Before you know it, you're the crazy cat lady in the scary house

My brother, pt. 2

June 02, 2002 ... 12:30 a.m.

My brother, pt. 2

So, where was I? Oh, yeah....

Last Thursday (5-23), I receive a quick phone call from Mom in Moscow, telling me they�ll be home a few days early. I ask how Le Prince is...�Bad, Eibisch. Real bad.� was my answer.

Oh, no.

We knew a couple who had adopted from this same orphanage and, upon returning to the US, had immediately disrupted their adoption because the children were so ill behaved. So I semi-jokingly asked if she was going to do the same thing. She said she didn�t know, but had thought of it.

[Eibisch note: Bootsie is extraordinarily impatient with anyone, more so with children and even more so with boys. Mom is easily irritated and, while not as impatient as Bootsie, not very patient.]

Some of Mom�s complaints were: he wanders, he�s extremely fidgety, he won�t try English at all, he won�t sleep, he has a very short attention span, everything�s a joke to him, he fake cries a lot....

Okay, so what you're saying is that you adopted a 7-year-old boy who's excited he has a family. Hmmm.

Arrival day...

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 at 2:53am--I saw Le Prince for the first time. My sister came in first and snarled behind her �Go in, hug Eibisch, take your shoes off and GO TO BED!�

Oy.

In stumbles a skinny little boy, wearing Harry Potter pajamas and untied shoes, brown hair sticking up everywhere and an ear-to-ear grin. He came, hugged me, and went to bed.

For the next two hours, I am regaled with tales of how obstinate and infuriating this child is.

Oy.

We go to bed and I wake up at about 7 am. (I don�t sleep well). Shortly after me Bootsie wakes and we go to talk in the tv room. We hear this little voice �Mama? Mama? I would like use toilet. Mama?� Bootsie snaps at him to use it then, that he doesn�t need to ask.

When Mom gets up, he comes out of his room for breakfast. He giggles through breakfast, which Mom and Bootsie find exasperating, but I think is simply a reaction to the new sights, smells and surroundings. I giggle sometimes when I�m nervous.

Mom tells me to have him brush his teeth and that she had to brush the insides for him because he wouldn�t. Okay. So I bring him into the bathroom and brush my teeth at the same time and have him copy me. No problem. Not seeing what the fuss is.

We wash our faces and he gets dressed. Mom has told me that they tried to get him to count, name colors, etc. but he would just parrot them.

I get some pennies and he learns 1 to 10. He does have a little trouble with 8 and 9. For colors, we played Candyland. He has some trouble with red and purple. These two little lessons took hours and I can see why Mom/Bootsie got impatient and frustrated. But he�s only 7.

I taught him his full name, nickname, age, what �sister� �grandma� and �grandpa� mean, off an on, bed, sleep, car, outside, bath, push and several other things. It�s maybe a little weird to me, but I never get frustrated or put out with him. Repeating �red� over and over does get tedious, but he is trying so hard to learn. He�s only been home since Tuesday, remember and the only time he got frustrated was when we were playing �Alphabet Memory� and he couldn�t remember. He got angry with himself and cried a little.

He has a lot of trouble with the alphabet and I�m not sure what to do --yet.

Bootsie is still very short with him, but she has a fairly abrasive personality, anyway.

~*~

Have a happy day!

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