Happy Birthday, Kayla

You're a teenager! Oh my! May all your wishes and dreams come true and may you please not send me to the insane asylum during your teen years! I love you, sweet girl.

One year ago...

Kayla moved in with me one year ago. How time flies! I can't believe it has been a year since this little petite blue-eyed blonde beauty who was to be my daughter moved about 30 boxes of stuff!!! into my house. Last summer we were two strangers trying to get to know one another as mother and daughter. Talk about an adjustment. There were many times I wondered what I was doing and why I was doing it but I kept putting one foot in front of the other and here we are a year later. We are no longer strangers...in fact I can't get her to stop talking most days...or stop moving. She is no longer the scared quiet little girl. Walls have come down and yet many more still need to come down. But this relationship is a work in progress and we have definitely progressed. We have fun, laugh and tell jokes together. Some days I'm not her favorite person and some days she's not mine but we are forging a bond through thick and thin. We've already had to weather some storms with the delay of her adoption and then the loss of my job but I think (and hope) going through these things together will bring us closer together in the end. I have fought hard for her and I hope she knows I will continue to fight for her forever. I appealed to the school district to transfer her to a different school and won. I appealed to DHS to give us a subsidy and won--and our social worker said in all her years she has never seen anyone win a subsidy appeal on the first appeal. I did have a new house for her and was pretty much financially set but I guess God has other plans for us. I don't know where will be living or what life will be like one month, six months or a year from now but I do know that we are in this together and we will be okay, just the two of us.

And thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Last week was rough but I do have some job offers on the table and hope to have accepted one by the end of the day. Now I've just got to figure out where we are going to live...

Are we in a depression yet?

I was laid off from my job Friday afternoon with absolutely no warning. They laid off the two of us that had been at the firm the longest due to the economy, so they say. I was shocked, still am, but feel a little better today. To top it all off, I had just sold my house Thursday and bought another one. So now I have no job and nowhere to live in a month. I was so scared of what to tell DHS and how they would react. But I called our adoption specialist today and she was really nice and assured me I would find something soon and seemed willing to work with me as I go through this phase in my life. Kayla is actually handling it really well--much better than me. Her attitude was great all weekend. Who knows what's going on inside her head, though. I already have a couple of interviews lined up. One tomorrow and one Friday in my parents' hometown so we'll just see what happens. I know God has a plan and I'll end up where I'm supposed to be...the journey there is tough, though.

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.