The End Of WALTER

I really don't like this guy. At all. Still.

Far too often I find myself right back in the dance.

W arning
A rguing
L ecturing
T hreatening
E xcusing and accepting E xcuses
R eminding

It's such a habit. Kind of like nibbling on my nails or picking the skin off my lips. Yes, I know that's a strange habit.

But habits are hard to break. Any kind of habit. It's so easy to slip back into saying, "If you don't do that right now you're going to have to sit strong" rather than saying, "Uh-oh! Time to practice sitting strong!!"

My days consist of firing off split second prayers to Jesus...."PLEASE DON'T LET ME DANCE WITH WALTER." "Help me to keep a smile on my lips and in my eyes." "Let me see the good in this child no matter what he's doing to me." "Help me to be the strong mommy that these children need, cause right now I feel really weak."

Those little prayers sound a tad selfish. All that praying for me and none of it for anyone else. Oops.

But right now? I feel that I need lots of prayers.

Yesterday my dear, sweet, lovable son spent 5 hours in his bedroom simply because he WOULD NOT do his crawling. For 15 minutes. Hard stuff, that is.

Yes. 5 hours. He didn't have too rough a time though. He got sent to his room because he refused to stay on his rug. Instead he was kicking cabinets, spitting on me, kicking anyone who came close, throwing whatever he could get his hands on. I sent him to his room to chill out for a few minutes...and he stretched it into 5 hours. GULP.

He had a ball, by all appearances!! We have a video camera in there so we can make sure he doesn't hurt himself, and I tell you what...it was just like watching a movie. Everything in his room was stacked on his bed multiple times (lego table, nightstand, toddler bed, shoes from his closet, clothes, blankets, etc.) and then he'd crawl around on it like it was a jungle gym. Then it would all come back off and he'd jump on the bed. Then he took the screen out of his window...which was far from safe considering he's on the second story....so his daddy nailed a fence panel over the window simply to keep him from hurting himself. Sharp. Then it was back to stacking the bed full. Then....

I went up every little bit with a glass of cold water, which he'd guzzle right down and get back to his creative room rearranging.

At the end of the five hours, he simple said, "FINE. I guess I'll sit strong." He proceeded to unload his bed, crawl into the middle of it and there he sat. Straight and strong for the thirty seconds that are required.

I can't say it was all that easy to watch him destroying his room, but it was entertaining. And sad. He is so stuck in his survival mode that it's so terribly difficult for him to give in and do as he knows he should.

The rest of the evening went great!

And that's how our days often go. He starts off with ramped up behaviors, decides that he's the only one that it appears to be affecting, and flips his switch to happy and obedient. Praise the Lord for the switch!!

But. That was far from the topic at hand.

WALTER.

I think we're ready for T hreaten.

I don't like this one. At all. Just the word makes me a little uncomfortable. It sounds horrid...like we all threaten to stuff our children into a closet for the day or something. But it doesn't even have to be that. In this case (of course stuffing them into a closet, or even threatening to do that is beyond horrible), we are simply talking about simple threats. "If you do that one more time, we won't go to Grandma's" while knowing that you probably will still go to Grandma's no matter what little Johnny does. "If you throw that toy, you'll have to pick up all the toys by yourself for a week" and then you forget that you ever said it and the child knows that you'll forget cause you said the same thing yesterday. "Don't do that again, or..."

Honestly? It's far easier to just go straight to the consequence rather than to threaten something. One thing that I have noticed in the week and a half since coming home from Colorado is that we have a much happier household. Much happier. I know it doesn't sound like it from the stories that you've been regaled with, but it is so true. I find that if I employ the dance with WALTER, I get way stressed out. It's hard to remember all the warnings and threats and reminders. However, if I (with some major help from Jesus) can manage to skip all that and head straight to the consequence or restitution, I can manage to keep the smile. That saying, 'If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy'? It's beyond true.

From the purple book....Threats come from enemies. Ouch. And as they told us at the ranch, when we threaten our children we are telling them that we aren't strong enough to handle their behavior. We aren't strong enough to deal with the behavior immediately. We aren't strong enough to deal with them actually, which, for our children, simply reinforces the fact in their wounded minds that they are unlovable and unloved. Big ouch. We need to be strong so we can teach our children to be strong.

Moving on.

Next up is E xcuses or E xcusing behaviors.

Excuses are rampant around here. Before Colorado (and no, it isn't all in the past as of yet) our oldest child was the queen of excuses. We'd ask what took her so long to gather eggs (should take about 10 minutes and often took about 45 minutes) and she'd spout off a list of excuses a mile long. Usually it had to do with a kitten or a puppy or a chicken that wasn't acting quite right. She's a pro at the "Yes, but..." or the "Well, I..." Now it's a pretty simple fix. She/he start in with an excuse, all we have to say is "Mouth Hug!!!" No, it's not well accepted all the time and no, we don't remember that and launch into a lecture at times, but it is improving. Of course, after the appropriate mouth hug is completed, the child has to tell us what happened to need a mouth hug.

Off on another rabbit trail....that's something else that has made it so much easier to stay cheerful. If THEY have to tell us what the offense was, it puts it right back on their shoulders. If I have to tell them, I fall into lecture mode and the dance with Walter begins all over again. As Mr. James and Miss Nancy told us over and over and over..."Make them use their brains. Give yours a rest." Of course it's a little difficult to practice the 'what happened' with a child who can't really communicate very well (Jack) but we are still able to communicate with hand gestures!

The E xcusing behaviors is one that I just tacked on there for me to remember. My child is not an extension of myself. In other words, while my child has learned a lot from watching my reactions, that doesn't mean that he/she doesn't make his/her own decisions. They are little humans. They do make their own choices. If they want to vegitate in their bedrooms for most of the day, that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on me. He knew that all he had to do was sit strong for thirty seconds. He made the choice to drag that out for five hours. While we still need to guide our children to make right decisions, they do have brains of their own and will still make the wrong choices at times. Hmmmm. Sounds like me. I think it's called being a human.

And then we're to the end of Walter. Reminders.

That is so easy. Way too easy, in fact. "Didn't I tell you to make your bed?" "You were supposed to do that job half an hour ago." "How many times do I have to tell you to pick up your dirty clothes after your shower?" "Ahem. Is that where that belongs?" This is another one that I tend to fall right back into. Instead of wasting all my breath reminding, we were told that all we have to say is, "Go sit strong while you think about what you are supposed to be doing." Once again, it places all brain thought on the child and the parent can move on whistling while the child sits and thinks a tad. Chances are great that by the time the sitting strong is happening correctly, the child totally remembers what it was they were to be doing. And then they'll do it. :) Except they didn't do it because they didn't want to in the first place so it may take multiple times of sitting strong before he/she can get it done 'fast and snappy and right the first time'. Another saying that we learned at the ranch.

Why is it that just typing all this stuff out makes it sound so easy? Perhaps it has been/will be for you...but it's just not that easy for me. In my four years of being a mom, I have danced with Walter on a daily basis. Not with all six points of Walter, but with at least one every day. How sad. Four years of wasted brain power and too much control freakish stuff in me.

So. We're not the perfect parents. We never will be. I still go to bed at night and think..."Oh, if I had just done this instead of that." I don't think Jesus expects us to be perfect. Make that, I know He doesn't expect us to be perfect. It's simply not possible.

The time has come for me to stop dancing and start walking. The time has come and is actually long overdue for me to stop being a grouch and start being the happy, smiling mommy that my children deserve.

I feel like you all can now see right through our very dirty windows and can see what all happens in our house. I feel like we're on display. As not fun as that feeling is, I want everyone to know the truth. The truth is...we're humans. Just because we adopted our children does not mean that we don't get frustrated. Just because we have had training and whatnot on the best way to deal with our troubled children does not make us any better parents than the next set of parents. In fact perhaps the fact that we had to search out professional help in our parenting tells on our lack of parenting skills.

No matter how I feel about folks peeping in our windows, I still believe that if it helps one family out there, it is worth being put on display. This certainly is not what we planned when we married nearly nine years ago. (NINE years?!) We had a plan for our lives. We were going to have whatever number of children God wanted us to have through the 'normal' method of family building. We were going to go on lovely family trips to Colorado where we could just rest and relax. We were going to just be a normal family with normal everyday lives that were far from being interesting or entertaining.

Instead, God called us down the path of infertility...thus shooting our plan of normal family building completely..until now, of course :) God called us down the path of adoption...thus shooting our plan of lovely family trips to Colorado. Instead, we have taken multiple trips to the land of Russia...none of which I would call restful or relaxing. God called us down the path of troubled children...thus opening our lives to all who know us, and those who don't know us as well.

No, we wouldn't have to be so open. We wouldn't have to tell it all. We could just stick to ourselves and be little hermits who keep all our struggles to ourselves. That would be easier, by far.

But as stated above...we decided long ago that if our journey can help just one other person, being open will have been well worth it.

Not only that...we so appreciate and feel the prayers of everyone....and that has kept us pressing on for the last 7 years. Because seven years ago was when we started down the path that made us a 'not normal' family. And seven years ago was when we began to crack our dirty windows to the world...thus allowing folks from near and far to see just how imperfect we really are.

Deepest apologies if none of this makes a speck of sense. It made sense to me as I was typing...but time is not on my side currently, so I must hit 'publish post' before I take the time to proofread it.

God's blessings to each and every one of you as we strive to raise little soldiers for the army of Jesus!!