Encouragement

Just as you start to feel a bit down, the Lord sends along about 200 people to come along and encourage you. I cannot tell you all how much I appreciate the encouragement. Seriously, it has been awesome to open my email and see encouraging notes from other adopting moms, to open my fb page and have a message from a friend who gets it and has gone through the same thing, to receive another email with suggestions, and yet another with information on who to talk to. My family has been encouraging, friends have been encouraging, even my dentist was encouraging! Today Becky Auran came over and she encouraged me more than she could even know. My dentist, who's wife is from another country, gave me great encouragement about his speech also. Thank you Lord for the wonderful gift of family and friends! We've only had 1-2 incidents yesterday and today. He was very quick to get angry and then is very quick to apologize when he knows he has been caught. Today he tried to tell me that it was Abi's fault. No go. She has no reason to walk up and just hit him. She's never been a hitter. She just gets angry. ;-) I can usually give her the evil eye and worm the truth out of her. As I was talking to him, I was doing that to her and she was shaking her head and just had tears in her eyes. From what I can figure out is that when he went to hit her again, she grabbed his arm (not in a mean way) and told him forcefully "NO!" We've told her she could do that if we not right there and he goes to hit her again. I very sternly (this was the first time I have been very firm) told him he could not be hit Abi. He did not like firm mommy and I did not see any more behavior. Apparently he did hit her once while I was back with the dentist but she said he did apologize. Progress! He did apologize without being caught. The thing is, when he's not doing this, he's her best friend. They sit on the floor and draw together, race their scooters outside, jump on the trampoline together, build Lego cities, etc. They play together all the time but when something doesn't go the way he thinks it should go, Abi is always to blame. Now I will say it's gotten better over the past couple of days which has been nice. This could stem from something in the orphanage, someone in the orphanage, who knows? We are just going to keep working and praying! I must brag on Abi and Andrew both. They never hold these moments against him. Abi does get her feelings hurt but she will quickly try again. Eric and I have reassured her multiple times that this should end (we pray it does. And we see patterns that it may..) and that we love her very much and we are very proud of her. We also allowed her to have a friend over the other day and she's going to her all girl book clue tomorrow even though we had a family field trip planned. She needed this more and I know she's excited about it. Andrew has almost always had his own room. I am a big believer of sharing. I think it helps you later. (This coming from someone who married someone who has never shared a room. It's annoying at times!) At first it was fun but now...well, he's realized this new 'friend' is not moving out. ;-) He's handling it very maturely. We've given him a few extra privileges such as staying up 15 minutes later than the others and playing a video game. I was so proud of him when he decided not to go to a Boy Scout campout because he was scared Peter would 'freak out' if Andrew was gone overnight. That was so thoughtful and completely his idea! We encouraged him to go. Peter's doing better with school too. I do struggle with knowing how long I should school. We've always had the feeling that life is school (that's why we homeschool) and right now, every minute Peter is learning something new. It may not be because we are sitting down and I am actually teaching but it may be discovering something new in our home, going to a new place, etc. Today I put in a Letter Factory video for him and he did very well. He seemed to like it and the song helped us during our 'school' hours. It's been such a long time since I've had to teach every subject. Every year the kids gain more independence and now they are on their own a lot. Yes, we discuss it and review but I do not actually 'teach' anymore. So this has been new for me also. We are learning again together! He loves certain things and gets embarrassed if he does not know. He doesn't cringe in embarrassment or get angry, he just doesn't like that he doesn't know. So for now, we are working about 1.5 hours each day. That's long enough for both us. ;-) We introduced chores today. Peter loves money (ha!) and really likes the idea of having his own. He started feeding the dogs today. He did very well with it. The only problem we had was Abi, who's had this chore for years, showing him how to do it. She did a good job trying to explain but would sometimes just take it from him. I told her to hold off and if he did it wrong, we would step in. This seemed to work because he would thank me for that and if we showed him after he tried and it didn't work, he was very thankful to Abi. So he gets 3 quarters each day, well on pay day which we marked on the calendar along with the days he can have ice cream, and he's very excited. It was funny when he was trying to tell me that Abi needed to feed the chickens (which has never been her chore!) and he would feed the dogs for money. It was like listening to Andrew when he starts a sentence with 'actually.' He even closed his eyes like he was saying, silly women. LOL Best news of all.....He's been asking to pray!!! He wants to pray for each meal, with help with the words of course. This is huge!! He may not understand Who he is praying to but he knows it's important and it's what we do as a family. That's the first step. We will get to the point that he knows Who he is thanking and will start to ask question. We are thrilled that he is asking and wants to do this all on his own! He also enjoys church because of all the awesome kids there and that is great also. He may not get anything from the words but he feels accepted and loved there so he doesn't mind going. He recognized the word Bible in a video the other day and was very excited! One funny story from yesterday..He was playing outside and a bug flew up his nose. I figured this out through hand motions. Each time he told the story, the bug was bigger. By the end, the bug was bigger than his face and knocked him to the ground. Always the drama king! ;-) He's perfect for our family!!! He also will let (ok, he asks!) Abi put girly stuff on him and he prances around acting like a Southern Bell. Tonight I tried to get a picture and he ran away screaming. His dad was glad to know he wasn't comfortable like this. Please know that I have read each and every note that has been sent to me. They mean more than you know. I may have not responded yet but I am taking everything you said to heart and plan on trying some of the wonderful techniques and ideas that were sent our way. I will respond as soon as I can but my snippets of time are just that, snippets! 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there...We love you all and THANK YOU!!!! I plan on writing a blog soon about adopting. If you've ever thought about it, you will want to read it. It's an amazing journey we've joined and one I am glad the Lord sent us on. If you could, please lift up the Roark family. They are adopting Peter's friend Carlee Ming Wei from the same orphanage and have run into some bumps. She will age out in October so pray earnestly!!!! Sorry this was so long and you were not reward with pictures. We've been boring!