Tag Archives: Russian adoption

Yeah… About That Paleo Thing

13 Thursday Dec 2012

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It has been thirteen harrowing days since we embarked on our Paleo diet, and I think I owe an update.
Since November 30, We the Parents have not had any sugar, grain, or dairy.  Well, almost.  Our ancient ancestors had some Mexican hunter and gatherer friends- who had hunted and gathered their way north.  They weren’t actually Mexicans, of course, since Mexico hadn’t been invented yet.  But they had already mastered cheese dip, and so my ancestors made a weekly trip (some would call it a pilgrimage) to get some pre-Mexican cheese dip.  We, of course, have to keep up that tradition. It’s in our DNA.
Anyway, the past thirteen days have been great.  It has gone very well.  For the adults, we feel better.  I’ve lost 10 pounds.  I can think clearly.  I can look at a plate of cookies and just walk on by.  Remember, freedom isn’t the ability to do whatever we feel like doing.  Many an alcoholic, and sugar-holic (and, yes, Dew-aholic…there’s no freedom there for me yet) have fallen into that trap.  Freedom is the ability to not do things that cause us harm.  So I am FREE when I am not compulsively required (by the constraints of my sugar-intoxicated brain) to do certain things.  Like eat a plate of Christmas cookies just because they exist.
I have had a wonderful 13 days.  I hope to continue this.
Now for the children. After the initial anger and not getting Our Daily Ration of two bowls of Lucky Charms, the kids are fine.  Seriously, they’ll eat whatever we put in front of them. (Except one).  So their transition wasn’t too bad.  They aren’t really on the same diet as us (except one), so they get grains and a little (make that a LITTLE) sugar.  They also get lots of stuff like fruit and fresh vegetables. They are doing just fine.
Now, for the other one. How is he doing?  Well, we (the parents) have  a way of not actually trying one thing at a time.  We usually go and try 2 or 3 or 11 changes all at once, so when something helps we aren’t quite sure what was behind it.  We took him to the chiropractor, and we did the diet, and we changed medicine around.  And we have, for the first time since that day back in September 2010… a pretty normal child.  A child who plays with siblings.  A child who cries when sad.  A child who does not threaten to kill us and take out all our blood.  Everyday.
We have tried Many Things (Occupational Therapy, Medicine, Eating Special Cheese, Trying to Go to Special Preschool, Going to See the Psychiatrist, Behavior Therapy, Music Therapy…I’m sure there’s more I have forgotten). And everything has helped…um, not much. There have been certain things that have been more helpful than others, but it has been a difficult 2 years. But. For the last week, he has woken up with an alarm clock, stopped spitting at random (well, less so), responds to threat appropriately, garnered calls from school about how good things are. Really, we finally have four children, rather than 3 children and that little boy living with us. Life is different.
It isn’t perfect. Its not like the planets haven’t aligned…more… they have sort of organized themselves. But we like this a lot. We just can’t help thinking, is this real? Did I just scold Sam and Nate for roaming the room while Ben sat in his chair the entire meal? Did I just ask him to put his coat away with a response of “Yes Sir” rather than being screamed at? (Note-that’s still an exception, but up until now that-no hyperbole here- never happened.) Yeah. I like this.

That being said, I’m looking forward to the Christmas season. I get sugar at (and only AT) Christmas parties. Its the allowance I’ve given myself (apart from dew and homemade cappuccino). I’ll update again soon.

Updates to Our Blog

07 Saturday Apr 2012

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If you have been readers of our blog for awhile, you’ll notice that there are some changes.  First of all, there is a new website.  Second of all, there is actually a post. (Actually, that may be the first thing you noticed).

We got through our adoption, and I realized that my blog was really pretty much about adoption.  So no more posts were coming.  But what we have come to realize is that life moves on after adoption.  Life happens and lots of it.  So we are going to be blogging more about our family.  And by we, I mean that this will be a family blog.  I will blog, and my sweetheart will blog… when time and laundry allow.

We will post our funny pictures, we will tell you what’s happening in our lives, and we will tell you about something that is sort of a dark spot in our adoption and our lives after adoption… something that we didn’t quite expect even though we knew things like this may arise.  That something went on for several months, mainly in despair.  But we finally got a name for it… Attachment Disorder.

Two of our four children are adopted, and one of those is just different.  We will never discuss his background-where he came from, or some of the issues as to why he has this diagnosis.  But we will discuss how we have dealt with it, because of two reasons:

  1. It feels like a hopeless endeavor.  Living with a child who hates you and fights you and wipes off every. single. kiss. you give is beyond frustrating.  Wondering if there is a problem with you, your child, both of you??? What???  Especially when there are all sorts of happy adoptions happening all around you.
  2. We have been told by everyone we go to for help (and our list continues to grow) repeatedly that we are far ahead of most parents at this stage, that we are doing the right things, that we were the perfect parents for him because of our ability to deal with the situations, and that we should start a class to help others.  Honestly, we don’t see that.  We see ourselves in the trenches, but with it being told to us by those who would be the ones who would know… we have to conclude there is something to it.  So we want to help with strategies and suggestions, and help.

So life is happy.  Life moves on.  Life is much more difficult than it was before, and we don’t do all the things we had thought we would be doing.  We haven’t had a vacation yet (although we have been camping often), although we are gearing up for one this summer. (Along with lots of camping).

But we have never tried to pretend that life is all sunshine and rainbows.  It never is.  But we know that we are doing this NOT for us, but for God. We do this because God told us to do it.  Plain and simple.  So no matter how difficult it becomes, or how boring it becomes, or how enjoyable it becomes, we must remember that it is all for His name.

We close with some happy pictures.  Because even though sometimes it rains, we are just like everyone else and tend not to take pictures during those times.  But we totally love the happy.

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Urgent Prayer Requests and Updates

10 Saturday Apr 2010

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Okay, update on the process, and the uncertainties.

First off, read this article on just how thoughtless and selfish people can be.  How could you just send a child back?  What adult fears a seven year old?  It isn’t possible that they couldn’t have known this was a possibility.  You can’t give back an adopted child any more than you could give back a biological child. 

So what this means, I just don’t know yet.   Russia’s foreign minister has called for the suspension of all US adoptions.  That would be an extremely bad for our family.  We’ve drained finances.  Pooled resources.  We’ve jumped through every hoop they’ve asked.  Flown 20,000 miles.  Spent a week apart from our children.  And the worst of the worst, we’ve promised two boys in orphanages that we would come back for them.

So pray for us, pray for the boys, pray for the wisdom of those making the decisions, pray for those who are worried both in the US and Russia that their livelihoods are at stake, pray for those who sent their unaccompanied seven-year-old child to another country.  I suspect they have more pending problems than an unruly child.

What we do know is that God is in control.  He is sovereign over kings and leaders.  He is sovereign over adoptions, too. 

As for where we are in the process, at this point we are going to continue as we have been.  We have everything completed except mailing one letter and the second part of our psychiatric evaluation.  Yes.  In six days we will have every document sent that we need to request a court day.  Six days. 

As for the new round of paperwork, it was really overwhelming at first. I’m sort of surprised they didn’t want to know the dimensions of individual rooms of my house.  Oh wait… they did!

The thing about the new portion of paperwork is not that we had more paperwork to do, but that we had already done most of it.  And had it notorized. This year. 

Some things we got to do were: have the children already in the house have a medical exam, give information about our finances (already done once), have a criminal background check (already done three times- with the city and two states), information about our house (including a copy of the deed), letter from our employers stating that we are employed (already done), and psychiatric evaluations (which, I admit, we hadn’t done yet).

We are gettinIMG_0559g a bedroom ready!  We got Erin moved downstairs so the boys can have her old room- the biggest one. We are almost finished painting it.  Each wall is a different color.  It is going to be the most awesom est room ever.  We are going to paint Sam’s room and give his old bed to one of the boys and give my old futon to him.  So that means the only furniture we have to get is one toddler bed and one (or two!) chest of drawers.  So if you know anyone who has a chest of drawers who wants to get rid of it (and, you know, actually know me outside of the blog…) then let me know. 

Other prayer requests are that all of the paperwork gets filled out correctly and quickly.  For finances to work out-we still don’t know where all of the money is going to come from, but it has all worked out so far and trust God that it will continue to work out.  For all of our children- for the adjustments our first two will have to make and for the changes coming to the two in Russia right now. 

We are not giving up hope.