Fire Station and Paska

Don't worry, these two things are not in the same story.

This is BoyOne with one of his good friends at a church activity at the fire station. The boys were able to try on the fire gear if they wanted and even had a shot at holding the fire hose while it was shooting water. Huz took video of this and holy cow was it hilarious!! I'm sure you can picture how a fire hose would be flipping all over the place if it was turned on and had no one holding the end of it? Well, that's basically what it still looked like. haha:)

This is my beautiful Paska that I made for the boys as per their request. They told me it was a bread, but then AFTER I had made it (it raises three times) told me it wasn't right. What I figured out is that theirs is just waaaay drier (and I thought this was already dry), baked in a coffee can, not decorative, and they use a white frosting, I used a glaze. It sort of tasted to me like bland cinnamon roll dough, minus the cinnamon and sugar. My friend Wendy, whose adopted son has been home a few years, is a pro at this bread and I saw on her blog what the boys were looking for. Coincidentally, I had used the same online recipe as she had. Only she knew to bake it to look like a cylinder and to frost it. Next year I'll know better what to do. She also suggested I make two loaves. One dry as all get out for the boys and one more moist for us. Everybody still had some of this bread and BoyOne was very nice about it, even though it wasn't what he had hoped for. BoyTwo on the other hand will quite literally eat anything and doesn't really have a memory of Ukrainian Paska.

Easter Weekend

Friday. This was the boys' first time ever to dye eggs. It's hard to tell, but there are some glitter eggs, some multi-colored, and others with designs. The kids love to color eggs and then eat them in the following days. Saturday. The Easter Bunny hates waking up at 6 a.m. (because this bunny doesn't go to bed until 2) to hide them before the kids wake up, but not too early that the eggs spoil.

4

3

BoyTwo

2

1

BoyOne with his 'Ukraine' egg. FYI I call this his 'Kermit the Frog' smile. Drives me nuts. Could he look any more constipated? He even sees pictures of himself later and tells me how he dislikes them because of how he looks in them. Well, then, smile, for the love!!

This year we invited our neighbors over for an Easter egg hunt and dinner on Friday night. It was originally supposed to be great weather, then it was supposed to snow which meant we would need to have the egg hunt in the house. Fortunately the snow melted and by evening the egg hunt was back on for the great outdoors. These are the some of the kids waiting to bust outside to collect. We had a lot of fun:)

I didn't take any pictures of us on Sunday, but it was a great day. My sisters all came up and we got to see baby Adelaide and Gage. There was a slightly long talk at church (but it was good, if you were actually paying attention to the words instead of zoning out BoyOne) and BoyOne felt it his responsibility to the congregation to try to end the talk by loudly announcing 'Amen' several times during the talk before I nearly killed him with my deathly eyes. All in all? Great Easter. Much better than Christmas was.

Parties

Last night we hosted a cul de sac Easter egg hunt. It was way fun to watch BoyTwo race around the yard like a wild monkey grabbing plastic eggs from off the ground. He was so frantic he could hardly keep his balance. My neighbors were a little teary watching him experience yet another first. It made me happy to have yet another first under his belt. It seems like the more 'firsts' he has, the more he can progress. I have to stay on him like a fly on stinky poop, but it's worth it.

It feels like hyperactive parenting, this tricky business of raising a child with trauma. You hear about it, read about it, sometimes even see it, but no matter what, every time I experience something, it is surreal.

Three and BoyTwo were invited to a birthday party this morning. I decided to let them both go. It would have been waaaaaaay easier to just send Three. BoyTwo is still such a toddler that I have to be everywhere with him. Sure, he'd survive on his own, he did over in Ukraine, but those are not the results we are seeking. I needed to be there to guide his moves, his manners and his overall behavior. Being there at every possible moment I am available to catch him-wether it's him doing something naughty or having a 'first' or just plain old needing a mom. It's hard to describe. You wouldn't drop a 2 year old off at a bounce house and say 'see you in three hours,' would you? Same thing here.

We talked a lot beforehand about taking turns, not pushing or hitting, waiting for your turn, saying please and thank you. All the things we work on all. the. time, but now these skills were going to be needed all at the same time. I was a little nervous for the kid.

As we entered the facility he immediately went into overload, overstimulation, over-everything and took off like someone had just told him if he stopped running full speed at any given point he'd be executed. He got his wild eyes and his jazz hands going and I had to bring him back to earth, or at least try. So yeah, way easier to leave him at home to play with his toy cars and jump on the trampoline, but he is beginning to notice he is different from the other kids, that they socialize with each other and not just by each other. He wants to be a part of them, but desperately needs practice. This was perfect practice.

Overall, the party went well. He had a really hard time waiting his turn and not pushing and shoving, but I knew this would be the case and this is why I was there with him. He also had a hard time following the basic rules of the facility (no climbing over the bounce houses, enter at the appropriate places, feet first on the slides, one person on the slide at a time, etc), but again, that's where I came into play. We only had one incident where he intentionally kicked someone to invoke pain (unfortunately it was the birthday boy. Fortunately I'm good friends with his mama and they were too nice about it).

By far, the funniest part of the day was when he saw a party table full of three year olds sitting down for pizza and cake and ran over to the table and shoved his way in between a couple kids and tried to grab a piece of pizza. I was mortified at the moment, but now I can laugh. He is only aware of himself. I don't know what this is called, it's got to have a name, be a stage, but he is COMPLETELY self-involved. He just doesn't understand yet that he simply cannot have something only because he wants it. People are surprised to find out that a former orphan expects to get everything he wants, but it's how he rolls. He steals things and doesn't think it is stealing because he wants it. Somehow, in Ukraine, he was under the impression (along with half the other kids there) that it is okay to steal if it is something you need, want, or do not own. Which in their case, is everything. They honestly don't understand that there is something wrong with that.

I'm glad to have it over with. Glad that I hadn't just dropped him off. Glad that he had fun. Glad that Three was not totally humiliated by him. Glad that I have the luxury of shadowing him at all times, as wearing as it is. Glad to be his mom.

glad. that is really a weird word after using it six times in a row...