Frustration

I have to complain a smidge so I will make this blog short...I hope.  I get so frustrated when my kids act like they are afraid of me and can't tell me anything they need to tell me.  Example without names...last weekend we shopped for clothes.  After, we headed to a bookstore and then home.  Now, a week later I asked about the new clothes and why they hadn't been worn.  I was told...'Oh, I left them at the bookstore'.  Now, this child, I know would have wanted to wear the clothes right away so would have known they left them at the store, if not the same day during the one hour drive from the store than at least the first school day following this little shopping excursion.  Not only that someone had gone down the day before and picked up another item left at another place, the same hour drive away, the same child had left behind.  So, yesterday would have been a great opportunity to tell me that said items had been forgotten and both could have been retrieved.

Today I am told, 'Yes, I knew I had left them but was afraid to tell you'.  Why?!?  I don't beat or even hit my kids...I spanked a few times with Trev but found that to be ineffective so the worst to expect is loudness from me!  I have other kids and Rachel, for example, would have been hounding me daily until I found a way to get those clothes back not telling me she was afraid to tell me!

Anyway, the frustration is that I feel like a bad parent when this happens.  And with the children we adopted from foster care it happens a lot.  I understand, truly, why they would be nervous and continue to try to help them feel secure that they could not do anything that would:

1. Make me beat them
2. Make me not love them
3. Make me send them away

I don't like feeling like the bad guy...it has been a constant and unexpected trial since, as I may or may not have mentioned in other posts, I am cool.  I am fun, love to play games, love to hug and kiss my kids, spend time with them and be a mom.  Feeling like a failure, where kids are concerned, is hard for me.

One of the best things someone ever said to me after adopting these children is, instead of saying, they have lived here XX amount of time so should be acting like ZZ...I should say, they have only been here XX amount of time and look at how far we have come.  Seriously, that was an answer to prayer and works for me every time when they are fighting with each other and I can see the frustrations involved in trying to become "true" brothers and sisters.  I think it works in every situation, with all of my children, reminding me kids are only a certain age so it might be expected behavior.  But it is harder when it is about being afraid of me.

Truthfully, I would say it worked in this situation also, if I think about it because it has been almost 3 months since the last time I heard it from either of them. It used to be daily and then became weekly so it is getting better.   It doesn't hurt less but I will keep plodding along because I can now hug and kiss them whenever I want without them looking at me like I am a "chester".  I tickled one recently and they didn't look at me like I was abusing them...they actually laughed a full on natural laugh.  We snuggle together on the couch and at church and I get to rub their backs and play with their hair and they want me to.  I hear about the things they do at school and the great things they do in their sports games. I hear about dance and my daughter and I are in a play together.

So thanks for letting me rant...it let me remember we are getting there!  And while I may be scary to them, I am grateful that it is positively scary to me how much I love them even when I am frustrated!

PS...positive note...someone turned the bag into mall security so we will be able to get the clothes back, too!  (Happy face for honest people!!!)