April 5, 2009

We spent Palm Sunday with Kelly's parents and attended Hobbs Christian. It was the opening of the new education wing and they held Sunday School class for the children for the first time in many years. It was exciting to be there and celebrate with the congregation.
Somehow we did not get one picture of Kristofer. He was having too much fun running around and playing.

Having a snack in the pew.

Having a cookie. Yum!

Grandma O playing with the boys.

London supervising Grandma O cutting her cherry pie.

The family sitting for dinner.

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Kristofer got to stay at Grammy and Pa's house until Thursday. He was feeling pretty special that he got invited and his brothers did not.

One day Kristofer spotted their Easter presents in the closet and Grammy told him he had to wait until Easter to see. Later in the day he told Grammy he was ready to go home. When she asked him why he said, "It's just not working out." Grammy let him look at the book, but told him he had to act surprised on Easter.

October 27, 2008

Grammy and Pa (Kelly’s parents) came for a visit this weekend and brought some treasures. The boys like the photo album Grammy made for them.

Kelly and I have been very pleased with the attachment of the boys to us. It has been difficult on us to stay home and not have people over. It is all worth it though because we are seeing the fruit of our labor as more people are coming to visit.

As soon as Grammy and Pa walked in the door both Igor and Sasha looked for me and came to stand near my legs. They both had to reach out and touch me too. This was very heartwarming for me because when we first came home from Russia Sasha went to Grammy and attached very quickly. I was very concerned by this because he was very attached to Kelly since Kelly did most of his care and fed him on the plane after we left the orphanage and did not want to have anything to do with me. Then we come home and he goes right to Grammy with no problem. My feelings were not hurt by this, but I was very concerned about a potential attachment issue. Sasha has had a hard time attaching to me so I know staying home and not taking them places and around people has been good.

Now, you might be thinking, “How rude of her to not what the boys to become attached to their grandmother.” Not so. I DO want all of my children to be very attached to their grandparents. However, it is very important for a post- institutionalized child to become attached to their parents FIRST. To bring them home and say, “This is Mama and Papa.” They have no clue what that means. It is no different than if you would have told them our names were Jennifer and Kelly. It takes time to make them understand that you are “it” and the caregiver is not going to change like in the orphanage.

Something that was a little frustrating with Sasha was his constant crying. (During the week he has gotten better about this.) Poor little guy just gets stressed and cries. He wanted to eat all weekend so that was part of his crying issue. We were all sitting around the kitchen table talking and the leftovers were still out. Sasha just wanted to eat until it was all gone. I finally asked Kelly to PLEEEEASE take him into the living room. There is only so much crying I can handle. I got lunched cleaned up and he was quite for a few minutes anyways.

Weekends in general are just a little more stressful for me. I guess because Kelly is home there is more crying that goes on because they think Kelly will give in and give them more food. The

n there is the dynamic of Kristofer always saying, “Papa can we do this? Papa can we do that?” Poor little guy just loves to do things with Papa. There is not peace and quiet here.

Kristofer did learn to ride his bike this weekend! He did so good! Grammy helped him and he rode across our yard and into the neighbors after she got him started.

The dramatic crash.