Trouble in Paradise

It's strange how a sweet, little 10 pound itty bitty baby girl can derail plans. I started the Love Dare and it was going well... at least, the first day went well.  I do want to write about it sometime when I get back on track. Baby Girl showed up and things are on hold until her foster parents get back from their retreat on Friday. She is a such a good little girl. So calm and happy and well adjusted one has  to wonder why she's in foster care. She sleeps 10 hours at night and is a total joy in the day. But she is a baby and babies need a lot of attention and loving.

James is on the up and up, doing well and pulling out of his funk.

Missy is not. I got a text from school yesterday that they were having a hard time, so I went to investigate and ended up taking her home. Her eyes were real red almost like pink eye, but she has a habit of sticking her finger in her eyeball when she's unhappy and her nails were a bit long so I couldn't be sure if she had physically done it to herself or if she had introduced a germ with her finger. There was another kiddo with red eyes there, too, but they said it was not pink eye.

Missy will NOT obey anybody right now. She will appear to obey some of the time, but she WILL NOT give 100%. It's a real problem at school. The teacher is a so sweet and kind hearted but I could tell it was starting to really, really frustrate her and she was stressed out. Seeing I know exactly how that feels it was enough reason to take the kiddo home.

I worked with Missy all afternoon but got absolutely nowhere with her. She's as prickly as a cactus and guarded and unwilling to give an inch. She knew she had to be ready for school this morning on time and I let her know if we had problems with obedience then she would not be going to school to continue to give the teacher a rough time. School is on break Thursday & Friday this week, so she had one chance at showing me she would cooperate. You can guess what happened this morning. It was not pretty.  She "appeared" to be getting ready and she totally thought she had me fooled.... in the end she raged for about 45 minutes. We have a whole 5 more days to work on this together. Sigh.... :_(  She isn't planning on giving in. Her world has shrunk to the bare minimum. Choir, swimming, her class at church, and Pathfinders are all on hold until we can trust her not to defy the volunteers and teachers.

Speaking of swimming, she sabotaged our outing Monday night. She went for her swim lesson with the teacher fine, but then between the lesson and the open swim she got out of the pool and warmed up in the shower. She never came back to swim with me. I  kind of had a feeling that something was up. I kept on eye to make sure she was safe but I did want to approach her and call her on what was up. She wants control and there are some things she can control. After 45 minutes I went and told her to get dressed that it was time to leave. And of course, we had to deal with her "song and dance" as she " hadn't had a chance to swim yet"....  She loves swimming. I was very surprised. I have really enjoyed swimming with her but it's too much of a good thing, apparently.

I'm getting geared up to plant seeds. I bought some used chrome, metal racks and I need to get more grow lights, but this year's set up is going to be OH, SO MUCH more EFFICIENT!! I've been listening to the Agriculture Conference on www.audioverse.com and I'm inspired. Interestingly enough, there are a few lectures and classes on homeschooling and child raising included in that seminar. I'm feeling convicted that our best option for James next year is homeschooling. I'm frightened and have ideas all at the same time. I know how to do this.... but will he cooperate? A lot of my ideas center around real work... agriculture and hands-on learning. I just know it's going to be hard a lot of the time. There was one sermon that was very, very encouraging and insightful and helpful on parenting by some of our friends with an adopted child. It hit home hard and I had Steve listen to it as well. If anyone is interested, here's the link: 5 Principles.

Blessings,

I must go deal with a Missy.... She is cleaning some tiles in the mud room in preparation for our bedding plant grow operation.