The days of my life

Today can be numbered in many ways: day 13129 of my life, day 4478 of being a mom, day 3070 of being a wife, day 1116 of being a mother to two more kids/living with attachment disorder and day 1 of blogging. I've really been meaning to do this for a long time...I do write a lot, but I just never got around to being quite this open with anyone that might find me.

I'm coming up on a birthday soon. I'm certainly not old, but I must admit that the few gray hairs I've found and the fact that my hands look like something I never expected seem to make me feel a bit older than I should. When I was young, did I expect this to be my life? Ummmm...I can say for sure the answer is no. I never thought I'd be a stay at home mom. I never thought that I would be happy with it.

So, happiness - am I happy? My family is physically healthy. For that, I'm thankful. I think I'd describe myself as choosing to be happy in an unhappy situation. I live with attachment disorder. My two youngest children came home from Russia in 2005. I knew about AD, I had read about AD - but I was blind to what was in front of me for a long time. We didn't admit that it was here, in our lives, until about 6 months ago. If you don't know much about AD...well, that's part of why I'm writing. I'm a huge advocate for adoption and specifically, older child adoption. These kids have experienced things that most people cannot fathom. They are survivors and that can be the main reason for AD.

I could give a doctoral thesis description of AD - but instead, let me just tell you how it is in our lives and home and day to day existense. My second son is angry. He's mad that his first family didn't care for him enough to keep him safe. He feels that the complete reason that he is here in our family is because he did something wrong. That anger has to find a place to settle and mostly, that is on me. I stand for everything yucky in his life. The fact that I must set standards and expectations for him is all the more reason for him to think I'm a little bit evil.

My daughter is a mess of control and the inability to assert it. She is terrified of not pleasing me, but is also terrified of not being in control. Obviously, those two things cannot live together. She cannot be alone with her thoughts - there is constant chatter and noise from her. Alone is a nasty word in her life. She is a master at manipulation and therefore most folks that know her think I'm mean and they can't understand why I'd ever be upset with this darling girl.

I'm thinking of getting a tee shirt that says "two of my kids have attachment disorder, go look it up"!