Lights and Rain

There is at least one or two times a day when something pops into my mind or happens and I think, "I must remember to blournal that."  Yet, in the last month my mental blournal list has sat stagnant, mostly unwritten or half written, some written and deleted, and some forgotten.  And the reason isn't because I don't have time to blog or even motivation.  I'm just simply interested in doing other things during nap time or bedtime lately.

Because life is quite lovely right now.  My family is happy, my sons are both going through some wonderful maturing phases, my husband has had a couple excuses to come home earlier in the week, my home is more consistently in order, and my world just feels very comfortable.

Of course, not every moment of every day has been rainbows, unicorns, and kittens, but it's been good enough that even the bad things like illness and crummy weather don't seem so defeating.

So instead of rehash all the lovely little moments I've missed blournaling, I'll just mention two things about today.

The rain and the lights.

It was raining all day today.  Not the violent storms we experienced this summer that have left me a teeny bit traumatized, but the constant steady rain that sounds like a soothing CD and reminds me of my family cabin near Yellowstone National Park (my mental "happy place").  I opened the windows and Little Bro and I went peacefully about our day caring for our home, giggling and cuddling with each other, learning our letters, not pushing each others buttons, and listening to the rain.

It was just the sort of day that made me stop and think "I don't want to be anywhere in the world more than I want to be right here, right now."

And the lights.  This morning, in a spur-of-the-moment attempt to avoid loading the dishwasher after breakfast, I finally took control of an area of my house that I have aesthetically hated for a long time.  We needed some more light in our dark and deary front room, but the outlets and layout didn't lend itself to anything.  On a whim, I dug out some old lamps of ours and moved some stereo equipment my husband had just piled practically near our TV.  It was free, took about ten minutes, and had made all the difference to me. The soft yellow glow of the lamps and the cleaner look of the area in general has left me feeling all warm and cozy inside all day long.

And that is where my head and heart are at right now.  Warm and calm and soothed and refreshed.  And when seasons like that come into your life, I think it's worth remembering.

The Language of Love

It's no secret that my Little Bug is hard to understand when he speaks.  His apraxia and low tone in his mouth make his speech patterns come out very muddled. He is, usually, unintelligible to strangers and about 30% intelligible to those who casually know him.  Even Appa sometimes has a hard time understanding a new phrase or word.  In fact, the only person in the whole world who truly understands him almost totally is me.  Like anything else you adapt to, I have learned the language of Little Bugese to a point where I have to remind myself that people can't understand that "Obama ah Daooo" means that "Grandma lives in Idaho."  I serve as a translator when people need help understanding him, and it has become second nature for me to automatically repeat things he says when we are with other people so they can understand him better.

Right now, I'm his translator to the world.  And while I wish for him that he didn't need one, I am proud to be his mouth when he needs one.

But something interesting has happened in the last month.  Little Bro has learned to speak Little Bugese.  Although Little Bro's language is superb and even likely advanced for only hearing English for 5 months, he seems to understand anything Little Bug says.  He often repeats his brother, only in a more traditional English articulation, or will just continue on with their conversation without skipping a beat.  To listen to them is like listening to two kids speaking different languages (and it becomes adorably comical when they both start speaking Korean on top of it all), but to them, it's normal.

They're bilingual.  Trilingual?  1.5-lingual?

As these two have truly become brothers, their bond has extended to work around Little Bug's language delay.  I've been worried for a while that it would impact Little Bro's own language or his ability to bond with his brother, but there is not a phrase Little Bug utters with regularity that Little Bro doesn't immediately understand.  It's shocking and amazing and very, very cool.

Because now Little Bug has another person in his corner who can help him access others socially when he needs it.  I imagine in the years to come (because this apraxia is something Little Bug is going to struggle with for a while yet) when my sons are playing with friends in a fort or playground and Little Bug excitedly exclaims something no one understands, his little brother will be there to back his big brother up.

His brother will have his back when his mama can't.  Or, as Little Bug would and has said "wiw bha, ah boo bah?"  Little Bro's translation: "Little Bro, aboobah?"

I fiercely love these two boys.

Mommy Has a Ghina

The last 5 days in my house have been an intense period of time where all four of us focused on two things and two things only....pee and the penis.  We're big believers in giving our kids the correct terminology upfront for things (expect, of course, for the mythical "fire bus"), so we now have two little boys who are very comfortable talking about their penises, what their penises can or are doing, what their penises look or feel like, and who they know who has penises, which in their little minds, is everyone.

So far we've established that Appa, Little Bug, Little Bro, Pappa, cows, kitty cats, tigers, and Santa Claus all have penises.  Carousels, trains, and raggies do not have penises. But it's been a hard sell to convince my boys that their mommy doesn't have one.

But today, randomly, they got it.

So now, when they are sitting on their potties listing off the anatomy of everyone in their world, when they come to Mommy they always laugh and point at me and say "Mama has a GHINA!"

And that, truly, is the story of my life right now.

Oh, and my Little Bug rocked the crap (pun intended) out of his first day at school in big boy underwear.  He asked to go to the potty three times (including once while outside), never had a single accident, and kept it up all evening long.  He is awesome.

An Apology to My Little Bug

It's been a lonely couple of weeks for me.

Sometimes being a mom of a kid with special needs, especially behavioral special needs, just plain sucks.  It's stressful, emotionally draining, depressing, and scary, which leads some (me) into periods of isolation as I try to swing our family pendulum back into sync with some serious sleep and diet modifications and a super low-key environment.  Even as I took the boys on a 5-day vacation last week, I felt so off, a mirror to Little Bug's off mood (that was likely a bit of a cycle between the two of us by the end).

And that isolation extended to my writing, which I deliberately avoided, simply because the things I wanted to say were not things I actually wanted to say.

In fact, I just had about seven additional paragraphs to this post detailing my last couple weeks that I just deleted.  Because it wasn't what I wanted to say.

Instead, I want to write about how amazing my Little Bug is and how humbled I am tonight to be his mother.

Little Bug came to us as a sweet, beautiful 10-month-old infant.  He's always been so far behind in development that Appa and I just grew accustomed to parenting him at his delayed age.  He was our first child, and our parenting experience has been entirely built upon ignoring all conventional parenting methods and milestones. What we have given as compassion, acceptance, and avocation have in some instances been nothing more than enabling or selfishness.

That has now been put into blessed clarity for us.

Little Bug is a couple months away from turning 4.  Yet, he has never been formally sleep trained and has been cosleeping in a most unhealthy way since his first birthday.  Why have we never bitten the bullet and kicked this habit?  Oh, that would be because he couldn't be walk, then he couldn't stay in his big boy bed, then he couldn't fall asleep without us, then he needed his sleep and it was easier to put him to sleep in our bed, then we would be going on vacation, then he was getting a new room, then he got a new brother, then then then then then.

All excuses, every one of them.  The real reasons were that Appa and I loved having him cuddle in our bed with us and that we simply didn't have enough faith in him to be able to go to sleep on his own and cognitively follow the rules.

In the last four days, he's almost completely sleep trained.  We still have tears, but they are short.  And most importantly, he understands the expectations and accepts them.  Appa and I are ashamed to think of the YEARS of sleep deprivation we have imposed on our tough son simply because we underestimated him. 

And we started potty training him today, too.  Again, I didn't think this would work, at all.  If anything, I thought Little Bro would potty train and help eventually with Little Bug's training.  After only 4 hours, my son who has never peed on the potty in any intentional way was telling us, over and over during dinnertime, no less, that he needed to go potty.  He kept his big boy pants dry for hours as he motored back and forth to put his business where it needed to be.  (And he started taking the stairs without holding any railings.....another first for this super kid.)

In 3 days, I actually think he'll be potty trained.  Officially.  And it shocks me, to be honest.  Both Appa and I are pretty incredulous.

And we're both a bit humbled and ashamed to have underestimated our son in such huge ways.  In every challenge we've thrown his way, he's breezed through it.  Not even really struggled, but just breezed through it.  He's shown us time and time again that he's up for the challenge.

We just haven't been challenging him like we thought we were.

So although there are still a lot of challenges facing Little Bug that can't be fixed with a modified sleep training program or a 3-day miracle potty training program, there are a lot of little life lessons that Little Bug IS probably ready for.  And that is going to force us to change how we parent him a bit, which includes me cutting out some of our isolation therapy. Which is probably going to make us all happier.

I know every mother thinks this of their child, but I just really feel deeply that there is something special about Little Bug and what his future holds.  Of course I think Little Bro is very special, too, but I feel strongly that Little Bug was given his gifts of a fighting spirit, charming disposition, and joy of life to turn his challenges into something really amazing.  He's going to inspire people in some way, some day; I know it.  I know it.   And someday, when he reads this note from his mother in the midst of all my random musings, I hope he knows that I, more than anyone else in this world, have been blessed beyond measure by him simply being who he is.

The Question

We're a conspicuous family, and I've always fielded multiple questions a week from strangers regarding Little Bug and whether he was adopted or if I was just the devoted nanny.  Usually the questions were just varying degrees of "is he adopted?", but I realized today that ever since Little Bro came home, that question rarely comes up.

Now, the new, more subtle was of determining how I came to be wrangling two small Koreans is a different, seemingly innocent question that I literally get 2-3 times a week.

"Are they brothers?"

And although the snarky responses you read in all the adoption literature comes to mind, my go to answer falls in line with my general rule on these sorts of questions...simple and honest.

"Yes."

But the thing is, I know that isn't what they are asking.  I know they aren't using the word brothers the way I am.  I know they are asking about blood and biology and a single birth mother and some history or story that is bound to be interesting.  But, if that was all it was, me choosing to ignore the implications behind the question, that would be fine.  It's the follow-up comments that I have been shocked to discover nearly always follow my simple and honest answer.

In the last week alone, these are some of the comments I have received in response to my answer.

"How wonderful you were able to keep them together."
"I can tell.  Their eyes have the same shape."  [Really?!  Here is a news flash, nice lady handing out chocolate milk samples at Costco,  there are around 50 million other people in the world who have the same "shape" of eyes as my kids.  I am pretty sure they aren't all related.  If they were, Lee Min Ho would be having dinner at my place...like every night.]
"What a sad story with such a happy ending!"
"You can tell."
"I didn't know you could adopt siblings from Asia."
"They're twins, right?"

So here is my dilemma.  I really like my less-is-more approach in general because it works for my personality, but in this case, I am finding it increasingly important to offer up information speaking to the implication of this question.  It's not a huge deal right now with my boys understanding what is being said, but when they get older, I don't want to have to continue the conversation with these strangers in order to set the record straight when their assumptions become clear, nor do I want to lie or hide the fact that my children are not biological brothers, because it doesn't make them any less of brothers, and I want them to know that and own that.

I have started practicing with the answer "they are now," and that seems to get the point across, but also tends to fluster people and make them backpedal, which makes me feel bad.  Then again, it's not offensive, so perhaps I shouldn't care that I've made people who asked an awkward question feel awkward themselves.  But even that answer feels like it has a shelf life, as it might be a little odd to say "they are now" when they've been brothers for 10+ years or something.

It's the most interesting of transitions from going from one child to two, and I find it has made our family even more conspicuous, more interesting to strangers, and more vulnerable to prying questions.

But for the record, as far as I am concerned, the only answer that is really true is "yes."

They are brothers.

45 Minute Glimpse

Today started badly.  Bad sleep, two grumpy kids and one grumpy mom, and no daddy made for a unhappy morning.  I also decided today would be a good day to force some potty training for both kids.  That lasted about 30 minutes.

I was determined to rally and knew the day was going to go up or down based on how I reacted.  A couple silly songs later, I managed to convince both kids to sit at their kiddie table and busted out the craft box.

Usually this activity can net me some decent interaction time with Little Bro, but has never lasted more than 10 minutes with Little Bug.  In fact, sitting still and focusing on anything for longer than a minute or two is so challenging for Little Bug, it is written into his IEP as a goal.  So craft or art time isn't really a go-to activity when Little Bug is home.

But today, with moderate cueing from me as I sat next to him, he participated in scissor work (or rather, scissor practice), markers, stickers, crayons, and playdoh (without even eating any).  He and his brother happily sat and created and played and giggled and focused.

For 45 minutes.

To me, that is a huge accomplishment.  Never have I seen Little Bug sit and focus for that long, and I certainly didn't feel like he was needing more cueing than he would receive with his aide at his developmental preschool.

Bottom line.  It was a huge win for us.

And that has bolstered me all day, especially considering we had a disastrous nap, and he spent his entire $150-an-hour sensory therapy session refusing to get out of a tub of dried beans, and he had not one, but TWO of his new and very disconcerting "car rages."

Because that 45 minutes gave me a glimpse of what I know will one day be able to be our new normals, and that makes fighting through the rest of today a whole lot easier.

Crying Over Spilled Lemonade

A few evenings ago, if you happened to meander in a forgotten corner of our local botanic gardens as you were listening to a very cool concert fill the entire space, the mom you saw sobbing as she crouched down near two little boys in their stroller would have been me.

Little Bug's behavioral needs are changing or maturing or increasing or whatever the official term for it would be, but the reality is things are becoming harder for him to control while his life becomes increasingly in need of self-control.  As we try to expand his world and life responsibilities little by little, the blunt truth is that for a reason we might never get our hands fully around, he's just not capable of helping himself right now in the ways that he needs to at times.  The baseline he needs to exercise and understand self-control isn't there for him in some instances, and these missing instances often encompass critical education and social skills.

He CAN learn, he CAN control, he CAN do damn near anything he wants to.

But not right now because we haven't figured out how to get him to that baseline he needs.  And that is scary and frustrating and sad and is forcing us to go places we had hoped not to go.  But he needs to be able to eat a treasured and earned reward doughnut in his car seat instead of impulsively throwing it over and over on the floor, only to sob that it was on the floor.  He needs to be able to stand still for longer than 5 seconds to look at a color in his hand and match it to the color on the wall or sit for longer than 30 seconds at "circle time" at school or hold back from knocking down a friend's block tower any time he passes by, only to cry right along with his friend. He needs to be able to stand next to me in a parking lot or store without having his hand is a vice grip to stop him from dashing off with wild and often dangerous or unintentionally destructive abandon. He is almost 4; the time when others will start holding his accountable is coming soon.

And when we are enjoying a lovely evening in a forgotten corner of the botanic gardens while listening to a concert of bells and I buy him as a very special treat his very own bottled lemonade, he needs to be able to take a sip before reflexively throwing it like a water bomb all over myself and the ground.  Because he doesn't WANT to do any of those things, but simply can't help himself right now.

So we will help him.  Somehow.  Any way we can.  Even if it is a way that we didn't really want to help him.  Even if it means sacrificing other things that are deeply important to us.

I am scared for my baby.  I am scared that we won't be able to do enough for him and that we won't be able to help him reach the baseline he needs in order to start reaching his higher potential and enjoying life a little more stably.  Lately a heavy weight has settled on my heart as the path is becoming more and more clear and unfun for all of us. 

And it all came rushing to the surface a few evenings ago as I stood there in shock, soaked in what was meant to be a special treat for my special boy.  No reason to punish him....he knew what he did was wrong and seemed equally shocked at what had happened.  Instead I just bent down and sobbed over that spilled lemonade and the rough road ahead my little love must continue to tread.

And now that it is out of my system, we move on.