The boy wonder helped for most of the weekend when he was not doing homework or reading. Daria has continued her refusal to do work at school so she spent much of the weekend also doing homework as well has her school work sent home while I stripped wallpaper off by hand.
The house my Mom used to live in before joining us two blocks away has lath and plaster walls so it was unclear what I would face when peeling decades of wallpaper so I did the job by hand. For the most part it was much better than expected. I got enough done to do a test of the texturing I will apply once it is all gone. Pretty nice but it sure smells awful. I probably need to break out the summer fans and make sure the kids do not come over when I do that part.
Other than that and a few other minor things, the house will be good to go. I remain conflicted about what to do about it so for the interim I will set up my doll house projects there. I have a millenary that is built, has most of the stuff bought to fill it and still needs to be wired. It is four feet long by 2 ½ wide so it needs some room. I also need to finish wiring the outside street lamp that came with it and figure out something for the landscaping. Yikes, and I thought I could exhibit it by May. Probably not.
There is also the Beacon house with mansard roofs and three stories. There are at least two other 1 inch scale doll houses in partial states of being built that were moved to the garage when my house started filling with toddlers. Of course boy wonder and princess have their own doll houses complete with individualized furniture. Alex has been going to local doll house conventions with me for a couple of years so he already has a “collection” going.
That reminds me; a relative of my last pre-adoptive foster child sent me a picture of the toddler a week into her new placement. It is a picture to hurt the heart of any mama. The little girl is smiling for the camera and is sitting on a rocking horse but her eyes are so sad. It is clear that she has been crying so much that her face and eyes are raw and puffy. The happy and sweet little girl I knew is not in that picture. The joy she was once filled with is gone. I pray for that child every day. I pray that God hears her heart and finds what is best for that child.
So the state did what all of us hoped would not happen – they did not do what was best for that child. She will be the third generation of her birth family (on both sides) lost to the state system of determining what is best for children. She is another child is lost to hope.
That is one of the lessons learned in the adoption wars. Children are lost all the time. Children are abused by the bureaucratic systems charged with their care. The feelings, hopes and preferences of children are disregarded. They are not given a choice. People who do not know them decide their fate. People who do not know them scar these children in harms’ way for life. They break the hearts of children.
The adoption wars are not for the faint of heart. People with gentle souls need to get out of the field because there is a lot of heart ache to go around.
The children that come home to us are so much more precious given that reality. I have learned that through my kids.
Doing the right thing for kids is hard. Every day, I do what I think I need to do and then I hope. Alex for sure is a difficult case given all the abuse and prior in-country adoptive disruption he suffered. We are attached but who knows. Given his particulars I was tearfully prepared to be the one that adopted him but had to disrupt so that he could attach to a second family. I have heard about that reality so many times and my heart simply hurts for the parents faced with that choice. I remain convinced it is a choice forced by the child for a variety of reasons. I remain a lucky girl that Alex decided to attached and remain with me. At the end of the day it was his choice.
Anyway, anyway, anyway. I still have way too many doll house kits. I am currently working in quarter scale at the house because it is smaller and easier to manage but I am now dreaming of setting up all the one inch scale unfinished projects and working on them. I have just stacks and stacks and stacks of unbuilt houses. The joy of it all! Right now I need to stop thinking about the adoption wars and go build something before I go to bed.
The kids are bringing their trains, cars, baby dolls and fairies to play in amongst my houses. We have balance. Life is good. Have a wonderful day, Mama Sarah
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