Mr. Contrary

I blame it all on my mother. Nearly 2 years ago while visiting them for a weekend, Mr. Y developed a very bad case of Croup and needed to be taken to the emergency room. After a couple of treatments of Albuterol, his breathing became very loose and rattled, but we could not get him to cough for us...until my Mom started to say, "Don't you DARE cough! I do NOT want to hear any coughing from you! Only Grammy is allowed to cough!" It worked like a charm, and before long, Y was coughing away and giggling.

It's probably not the best way to parent, but we've used the whole "reverse psychology" thing ever since...not on big, important issues of course, but on the little things - like getting him to pick up toys neatly or getting him to smile when we're trying to take a picture. For example, if we don't say anything, all of the pictures that we take of him would look like this:

or this:

If, however, we say, "Yikealo, don't you DARE smile, or you will probably break my camera!" we get something more like this:

or this:

(Notice that it doesn't work so well if you're also trying to take a photo of a more compliant child, who will take you completely seriously if you tell her not to smile!)

I'm not sure why I had never thought to use it on food. Yikealo can be the POKIEST eater at times...usually when the meal involves some type of meat. Sometimes he'll eat everything just fine, but most of the time, he will take about two bites of chicken or beef and it can take nearly a half hour to chew each bite. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!! I just do NOT have the patience to sit with him at the table for that long, so we have rarely finished a meal together. David and I finish eating and then get up from the table to go do something else, while Y sits there for another hour rearranging food on his plate and getting up to come tell us something about every 2 minutes. Well, my Mom just came up with the perfect solution. We were visiting them last weekend, and she had made roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes, and corn for supper. I gave Y a miniscule piece of beef and cut it into microscopic pieces. It was very tender and easy to chew, but I knew that he'd take his typical 1/2 hour to chew a bite. It turns out that I was wrong! He was sitting beside my Mom, who started to tell him things like, "Don't you dare show me an empty mouth! I can't stand to see empty mouths at the table! Here, quick, let's get another bite in there!" Before we knew it, Y was shoveling in the food and swallowing in record time, just so he could show Grammy his empty mouth and watch her pretend to shudder in revulsion. The best part? It works at home too! On Wednesday evening we had chicken breasts and baby carrots for supper. Y was fussing about the menu until I tried Mom's little routine with him: "Yikealo, don't you dare show me your empty mouth! Do you know what I hate even more than an empty mouth? I HATE to see an empty plate! Please do NOT show me your plate when it's all empty!" I have never seen him eat chicken so fast. Yes, it's slightly annoying to have to pretend scream in terror at his empty mouth every minute or so, but it's not nearly as annoying as constantly begging him to chew and swallow for an hour! Now at the beginning of a meal he asks, "Can we please play the 'empty mouth' game?"

Now, onto our numbers for the last 2 months! This is really showing what a bad blogger I have become, since I haven't updated our waitlist numbers since July. In August we were at #40 for a girl and #29 for a boy.

In September we were at #37 for a girl and #27 for a boy.

And what's with Spiderman, you ask? Well, on our vacation to Michigan a few weeks ago, a discount store in the little town where our cottage is located had just received a large shipment of Halloween costumes. They were all under $10, so we invested in Superman and Spiderman costumes for Mr. Y.

 (In this photo, his cousin Ashton is helping him fight crime.)

He has worn a costume pretty much every day since...he just alternates between Buzz and one of the two superheros. Sometimes he wears all three within one day's time.

Don't worry though...he isn't too much of a tough guy yet. He still has to take lots of time out for Daddy worship. In Michigan, he followed David around everywhere, singing a little ditty that went something like this: "Superman is on the job! He is working with his Dad!" It's good to know that some things stay the same, no matter who he is pretending to be...

We're Still Here...

Okay, okay, I know that I'm woefully behind in keeping up with this blog, and I promise that updates of our exciting life (ha ha!) will be coming soon! After all, this is one way that I record memories for myself nowadays. However, we've been busy getting into the swing of school lately, as well as going on vacation, so maybe I can be excused from the lack of posts, right?

As a start back into posting, I thought I'd share one brief tidbit from this morning...this should prove to all of you that some things haven't changed at all. A few moments ago I heard some unearthly howling coming from Frankie in the living room. I mean, these were sounds that she only makes when she sees my mother (Frankie HATES my mom, who teases her unmercifully.) I walked out to investigate and saw this:

Yes, the boy pretending to attack the cat with dual light-saber action, complete with special sound effects. He wasn't coming all that close to her (he knows better), but she was NOT impressed with the assault on her kingdom. She was giving him her "if you come any closer I will personally bite your head off" look. (She is sometimes convinced that she is a tiger in her other life.)

Ah yes...life with a five-year-old boy...

Imagination

Yikealo likes nothing better than playing dress-up. He is constantly forming costumes out of anything that he can find, so we've recently suggested that he spend some of his fun money on some dress-up clothing. His first purchase was a pirate costume, and he spent a couple of weeks in pirate mode. When his cousin Zavier visited for a few days, I was continually being attacked by two dastardly villains.

However, that was before he discovered the most supreme costume ever invented.

Over the last few months,  Mr. Y has become completely and totally infatuated with Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear. He spent some of his hospital money on a Buzz action figure quite some time ago, and this toy has become his favorite playmate. He talks to Buzz, and eats with Buzz, and sleeps with Buzz, and Buzz has to be present for any stories that we read together. But then...he discovered the most awesome thing of all: a Buzz costume! Oh...if I could only begin to describe the intense delight in our house when that precious box arrived in the mail. He put it on at once, and  he insists on wearing it at every given opportunity. Seriously, like every single day. We started homeschooling this week, and on at least 3 of the days, I was teaching math or language arts or phonics to a Buzz impersonator. Last week, I was awakened one morning at 6:00 by Buzz leaping onto my bed, shouting something about a space ranger coming to my rescue....ummm....yeah....at 6:00 a.m. I'd rather be rescued from Buzz than by him. I sleepily stammered out something about wanting to snuggle my little boy, not Buzz, to which he replied, "I AM your little boy! I just look like Buzz, because this is a costume!"

A few days later he wanted me to play with him:
Y: "Mom, I am going to be Buzz, and you are going to be Wendy."
Me: "Wendy? Who is Wendy?"
Y: "You know...from Bob the Builder."
Me: "Well, if I am going to be Wendy, then why don't you be Bob?"
Y: "No, I NEED to be Buzz, because I want to be the one who saves the day!"
Me: "Well, then why don't I be Jessie?"
Y: "No, you need to be Wendy, because Jessie is more cooler than Wendy, and you cannot be the one who saves the day...that has to be me."
Great...why do I always have to be the less "cooler" person, anyway?!
(and note the chin curl he insists upon....grrrrrr!)

A few other recent Yikealo-isms:

• while waving his hands in a "cease and desist" manner: "We are NOT having this 'confercation'!" (Ummm....I think maybe you mean "conversation"? Although I have to admit that now "confercation" has become part of the household vernacular!)
• while listening to a new song in the car: "Mom, George needs to know what kind of song this is." (I guess it's good to know that Buzz hasn't evicted George yet.)
• One morning he started whining that I was reading my Bible instead of playing with him. I told him that I would play with him after I was finished, but God's word is very important, and God comes first. He responded immediately: "Why does God always get to be first? He is not the youngest!" (Apparently, in Y's opinion,  board game rules should also apply to the Lord.)
• At supper, David finished his prayer with something along the lines of: "And please help us to be Your hands and feet here." Yikealo looked up with a rather horrified look on his face and questioned: "FEET HAIR? Why would we wanta be His feet hair?"
• As I was snuggling him one night, I said, "You are such a present from God," to which he answered, "For one thing, I am YOUR present, 'cause you 'dopted me on your birthday." Technically, my birthday was the day AFTER our gotcha day, but that's close enough, right?!

Oh yeah, and along the homeschooling topic, what happens when Daddy gets a new I-Phone during the same week that school starts?
An I-Phone upon which both "boys" in the household can spend a ridiculous amount of time playing "Angry Birds" together?

And Daddy also decides that he would like to take over the math lesson for the day?
Well, the shape blocks are used to replicate the "houses" from Angry Birds, of course.

 A tiny plastic figure of Buzz becomes the evil pigs hiding inside the "house."

A sling-shot is built from Tinker Toys and a rubber band, and much time is spent shooting down the "houses" with a folded up paper "bird" from every conceivable angle.

Right, because in addition to learning about shapes and sizes, "velocity" and "trajectory" are obviously very important concepts to teach your 5-year old math student.

The Shirt

Remember this shirt?

Yikealo was wearing it in about half of the referral photos that we received of him in March 2009.

He was also wearing it on June 5th, when our caseworker took lots of photos of Mr. Y with his birthmom.

He was wearing it on June 15th, for his very brief appearance in Kristi Johnson's now famous "Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day" video. (Check out the little curly-top at the 2:43 mark!)

And last, but certainly not least, he was wearing it again on our gotcha day of June 29th, 2009.

It was the defining article of clothing for our son while he was at Hannah's Hope, and he still remembers it quite clearly.

Well, yesterday, Erica received a photo of one of her little guys from another traveling family, and guess who was wearing the EXACT. SAME. SHIRT??

Yep...he's definitely meant to be part of our family! Yikealo just beamed at the photo on our computer screen and said, "They must know that he is my cousin!"

In other news, Chris and Erica learned today that they have their court appointment on August 5th! We've also heard that the courts close for the rainy season on August 6th, and won't open again until sometime in late September. We are praising God that He worked out the details for them to meet their precious sons before the court shutdown!

Laying Low

My little boy thrives on having a schedule. He has been that way since the very first week that we had him in our home. Before he could understand much English at all, we had learned that he NEEDED to know the plans for the day - it makes him feel safer, more secure and in control. This isn't surprising, considering his background, and many adopted children have this same need. There is less chance of surprises that way, and having us talk him through a day's schedule helps him to know that we're planning to be with him throughout the day.

Normally this works out just great - after all, I'm a bit of a control-freak myself, and I also like having a schedule. However, the month of June was a bit crazy for our family. It started out with our Nursing Home's silent auction and garage sale: I was busy every single day for the first week of June, and Yikealo was shuffled around to various extended family members for parts of most days. For the next two weeks, I was involved with a Genesis-themed VBS that some good friends of ours organized, and I wasn't able to devote the normal amount of Mama-time to my little boy. Following that, Y and I traveled west and stayed with my parents for a week so that he could attend VBS at their church. It was a fun, relaxing time for me, and Yikealo enjoyed his time with his cousin Zavier, but by the end of the week, his safe little world was definitely fraying around the edges. Things had been weird for just too long, he hadn't seen his beloved Daddy in five days, and on top of that, Chris and Erica got their referral that week. All of a sudden, there was lots of talk about Ethiopia and lots of pictures floating around of two scared-looking, dark-skinned little boys. Yikealo began to get nervous, and he regressed in his normally very secure connection with us by about a year and a half. If I left a room while he wasn't paying attention, he panicked that I had left him. He began to bring up memories of his fear when Mihiret left him, and he was by turns very clingy and very distant. He got way too friendly with acquaintances of ours that he doesn't know all that well, and he cried much more easily than normal. Things desperately needed to return to the status quo.

Thankfully, our lives have gotten back to their nice, boring, typical schedules! After being gone for three weekends in a row, this is our second with absolutely no plans. Mr. Y and I have had two weeks of long, sunshiney, stay-at-home days - full of snuggling and reading stories and long walks and playing in the wading pool.

He is back to his normal, happy, self-confident personality. I am so glad that he shares his feelings and fears with us, rather than keeping them bottled up inside. I am so glad that a few days of normalcy returns him to his sunny self. I am so glad that we have made so much progress over the last two years, and that, for the most part, he trusts us.

Oh yeah, and then there's this scary pirate who showed up in our home this week: constantly brandishing his sword and threatening to slice off various body parts of his captured victims. Unfortunately for him, this Mama isn't too frightened by a pirate in Miss Sally socks who diligently practices writing his letters at the kitchen table...

One more thing: our June and July numbers. I was obviously a bit lax in posting them during June, but last month we were at #53 for a girl and #40 for a boy.

There has been a nice amount of movement in the referrals over the last couple of weeks, and for July we are at #46 for a girl and #34 for a boy...although we are already a bit lower than that, as there have been three more referrals just this week!

Two Years Together

Two years ago today, our lives changed forever. Two years ago today, we held our son and heard his high-pitched little voice for the first time. Two years ago today, I was scared to death, and I had no idea how quickly I would fall head-over-heels, irrevocably in love with Mr. Y.

Here's a video from that morning - the two of us were negotiating trades of his hated raisins for my fruit snacks. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying - today, I understand most of it.

Today, I am praising God for His good and perfect gifts. I can never thank Him enough for leading us down a completely unexpected path into the world of adoption and parenthood. Through His plans for me I have discovered more of who He is, and I have had needs fulfilled that I never knew had existed before. I love this child more than I could ever possibly express through the weakness of language, and today I am rejoicing in his presence in our lives!

Praising God This Morning!!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we have two new nephews on the way...Chris and Erica received a referral yesterday of twin boys - 2 1/2 years old. They are precious, darling cute, and apparently on target for their age. The story of the referral is amazing, but I will be letting Erica share that once she's done with piles of paperwork, so keep an eye open for her blog posts at: www.possibilityofmiracles.blogspot.com!

Also, please pray for these little guys and for their birth family. There is so much sadness mixed with the joy in an adoption, and yet my God is the great Healer. We are praising Him for His goodness, and trusting Him to work out the details.