Food Issues

When will these food issues go away? My poor little guys went through so much that now they have over eating issues.  Yesterday Felix's teacher told me that Felix had to buy a school lunch because we forget to send him to school with one.  I immediately knew that he had done it again-- eaten his whole lunch during his first recess. She said that Felix told her that we didn't make him a lunch.  I understand where this all stems from but what I have a hard time dealing with is when the boys tell others that we didn't make them a lunch or that we don't give them breakfast.  I get that they have a survival instinct to consume as much as they possibly can because they were never sure when they were getting there next meal but it still hurts when they say we don't give them food.  Dennis had been telling his teacher that we don't give him breakfast so she was giving him whatever snack she could find first thing every morning. She said, that he said, "they don't feed me breakfast." Ouch. It hurts me because I go out of my way to make them healthy and yummy food.  I don't just give my sons a bowl of cereal and send them on their way.  I get up early to make them pancakes and eggs, oatmeal, egg sandwiches, omelets and other well-rounded breakfasts.  Felix has gotten in trouble in school for stealing other kids' snacks and Dennis has puked because he shoved food down his throat so fast when nobody was watching him.  Don't get me wrong, they have both made lots of progress but occasionally they relapse (for lack of a better word) and it freaks me out again. Anyone dealing with this issues?

We All Make Mistakes

This morning was tough. Felix snitched on his big brother while we were having breakfast. After lots of encouraging, Dennis confessed that he had gotten in trouble at school yesterday. He slapped a girl on the butt. I took a deep breath and first thanked him for telling the truth but before I could explain why I was very disappointed in him he did what he always does---deflect by acting upset at me.  He becomes really rude, talks back, or walks away.  I don't know where he learned this response but it has been very difficult to deal with.  My husband, Jose, had already left for work so I tried to deal with it the best I could in the little time I had before school. I explained that for many years women have struggled a lot to get the respect they deserved and that it was disappointing to hear that my son was doing it as well. I told him we would talk more about it later.  The second talk went really well.  Jose again explained why what he did was not OK and that he too was disappointed.  He also added that he not only expects that he will never do it again but that he would be equally disappointed if in the future Dennis did not speak up if he ever heard or saw another man disrepecting a woman.  We also talked again a bit about respecting another person's body and about appropriate and inappropriate touching.

We decided not to give him any consequences for what he did at school because the principal had already taken care of that and he had already apologized to the girl. We did take away TV privledges for one day for his rudeness to me this morning.  We want him to understand that we all make mistakes but most of us accept that we messed up and try to fix it not make it worse by being mean to someone else. Maybe that is how his bio parents reacted to getting caught but that is not how we want him to react anymore and we need him to start accepting responsibility for that behavior as well. 

Many issues came up for me today.  It drives me crazy that I may never know exactly what my boys witnessed before they came to me.  I hate that I tend to go to the most awful places when certain, perhaps very normal, things happen. Slapping a girl on the behind is in no way OK but am I more worried about it than I should be? Would I be this concerned if I had him from birth? I guess I will never know. 

Day One

Why am I starting this blog now considering it has been more than two years since our boys moved in and more than a year and half since we completed the adoption?

The main reason is to make myself accountable for the things I say and want to accomplish. Another reason is in hopes that one day my boys will be able to read all about my fears and excitement about being their mom and hopefully understand what was in my head when I said or did the things I did.

Like this morning when I yelled at my 6-year-old, Felix. I woke up a bit late and after showering and dressing myself, heard the boys arguing about whose pants were whose.  After I checked the size tags (something they could have done themselves) my 8-year-old, Dennis, comes to the breakfast table wearing his pants backwards.  The zipper was on his butt! For a second I thought that perhaps he was being innovative (although Kriss Kross had started the failed trend back in the early 90’s but he wasn’t even born then so it would have been innovative to him).  When I pointed them out to him he was just as confused about it as I was. After this ordeal, my six-year-old can’t find his lunch pail and is destroying his room looking for it. In the mean time I am cleaning up after breakfast and already putting his lunch in a plastic bag while yelling at him to forget it and get ready to go.  The "mean mom" yelling began when I learned he had not brushed his teeth yet nor did he have socks or shoes on. After doing all I did this morning and considering they do the same thing every school morning, I got really frustrated when he wasn't ready to go. Yelling never makes anyone feel better, it actually makes us all feel worse.  My boys went through lots of awful stuff in foster care and while I know I will never hurt them physically, I should know better than to yell at them the way I did this morning. I made Felix cry. On the drive to school I said to Felix,  “I’m sorry I yelled at you but I was really frustrated. It was not OK for me to yell the way I did but one day you will understand.” That was when I got the idea to blog about it. 

Lots of people told me raising kids was hard. They were right but none of them raised children who were raised by dozens others before they got them.  I think it is even harder. I will share more about my boys and their transition from foster care into their forever home, and about my awesome husband too, in daily postings.  Thanks for reading!