*now with photos!

It seems like yesterday that I was just picking my baby up out of the orphanage. Now, 4 years later I took him to his first day of Kindergarten.

After 3 years in a private preschool we kind of dreaded the first day of Kindergarten.  The boy cried last year when the preschool was moved from one side of the church to the other.  He doesn’t like change… neither does his mother.  We were sure that the transition from small private preschool to large public school would not be an easy one.  We had a contingency plan just in case.  The plan was to introduce him to the school over a series of visits through the Spring and Summer.  We repeatedly asked the boy if he needed to go to the school to check it out and each time he told us he did not.  After 4 years we have learned to go with his flow, whatever that may be.

Last Thursday we attended the back to school bbq and briefly met his teacher.  When I say briefly I mean, “Hi, what is your name, what bus is he riding, ok, put your things there.  Next.”  The trusty husband and I had always planned to take him to school on the first day.  The boy had the grand idea that he would get to ride the bus on the first day.  He was so not robbing me of my motherly duty to drop my child off on his first day in a new big boy school.

We had our usual “can I watch this part of Handy Manny” moment and an argument over, “no you need your hair combed on the first day”  (after that I don’t care).  It took forever to get into the parking lot and we walked the boy into school and helped him find a chair to which he promptly started coloring as instructed.

The trusty husband and I milled around a bit just to make sure and then we looked at each other and said, “ok, we can go.”  The boy was smiles and kissed us good-bye and we walked out.  No drama, nothing.

Derek drove me home and I went to work in my office.  No tears.  I’m still a little shocked.

I picked the boy up from school and we talked about what his favorite part was.  ”Oh mommy, I LOVE recess.”  Of course you do child.  All kids love recess.  He was a little sad that he didn’t get a short jumprope though.  Maybe next time baby.

He really enjoyed his first day and can’t wait to go back.  ”But I really wish I could ride the bus home.”

You will baby.  On Thursday.

Remember how I mentioned that the boy was turning into a real live boy?  I have a feeling that I should put the pediatricians office on speed dial… that and my therapist (whom I haven’t seen in 6 years thankyouverymuch).

Recent exploits of the child in my house include the following two scenarios (both happened yesterday).  There was also a playing under the car episode that my mom totally downplayed while my head would have exploded if I had been the one to actually find him under the car.

Scene 1:

Small child yelling at dog (not unusual, in fact he’s doing it right now).  I go into living room to find out what dog is doing to make small child yell at her.  It usually involves breathing or walking or some other innocent dog act.  The boy has the bottle of (eco-friendly and doesn’t work so don’t ever buy it) glass cleaner sitting on the floor of the living room.  He has paper towels in his hand and the dog is eating some of the paper towels.  Nothing unusual there.  We taught the boy to clean the windows so now I have the “cleanest” windows in the neighborhood, but only to a height of 3′ and I wouldn’t really call them clean because we use that eco-friendly and doesn’t work so don’t ever buy it glass cleaner.  So I see the glass “cleaner,” the paper towels and the bottle of bitter yuck spray sitting in the window sill.  I have no clue how the child got the bitter yuck spray because it was on top of the entertainment center and there was no evidence of tool fashioning to retrieve said bottle.  Also the boy was drinking copious amounts of water.  I inquired as to what was going on, obviously he was trying to clean the windows, but why the bitter yuck and the water?  He informed me that he got the bitter yuck because he didn’t want Busy to bother him while he cleaned… and accidently got some in his mouth.  I love logical consequences.

About 10 minutes later the boy comes into my office and says, “Mom, you know how to get bitter yuck spray taste out of your mouth?  You have to brush your teeth with two different kinds of toothpaste.  Now my breath smells minty.”  That’s great baby, but I’m still not going to kiss you.

Scene 2:

The boy is playing in the back yard.  The trusty husband is grilling burgers for dinner.  The phone rings and it is the trusty husband’s bff.  I go outside to give him the phone and the boy is behind the hedge in the backyard and the husband is talking to him.  A conversation ensues…

Derek: you did what?
Oleg: mumble mumble mumble.
Me: Derek, Matt is on the phone.
Derek:  You did what?  You pooped outside?
Oleg: mumble mumble mumble
Me: He did WHAT?… Matt, hold on a second
Derek: {looking at me} you deal. {takes phone} oh nothing, just doing a little parenting
Me to child: you did WHAT?
Oleg: I pooped outside.

**BLAM** Head explodes

{trying to totally not loose my shit, but doing a very poor job of it}
Me: you pooped outside? Where?
Oleg: right there {pointing to a pile of rocks}
Me: get inside right now and go into the bathroom and wipe your butt
Oleg: {now beginning to yell at me} but I already wiped my butt
Me: with what???!!!
Oleg: LLLLEEEEAAAAVVVVEEEESSS

{at this point there is no sanity left in me. Child and I go into the bathroom, I clean him up and we then have a heated conversation about who in the world said it was ok to poop in the back yard}

Me: Where did you get the idea to poop in the back yard?
Oleg: It was my own idea.
Me: What makes you think it is ok to poop in the back yard?
Oleg: I don’t know
Me: Who in the world told you it was ok to poop outside.
Oleg: {very matter of fact} Jon {who happens to be a very good friend of ours}
Me: It is never ok to poop in the back yard
{I then go into the kitchen where the trusty husband and I do a very bad job of containing the hysterical laughter}

Last week the trusty husband took a few days off.  I had to work so he decided to do a little project.  A totally unprompted, completed almost totally on his own project.  I know right.  He painted the boy’s room.  It was time for an upgrade to big boy colors… the child is starting kindergarten next week and all (let’s just not go there… I’m not ready yet).

So the husband cleans out the room, paints the room, we (per usual) argue while arranging furniture and then we decide to clean out the garage.  Logical right?  It is in our little world.  The point of cleaning the garage was to extract the toys that were previously removed during the attitude intervention.  Which went well, but we stopped giving toys back when we ran out of age appropriate toys.  The idea was to get rid of the too-young-for-you toys to lighten the load in the house and to well… get rid of the too-young-for-you toys.  Remarkably the child understands, “those are baby toys.”

As we were cleaning out the garage we were looking at some of the super nice expensive wooden toys.  My thought is I wanted to save those in the event that we have another child.  Likewise I have a box of clothes that are all high end children’s clothes that I’d like to to use again should we ever have another boy.

Packing and either donating or saving toys is bittersweet.  On one hand I like the optimism of saving toys for a future second child.  On the other hand, I know that our chances of having a second child are very slim.  We have agreed that we will no longer try to get pregnant.  It is too much on my emotional state and feels like an act in futility.  At the time being, adopting again is out of the question.  We simply cannot afford it.  For reasons that are ours a domestic or foster adoption is not an option.  International adoption is far too expensive for our budget.

Realistically we should just pack up the toys and donate the good stuff to the preschool and the rest to the Goodwill.  But I can’t let go.  I don’t want the boy to be an only child.  What would you do?

I think I’ve officially become the mother to a boy.  Yes, I did check prior to leaving Russia and I am aware that the boy has been a part of our family for almost 4 years now, but up until now he’s been… well… a little prissy.  He didn’t like to get dirty.  The thought of touching dirt was as if the world was going to swallow him whole.  I attribute this all to the crazy being in our life that is causing more gray hair than my husband’s addiction to buying random cords for random electronics.  The boy loves his dog.

Indications that my son is turning into a real boy:

1) I must wash the scum off of his feet on a nightly basis.

2) The best game ever… throw shovel fulls of dirt into the air and pretend it’s rain.

3) A conversation with the trusty husband started with, “how much does a broken arm cost?”  (the boy has begun climbing trees)

4) Every morning I must tell the child to put on clean underpants

5) The boy comes to me one afternoon after going to the bathroom.  He says, “Mom, I have the funniest story to tell you.  I was going to the bathroom and I had on two pair of underpants.  So I took off the football underpants (the clean ones) and am just wearing the gray ones (the dirty ones his father told him to change).

6) Now every morning I tell him, “please put on clean underpants and remove the dirty ones first.”

The very first time we met the boy he was sick.  On that visit he decided to share his lovely germs with us resulting in the second worst case of sick I’ve ever had (worst being Swine Flu in the Spring of 2009).  Since then the child has rarely been sick.  He’s had a few colds, thrown up on me 3 times and we did have one multiple trips to the ER for a very nasty ear infection.  With the ear infection he was prescribed antibiotics, but other than that nothing.  The child is never sick.

If you will recall we did take the boy to the doctor in late April because of his significant hearing loss and continuing hacking cough.  The doc said he had an upper respiratory infection and prescribed him antibiotics.  This would be only the 2nd time since living in the US that the child has had antibiotics.  We have no clue if he was ever given any in Russia.  We doubt it.

Well… we give the child the medicine and things start to improve.  Then Mother’s Day happened and we assumed it was just a flu.  The Wednesday after Mother’s Day my mom was the recipient of a sick child.  Again, we thought it was just the same flu settling in his intestine.  He was fine the next day.  There was also some speculation about some possibly bad orange juice.

The next week there was another potty emergency.  The next week another.  The following week yet another.  We were starting to think something might be up.  My mom mentioned that she thought it was because of the antibiotic.  But that was weeks ago.  I know antibiotics can cause intestinal trouble, but nothing like this.

The boy stayed the night with my parents last week and had another potty emergency.  We all agreed that this had gone on long enough and something had to be done.  Last Friday I took the boy to the doctor and he listened to us and the boy’s abdomen intently (have I ever mentioned how much I love our pediatrician?).  There are two issues that could be at stake here and all of this is because the boy never gets sick.

The first is that the antibiotics (which were not heavy duty, but rather run of the mill) upset the balance in his intestine causing minor lactose intolerance.  This helped explain a lot for me since I’m lactose intolerant and spent the large majority of my childhood with a bottle of penicillin parked in the refrigerator.  The other issue could be a case of Clostridium difficile.  Either way we are treating him for both.

The bottom line is that because the boy hasn’t built up a natural resistance to antibiotics they have severe side effects.  Problem is that diagnosing what is exactly the cause can be rather difficult.  For the time being we have eliminated 99% of dairy from his diet (yogurt is still ok) and he is on Flagyl (which is a horrible giardia medicine).  All of this is in an effort to save his intestinal tract from long term damage.  The good news is that it doesn’t slow him down at all and he doesn’t appear to be in any pain.  So far we haven’t had any accidents, but it has only been 4 days.