Dear 2011...

I have been dreading you for some time...knowing that this deployment was coming. Don't take it personal, I just prefer to have my husband and partner at home, safe. I know you hold many grand adventures: Giocoso having her first birthday,Scherzo turning 4, and our '2 years home celebration' all happening within the first month of greeting you, will set in motion another 12 months of milestones, celebrations, tears, progress, healing, hardships, and moments that can only be lived once, as we are painfully aware of.
We are hopeful for new perspectives for the boys' healing journey. We are anticipating much growth and understanding for each of them. We look forward to time spent together and being unified through it all. We are eager to watch Giocoso's personality unfold and Scherzo's mature with her age, as Primo leads the pack of girlie girls and pretend play. You will bring a new sense of ability to Etude as he experiences more "I can do it moments" and a new sense of belonging to Vivace as we dive further into therapies.
I know you hold heartache and adventures. I know you hold thrills and disappointments.
In the midst of it all, I am so grateful that I do not face you alone, but with a network of family, friends and professionals...and with Grace for all the mistakes, Love that breaks down barriers, and Salvation that is assured.
2010 has taught us so much and brought us so far! We have delighted in having Ashley home for the majority of it. We learned new ways to give and ways to show love and be loved....but 2011-brace yourself! We plan to love deeper, stretch ourselves more, and out give ourselves from before. In a year, when we are bidding adieu to you, may you say, "I am exhausted! They gave it all they had, then even more!"

Our mini Hanukkah...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!.....

Nine years ago and today....

2001

 2001

2010

Christmas 2010...

Christmas 2004....

(Primo 9 months, Greeneville, TN)

11 months old....

I "have" 2 little boys here at Tullo!...

Email me! You can also change a life by being part of the Tullo family!

Daddy's little ladies...

 *Thank you Beth, for these amazing pictures before deployment, what a gift!*

Here we are again....raw

Stiff,
Kicking,
Cold,
Wailing,
Scared,
Fists,
Grieving,
Screaming,
Angry,
Shaking,


I bring you inside only partly against your will...holding you like the infant you emotionally are...feeling your body only half resisting being rescued from itself...

Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow is a new day.

Run Away Home...

How confused you must be when your body says to flee
Racing thoughts, pacing feet, darting eyes, rapid heart
When the need to escape escalates and you want to run home...

Home?
Home
Where is that?
Who decides?

Home is familiar, it's comfortable, it's what you know...
yet here you are in the strange, the unknown and we call it home.

You slowly redefine everything you once knew,
you nod up and down as we tell you this is forever home...
yet, if I could see inside, I feel your heart is nodding from side to side....

Rage, disbelief, betrayal, confusion all locked inside-mere glimpses shown through your eyes..
as you nod, and smile, and nod....your body says to flea, your heart cries "to where?!"

I wish I had the key to unlock your language ability, I wish I could free you to scream, cry, laugh- freely
I wish I had the power to comfort you, relax you, assure you
I wish we could dialog, converse, expand, explain....
I wish I could tell you that it is ok to want to flea....

Without the key my mind fills with questions, like a live stream of captions throughout the day...
How do you feel about that?
Do you even like it? Do you want it?
Do you know it is OK to miss her?
Do you know you can cry for her, that I cry for her...

How confused you must be when your body says to flee
Racing thoughts, pacing feet, darting eyes, rapid heart
When the need to escape escalates and you want to run home...

When you don't know the way...

Rough Waters...

Etude is going through a rough time right now, emotionally...it is taking its toll on all of us. He isn't aggressive or violent or anything like what we have faced with Vivace in the past. I guess that makes it feel like uncharted water. I guess that makes us feel a little in-over-our-head and hoping, waiting for the next breath to hold on a little longer. It is so different: the behaviors, the outburst, the attitude, the manipulation...but at the core of it, it is the same challenge-a child who has experienced trauma, who is scared, who can't trust, who doesn't know how to move forward.

While there are several great books on attachment, post adoption challenges, and older child adoption-each child is unique, each story has a similar frame, but the details are different. Two of those important details are their heart's cry and their love language. We are really struggling to find a rhythm for Etude that we can all be comfortable with and continue to move forward through the bumpy waters.
The Peds Neurologist in Chapel Hill told me that "gaps" and "regression of ability that later is regained" are all a common concern in parents of children with developmental delays. I don't know if you ever thought about how hard it can be to suddenly have a middle school child unable to tie their own laces, even though they have easily completed this task daily for a year. Or maybe how frustrating it is to reteach a skill you have invested hundreds of hours into at appointments and in home therapy practice. It is so hard to watch a child struggle with a task you know they can do, and have seen them do multiple times and now fluster over it as a new concept. Brushing teeth, going to the bathroom, using a fork, washing a dish, sweeping....at any given time the skill can completely fall off the map as if the child NEVER did that task......got the visual? now apply that to the grieving process! As I have said before grief comes in waves...but when the child suddenly loses ground, the "new" waves of emotions are raw and leave the child spinning all over again. Unfortunately, as parents and siblings, we are not immune either to the wave's unexpected force.

Have you ever just stood still in the sand as the wave crashed in and then rolls back out making the very ground you are standing on move, shift....you feel as if you were relocated, or misplaced, you feel you stood still but the earth moved without you....I imagine these children have a similar emotional experience as they have flashbacks, unhealed emotional wounds, or frustrations that can't be expressed.
As parents, we can't keep the sand from bending to the force of the tide...but we can give our children a life vest, hold their hand, reassure them, and point out the familiar around them....we can stand in the wave and not be moved.

World AIDS Day...

"5 things you can Do".....  by Lisa Qualls


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