Ice Cream Sundaes, a meltdown, and Chinese New Year

This weekend was a busy one! On Friday night we had our first annual Ice Cream Sundae Night. I challenged the kids to go without (major) sweets during the week and we would have an all out ice cream sundae night on the weekend. They did great, choosing p&b crackers, fruit, etc. so we had a great assortment of things to put on our ice cream Friday night. And there was no guilt for me because I did well during the week! (Of course, after looking at pictures, I feel some guilt.)

On Saturday, Uncle Phillip, Aunt Raegan, Nathan, Jacob and Isabelle came over to celebrate Chinese New Year a day early. We had so much fun seeing them in their traditional outfits! We also did the traditional red envelopes and tea with them. We had waited to give them their gifts from China so it was almost like a real Chinese New Year. Almost..

After they left, Jenna, our adoption social worker came over to do our one month post adoption placement. It was great to see her again. She will be traveling to China soon to bring her daughter home so we enjoyed sharing our stories. After she left, we hung around the house because it was so dreary outside. Peter also said his very first sentence! He told our dog Sissy to go to her house and when she obeyed, he was jumping up and down with excitement! We were just as excited! Then the meltdown..

Peter did not like something that Abi did and reacted in a way that was not good. At all. Eric had to really get on to him and for the first time, we saw tears. Tears are ok. We were able to reassure him that despite what he did, we all still loved him very much. And despite that we did not like his action, we are all still a family and nothing will change that. While this was not fun to deal with, it was good for us.

Sunday was the big Chinese New Year celebration! Here are some of the foods that we had. There was SO much food and it was SO good!

Here are some of the decorations:

We were able to give my nephew Lewis and niece Penny their traditional outfits. We were so excited that my sisters family drove from Temple to celebrate with us!

We had shirts made for my older nephews that said cousin in Chinese

 We did the traditional red envelopes with all the kids and then chowed down! Here are a few of my other favorite shots from the day. Thank you Chels for all the wonderful pictures!

 And then on to Monday...whew..Peter woke up well but once we sat down for breakfast and it was over. The bad mood started as did the anger toward Abi. He was fit to be tied. We are trying a new approach and we let Abi have an extra privilege when he was ugly. He was UPSET! He thought telling me that he was sorry would help the situation. Nope. I was thrilled he said he was sorry but I was not caving. I told him he could try to earn this privilege later in the day. Total meltdown. Again, I am ok with the meltdowns. I scooped him up in my arms, held him while he cried and once he calmed down, we "talked" about family, obeying, sisters, etc. He seemed to get it and was fine after that. We took a very long morning break, 2 hours, and then we did a bit of school. Not much, but long enough that Abi and Andrew could concentrate on their schoolwork with some quiet. Then one of his biggest accomplishments: He built a Lego car by himself!! He was so excited. We are so proud of him! So again, when it's bad, it's bad. But when it's good, it's very, very good! And yes, we would still adopt him all over again. This is part of it and I even like this part. We are making progress. Small progress, but progress. Tonight he did earn the privilege of playing Halo and since Andrew had Boy Scouts, he played on Abi's team against Daddy. This worked out great and they played very nicely together. See? Progress!

School and Adopting

Our school does not look like it used to. We didn't really have typical days, or so I thought. They used to be actually pretty typical. And much more chaotic. We did ask the kids to really tame down the extracurricular so we could focus on family for a while so we are now not running around with our heads cut off. Andrew still does Boy Scouts but that is not a huge time commitment. They still do church activities but that's just a given for us. ;-)

Here is some of what has changed and why it's good for us:
-My almost 11 yr. daughter cooks breakfast each morning for us. Yes, you read that right. She does this as part of her chores and loves it! She plans the menu, gets up on her own and starts the preparations. We are able to sit down every morning and eat a well balanced meal together. (except dad. Sometimes he eats on the run because we eat at 8) She does a wonderful job on this and we are so proud of her. What she is learning: 1. Cooking skills. Let's face it, most women grow up and need to know how to cook at one point in their lives. (so do men and that's a 'hole 'nother post! I will tell you Andrew can cook any meal for us that we ask!) 2. Planning. Because she does the cooking, she is allowed to plan. She is learning what works and what doesn't work. She learns what takes a lot of time and what she is capable of. We give her pretty much free reign on this and it's worked. If she needs help, we step in. 3. Independence and knowing how to think for herself. I don't think that needs to be explained! *This also gives me a chance to have quiet time, work out and shower!

-Schoolwork happens when it happens. Well the rest of the worlds viewpoint on schoolwork. Written papers, math, etc. This is required every day but we do it when we can.  Right now we are learning to be a family. This is huge for all of us. What they are learning in the process: 1. How to work with others, even when they are difficult. One of the biggest parts of any job is learning to work with others nicely. You are going to be pretty miserable in your job if you can't work with others nicely. So while Peter is being ugly to Abi, Abi is learning forgiveness and grace. To us, this is way more important than long division and verbs. She still has time to learn that. I know lots of adults who do not know forgiveness and grace, myself included, so we are thrilled she is learning this now. When Peter is going through Andrew's things and touching, touching, touching, Andrew is learning patience. He is learning it's ok to share but to have limits when needed. 2. They are both learning patience. Patience to wait on mom when she not readily available. Patience when a 10 yr. old is on the floor kicking and whining and mom must deal with that. How many impatient adults do you know? (don't you dare point to me!) They are learning that they are not the world and this world does not exist just for them. That makes me very happy because this sickness seems to be plaguing our society. 3. They are now becoming the teachers. What they have learned in life, they are not passing onto Peter. This could be vocabulary, manners, math, anything. Right now, Abi is teaching how to give the dogs nice commands and have them listen. This may sound strange but it will come in handy for Peter. He is learning to never raise his hand to a dog, to speak nicely and you will more than likely get a better result and that there are sometimes reward when you finally listen. Some good, solid life lessons I think!

So that is life at the Akin Academy! I'm sure some people are hyperventilating when they read this but oh well! This is what works for us and we are great with it. Life skills are so important and God placed us in a family to learn them. I will be updating on our weekend soon. It was...good....but for now..laundry and lunch are calling!

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!

Rollercoaster

Bringing Peter home has been a roller coaster. That's the way change always is. It hasn't been horrible but there have been some hard times. But there have also been some great times! Saturday was a good day. We let Peter sleep as long as he wanted and he slept until 10:30! I think he really needed that. Aunt Brandy, Uncle Tommy, Zack, and Jaxon joined us for lunch and visiting. It took a while for Peter to warm up but once he did, he and Jaxon became fast friends. They are a lot alike. According to Memaw Pat, Jaxon came home and exclaimed that Peter was the Chinese version of him. ;-) I went and ran a few errands and the kids had a nerf war! Ariana surprised Abi and came over for the afternoon. She was so excited because she really needed some girl time. The Sutton's came over for small group and we enjoyed catching up. We made sure to prepare Peter that daddy and Andrew would not be there when he got up because Eric was opening the church and Andrew was helping him. I guess he forgot and the next morning he woke up and quickly found me to ask where Andrew was. :-) I reminded him and he was ok with it. We made it to church (on time!) and Peter wanted attend class with Abi. He loved it so much he decided to go to the 4-5-6 service with her. Abi said he looked a bit bored but he can't understand what they are saying so that is understandable. All of the teachers said he acted very good so we were very happy about that. We met Chelsea at Luby's for lunch then came home to wait for the Super Bowl. I'm not sure if Peter was ok with eating out. He looked a little down that we weren't coming home. Hmm...For the last oh, maybe 7 years, we've had a Super Bowl party. It was very strange not to have a house full of people but we enjoyed our family party. Abi did a great job preparing snacks. We had homemade tortilla chips, chocolate chip cookies, carrots, fruit, salsa and m&m's. Peter was not super impressed with the Super Bowl and we all lost interest before the halftime show which we did not watch. UGH! So icky. We switched to America's Funniest Home Video's. Andrew and I stayed up to watch the game while everyone else went to bed. I so enjoyed this time with him. He's had a lot of changes through this adoption; sharing a room, losing his only spot as the boy in the family, etc. He was talking a lot and it was great! Then Monday....we had decided to let Peter wake up on his own. We've had so many morning problems we thought sleeping in and waking up on his own was the best way. Not so sure about that.....Peter woke up and have a vendetta against Abi. I have mentioned that he is not always nice to her but he really had it out for her that morning. I finally made him face the wall in a chair and sat with him. I wanted him to know he was in trouble but that I wasn't going to leave him. I also called Eric for some suggestions. This is where it gets interesting. From what we know, Peter came to the orphanage at a very early age. So he's never really had a family unit. But he still knew that mommy calling daddy was not a good thing. He begged me not to call. I did and Eric suggested that we take his DS for a short time but give a warning. I took him to his room and talked with him. I asked him if he could be nice to Abi. He said no. I used the translator thinking he didn't understand and he still said no. I asked him if he wanted to lose his DS. He was fine with that. This floored me. At this point, Eric drove up. Peter saw him through the window and started saying no daddy! He really does not like to disappoint Eric. Eric came in and we worked together as a team. He finally understood he needs to be nice to Abi because she has done nothing to him. He cannot make his "hmmph" noise at her anymore. We stayed on top of him the rest of the day, including when he glared at her during dinner. We handled it nicely and didn't force Abi on him (quiet the opposite) and he kept seeking her out. We prayed about it at bedtime even though he doesn't understand and prayed with Abi also. She was so hurt. She is so nice to him, always playing with him, giving up her time, buying him gifts, etc. Eric and I talked and decided that if continued we would contact a Chinese woman at our church who is a mom to help us talk with him about it. Onto the next day...Peter woke up on his own at 7:15 and with a smile on his face! He was so pleasant and enjoyable! We started school (drat! I just remembered we never did Bible!!!) and while it was exhausting at times, he did pretty well. He and Abi got along very well today and we had only one problem. He tried to say he hit her 'by accident' but his daddy quickly caught onto that. ;-) Memaw Pat joined us for dinner and he was great the entire time. So Tuesday was a good day! Life is a journey and it can only be taken day by day. Tomorrow may be different but that's ok. Peter came from such a different background and we aren't giving up. Sometimes I want to crawl in a fetal position and cry but the sun will rise tomorrow and most importantly, my God is still God. He is still here and always offers His peace. He loves each member of our family and wants the best for us. That's what keeps me going. He brought Peter into our family and I am so thankful. That good outweighs the bad, even on the bad days!

Peter with his new things in his room.

Enjoying outside

Peter made me this heart on Monday!

Peter has seen pictures of Eric and Andrew with spiky hair and really wanted to try it. Isn't it adorable?!

School...I think the pictures say it all! ;-)

Whew...it was a morning

This morning did not start off well. Peter did not want to get out of bed. He rolled around for about 20 minutes then finally stirred. He was then instructed to take his sheets off his bed with Andrew's help. No go. We have been having him shadow the kids on their chores (only feeding the animals) so he will not be scared of the animals and he will learn how to do it so he can help with this one day. Once he was asked to help Abi, he proclaimed very loudly that he would not. I tried very calmly to get him to go but he sat in a chair and refused. Eric stepped in and told him not to treat mommy that way (he was acting very ugly towards me) and he finally got up. As he got up, he made a point to push Abi. We then told him he could not push his sister and he needed to be nice. He "hmmphhd" (his way of expressing intense displeasure) his way through 'helping'. I use that term very loosely because he then tried to take it over and got angry at Abi again. At this point, we all wanted to admit defeat but we knew this was not the route to take. You can be grumpy but you cannot act ugly when you are grumpy. We have always had this rule and it will apply to Peter also. We may have to handle it differently since he has not grown up with this rule but it will apply. We both calmly reminded Peter to please be nice and then sat down for breakfast. He didn't say one word the entire meal. I read our mission book which of course he has no interest in because it's in English and then on to our Bible. He has a Chinese/English Bible so he can follow along. He loves to get his Bible but rarely follows along. That's ok. I'm thrilled that he wants to get his Bible and knows what it is and can say the word! After that, he went and laid down on the couch and slept for an hour and a half. During this, I stayed right by his feet in case he woke up. I folded laundry, wrote thank you notes, etc. but I wanted my face to be the first he saw if he woke up. He sleep was very restless so I would rub his leg when he tossed around. When he woke up, he said his head hurt so we put some peppermint oil on. After that, he was back to normal Peter. So Eric and I have concluded that he will need to be in bed by 7:30 on school nights. This will not be easy because he likes Andrew to be in there. This is a hurdle we will face on Sunday so I am not going to think about it right now! I'm just thankful for a better afternoon. He was hamming it up and we have some great videos of what he thinks mom and dad act like. So funny!!! All the kids enjoyed the beautiful weather outside. Peter and Abi made a scooter course and enjoyed that for a long time. We left to go buy Peter some things for his room and to get Andrew's hair cut. But first we stopped to see big sister at her work! She had bought the kids a red velvet cupcake so Peter enjoyed his first cupcake. We visited with Ms. Sherri (Chelsea's boss. LOVE HER!) and Chelsea then headed to Hobby Lobby. Peter loved Hobby Lobby!He found a car hood ornament for his wall that he was very excited about. We also purchased a basket to put the snacks that Peter is allowed to grab when he wants them. We've had a few issues with hiding/sneaking food and we want him to know that he does not have to do that. By having it out in the open, it's available when he wants it. And since we picked out what goes in there, he's free to any of it. While there we ran into one of Abi's castmates from 'Annie' and her mom. Her mom and I had become friends so it was neat to introduce her to Peter. She is also a dental hygenist and offered to look at Peter's teeth right there to determine his age. Yay for that! She said she calculated around 10. Just what we thought! We headed to Sports Clips then Target. We've been to Target before but it was quick. We let him look around more this time and he loved the toy section. We bought a bin to put all his toys in (since we thought he was 12 we weren't expecting needing a bin for toys!) and came home. We ate whatever everyone found and watched 'Tangled' with Chinese subtitles. The kids enjoyed a small bowl of ice cream (Peter's new favorite snack) and we had to keep watching to make sure he didn't take more. ;-) Bedtime went smoothly and he finally understood why Sissy wants to sleep with him and loved the idea. Then Abi came and took Sissy since it was her turn. sigh...I tried to talk to her about it but she didn't understand. We will all talk again tomorrow. He was ok with it but I think his feelings were a bit hurt. Tomorrow Aunt Brandy and fam are coming to visit then the Sutton's will be here for our first attempt at small group. We are horribly rude and told them a time limit. But we do not want grumpy Peter on Sunday and I especially do not want grumpy Peter because I am on my own all month while Eric opens the church! Love you all! Thanks for praying for us! We feel it!

Day ???- Yeah I lost count

Thursdays are a low key days. For some reason, we have no energy. We all slept until 9 which was very needed. Peter did ok with getting ready for school. He's not a morning person. We tried to read and that did not go well so we did some household chores together. He did very well after that as you can see!

We are working hard on making sure he knows the entire alphabet and can recognize each letter and number before we even tackle reading. Since he's 10 (and he's 10!) we can take it a bit slower. That afternoon he and Andrew built his soccer goal that he received as a Christmas gift and played outside most of the afternoon and early evening.

Day 5-First Day of ELO & Food Palooza!

On Tuesday evening we began to prepare Peter for ELO. The only thing he could understand from what I was translating to him was that mommy was not going to be with him. We finally called Eric Hood and he explained it to him. Peter walked away with a smile. Once we got his backpack out and started packing his school supplies, he wanted to call Eric again. He wanted to make sure that he would not have homework! LOL Wednesday morning dawned and we began to get ready. I knew that Peter would need extra time but this mom did not allow enough extra time. Because of his nervousness, his OCD was in full gear. He decided to rearrange his drawers. This mom didn't have the patience but I think I did a good job of not showing it. We finally got out the door and made it just in time to say the pledge and prayer. Peter happily went with Abi to her classes and I checked on him periodically. He would always smile and wave at me when he saw me but was always happy. Jaiden and Daniel Hood told me he looked sad but when I checked on him, he seemed ok. So sweet that they were worried about him! I went outside with him at break time and went to give him a hug. In typical 10 yr. old boy fashion, he went to hug me, remembered his friends were there and shook my hand!! WHAT?! My cuddly child shook my hand? I guess even adopted children do not want to be embarrassed by their uncool mom. Peter had a great time playing soccer with his friends at break. He would hold back at times then go full force. Abi said he made lots of friends and several of my friends let me know their sons were very excited about Peter. YAY! When we left Peter "told" me that he really enjoyed soccer and the game 7-up, Thumbs Up. Abi said he laughed the entire time in there. I am so glad that he seemed to enjoy himself! I thought he would exhausted when we returned home but nope. The exact opposite. He was wired up! Our Wednesdays after ELO are very low key so he learned what 'normal' looked like here. He and Abi played outside, they watched Tom & Jerry, and played some DS. Andrew slept. ;-) That evening while Andrew was at Youth, Abi and I went shopping. We left daddy and Peter here so we could have some one on one time. After a mini breakdown over a cookie, we had a great time! It was nice to have some time with Abi, even at the grocery store. When we came home, you would have thought we had won the lottery when you saw Peter's reaction. And maybe in his mind, this was way better. He could not get over the amount of food and kept saying 'wow!' I love watching his reactions. In other news, Peter has been requesting to pray at night. We love that! He also now knows what his Bible is.

All ready for his first day of ELO! He looks a bit nervous!or maybe he is sick of pictures...

Playing soccer with Sam