Complete failure or what?

Our first bike ride together was doomed for failure for a few reasons.

First, it was 6:00 p.m. after a very fun afternoon spent at a BBQ with friends where Rosie was kept busy. Second, Rosie had her first dose of the med that should help her start to come down from her ADHD meds. Third, it was a sticky, balmy night and still sunny. Fourth, Rosie had admitted on many occasions she hates getting hot and sweaty.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I am not great at nurturing. It's something I am learning and I don't do well when tired.

Yet, when she insisted that we should go on a bike ride and further insisted it just be Mommy and Daughter time, I agreed.

I thought we could bike approximately 1 mile to the parkway, 1 mile down the parkway, turn around and return home. I should have known when she struggled with the hand brakes I should have turned us around. Yet, we pushed on, she became  more confident, and the ride was enjoyable. Until we were about a few blocks from the turnaround.

Then things went downhill, and unfortunately not literally, as we live uphill, which only compounded the situation. "Mom, I'm sweating and dehydrated, " was the first thing I'd heard.

"Mooom, I'm tired, and sweaty, and my legs hurt." Was next.

I heard variations of that the last leg home, and at first I was supportive and nurturing. "You'll get home and we can take give you ice water." "With lots and lots of ice" she demanded. "yep" I said. "And then I'll put band-aids on your knees," "with Neosporin" she said. "Yep, I just can't do any of that here honey, so we need to push onward and just get home."

Then when we had to stop every half a block, I started to have to resort to personal trainer like encouragement. "you can do it, girl." "Let's just get one block at a time." And then when the fake tears started and she refused to move, I lost all ability to nurture and "Honey, you need to toughen up, you're 10, you're healthy, and we're nearly home." I wasn't like a drill Sergent or anything, just firm.

When we made it home, I gave her my pep talk about how she needs to take on the hardest parts of life like a warrior. She rolled her eyes at me. Then I teased her about her fake crying, which was a wrong move and further proof I am not a nurturer. As a result, she's sleeping in her sweaty clothes rather than pjs without her teeth brushed to get back at me.

I did make an apology to her, I gave her some Advil for her wounds and told her I believed in her pain and was proud of her for finishing the ride, and in the end she did give me a hug and kiss good night.

However, I remain shaken by my lack of mothering instincts and tonight feel on the fence. Knowing all the precursors dooming the bike ride, why wasn't I more understanding? Especially knowing Rosie has had a strong lack of nurturing. Yet, then I feel similar to my mom. My mother is the most nurturing person I know, but she didn't baby me, and I like my resiliency.

Will Rosie see me that way? Or will she hate bike riding forever?

Custer's Last Stand

Maybe the theme of this first year is determination.

Each weekend the past month has followed the same series of events:

We get up, and all are in a good mood. We have breakfast in our jammies. Then we start to talk about what the day will hold. Pretty typical stuff: get dressed, work on some chores, and then head out for the fun things we have planned.

Each day, Rosie flat out refuses to get dressed. This is the tactic we're trying now, which was suggested to us by our therapist.

Rule: No fun until you can take care of yourself.

Taking care of yourself means getting dressed. Chores we don't require before leaving the house--we just implement little consquences  for not finishing them by a certain time.

Common Result: Today, and most other weekends, getting dressed proves to be too challenging for Rosie. So she sits in her room, in her jammies until she gets bored. We even pop in to give extra incentives.

Today, since it's raining, I told her if she got dressed we could go out shopping for her to get more summer clothes. I told her I was going to shower and get dressed, and she'd just need to be dressed.

Today, just like all other days, the incentive failed to motivate. It is almost like she'd rather punish herself.

Unexpected Consequences for us:

1. We are bored, too, and we feel a little trapped ourselves. We are learning to get over this.
2. The gardens have never looked better.
3. I wish people with lives would post on Facebook more.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on how to flip this situation around, let me know...

This is determination

Sunday night, after about 3 hours of helping remove trees from our street, we sat at Culvers. The three Schultes. Our eyes reflected our lingering shock and exhaustion. Our lack of conversation revealed how totally starving we were after the stress and manual labor. That's when Rosie interrupted the silence with, "It's our first tornado as a family, mom."

"Let's hope it is our last." I said as I smiled a little.

I haven't been shy about talking about this. It's all but consumed my thoughts the past few days. Our neighborhood is considered "The Disaster Zone" but we got away lucky. There are homes only one block away missing their entire second story, their roofs, the back walls. So I realize our damage really isn't a lot to whine about. Particularly compared to the losses in Joplin, but it was certainly the most scary thing I've experienced. So here's my little dedication to our family's tornado experience together.

Here's another photo of Rosie helping cut branches of trees away.

 

Here's our backyard, which is rather unscathed except the vinyl fence.

And one of the foreclosed homes, which unfortunately means it will likely  have a tree in front of it for some time.

The news coverage was kind of disappointing the hours and days after the storm. Everything I read online (because we lacked power to get the news) focused on looting, which was actually pretty limited, or the curfew, which also only lasted one night.

Yet, the story on our block was the 30-plus neighbors who came out with chainsaws, saws and just by themselves to help clear the trees from the street and off of cars.

It's amazing how so many people can clear three trees in one short afternoon. In a way, the labor helped us distract ourselves from the thoughts of "what if."

The damage to the car from the tree.

Our doorway covered in trees.

The house from the street. 

Thankfully, the curfew only lasted one night because police helicopters circled our neighborhood the entire night while it was in effect--waking us up regularly.

The best news was that no one was hurt in our family, but even cooler news was that the city removed the tree for free because it was from the boulevard, which is technically city property.

It's removal was kind of exciting in a warped way. An interesting reveal of what lay beneath the beautiful maple tree.

And then it wasn't so exciting...

So now we all sit waiting for the insurance company to finally send an assessor out so our contractor can begin legitimate repair. And Rosie has handled the entire thing really well. She had one understandable vent session Wednesday night, "Mom, I hate it here...the traffic is slow, especially during rush hour, and they're slow to fix the power and clean the trees out of the streets." can we move to the country where things are faster?"

I empathized with her and promised the storm damage would be cleaned up soon. I always thought of the country as being slower paced, but leave it to Rosie to make me think of things differently.

Facebook posts I thought you'd enjoy

In case you're not my friend on Facebook, here are some posts that should be part of this blog.

5/20: Today I played a game with Rosie: Let's dash to the restaurant, to avoid the rain, across a parking lot. Then I played how quickly can I prevent Rosie from getting hit from an oncoming car. Thankfully she beat me to the restaurant, unscathed. It was a win-win.

5/16: If you were in the St. Paul Highland Park neighborhood, near St. Thomas, I hope you enjoyed rosie's spot on rendition of "The Girl Is Mine" as much as I did.

5/10, Part 1: The Schultes first spur of the moment DQ trip with Rosie begins.

5/10, Part 2: Now the debate begins, wake the kid and go to the basement or assume the legendary heat bubble will keep us all safe.
 
5/1: Beaten down by a head cold, Rose asked to have her temp taken. Upon seeing the 98.0 result she looked at us with great concern and said, "I have a cold."

5/28: (Our first Twins Game) Rosie: What just happened? Me: He was walked. Rosie: Nah uh, he's running to first base.

Turning off all my buttons

This morning started off like most weekends. With lots of "nos" and "I don't want to" when asked to get dressed.

Today, and all week, I've begun utilizing skills learned from 1, 2, 3, Magic a Guide to Parenting. I also had a self realization that has helped me be a better mom. Having a kid with higher needs, who is constantly defiant, and often disrespectful isn't what I had planned on. The smack of reality is causing a bit of grief and loss on my part over the child I had always imagined raising. So once I realized I was taking my grief out on her, I was able to mostly stop that cycle.

For example, today I firmly but not angrily told her she needed to be dressed by the time I got out of the shower so we could get her hair cut. If she wasn't, I said, I would need to cancel.

Needless to say, she wasn't dressed. The plan for today was altered. What was supposed to be a day of pampering for Rosie (hair cut and shopping) turned into a day where I gave Mike a break in the morning and he gave me a break in the afternoon.

I explained to my mom, for as frustrating as her behavior is, I try to remind myself that Rosie is suffering from depression, grief, and loss. So her desire to stay in jammies on a non school day is understandable. The downside is her disrespect, which sometimes feels abusive in nature, combined with Mike and I feeling like we are trapped in our house with our abuser.

We did make progress throughout the day thanks in large part to the skills we're building. I have gotten pretty good at not engaging in arguing, negative comments., etc. What's fascinating about that is how Rosie handles me not getting emotional. It's similar to a toddler. At first, she'll try getting more negative and pushing a button that might have made me angry before.

Today, she tried the "You're not my mom" bit a few times. "Disrespect" I said, firmly, not with anger or emotion, "that's 10 sentences." (We're imposing a consequence of writing sentences for disrespectful behavior.) Then I walked calmly away and finished making her lunch.

Dismayed that we weren't yelling at eachother, she came into the kitchen and said , mommy, look. I turned around and she was poking the insider of her lip out, and it has a drop of blood on it. Clearly, she caused the small injury, but I stayed calm. "Hu," I said, "you better go get some cold water and rinse it out, but it looks OK to me." So she left, then she came back, "Mom, loooook" she whined.  "Yes, I see, I think it'll be OK, maybe you should avoid orange juice for a bit though."

"DON"T YOU EVEN CARE???" She yelled as she stormed out. Then, out of no where, she decided to get dressed. So I praised her greatly for getting dressed as she ate lunch. I was hoping she'd realize that the attention she's getting is based on good behavior.

Yet, throughout the day, I was mellow, calm, and composed, and as a result, she too has stayed calm. I told her I loved her a lot.

So with my buttons all powered down, I'm finding motherhood much easier to handle--even if it unexpectedly means spending weekends at home.

Pulled back in

Thursday and Sunday night Rosie didn't sleep. Yet, she managed to stay up and be as energized as a kid who consumed pots of coffee until 8 p.m. the following night. This is a warning sign. It can be an early symptom of bipolar disorder. So we were relieved when we didn't have a 10-year old waking us up on regular intervals Monday night. Bipolar disorder wouldn't be bad, and in fact, knowing what is causing her mood swings would be a relief.

So I was confiding in a coworker about this Tuesday and he responded by saying, "maybe she's going through the change." I couldn't breathe momentarily. I laughed it off. She's only 10, I said. I tried to ignore the thought until Wednesday morning when just before we had to get to the bus stop Rosie called out from the bathroom, "Mom, there's blood."

"What?" I asked, "Did you cut yourself?" as I walked into the bathroom. Nope, she showed me her underwear and sure enough, there it was...the start of her period...staring me right in the face. I think a quasi smile froze on my face, "oh," I said as I swiveled around to hide my horror and find some sort of kotex that would fit a 10-year-old.

Then I swiveled back, "do you think you have a urinary tract infection?" (They do cause bleeding and i was admittedly grasping at straws.) "No." She said. "OK," I said, turning back around to get the panty liner. "Mom, why are you freaking out?" She said. Damn, I thought I was hiding my freaky moment.

So we talked about it, and after I thought I did an OK job describing periods, she said, "I don't want a period." I know, sweetie, I said, but we can't give it back, and it's a good part of life. I'm still not great with the motherly responses.

Since then I've kind of adjusted to the news. Somewhat. However, I did have a chuckle over the entire experience.

Mini Confession

I debate how much reality to post on this blog for a few reasons. The first is that if I only portray the happy or put a positive spin on the harder days, I might start to believe in that rose colored picture. I also think the ability to laugh about the shitty times, or to make lemonade out of lemons, helps me get through without deluding myself. Yet, lately I haven't been able to find a lot of humor in what our life has turned into. So there have been few blog posts.

OK, in hindsight Mike having to carry Rosie, who was stubbornly clad in her pajamas, to the car and haul her to Home Depot last week on a day off of school could probably be reflected on with a chuckle or two. It's just not the funny story I'd imagined prior to this journey starting. I am definately going through extreme culture shock, and Rosie isn't to blame for that.



The second is I worry about the judgement of others when I feel negative--which I've already encountered with her social worker who responds to my requests for help with books about how to raise hurt children. I also worry that sharing too much is giving people a bit too much access into some personal parts of our lives. As her parents, it is our job to fiercely protect Rosie and her privacy. A blog violates that responibility.
 
The third is I hate admitting when I am struggling. Yep, you could tie me to a boulder, throw me into the ocean and I'd probably to be too proud to ask for help--preferring to watch people above turn into wavy blobs as I tell myself I really enjoy the challenge of getting the boulder to the top of the surface regardless of the crushing suffocation.

Finally, I worry if I vent too much about the struggles anyone who reads this will fail to see the wonderful person Rosie is.  The glimpses we see of who she could be if we can hang in there.

So where to go with this blog? Let it die and hope there are more humorous, light-hearted family stories to revive it later? Or do I go ahead and write about what's really going on, putting a bit of pride and detail aside, focusing instead on the confusion, frustration and joy our lives now entails.

Identity Crisis

Sunday is Mother's Day, and it just doesn't feel like it to me. I guess after 32 years of honoring my mom or mike's mom, or my friends who are moms, I just don't feel like a mom, myself.

Coworkers and friends seemed surprised we had brought Rosie up to her foster family this weekend for a much needed respite for us all. Rosie's foster mom asked how I feel this Mother's Day. I said, I don't feel like a mom as much as I do a crabby woman. She burst out laughing and said, "That's motherhood! Welcome!"

Fear not, Rosie will return Sunday, and we will celebrate my new found motherhood. For those of you who remember stories about her foster mom that seemed worrisome. My fears were put aside when after a brief meeting with them, rosie commented that she missed them and wept. So I emailed foster mom and asked if she could invite Rosie for a visit.

Rosie was so thrilled and touched to have them call and want to see her. As we pulled into the driveway, rosie was screaming with excitement when she saw her foster dad and sister. So for the concerns I had, I figure one weekend is ok.

And really, celebration has already begun with a present Rosie made for me. Well, she designed the flower pot and planted the little annual...I think it's an annual. I don't have much of a green thumb.

Drill Sergeant

On the way to Rosie's school we passed a bus with a 20-something couple and a saying: "We are in love but we're not ready to have a baby." Rose read it aloud in a contemplative way.

So I asked her what they should do in that situation, and she said, "get that girl on birth control."

That's right, I said, anything else?

"Buy condoms" she said.  "Why?" I asked.  "To prevent disease," she said.

Yep, I said. The subject changed, but I felt proud of the exchange. Sure she is only 10 but with a 90% chance she could be a teenage mom, I will take every shot possible to drill birth control pills and condoms into her head.