Saying of the Day: I need another one!

We have always encouraged H to be "helpful." We try not to use "good" or "bad" but rather try to instill a desire to be helpful and thereby wanting to do as we ask rather than being punished for not doing what is requested/asked. Although we have plenty of "not so" helpful moments, on the whole, H is a pretty good helper. He helps feed the pets, puts the dishes away, carries recycling, and puts away his clothes (not folded yet but that's ok we can work on that later.)

Sometimes his desire to be helpful is slightly colored by his 2GO3 point of view of the world as evidenced last week. I am down to my last few weeks of wearing braces. H has never seen me without braces so it will be interesting to see his reaction when I get them off. He has shown interest in them and asks to touch them at times but they are accepted as just the way Mommy is.

Anyhow, I am now wearing two rubber bands in sort of a triangle formation on either side of my front teeth upper and lower. I am used to it now but they do present a problem for eating at times as I cannot get the food  past the bands. Last week just before we sat down to dinner, I removed my bands to eat. H already had his food when he jumped up and said "I need another one!" He rushed to the desk drawer in the kitchen and started rummaging around. I was caught off guard by his sudden dash. I tried contemplating what on earth he was going to get another one of. My first inclination was to ask him to sit down and eat but now I was slightly curious. He dashed back to the table with a look of accomplishment on his face and in all seriousness said "Mommy, here, I got you another one!"

A split second later it dawned on me he had gone to the drawer to get me another rubber band to put on my braces....and was so earnest in handing it to me. I was really glad I had stopped for just a second and didn't admonish him to just sit back down. It's good to know he's thinking about other people and connecting the dots!

"Thank you helper boy! I'll just put it right here for now." I set it aside and he went back to eat. I thought I was in the clear since he seemed to forget about it after dinner and bed. However, in the morning, he duly noted "Mommy, why it still there? How come you not wearing it?"

"Thank you H, I have one already."

Imagination

We have a typical boy who imagines typical boy things. Our world right now revolves around who is Buzz and who is Woody (on any given day it's me or him or various stuffed creatures including Boy - see past post), various cars are "Meenie" aka Lightning McQueen who needs his tires fixed by Guido (although not much mention of Luigi), and various other transporation oriented mind trips like getting into the truck - usually a bed or on the stairs - flying, boating, hot air ballooning (not sure but my closet is the favorite hot air balloon and he has ever been in one or seen a real live one up close only the ones in his books). Would have liked to take him to the festival last weekend, however, I noticed my "reminder" on my "smart" phone on Monday morning. Ah well, we had a good time this weekend anyway going to the park to play on the swings. Can someone explain to me why swings are no longer part of the park experience?? There are two parks here that have swings - one nice one and one not so nice. Neither of them have the number of swings we had growing up though.

Anyhow, our play revolves around other transportation themes like train tracks, car haulers, fire trucks, and anything that can crash into something else. It's amazing just how LOUD two tiny little Hot Wheel (only the cheaper ones) sized cars can be when crashed into each other over and over on the window sill in our bedroom at 6 am....

Lately he has wanted to "drive my car." No, really, he wants to sit in the front seat "Mommy, what's that seat called?" "That's the passenger seat." "No, mommy, that one." "The one I'm sitting in?" "Yeth." "The driver's seat." "I want to sit in that one. Mommy, I want to driver your new car."

Remind me to tell you someday about our all day expedition to find a new (used) car 3 hours away.

Saturday morning, though I think we reached new levels (possibly a real low level) in imagination play. H discovered tongs this weekend. I gave him a pair - the relatively inexpensive kind that you would use to pick up corn on the cob - to walk around with outside Friday night and he had tons of fun trying to pick up things. He originally started out with nice and big grilling tongs. I wouldn't let him take those outside to wander around with but did let him keep them for play in the house.

While waiting for hubby to wake up (my day started at 5:30 when H came in the room and started crashing the cars together), H decided he wanted to play with his tongs in his room. So, he started picking up various objects; a sock, a car, a Pooh bear, a block.

"Look, mommy! I picking up poop! Don't touch it!" Complete pooper scooper action with putting it in the "bag" (a bench box we use to put shoes in.)

Yup, we know how to have fun in NE TX.

Saying of the Day: I NOT a doctor!

We haven't really spoken much to H about his adoption. Honestly, we've been rather busy with the rather mundane aspects of surviving life with a 2GO3 and trying keep him thriving and not so much whining (a lot lately).

We  haven't kept it a secret. It's just not a topic of main conversation. These days I've taken to calling him "H Buzz Wilson." For those of you who may not be familiar with the context, Buzz Lightyear and Wilson from Chuggington. At any given moment he will announce "Mom, I'm Buzz." So we have Big Buzz (me), Little Buzz, (H), and Baby Buzz (his three inch tall toy Buzz.) He has also announced he is Wilson and I'm Koko. We have decided Daddy is Dunbar - a very apt description as far as we are concerned.

One little side shot about Buzz. I picked H up from school two weeks ago to this pronouncement. "Jacob has a Big Buzz. We need to go to the Red store."
"Why do we need to go to the Red store?"
"I need a bigger Buzz."

Ah, a classic case of Buzz envy!

Daddy has pictures of H on his computer that cycle. These include pictures from our trip to Kaz all the way up to recent ones. H loves to watch them whenever he can and ask about them. We tell him about each one. "This is the day we became a family, this is the day we took you outside for the first time since you were 7 days old, this was the group of families we met at the orphanage." He knows we chose him and he is special. I have a picture frame with 25 spots that I intend (and still do) to hang in his room with pictures from our time at the orphanage. Somehow, it has gotten put on the back burner....imagine that.

I bought a book with the thought of introducing him to adoption as a more concrete concept but it didn't really seem to fit all that well. I haven't found another one that tells our story. I do intend to create a sort of book for him that has our story but unfortunately, that, too, hasn't found its way to the priority list. We also lost ALL of our pictures leading up to the first day we met him. Fortunately, Daddy took two with his phone so we have something from that day but the classics: here's our pile of stuff we are about to put into tiny suitcases, here's our trip itinerary, here we are at the airport with our TON of luggage (which were NOT overweight amazingly we never paid extra luggage fees) here we are in Frankfurt, Almaty, Karaganda, etc. All were wiped out - boo hiss.

Anyhow, we haven't been "forced" into discussion on this topic as H really looks a lot like Daddy. And funny enough, Saturday, the checkout lady at the Blue store asked if he was the grandson! HAHA! This is not a frequent occurrence but definitely not an unheard of assumption.

I have a cousin who adopted domestically at birth and has an open adoption. Therefore, adoption is simply all he has known and his everday life deals with it. I have another family member who adopted domestically but circumstances were less the ideal. I'm not sure if they have broached the subject much as he, too, looks similar to the family and well, he's still quite young.

Are we remiss, maybe, are we ignoring the subject? No. We do talk about being Kazakh, when we met him, how we chose him, our Family Day, and how he flew on planes a long long way to "come home."

I like to read other blogs about adoption. Sunday, I was reading about a family that had adopted from Kaz and China. H got up from his nap and came to sit in the bed with me.

"Mommy, who's that?"
"That's a little girl. She's adopted like you are."
"I NOT a doctor!"

I laughed too hard to go into a discourse about adoption and we went and had a snack instead.