There Always Comes a Time....

To say good-bye.

This week we were informed that we would have to say good-bye to someone very special to us.

Our social worker is leaving us.  Not just us, but our office as our adoption worker.  She has decided to pursue another journey.

This is the third time we've had to say good-bye to our adoption worker.  Our first adoption worker was a private agency worker who was contracted to do our home study for MCFD.  We knew from the get go that we wouldn't have her through out our journey.  We loved her and love her still.

Our second adoption worker was also our first.  She was the worker that had to have us contracted to the private agency worker, but was with us through out our first adoption journey, and our second.

Our third and current worker, did our homestudy update and moved into our hearts from the first phone contact we had with her.  This worker is wonderful.  She understood our sense of humour immediately, and just fit in with us right from the get go.  So having to say good-bye to her is breaking our hearts.

I should probably explain why.  Your adoption worker is someone who gets very personal with you.  She gets to know you and your family intimately in ways that even your closest family and friends may not know you.  It's a very personal relationship.  Now not all people get that close with their worker, but we did.  Especially with this one.  Like I said, she just 'got us' right from the first contact.

So, when she called to tell me that she was moving on, I cried.  I cried hard.  I couldn't imagine not having this lady in our lives.  So I did the only thing I could do and made an appointment with her for an hour from the time she called.

My hubby and I went to the office and went through the bulletin, and gave her a thank you card, and a big hug.  I'm happy that her next step in her life journey is going to be keeping her in this community and I extended an open invitation to our home whenever she feels like having coffee.  I also get to keep her involved in our adoption community by inviting her to share from her new journey with our local adoption support group.

So while we had to say good-bye to her in this capacity, we made a friend.

To our beautiful worker we wish you all the best in your next adventure.  Thank you for all you've done for our family.

Time to Catch Up...

So it's been close to a month since I've written, for that I apologize.
There's been a lot going on most of which I won't/can't share.  I've had some health concerns to deal with; my own and one of my children.

My child's was more behavioural than anything else.  We've all been there with children, biological and adopted. The terrible two's.  Mine is somewhat worse I think.  My son has a will to beat the band.  I thought I was strong willed, but my son is beyond my stubbornness.  When he says NO, he means it.  Doesn't matter what you bribe him with or try to redirect him with, makes no difference.

Right now our big struggle with him is getting him to come inside from playing outside.  The only way we could get him in today was to tell him Poppa was here....with coffee!  That worked...once.  Not twice.  He realized as soon as I locked the back door that I lied.  Poppa didn't come out today with coffee.  Did I feel bad?  You bet I did.  I hate having to lie to my child to get him to acquiesce.  If it wasn't getting dark and it wasn't his dinner and bedtime, I wouldn't have stooped so low, but I can't leave him outside all night for the deer and bear and cougar to discover.

The other big struggle is stopping his temper tantrum when he doesn't get what he wants.  After about an hour of full on screaming, I think most mums would give in.  But I don't.  My Mum wishes I would but she respects that my philosophy is to ignore it and eventually it will stop.  The tantrums are getting shorter.  They've gone from an hour and half down to an hour and today's was only 30 minutes!  We're talking full lung screaming non stop.  It's hard on the ears and if you're sensitive to loud noise it can make you feel physically ill.  But I have the ability to tune it out completely.
I'm trying to teach my older son how and my Mum and my husband.  They're learning, but they're not quite there yet.

So, there's been that to deal with it.  It's a daily occurrence.  The other thing we're dealing with is my diabetes.  I've managed to lose a substantial amount of weight and it's throwing my system out of whack.  My mineral levels dropped to my boots and my blood sugars went so low I was passing out.  We're getting that all straightened around now and I'm on the road to recovery.  I've been taken off all my insulin and am now on just 2 diabetes pills a day and one shot that takes the place of insulin and prevents a person from having low  blood sugars.  So that is getting better and I'm feeling better all the time.

So that's what has been happening for the last few weeks and it's kept me from writing.

But hopefully I'm back now.  This weekend my youngest turns 3 years old and I am so looking forward to his party!  It's going to be a blast!
Talk to you soon!