Hard Questions

She sings all the time. This morning's song:

I love my mama.
Yes I do.
I love my mama.
Yes I do.

My Ruskie mama.
No I eat.
My Ruskie mama.
No I eat.

I love my mama.
Eat. Eat. Eat.
I love my mama.
Eat. Eat. Eat.

My mama loves me.
Eat. Eat. Eat.
My mama loves me.
Eat. Eat. Eat.

My Ruskie mama . . .

The song stops. A small voice asks, "Mama, did Ruskie Mama love me?"
"Yes."
"Why no I eat?"

Trees and More

Last Saturday we went and got our tree at our favorite tiny little tree farm in the foothills. On Sunday, we decorated the tree with all the wooden and cloth kid-friendly ornaments I have been acquiring for years. Andy and Juliana loved decorating the tree and have added 'make the house pretty' to their daily list of that for which they are thankful.

We don't currently have a working audio system in the house (long story) so we were decorating without music. This seems just wrong and I commented upon it. Juliana then started singing "Jesus loves me". What better music could I wish for?

Mrs. Mama School is very popular. Kate asked if we are doing this long-term. We will be more home-school than public school until we are quite sure attachment is solid.

We did the letter "B" last week:

"Ball. Banana. Bunnies. Bread. Breakfast. Baby." I said.
"Mama doesn't like babies," Andy replied.
"Yes I do! Why do you think that?"
"Why did you give me to the detskydom (orphanage)?"

All this time he has thought I parked him there for six years because I didn't like babies. The amazing thing is that he 'welcomed me back' with open arms and heart. After I explained that I was a new Mama on the scene he said it was very sad that we had had to wait so long. "I needed you," he said. "I was a sad baby. I needed you no bolshoy padashdi (big wait)."

I'm sure the school can do a more efficient job of teaching him his letters, but if I let them do it all, I'd miss conversations like that one.

more lovin'

We are gaining daily. Now when we get to the part about Babushkas and Dedushkas loving her, she will say "Kapecho" (a tiny bit).

We went to Children's Hospital yesterday; my mom came with us to help with the driving as I am so sleep-deprived due to coughing (yeah Mom!). Anyway, we were able to see the x-rays of her legs. You can actually see the bone starting to grow on the inside of curves. The medical team there is very hopeful that her legs will straighten without surgical intervention. We'll be back down there next month for another check-in. It's a lovely hospital; very patient-friendly with easy parking and pleasant spaces.

Across the street from Children's is a very nice shopping center, the sort that I browse but don't purchase from. Mom and I and Juliana had lunch at a white-table-cloth Italian restaurant. We had a really nice time; Mom and I got to visit and Juliana didn't disturb the other diners while she ate all her lunch, thus qualifying for ice cream. It was really lovely. If you had asked me two months ago if I would be able to take do this, I would have said "Maybe in a year". It's nice to be wrong.

Who loves you?

We are enjoying great progress with Juliana recently. She has started to approach me and ask "Please Mama hug." She backed into my mom the other day for a snuggle. She crawled up onto her napping Papa twice for snuggles. None of these last for long, but we are so pleased that she is initiating. She is also better able to give hugs and snuggles when asked, though they are quite brief as she is clearly mistrustful of affection and love.

But it gets better. I've long been asking "who loves Juliana?" and her answer is always "nyeto (no-one)" Then I go through the long list of family members who love her and ignore her disclaimers. Yesterday it went like this.

Mama: Who loves Juliana?
Juliana: Nyeto
M: Mama loves Juliana.
J: Da (yes), Mama loves Juliana. (!)
M: Papa loves Juliana.
J: Da (yes), Papa loves Juliana. (!!)
M: Dedushka loves Juliana.
J: Nyet (No).
and so on . . .

but she has gone from zero to two! That is a lot!

This morning Jamie and the children are at church. I spent the night in the chair trying to sleep. When I lie down I start choking and coughing. I stayed home to rest. Jamie was looking like he wanted to rest too, but the children begged, yes begged, to go to Jesu Christo-dom (church). How could he say no?

Lovies

This evening we had a wonderful first. Juliana and I were in the kitchen, from whence we could see Jamie relaxing by the fire in the living room. Papa, ya tebya lu-blue, I-love-you, she called out. As far as I know, this is the first time that she has initiated an I-love-you.

As I sat and stroked her cheek to help her fall asleep this evening I realized that both kids seem to be attaching well. I reflected for awhile on the reasons for this. The first and foremost is of course the Grace and Mercy of God. We've also done a lot of little things that I am sure have helped; I'll share some with you and I hope you will share some with me.

I try to touch their cheeks and palms and the soles of their feet as often as I can. We just work it into the daily routines.

• After sending the children to wash their hands, we check for the smell of soap. This of course puts our faces near their hands which is perfect for kissing the palms of their clean pink upstreached hands. They love this; I love this. Considering that they eat four meals a day, this is a lot of kisses. Kisses are good. (Have to mention here that they announce that they are ready for their kisses by saying "mama, I washed my hands." Today is the two month anniversary of our final decree and they are uttering grammatically correct sentences in the past tense. But I digress . . .)
• Whenever I put lotion on my hands I put it on their hands and cheeks. I rub it in.
• Any time a child seems to be heading towards trouble (whiny, or pesky, or naughty) I tell them that I can see that they need a snuggle and we have one. I hold them sideways, like a baby and cup their face in my hand and coo at them. Juliana can only handle a little bit of this, Andy lots more.

When I need to discipline them by putting them in the malinky-stuhl (little chair), I present it as a whole-family sadness. I'm sad for them, their sibling is sad, he or she is sad. We are all sad that he or she has to sit in the malinky stuhl . As a family, we empathize with each other about how un-fun it is to sit there. After the required number of minutes, I arrive at the chair and sit down and ask him or her why they are in the chair. They tell me. I ask them if it is nice or happy or fun to be in the chair. They say no, of course. I ask them which is better: not obeying and sitting in the chair or obeying and not sitting in the chair. Of course, they pick obeying. Then their chair time is over and we are all happy for them. Even though I am the enforcer of chair time, and the one who determines the duration, they focus on the fact that I am sad with them and that I too hope for no chair time. After chair time, no matter how small, we have a very big snuggle. We just recently went out and bought a very big chair expressly for snuggling in.

In a couple of other posts (this one and this one) I mentioned that Juliana has trouble with being scared at night. The minute we would leave the room she would start to whimper and it would work up to a full wail. We tried lots of thing and nothing really worked but I do think we have stumbled on the path to peaceful bedtimes.

The first thing we did was stop trying to talk her out of being scared. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it took us awhile. We had been trying to focus her attention on the big papa, barky dogs, fenced yard, etc. This helped a teeny tiny bit. Then we figured out how to use what she wanted (for us to stay) to get what we wanted (for us to be able to leave and go to bed ourselves). I taught her how to make hand puppets out of her fingers. One finger is Scared Juliana. She says "I'm scared." The other finger is Mama y Papa's Juliana. She says "Wait, good mama (or papa) will come." We tuck them in and remind her that, if after a short interval we hear no whimpering or crying, I will come back and pat her until she falls asleep. The first few times I just sat in the hall and waited to hear her breathing change and then returned so that she could feel as if she had been successful. I didn't want her to break into a cry and have to do without us.

Anyway, we have been stretching the interval so that she is settled for about 15 minutes now and when I do come back, she can fall asleep very quickly. I think hearing herself affirm that she is in a good place and that we will not disappear -- hearing herself affirm this, not hearing it from us -- is settling her, and of course is super for attachment as she is practicing the ability to believe in us.

The other trick is that when I am there to pat her, I only pat if her eyes are closed. If her eyes are open we exchange I love you-s. After a few of these, she gets a bit uncomfortable. I think it is a bit too intimate for her, so she closes her eyes again. Every night though, she can take a few more I love you-s before she closes her eyes. With her eyes closed, the pats resume and soon she is asleep, nestled into the covers and layers of physical love, visual love, and auditory love.

I'd love to hear your attachment and parenting tricks and tips.

and more

Today when I went to pick up Andy, his little face lit up with joy when he saw me. This has never happened before. Usually, when reunited, he looks a bit peeved. I can't tell you how encouraging this is, that he rejoices to see his mama.

Over lunch, we were counting who loves him. We did Mama and Papa and Juliana and the two sets of Grandparents and the Aunt and Uncles (10 thus far) and then moved onto the pets, who are mostly paired. To my utter shock Andy said 12, 14, 16!! Counting by twos? We didn't teach this. All we have taught is the names of numbers, not even the shapes of the written number. Andy: boy genius.

In other news, we received the children's certs of citizenship in the mail this week, so know I can apply for social security cards and then passports and then, at last, make the trip to IKEA! My nearest IKEA is in Canada, just north of us.

Back to our regularly scheduled interview

How are you preparing yourselves for potential physical- and mental-health issues your children face or may face once they come home?

Both children are patients of record with the Center for Adoptive Medicine in Seattle. They will both have full assessments when we get home. Given the medical info we came home with, we have an understanding of the full range (least disruptive to most disruptive) of possible medical concerns. For mental health issues, they are losing everything that is familiar – another loss on top of their previous losses of their first or birth mothers, losses that I highly doubt they were every able to grieve. We expect that as soon as they get settled in they start to feel these sorrows and we will help them walk through it. Additionally, as orphanage life is highly regimented, and as there is security in knowing what comes next – especially at a time of such change – we will keep the orphanage schedule and meal patterns for quite awhile.

Why are you adopting older children?

I am being interviewed this week by a lovely woman who is writing a book about adoption. She has sent me some questions to think about, and I do my best thinking on the keyboard. Comments very very welcome.

Why are you adopting older children?

Why not? They can walk and talk and play. Yes, we anticipate that we will be doing full-on therapeutic attachment parenting as they know absolutely nothing about belonging to a family, but Attachment Issues can be out-parented, whereas FAS and FAE cannot. With younger children, the risk of FAS/FAE goes up as it is harder to spot the younger the child is. You can't out-parent FAS/FAE.

Also, as infant adoption is seen as the “norm” (this is embedded in your question even), older kids are left to languish in the orphanages. That’s sad. They are not bread that goes stale after awhile. Older kids are as vibrant and attractive to me as are younger kids – moreso perhaps. By way of example, our son Andy threw his arms around my neck and asked (in Russian) “Is it true!? Is it true!?” He doesn’t know how to be a family kid, but he sure does know that he want to be one. Babies really don’t celebrate their new families in the same way.

Oh, yes, and diapers. No diapers.