Adopting an almost two year old has been interesting in that Major has come to me already with learnings that came from his life before. For example, today he slipped both of his arms into his jacket (while in front of him) and then flipped his arms back over his head so that his jacket was on (albeit upside down.) This is something I taught my girls ... but look, Major already knows this ;-)
Yesterday Major did a few puzzles and knew how to place the pieces in perfectly (one was even a puzzle that spelled out Major) ... am I to assume he often did puzzles at the orphanage or that doing puzzles at age 2 is just a given? Either way, I was very impressed with his finesse.
He blows kisses and waves bye-bye and places his finger to his mouth to say "shhh!" when Emma and Eden get loud or begin to cry. He shakes his finger at me and says "Na na na na" whenever I say No to him as if mentally equating my word "no" with what he used to know. If he is questioning whether he can do something, sometimes he shakes his finger at me with a questioning look. He shrugs his shoulders with his palms up in the "Where did it go?" stance. He whispers his version of "woof!" whenever he sees a dog - it is more like a loud breath. He needs me to wipe his hands while eating and he takes napkins and wipes around his eating area and also wipes his chin often and well. Sometimes he tucks a napkin under his chin and continues eating like a little old man. He drinks his soup from the bowl after he's eaten all the chunky pieces and slurps his soup from his spoon. He must also eat from a spoon that is facing him sideways and not head on as we might do, likely from having been fed in this manner. He grinds his teeth. These are all things he came to us with.
He whispers to us in Kazakh .... a lot. Though the whispering aspect is dissipating because he sees we are not a quiet household. Obviously, in his previous life there was a lot of whispering that went on. No wonder the Baby House always had an air of silence to it.
He loves soft cuddly plush animals and has become fond of a large Pottery Barn white bear. He laughs at it and has learned where its nose is and he buries his face lovingly into it. But also in the first week I had seen Major respond to the bear in a way that must have been what he experienced. For example, during the first week home, he was constantly whispering words to the bear in a dominant way and telling the bear "shhhh!" and would sometimes repeatedly throw his pointing finger toward the bear lying on the ground. I have also seen him poke the bear in the chest in succession and repeat "Shhh! Shhhh! Shhh!!" I have taught him to be gentle and now I have seen him do these gentle motions to the bear as well.
When he gets hurt on something, he will bring me over to the thing he got hurt on (the floor, the edge of the couch, a toy) and he will sometimes re-enact what happened, pointing to his head, making a fake cry for second to mimic pain and then he will smack the floor/couch/toy very hard and say something (in Kazakh?) that is likely "Bad thing that hurt me!" He will offer his hand or arm to be kissed (something they must have done there with him) and then he will move on.
Whenever I am with him and Emma or Eden are crying (oh, you know, with girls this happens, what ... multiple times a day?) he will immediately make the "Shhhh"-ing sound, often curtly. He will almost look at me shocked as if to say "Do you hear that too? What are we gonna do about it?" When I have pulled them close to me compassionately and he is with us, he will often hit or pull the hair of the crying child. This is not a jealous behavior as he is not doing this (since the first day or two) if we do a regular hug or kiss with the girls. It is the crying and moaning that make Major respond in a way as if to beat down the underdog. What exactly went on that led him to do this? He has thrown a toy truck into Emma's face when she cried once and has smashed a block into Eden's top of her head when she cried. Today my nephew came over for a few minutes with his 9 year old friend who was pretending to cry about something. I saw Major stand still and I wanted to see what he would do to a boy he did not know and who was much bigger than him. However, the boy was lying face down and perhaps Major felt an advantage so he just went over and yanked on the boys' hair.
A thought that is strong in my mind is that the crying and moaning of other children that he is experiencing here is stressful for him and he responds in a physical way to stop the action from continuing. Sadly, there is not much I can do to get my girls to stop crying or being dramatic. Major will eventually learn. Sometimes when they cry, he actually pretends to cry. Not to manipulate us or trick us, but because I think he thinks ... oh I get it, it's now time to make that sound in this family.
Which brings me to the subject of crying in general. In the beginning with us, Major never cried. Well, he cried upon meeting us in December and then for the first few days he cried for a few minutes, but he didn't cry when hurt. He may have winced or held the spot that hurt, or just made a sharp sound and kept moving, but you would never hear him cry or pause to be comforted. In fact, the first few days with us in the hotel, when he did cry, his crying sounded robotic and quite unusual and he had no tears. I would liken it to more of a harsh repetitive sound as opposed to a typical cry. More like guttural staccato sounds accompanied by a scrunched up face and dry eyes. Fast forward to us being home now 2 1/2 weeks. A few days ago for the first time, Gary noticed Major's eyelashes were wet while crying over something that frustrated him. The next day, when Major cried, and by now his cries of frustration are beginning to sound like the cries of any two year old, I saw one tear roll down his cheek. I wanted to shout for joy. Major was finally learning what it felt like to let loose and let his feelings out. Even Gary felt the triumph of that moment. Now, what is most joyful is when he does get hurt, he will seek me out and run up to me. He cries when he is frustrated if I take something away that he shouldn't be playing with or if he wants me and I am behind the safety gate at the kitchen sink for a minute. He sounds now like any boy crying for his mommy.
Here is something that I wonder where he learned. As his toddler bed is in my room, every morning at about 4am he wakes up to get into my bed. He makes one sound ("eh!") at the side of my bed to alert me. He used to make no sounds and would just remain in his bed, just three feet from mine, and do a slight distressed breathing or blanket rustling or arm flapping that would eventually wake me up. Now he is in my bed for a few hours in the morning, often awake and unsettled for a little while until he falls back to sleep. But what he does when he gets into my bed and I am sleeping there is sit up and then bop down onto me with a kiss on my cheek (without the smack sound.) So every morning in my bed, he does one or two of these kisses before he lays back down again. I kiss his cheeks all day long so perhaps that is coming from me.
Language Update: As his comfort level grows in this house, so too does his language. In general, he's making a lot more sounds in this house as opposed to the silent boy people had commented on if they came by. What I thought was babbling in Kazakh are clearly true words because I keep hearing these words over and over. Today, while Eden was crying (what else is new?) and I was trying to put Major to bed, he looked up at me and appeared to have a whole conversation with me about her crying in his language, interjecting his speech with "shhh"-ing to her in the distance.
Mimicking: I am trying to get Major to mimic me when I speak words to him, but it really is not something that happens much at all, if at all. Today in the library, I am fairly certain he said "book" a few times while I was showing him all the new releases and then while pointing to the balloons at home (his leftover Welcome Home balloons), I repeated Balloon so slowly and clearly and he finally said "Balla!"
Signing: Where he lacks in attempts to speak English, he makes up for in his comfort in signing. I am not concerned at all about his speech and don't believe that signing will delay him at all. For this multi-lingual little boy, when the time is right, it will be right. What he now has the ability to do, in just two weeks home, is say things to me that I know he wouldn't be able to express right off the bat clearly in English anyway. For example, the ability to say "I want a cracker" or "I'm all finished (with the bath/brushing my teeth/my meal)" or "This is dirty food from the floor" will eventually be there, but for now a gesture will do, to alleviate his frustration and help us bridge the gap between Kazakh and English. Today he woke up from his nap and signed the word for "Toilet" to me while pointing to his butt. He had let me know he pooped and he was ready to be changed. I also love when he signs "toilet" to me when he farts and then he giggles!
Sometimes, like Helen Keller did in the movie Miracle Worker, Major will actually hold out his hand for me to shape his fingers if he wants to learn a sign. He is patient and allows his hand to be manipulated in this manner. He will see a sign once and know it and use it as he did for "banana" just yesterday. As an active signer with my daughters from the time they were infants, I had to wait many many months until I saw a first response. My experience signing with Major has been so different and unique. My girls may have been doing the same signs he does at much much earlier ages (for example, Emma signed "toilet" for any toileting activity beginning at 15 months) his ability to catch on and use the signs appropriately in mere minutes and in just days of being with me is nothing short of genius to me ;-) I think ... or rather, I know, that his ability to communicate with me on some manner (signing being it for now) has definitely meant that his frustration at this point is kept at bay, in regards to him making known some immediate needs or feeling in control of some aspect of communication. We have yet to have any issue in regard to how we communicate together. For the most part, I feel we understand each other very well are that we are becoming a finely tuned instrument of mommy and son.
Receptive Language: I really think the kid understands everything!! Sure, I can hand him a toothbrush and say "brush your teeth" and he'll do it, but that's easy stuff. What shows he understands is when you are thinking out loud about something and he'll bring over the item to you ... like when my mom is searching my house looking for her shoes (saying "where did I put my shoes?") and Major grabs her by the fingers and brings her to the foyer and points down at her pair of shoes.
He sure does love his shoes ....
Cute anecdote: I finally figured out why he *always* signs "shoe" when he eats. "Yes, I see your blue shoes!", I kept telling him, giving him one more spoonful, or "Okay, we'll put on your shoes and go to the park after you eat." But he still kept signing for "shoe" throughout the whole meal and wouldn't let up. I finally listened carefully to myself when I sit with him while he eats and it dawned on me. Every time he takes a huge bite, I keep reminding him, over and over again, to "chew ... chew ... chew."
Today we went to the library to return my book. A little while later there would be a story time for toddlers. Seventeen days home, do I dare stay? I did. There were only 3 other children and their nannies. Mine was the kid whom you just want to stop moving and sit down, already. I wanted to hold up a mental sign "He's new to the country!" but surely I know kids who do this all the time. He was standing in front of the reader and then running for the door and then climbing over the seat of the women and than trying to climb under tables and in storage bins. The other little boys, a little older than him and seeming to be veterans of the class, were all sitting and listening to the story. In this small room, we were becoming too distracting to the others though the nannies kept murmuring to my apologies "It's okay! Don't worry!" I think to them, and surely it seemed this way, that I was a new nanny to this little boy! Finally it was time for my carrier, or what I have come to know a the equilibrium reinstaller. I was wondering how Major would take to being contained tightly against me while in the class, but honestly, the minute I put him in he was settled and calm and was able to listen to the story being read or at least look in that general direction. This thing is a God send! Daily, for different reasons and sometimes just because, I hold Major in the Ergo carrier and a new one I have called the Patapum, which is higher backed for older toddlers. Whereas he initially struggled when we met again almost a month ago to be in this arms-free "strait jacket", he now relishes the feeling of contentment in the carrier being next to me. I credit this baby wearing business with a lot of good stuff going on between us!
Anyway, shortly after he settled today in the carrier, it was Toy Time at the library and the kids were able to play for about 15 minutes. So there is Major interacting or playing nearby 3 other boys. He was smaller than the other boys who tried to take his toys but my little Major sure held his own! "He's a tough one!" one nanny said to me, insinuating she thought Major would have let go of a toy after a bigger boy tried to take it. Oh no, I wanted to say, my kid had tougher beginnings than this. This is peanuts! He's going to use this strength for the good. Overall, at the end of the 40 minutes, I was pleased that Major was able to play in such close proximity to three boys without shoving, pushing or hitting. This was a really great segue into getting him used to larger groups of children. Now as for the fact that he ran out of the doors of the library with another nanny and her charge ... well that's another issue for another time!
Overall, Major is becoming a very loving little boy. It's the loving part of him that I wonder was ever seen ... really and truly. Had he shared his love with the caregivers in the quiet way he shares it with me at bed time and when he climbs into bed with me and settles against me sharing the same space as we sleep, or has he saved it for me all along, for the one Mommy who would crack him open and let him free (emotionally, figuratively, literally) and show him how to love.
Photos coming soon ... will take some new ones this weekend.
