If you have been a long time follower of any of the blogs I write (or have written) you will know two things about my child.? 1) he likes to throw food and 2) he rocks.? There has been no shortage of blogging about it here, here, here and here.
It took an adoption specialist to tell me that it was ok for this behavior.? That was almost 2 years ago now.? The child has been home 2 1/2 years and he still rocks himself to sleep and awake.? He is almost 4 and a half.? It doesn’t seem to be effecting his ability to sleep in any way.? He slept in until almost 8:30 this morning.? Which might explain why he didn’t nap.? The rocking no longer bothers me.? It is a part of who he is.
What does bother me is that the child will not get out of his bed.? I should have worse things to complain about right?? I shouldn’t say that as a total blanket statement.? He gets up in the morning (on the weekends).? Otherwise nothing.? And why would this be disturbing?? Think about these two instances that have happened in the past week.
Sunday morning the boy slept in.? The trusty husband and I were sitting on the couch watching TV waiting for him to get up.? He finally gets up and comes out to the living room.? “Mommy, there is something up with my pillow,” he says.? “Really,” I reply.? He then insists I go see.? He crawls up into his bed where I find a blood pool on his pillow and sheet.? I (as calmly as possible) call Derek.? Upon further inspection there is blood smeared all over the child’s PJs and some on his hands.? I start inspecting his head, ears, back, everything.? We questioned him if he hit his head in the night or what the hell happened.? We get up close and keep looking him over and figure out that he had a bloody nose in the night.? There was no blood on his face when he came out to get me.? Somehow the child either slept through the incident or just didn’t get out of his bed.? We guess he simply slept through it, but I have no clue as to how anyone could sleep through that.? Either way, he didn’t get up to get us for help.
The second thing happened this afternoon.? Blessedly my 4 year old still naps.? I will hold onto that nap until I have to send him off to Kindergarten if I can.? He still needs it and on most days he actually does sleep.? Today was a little different.? I put him down at 1:00 like usual, checked on him at 1:40 and he was still rocking.? I told him he needed to take a nap and left the room.? At 2:20 I checked again and he was still rocking and quite hard at that.? I knew he hadn’t slept because if he does sleep it is for at least 1 hour.? I told him he could get up and I returned to my desk to finish my work.? A few minutes later I could hear yelling from the other end of the house, “IIIII”m DOOOONE!”? Apparently the child got straight out of his bed an went for the toilet.? I talked to him and asked if he didn’t nap because he had to go potty.? He informed me that was the case.? I have explained to the child that he can get up whenever he has to use the potty.? That is just fine.? He just won’t do it.
He also told me at breakfast that he “went to the scary place” last night.? This is his wording for his bad dreams.? He tells us now that if he doesn’t rock to sleep then he goes to the scary place.? All of this simply breaks my heart.? It makes me think about what his life was like before coming to our family.?? Forced to stay in a bed and fearing the sounds in his own room.
ah, that makes me sad too. esp. when there was his mom, waiting for him on the other side of the world, willing and ready to rock him to sleep, if only she could have…
*lots if hugs*
Oh Elle. That is so sad… I can only imagine. Bigs hugs to you.
My little guy always, ALWAYS asks where the Mommy is. When I ask him where he thinks Mommy is, he says “gone”. If he sees any photo of a sad child or animal he gets tearful and tells me they’re sad because they can’t find Mommy. I listen, reassure him that I’m not leaving, hug him and try not to tear up. For 2 1/2 of his 3 1/2 years I’ve been there constantly… what more can I do?
I used to think that if we could just “be there” enough for them, it would get better. Some days, it would seem not.
The entire concept of his remembering a past, one which this family wasn’t present in itself hurts. To think something frightened him when he was a baby while and none of us could help… a heart breaker. We love him and what ever is ingrained on his little brain from those days… will slowly wash away. This is one of those moments when it hurts us more then him. Sadly, I’m heading for a glass of wine.
Ooo… I can’t even type now. Try and make heads or tails of that last comment. Gawd….
That is heartbreaking.
Awww…baby! Hugs from Auntie Lee. I tell B that if she can tell me about her bad dream and we can talk about it, it usually goes away and she won’t have it anymore. Kind of gives her a feeling of control over the scary stuff. She also includes this every night at the end of her prayers, “And please let me have happy and sweet dreams. Amen” That has helped her a lot, too.
I can’t wait to see you all!
Sad. Although difficult to think about as we wait on a referral from Russia, we are thankful for you and others who have gone before us that share these stories. As much as I want to believe that we will have no such issues to worry about, I realize that it is likely that we will. It breaks my heart to think about these poor children with no one to love them, while people who want a child to love so badly sit and wait.
[…] First, he didn’t nap (because he had to go poop and we’ve already discussed the not getting out of his bed thing).? Second, he was riding his bike outside and all of a sudden he started crying.? Screaming […]