Way too Long

OK I am so sorry to have left my readers in a lurch. To say life has been busy since I last wrote would very much be an understatment. I also think though, I owe it to Isaac and those concidering follwoing in our foot steps to update the blog so that y'all can see how far he has come and we have come.

First a breif summary of what we have been up to these last few months.
1. We moved to our amzing new place in the country that has required loads of work.
2. We discovered some title problems with the property causing us to need for the first time outside of adopting to get a lawyer UGG
3. We spent Christmas break at home starting to revamp our landscape to a more eddible landscape.
4. Just as I went back to work, John had a hissy fit over a feril cat that got into our barn. As he chased it down the stairs and out onto the drive way, he triped and fell strait armed on the driveway. He sperated all the ligaments of his shoulder and had to have major surgery on it two days later. He then spent 6 weeks completely incapacitated (unable to drive, sleep through the night, pick up the boys, cook, clean, eat with the family...) you get the idea.
5. I then move into the role or caring for 3 children, taking care of John's buisness, doing everything for the boys, house and doing my 60 hour a week job.
6. John is starting to recover, but was told by his physical therapist that he might need another surgery because he did not start the PT soon enough and his shoulder is not healing properly.
7. I have been gardening like mad. So far I have planted in the ground, peas, parsnips, carrots, beets, Pak choi, spinach, swill chard, garilc, onions, thyme, cumin, strawberries, blueberries ad grapes. I have loads more in the green house but I am waiting for consistantly warmer weather first.

OK so now onto the boys...
Honetly, I have not blogged much because thigs are pretty normal... well as normal as they get with two four year old boys.
Emerson is as rough and tough as they get, but couples that with his adorable loveable nature.
Isaac sort of sticks to the middle. He is not supper lovey, but he also does not throw the caliber temper tandrums Emerson is capable of.

Emerson is balls out adventure boy. There is very little the scares him, he does not care if he is wet, cold no big deal, jumping in deep water, no problem.

Isaac is much more cautions. When it snowed, Emerson was striping off cloths stating he did not need them because he is a big boy and he was fine. Isaac quickly grabed up the clothes that Emerson was discarding. Isaac the other day followed Emerson's warrior jump into a a pool came up sobbing in frustration that he had follwed his brother to such an unplesant experience. The good thing was that this did not deter him from later enjoying the water. He just went in cautiouly from then on.

Emerson eats dinner like a nomad. He eats what he wants, when he wants, and has no problem going on a hunger strike. Isaac on the other hand, loves his food. He is silent, and dilagent during meal times. There is never a bite left over and he is usualy very happy to eat what Emerson left on his plate.

Isaac has come a long way since he has been with us. He is meeting most of his IEP goals but still very much struggles with speach sounds. He talks away now and says one declaritive sentace after another. For example:
"I like rice."
"My Daddy likes rice"
"My mommy likes rice"
"Emerson does not like rice"
He will rattle like this for hours on end. It is good for language aquisition and he now has words, the speach therapist has something to work with in terms of sounds. For me,(caution guilt confession comming) I feel like I have been listening to a forign language all day and by the end of the day I just want silence because it is so hard to interpret and very little of it is telling me something original. He will shout MaMAa MaMa at the top of his lungs only to have my attention and then say "oatmeal" for the 400th time.

He forutnatley now can understand most of what we say to him. He still has a very hard time following directions if they are only given verbaly and many times he chooses to test the waters to see if he must follow the direction. This is frustrting, becuase he really is a good little boy. He likes to help, he is good at looking for missing items, watering plants, setting the table, putting clothes away.. So when he puts up a fuss about it, it feels like he is being dissagreable just for the fun of it.

Isaac has also tunred out to be very coordinated. The little boy that came to us could not walk down a hill without falling. Now he can do flips, handstnads, hop on one foot, gallop sideways and all sorts of other neat tricks.

As far as being a family, I will be honest, it is still forming. Isaac still prefers me much more than John. A lot of this has to do with John's injury and absnce while he got the new house ready for us. A lot also has to do with him never having formed a health male bond before. For me, it feels like the attaching is taking forever. I love Isaac, but in a very different way than I love Emerson. A lot just has to do with the fact that we still have not know him that long, and we are still getting to know him. Right now, it feels like he just imitates others and thus I really don't get to see his true character yet. Fortunately our love continues to grow, but it is slow and steady.

Four and a half months

It is hard to belive sometimes that Isaac has only been with us 4.5 months. A lot has happened in all of this time, and now we are at the stage where it is hard to remember life before being a family of four. Both the boys are learning lots about this dynamic, but I think John and I have had to do the most learning. Just the little things like going to a birthday party with 2 kids, or getting them in the car, or managing car line at school, or the grogery store dynamic have all come with huge learning curves accoplished by trial and error.

Emerson has had to do a lot of growing up so that we can really teach Isaac the basics about behavior in public, expectations with property, what to eat and not to eat, how to appropriately interact with friends at a party... Fortunately (and saddle) Emerson is also just naturaly becoming more indipendant. He does not want me to hover over him at a birthday party, while Isaac wants to assign me a place to stand and he looses it if I move from that spot. Unfortunately, this means that I have to trust that Emerson is going to stay out of trouble which is a long shot on a good day.

Another thing that is challenging with having two boys 4 months apart with them added to our family at different times, is the struggle they are having with dominance. When Isaac is out, he is not assertive at all. If a kid takes his toy he will looks sad, and possibly cry, but he is not going to try and keep it, and definately would not try and get it back. Emerson on the other hand will obsesively gard the toy and would fight to the bitter end to keep control of it, just for the principal of personal possessions.

At home though it is a different story. Isaac is still not assertive but is very agressive with Emerson over what he deams to be his stuff. If Emerson takes a toy of Isaacs, fist start flying and he screams and crys like a baby. What perplexes me though is that he knows Emerson is stronger, but he will regularly take his things almost begging for a fight. I can't figure this one out for the life of me. The challenge is that once they get going they are pretty evenly matched. Fortunately they are both getting better at using their words which can prevent a lot of the problems in the long run. It will be nice when Isaac trust his voice and can speak clearer.

Speaking of speaking, he is comming a long way but has a long way to go still. When he came home the only phase he could say was "I don't know." Now he rattles off sentances and songs, but unforuntately it is still very difficult to understand him and he gets lazy with running his words together. He is already getting shy about speach. If I ask him to slow down and repeat him self, he shuts down. This worries me, because as a teacher the harest kind of kid to teach is the one that won't try. Hopefuly his confidence will start to grow in this regard.

We are also struggling with Isaac seeking negative attention. I have expereinced this with at risk teens but never with someone so young. Isaac knows the basic rules of the house now. He knows he must ask to get down from the table, he knows he can't throw toys in the house and he knows he can' dump his drink or plate becase he doesn't like what is on/in it. Regardless though he will look strait at me or John and dump out a glass of water because he wanted milk, or he will throw a christmas ordimate across the room and laugh when it smashes. It is like he way of garenting that he will get some attention and one on one time and he doesn't seem to care that it is negative. It happens when we are busy, or when I have to take care of someone else and I get it, he needs more of me. The frustrating thing is that I am one person who works 50+ hours a week, has food to prepare, a house to keep clean a garden to grow, a husband to love and two children.

While we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go.

So is it because he is 3 or adoption?

This is a question adoptive parents ask a lot. Maybe more so than those who have both bio and adopted children. Now that we have managed to work through many of the glaring issues we are seeing more and more of our new little man. Many of his personality traits are just that, him. Some though cause me concern. When I mention this outside of the adoption community I get, "well all kids go through that, or my kid does that." Then I talk to others with kids who were born with a cleft pallet and I find that there is a set of characteristic behavior these kids all have in common. When I talk to the adopting community I here words and phrases like Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Then add to all of that being 3 with very limited communication skills with only 4 months of having someone even listen to you and only 2 months of hearing what anyone is saying.

Writing this helps me see it is all a combination of things that creates this perfect storm.

Don't get me wrong, life is not a total storm with Isaac, but it is definitely filled with warm and cold fronts, high and low pressure areas. The problem is we have not found the key to interpreting his temperaments.

This past Thursday and Saturday I found myself very worried for him. Here are the things that concern me:
1. Hugs are on his terms. If I approach for one 60% of the time I am pushed away. He still likes them, but he must initiate. The other 40% no big deal if I sneak one in.
2. He answers "No" to almost verything first, then turns around and ask for the same thing after he just told you "No." Can we say opposite world?
3. Seriously pout behavior that is not fun to be around. You know someone like this. Everyone is having fun laughing and playing and there is the one kid in the corner who just won't join in and has a scowl on their face. He can snap out of it but it takes a ton of work on our part.
4. Night Terrors. For those who have not experienced one as a parent, count yourself as very lucky. There are terrifying. If he is off schedule with sleep, or if he falls asleep anywhere other than his bed, all hell is going to break loose when he "wakes up." He is not the same person and he can cry hysterically without consolation for up to 45 minutes.
5. Playing dumb despite major consequences. John and I have very few rules. One is that both boys must ask "May I get down please" after meals. Both boys know it and have said it 100's of times. For some reason Isaac will just refuse or play dumb when it comes time to do this.

Ok E is up now so I must go.

Life on who's terms

I would like to belive that all is well with Isaac, but I must admit we and he have a lot of hard emotional work to do. Yes, we have made great progress but it is like the old saying "The more you know, the less you know." The futher we come with him, the more apparent his suffering is.

Today is Veteran's Day so I am home for work. On work days I normaly am up at 5am and out the door by 5:45. Becuase I was home the boys came running into our room and we let the crawl in bed for some family time. Emerson is very used to this, but it is rare that Isaac is up early enoguh to take part. It was glaringly obvious this morning that Isaac had a huge internal struggle going on. He wanted so baddly to cuddle, to enjoy the closeness, but it was so forighn to him that he was on edge the whole time. If things became slightly uncomfortable for him he would start thrashing his arms or crying hystericaly. Back to the world of 0-60 on emotions.

Later on this morning I also caught him staring at him self in the mirror while pawing at his hair (this is his new nervous tick.) He looked at him self with such sadness that I was close to tears. My attempts to cheer him were met with resistance. My attempts to acknowldge his pain were met with resistance, a hug "NO!" walk away "NO" sad? "NO" mad "NO!" It is so hard to watch a 3.5 year old try and processes something so complicated as abandonment x 3.

His other big thing right now is that things must be on his terms. If I go to give him a hug he will sometimes push me away, two seconds latter he is crying out for a hug. If I state we should go outside and play he says no, the goes outside without me and screams at me to follow. This has got to stop. I recognize that many kids who have expereinced similar trama do this behavior, but I also know it is because they want to be in charge because in the past the adults were not worthy of the honor.

It is a lot of work for us and requires an insane amount of patience. The good news is that he does cuddle, he does make eye contact, he loves to read in the rocking chair.

With all this said, I want to let my readers know that it is national adoption month. I want you to know that there are still 145 million kids out there that need homes, I want you to know the longer it takes for their forever family to bring them home, the harder life is for them, I want you to know that it is not ok for us to forget the horors these kids face, or even worse to forget they are out there. Kids need families that love them through thick and thin, and the orphans that remanied traped through buracracy need our voice to shout out that an institution is not an acceptable alternative.

Loving thorugh the rough spots

Tonight something amazing happened. Well it didn't just come about tonight, but it seemed to click. I need to back up a bit though because I have been a really bad blogger and one busy mama. This past weekend was pretty hectic. On Saturday John did a booth at the Moss Rock Festival for our business "The Backyard Pantry." I took the boys, and we had some very fun moments. Most of the time though was spent with me being pulled in two very different directions. They rarely wanted to do the same thing at the same time, so I had to do a lot of refereeing and shouting at one of them to come back. Typical Emerson would take off and run though the crowds to participate in his favorite festival game, people bowling. But, dragging Isaac along to chase Emerson is flat out not an option, unless I want to look like that crazy mom that was caught on tape dragging her child through a department store.

Unfortunately I made a poor choice. We stayed too long and I did not feed Isaac often enough. Both are a recipe for disaster. He still deals with these needs not being met in the same way an infant would. And like the parent of an infant I felt lost once the mood went sour. Unfortunately he is 3.5 and it is much harder to manage and/or shift the melt down once it starts. In the end it all worked out but it taught me a lot. Naps and food are non-negotiable for Isaac. He looses all faith in us as parents if he does not get food on a regular schedule. If he is over tired he reverts.

That night John and I were actually able to have a long talk after the boys went to bed about how both the boys are doing. We acknowledged how far they have come as brothers and how incredibly far Isaac has come in the 4 months we have known him. We have worked with him to stop some huge behavior issues, he is a health weight, he has communication skills, his comprehension is growing by leaps and bounds. We also acknowledged that he is starting to get that we are his parents, and what that concept even is.

His biggest issue right now is his need to test us constantly. He will regularly do manipulative things just to see how we will react. The other day I caught him sitting on Emerson while crying as if he was the one getting tortured. I silently watched from the hall and when they looked up and saw me they both started laughing hysterically. It taught me a lot.

On Sunday John had a booth set up at the Jewish Food Festival/Green Living Fair. This was a much more manageable event for the boys. Lots of food was available, the area was fenced, there was a bouncy castle, and we left before nap time. Lots of fun was had.

Now to the big event for today. Tonight Isaac was asleep when I got home, and he was still asleep when dinner was ready. John decided to wake him up for dinner to avoid the whole hunger thing latter. Well unfortunately Isaac suffers from night terrors, and waking him up can often put him in a very awkward state of mind. He became hysterical and there was no good way to get him out of it. Finally, John just held him while he cried and then I came in to sit with him, while he continued to cry. Emerson then had to come in, and when he did he put his hand on Isaac's shoulder and said, "It's Ok Isaac, I have bad dreams too." All of the sudden he snapped out of it and joined us for dinner. Mind you he cried hard and hysterical for 20 min, and 10 sec. latter he skipped to dinner like nothing had happened.

What I found to be beautiful about all of this is it really seemed like at that moment Isaac understood what a family was and that we are really here for him. It sure felt good.

Life with no TV

Recently we moved and when we did we made a big choice. We decided to leave our TV's in the boxes and not get any service. This was not toaly new to us as we had lived without television service in Oregon for 8 years and really we did not have it in our pre-married lives either. We did always have a TV that we could watch movies on, but alas that is no longer either.

Why you might ask? There were several huge factors.
1. Emerson was absurdly addicted. So much that when he was called to dinner, had guest over or asked to turn it off he would go into hysterics. He would beg to leave the park so that he could go home and watch TV. Then to top it off he was making really poor choices of what to watch. While I appreciate Batman's desire to save the world, I am not so happy with the kung-fo moves that he taught my son.

2. We were choosing to watch mindless TV way too much. We would stay up way too late and be over tired the next day. I would not want to read to the boys because I had to see the next dance on "Dancing with the Stars" or the end of a good HGTV show. In all reality we have way too much to do to spend our precious little time watching someone else do something.

3. Our boys need us right now. They need us to be present, well rested and a part of their life. "I" is growing at lightning speed both physically and developmentally and we need to be there for that.

4. It did help that our local cable company did not service our area either and the other option was way too much $

So what is life now with out TV, you might ask?
I love it and can't see going back anytime soon. "E" has not totally caught onto it yet. He still checks out DVS's every time we go to the library. When he gets home he asked to watch it. I then calmly explain to him that we don't have anything to watch it on. The other day when we went through this talk (again) he just said, "can I go play baseball?" Yes my dear, you are 4 and that is what you are supposed to do.

Tonight we spend 2 hours playing outside. We picked persimmons from our tree, we told stories in our new TP, the boys and I cleaned all the water out of the sand box, we built a train track, they helped make pizza dough, we read books , then we finished off the night with a board game.

I watched the boys create, experiment, explore, absorb and play with such bliss and intensity tonight. I was so proud of them as they each found something that interested them and went for it.

This is why we got rid of the TV and I am so happy. We worked so hard to bring our little ones into our lives and I don't want to miss a moment.

Three months later

It is sometimes hard to believe that "I" has only been in our family for three months. It seems like this is how chaotic things have always been. The other night John and I took the time to look back through all of our pictures from when we first met him. It was amazing to see how far he has come. So here is my working list from the last two months.

1. Eating and gorging: What can I say, the kid has a huge appetite. He regularly out eats John and usually cleans E's plate after dinner. He does not have to always have food with him anymore and he does not beg for food at each new location. He will still tell me he is hungry after a huge meal, but I am sure it is a power thing.

2. Digestion Issues: We now know with out a doubt that he is allergic to dairy. One small bit = big time stomach upset. Now that we have cut it out 100% he has gained 7 lbs in 3 months.

3. Drugs: He came off all the drugs they had him on in August. We had him take melatonin for a while to help with sleep but now he does not even need that. We are also not seeing the wild behavior we did when he first came off the medicine.



3. Behavior: I am happy to say that this is the area we have come the furthest in. When "I" came to us he did not have any consistency in regards to behavior and when he was drugged he didn't have to try because he was so out of it. He now gets it. When I give him a choice of "sit down in the bath tub" or "go strait to bed." He sits down. He realizes he has a choice and that we have rules. Sure he messes up but it is more like 30% of the time rather than 95%. This process has not been fun or for the faint of heart and I am sure we will still have new challenges and backwards steps. But for now I feel like we are closing the 3.5 year gap that we started with.

4. Potty: Isaac is mostly potty trained in the day.He is very good about asking and even asked at school the other day. He can't stand and Pee, but one step at a time. We are still working on the night time thing, but that is much slower going.

5. Brothers: This is probably our biggest struggle right now. E communicates with his hands and "I" reacts by screaming, crying and melting down. Words Boys! Words! "E" has done a lot of regressing throughout the process so we are making sure he gets a lot of one on one time. The good news is that E has not asked to take him back to his old home recently.

6. Attachment: I can truly say that I love both my boys unconditionally now. "I" has many qualities I am growing to love and he gives wonderful hugs. There are moments when we find our selves wondering why we ever embarked on the parenthood journey. Fortunately they are very few, and we remember that this has been better than any of our adventures in our previous life.

7. Coordination: I would venture to say that he has leveled out with his peers in this area. He runs, jumps, climbs like the rest of them. We haven't had a major incident in weeks. We are still always cautious with him because he still is weak in the area of cause and effect. The other day he just let go of a swing instead of asking to get down. Oops.

8. Self Play: I would say he is right where he should be, but he still needs to be watched closely with Emerson.

9. Language: He has come miles in this area. This alone is one of the major reasons he is doing better in the other areas of life. He can put together sentences, ask for help, tell me if his tummy hurts or what he wants to eat. He understands what I am asking or telling him. Yes, it is hard to understand him and he has many sounds he can not make yet, but at least we have words to work with.