What is a honeymoon anyway????

Yesterday Keith said to me, "the honeymoon period is over I guess". He is familiar with that term from my usage of it referring to children in foster care and placement changes. Many "professionals" call the quiet period before kids start acting out the honeymoon period because it is calm and the children (or adult in our case) are fairly complacent. That being said, there is nothing that resembles a honeymoon for kids in foster care. Anyone who has been ripped from their home and familiar surroundings will naturally be scared into some form of compliance until they start feeling a sense of safety. It is at this point that someone who feels they have lost all control will start acting out. I believe that this is where we are now.

I may have said this earlier but I am aware that when Alma is with me and engaged in an activity or conversation, she seems to cope pretty well most of the time. It is when she spends time alone that she become sad and the agitated. Therefore, I am feeling an obligation to engage her all of the time and that is starting to wear me down a bit. Nonetheless, this is what I've signed up for and things could be much much worse.

Today, Alma and I spent some time together talking. I have bought a small digital recorder and have started recording our conversations. My hope is that I will see a pattern form over time.  I'm not really sure what to do with that information but somehow it seems like it may be valuable to us at some point. At least for now, I can use it to keep track until I can get things in writing.

This is what I have noted this past week; Alma has three younger brothers and three sons. She is beginning to mix them up. She calls her brothers, her children (from what I understand, she feels that she pretty much raised them) and today she really wasn't clear about who her sons were at all. She kept getting confused about who lives in our house and insisted that she no longer has any family at all. When I asked her why she was crying today, she said it was because she thought her parents were here and she realized that they weren't. However, she does believe they are still living (they died several years ago). She also talked about her brother, Jack being the favorite and how handsome he was and how her mother told her she was ugly. She said this several times throughout the week. She was quite fixated on her appearance and the sad thing is that she is really beautiful. I did assure her that we are her family and are going to take care of her. SHe will seem relieved for a while and then slip back into a slump.

Sculpey

Well, I found a temporary diversion. We went to the art supply store and bought some Sculpey Clay and are making little figurines. At least she's out of her head for the moment.

Help

So, the point of this was never to make it all about me. I've had a lot of people mention this being a good place to vent my feelings and I really do not want to do that. I have other outlets for that. I really wanted this to be a way to share the way that Alma and our family copes with the disease. That being said, I do see this as a way to hopefully give and recieve support. Right now I'm asking HELP!!! It is really hard to listen to somone cry all day long. I likened it to a colicky baby (I've never had one but I assume that would really suck) and I guess that's a bit much considering I do get sleep and all of that. The thing is that it is really hard to see someone so miserable and there is nothing I can do for her. On top of it, my energy is fading fast as I find that she seems to be needing more constant attention. In other words, if I am focusing on her completley, she seems fine. As soon as my attention in diverted elsewhere, she goes in her room, shuts the door and starts crying. One thing to note here; I've noticed that when we are home alone, she sobs loudly. When people are home, she sits in her room quietly crying. I'm just not sure what to do and I'm beginning to lose it a little. Any suggestions?

New Direction

Sometimes when things aren't working we need to have the flexibility to change course. The thing is that Alma has been crying for almost two weeks now. She has breaks and moments of laughter (and dancing-so much fun), but for the most part she is a very sad person. And can you really blame her? It must be horrible waking up in the morning not fully understanding what's going on. There are some days when she sits in her room until I come in because she hears voices in the hall and thinks the house is full of strange people (to be fair, we are kind of loud and even though there are only three of us, we can sound like 20 at times, I'm sure). Then there are the times when she is quite lucid and reality hits her in the face like a ton of bricks as she tries to get dressed and realizes that she has no idea what she's supposed to be doing. On top of that, we never really fully understand where she's at intellectually and sometimes my "caretaking" ends up making her feel like a "big baby". It is so hard to figure out exactly how to help someone maintain some level of autonomy and dignity while making sure that all of their physical needs are met. In toher words, no wonder she's so upset.

This morning, while driving kids all the places they need to be driven on a day off from school, Alma started crying. We had a moment alone and she had a moment of clarity which she shared with me. She said, "I wish I could go somewhere that no one knows me. I wish I could be with other people like me." She went on to explain that she has become more aware of her condition through living with us. She is "embarrassed" that we are all seeing her slowly losing her ability to function like a "normal" person."Of course", I responded to her and then began thinking about the fact that I never considered what a blow to one's ego to have all of these people trying to micro manage. What a bigger blow when she has the clarity to understand that this will never get better. She doesn't want us to see her like this.

I'm not sure what this new direction will look like but I am accutely aware that something has to change here. This change will have to begin with a shift in our thinking about the way we interact with her. My hope is to find the balance needed to sustain her in our home as long as we can.

link to wii just dance video

Click below to check out the game that my 70 year old mother-in-law is having a blast playing.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=just+dance+2

Just Dance

We had a couple of rough days here. Things started out pretty well on Friday. After our walk Alma got out a large photo album and enjoyed talking to Keith and I about some of her family history. She really enjoyed looking at pictures of her boys and seemed to be in a fairly good mood. Then, by bedtime, she was teary again. She woke up Saturday in a similar mood and packed her bags to leave several times throughout the day. No matter how many times we told her we wanted her with us (we even made a poster for her bedroom to remind her of that), she just kept saying that she doesn't belong here and wanted to leave.

After all of that our daughter, Wren, got up this morning and put her new Wii game Just Dance on and was playing it when Alma finally came out of her room and was smiling watching Wren dance. Wrenna strapped a Wii remote on her wrist and they have been dancing for the last hour and a half.  It's wonderful hearing them laughing together and watcing my daughter being so patient and kind with her grandmother (and she should be-but that's not always the case with 14 year olds). I'll try to sneak some pictures of them to post later.