President's Day

I wasn't super thrilled when I realized the kids were all going to be home from school today, (nothing like realizing that at midnight) however it ended up being a lovely day, so it's all good.

Saturday while I was at a dance practice with One, Huz took BoyOne and BoyTwo skiing. Later that night as we were having hot chocolate as a family (even though half of us shouldn't be having it), BoyTwo said something along the lines of he had already had hot chocolate today. Upon further questioning (I had always wanted to be an attorney so I should really enjoy my chance to live my dream through these experiences) we discovered at some point while skiing, BoyTwo had taken himself into the lodge and pulled a fast one on the lady working at the hot chocolate booth.

'I no my mom and dad. I no money. I big, big cold. My hands big ouch. You please me warm so I no freeze?' and he was given free hot chocolate THREE different times.

I was ticked. He seems to have adjusted enough to his new surroundings that he is willing to try to manipulate and lie and pull out all of his old tricks from Ukraine. It makes me a little nervous about how much we still have ahead of us to deal with. I wish he would adjust positively to his new life and quit gorging himself with food because he knows he'll have enough now. Or maybe he could adjust enough to his new life to know that he doesn't have to beat the crap out of anyone he sees for no apparent reason. I know he is adjusting and that it could be a long, long time before he figures any of this out, but that doesn't make me feel any better. By the way, I've tried holding him and cuddling with him when he needs some 'intervention' or 'behavior correction' to try to help him calm down or regress or bond or whatever the crap you want to call it. He does not like to be touched or held. He doesn't freak out or try to get away (well, sort of but not it the RAD sort of way, just in the little kid who wants to be wild sort of way), I can just tell he is waaaayy uncomfortable. And honestly, so am I. I really just want to spank his butt and make him mind for the love of PETE! but I know that this will not help and so I bite my tongue and put on my nice mommy face and my nice mommy voice and pray the whole time that something, anything, will help this kid. BoyOne told me BoyTwo had never been held before. I totally believe him. Sad. The kid really is lucky to be alive. He had to overcome some serious odds to get this far. He likes having his face touched a little, but that's pretty much it. That took time for him to actually like. He is required to hold my hand anytime I'm near him and we are anywhere other than home and he doesn't love that either. I originally thought it was because he thought it was too juvenile, but now I know it's the whole touch thing. siiiiiggggggghhhhhhhh.

Back to the story. What made me the most mad about the whole con artist hot chocolate incident was that as he was telling us this he was laughing about it. Showing us the sad little face he would pull and saying to us the words he would tell this lady in his sad, little, fake voice. And then he laughed about it and in English told us that he lied. And thought it was funny. Can you tell I'm most upset that he finds these things that he does wrong funny?! Yeah. Not cool.

So this weekend he worked a bunch of extra chores and I gave him a beautiful, crisp five dollar bill and then took it away from him. I told him that he had to go to the ski lodge and pay the lady back, which we did tonight. I made him tell her, in his pretty decent English, his name, that he had money, that he lied to her, that he knew what he had done was wrong and that he had worked to earn this money that he was giving her to pay her back. He apologized and was not too happy to be handing over his beautiful 5$. I hope it sunk in for more than three seconds, but I'm not really counting on it. The kicker is that he knows he shouldn't do it, but he can't help it. Literally. Cannot make himself do things differently. Cannot stop being 100% impulsive. Cannot make good decisions. About anything. Of consequence or otherwise.

Skiing today/tonight was fun. The kids all stress me out because they are so bold in the things they try to do. They think it is soooo funny that I freak out so easily. 'Watch this mom!' as they fly full speed ahead and launch their little bodies off of jumps, rails and moguls. They beg me to go on jumps and rails with them ('come on mom, you can do it!' and then as I wipe out they help me up while laughing) and I know that they do this so they can watch me squeal and panic and they think it's so funny. I remember making my mom talk to us when she was half asleep so that we could laugh at the things she said. These guys like to watch me risk my life for laughs. :)

BoyOne is having to memorize the Pledge of Allegiance for school and isn't too happy about it. Not because of what he is memorizing, but because he has to do the work. I printed off a bazillion short stories and questions to help him with comprehension this weekend. Used a ream of paper and almost all my ink. He will be so. happy. when his English teacher whips them out for him every day.