The Crab Chronicles

The Grass Dance and Six Flags

Sunday, October 8, 2006

We have had a busy weekend.

Bronwyn came over yesterday afternoon and tutored Alesia for 3 hours. She missed a couple of days last week. Alesia is doing super well, flying through the lessons.

Yesterday afternoon we bought Alesia her Halloween costume. She wanted to be a witch, but the costumes didn't work right - the decent ones were not in her size, and most of the adult witch costumes were too slutty looking. I didn't want her running around looking like a teen hooker witch! Yikes!

So she will be an angel. The costume came with halo and wings - she is so cute in it. Yay, Party City!

This morning we got up and headed to Six Flags. I got the tickets for free, at work, courtesy of some bigwig who couldn't use them. The tickets would've cost me $100! As it was, the park ate up most of a $50 anyway - $15 to park the stupid car, $20 for lunch [sorry about the weird typeface booboo, can't fix it...]

[Chinese fast food], $7 to ride the Go-Kart, etc. Alesia rode a lot of rides, but not all of them in the park. I rode only two things - the Skybucket, and the Haunted Mansion. The latter was a little boat ride and the boat tipped half over at one point and I got soaked. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to avoid chafing. Alesia got the full experience. She won a stuffed toy at a target shooting booth - she has amazing eye/hand coordination and won the thing on the first try. She also got to watch a little boy vomit on the Tilt-A-Whirl. One of the rollercoasters, the Ninja, flips them upside down and does a lot of loops. She loved it but admitted she was a bit scared. I was just glad they had benches everywhere.

I came home and it looked like it was fixing to pour rain, so I decided to throw out some grass seed. I put on Dad's old golf shoes and ran around throwing seed on the bare spots and stomping the ground - at one point Mother was standing there and she said "The spikes aren't going in good enough. Wriggle your feet around!" So I tried. But of course my butt was wriggling, not my feet. She got so tickled she was in hysterics. We scared the little Malaysian family next door - they were cutting their sons' hair on their back deck.

We then moved to the front of the yard, and I did a little grass-sowing dance, and further embarrassed Alesia. I sang a little song about "Hey ya, hoo ya, makin' holy ground, grow little grass seeds, Hey Ya!" chanting in a pseudo-Native-American dance and wriggling ceremoniously. Thus I got the daily "Mom, you are so crazy" comment...

[In my birthday e-mail to my brother I added this: Ah, the great tradition continues. Remember how Dad used to dance around in parking lots and embarrass us?!]

Now, a word about our wacky looking yard. I told you the guy who came and did those little holes all over the place, right? Well, right after he did that I put out some grass in the back yard. That first sowing has now sprouted. Lots of little sprouts, but only coming up out of those holes. So half the backyard looks like the scalp of a man getting hairplugs. Oh, and we still have the little plugs of earth everywhere that look a bit like poop. So we have the hairplug poop yard.

This evening I was too tired to move. I had a bowl of soup for dinner. It's now 9:30 and I'm headed to bed.

The Emerging Girl

Friday, October 6, 2006   NOTE: New photos posted!

Alesia has now completed her first week of Lindamood Bell therapy.

It has been a big adjustment for the whole family. I am getting up at 5:30 and getting Alesia up at 6, so we can both shower and eat breakfast before leaving the house at 7:15. I have to drop her off, then head to work and be there by 8.

The first two days, Alesia was hyper. On Wednesday she was tired. Yesterday and today she seems to have smoothed out. I have had no trouble getting her to go to sleep about 9:30.

I am happy to report that after just 5 days of Lindamood Bell, I can see a big improvement with Alesia. She is talking in more complex sentences, asking more complicated questions, and making more detailed observations. Just verbally she is so much better.

I have high hopes that this will be a turning point for her. I am going to try hard to keep her in this as long as she's improving. The money may run out first, but I hope not!

I feel this is worth incurring debt for, because she is a much more happy kid, and I think she has real hope now. I think she was always discouraged about school because of her APD issues. So if this helps her advance quicker [she's still getting tutored at 4th grade level] and do better in school so she can at least finish high school, then possibly college, I will be thrilled.

She is growing in other ways, too. Last night, we measured her and she is 5'4 now! Soon, she may be taller than me and Granny [we are 5'4 and a little more]. I hope she will grow into those size 9 feet. Life is easier if you are tall.

My Funny Kid

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Alesia was in a very good humor when she got out of Lindamood Bell yesterday. I am optimistic that it will be a really good thing for her.

I asked the adoption agency for some more information on Igor [Matthew] and they sent this encouraging news:

Dee, information came regarding Igor – he is a very good boy, studies good, a responsible boy, he is the team leader in his group, he is respected and loved by his peers. He writes very well by his left hand (right hand was amputated) – and he is very good with his left hand, he writes and he even can embroider by his left hand.

I figure the word "embroider" is a mis-translation, or perhaps it's some sort of therapy he does. If I'm wrong, maybe he can embroider some nice hand towels and we can sell them in a gift shop...

This morning, Alesia was in her usual foul early morning humor.

We got into an argument. She loves to argue – particularly about subjects she knows absolutely nothing about. This morning she was arguing that Amish people would never use oil lamps because they are electrical. The Amish, she declared, would only use candles. When I pointed out to her she was wrong, she got mad. She jumped up and went over to the kitchen counter, to pour herself some more juice.

Mother, trying to be a peacemaker, said to Alesia, “How did you sleep last night, darlin’?” Alesia looked at her suspiciously, “Why do you want to know?”

Mother was taken aback. I started laughing. “We should never ask such loaded questions of a teenager, Mother. Just imagine, next time you say to her “How are you?” she’s going to answer “WHAT’S IT TO YA, GRANNY?!” Mother started laughing. Then we both just sat there laughing. Alesia looked back and forth at us like, y’all are nuts.

Finding the humor in these types of situations is the only reason Alesia has never been slapped or spanked. [She is developing nice arm muscles from having to drop and do pushups every time she talks disrespectfully, though.]

My cousin Leslie kindly offered to take Alesia to her pottery class last night. Over the weekend, we saw a funny movie, School for Scoundrels, with some scruffy characters in it. Les reported this remark:

Alesi-ism of the day:

We are driving along and pass this very hot looking vintage red BMW, driven by a noticeably incongruent driver. Long unkempt salt n pepper hair, same with mustache, skinny.

Alesia looks at him and yells, "he looks just like the man in the School movie! He looks like he just came out of a trashcan!"

LMAO!

EDITORIAL NOTE: I felt it was time to change the name of the blog, since Alesia has been home 2 years and it's no longer the "new normal." I like the Crab imagery because Alesia and I are both July babies, as is Matthew, so we are a houseful of crabs, except for Mother.

Weekend

Monday, October 2, 2006

I am not usually up at 5:20 in the morning, but I stupidly took a Mucinex last night and I've slept only very lightly all night. I looked at the list of ingredients this morning and Pseudoephedrine is a main ingredient and that always makes me sleep badly. I didn't have a stuffed up head, but I couldn't ever fall into a deep sleep. Tonight, I will sleep like the dead, I am sure. I can't believe I did something so dumb.

We had a very full weekend. Lots of errands.

The first big event, at least around here, was getting the daybed out of Alesia's room. When we moved in here, she had the daybed because then when friends spent the night they could sleep on it. Well, her friends sleep in the big bed with her, we have learned. So the daybed was in the way. Once we got it out of there, she now has a lot more room to play. The Barbies are set up in a house, with their adjacent multi-story condo [a/k/a the bookcase.] Alesia was so excited to get that bed out of there.

The second big event came on Saturday afternoon, when my friend Liza came over with her two newly-adopted teenagers from Russia, 16 year old Luda, and 14 year old Vera.

They are cute girls, and were very sweet. They need help with wardrobe selections. They brought some clothes with them out of the orphanage, and they are really inappropriate. Luda wore a micro-mini skirt and top that showed her belly, which was pierced. Vera wore skintight jeans and a too-tight little top that showed her belly. Both had on a lot of makeup. After dinner, the girls watched a movie with Alesia and Mother and I talked to Liza. She said she needs to get them some new clothes, but just hadn't wanted to upset them too much so was waiting until they adjusted better to America. I think the clothes are too tight because the girls are finally getting enough to eat and gaining weight - they are up to 106 and 107 lbs. and are taller than me.

In Russia, all young women dress like hookers, I had to remind Mother. It's a cultural thing. Where they come from, they look perfectly fine.

Alesia tried her best to talk to them in Russian, but her Russian really has degraded. She struggled to remember words. Right at first, I had to tell her a couple of times to speak Russian, not English, as she would lapse into English without thinking.

We had bought the girls some presents, including two Barbies Alesia picked out. They told Alesia they didn't want the barbies and she should keep them - Alesia was happy to do that, but surprised. They said they had played barbies in the orphanage. In Alesia's orphanage they never had any nice dolls.

The girls were afraid of Coco, at first, but quickly warmed up, and by the time they left they were arguing over who got to hold her.

Alesia tried to be friends with the girls, and said she liked them. It was clear they are more mature than she is, though. Hopefully once Alesia matures some, they can really be buddies.

Alesia asked me yesterday when she could drive - at age 16? I said well, you can drive when I decide you are mature enough to get a license. I said "Sweetie, you aren't mature yet." She asked what "mature" means. I said "It's when you think and act like a grownup." She frowned. She wanted specifics - I refused to tell her specifics, because I didn't want her to ape those behaviors and expect to fool me into letting her get a license. She has a long way to go.