After you wake up 1,000s of days and hope that today is the day that your children will love you…and it’s not…it all starts to build up. It’s not that I’ve turned against my kids – but I often feel more like a sandbox warrior posed for the next threat than a mom. Then I realize I’m letting their illness win. I need to show them that I can ‘win’ and they can still be safe. I have to be better at choosing the battles I MUST win.

It’s a thin line, since we need to enforce to her that things are done by mom and dad and it’s our job to make sure she’s safe and cared for. But, really, at 10 years old, I don’t want to make her feel ’small’ and baby her to death. She does GREAT with the things she is told are her ‘job’. But, she forgot and it was bad timing. The backlash is today. As soon as her little head popped out of bed – I knew. At breakfast she played the role of public announcer.

They still look so mainstream to the rest of the world…and I wish that it was true. Their struggles are hidden away in the folds of our family, in the secret places of our house. I’ve tried to make that not true…but it’s a weird place to be. Do I want to walk up to every person in our lives and annouce ATTACHMENT DISORDER ahead?

The process is complicated with a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ and most adoptive families can understand that.

I mean co-workers, youth sports friends, acquaintances from your child’s school, your hair dresser and well, basically everyone you ever knew pre-adoption – they know. It’s not like you can just come home one day with a 6 year old girl and a 7 year old boy and not mention it. They may start checking out America’s Most Wanted to see what you’d been up to!

The front page banner on the site reads “Love Never Fails”. I never really got past that – perhaps because I’m not sure it’s true. This approach has worked miracles for some families and I know some of them. It irks me quite honestly. Again, I’m not in deep study, but what I know seems so patronizing. The premise, as I’ve gathered, is to love your child through it. If they choose to not follow a rule, hug them and cuddle them and tell them how much you still love them.