24 October 2004 - Nocturne in Z Flat, Part I

Bedtime has always been difficult for Zack. Our first two nights together in Kyiv, he barely slept at all. Only exhaustion let him sleep the third night, and after that, we've had a regularly recurring pattern of easy nights and hard nights. The boys still sleep on air mattresses in my room most of the time. Their wonderful bedroom hardly gets used at all.

I'm not concerned about making them sleep in their own beds right now. It's only been three months, and they need the security, especially at night, of knowing I'm nearby. It's very common for adopted children to need that extra security--so common, in fact, that I bought the air mattresses before I even travelled, anticipating they'd be needed.

When Nicky wakes up in the middle of the night, he always comes over and touches my arm, foot, or face briefly, uses the toilet, and goes back to sleep. He wakes me only enough to register that he's been there.

For Zack, going back to sleep in the middle of the night involves a more complicated ritual. He never lets me know when he first wakes up. Most nights, he quietly goes and finds his clothes, gets completely dressed, and then uses the toilet. My first clue that he's up is either the flushing of the toilet or the glare of the overhead lights. I yawn, moan, sit up, and say, "Zack, it's still nighttime. Go back to bed."

"I want to play."

"No, it's time to sleep."

"May I play with a toy car?"

"Yes, but quietly, and in bed. Turn off the light. Get in bed."

This usually happens around three-thirty or four o'clock. Most nights, he takes his toy car, or a stuffed animal, climbs back in bed, and goes to sleep. Sometimes he sleeps for a half-hour before repeating, other times he sleeps until the alarm clock goes off. Recently, however, he's decided to go exploring. Most often, this happens after he's already been up and back to sleep once. He's figured out that if he's quiet enough, he can sneak out of the room without waking either me or Nicky.

On the first night he went exploring, he took a forbidden pair of scissors from a forbidden drawer, went into my forbidden office, and cut through two Ethernet cords and a telephone headset cord. He left the cut cords, the now-worthless headset, and the scissors on my office chair, and then went back to bed.

I worried that he was trying to send me some kind of non-verbal message until the next adventure, which made me realize cutting the cords was just random mischief. On his next adventure, Zack went through the house locating every book that laid sideways instead of standing up. He moved each one to the floor. The pile of books on the living room coffee table became a pile of books on the living room floor. In the library, even up to the top shelves (and I shudder to think how he reached them), he moved all the prone books to the floor in front of the shelf where they had lain, leaving the standing books alone. In the bathrooms, he moved the books from the top of the toilet tank to the floor by the door. In the kitchen, he moved stacks of papers and magazines to get at the books. He put the papers and magazines back exactly as they were, but put the books on the floor. He then happily went back to sleep.

I couldn't explain it, and I suspect Freud couldn't come up with an explanation either. When I asked Zack why he'd moved the books, he just started putting them back and wouldn't explain. Perhaps he didn't know.

Shortly after we got home from Ukraine, it became tiresome for me, and frustrating for the boys, for me to constantly be saying, "Don't touch that!" To help all of us, I put red stickers on the things they absolutely must not touch without permission. I also put stickers on the floor across the doorways of rooms they were not to enter without permission.

Two weeks ago, Zack went through the house on one of his nocturnal romps, and removed all the stickers he didn't like. I didn't notice at first. It wasn't until I caught him playing in my office that I realized what he'd done. When I reminded him he wasn't allowed in my office, he proudly pointed at the floor where the stickers used to be, and told me that since the stickers were gone, he hadn't done anything wrong.

I briefly considered putting red stickers on the red stickers, then settled for making him go through the house replacing all the stickers he'd pulled up.

We missed a sticker.

In the kitchen, beside the refrigerator, is a built-in desk with shelves above it. On the top-most shelf, I keep a number of things that are better off without little fingers exploring them, among which is a pair of very expensive sunglasses. The sticker we overlooked was the one for that shelf. Since the boys aren't allowed to climb anyway, and know without question that the stuff on that shelf is in the never-touch category, one would think that the sticker would be superfluous. Not for Zack!

This morning, sometime between five and six o'clock, he climbed up on the desk, levered himself up to the first shelf, and reached above his head to fetch the never-touch sunglasses. He took them back to bed with him and went to sleep wearing them. I found them at seven-thirty when Nicky woke us all up for breakfast.

The strangeness had just started. Knowing exactly where he'd gotten the sunglasses, I asked, "Zack, where did you get those?"

"Mama bought them for me."

I blinked the last bit of sleep from my eyes and said, "What?"

"Mama bought them for me."

Clearly a lie, and clearly a crazy lie. Instantly, thoughts of Reactive Attachment Disorder swirled through my head. Stealing and crazy lying are two of the hallmarks of RAD. Then I calmed down and remembered that Zack had never done anything like this before. He lies, sure, when he's caught doing something wrong, but always little lies, plausible lies. The kind of lies every kid tells to get out of trouble. The kind of lies where, when he looks you in the eye and repeats it, he KNOWS you know he's lying, and soon shuts up rather than make things worse.

This was something totally different. Something to do with missing his mother, maybe?

"Zack, where did Mama buy the sunglasses?"

"Here."

"Zack, WHEN?"

"Today."

Nicky chimed in, "His mama bought them today."

"Nicky! His MAMA?"

He nodded serenely. I ignored him for the moment, but I wondered if he'd planted the story in Zack's mind. I remembered something Nicky had said after we visited Aunt Linda. He had hugged Linda right when he met her, which surprised and disturbed me, since the normal childhood reaction is to be shy with strangers. Then, too, I had worried about RAD, since indiscriminate affection with strangers is the primary symptom of attachment problems. When I asked Nicky why he had hugged Linda, though, he gave me an answer that both explained his behavior and touched my heart: "Because you did."

It was true. I had hugged Linda immediately upon entering her house. Nicky, who always watches my interactions with others keenly, had decided that if it was okay for Papa to hug Linda, it must be okay for him, too. But there was more. The following day, he asked to visit Aunt Linda again. I explained that it was too far, and that she was busy with her own family, then asked if he had enjoyed visiting her. He said, "She's your friend."

He'd said this before, sometimes stating it and sometimes asking it, and I'd always assured him that Linda was indeed my friend. But the Russian word for girlfriend is the same as the Russian word for "friend who happens to be a girl"; Russians use context to differentiate the two. Nicky proceeded to make the context clear for me. He thought I was about to marry Linda and make her his mama.

Oh, Nicky!

I gently explained that Aunt Linda already had a husband and children, that she was just a friend. I went through the family photos with him again, naming everyone and specifying the relationship. Then I showed him photos of friends, and tried to explain the difference. He seemed to understand, but I realized afresh how difficult and confusing it must be for these kids, going from no family except each other, to a large network of interrelated people. Some aunts and uncles are really aunts and uncles, while others are just called that. Some friends are lifelong pals they can expect to see over and over, while others are just friendly people we meet once and never see again. Others are somewhere between the two extremes.

Over the next several weeks, Nicky asked about relationships regularly. I could almost see the file drawers in his brain opening and closing and he shuffled things around. When we met more relatives months later, Nicky still had everything filed correctly. He never asked again if some lady was going to be his mama, but was he still silently thinking about it? Was he filling Zack's head with stories?

I looked back and forth between the two boys, wondering how I should address Zack's lie and Nicky's corroboration. I finally decided directness would work best.

"Zack, tell me again where you got the sunglasses."

"Mama bought them for me."

"Zack, that's not true. Don't lie. Where did you get them?"

"Up."

I nodded. "From the shelf in the kitchen. Up on the shelf."

"Shelf."

"Zack, you're not allowed to touch things on that shelf. You're not allowed to touch the sunglasses."

"I want!"

"Tough. They're not yours. You may not touch them."

He gave them to me and covered his face with his hands. "Let's go put these away," I said. After a moment, he took my hand and accompanied me to the kitchen, where I restored the sunglasses to their place on the shelf. I went through the rules with him again, and discovered the missing sticker. I told him that sticker or no sticker, he wasn't allowed to climb, and wasn't allowed to touch anything on that shelf.

Then I turned to Nicky, who had silently followed us into the kitchen. I pointed to the shelf and said, "Zack is not allowed up there."

"I know," said Nicky.

"You're not allowed up there, either."

"I know."

"Where is Zack's mama?"

He looked at his feet. In a very small voice, he said, "Far away."

"Where is your mama?"

"Far away."

"Why did Zack say his mama had bought the sunglasses?"

He shrugged.

"Why did YOU say it?"

"Zack said it."

"You said it, too."

"Zack said it."

"Nicky, I heard you say it."

Silence.

"Nicky, I'm not angry. I just want to know why you said it."

Silence.

Very softly, I asked, "Nickers, do you remember your mama?"

Silence.

My Russian failed me. I didn't know how to ask if he missed his mother, or was sad. I only knew how to ask if he wanted her, if he knew her, or if he remembered her. And his English was insufficient for things like "missed," or "sad," or "wished." I settled for asking again if he remembered her.

He shook his head.

I got down on one knee so we were eye-to-eye. Nicky wasn't crying or even visibly upset. Did that mean he wasn't upset inside? Boys Nicky's age can carry tremendous hurts, but they can't often talk about them or even recognize them. The emotions come out in play-acting, or in stories, or in behavior problems. Could I get him to talk about his mother? The staff at the orphanage said he didn't remember anything about her, but he probably did remember something, even if the memories were below the verbal level.

I wondered briefly if I should press further. I might make a problem where none existed, or I might open the floodgates of his emotions, letting the pressure dissipate so healing could begin. If there WAS any pressure, that is. And if he was ready to talk. Maybe the psychological implications were only in MY mind. Maybe I'd been reading too many books. Maybe I'd been reading too much into the situation.

Only one way to find out. "Nickers," I said softly. "Do you want your mama?"

"Want banana, want yogurt," he said in Ukrainian.

"Nicky--"

"Papa, I'm HUNGRY," he said in perfect English, then reverted to form and added: "Want crackers, want juice, want banana," in Ukrainian.

I sighed and stood up.

Maybe there was something there to discuss, maybe not. Maybe he had given Zack the story about Mama buying the sunglasses, and maybe it was all just in my head. At the moment, he was doing the verbal equivalent of Washoe the Signing Chimp. If there was more to the story, I wasn't going to hear it today.

Then I discovered Zack's other adventure from this morning. He'd taken half the stuff from the refrigerator and put it in the freezer. If there was a hidden psychological message buried in that, I'm stumped. Fortunately, the various items had only been in the freezer for less than two hours. The fruit thawed without harm, and the boys ate cereal with ice-flaked milk.

I made a pot of coffee and wondered why I'd left peaceful Sundays off the list of requirements when adopting. By the time I finished the second cup, the boys were off to play outside in the front yard. During the thirty seconds I took my eyes off him, Zack dashed across the street (quite clearly forbidden). So, during my third cup of coffee, Zack had to play inside while watching Nicky have fun outside. With a stern admonition to stay in our yard, I let him out again and scrounged a bagel. When I returned with bagel in hand, I found Nicky crying because Zack had hit him on the head with a piece of pipe he'd wrenched off the sprinkler system. This time, Zack had to come inside for a half hour. He stood by the door, crying, the entire time.

I answered email, drank some more coffee, and reminded Zack every few minutes why he was standing inside. When the half-hour was up, Zack stopped crying, promised he would never hit Nicky again, and went back outside. I reminded him to stay in the yard, and he almost immediately dashed across the street again.

Zack lost his outdoor privileges for the rest of the day. He didn't cry for long, however, because Nicky made everything moot by deciding he wanted to come inside anyway. Nicky's lower front tooth was so loose he could wiggle it almost all the way horizontal. I gave it an experimental tug to see if it would come out, and Nicky howled. "Papa, ow!"

"Okay," I said. "Just leave it alone. It will fall out by itself very soon now."

Nicky went back to wiggling the tooth, Zack demanded a second breakfast, and I contemplated making another pot of coffee. Zack was bound to rediscover his restriction as soon as Nicky wanted to go outside again, and I figured that would be good for a fairly spectacular tantrum.

Looks like a pretty normal day is shaping up. If I survive it, I'll write again.