Our First Week Home

What would best describe this week? Exhaustion. Between the stress of trying to get the heck out of Russia, the looming visa expiration combined with the melt downs and trying to get over being gone for a month, I'm just exhausted.

On Friday, we had a seafood boil and lifted glasses of Kauffman vodka in celebration of our return to the States. Bryan, the future Godfather, was able to join us and we discovered that Bryan has many 'toddler tricks' up his sleeves. He's obviously had a lot of practice entertaining young people.

We had a heat wave with temperatures in the high 90s to 100. We purchased a toddler water activity mat that was a gift from my aunt Karen (who we are so glad has agreed to be Sasha's Godmother). Sasha was a bit freaked out by it which we hadn't expected since he loves his baths so much. The activity became much more fun once Mom joined in (no, I won't post those photos but here is one with him on his dolphin).

Mom and Dad C. left on Saturday to return to Iowa.

On Wednesday, Mom and I treated ourselves to pedicures and I got a much needed haircut (see photo below - it's much shorter!). We followed up with a facial on Thursday. You can't imagine the stress our skin has gone through. I, who never usually have any issues with my complexion, am really struggling. (And, please don't tell me that's what I have to look forward to until Sasha turns 18!!) My Mom and Dad left yesterday. You'd think that after a month and a couple of weeks with someone, you'd probably be glad to see them go but this wasn't the case with my Mom. We're such great friends and it was awesome having a couple more pairs of hands to help with the baby. My Dad is in love. He even purchased the baby a Bose for his bedroom when our CD player stopped working. Wow ... we don't have a Bose for ourselves. Sasha is in for some significant spoilage.

Sasha's first pediatrician appointment was Monday. He got a clean bill of health although he didn't seem to like his doctor. He's very cautious around strangers. He weighs 25 pounds and the doctor thought he was walking appropriate for his age. He didn't see any signs of hip displaysia or any of the other scary medical concerns that were listed on his referral. He did see that Sasha has an umbilical hernia but thought that this might go away by the time he's five.

We've been working on getting into a schedule and getting Sasha familiarized with our house. Here's his schedule:
7:00 Get up (Disney songs playing in background)
7:15 Bath in Aveeno bath (LOVES taking baths)
7:30 Get hydrocortisone 1% on owies, get all over vaseline
7:45 Breakfast (LOVES to eat. He is always SO hungry. I call this the 'Marvin' phenomena as in 'Starvin' Marvin'. He totally pitches a fit if his meal isn't ready when he descends the stairs)
8:00 Play time
10 Nap time
Noon Lunch
12:15 Play time (likes to be pushed on his tricycle to the park and back. Here he's handling the Northern Illinois advertisement for M&Ms :)
2 Nap time
4 Snack and play time
5 Dinner
5:30 Play time
7:30 Bath time (Aveeno Bath)
7:45 Skin treatments (Hydrocortisone 1% and vaseline)
8 Bed time

Sasha continues to melt down (there are two types of melt downs - the 'I'm mad as heck' melt down and the 'poor, poor pitiful me' melt down) over certain things. For example, he wants to 'squirrel' away his food in his cheeks. At some point I move his plate out of his grasp and encourage him to chew and swallow. Melt down. He scratches people (usually me) - really, really hard. I say, "No". He continues to scratch. I say, "NO". Again with the scratching. I grab his hand, "NO!". Again. I grab his hand, "NO. Nyet!". He does it again. At this point, I grab his hand and hold it. Melt down. I probably don't have to tell you what it's like to put him down for a nap. He also has challenges when I remove his shoes (our pediatrician told us to let him go barefoot whenever possible). He doesn't like to get dressed but he also doesn't like to have his clothes removed (quite a quandry). I refer to this part of his personality as "Max" as in "Mad Max".

And, yes, there are good times. He can be a smiley, charming little boy at times. After a meal, he gets to play. We have the table that I painted for him downstairs in the family room. He has some wonderful toys and books and he enjoys bringing them one by one to us and having us hand them back to him - a take off on the 'spacebo / pajost' game we played in the baby home. He loves to be chased and will take off running and look back to see if you're behind him. If you are, he runs and laughs. If he falls, he lies on his back ready for a tickle. He has started giving me a kiss every once in a while which is cute. He also gives good hugs. He didn't start out liking to be held, he just wasn't used to this in the orphanage, but now he'll come up to us and hold out his little arms to be picked up. Mom taught him how to do a somersault. So, if you see him squat down and tuck his head, he's waiting for a little help over. He thinks that's big fun.

He enjoys playing although certain things frustrate him like 'why can't he pull the square block back through the hole to get it out?'. At many times he tries to 'force it' (will he be an engineer???) and then he just starts whining. I call these the "Pearl" moments. He becomes this poor, pitiful little boy (Pitiful Pearl was a doll my aunt had when she was little). If you help him, he becomes "Max" which is also not fun to deal with.

He is not fearful of anything. He and Snickers have a peaceful co-existence going. He'll try to drop food on the floor for her to eat. It's rarely something that she finds palatable but it's a very sweet gesture considering how much Sasha LOVES food. Snickers tries to avoid him at all costs as he is apt to drop or toss something her way that scares her. I'm sure she's thinking, "Lord, I never thought I'd be wishing that Blake was here instead of this thing." Every once in a while, she'll sneak in a smoochie sometimes of the french variety to Sasha. Sasha will wrinkle up his face and if he's had enough will yell, "ahhhh" at the top of his lungs. Snickers never needs to be told twice. He is typical in that he doesn't like to share attention. If Snickers finds her way into my lap, he'll come over and cry that he's not there. And neither of them wants to share my attention. They are like typical a brother and sister.

Sasha likes Blake. Blake hasn't completely figured the him out yet. He knows he's interesting and he's worried about all the wailing. He'll jump up on the crib and peer over to see what's wrong and to see if he could help. He's very cute. He'll come in while we're changing Sasha and sit patiently while the baby tries to pat his head. During meals, Blake will do his best to wash Sasha's feet. Usually we have to limit this as we have to put vaseline on him for his skin challenges. We've been limiting their interaction and each day they get better.

This week I'll be introducing Sasha to my volunteer work. We've been told that it will be all right for us to bring him to our Boy Scout District Committee meeting (Nathan and I both hold offices that require us to both attend. If it wasn't all right then I was considering resigning as Nathan's involvement is more important than mine). On Tuesday, Sasha will become the youngest member of the sporting clays team (sporting clays is a fundraiser we do to help support boys in our area with boy scouts). The Finance chair is a dear friend of ours and informed me that he would be hurt if I didn't bring him (I had thought that I could just do my part for the team from home and keep in touch via email). On Thursday, we'll go the Chicago Botanic Garden and see how Sasha enjoys being the youngest member of the Bloom Cart Team. Hopefully he'll be good as we think that exposing him to such a beautiful garden will be good for him. He really likes plants but we'll need to work on the 'be gentle and don't pull the petals off the flowers' bit. The other members of the Bloom Cart team have been SO wonderful - filling in when I didn't come back from Russia as scheduled and giving me a week off while we got adjusted to life in Lake Villa.

I'll let you know how week two goes. Here's hoping for more progress.