Happy birthday, Roxy!

Thursday, Roxy turned 6. For days she had been counting down to her birthday. When it finally arrived, she was excited. I had all these dreams of creating fun birthday traditions, but unfortunately, months ago, I had scheduled an important meeting on the night of her birthday. So, we had to adjust. Bryan stayed home with them while I worked in the morning. Then they picked me up at work in the early afternoon so we could enjoy the Children's Discovery Museum, ice cream (both generously given to us by my second year students), back to work for the meeting, and then out for pizza. Bryan is very good at giving flowers, so Roxy got a special delivery of flowers and balloons. She was also excited to get a card - with a kitten on it! - from my aunt.

I taught her, ...You live in a zoo, you look like a monkey, and you act like one, too. She thought it was funny when I sang it, but did not like David singing it. So we had to sing the regular version.

Saturday, my family got together, so I thought it would be a good time to celebrate Roxy's birthday. I made a cake. And it was a sorry excuse for a cake, if I have ever seen one. I thought about putting it on Pinterest, just to see what would happen (and to make other people feel good about themselves). But she was excited about it anyway and gobbled up 3 pieces through the day.

Friday, Bryan and I took the evening off. For the first time since April 18, someone else put the kids to bed. Since it went so well, I think we'll do it again. Anyway, during our quiet time, we were able to have some uninterrupted conversations, including one of the following.

One of us frequently annoys the other. I - I mean, the person who annoys the other - asked Bryan (oops, I mean the person who gets annoyed) whether I was annoying him as often as I used to. 

"No," he said, "you don't have time to annoy me. Actually," he continued, sounding disappointed, "I don't even have time to get offended. I probably won't be able to find time to be offended until they're 18."

If you don't know us that well, you probably won't think that conversation is as funny as I do. I thought it was hysterical.

The kids have been heard speaking in English to each other, which is something that hasn't happened before.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we babysat Baby J for a few hours this week. It was so good to see him, even if he cried when I took him from his dad :(. The kids did really well with him, too, and asked when we could watch him again.

Cat and Mouse

If there is anything more boring than reading one of my blog posts, it's reading a blog post without pictures...again. Uploading pictures is low on my priority list right now, so pictureless blog posts are probably a fact of life for awhile.

How about a recap?

Thursday, last. Roxy slammed the door so hard that it broke. They were stuck outside; I was stuck inside. The front door wouldn't open either, so I let them come in and out through the window until Bryan got home and rescued us.

Sunday. I think this was the day that the kids called me out to the garage to look at a mouse that was sitting on the garage steps. You know I love the kids if I actually looked at a rodent on purpose. I did look and gave a grimace-smile and walked away, my brain vaguely registering something I heard about "spray." When I went back to the garage a few minutes later, there was green spray paint on the steps with a mouse-shape in natural wood showing through the John Deere green. Mouse stencil. Nice. I later found out they also spray painted the lawnmower.

Monday. It was the kind of day that, if we had a dog, it would have died or at least run away. As it was, the microwave door refused to open (two sticks of butter are still inside). I went all "Laura Ingalls Wilder" and melted the butter in a pan on a stovetop. The waffle iron limped along, but didn't quite finish the batch, in rebellion to its near-daily use, I am sure. And we had to wash some extra bedding (two beds' worth, if you know what I mean). Oh, and Bryan's truck isn't working. I woke up at 4:30, and David woke up at 5:30. And since someone got up on the wrong side of the bed, our morning started off with some fireworks due to something that had happened the night before.

And you know what? The day just kept getting better. Really. I spent some one-on-one time with David. I got to see a glimpse of his heart and his willingness to forgive, even when he was hurt by what he doesn't understand. And I got to see generous people in action. And see my kids developing relationships with their cousins. It was good.

This week, the kids got two kittens. David's black cat is named Tiger Socks Aberle. Roxy's orange cat is named Kitty Tiger Socks Aberle. Sometimes the names change, but Tiger is always the black cat. That makes me laugh. They love those cats. They build houses for them, feed them, haul them around, and want us to adore them just as much as they do. Bryan doesn't like cats, so it's really funny when David hands Tiger Socks off to Bryan and demands that Bryan cuddle the cat.

Wednesday. We spent most of the day at the hospital for some tests. I don't have all the results, but I'm not expecting anything crazy. Both kids did so well.

The rest of the week was a blur.

Thanks to some sweet people, I finally feel like my house is kind of organized. That makes things seem more manageable. And it feels like such progress.

But I have so much more progress to share with you. Our kids rarely cry when they are physically hurt. Even when they are hurt, they usually don't come to us. Last night, there was a bike collision, and David fared the worst. I was in the house and Roxy came in. "Mom? Come. David bike." I went out to see David crying over skinned palms and a skinned knee. Most kids would have cried over that. But he burned his finger pretty badly a few weeks ago and didn't cry at all. It felt like such progress that 1) he cried and 2) they decided needed a parent to comfort them.

When we first got home, the kids wouldn't sleep well if we weren't upstairs, too. That meant an early bedtime for us or a late bedtime for them. Now they must feel safer, because we usually have no problems getting them to bed. We still have to sneak down in the morning and usually don't make it. David is awake before 6 almost every morning. Because I am concerned he is not getting enough sleep, we have a new rule: He is supposed to stay in his room until 6 am. He has books and Legos and can play quietly while the rest of us enjoy some quiet time/sleep. We will see how that works. I have to be careful to explain rules when they are in a good, understanding mood.

Food is slightly better, too. They will still eat a quart of yogurt every day if I let them, but they are less compulsive. The first day, one of them drank a half gallon of milk. They don't ask for a snack constantly or ask me to eat at a restaurant every day. I am also discovering more of what they like (cauliflower! beets!). There are still things that I don't understand about why they will or will not eat something, but it's better.

The first week or two or three was a flurry of discovery for them. They bounced from toy to toy, inside to outside. I had to lock the cars, otherwise they would sit in the cars, honking and setting off the car alarm. I had whiplash from trying to keep up. We're playing a boardgame, NO! Let's go up in the haymow. Books, read books! Car. HONK! HONK! I'm hungry, yogurt! All in 15 minutes or so. Now they are content to play with their kittens and ride their bikes most of the day. Everything is starting to calm down. For the most part. Or maybe I'm just getting used to chaos.

They're also doing a good job of keeping their bedrooms clean and following house rules, like not wearing shoes in the house and clearing their dishes from the table.

Here are some funny things I actually remember:

David: "Why does London have a girl king?"
David: When making grilled cheese sandwiched, "Big (lots of) butter is good."
Roxy: "How many days Happy Birthday to you?" which means how many days until her birthday. She asks every day, but it's getting really close!
David: when hearing that we think we have skunks living under our garage, "Me look at skunks. If they spray me, I will take a shower."
Roxy: "Cats no like showers." How does she know?!
I also hear "me smart" on a regular basis from both of them

They got a letter from their Polish auntie and some of their friends this week. David had been feeling like his friends forgot about him, so he was overjoyed to get the letter. And I may have teared up a little when I read the letter from a boy, the one David talks about the most, because he signed it, "From your best friend."  Bryan and I can do our best, but we can't change the facts. And that facts are that these kids have lost some important things. No matter what we can give them, we can't replace some things.

Home for one month

Now that we've been home for one month, I've had time to reflect on our time in Poland and compare it here. Poland was challenging because we didn't speak the language, it was very "intense" parenting, and we were still getting to know each other.

Well, we're still getting to know each other. Even though we have some relief and speak the language here, we still have to deal with intense parenting...along with all our other responsibilities. When I think about what things were at the beginning, we have come a long way.

How is it going? We hear that often. I usually say that things are going well considering how much has changed. But it's still challenging. There are days when I can't remember if I showered. I rarely get more than 6 hours of sleep, I stay up late almost every night, and I'm usually up early. We're still building trust. Several times each day, David asks me to repeat something I said. "Are you telling me the truth? Are you really?" That is something I didn't expect...I never doubted my parents told me the truth. It also feels strange to me that other parents can communicate to their children in the same language without doing charades or using Google Translate.

It is exhausting, but we're settling into a routine, of sorts. When we were first home, I felt that I had to be with them for every minute they were awake (they had no judgment of safety or anything else). Now I stay in the house sometimes and can watch them through the window for a few minutes.
Things usually go much better when I play with them for several hours a day. They can entertain themselves, but not for long.

We went to the doctor last week for a routine, welcome-to-the-country visit. The kids had to have lots of blood drawn to check for the usual orphanage culprits plus some shots. Roxy was not a fan. She had to be held down and when it was over, she gently kicked anyone who came close to her. We have some followup testing/appointments, but everything seems to be okay. We also took Roxy to an opthalmologist today. She was born with her eye lenses in the wrong place, so she has never been able to see well. They told us that she would have been blind if the lenses were lower in her eye, so we are really grateful that she can see as well as she does. Actually, they said her eyes were quite healthy-looking which made us happy. She needs a weaker prescription for her glasses which should help her lazy eye, too. Next week we have more appointments, but hopefully they're easy!

Our social worker also came over this week to do our 30 day check. We have to do three more annual visits and then I think we're all done. Anyway, everything was fine.

Life is busy and full and more exciting than it ever was before :).