Lots of pics and updates

Lots has been going on - of particular note is how insanely cute E and L are!  :)  Lately B has been putting little E on Z's outgrown scooter in the driveway and it is hysterical.  E loves it and the cuteness almost takes my breath away!

This one was on Mother's Day; it was his first ride on the scooter.  I actually have some video of it but my stupid phone has turned the video sideways even though I shot it with the phone upright, so I'm not going to post it.  If I ever figure out how to edit that I'll put it up.  Crazy cute!!

Then last night I took the two older girls to their church activity and B sent me the two pics below while I was gone.  E is dressed for bed but apparently wasn't interested in actually going.  And you can tell from the blur on ZP that he - as always - couldn't hold still!  ;)

It's been a pretty crazy time for us this whole year.  In addition to E getting busier and busier, L is a fun little firecracker and ZP has begun homeschooling with our other kids.  We recently had to buy B his second car in a year, and for the first time in 13 years of marriage we finally know the bliss of a car payment.  *sigh*  Our family truckster needed a big overhaul that cost an arm and a leg, and then about six weeks later the a/c went out in it and that cost the other arm and leg.  ;)  BUT here in the South we don't mess around with no a/c in the truckster when there are kiddos that have to sit in the third row seats and there are no windows back there.  If there were windows I might have really not gotten the a/c fixed, but with no windows back there and extreme Southern heat, biting the bullet and fixing the a/c seemed like the prudent - if painful - thing to do.

A had to have three teeth extracted by an oral surgeon due to them being fused to the bone, so that was fun.  None of our kids but S has needed any kind of dental work (S had one cavity), and A has had braces and headgear for less than a year.  I was a bit nervous about her being put out, but she did great.  I would put the pics of her right after she woke up here but I think she'd kill me.  ;)  She was kinda silly - she had gauze rolls sticking out of both sides of her mouth and kept pinching her bottom lip between her fingers.  She tried to talk but couldn't, so she motioned for me to give her my phone so she could use the keypad; but she didn't have enough motor control to use the tiny keypad, so I got the iPad out and she managed that well enough for me to figure out what she was trying to say.  Which was, "Where is my mouth? I can't find it."  LOL  She was a trooper, she never complained (she was actually blessed to have very little pain - never needed the Rx meds) and has healed very quickly.  AND, great news - two of her adult molars are already visible and on their way in.  

Tomorrow we have a big day - lots of running.  Z has a birthday party not too far away at a park the kids love, and then S is having her birthday party too.  Can't believe S is going to be NINE this weekend!  We are leaving in a couple of weeks for the homeschool conference, and then we'll be home a short time and then off again for a couple of weeks to visit some of our northern kin.  We should get back down here just in time for the super-sweltering heat to kick in.  ;)

I'll finish with a few more pics of the kids; the bottom three were taken by a very dear friend of mine who is quite obviously a very talented photographer.  Cheers!  :)

ZP's Big Day Out

A couple of months ago I promised a post devoted to ZP, and here it finally is.  

Last month my friend K and I took our Ukrainian kids to an FAS clinic in Atlanta.  It was quite a day.  Where we live, there is no one in the medical or psych or school community who really understands FAS, so we have some big hopes for the packet that we are supposed to get from them in another week or so.  One of the things that is so difficult about trying to get various kinds of help for issues pertaining to FAS is that there are aspects of it that look like other things - i.e. hyperactivity and lack of attention look a lot like ADHD, but they're not ADHD in a child with FAS.  Some parts of the clinic trip were a little silly, and some were a little disturbing, but overall we both feel like it was worth it and we are hoping that our packet of stuff will help us when trying to obtain services or treatments of various kinds at our pediatrician, neurologist, etc.  K was able to get an official diagnosis of FAS for her kiddo, which is going to come in really helpful in the future.  We already had a dx - it's actually in our court documents from Ukraine, which as I understand it means that ZP's mother actually admitted to heavy alcohol consumption during her pregnancy.  I think that is the only way they'll actually document it over there.  

Here's a pic of the two of them when we first arrived; EM is seven months younger than ZP:

Probably the most interesting part of the visit was with the geneticist.  He did a full physical exam, including measurements of certain features and whatnot, as well as asking the kids certain questions and requesting that they perform some different tasks that demonstrate either cognitive ability or various motor skills, etc.  Each thing was noted on a chart of characteristics of FAS, and then the whole thing is scored.  When he was done with ZP's exam, he told me that a score of 10 is considered "normal," while between 1o and 15 is considered probable FAS, and 15 and above is considered definitive FAS.  ZP scored a 26.  :(  This was of course no surprise to me - we knew that ZP had FAS before we traveled to Ukraine.  The severity of his FAS, however, has been shocking and very hard for us to come to grips with.  One thing that we also learned at the clinic that has been helpful but also pretty hard is a projected range for ZP's mental age in adulthood: 5-6.  There is some literature that they gave us that has some charts in it (one of them is the differences between ADHD and FAS, which will be GREAT to have!), and one of the charts gives a  projection of mental age based on IQ.  It is right-on for where he is now (mental age of 2-3), and has been compiled with a ton of data from people with FAS, and we do feel like it's realistic.  But it's not a very happy reality.  You just can't help but wonder who ZP could have been if his mother hadn't drowned his opportunities in vodka.

One really sad thing that happened while we were at the clinic was that there was a couple there, with their infant son and his foster mom, who got a diagnosis of FAS that day.  The mom was really upset, as you might imagine, and the whole thing was just very sad.  Mom was crying and saying it is all her fault, and, well... You don't want to judge, but there just really aren't any two ways around this one.  I'm sure she never intended to harm her baby, but certainly the decision to drink while pregnant was hers alone.  So sad; baby boy was obviously small, had a feeding tube in his nose, a weak cry, etc.  Fetal alcohol syndrome is a curious thing, and obviously genetics plays a role.  I know people whose moms drank - and drank a lot - back in the day (you know, when medical docs advocated smoking cigarettes for good health - oh, those infallible medical professionals, eh?) and their kids are fine.  And I'm talking family here, not the neighbors down the street; I know the mom drank regularly while pregnant, and I know the kids do NOT have FAS.  Kind of like how not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer.  There have been studies done on twins where the effect on each baby has not been the same, even though obviously both were being baked in an alcohol-steeped oven.  Before we adopted ZP, I had even read of fraternal twins being born with one typical and one having FAS; I'm not so sure about this, however, because a diagnosis of FAS can be hard to obtain and the range of effect is so wide.  There are adults with FAS who post on the FAS support groups sometimes, and they can write well and to read what they say you'd never know they have FAS (other than that is what they're posting about).  Before we adopted ZP, I read all kinds of information about FAS being the number one cause of mental retardation (as a diagnosis) among children, but then everything I read from parents and on those same sites spoke of children having trouble with math, difficulty making friends, poor decision making skills, etc.  

ZP, on the other hand, doesn't know what a friend is.  He plays with L, and they are "friends" in that respect, but he doesn't get that she is a friend or that he should have friends or what the concept is.  In many ways the severity of his disability is a blessing, because due to his lack of understanding he is shielded from much of the heartache of FAS.  He doesn't realize he's different, so he doesn't feel hurt or distressed over his differences.  I once heard a great description of the syndrome as the FAS brain is like a file cabinet with the files all over the floor; the person has the information but whether or not they can find the file is anyone's guess; some days they'll be able to find it, and other days there is simply no chance.  "Files on the floor" is one of the things that we say to each other now to ward off frustration and remind ourselves that ZP's struggles are significant.  There also seems to be a misunderstanding about the potential for improvement for someone with FAS, and I think for those of us who adopt children with FAS it may be even more misunderstood.  There is - rightly so - much made of the myriad ways children suffer in orphanage settings.  There is often not enough food, they are often small for their age, underweight, malnourished, and developmentally behind because of the learning and sensory deprivation of their environment.  Often we see significant improvements in children's size and development once they are "home" from an orphanage; we have definitely seen those improvements in ZP.  He was essentially nonverbal when we adopted him; he wore size 2T clothing at the age of 6, and the best fit in his waist was 12 month size; his tiny feet fit well into shoes that our son Z wore around 18 months.  He was VERY hyper - and by very, I mean it was mentioned by every.single.person. who met him, saw him for evaluations, treated him for anything, by everyone in the ExEd program at school.  Everyone.  He threw things, he shouted, he stimmed; he was WILD.  He had to be told things two or three or four times before he would listen and obey.  And he never, ever slept through the night.  Not once.  Not ever.  And he was NEVER quiet when he woke up.  Never.  

Now, he's been home almost two years; it will be two years on the day in July that L turns 3. He wears size 5T, and his waist size is best fit in 18 months instead of 12.  He can sit for a time, he follows directions pretty well, and he has learned to do things we never thought he would, like ride a bike (with training wheels) and even a three-wheeled scooter.  He has learned to answer yes/no questions, which was a huge help.  He has learned to communicate many of his needs/wants - also very helpful.  But ZP was in a good orphanage; he was well fed, and he was even cared about and well-cared for.  In the two-year-old groupa he was in when we adopted him, they had music and art classes weekly. He has learned to match things, like pics of different modes of transportation, or shapes and colors.  Sometimes he can even independently name shapes and colors.  But not always, because remember, those files are on the floor.  Some things he has not been able to learn in almost two years include answering why/how questions, such as "Why are you crying?"  He cannot count things.  He can recite numbers 1-10 in order, but he cannot correlate a number to an item; if I give him six peanut butter pretzel sandwich crackers for a snack and tell him to count them, he may stop at three or he may count to eights; he points at them (it's more like toward them, really) but only as an imitation of what he's seen done, not because he understands that each item is "one" thing to be counted.  When he was still attending the public school system, they worked with him every day on identifying his name in print.  When we pulled ZP out of the school system to educate him at home with his siblings, his teacher was so kind to send home things of his like the laminated letters of his name so that we could use those at home.  So, for roughly seven months now, ZP has had someone each and every weekday sitting with him and helping him to put the letters of his name in the proper order; he cannot yet do it himself.  He is able to do the Z, and the next letter, and that is usually it.  When asked at the clinic to identify his own name when it was placed with Z's, he chose Z's name (their names are significantly different in length); we tried with L's name, which is very different from ZP's, and he chose wrong then as well.  

I had a sort of sad moment this morning when doing school with L and ZP when it struck me that L, at not quite 3, knows all the letters of the alphabet and most of their corresponding sounds, but ZP does not and he most likely never will.  Most days this is just life, but there are days like today when something hits and sticks, and I can't help but wonder who he would have been and what he could have done if he'd been allowed to grow and develop like he should have.  My cousin asked me a short while ago if ZP wouldn't "get better," and in trying to explain it I came up with this:  Alcohol is a teratogen, just like thalidomide.  Babies born without arms because of thalidomide didn't grow arms later in life, and ZP isn't going to have neural pathways form in his brain now that didn't form in the womb when they should have.  FAS is for life.  

Perhaps hardest, for me, is the fact that it seems likely he will never attach to us.  If you haven't adopted and don't spend any time in adoptive or special needs circles, you may not be familiar with terms like bonding and attachment, but they are a big focus of life as an adoptive parent.  ZP has a very - and I mean VERY - hard time looking anyone in the eye.  It is very nearly impossible for him to do (as a totally separate issue from his strabismus).  B remarked once after E was born that it is amazing how E's instinct as a tiny new baby was to seek eye contact (as it's been with all five of our babies), but for ZP it is almost the opposite.  After almost two years, he doesn't seek us out over anyone else, or recognize that we should hold a different level of significance for him than strangers.  Last week at a church event, he went up to two different women he doesn't know and asked to sit on their laps.  Sounds cute, but think about it: would you want your child walking up to people he or she doesn't know and asking to sit on their laps?  Dangerous!  This is a behavior that is often seen in children who've lived in orphanages, but generally after two years they've learned who their family is and some more appropriate behaviors.  We have to keep a close eye on him at the park or he goes up to strangers and gets into their bags, or asks for their food.  Zero boundaries in his mind, nothing to encourage him to choose us over strangers, other than familiarity.  I never realized before we adopted ZP how much I get from my babies.  Even as babies, they seek eye contact, they hug you, they reach for you, they want you, and they want only you.  But ZP would not mind going home with anyone; he is not distressed at all to leave us to go anywhere or with anyone.  It just is sad, and hard.  I'm reminded of needing to experience hardship to know joy, and I feel like it is sad for him as well, because he'll never know the joy that loving someone brings.

ANYway, enough of all that.  Here are a couple more pics from our big day out.

Their first date! ;)  "Welcome to Moe's!"  Those were the best Homewreckers we've ever had - we didn't get to eat til 3:00, hadn't eaten since about 6:30am, so we were reallllly hungry!  

We had to go to Ikea and salivate over all the stuff we'd buy if we had any money.  Lol

ZP was wound.up. at Ikea.  We had to put EM in charge of keeping him tethered, which is pretty hilarious if you know EM.  :p

Overall both of the kids behaved really well on this trip.  It was a really long day that involved several hours in the car, and being examined by doctors and asked a lot of questions and put through a lot of paces, along with a bunch of totally new experiences.  They really had a good day - K and I were most pleasantly surprised!  :)

Pexagons

I have been meaning to do a blog post for a few weeks now and time has just gotten away from me.  Ideally I'll be doing one on Sunday afternoons, but we'll see...  ;)  Right now is crunch time for the volunteer work I do editing for an awesome home education resource for our upcoming conference, so this isn't really a good time either but I'm taking a short break to update on the kids since that's the point of this blog anyway.

E has started pulling up to standing all the time and cruising his way around his crib and playpen.  He still doesn't crawl, he just guts it out Army style.  He's just gotten two more teeth and is sleeping a good 7-8 hours at a stretch at night; my only problem is that I am a night owl and I don't go to bed early enough to be ready to greet the day when he wakes all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30am.  Working on it though!  ;) I am looking forward to nicer weather - warmer and not rainy! - so I can get out in the mornings and walk again.  The elliptical is a useful tool but I don't love it.  B and I have talked about going out to run together in the mornings... but that is probably just talk, since he gets up earlier than I even want to think about, lol.  But back to our youngest... he has begun to talk a little bit, or at least we think so - when the kids tell him to say "mama" he will.  He's also been signing "more," which the kids also love.  The older three are really so attentive to the littles, it warms my heart.  :)  L was sick yesterday, and when she was feeling better but still fussy and I had to put her down, she wanted S, which I just loved.  So cute and sweet to see the way S takes care of L - cuter still because L is like S's "mini-me" and they are so alike.  The age gap between them is six years, but the resemblances in both personality/behavior and looks are fun to see.

This pic is from last summer, but I think it illustrates nicely the "mini-me" factor between these two!  

L's super-cuteness lately includes her saying "he's" rather than his, and it.is.adorable!!  "Is E sittin' in he's high chair?"  She says her when it's about a female, but for males it's "he's" and I love it.  We also got a clock puzzle recently that has each of the numbers going around the clock on a shape that is removable.  I guess they had to get pretty creative with the shapes to come up with 12 different ones, and they thoughtfully provided a list on the back.  (No one but B would actually remember 'parallelogram' after all this time, lol!)  There are some crazy ones though - there is one that has four bubbled parts and it lists it as a quatrefoil; L says it's a butterfly, which is far more descriptive.  :)  But my favorite has been her bringing me the shapes, which apparently her siblings have been teaching her, and she holds up the one with the 6 on it and says, "This is a pexagon," in her sweet little voice and it is SO cute.  I have forbidden everyone to tell her to say hexagon; the cutie mispronunciation stage is never long enough.

New post on our newest homeschool adventure soon - we recently pulled ZP out of the public school system and he's joined his siblings as a home-educated kid, which definitely deserves an update!  Here are a few pics til then:

This is E in the nursery at our homeschool co-op.  Since I have three kids in the nursery (ZP, L, and E) that is where I help out.  ;)

Some L cuteness; she's holding her baby and wearing her new PJs.

Z's self-portrait painting that he did at co-op.  I LOVE it!!  

Cookies, baths, snow, and more

Lots of stuff going on around here.  Last week when I was out with a friend, the transmission went out on B's car, so that was a good time.  ;)  It's possible that it's only some kind of module and not the whole transmission, but it's been at the shop since Monday night when this happened, they didn't get to it Tuesday (not blaming them - it was dropped off around 11:30pm Monday night), and then Wednesday they had to take a look at it and then call B to get the go-ahead to order the part, which they said they won't have til at least Monday.  So he's been taking the gas-guzzling family truckster to work every day and I've been home without wheels.  Not that I drag five kids out to go places all that often (ZP is attending public school at this point, so he's gone til about 2:45), but you know how it is - if you don't even have the possibility of getting out, you can think of dozens of places you want or need to go to.  Anyway, we're hoping it is this module or whatever because that's considerably less moolah than if it's actually that the transmission itself needs replaced.  Guess we'll find out tomorrow or Tuesday.

E is still rocking like mad on his hands and knees and then dropping to his belly and dragging himself whenever he needs to go anywhere.  He just began getting up onto his knees sometimes, so he'll do that in his crib while hanging onto the rail, or sometimes in his playpen he will just sit there sort of standing on his knees.  I guess he's going to do things his own way, lol!  He has changed his mind a few times about the bath; he's liked it, then hated it, then liked it, then hated it, and now he likes it again since I found a decent bath chair and he can get in the tub with one of his siblings.  He also seems to really like having a toy in each hand and his mouth, which keeps him occupied enough that he doesn't holler.  He's so cute when he's about to get in the tub; he sees the water, and he's nekkid, so he knows he's getting in.  When I start to lower him into the water he sort of gasps a few times like he's thinking about working himself into a state, but he seems to have decided that baths are pretty fun.  Maybe all that was lacking before was toys.

L is quite the little adventurer, and pretty mischievous.  She is very much S's mini-me, and in fact I often think of when A used to call S a "mischieful baby" - she was, and L is too.  This happened a few weeks ago but I still just think it's hilarious.  The hubs made cookies, and the kids were supposed to be letting them cool before we had any, but I walked into the kitchen and saw this:

I love how the stool was right there too!  :)  L also likes to have her hair out of her face, which works out nicely since I really like for it to be out of her face, too, ha ha!  This past week I put her hair up in two "ponies" for the first time, and I think she looks super cute!

I haven't had my hair cut since just before E was born, so my cute short hairstyle is a distant memory at present.  Both of the older girls and I will put our hair up a lot, and L always says things like, "Do you have a pony, Mommy?"  She shortened it to 'pony' all on her own and it cracks us up.  Lately she's also been saying "for yours" or "for mine," as in "This is for mine."  She likes to climb into bed with me in the morning and our conversations go something like this:

L - "Where's Daddy, Mom?"
me - "He's at work, L."
L - "Oh, he's at work?  Is Daddy at work, Mom?"
me - "Yes, L, he's at work."
L - "Oh." Holding up her stuffed buddy, "This is for mine, Mom."
me - "Yep, L, that's your baby."
L - "This is for my baby, Mommy."  Pointing to my pillow, "Is that pillow for yours?"

LOVE it!  It's so cute in her little voice, too - she sounds like "Thissis fer mine" and "fer yers" phonetically and it's just the sweetest.  She's the fourth kiddo, so we've figured out how fast time flies and I think it really does make it that much sweeter, and we savor all the cute little things she does - and E - that much more.  I look at our A, going to be 12 this year, and I just can hardly believe how it's flown.  Totally cliché, I know - but clichés abound for a reason.  ;)

Z needs a hair cut pretty badly, and unlike ZP, Daddy can't cut his hair so he has to wait til we manage to get him to a professional.  B cuts his own hair, and he can cut ZP's because their heads are roughly the same oval shape, but Z's head is like a giant grapefruit and the two times B has cut his hair have been disastrous so we just don't go there anymore, lol.  Last week Z slicked his hair back with water ("Look Mom, I did my hair just like Draco Malfoy!") and then when it dried it actually stood straight up over most of his head, which he and the girls all thought was hilarious.

We also had an actual snow event recently, and here in the valley where we live we got almost four inches of snow, which is very unusual for us.  The kids had a blast but it was VERY wet snow - they would come in with their coats and everything soaking wet, they looked like they'd been out in a downpour, and I'd throw all their gear into the dryer while they warmed up with hot chocolate.  They did manage to make a snowman, though, which I forgot to snap a pic of til the next morning.  Hey, just having snow still on the ground the next day is pretty nuts for these parts!  Notice though that Z isn't wearing a jacket - it was almost 50 at that point the next morning.  My kind of snow - infrequent enough to be a novelty, kids had a blast, and 100% gone in about 36 hours.  

I love this pic - S claims this is how she's most comfortable doing her schoolwork, lol!  She's my least cooperative kiddo when it comes to school, so she does a lot more workbook time than the others because she likes having a concrete assignment and being able to get it done on her own; so, for now, that's how she does a lot of her school.

Here is one of the girls when we were playing Apples to Apples one Sunday:

I don't have any new pics of A (other than that one of her above with most of her face hidden) or of ZP, but I love this one of ZP with Santa so I'm going to post it.  I really think it's one of the best pics I've ever seen of him, and I hate that it's a round Polaroid that wasn't cropped too well and is tiny - the actual photo is maybe 2.5" in diameter.  ZP just looks so sweet - when I see this pic it makes me feel really happy.  :)  I'm planning a blog post about our little Amerikrainian soon!

Our first Army crawler

Our sweet, happy E has been a true joy to us, a blessing in a time when a bright spot has been something we sorely needed.  He never fails to shine, and we love him endlessly.  Sometimes I smile as we sit watching him discover things that we've watched our other four babies discover - we haven't grown tired of watching them learn and be baby-cute.  E has surprised us by being our one and only "Army crawler," and it just cracks us up.  He will get up on his hands and knees and rock like mad, but when he needs to get anywhere he drops down and guts it out.  So cute!  Maybe I'll get some video put up of it soon, but til then, here's a (slightly blurry) pic from church.

L has been having a lot of fun with the LeapFrog Letter Factory she got from my parents for Christmas.  We're thinking that it may even help ZP end up learning his letter sounds, too, one of these days.  Those two have enjoyed the shape sorter that E got for Christmas, too, and they're quite good at picking each of them up when they're done.  ZP also loves the wacky goggly glasses and Darth Vader slippers he got in his stocking!  

Below are a couple of pics of the new playset that was a joint gift from us and both of the GPs.  I think that might have been my best Christmas gift idea ever - reduced the number of presents (and, let's face it, junk!) greatly (supposed to have reduced it altogether, but the GPs could not be constrained from sending gifts anyway, lol).  I spent a LOT of time looking at different playsets, and had kind of assumed we'd go with one of the wood ones that you see pretty much everywhere, but when I saw this one B and I both agreed pretty quickly that this was the one; we are all really, really pleased with it!  The steel is large, heavy gauge, and it has the elements that were most important to us:  swings and monkey bars.  The kids also love the trapeze bar, fireman pole, and the new, higher slide.  It has a weight limit of something like 1100 pounds, and I expected it would have to be anchored into the ground with concrete but it didn't need to be.  A does enjoy swinging as high and hard as she can to get it to lift off the ground all of about 1/8 of an inch, making S scream, but I'll save that post for someday when I feel like relating a compilation of kids-driving-each-other-and-thusly-me-crazy stories.  ;)  The playset had the added benefit of taking B and one of our friends only about three and a half hours to put together, which they did the Saturday before Christmas.  Yay for helpful friends!

In the beginning...

In honor of the new year, and to formally announce that I intend to claw my way out of the mental wasteland that I've inhabited since getting home from Ukraine (I like to refer to it as my "I-had-two-babies-in-20-months-and-adopted-a-special-needs-orphan-in-the-middle" phase, lol), I'm starting a new family blog so that everyone who wants to keep up with us can, and without the albatross of Facebook to distract me from things I really need to be doing with my life.  I'm jettisoning Facebook because it ends up being a collossal timesucker for me, and too often I get irritated when I'm on it anyway.  So, there you have it. ;)  I'll post pics of the kids and updates on our adventures, as well as random ruminations when the mood strikes.  Hope 2013 is treating you right!  Further up and further in!