Traumaversary

Our family on our first meeting 4 years ago.

Thursday was our 4 year anniversary of the kids moving in - so Bear decided to give me a little present.

Bob had arranged to stay after school and get some tutoring. When Kitty got home from school I realized Bear wasn't home yet (he usually arrives home about 4:40 - a few minutes before the girls). I waited a little while in case his bus got stuck in traffic then called Transportation. Bear hadn't gotten on the bus. He had been at school that afternoon though because Kitty had seen him. The school was closed so I had no way of asking what was going on there.

When Bob called to say she was ready to be picked up I asked her to look around for her brother a little. I watched the sides of the road as we drove to the school to see if he was walking. I was pretty worried, but not sure what to do. Hubby wasn't answering his phone.

It was a little after 6pm when Bear called my cell phone from the house. I picked up Bob and we headed home (it's a 15 minute drive). Bear told me he'd been attacked and was all bloody and shaky so he was getting in the shower. I told him I'd check him out when I got home and would be calling the police. He did not want me to do this as he didn't want to "rat" on anyone.

When I got home he was already dressed. He did show me all the marks except the one on his thigh (because I’m female, even though I mentioned he was wearing shorts so it’s not like I would see anything), but he showed that one to the police and I saw it then. I did not see the clothes he was wearing at the time of the "attack," bought found the shirt later. No blood, three tears in the back and shoulder, and very dirty on his back.



The following is Bear’s version of the events.

Thursday, November 4th:

Before Bear’s last class of the day, he was walking with a friend who had been told not to hang out with Bear, because Bear was a “bad influence.” Mr. P (a behavior program teacher that Bear has had major issues with for over a year) came up to Bear and told him he should be in class. Bear told Mr. P that class hadn’t started yet and that he didn’t want to talk to him. Mr. P told Bear to talk to him, and threatened to make Bear talk to him. Bear got upset and stormed away, the friend stayed and talked to Mr. P. Bear was upset so he went to talk to the only person in the whole school that he trusts enough to talk to, Mr. V (shop/ag teacher) out at the farm.

When Bear was close to the farm, but had not seen Mr. V. yet, a boy named A stepped out from the portables and began harassing Bear about an old girlfriend, J, whom Bear dated 2 years ago and hasn’t seen in over a year. The boy accused Bear of having done something to J recently, and apparently J is dating one of A’s friends. Bear tried to ignore A, but then A attacked him and hit him repeatedly. Bear didn’t want to engage (even though he "knew" that after A had hit him twice that he had a “right to fight back in self defense”), and blocked A’s punches and then ran away.

Bear has possible swelling on his right eye (hard to tell because of his acne), a red mark approximately 4 inches in diameter on his left shoulder and a smaller red mark (2-3 inches in diameter) on his upper right thigh that will probably become bruises. A chased him until Bear ran through a barbed wire fence to the ranch behind the school (he has slight scratches on his arms from the barbed wire).

A boy named D was in Autoshop and saw a lot of A’s attack of Bear.

A went to middle school. with him, and now attends another high school. Bear described A and his car with lots of detail. Bear brings up a tragedy from several years ago in which one of Bear's "friends" (we're not really sure if Bear even knew the kid) was killed as they were coming home from Marley’s birthday party, and claims A was one of the kids in the car.

Bear did not know why A was on the high school campus, but assumed it was to
visit a friend. Bear stayed in the woods for a long time (over 2 hours). He went near the road when the buses left, but A’s car was still in the parking lot so he didn’t go near the school. Eventually he started walking home. D (the boy who witnessed the fight) saw him and picked him up and drove him home.

So that’s Bear’s version of the events. He had quite awhile to think about them. Most of what he said was consistent, but there were a lot of time gaps. I e-mailed this version to both of Bear's schools and asked them to help verify or disprove it. The police had also requested information that I hoped they could help with. I did give the deputy the heads up that Bear's version might not be 100% accurate.

I also listed my major concerns:

• that he says he didn’t trust anyone at the school enough to even go inside to call home (instead he ran away from the school buildings) – he also said he didn’t trust us/me enough to call us even if he’d had access to a phone.


• this happened on school grounds when he should have been in class


• that he’d had yet another run in with an adult that caused him to take off and skip class


• that I wasn’t notified by anyone that he was missing (not from class or the bus)


• that this boy or his friends might target Bear.


• regardless of whether or not it actually happened the way Bear said or if he had a more active role, he was still obviously injured.


• his last tetanus shot was apparently 7/06 so I’ll need to see if he needs a booster (the doctor said he doesn't).

The police officer required Bear to write out a statement (Bear hates writing and was very concerned about his spelling - Hubby told Bear that it didn't matter if he spelled attacked without a c, it still made sense.) We reiterated several times that Bear is now legally an adult and everything he wrote had better be accurate.

So we finally ate dinner, late, because I couldn't finish dinner while the deputy was there as I needed to be there to keep Bear focused and answer any questions. We all stood around the kitchen after dinner and drank sparkling grape juice from our wedding crystal champagne flutes (a family tradition) and ate bitter, flat chocolate yogurt cake with cherry pie filling poured on top (to mask the horridness of how it turned out *sigh*).

Happy 4 year anniversary!

Labor Day weekend - our 4th anniversary

Labor Day weekend four years ago is when we first met the kids (Kitty and Bear). (To read about "How we got the kids you can go here. If anyone is interested in more about that first meeting I'd be happy to do a post. You can play - spot all the red flags we missed!).

We don't do much, but this holiday/anniversary is something we celebrate. Usually with Sparkling Grape Juice (a family favorite).

We started the day with Breakfast Soup

(Some water with flour thickener, a cup of grated cheddar cheese, the remainder of a queso - yellow cheese and salsa - dip we'd gotten free in a meal deal, and some leftover torn apart Sonic tater tots we hadn't eaten because they were underdone). It was supposed to have meat or bacon in it, but I didn't have any bacon and I didn't want to go crazy on putting too many expensive ingredients in it because I figured it wouldn't get eaten.

It looked disgusting, smelled good, tasted fine, and a few of the kids actually ate it (not Bob of course).

We had arranged to go to the lake with my little sister, her husband and her two kids (his 3 were with their mom for the weekend). We ended up getting a late start, but it was lovely because it had rained early in the morning so most people had apparently cancelled their plans to go to the lake so it wasn't crowded at all!

Bear had finally managed to get his last few pool skills done with Hubby (Hubby is a scuba instructor) the day before, so this was his first official open water dive (he has one more before he can become scuba certified like Ponito). Hubby tried to let my nephew get a taste of scuba diving, but it was a little too overwhelming. Hubby ended up taking Bob and Ponito for a 1/2 hour dive. There was just enough air left in Bear's tank (nerves cause him to really use a lot of air), for my brother in law to get to do a quick dive with Hubby (he's certified, but hasn't gotten to go often).

In the meantime, my sister and I stayed in the shallower water with the rest of the kids. All but Kitty had a great time swimming and playing with each other. Kitty played for awhile, but then got "bored" and went and sat on a rock. We all had on sunblock, but Bob and I burned anyway (usually it's just me since I'm the only non-Native American in the family). It was a lovely way to spend the day.

I spent quite some time reassuring my sis that I really do love her new house and then had to explain why I didn't seem enthusiastic when we toured it on Sunday. It was hard explaining that it was because I look at it from a totally different perspective than she does, and I'm thinking will it be OK for my kids to even visit? Stuff like:

• Her daughter's bedroom window is on the second floor and opens onto a not very steep section of the roof. In many TV shows you see people climb out their window and sit on a roof like this. Her daughter's roof is 12-15 feet off the ground with no bushes or trees to block a fall. I can just hear the ambulance sirens in my head.




• Same with the big tree that has branches right against my nephew's window. Ponito: "Come on Cousin! Let's climb out the window into the tree!).




• The house has gorgeous high ceilings, and for some reason the doors all go to the ceiling so instead of standard doors, hers are 9-10 feet tall. Doors get broken at my house. I'm imagining how expensive the doors would be to replace... as the kids "lock" another child out of the room by holding the door handle, and slam a door shut repeatedly to show Aunt C that it won't close all the way because the door frame is a little too small in one spot.




• The stairwell in the entry is curves up to a balcony. While we were there, I caught Ponito already climbing it on the wrong side of the banister - which means when he got to the top he'd be clinging to the beautiful wrought iron railing 10-12 feet off the ground above the lovely, hard ceramic tile. Ponito never falls, but what about the 6 year old twins emulating their cool older cousin?!




• In a closet upstairs is a little 3' by 3' cabinet looking door that opens into the attic, which doesn't have solid flooring. What a wonderful place to hide when playing hide and seek! What a horrible fall through the ceiling onto more of that lovely ceramic tile or the concrete in the garage?!

She's seeing gorgeous; I'm seeing hazardous!



At my sister's suggestion we'd stopped at a great barbecue place for sandwiches which we ate at the lake (well, everyone else ate their sandwiches, Hubby accidentally forgot to order mine. I did mooch some off my sister so I didn't starve). I admit I did tease the kids by telling them they would all have to order chili (kind of a soup!) instead of barbecue, but we let them order. No soda or chips though.



When we got home from the lake the kids were supposed to do chores. They did a little, but Kitty was antzy to go to the mall, so she couldn't tolerate much redirection on how to do the chores right. She swore she'd do them when she got home, but of course that didn't happen (I thought the mall closed at 6pm - kept thinking it was Sunday, so we took longer at the mall then I thought). Will be interesting to see if she finishes her chores today. Probably not. She's too easily overwhelmed to add more. *sigh*



Kitty and Bear had gotten a package this week with Birthday clothes from one of thier bio-grandmas (B-days were in April and July, but oh well). None of the clothes fit so we returned them for store credit. Bear had kept the shirts (they all had Nebraska on them which you can't exchange here) so he had about $30. I had to explain to them why they weren't getting the amounts on the tags (no receipt). We rarely shop retail for clothes so this was the first time we'd been to the mall in over a year. I have to say I was really impressed with the kids purchases!



With her $40 (and my help), Kitty searched through the Clearance racks and ended up with several shirts and a pair of jeans that were all cute, trendy and flattering and even had a couple of dollars left over. Ponito surprised me by wanting to come on the trip, and promptly fell into the "I'm booorreed!" routine while Kitty shopped. Since none of the kids could be left alone, he was stuck with waiting while his sister looked at and tried on clothes, this got really old really fast.



Bear told Ponito that he would give Ponito some of his money. Bear is VERY generous like this. of course this is just one more reason Bear can't keep money in his pocket for more than a second, but it's still sweet. When it was finally Bear's turn to shop we discovered that the store didn't carry Wranglers, which is currently the only jeans Bear will wear. Problem! I told him he couldn't blow all his money on sunglasses, so we was frustrated. Bear found a couple of $5 t-shirts he liked (including a cute Oscar the Grouch one), and then we wandered the store for awhile. Finally Bear decided he would like to have a new watch and found a unique looking one on sale in his price range. I give it about 30 seconds before it breaks, but at last we were done and could leave!!



Bear realized that what he had added up to a little over what was on his gift card, and was going to put back one of the t-shirts so he could give Ponito the money he promised. *aaaww!!* I told Bear I would cover the couple of dollars difference, and that I would make sure Ponito got something too.




The problem was we couldn't find anything Ponito wanted for less than $5 (what I was willing to spend), and he began to pout. When we checked out, we had $.26 left on a card. I was really impressed with the kids shopping skills!! I was ready to toss the $.26 already and get out of the store, but the kids convinced me to let Ponito look a little longer. Finally we found some of those obnoxious silly bands that all the kids are wearing nowadays and I bought two packages for $5 (what a waste of money, but at least we were finally done!).

We got home and found that Hubby had made chili! *yea!* But he hadn't checked first to make sure we had beans so I had to run to the store. *boo!* At the store I bought cake, and had told Bob to put the Sparkling Grape Juice in the fridge.


We had cake for dessert with our Sparking Grape Juice, and I was popular and loved again and we lived happily ever after!!


(OK, not really, but a girl can dream can't she?!)

Happy 16th Anniversary Hubby!

Hard to believe we met 18 years ago. Wow! We look so young! These are 2 of the pictures in our portfolio at the dating service we met through. Hubby is such a hottie! This dress was one I made. It's all hand beaded and has no back.

Picture from one of our first dates. Don't we look happy?!

This is my Jessica Rabbit dress. "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

Hubby officially asked me to marry him on a dinner barge in San Antonio with our family and friends.

Our official engagement photo. We got this from the dating service we met through in exchange for giving them a quote for marketing purposes. Like the poodle perm? I tried to perm it myself.

Our wedding day! March 12, 1994.

Evil parents! *grin* Bob is 2 months old here.

Company Christmas party in 2000

Company Christmas party 2001. We haven't taken pictures of just the two of us since the kids were born!

2006. I'd just lost a ton of weight and was so excited to take this picture. Hubby's tan hand on my pale doughy waist. Not the look I was going for. *sigh*

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007. The last year we bothered to take a picture of just the two of us. Now all the pictures of us are with the kids or individually.

I LOVE YOU HUBBY!

(No, Hubby doesn't read this blog, but I'll make him look at it).

Carrot Cake

Note: This is not a picture of the cake I made. This is just a funny picture from one of my favorite websites Cake Wrecks. A neighbor loaned me the new book and it is just as funny as the site.

This was the yummiest, moistest healthy carrot cake I have ever made. We had it for our 3 yr anniversary of the day Bear and Kitty moved in with us. (I still can’t believe it’s only been 3 years!). I tripled the recipe and used the extra in muffin cups for snacks – icing wasn’t necessary (but still yummy). (Sorry it took me so long to post the recipe!)

Carrot Cake

Blend together
2 cups sugar (I used Splenda)
1 cup yogurt (I used fat free – plain).
4 eggs (I used 2/3 cup egg beaters)

Add and blend.
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour (I use whole wheat)
2 cups grated carrots
Optional:
1 small can crushed pineapple (optional)
Raisins and/ or walnuts or pecans (optional and to taste)
Pour in greased pan and bake at 350. (25 minutes for sheet cake to 50 minutes bundt cake). If it jiggles, it’s not done.

Icing (I was lazy and whipped some fat free cream cheese into a reduced sugar cream cheese frosting from the store).
Blend.
½ cup yogurt
2 tsp vanilla
1 8 oz package cream cheese
Add and blend.
1 ½ cup powdered sugar
1 cup finely minced pecans (optional)

OK, now I'm hungry for cake again!

Third Anniversary party

I decided to make this a very low key event. I figured if we decided not to celebrate at all, then the kids would think we weren't happy about it. If we decided to go all out, then next year this would be even more of a traumatic anniversary.

So I made a three layer carrot cake (Bear's favorite), with plenty of cream cheese frosting (whole family pleaser), and sparkling grape juice (to Kitty it's not a celebration without this). After dinner (basic spaghetti), we all stood around the cake at the kitchen counter. I lit three candles (no Kitty, you can't play with matches), someone turned out the light and we were supposed to all blow them out on three. Two of the kids (I won't name names) thought it would be funny to blow them out on two.

We had our grape juice in champagne glasses (wedding presents), and toasted,

"To Family!"

That's it.

The carrot cake was beyond scrumptious! Yum! I don't think anyone noticed that it was fat-free and sugar free (except for the one can of store bought frosting that I whipped and added fat-free cream cheese to).

Third Anniversary

Three years ago today Kitty and Bear were placed with us. At age 11 and 13 they moved across the country from Nebraska to Texas. It was their first airplane ride too. First time they'd lived with each other in almost 2 years.

I don't know how or even if we will celebrate. For us it is when they joined our family. For them it would be celebrating losing theirs. They left behind sisters and other biofamily, foster parents and siblings and friends. We fully intended to take them back to visit frequently, but due to the economy and other issues we've not made it back.

They see pictures of their sisters who are growing fast, including the sister who was born last year that they've never met.

They often treat us like evil kidnappers and sometimes I feel that way too. We didn't intend to keep them from birth family. It is not our fault that they were placed in the foster care system in the first place. But it still makes me feel guilty.

So I'm not sure if we should celebrate. I'm thinking we might want to distract them, but should we do that with a party?

Speaking of which, the traditional gift for a third anniversary is leather...

don't know what to think about that.

15 years!

Yesterday was our 15 year wedding anniversary! My wonderful Hubby put up with my attachment disordered tuckus, and has hung on to me for 15 years. Finally convincing me that not all men leave (it only took him 4 years - 2 of which were after we were married).

Now all we have to do is convince Kitty and Bear.

We had lunch together (yes, as usual) to celebrate. We had Italian. (Ok, it was Mr. Gatti's buffet, but that's Italian, right?!).

For dinner I cooked a new chicken dish, that only 2 of the kids hated and refused to eat (more for Hubby!). We had chocolate cake for dessert! (and only 1 child got up in the middle of the night and ate half of it).

No melt downs (of course we didn't make anyone do chores) and hopefully Grandma's fever is better today so she can watch the kids this weekend).