Saturday, March 29, 2008

Odds and ends

I almost collapsed in a big puddle of tears at the playground this week when BOTH boys were PUMPING on the swings! Woohoo!!! Major milestone around here. ;) Dima actually gets it better than Zhenya, in terms of the rhythm, but I anticipate in a few weeks they both should have the hang of it.

School is going really well, and the boys talk about it a lot. Dima's English has seemed to pick up this past week, probably corresponding to being back in school. Some of his words are becoming much clearer. He starts occupational therapy on April 8. I'm interested to see how that works. I'm sure he'll enjoy it--he loves one-on-one attention and it's at Children's Hospital so for him it will seem like a lot of games. :)

Zhenya started a new "behavior" this week. I'm not sure if it's related to preschool or if he's just testing the waters. When we ask/tell him to do something, he gets a really sad face like he's going to cry and sticks his bottom lip out a little, and then slowly does whatever was asked. But it's still disobedience, because he is delaying his response to get attention or to avoid doing whatever was asked. So he's been disciplined for this behavior and it seems to have subsided.

I think I've mentioned this before, but both boys wet the bed at night. One does it pretty regularly, the other only once in a while (maybe once a month or so). We've been dealing with this by restricting fluids after dinner, waking them up to go to the bathroom when we go to bed, and it still occurs. But recently after reading some other adoptive parents' blogs, I've realized they may have some nighttime fears we aren't aware of. Apparently in many orphanages the caretakers use fear to keep the kids in bed at night. They tell them there is a bad woman who will hurt them if they get out of bed. I know the name they give her, but I don't want to mention it to the boys with my limited Russian for fear of scaring them. So we've been talking a few times at bedtime about getting up in the night to go to the bathroom, and reminding them that the bathroom light is on and that it's okay to get up, go to the bathroom, and go back to bed, and that it's not good to pee in their beds. :) We don't discipline them for wetting the bed since it's not something they can necessarily control, but we want to encourage them to get up and go if they need to.

This weekend Mark's parents are in town. We went to the zoo today and the boys are really starting to love it. They know the names of many of the animals now but their big request was to see the elephants (who happened to comply by being out in their pen!). Tomorrow is their dedication at church, where Mark and I will ask our church family to pray for us as we raise the boys and where we will commit to teaching the boys about God and Jesus.

I have lots of pics but they're not on the computer yet, so I'll try to do a picture post tomorrow!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to comment on the bed wetting. I was a wetter until i was in my 20's . My 3 children were also wetters. 2 of the 3 have stopped wetting . The last one is in his 20's . We have done everything with them all. But never disciplined them for doing it . So it might go on along time. But thats ok. There are other things that are worse
Take care

Zack, Jenn and William said...

Sounds like things are going well for you guys! We've had a couple of bed-wetting instances. The first time it happened, it broke our hearts because he was so worried that he was going to get a spanking. He said they got very big spankings for wetting the bed at the internot. :(

We also had dedication at church yesterday. It was such a special time for our families - and I'm sure it was for you guys, too!

SB said...

good night pull ups might help with the bed wettings since they come in larger sizes. If you don't have water proof matress pads, I would recommend spending the money and getting some good ones. My favorite one is from a matress store. It breathes well and doesn't sound like you're on plastic. Syd has one on her bed.

adoptedthree said...

We were told to have our son go to the bathroom every two hours during the day, and this can aide in less accidents, at night per our Specialist. It is very common for boys to have problems with bedwetting. My eight year old still does and it is so frustrating. We finally got him out of nighttime pants on Christmas Day 07.