The Honeymoon is Over/Honesty Post

Not for Alanna, for Anastasia. Overall she is adjusting so well to having a little sister, and having the attention shift from her, as our youngest on the timeline. (she is not the youngest our bios are 10 and 7, we adopted Anastasia 2 years ago and she is 9 now) She has only had one fit since us bringing Alanna home, a huge difference from before. She hasn't shown any jealousy. Well, Daddy was out of town for work this week and there is a lot of talk about our upcoming move. So of course, some sort of odd behaviour is to ensue. I will ask her something simple, like, "what do you want on your hot dog? *Blank Stare* "Anastasia there is no reason for you not to be answering me, what do you want on your hotdog?" She answers so softly I can't hear. Seriously!! This scenario repeated itself over and over all week. It's especially frustrating when she does it in front of other people, because it doesn't make any sense. I did call her out on it, and informed her that if she continued she would serve a punishment.
So tonight my husband let me rest while he took the baby and one child to go pick up pizza and prescriptions. When I woke up, my husband had told me about something that had occured while I was sleeping, something that was not a huge deal, but she had done it in order to get her dessert ASAP. It was a rule that her and I had discussed many times, but Daddy was not aware of. Big NO NO, don't play one parent off of another. So my husband and I called her into the living room to talk to her about it. Something she was not pleased about. She came, muttering under her breath the whole way. "Anastasia, what are you saying I can't hear you?" She says "I didn't say anything" "Anastasia I heard you, what were you saying?" "I wasn't saying anything Mommy reaaaallllyyyyy!" Both my husband and I asked her, same response. Then she said " I don't know what I was saying, I was talking so low, all I could hear was blah, blah, blah"
Anastasia think about what you are doing before you do it, you are lying, and you make no sense, this is your last chance to tell Mommy and Daddy what you said. "You never believe me, I'm telling the truth, I don't know what I said"
This is the 3rd time we have had this situation in the past week. The first was when my husband asked her not to do something and she did it anyways. It was not something that was a bad behavior just something he did not want her to do right then. She looked right at him and did it anyways. Then he asked her why she did it. Her response, "I didn't do it on purpose" It was not something you do on accident, she was 2 feet in front of him. She repeated over and over and stood her ground that she did not mean to do it.
So guess what my experienced, adoptive veteran Momma did, I sent her to bed. I just could not deal with it. I had a long week on my own with the kiddos, usually it goes smoothly this week, not so much, I am exhausted and just didn't feel like dealing with that behavior. When people say they admire me, I don't understand why. I am NOT the perfect parent. And I admit to you, that I am better at parenting some of my children than others. Adoptive parenting does not mean we have all the answers sometimes it means we ask God why he thought we were equipped to do this?
And let me tell you, for all adoptive parents, parenting an adoptive child is hard. If you have not done it you would not understand. Also let me tell you this, most adoptive kiddos who have behavior problems, do not have them for other people. Most behaviors are directed at the adoptive mothers, it's psychological, and somedays I handle it better than other days.
I am trying my hardest to be honest here. Several of my dearest adoptive friends have manned up and been honest about their struggles on their blogs. I had made the decision I would either be honest or stop blogging. These blogs are here for us to support each other. I realize it's like a reality sitcom to some, but to us adoptive parents, it is essential that we be honest with each other. Most of us feel pressured into making people think that we don't struggle. I find that I'm comfortable talking to people about struggles with my bio kids, but not my adoptive, because people will judge, like I've failed, or like I don't love her, etc... That's not the case, it's just real life we are living. And there are real people, really good parents, who are struggling and feel like they have nowhere to go, people with much bigger behaviors to deal with than us. We need to support each other.