My first kiss :-)

I got my first kiss from Nathan today.  Best Christmas present of the year! (Sorry guys, I love the other presents I got too!)  He just came up to me after opening his presents and gave me this quick kiss on the cheek.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect today.  Too much excitement and too many new things SHOULD have brought out the 'wild man' in Nathan, but didn't.  We had a really good, calm, happy day. I was a little worried this morning when I came down and the kids said he was acting kind of grumpy and sad and didn't smile when he opened his stocking ( I managed to sleep through that somehow- must be the monstrous amount of sleep deprivation I've suffered for the last 3 weeks!)  Anyway, turns out his teeth were bothering him.  I hope we make it to January 11 when he gets 2 extractions, a thorough dental cleaning, and 8 fillings, all under general anesthesia.

Things keep improving with our little guy, and with our other kids too.  I think the hardest thing for me about adopting a child is the effect it has short term on the kids already in the home.  Every time we have added a child to our family, at least one child has been majorly impacted.  This time, I have been pleasantly surprised that most of the kids seem to be doing pretty well with their new brother, most of the time.  But a couple are still struggling, and it's hard to watch sometimes.  I know they will get through this time and we will reach 'the new normal' but I just wish we would get there tomorrow!

I think our social worker compared adoption to a chandelier.  The chandelier is the whole family, with each little dangly thing one of the family members.  When a new child enters the family, it's as if someone has bumped into the chandelier.  The whole thing rocks and sways, and so does each little dangly thing.  Gradually, the chandelier and it's individual pieces stop swinging and a new equilibrium has been established.  Our chandelier is swinging a little less each day.

Sorry, no Christmas pics yet!  Maybe tomorrow.  Merry Christmas!

Wo ai Mama!

"I love Mama."  That's what I heard Nathan say at dinner tonight while he was chatting with Jacob (or should I say, chatting AT Jacob in Chinese.  I have no idea what else he was talking about, but I did catch that sentence.  I think I will choose to remember this the next time he acts like an ornery toddler. 

OK, so we TRIED...

to get that perfect Christmas photo.

I am guessing that the Auburn fans will not like this one.  Sorry, cousins Michael, Keith, and Scott, if you are reading this.  Or my neighbors, the Moores.

                                                Removing the old folks improves the photo a little.

 

Sorry I haven't posted lately.  Way too much going on.  I feel like whining a bit, so I think I'll go ahead and get it over with.  Today alone, we lost Josiah's much-loved speech pathologist to another school, I got the blue screen of death on the last sort-of functioning desktop in the house, and our fairly new and expensive basketball hoop blew over in the wind and the backboard cracked and the rim bent...it's basically totalled. Why, oh why, did I not wheel it into the garage?

We continue to have ups and downs with Nathan, mostly stuff that is oh-so-typical with older adopted kids, but still trying, especially in the middle of holiday season, school and sports events, etc.  Sunday, I COULD NOT get him out the door to go to church.  Marc was with Drew at a basketball game, and Nathan literally refused to get dressed and go in the car.  I knew that if I forced him to go, I would really pay for it while I was there, and I was just too exhausted and beaten down to go there.  What would be the point?  I understand his refusal to go- he hates riding in the car and gets carsick, and once there, he has no idea what's going on anyway.  It's just one big confusing event to him. 

I still haven't been able to attend any of Drew's basketball games, either his travel team or his school team's games yet.  Both teams are 2-0 so far.  I really like to watch him play.  Noah has only had one game so far, which I missed. I did get to see Jacob's first game of the season and  Grace's debut basketball game.  She was awesome for a little pipsqueak!  She scored 10 points and her team won, 24-2, I think.  Jacob's team did not fare quite so well...next time.

We are going to enroll Nathan in school come the new year.  Somehow, my principal managed to get it approved that he would just attend ELL classes for 2 hours a day.  I think this will be ideal at first.  If he does well, we can gradually lengthen his day.  I am hoping being there will motivate him to start speaking English.  He is still not using any English.  I mean, virtually NONE.  He still chatters away in Chinese all day long, doesn't even use words like 'yes' and 'no' in English yet.  He will say "Hello" in English.  He can't count to 5 in English yet, despite working on it every day.  He still doesn't know the 4 colors in the game UNO that we have now been playing for 5 weeks.  I am honestly not sure if he knows the names of his siblings yet, except Grace, Josiah, and Jacob.  Yet, we see he is quite capable in other ways.  He can look at a diagram for the Chinese equivalent of a bionicle and put the thing together without help.  Today, in the kitchen, he was helping me clean up and he put all the vegetable scraps in the outer leaf of a cabbage I had sitting there and carried it to the trash.  Very tidy!  I have been able to do very small amounts of reading with him, working on writing his name, etc, but he is not interested in these things and can't stay focused on these types of activities for more than about 5 minutes.  One thing he does like are these Usborne Search and Find books.  I have seen him spend as much as an hour hunting for items in these books.  He's getting another one for Christmas!  My days at home with him are peaceful for the most part- he does quite well when it's just the two of us, or when Josiah is here after he gets home from kindergarten.  Today, the two of them were wrestling and laughing for a long time.  No one cried, got mad,  or got hurt! 

He is quite the 'dizzy performer' when in new situations (that's for all you folks reading 'Parenting your Internationally Adopted Child').  I have yet to see him really shut down, he just revs up.  We have really tried lying low and staying home most of the time, and this really does help.  Most days I don't take him anywhere (not that this has been a problem since it's like 15 degrees outside and windy!) Pretty much every thing outside the home we have gone to has clearly stressed him, as evidenced by his 'dizzy performing' in public.  Tonight we had a school holiday program and he had a lot of trouble controlling his behavior, but we got through it. 

He has patted several people (like the eye doctor and the dentist) on their stomachs as if to say, "Whoa, what the heck is this?"  The girth of many Americans really seems to fascinate him.  Yikes.  It's hard to not be totally MORTIFIED when this happens!

My running has really taken a backseat lately, and it's killing me!  I can still get out and do 5 miles but it's not as easy as it was before we left for China, and I can't believe I'm only getting out 2 or 3 days a week.  I have got to make the time somehow, for my own sanity, but there are only so many daylight hours to be had and I just can't leave Nathan in the care of my teen girls for very long at all, certainly not long enough to go out and train properly.

OK, I'm done whining for today!