Mr Determined

Here are a few pictures of our determined little man. Being height-challenged doesn't mean a thing to our guy. If he wants to do something, he will do it. These are pictures of the method he devised for brushing his teeth and spitting into the sink. He has a stool below him. Honestly, I gave him a stool. But he wanted to be able to turn the water on and off and spit without me lifting him higher. He leans on his belly and lets his feet hang while brushing, and then uses those monkey toes on the cupboard door for spitting.

He has also decided that he does not need to wait for us to put on his gym shoes. Mostly he had been wearing Crocs, and those were easy on/off. Now that he wants to wear his gym shoes with laces, he will dig through the very large box of shoes (even I can never find my shoes in that thing!), find his shoes, and then jam them on his feet pre-tied. He grunts and groans a bit, with the occasional Owwww as he jams them on there, but he gets it done. I have to give him an A for effort.

And as much as I know this can be an excellent personality trait, there are times that I wish he wasn't quite so ready to help himself. Case in point: I passed him in the kitchen the other day, and he was eating a banana. I stopped to wonder if Jim had given him the banana, because I was sure I had left it way back on the high counter. Then as Owen passed by I got a glimpse of his backside, and what do I see but the kitchen knife I had used to cut the banana that morning, sticking out of his back pocket. Like, while he was scaling the countertops he stopped long enough to think Hmmm...this could be useful later, and just stuck it right into that teeny tiny little pocket. Funny, since I've never seen him stick anything else in his back pocket. I guess a kitchen knife just seemed like the thing to stick in there.

I tell you, I won't be surprised if next week he appears at our bedside in the morning, fully dressed, with breakfast eaten, and the car keys in his hands, ready to go for a spin. So far, however, he has NOT gotten out of the crib by himself. He can get into the crib from the outside. He can get into his booster seat at the table by climbing up the chair. And yet he doesn't get out of the crib. I figure he's either biding his time to spring it on us at the most opportune moment, or he is sneaking out at night and doing what he wants and sneaking back in without us knowing. And maybe ignorance is bliss.

Baryshnikov-Ovechkin and the Lady Slugger

Have I mentioned before how much Owen loves hockey? Well, he does. He seems to love all sports, but I have to say hockey is his favorite so far even though he has not been skating yet. Liam liked hockey a lot too, when he was playing in the yard, but then he just never took to the skating. So we'll see how it goes with Owen. I have noticed him lately playing hockey in the yard on his tippy toes. At first I thought it was a little odd, and I even wondered if I should be worried. Then I realized what a perfect mimic our little man is. He is pretending to skate! Sometimes he'll even make the sshhhh sssshhh ssshhh sound of the skates on ice. I don't think Jim believed me that the tiptoe behavior was skating, so I asked Owen to skate for Daddy and sure enough, he ran around on the tips of his toes. So, while we most likely have a hocky player on our hands, I am not ruling out the ballet (or figure skating, for that matter) for this boy either.

Then there is little Miss Natalie and her t-ball trial. She only had two Saturdays of the YMCA Intro To T-ball, because it was rained out one day and we skipped it to go to the zoo this weekend. She was lukewarm on it anyway, because she was one of only two girls in the group. Also, we lost a ball down a storm drain and you would think she was scarred for life from the trauma. I was the one who took her to play (we asked whether she wanted Daddy or me, and she chose me- silly girl - I was an awful softball player as a child). So I'm taking full credit now for my brilliant coaching tactics (hey, I have to hear about Jim's coaching skills all the time) that appear to have actually generated some interest in the sport. First, I told her when she throws me the ball to picture that I'm Owen and I've just made her very mad. She threw hard. Same scenario with the hitting. Then I also told her that she could whack the ball harder than any of those boys. Now that the Y program is over, I've heard her say several times "I can whack the ball harder than the boys, right Mom?" as she practices (of her own accord, no less) hitting it off the tee. So now I wonder how Jim will feel about coaching girls...
I leave you with a few video clips for fun.

It's That Time Again!

Baseball time, that is. The boys are back, and they are looking good. And kudos to Coach Jim for picking the awesome uniforms.
Saturday- it's ON!

Treasure Hunting

We tried something new over Spring Break that was a big hit with the older kids. It's called Geocaching (as in http://www.geocaching.com/) and is basically a treasure hunt via GPS. In our case, we used the iPhone, and we were able to locate a hidden cache that was about .10 of a mile from our house. Who knew that there are people out there hiding things everywhere? Liam was very excited to find that out. It's all for the thrill of the hunt, because the "treasure" is just some odds and ends of little junk, or at least the one we found was. But it was definitely treasure to the 6 and 4 yr olds. Our find was considered to be an easy one in terms of difficulty, and I would hate to look for a difficult one. Liam was the one who finally found it, hidden around a light post, but under a piece that could move up and down (the boxy thing on top of the concrete). I would NEVER have thought to look there. I guess it takes the open mind of a 6 yr old. It was a good time. For future planning, we should probably take the monkey backpack w/ leash for Owen...for him, treasure hunting is more like treasure sprinting. And we will make Jim look at the GPS before he starts driving to lessen the stress-inducing Which way do I turn?? Will someone tell me which way I need to turn before I get to the light please?!?

The other big Spring Break effort was planting (mostly) the garden. It looked so nice and promising. Then about 3 days later, we got 5 1/2 inches of snow. Oops. We'll see what lives. The kids had fun planting. Well, Liam and Natalie had fun. We did it during Owen's nap. Yes, I know the garden was supposed to be a learning experience for all, but I made the executive decision that Owen's strength lies more in the watering than the planting.... Oh, and in case you were wondering, we have jalapeno peppers, sweet banana peppers, hot banana peppers, hot green bell peppers, and one tomato plant (for diversity, you know). And of course a field of wild flowers to attract butterflies for Natalie. "Field" being relative to a 6 x 3 plot.

We didn't try to reach any big milestones like last Spring Break (shoe tying and breaking the binky habit - gosh it seems longer than a year ago we did that!). But I did take time to acknowledge the progress we've made. Liam is such a great helper now with stroller pushing, and running to help me with things when I've got my hands full. He helped scout out a highchair at the mall food court, and went to fetch it all by himself while I sat with the other two. So helpful! Natalie has also been a big help opening doors for the stroller, and picking out her own outfits, even refusing any help with buttons. Owen has been using the potty quite regularly, at least for #1, and almost stayed dry all day today without me even thinking much about it. It's all good.

Luck of the Irish-Canadian-American-Russians To You!

Hole In His Head

Well, it's official - the Tooth Fairy is making her first visit tonight. Liam went to the dentist and had that stubborn little baby tooth removed. The one that didn't want to let go, even though the big tooth was standing right behind it saying Uh, excuse me, I'm here now and you can go.

To say Liam was excited would be a bit of an understatement. I'm not entirely sure how much can be attributed to excitement and how much to the "happy gas" that they gave him before they pulled it, but within 20 minutes of coming home he had: Built a bed out of Legos for his tooth to rest in (no lie), weighed his tooth on the bathroom scale (no, it doesn't weigh a pound, in case you were wondering), followed everyone in the house around asking "Do you want to see my tooth?", asked if he could show everyone in his class his tooth after Spring Break is over (I thought I was being smart having it done when he was out of school, but it was apparently bad timing when you want to share with everyone), took impromptu video (on my camera) of his own foot, complete with narrative, and made up silly questions like "Wouldn't it be funny if a tooth was called a meteor and a meteor was called a tooth?" OK, I'm thinking at least the last two things were related to the happy gas. Nevertheless, the boy was HAPPY. And it didn't hurt. Hurrah!

Apologies in advance if the up-close and personal teeth pictures are too graphic. I don't necessarily like looking in other people's mouths (as evidenced by the fact that I didn't spot the second tooth in Liam's mouth...). So I put the pictures at the end of the post and you can stop looking now if you don't want to see it. But he is SO excited, I must document it for posterity.

Before:

and After:

Ahhh Spring

No, don't help me, Mom - I'm going all the way to the top and then I'll just jump right over to the playset. Easy!

Dancing the happy garden dance.

A dirt box is so much cooler than a sand box!

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Soooo glad that we are able to get outside a bit now. Even though Natalie and Owen are 100 times better together than they were six months ago, they are still siblings, you know. Sometimes I just have to pack them in the car and take them to the park if they are fighting like cats and dogs. At the park I don't have to worry about them killing each other - only about them (ok..him) killing himself by doing gymnastics moves at the top of the slide (why, why, why do they put a bar at the top of the slide that just screams "swing on me like a crazy monkey, just like you do at gymnastics") or sliding down tall slides on his back, head first.

The other exciting Springtime activity is that we have prepared a new little garden space. Have to say, a 6 x 3 plot sounded bigger than it really is. Still...I don't want to get too ambitious for our first foray into gardening. And Day One of having the plot makes me question the wisdom of a garden at all. Both of the littlest ones were ecstatic, and dug in the dirt with shovels (hard, metal shovels...did I mention the hard, metal part) like crazy. Of course that led to flinging dirt like crazy. That led to "He's digging in MY dirt and throwing it on me! Get him awaaaay!!!" Why did gardening sound so relaxing last Fall? And HOW am I going to convince Owen that we can't dig in the dirt after seeds are planted? I may have to just go with pre-grown small plants that he can see. He wouldn't dig those up, would he? No, surely not. Hmmmm. Anyway, it will all be worth it when we have a bucket full of hot peppers. Since that is the only vegetable that Jim will eat from the garden, veggie-phobe that he is. I wonder how many hot peppers a 6x3 plot can produce?

Milestones

Oh, no! The wee boy must have grown just enough. He can officially open all the doors in the house on his own. Ugh. I rather enjoyed being able to shut a door and know he couldn't get in/out. And we all had some good laughs when, during sibling chases, he would run into our bedroom and slam the door to hide, then a minute later we would hear him yelling for help because he couldn't get out. (He also did this in the kitchen pantry several times). And we would all chuckle and say "You go let him out." "No YOU go let him out." Good times. The laugh was on us this week when he was stuck in the room and when we didn't jump up to let him out, he opened the door himself and stood there with a grin from ear to ear. I foresee much more child-proofing to be done this weekend. We do have those doorknob protector things that prevent kids from turning a knob. We half-heartedly used them for Liam and Natalie, but I think perhaps they will be used more purposefully now.

The other milestone is that two days in a row, Owen asked to use the potty, and then sat on it and tinkled. Of course I made such a big fuss about it that I may have scared him. He wouldn't really look at me, and he didn't smile at all. I think he is a little embarrassed by the whole idea. I have not been pushing this milestone in the least. After exerting so much effort trying to start early with the other two, I was really not in the least worried if this one wasn't trained until Kindergarten. I finally realized (took me a while - I'm a little slow) that it is actually a lot easier with diapers, especially when you are in the car, or restaurant, or anywhere other than standing in your restroom at home. So lately when Owen has asked to use the potty (OK, before you judge, you should know it has usually been in a restaurant when he sees the big kids leaving the table to go, or before bed when he's trying to delay), I'll say "Oh, you can just go in your diaper - you don't need to use the potty!!" But I'll celebrate the milestone anyway, even though I know it means more work is around the corner. Bravo Owen!

Cuteness

I've been Krogering...

Note to self: Stickers go ON the hair much more easily than they come OUT of the hair.

Owen is quite a good little grocery helper these days, by the way. He takes it seriously - thus, the serious look. He loves to help me put things away and carry bags in from the car. Whenever he carries something heavy he says "mushels, mushels", as in, you know, "muscles muscles, I have big muscles."

And the Thomas backpack is becoming more of a common fixture on his back these days. He stuffs it with all kinds of odds and ends, stuffed animals and Matchbox cars.

And nothing says Spring quite like sparkly pink flower flip-flops!

Hi!!

Real Books

Liam has a new discovery that has him very excited. As soon as he jumped into the car the other day after school he excitedly told me that he found a new row of books at the school library.
"You know, Mom. It's not the fake books. These are non-fiction! Wait until you see what I got!!"

Like a dagger to my heart, I tell you. The "fake books." Oh, sweet Fiction - he didn't really mean it. Actually, he did. I've never seen him so excited about his books. He had a book about what inventions in the future might be, and about how things work and how things were invented in the past, and also one about the sinking of the Titanic (in all it's gory detail...he excitedly read to me the death count). He is such his father's son. Non-fiction. Yes, I've enjoyed a non-fiction book from time to time...but my vivid memory of elementary school is not being able to wait until I got my hands on the next Black Stallion book in that series. Now that was excitement.

So last night I lugged out my very huge Dictionary that is a little more kid-friendly because it has some color illustrations. It is a cool dictionary. All 15 pounds of it. Liam was in heaven. He carried it around all night. And he even went back and found the other very huge dictionary without pictures. He was happy with that as well.
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And not to be left out - a cute Natalie story. I've realized that she thinks the cat litter box is called the Glitter Box. She laughed and laughed the other day when she thought someone had said Liam was going to use the Glitter Box (no one actually said that, but that is what she heard). She was all "Liam doesn't use the Glitter Box, Tigger does!!"

And I've decided that Glitter Box is a much nicer term for that area in general. So from now on, I'm going to use the Glitter Box instead of the restroom. I can already picture myself surrounded by flowers and sparkles, and all things shiny and beautiful. aaahhh Glitter Box

First Trip Recap Continued

So why am I rehashing our trip one year later? Well, while it was happening it was too hard to write details of my concerns. Now, a year later, I can honestly say that it all worked out wonderfully. And I always love reading stories of happy adoption endings. After our Trip 1, while I was left with 4 months to worry, I searched for stories that involved first child meetings that were less than stellar, yet turned out good in the end. So many of the blogs I read talked about the first trip meetings and how they just knew as soon as they met their child that they would be fine. I saw First Trip pictures of babies that smiled or interacted or engaged in play, and people talked about seeing a spark in their child. We had none of that. I honestly did not meet Owen and just know he would be fine. In all honesty, he had a blank stare, and no visible spark (which is amazing, now that I know him). We had a 4 page checklist of developmental things to look for (given to us by our agency), and we could not check off 90% of it. We never heard him utter a sound (and the translator said she hadn't heard him talk, but she did say she'd seen him smile and interact with other children). We didn't get the chance to see him with his caregivers. He didn't warm up to us. He was an adorable little expressionless stare with long, slow blinks and a slight head twitch. And it still worked out wonderfully. So, maybe this gives some hope to someone else out there with similar worries. Perhaps it doesn't always turn out so well. But sometimes it does.

So back to the next meeting..

The next day we met Owen, he seemed only slightly more lively. When our translator brought him in, she was tickling his feet and we did hear him laugh. That stopped as soon as he was with us, and he became very serious again. We had Cheerios this time and toys that our translator helped us purchase (since we were sans luggage). He very slowly picked up one Cheerio and then set it back down suspiciously even though I noisily gobbled them up and made a show of how good they were. The toys he clutched again, but did not play. He would walk holding onto our hands though, and went down a little slide. Then I picked him up over my head and said Wheee, and for the tiniest split second we saw a smile! It was gone as soon as he came down to our level, and it was like it never happened. I would wonder later whether it was an actual smile or a grimace of fear. But when we talked about it later, Jim and I both would say that even though it was just for a split second, that smile seemed to change his entire face. Now, I know that it was true. He is adorable when serious, but OH when he smiles. His entire face really changes and the smile could stop a truck. Beautiful. So that was about it for our good times though. We walked around a little and lifted him over our heads. Then the slow blinks started again, and we knew he was sleepy again. This time they did allow us to walk back to the baby room and hand him back to a caregiver. I tried to take it all in, and yet I could not tell you now a thing about the room or the caregivers except that the babies were cute and crowded around the little fenced in area looking at us with curiosity. Jim swears that Owen had a real smile when his caregiver took him, but I never saw it.

We didn't hesitate to sign the papers after that, saying that we definitely wanted to become Owen's parents. Still, we were left with 4 months to worry until we saw him again. I suppose I should have contacted our Int'l Adoption doctor who had evaluated his referral information and talked to her about our worries, and shared our video. But I think we both knew that no amount of analysis would change the fact that we would never know what this baby was like until he was home. We could ask more questions, and never be sure the answers were correct. Everything would be a guess until he was in a home environment and felt more comfortable with us. Nothing seemed majorly out of whack with motor skills, and our translator and the orphanage Director said he was a good boy. And so he is.

Now I wonder - why didn't they tell us he was wonderful, incredible, strong, smart, funny, charming?!? Because he is. Surely they knew that. It seems so obvious to us now. I can only look back on it now and thank God that I did not think too hard about the unknowns.

Video of First Meeting