Things are a little calmer now, although there will be storms to come. Part of it is figuring how when and how to intervene with behaviors. Often children act out to get attention, even negative attention, so it can be better to ignore it, and the behavior goes away. In our case, however, the behavior just got worse, because it is more about control than attention (though controlling attention is part of the picture). So now we are intervening more swiftly, but on a smaller scale, and we have also arranged things so there are fewer distractions. It's still early but it seems better.
We arranged for Rosie, our translator in Bulgaria, to call and talk to the boys. They were very excited to talk to here. Often the boys, especially Elisey, pretends to call Rosie and others he knew in Bulgaria, either to report on Mama's cooking (usually positive reports) or to complain.
They didn't really know Rosie, but she is a pretty young woman who brought people to them so naturally they were enthralled by her. Unfortunately this morning Elisey's conversation with her was as imaginary as the ones on the block of wood he pretends is a cell phone. He wanted to tell her about his life here, but when she tried to tell him something, for example that when we warn something is dangerous we are trying to keep him safe, it was stony silence.
Afterwards they cried and cried for Rosie, imagining her to the gateway to the good life. (Although Elisey, when asked, wants to stay in his new home. Dimcho was confused and preferred Rosie in that moment.) They pointed to airplanes in the sky and imagined she was in them. They spotted her on the street. In fact this is part of the grieving process; she represents for them Bulgaria and what they lost, and allowing them to grieve in this way is important.
. . . . . . . . .
A final thought: parenting is hard enough, but parenting with a language barrier is like building a model ship with boxing gloves.
And now the piping voices of my children call to me, so I must go.
