I feel like my last post was a touch too...rose tinted.
So here's some of the ugly underbelly of our daily lives 9 weeks home.
As I learn Ivan and his little quirks, I've been slowly addressing them. This means that the little tricks that he used in the orphanage to be able to do whatever he wanted are being taken from him in ways that leave him utterly pissed off. Momma has high expectations and Momma has nothing else to do with her day but make sure you try and meet them. *shrugs* SO when he pulls his trick of "I can't hear you/ I'm weird and just don't respond to commands or my name sometimes because of selective hearing loss and there's half a chance you'll just leave me here to keep doing whatever I want instead of coming to get me so It's worth the try." and I know he hears me and understands me and I demand that he respond to me and follow the directions I'm giving him without me coming to get him. Well. That just leaves him a tantruming mess sometimes.
He's been home long enough that, even though we use safety gates to keep him out of certain rooms, he is very aware that even if the gate is accidentally left open- He's not supposed to be in that room. SO when I get him down from the table and he sees the gate to my bedroom is open and he hightails it to that room and I verbally remind him "Don't go in that room!" and he still makes a run for the open door and I use the harshest voice I have in my arsenal to stop him dead in his tracks saying "I know you understand me! Do NOT go in that room!" and he wanders out like I just kicked his new puppy and Charlie is giving me this look and asking "What's your problem?" and I snap back to him "My problem is that he knows he isn't supposed to go in there but he plays dumb to keep from having anyone expect him to follow the rules! Well, I expect him to follow them!"
I've caught on to his little trick of squirreling food into his cheeks so that he can get out of eating anything else of the meal by "waiting out" the staff and then he is released from the table and wanders around then lets the food packed into his cheeks just fall out somewhere. Hence not eating a sticking bite of the meal. Which doesn't fly here. I've started not letting him cheek food and when he does, I won't let him down from the table until he chews it and swallows it. I told him once, "This isn't the orphanage, sweet cheeks. There's no time limit here. You can sit at that table for the next four hours. I got nothing to do today but watch you chew!"
He doesn't like it.
He still will pick up trash and random crap from the floor/ ground and put THAT in his mouth and chew THAT and swallow THAT without issue and quite gleefully even. *hard glare* Funny how he just can't manage to work his tongue to spit CHEWED UP ACORN out of his mouth but he can cheek roast beef for an hour and somehow I find it on the living room floor like ..... So now I have started expecting him to spit that trash back out instead of me scooping it out of his mouth. He REALLY hates that. I've also started being VERY on top of watching his hands while he has the freedom to get around. If he even LOOKS like he is picking up and object and thinking about eating it I'll remind him, "NOT IN YOUR MOUTH." and he gives me this hard side eye where I imagine he is cussing me nine ways from Sunday.
We are also working on this totally awesome habit that Ivan has of stuffing his hands into his diaper and, oh, you know, playing with whatever he might find in there.
yeah.
That's why we've started putting him almost exclusively in onsies with pants or jumper outfits. I'm seriously considering bike shorts or tight leggings to go on under onsies during the summer because it gets too hot here for that child to be in pants all the time. (I've also seriously considered gymnastic leotards, the tight ankle-to-wrist full bodied kind. Yes. I have.)
We also have good days and bad days. There are days that Ivan is super present and in the moment and those days are wonderful. There are other days where Ivan tries to pull every trick he has to seem like he's living on another planet so that he can get out of doing what he is supposed to be doing. There are days that we go out to the play ground and he is all over the ladder and slide and swings and trampoline. There are days where we go out and all he does is stare at a tree and stim for an hour. It's really a toss up sometimes.
But I can't fight every battle. I can't. If I fought every single battle that comes up with this kid, we'd have zero time for anything else and there would be absolutely NO opportunity for bonding. We would have no positive experiences. So I try to side step some of the battles. I choose the ones that are just inescapable and MUST be fought and the others... Well.
Sometimes we spend three hours outside with him staring at a tree and stimming.
I get overwhelmed. There are times through out our day that I have to put Ivan in the play pen, where he is safe and there are toys to entertain him, and I have to just walk away. I have to go into a different room and I have to take very deep breaths. For a long time. I have to remind myself that this is not a war. I have to remind myself that I don't have to fight against his past. I have to remind myself that HE has no idea and that suddenly having someone have standards and expectations for him is WILD for him. I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that we have the rest of his life. He won't be 30 and eating acorns still. (Or, you know, if he is still eating acorns by that point... they've a source of protein, right?)
All my coping mechanisms that I used to get myself through the adoption process? I can't really use them now because I don't have time to sit down and watch an episode of some crap TV show every time I feel overwhelmed or frustrated. I would need a port installed and have it mainlined into my system 24 hours a day. I don't have the ability to pay attention to a book enough to find relief there. And there's absolutely no way I can write. I can't concentrate long enough to do anything really refreshing.
I just do the best I can. I'm going on almost 3 months solid that I've spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at this with only about 4 hours spent away from Ivan. I take my breaks where I can get them, five minutes at a time scattered through out the day, and If I use that five minutes to laugh about some stupid TV show, well, at least I'm laughing.
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