Photo Update

We have been crazy lately with summer activities, but I wanted to post some photos.

Our homeschooling group is really active and had a swing dancing lesson for the teens last week. The kids all loved it and Amanda and Alex were having a great time. Just in time for this summer's formal as well.

Alex is finally taller than Amanda now much to her irritation and his happiness. It always bugged him that she was so tall, but her growth has slowed down while his is still plugging along.

We also went camping with the teens homeschooling group this past weekend and had a blast. It was Alex's first real camping trip and he threw himself into the activities. We had 2 campsites, one for the kids and one for the motor home and us! We had a big tent for the girls and all of Amanda's friends, a tent for Alex and a friend, and G4's backpacking tent, which is supposed to fit two people but with G4's size is more like G4 and a shoe. Our campsite was the kid site with bonfires every night, food continuously, and smores. I feel like I did nothing but feed kids all weekend long! We are all exhausted now and I am buried under an avalanche of post-campout laundry but it is a good tired.

                                                  Making breakfast and goofing off!

                                                           Group Picture at Beach.

                                                  All the teens in one place - a miracle.

                                       The - haven't I posed for enough pictures look! - jeez!

                                                      G4 relaxing and playing games.

We all had so much fun, it was hard to leave, but back to some semblance of a normal life here - school work, house work, and such.

I Love Summer

We are having so much fun this summer already. It kicked off with a week of wonderful weather, clear blue skies and 70 degree temperatures. We went kayaking yesterday and swimming in Lake Sammamish. It was heavenly. Amanda and Alex immediately commandeered the kayaks and off they went.

We are also getting started with our summer schedule of classes and having a lot of rearrangement with them. I have finally had to put my foot down on some of the activities that we do. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do all of the things we want to do and still be able to get some school work done. So I have decided that we would pull back and spend more time at home.

In a funny coincidence, my van needed to go into the shop for some repairs and we have been forced to have some down time at home. Since it fit in well with my new schedule, I have embraced the home time and really gotten a lot done. I have been able to read more to the kids, clean the house, and catch up on laundry.

And speaking of reading, I have reinstituted my nightly reading to the kids. I used to read to G4 and Amanda for hours every day up to when G4 went into college. It was such a part of our life that we all look fondly back on. I had done some reading here and there to Alex, but it was more along the lines of 20-30 minutes a couple of times a week. Well, no more. We are listening to an audiobook of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea every afternoon for about 30 minutes and then I am reading to the kids at night for about 1 hour. I was struggling to find a good book that would engage both Amanda and Alex and I finally hit upon it - The Three Investigators Series. I remember loving the stories when I was growing up and they have been a big hit. Even better - I found the ebooks free on the internet.

So, we are loving the warm, rain free days, enjoying the freer schedule, and generally lazing around!

World of Warcraft Gets Limits

Alex’s favorite game is World of Warcraft. He plays that game for at least several hours every day and so far I haven’t been too worried about the time on the game - it does teach him a lot of English. He has learned how to type a lot of English as well since he has to regularly communicate with other players around the world. It does entail a fair amount of reading and while we do assist him, we do try to let him figure it out on his own.

But recently, as our schedule has gotten more busy, I decided to limit the use of the game to morning and evening and leave his school time which is always between the hours of 12 and 6 free of its influence. (Don’t panic and think that I do 6 hours of schoolwork with him everyday! It is more like 2-3 but it is always between the hours of 12-6 usually.)

When I announced this, I was really bracing myself for trouble. This was really the first time that he had had limits put on things he really liked doing. Usually all of our other behavior modifications were very mild and slow and measured. This was kinda out of left field.

But I was so surprised. He looked at me and whined for about 30 seconds, trying to get me to change my mind, but once he realized that I could not be swayed, he said ok and that was that. He even asked me if he needed to stop playing all together, but I told him, no of course not. And that was that - there has been no fussing or complaining since. And several times during those hours when he has not be doing school work with me, instead of asking to use the computer, he has gone and grabbed a book in Russian to read or gone outside to play.

He really is a great kid and has been so easy to handle. I feel so fortunate that he is able to be so flexible and malleable. He doesn’t dwell on things that he can’t change and moves on. I think this is such a valuable habit that will be immensely powerful later on in life. I am thinking of putting some more limits on him, but already the benefits of just that small change are reaping big rewards. We are doing on average two more lessons a day than we were before.

This brings me to a point here about these kids. I know many people vehemently disagree with the way I go about things with Alex. They (including many in my own family) would start from the position that you closely regulate everything (like video games) and as the children do well or progress, you can gradually lighten up and allow more freedom. I am diametrically opposite that, as I allowed all the freedom he wanted in the beginning and then started very late to put limits on and at that, almost negligible limits at that that were very little hardship on him. 

My reasoning is that my way shows the child the importance of self-regulation and almost leads them into decisions on their own. This limit on World of Warcraft was only placed after Alex said to me one day during an Algebra lesson that he wished he was less of a lazy cake and more motivated. When he voiced this, I knew that he wanted to change and was looking for help in how to do it and that I needed to be a parent. I then imposed the limit the next day and told him that this would remove a lazy cake temptation and help him do what he wanted. I think that is why he responded so well to it without fussing more.

I think the other way is the more standard method of parenting, but I don’t think that it teaches the child as much responsibility. It takes control away from them in the beginning, making them resentful and already puts you in a bad light and them into a mind frame of rejecting your advice or guidance. Anyway, time will tell I guess. Maybe I will be sitting here in a couple of years wondering what I did wrong! Let’s hope not, but you never know.

But for now, we have some limits, they are working and I am just going to go with what is working now. Summer is approaching, and I have plans to do some fun things over summer and catch up on a lot of stuff that was missed during the year. We will have lazy days, late nights, movie marathons, as well as extra math lessons, expository writing and science experiments.

Rant Over and Moving On

Ok, I got all the nasties out of my system with the last post. I am more objective now and feeling a little more charitable towards others. I know that people are just trying to be nice and help - even if they aren’t actually helping.

Alex had an exciting occurrence a couple of days ago. He and I had written some letters to lawmakers and congressman and ambassadors and such about the Russian adoption situation. Alex was very concerned that Ukraine was starting to investigate adoptions as well. He was adamant that adoptions be allowed to continue and was amenable when I suggested we write letters. At first he wanted only me to do it - he kept saying you are the parent - they want to hear from you. But then when I explained how powerful the message would be from a child who had actually been adopted, he relented and wrote a letter as well.

Well, we sent them off and really didn’t think to much more about them until he got a phone call the other day from the Consul General of the Ukrainian consulate in San Francisco. He was so excited and conversed with the gentleman in Russian for quite some time. The gentleman extended an offer of help with anything Alex needed and gave him his phone number. I think it was an excellent lesson for Alex to realize that indeed, one voice can make a HUGE difference.

This has spurred on our desire to help other kids. Amanda was asking me about adopting another child at one point and I can honestly say no. I don’t know about forever, but I don’t think so. I had one more child I needed to mother, and Alex was the one. From the very first time I saw him, my heart knew. I am fulfilled now and don’t feel the need to mother anything else. I want to help the other children, and wish I could take them, but it would be for charity and not because I honestly felt they were my children. So, we have been doing a lot of things with the Gates foundation and when Alex and I were talking the other day, I thought, what about getting a grant from them to help the orphanage. Alex has always been decrying the poor outdoor facilities like the playground and the small soccer field, so I thought, why not? This will be the project that we will be working on this summer to see if we can do something.

On that note, I suggested he call the orphanage the other night. The first couple of nights we tried, we couldn’t get anyone, but last night, we finally did. The orphanage director, Ludmyla herself answered the phone and then called just about everyone on the staff to talk to him. They were excited to talk to him and wanted us to send some pictures. He was happy after the call, and I was happy that I had suggested it. He is always going to have ties to Ukraine, but if I can broaden them and give him some healthy reasons for being there, like philanthropy, then I think it will be better for him. When he thinks of Ukraine now, he is sad. He misses his friends, family, and has bad memories as well of being mistreated and neglected and being stuck in the orphanage. But if we can turn these around and have him think of Ukraine in terms of a project and give him goals and others to talk to instead of his family, I think it can only help. A purpose and direction can dispel a lot of negativity. So I will keep you updated on this latest venture!

Biting My Tongue

A couple of different events recently have just about broken me down and made me say mean things to others - and I usually don’t even consider doing that. If anything, I swallow my irritation and share my frustrations later to my family. I am pretty non-confrontational but somehow, I need to figure out a comfort level with pushing back to some people.

Let me preface this conversation with the reality being that people that haven’t adopted older kids just don’t understand. I was about to say people that haven’t adopted kids don’t know, but then I thought about it, and I really think I have to discount them as well. If you have adopted an infant, you have for all intents and purposes affected their whole life. Sure, some things you can commiserate with me on, but for the most part, adopting an older child means all of the problems of adoption and all of the problems of having them cared for (or not cared for if you catch my drift) from others. I don’t mean to alienate people that haven’t adopted older kids but I really feel this way sometimes.

Anyway, on with the story. You have heard me complain before about the fact that I daily mourn the fact that I missed so much with Alex. I missed his first 14 birthdays, Christmases, losing his first tooth, etc... There are so many misses, but I am learning that the sting of that goes away as we build up a lot of memories together. We now have a years worth of memories that are starting to fill that void. I know that it will never be enough, but I am getting used to it. But what really gets me is when people judge him on what happened before he was ours. I haven’t done that, G3 and the kids haven’t done that, so what gives anyone else the right to do that? Alex is now OURS, fully and completely, so judge him by the same standards that you judge the rest of us, because those are the standards by which we judge him. He is now held accountable to our life standards and will always be held so. And there is no problem with this. But we recently have had some situations where he has been judged by other parents based upon their conjectures of what might have gone on in his life before he came to us.

This is killing me! Why? Why would people blame him or hold him accountable for things that may or may not have happened several continents away? Why are they judging him any differently from my other two? Why would people invent the worst case scenario of what his behavior was and then warn their kids off? Why is the fact that his skin color is a few shades darker than ours mean that he can go different places or not worry as much about crime or safety?

The reality is that Alex was and is the most caring, kind person I know. He is a kids just like any other 15 year old and a Gardiner child that is educated and treated just like the other two. He was adrift before, without caring people around him and sure, did some things that now he is not proud of - but they were done to survive. Who would blame him now for stealing to eat because he was hungry? But during it all, he cared for the people around him - he cared for his baby sister and was changing her diapers when no one else would answer her cries. When his Grandma needed money for medication, he skipped school and took a bus to pick potatoes to make money. He admits he put his thumb on the scale when the bags were weighed, but he needed the money for her! There are countless other examples that I can give of where he did the best he could in pretty horrific circumstances and now life is finally paying him back with some kindness or is it?

When he is judged as a sociopath with criminal tendencies from other parents, that really isn’t kindness, is it? He isn’t being given the chance to start over, is he? We have offered that chance and within our family, he started with a clean slate - and let me tell you - it is still pretty clean. But when others unfairly place his past back on his shoulders, without context and knowledge, he becomes a victim again. A victim that will always wonder why he can’t seem to rise above his humble beginnings.

Never have I truly been more confronted with a case of guilty until proved innocent. Just because Alex wasn’t mine from the beginning, he is guilty of really any sin that can be imagined. And what really burns me is that just because Amanda and G4 have been raised by us, they are not. Fine, if you want to judge all of us - be my guest, just don’t single out one of us for something they haven’t done and aren’t responsible for.

Amazing A-Day

We celebrated Alex’s first A-day on April 28th. I was worried about how he would take it - after all a year is a long and a short time depending on how you look at it! But as usual, I was more worried than I needed to be. He did fine. He was excited and happy, and didn’t seem upset or anxious at all. He kept asking what presents he was going to get and seemed very comfortable with the whole idea.

I was struggling to find presents that meant something to him. There are always presents to get kids, but I wanted to get things that conveyed the love and commitment we had for him and hopefully that he is developing for us. Toys, sports equipment, and the such just didn’t seem to fit the bill.

So, in the end we gave him a few presents and then ended up by making coupon books for him from each family member that had special things in them. For example, my coupon book had several coupons for Lazy Day - No Schoolwork, or lunch out your choice (since he is always asking to go out to lunch when we are out and about), etc. There were some sleep as late as you want coupons, a clothes shopping trip, and breakfast in bed as well. For G3, he gave Alex coupons for one video game of your choice, a trip to a gun range, a trip to a go-kart track, a movie and popcorn, things like that. Then we all added coupons for things like a board game of your choice, a game of pool whenever you want, and other family building activities.

All in all, it was a marvelous day. Alex commented on how he can’t believe that it has been a year already. He told me that when he was in the orphanage, time seemed to pass so slowly, but now he was upset that it is whizzing by. I explained the idiom, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” and he agreed wholeheartedly.

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!