Fear

There hasn't been quite as much laughter in our house the past week or so, so I wrote some funny things down just to lift my spirits.  I'm sorry I don't know how to put a video clip on here, but y'all Charlie is country!  His accent is cuuuute.  I have no idea where he gets it from! (wink, wink) He calls Sam "Sayum" and Kate is "Kayte."  He is speaking English so well lately that yesterday he was talking in another room and I thought it was Sam. (Except that he says ax for ask, which Sam does not do.)  He says, "Yes or Not?" instead of Yes or No. Last week the kids made a fort complete with a bathroom in the backyard and Charlie pooped in the "toilet" for everyone's entertainment.  He and Sam made a "bending machine" which he played with and obsessed over for several days.  I finally hid it because it was causing family drama.

When we first got him he seemed very sensitive to hot and cold weather, but he has gotten over that. He still loves to be naked (even when it's 68 degrees in our house) and almost always refuses to wear socks, even when he is wearing clothes.  He runs around barefooted outside all the time.  I think most of these things were not allowed in China, so that probably has something to do with it.  I have asked him many times if he wore clothes when he slept in Duodian and he says Yes.

At school, with his Braille teacher, he can earn pennies.  At the end of the week if he has enough pennies, he can buy something from her "store."  He can also have pennies taken away, for things like not cooperating, or saying No to his teacher.  Last week he asked me a yes or no question (don't remember what it was) and I said, No.  He said, "Give me a penny, Mom.  You don't say No."

He says he now likes my car since we cleaned it out, but he has become crazy strict about everybody keeping it clean.  Our little boss man loves to boss.  He just turned 8 and asked me last night when he can be the boss?  When he's 9?  I almost said you can be the boss when you're a grown up, but with all of his trust issues and anxiety lately I said, "Never.  Mommy and Daddy will always be your boss."  For such a bossy kid, you would think he wouldn't like that, right?  But because the reasons behind his bossiness come from insecurity and lack of attachment, survival skills and all that, he was relieved! He said, "Really?  Even when I'm big?" (With a smile on his face.)



We realized last week through some difficult behaviors that Charlie's trust and attachment to us were not where they needed to be, which I wrote about in the last 2 posts.  During the week things were tolerable, but not great.  Then over the weekend Charlie was totally draining us.  Wrecking the house, telling us every 5 minutes or so that he didn't like us, that we're not nice, etc.  Complaining about everything we did, no matter how fun it was. For days we had been throwing out the same line: "I'm sorry you feel that way.  We love you!" And it was getting old.  Sam and Kate were totally sick of it, and Sam told Charlie that he was lucky we even adopted him!  Sweet, patient Sam said that! Ouch.

A text from me to Stephen while I was at work on Sunday.

Yesterday morning I was so happy to send him off to school that I felt guilty about it.  He had a rough day at school too.  But then once home, I carried/held him a lot, over-the-top praised all of his good decisions and kept throwing out lines like, "I'm so proud of my son!"  "It makes my heart so happy when you do that!"  "Look at how sweet you can be!"  And he'd say things like, "Yeah.  Charlie make good choices."  "I do my best."  Last night when we were laying in bed he was talking, talking, talking, and then said, "Mama.  Say: I like my son."  So I did, over and over in several different ways. He laughed and rolled around and seemed happier than he had in DAYS!  Then I said, "Night-Night, precious son!" And he said, "Night, precious Mama."

He really likes to play with play-dough and clay, and made a really good fish at school that his art teacher fired and glazed.  He was very excited to show it to me when he got home, and I was thrilled to put it in a very prominent place in our house-- not only because it is great, but because we have almost nothing of his (pictures, art, crafts) on display yet.  But unfortunately, because of his past, he acted mad, grabbed it and then hid it.  I told him that I was sad, that I wanted to see it everyday and show it to everyone who came to our house. He got a little panicky and said, "NO!  It's mine!  It's not yours!"  This makes me sad for two reasons: one is he is 90% likely to break it, since he breaks almost everything, and two is that he doesn't even understand the concept of showing something off because he is consumed by something else-- not even greed.  Fear.