Our Life Journey

2010-02-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

Things are going well right now. Weird. I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can because I know its not going to last forever. Charissa has been warned that her birthday is coming up and I can still give her presents to somebody else. I warn her that every year and she still does not care. Maybe she is taking me seriously this time.

2009-03-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

OK so in light of another thread, I have got to thinking. (I know, weird)

Lately I have had some friends approach me about how unfair our family treats our RAD child. I am sad about the reality of this accusation but.....I am even more saddened at the fact that DD wants us to, and sets us up to treat her unfairly just so that she can play the victim to onlookers. So we are wrong, but she is glad.
I was told by a friend who goes outside to smoke that while he is out there he hears the boys (bios) saying things to DD like "you are the adopted one" and other such comments. These comments are definatly NOT condoned and all the kids know it. But DD is using it to to max. She knows how to frustrate her brothers to the point of them saying it...She also knows our friend is on the deck smoking and can hear...She ALSO knows how to frustrate the boys without the friend hearing or seeing it.
Now I think that comment from the boys in particular was an extreme as in they normally do not say that but I am certain that they do say other things that are still not OK to be saying to people like "get lost" or "can't you play somewhere else"

DD knows every single weakness of every person in this family and she knows how to get the goat of every single outsider that comes in. She knows how to send me into a tail spin right in front of company without them seeing or hearing her do a thing. So if she loves it when we get upset then is the answer to just repeatedly tell her we love her when she is silently pulling her stunts? That would tick her off. Just thinking about this exhausts me. I am sad it is like this.

Malaya Kylie Barendregt

2009-03-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

6 weeks old already. I have few pictures of her thanks to camera battery issues. I did buy new batteries now but I am not sure if they made it into the camera. Here are some early pictures:

OK I really need to get an updated picture, she looks very different now.

Malaya is seriously the easiest baby in the whole world. We love her so hard!!!! She has had a stupid cold since she was 1 week old and just when I thought the cold was gone, it seems to have flared up again. She was choking and gagging on crap thats coming out of her lungs. This sucks for her. I am going to try to get her in to see the doctor today.

2009-01-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

Christmas has been great! Charissa is struggling a lot with the routine being all out of whack but I hope she and I can fall back in quickly as soon as school returns. I wish she would learn that being out of control is ok and mom and dad will take care of her no matter what. I wish she would learn that even though we are out of routine, mom and dad still have control of life and all will be well. I don't think that will ever happen though. I think I need to learn that she will never, ever get it.

We try to keep her routine the same but it is difficult. She just becomes angry that she has to do her jobs. She becomes silently, deeply bitter if we put her to bed on time when the boys are able to stay up a little later so we let her stay up with them and then she is tired as well as angry because the routine is messed up and she is unable to process in her mind what is coming next which leads her to feel out of control. When she feels out of control, she will go above and beyond to feel like she has control again and that can be costly or hurtful or who knows what. I wish I knew how and when she will strike.

Its a no win situation for us and for her. I am not sure which is the better angriness from her. Either way when she wants to show us her silent anger then she will do so and there is nothing I can do about it.

Otherwise we had such a great Christmas break. Pete was off a lot which was a treat for the whole family, even Charissa. Again it is not routine so this requires some processing for her which is difficult but on the whole we all enjoyed having Daddy spend extra time with us.

The kids Christmas presents were at an all time low this year due to having taken vacation to Grand Cayman in November. Also there was nothing that I could think of to buy the kids. They have everything their little hearts desire. They did get some goggles and socks etc. They seemed a little miffed leading up to Christmas but they were still so greatful for what they did have and that made me happy. I think they loved the fact that we had so much time to snowmobile etc. Both boys remarked on how this was the best Christmas ever. No remarks from Charissa but that is normal. I have no way of knowing whether she is happy or sad, ever. I wish i did.

I need to make a plan for Jolenes baby on Monday. I have been unable to get a hold of anyone for over a week. I will start with Stacy first thing. I am DREADING the whole adoption agency thing and what Evelyn the B!%(# is going to do to destroy me. Her unprofessionalism is extraordinary and unfortunatly it is effecting me. Oh well we will just have to build a huge case with the professionals that know me. Hopefully there is not so much that Evelyn can do because this is a private adoption.

Damons Cartoons are so Awesome

2008-09-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

I just love these pictures drawn by damon! Too bad they were on the white erase board though.

Yeppers! Routine is great! Things are going well. School is quite good. We are ripping along. What a difference. Charissa is settling down. Behaviours are much better. We have had some rather emotional discussions over the last week. Emotion is GOOD! I am trying to show her how it takes so long for us to be able to trust her after she has stolen and lied to us. It is difficult to teach that to her especially when there is no cause and effect thinking. We will keep trying!

MCFD STILL has not sent in the information needed to continue with the home study. It has now been 3 months. It is not right that they just ignore the request. I was so hoping to have moved on a little bit before now. It is making me feel quite disheartend.

Pete is hunting this week end. It is his last week for limited entry. I hope he finds his moose. Although I will really need to find room in the freezer. Damon is not going to be able to go with him. There will be too much hiking and sitting quietly for him. Clayton is going to go though.

The second shed has finally been taken down. Maybe we will burn it on Saturday night after Pete gets home.

Its Baaaaack!

2008-08-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

Sneaking, Stealing and then Lying about it. Charissa is even setting up her actions to make it look like someone else did it. Ok life is going to so very strict for a while until she remembers that stability feels good and that she is worse off for being in control.

Poor Clayton and Damon have been wondering where their Candies and gum have dissappeared to. They had a sneaking suspicion but none of us were entirely sure until we found the wrappers for the missing gum etc in the pockets of a pair of jeans that had never been worn. Charissa was trying to make it look like Clayton had eaten the gum himself but did not realize she was stashing the evidence in jeans with tags still on. Oh boy.

Still know nothing about the new adoption. As far as I know Choices has not recieved the PCC yet. Gotta love the ministry.

oh we need some routine

2008-08-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Man do we ever. It has been well over a month of peoplr visiting and us visiting people. Charissa is DONE. Her little mind is about to explode. She has regressed so far back. She is doing things that I had forgotten she would do. Of course they are all things that make her look angelic to the rest of the world but I know the girl behind the actions. She has been wonderful at helping those that need help. Unfortunatly her reason for being so helpful is because she has convinced herself that she is the adult. She fully believes that she needs to do something for someone because no one else can. The thing that makes this not good is that she will not stop to ask what exactly she needs to do to help. she takes it upon herself to figure it out. She does not have the capability to make the correct choice always. EG: when cousin Jake was looking for his dad the other day she decided that he could not do it and she could find Uncle Lawrence instead. Charissa ran around the house calling and only because I realized the extent of the situation that she didn't walk in on him in the privacy of his bedroom trying to get changed. She came close though. Last night she decided on her own to get a towel for Mel to wipe some gel off of her tummy. First I was upset because I did not want her to get a big towel out of the bathroom just for a little bit of gel. I have enough laundry to do. Then when I said something she assured me that it was a dirty towel. Ewww thats gross. Poor Mel. If Charissa would just ask then I would be able to explain to her that Mel needed a small washcloth. Something clean and something that is not going to take up a huge chunk of my wash load.
The part that is hard is that she will do anything to get out of helping me.

Last week Charissa had a scratch under her eye. She will not tell me where it came from. The next day she tried to convince someone that Clayton had just made the scratch while they were playing. I wish she would stop trying to make our family look so bad.

She also felt the need to let poor Astin know that cousin Luke, who we were on out wat to visit for 4 days, didn't like him. i asked her why she would say something like that and she just said that she was telling him because she didn't want him to be sad if he knew that. These are just a few things that have been grating on my nerves. There are many other things like sleeping with no blankets so that Auntie or Uncle would see and feel sorry for her. I found her blankets stuffed in the closet before anyone happened by so that didn't work out well for her. The next night she plotted a new course of action to get peoples attention. Instead of hiding her blanket in the closet she wore her full legged, long sleeved pj's to bed in a bedroom that was so hot you could hardly breath, then she pulled the quilt up to her chin and went to sleep. Too bad for her I was the one to find her. No one to feel sorry for her. Oh well

Anyway we are done travelling and visiting. Its time to get back on track. I have to say I am looking forward to it.

We are close to ending the next adoption. Our worker in Vanderhoof was LOVELY. Pete really enjoyed her. Unfortunatly the SW's from the ministry are making our lives very difficult. I wish I knew why.

2008-08-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

Summer has FINALLY arrived. We are spending a lot of time outside. I hate not being at the lake though. Tomorrow we are going to take the motorhome to Ft St James to a wedding. The wedding is the next day and before the wedding Pete and I are going to have our first homestudy visit. I am not sure what to expect. I feel like we may be looked upon as though we need to prove ourselves because of past accusations. That is hard to do because how do you prove that you just love kids?
We are leaving Charissa and Damon with a family that is involved with the wedding while we go to meet with the social worker. I am not sure how to convince Charissa to not play the manipulation game while we are gone. Hopefully she will just go with the flow of the other kids around her and forget about it.

Summer Fun

2008-07-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well so much for continuing Charissas school work over the summer. We did an hour last night and I forgot how much she really loves to do it. Damon wanted to do it too so next time I will have to photocopy the sheets so that he can do his own.

The family is gone now and as usual I feel like a failure. Charissa as usual pushed all the buttons that made me have to react and make me look like an ogre. She knows full well that if she does something that makes me unhappy then I will either give her yet another consequence and she will look like poor little Charissa or I will do nothing in front of the company and she will get away with what she knows is pushing my buttons. It is a lose/lose situation for me. I wish I could find a way to deal with her as secretly as she dishes out the behaviours. Oh well. And such is the life with RAD.

Otherwise it has been a great summer. We are making the most of the few nice days. Camping and boating mostly. We are supposed to go camping again on Friday but to be honest I have not seen a sign of the rain clouds dissapearing.

We need to start vacationing to sunnier destinations more often. I wish!

2008-06-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

Oh boy we are getting back on track!!! I have been pretty sick lately so have not been getting enough done. Nor have I been spending a lot of quality time with Charissa. Although it is better than when she was at school. It is fun doing the work and Charissa seems to really enjoy it also. My adoption Counselor Brenda McCreight was happy to hear about the homeschooling. She is a huge believer in it and of course if she says its great then it is great. I completly hang off of every word she says. She knows so much and in my opinion she is the Queen of the adoption world.

Solid shape are still very difficult for Chrissa but we did get some activities done. We had to take pictures to send in to the teacher so I will try to post them here.

2008-04-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

I think the best part so far about homeschooling is that I can get the boys up and off to school with out the added stress of Charissa's issues. All is calm and relaxed. The day gets to start off smoothly for us which is very nice.

going slow

2008-04-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Our lesson started with trying to think up an object that symbolizes the season. Then we were supossed to move on with the school work. Instead we ended up outside for an hour trying to learn what the seasons are and in what order they go in. Charissa was positive that the order was fall, winter, fall, summer, fall. There is no use in just telling her because she does not learn that way. We went outside to look at the leaves that fell and were under the snow. Although she knew that they had fallen before the snow she was convinced that fall came back again because the leaves had reappeared. Also in her mind fall is the coldest season. And even though we cannot snowmobile or go boating right now then it has to be still either summer or winter. No in between season. And then spring comes after summer. Soooo hard for her.

Poor Girl

2008-04-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

One thing that I am learning is the extent of Charissas weaknesses. WOW there are things that I thought would be easy for her but she has such a difficult time wrapping her head around. I have heard her talking in the past about the english language rules but yesterday she was trying to apply them in words that dont even contain the letters or sounds. eg she was trying to figure out how to spell Barbies. She got Barb then she was rattling on about the C making the I say its name. First of all it takes an E to make a vowel say its name and second of all the I does not say its name in this word. I have heard her before using this rule and it sounded like she understood it but it is clear to me that it is just one that she has memorized but does not understand so she throws it out there to sound smart and hope that it works.
She does seem to enjoy doing the work. We will have to see how she does as it gets harder. She loves having her little setup in her school space. It works well.

2008-04-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well Petes sled blew up yesterday so it was a bad day for him but it was a good day for charissa and me. Our first day we just worked on math. I have started her at the beginning of grade one level so that we can learn to do this without having it be too hard. She was great! She ripped through about 10 days worth of work!!!
Today I was sick so it was a lot harder for me to be on the ball. We did a little work on LA and this is clearly more difficult for her. There are also a lot of materials so I really need to get the office done so that she can get set up and organized. Hopefully by the end of the week.

2008-03-31T09:09:00.000-07:00

Pete is going snowmobiling for half a day with the neighbour,Wade. It is a gorgeous day so I would have liked to have gone too but I am feeling sluggish and have lots to do. They want to drop into the Meat Cache so it is better for me to not go a long anyway.

We are starting home schooling today!!! We are going to work for 3 to 4 hrs and then we will get moving on my new office together.

2008-03-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

I really need to get our spare room painted!!!! It is going to become my office/hopefully baby room one day. My current office is a little nook in the kitchen but I would prefer that to be Charissa's school nook. She can set all her school things up in there and it will be in the middle of our living area so that it is easy access for her.

2008-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

OK so here we are starting a different phase of the bonding proccess. We are going to attempt to homeschool out daughter in hopes of her learning to attach. I do not know if it will work but I am sure going to give it a good try. We start in 3 days.