Rough Day

John's first day of work was Rough. I'm just feeling nasty with my cold, and the older 2 kids were naughty, (stubborn), a lot of the day.

I tried to start some more formal English lessons, but the kids wanted Nothing to do with them, and fought me tooth and nail all along the way. I did come to realize that Adam probably has some learning disabilities, so he's going to need a lot of one-on-one for a while. He can only count successfully to 15 in Ukrainian, and to four in English. He goes from four to seven every single time. We've tried counting songs that we've sung over and over in the past few weeks, but he still gets stuck. I got out a math worksheet today, and he could not do simple 11+4= kind of math. He could only do it when I dumped a bunch of crayons on the table for him to count out a pile of 11 and then a pile of 4, and then had him count the entire pile. That he could do, but when I tried to explain the shortcut of only having to add 1+4 and then bringing down the 1, he was as lost as Hansel and Gretel. I was ready more than a few times this morning to get on the phone with the school district and get this boy put into school, it's a little premature to to too speculative... Plus, I don't think he's ready yet. He needs to figure out being a part of a family first, and I need to keep that as our top priority and remember that. He's the one I would worry about most sending off to school since he gets so panicky when one of us leaves the house for any reason. It would be cruel of me to send HIM away.

Liana on the other hand, can count up to ten as easily as can be, and actually, Aleksa can pretty much do the same. Liana has a stubborn streak (as they all do!), so that hindered me working with her for very long at a time. She just didn't think it was fun, so she just plain wasn't going to do it. We have an alphabet/number game that you press a letter and it says the letter for you. I asked her where such-and-such letter was, and she could figure it out every time.

Aleksa did a matching game by herself that I was pretty impressed about. There were pictures of shapes and butterflies that were cut in half, and you had to match the shapes. She did it easily and quickly.

My niece sent the kids packages that arrived yesterday. The kids were SOOOO excited! They opened them right away, and Adam was beside himself excited to see a Lego set that was a castle theme (smart kid liking castles!) ;O) He loved the box and instructions as much as the legos, and couldn't wait for John to come home to show him.

The girls each got Cabbage Patch dolls! I never even thought about getting them those! When I told them that the dolls were in a dolly "dyetsky dom" (orphanage), and now they were their mamas, they carried around the birthcertificates/adoption papers right along with the dolls for the rest of the day. They LOVED them. Liana squealed when she saw that her dolly had a bellybutton and a diaper. They too couldn't wait to show Papa.

Aside from the gifts, the kids thought their cards from my niece were just as cool. They carried those around too, and showed John when he got home. Adam grabbed my Russian/English dictionary to make me translate the card (good thing it just said "Welcome to the family!") *whew* I hauled out a picture of my niece for them to look at and Aleksa kissed it! Too cute.

I think I've figured out Aleksa's food problem for sure now. I'm almost certain it is a texture thing. She loves scrambled eggs (mush), chicken and rice (mush), and last night I made mashed potatoes that she ate more of than John! She had four helpings! So, the mushier and blander the better I guess. Gross.

One of the comments on yesterday's post was something about how my kids don't appear to have any attachment issues. The older two definitely don't. Aleksa very well might. I'm a little worried about her to be honest. We just haven't seen the fireworks that Liana and Adam have for us. Aleksa was in the orphanage half her life, whereas the other two were only in for a fraction. Not too many people consider that when they want a "very young" child. The more time they have spent in a family before going into an orphanage the better they'll attach to their adoptive parents. That's my two-cents on the subject anyway. She does love her dollies even more than Liana does, so that is encouraging to me (she had to have her Cabbage Patch doll in her arms at supper last night even), but she also does have some other signs of a problem. I may very well just be a paranoid mom, but time will tell. In the meantime, I'm treating her as if she really does have a problem and trying to play eye-contact games with her, reading to her more, holding her as often as possible, making her face me more, etc. I would even put her in bed with us if I thought John and her big sister would stand for that.

Anyway, Aleksa is another reason I was ready to call the school district yesterday. Getting Adam all caught up is going to soak up a lot of my attention, which will leave Aleksa on her own more than what she should be. It is going to be a rough balance to meet everyone's needs. Lots to think about and pray about.