Physical pain or emotional pain?

School holidays are the best. I'm home from work. Chores get done. Well... some of them. And the kids get quality time.

Miss 14 is away on holiday and having a blast. Think she secretly misses me though... judging by the number of messages I get that have absoloutely no purpose!

Miss 6 months has learnt to sit unassisted this week. It only lasts a couple of minutes but she loves it.

Miss 16 is slowly relaxing after the trauma of the last 6 months (let's be honest...16 years). We have received a very generous sum of money this week (well the promise it's coming) from a good friends university friend. This will cover legal and other associated costs of applying for residency (legal aid doesn't cover this). I have also applied for a grant of $2000 to cover one years worth of psychologist appointments.

Miss 9 is doing good.  Mostly. She seems to experience a lot of physical pain which I think is actually emotional. There are a lot of sore fingers, shoulders, headaches etc. and they go away very quickly.  This suggests to me there is more trauma than she is ready to acknowledge. I think this is huge... but haven't done any research into it yet. Have got permission today to enrol her with my doctor so will eliminate the physical before writing it off. Will also discuss with her psychologist.  She asks about her last foster family a lot, but over the last couple of days this has only been about the children.  A couple of days ago she said she felt it was all her fault she had to leave (because she wanted to) -and struggled to comprehend that 9 year olds don't make that sort of decision, adults do. It makes me furious that adults can let a kid feel they got to make such an important decision on their own (kids should be kids, but also what it teaches them about getting what they want). But at the same time the balance Ian hard because I don't want her to just stack it up in her list of life's rejections (be they really that or not).

Today she enrolled in school and is extremely excited. She will start on Monday.  We the. Took her to get a nice haircut as her hair was an absoloute mess! She is pretty resistant to haircuts... but all it took was ' I'm taking you to a fancy salon' and some very understanding hairdressers her pampered her like a princess for half an hour before cutting. She is over the moon with her tidy hair and wishes she didn't have to wait three months to go back. She also thinks she might be a hairdresser when she grows up!

All in all a good week... but what happened to those sleep ins I needed!