'm really hoping this is it.

In other news, the door alarm has arrived and is installed. For now, it is working. We are pretty sure we have known every time she has opened her door and so far she has not tried to sneak out and do something scary. The job card system doesn't seem to be working, but since we have no better solution until we get into the behavior program we'll keep at it.

Ok, so it's been a few days since I started this post and we just got back from a workshop hosted at Hannah's school by a business that runs a behavior day program for kids with problem behaviors. We wanted to go just to hear the information, but it also counted as continuing education that we have to do to keep our foster care license. The high school child development class and their teachers provided free childcare while the workshop was going on. The ironic part was that as the workshop was going on and they were listing off all sorts of problem behaviors Kyle and I would turn and look at each other and say "check!" Hannah had them all! Then, when I went to pick up the kiddos from the childcare room, both the high school students and their teachers were raving about how wonderful both of the kiddos' behavior was! Really? It'd been a tough day for both of them. Too bad that behavior couldn't last. Hannah made it home, but then fell completely apart. She'd had a rough day before at school too. It can be so frustrating that it's the comfortable situations that allow the acting out instead of the uncomfortable ones. Sigh. . . .