It’s not everyday a news crew comes to your house, but today this was a legitimate question. I was being interviewed about our school issues (more on that at a later date), so as I was scurrying around this afternoon, I told LuLu that she needed to pick up some toys and clothes and take them to her room.

She, of course, wanted to know why. When I explained that it was because the woman from TV was coming, her reply was

“Mom, I watch the news all the time and there are lots of people on there whose houses aren’t clean!”

She... more

On the roller coaster ride of raising LuLu, we often have trouble seeing any improvements she is making. But our trip to Kansas City for the ATN conference provided an opportunity to view LuLu through the lens of others who knew her, but haven’t seen her for a while.

My family lives in the area, so we took a few days prior to the conference to visit my sister’s family and my mother. We were all together at our house last Christmas. One of the biggest changes we observed was in LuLu’s relationship with my sister’s son, who is six months older... more

All this talk about what to call the various moms in our children’s lives reminded me of how many crazy ways I’ve been asked about how LuLu got into our family.

Because she’s Chinese, it is very apparent that she does not look like us. We have been stared at, talked down to, asked all kinds of inappropriate and nosey questions.

“Is she yours?” is the most common one.

“Where’s she from?” is another subtle way of asking us if she’s adopted.

But when someone asks about how much she cost, it still gets me.

I... more

Every special needs parent knows what I’m talking about when I say “the child underneath”. Those of us who are blessed see glimpses of that child. The one our child might have been if...

And perhaps the one our child can become with the right combination of therapies, interventions and parenting.

It’s so easy to see the disability and totally miss the child. But what happens when you see those glimmers. I am inevitably caught off-guard by the “real” LuLu. She shows up at the most unexpected times and the most unexpected... more

Today was LuLu’s first day at a social skills day camp. She was excited to be going (independent of mom) and so was I. As is often expected with her excitement, she began to escalate. We couldn’t find her tennis shoes, and for a moment I thought a meltdown was about to start.

Instead, she pulled it together (albeit shaky) and we settled for some heavy-soled sandals and a rush to the car. She started to go down her negative thought path, but I kept talking her back, reminding her how much fun she was going to have, how much she had been looking forward to this and... more

I walked our dog late last night, leaving LuLu in the backyard to chase fireflies and hunt for bugs. When I returned a few minutes later, I could hear LuLu’s voice coming from the neighbor’s back porch.

“What are you doing over there?” I yelled. “I’m talking to Ms. Peggy, Mom.” “Is it ok with Ms. Peggy?” I asked. Peggy responded to the affirmative. Then LuLu responded, “I’m telling Ms. Peggy about Jesus.”

I stood in the driveway and listened as LuLu’s voice grew louder and more determined. ... more

We’ve been back in regularly scheduled trauma therapy with LuLu for a couple of months now. It was definitely time. She’s reached puberty, and due to the nature of her abuse as an infant, all kinds of feelings and memories have surfaced. And due to the other therapies we have done, such as neurofeedback and HBOT, she is now more able to access and process those emotions.

One of the things... more

It occurred to me yesterday, as I watched LuLu interact with others in the doctor’s waiting room just how she views herself. When we arrived there was a young boy (maybe 5) with his father and twin infant sisters. He was sitting across from us wiggling. LuLu was watching The Aristocrats on the waiting room TV and cheered as the bad guy was locked into a trunk and shipped off. This young boy impulsively jumped up, ran over to LuLu and hit her on the leg. His dad immediately sprang into action, scolding and retrieving the boy back to his chair.

“It’s alright,” LuLu said, “I do that sometimes too.” And she was right. She does jump up and very impulsively react, often to sensory... more

Today was a lost day. It started around 8 pm last night, when we were returning home from another fast-moving weekend and hoping to tie up some loose ends before the new week started.

We had been to dinner with Kay’s youth group and all was fine. LuLu went to the bathroom and then cried out: “Hey, Mom, you gotta see this!”

What I found was such an overwhelming amount of blood and stool that it was difficult to appear calm. (Sorry to be so graphic, but it was down right scary). LuLu didn’t appear distraught, so I just played it cool, helped her clean... more

When a topic shows up in my world through more than one avenue, my internal radar goes off. Perhaps this is a lesson I’m supposed to be learning now. The idea of naming (labeling) someone and how that affects them came up three times yesterday.

This is the tangent that occurred to me as I was reading the article about Developmental Trauma Disorder and Dr. van der Kolk’s efforts to include this as a new diagnosis in the DSM.

Dr. van... more