Back Seat Drivers

Well, yesterday was busy but everything worked out just fine. Amanda was ok with going early to the studio and afterwards we drove to the driver’s ed class. Once we got there, Alex looked at me and said, “Ok, you don’t have to go in with me, just wait for me.” I was so surprised, I almost fell out of the car. I think this came from the fact that there were no other parents there and he saw a bunch of pretty girls checking in. But whatever the reason, he wanted to go alone - after all the rearranging we did! But I just smiled and said, “Ok - no problem.”

I knew that he had been terribly worried and that letting me go was hard, but he had an image to maintain in front of the other kids. But I walked him in anyway and checked him in the class. The teacher saw him, remembered him by name and off Alex went. I made sure that I was close, and saw him during the 10 minute break. He said everything was going well and he was understanding everything fine. The teacher had even called on him for a question that he was able to answer correctly. I think this helped his spirits and he bounced back into the last hour of class with a smile in his face.

After the class, Alexs was happy and relaxed. A little miffed that he had had to sit through 2 boring hours of class, but the anxiety was gone. I asked him how he was going to react in future classes and he said that he was fine and would do ok.

So in the end, I made sure I was there for him and he stepped up to the plate and went alone. I got to spend some time with Amanda and everyone was happy. For a minute I wondered why I was sitting outside if he didn’t want me in the class - we could have stuck with the original plan, but then I realized it was just that, the fact that I was sitting outside available at any minute that allowed him to let go of me. He knew that at a moment’s notice, I was there to step into class with him if her desired. I am glad it all worked out so well. So in the end, I am glad I didn’t make him confront his anxieties head on  because of my time schedule. He eventually did, but on his time schedule.

But an unintended side effect of his driver’s ed class, now Alex drives everywhere we go, but it is now with an annoying commentary on how bad everyone else’s driving is. We will be turning at a light when he will say something like, “I learned yesterday..... and that car in front of me didn’t do it right!” He has become the worst back seat driver to other people. Ack, I can’t imagine when I drive again, which I haven’t since he got his permit, but when I do - OMG it will probably be nothing but a litany of complaints about my driving!

Best Kid Ever and Tough Mommy Decision

Yesterday was a phenomenal day. Alex got up early (8:30am), unbelievable I know, and was ready and raring to go. He helped Amanda and me with more deep cleaning - in fact we finally finished the upstairs. We are giving the house a careful going over one room at a time. We are cleaning baseboards, touching up paint, and rearranging drawers. It is a nuts to bolts cleaning.

Then we sat down and he did a great Algebra lesson, mostly by himself. He was confident and thinking straight and was doing really well. He helped me take all the pets to the vet’s office and was ever so helpful. He was happy and I could almost sense, anxiety free. As I was cleaning up after dinner, he crept up behind me and asked if I needed help. He told me that he noticed that everyone else had vanished and so he came to help out. I told him that just for asking and being so great - he didn’t have to help! Before bed, he wanted to watch a movie but his little eyelids were drooping and he was falling asleep on my shoulder, so he finally gave up and fell asleep at 11:00. I wish every day could be like this one. I felt good about the housework and errands I got done, he felt good about his schoolwork, and we all had a great day together.

But what a contrast to today. He woke up at about the same time, and was immediately asking to cancel the driver’s ed class tonight. He is intensely worried about going to it. He has fussed about helping me clean this morning - he still did it - but it wasn’t with the fun attitude of yesterday. He fussed about schoolwork and then when we sat down to do some, couldn’t even focus to do anything. He started with reading English and kept missing words that I know he knows. It is almost like his brain was shutting down from the worry about tonight. In fact, after a frustrating 30 minutes, I called him on it and explained to him what was happening. He agreed with me and I could see a little bit of the anxiety leave him as he just acknowledged the issues he was feeling. He voiced some specific concerns about what to do in the class if he was asked a question that he didn’t know how to answer.

I hope I alleviated some of his worries but I know that it isn’t enough. I tried to emphasize with him that he wasn’t there to worry about what others thought of him, or to get everything right - he was there to comply with the law and to pass the class so that he could get his driver’s license. But I offered him the choice - to cancel the class and take it in a few months or so when he was more comfortable. Unfortunately, that would mean giving up his learner’s permit as well since the state of Washington only allows a permit if you are enrolled in a class under the age of 16. He thought about it a little bit and then said no, he wanted to continue, but I could tell he wasn’t happy being forced into this situation.

I feel helpless sometimes in these situations. I want to take away all of his anxieties and worries, but at the same time, I need to teach him how to confront them and make sure they don’t ever master him, but that he can master them. We all have worries in life and he has more than average. I know he lives with a chronic level of hyper-alertness with these anxieties and probably has a higher resting stress level than I care to think about. I wish I could sweep these all away.

I know that I could help him tonight - he wants me to go with him as parents were invited to attend each class if they wished. Its just that Amanda has TKD at the same time and she already missed Monday because I had to take him. So, what do I do? It is rarely that I am placed in these situations to directly choose between children, and let me tell you, I don’t like it one bit. Do I disappoint Amanda or cause Alex more stress? There is no other option, Daddy John is out of town again (we haven’t seen him in a while - he’s in Europe on business) and G4 is in class. I hate this!!!!

It’s no fun knowing someone will be fussy with the outcome. Sometimes I wish I had a handy adoption manual to refer to that I could ask questions to and get answers, such as, “Should I let Alex attend class alone tonight and force a little tough love? Or should I disappoint Amanda and explain to her that I can’t take her?” The book in it’s wisdom would give me a clearly defined number rating on each choice taking into account current anxiety level, and future attitude towards mom.

But, I think I already know the answer. Just typing the words tough love decided me - as you all know by reading me thus far, those words aren’t in my vocabulary! I am all about compromise, listening to kid’s needs, altruism, and unconditional love, never cry it out, deal with it on your own, or telling kids what to do. I will juggle my schedule around today to take Amanda to TKD early so that she can practice some, even though it is not class time, and then, go to class with Alex. This way everyone gets most of their needs met. Whew - feel better! I will update later on how it went....

Anxiety Issues

I have recently come to realize that most of Alex’s behavior can be distilled down in terms of anxiety. I know this is an oversimplification of the matter, but in my feeble effort to understand what he is going through, I have had a lot of luck looking at it this way. There are the anxieties that I know are there, new country, new language, new expectations, new family, etc. These we all expect and try to head off as much as we can, but sometimes can’t. I can do nothing about the language part for example.

Then there are the other anxieties, like anxiety about his family left in Ukraine which I can’t relate to as I look at it as better of left since they didn’t do so much for him. He has anxiety about his future, after all, he never really thought he was going to have one. He has anxiety about relationships, after all, they have not gone so well for him in the past, being abandoned by almost everyone he loved. These anxieties and I am sure a thousand more that I can’t even begin to comprehend are there I am sure.

When he is doing something that is irritating or annoying to me, I try to step back and realize that it is usually rooted in an anxiety. For example, we had a homeschooling group outing to a ceramics studio today. The kids had gone last month to create mask and were going back today for painting. The studio is not large and the parents were asked to drop off their kids and then meet around the corner at a coffee shop. Amanda was with Alex, and they had been before, so I felt pretty good leaving them. About 30 minutes after I dropped him off, the phone calls started. I was a little irritated - ok a lot irritated. After all, I am with this kid 24/7, to the point that even when I try to sneak off the go to the bathroom he sometimes stands outside the door of the bathroom! So I was looking forward to a little adult conversation.

I actually missed the first few calls from him as the coffee shop was busy and noisy, but as a good mom, I checked the phone and saw that I had missed 5 calls from him in 30 minutes. So I swallowed my irritation and called him back. I found out that he had left his drink in the car and was thirsty. This is a no brainer for our bio kids. They wouldn’t think twice of looking for a water fountain or asking for a cup of water, but he was worried about it, so I helped him problem solve to ask the studio person for a cup of water. The next call was to ask what I was doing. The next one was to find out if I was having fun. My irritation was boiling over at this point, but after asking I realized that their activity had ended and he was worried about what to do next and when would I be coming back. But this had been covered ahead of time. The studio owner knew that it wouldn’t take the whole time, so he had encouraged the kids to bring a sack lunch (which I had packed for them) and play outside for the duration of the time of the meeting.

When I was irritated, I was looking at this problem from my viewpoint of can’t you leave me alone for 30 minutes? But when I started looking at it from his viewpoint of feeling anxious, I realized that nothing was going to get better until I alleviated his anxiety. So I asked him what Amanda was doing, told him that I would be back in 20 minutes and asked what other teens had shown up. Once I mentioned these things and he verbalized all his friends that were there, the fact that Amanda was happy and playing with the others, and that I knew I had to come back, he seemed much more at ease and didn’t call me back! I think he felt that he answered his questions himself, not me lecturing him. And when we were driving home, he even said unsolicited, “I had a great time today. It was a lot of fun. When can we go back?”

I realized that I had made a small triumph - I had taken a situation in which he was starting to ramp up the negative feelings and then diffused it into a now positive one. Small victory, but I felt good about it. 6 months ago, I would have just rushed back to him so that I could have smoothed things over myself, and while that might have been ok then, I realize that I need to start helping him deal with these anxieties himself. I wouldn’t have thought about it in terms of anxiety back then - I would have just assumed there was a language issue or some other type of issue that only my presence could have solved. 

Alex needs to develop coping skills in life to compensate for what he is feeling and what better way than to start small. I also realized that if I had given into my irritation, I would have ramped up his anxiety by adding to it - what did I do to get mom upset. And what did I loose, not much - I got my adult time out of it - I just lost a few minutes to answer the phone a couple of times. It still amazes me that I am learning so much from him even after all of this time. I see just how far we have come, and yet still how far more there is to go.

I'm Tired of the Differences

      I am sure this will sound whiny, but there are times that I get tired of the fact that Alex is adopted. He feels like he has always been mine, he acts like he has always been mine, so why every once in a while does life reach out and smack you in the face and remind me that no in fact, Alex was not born to me, has not always been with me, and will always be in some respects different.

      I was conversing with another mom at a homeschooling outing and made some reference to Alex’s schoolwork. She looked quizzically at me and then another mom chimed in, “Oh, English is not his native language. He was adopted from Russia.” Okay, not Russia, but close enough I wasn’t going to fuss, and I really didn’t feel like talking about the adoption, the process, how did you decide to do it, what led you to a teenager, etc, etc, etc.

I feel bad, because I know people are only asking due to curiosity and not any malevolent intentions, but I do get tired of the questions. This is hard too, as I know that we need to be ambassadors for teen adoptions. There are few enough of them and most of what is publicized is negative.

I was explaining to someone the other day that initially, I went through a grieving phase where I had to come to terms with the fact that there were 14 birthdays and christmases that I missed. I missed baby teeth, first day of school, and so much more,and there was nothing I could do to get those back. I think I came to terms with that reality, but maybe not since I get so irritated at times when it is brought back up. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not always this cranky about it, and usually embrace telling the story. I also really can talk about and consider Alex’s life before me without getting fussy. But there are times when I don’t want it in the forefront of my mind. I want it buried further down so that we can focus on togetherness and the future rather than the past.

So, in that vein, I have embraced the fact that there are things which will occur all too fast for me, but not for Alex, the first of which is driving. He turned 15 in January and has been pestering us to learn how to drive. So, we signed him up for a driver’s ed program and got him his learner’s permit today. He was so excited! Actually, I am really excited about this as I get a break from chauffeuring around. He drove home from the DMV today and then was begging to go out again. In an uncharacteristic offer, he wanted to go run errands, so he could drive!

So watch out streets of Seattle!

A Tale of Two Languages

The next topic I will fill everyone in on is learning English, keeping Russian, and school work overall. Alex was initially resistant to school work, but now, really engages at times with gusto. He is conversationally fluent even in big groups of kids who are talking fast and furious. He can read menus, signs, and other things in daily life he sees. He can read English at about the 6-7th grade level with good comprehension. Sometimes he can read over that level, but then the comprehension suffers as his mastery of vocabulary declines. I purchased a middle school level Geology book and he is reading that by himself. We have also been working on vocabulary words. I got a list of common TOEFL words and we learn about 2 a week. I put them up on the fridge (as he is always in and out of the fridge) with both the English and the Russian. I figured out pretty quickly that his Russian vocabulary wasn’t up to snuff, so in a way, I am teaching both at once! We reinforce these with the whole family using them in sentences over and over again. This has been really successful in building his vocabulary up. In fact, he was so excited the other day when he used one of the words, banter I think, in his homeschooling group and the other kids didn’t know what it meant and he had to explain it to them.

He is doing Algebra 1 and except for some catchup work with concepts that he had missed before, is doing well. It will take us about 18 months I think to get through the full year of Algebra 1, but I am ok with that. He is also doing Physics, World History (which I am just reading to him out of a world history text), and World Geography. I am able to do this with Amanda, so it is nice to be able to double up on some teaching. In the fine arts category, he is doing a digital photography class and taking drum lessons.

The last thing I am doing with Alex is a sociology course. I found a grad student at UW that teaches a lot of homeschooling classes and he is teaching both Amanda and Alex together. They are reading The Social Animal by Brooks and once a week they get together and talk about it. I read it to Alex and then he dictates to me what he wants to write, Amanda of course has to write an essay every week on the topic. She also has been reading The Blank Slate as a complementary text to keep the level up for her, as Alex is much slower of course with the reading. This has been a great way to push Alex and his critical thinking skills. It has also been tough as we are confronting a myriad of social issues and topics like parenting, attachment, poverty, education ideologies, etc. But it has been good also for him to understand how to separate his personal experiences and talk about them societally as a whole. It hasn’t been easy - these are pretty tough concepts to master, but I think it is a good introduction to higher order thinking for him. Also, even though some of the topics that are brought up have hit a little too close to home, we are plugging along trying to help Alex make sense of everything in his world.

I am concerned with Alex keeping his Russian intact. We encourage him to talk to as many people as he can in Russian and every day, he has to read out of a Russian book. We are blessed living in Seattle at the number of bookstores around that carry Russian language novels. Also, our library system has a rather large collection of Russian language books, both fiction and non-fiction. For now, he is reading fiction in Russian - currently a shoot ‘em up sci-fi book. I also have him write in Russian when I can think of it, but I do notice that it is getting harder for him to do it.

I am always asking Alex if it is getting hard to remember Russian, and so far it isn’t. But I live in fear that one day he will find it hard. We have found a little European deli with the cutest older couple running it from Kiev. They have the most scrumptious food! The owners, Gregory and Sveta, have taken a liking to Alex and we go there frequently. I always insist that he speak Russian to them, and he is always insisting on practicing English. I always say that he practices enough English with his linguistically retarded family! This is repeated every time we go and now we start the conversation on the way there! And by the way, I always get my way!

I do seem to bounce up and down on how Alex is doing overall. There are days I couldn’t be more pleased with his progress, but there are also times when I panic that nothing I do will be enough. I am trying to learn how to calm down at these times and take things slowly, but time marches on inexorably and makes you seem like you are losing ground.

Alex is a jump learner and when he is processing new information or at a new stage of language acquisition, he appears to move backwards. I have learned that these are not really backward motions, but actually processing times and he will appear to leapfrog out of it when he is finished processing. But the waiting as he is processing - yikes, nail biting! I don’t wait well!

He gets frustrated with himself at times and feels like he could be doing better, but I have to keep reinforcing that he is doing really well and that he is actually ahead of the game. He doesn’t always believe me and sometimes says he will never be able to go to a university, but then in the next breath, he will ask about college and his future. So where there was only hopelessness before, there is now a light shining. I don’t think he really knows how to react to it, but at least we are cutting through the darkness an inch at a time.

Phase Two

I had stopped blogging last year after Alex had been with us about 3 months. It seemed like we had gotten over the adjustment phase and were moving along nicely with establishing him as part of our family. And in a way, I was right, that first phase was over and there wasn’t much more to talk about in that place.

But recently as we approach the one year mark (I can’t believe it), I have begun to realize that there is so much more to do. There really isn’t anymore of him and us - we are all pretty much a cohesive unit, but there are times when a gulf does exist and it seems like it is getting harder and easier to bridge it. I know that sounds contradictory, but as I know Alex better, I am way more in tune with his feelings and needs. I can more easily anticipate his needs and wants and know immediately when something is going wrong. The problem exists in the fact that these needs now are buried deep within him, resultant not from external circumstances and adjustment but from an internal sense of poor self-worth and self-esteem resulting from years of abuse and neglect. So in a way, even though I know they are there and I can tell when they are rearing their ugly heads, I feel more powerless to do anything about them.

I worry about the internal conflict we are cresting within Alex as we are always telling him how smart and wonderful he is and showing how wanted he is, and inside he is reconciling that with the internal knowledge that no one wanted him for the first 14 years of his life. That knowledge is more deeply ingrained than our new campaign of love and understanding in his life. Reconciling these two competing views of himself will take actual parenting on my part - not my strong suit! I tend to let the kids tell me what they want instead of me leading them. I know that when two ideas are in conflict, it is the job of the child to choose the one that is opposite from the parent’s belief in an attempt to establish themselves as individuals. In this case, I can’t afford Alex doing that.

I worry about these two conflicting points and have started telling him instead of how smart he is, that I am proud of hard he works. He views himself as a hard worker and me reinforcing the concept will add to his self-esteem, I hope. Then after pointing out the hard work, I point to how it leads to the right answer on an Algebra problem, or another similar good outcome, hence how smart. I am hoping to lead him to these conclusions slowly and avoid the internal conflict. Instead of telling him how handsome, we try to also say how proud we are that he takes pride in his appearance, instead of always saying how wanted he is, we focus on what good things he has brought to us and how grateful we are for his presence in our lives. We are trying to pump him up with ideas that are not in conflict with his dim self-view, but with ideas that he already on board with. Don’t know if it is correct or not - but it feels right.

To this end, we have recently engaged a psychologist, who was initially puzzled as to why we were seeking help. She kept asking about behavioral problems, none, discipline issues, none, lack of compliance, none, school work issues, none. But when I explained to her that we needed help starting to fix these emotional scars, she understood and hopefully will start to give us some ideas on how to help. At some point we recognize Alex will have to come to terms with what his life was and what his life is now and reconcile the two together.

I am not sure what everyone wants to know about, I know that most blogs stop after returning to America with their kids, so I will just run through everything - hopefully I won’t put anyone to sleep. In general, life has been wonderful. Alex really has become our child, in our hearts and minds. The psychologist we have met with was describing how she viewed adoptions. She said every once in a while it is like magic, that when the family and child came together, the sum is greater than the individual parts and magic is created. That is so definitely what we feel on a daily basis.

First, the move to Seattle. It turned out to be the best thing ever for us. It put all of us an a level playing ground. Nobody had lived here before so everyone was starting anew. We found a great house with 5800 square feet, 2 decks, mountain views, an exercise room, separate little area downstairs for G4, an office for G3, and a great rec room. Alex and Amanda did have a tiff about who was going to get the bigger bedroom upstairs. Daddy John wanted to get involved, but I was pretty adamant. I told him to let them work it out on their own and they did! Alex got the bigger bedroom but he had to concede a few points and now, his room is the hangout room with the drums and keyboard in it. It was good to see them interacting like true siblings, not worried about who was more favored or bio vs. adopted.

And the reason why we moved to Seattle, G4... Well, he is 17 as of March and finished with his first two quarters in UW. He is doing so well, with a 4.0 GPA. He has been taking Calculus, upper level biology courses and organic chemistry. He even dabbled with an archaeology course that he really enjoyed. He has made friends and is busy most of the time without the rest of us. It is so great to see him flourish, but he is still a typical teenager and stayed home tonight (a Saturday night  to spend the night with the family making home-made pizzas and watching movies).

As far as making friends, we have found the most wonderful homeschooling group here of just teens. There are about 50 families with kids between 13 and 19 that get together every Monday for outings and field trips and then on other days for parties and such. It is a richly diverse group of people and the kids are wonderful. Both Amanda and Alex have made friends and look forward to getting together with everyone. He routinely texts and communicates by facebook with everyone. And girls - oh my - always girls following him around. We are on girlfriend number 3 now, but this one seems a keeper. She is really nice. The boys in the homeschooling group were teasing him about his posse of girls who follow him around, but it was all in good fun. And of course it hasn’t hurt that he has grown more (by about 3-4 inches, put on about 15 pounds of muscle in his chest, he works out constantly lifting weights and doing pushups, etc., and now has an earring!) The earring was one of his 15th birthday presents.

So I guess I will end here - as the move to Seattle was the biggest challenge we faced in our future when I stopped blogging. Looking over the past year still invokes a lot of feelings in me that are hard to describe, it has been so busy and crazy and so fulfilling and wonderful.