Church

We went to church on Saturday night, at Bethlehem Baptist where we use to belong. Akila was begging to go to the church where she was dedicated so decided to give it a try. There is no children's church during the service, so the kids stay with us the entire 1 1/2 hours. In the past, this has not worked well with Akila. To be honest, we were nervous.

It went pretty well. For some reason, Akila was very obsessed with Pastor Piper, which man he was, where he was sitting, what he was going to say, etc. After the service, she went up front to see what was going on. They invite people up to be prayed with, or to speak with a Pastor or elder. Akila wanted to talk to Pastor Piper and I couldn't talk her out of it. There was a long line. Pastor Kenny was also up front and I told Akila how when she was a baby, we went to his house all the time for small group. She decided she wanted to talk with him.

She was telling him how she has Turner Syndrome, has a growth problem, had her eyes dilated (which was more than 6 months ago), and she would have went on and on if I had let her. It was nice to talk with Kenny. We then left and went to Perkins where kids eat free on Saturday nights, and everyone was hungry!

Shortly after we arrived, we realized what a bad idea it was. Akila was in overdrive, as hyper as I have seen her in a long time; and she knew it. She couldn't sit still, wanted to be up and dancing around, was being very loud. And then something put her over the edge. She saw that at a table not too far from us, Pastor Piper was there and eating dinner with some other church members. You would have thought the Jonah's Brothers were in the restaurant. She went nuts. She wanted to go talk to him, she couldn't believe he was there, and she kept on repeating that over and over and over.

I took her for a walk, tried to distract her until the food finally came. The food came, she ate a bit, and Michael couldn't stand it anymore and brought her out to the car. The other kids and I finished up quickly and we left. Michael and I realized that we had made a dumb choice in going out to eat. Akila had gotten up early, at 4:30 in the morning, and had awakened Imani as well. I think she just couldn't hold it together anymore. I am just thankful that she made it through church. I pray that I make it through the 5 day weekend we are approaching. It is sure to be a long one.

Pondering

I have been a bad blogger lately. Too much to do, too little time. We are in the midst of getting our bathroom remodeled, and it has been a zoo. Should be done by end of Monday, I pray. I can't tell you how sick of taking baths I am. Enough on that.

Akila was on edge this past weekend, and it wasn't' fun. Sunday was Zeke's birthday, my baby turned 6 and boy was he excited! He got to choose where we went for lunch and he chose Godfathers. Akila was not pleased with this choice and she made it known. It is about a 10 or 15 minute drive, and I think she honestly called me a "stupid freakin woman" between 6-7 times in the car. This was after I had heard it many times in the morning (by the end of the day, it was no less than 40 times). Michael was of course, a "stupid freakin man". I dread the day when freakin changes to the other f word choice, and I don't mean frickin. I was driving, and she also took her very heavy purse she had brought with, and hit me on the shoulder pretty hard. It is so hard to not blow up when she is like this. Maybe that is why I usually do blow up.

Michael and I had a brief conversation about our families future. I know that Kari has blogged about this in the past, but it is really hard to think about the fact that my daughter may not always be able to live with us. Am I giving up? No. Am I being pessimistic? No. I am trying to be realistic. Akila's violence and anger can be really scary sometimes.

Last week, one night at dinner, Akila was focusing her anger on Imani, for absolutely no reason. She sits across from Imani and she literally started to climb up on the table to try to hit Imani. We calmed her down, and were trying to re-focus her. She was yelling at Imani that she was going to hit her at school, and she kept on doing the threatening posture of holding one hand flat and hitting it with the other hand in a fist. Imani thankfully was ignoring her. I got her to stop finally and move on. But a few minutes later, I realized that Akila was staring intently at Imani, and it was in a very intimidating manner. And my husband wonders why I have no problem with Akila taking her plate to the family room to eat.

I love Akila to no end. I honestly feel blessed that the Lord brought her into our lives. I really do, even though the stress is immense!!! The stress is more than any of you without a child like this could ever imagine. The stress has given me two migraines in the past 4 weeks, to the point where I get to go to "Headache School" in December (for real). Fun. But I honestly don't think the Lord would have created our family like this for no reason. I believe that He did it to draw me closer to Him. To show me that I am not in control (which I have a hard time accepting-ask Michael). To show me that I need Him more than anything else. To show I am judgemental. To show me that I am a huge sinner in need of His mercy.

As I look to our future, I see enormous challenges. I see rages. I see violence. I see experimental drug and alcohol use. I see huge school challenges. I see the police. I see raising grandchildren. But I also see God. I see Him in Akila every day. And I see Him in my own weaknesses. I see Him. I hear Him. And I need to listen to Him more. And I need to thank Him more. I am truly blessed.

Giving

I went to school today to have lunch with the 16 year old girl I mentor. Akila's lunch is right before the high school lunch and I was a little early. I went in to say hi to Akila, and I saw something interesting as I was walking up behind her. She was pulling a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket and about to give it away.

I pulled her aside and asked her where she got it. She said she found it outside. That is her patent answer for everything she has that she should not have. As I was pushing her on it, a kid from her class came over to me and gave me a twenty that Akila had given her. Then another one did, and told me that Akila had been handing out twenties to a bunch of kids. WHAT???!!!!! You can't imagine what was going through my mind and how furious I was getting. As I was talking to Akila about it, several other kids were bringing twenties to me.

Her teacher came in and I told her what was going on and she pressed Akila about it, as Akila had lied to her before lunch and said she only gave a twenty to one kid. The teacher had told her in the morning that she didn't want Akila to think that she needed to give money to kids to be liked or have friends. Akila just stared all glossy eyed, she gets a very "disconnected" look when being pressed on theft. The teacher and class left, and after several threats from me, Akila finally told me that she got it from by the computer (this is after 3 or 4 lies, like I found it in the toothpaste drawer-ha).

Then I remembered that late last night, I was doing some bookkeeping for the dance studio, and had a cash payment from a family. The money that the kids turned into me was exactly the amount of the cash payment, as I know that I don't have any personal cash in the house. I have been trying to get my friend, Juli who owns the dance studio, to fire me for quite some time. Maybe this will do the trick.

Child's view

Morning meds are usually not fun. Akila likes to pretend that it hurts to take them or she makes up some reason to fuss about taking them. She takes several pills in the morning, one which is for her Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. I usually put the pills in a miniature bowl.

Several times, she has freaked out about this bowl saying that it has bugs in it. I have assured her that it doesn't. I have washed it in front of her, gotten a new bowl, tried several things, but she keeps freaking out about this. The other day, when she was freaking out about the bugs in the bowl, I see her looking up at beneath the kitchen cabinet. I bend my head down to her height and see a few cob webs, a lot of dust, and a bug or two in the webs, on the bottom of my kitchen cabinets. Here is a picture:
I should note, the wall paper which is beige, has a cob web pattern on it. Those are not cob webs, I am not that bad. Or maybe I am.

Other halloween fun

The kids didn't have school on halloween, good for the teachers, not the mom. We had an appt. to go to the VA hospital to participate in a brain research project for FASD kids. They also wanted "normal" brains of anyone over 8 years old. So Imani, Akila and myself were going to participate. There was lots of paperwork first, and the girls had to sign their names and date each paper by themselves. It took quite awhile. The boys colored.

Then, they brought us back for the brain imaging. It was in a sealed room and I could sit in it with each girl while they laid on the table. Akila went first and she did great. They talked to her through an intercom. When her turn was over, Imani went next. As Akila left the room, she was intrigued with the intercom and wanted to see it. She watched as they did Imani's test (I assume, since I was in the sealed room and could see anything), and at the end of Imani's test, she said good job over the intercom. Then it was my turn.

As the lady was getting me set up, Akila was out of the room using the intercom in a very obnoxious fashion. The lady told her to stop, as did I. She did not listen. I couldn't help but try not to laugh. I apologized to the lady, more for what she would be dealing with while they were scanning my brain. I could faintly hear Akila the whole time, and it was funny. A different mom may have been annoyed and mortified at her behavior, I wasn't. I just kept thinking to myself that if they are doing a research on FASD, they should expect some odd behaviors. Although, I was quite glad to leave when we were finished.

When we were done, it was about 3:30 and I didn't want to go home and listen to the "is it time to trick or treat" yet junk. So we randomly popped in on a friend who lives close to the VA who has young kids as well, but we haven't been around them for about 5 years. We played outside with them for awhile, and eventually, Akila was riding her son's bike around. When it was time to go, Akila wouldn't come back on the bike, she was at the end of the block. My friend went to retrieve her, she has worked with kids and knew she would have an easier time than I at retrieving her.

Akila started to ride the bike back to our van in front of their house. She decided to ride between the van and the curb. She evidently couldn't figure out the hand brakes on the bike and came in full boar. I happened to have the passenger door open, and yes, she hit it head on at full speed. And once again, I was a bad mom. I knew immediately that she was not significantly hurt, and I started to laugh hysterically. Not the best reaction. But, it was hilarious looking, she hit it so hard. And she was completely dazed, because she was so shocked, not hurt. And this was great because she just got in the van and buckled up. I think she thought she was in trouble. But mommy couldn't stop laughing. My friend, Cristine, didn't even see it happen as she was still walking back. I did feel horrible when I realized that Gabrielle, her son and owner of the bike, was upset and walked away as it looked like she had damaged his bike. The handle bars bent, but went right back into place, thankfully!!!!

I could not stop laughing the whole way home and the kids were all yelling at me to post this on the blog. They are figuring the blog out right now. They wanted to see it this weekend, but I couldn't let them see it because of the tooth fairy post, I don't want to give away any secrets. Sorry if I ruined the tooth fairy for any of you, don't do any back reading on my blog or you may learn some things about Santa that may sadden you as well.

Post halloween candy game

Halloween went pretty well at our house, no major meltdowns, and the kids were all in bed just after 9 pm. We had a few issues over the weekend over fighting about candy. Normally, the next day I dump all their haul into one bowl and it is everyone's candy. Akila was being particularly protective of her candy so I was going to wait until the weekend ended. The other kids gave her a ton of their candy that they didn't really like.

Saturday and Sunday were full of neighborhood conflict. The big brother of some neighborhood girls was over for the weekend, he comes around once a month or so. He is probably 11 or so and he is not good news. He usually conflicts with Akila as he isn't around her enough to know to just put up with her junk, which is what most of the neighborhood kids do. But if he sees Akila show any kind of attitude towards one of his sisters, he goes into bully mode. So there was lots of conflict, and some of it was between him and me. Fun.

I basically had to tell them all to go to their end of the block and to stay down there. He didn't like this. I told him to get his dad (who is kind of scary seeming), and we would work it out. He just stared at me and eventually trotted off down the block. I was quite glad he didn't get his dad, I thought he might call my bluff.

The great thing, is that by Sunday evening they were back to our side and everyone was playing nicely. Akila is a matter of fact, in love with the brother and they are going to get married. Excellent. He is exactly the type I will always want her to stay away from and exactly the type she will always be attracted to. But Akila thought of a great game to do with her halloween candy.

She brought out her huge bowl of candy, and would take an item and throw it high in the air and who ever got it, could keep it. It was great, not too long after it started, all of our halloween candy (except for the good stuff I had already swiped from the bowl and hidden for myself), was gone. We hardly have any candy left. I am totally fine with that.