Perpetual Ruminations

Tug-O-War, I'm The Middle!

Another month gone and still not much for activity here, or anyplace in WdC for that matter.

Winter blues may be a part of it, but it's also so much going on. Even as I think I have one thing taken care of, something else comes up. A lot of it has to do with the two girls we fostered and adopted.

Leading up to the adoption was pretty hectic, and I really thought after would settle right down. Boy was I wrong! First of all, both girls started getting worked up more and more as the day approached. I antisipated the older girl winding up, since she was the one getting adopted; her younger sister was adopted a few months back and had settled in pretty well. This was why I thought the older girl would do the same, get wound up and need lots of attention until after the court date, then settle in like her sister had done.

But, both girls wound up, more and more as it got closer. Finally the big day was here and we headed to court. We were set to be there at 9:30 and would have this all done by 10:00. But, we got pushed back until almost noon. More anxiety and then finally, in a few minutes, everything was over. They were both still wound pretty high, but seemed to have a handle on it.

We went out to eat to celebrate, then headed to some relatives to complete he day. After visiting, we took off for home kind and arrived kind of late. We had stopped for dinner on the way, and both girls had fallen asleep on the drive home after. Once home we got them inside, ready for bed and shortly after they were sound asleep.

But, they didn't sleep well, both having bad dreams during the night. The following day they were both distant, but got off to school alright. We had therapy set up for both of them, thinking it would help settle them and get things back to normal. But, neither of them was ready when we stopped to pick them up from school. It was three weeks before we could get them to back to therapy!

They both also started having other problems. The oldest was demanding all my time, the younger getting into trouble at school and just pulling away from us at home. As soon as I managed any improvements with the younger, the older would get into trouble, and so it would go, back and forth. The oldest also got sick and missed a week of school, so no breaks there.

It's gone like that for the last five weeks, and still going. My wife and I managed to get our younger girl to open up a bit and now she is clinging tight. She had a lot of issues when she moved in and soon attached to me as her life-line, so I'm used to her being clingy, but she is clinging even more now that her sister is also trying to monopolize all my time and attention.

My wife works, so she is not here with them as much, but she does a lot to help out. Since they had problems with women, especially any with authority, it only made sense that she would work and I would stay home with them until such a time as they are able to be home unsupervised. I just needed to add that, so anyone reading this wouldn't think my wife is not supportive or helpful.

Anyway, I thought over the weekend things had begun to settle down a bit, but yesterday we left the older sister with relatives for a couple hours while we attended the younger girls school conferences. By the time we returned, the older sister had managed to get herself into trouble again. It's how it is right now and I don't know how to overcome this, except for time. No matter who gets the attention, the other will get into trouble to take it away; I do my best to spend equal time and attention with them both, separate and together, but right now, that's not good enough for them.

I'm getting tired and it's taking all of my attention and wits to deal with them, so not much time for anything else. Hopefully it all starts to work itself out.