How you can help my Trauma Mommas!!

I think I've made it pretty clear on here how important my "trauma mommas" are to me. And how important the Early Trauma & Attachment Annual Meeting (ETAAM) in March is for all of us.

For most of us it takes quite a bit of juggling to arrange for the time to be there. Many of our moms are single and have to arrange respite or other child care for their kids. (I'm lucky that Rich realizes this is important and is very supportive of my time away.)

On top of arranging all the logistics, many of the women struggle to pay for the weekend. Because of this, Corey, the founder of  ETAAM, offers scholarships for as many women as she can. The main funding for the scholarships comes from a Christmas in August Benefit Auction she has organized for the last two years.

An annual respite retreat created BY moms of kids with attachment issues FOR moms of kids with attachment issues, to create a support network for women parenting this challenging population.

The auction is going on right now and ends this Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 9:00 PM EDT. Right now there are well over 200 items up for bid. Items range from DVD'S and books, jewelry, electronics, to home made yummies and hand made crafts.

Here are a couple of my favorites! (click on the pics to go directly to the item in the auction)

 Description:
Yes, it's back, and better than ever! Kathy's famous shortbread will cure whatever ails you. It is SO good that I made Kathy promise me long ago that she would not give me the recipe.. because I cannot resist it.
This lot includes:
-2 shortbreads
-1 peanut butter fudge "crack" (also completely amazing)
-1 surprise treat
Upon request, the crack can be gluten-free, and the surprise treat can be vegan.



Description:
This adorable crossover bag is one of Sheri's creative creations! This bag is lined and has an inside pocket, and has a variety of adornments including a beaded bottom. The bag is approximately 18"x 12".

 Description:
This beautiful 48x48" quilt was made by Corey's mom. The 100% cotton fabrics are a rich red, green, and red/green floral, with a mostly red backing and floral binding. It is machine quilted with red thread in a leaf pattern (which is easily mistaken for hearts). The filling is an 80% cotton/20% polyester blend. It would be a perfect lap quilt, or gift for any child.

 Description:
 Kellie D, ETAAM's cupcake extraordinaire, is putting her amazing baking skills to work for you! Win this item, and you will receive 1/2 dozen of Kellie's Rainbow Cupcakes baked in their own see-through jars. They are heavenly to eat and beautiful to display. All I can say is, "YUM!"





And even I donated something! If you were at all impressed with the crochet skills that I showed off here and here you now have the opportunity to bid on a handmade blanket of your own!

Choose from this,

Description:

 

Kristine N will crochet a beautifully crafted blanket or scarf of your choosing from the patterns pictured. Winner can personally choose the pattern and color of their preference.

this

I'll work with you to pick the perfect color(s). I only use 100% cotton yarn (machine washable) for the baby blankets. The scarf is made with hand spun and dyed wool that I order from a small shop in England.

 Right now the bids aren't even covering the cost of the yarn. So if you want to stroke my ego a bit, go and bid on a blanket or scarf!

or this!

 Or bid on any of the other 200 plus items that are posted.

All money goes directly to the scholarship fund and will help send very deserving moms to our Orlando retreat for much needed respite and (re)connecting with other moms that get it.

 

Nine years in.

Nine years ago today I officially became a mommy!

Pointing to the "going home" booties Grandma made!

Yet, in my heart it happened almost seven weeks earlier, when we first met this little baby.

First family photo!

 Before I knew what a blog was I started documenting our journey online here.

Seven years ago yesterday I started this blog with a silly little post I titled, Picking up The Boy. Although I mentioned "gotcha day" anniversaries and blogged about our adoption, I didn't post an official "gotcha day" blog post until three years later. You can read it here. Two years later I reminisced on that day some more.

And here is The Boy today! 9 1/2 years old. So freaking cute I can't stand it sometimes. The past nine years have not been what I fantasized pre-adoption, but oh, the journey has been so much more interesting than I could ever have imagined.

And Grandma, I still miss you every day. I truly believe you would have been Noah's biggest champion and one of my greatest supporters. He still sleeps with the blanket you made for him, although it looks nothing like it did nine years ago. I wish you were here.

 

Making our own dishwasher soap (updated)

I was pretty sure that the laundry detergent we made was going to be OK based on all my friends who use similar versions. I was less confident however, that homemade dishwasher soap would work.

I figured it was worth a try though, because we run at least a load of dishes a day and the gel-packs I like to use aren't exactly cheap.

I looked at a few different recipes and decided on this one at Homestead Revival, mainly because it was simple and I had all the ingredients. I used the washing soda and Borax I had left from making the laundry detergent. I bought the citric acid from Amazon for around $12. I used 2 ounces so have enough to make 7 more batches. I figured if this didn't work I could still use the citric acid to clean the dishwasher and still save money over the commercial dishwasher cleaners.

Here are the ingredients.

I strongly recommend you read Amy's post on Homestead Revival as she gives good information about the ingredients and if you should or should not use salt in the recipe. She also recommends using vinegar as a rinse agent, which we haven't tried yet since we keep forgetting to buy it.

Dishwasher soap recipe:

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

1/4 cup food grade citric acid

 

I pored it all into into this Ziploc container and shook it up. Super easy.

Like I said, I wasn't all that confident that it would work. Rich was even less confident. We have used it every day this past week though and it is working great. I use a little less than a tablespoonful each time. I should get about 36 loads from this at about 5 cents a load.

UPDATE: It just never quite worked as I had hoped. We have had a few really good loads come out, but mostly I have ended up washing things twice. We are going back to commercial products until we can figure out what we need more/less of. 

Making our own laundry detergent.

I've been intrigued the last few months by the number of people I see online making their own cleaning supplies, especially laundry detergent. I kicked the idea around for a few months, not sure it was worth the hassle. Then I realized several people I know were doing it and were happy with the results, so I figured I'd give it a try. Plus it sounded like a good project to do with Noah.

I looked at several different recipes and finally decided on Being Creative to Keep my Sanity's recipe, with a couple of adjustments.

• 1 - 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz) found in the detergent isle
  
• 1 - 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg) found in the cooking isle
• 1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz) found in the detergent isle
• 3 bars of Fels-Naptha soap, found in the detergent isle (if you use Zote bars use 2 bars instead, Zote can be found at Home Depot)
• 2 small containers of Oxy Clean or store brand Oxy Clean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total (1.58 kg)) found in the detergent isle. (This is optional, I added it into mine because I have pretty messy kids and the cleaner the better.)

 Because I wasn't completely convinced this was going to work I decided to make a half batch of the recipe. I used Zote laundry soap instead of FelsNaptha. I also didn't include the OxyClean since I forgot to buy it. I figure I can add it later if I need it. 

Here are my supplies, including my morning cup of chai.

Noah grated the bar of Zote. It has a wonderful lemon smell to it.

We dumped everything into a large trash bag set inside a five gallon tote.

Since we did a half recipe I made Noah do the math and measuring.

and the stirring.

Noah showing off the final result.

Labeled and ready to go!

This is our final recipe:

• 1/2 box of Borax (38 oz)
  
• 2lb of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
• 1/2  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 27.5 oz
• 1 bar Zote laundry soap (shredded)better)

Next time I will shred the Zote so it is finer. I think it will distribute better if the pieces are smaller. 

I have been using this in our HFE front load washer. I put it right in with the clothes. I am using about a tablespoonful per load, with slight adjustments depending on the size of the load. The clothes come out of the washer with a nice fresh clean scent.

So far it seems to be working great. This is the first weekend I'm doing all of the laundry with it, so I'll know more later when I fold everything. 

If you make your own laundry detergent leave a comment and tell me what you use to make it.

Tomorrow I'll post our dishwasher soap recipe.

A Post on Green - in bullet points

• Kiel likes pistachio ice cream, but he picks out all the pistachios. I'm OK with that if I can get to them before the cat does.

• Kiel refuses to eat any green vegetable. He also refuses orange, red, blue, yellow, white, and brown vegetables. He is no more willing to eat the rainbow array of fruit we have in our kitchen right now either.

• Noah happily drinks, and requests more, of my meany greeny smoothies that I make with bunches and bunches of baby spinach and a big handful of mushrooms that I then add whatever fruit we have hanging around, plus some chia seeds and wheat grass powder. He has watched me make them and knows what I put in them, but he still loves them! So do I.

• Rich and I are trying to go more green with our diet and are following a prominently plant based diet. This means we have a shit ton of green leafy vegetables in our refrigerator right now. 

• I'm trying to use more green cleaning products, and have just ordered the supplies I need to make our own laundry detergent, dish washer powder, and cleaning sprays. 

• I'm working with green yarn right now (kind of a sage green) and I'm not thrilled with it. This is for the second of two blankets I am making for my nephew and his wife, who just had twins last week. The first blanket is done and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. The second blanket however, is turning into a major PITA. The yarn I wanted isn't available right now and I can't find anything else that I really like. The yarn I have now feels nice, but it's a little thicker than what I had before, and it pills. I hate pilling. And I can't find a pattern that calls to me. Yarn frustration sucks.

What is green in your life? Feel free to tell me about it in the comments. :)

Playing in the Rain

My good friend Laurie reminded me recently how important it is to give our children memories of having fun. It really opened my eyes and mind when I heard that. Because of past behaviors and difficulties we have had in public, I hesitate to put us out there in public unless I know I can control both boys, and make a hasty exit if needed.

I'm trying to get us out there more and build those memories.

Today Kiel and I had one. We took Sera to the vet and when we left there it was raining. Kiel wanted to go to the playground.

M:  Dood, it's raining. You want to go and get wet?

K: (calling my bluff) Yes!

So we went and Kiel was in hog heaven.

He showed me how much faster the slides are when it is raining. And how if he ran really fast with his mouth open he could get a drink. And how walking the balance board lends itself to jumping off right into a mud puddle.

He ran around in circles with a huge smile on his face. It was awesome!

We were both thoroughly wet by the time we left. Wet and Happy!

 I wish I had my camera with me. Oh well, I will just have to remember it with words.

 

Some light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it looks like I completely missed the month of June. I do hate when I go so long without blogging.
 
I'm not sure where to start as so much has happened in the last couple months. Lots of it is good stuff though, which is, well, good. One perplexing incident that I do want to share, but it may have to wait until the next time I have a chance to sit down and write.

Rich is feeling better after all his medical issues in March. We see the cardiac surgeon next week to get a final answer on if he needs open heart surgery or if they can fix the ASD (hole in his heart) via a catheter procedure. He plans on getting a second opinion at Penn or Jeff before any final decisions are made.

The GI doctor never did find anything bleeding, so whatever was going on must have resolved on its own. It took a while for his hemoglobin to get back to normal. He had twice-weekly iron infusions for several weeks to get his iron stores back to normal. His last blood test a couple weeks ago showed he was back to normal. He has another scheduled in a couple weeks to make sure he stays there.

I have almost stopped overreacting every time he groans or makes another unexpected noise, and I no longer wake him up to make sure he is breathing if I don't hear him snoring. The whole thing scared the shit out of me, and I know it scared Rich too.

Noah made it through third grade. The awesomeness we were seeing in May has tapered off a bit. I knew it would, especially since it was mostly due to a medication change. Still, he has made some great improvements since this time last year.

We fought his IEP this year. I can't remember if I wrote about that before, but I don't think I did. It was not fun. We are hoping to get some new testing done this summer and be able to use those results to support the need for a more appropriate program for him. I have a feeling we are going to be in for quite a fight and will probably need a lawyer to help us. Do lawyers take credit cards?

He is at the same camp as last year and is loving it. It is an amazing camp and I feel good sending him off in the morning. This year they started a new program that is almost entirely inclusion with the "typical" side of the camp. There is dedicated social skills work every day and then an aid that supports the kids doing the inclusion. Noah has a smile on his face every day when he comes home. Even better he comes home regulated and in control of himself. If only he could get that amount of physical activity at school.

Kiel is still my sunshine, but I have to say we have seen intermittent thunderstorms the last several months. He can be one stubborn kid! He still won't sleep by himself and Rich and I still don't have the energy to fight it. More often than not he ends up in sleeping in a sleeping bag at the foot of the steps until one of us goes to bed. I know he's feeling the stress of living in this family. We are all feeling the stress of living in this family. I'm trying to decide if I need to start taking him to see someone or if he is still too young. I don't want to jump the gun on it, but I don't want to miss anything either. This parenting thing is hard y'all!

We have a new addition to our family in the form of a little furry ball of sweetness. Her "official" name is Lady Seroquel the Feliness, but we call her Sera.

She is an absolute sweetheart and I can't help but smile when I see her or think of her. The piece of my heart that has been empty since Ambien died three years ago is filling up again.

It took Thor about three days to accept her, which is pretty fast. I know he has been lonely without Stel. It's good to see him running around like a crazy cat playing again. He got rather tubby the last few months. His 14 pounds of cat flesh look very big next to Sera's 3 pounds of kitten daintiness.

My good news is that I cut back a couple hours a week at work so I only need to go in to the office three days. Officially it is only three hours less a week, and I pretty much have to get the same amount of work done as before. That's OK though, as having an extra day at home is huge in relieving some of my every day stress. My plan is to have Kiel home with me on Fridays so I can spend more time with him. I realized I only have one more year until he starts kindergarten and then I can't just keep him home when I want, so I better do it now.

I'm working on getting Noah set up for an evaluation at the fetal alcohol clinic at one of the children's hospitals by us. I didn't realize until this spring that they had a program for FASD there. Noah will see a team of doctors and have a bunch of tests done. I'm just waiting right now for the coordinator to get the appointment set up. It's a bit tricky with all the people he will see to coordinate it. I will write more about that soon!

Well, Noah just finished up with his reading tutor (OMG, I can't believe how awesome he is doing with her btw!) so my hour of "free" time is done. 
 
 

A little yarn will soothe me.

 

I have always liked to do things with my hands. I like to create. I always wished I could paint, but I don't have that ability - to transfer an idea to paper with a brush.

What I can do is work with yarn, or fabric. When Noah was first diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder I started a weighted blanket and vest business. I worked with his OT at the time to design a vest that would grow with the child. It was fun, but ultimately what I could charge for it was never enough to cover the labor involved. Then I became pregnant with Kiel and by six or seven months I was so tired I didn't want to sew.

It took almost four years for me to get the urge and the energy together to pick up a needle again. Or, in this case, a crochet hook. This is the second baby blanket I have crocheted this year. I found this Drops design on the Garnstudio.com website, and adapted it to baby blanket size. My individual squares are closer to 4 in by 4 in. The blanket itself is made up of seven rows of six squares.

I like the zig-zag stitch used to connect the squares. I need to work on the corners a bit so the connection is a little prettier. I like the edge because it is simple. This blanket is for a boy so I didn't want anything frilly.

The circles inside each square remind me of the sun a bit, so my next blanket is going to use this pattern but with a nice warm yellow yarn.

It feels good to be creating again. Now I just need to learn to balance better so I'm still crocheting, but also keeping up on my poorly neglected blog.

"click"

I should not be saying this. I should not be putting it out there in black and white.

I know this, but I'm doing it anyway.

Something is going on with Noah.

It's hard to describe. It's mostly subtle. But I see it.

His teacher sees it.

It's something good.

I think something clicked!

He's more agreeable. He's happier. He's more tuned in.

He understands his math homework and just needs me to supervise, not hold his hand through each problem as before.

He's reading marginally better. More fluently.

He's turning out his bedroom light with out a reminder. He isn't giving us grief when we ask him to turn the TV off in the basement. 

We've also had a few good conversations that he initiated. He asked what "retard" meant, and we had a great conversation about why it was mean to use that word and where it came from. Then today he asked what "suicide" is.

Yesterday he was sitting on the front lawn and two kids across the street were teasing him. He handled it like a champ and didn't take the bait. That is so huge!

It's only been a week. It's mostly in school and for the couple hours after he comes home.

He's still struggling when Rich and Kiel get home and the dynamic changes. He can still be a total butt head. In fact he proved that today after a celebratory ice cream sundae and landed himself in bed at 7pm.

I don't know how long this will last, but I'm going to enjoy it for as long as it does!


 

That post where I give advice but don't take it, make an admission, bitch a bit, then try to pretend I can handle it all anyway.

I just wrote a rather long comment on another blog. The comment was in response to a fellow blogger's post about making the decision to go back to her job after a medical leave, or to permanently resign. She has a son with special needs, different from Noah, but equally (if not more) demanding of her time and attention. She is seriously struggling with his school and getting him what he needs. She also has her own health concerns, that are pretty scary. And much more.

Life is stressful right now. I think I'm dealing with some PTSD over Rich's medical issues (which are still not resolved, or even answered) and incredibly fearful of what the answers might be. We had a contentious meeting with the school last week that accomplished nothing other than the knowledge that we need to keep fighting, and it is going to get ugly, and expensive (expensive to the point that we will have to take a loan or go into debt over it). Parenting Noah is still fucking hard, and while some of the issues may change, I don't have much hope that it is going to get any easier. Kiel needs more of me than I am currently giving him. Rich needs more of me than I am currently giving him. And work continues to get more stressful as my projects continue to get more involved, and that is unlikely to change. My insomnia is nightly, and I am chronically sleep deprived.

(I don't think I've ever really admitted this on my blog before, but I can generally gauge my level of stress by how many scabs I have on my body. I'm a picker. It's disgusting. Usually I can keep it to areas of my body that aren't visible to others. When I move beyond that it is usually my eyebrows that I start pulling on and picking at, until there are sores (in fact, right now as I read this over I realize I am pulling on my left eyebrow). And then I'll dig at any imperfections on my arms, which are numerous since I have some skin condition I can't remember the name for where my skin doesn't shed evenly and I get little bumps on my arms, chest, and legs. But right now it is worse than it has ever been. I am actually picking at my face, and it is nasty and horrible. I have scabs and scars along my double chin line, on my neck, on my nose, and of course my eyebrows.)

(Fuck, I can't believe I just admitted that.)

Anyway, here is what I wrote as my comment.

Like you, there is so much shit going on in my life right now. I have never been so stressed. Not all the same as you, but perhaps comparable in many ways. Sick husband, fighting the school – to the point that we are going to need a lawyer, and much more.

If I had a choice, I would leave my job. My older son needs me to be able to fight for him full time. My younger son just needs time with me. My husband needs his wife back.

I would miss my job, no doubt. I’m good at what I do, and it gives me something I don’t get at home. I think though, that I could figure out a way to get those needs filled in other ways.

For me it really comes down to money. It’s my job that allows us to get Noah the therapies and interventions insurance doesn’t cover. And more and more in this economy it helps pay the bills in general.

If I stopped working we would have to move, probably to a different area of the country with a better cost of living. My husband just isn’t up for that. I’m not really sure what would get him there. And the thought of all I would have to do to accomplish that is so overwhelming that it never goes beyond the thought that my not working would make life easier for all of us…as long as money wasn’t an issue.

I often wonder though if the stress of trying to do it all isn’t going to kill me.

But back to you…if you can at all swing it financially, then I strongly support not working. And by not working I mean not working the “easy” job, because everything else you do is definitely work, and it is fucking hard.

I'm good at giving advice. I'm not as good at taking it.

All I see in my net are huge holes. I'm not complaining much, OK, I am, I totally am, because it is what it is. I try to take it day by day. Maybe someday circumstances will change and doing what I think is best will be possible.

Until then, one step forward at a time. That's what we do as moms. Right?

Right.

But if you have an extra pair, please send gloves. My face thanks you.