what a perfect picture (literally) of therapy!

In AT, Em amazed us and I had to take a picture. Even her therapist was amazed at how she grasped all this mental stuff, it was freaky. Em was supposed to set up a sand tray to show anything about love in her family. She said this was her old family. The Jesus (because there were no other men dolls!) was her Grandpa (her one safe relative who died and she talks of often). In the red trunk is her love and in the black one are her emotions. Both are locked, with flies on top because it’s so dusty and old, and a fence around it and guards posted!! Isn’t that so sad??? But wait, there’s more. Her therapist asked her to show love in her new family.

The second pic is me (I fell off the bench thing during the pic!) and I’m sitting but I kept getting up to peek in the trunk. The guards are now gone and the trunk moved around a bit and most of the flies gone. She keeps them shut, but they’re not locked and once in a while, I peek in! She doesn’t like it when I do that, and she tries not to let me, but I just keep trying and she doesn’t mind too much, once in a while.



That’s EXACTLY what we’re trying to do with therapy and all the mentally exhausting things we do all day every day, but it’s working! I had to share the pics because it’s amazing how a 9 yr old can grasp this. Hopefully one day she’ll do more than logically understand it, and will feel it, but she’s beginning!

have you read instructing a child's heart?

has anyone read instructing a child's heart? is it good/practical for RADicals? our church is doing a class, but i don't want to waste time. you know the books that are wonderful but only apply to kids with a loving foundation of trust?? i'd love your opinion if you've read it!

home, they actually missed us, mom's day note

we're back from our trip and still catching up. the amazing news is that our RADicals MISSED US! i had low expectations (so it wouldn't hurt my feelings) but they were so happy when we got home and were very clingy for days! shocked me! they had a fine time with the grands, ate sugar, stayed up late, mucho attention, but they missed us they said. amazing, and very comforting.

em even crawled in my lap yesterday for a cuddle for no reason, now that is progress!!

and we were gone for mother's day, but i came home to this letter from my 6 year old: "i love you mom. mom you make me happy. mom you are fun. you cook good." now THAT made my day!

disconnected, in real life and online!

we're on an extended vacation out of the country withOUT the kiddos and are missing them dearly! the grands are there with them, so they're having a ball. as RADicals, of course they're not missing us too bad (sniff) though mr did give me a "mommy i don't want you to leave" the day before we left, which i LOVED to hear!!! em didn't seem to mind at all. cj was cuddly as usual. so we've been on and offline, mostly off, as it's very hard to find internet here in new zealand. we've emailed and called the kids some (over skype) and it's been great to hear their voices. i think it's a much needed vacation, but quite long and dad and i are ready to get back home. which is a great feeling actually! just like our RADicals, for us to miss them means we're connecting too. meanwhile we're having a blast seeing australia, new zealand, and we'll visit the cook islands next. then head home! and maybe, one day, i'll catch up on all my blog reading! :)

sometimes you get comfy and forget to expect the poop to hit the wall, literally

i'm so missing RADland! getting ready for a BIG trip and hope to catch up soon. but i had to whine to someone who will get why this is so annoying! normals (no complaints, it's my blog) think ew yuck, but THAT is not the issue. it's the you should have KNOWN part that is frustrating.
k, backing up. mr and i had a GREAT date at bob evans (great down home cooking restaurant). he was nice, polite, fun, even neat (and he's never neat) and it was just a great evening just the two of us. so of course good RADical moms would expect the ball to drop but i forgot to be wary!
yes, that night we find a LOT of poop on the wall in the bathroom and all three kids have noooooo idea how it could have gotten there. the poop part didn't bother me (much), the lying part didn't either (much), but the fact that I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED IT does bother me! i should have been ready. i would have reacted much more patiently. i just hate it when it (the "it" we all fear) happens and i'm caught by surprise. argh!
okay, i do feel better now, thanks! ;)

"keyword & argue"

we just coined a new phrase for our RADical daughter: "keyword & argue". she'll pick out any keyword in a conversation and argue an irrelevant point. it's so frustrating. but then we all know people who do that right? we might even be one, patiently waiting our turn to make a relevant (in our eyes) point without really listening? well, as a good RADical, she takes it to the extreme. might not always argue, but has to pull the conversation off course to the keyword.

dad: it's just a government practice that causes problems later...
em: practice? you mean they have practices for it?

mom: em i'm getting really tired of your poor behavior.
em: poor? we're not poor are we?

dad: anyone want to go watch a movie at a theater?
em: theater? it's not a play, it's a movie.

very minor examples, just annoying, not extreme. it's just the always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, part that is extreme! and extremely annoying!
it's not that she does that, it's that she doesn't ever listen, waiting for the keyword opportunity.

and i get it, i understand, but it's my blog so i can whine if i want to! :)

Great April Fools prank on the kids and a fun family breakfast!

Our April Fools joke went as planned and was GREAT! The kids said it was awesome! :)

Idea from James Macdonald: One year we rushed into their bedrooms at six a.m. shouting, "Get up! We're late for school!" We had changed every clock in the house to read an hour later. The kids ran downstairs, half dressed. We stuffed them in the car and rushed down the street—only to find the school parking lot empty. Kathy and I screamed, "April Fools!" and took them out for breakfast.

AND it worked perfectly! We changed all the clocks, even the computer and van. This morning cj got up and started to get ready and I said cj, it's late! He said my watch says it's only 7:20. I said go check a clock because your watch battery might be dying. He said OH NO MOM, IT'S 8:20! I said get ready quick! (The bus comes ~8:20.) Then we got em and mr up in a panic because we had an "appointment" so we all frantically got dressed and out to the van. As a bonus, the bus DID go by and cj saw it! It has an earlier route for jr high.
So we headed to school (everyone hungry since we didn't have time to eat) and there was only one van in the parking lot. Dad said looks like something's wrong, are you sure you have school? They tried to figure it out and we yelled April Fools! They couldn't believe it and said we got them good! Then we said we're going to breakfast at McDonalds and they cheered! We had a nice breakfast and got home in time for cj to make the right bus. Quite a successful prank! :)

Last year Dad convinced them they could fly due to a weather phenomenon & they tried! But that's not the funny part. The funny part is that they believed they did fly! :)

follow me on twitter (or don't, whatever)

because i need more things in my life to keep me busy, i signed up for twitter. will i twitter often? who knows?! i twitter in my real life, but thought i'd like to follow some other RADical moms too. i also wanted to follow heather forbes, so i'll have to look around and see who else tweets. :)

a card FULL of love!

em made me a birthday card (don't ask what year!) and it was full of LOVE! she loves to draw and make cards so that wasn't surprising, but the amount of LOVE in the card was a total surprise! it was unprompted and i hope just from her warming up little heart! it might be a stretch to hope, but it sure seems full of love to me.
i also love how *i* am the biggest in the family on the front! even bigger than dad! :) pretty good for a RADical mom i'd say!

i've not done much blogging lately. is that because of very little RADical behavior?? ah, no way, you RADical parents know better than that! i'm just super busy, but i'll get back to it soon hopefully. mr is doing wonderfully along the attachment front, he's my cuddly little boy now. his issues are mostly emotional and definitely physical (sensory) now. em's coming along. she's definitely doing more attaching to dad (probably because he's a gazillion times more patient than me) and she's majorly benefitting from homeschooling (for attachment AND education). she still cries over the smallest missed problem and reminds us daily why she's at home, but it is certainly helping!

tears, actual, real, non-fake tears!

MY EM CAN CRY! it's so good to know! what a hard, horrible day it was for all of us, but i'm honestly just blown away by her response to losing our beloved pup. i thought mr would be sad, since he's learned to feel his sadness. but i was trying to mentally prepare for em to be, well, not sad, but she shocked me. she was incredibly torn up and just sobbed and sobbed hard! and you RADical moms know that is AWESOME! now, after almost 3 years, i've finally seen real emotion from both my RADicals!
yes it's painfully sad and i'd never wish it on any of you, or my family, or myself, but it's so good to know em really made a genuine connection at long last. i wasn't going to tell the kids that we were putting her down, i was just scared because they're still so insecure with us. and it was mr's first question (if we get cancer they'll do that to us??) but dad thought we should and i'm so glad we did. the kids had a whole day to spend with her to say goodbye and they took good care of her and gave her lots of love. they helped dad dig the grave and even made her cards.
we brought her home (the kids didn't go with us) and buried her and shared stories and all of us cried hard and long. it was an amazing day of bonding for us. dad said it was like it was her last gift to us, and worth a year of attachment therapy!
so she's no longer in pain, and though we are, it's good that two RADicals who learned to block the pain are starting to feel it again because we all know that means they can feel the LOVE again too! so a terrible day, but a great day, all in the same day for this family.

our poor old dog, this will be RADical

We'll be saying goodbye to our dog Sydney today. :( She's sick and in pain, and not treatable. She's 11, so very old for a boxer, and I know it's the right thing to do, but that doesn't make it easy. I let cj stay home so the kids could love on Syd today “just in case” she doesn’t last. I don’t think I can tell them, cj could handle it, but mr and em are still too insecure to understand we’d never do that to them.
This’ll be tough for our RADicals. Em’s already started in on making fun of us for being sad. It’ll be SO hard for me to be nice to her through this I’m afraid, but I’m trying to be ready, I know it’s not her fault. But again, doesn't make it easy. This will be their first loss of someone they're close to here. Cj was close to his great grandma, but the other two weren't yet. Em and mr lost their grandpa before they came to us and they really seem to miss him. So no idea how this one will go. Oh I'm just dreading this. :(

happy birthday cj!

today was cj's birthday! he's the big 9! em was sad that her month and a half of being the oldest was over. (they still don't understand that she's always older, but then it *is* confusing being that close in age!) but cj was very excited and ready to celebrate. we took cookies into his class, then had a fun party here. the trick candles got him again! he was very surprised when he saw his new skateboard. it's sic! (really, it says so right on it). :)

another NON-RADical vacation!

we're either getting better at vacations, or we keep getting lucky, but this one was very normal and not very RADical! and that's so refreshing. i just wish it had been WARMER!
on our trip to florida, since we were freezing and had planned to warm up, we drove to the very bottom of florida, and it did get up to 70° one day. not the heat we'd hoped for, but we took it! we explored the everglades, one of dad's favorite places, because it's beautiful, uninhabited, and untouched, well that and all the alligators! the kids LOVED finding them and getting up close.
the second day we took canoes out a few miles into the everglades and explored in peace and quiet (well, except for the kids!) and it was so much fun. dad, cj, and em even saw a manatee! we got up close to some american crocs too (they're more scary than alligators if you were wondering!)
then we went to the everglades alligator farm and saw animals, watched shows, and took an airboat ride. all three kids volunteered for anything anyone asked (of course) and em got to feed fish to alligators and cj got to pull out a snake. airboat rides are always fun and we all got a bit wet from turns and spins, especially the kids as they sat up front, and we spotted lots of gators too.
then we headed back to the grands and the colder weather in northern florida!

ice skating at home

(way behind in blogging, so i'm catching up!!!)
we were covered in a layer of ice around here and to most people, that meant hazardous roads and canceled events. to our kids though, it meant FUN!
we're learning that the convenient walkway we built this summer, during the winter apparently becomes a slippery slope of death. and to them, that's cool! it's more like ice sliding than ice skating, but they love it. had to take some pics of course!

my heart photo!

i noticed the heart shape on our yummy honey, mustard, cheese, and bacon covered baked chicken and had to take a quick picture to share with simply moms over at attaching hearts! :)