Yesterday we had long conversations with our placing agency and with our "adoption coach," both of whom helped us process what has been going on and strategies to help the boys move forward.
Today we had our first "play date," with twin boys, age six, who were adopted from Russia 4 years ago. Their mother attends our church. The boys, Logan and Kyle, were very nice and shared very well with Elisey and Dimcho. Towards the end Elisey melted down, as he tends to do, and was not stopping when told to and was trying to hurt his Tatko (me) to get what he wanted. Logan and Kyle were very empathetic and tried to comfort a distressed Elisey.
Nonetheless, it was overall a success and we will do it again. Elisey later recovered when we had a photo shoot at home. Elisey practiced saying the little ditty his first grade class recites when calming down ("Criss-cross applesauce hands in lap"). Our in-home helper, J., had the brilliant idea of filming Elisey saying "No touch" to various forbidden items such as the stove, microwave, and so on. I will turn that into a short video and see if that seeps into his brain...
Here is Elisey and on of the brothers, Kyle or Logan.
And for good measure, Dimcho at the park.
