Our First Meeting A Year Ago Today

A little trip down memory lane after a year to put it in perspective. Recapping Day One of our trip last year, and hopefully posting a little video soon.

One year ago today, we saw Owen in person for the first time. We had seen three pictures of him before, in our referral information in November. In the pictures he was almost one year old. In person he was then 15 months old.

The orphanage Director and our translator walked him into the gym room and he stood before us, not making a noise. He walked in wearing pink and yellow, holding onto the Director's hand, and when he let go he stood perfectly still and just looked at us with his eyebrows wrinkled (I know that wrinkle well now). I remember that I was thrilled to see he was walking on his own, because we didn’t know if he could walk yet. I remember thinking he was more adorable than his picture, but at the same time more fragile looking, pale and smaller than I expected. His hair in person seemed thin, and his left ear was plugged with a piece of cloth because he had a dripping ear infection. The orphanage doctor went over his medical information, which mostly consisted of chronic ear infections.

When left alone with us, he didn’t cry. Our translator told us to pick him up, and so we did, and he didn’t complain. We handed him some blocks and he clutched them. And that was all. He didn’t play or engage with us, he didn’t make any sounds. He just sat, and let us hold him, and blinked slowly. Our translator told us that he had recently eliminated his morning nap and that was why he was sleepy. He fell asleep on Jim’s lap, and I gently touched his cheeks and tried to memorize his features. Eventually I asked our translator to ask if Owen was on drugs for his ear infection. She and the Doctor talked back and forth in Russian quite a bit and then she came back with a single word: “yes.” As with so many things about the process, the trip, the country, it left me slightly confused. Was he very drugged? Was he just extra sleepy? I still wonder to this day. Maybe he was cranky from the ear infection and they figured drugged was better than cranky. I don't know. So we went with the flow, and tried not to be concerned.

Back at the hotel that night, Jim and I lay side by side on the bed, staring at the ceiling of the dismal Hotel Siberia room (there wasn’t much else to look at anyway – we had no luggage and our electronics were drained of batteries) and talked. Jim, never one to worry unnecessarily, said that Owen was fine. The fact that he could walk so well was huge, he said, and showed that "everything was working with his motor skills" and everything else was surely fine as well. Have to say, I wasn't totally convinced in the "he walks, therefore he's fine" theory. But at that point, I also believed that I hadn't seen anything to convince me that something was wrong. I really wanted to believe he was fine, of course. I kept thinking of Liam and Natalie, and how they would react to total strangers in a room alone with them. I knew they would have shut down as well and refused to interact. I knew he was sick with an ear infection. I knew he had the most beautiful eyes and dark eyelashes, and that the weight of him on my lap felt wonderful.

That night we had dinner with a second translator, and she told us that he was a good boy. She said he had a big personality, and that wasn't something she could say about every baby (most, but not all, she said with a laugh). She did have the big personality part right, we know now. She said he was shy and knows who a stranger is, and is more of a watcher. (Hmmm...not so sure about that one.) I think she may have known we needed some reassurance and she told us what we needed to hear. But it helped.

Our first meeting...to summarize...was quiet. It was strangely calm and uneventful. It didn't feel like it was an epiphany kind of moment. But it was a huge relief to see the boy behind the pictures. I was left with questions and worries, yes. But this was our leap of faith, and we knew that something would have to be drastically wrong for us not to leap. So we forged ahead, and I desperately tried to burn into my memory each perfect little feature of his face.

More on Day 2 next post, and hopefully some video.

Enough Said

Some excitement over the Canadian goal!

Go Canada!

There's a big game on Sunday. Olympic-sized game. Canada vs US in Men's Hockey. If you aren't sure who we are rooting for, maybe a clue is that today after Liam's baseball practice Coach Jim had (brain washed?) the whole team shouting 1-2-3 Go Canada! instead of 1-2-3 Go Cardinals! I don't think the kids knew why they were cheering for Canada. And I think the parents laughed.

I will cheer for Canada...because I live with 2 and 1/3 Canadians. Or maybe that's not how the math works...Jim is 1...Liam is .5...Natalie is .5 and Owen is .33. Hmmm...thinking maybe it would be more correct to say I live with 4 Canadians, since you aren't really only a third or half of a citizen. In any case, I know how important hockey is to Canadians, and I respect that. So Go Canada!

But if the US wins, I won't cry about it either.

We did watch the Canada vs Russia game the other night and cheered for Canada, although I sat next to Owen and whispered in his ear Go Russia! I told him he could even probably cheer out loud for Ovechkin without upsetting his Dad too much. Right now, Owen doesn't much care who is playing or who is winning. He just likes to yell Cockey Cockey Cockey GOAL!!!!! and throw both hands straight up in the air. He is Canadian, after all.

Call Him Confused, But Call Me Mommy

Funny side story about the infamous dentist appointment yesterday. While we were in the waiting area, or more accurately, the waiting and waiting and waiting area, Owen had a chance to mingle with some peers. We were alone for a while first, so I think he decided that ALL of the toys were HIS and only his. I can understand that. So I spent most of the time rerouting him whenever a child picked up any toy, because Owen would move over to that child at lightning speed to let them know it was HIS toy. Though to be honest, he was fairly distractable, and I actually found myself thinking that we have reached a nice milestone. The milestone where I don't worry about him flinging hard projectile objects (toys mostly) at people in waiting rooms while simultaneously climbing the walls and shrieking. He played quite nicely. He was just a little concerned about kids playing with his toys. It was one of the more relaxed waiting room visits we've had. And I'm probably too much of a butt-insky Mom who is very concerned that her children share everything and not do anything offensive to any other kid. (While no other mother seems to be noticing that they have children...why is that).

So one boy in particular noticed Owen's angst over sharing and decided to bug him. I would say this boy was close to Natalie's age. After being reprimanded by me for trying to grab back toys, Owen decided to have a conversation with this boy instead. The boy had a car, so Owen pointed to it and said "car." You know, like "Hey, nice car. It's mine, but it's nice." And this boy looked him in the eye and just said very firmly "No." So then Owen held up a bus he was holding and said "Bus." Again, the boy said "NO." At that point I could see the confusion rolling across Owen's face. So he pointed to the door through which Liam had disappeared to get his teeth cleaned and he said "Huhm" (for Liam). The boy said "NO." So Owen pointed to Natalie playing at the train table and said "Nahlee" and the boy said "NO." Owen looked so frustrated. He was being told that everything he KNEW to be true was now wrong. He pointed to me and said "Mommy" and the.boy.said. NO. At that, Owen looked terribly upset and just ran and hugged me and said "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" Awwww, my poor, confused boy. I told him he was right, yes, I'm Mommy, and that's Natalie, and that's a bus, and that's a car. Silly little gullible thing. Not that I blame him, since it was only 7 months ago that I plucked him up and told him "I'm Mommy" and expected him to believe it on the spot. I guess it takes a little gullibility to so blindly believe. I hope I can help him understand that he doesn't need to also believe every silly boy that he meets.

So Busted

The kids had dental checkups today (except for Owen, who had his a few months back) and somehow I ended up the one busted. I thought for sure Liam would be busted for not brushing very well. I thought Natalie would be OK, because I still brush after her most of the time.

Instead, Natalie was called out for having the beginnings of a couple cavities. Nothing to fill yet, but I'm sure it's coming. And when I admitted to the Dr that she has a weakness for fruit chew snacks (trying to think of an excuse, because surely it is not my brushing...) the Dr looked at me like I was feeding my child rat poison. She said "those things are full of..." something or other that sounded like carcinogens, but I know it wasn't carcinogens, but is apparently something else that is as bad for teeth as carcinogens are for a body. She even went on to say she "wishes they would put warning labels on those things." OK. Hate to tell her, but the box could say that it would cause immediate and excruciating pain and that would probably not stop Nat from begging for them. So we've been been "told" to only have them after dinner, right before brushing at night. Alrighty then.

Then Liam went in. The last time we went to the dentist she said that I should be doing a final brush for him "until he can write in cursive." I have no idea what that means, or how old that is. When I mumbled something about having 3 kids to brush...she relented and said to at least do it at night, if I can't manage the morning. So of course I have just been letting him brush by himself. I have three other sets of teeth (including my own) to clean every morning and night, for Pete's sake, and I probably should be doing Jim's as well!! It would be more efficient to just teach him to write in cursive. So anyway...after his cleaning they called me back to see his x-rays. I expected the worst, but his looked better than Natalie's. They also showed me all his big-boy teeth just under the surface. The boy hasn't lost a tooth yet (one of the few First Graders who has not), but from what they say, any day now he is just going to up and lose half the teeth in his mouth at the same time. Lovely. I'm in no hurry - losing teeth has always made me queasy, and I'd be perfectly happy for him to be 18 and still have those little chiclet teeth.

But the odd thing...is that he has an extra tooth because a permanent tooth has come IN on the bottom already, even though the baby tooth did not fall out. As the Dr talked about this, I made the mistake of asking with surprise, "You mean you can actually SEE a second tooth in there?" and she pointed to this great big tooth hanging out right behind his little tiny tooth, raised her eyebrow, and said, "You mean you haven't SEEN this?" Uh-oh. How long has it actually BEEN since I've looked in his mouth, much less helped him brush? (I know she is thinking this). So busted.

So if he hasn't lost the baby tooth in 2 weeks (and that doesn't seem likely since it's not loose at all) they want to pull it. Strangely enough, Liam isn't too upset by the news. I think he is just excited to finally be close to losing teeth. Everyone else is doing it, after all.

And Natalie is definitely crushed about the news of restricted fruit chews.

And I'm sure the Dr wrote many things about me in red ink on their charts.

Here We Go Round and Round

Not feeling creative with the posts right now.

Here are a couple pictures of the three of them swinging together. They were having fun, although it was entirely too cold out there (it was a week or so ago, and the temp itself wasn't bad but the wind...oh, the wind). We didn't stay long.

The audio to this picture would have been a lot of ear-drum splitting screaming as they twirled. The boys can scream louder and higher than any girl.

The Random Russian

I may have mentioned before that on our last trip to pick up Owen I did ask our translator to ask if he spoke any words. The question was never answered. Maybe she figured it didn't matter since we wouldn't understand it anyway. Or maybe she forgot to ask his caretakers. Or maybe the caretakers didn't really know. Just one of the things I didn't have the energy to press harder about. The only thing we saw him do was shake his head NO (vigorously).

Then I think I mentioned that after being home for a number of months, the word "Da" (Russian for yes) started popping up quite often and before he actually said "yes". It surprised me a little. I wondered if he used to say it in Russia, and he just now understood English enough to use it in the right context, or if he knew it but never said it before. I suspect it is the former.

Well, a few more Russian words have popped up lately, out of the blue. Owen loves cars, and so "car" was one of his first English words. He uses it a lot. But the other day he said "ma-shee-na" which is Russian for car. It was as plain as day. And one of the few words in Russian that I would recognize. I tried to get him to say it again, and he just looked at me funny and then ignored me, like he had made a mistake. A few days after that, while saying Bye, he said "pa-ka" which is Russian for bye. Of course I jumped around saying Pa-ka Pa-ka like an idiot, and he just gave me a devilish smile and said "Bye" and would not say it again.

It feels like he's a secret agent trying to cover his knowledge of his mother country language. And that is what we joked about, when we went into the Apple store at the mall the other day and he sat in front of one of the laptops they set up for kids to play games on and proceeded to dabble his fingers across the keyboard very quickly just like he was furiously typing, and Jim and I are off to the side commenting "and now that I've hacked into the Pentagon's mainframe, I'll just download some key data..."

But on a more serious note, it does make me wonder. Does he feel like he is two people, and he has to hide his Russian-ness now that he is here. Or does it not go that deep, and it's just the random language slips of someone who went from hearing one language to speaking a different one. I do suspect that at some point in his life, most likely when the hormones of puberty are raging, that he will feel unresolved about his dual-ness. I hope that he will talk about it. I would love for him to keep his Russian, and learn more, but I'm afraid there is so little chance for any sort of fluency without exposure to someone who really speaks it (and if I learned more, I'm sure I'd only be passing on a really poor version of Russian). Maybe someday he will decide to learn it and somewhere in the recesses of his brain it will come easily because he has heard it before. And I do hope that he will be able to embrace his ability to be whatever he chooses - American, Russian, or Canadian, and hopefully remain all three. And I wonder...if he ever curses me and I don't really know it?? Maybe some things are better off unknown.

Happy Valentine's Day

Some Valentine's sprinkles, some Princess sprinkles, some poisonous apple sprinkles (you know, from Snow White). And a whole lot of love.

This Valentine's Day came and went with very little fanfare. I feel a little bit like I should have tried harder (OK, tried at all) to get a babysitter and gone out for some quality time with my honey. But we're just not really "there" yet with leaving Owen with a sitter. He'd probably be fine...but I think it would be hard to find a sitter I am comfortable enough with keeping track of him and keeping him out of trouble, and negotiating the sibling drama. And of course I wouldn't ask a sitter to put him to sleep, and his bedtime is still no later than 8 or we all pay the consequences. So...we bide our time, and we know that before long he will be college, the way time is flying.

I was so lame I didn't even have anything to give Jim - just a promise to let him pick out his own gift, because I knew he had his eye on some sweatshirt or another. Jim, on the other hand, got me an iPhone. sigh Feeling guilty now. I love it, of course. There is a part of me that thinks I don't need additional access to email and internet. But of course it's very cool. And I told him he could pick out his own sweatshirt. Guilt...

I did coordinate the baking and decorating of the cake. The kids were very excited about that. Owen was napping and didn't get to help decorate, unfortunately. He did stick his fingers in the icing when he woke up. And Liam and Natalie made wonderful cards for us this morning. So I guess, as I write this, I realize that everyone but me felt the Valentine's Day spirit. I should work on that.

Posers

Is it possible that I've gone overboard taking pictures of my children, and I've created ego-maniacal little people who wander around looking for photo ops? Yes, it's possible.


Liam is in a cowboy phase right now, and absolutely insisted that I get a snapshot of him in this cowboy pose.


Then Natalie called me over to insist that I put a pair of her princess Ariel sunglasses on Owen (who was thrilled) and she would put on Tinkerbell glasses and I should take their picture. So I did. And 2 seconds later Natalie ripped the glasses off Owen's face and told him sternly "NO you CAN'T have these." To which Jim, who was walking by at the time, commented to a very confused and slightly angry little boy, "Get used to it Owen. She's a woman." I think I take offense to that.

If I Had $100 Dollars

So Liam has inherited a particular trait from his father. I'll call it...the Absentmindedness About Things trait. We kind of go in spurts where lunch boxes, hats, coats, guided reading books, etc., somehow don't make it home every day. When we walk to school to pick him up, it's not a huge deal - we'll just walk around to the front office and ask if he can go back in and look for them (or sometimes we have to search Lost & Found, or out on the playground where the coat has been found hanging, or once it was in a different teacher's classroom (?)). It's too cold to walk right now, so we've been driving. It's freezing outside, in fact. And Monday Liam got into the car at pick-up without his coat or hat. The teacher who walked him to the car even told him "You should have a coat on!" when I opened the van door, as if perhaps I was the one sending him out into the elements not properly dressed. I was not happy, because then I had to drive through the carpool mess and back around to the front of the school, and there was no way I was unbuckling Natalie and Owen and dragging them out in the cold to go back and look for the coat. I did drive around to the front, but I just opened the door and shoo'd Liam out to go to the office himself and ask to be let back in (I'm trying to get him to do more things for himself these days too. He's by far old enough, and he is the type that would let someone else do everything for him if he could.) As I sat stewing, waiting in the car for him, wondering how long it would take him to return (have I mentioned he is slower than molasses in January?) I opened his backpack and read his daily papers. And this is what I found.

For the 100th day of school he had to finish the sentence: "When I am 100 years old..." and he wrote (spelled correctly so you can read it) "I will have a family. I will have 103,239 children. And be an astronaut."

I'm thinking, well I would want to fly to the moon too if I had 103,230 children!! ha ha It was very sweet though. I think the number of children was his way of making a joke - he has been developing a funny sense of humor lately.

And If I Had $100 Dollars... "I would give $50 to Haiti and $50 to Mom and Dad." (and a picture of him happily giving away his money with a smile).

Dang! That boy sure knows how to take the air out of my anger. I was surprised to read the Haiti part. Suspicious Mom that I am I even asked him later if everyone wrote that or if someone told him to write that (he said NO, everyone wrote their own thing). So maybe my effort at popping the kids out of their shiny suburban bubble that one night and making them watch the Hope For Haiti benefit concert had some effect other than the trauma that Jim predicted after they saw images of rubble and blood and death. I really didn't want to traumatize them, but I was seized by a panic that night of "Jim do you realize that our kids never even watch the news?? (We only watch our tv after they go to bed, and usually get news from the paper or online). Do you realize they don't know that anything bad happens in the world?? Don't they need some exposure to the realities of life??" Not like a music concert with some little clips of a few disaster images will actually do this...but I was quite concerned that night for their compassion and moral character, and a little exposure to different musical styles doesn't hurt either. Anyway...I'm sure Liam wrote these things because he thought it would impress his teacher or myself, because I guarantee you if he had $100 the very first thought in his head would be Target or Toys R Us. But it was nice to see that he was thinking about it at least a little. I guess I won't need to be breaking out the Iraq war footage just yet. And he came back out with his hat and his coat with no problem, and we all went home happy.

Daddy/Daughter Dance

Ever since Liam and I went to the Mother/Son dance, Natalie has been waiting for the day that she and Daddy could go to their dance. Alas, she was almost taken down by a vicious stomach bug, but our little Cinderella was NOT going to miss this dance even if she had to be carried there on a stretcher. The poor little thing hasn't been able to eat anything else all weekend, but she had been talking about having fruit punch (not just punch, Mommy, FRUIT PUNCH) and cookies all week, so she managed to have those and dance a few dances with her Dad. We didn't get many good pictures, unfortunately, and none of Jim that he would let me post. But she was very happy to go, and Jim was very happy to go with her. She did tell me that they had to walk a LONG way from the parking lot. I think the downside of fancy girl shoes has hit home already. I asked her if it was just like Cinderella's Ball, and she said No, the music was a lot louder. What I would have given to be a fly on the wall at that dance, seeing all those men out with their daughters. I'm sure it was very sweet.

Back At The Gym

I think the caption for this picture should be "It's Okay Officer, I've Subdued the Suspect."
I asked them to pose together and this is the way Natalie wanted to do it. Looks suspiciously like a headlock to me, but Owen didn't seem to mind too much. Nat insisted it was a hug.

Natalie and Owen started gymnastics last week. Natalie had been on "a break" for quite a few months now, ever since the Gymnastics Incident of 2009 not long after Owen came home. She was not quite herself back then, and we had a horrible meltdown and tantrum the likes of which I don't care to remember. Thus, the break. I'm happy to report that she seems to have come back from the dark side, and has regained her bounce. It really does seem like the old Natalie is back. So we started at a new gymnastics place, and she seems to really like it a lot. Plus a good friend from preschool happens to be in the same class. Oh happy day!

This is the picture I got when I asked to see their muscles.

Owen spent his first class mostly being worried about where Nahhhleee was. We can see her class through some windows, and he kept wanting to go look for her. This week was much better, and I think he is really going to like the class. He raised some eyebrows with his ring performance and rope climbing already. My new nickname for him might be Popeye. The first thing he did on the rings was pull his feet up above his hands and hold them there, and his teacher was all "Oh my. He is very strong!" This, I know. Then his rope-scaling tricks had people wondering how much spinach I've been feeding him. He is seriously strong and monkey-like, and can already climb a rope further than his mother. Not that that is saying much. Or anything, really.

I'm doubly happy about this class, because I had a discussion with an occupational therapist lady today (who works with the speech therapy people) about sensory disorder issues. He's improved so much since coming home that I don't necessarily think he has big sensory issues, but there are some behaviors (crashing into things, jumping off of things, using too much force with things) that can be related to sensory-seeking behaviors and are not uncommon after orphanage life. Anyway, her first recommendation was to get him into something like gymnastics. Hooray! We're already there! It apparently helps him understand where his body is in relation to other things (wondering if that means it helps him realize that he's flying through the air or speeding off the furniture....). Anyway, it's all good. She said sports will be a good thing for this boy. Can you imagine a happier father than Jim being told to do lots of sports with his son? I don't think we have to worry about that one. My only issue will be how to keep up with all three of them, I think.