Life on life's terms

I referenced Kayla's fit from the other night in the previous post. It was a doozy with all sorts of venom spewed towards me out of nowhere. I got the "you think you're perfect" speech among others and then she ran to her room declaring to me "to leave her alone." What fun for me. She knows exactly what buttons to push with me and it's so hard not to react. Thank you to those who have shared their insight and advice with me. I am immensely grateful to those who have walked in my shoes and are willing to share with me their thoughts and experience. We seem to have a few good days and then a night like the other night. I'm learning, though, that it's not me she's angry at--it's the circumstances of her life and who better to vent her anger towards than me. Kayla's not one to talk to or admit to any feelings, though, so trying to comfort her or get her to talk about it does no good at all. She continues to deny that anything wrong ever went on her life and that she has any bad feelings at all. It's frustrating to say the least but I am practicing patience these days as this is not an overnight process. I hope for her sake that she can connect to those feelings and earlier life experiences so that she can move forward.

We were supposed to finalize this month but DHS has extended the court date once again to give Kayla a chance to come to terms with the circumstances of her life and being adopted. We now have a new court date of October. At first I was shocked that it was so far out but I'm starting to think maybe she does need that time to process things some more. Our therapist is out for the month of May due to surgery but hopefully she will be back in June so we can continue working on getting through Kayla's walls.

This weekend we are off to see the family and I hope to get some much needed, R&R. I have my house on the market and I'm looking for a new one on top of all this so life has been pretty stressful. I need a pool, a book, and some grandparents to watch the kids while I nap.

Our American Idol!

We are so excited that our hometown boy, Kris Allen, won American Idol! It shocked me because I thought Adam had it sewn up. But we are so proud of Kris-and I loved his duet with Keith Urban-best of the night.

The night was great until Kayla threw a fit and had a meltdown but that's for another post. Such is the life these days.

A bonding moment

Kayla is away on a school field trip. They went on a camping overnight. Well, she jsut called me about a half hour ago to just talk and tell me about her day. She said she fell in the mud and then got stuck in an ant pit and almost called me to come get her but decided to tough it out. Okay, Kayla has never called me just to chat about anything. When she has talked to me on the phone before, she never says much, just tells me what she needs. This may not seem like much but this is huge for a girl who never likes to talk about anything in her life or her feelings whatsoever, especially to me. I think we just had a bonding moment.

A dancing Mother's Day

We had a busy and wonderful Mother's Day weekend. My parents and four-year-old niece came up Saturday morning. My mom took the girls shopping and my dad and I hung out for a few hours. I got some much-needed dad time. It was also my dad's birthday and he didn't realize the girls planned a surprise for him while we were out. They made signs, cards, bought cupcakes, played instruments. And then waited for us as apparently we were two hours late coming home (according to their schedule) so they were pooped out by the time we got there. We celebrated his birthday at a Japanese steakhouse and my niece was enthralled by the chopsticks. Kayla got sick after we got home but recovered by the next day-she didn't want to miss her recital.

Sunday, we had mother's day lunch at Macaroni Grill. Kayla gave me a card she made herself. It was very touching and something I didn't expect from her! I also got a book and some chocolates and apparently some earrings that she lost between home and the store. It was a new and weird feeling to get a bunch of "Happy Mother's Day" messages from people. But it was a really neat feeling to get the spend the day with both my mom and my new daughter.

Kayla's dance recital was Sunday afternoon so the rest of the day was spent getting ready for that. She looked beautiful and danced awesome. My little niece is so enamored of her and was enthralled watching her dance. She was in four dances in her recital-ballet, modern, tap and jazz. She was great in all of them and is clearly a gifted dancer. She went on all night about how she messed up in jazz, though. I told her no one noticed-I sure didn't-but she is way too hard on herself. She said next year she will do her best. We got home late last night after eating dinner out after the recital and I still have laundry and grocery shopping to do for the week. It was not fun getting up this morning.

We love Kris Allen

Kayla and I are faithful American Idol watchers and have been voting for our dear Arkansas boy Kris Allen every week. I think I screamed out loud when it was announced he made the final three. Well, this afternoon, Kayla and I and a friend of ours made the trip to downtown Conway with 15,000! other people to watch his parade and homecoming concert. Boy, was it hot and crowded. Thanks to our lovely southern weather it was 85 degrees and humid. We stood in a crowd of thousands of people to catch a small glimpse of Kris (and it was small--thank God for the jumbotron). At one point, I thought I was going to collapse. No water and intense humidity is not a good mix. It was worth it to see our boy sing, though. Kayla was so excited and had "Kris Allen Number 1 Fan" painted all over her face. The American Idol producer said it was the best homecoming of any Idol he has ever been to and he said he has been to all of them in every season. That's impressive. He's done our state proud. I don't know if Kris can hold off Adam to win the whole thing but he will make it regardless. He has a great humble attitude and a wonderful voice. Afterwards, we ate Mexican food and we just now got home. It was a great night. My parents are coming tomorrow and we will celebrate my dad's birthday, Mother's Day and Kayla's recital. This was a good start to what I hope will be a fabulous weekend and a much-needed one at that.

Odds and ends

Well, our therapy session last week went much better. It was in the morning and the therapist said that Kayla was much more open than usual and I joked that maybe we need to have them always scheduled in the morning.

Kayla had to have an MRI last week for a knee injury she sustained in dance class. She fell on her knee and hit it real hard. It turns out nothing is broken or torn, thank God, but she does have a large bruise/contusion that is causing her pain. She was fitted for a knee brace today so hopefully she can make it through her dance recital which is this weekend. We have dress rehearsal tomorrow night for several hours so we will be able to see how she makes it through that. It was not good timing for this to happen!

My allergies are the worst they have ever been and I am beyond exhausted at all times. We've got so much to do this week to prepare for dance recital and family coming in this weekend and all I want to do is lay down and sleep. Oh well. One day at a time, right?