fairfax county – Lux, Libertas

I started this blog in the fall of 2009 so that our friends and family could be a part of our journey to adopt our precious Sofija. The last five years have been one heckuva journey! We had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. It was probably better that way.

Sofija is amazing.

Sofija is beautiful.

Sofija is gifted, and athletic.

Sofija is the queen of selfies (Sorry, Kim Kardashian. She’s got you beat.)

Sofija is also very, very HARD.

Every single bad thing that can come from a child beginning her life in a neglectful institutional setting… she’s got it. She’s broken in a thousand ways. I have many friends with adopted and biological children who have disabilities that say, “I wouldn’t change a thing about my child.” You will not hear me say those words. I would give up a limb or one of my senses if it would heal my child.

One of the many things Sofija struggles with is a total lack of rational fears. She has plenty of IRrational fears. But when it comes to understanding the dangers of this world… she hasn’t a clue. We have tried and tried to make her understand that she simply cannot run down the middle of the street or leave our house without us. We’ve put extra locks and alarms on the doors. Last Saturday night we grasped just how epically our efforts have failed.

We moved Sofija’s bed into our room a year and a half ago after she repeatedly got up during the night and put herself into dangerous situations or did fun things like pouring an entire jar of honey and bottle of ketchup into her bed… at the same time.

On Saturday night, after her bath, Sofija asked to play in her room. Every 5-10 minutes I checked on her. I always do. At 10pm I called her name and asked her what she was doing. She replied, “I’m still playing.” At 10:05 I called her name and told her it was time for bed. She didn’t respond. Before I got to her door I had a sinking feeling in my gut. It was too quiet. She wasn’t there. As I walked away from her room I noticed that the door to the garage was open. Walking into the garage I saw that the door from our garage to the back yard was open. There was no need to search the rest of the house. She was gone. I didn’t think to call 911. I just took off down the street in my socks. My husband took off in the opposite direction. I made it around our block, ran back in the house, grabbed the car keys, and told my son to call 911. I drove down our street with my windows down, screaming her name, and looking for any sign that she was at someone’s house. Two blocks from home I passed an unmarked cop car that was driving slowly with a search light on. I jumped in front of his car and fell apart. He asked me to please calm down and began describing Sofija to me. It turns out that one of our neighbors had seen Sofija sprinting down the road in her pajamas and glitter boots (that are two sizes too small – they were in a donation bag in the garage). The neighbor called the police. Within minutes Fairfax county search and rescue had seven police cruisers and a helicopter searching for my daughter. The policeman that I jumped in front of followed me back to our house and I listened as calls of “Sofija sightings” continued to come in on his radio. She ran from our house to 7eleven (about a mile) and when the clerk wouldn’t let her get a slurpee she ran to Safeway (a block from 7eleven) in search of ice cream cake. A police car followed her from 7eleven to Safeway and four cars cornered her at Safeway. My husband was driving around the neighborhood when an officer called from the Safeway parking lot asking for a family member because “She’s very aggressive.” EIGHT cops could not get her in the back of a police car. Her Daddy went and got her and brought her home, mad as a spring bear, because she “didn’t get a slurpee OR ice cream cake and the police lights hurt her eyes.”

I didn’t sleep Saturday night. Or Sunday night. Or much of any night since.

Sunday was spent installing new alarms and keyed chain locks. And then, Sunday night, after her bath, she put on socks and shoes and asked if she could play in her room “with the window open.”

What? The? Hell?

Seriously?!

This sinking feeling that I’m going to lose my child to an open window or unlocked door has got to be as close to hell as I ever want to come. I want peace. I need peace. My child needs a miracle.

We’ve done everything we can think of to keep her safe. She’s sleeping in our room with every door double-locked and alarms on all the doors and windows. ~The irony has not escaped me that most people install alarms and locks to keep bad people out and we had to install them to keep a precious someone in.~ Sofija is now registered with the county as a “flight risk” and the search and rescue team have assured us that they will do everything in their power to get her home should she escape again. I’m printing postcards for our neighbors and all the local businesses with her picture and our contact information. If it was legal to microchip her, we would do it.

All that’s left is hope and prayer. If you think of us, pray for us. Pray for her safety. Pray for her healing. Pray for our peace.

Romans 5:2-5 NLT

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment…

This post is for all the Mommies in northern Virginia of children with disabilities.

We live in Fairfax County. Last year was an amazing school year for our six year old daughter Sofija and we felt certain that she was exactly where she needed to be. This year. Not so much. She is now in a room where she is the oldest, biggest, and highest functioning student. There are six other students of which two are completely non-verbal and have NO assistive technology. The classroom is literally 1/3 the size of the room she was in last year. There is not even room for them to bring their coats or backpacks into the class. The primary teacher is a first year teacher who has ZERO ABA training and the two instructional assistant spots apparently have a revolving door of substitutes. I literally cannot count the number of different faces I’ve seen in there in the first nine weeks of school. The one IA that was familiar with Sofija from last year, dug her fingernails into the palms of Sofija’s hands and left fingernail marks under her arms within the first three weeks of the school year. That was her last day.

I’ve been told that I’m the only parent that comes to the class daily and keeps track of what’s going on in the classroom. It is my guess that this is the reason I’ve been called to come get Sofija three out of the last four days that she’s been to school because she was just “having a bad day”. We’ve had two two-hour meetings and have yet to get to the behavioral intervention plan in her IEP. The behavioral coach and behavioral intervention specialist have contributed nothing to the classroom or to her IEP. In fact, I do not even know who they are. We have a BCBA and BCaBA that work with her in our home for forty hours/month and they have both spent time in the classroom. When asked, they put together behavior plans for the class that have yet to be implemented.

She is bored! We brought her home from Serbia in April of last year. At that time she spoke no English and did not know letters, numbers, colors or shapes. She mastered all of those and was speaking English fluently by the end of 2010. In January we started working on letter sounds and writing and working towards reading. She never quits when a new tasks is presented to her and she very quickly masters every new skill. She is literally acquiring 40-50 dolch words a week and she is able to pick up almost any book now and read through it. She is also able to independently write sentences. If she doesn’t know the words from memory she sounds them out. She can count money and make change. She’s even teaching herself to play the piano (It’s pretty amazing to hear her picking out songs by ear and singing along as she’s playing).

Having her in a room with children who cannot speak and who have physical disabilities has created a perfect storm for aggression. The other students have a much higher level of needs and when attention is being focused away from her and she has nothing to do, she acts out. When all of the adults in the classroom stop what their doing and focus on Sofija, her bad behavior is reinforced and it escalates. The more attention she gets, the worse her behavior becomes. It’s just become a vicious cycle and the staff doesn’t seem to be willing to do anything to break it.

At this point we are simply looking for another placement where both her academic and behavioral needs can be met. I know that APTS is great for behavior, but not so strong academically. We are planning to visit Phillips today. I’m hoping that somebody out there can give us some suggestions on schools to avoid or schools that they recommend.

If you read all the way through this and you have no connections in northern Virginia with schools or autism, feel free to pray for us to have clarity and peace about where she belongs. Our prayer is simply that she be in the environment where she can reach her full potential and be loved and nurtured.