5 Months Home

I always include pictures with my updates but I was waiting on a picture of Ty and his buddy PJ to put with this post. I keep forgetting to take it. And this post has been waiting too long, so up it goes with no photos. Sigh.

Where did the last month go? It should still be October. I am glad the last month passed quickly. And, if I am honest, I am glad that the next month will likely pass just as fast because of the holidays. This is always a crazy time of year. But the added challenge of our 4-5 month adjustment has made this holiday season feel even more out of control.

I am SO glad school will be out in just a couple more days. I am looking forward to reclaiming my time with my kids. Spending time together in short bursts as we cart kids to different activities and holiday parties after school is making the whole bonding and "love-them-where-they-are" approach very difficult. I can't wait to bake some cookies, go for bike rides, listen to some Christmas music together and maybe even watch a movie or two. I'm sure my daydream of blissful family time is not going to play out quite the way I envision it, but I am still anxiously counting down the days until school is out for the break.

Month 5 has been full of emotions. I have heard before that children adopted from China typically have a longer honeymoon period. The honeymoon is definitely over.

Ty is struggling to truly feel like he is fitting in. He frequently says he has no friends. He frequently throws around statements about family members and teachers like, "(so and so) doesn't like me." Ty is continually pointing out situations that indicate he does not belong or that there is an inequality of some kind. We are learning to recognize his subtle testing and to offer the support and reassurance that he needs. But this is a tough stage.

The reality that we see is: Ty has lots of friends, everyone loves Ty and everyone likes him... most of the time. From our perspective there are no inequalities (we recognize differences, but still see them as equal). But the reality that Ty sees is starkly different. And to him it is reality whether we agree or not. Our words of encouragement, love, and support do not quiet his inner voice.

We are learning all kinds of new strategies to support our whole family during this new time of challenge. And we are seeing improvement. But this part of our adoption has been very different than the first time around. Jacob did not have the language abilities to tell us what he was feeling. Jacob was not able to push us away (test us) with his language. He was not able to dominate or control his siblings so we did not see his insecurities in his interactions. He was not able to manipulate through language so we did not feel his insecurities in the same way. With Jacob we learned to look for things like rocking, head banging or shaking, thumb sucking and chewing, and avoiding eye contact as indications of insecurity and his plea for help. We are learning to look for very different cues from Ty.

There are so many reasons this 5th month has been challenging. Some have to do with adoption adjustments, some have to do with the emotional toll of Ty's surgery last month and memories from his past surgery in China, some have to do with the Christmas holiday. And all are way too complex to describe in a little blog post.

But, even though this has probably been our most challenging month, we are still enjoying so many new experiences together. And we are still having a lot of fun together.

Milestones for month 5:
-Language: Holy cow language! Ty understands almost everything being said to him now. He will ask what some words mean here and there, but he rarely misunderstands the concept anymore. There is no more "speaking in code" around Ty. He picks up on everything. And he is able to talk around something that he does not know how to describe so that we can understand. There is very little we have to give up on now in spoken language.
-Ty is growing like a weed. He has moved up in shirt and pants size as well as two sizes in shoes since coming home. He is also blowing through the knees in his pants constantly. We are currently down to one pair of school pants because both knees blew out of all 5 of the other pairs. So much for handing clothes down to his brothers.
-I am noticing less pickiness in Ty's eating. Since day one he has been really good about trying new foods. But up until now, he did not hesitate to let the entire room know if he did not like something. And once he had tried it and determined it was not to his liking he would remind us every time we had that food again. We don't change the food we offer. And he is finally moving beyond his initial impression of some foods. I don't think macaroni and cheese will ever make his list of favorites (can't blame him) but several of his other "I don't want this" foods have become "Can I have more?" foods.
-Ty asks frequently about his friends who have come to America. We told him we plan to make reunion trips with the boys in Ohio and North Carolina and he will ask almost everyday to hear the plans again. Ty's last little buddy, PJ, is finally home in California. Ty loves playing with PJ. Although he asks almost every time we see PJ why his (Ty's) Chinese language is "dying." PJ does not yet speak English and I often hear Ty respond to something PJ says with "Wo bu zhi dao" (I don't know). It makes me sad to see him struggle with loosing his first language. But I have told him the more he speaks with PJ, the more his language will come back to him. Ty is glad PJ is home.