Hanging in there

Jonathan looking cool in the dentist's chair.

Charity enjoying spring weather. This time of year drives me bonkers. I'm so ready for spring and they just keep teasing me with warm days and then a week later we have snow!

Michael and Joseph paging through fishing magazines as we wait for - get this - a doctor's appointment! (Actually I think it was x-rays, but whatever - we were waiting!)

Okay, so life with 4 kids can certainly never be described as boring. As mentioned in a previous post, we are in the midst of many doctor’s appointments right now. Most of them are for Jonathan but we’ve had a few other one sprinkled in here and there as well. Charity failed her vision screening at school – 3 times – so we took her to the eye doctor fully expecting to walk out with a child in glasses. Yeah right – the girl has 20/15 vision so I don’t know what went on with her and the screenings at school. She also caught strep throat last week and this week developed some wheezing and coughing so we were at the pediatrician for her a couple of times and have added antibiotics and breathing treatments to our “to do” list. Jonathan continues with PT and OT once a week each and we have met with several other doctors/therapists to try to establish a base line and figure out what direction we need to head in with his care. We have an appointment with Shriner’s Hospital in Lexington on April 2nd. We’re hoping to get a majority of his care there. Several surgeries have been suggested by the specialists at Riley so we’ll see what we end up doing. Obviously we will still continue the PT and OT at our home hospital and school but if we are looking at any surgeries and new braces then it would be wonderful to get that taken care of through Shriners. We met with Special Services at our school last week and Jonathan was evaluated by the school’s OT and PT on Wednesday. There is a small chance that he will begin attending the developmental pre-school a day or two a week this year but my real goal at this point is to have his IEP in place so that we can hit the ground running with Kindergarten in the fall. Both new boys are picking up English rapidly. They understand a ton and speak quite a bit in English/Russian mixed sentences. Joseph and I have started reading lessons and they are going well. I’ve learned through this time that I am not cut out to be a home schooling mom. It’s so hard for me to get these 15 minute lessons in during the day. I don’t know how people do it long term and with more than one kid at a time. One of the biggest challenges with it is getting Jonathan involved in something else while we have our lesson. I really don’t want him learning to read yet (academic boredom in Kindergarten would not be a good thing) and I know he would pick it up very quickly if I would let him. I may just have to suck it up and let the kid read so that his older brother will learn it too. Michael and Charity continue to adjust well. Charity has moments when she feels like the odd-man out but that’s to be expected and she gets over it pretty quickly. The four of them tend to pair up by age but Michael and Joseph have started arguing once in a while and they don’t play with each other exclusively anymore. I know it is a little backwards to want the arguing but I really want them to act more like brothers and less like best friends. I’m a little concerned that Joseph will be upset when he realizes that he is a grade below Michael since he’s been SO attached to him. They are playing different sports this spring so that should help in the separation as well as help Joseph find his place in the family. I see the lost look on his face at times and I want to reassure him that with time everything will make sense. He’s a good kid and loves our family and living in America. Every day he tells me a little bit more about his life in Sevastopol and makes it clear how happy he is to be away from there. Being an orphan is no fun – even when you are adequately cared for. That’s not to say there haven’t been “moments.” A couple of weeks ago he was irritated at us because we had run errands and stuff all day and then had to come home and work too. At dinner that night he told us that his name wasn’t the name we had given him – it was the name on his birth certificate. For the rest of the night he insisted (when he remembered) on being called “Roma”. The next morning he thought it was hilarious and we were able to tease him about it so...life goes on as normal, one small event at a time.