Tummy Testing

And I am not talking about food. Sometimes you just wonder what in the world is going through their minds. As I was washing dishes the other day, this is what I saw:

 Now I was wondering what had happened? Did he fall? He is not crying. And then I watched as he got up and did this:

Instead of using his hands to feel the different temperatures of the heating vent and the cool tile, He was using his tummy. Only a toddler!

The past few weeks we have our ups and downs but things are getting better. Tonight was actually great. It was just Little M and myself and it went very well. There was a moment, when it was time to clean up for his bath, that he started pushing my buttons. Now he gets a massive amount of toys out during the day so I am usually helping him and asking him to do certain things. Well, he was not being difficult but he was being manipulative so instead of getting more frustrated, I got up, told him to clean up, and walked out of the room. Whenever he called for me, I told him to clean up and believe it or not - HE CLEANED UP THE QUICKEST I HAD EVER SEEN HIM. He was so proud of himself and came to get me to show me. He was happy that I was happy and things went great the rest of the night. I am not expecting this approach to work all the time but it is something to remember.

Unfortunately, I can't say I have much more exciting news than this. The days seem to go by so fast and I am so tired in the evenings that they all seem to be a big blur at times. However, one great thing that did happen this week. I got a call from a fellow adoptive mom that I met in Astrakhan on our final trip. It was so wonderful to hear Kathy's voice, it was like we were back in the Korvet hotel. It is amazing how you meet people on your adoption journey, if only for a few days, but because of the bond of adoption, you just feel like you have known them forever.

I love pictures and so I will leave you with a few of my favorite this past week. First is our play time in the snow and the last just cracks me up. It is morning hair for Little M( normally his hair is so fine that there really is no morning hair - but for some reason this hair would not go down) it reminds me of those penguins whose feather stand up on their head, or for us older folks, Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.

Flooding

The title has nothing to do with the weather - in fact right now we have a ton of snow - but rather with the state of Little M's pants. Take a look!

He has been wearing 12 month pants and 24 month tops since we came home but just a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that his pants were getting too short. Normally this would bring dread to a mom who either had to go out and buy more cloths or dig through the closets for the next size, but this was big news in our house, Little M is growing! We were at the doctors last week and he has gained 4 pounds and grown 0.75" since we came home, that is wonderful.

We also got our first post placement visit under our belts this past weekend - that was nice too. We are finally getting around to completing the remaining of the paperwork that we have left to do. I so dreaded the paperwork from the months prior to the adoption that it took 3 months to bring myself to working on it, and the only reason I did was because we needed to get his SSN. 

It is unbelievable how much his speech is improving! He is now using 3 word sentences that I can understand. I am just so amazed at this, I could not even come close to learning the equal amount of Russian in the same period of time.

We have our ups and downs as most do but we had a big turn for the down last week. Normally. when there is something that M is doing that he will just not stop doing, he gets taken to his time out spot. It is a spot in the kitchen, where I spend most of my time it seems. In the past, he would just cry, we would have a little talk and he would say he was sorry( in his own way) and life would go on. Well, last week, he started with what I would call little fits. There is yelling of "NO", he will not walk to the time out spot but just fall to the floor and start tossing his hands all over the place. And then then there is the all out, toss your body on the floor , literally kicking and screaming(well more like yelling) - I almost had to laugh at that one because it was typically a 2 year old. And then biting has begun to rear it's ugly head.

So there it goes,  but I do feel like we make 2 steps forward and 1 step back and not 1 step forward and 2 steps back  - so hey, there is progress. 

I have to say that all this, along with the issues of the other three kids(yes they have issues too), had me really at my wits end - feeling like I was such a failure as a mom and every other negative thought that come through my mind. But then I got to get together with my friend Phyllis and oh what a difference that made. THANKS PHYLLIS! I got out of the house, away from everyone and got to talk with an adopted mom who know all of what I was going through. I came home and felt great and was like a new person the next day. So for all you moms that are wondering how you are going to do it - take a break, get away from it all, force yourself to do it. Yes, you will be returning home to all the same problems, but with a new strength.

Packing Up Christmas

Finally we have gotten around to packing up our Christmas decorations and I had to post a few pictures of the two items that M thought were the "torture" decorations.
First is our "Singing Santa" that goes on our tree and says "HOHOHOHO". Well when introduced to this ornament this was M's reaction:

But when I began to pack things away, He had to say one last goodbye:

The other scary toy was our singing snowmen. I really thought that he would loves these since he loves music so much, but I was wrong. It took several days for him to start liking them but soon, he would be asking to turn them on.

This week was a major one for little M because we had decided that we were going to have him circumcised. Yea, I know that it was not necessary, but with two older brothers and the giggles that were already occurring, and we figured in the long run, it would be best. I have to say that he was a real trooper. After the surgery, he did cry almost constantly until I was able to get some food in his stomach, it had been 15 hours since he had eaten, and after that he was back to normal. He had a little pain medication that day but you would never know that he had been through surgery.

Right before Christmas, I mentioned that M was starting to speak in sentences, at least long strands of "M" words. Well that is about all he is doing now. In fact, after the surgery, he was talking through his version of what happened and I could actually understand him(with the help of motions). It was so cute to see his version of things. In his explanation he kept saying Ho Ho Ho, and then I finally realized that someone in the operating room must have had a beard(like santa). It was a great feeling to understand what he is saying. This week, we meet with the school system to get things moving on getting M into speech therapy. 

I will leave you with my picture of the week of M:

A Sad Beginning to 2009

I mentioned in my previous posts that things were very stressful after our return from Russia. It was not just the adjustment to having a new member of our family (which is a big stressor on its own) but the week after we got home, Russ's mom got sick. Soon we found out that she had an inoperable brain tumor that was quite large. So on Jan 2nd, after 2 months of a good fight, my sweet mother-in-law left to be with our wonderful Savior. She was no typical mother-in-law and there is nothing that I have to say about her but praise. I have learned a lot from her over the years and was always amazed at how patient she could be with others. Fortunately she was able to meet our little M and see him full of energy running around her house. We even have a picture of her smiling as little M is screaming in the background because he did not want to be held. Oh how she loved kids and Little M completed her dozen grandchildren. She will be sadly missed but I can not help but smile as I imagine her with her new body in the presence of our glorious Savior. Twice in our family we have brought a new child into our family at the same time we have mourned the passing of a sister and now a mother - it makes the new child just that much more special.

Glory be to God

What Has Been Happening

Well I am finally getting a chance to update you on how things have been going over the past few months. I am hoping to update more often now - I know I said that before but now that we are all settled and Christmas is over and I have brain dumped everything over the last few months, I think it will be easier for me to update you on the little coming and goings of our family. It is really hard to believe that today has been three months since I walked out of the orphanage with little M. It seems so long ago. Below this post is a post that will update you on what happened from our last day in Astrakhan until we got home if you are interested. It is lengthy but there are pictures.

Little M is doing so amazingly well! I think that he has adjusted so well. He gets along with the kids very well. He loves his big sis and she loves to baby him. He runs around the house following his big brothers as they burn off energy – At first, there was some jealousy from little M when one of the other kids would sit on my lap, he would want to push them off and get on my lap Now he just climbs up besides me and wants me to hug him too.

The dog issue is much better. Poor Rocky was very jumpy for awhile but us better now. He still keeps his eye out for M but now it seems that he only gets stepped on by accident.

SLEEPING has been going great since about week three home. At first, I would try to rock him to sleep but since he would not stay in my lap when I sat down, I would have to rock him standing, I also had to make sure that we were in a dark room or else he would spend all his time looking around at things. After about a week of doing that twice a day for 10-15 mintues both my feet and back where killing me. So I started just putting him in his crib and let him cry for about 5 minutes(checking in on him every minute to ensure that I was there). After a few days, I then felt bad, so I would lay in the bed in his room until he fell asleep. One night, I could not lay down and he was fine and has been great ever since. He sleeps through the night for about 11.5 hours and 1.5 to 2 hours in the afternoon. He is in a room by himself because when he was in with one of his brothers, it messed up everyones sleep schedule. He does so much better in a room by himself – I guess each child is just different.

EATING started out great and now, even though it is difficult, it is typical of a two year old. He eats most things now except tomatoe sauce. Somedays he is more picky then others but he has gained about 3 pounds since we have been home so I think he is doing good.

HEATHWISE he is also doing great. No concerns with any of the doctors we have seen. We have had difficultly getting a good hearing check because he always seems to have fluid behind his eardrum. It is no infected but the doctor recently put him on antibiotic to see if we can get it cleared up. He has also had a horrible runny nose since I picked him up from the orphanage so the meds seem to be helping with that too. He still had not grown any heightwise and I am hoping that will kick in soon. He wears a 24 month top and 12 month pants. We joke and say that he is part Corgy because his legs are so short.

SPEECH: The only big concern we are dealing with is his speech. He was very dealyed in speech only speaking a few words( that we knew of) in Russian, so after about a month of talking to him in Russian and English, we slowly cut out the Russian and only now use English. He has picked up english so well and you can see how eager he is to learn know words. He often brings things to me so I can tell him what they are. But there are several sounds that he simply can not make so some words are just not recognizable and many sound the same. But each week he is making progress. A few weeks ago he started saying his first phrase on his own “I'm coming!” And last week he started with the toddler babbling. Before he would just say words in response to seeing things but now he will play and just babble on and on. We are on a waiting list for a speech therapist and will get him in the school system once he turns three. But we are going to more forward with our own speech therapist at the beginning of the year.

EMOTIONS: He has also really advanced with being affectionate. At first, he really never hugged and we had to teach him how to kiss. He never really liked being held either ( that is still the case but then he just does not sit still very long either – He's two). Fast forward three months, he is a very caring person. If one of the kids is crying he will go over and hug them. He loves to come over and rub my back and arm and even after he gets out of a time out – he immediately comes over to give me a hug( like is is telling me that he is sorry).

CONCERNS: The only issue that is a little concern to me is that he doesn't really know a stranger. We will be standing in line, and he just has to go up and touch people. I also have to be careful because he will let others pick him up. Most of the time, though, he will immediately turn away and want to come to me – which is good. There are a few people that he feels very comfortable with, my Mom and his Sunday school teachers. It is really hard after you have read all the attachement books on what you should and should not allow. It comes down to the child and the family and you just have to go with your gut.

I have to say that even though things are going well with M. It has been hard. I knew it would be hard but it still doesn't make things more palatable when you are going thorugh it. The things that took me the most by surprise was my feelings. I knew that it would not be love at first sight but with all our visits at the orphanage, he would just melt my heart. However, we never had a honeymoon period as others have mentioned because he started testing me during the last visits in the orphanage. So when we got back to a normal life, I have to be honest, he did not “feel” like my son. There is just something missing with him that I have with my other kids. Others say that it will come and I know that it will but I wanted to let others out there know that things are not perfect and that is ok too. However I feel at times, I am glad that we have M in our lives and that all the frustration of the paperwork, the wait and the adjustment will result in many blessings from God for both M and us.

Not to end a post on a downer – I will leave you with some pictures over the past few months :

My little Bumble Bee
My favorite present

You are saying that I CAN rip this paper?

Entries from Final Days in Russia

Well, Here is the recap of our time from Astrakhan until we got home. If you are not into reading scroll to the end for pictures!
October 1st:
We were to leave around 5 pm that night to make our 7pm flight to Moscow and we had nothing planned that day. Needless to say it was hard to keep a toddler occupied for several hours while trying to pack. It got to the point where I packed everything up an just kept taking him outside for little walks. It is always interesting how I think I stick out so much as an America but how Russians will come up to me and start asking me something, in Russian, I just kindly smile and so “No Russki”. However, I did meet someone I never thought I would ever meet in Russia – A Jehovah Witness! As I am walking the short little block in front of our hotel, a lady comes up to me and asks me a something – I say “No Russki” and she then proceeds to look for something in her purse. She pulls out a book and looks up something in an index and then gives it to me to read. After reading the first paragraph(in english) I knew she was a Jehovah's Witness and kindly said “Christian”, and “Jesus” and tried to walk away, she kept talking so I kindly looked and her and said “Spaseeba”? which is Russian for Thank you. Who in a million years would have ever thought that encounter would have happened?
Well, after a very long morning, it was wonderful when our translators finally came and we actually got to see his passport. We were not sure if we would get the paperwork because they only had two days to process it instead of the normal 7 but we had everything and were ready to go! It was a sight to see myself and Kyley and Greg taking all our stuff out the hotel to the car (the thing with this small hotel is that there were not elevators and it was a flight of stairs just to get to the hotel lobby – so carrying 40lb+ bags down the stairs was not easy. Thankfully we had the translators to help with the kids while we carried the luggage).
Once we made it to the airport, things went fairly smooth and we said our good-byes( so hard to say good bye when you know you probably will never get to meet again). We made it to the waiting area which was a big deal for me. Ever since our first trip home, I had dreamed about what it would be like to sit in that waiting room with our new little one and it was finally here! How wonderful! One of the last things I remember in Astrakhan was having the airport doors open to get on the bus to the plane and being hit be a hord of mosquitoes – In October!
Well the flight to Moscow was pretty good we had a bulk head seat so M had room to get up and down. No problems with the ears but did not like the seat belt at all. I had to bribe him with food once I got the belt back on for landing. And the Kids meal on the plane – well it was more of a snack then a meal and had only sugary foods – just what we needed at 8pm at night.
At the airport it was a bit of a wait for the luggage and then when we got outside it was raining – no surprise for Moscow but I am pretty sure M had not been in the rain before so it was interesting to watch him try to figure out what happened.
Next was filling out paperwork in the car on the way to the hotel so they could get everything to the embassy in time the next morning. We had to finish it up in the hotel room and got everything completed after midnight.
Here is where the worst thing since court happened. As we were filling out paperwork we realized that the I 600 form that I had had Russ sign and notarize in the States was not the I600 but the I600A! She was not too concerned at that point but I thought I would die – if I had to stay in Moscow any longer! Needless to say I did not get much sleep that night.

October 2nd:
The next morning we went to the doctors and I was anxiously waiting for our translator to let me know if the form would be ok. She got a call and said that everything should be fine so I was able to take a deep breath! There were three families at the doctors and he was running very late( found out later he was stuck in an elevator). Little M checked out fine but I had the doctor look at his thumb because by now he had a blister on the thumb that he sucked. He cut off the dead skin and bandaged it up – amazingly enough he would still try to suck that thumb, especially when he slept. I have to jump ahead and tell you that after the doctor's bandage needed to come off, I had placed a bandaid on it to let it heal. It worked great until he went to sleep. In his sleep he would still suck on that one thumb and when I went to check on him before I went to bed, the bandaid was GONE! An guess where it was – His mouth! He had sucked off his bandaid! From then on the bandaid was only on during waking hours.

Now back to the doctor visit – once the last family was done, they rushed us all out to the car(in fact the last family did not even have a chance to fully dress their child). They needed to get the medical reports to the embassy before a certain time or we would not get an appointment for the next day and then would have to wait until Monday. Everything seemed to work out ok and we were on the way to the hotel, until the doors opened and we were back at the embassy. At this point, I was told that the form I was worried about eariler would not work! The good news is that I just have to fax a form to Russ, get him to sign and notarized it and fax it back to the embassy. No problem, except that it needed to be at the embassy by 5 pm Moscow time and at the time it was about 3am back home and he had until 9am back home to get the letter faxed. So the afternoon was a loooong one as I had to call Russ at 4am, have him pack up the kids and travel to the local FEDEX store at 5am. He had contacted a 24 hour notary to meet him there. Amazingly everything all worked out - purely by the grace of God - but the stress level those few hours were through the roof.

The remaining highlights of Moscow:
*Taking a $60 round trip taxi ride to the hotel where Kyley and Greg were staying so that I could have some friendly conversation after a horribly stressful day.
*Little M still was not interested in naps
*Sleeping went pretty good at night – I would just put him in the crib and lay in bed beside him with the lights off – within 10 minutes he would be out an sleep through the night
*The embassy visit was great – it went smoothly and pretty quick. It was so nice to see the American flag and the lady at the window was American – Hearing English with no Russian accent was really great. Even though we were still in Russia – I still felt like I was on American soil – Oh how I missed it.
*The last afternoon, I wanted to take him to Red Square, Our hotel had a shuttle that took us close. So we walked down Tevrskaya Street(Not an easy trot with a stroller) and spent a little time looking at my favorite site in all of Russia(besides little M) St. Basil's Cathedral. There were other people on the shuttle that I ran into at Red's Square and they took pictures of us together. I also tried to get one of Little M and St. Basil's but he was more interested in the cars driving by – but I finally got one that is pretty good.
*Eating for Little M went pretty well, as long as there was food, he ate it. However, ordering cold milk to drink did not go over with him – they must have just had it at room temperature on the orphanage. He did however really like the ice cream that I got for him at the very expensive Italian restaurant.
*We tried McDonald's and he did like the chicken nuggets. He wanted to try my coke, so I let him, and the face he made was horrible – so no more pop for him!
*Did well at the airport. Got there in plenty of time, went through luggage check pretty well but then it took a really long time to get our tickets because we had changed them and did not have a seat assigned – but we ended up in a bulk head seat so it was worth it. Passport control however was one more nightmare on this trip. The lone was long but that was normal and little M slept awile in the stroller. Now for those of you who have adopted before, you are told many many times to make sure that your child's Russian passport has their new name in english spelled correctly – no problem, I had check it over and over again. However, when we got to passport control and I gave them his passport, the new birth certificate and the adoption certificate. It was then that the nice lady on the other side of the window(who did not speak english) pointed out to me that the passport had his name spelled wrong - in Russian! How was I to know that! I must have grown as pale as a ghost because the lady was so kind and immediately started saying Nyet, Nyet and handing all the papers back to me. She was trying to tell me it was ok and she let me through. Thankfully this was the last heart stopping event of the trip!

The Trip Home
Plane ride went really very well for a two year old. I could keep him confined to the seat area and did manage to get him to sleep for about 1.5 hours on the plane but I had to hold him for most of that. Thankfully Kyley and Greg were on the same plane so potty breaks for me were a little easier.
I was concerned about making my connection in Atlanta especially when US passport control said that he said there was no way I would make the connection. But then again – I had God on my side. We had to wait awhile in immigration( there were only two adoption families) and once we got to the immigration person, he was really nice. At that point I really wanted to make my connection but I was in the US and if I had to stay one more night away from home – I was just happy to be back in the US. I even felt like breaking out in the song ( God bless the USA). So I said my good byes to Kyley and Greg and off we went to catch our flight. We had time to stop by to get an I love Atlanta bear and some chicken fingers for the flight. We got to the gate – called home to tell them we made it and then it was time to bored – I wished I could have talked to the passport control person and told Him I made it!
The plane ride to Columbus went smoothly and he slept for most of it. I had him in the stroller walking through the airport but got him out before we turned the corner to greet our wonderful family. It was so wonderful to put my arms around them! He did well in the car and it was so great to walk in our home with him. The dog was scary for him but as long as Mama was holding him he was fine.


You are telling me that YOU are taking all of this half way across the world?

Our last glimpse of Astrakhan.

Our Little M at Red Square

First Picture as an American Citizen

What are you doing to me now?

Back in Papa's arms

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas everyone! Sorry I have been AWOL for awhile but it has been very busy and very crazy around our house. I am hoping to update this week since we will have some more relaxing times but I did not want to miss the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and to praise our Savior who so humbly was born into this world to become our King, Redeemer and Savior.

It is amazing to sit here with little M on this wonderful morning and to think of all the wonderful children who are now with their forever families for this Christmas - one of the best and most precious gifts to us all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!