Home Almost 3 Weeks

Happy faces. We like to see happy faces.

People think my skin tone fits right into our family. Hey, at least I have an excuse - living in Siberia all my life. Why are the rest of them so pasty white?

Doing "the bob".

I can't believe tomorrow we will have been home 3 weeks. In some ways it has flown by, and in other ways I've felt every minute. I think things are settling down somewhat. Owen is settling down somewhat. He still doesn't really sit (and I'm thinking this may be a permanent condition, not just an adjustment issue) and is always on the go. "He's a goer" tends to be a common phrase used when people meet him. But his distressed/agitated periods are definitely less. He actually let me brush my teeth this week without screaming like a crazy man. Something about personal hygiene drives him crazy... I think it has something to do with me rebuffing his pleas to be held at right.that.moment, and that kind of sets him down a frantic and noisy path. But there has been some progress...

Natalie, the poor dear, has had some bad days. It almost seems that the better Owen does, the worse Natalie does to make up for it. At any point during the day she is either 1) yelling at Owen to cease, desist, or never go near something ever again, or 2) yelling at me to watch Owen, because I'm apparently not doing it well enough (for example, if I'm trying to put something in a hot oven and I can't pick up Owen at right.that.moment, he will be screaming, and Natalie, dear thing, will stand right next to him, screaming even louder "MOOOOOOOM, HE WAAAAAANTS YOU!", just in case I hadn't noticed that fact. Or, 3) she is crying, "Mom, I waaaaant you!" as if I am still in Siberia, with no plans on returning home. And sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I was.

Liam...I think has disappeared with the Nintendo DS never to be found again. Jim only wishes he could do the same.

Then there are moments when we feel almost calm, and almost settled. And then we wake up. It seems sort of like one day up and one day down.

In other news, Liam (and coach Jim) had the end of season t-ball party, which was delayed so that we could get home from Russia. Everyone had a good time. It was a pool party, so Liam swam around like a fish. Natalie we gave up on with swimming this summer (she is apparently too traumatized to consider doing something so silly), so we put a huge industrial-strength life vest on her and let her float around to her heart's content. Unfortunately, she now thinks she can swim. I spent the entire night trying to keep Owen in just the wading area of the pool. I probably should have just put a huge life vest on him and let him bob, because it was exhausting work corraling him. He does love the water. There was a fountain thing in the wading area, and he would go stick his entire head right above it, and then pull his head away and blink the water out of his eyes, then do it again. He also did a header right into the tub tonight AFTER his bath was over and I was trying to get Liam and Natalie clean. Natalie kept saying "He didn't even cry, did he Mom?" No, he didn't. I think he actually intended to catapult over the side of the tub and land with his head on the bottom, underneath the water. He knew I would just pull him out again, anyway. And I have learned NOT to put on the PJs until ALL baths are done for just this reason. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice...

I am dying to update my header picture with a shot of all 3 kids, but there are 2 members of that trio that don't really smile when they are next to each other. For a split second today I thought I could get a shot, but half a second later, it was World War III. So maybe I'll have a new family photo in another three years or so.

Meanwhile, every day we get a little more used to being a family. And a day closer to school. :-)