[Lorraine123]

I have been thinking lately about how I now accept as normal, some really odd things.

For example:

Last week S peed in the dog bowl. My son's gf came over and asked how my day was and I said fine except the pee in the dog bowl. She looked at me and said "You really don't realize how odd that is do you?" And no, it was just a fact of my day.

This morning we were shopping in Walmart and S has to put her hands on her head when we shop so she can't steal. People always stare and dh said he is so tired of advertising our disfunctionality. I didn't even realize anything unusual was happening, I thought it was a really good shopping trip. Never mind that my daughter has her hands on her head so she doesn't get arrested. Thats normal to me.

And things like that happen all the time....

Does this happen to anyone else? I don't even know how odd my daily life is anymore.

[greenrobin]

Disfunctional? Really? Your son did not pee on the floor and your daughter did not steal. Sounds rather successful to me

I think we just need to redefine disfunctional!

[Original Mike]

For me, I now find it normal to say things like "T got four Ds, so hell get four credits!!" or "B passed another drug screen!"

[shadow72]

My 10 year old has fragmented into several different "personalities"

I am very used to her muttering to herself in different voices and often talk to the different personas.

We were in a supermarket trying to buy bigger knickers that one part of her wanted, but another didnt - I had a very surreal conversation trying to persuade this part to let me buy the knickers.

It was only afterwards I realised how whacky I must have sounded!

[Barksum]

I don't realize these kinds of things until I watch someone else's kid who is 2 or 3 years younger than one of mine do something that I haven't even thought about asking mine to do.

A friend had their 4.5 yo go out and get the trash out of the car and bring it all into the house. I can't have any of mine do that...every button would be pushed and/or broken, the windshield wipers would be popped off and lying under the wheels, the hub caps would be gone (somewhere!), the doors would be dangling off their hinges, the car seats would be in the driveway and we wouldn't know where the kid was until an hour of searching revealed that he was under the back seat. The rule at our house is constant supervision, even for the older ones, and constant monitoring of all chores. There is none of that nice 'go and do this for me' stuff here.

Dh just reminded me that when our oldest Ds was about 4 or 5 we told him to lift his foot (so I could put on a shoe? look at his toes? something...) and then we said to lift the other one. He tried to lift them both at the same time and fell over, which led to one of his hour long screaming and throwing himself around fits. He was SO concrete that we had to carefully give directions and fill in ALL the blanks as he could not extrapolate ANY info for himself. I know people think I'm a ditz because I say things to my kids in little tiny bits!! I feel like a preschool teacher; "Come into the room. Close the door. Stand right there. Take off your boots. Hold them in your hands. Walk to the boot shelf. Put your boots on the shelf..."

It has become so 'normal' in our home that I don't even recognize how odd we are. :blush:

[Tudu]

That subject was one of the things I discussed with the AT this morning. What is normal here is very different than most households and my feelings that we need to begin to expose my children to normal households. My oldest had no idea how odd it is that I have to go over all the rules about boundaries every time we are in contact with normal people. The AT was commenting on how I seem to have a grip on the fact our normal will always be a little different than every one elses, I still expect them to do their best but I know our reality will be more entertaining.

[lucyjoy]

I'm reading all these things and thinking they all sound "normal" to me. Could someone point me to a normal family so I can figure out if I should be bothered by my family dysfunctions?

[scandi]

I think we create a new normal for our families. I also believe that is why it is so hard for me to have conversations with my friends who have not adopted because their normal is not like mine. But the converstaions that I have with my friends who have adopted children probably would sound weird to others. We have a common been there done that and can understand the "pee in the dog dish, the poop under the bed, the incessant talking", and many other things. At least for me, there is the ability to find the humor in my normal - of course, it is not there when it happens but later on when I think about it and I wonder what can happen next.

[Archive]

The first time I really realized this was when J was 9 and leaned over and bit me during church because he didn't want to be there. I instinctly dropped to the floor with him and held him while he tried to wrestle away. This was all during prayer time of course and instead all eyes were on us. For me I was perfectly comfortable and it didn't matter where we were--things needed handled. Everyone else was looking at me like I was holding a three-headed monster.

[Tudu]

Originally Posted by lucyjoy

I'm reading all these things and thinking they all sound "normal" to me. Could someone point me to a normal family so I can figure out if I should be bothered by my family dysfunctions?

How do I say this delicately? Lucy, your family has raised the bar for dysfunction, just assume anything that goes on over there is not normal. Poor woman, you have been surrounded by crazy folks so long you have become one of them.

[aspenhall]

While on a "mommy and kidds" outing this spring, I was discussing Black-out rages with an acquaintance of mine, who adopted kids from foster care. Another mom was there with her 2 year old biological daughter and pregant with another.

My dd and my friends daughter and son are all in the 5-6-7 age range and we were commiserating on all the different coping tecniques we used, what works, what doesn;t, trading advice etc...

A VERY NORMAL CONVERSATION for me to have ....

After 20 minutes or so of listening to us, the pregant mom, casually inquires..."about what age does this start?" and we both kinda blinked and said "what?", and she replied with "the rages, where they get so mad, they can't recall what happens".....We both started laughing and reassured her that she would likely never experience it, as her kids wouldn't have to deal with much trauma or loss like ours had.

She was fully expecting it to be a normal part of parenting based on how we spoke about it...I was laughing so hard to imagine the shock as she contemplated that future looming on her horizon, inescapable, like toilet training, or first day of school would be.

That's when I acknowledged that OUR normal, was not everyone elses....but it was funny in that setting, WE were the majority.

[Tuppy]

Lorraine, my husband is a high school teacher and being the "newbie" teacher this year (he taught college for almost 20 years before becoming a HS teacher) they gave him all of the "problem children" in every single one of his classes. Thievery is one of his worst problems, the kids will steal from each other, from him, from the school.....anything if it isn't nailed down.

He would give his eye teeth to have parents who cared enough to even ATTEMPT training their children not to steal.

He says to tell you that most of these kids have never owned an animal and are awestruck when he brings in some of our family pets...he has taken our 2 ferrets and baby chicks and ducks. The kids love it. However, he firmly believes that if they had a dog bowl at home they would pee in it too! LOL

As for me, I get so tired of people not understanding where our adopted and foster children are coming from and why we have to parent the way we do that I feel like just staying home.

The real problem is that so few people really want to understand, they just want to judge.

[momraine]

I get the looks when I say things like " P put your legs on!" or "Don't take your legs off in the store", "OK M you can have a treat, cause you havn't thrown up all week" "if you throw that up, you will be grounded" "S you need to show you feelings in your face" "M, you are'nt handicapped, do it yourself" "give it up, the cute face doesn't work on me." "don't answer, I don't want to hear a lie"

[qs mom]

I go through this too! I only know 1 other person with a trampoline in the dining room. She has 4 autistic kids.

A friend babysat last week. He told me he caught Q eating the cat food. I told him I was surprised because he usually prefers dog food! He just looked at me like I was nuts.

I haven't slept in a bed in almost 5 years. Neither has my son. On the floor in his room.

[Indy]

Some of the kids who have come over to visit the boys are pretty weird!