Shew, RADical adjustment time here!

just a rant, don't fix me, it's annoying and rarely helpful. i've been a very poor RADical mom and they've been rotten little RADical kids, oh my! we're all still adjusting to life on the road, but the physical part is nothing. we're fine, having fun, plenty of room, lots to do, having a GREAT time, but at the same time it's a mental chaotic place that is no fun! dad and i are grouchy because the kids are grouchy, or vice versa, but it's hard to tell. they're being so mean to each other, fighting, being defiant, spacing out, making just stupid choices, and i KNOW we're all adjusting, but it's so hard to be patient!
every morning i wake up and resolve to be pleasant and nice, and first thing they do is something super mean, or super insane, and my mind shorts out. just like theirs, i get it. i know it's a transition and all their security is gone and they're freaked out whether they know it or not. i just wish that didn't make them do stupid things. why can't they just be depressed or cold or turn green? it's exhausting with all the seemingly unrelated stupid things that all come from their state of mind. i get it, i understand it, i'm just tired of it! i'm sure they are to, but this is my blog.
em doesn't know you need to rinse the dishes, mr can't find any socks, but won't look in his sock drawer. their eating is regressing and they look like toddlers at the table. em's having HUGE perfectionism issues. crying if she misses any "test" she thinks we're giving her. the other day i (very pleasantly after a very pleasant time together) said do you want to wear shorts or jeans hiking? she wouldn't decide and started to cry! i was so confused! as it made us late of course i wasn't patient which made her cry more. she finally said she didn't know which one i wanted her to choose and didn't want to choose the wrong one and get in trouble. i said i didn't care which one, so there was NO way she could choose wrong, unless she didn't choose! and somehow she managed to pick that one! i can understand if i was in a hurry or had yelled earlier, but it was out of nowhere. she's that scared to make a wrong choice. and while i get it, i'm SO tired of it! we love on her and assure her there's nothing she can do to make us stop. we point out the boys aren't perfect (they oddly enjoy that) and we love them, but she just won't get it. and i get why her brain won't get it, but i'm tired of it! of course i won't, but i feel like saying fine, then i don't love you, you're not perfect enough for me to love you, so now you can relax and be yourself for once! i KNOW i'd like the real her, if she'd just show it. of course as mentally chaotic as it's been, i'm sure it'll be a long time before she will. she's come a long way, but it sure feels like back to square one right now.
mr has a new "look" that just drives me crazy seeing it. like he's so confused about what he could possibly have done wrong. i honestly hate that look. not sure where it came from, but it's new, and very annoying. as soon as he does it, it's the sure sign that he's lying. and boy has he been pulling doozies lately, ugh. he's my finally attached little sweetheart, that's just being a big weenie!
both of them try to figure out what i really mean when i keep life SO simple for them. i'm very specific, pick up that blue pen on the table. and em starts to shake and looks around trying to figure out why i might need the pen or where else the pen could be and has an audible "ahh" like she's going to explode when all i want is exactly what i just said. i never give choices or am vague, but they always guess what else i could possibly mean, to ASSURE they get in trouble, when all they have to do is exactly what i say, which i make easy. ugh!
and really worst of all i think, our "normal" kid cj has really turned on them both. though that started long before we left. formerly loving, kind, giving, he's just a mean, hateful, selfish, little brat, all the time. we've dug into that too and he's very resentful of the "special" attention the other two have gotten, because they're broken. like going to therapy is fun?! he feels like we love them more and they don't get in trouble as much (course they feel the same!) but i hate the him vs. them feeling. it's awful. and no matter how much time with him, special privileges, time with daddy, he just doesn't ease up. he's super selfish and is always manipulating or bullying them. and when i talk to him, he does this sad baby act that oozes with selfishness. it breaks my heart because i can just see mean in his heart, not sadness like he's acting. i can see through it and it's just ugly. i'm scared it won't go away.
no, worst of all is i know i set the tone and i'm sucking that up really bad right now. i have a big work project deadline, very little internet so far which has really killed my productivity for that, and just lots of stress as we started out. but the more i focus on just being calm and fun, the more they just do stupid things that drive me crazy. and dad is great, he's been taking them all over so i can work in peace. but as soon as they get home, it's just back to the fighting and mean and acting stupid.
and JUST NOW of course i get an email from bryan post and read this:
"We all know that these adopted kids just need to be loved, but we are then left to try and figure out just how to get to and keep that place of love in our hearts when these little darlings show the dark side of their trauma histories. "
yep, that's me! i've forgotten. better go listen...
(and thank you for listening! now i'll go be a better mom, shew, needed that rant...)

if you want to follow our adventures

i post our normal family stuff without any RADical references on our family blog. i don't want references or names or links to this blog from there, because i want the kids to not feel like they have a label attached to them. i don't know if it matters because they DO have a RAD label attached! but *i* need this blog to be able to share (vent) about RADical issues with others who GET it. i can tell i haven't been posting here for a while, because i feel mad that people don't understand that my kids have issues. when i find myself wanting to say "i know you can't see it, but i'm not crazy, my kids are" then i know *i* need therapy. unfair. but so is them having to live with it, so i'll deal.

so our blog is at ww w dot lun dy 5 dot com. squish that all together, i didn't want it searchable.

and yes, there life is good and we have no RADical moments. wouldn't that be cool? please respect the kids' pretend normalness there, but i wanted to share our journey with you all. thanks!

we're on the road!

we've hit the road in our RV and are having a blast! i can't believe it's only been a few days. the first day we stayed at a cabela's where we all loved the amazing store. the second day, we tried, and fell in love with geocaching. the third brought another geocache, kayaking, and meeting up with friends. and that's today! i've been reading about so many families on the road and NuRVers and can't wait to meet more of them. we've given away our dog, sold everything at an auction, and are now unschooling, well, plus we now live in an RV! so LOTS of changes around here but surprisingly few RADical moments. we've had lots of emotional moments, and a few days where ALL of us were quite grouchy, just adjusting to the newness and weirdness of our life.
but most of it's been just darn fun! we've all been excited and happy about the things we're doing and seeing, and the potential for what we'll be doing and seeing in the future.
mr was disagreeable, as usual. he's been the most excited to go and easiest going, and the day we leave he says he doesn't want to go now. but we expected that (sometimes we're on the ball!) so no biggie. and he's loving life of course, just has to be disagreeable.
em's having a ball too. in therapy (we'll be doing phone therapy!) she's still working on that darn love feeling, ew gross! but she's coming around, just like mr did, although excruciatingly more slowly. we've also noticed she seems to "come alive" in nature, so living on the road seems like it'll really help her open up to life. we hope!
cj, well he always enjoys everything and he's annoyingly happy right now, and talkative about it. all the time.

for our RADical moments, in giving the dog to our sister (temporarily for a few years) the kids were pretty good about considering the dog's feelings. mr usually does wayyyyyy better than em with empathy, but the day he left, mr decided he didn't care how the dog felt, he wanted him back! of course, that's probably not even RADical, that's just grief, and we cried for a while together. em cried also, real genuine tears, which is AWESOME when you rarely see those.

right now we're struggling more maybe with physical issues. they both have sensory issues and we all get why, but fixing them is the hard part! mr, oh mr, just has issues. he'll probably always be "that guy who knocks things over" although i'd love to see him grow out of that. we have therapy for that, aka games to play, but boy, i just don't know.
em can't feel her lips. how weird is that? she eats like a toddler and can't keep them closed for anything. we got rid of the mirror at the table because it didn't seem to help. fun practice doesn't help either. i told dad she'd be a bad kisser when she's older and he just said good! it really is awkward for her goodnight kisses, just a very, very fake weird lip position.

and the brain shut downs, oh how frustrating. i personally opted to give up even trying while we were transitioning to the RV, it was just so stressful. i'm not by nature a calm, loving, compassionate mom, so it takes all my concentration to hold that together during good times. so there's been a lot of "pick up the blue bucket" and their brains panic and think of anything i might possibly mean for them to do that's unrelated to "pick up the blue bucket". i just hate that. and my responses to that have been less than stellar, so it's just spiraled from shut down to stupid. (stupid as in appearing to act stupid, i know it's just a response, no scolding, it's my blog).
it's just so frustrating that i try to make life SO easy on them by giving very short, very clear instructions so there's no mistaking what i want, and their hyper-alert brains try to think of the most difficult way to react. but i'll get back to concentrating and being calm, and they'll react better. just feels unfair that it's my job to fix, but it's their brains that are broken! k, life's not fair, i know. i'm over it now.

so that's what we've been up to. what about you? :)