Failures, Progress and Transformations

Lots of testing again today from Adam. This morning I told him to get dressed three times, then he decided to only put on pants. So, I sent him back into his room and the next time I checked he was wearing his pajamas. Sent him back again and he was in his church clothes. (Yes, he did know that he wasn't supposed to). Then I sent him in to have John deal with him because I was getting Way Too Upset with the child and to deal with him myself. (I think I sounded something like this... "John, your son is going to be killed unless you get out of the shower and handle this one.") John worked his Papa Magic with him and Adam came out of Papa's room very remorseful and told me he was sorry and gave me a big hug. *whew*. Bad parenting on my part in that situation. I shouldn't have let him get to have soooo many chances. That just makes for a more and more and more and more upset Mama when he doesn't do what he's told. Game should have been over when Chance One didn't pan out. Mama is still getting the hang of this stuff.

The older kids are doing great at sitting at the table and doing their schoolwork. When they first came home getting them to sit still at the table was a next-to-impossible feat, and getting them to actually do school-type work was like pulling teeth. They seem to enjoy it now, but I'm a lot more relaxed about it and they are a lot more relaxed about US. Plus, I'm trying to make it seem more like an impromptu "wouldn't-it-be-fun-if-we-did-THIS-right-now" type of a thing. The LeapPad has been a god-send. The phonics program we bought for it has helped them a LOT when we sit down with them "at the table" and work on it officially. They are already both noticing words that start with different letters, etc. (Some of the words are Ukrainian, but they are getting the concept down. Like "dyeduska" they knew, started with a "D." Sounds right to me!

Also, midway through breakfast this morning they were all three having a hard time eating all their eggs (who could blame them! Yucky!), so we played a game of "I'm thinking of things that are the color ---." It seemed to make the last few bites a little less horrible, and it snuck in some more teaching time for colors and vocabulary for common "stuff." Other "snuck in" lessons come in when Adam gets to practice his counting at least six times a day when we do his leg stretches. We have to count to 30 twice, three times a day when we stretch his heel tendon, and he's getting really good at it. He even correctly said his "th's" today several times. (Usually thirteen and fourteen sound exactly alike when he says them.)

Tonight we all played hide and seek. It was soooo much fun, but Aleksa gets so excited that she simply MUST holler out where she is, or where anyone else is that she happens to know about. Her older brother got a little frustrated with her about that!

Aleksa is still doing really well bonding to me/us. She doesn't push my hands away when I stroke her back or hair, and even craves it now. (She would let me hold/carry her around while we were in Ukraine, but she hated to be "touched.") She looks me dead in the eye for longer stretches of time, and has more than once just today needed comfort only from Mama. She's come a long way in an amazingly short amount of time. She was the one I thought we would have the most trouble with once we got home. Her temper in UA was realllly bad. She's now a happy little girl who just loves to be tickled, held, play with her dollies, etc, and very rarely has had tantrums or any real disobedience issues. And she's smart as a whip. She's doing great at learning the alphabet and can count better than I expected so soon. She also loves to sing songs (English and Ukrainian) and is basically an all-around great kid. Not at all the warrior princess she *definitely* was in Ukraine.

Liana is a completely different person now too. I was looking through some more orphanage pics today and the Liana in the pics is NOT the Liana we have here at home right now. It is amazing to me what a transformation she's undergone. The scared, skinny, gaunt little girl at the orphanage now has quite a twinkle in her eye, a ready laugh and rosey cheeks. She's just beautiful. I'll have to post some pics from the orphanage that never got put up while we were in UA. Some aren't the most flattering, but you can see the transformation if you compare some of the current pics (Sept 13 post) with these.

Liana July 30
Liana August 4
Liana August 6