We had another screaming fit this morning before breakfast. At least it happened before breakfast and not during. We can usually diffuse the situation and eventually get the boy to eat if he does it before the meal. Today’s fit was sparked by the trusty husband asking the boy if he wanted some Os. The boy’s response was “no thank you.” To which the husband obliged and didn’t give him Os. The boy then proceeded to scream for 30 minutes. He also hucked a stuffed animal at the husband’s head.

The whole situation got me thinking. During the ordeal I quietly sat and ate my breakfast. I enjoyed my cup of coffee to the sound of the husband reprimanding his son for throwing toys. I did nothing to intervene. On our trip to Alaska D and I had a few conversations about discipline.

The boy constantly tells D “no.” It drives him crazy. He doesn’t tell me no nearly as much. Maybe because I am the main disciplinarian in the house. When the boy tells D no I let the two of them work it out. It is their beef not mine. I do this because the boy needs to understand that both parents are just that… parents. We aren’t there to be his best friend. We are there to be his parents. Sure daddy is still the fun one who carries him around the house upside down, but daddy still makes rules.

The boy has also learned the fine art of “if Mama tells me no, I’ll go ask Daddy.” Not gonna fly around here kid. Usually because he does it with both of us in the room.

I have seen so many mothers in my time step in to diffuse a situation between child and father. I don’t understand that. Why are mom’s not giving their spouses enough credit? Do moms really think their husbands can’t handle their child?

So this brings me to my topic of the day*:

Do you truly team parent or do you do most of the work? When you are out and about without your child do you call home to check to see “how things are going?” Do you step in when your husband is trying to discipline your child or talk them down from a tantrum? Do you feel your husband can’t handle the stresses of parenting?

*I know this is a topic for the marrieds of the group. I apologize for not keeping the Mommy Wars topics to all moms, but this is a topic that I am really interested in.

Post-institutionalized (PI)
Definition according to some random online dictionary:
Post - prefix meaning formerly
institutionalize - to place or confine in an institution, esp. one for the care of mental illness, alcoholism, etc.

Two Years Old (2)
Definition according to many mothers worldwide:
a debilitating illness causing symptoms such as mine, gimme, and no. Symptoms may also include lack of communication skills, public temper tantrums, over active reflexes resulting in limbs randomly flinging objects, an unearthy sense of aim, inability to listen, and fascination with bizarre objects.

I have notices quite a bit of talk around the internets from mothers wondering if the behaviors their child exhibits are as a result of post-institutionalization. While it is a distinct possibility that this may be true, I find it interesting that many of the mothers asking are mothers to two year olds. As parents to PI kids we become hypersensitive to behaviors that could be signs of greater challenges to come.

“Did Johnny throw his lunch at me because he has a deep seeded need for my love because he was confined to a crib for the first year of his life and fed by bottle propping or is he just a two year old who said he wanted ‘nabich’ for lunch. Which I thought that meant sandwich, but clearly it meant ‘Mother I would like a grilled cheese sandwich with exactly 1 teaspoon of butter on each slice of bread, a cup of milk and a banana, and don’t even think of trying to pass off that processed American cheez food crap on me.’ Dear lord what does this mean?”

Distinguishing PI vs. 2 can be a challenge and at some point we just have to sit back and say, “yep, he’s 2.” But when does that happen. I guess it depends on when your child came home. So many bring their children home around 12-18 months. There are a few of us who get their children right at the doorway to the terrible twos. 23 months here.

Seeing the fine line between PI and 2 is an art. We want to make sure we are tending to our children’s institutionalized behaviors as to cut down on future therapy bills. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are just being two. I tend to err on the side of 2. Call me naive if you will. So many of the behaviors my child exhibits are just being 2. I’ll give you some examples.

1. Boy throws food.

2 year old issue. You could look deeper into this as a control issue, but this is also a two year old control issue. It is also a from of testing. I am trying to see if the rules are the same no matter what you feed me, what meal it is or where we are. Two year olds test too.

2. Boy rocks in his bed.

PI issue. This behavior occurs in biological children as well as adopted children. I am sure that the behavior originated as a self soothing mechanism and has just turned into his “thing.” Children have all kinds of comfort items/behaviors. Lovies, pacifiers, blankies, a favorite stuffed animal, thumb sucking. All self soothing devices. My child rocks.

3. Boy screams at me if he doesn’t get what he wants at that very second.

2 year old issue. 9 times out of 10 he doesn’t get it right then because I can’t understand what he is asking for. I try to ask for him to repeat the request and he screams louder.

4. Boy constantly kissing owies.

2 year old issue. Children quickly learn what behavior earns attention. If you are constantly trying to pacify your children or giving in to their (loud) demands they learn that this gets then attention. Likewise, if you child is accident prone (like mine) you are forever kissing boo-boos. They will then learn that boo-boo kisses are attention and will fake accidents or make mountains out of mole hills. But this is a reciprocal behavior. You make them feel better by kissing boo-boos so they want to make you feel better by kissing yours. This is a good behavior. It is showing your child is learning empathy.

We have our fair share of PI issues in this house. I am not trying to say our life is all rose petals. But with every PI issue comes two year old behaviors. What I am getting at is that at some point we have to draw the line and realize that our children are two years old. We have to stop making excuses for their behavior. “Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Jones. Billy picked all of your flowers because he was in an orphanage and never got to see flowers.”

So my question to you is: at what point do/did you draw the line on PI vs. 2 (or any other age)? Do you still use PI as an excuse for your child’s naughty behavior? How many times a day do you find yourself wondering if “this behavior” means something more?

Thanks for all the compliments on the garden. The front is a mish-mash of plants I’ve collected and never really had a design. The back yard is a totally different story though. But our back yard is small and manageable. I just need a hammock back there and I’d never leave it. Well that and to get rid of all the junk we’ve collected on the side yard. Hey! At least we got rid of the toilet.

I secretly like you guys emailing me your gardening questions. I haven’t had people do that in quite some time. If you do email with questions try to include a photo of what you are talking about. It helps me as I am a visual person. I’ve told nursery customers to dig up dead plants and bring them to me before. There are some issues you can only tell if you see the roots/bark/leaves. I will admit that I did have to pull out a book or two to answer some questions. Good thing I have a gardening library above my head. Oh, and one more thing, I’m not very good at grass. Turf grass that is. I fertilize mine (organically), water it on occasion and mow it. That is it. We have a significant weed population in our lawn and a patch of moss here and there. I don’t have a golf course by any stretch of the imagination. I hate turf. If I could rip it all out I would.

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I need to ask a question of you guys. This has nothing to do with gardening or (trans-fat free) chocolates. It has to do with my child. My boy is not a social butterfly. I mean seriously. Sure, we don’t get out as much as we should. The weather is getting warmer so more frequent trips to the park are a must, but otherwise many of the “gym” classes are too far away for us to drive to. I only have one friend in town who stays at home with a similar aged child. Kathou lives about 20 minutes north of us and we don’t get together nearly enough. Hey Lady! We need to fix that. So our opportunity for social interaction is a bit limited.

What gets me is what appears to be my son’s fear of other children. One would assume that since he spent 2 years of his life he would like playing with other children. The social worker and doctor in the orphanage both told us he was a pretty independent player. He didn’t really have a best friend per se. This same trend is true now that he’s here.

He doesn’t like the nursery at church, but that is suspect is because we try to leave him. That doesn’t go over so well, so we take him out. And at the playground… he won’t interact with the other children. Take for example yesterday. We went to the park (albeit a new park) and there were no other kids in the immediate vicinity. The boy happily played, but the minute another child (his same age) showed up he got off the play structure and stood away from it and watched the little boy. He wouldn’t go near the kid. Now the Zoo is a different story. There is a giant double slide at the zoo and he will hike his little self up the stairs and wait his turn.

I just find it odd that he is so timid around other children. This is a far cry from the little boy who got pissed when Chickadee would snag a toy from him in Russia and he would bust out an orphanage maneuver on her. “YA” he would yell and steal it back. Chickadee is one of the only kids he really plays with.

Anyone else’s children afraid of other kids? What did you do to help them become more social?

If you are waiting parent you are likely like me. You have a google notifier set up to send you an email the second a new story about Russian adoption is thrown into the media circus. I was once you. I checked religiously to see if new information was posted that would get me closer to my child. I spent countless hours every day hunting down as much information as possible on reaccreditation and the state of Russian adoption. I ignored my family. I neglected my friends. I became a hermit hiding in my home staring at my computer screen. I read things like, “let’s create a letter writing campaign to make those Russians give us our children.” “Those children are just wasting away in those orphanages.” “The Russians don’t care about the kids, look! there are 750,000 of them!” “Grab your pitchforks and clubs and let’s all whip ourselves into a media fed panic and criticize another country on their politics. After all we’re Americans and Americans are the best.”

Day after week after month. Websites, newspapers, blogs, forums… they all said the same thing. I quietly sat in my house, bitched on my blog, but did nothing. I didn’t respond to the accusations. I didn’t participate in any letter writing campaigns. I simply drunk myself into a stupor waited. 2 years later I am a mom.

Today’s article in USA today is American media sensationalism at its best. (I would link it, but my Windows clipboard is dumb and I am lazy.) Today the accreditation of the last two agencies expired. It is an unfortunate circumstance. However, I don’t believe the Russians are doing this simply out of spite. I don’t believe they are deliberately closing the door on Americans adopting their children. And the operative word in that sentence is their.

Russians have a responsibility to their own children. Just as Americans have a responsibility to American children. Russia has done some things in the past 6 months to aid their children. They are making the process more difficult, sure, but they are doing so with the interest of orphaned children at heart. Can you imagine the outrage of the American people if foreigners adopted American children and we turned around and heard media reports of abuse and deaths? I can tell you it would be 1000 times worse than the sentiment in Russia.

In recent months Russian officials have tightened the scrutiny of PAPs. They are requiring additional paperwork, medical exams and additional waits. All of this is to make sure those adopting really want to do so. I am here to tell you from first hand experience you really have to want to adopt from Russia to make it out with your sanity.

The Russian government is also requiring more of the agencies who place children. From what I understand there are additional post placement reports required, agencies now must have NGO (non-governmental organization) status, and they have to submit additional paperwork for the accreditation.

All of this truly is in the best interest of the children. Russians are making sure they are placing children into the hands of 1) parents who are truly want a child and know how to care for a child and 2) by agencies who are reputable.

The additional obstacles that PAPs face, the monetary incentives, are also in the best interest of Russian children. They are working toward a foster care program. It is new in their country. And the incentive program isn’t, “adopt a kid and get ten-grand.” The money is in the form of vouchers and not given to the family until 3 year after placement. Similarly, the vouchers are only good for certain services such as housing and schooling. All “monies” paid go to improve the life of the child.

Now I see a lynch mob forming outside my window for supporting such ideals, but remember I’ve been there. I’ve waited for accreditation. I’ve lost a child to a Russian family. I’ve traveled 3 times. I’ve had heartbreak. But I survived. And after all that I’ve been through I still support all this. I believe agencies should be accredited. I don’t believe agencies should be able to work out special deals with the regions and continue to work. I believe accreditations should be suspended for agencies who don’t follow the laws. I don’t believe agencies should be allowed to pay “special fees” and get special privileges. And don’t say that doesn’t happen because we all know it does.

I will say that there are some regions that the children are severely lacking. I can say, however, that in my son’s orphanage they did the best that they could with the resources they had. I had no problem with the care he received and did not worry about his health or safety at all in the months we waited for him. The same was true for Alexander.

Hate me if you like. Disagree if you must. On this subject I won’t change my views.

Now go and buy some chocolates. You only have 2 days left!