Rose's 14th Birthday

It's been a whirlwind Thanksgiving weekend culminating in today, Rose's 14th birthday.

She celebrated with The Schultes.

Then my family and our close friends at Olive Garden (the restaurant of her choice).

And, lastly, tonight with us, she got her Hermione wizard wand. 

 

Which she loved. Which I love because it means she's still a bit of a kid somewhere.

I only say that because this is what she looked like just two years ago. 

Since we adopted her at 10 and she didn't come with any baby pictures,  I look back at this picture with sadness. She seemed so little...

Early to rise makes you...

As if life wasn't crazy enough I decided I needed a new challenge. Something beyond hard so I can feel I've done something. 

Last Tueaday, I decided getting up 5 days a week at 4 am and working out all 5 days was this obstacle.

And I set forth determined to do that. The first week, I successfully got up 3 days in a row starting Wednesday and worked out. And guess what, I felt awesome. I was invigorated, my brain was alive, and I felt amazingly calm.

Ok, I can imagine the eye rolls. Who wants to hear about my exercise? No one. I get that. It's as interesting as hearing about people's diets.

In this case though, the unique factor is the sleep deprevation. By Friday I was ready for bed by 2 pm as the adrenaline rush dropped away.

Even by 10 am I felt my brain chugging along as I struggled to have a coffee with a new lawyer at my firm, so much so I worried he'd perceive my incoherent sentence fragments and rambling as drunkeness. So I explained my early workout routine. In hindsight, I'm not sure why.

The look in his eye clearly cast as much judgement as if I'd said I'd had a Bloody Mary before work. Though I think my discipline intimidated him, even if my stilted brain didn't.

This week, though, I couldn't make the five days of early workouts. I did succeed three days: Monday, Wednesday, and friday. Next week I'm shooting for four.

I will let people think what they want. I will accomplish this challenge and study in sleep deprevation.

Oranges in time out

When we set out to adopt a kid, and we put down our preferences, it never dawned on me to ask for a "type a" kiddo. 

A kid like me who lived to get good grades and please everyone, especially her parents. Who naturally stayed on top of homework, who asked for help when stuck, who kept education her top priority.

Instead, I got what I'm deciding is a type orange kid, because her behaviors are so foreign to me, I can't fathom how to parent her. Then we fight. 

For example, today Rose had a few things to finish for English. Oh, but first, she had a melt down about doing the homework, which forced us to put her in time out. Literally in the corner, like a toddler. See the pic.

After fifteen minutes in solitary, she was all too happy to do her work.  Of course, it took her an hour to do what should have been 30 minutes of work. Not a surprising pace for Rose when she's avoiding things.

Still, I went to check on her and noticed she was stuck. Sitting there staring at her paper baffled and ashamed. She'd been stuck like that for at least 15 minutes, she said.

Keep in mind, I was literally one room over. So was Mike. Yet she didn't seek our help. She had no desire to do so. My little orange just wallowed in frustration alone.

I just don't get it. I am stumped. How do we teach her to seek help without shame? How do we enable her to care about herself enough to be her own advocate? 

This has happened with her repeatedly and no matter how many times she sees that asking for help isn't hard, and that getting help speeds up her work, she repeats this cycle.

So I'll noodle on that for some time since those traits came naturally to me. In the meantime, I will be putting my 14-year-old in solitary time out wayyyyy more often when she's in a mood. 

No muss, no fuss, and after 5 minutes she was willing to do her work!! I made her stay there for 15 minutes, for effect and to give he illusion I am in charge (ha ha ha...she rules this house really).

Label conundrums

I've decided there is no true winning as a parent in a label-ridden society. Especially  since Rose has a chrome book. 

Let me back up. 

First, Rose has been labeled with multiple diagnoses. They're dead on, by the way. Plus, by understanding needs related to the labels--combined with the help of great advancement in psychological medicine--we've seen Rose make significant strides. Labels here don't give Rose an excuse at all. They're positive communication vehicles for us as her guardians. Yayyyy for labels in this instance.

Enter the Chrome Book...

A chrome book with no real filters handed to a kiddo with boundary issues, a family history that's scary, at best, and a lack of value in education. 

Enter the helicopter parents...yes, we've been labeled. 

Labeled as such because we review Rose's history daily and notice trends. We call or email the school frequently to ask how or why so much time was spent browsing Harry Potter sites instead of doing Algebra.

Yet, still the stupid label stings. Especially when we have to work so hard to protect her. Especially when people like social workers who get our kiddo say we are doing the right things. Still, most others don't get it, and so we're hit with a label.

Plus, if we decide to let go and give rose "normal" privileges of a 13-year-old she creates a Facebook profile using her birth name, applies no security to he page and includes our street address. That really happened. We just found it. Scary.

So for those of you asking me to pretend I have a "normal" kid, the advice is appreciated but that label is least helpful of all. She is beautiful because she survived what most normal kids can't and has intelligence beyond her years. She is amazing. She isn't normal. If she was, she'd be in a mental health ward.

So I'll take it... Helicopter parent.. This tiger mom would rather have a well adjusted kid who I've healed, than a mess who I pretended was "just like" a "fully adjusted" kiddo.  

Great blog post

I came across the following and wanted to share it here because it's so true. It also accurately lists things you shouldn't say to adoptive parents.

http://headsup07up.blogspot.com/2014/09/10-things-not-to-say-to-adopted-child.html?m=1