23 March 2005 - Winter Report

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an update, so I hope you’ll forgive me if this one is longer than usual. We’ve been busy living life and enjoying ourselves, and there’s a lot to report.

In early February, Uncle Geoff and Aunt Norma came to visit. The boys have finally met all of their American uncles and aunts! Now if only we could get all the cousins to visit, too.

We’ve started reading books together regularly. Until recently, the boys weren’t terribly interested in books. You’d think, being my sons and seeing me read all the time, that books would be on top of their list. But we had to wait for their language skills to mature before books, even picture books, became interesting. Now Nicky and Zack ask me to read to them all the time. Dr. Seuss’s books are wonderful, not only for the funny drawings and silly stories, but for the language lessons buried inside every page.

During spring break, we went to San Antonio in our new van. We spent a lot of time doing what the boys call “look cars” before deciding on a Honda Odyssey. In a fit of what passes for humor, I decided the Odyssey must be named “Homer.” Although I’m not excited about the idea of driving a van (I feel like a soccer mom, even though all the soccer moms now drive SUVs), it’s the right kind of car for us. We can take their bikes to the park, take their friends around town, and survive long trips without struggling for personal space.

In San Antonio, we rode the boats along the River Walk, went to the Children’s Museum, strolled through the Zoo, and stayed at a hotel two nights and at Tall Uncle Steve’s house one night. The boys absolutely loved the trip, and enjoyed being able to watch DVDs on Homer's ceiling-mounted screen.

In March, we finally got to see a family that we’ve been trying to visit for months. They have a farm west of Ft. Worth, and the boys got to hold baby goats, milk a mamma goat, and play with bows and arrows. The boys also got to see Aunt Linda again, which is always a special treat.

Did you know that Zack has a house of his own? He started talking about it shortly before Christmas. At his house, he has a dog of his own, toys he doesn’t have to share, and lots of snakes and spiders. When he first mentioned it, I assumed he was confused about the difference between the orphanage and our home, especially since he spoke about the spiders and snakes in a very unhappy way. So I used to correct him, saying, “Honey, there were snakes at the orphanage, but we don’t have any here,” and other things like that.

I gradually realized, however, that he knew perfectly well that the orphanage was not “his” house. I also realized that he usually spoke of his house when he didn’t like something about his life. At his house, you see, little boys don’t have to fold their clothes. At his house, daddies always say “Yes” when asked for candy. At his house, little boys are in charge and don’t have to obey.

But Zack’s house is not just a container for his daydreams. All the dark things of his imagination live at his house, too. The witch, Baba Yagska, who eats little boys, lives at his house. Bad men who hurt children live at his house. His house has mean ladies who put soap in his eyes, bigger children who hit and kick, dogs that bite, strangers who come in the night to scare him, teachers who lock him in rooms, and, of course, spiders and snakes that bite.

One day, while we were driving home from school, Zack told Nicky about his house again. Nicky, ever the stickler for truth, tried to convince him there was no such place. The conversation became a little heated, as Zack kept insisting he did too have a house of his own, and Nicky kept insisting he did not.

I listened, bemused, wondering if I should contradict Zack or just listen to him. In some ways, I knew that talking about his house was a way for him to externalize feelings he didn’t know how else to handle. At the same time, I wondered how long he would keep it up in the face of reality. A five-year-old’s grasp on reality is somewhat weak, anyway, and in any other area, my job would be to teach him correct perceptions. Shouldn’t I be doing that here? Could I let him keep talking about his house, getting whatever catharsis he needed from it, while still teaching him that wishing for something (or fearing something!) doesn’t make it come true?

There’s a touch of the experimental scientist in me. I decided to query the location of his house instead of just flatly denying its existence. “Zack, where is your house?” I asked.

“This way.”

“Zack, honey, you know that you’re sitting behind me. I can’t see which way ‘this way’ is when you point. Use words like ‘right’ or ‘left’ or ‘straight ahead,’ okay?”

“Mine house this way!”

I started to explain again about not being able to see his pointing, but Nicky couldn’t bear it any longer. “Left, Daddy.”

“Zack, is your house to the left?” I asked.

“Yes, this way.”

I could only assume he was pointing again. I turned left at the next street. “Which way now, Zack?”

“This way.”

“Zack, I can’t see you. Are you pointing again? Which way?”

“This way! This house. This one. Red.”

“The red house right there?”

“Yes. This one mine house.”

We’d never been down this street before. He’d never seen the house before. There was no way he had it confused with some other house. I said brightly, “That’s a very nice house, Zack.”

“Go inside,” he commanded.

Bang! Reality time. No way to continue playing the game. “Zack, sweetie, we can’t go inside. That’s not your house. It’s okay to pretend—do you know what ‘pretend’ means?—about having a house, but it’s not really yours. We can’t go inside someone else’s house.”

Silence from the back seat.

“Zack?”

“Nofing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nofing.”

And ‘nofing’ was all he would say about it until dinner. Out of the blue, he volunteered that ours was a very nice house, and he liked it.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“Detsky dom”—the orphanage—“bad.” It was almost, but not quite, a question.

I’d faced this one before with Nicky. I didn’t know if Zack was parroting something he’d heard Nicky say, or was working through his own feelings. And while not wanting to knock down his former country, I could still not pretend that life had been good for him there. “No,” I agreed. “The detsky dom was not a nice place.”

“Baba Yagska at detsky dom. This ours house. Baba Yagska come here, you hit.” He didn’t say the word “hit.” Instead, he swung his first through the air, smacked it into his palm, and made a sound like boozhgzh with a lot of enthusiasm.

I nodded serenely. “You’re my son, and you live here. I will protect you.”

How many times would I have to say those words? So many times already! To the boys, our eight months together were an eye-blink, a momentary aberration in the pattern of their lives. They could repeat back that they would live with me forever, but when would they start believing it?

A couple of weeks before, I’d had a very similar conversation with Nicky. It started when he told me he was scared to go to sleep because of bad dreams. And that started because the boys were now sleeping in their own room instead of on air mattresses in my room.

Since the first day I had the boys, they’d had trouble sleeping away from me. In the beginning, only sleeping piled on top of me would suffice. As flattering as that was, sleeping with two kids is not really sleeping. Sleeping with kids means feet in my face, elbows in my side, knees in my groin, fights over the covers, squirming, relentless moving around, potty trips, coughing, more fights over the covers, more elbows, feet, and knees, and an incredibly fatigued father come morning time.

This lasted about a month, but I eventually whittled away at their fears until they could fall asleep as long as I was in the same room. For another month, if I left the room and they woke and couldn’t hear or see me, they panicked. So I had to go to sleep at the same time they did most nights, even though my office was only five feet away from where they slept.

The first time Nicky fell asleep without my being present was almost three months after we got home from Ukraine, while we were visiting Uncle Ken and Aunt Liz in Denver. Even then, he didn’t really sleep. He dozed until I came in, and then insisted on sleeping on top of me for the rest of the night.

After that, they were okay falling asleep on air mattresses in my room, even if I wasn’t in the room with them. Nicky complained that I worked too long after he went to sleep. “Daddy, you all the time work too much. Long time I waiting.”

“Honey, if you’re sleeping, you can’t know how long before I go to bed. Try to sleep. While you’re sleeping, I’ll be right down the hallway in my office. Then I’ll come to bed. When you wake up in the morning, I’ll be right here. ”

“Long time I waiting. I hear you, I wait and hear you sleeping.”

“Well, don’t wait for me. Go to sleep.”

And they did. They weren’t happy, but the plan worked. They went to sleep at a proper bedtime, and I got anywhere from three to five hours of work done before going to bed myself. And when I did go to bed, I actually got to sleep until morning. It was like heaven—if you assume that heaven has air mattresses on the floor, no room to walk without fear of stepping on a boy, and very early wake-up calls.

It was time for phase two. They needed to get off the air mattresses and sleep in their own room. When the alarm clock went off—and not a moment before—they could come to my room, snuggle with me for a few minutes, and then get ready for school.

At first, I thought it was simply a matter of insisting on the new routine and having them tough it out until they were used to the arrangement. But it wasn’t that easy. If they woke in the night and couldn’t see me, they panicked. It wasn’t manipulative, it was genuine terror. No matter how confident and happy they were during the day, at night the separation anxiety kicked in, and they needed to see me. They didn’t need to talk, and didn’t need to snuggle, but they did need to know I was still there.

I began a process of weaning them from my room. First, announce the new plan, then work out the details and make it happen, step by step.

“Boys, you’re old enough now to sleep in your own room.”

“No!” said Zack.

“I don’t want it, me want sleep with Daddy,” said Nicky.

“You may snuggle with me in the morning.”

“Daddy, if bad man come and us hurt us, you no hear me.”

I showed them the baby monitor, and demonstrated that I could hear them if there were a problem during the night.

“Daddy, bad lady maybe break window, come in.”

I showed them how the doors and windows locked tightly, and reminded them that the dog would protect them.

“Me no want this.”

“It’s going to happen.”

We started with one night, with a promise that the following night they could sleep with me. We progressed to every other night. They whined and complained, and unhappily complied. We worked our way up to all school nights. Anxiety behaviors started showing up during the days. I backed off a bit, and then resolutely worked back up to all school nights.

Their reasons for not wanting to sleep in their room varied tremendously from night to night. Sometimes it was because the dog barked in the night. “That means he’s protecting you,” I told them. Sometimes it was because it was too dark. “We can leave the light on,” I countered. Sometimes it was because the wind blew and made the trees move. “The wind blows the same outside your room as mine.”

Sometimes it was even the truth. “Ya ho Papa,” said Nicky. “I want Daddy.”

“You may come snuggle with me in the morning.”

“Ya, too!” said Zack.

“Of course, you, too,” I reassured him.

But sometimes the reason was bad dreams, and this reason was true, too. Nicky had recently learned about dreams, and although he knew the things he imagined during his sleep weren’t real, he still became frightened. One night, as I was tucking him in, he decided to tell me about his dreams.

“I dreamed a bad girl come here, Baba Yagska. She cut my throat while I sleeping.” He made a ssssssssssst sound, and drew his finger across his throat. “Blood, lotsa blood everywhere. I dying.”

It was chilling to hear him say it so calmly, as if reporting the weather. No child should dream of having his throat cut. I took his finger and folded it down into his palm, then held his hand.

“I would never let that happen to you, Nicky. Baba Yagska isn’t allowed to come here. Never. You’re safe here. This is my house, and I don’t let bad people come in.”

“This ours house?”

“Yes, our house.”

“Another one time, Daddy, I dreamed water came down, rain, lotsa rain, and the pool full up, the water came up, and up everywhere, and you drown.”

“That was just a dream, Nickers.”

“And another one time, I lost you. Everywhere I look, and no Daddy.”

“I’m right here, sweetheart. Dreams aren’t true. They’re like movies, right? Just stories. Sometimes they’re scary stories, sometimes they’re happy stories, sometimes they’re funny stories, and sometimes they don’t make sense at all. But they’re not true. You didn’t lose me, and I didn’t drown. I’m right here.”

“This I know. I know this.”

He didn’t seem upset any more, so I said, “Okay, then. Are you ready to go to sleep?”

He paused. I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. I thought he was going to ask for a drink of water, or to watch TV, or to read a book together. Instead, he looked away and said in a small voice, “Never again the detsky dom, Daddy? Never again?”

“Never-never. You’re my son. Today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—”

“—and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow!” he finished happily.

“More tomorrows than you can ever count.”

“Always I you son, right Daddy?”

“Forever,” I agreed.

“I sleep now.”

He turned over on his side, and I bent down to kiss his forehead one last time. Zack was already sound asleep on the other side of the room.

As I got up to go, I saw that his eyes were wide open, unblinking, staring darkly at nothing. “Close your eyes, honey. Dream happy dreams tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Wonderful boy,” I told him.

“Wonderful daddy,” he replied, and seemed content.

But his eyes were still open when I left the room.

I went to my office, checked email, and did some programming. I kept an ear out for the boys, but never heard a sound. Several hours later, I noticed the time, grumpily decided I’d better knock off for night, and went to check on the kids before going to bed myself.

I almost tripped over Nicky in the hallway. He was hunkered down, thin arms wrapped tightly around his knees, waiting quietly just outside the spill of light from my office.

I knelt beside him, not sure what was up. “Nickers? Are you okay? What are you doing out here? I thought you were asleep.”

“Me no sleep in room my.”

“Have you been here all the time?”

“For Daddy I waiting.”

“Let’s get you back to bed, honey. You need to sleep.”

“With Daddy I want sleep.”

“Nicky, we took the air mattresses out of my room, remember? You and Zack sleep in your own room now, on real beds. If Zack wakes up without you there, he’ll be scared. Can you stay in your room for Zack? You’re the big brother, and he needs you.”

Nicky just looked at me. We squatted next to each other, not quite touching, for a few minutes. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to sweep him into my arms and treat him like a baby, or if he wanted me to treat him like a big boy. His pride was very new, and very fragile.

Eventually, when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything, I asked my question again. “Nicks, can you sleep in your own room so Zack doesn’t wake up and be scared?”

He moaned softly. “Me no can’t.”

I sighed. “Okay, honey, you may sleep in my room.”

This was a prearranged fallback. I had extra pillows and blankets piled in my room, and although I’d been careful to be very upbeat about moving the boys into their own room, I had also been fairly certain it would be a rocky transition.

After several weeks, the boys got used to the routine. Nicky still asked from time to time to sleep with me, but I always countered with, “Friday night you may,” and he would reply, “And Saturday night?” and I would say, “Yes,” and the subject would drop.

Someday, maybe, they’ll want to sleep in their room. They may even want separate rooms. They may even sleep late. I might even get to sleep late.

And pigs may start flying.

In the meantime, we’re muddling through. Family life is a series of compromises, a series of adventures: traumas overcome, hardships endured, joys discovered, rituals invented, and a never-ending sequence of new experiences.

This morning, on the way to school, Zack told me that his friend, Frieda, used to live at the detsky dom with him.

“Honey, she’s from another country. She never lived with you.”

“She shared food with me at the detsky dom.”

“Borsch?”

“No, spaghetti.”

Zack’s mind has only a casual acquaintance with external reality sometimes. True things and imaginary things mingle freely, like strangers at a cocktail party, never really intending to talk seriously or see each other again.

He never had spaghetti before moving to America, but Frieda was a real person. She was a little girl in his class at his school. She and Zack didn’t have any history in common, but, in the way of preschoolers, were friends. The most amazing thing was that Zack used her name instead of calling her “girl.”

Both boys tend to call other children either “boy” or “girl” instead of using names. I’ve never quite figured out why. It’s always been kind of cute, but kind of disturbing at the same time. They would be playing with someone and say, “Girl, give me that,” or “Boy, you want play with my truck?”

I didn’t make an issue of it until a new family moved into the house down the block. Very excitedly, the boys told me that two girls and a boy now lived in the house.

I’d met the family recently, so I said, “Ashley, Jessica, and Seth.”

“Yes, two girls and a boy. Daddy, we want play. We want go two girls and a boy’s house.”

“Nicky, use their names.”

“Who?”

“Two girls and a boy.”

“I don’t know this names.”

“Ashley, Jessica, and Seth.”

“Yes, two girls and a boy. Daddy, we go play now?”

“The girls are Ashley and Jessica. The boy is Seth. Do you want to go to their house?”

“Yes, two girls and a boy’s house I want play.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

Over the next couple of weeks, we had the same discussion every time the neighbors were mentioned. Gradually, the boys started using the names. Perversely, I started referring to the neighbors as “two girls and a boy” and let my sons correct me.

One makes his fun as opportunity presents itself.

Nicky has friends from school, too. The first time a friend called on the phone, just to say hello, I was amazed. It was so normal, so perfectly normal, but so unprecedented. My little boy was getting telephone calls? Not possible!

Everyone at school likes Nicky. He’s open, honest, genuinely friendly, and gets along well. When I pick him up from school, a dozen kids scream out, “Bye, Nicky! See you tomorrow!” They invite him to their birthday parties. They invite him over to play. They give him presents. They don’t seem to notice his odd syntax, grammatical errors, or bizarre mixture of English, Ukrainian, and Russian words all in the same sentence. They’re just his friends from school; he loves them, and they love him.

His world is growing so fast that I can’t keep up. New words every day. New concepts. New friends. New experiences. He faces it all with good cheer. Nothing excites him more than “somfing new.”

Despite his nighttime fears, I have no doubt Nicky will turn out well. He will be strong, confident, true to himself, honorable, and brave.

What else could I want for him?

Zack’s language is finally taking off. Although both boys have had far better receptive English than expressive English, as one would expect, I realized that Zack was fudging a lot. He would say he understood when he had absolutely no idea what I’d said. I took a step back with him, and started using Russian again, pairing words and phrases with English unless I knew it was something he already understood in English.

His behavior and demeanor immediately improved. Near the end of February, he started using English grammatical rules when speaking. In March, his vocabulary exploded. His use of prepositions, possessive pronouns, and stative verbs is often more correct than Nicky’s. “Rain on my ear,” he told me the other day as we drove to school with the car windows down. “It’s wet,” he added.

A miracle.

So ordinary, so commonplace, so every-day that it’s easy to overlook, but a miracle nonetheless.

Zack will be okay, too. He has a longer road to travel than his brother does, but he’s taking the first steps. My job is to make sure he’s pointing the right way as he walks, but I’m not worried. He’s a wonderful boy, with a good heart.

They’re both wonderful. I’m the luckiest man alive.