Adoption Day

On March 10th, we went to San Antonio to court and finalized our adoption! I can't believe I haven't blogged since then. Spring break was very busy around our house. The ceremony was fantastic!! My lips quivered the whole time...felt like nerves and anxiety and overwhelming joy all mixed together. We raced for 3 hours to get to San Antonio and to get to the courthouse. The ceremony, including hallway chat time, was about 30 minutes long. Then we all took a big deep breath and wandered back to Austin.

The lawyer had promised the boys that I would buy them two scoops of ice cream, so a few hours after we went to breakfast and the boys had chocolate chip pancakes, we also went for ice cream. It was a wonderful day!!

Soccer

Before I met Josh and Joey, I'd hoped they would want to play soccer. When I did meet them, they both said the didn't like soccer and didn't want to play. As you know, Joey played flag football and Josh played T-ball. Kraig and Shelley gave them a soccer ball as a homecoming present and Michael and Quenby gave them a goal to kick into. They started playing around with it and had fun. Then we went to a couple of Gavin's soccer games and they were both hooked. They've been anxious to start playing soccer ever since.

This week was the first week of soccer practices. Josh has had practice on Tuesday and Wednesday. Both days he's struggled and both days he's cried the whole ride home saying he hates soccer and he can't do anything right. I just hate putting him through this...but every time Josh does almost anything for the first time he goes through the same thing...then he eventually powers through and loves it. I can only pray for that this time too. His coach is awesome and he's got some cool kids on the team with him. We have two games this coming weekend, so maybe it will help to get to play a game in uniform and such.

Joey hasn't had a practice yet because they didn't have a coach for his team. One of the dad's finally volunteered yesterday, so we hope to have practice tomorrow evening. On Tuesday, during Josh's practice, Joey played soccer with a couple of older boys in the park and their dad. He had a blast and learned a lot. Wednesday, Josh's coach invited Joey to practice with them as he knew that Joey's team was having a hard time finding a coach. Again, Joey did great and had so much fun he's ready to give up football forever to become a soccer star!!

I think it's possible that Joey's intense enjoyment is increasing Josh's displeasure with it all. Josh feels that he can't catch a break. Everything and everyone in the world is ganging up against him. I've been working hard to set him up to succeed. It's tough being the youngest and the littlest.

Coco To The Rescue

On Monday night, Josh's temper tantrum lasted from when I picked him up at daycare until after he was asleep. Okay, that's only slightly an exaggeration. Josh had a bad day. He was on the receiving end of a few injustices at school which put him in a bad mood. On the way home from the grocery store, Joey told Josh that many of the kids Josh considers his friends aren't his friends at all. Joey explained that these kids only tell Josh they are friends to be nice, but they are all telling Joey that they don't like Josh. How mean is that? I told Joey that he was being mean and I reassured Josh that his friends wouldn't say that. But no encouragement could erase the nastiness Joey had put in Josh's head.

As soon as we walked into the house, Josh started refusing to do anything I asked and telling me didn't plan on doing anything I asked. He went to time out. He called me names and threw things and tried to break things and ran around giggling in a really spooky fashion for hours. He did managed to collect himself enough to finish one time out and eat dinner. But right after dinner, he went right back into it. When he finally got into bed and got quiet, I was exhausted. He hadn't done his homework and he hadn't taken his bath. But I wasn't worried about those things...I just wanted him asleep.

Then I was inspired. I believe that God plants ideas in my head when I need them. I needed this one for sure. When time outs aren't working, Josh loses his favorite toys for a period of time to be determined based on how bad it gets. His favorite monkey Coco (the one I gave him for Valentine's Day) had spent the night with me the previous night. You also need to know that Coco talks...well, not really...but I have a Coco voice that I use to help Coco talk and Josh just loves that. So, I picked up Coco and walked into Josh's dark room and over to his bedside.

Coco said "Hi Josh." Josh hesitated like he was trying to figure out if he wanted to fall for this. The decision must have landed in the positive because he finally whispered "Hi Coco."

Coco said, "I asked Mom if I could come in a sleep with you and she said yes if you would apologize. Will you apologize to Mom for misbehaving so I can stay here tonight?"

Josh immediately said "I'm sorry Mom."

I replied "Thank you Josh."

Then Coco said, "Cool. Group hug!!!" Josh sprung up with a huge grin and the three of us hugged. After a bit of snuggling, Coco said "Josh, do you think you could be good all day tomorrow so I can stay with you?"

"Yes I can!"

Once I tucked Josh and Coco in, I told Josh that I know how hard things have been but that he needed to get his temper under control. He very quietly said, "I don't know how." I praised him for his honesty and promised to help him figure out how.

That night, thanks to Coco, we all went to sleep happy. I wonder if Coco could get Josh out of the middle of one of his tantrums. I may just try that.

Josh's Anger

Josh's anger has reached a new high. All weekend, he was smarky. I may have made that word up, but it seems to perfectly describe his behavior...that is before it turns to angry, cold, hateful spite. What I mean by smarky is talking back and refusing to do anything I ask. When I say, "Josh please go put your shoes on." He snipes "No." When he's not defying me so directly, he's disagreeing with everything I say. When I don't remember something, he starts screaming that I'm lying to him. If I say I think butterflies are pretty. He'll say "No you don't."

This weekend he's started hitting me with whatever he has in his hands or with his bare hands. He know that anything he throws at me he loses for a time. Now I've had to add that anything he hits me with he loses for a period of time. So, he stopped actually hitting me and just runs behind me swinging his shoe horn, for example, at me without connecting. While doing this he is screaming HA!

On Thursday last week, Kung Fu Kids Austin came to daycare and gave the kids a quick lesson to sell us on signing the kids up for Kung Fu during daycare. I'm just guessing, but I think this may have sparked his new level of aggression. I did sign them both up, but I now plan on letting Joey participate but not Josh. Joey tells me that the guy definitely told them not to do the moves at home, but Josh isn't listening to that. He feels he has now been given tools to defend himself against me when he has to go to timeout.

When I put him in timeout this weekend, he screamed like it was torture...then he would giggle and try to break anything he could reach...then he would call me names. He's really, really angry. Saturday night was SO bad! But Sunday was a little better...I'm guessing he was just kind of tired of being difficult.

Josh's First Crush

Josh is in love! He's in love with a girl in his class named Jacqueline. She's adorable. I'll try to find a picture of her from the fossil field trip earlier in the school year. Josh is head over heels for her. And he says she hates him. I hope that's not true. He has made her a paper ring that he plans to give her tomorrow and he's written her a song and drawn her lots of pictures. Seven years old seems young to be screaming I LOVE YOU on the playground...evidently he did that on Friday. He thinks about he all the time. I know this because he talks about her all the time. He's been in class with her all school year, but he has apparently just fallen in the last week or two. Wonder what she did to get his attention...or has he been harboring a crush all year. He just glows when he talks about her...it's so adorable!!

Hot vs. Cold Faucets

On Tuesday, after throwing snowballs in the snow, Josh came inside running with tiny little strides saying "My hands are freezing. I need something warm. I need something warm." He was running in circles and almost crying. I handed him a towel to wrap his hands in and he decided he needed to run them under warm water. This was a good idea so I told him to do that in the half bath downstairs. He said, "No. There's no hot water in there." Huh? There's hot water in there. I asked and he just repeated himself. Josh kept running around the downstairs and didn't hear what Joey said next. "On our first day here, I switched the H and C on the faucets in there. He never said anything so I figured he's just figured it out. Oops." I looked at him and shook my head. He said, "Are you mad?" to which I replied "No, that's funny. But now I need to go fix it." So Josh has been washing his hands in cold water for 6 months without ever mentioning it.

I went into the bathroom and showed Josh that he could get warm water by using the C handle. As he warmed up his hands the new newly found warm water, he said "So H is for cold and C is for hot. Mom, that doesn't make any sense." Oh how true. Joey has since switched them back which, ironically, means Josh is having trouble finding the warm water again.

Emotional Growth Is Hard

Speaking of emotional growth...well, we weren't, but I was with other people...in any case, emotional growth is hard. Sometimes it even hurts. And parenting is really hard too. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Of couse, I think the only people who think parenting is easy, aren't parents.

This morning Josh woke up cranky because he said he didn't get enough sleep. Thus, the argumentative side of him woke up right away. He went down from breakfast, but didn't want to eat the Raisin Bran that he'd previously picked out and started having a fit. I wasn't down there, so I didn't really know what the fit was about. When I went downstairs all I got was a series of grunts and whimpers. He was sitting on the sofa. I asked him if he wanted me to make his breakfast for him and he screamed NO at the top of his lungs. But when I walked behind the couch he crawled from one side to the other giggling like I was chasing him. It continues to amaze me that he can go from huffing and puffing mad to giggling in seconds. Normally when he's in the middle of a fit, my emotions are all tied up in it as well. And normally, in this circumstance, I would have been concerned that he was going to eat and get ready for school in time, so I would have been already stressed out. Also, normally, his giggling in the middle of a fit causes me to feel intense frustration. But this morning, I scurried around the sofa and tickled him. He continued to giggle. In a minute or so, I stopped and said "Let's go have breakfast." He stood up and took my hand and we walked to the kitchen. He started grunting and hurumphing and whimpering again within two minutes, but he did eat his breakfast...so that was progress. And I stayed even keel, and that was definitely progress.

Unfortunately, right as we were heading to school, everything got really ugly again. By this point, my patience had been tried and I was tired of being blamed for everything that goes wrong for him. I'm sure this is a typical problem for children. I'm sure all kids do this. But why does EVERYTHING have to be my fault. Well, that's an exaggeration. Some things are Joey's fault. But this morning, it was all me. It was my fault that he forgot his belt and had to go back upstairs to get it. It was my fault that it's cold outside. It was my fault that his eye got poked when he was putting on his coat, of course, I was no where near him. It was my fault that he was about to be tardy at school. It was my fault that he was tired.

People tell me this has to roll off me like water off a duck's back. I am getting better at that. I'm getting better at not having to answer every allegation or respond to every complaint. But I wouldn't say I'm good at it yet. I'm better at getting my emotions out of the situation and looking for the best way out of any conflict instead of having to win. But I have a ways to go on that as well. For every time I get it right, it seems it's followed by a time I don't. In this case, he stomped into the school with tears in his eyes. Even though he ate his breakfast and got to school on time, this wasn't a success for me.