Arrrggghhh.....

I was getting ready to do an update on our little man.... but today he has been in quite a mood. We are definitely seeing attachment disorder from him and there is no rhyme or reason (that we can figure out) as to the why's or when's it rears itself. This morning has been a particularly challenging morning... so I'm not in the best positive frame of mind to write an update.

There have been a lot of positives.... but having adopted a 2 year old, there are definitely many hurdles that we have to overcome. Seems like it goes in stages.... fine for awhile and then "Boom" we have a day of meltdowns. Have I mentioned this is hard???

Ah well.... thankfully it's the weekend and Chris is here to help out. :-)

Random Updates

I have been somewhat neglectful of my blog lately.... we've been working on our final push to finish up school. We have about 4 weeks left and are working quite diligently to accomplish everything in that time frame. Not an easy thing to do as we are still adjusting to adding a little one to the household. :-)


We've also been trying to update our house on a budget.... basically just giving the front some curb appeal. I have another blog all about our renovations... (actually it was my first blog). So, I've been updating that too... LOL! To see our latest renovation click HERE.

Chris and I are also working on a Total Money Makeover, and it is h-a-r-d! No credit, cash envelopes. This month was the longest month, and my grocery budget was not pretty! To say I was over would be an understatement. Tonight we will be working on this coming month's budget. (I'm not really looking forward to it). :-)

I'll have to do an update on our little man here soon! I missed his 3 month update, and tomorrow is 4 months that he has been home. So, I need to get an update on how everything is going! I do have one update for him though: I took him into the Drs this Monday because of a wheezing cough that I didn't like. It was over the weekend naturally and his appetite was down as well. They checked him out and cultured him for strep. It came back negative...but I got a call today that the longer 24 or 48 hour tests were positive. Yikes! So, he is on his first antibiotic since we have been home. Hopefully it will clear it up soon and I don't get it!

That's it for now... I have to go do the budget thing with Chris. Blah. :-)

Florida and Easter- Photos

We decided to take a last minute mini-break to Florida. My mom had surgery a few weeks prior and she and my dad really wanted to meet ds3 and spend Easter with us. They couldn't make the trip up with her recuperating, so we decided to head down there. Thursday through Sunday, a long weekend, but it was just enough time to kick back and relax a little bit.

We spent a lot of time in the pool, and the older boys got to go golfing with Grandpa. We went to Downtown Disney and had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and walked all around. (It was busy though.... that's what you get when you visit at that time of year). We celebrated Easter with my parents as well and ds3 had his first egg hunt. He was sooo cute! Here are some photos of the trip!

All my boys in front of a dragon made completely of Legos!

Ds3 in front of a Lego made St. Basil's Cathedral.

The older boys in front of St. Basil's. They found it and ran to tell me to get a photo! It means so much more to them now that they have seen it in person!

Chris and the boys - picture perfect opportunity!

Ds3 at the Rainforest Cafe.... how cute!

All smiles!

More smiles!

Me and my boys

Grandma and Grandpa with the boys

Hunting for eggs

A soft cuddly bunny

Happy at home with his new bunny!

Woman falls off face of the earth.....

I guess that title pretty much sums it up. :-) (They need better smiley faces on blogger). Anyway, I have been horrible about keeping up with my blog. I have two posts I'd like to do and an update on ds3.... but I haven't found the words... nor my camera cable to upload photos of our recent trip to Florida.

Hopefully I'll find both the cord and some words and get some updates on here soon.

Jackie

A Visit with Friends.....

Last week we had company come. Thank goodness they are the kind of friends that you don't have to worry about how well your house looks. They just come to see us, and enjoy a visit. We enjoy our time with them so much, however brief it is. Hopefully they will be able to visit this summer for a little longer! Of course, we could always visit too!

I met Kelly three years ago and it was a total "God thing". We've kept in touch since, and I'm grateful for how easy our relationship is... even if we haven't talked in a few months, we can still get together and pick up right where we left off. That is a rarity, and I'm grateful for it!

Anyway, Kel's husband plays professional baseball in the minors. That's how we met. So every year they head down to Florida for Spring Training, they stop off at our house on the way down for a visit. Yay! Except next year they are in Arizona for Spring Training, and so we won't see them. That is a real bummer! So this year we got to see Luis and Kelly and their sweet girls on their way down, and then Kelly and the girls stopped for a visit on the way back. We always have fun cooking dinner and the girls head right to the playroom with my boys. Plus, there is always Wii! Naturally I did not get a picture of the adults competing! It was a fierce competition though.... that's for sure!

This year they also got to meet our new little man after hearing about our adoption process for so long. They met him several weeks after we got home, and then again last week. What was cool is that Kelly could really tell a difference in how much he has adjusted to us after 2 and 1/2 months. He has come out of his shell, is talking more and smiling a lot more. That was nice to hear because living in the day to day moments, you can lose sight of how far you've come. It was encouraging to hear that!

So, here are some photos that I was able to get of the first visit.... finally I'm getting around to posting them. :-) Kelly took pictures of the recent visit, so I'm gonna have to get those! :-)

Kelly, Luis and ds3!

Luis and our sweet little guy!

Everyone together!

Dr. Seuss from Tennessee?

Did you know that Dr. Seuss is a Tennessee fan? Neither did I..... But here's proof.

Plastectomy

I have a defunct blog, and it pains me to know that. It was all about saving money... and it has been 5 months since I wrote on it. I'm just not sure that I can keep it up the way I would like now that we are back from Russia. I hate things that end poorly.... I like good closure, and my frugal blog was not that. I'm keeping it open and maybe I'll find the time again.

In the meantime, Chris and I have been doing a Total Money Makeover. I have read a lot of Dave Ramsey's materials and listened to him online. But we both decided that we wanted to do a study together of the book. So for the past several weeks we have been reading the chapters out loud to one another in the evenings. It's actually been interesting and has opened up discussion. We also sat down and wrote out our budget.... together. That was huge too. The together part! It wasn't easy, and we had plenty of "discussions" but we did it.

I can't tell you how much smoother things go when your husband is on board, and actually takes the lead. It's amazing when we actually share a vision for something, because we are both fired up to see it come to fruition. Anyway.... we are getting gazelle intense about paying off our debt completely. Seriously gazelle intense... as in what can we sell to make it happen. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime we also had a plastectomy ceremony last evening with the boys. We got all the credit cards out...many of store cards we had put away and didn't use. We got four pair of scissors and each person got to pick a card from the fan deck. Snip, snip snip...... We have one card left and we froze it in a big chunk of ice. That way if we ever feel the impulse to buy something on credit, we have to thaw it out completely and hopefully the impulse will have passed! When we have our 3-6 month emergency fund in place we'll probably cut up that last card too. :-) Anyhow.....This is the result of our plastectomy.

Babbling Video

Below is my first attempt at a video on blogger. I hope it works! This is what I mean when I say ds3 is babbling. I can't WAIT to understand exactly what he is saying. He was having one interesting conversation....... that's for sure!

Speech....

I want to quickly thank all of you that have been praying for ds3's speech. While we have a long way to go.... we are starting to see improvement. He said two words when he arrived here two and 1/2 months ago. They were "paka", and "da" in Russian. I'm proud to say that he has almost 60 words now. Sixty!!! Yes, I am happy about that.

He's been babbling for several weeks now, and I'm just waiting to be able to understand what exactly he is meaning when he carries on a conversation with me. lol! It's really babble/jibberish right now. Of the words he is saying, he isn't enunciating them, he drops the endings to words a lot. But I'm just proud of how far he has come. We were told he would be speech delayed and he still might require early intervention services, however he's come a long way.

One video which I bought on Amazon which he loves is called Baby Babble. It's for children age 8 months to 30 months. It's been very helpful, exposing him to basic words and even sign language. The video is done by two pediatric speech pathologists and uses many of the same techniques done in therapy or practiced at home. Now, I'm not a speech therapist, and I'm not diagnosing my child or yours. We just got this to help him along before we go back to our doctor to see if he needs early intervention speech therapy. So far we love it!

Bath Time Fun!!

Ds2 loves to come in after his little brother's bath and help him play with all his bath toys and bubbles! You can tell how much ds3 enjoyed the bubbles!! :-)

What's up???

So, this is ds3 here, filling in for my mom. Ya know... my name really isn't ds3... but my mom doesn't want me using my real name on here... something about privacy and all that. It's too bad, 'cause I happen to like my name. When my brothers or my mom and dad ask me Where's (insert my name here)? I always point to myself. Then they ask where Mama is and I point to her, and then where Dada is and I point to him. Plus each brother too. Everyone seems to think it is really a great thing that I can do this... but come ON, they keep on asking me! Uh, ya know I told you where everyone is already.. and can't you see with your own eyes everyone sitting at the table??? Hmmm.... I don't know about the smarts in this family.

This week, I've really been giving my mom a fit. Yeah, it's usually over eating lunch, but sometimes it's breakfast too. She'll start feeding me, and then I'll just turn my head away and say "no". Sometimes I switch it up and cover my mouth and say "no" too. She tries to let me feed myself too, but I still say No. She was getting so frustrated with me... but all of a sudden in the last two days it's like it doesn't faze her. She just asks me if I'm all done, and then it's naptime. She kisses me goodnight and I lay down to sleep. Guess what? When I wake up and want a snack, you won't believe what she gives me. My lunch! I eat it for her then... She says I am in a better mood after my nap, and I guess I am hungry. She just shakes her head and has no idea why I do what I do... Doesn't she know I'm just trying to keep her guessing???

My brothers are always calling for my mom. They are like Mom, where is my belt? Mom, did you see my spelling book? Mom, can I have a snack? Mom, can we go outside? Mom, can we play wii? Mom, when is dad coming home? Mom, Mom, Mom..... I used to call her Mama... but now I see that her real name is "Mom". I call her that tons of times a day too.... Mom, Mom, Mom. Kind of like this: "Mom." hjjkdgjkh, oidkjhd hoidhiihdiu hdoi;kljhdy. She always says, Uh-huh or really when I talk to her. It's like she doesn't understand what I am saying. I couldn't BE any clearer!

Last Friday I had my first boo-boo. Poor mom had h-y-s-t-e-r-i-a. (That's what dad said). I like to run fast in the kitchen.... cause there is a great running lane there. But I ran fast and snuck around the island and ran into an open drawer. I cried so hard, and mom scooped me up faster than an eagle, and when she saw this big "goose egg" on my head, she cried too. (I don't know why they call it a goose egg, cause no goose laid an egg anywhere near me.) So, my mom just cried and dad put ice on it and I cried 'cause the ice was cold and my head hurt. But I'm getting better now. The bump is almost down and mom is pretty much recovered. (I'm still running though, which is pretty cool.)

Guess I better sign off. Dad says it's time for bath and bed.

Another Good Day....

I want to post some photos soon...maybe tonight... but for now I just have time to write that it's been a good day. Monday and Tuesday were incredibly long.... so this is a welcome relief!

Ds3 ate his breakfast and lunch well..... I don't know why, but that is always such a relief to me. He is doing the typical toddler stuff (one minute he likes something, the next minute he hates it). Just the typical stuff that my boys did too... but today breakfast and lunch were a breeze. He had eggs, cereal and a 1/2 an english muffin for breakfast with his juice. Lunch was 3 homemade meatballs, organic peach yogurt and applesauce. He LOVES my homemade meatballs which is a great thing, because everyone else does too. This will be a great staple to fall back on, and will help him with eating his textured table food.

Naptime today was great. He always wants me to sing to him, and he lets me hold his little hand now as I rock him in the cradle position. This is the hand that he sucks his fingers on to self- soothe. Each time I stop singing he looks at me and says "more". So, I sing again. Sometimes he wants his hand back, but today he fell asleep after about 25 minutes of singing/rocking. He fell asleep in my arms, while I held his hand. He startled himself when I stopped singing, looked at me groggily to see where exactly he was... and then snuggled back down into my arms to sleep some more. Oh, how I hated to finally put him in his crib! But, I had more schooling to do and some things to get ready for this evening... (me included).

So, there...that's my quick post on how our day went so far today. I'm off of here to get cleaned up... (me and the house.) :-)

Static Electricity

This is how we started off one of our school days last week. See that striped blanket?

This is what happens when you take a break and play hide under the blanket with your boys!

And this is what your 2 year old's hair looks like after hiding many times under a blanket.... static electricity anyone???? LOL!

He always has this expression for a photo ..it is HARD to catch his smile...... trust me he was having a blast! Naturally we did a quick internet study on what else??? Static Electricity.

Picture Post....

This is what some of our days look like here at our house. We homeschool, so you'll find ds3 with us wherever we are in the house. Sometimes we're in the living room, sometimes the kitchen or dining room, sometimes the playroom, and yes we have even been known to use the actual homeschooling room from time to time. Here are some photos of ds3 with his older brothers, who just love him so much!

This one is in the actual schoolroom...

A little math and a little scribbling.....

Reading time.... Baby Einstein Farm animals

Coming down for yum-yums... all smiles!

Lunch time!

Reading a story before dinner....

Okay, I can read it myself now....

End of day snuggling on the big comfy chair watching what else? Baby Einstein Farm Animals!

A quick story....

I just have to share about my time with our little guy last evening. Ds3 has this thing which I mentioned earlier of going into his pretend world and not letting the rest of the world in. We really have to model interactive play, because it doesn't come naturally to him.

Anyway, we have a play kitchen set in our playroom. Ds3 liked to open the door and get behind the little door (between the door and the wall.) It was like his hiding place. Now normally this would be a very normal childlike behavior... creating a little house for yourself to play in. But I noticed with ds3, he would hide in there and not let anyone else into that pretend world. If I tried to approach him he would get angry at me.... and that was when he would lash out. We ended up pushing the kitchen set against the wall to avert the situation.
So, having solved that problem with the kitchen center, I saw the same behavior last evening with the play laundry center. He figured out how to move it over and open the door to create a hiding spot for himself. He would go into his pretend world and and I could see the difference in him. It's kind of hard to describe. When I came over to interact he got mad again and yelled and turned away to face the wall. He did not want to interact. He was m-a-d. When I continued to try to interact and hold his hand he pulled it away and started to cry hard...tantrum like. I very sweetly asked him "Can mama play in your house too?" "Mama would like to play with you too." He was still facing sort of away from me, and I was right up close to him speaking softly in his ear. Then I swear he surprised the heck out of me.

I promise you I was sooo expecting a smack from the little guy. He whipped around and raised both arms and threw them around my neck and just wept in my arms! Oh my goodness, I was stunned!

I just hugged him and comforted him and let him know that mama loves him and would love to play with him. I was just so surprised at how he threw himself in my arms.... my poor little guy. As he calmed down, I asked him if he wanted to get a toy to play with mama..... he answered "Da". And so we went to get a toy or two to play with together.

I shared with Chris what had happened and he said, "The poor guy was probably surprised to find that someone loves him enough to want to play with him." Perhaps he is right.... I am just hoping that it's sinking in...how much we love him!

A really good day!

Today has been a really good day... not necessarily because ds3 hasn't had any meltdowns.... he has. It's just that he's handling them better. They are just two year old tantrums.... and not anger directed toward me. I'm grateful for that.

A few things I am noticing regarding our attachment:

Snuggling
Ds3 woke earlier and was crying for me. Usually he sleeps almost an hour later, and we typically head down for breakfast then. But it was too early for that nonsense (the breakfast, not the crying).... so I hugged him and picked him up and carried him into our bed. Chris was already gone for the morning, and so ds3 and I just slept a little (hardly) and woke up gradually. When my other two were little they would come and hop on our bed for some mommy snuggle time in the mornings. I've noticed ds3 is starting to understand what snuggling means. He's definitely more relaxed and will lay his head on my shoulder or let me hold his little hand. He hasn't got the concept yet....but I see vast improvement from when we first got home.

Babbling/Words
He's also babbling SO much more. I know the babbling is pre-speech... and his is just going, going, going. He had one Russian word when he came home from the orphanage and now he can say about 15. Some on his own and some that he repeats. I have a feeling we'll see another little spurt of words in a few more weeks.

Interaction
I am also pleased with the babbling because he's not only talking...but talking to us. It's encouraging in the area of interaction! Ds3 is really good at pretending. I think it was his way of survival in the orphanage, he would go into his own world... and many times people wouldn't intrude. I'm thinking the caregivers had their hands full with about 1o other children, many younger than him. So when we first got home if I was let's say, focusing on the older two and some schoolwork....ds3 would be playing something pretend. Often I would go up to him and just kneel down on his level and ask what he was doing? Just in a sweet voice, almost like can I play too? What I would typically get was an angry babble, and a smack in the face or a spit, (one of the two). He just did not like people intruding upon his world. I think for him, his pretend world, was one way he was able to be in control. I'm reading a lot about the adopted child's need to feel in control because he has never had an adult that he could rely on to meet his needs. I'll share what I'm learning in another post sometime.....

Anyway, early last week when I would approach ds3 in the same manner, he would actually try to include me a little bit in his world. He'd just hand me the pretend item and go on his way. In order to break that control nature I would pretend with him a little bit and then redirect him to a toy we could play with together. Always with lots of eye contact with him, in order to build the level of trust.

Today, ds3 took that interaction a step further...and this is where the babbling comes in. As he was playing today, he would occasionally come and get me and as we walked together he was babbling to me all the time. He'd look at me and make hand motions like I completely understood what he was saying! lol! I just kept on saying, "Oh really?" "Oh my goodness. then what?" "What did you say next?" When he motioned with his hands around his waist, I just asked, "Are you gonna put a belt around it?" He shook his head and said.... "Da". lol!

I'm so hoping we are turning a corner in regards to attachment. I know we have a long way to go...but today has been really encouraging.

Video Camera Update

Do you remember this post here that talked about ds3's snapping his fingers to Frank Sinatra? I mentioned how I have to get Chris to put a new tape in the video camera, right? So I can start video taping ds3 and all his cuteness!

Update: The video camera is now broken! UGH! Seriously, Chris took it to a repair place and they want to charge almost $200 to fix it. Ummm... no thank you. Then he took the whole thing apart practically to try and fix it.... no dice. It's really broken, and we don't have a clue why.

So, guess what is one my short list to purchase pretty darn fast?

You got it.......

A new camcorder.

Hopefully one that is on sale at Circuit City's liquidation. And hopefully one that will last!

Goodbye Cable

It is with a bit of regret that we say goodbye to our extended cable TV viewing. Being a sports oriented family we will miss ESPN very much. I will miss a few other stations like HGTV, and the Food Network. But, we're trying to cut some costs and this is one that must go.

The benefits aren't purely monetary...though $40 extra dollars a month will be helpful. I'm really looking forward to saying goodbye to some of the trash that is out there. I'll appreciate not having the arguments with my older boys on what they can and cannot watch. With only 12 channels to choose from their choices will be limited. I'm also looking forward to having the TV off and my family doing more fun activities either around the dining room table, or outside when the weather gets warmer.

Honestly, I don't think we are really going to miss it..... :-)

Victory!!!

Today after lunch I took everyone up to a town north of us by about 25 minutes to apply for ds3's Social Security card. It's a smaller town than ours, but sometimes smaller can be better. Unfortunately it was ds3's naptime, and he was getting fussy. I knew he was tired, and so I wouldn't let him walk around as it was pretty crowded and a small waiting area. But I held him and rocked him over my shoulder singing our bedtime song in his ear. I think it calms him down, because he relaxed and just was content to hang out for the most part. After about 20 minutes they called my number.

The lady behind our window loved our little man! She oohed and awed over him and brought a co-worker over to see him. Ds3 was very obliging by actually smiling and waving at them. I handed over all the documents I had with his application, and they began to input it all. I was prepared with a printout of the required documents listed on the SS website, but it wasn't necessary. She printed out a form had me check all the documentation she input and sign and date it.

Victory! We should have his number in 10 days or so! I thanked her profusely and mentioned my troubles at our local branch office. She could not believe that they had no clue about the Certificate of Citizenship. She told me, "It's one of the options to choose on the first screen!"

I am so glad we drove the distance to get this done, and that I didn't have to fight to make it happen. (Though I was prepared to....) It was definitely worth the trip!

So frustrated with Social Security!

I'm going to have a mini-vent here! I am so frustrated with my local SS office. We received ds3's Certificate of Citizenship in the mail and I promptly took it down to our social security office to apply for his number. They looked at the forms, asked me if he was adopted, and after some conferring in the back of the office....said they needed to see the adoption decree and birth certificate. It was closing time that day, and while I was surprised to need to show them that information, I told them I would be back with the additional documents.

Today we went back there. We waited 45 minutes, but it was okay.. I brought ds3 his lunch. When I finally get to the counter and hand her all the forms, she looks like what I have given her is Russian or something. (Okay, it is in Russian, with the translation behind it).... all given to me by the US Embassy mind you. She leaves her window for awhile to confer with someone after I try to tell her that this is what the US Embassy gave me. Then she comes back with I am assuming her supervisor and they are looking at the Certificate of Citizenship as if they have never seen one before. They try to tell me that what they usually see is the Certificate of Naturalization and that I need to bring his passport in as well. What??? Come on people! I was just here two days ago, did you not think to tell me that then? It's not like my three boys and I like coming and waiting for an hour or so each time at your office!

I explained to them that this form *should* be all they need. They kept trying to understand if I was given it at immigration when we entered the States. I explained again how USCIS takes all our information upon entering the States and mails the Certificate of Citizenship. I also told them that because he is legally adopted by us, as soon as his feet touch American soil he is a US Citizen. They told me "No that's not true... "

Unh- unh!! No ma'am I do believe you are incorrect!! Interview over, there was nothing they could do.... I have to bring back his passport, which is on it's way to the Russian consulate so he can be registered, according to the Russian law. It won't be back for about a month. UGH! (Picture my head hitting a wall a few times).

So, any of you Russian AP's out there... what did you need to get a Social Security card? I am very curious.... (and still very frustrated!)