Just a little project..

If anyone is still reading this I suppose I should put a little update here. I'm heading up a toy drive for the baby house that Igor lived in. I've had quite a good response from people already so I'm expecting quite a load of stuff to ship. If your interested let me know either by leaving a comment or e-mailing me if you have the address.

Igor is still doing really good, he's an amazing little kid. The food issues are quietly resolving theirselves which I'm very thankful for. I was getting very frustrated with his eating, however he now seems to be getting the hang of chewing and swallowing. His speech therapist was very impressed with his progress this last visit so we have changed his therapy from every two weeks to once a month. We could have discontinued but I have a feeling it will be one step forward, one step back for a while and would like to have the backup. He's also really starting to eat amounts that are more consistent for his size and age as well. I think we are up to 26 lbs now - I'm not sure our bathroom scale stinks - ( I have promised to buy a new one next trip to wal-mart) and I'm sure we've grown and inch or two as well since clothes that fit the first of the summer are now too little. An outfit I bought for fall will not even fit him- he never even wore it! That will teach me to buy ahead for this guy. Luckily I've hung on to all the clothes for Sonny Boy and only have to buy a few things according to weather - like snow pants, Sonny Boy didn't have snow pants in a small size and possibly boots so I won't be spending a fortune on a new wardrobe every three months.

Igor's birthday was Thursday. We didn't celebrate or open his presents yet as my mother is coming to visit in a couple of weeks, it will be her birthday then as well and we can have one birthday party for both. I know we should had a special day for him as it was his first birthday home, but our family is not a big birthday celbration kind of group. Cards for the grown-ups and the kids get a few toys and a cake. We'll do birthday parties every year or two, those things get expensive fast.

Fall made an early appearance this year and arrived the Tues after labor day, it has warmed up since but that first cool snap made us really realize that summer is over. Soon the raking of the lawn will start. Ugh! nothing like having over 20 mature maples in your yard come fall, makes you want to run amok with a chain saw! The cool snap and an Oriental Trading Co catalog set Sonny Boy to thinking of Halloween costumes. He has decided to be a robot. I think I've got a cheap idea with dryer vent hose, cardboard boxes and silver spray paint. Poor little Igor has no say, he's donning Sonny Boy's old lion costume that's been hanging in the basement for a few years now.

That's the scoop here.

MOM!!!! MOM!!!! MOM!!!!

This is what I woke up to the other morning. It's a wonderful feeling to know Igor is getting more and more comfortable and doesn't wake up screaming bloody murder and scaring us out our skin anymore. The downside of this is he now stands beside me all day and yells " MOM MOM MOM" for no apparent reason other than that he can now call me by a name. I do wish it would vary to Mama or Mommy occasionally though, he picked up the Mom thing from Sonny Boy I'm sure. He's also saying a handful of other words as well. Not too shabby for a kid who wasn't even speaking his native tongue four months ago. I knew there was a bright light in there somewhere.

Honestly I have to say I've been impressed by how easily he's fit into our family. I know we may just be having a honeymoon, however I don't think a kid this young can do that. Truely the only issue that has arisen is his eating problems which we are addressing through speech therapy. The issues are truly frustrating and I feel I spend huge amounts of time in front of the high chair exagerating my chewing motions and gulping to get food to go down. I also have a little rubber brush we rub around in his mouth when we want to make him really pissed off!

Sonny Boy told me the other day he wanted me to go back to Ukraine and get him a little sister. After a little more conversation it turned out he simply wanted to go stay at his aunt's house for an extended period of time. Nothing like three boy cousins, a new jungle gym and sandbox, a lake at the back door and a playroom that resembles Toys R Us to make home boring and dull.

Summer is drawing to a close of course and next week we go for open house at Sonny Boy's pre-school. It will be old hat as he has the same teacher as last year. Sonny Boy is now admitting that he's disappointed not to be attending kindergarten this year, however I still think we made the right decision holding him back.

Well it appears I'm having some computer problems so I better cut this short. I'm going to try for a picture-- or not.

A new feature

Just playing around and thought a spiffy slide show of our trip to Ukraine would jazz up the blog a bit. Of course these are only a fraction of the pictures taken on the trip but I thought it a pretty good snapshot of the sights.

Strangely I'm missing all the stress associated with getting ready and worrying about the trip. I know that's bizarre but it's been the forefront of my life for the last year. It seems I always need some huge event to stress over or I'm not content.

Now my sleepless nights are filled with worry of what will happen if something happens to Hubby or the kids and all the bizarre thoughts of terror that you'll loose someone you love.

I suppose I need to find some sort of hobby. I did sell one of Sonny Boy's toys on Ebay the other day. I was thrilled, it's the first thing I sold on Ebay. I bought the thing a couple of years ago when he was in a huge Calliou phase, lately it's just been beating around the toy box so I dug out all the pieces and listed it. The thing sold for DOUBLE what I paid for it! I keep wondering what else might I list, and should I start haunting yard sales for treasures.

Well that's about it, we leave for our marathon road trip tomorrow and I'm sure that's going to be an adventure. I plan on taking sound protecting earmuffs to dampen out the racket from the back of the van. The library also lends MP3 books and players so I may stick those ear plugs in under the headphones as well. We'll drive at night and hope the kids sleep but you know how the saying goes.

winnie

Birthdays and Baby Stuff

Well we have survived the "Birthday Season" again this year. Sonny Boy and Hubby's birthday's are only a week apart so we end up with WAY too much cake. Sonny Boy opted for cupcakes for his birthday so quite a few went to work with Hubby so that thankfully cleared out room for a cake a week later. Both birthdays were quiet affairs. Sonny Boy had cupcakes and opened a few presents, Hubby opened his one present and had cake. Sonny Boy did manage to wrangle his dad into a trip to Chuck E. Cheese though, luckily I got to miss all that fun and went to the mall with Igor.

Baby Stuff you ask? Well since Igor is not technically an infant I decided to empty the basement of our little baby stuff. While in the process of this I asked Hubby's co-worker who is a pack rat to the extreme if he wanted to put things in. Well he did, about 10 boxes of little girl clothes sizes newborn to 6! I had a yard sale about 2 weeks ago and very little actually sold, most likely because things were not organized very well and it was difficult to dig through all of those clothes. I've been digging through them in the meantime and carried the nicer winter things to a local children's consignment store and hoarding all the clothes hangers I can get my hands on to hang the rest. Next Saturday I plan on dragging all the stuff back out to the yard and hope more sells. If it doesn't I'm just going to take all of it to the local charity. I would normally just dump it at the charity, however for doing this for the pack rat I get half so I'm being a little greedy. I'm also picking out stuff for my niece and things that I think my be worth shipping to the baby house when I get a package together for them. So I'm getting first pick on the stuff, not that I have much use for newborn dresses but it makes me want a little girl in a bad way.

All in all things are going very well here. Igor still amazes me with his ability to fit right in. The temper tantrums are slowing down he seems very content. His head banging has seemed to stop entirely. He is still very clingy to me, more so than Sonny Boy every was but he's getting better, and I'm now able to set him in crib for a few minutes while I go pottie or change clothes without it sounding like I'm killing him. Bedtime has gotten easier as well and he will often let us walk out of the room while he's still awake and he'll babble and play himself to sleep. He's a resislant little guy. I may be speaking too soon yet but so far so good.

I can honestly say we are into a boring routine now for out lives but it's good. The true test will soon come when we travel to northern MN in a couple of weeks to let Igor meet the family. It's sure to be a production as he has 4 first cousins, a couple of Grandmas ( though one grandma came to Ukraine to bring him home) Aunts, Uncles and whole range of people to meet and greet not to mention an 10 hour car ride and new sleeping surrounding so I'm sure we'll get a glimpse of not so happy Igor occasionally.

Well not much news to pass on, it's finally quiet here for the day so I'm going to lie on the couch and try to talk Hubby into changing channels from Extreme Cage Fighting.

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