Where has the time gone?

Its been ages since I even looked at any blog! I will catch you up as best as I can.

LUKE..... My sweet Luke has had a tough start to the New Year. He lost both tubes in his ears in December. His teachers kept asking us what was wrong because his temper was out of control. We now have two new tubes and the loss of a set of tonsils and adenoids. We pray this will help. After the surgery he was in sensory overload and needed no pain medication at all and then in a few days his system went wild. He would scream "HOLD YOU" at the top of his lungs and then cry and push us away when we did. This has not happened well over a year??? Its seems that he was back in trauma mode. He is doing much better but now has a cold so when that is done maybe just maybe my sweet happy boy will return.

Up until December Luke was progressing well and getting good at self calming and touch. He is still receiving PT, OT and speech. As for now we just take each day as it comes and consider it a gift.

FOSTERING...... We finished our classes in fostering and our foster daughter came to us about one month ago. She is 14... yes, that is what I said! I was never going to take on a teen but we felt it would be the least amount of stimulation for Luke and it has been so. Our foster daughter has been wonderful to have around and I think I even like having a shopping buddy. Luke likes her and she likes him but they stick to their own stuff. I don't know how long she will stay but it looks like it might be a while.... in the meantime we meet with her parents and siblings each week and she also gets to visit her grandmother weekly as well. She has been through so much but she is trying so so so very hard to overcome the trauma.

Kids with Trauma.... This is my new passion. Just plain loving and understanding kids with a background of trauma, abuse or neglect. Wes and I have been taking classes at a local church that hat help us understand the brain of a child from the above background. It has been unbelievable amazing and it is changing our simple family! We are going to a conference in April in Chicago to strengthen our training. We have been studying the teaching of Dr. Karyn Purvis,  she is a Christian Psychologist at the University of Texas Christian Institute..

That is what I got for now.... Chat soon!!!!