Two Months Home!

Wow, two months! Month Two has been a big one. Lots of changes for the better, lots of progress, but also lots of areas we still need to work on.

Adam has made lots of progress in so many ways. I had him fill in a chart with all the numbers up to 100 the other day, and if he points to the numbers, he can say them all (with some help). He's not as disaster-oriented anymore either. Aside from the ink-in-the-squirtgun incident at the beginning of this second month, we've had no real catastrophes anymore. He can still be very much a handful when he's wound up though. We found out tonight that Wednesday night he came up to a man after church and punched him. Oy. I sure wish we had know about that one right away. I guess he thought he was playing, but regardless, it was Not Cool.

On the other hand, Adam can sit and do his schoolwork like he definitely could not do during the first month. Everything was too fun, too interesting, too exciting to want to sit still with a pencil and paper for more than five minutes. He takes pride in his work now. We are definitely enjoying seeing his strengths start to shine. Like I mentioned before, we really need to come up with ways to have him really use his love of the spotlight in a positive direction. I can see him in plays, or doing a puppet or magic show really easily. He loves an audience.

John was just telling me tonight that he thought it was pretty neat that he had told one of the kids to do something, and as he walked away, he knew there was no doubt that they were going to do it. Great feeling. That would have never crossed our minds last month! We would have had to check back to make sure. The same thing happened yesterday at McDonalds. When it was time to come out of the Playland thingie, we just said, "Time to go!" and they all came out happily and quickly, and there was never any question in my mind or John's that they wouldn't just immediately obey. Still lots to iron out with all three, but by and large, they have made incredible progress and the wrinkles are shaking out rather well. We just really have to watch their sugar before and while we are taking them anywhere! (That makes a big difference!)

Liana also loves an audience, but in a different way. She is our music-lover. Just tonight she put on a concert for the family on the piano. Of course, she doesn't play the thing, but she pretended up a storm! She told us where we each had to stand around the piano bench (we had assigned spots!), etc. She's also a little Mama to anyone who will let her be. Aleksa gets bossed around all day long, and she tries to also be Adam's mom too. (And ours as well! If she does something for us and we don't come up with a "thank you" soon enough, she will say, "Thank you, Liana!" as if to scold us for not being good. *sigh*) She helps with any and all tasks that she notices me doing. She's pretty much gotta have the full scoop on everything. If we read a book, she has about four questions per page. Kinda drives me crazy at times because she can make a book last 10 times longer than it might otherwise, but she's constantly needing to learn stuff. Smart cookie. She counts to 30 and can say the alphabet song all the way through the "now I know my a-b-c's" part. She knows lots of songs, and learns things just by hearing it once or twice. Out of the blue today she said, "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday..." and then we filled her in on the rest of the week. I've only started saying the days of the week to them a few days ago. I've mentioned it before, but along with the bossiness comes a stubborn streak. You'd never guess it if you were just meeting her. She comes off as the "shy one" of the three. She just fakes it well! lol! She's come a long, long, long way in these two months. I can hardly believe this is the same little girl that we met in July. So timid of us, so unsure of our love for her, so worried that we weren't going to come back for her. And now she's telling us where to stand during her piano concerts! Wow.

Aleksa. If it weren't for two very alarming things that we saw her do today, I'd say she was doing really great. She's still going up to strangers and asking to be picked up. Twice today she did that. Once to a man that even I barely know. I'm sure it has to help that I'm with her all the time, but we have a long way to go in the "learning who mom is" department. She's the hardest one to figure out where her mental capabilities are - she is undoubtedly waaaaay behind most American 4-yr-olds, that much is obvious, but we'll just have to see. She melts my heart most of the time with her simple ways. Like tonight we got out of the car, and she looked up at the sky and said, "Ne ma litto star!" ("There's no little star!") It was overcast tonight, and sure enough, there wasn't a single star up there. So, she didn't want to sing her song.

She has made lots of progress with not being so insistant on being carried everywhere, and not so scared of new things. She came home not wanting to be put down for any reason whatsoever, and now she's jumping into the balls at McDonalds all by herself. Lots of progress there. She doesn't throw tantrums, doesn't get into the mischief the others get into, etc. She's basically a really great kid. She plays quietly by herself, she'll sit and sing and read to herself for as long as we let her, or as long as her brother and sister don't feel like playing with her.

Anyway, this has been a great month! I hope Month Three goes as smoothly!
It has been really neat to see who God has put in our family. Though they are biological siblings, they are each completely different from the other. And each one is absolutely PERFECT for our family.