Two Months Later... and a Shocking Lesson for Dad

Around two months ago I put up a post called First Observations.... I think that maybe it's time to update this and let everyone know how things are progressing.

Kim and Peter still love their new home... but they still want their bedroom doors left open at night and want a nightlight left on. They are less adamant about the door and light now, but they still aren't ready to sleep in a dark room by themselves with the door shut. We have enjoyed sometimes talking over dinner about how our home and meals are different than the children's home. It seems that there was never anything good to eat there... at least there was no lasagna anyway.

Peter and Bandit are still very close friends, but Peter now yells at him in ENGLISH (yeah!)... but Bandit still doesn't quit licking him. Both kids are starting to use more English and they both are clearly understanding more English. At the same time, our Russian is also improving. We now speak a hybrid language that includes both English and Russian words in the same sentence!

Both Kim and Peter are doing pretty well about playing with the neighborhood kids. One thing we've noticed is that they really like to go outside to play. We often have to limit their outdoor play options because of the winter weather and they aren't always in agreement with this... but they ARE accepting our direction now... even if it is sometimes accompanied by muttering things under their breath in Russian.

From a socialization perspective, we've all made great strides... and STILL have a long way to go. The kids do MUCH better in new situations and with meeting new people than they used to. They will say "Hi" now without a fight. Their socialization at home has also improved as they are becoming more used to the structure of family life and family rules. They want the freedoms and opportunities that come with their new life, but at the same time, they don't want the responsibilities and rules that go along with it. This has been hard, frustrating, and inconsistent, but we have seen a great deal of change.

Beth and Luke are doing pretty well, but the changes in the family dynamic have been very hard on both of them. Luke has been displaced as the youngest and is trying to figure out where he fits. We ask him to function as if he were the second oldest, but he understands that Kim is older than he is. This is quite a dilema for him and he's struggling with his role at times. Beth is now in middle school and that's hard enough to go through without the added stresses at home. She sometimes has a hard time figuring out where she belongs as well. She grew-up so much during the Russia trip... faster than she should have. We're working to get her to lighten-up a little and to enjoy being 12 and not trying to be too old yet. Thank goodness this period is moving forward and we are all becoming more settled into our roles. I've heard it said that at 3 months you are 1/2 way to being a family... at six months you're 3/4 of the way to being a family and at one year you are 90% of the way there. This seems right so far... we'll see as we go.

There are still what I call "survival behaviors" that are left over from their previous life however. We've been pretty fortunate in that we really haven't had stealing... a real problem with some newly adopted older kids who learned to steal what they needed or wanted. We never really had much food hoarding, but we did have a little bit at first. Now we have trouble getting them to eat everything on their plates without excessive prodding sometimes. We do still have lying. Yes, all kids lie to their parents sometimes, but Kim and Peter were used to having to lie often and with skill just to survive. This is a behavior that we are trying to work on.

Kim will sometimes lie almost without thinking about it in order to avoid what she thinks will be work or to avoid getting scolded. For example, she sometimes bullies her brother into complying with her wishes by badgering him until he submits... or... as he has started to become more independent from her... she'll occasionally get physical and push, shove, or even hit him to make him obey. When we confront her about it, she tells us she did not hit him... and he'll usually back her up on it... probably we think because he doesn't want her to get into trouble. We're working to make it far more trouble to lie than it was to tell the truth. This is what all parents do with teaching their kids, but it's harder and takes longer when you are just starting this approach with kids who are older. Sometimes it's hard to remember that socially they are much younger than their ages.

Kim is VERY COMPETITIVE and she clearly is used to having her way with her brother. She absolutely hates it anytime that she thinks he is getting something that she isn't getting or worse... when he is more successful at something. She can't accept that he could beat her at anything and she will try to punish him if he does. Lisa saw this a few days ago at the AWANA Grand Prix at church. During warm-ups, Peter's car (a skateboard) was faster then Kim's (a Wii remote). She could not accept this, so she intentionally crashed her (rather sturdy) car into his (somewhat fragile) skateboard car and broke off the section with the back wheels. In fact, in the 15 minutes before checking the cars in, she broke his car TWICE. Lisa was able to glue the wheels back on, but his car was never faster than hers again. This is a behavior that we have seen several times. I don't want to give the impression that she is always a bully, because she certainly is not. She mostly looks after him and works to make sure that he is not taken advantage of. She clearly loves him as his sister (and as the only mother he had for most of his life)... but she's still just a 10 year old who's been raised without the benefit of a family to model appropriate behaviors. They have so much socialization to learn still.

As for the physical bullying, we obviously aren't going to let that continue. We've explained how people in a family don't hit or hurt each other, but this doesn't exactly ring true with them based on their past. Kim LOVES to talk with us after her bedtime bible story each night. The topic doesn't matter to her... she just loves the one on one attention... and the fact that if we are talking then she is delaying having to go to sleep. One of the topics we've started to discuss is her life before the orphanage. She tells that she doesn't know her biological father because he didn't like crying babies and he left. At least that is her understanding of why he left. We don't have any official info on him and all we know about her biological mother was that she was homeless, liked to drink vodka, made the children beg with her and was sent to prison for child neglect among other things.

Kim tells us that she knew Peter's father (who apparently stuck around for a while after Peter was born) and she didn't like him. She didn't like him because he used to hit them... a lot. She said that when Peter would cry as a baby, Peter's father would hit him to make him stop. She said her mother only hit them a little bit, so she liked her more. I believe this physical abuse story because of their reactions to me.

The first time that Kim and Peter were hitting each other I raised my voice and scolded them, telling them that families don't hit each other (even though hitting was what they knew as a normal part family life). I had intentionally used my SCARY BOOMING DAD VOICE to make it very clear that I meant what I said and that they needed to obey immediately. Usually the SCARY BOOMING DAD VOICE causes kids to stop what they are doing and pay attention. It had a different response with Kim and Peter. Instead of stopping and being sorry for what they had done, they both dropped to the floor shaking terribly, curled up into a tight ball, covered their heads with their hands and arms and began crying. They were adopting the posture that results in the least damage and pain when you are about to be beaten. They had experience in how to take a beating and it was very clearly a learned behavior... a well conditioned response that was now automatic. It was done in unison and without any communication with each other. These kids obviously knew what it meant to be beaten... more than once. I was speechless, shocked, and absolutely crushed all at the same time.

They were afraid of me... my kids were genuinely and completely afraid of me in that moment... afraid that I would be like the other men in their lives in that I was going to beat them in my (faux)anger. What a painful and tragic lesson for me. Now I understand why the judge asked me in court why these children shouldn't fear me. I had to very gently explain that I will NEVER hit them... that we are a real family and families don't hurt each other like that... no matter what. They seem to be less frightened now, but you can tell that they want to avoid punishment for themselves and for each other... and if that takes lying, then they won't hesitate to do so. Sometimes we need to understand WHY they do the things that they do before we can help them to move on. We still have so much to learn...

Peter, Peter, How Old Art Thou?

We have a dilema. Peter's birth certificate says he will be 9 years old around 2 weeks from now. We're not so convinced that this is correct.

We knew that he was small, so that alone isn't it. He is roughly in the 8th percentile for height and weight for 8 year olds. His head circumference doesn't actually even make the charts, but there are things that probably explain that. Interestingly, he actually weighs HALF as much as Luke who is just 6 months and 6 days older. Could the REALLY poor nutrition and utterly horrible homeless life he lived pre-orphanage explain his size... almost certainly. But still, something isn't quite right... particularly given that Kim, who had the same environment, is thin but fairly normally sized for her age (10 years old).

Peter's size is pretty comparable to a five year old or small six year old... but so is his behavior. Yes, orphanage kids are socially behind, but Peter really enjoys the things that six year olds enjoy. His mannerisms make you think of a kindergartener or young first grader. His voice is that of very young boy. He just doesn't "Feel" eight (almost nine).

We wonder if we might understand why he seems so far off when his sister does not. We think he might really be six and we have some reasons for thinking so. Kim and Peter lived in the orphanage for just over two years. According to their records, it looks like their ages were estimated at that time. Kim was declared to be eight and Peter six when they entered the orphanage. When we ask Peter if, when he was 5 if he knew he was 5, he says no. Kim says they never had a birthday when they lived with their mom.

When we asked the director of the orphanage about the ages of kids there, she said the home was for children aged SIX to 18 and they had 80 children there. SIX to 18! When Kim and Peter went to live at the orphanage, they would have been 8 and 6 respectively (assuming their "paperwork ages" are correct). The more that we think of it, it seems to us that Peter was probably FOUR and not six at that time. If he had been officially four, he would not have been able to live at the same childrens' home as his sister. Seeing how dependent he was on her, we think he probably would not have survived being apart from her. Hence, we believe that his age was listed as SIX and not four in order to keep them together in the same orphanage.

Is this too far fetched? Maybe not. As part of his medical exam, we asked for a wrist X-ray to be taken when they did his chest X-ray. A wrist X-ray allows for the estimation of age based on skeletal development. Peter's "bone age" came back as..... Six years and zero months. When we re-adopt the kids in a U.S. court in a few months, we'll ask that his birthdate be legally changed to make him two years younger than he is officially listed right now. We'll need to convince our physician to write a letter in support of this, but we think it's reasonable. So, in two weeks or so, we'll celebrate Peter's 7th birthday.

Of course, we have to be concerned that he might really be eight and about to turn nine. If that is the case, some good nutrition will help him catch up... like some of our friends have discovered with their adopted daughter.

American Hair Cuts

Beth and Luke had the day off school and all the kids could use a hair cut (and even Mom too.) So we packed up and headed out. Here is the before and after pictures.


At home before the hair cuts.

Beth and Kim were so ready to get their bangs out of their eyes. I was ready to have Kim move beyond the "orphanage bowl cut" that is so common for the girls in orphanages. It is amazing how much healthier and thicker her hair looks and feels with it trimmed up. Her hair has a nice shine now with all the split and uneven ends cut off (and more protein in her diet). Beth was able to feather in the half of her bangs that she has been growing out. So she was pleased to finally have them as part of the hair style and not just this section that was to long to be bangs but to short to fit with her hair. (Although I'm not sure I like her new cut, it makes her look far to old.)


Peter kept saying he didn't want his hair cut. With all the medical tests and particularly some problems with a dentist (this is a whole nother post once we are calmed down and ready to give prewarnings to other adoptive parents but we have to deal with it first), I wasn't going to push it. Luke went next although he was the one in the group that needed the cut the least. Then while I was getting mine cut the kids convinced Peter to get his cut. He sat there white as a ghost and ready to spring up at the least little thing. (He doesn't trust new places). He was scared to death but he lived through the hair cut. It really looks good on him. He had had the typical boy orphanage cut of buzzed tight but uneven for most with fringe left a little longer all around the edge. He now has it trimmed up around the edges and I had them leave most of the length that he had grown out on the top.

I may be a little partial but I think I have a pretty go looking bunch. I think you'll probably agree.

Sporting the new dos

Where does Papa go each day?

With life starting to settle into a routine, Kim and Peter are wanting to understand more about different parts of the routine. We had driven them by Beth's and Luke's School (and even took them to Family Fun Night ant Luke's School) so they knew where they went each day. But they didn't know where Papa (who is now becoming "Dad") went each day. We decided to have a lunch date with Dad at the "Universitet".

We took Dad out to Bob Evans (where they have picture menus) then went back to The University. While driving around Kim was very impressed at how HUGE the University was. We went back to Mark's office to meet a couple of co-workers and see Dad's office. Lots to see and touch in the office but it was Mom that knocked down a whole line of award plaques on top of the filing cabinet. Kim and Peter both scored a piece of candy out of the candy jar then it was time for Dad to head off to a meeting.

It was an enjoyable outing for all that where involved and another piece of the puzzle of Kim's and Peter's new life now became real.