Conversations

With our limited Bulgarian, and the boys' even more limited English, there are not so many topics of conversation we can have. Here are some of the few subjects we do discuss. Many of them come up on our daily walks.

-- What is dangerous. A big topic, of understandable concern for small children ripped away from the only home they knew. In addition, Donna and I have emphasized that the stove is dangerous, etc..  Often Elisey asks me if something is a little dangerous or very dangerous. He also seems to want to believe that the things that fascinate him are only a little dangerous. These include cars, airplanes, motorcycles, and, sigh, guns and other weapons. For an eight-year-old boy with almost no English and zero impulse control, the answer for now is that they are all very dangerous. Nuances can come later.

-- What we are afraid of.  This follows naturally from the previous.

-- What is ours.  The boys have only a vague idea of ownership, having had everything in common at the orphanage, even clothes, and therefore nothing to call their own. Elisey in particular is keen to accrete possessions to himself and often just declares that things belong to him, even at school. On our walks he sometimes gets indignant when I inform him that a car, a house, a flower, does not belong to him or to us.

-- Where is everyone?  Similarly the boys, used to communal living, do not understand that everyone in American has their own home. When the social worker, or our in-home helper leaves, or the boys leave their teachers at school to come home, they (Elisey most often) ask plaintively, where is X? We tell them they are at their home, but don't have the language to explain that everyone has their own home. I don't think they would quite understand yet, as they haven't visited other people's homes, which we are reluctant to (see the previous paragraph).

-- The quality of food. The boys often declare meals to be tasty, although Dimcho doesn't like vegetables as much and often makes a face and waves it away.Elisey likes most foods, and even has developed a taste for mustard on his ham and his hamburger.

-- The quality of buildings, especially toilets. When we are out and have to go to the bathroom, the boys often declare, "Hubava toaletna" (nice toilet!) even if it is a filthy men's room in the park. Mostly it's the novelty, I think.

Elisey also likes to talk about the police, although he has trouble understanding how the police can be nice if guns are not (again, nuances will come later), and cries out in excitement every time he sees an airplane, wanting to know if it is a large airplane or a small one.  And if it is dangerous. As we live near a small airfield, we have this conversation often.

Silly faces

As I've mentioned, Elisey loves to mug for the camera. He frequently asks me to take out the camera and take pictures of him.  Actually, it's sometimes a hindrance, because if I try to take a picture or a video of him in action, he often stops and poses, when I really just want him to keep on with what he's doing.

He does love his silly faces, though:

He also loves his broken castoff possession, such as these broken sunglasses he begged off Donna. He thinks they make him look cool. To me he looks like a hipster nerd pirate:

Because Dimcho does not demand I take pictures of him (though he does like looking at pictures of himself, crying out "Dimch!" when he sees himself), we end up with fewer pictures of him. I try to remember to take some anyway:

Zoopark

This morning we took the boys to the Zoo. We bought them memberships so we can go whenever we feel like it and spend a short period of time so as not to get exhausted. But we spent almost 2 hours at the zoo, looking at orangutans, bears, leopards, rhinos, giraffes, and many more animals. The boys enjoyed it.

The main conflict was Elisey not wanting to hold an adult's hand when we're walking around. While I know it's part of child development to want independence, he also doesn't stop when told to, and so it's not safe to let him wander unattached all the time. This is going to be a long term conflict, I'm afraid. When we walk around the neighborhood and I tell him to hold my hand, he argues, saying, "I don't see any cars here, do you? Do you?"  While I understand enough Bulgarian to know what he is saying, mine is too limited to explain that if he stopped more quickly when I told him to, he could more often walk without holding my hand. That will have to wait until he gets more English.

Afterward we went to a playground near the zoo. The boys enjoyed this almost as much.

We will probably return to the zoo often, assuming all goes well.

Here are the boys at the zoo:

Sack lunch

The third day of school also went well. We hope Elisey calms down enough he doesn't need a staff member by his side full time.

As I've explained before, both boys have a lot of anger issues, as do many adopted children, especially older ones. A lot of Elisey's anger is directed towards himself, and we suspect he has a lot of negative thoughts about himself. This is evidenced by him frequently asking if he is a good boy, and he has on occasion lamented to Donna that Dimcho is a good boy but he isn't.

Yesterday, while rocking and moaning, something he does often, he began to hit himself. We hadn't seen this behavior much before. We redirected him by inflating the punching clown, though to get him to hit it, I had to pull out my camera for a photo shoot. There are odder therapy strategies out there, but redirecting anger through a photoshoot is pretty odd for us.

The boys were unhappy there is no school today, but they must have had weekends off in Bulgaria.  Late this morning we took a short hike in Marion Bear park, and then had sack lunch. Part of this is getting them ready to take lunches to school; while they could buy lunch, it requires using a PIN number, and between that and having to make choices, we think packed lunches will be better. It will be some weeks, if not longer, before we have then stay through lunch and after.

Second day went well

The second day of school went well. Both boys seem happy with school so far, and are just as calm or even calmer in the afternoons. It's still early, so we will see how their behavior goes once they settle in.  It will likely improve, although it is also possible that Elisey may start testing boundaries when he feels comfortable.

It's a big burden on the school, one we are keenly aware of: for now, they have to have one staff member with him at all times, to keep him from dashing out of the classroom--again, mostly from excitement--or simply wandering off task.  That's a huge drain for a school that already has a lot of special needs children.  We all hope that as he learns the culture of school, he won't need this.

Yesterday we had a follow-up visit with our pediatrician.  Both boys gained some weight in merely month, Dimcho a pound and Elisey almost three pounds. Since they were at the 5 percentile in size for their ages, this is good news. It's also not surprising, given how much food we have been shoveling into them, all of it healthy food with almost no sugary or salty snacks.  They also had to have some shots, which lead to much crying. But actually we were amazed how compliant they were with the shots: neither boy lashed out or tried to run out of the room, even though they knew what was coming. That's huge.

Next week we have an "official" visit from our social worker, who has come several times already, to prepare a required report to Bulgaria on the boys' progress.  Although it has been stressful for us, and Elisey is a handful, overall we have to say they are doing well. They eat and sleep well, they receive and seek out affection from us and give affection to us, even exhibit some appropriate separation anxiety.  Elisey even is slightly distraught when we leave him at school, which means he is progressing on attaching to us.  It's still a long journey, but we are moving forward.

Report card

The first day went well. The boys were very happy about school, Elisey especially about the playground.  They have "structured recess" where specific games are introduced. This is particularly good for Elisey, who is best when he can imitate someone; Dimcho is better at spontaneous play.  Elisey did apparently run out of the classroom five or six times, probably out of excitement, and for the immediate future the school will have someone by his side most of the time.

But Elisey also came back and without prompting wrote out his name and several numbers, something he hadn't done before.

Again, our red hats are off to the staff and teachers for working so hard for us and our boys.  We will be writing positive letters to and about them.

Today (Thursday) we go to the pediatrician for a follow up. The boys' blood work was mostly good. The only boosters they need are polio. Dimcho also has a slightly elevated lead level, but he displays no signs of ill effects and we expect it to go down. No need to be worried, but we will monitor with follow up tests over the next year. 

First day of school

Yesterday (Tuesday) we enrolled the boys at their new school, Lafayette Elementary, and this morning they started in their new classes.  The boys were excited to be starting a new school, although they were most excited about their backpacks and the new playground.

The school is about a 10-15 minute walk from home, and we hope to walk them often, to get some more energy out of them.

The staff and teachers were extremely kind and helpful and gave us a lot of their time, which we really appreciate in this era when so often public schools are vilified and underfunded (when adjusted for cost of living, California is 41st in the nation in spending on education). This especially when we are not in a wealthy neighborhood. About 60% of the students attending the school are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunches.

In addition to all the time and energy the staff and teachers gave us, they also agreed with us that Elisey is better off in a 1st grade classroom, even though he is old enough for 2nd grade, a classroom with a lot of structure and shorter modules, and that the boys will just start on half-days for now, leaving before lunch. (Dimcho is in kindergarten.) This will make the transition easier for them. We got to sit in for a few minutes with the boys at their classes. The teachers also even took the time to look up a couple of basic phrases in Bulgarian.  The main thing we had to educate them on is that Bulgarians shake their heads from side to side, rather than nod up and down, to signal "yes," something very counter-intuitive to Americans.

We are still keeping our fingers crossed.  The boys are used to school, but it may still be overwhelming to them, with their delayed emotional development. Or, we hope, they will really take off, with structured learning and new children to play with and follow.  While Dimcho seems more natural at initiating play on his own, Elisey seems to do well watching and imitating, so we have strong hopes for this. 

Our schedules are flexible so that we can easily stay home afternoon for the immediate future (I'm officially on paternity leave until the end of February, with a retired professor taking over my classes until I am back) and will be available should there be any problems.  I expect any major problems will surface in the next week or two, and after that we can breathe more easily. 

Here are the boys with their backpacks, ready to head off to school!