I can't think of a good title

Last weekend a friend gave us the use of his cabin in the UP of MI ( thanks Mr & Mrs S) the weather Sat was nice but in typical midwestern fashion we were sporting sweatshirts and shorts on Sunday and it was too cold to be on the lake so we went to a nearby nature preserve and went on an easy hike. The hike was near two beautiful clear lakes and we saw tons of wild life, 3 deer, piliated woodpeckers, loons and we got very close to a beaver that was lumbering around on shore. Strangely there were few people in the preserve so I suppose it was luck to see all the animals.

Tomorrow is my oldest's birthday. Sonny Boy will be five years old. My how time flies! I can't believe it's been that long, it seems yesterday I was drugged up and being handed my new baby boy. Sonny Boy is excited for his birthday as all kids are, however we are not doing anything fantastic. We opted out a party this year (yeah) so we just open his gifts and eat cake and probably do something extra fun over the weekend.

Igor is doing well and I believe still gaining weight. I'm anxious to get him on a good scale to see what it says. He is finally starting to eat normal amounts of food at a setting, though he still has some trouble with texture. I do see he's making progress, I think it's going to be a while though before he's eating age appropriately.

I've been taking both boys to the pool most days now as it tends to expend some of Sonny Boy's neverending energy. Sonny Boy swimming is very close now, I'm hoping lots of time in the pool he will catch on soon. Igor just today figured out that the pool is fun, previously he just wanted to circle it and fall down and skin his knees up.

I've finally started to adjust to the household craziness. There are days where I'm ready to start drinking margaritas at noon, however things are settling into a routine now. The thing that drives me the most insane is that getting housework done is near impossible. Igor takes way too short of nap and by the time I get him down at bedtime I'm too tired to care if the kitchen floor is mopped or we have clean clothes. Doing anything while he's up is near impossible as he's a climber and explorer first rate. Leaving the room means your lible to come back to disaster and doing something as simple as folding a load of clothes while he wanders around can take twice as long as it should since he's exploring and unfolding as you go.

Not much new here to report, I just thought I'd give those of you that are still visiting something to read.

Before and after - home 12 weeks

Before

After

Nothing like a few hundred calories poked down your throat daily and some multivitamins!!

We are surviving!!

and possibly even thriving a little. Last week I took Igor into the doc and he had gained a pound and a half. It doesn't sound like much but it's alot when you started at 19 lbs or so. The docs were thrilled. We still have some bowel issues that come and go, we haven't figured out what it all is. So far we've ruled out celiac, lactose intolerance and parasites. The scariest one is that the GI doc wants to have him tested for cystic fibrosis. My logical brain tells me to settle down, he's ruling things out, however something like that never crossed my mind.

Sleeping through the night is getting better. Most nights he is only waking once now and usually just a word from us lying in our bed settles him so we don't even have to get up. However I wish naps would improve. Naps are still iffy and way to short so we have a very tired boy by suppertime.

The eating issues are about the same. Chewing seems to be harder than algebra for him, we do have speech therapy through 0-3 coming, she gave some suggestions but I've seen minimal improvement with those and doing it really just ticks Igor off to no end. The therapist comes again tomorrow though, so maybe we'll get some more tricks.

We took the kids camping this last weekend. It was a show to say the least. Igor handled it well all things considering and really liked playing in the dirt. It was a last minute trip for only one night but it was "getting away" for a little while and mom and dad got to sit around the fire and drink beer for a bit which doesn't seem to get done at home for some reason. We have promised Sonny Boy a camping trip for his birthday and that we'd take a friend of his along so it was something of a trial run for that. However for the birthday trip we will stay closer to home and I don't think I'll spend the night, I'll leave it for Hubby and Sonny Boy.

I hope to post a few pics soon, however you know how it is. The workload does more than double with two kids, it quadruples.

Winnie

Just a little update

Not a whole lot here. We are starting to settle into a routine of sorts though so that's a relief. Igor is now napping at least briefly daily and bedtime has become much easier. He still wakes in the night several times for no apparent reason. The only conclusion we've come up with is nightmares as he's usually very upset and sometime wringing wet with sweat. I hope the dreaming starts settling down as getting up several times a night is wearing on both of us. Luckily Sonny Boy sleeps like a log and never wakes up, but Igor does wake the dog on occasion.

Sitting at the kitchen table and bribing, begging and making airplane sounds has become my new pass time. ANYTHING to get him to eat. We have figured out he'll do anything for a banana so we make him take a bite of food then give him a little chunk of banana. It works sometimes. We do have some issues with texture as they must have never given him anything with chunks of any kind in the orphanage. Currently we have him mostly eating the 3rd foods baby foods, a few of the toddler foods and maybe sometimes a spoonful of whatever we eat. What I don't understand though is even the table food that we feed him that's soft is often refused. I've also seen him gag on chunky applesauce. Thankfully the speech therapy starts next week. I hope she has some ideas and a plan. I did find on the internet a product called Benecalorie that's low volume/ high calorie supplement that you ad to food. It's pretty oily looking but one little container 1.5 oz has 330 calories so we try to get one of those down him a day. We've also been keeping a diary and totalling his calorie intake daily. It's anal but he's so skinny you can see every rib and every knot on his backbone. There's so little body fat there he get's seriously chilled when taken out of the bathtub. Hopefully we can pack a few pounds on him quickly, our bathroom scale says he's gained a pound but it's not the most accurate. I do know his little belly sticks out like he drinks a six pack of beer or so daily now.

This week I made the hard decision not to send Sonny Boy on to kindergarten in the fall. His birthday is in July so it puts him on the young side of his classmates, not to mention I think he needs more time to mature on the social level. I do worry though as I think when he does enter K he'll be bored and be a trouble maker as he's smart as a whip, knows all the letters, counting etc and has even started trying to sound out words. I've discussed it with his preschool teachers and a girl I met this last weekend that is a kindergarten teacher and all seem to think it prudent. Hubby was also pressing for it as well. Sonny Boy wasn't too heartbroken about the whole thing which I'm glad because I thought he was really looking forward to going to big school. I think I'm the only upset as I wanted the free time while he was at school.

Hubby and I are hanging on and exhaustion is our middle names now. Along with not having a full nights sleep in weeks we've taken on our first house project in months and worked the memorial weekend event our civic group puts on. At least one of us was at the fest all weekend and the other with the boys. The house project is now in full swing as I finally convinced Hubby to purchase new bedroom furniture. Since we are finally getting new furniture we are going to put some wiring in our bedroom ( it's an old house with not enough plug ins) hang a ceiling fan, paint etc. Hopefully all before the new furniture is delivered. So today we empytied our dressers and started hauling down the old furniture. It's so pitiful we won't even donate it and have just busted it up for the garbage man to haul away. I'm excited to get a grown up bedroom finally, however I wish one of those designing shows would show up and finish the work. In the meantime we living out of cardboard boxes and will sleep in the guest bedroom. The bad part to the guest room thing is that it's downstairs and Igor is upstairs. Nothing like a groggy climb of stairs a few times a night too.

Well I've rambled enough. Hubby is watching Lost which is my favorite show, however I got LOST when we went to Ukraine and never watched the back episodes and now I don't want to spoil it. I guess I'll either watch it on the net ( yeah like I'll find time for that) or hope the reruns are played in order this summer.

Thanks for the posts!
Winnie

Home One Month Now!!

Wow! I can't believe we've been home a month now. Time has flown, I wish it had gone by this quickly while we were in Ukraine.

Igor is adjusting pretty smoothly though he has some separation anxiety that gets pretty annoying at times - like when I have to go to the bathroom. Generally he's a happy little guy. As you can see from the picture he now sports some cool new glasses. On the rounds of MD's we've been doing the last month, one was to the opthamologist, because we thought a round of surgery was going to be needed for crossed/lazy eyes. However all the crossing was just his best effort at trying to focus his eyes since it appears the poor guy was seriously nearsighted. Since getting the glasses I haven't seen his eyes look crossed yet. Generally he seems to like them however they are the first things flying when he has a temper tantrum. I'm glad they are made out of super heavy duty plastic and are super tough even if they don't rank on the style meter at all. The funniest is the reactions from people when we are out, you'd think he had horns growing out of his head. Kids usually say " Look at that baby with the glasses" and adults ask if they are "real" glasses. Come on, do you really think a toddler would think those glasses with a strap around your head are cool. They are seriously lacking sparkles, Dora, Diego, Teletubbies or Elmo, of course they are real.

Pinning down a routine around here has been difficult to say the least. Naps are either way too short after a lot of begging to go to sleep or non-existent. The last couple of days have been better though so hopefully it's the start of a trend.

After some lab work and experimenting we've come to the conclusion that Igor is lactose intolerant. It does make trying to pack on the pounds somewhat difficult as all the good for you to gain lots of weight foods are full of milk. He also seems to have this built in calorie counter during the day, Igor will eat well up until around 4:00 pm or so and then absolutely refuse to eat any supper. I've tried no afternoon snack, light snacks etc nothing seems to keep him eating in the evening. I pretty sure he hasn't actually eaten what we've eaten for dinner yet. Hopefully this trend will turn around soon as well as it's difficult to watch him not eat a bite of supper at all.

I suppose that's all there is to tell. We are settling in now and starting to adjust. I know my post have been sparse lately. If anyone is even still reading this! I'll try to do better in the future.

Winnie

Home- almost a week

Things are transistioning somewhat smoothly. Igor is adjusting fantastically and seems to be enjoying himself tremendously having a big brother who gives him way more attention than I can. We do have a few sleeping issues but nothing terrible just adjustment to a new room and place and all the new noises. He's a light sleeper and we have creaky old floors so everytime we walk by his bedrooom it wakes him up and he upset so he seems a little tired all the time. We have tried to cover the household noise with a loud fan that runs in the hallway which has helped some. Hopefully as he becomes more comfortable he'll sleep more soundly. We are also having typical adjustment issues with food - we don't serve a lot of borsht in our household - but he's adjusting. I'm doing my best to cram tons of calories and protein into him everytime he eats which I aim as every 2-3 hours. I was actually reading labels and comparing which items had the most calories and buying the ones that are fattiest etc at the store - backwards to the way I typically shop. I imagine I'll gain the 15 lbs I lost in Ukraine right back with all the fat floating in the house.

The biggest fear Igor displays is of the dog. Poor pup is so confused because she just can't understand why everytime she gets within 10 feet of him he starts screaming and she gets thrown outdoors. He'll adjust in time I'm sure as soon as he realizes she's totally harmless, I'm sure it's scary for Igor though as she looks him right in the eye and outweighs him by a good 50 lbs or so. Hopefully seeing the way Sonny Boy wrestles and abuses the dog and her absolute submission to him will help.

Hubby and I adjusting as well. Not sleeping through the night and the constant attention that a little one needs as we had gotten used to Sonny Boy's relative independence does take some time to get used to. It's a learning curve for all of us.

Sonny Boy is somewhat jealous, however we've been doing our best to give him extra attention and special privlages. He has a hard time understanding when Igor is acting out orphanage issues - a little head banging - and fear of the dog but now has enough understanding when we explain reasons to get it so that's been very helpful.

On Thursday I took Igor to our local pediatrician for a quick going over and to have bloodwork drawn as we have an appointment this Thursday with an International Adoption clinic and they said it would be helpful to have some lab work at that appointment. The Dr. visit was pretty traumatic, but not as bad as the blood draw. The ladies in the lab were very understanding and used a spray to numb his arms and held him as the blood was drawn and then let me comfort him. I didn't want Igor to associate me with that pain and fear. They had to draw quite a bit of blood and I had taken in a stool sample too, hopefully that will be all the labwork we have to do for a while. The Dr. pronounced him healthy for the most part but very tiny - which we knew - I think he's going to defer to the IA clinic for any major pronouncements on health though. He did mention PT, OT and Speech Therapy which I know we will be needing.

The last few days in Ukraine went pretty smoothly, we had no issues getting passports and birth certificates and no problems processing through the Embassy. The last three days in country MIL and I played tourist and bought a few trinkets, visited St. Sophia's, and the Lavra. I still haven't downloaded the last of the pictures but I'll post a few when I have some time. ( like that's gonna happen)

Well, that's all for now, as for now, know that we are busy and adjusting. I'll try to post more in the next few days.

Winnie

WE ARE HOME!!!

We landed at O'Hare around 4:30 pm yesterday. After a grueling day of flying and having documents checked everytime we went through a line we got home. Igor was a gem with only a few minor meltdowns which can be expected at his age.

Sonny Boy has grown four inches I swear and gained 10 pounds. The dog is also quite big now and didn't remember me when we got into the yard so she barked at me and then peed everywhere ( she's in a stranger anxiety phase)

Thanks for everyone's postings, I didn't know I was getting so many peeks. I'll post more in the next few days as I'm at the exhausted level today and just trying to find my car keys and toothbrush have been trying experiences, not mention a jet lagged and scared toddler to deal with.

Winnie