21 December 2005 - Pre-Christmas Fun

“Is it four o’clock yet?”

“No, it’s six-thirty in the morning. Four o’clock is almost dinner time. Go back to sleep.”

“Is it four o’clock yet?”

“No, it’s 6:32, only two minutes since the last time you asked.”

“Is it four o’clock yet?”

“No, it’s 6:45. Go to sleep!”

“Is it four o’clock yet?”

“Nicky, stop asking. I’ll tell you when it’s four o’clock, okay?”

“Is it four o’clock yet?”

“Zack! Stop it. And Nicky, stop dancing.”

Neither one stopped. All day long, anywhere from a few minutes to an hour apart, the boys would come find me (a closed bathroom door is no barrier to something this important) to ask if it was time for their party yet. Several times, I caught Nicky spinning in circles, saying “Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah!” or “Burble-burble-burble!” as his brain overloaded thinking about the party.

Maybe I’ve just forgotten childhood, but I don’t think I ever blew all my circuits waiting for a birthday party to start. On the other hand, I had them regularly from birth on. This was their first big party. Watching the boys cope with the excitement was both heart-warming and hilarious.

Since the last time I sent an update, Zack has turned six and Nicky has turned eight. We had a small, family-only party for each boy on his actual birthday, but planned a combined party with all their friends for Sunday, 18 December. Twenty-five of their nearest and dearest friends showed up to help them celebrate, and the event came off splendidly. They got so many presents that we put most of them up on a shelf for later. They were already present-heavy from our family-only parties, and with Christmas lurking just around the corner, it seemed wise to save some stuff for a rainy day.

The boys have been home seventeen months now, and it still seems, sometimes, like it was only yesterday that I met them. I suppose, though, that it doesn’t seem that way for them. Seventeen months is just under one quarter of Zack’s entire life so far. His memories of the orphanage are fragmentary and generalized. He only tells a handful of stories, and the details are starting to merge together (plus, most of the stories, like the one about the time he killed the wolf, are clearly fantasy).

Nicky no longer understands even the simplest Russian or Ukrainian, although if he concentrates very hard he can remember a few words and phrases. Some remnants of his early learning persist in his English grammar and syntax, but most of the people he meets don’t notice his accent or even realize that he heard his first English word less than a year and a half ago. He chatters away freely, limited only by his impoverished vocabulary. The grammatical mistakes he makes don’t interfere with his ability to express himself or ask questions, and his receptive vocabulary is only a year or two behind his peers. What trips him up is lack of cultural experience and exposure to terms and concepts. When it’s just us, I barely notice, but the discrepancy between Nicky and other eight-year-olds becomes glaringly obvious when they interact.

Nicks knows about rockets, but not NASA or Neil Armstrong. He knows Honda is a kind of car, but doesn’t know the words Ford, Chevy, or Detroit. He knows the U.S., England, and Ukraine are countries, but is lost if someone mentions France, Germany, Italy, or even Canada. He knows about P.E., but doesn’t know about physical education, gym, tennis shoes, or the names of most of the games he plays. He doesn’t know the words tricycle, lottery, frankfurter, enamel, scrub, basin, film, or steady, but he does know bicycle, lotto, hot dog, tooth, wash, sink, movie, and still.

The world is a wondrous and enchanting place for Nicky, unfolding daily to reveal new complexities. He soaks new ideas up eagerly, and continues learning at a truly astounding pace. It’s a long haul, though. There’s so much to learn, and his school chums are just as sponge-like in their approach to life. No matter how well Nicky does, he’s still running a Red Queen’s Race. Things will even out for him over the next several years, and fortunately he’s still young enough to be unaware of how much basic knowledge he’s lacking. My hope is that by the time he cares to compare himself to his age-peers, he will be caught up enough to be pleased by the comparison.

For Zack, the world is also a large and complex place, but the Z Man finds it more daunting than stimulating. He’s very comfortable with the things he knows already, and takes great pleasure in demonstrating mastery of them, but is less willing than his brother to take risks and learn new things. Despite this reluctance, he is learning, and at a pace only slightly less startling than Nicky’s.

He’s half-way through Kindergarten, and just about half-way through the things he absolutely has to learn before going into first grade. He spelled his first word spontaneously in early December by sounding out the word “no.” Although his teacher and I have spent countless hours working on the alphabet and the concepts of letters having sounds and sounds going together to make up words, this was the first time he combined everything in his brain at once without being prompted, guided, or quizzed. The look of pleasure on his face was incredible! (The look of pleasure on my face was probably about the same.)

He’s picking up basic word formations quickly, and it’s fascinating to watch the process of his mastering the rules of English grammar. When I taught him “someone who works is a worker, someone who dances is a dancer,” he was able to formulate “driver” from “someone who drives” and “digger” from “someone who digs.” Now, when we’re driving down the road, I’ll sing out, “Some who works is a...?”

“Worker!” the boys will chorus.

“And someone who drives?”

“A driver!”

“Someone who walks?”

“A walker!”

“And someone who farts?”

“Uncle Dan!”

Yeah, they’re learning. Uncle Dan doesn’t think that joke is all that funny, but he takes it with good grace, especially considering we do it for everyone who gets in the car with us. I tend to work on language in the car, because we have an entire world flashing by outside the windows to talk about, and the number of nouns and verbs we can use is limited only by our powers of observation.

Zack is puzzling through present tense progressive at the moment. He’s got the idea that adding “ing” is a good move, but gets carried away sometimes. “I’m workinginging,” he’ll say, or, “Stop botheringinging me.” As he internalizes the grammatical rules and learns that the phrases he’s memorized are actually made up of separate words, the application of the rules will sort itself out.

Zack officially started speech therapy at school in November. He’s been getting speech therapy from Callier Center for Communication Disorders (University of Texas at Dallas), and we went through the process of getting Zack admitted to the school’s special education department so he could get speech therapy there, too. Although it involved a lot of annoying paperwork and meetings, the process of getting Zack into special education went very smoothly, and the school was once again wonderful. With Zack getting bombarded daily (when he’s not getting real speech therapy at school or at Callier, he’s practicing his lessons at home), he’s making clear, audible progress.

Insurance finally caught up with my deductible and started paying for Callier Center. Unfortunately, the deductible is annual according to the calendar year, so on 01 January we’d have to start private pay all over again. By June 2006, insurance would start picking up the bill, but I really can’t afford to keep paying for private therapy in the meantime. We said good-bye to Tasha at Callier on Tuesday, 20 December. If work at school and home isn’t enough to keep Zack progressing, I’ll have to bite the bullet and start seeing Tasha again. She was wonderful for Zack, and I can’t thank her enough for the insight and skill she brought to his care.

In my last update I mentioned that I’d been working 18-hour days for a month, but was almost finished with my big project. Liar, liar. I kept the crazy schedule up through Nicky’s birthday. For about three months, I went to bed shortly after the boys got up for school, slept for a few hours, then went back to work until time to pick the boys up, do tutoring or speech therapy, run errands, do the dinner thing and the bedtime thing, and finally go back to work for the rest of the night. It was an exhausting time, and I’m glad it’s over. More than anything else, I missed playing with the boys. I always found time to take care of important things, but that’s not the same as just spending time with them. Poor Uncle Dan got stuck (although he never once complained) with being the day-to-day parent for most things. He drove the boys to school most days, supervised homework, did all the laundry, and even made dinner several times. On weekends and vacation days, he took the boys out or played games with them, and he still found time to do his own work and help me with mine.

But between all the merriment of my job and my increasingly aching need for sleep, we’ve taken some trips and done some fun stuff.

We went to Glen Rose, Texas, on 15 October, to see the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park, Dinosaur State Park, and meet some friends at Tres Rios. The boys got to see buffalo, giraffes, ostriches, and other critters in their more-or-less natural habitats, without cages or barriers between them and us, and within touching distance most of the time. At Dino Park, we splashed around in the Paluxy River, looking at ancient dinosaur footprints and modern bugs and fish. Unfortunately, our trip made us miss Seth’s sixth birthday party, so we had a mini-party for him later in the week. (And in my head, every time I thought of Seth’s sixth birthday party, I kept hearing “Seth’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick” and wondering if Zack would ever be able to say it.)

On 22 October, we went to Ron Clark’s art show. Ron is the father of Zack’s best friend, Nico, and a very successful visual artist. For kicks, I bought the boys new button-down shirts, ties, and dress slacks for the occasion. They wore their tennis shoes poking out under the dress slacks, and the art show served wine in plastic cups. I guess we’re still in Texas, after all.

The big thing in October was, of course, Halloween, and this year the boys went Trick or Treating dressed as Batman and Robin. Unlike last year, when the whole idea of Halloween was new and somewhat scary, Nicky and Zack were hopping up and down with excitement all month long. We ate dinner with the Clarks, then went Trick or Treating as a group. Afterward, we dropped by Uncle Steve’s house (he dressed up and put on scary music), and stopped at a couple of friends’ houses on the way home.

I’ve volunteered to help with the Young Rembrandts program at school for six weeks, and aside from getting me out from behind the keyboard, it gave me the opportunity to see Nicky interacting with his age-peers. He, one other boy, and a couple of girls took the art class very seriously, while the rest of the group was rather rowdy and out of control most of the time. The other boy is Aaron, who lives a block away from us, and is within one month of Nicky’s age. We first met Aaron last summer at a neighborhood pool party, but hadn’t seen much of him until he and Nicky both turned up in Young Rembrandts. Nicky took a strong liking to Aaron during art class, and the boys have since become friends. (It doesn’t hurt that Aaron’s family has a passel of new puppies in their house!) The two boys have been to each other’s houses a dozen times since then, and I hope they continue to be friends. It’s nice for Nicky to have someone his own age to play with. Most of the kids we have over regularly are either Zack’s age or older than Nicky, which means that Nicks has to play to the lowest common denominator with the younger kids, or is left out, clueless, with the older kids. With Aaron, Nicks can explore being eight, and it’s interesting to see the differences in how he plays.

On Saturday, 19 November, Nicky had his first sleepover. Aaron came home with us after the last Young Rembrandts session and spent the night. The boys slept in tents in the kids’ room, while Zack slept on the air mattress in my room. It was tough for Zack to have to go to bed while the older boys stayed up, but he finally fell asleep around 9:00 p.m. Aaron and Nicky stayed up playing Monopoly until after 11:00. (Daddy wasn’t watching the clock, because he was playing Monopoly with them.) Aaron has stayed over a couple more times since then. He behaves himself well, and he’s good for Nicky, so I don’t complain.

Zack, of course, now wants Nico or Ben (his other “best” friend) to sleep over, and Seth wanted to stay the night before the combo birthday party, but I’ve drawn a line in the sand. You have to be eight (or nearly eight) to either spend the night at someone else’s house, or to have a friend stay here. The good thing about using sand for drawing lines is that I can always change my mind, but the boys don’t have to know that.

Winter break starts on Wednesday, 21 December, and lasts until Thursday, 05 January. We’re putting up the tree (and animatronic singing Santa; I’m very, very weak) on Wednesday, and have half the rest of the days already on the calendar for play dates, family friends over for dinner, going to dinner elsewhere, doing the whole Christmas thing, Daddy’s birthday, New Year’s, and playing with all our new toys and pets.

Pets?

Yes, I’m (very foolishly) getting a couple of baby rabbits for the boys. I’m planning to name the rabbits “Lunch” and “Dinner,” after the two meals they’ll make for Gozer.

Assuming the bunnies survive meeting Gozer, I think it will be good for the boys to learn to take care of animals. They already feed and water Goze, but he’s and old and seasoned veteran who knows how to complain when things aren’t right. The bunnies will be completely dependent on the boys, and it will be a good lesson for them to have the additional responsibility.

While Christmas shopping, the boys picked out the cage, thinking they were picking out a present for Uncle Steve. Remember that last year, I kept their Christmas bikes in the garage for a couple of months, with the explanation that they were for Steve. Zack bought it, but Nicky was skeptical:

“Why Uncle Steve need two bikes?”

“Well, because he’s very big, and the bikes are very small. He’ll ride with one leg on each bike.”

Nicks believed me right up until Christmas morning, when he found the bikes out of the boxes, assembled, gleaming, ready to ride with Nicky and Zack nametags. I thought I’d run the same scam this year, with a bit of a twist. The boys think the cage is for Uncle Steve, and they think we’re getting him a pet to put in it. Steve thinks the cage is for the bunnies. Instead, we really are getting Steve an animal, but it won’t go in the cage as the boys think. We’re getting Steve a live lobster, which of course couldn’t live in the cage anyway. On Christmas morning, I’ll put the bunnies in the cage, and put the lobster in a bucket. By the time Steve comes over Christmas afternoon, the house should be complete chaos. Poor Gozer won’t know which way to turn.

I’m starting to think that “busy” is a synonym for “normal.” When I wrote before adopting the boys that nothing in my life would be unchanged, I didn’t suspect how utterly true that prophecy would be. Parents of older kids tell me it just gets worse as time goes on. I don’t know that I’d agree. Busier, yeah, probably. But it’s a wonderful kind of busy, and I get to participate in the boys’ joie de vivre during all the hectic rushing about.

My temporary kid, Len, the exchange student from the Netherlands, left us on Friday, 11 November. He was only supposed to have been here for two weeks, but ended up staying just over five weeks. AFS finally found a family for him just south of Dallas (actually, finding a family was easy, but finding a family whose school district would take a transfer exchange student in mid-year was hard).

Nicky cried buckets when he found out Len would be leaving, and spent the last two days of Len’s visit doing stuff with Len, sitting beside him in the car, and otherwise showing his affection. Zack seemed utterly indifferent to Len’s impending departure, but after we said goodbye, waved as the car drove away, and closed the door, Zack stood in the middle of the living room and bawled his head off.

Although it makes me sad when the boys cry, at the same time I’m heartened to know they’re capable of forming relationships and letting themselves care about others. A year ago, neither boy would have blinked at Len’s leave-taking, because all their experience up until then had taught them it wasn’t safe to invest emotions in other people. Feeling grief at parting is the flip side of feeling joy in someone’s presence, and neither emotion can flourish without the other. The boys are on their way to becoming whole humans, and it’s a very good sign that they let themselves care about Len.

Len himself seemed glad to be gone, not because he didn’t like being here, but because he’s seventeen and needed to be with kids his own age. It must have felt a bit like babysitting for him, constantly surrounded by little kids, but he bore it gracefully. Before he left, he promised the boys he’d come back to visit, and went out of his way to show his appreciation for our hospitality.

All in all, 2005 has been a pretty good year for us. The boys have grown emotionally, intellectually, and physically (they’ve each put on over five inches since Ukraine). I’m as proud of them as a parent can be, and more deeply in love every day. They’re happy little boys who get along well with each other and their friends, face the future with anticipation rather than fear, and who bring joy into the lives of everyone who knows them.