From Then to Today

The rabbit book

2012-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

This week I'm reading a famous book as the Bedtime Story. The Dreamer called it "the rabbit book". Can you guess what is it?

I want, I must

2012-02-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

I want to stay at home with the kids.

I want to homeschool them.

I want to cook good meals every day.

I want to have a clean home and a nice garden.

I want my husband to come home to a warm house and a tasty dinner.

***
I must go to work every day, because we need my income to survive (being a teacher in Estonia is "economical suicide", as a Germand teacher working here called it. I agree.).

I must give my boys away to be raised by other people because I must go to work.

I must cook fast meals that are not always the tastiest, because otherwise the boys need to go to bed before dinner is ready.

I must do housework in the evening and on weekends, so that there's no time to have fun with the family.

I must see how my husband is unhappy with the fast meals and the cold house. Wood heating needs time at home that we don't have right now.

***
Something is seriously wrong with this picture. We need a solution.

I cannot quit my job before court, because I must be a good person to adopt - a good woman goes to work every day. Also, the boys need to go to the preschool because this is sooooo good for their development, homeschooling is for freaks (the very popular option). And then there's the money matter. WonderfulHusband should earn twice the sum he earns so that we could keep our heads above water - like bills would be paid, loans would be paid and we would have enough money for groceries and some clothes. As a teacher in Estonia he cannot earn that much.

I want a change. Now I just need the creativity to find out what to do.

Winter weather

2012-02-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

This winter we were blessed with extremely mild November and December. Now, in February, it is time to pay for it.

We have had temperatures around -4 F and lower for a week now and Sunday night we may have -34 F. And the weather people say that all February will be much colder than usually. Usually February is a cold month in Estonia. It also brings often lots of snow, especially around the 24th (national holiday). Last year we were in Tallinn during the coldest days. In one morning the temperature was (according to our car computer) -29 F. So the difference between last year's temperature and the predicted cold spell is not so big, why everyone calls it "extreme weather conditions"?

Don't get me wrong, I hate winter and cold weather. The only way I can survive this is that I wear the wonderful woollen underwear that a dear friend gave me. (Susan, I am thinking about you with deep thankfulness every day.) But I am also thankful that the cold and snowy weather has only lasted a month and it should get a bit warmer in a month already. Imagine - the worst season only lasts half of the usual time. Isn't that a blessing?

On the other hand, a friend who also lives in an old house called her house "active" - in such house one never needs to open windows to let in fresh air. The air finds its way in by itself. We have our thermometer under the kitchen window, so the real temperature in the rooms is somewhat higher, but when we got home today, it showed us 50 F. We heat with all possible things (I hate thinking about our power bill this month), but the outside walls are just too cold. I really hope that the colder-than-average spell ends soon. Our car is wearing a "coat" on the hood at night (an old blanket that we never used anyway), some pipes in the bathroom are frozen and the cats refuse to go out. Last night one cat wanted to go out. I did let her and saw how she was getting bigger. Literally - she was just making herself fluffier against the cold.

The "wonderful" logic of a FAS kid

2012-01-30T10:36:00.000-08:00

The Dreamer has FAS. No doubt. He has the facial features, he has had the developmental delays. Also, he has RAD that makes him unable to nap in preschool - naptime is in schedule for everyone, including 7-year-olds. When he misses his nap, he loses whatever little logic he has and the outcome is sometimes peculiar.

Actually, he can read and draw better than several 6-year-olds in his preschool group, so not everything is lost. But today ...

A package arrived with belated Christmas gifts form my in-laws and belated birthday gifts for both boys. We haven't been able to meet WonderfulHusband's parents since last summer. :( The Dreamer was playing with his new toys for a while and came then to me, asking: "Mommy ... Am I six years old now?" He was told that one of the packages was his birthday present ...

We talk about the "order of birthdays" every week. He has heard several times that his birthday comes when summer ends, when the leaves start getting yellow. It is deep winter outside. He has experienced how we celebrate birthdays, honestly, that does not include someone tossing him a package and saying: "Oh, here is your belated gift." He is nearly five and a half, but his common sense keeps failing him. The excitement of getting new toys and tiredness of a long day in preschool short-wired his poor damaged brain again, so he really thought that it must be his birthday that none of us cared about. I sent him to have a ten-minute rest in bed. After that he understood that he had said something stupid, but still couldn't remember when his birthday will be - I asked about the season, not the exact day! Even His Babyness is better in thinking and making conclusions, although he is two-and-half years younger.

***
Other - today we gave in all the documents for court. We are waiting for a Date now, probably in March. And I get to talk at the next PRIDE (foster parents to be) program - about RAD from what Estonian foster/adoptive parents are not warned usually!

The cold weather has arrived

2012-01-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

I hate it.

Thank God, the amount of snow is quite normal for Estonian winter. But last week the weather turned colder and colder, until last night when we had -13'F. Two different weather forecasts say that it will get even worse during next week.

Pipes under the bathroom floor are frozen again. Ou car needed a neighbour's help today and there's no guarantee it will start for us tomorrow morning. We have fan heaters working all day and the woodstoves/ovens are heated as much as possible (you must not heat them too much or they will burst). It is actually quite cosy inside but we have to go out to get to work ... and to get firewood in.

I just hope this cold spell will be short and we can start thinking about spring soon. Last winter was long enough to last us a lifetime.

The Party

2012-01-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we already knew that none of the invited preschool kids will turn up. Then I got inspiration from the best book ever. Remember the story of a rich man who prepared a meal (I have no idea how it is told in English) and asked all his friends but no-one wanted to come? And then he went out and asked all kinds of strangers to come? I did put an invite on Facebook and into my Estonian-speaking blog. Some friends said that they would love to come, but they were sick or had plans elsewhere (and they are the people who won't lie). But one friend sent his son who is actually in the same Sunday School class where Leader Of The Pack goes - and another family brought four of their 7 children (two were actually invited). Now Leader Of The Pack has two new friends and an adorable little girl to think about.

At some moment we had 10 kids and 6 parents in the house. That does not mean 10 times more fun. That means at least 100 times more fun, noise and mess than one child makes. I loved it although I had no time to eat anything and my back hurts. Hopping around on hobby horses (every child who wanted got one to keep - one baby sister and a baby brother showed no interest), wearing knight outfits, waving with cardboard swords and climbing up and down the triple bunk bed of our boys ... Also, we had a castle cake made of wafers and a dragon to kill. There were two wonderfully quiet moments when every child sat down (we put pillows on the floor) to eat. We grilled sausages in the fireplace and of course every child wanted to have a piece of the castle. If you are not sure if the kids will eat something you cooked, make it look cool - and everyone loves it. I never believed that before but it is true.

Leader Of The Pack asked once about his "friends" from preschool, but then he had too much fun to remember them anymore. Also, after everybody was gone and he had time to put together his new Legos (several boxes, a zillion pieces), he said: "I am so content with my birthday that I cannot be any more content." In a country where people hardly ever express big emotions this is a big compliment.

And did I tell you that yesterday we went to see the musical "Mary Poppins"? All boys dressed up in black and white. :) We all loved it and the boys even got compliments for good behaviour. I think that His Babyness was the youngest in theatre last night. He was at home with me today while "men and boys" went to church and watched happily nearly half of the Mary Poppins movie on DVD. I was making our house presentable during this and believe me, the song "Supercalifragilisticexplialidocious" is the best music to hear while sweeping floors!

Now we have to tuck all boys to bed, because I guess they are more tired than ever. I am so thankful for real friends.

The rage of an insulted Mommy

2012-01-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

Imagine a child who is very happy about his upcoming birthday. Imagine the child picking out friends to invite, drawing invites and hoping for a nice party.

Imagine parents who are willing to let strangers - parents of invited children - into their home. Imagine parents who work hard to make the party really cool and different from ordinary birthdays.

And then ... three of the invited five (all from preschool) children have some sort of excuse why they cannot come. Or actually, their parents come up with it two days before the party. One child has ear infection, so he is really excused. We pray for him. One parent has not said anything but I guess that this boy is also not coming, stupid is he who cannot find an excuse (as it is said by not very nice people). Is that an open insult to our family or yes? (as some young people say)

Right now I cannot imagine saying hello to those parents who disappoint my boy so. Unfortunately, I have schooled myself over the years to be polite toward people I don't really like.

Leader Of The Pack invited one boy from church (we have very few boys his age) and I was smart enough to invite two more children of our friends. I really hope and pray that they will not get sick or anything so that Leader Of The Pack will have at least some true friends at his party.

Actually, right now I feel like drawing both boys out from this preschool would be The Reaction to such insult. All the nice speeches about friendship and respect from the teachers ... Unfortunately, my mother cannot babysit them all 4 or 5 days a week and I cannot become a SAHM yet. But we are so. not. doing anything for those parents anymore. Except that we will maybe or um surely pray for them. That they would never be hurt through their child this way.

haven't figured out yet how to tell it to the birthday boy ...

Losing my mind a bit at a time

2012-01-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

The weather has turned colder lately, but not too cold, abut 23'F. I have cleaned our driveway of snow twice - compared to last year this is a picnic. Unfortunately this is the "math week" at the school where WonderfulHusband works and he had a meeting in the preschool of our boys yesterday (he is the representative parent of our boys' class in Parents Board or something like that). That means getting home late. Getting home later than usual means that I have to invent fast meals and that our house is really cold. Heating with wood does that. I am freezing all the time, WonderfulHusband is not happy about the "fast-food" like soups and pasta, and there's still so much work to do. The Big Ugly Cupboard in the kitchen still needs to be painted, I have to sew the knight clothes for our big party on Sunday, there are several areas of the house that I'd like to have clean before I let any guests come in, and I cannot sleep at night. Partly because when the boys finally fall asleep, I want some child-free time for reading or watching something on TV. Partly because I obviously have too much stress. Add going without lunch because at proper lunchtime I am too busy at work and later I just think that I could manage without buying food that I could make at home much better, cheaper and healthier ... and you get a really mean Mommy.

I am not going to do any proper housework tonight anymore, although I have at least three hours before going to bed (going to sleep earlier is no good, then I wake up at 2 am and stay awake until 5 am - means being tired next day). I just tuck the boys into bed (with a bedtime story!), take care of heating, because this is inevitable, and curl up with a book, a cup of hot chocolate, a cat and some knitting. Maybe this will help. The boys need a happy Mommy and my husband needs a wife who nags less.

Last week's update

2012-01-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

We finished another part of the kitchen. Painting a room where you live, cook and eat makes one so creative! There is just the Big Ugly Cupboard to paint and the tiles in front of the woodstove ... that we actually wanted to do first!

Finally, we have snow. The boys were playing outside for two hours today and I did the fist snowshoveling this winter. If it is the last, I won't mind. During the last two winters we had enough snow for a lifetime. The weather is still quite mild, the temperatures mostly stay around the freezing point.

In January Clean The House Challenge ... Um. Day 5 was CDs that is strictly WonderfulHusband's job in this house complete with the Really Big Mess on the computer desk. I am so not touching that. Then Day 6 was about pens and pencils that are mostly in order in our house -or hidden in the Big Mess on the computer desk which I am not touching. Day 7 and 8 seemed to slip away somehow. Day 9 was selling things in ebay that we don't use (neither can I use the Estonian version because ... I never cared about learning how it works) and honestly, I am so dead set against buying new things that there is not much old stuff to sell. Day 10 - giving away things on Freecycle - is the same. I guess that some people are using Freecycle or something like this here, but I am not one of them. I just gave away a bag with His Babyness's clothes, does that count? It is so cool to see the clothes worn by other people's kids! Last Sunday in church J, who is 6 months younger than His Babyness, wore the pants that I have washed and put away many times, and A, who is about 9 months younger than H. B., wore the boots and the shirt that His Babyness wore last winter! I really love if I can be useful to other mothers!

I also couldn't do much with Days 11 and 12, but I did sort all my spices and teas. I threw away some that were obviously too old and packed in a better way all the ones that were still good. Now they actually fit on the shelf and I am not bombarded with falling spice packages anymore! Also, a couple of days ago I checked all the berries and vegetables in freezer and found out that I have more space than I thought. Freezer cooking, here I come! Started today with lots of lemon curd. We love it on white bread and in cakes, and WonderfulHusband bought a lot of lemons last time when we were groceries shopping, so I made it with 15 eggs.

We are still thinking a lot about the upcoming knight party. I still haven't thought about any "knight food". Should be something simple because little kids don't like exotic food anyway, right?

This is how the other finished corner of out kitchen looks now. See how tea and spices fit on the shelf? Above the blue-and-white tiles there will be cupboards. Some day. If WonderfulHusband feels like making them. Right now he feels that his wife should use her New and Improved kitchen to make some tea. :)

Blessings,

EstonianWife.

Gone crazy

2012-01-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

I am obviously gone crazy. Like there's not enough to do, I proposed a knight party for Leader Of The Pack. After all, a young man turns seven only once. Leader Of The Pack is busy colouring the invites and I am busy searching for games and food ideas. We will probably need simple stick horses with cardboard heads, cardboard shields to decorate and swords. Guess who has to do a lot of cutting and painting during the next two weeks? Also, who has to sew knight costumes for three knights? And to paint a dragon with balloon belly so that young knights could practice killing the dragon?

Actually, it seems quite interesting. I am still having fun with the preparations, two weeks are actually enough to get exhausted. Have you ever had a knight party? Any ideas?

The Kitchen Makeover

2012-01-07T05:09:00.000-08:00

Some days before Christmas WonderfulHusband looked at the broken tiles in front of the woodstove and said that it is about time to replace them with nice new ones. I agreed, of course. The I looked at the letterbox-red walls that looed quite tired and asked if he would agree to re-paint the walls, too.

This is how the walls looked before. The cat is our big tom Mau who got lost a couple of years ago, probably got killed by the vicious dogs of a neighbour and um the door is another unfinished project. The red colour was actually completely wrong, probably some mistake of the paint shop, but we decided to keep it for some time. Maybe this is also the reason why so many things in this kitchen were unfinished!

This picture I took today. We tried first a lighter brown tone, but this seemed still too brown and not enough terra cotta. The one we settled to is much better. As you see, we were already able to put the fridge back.

Half of the kitchen is still red/brown, but we are making progress! Painting the olive branches is a time-consuming job but I think this is worth it.

Clean The House - Days 2 to 4

2012-01-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

The task of day 2 was to clean under the kitchen sink. It came just on time when WonderfulHusband needed to fix a leak. After he was ready, I was able to remove all the water-catcher jars and clean the floor. We get leaks really often, so I cannot hope that it will stay nice, but for a while ...

The next task is in our house always done. I sort out all worn-out clothes and socks in a regular basis and into the "rag rug making bag" they go. Then, when I have time, I cut them into stripes and bring to my mother who weaves rag rugs out of them. This is sort of "family business" for us, because we sell the rugs on markets during the summer. I used to weave rugs, too, but right now there is no time and my loom stands lonely in and unfinished room. I hope to start doing this sometime again.

The task of day 4 ... is complicated. There is always possible that some good-quality socks are on the bottom of a toybox and I am not throwing away their lonely partners until I am 100% sure that they are lonely forever. Also, WonderfulHusband's socks turn out of the most unbelievable places. We are just not very neat people. And because good socks here are expensive, they are worth mending, so sometimes I also try to save those that have small holes in them. Hand-knit socks get pulled to seocond-sock yarn and will be knit again. My mother uses old yarn (been already in a sweater or socks before) anyway. All our woollen socks come from Granny!

White Mini loves to play with rag rugs. Some of the rugs are thinner and some are thicker, on the picture there's a thin one, easy to shake out and easy to wash. Also, this one is really old, I think about 15 years so that they look quite nice a long time.

January Clean The House Challenge

2012-01-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

Bubbling Brook Farm had the wonderful idea of getting the house clean and organized in January. I love it - our house is a real mess right now so I needed someone to give me a "kick".

The first day's task was to find and sort all batteries in the house. Sorry, not for me. If there are loose batteries in our house, they lay in the deepest, darkest corners where one never looks and I am still too sick to clean properly. All others are found and thrown out in regular basis. AND we are not going to replace the dead ones beacuse ... in a house with three little boys you get all sorts of beeping, snoring, ticking and moving toys (not to mention the ever-popular VROOOOOOM!), that are all much better left to beep, snore, tick and move until the batteries are dead ... for ever. We never buy any battery-operated toys, but they tend to sneak in via friends and extended family.

So I decided to sort my seeds instead. After all, it is Jan 2nd, so we are officially allowed to prepare for spring. :) I looked through all my seeds packages and threw out those that are gone over or that I have tried and decided that they are not worth the work. Like corn - it just won't grow in our soil. Then I made a list of all sorts of seeds I want to buy this spring. ... 40 packages. In the same time, WonderfulHusband was planting some lemon seeds found in a lemon recently. We hope to get a couple of young lemon trees from that. We also agreed to plant two more plum trees and a cherry tree this spring.

I'm sorry that I couldn't participate properly today. Maybe tomorrow's task will suit us better.

Edit a few hours later: next to my seeds box I actually did find an ugly-looking battery and threw this out, so I was able to do something with batteries after all!

Another Parent Test failed

2011-12-29T08:01:00.000-08:00

Last night during supper The Dreamer pointed out that there is something dripping out of His Babyness's ear. So it was. Obviously, he has had another ear infection without giving us a sign that he is not feeling well. Today our doctor sent us to see an ear, nose and throat specialist so that all the mucus could be sucked out of the ear. The sucking machine makes a scary noise and the whole procedure is probably very uncomfortable. His Babyness decided that he doesn't like it. I have never heard this child making such noise! He screamed, kicked, and arched his back so that it took about an hour to get only a little bit of mucus out of his ear. We just couldn't hold him down! Were he just a few years older, we could explain to him that this happens to make him better. Unfortunately, at 2 y 10 months His Babyness has no real concept of suffering little evil to prevent big evil from happening in the future.

Finally, the doctor gave up and prescribed some antibiotic drops that we have to get into his ear. We were all sweaty, tired and felt like we had failed as parents. His Babyness is quite obedient for a two-year-old, but this time he was just so terribly scared ...

I remember myself from the same age, getting probably some vaccine shot. I was wearing a white blouse with tiny red dots. Funny, that one remembers such unimportant details. I remember being scared already when my mom took me to the doctor's office (when we entered the ears-nose-throat hospital building, where the doctor saw us, His Babyness said right away that he wanted to leave), also, I remember the terror of The Needle and The Unbearable Pain - and that I had no idea what I was being punished for. I just pray that His Babyness is not going to remember today's experience as The Worst Toddlerhood Memory (btw, mine is being beaten with a belt by my grandfather - he was not a nice man -, because he had to comb my hair and pulled it painfully, so I cried and asked for Granny). We tried to make it somewhat sweeter for him with letting him choose a toy in the supermarket. He loves farming trucks and this is good, because we do have a little sort-of farm here! Maybe he will work it properly one day!

Do you know any herbal stuff to strenghten his ears and to prevent any further ear inflammations? I am eating raw garlic myself for my flu-turned-into-bad-tonsillitis (also, WonderfulHusband has sore throat and my mother has got the flu - what a fun New Year's Eve we will have), but His Babyness is probably too young for raw garlic. We cannot keep stuffing him with antibiotics every time he gets sick, especially since he often gets sick without showing any symptoms or distress.

Dear friends ...

2011-12-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

wishing you all a white Christmas!

No church this Christmas :(

2011-12-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

I have been sick with something flu-like for the last three days. No problem, we thought, I'm feeling better already. Then The Dreamer developed a red rash. Too many satsumas, we thought. Tonight also His Babyness got a rash and it got worse and worse - he is happy, just likes to sleep more than usually.

If you have little kids and something like this happens at nine in the evening, better have a relative or friend who knows about medicine. WonderfulHusband phoned his mother who has worked over 30 years as doctor. I was sent to rub the kids' skin. Is it velvety? No? Scarlet fever ruled out. Do they have red-rimmed eyes? Good, no measles. They had no fever anyway, so those two seemed quite unlikely.

We still are quarantined until next Wednesday. Most likely this is rubella. And we have no idea who comes to church on Christmas Eve and if they could be pregnant. We only know one pregnant woman, but rubella is supposed to be the most dangerous during the first 8 weeks when the mother herself has no idea about the baby. Most women are vaccinated against rubella, but my MIL said that it could be some other (milder on kids) form, that means that vaccines may not work against it. I am probably not pregnant right now and my mother thinks that I had rubella as child, so I'm not worried about myself, just sad that we have to stay at home on Christmas Eve when we have always gone to church.

Most children get the rubella vaccine around their 1st birthday, but His Babyness was so sick then and later we had the epilepsy scare that I decided not to have him immunized. If he wants to travel to um ... Peru or somewhere like this when he is grown, then he can have all the vaccines he wants, but I will not risk his developing brain. Also, we have no idea what kind of immunizations The Dreamer has got - their bio mother was not really careful with her children's health and the doctors hardly ever saw the boys. We will just stay at home and do a lot of homeschooling. The boys are not supposed to go out, but since there is no snow (no white Christmas this year, either - but it is such a welcome thing compared to last year!), they actually prefer to stay inside. And I have information - shhh! - that there will be new toys and books for Christmas. :)

Home alone

2011-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

Today the kids were home alone for the first time ever.

I wanted to go to my praying group (in town), but we only have one car and we have had so long workdays lately, someone had to come home and make fire in all ovens (or stoves, if you like this word more). So we decided that WonderfulHusband will come home with the boys and I will leave my praying group early, so that I can catch the last bus. Unfortunately, the bus stpos 10 km from our home! So we decided to give it a try - what will happen if WonderfulHusband leaves the boys alone, watching a nice movie for 20 minutes? I think in summertime it would take even less to drive to the bus stop and back, but right now the dirt road here is quite bad and it turns dark already around 4 p.m., so the driving takes longer.

The boys had been playing nicely while at home with Daddy. When we arrived, they were watching the movie and eating popcorn (used as bribe!). The house was fine, no-one had been hurt, nobody had been inspecting The Bag in the household stuff closet - you know The Bag that you start filling with Legos and other toys in May and that is bursting when Christmas is near ... But we will not take any more risks until Christmas. I wonder what would be the proper way of acting if you find your kids playing happily with all the stuff you meant for Christmas and for a birthday soon after Christmas? I hope we will never need to know ...

The definition of curls

2011-12-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

The Dreamer looks at His Babyness (who looked unusually cute today) and asks: "Mommy, is this crooked hair what you call curls?"

I felt like needing psychological help today

2011-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

To finish the adoption, we need several documents about our income, us not being criminal, our living conditions etc. One of them is proof that we are sane. Meaning that we are not diagnosed with any mental illnesses like schizophrenia etc. Should be easy - go to see a psychiatrist, get a paper saying that there are no known diagnoses connected with this person, get a stamp and a signature.

This is what we thought until today. We had an appointment with a young doctor. She had apparently not done anything like this before, but she also didn't want to listen to us and refused to believe what our child welfare officer had told us to ask for. She started asking questions: how old is the child? Why do you need to adopt? What is your intent with it? etc etc etc. With every question she turned more aggressive. Finally she started asking things about the boys.

But has a psychiatrist seen them? Why not? How can you know that they are developing normally since they obviously cannot be normal? Who said that you can call yourself a psychologist, what does that mean? In schoooooool? But the boys have several behaviour issues, right? They have enuresis for sure, yes? They do pee their pants several times a day, isn't it so? How said that the oldest boy can read? Where do you want to send them to school, which school close to your home will take such underdeveloped kids? Why isn't the youngest in preschool, when he has such severe developmental delays? How can you say that he is fine, who told you he is, a child left at home until the ripe old age of three years will never be socially adequate! What is the reason that you let your parents babysit? It is not possible that the people at the orphanage never teached them anything, our orphanages are so good! The oldest has been beaten very badly, this is sure! But they are sick all the time, right? All foster families are child-abusers!

And so on and on, 60 minutes long. By the way, she had never seen the kids, just a photo. We - me and WonderfulHusband were so perplex about this woman's behaviour that we only answered the questions as truthfully as possible. Only an hour later, when I was safely sitting in my office, my hands started to shake. During the afternoon I had serious heart arrhythmia and all day passed like in a fog.

No wonder my children have not been to see any psychiatrists, they have never done anything bad enough. FYI, they are developing normally, Leader Of The Pack is the best in his preschool class and The Dreamer is nearly free of all his former autistic behaviours. His Babyness is in several areas much better than many kids his age. Yes, they have FAS, especially The Dreamer has strong fascial features but that does not mean that they must be stupid or bad. They just need a bit more watching than kids usually do - and honestly, many kids at my school don't get any parental attention at all and thus they behave much worse than ours. Also, they have RAD - this is normal for children who have experienced what they have. We are working on it and it is getting better.

Anyway, I spoke to our child welfare officer about it and she said that this lady had no right to talk to us about the specifics of the children at all. The fact that we are a foster family, yes, but not to ask things she asked. She just had to write the document that she didn't do - saying that the judge must ask it from them because they never give any documents to mentally ill people themselves. Imagine.

I think this young psychiatrist needs a lot of prayers. I will pray for her, could you please do it, too? Another option would be complaining about her to her supervisor but I really don't feel like this would be right. Um, I think she actually gave us a good reason to sue her, but we don't want to have any scandals connected to our names, even not as victims.

I will see our child welfare officer tomorrow, she will come to see our home. This is the routine before-court visit. We have not even cleaned that much because she said that even if we would heva an outhouse she would say OK. I hope we can talk over what happened today and how to get the proper document from the proper person.

The country that does not exist

2011-12-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Our friends are missionaries in Kosovo. This is a small and new country that used to be a part of Serbia some years ago. Also, Serbia used to be a part of Yugoslavia until 1990-something. I am quite terrible in Balkan geography and history. Anyway, our friends live there somewhere in a village with their two little children. Peter is three and Rebeka is just one year old. It is hard to imagine their life there as it is quite different from the luxuries (like running water and electricity all day long) what we are used to, but sometimes - if the power is on - they can blog, write e-mails and use Facebook. So we know a little about what is going on there. My friend expressed her concern about the education there (she has never thought about homeschooling) and so some of us here got an idea.

Some people collected money and I was honoured with the task of putting together some workbooks, books and educational DVDs for the children of out missionary friends. I had so much fun doing that, shopping for books is the best sort of shopping ever. So we filled a box and went to the post office.

After I had painstakingly filled several customs forms, we wanted to pay for sending and have it done. The lady at the counter searched a long time for the prices and finally said: "I'm sorry, this country does not exist. You cannot send this package from Estonia." Imagine. The price list has all possible countries, including places like Kiribati and the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, but no Kosovo. We argued a bit, until the lady agreed to phone her boss or someone like that. The phone call gave us hope that they will sort it out by tomorrow.

If we can, we would love to visit our friends in Country That Does Not Exist. Maybe we can do it one day. The kids could tell all their friends in preschool and anywhere else that they have visited such an exotic place - let the others brag about Tenerife and Turkey, we have been to the country that even the Post Office has no idea about!

O Christmas Tree

2011-12-03T07:04:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, in Estonia you have to bring in the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve and it Must Go Out on Three Kings' Day (Jan 6th), I couldn't find the proper English name for it. It was kept in my childhood home - no matter if the tree was drying out, youd couldn't bring it out before Jan 6th.

Personally, I like the Advent time and Christmas, but all the holiday season ends for me on the first day when I have to go to work again. It is usually on Jan 3th. Having The Tree standing after that just feels wrong. Sometimes The Tree looks so nice and is so healthy that taking it out just seems wrong.

Also, it is extremely hard to bring a Christmas Tree from the woods when there's a lot of snow. It is hard to find a nice-looking tree, there's always the risk of getting stuck with the car and sometimes the snow is frozen on the branches. Not fun at all.

This year, WonderfulHusband first wanted to cut down a spruce tree growing too close to the house, but after taking away the lower branches we thought it over and decided to keep it for a while - the boys have so much fun, climbing up and down this tree now. WonderfulHusband left some branches longer on purpose, so that both older boys have plenty of places to put their feet! His Babyness wants to climb, too, but he says that it looks too scary. Also, this spruce tree had grown a "false top" that he cut down and found out that it looks like a proper Christmas Tree. It has been standing outside for a while now, but today we brought it in. It is a bit thin but it serves well enough. I just hope it will last until New Year's Eve.

Um, the traditional Christmas Tree is always a spruce here. We have plenty of them, they grow nearly everywhere and in many places like under electric lines they need to be cut down anyway. Most people prefer to have a real tree, it smells right and looks nicer.

Quiet time

2011-12-01T00:47:00.000-08:00

I am having a "quiet time" right now. The throat virus that moved in to our family 10 days ago has finally reached me. First Leader oF The Pack had throat pain for several days and nothing seemed to linder it. Then ... it just went away. The Dreamer is already getting better - he was the next victim. WonderfulHusband is the worst right now, he had a fever last night. Not much, but still ... AND he has a job interview today. He is trying to get a few computer lessons in another school, because his schedule right now is so that he can squeeze those in. I have no real throat pain, but my voice is gone. Just gone. The second day in a row, I can only whisper. That means that going to work seems pointless - I can listen and nod, yes, but I am expected to say something, too - and I just cannot!

The boys are at home with me. This way, WonderfulHusband does not need to leave home so early and he can go straight to work without going first to the daycare. They are a bit grumpy because they love going to preschool, but now they have time to play with their toys and to work with all their colouring books. I am just sad that I cannot read to them.

Just cannot wait

2011-11-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

I have so many fun pictures to show you. Like the last one I made 10 minutes ago - Leader Of The Pack reading Terry Pratchett's last book. In English. Isn't that usual that an average 6-year-old can read complex novels in a foreign language?

Just kidding. He didn't understand a word during the three minutes he tried to read this book.

But I really have the pics and no right to post them here. Cannot wait for court. That should happen in two months from now because we only have the foster care right until Feb 1st. We will lose nearly half of our income, but God has helped us so far through all unemployments and major car repairs, I am sure He will show us how to manage. After all, these boys are ours in every way but genetics. And then ... You can see the pictures.

"I hate Mommy!"

2011-11-25T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Dreamer is usually a quite pleasant, but stubborn child. That what I have thought about him. There was always the nagging feeling that something isn't quite right, but I had no idea what to do with this feeling. Yes, he does ignore some rules, but not to the extreme (like: WonderfulHusband has asthma. Jumping on the couch is thus forbidden. At least once in a week I find The Dreamer jumping on the couch. He goes to stand in the corner, cries... but next week does it again. And again. And again.). And he still eats extremely slowly, unless he wants to do something afterwards.

Last night he ate again too long. So long that finally I sent him to brush teeth although his plate was still half-full. He muttered somethiong under his breath. Leader Of The Pack said that this was "When I grow up, I will beat Mommy up!" This is not a nice thing to hear from a five-year-old. While I was reading the bedtime story, Leader Of The Pack told me more ugly things that The Dreamer had said about me and Granny (who is the kindest Granny in the world) and about ugly things The Dreamer has done when no-one sees. No wonder he cannot make friends in preschool, because there he does these things, too, when the teachers cannot hear or see. Not even the worst boy of all wants to play with him. :(

I said that I don't even want to talk with the child who does such bad things. The Dreamer acted as he doesn't care.

He broke after Leader Of The Pack told all these things to Daddy, just before the evening prayer, and added that The Dreamer also swears when he thinks that we cannot hear. Only then The Dreamer started to cry and said that he wants to be a good boy. He cried a long time in my arms, but couldn't think about any way how to be good. The only thing he actually has to do is to obey - we don't expect him to do anything bad or too complicated. So I told him that the first thing he can do "to be good" is to stay in bed and to be quiet until he falls asleep - The Dreamer and His Babyness often want to leave beds and start to play after bedtime, this has been a real problem fo the last three weeks. His Babyness is the initiator and The Dreamer likes to imitate younger children ... He did it and slept soundly all night.

This morning, his eyes arer a bit swollen, but otherwise he has been a good boy. Soon we start our reading lesson, I think he will do fine.

Such moments as last night assure me that our boys have RAD, but in a way they are good - there is the chance that the child in question understands and this will be another step on the way to healing. They actually have much less RAD issues than they had when they came to us. I am so thankful for that. I think it is also good that The Dreamer can express his feelings about not having the control - I set my rules firmly and so tries the Granny, but in preschool he is considered to be too small to follow any rules (and most things they do there are fun anyway, so The Dreamer does not mind) - a year ago he just screamed.

No snow

2011-11-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

We have Nov 17th and 41 F' outside. This is so unusual. There have been maybe five mornings with temperatures below freezing point. The shops are selling Christmas stuff, we have less than two weeks until Advent - and the weather is like in the first half of October.

I am so thankful. The last two winters have been extremely hard, being very long, extremely snowy and colder than average. Maybe we will get a mild, snowless winter this year? The children would love snow, but I've had enough snow for a lifetime. Just a few days before Christmas, please, and no more than 4 inches. And it should melt within a month.

I can dream, but the weather people say that we are probably getting another ten years of cold, long, snowy winters. Sigh. I just enjoy the snowless November as long as we have it...

What else?

2011-11-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

Being a psychologist in an average Estonian school one hears all kinds of stories. Divorces, however ugly, are no news anymore. Neither is teenage pregnancy. Telling a mother that her child has special educational needs and must be tested "in town", as we refer to clinical psychologists - as much as I feel for them, this is also a very common occurrence. Fistfights, stolen mobile phones, bullying, ghosts, fears... All happens time to time. Also, we have had at least one psychotic teacher suspended from work because she is bad for the children and one possible school shooter. The latter turned out to be a dare in some Internet community, but still... I very nearly thought I've heard everything. Until today.

Today I had a teenage girl talking to me about a murder that occurred three days ago not far from where I live. Not just "Didi you hear what happened? It was in the news last night!" sort of conversation. It is just God's mercy that she wasn't there when "it" happened. She used to babysit for a woman who was participating in this murder, just not this weekend. Imagine. And as your typical troubled teenager would, she fees quilty about not being there, because she firmly believes that she would have kept it from happening. I feel deep gratitude that she was safely at home during all this.

I just wonder... what else there is left? What kind of crazy stories will I hear in months to come? And should I continue working at all when I can be so cynical about it?

"Mother"

2011-11-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

One day I asked God: "What have You made me for?" His answer came quickly: "You are meant to be a mother." In a way, this shows that He has a sense of humor - me, a barren woman, being made to be a mother. But actually...

I had my first "babysitting" experience when I was barely ten. One of my mother's cousins came over with his daughter who had just turned three. I loved playing with the little girl and we spent time together in my room... until she needed to use the toilet. She was trained, of course, but there was still a poop accident. I don't know... I think if a child has no younger siblings and has never cleaned poop before, she would run and bring help. I just cleaned her up as good as I could. I think this was the first time I acted as a mother.

When I was 12, I dreamed of having a big family. I knew that I have to study something and to go to work, but in my dreams I was just a mother.

I had my "first child" when I was au pair in Germany, at age 19. A little girl whom I potty trained, fed and brought to the park. I spent most of my days with her. Her parents, although loving, had a lot of work and often came home very late. I was a substitute mother for her and this was what her father said - "You are like a part of family for her."

At work I am not your typical psychologist. Some kids come to me when they have forgotten where they have to go. I check it up for them. Some just want to talk about what they have done during the weekend. Some want help with their homework and some girls ask me about women's health (and some boys, too, about men's health! Imagine!). If any of "my" kids is in trouble, I cannot sleep. When I am walking through the schoolhouse and everybody is in their classes, I put out the lights in the long corridors. This is also something that mothers do. Of course, I do IQ tests and try to find out if a child needs psychiatric help, but more often I feel that I am just mothering.

At home I am a mother and this is what I want to do. First we need to finish the adoption. Then we need to pay off all debt. Then... Soon, I tell myself. Soon. I hope this will happen soon enough so that my boys won't be too big to need a mother...

Reading recommendations

2011-11-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

I just added some more blogs to my "blogroll" on the left. If you haven't read them yet, go and take a look. Not all are adoptive families, but they all are inspiring. I think I'll do a quick review to explain why I like those blogs especially.

A Baker's Dozen is about a wonderful, unbelievable, fun and very interesting family who adopted two babies while Mommy was pregnant with bio children - and then they went and adopted three teenagers - and then they had one more bio child, bringing the total of their kids to 14. Imagine the noise... the mess... the work... the absolute blessing of having so many children.

A Mommy Story is written by a mother of two very special children. The older girl has Asperger's and the younger... I guess, she just has attitude. The author is really honest, very funny and while being American, she seems to me sometimes very Estonian (as in: "Estonian women feel like they have to be the pillars that hold the world together."). This lady certainly is the one who holds her family together - and she can write, too!

Another Ordinary Miracle is The Blog that made me think that we could really adopt. Love and miracles described there are much more than I imagined before. But you already read this, right?

Antique Mommy is another very funny, very honest and very special lady. Her story is just extraordinary. She stopped writing for a while, she is back now and I am so happy about it.

Bubbling Brook Farm is just a new name for a blog that has been in my blogroll for ages. The author is sort of a friend - as much as you can be friends with someone you only know over the Internet, we have exchanged e-mails sometimes. Um, I try not to be biased here, but this couple is really special. If you are looking for information about healthy food, this is where you can find links and articles.

It's Almost Naptime!! - I think the name speaks for itself. Incredibly funny, really honest and very inspiring. I really, really love her blog.

Life At Taylor Ridge is another bloggy friend. Knowing people like Sharon makes ordinary people better. At least this what has happened to me - and yes, I am a very ordinary person, with all the bad sides.

MoneySavingMom - I think you already know her.

Our Journey Of Faith is a new discovery. Again, very honest, very funny and inspiring. I love the way she writes and I am really, really thankful for writing about RAD. This is something that is never spoken about in this part of world.

The Journey. You know The Journey, right? If not - better go over and start reading. I think Katie is the new Mother Teresa or something like that.

Yes They're All Ours is another new discovery. Not adoptive family, but a really lovable one. This blog is so positive, it always makes a grey day brighter.

If any of you my favourite blog authors happen to hop over here - I am really thankful that I have the privilege of reading your thoughts. God bless you all!

Tonsils stay at least for now

2011-11-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I called my doctor's vacation replacement and the first thing she said after she heard that I have a surgery scheduled was: "I hear already that you have a serious cold. Phone the hospital and ask them to postpone the surgery." I never thought that my voice would show that I have a cold. I wonder what the doctors call the situation what I call a cold?

I have decided to drink 2 or 3 weeks long linden-flower tea every day because this is supposed to cure inflammation, even in chronical cases. The time how long I'll do it depends how my body reacts, supposedly it can remove potassium from the body and so it can be tiring for my heart. Also, I have decided to start showering cold every day or nearly every day. This should give my immune system a boost, too. I have tried showering with lukewarm water instead of my usual hot and it wasn't really unpleasant. It takes time until I work it up (or down?) to the water that comes fresh from the well, but I am doing this for the first time in my life. I hope this will help. Actually, this is the first time in my life when I seriously think about doing something for my health. Honestly. I never exercised, I had never reason to be on a diet, I never ate much junk food so making homemade food is nothing special or "extra-healthy" for me. We'll see if these two desicions make any difference. They cannot make things worse, right?

Tonsils out or not?

2011-11-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

As I did describe here maybe six months ago, this spring I was miserable. I had very serious joint pain and since our doctor paid no real attention to the fact that I had real tonsillitis (the first time over many years) I got myocarditis as a result. I was in pain, couldn't move my hands, constantly so tired that on some days breathing seemed like a lot of work... You get the picture. A rheumatologist said that nothing, absolutely nothing will get better in any way before I have my tonsils taken out. I don't like any medicinal procedures and I was never in my whole life in a hospital other than just visiting someone. I was scared and not really sure if this is a good idea but being so unhappy I agreed.

The surgery is scheduled to Nov 3, this is day after tomorrow.

Over the last six months my health has become better and better. I can run a little without collapsing afterward. I get all things in household done. I am nearly as strong as I was two or three years ago when it comes to work That Needs To Be Done - stacking firewood, digging in the garden, cleaning etc. I feel no pain in my joints, even my knees that used to hurt "discreetly in the background" have stopped hurting completely. I have no throat pain except when I catch a virus and in this case hot herbal tea and a good night's rest with a woollen scarf will take care of it - just the way I have lived all my life. The biggest change is that I have learned to rest. Until this spring I used to work until It Was Done - I am quite sure that this has hurt my body a lot, I just never paid attention. Another change is that WonderfulHusband helps me more with housework than he used to. I have not carried more than five armfuls of firewood since I got sick - before, I never had the patience to wait until WonderfulHusband gets up and goes to woodshed. I used to do all things running, but now I have learned to do things more slowly (although The Dreamer is still not up to my speed).

I am wondering if this surgery with all the risks and unpleasant healing time is really what I need? Will it make anything better? I always (like 10 times in a year) get sinusitis, not tonsillitis, but you cannot cut out sinuses - and a doctor (I don't know who it was, I have spoken to so many different people about that) agreed that this can also be the cause of me being so sick. The only thing I know against me not getting sinusitis would be moving to a warmer climate. By the way, His Babyness suffered from ear inflammation, so he had an adenoidectomy this spring. Guess who got sick (runny nose and coughing) as soon the weather turned colder? This is not very encouraging when I see my little boy getting sick in spite of the surgery that was made.

And I have sinusitis right now, too. I guess - my doctor is on vacation and I haven't had the chance to speak to her replacement yet. It definitely feels like sinusitis. Surgeries in nose and throat will not be made when the patient has a cold. I wonder when is a cold serious enough? I mean, with hayfever and living in a very cold and humid country I am so used to blowing my nose that I hardly ever notice that. And... I have prayed that if this surgery is wrong or just useless, God would not let it happen. I am just not sure anymore...

An Awkward Mommy Moment

2011-10-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

WonderfulHusband turned 33 last week, so we had a little party for him today. Just 3 families - meant altogether 8 grown-ups and 9 children, aged 6, 6, 5, 4, 2, 2, 2, 10 months and 3 months. They had fun.

Things turned awkward when Leader Of The Pack, The Dreamer and our pastor's oldest daughters (6 and 4) all went to our boys' bed and asked me to turn out the lights and to close the door. From outside.

Um. To play monsters. It was only awkward for Mommy, right? The 6-year-olds are far too innocent to think that a situation like this might feel... weird.

This is how said bed looks. The third "floor" is currently empty, Leader Of The Pack is using it as a private shelf for his Oldest Brother's Things. He sleeps in the middle and The Dreamer on "ground floor", His Babyness has his own baby-sized bed in another end of the room.

The kids actually just used it only for climbing, but um... I hope that they won't do anything similar before they are 15 years older, and in this case just two of them at a time... when they are wed. And that wouldn't be so bad. But today's event will be a great story to embarrass them when they are teenagers and behaving badly, don't you think?

Has anybody seen this lamp?

2011-10-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a young couple was shopping for the Perfect Bedside Lamp. It took us about... 3 years until we finally found the right size and shape (and price!) - in IKEA, of all places. We bought not one, but two, so that we could have a tablelamp on both sides of our bed.

Fast-forward several years, add three children. On a nice Sunday evening homemade pizza was baking in the oven, Daddy was watching TV, Mommy was doing can't-remember-what, the big boys were trying to get the hang of their First Very Own computer game (with Lightning McQueen! And Mater!), and a certain two-year-old who, by the way, has been behaving like a little devil for the last three days anyway (I hope it's his teeth, he still hasn't gotten all he should), was running back and forth between the kitchen and children's room. Should I say more? Suddenly there was a crash and said toddler looked innocently at thousand pieces on the floor: "It broke!" This lamp was actually in a quite safe place, as far as possible from all running tracks, and all kids know very well that playing in master bedroom is not allowed under any circumstances whatsoever.

I cried, because I had loved this lamp so much and it fitted so perfectly into our bedroom. His Babyness cried too, because... um, we gave him a good reason for it (no actual damage, and he obviously understood what it was for). The problem is, this lamp is not sold anywhere anymore. We can only imagine finding it on fleamarkets in Germany (you can get anything there. Literally.), but... Germany lies 24 hours away and we don't have nor time neither money for a maybe-we-find-our-lamp trip. The only other way we can think of is to take both lampshades that are the most perfect part of these lamps anyway and get somewhere two identical lower parts, maybe round ones this time, and WonderfulHusband would make two new lamps out of one whole and one broken lamp.

It is silly to be sad about a lamp, but... our bedroom is been the only finished and really decorated room in our house for a long time. Now even this is not perfect anymore. The little lamb on the photo at least is mine and still OK.

The entrance and porch

2011-10-22T08:51:00.001-07:00

The entrance to our house was in terrible shape when we bought the house nearly 10 years ago. Actually, all of the house was in a terrible shape. First we renovated, re-painted, re-built some rooms inside so that we could have somewhere to live in. This summer we decided to renovate the front stairs and the entrance. The floorboards and stairs felt kind of unstable, so WonderfulHusband thought that replacing them would be a good idea.

This is what it looked like when he started pulling the floorboards up.

And this is when all the demolishing was finished and only the stable, not-rotten parts were left.

It turned out that most of the basic construction was rotten or woodworm-eaten, so he removed that part, too - and all ugly parts that we thought we could replace. Looks like a skeleton, don't you think? We also had to fix the foundation wall, because it was crumbling. All work that we didn't expect! Restoring an old house is always full of surprises, but I am thankful that we can learn so much while we work.

For a month we got into the house and outside through the "kitchen door", but this only closes from the inside, so every time we came home, WonderfulHusband lifted Leader Of The Pack up, he opened the door, ran through the house and opened the kitchen door for little kids and ladies.

And this is what turned out. Our black kitty MiniMii is posing.

We replaced the floorboards, the stairs and most of the underlaying construction. Also the boards um... around the porch or whatever this is called. We had no money for new front door, but a fresh coat of paint does wonders, right? Next spring we want to put windows and doors to the porch so that it will really catch wind and cold, so that the entrance hall - that is very much under construction right now, we cannot even leave boots there - will stay a bit warmer in the winter. Also, we need to find a tall not-acrophobic friend to paint the ceiling of the entrance and hang up the lamp (you can see that part of the wall abopve the door is also unpainted, the weather is just too cold and humid for this work now). WonderfulHusband has slight acrophobia like me, so he cannot work while standing on the last step of the ladder, but otherwise he just cannot reach high enough. I love the lamps. They are probably not the most practical ones, but I find them cute... and they were on sale.

Under the porch there was a disgusting mud-and-trash hole. We did even the soil and put a big particle board - torn from the wall of the entrance hall - so not suitable for our idea of a finished room - down so that is serves as makeshift floor. The kids love this place now. They like to play there and we will store their "outside toys" there.

We have been blessed with a really warm Fall, but it will turn colder soon, so I am happy that most of the necessary outside work is done. What do you think of our entrance?

Blessings,

EstonianWife

Hard at home, easy at school

2011-10-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Leader of The Pack spent the first four years of his life in ignorance of everything. He had some practical skills, like how to secretly add wood to the woodstove, and what to eat if there is no proper food on the table (raw onions, for example), but otherwise he had very little knowledge of many things a child in a normal family knows. The 9 months in the orphanage added the general idea of washing, brushing teeth, wearing woollen clothes in the winter and shorts in the summer, that some movies are nice to watch (his "stepfathers" and birth home let him watch horror movies) and that there are toys and picture books in the world. Then he came to our home, being 5 years and 10 days old... at the mental level of a 3-year-old. His knowledge of the world exploded. Suddenly there was a normal family life (as normal as you get if a childless couple adopts three little kids) with the same Mommy and same Daddy being there all. the. time. Just him and his two brothers, no other kids like in the orphanage. He was allowed to go into the kitchen. He was taken to church. He was taken along shopping, to Mommy's workplace, to the doctor. He heard proper reading and learned that pictures do not mean the same as stories. And there was Mommy, making him sit at the table and learn. Draw some pictures. This letter is called "A". If we count things, we touch each of them while saying the number - just counting numbers and touching things randomly is wrong. The grey dog-like animal is a wolf, the red one is a fox. Learning, learning, learning.

I am not sure how Leader Of The Pack feels about me because I have made him learn so much. He has problems with focusing on the task and remembering things he has learned. When he already knows something, he holds on to this knowledge and blocks stubbornly all new stuff (like, if he can solve one math problem, he will use the same method with the next, even if he sees that this is not working). Often the homeschooling goes like this: he starts doing things "just to get them done" and makes really stupid mistakes - not that he wouldn't know what is right, he is just not focusing at all. After the third or fourth mistake of the same sort I lose my patience (saying nicely: "Please, look at this again and pay attention," does not work, I can tell it 20 times and he keeps doing the same mistake). He starts to cry. I tell him not to cry but to focus on the task. He blows his nose and does perfect work until the end of the lesson. Somehow he cannot understand that paying attention from the start is the best way to avoid problems and to complete all tasks fast and well. Once he even told me with a perplexed look: "Mommy, you know something funny? I did all the things just the way you told me to do and you didn't get angry at all!" After more than 18 months of learning he still has not understood that he is expected to do things the way he's been told. By the way, he loves his workbooks and asks often if he can also work with the tasks in the evening. He just has... attention problems. Or attitude problems, I have no idea. It can be his past, it can also be FAS.

The good thing is that although he is learning slowly and still has huge gaps in his knowledge about the world, he is among the best in his preschool and in his before-school course. We are just "learning ahead". For example, in Estonian preschools children are not expected to be able to read before their 7th birthday. I think this is far too late, so I made Leader Of The Pack read nearly every day last fall - until in February, close after his 6th birthday he was able to read longer words and proper sentences. Now we are working with a textbook that is meant for 1st class that he will officially start next September. This textbook is not used in any school right now, so it will not be too boring for him when he starts "real school", but he will be able to recognize some topics. I hope we can continue this way until the gaps in his knowledge are filled and he can learn independently at the same pace as his peers. If he needs it, I will make him to "learn ahead" until he finishes school. This is a practice we also resommend to the parents of children with diagnosed learning disabilities: have someone tutoring your child so that he/she can learn at home things he/she will learn next week at school. Stay one step ahead from the official program, then will focusing and learning in class be much easier.

I just wish there would be no more tears because of his attention problem... And my patience problem. Maybe, just maybe, if I would be able to ask him to focus 21 times, maybe he would start paying attention...

Football, popcorn and snowsuits

2011-10-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

Today in church I felt like a Very Bad mother. Leader Of The Pack has a friend there, who is also six years old. Unfortunately, this boy seems to be very interested in football (soccer?) and our family is not. Actually, neither me nor WonderfulHusband nor any grandparents care about any kind of sports. So Leader Of The Pack knows nearly nothing about football or any other sport. This little boy kept asking who is Leader Of The Pack's favourite player and which team he likes and our son had no idea what the other boy was talking about. We have heard about many things that our sons cannot speak to other kids about like: cartoons that our boys don't watch, computer games that they are not allowed to play, toys like "Bakugans" that we never buy them, but I never thought that any of the boys would feel left out because he does not know anything about sports. Sport is just something that doesn't exist in our life. I think we must change it... What sacrifices we make just that the kids could have it better...!

Another sacrifice from my part is that they are right now watching "Home Alone" that is not exactly the best movie - but not the worst either - and eating the yucky stuff called popcorn. I hate the smell of it and I know that it is not good to them but WonderfulHusband promised that they can have it... To my generation always was told that nice people don't eat anything in the cinema. Snacks and drinks were not allowed because it would disturb those who want to enjoy the movie. I know that most movies are really bad these days and eating popcorn in cinema is allowed now, but I still cannot bear the smell of it. This is one of the reasons we hardly ever go to cinema, we prefer to watch movies at home.

We had the first snow two days ago. Thank God, it melted and the weather is quite warm again. I hope that the winter will come later this year and be shorter. We have had two very hard winters, a mild one would be a welcome change. I was in town on Thurday, going through second-hand shops to find snowsuits for Leader Of The Pack and His Babyness (The Dreamer can use Leader Of The Pack' last year's snowsuit) - it is so hard to find anything nice and in good condition for a bigger boy! In "real" shops there is the same problem - plenty stuff for babies, nothing for 6-year-olds. I haven't been to all shops, though. Maybe I can find something next week...

The most terrible conversation

2011-10-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today I had one of the most terrible conversations in all my life. A young girl came to my office. Very young. Highly intelligent. Quite pretty with her sort-of punkstyle. And desperate.

An hour later, I sent her away so that she could go and buy herself a pregnancy test that, thank God, turned out to be negative. I still have to send her to see a doctor because nothing is sure yet. And I want to have a very serious conversation with her boyfriend - this sort of conversation that in normal life is the job of a father.

What sort of world is this when an underage girl cannot talk about such lifechanging problems with her mother or grandmother? What sort of world is this when kids who are still in the proper age group to play with Legos and reading "Bill Bergson" are so desperate for love that they play with each other's bodies?

In Estonia - amongst Estonians, things are somewhat different in the Russian community - having children at 24 is considered young. The childhood is maybe too long now, although it is legal to get married (with permission from parents) at 16, no-one is using it unless there's a baby on the way. I know what everyone would say if this very young girl would be pregnant - get rid of it! You are ruining your life! Am I the only one who would tell her: "Don't worry, if you want, I will raise the baby for you both until you have finished school."? Unfortunately, I have no legal right to make such offer - although I told her that if she would be my daughter, this is what I would say.

Leader of The Pack is almost exactly 7 years younger than this could-be-father. Must I worry in seven years' time that my son has gotten some girl pregnant? Should I give him c**doms and expect that he knows how to use them when he needs them? He is so young, so innocent now, he is even confused that girls' bodies are supposed to be different than boys'! (he is unbelievably innocent for a child with orphanage background)

My heart aches today for this girl... and for this boy. He is very nearly the coolest boy in whole school, so smart, so grown-up for his age, so responsible... But he is just a child who has done something really, really stupid. Too bad that this particular deed means that he must take the same sort of responsibility that usually belongs to grown men. I am sorry, so terribly sorry about it.

What we are up to

2011-09-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

WonderfulHusband has lost about 12 pounds during the last 12 months. I think this is quite healthy. He only has 30 pounds to go. :)

***
His Babyness seems to think that nothing is worth eating. He only wants to have candy, ice cream or bananas - but one cannot live very long on those! Breakfast, lunch, dinner and before-bed snack are almost always battles. He just sits there and licks his spoon (or fork) and takes a bite every ten minutes. I will so. not. feed him - and feeding would be no help because he won't swallow. I asked a doctor if he could have throat problems but the doctor said that since he can eat solids the problem cannot be physical. His Babyness is much thinner than other two-year-olds around, so I am quite worried. I always put a big slab of butter on his bread (eating bread takes time, too, but he does eat it mostly), maybe this helps to get the calories he needs.

***
Leader Of The Pack is going to start a before-school course next week. All teachers at school say that he won't need it, since he can read and knows his numbers - but I think he needs to get an idea what school is like. Until last week he thought that he can get all writing supplies and other stuff from school and he was really surprised and confused when I told him that we must buy everything (except books, those are given for the schoolyear from the school library). In his preschool all art and writing supplies are included in the monthly bill, so he has no idea that we actually pat for them, too!

***
We are reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" right now. Roald Dahl's books are somewhat scary, but our boys love them. I wonder if the movie would be OK to watch? I have seen both versions some time ago, but cannot remember how scary they exactly were.

***
Our non-shopping month did'nt work out. We broke the rules first paying tickets for "Mary Poppins", then I bought the cutest tiny dress ever for a friend's baby daughter (it was on sale and it had embroidered flowers on it! I needed to buy it!) and today we bought a "steam mop", which is by far the best household item ever. Our kitchen floor is the last among my cleaning priorities, and it somehow never worked with a regular mop, so I swept it and swept it... but never got to really cleaning it. It was extremely dirty... until today. It took me just about 30 minutes to get it all cleaned! I just hope that the cleaning pad or whatever this thingy is called got clean in the washing machine...

***
The Dreamer has finally started speech therapy. He has started using "s", but now he tends to over-correct and uses it instead of "t" in many words. Until recently he used "t" everywhere nstead of "s", so I think he might someday get it right.

Losers

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Me and WonderfulHusband both are losers - we are losing weight. On workdays we have no time or (sometimes) money to have lunch, so we go without. Also, the food sold at school is not the best sort. It is no fast-food, but usually it is like "some sort of pasta and meat from an unknown domestic animal in a sauce-like fluid". Usually it has a name but whatever the name is, the taste is nearly always the same. Bringing own lunch is not very popular here and I usually forget to even think about it. We eat breakfast around 7.30 and supper around 6 pm, so this is not the healthiest choice... But the effects are beneficial for WonderfulHusband. He is always been on the stout side, actually when we first met I thought about him as "this fat guy in jeans suit" - sorry, dear. He lost some weight before we got married, but then... um... I like to bake and he likes to eat. Last summer he was well over 100 kg (more than 200 pounds). Now he looks a lot thinner and I am sure he has lost a lot of weight. His perfect weight would be about 85 kg, but I don't think he will lose that much. In my case it's a negative thing. I have been thin for all my life and I am so not interested in getting thinner. I must just eat more healthy fats, I guess. And find time to eat lunch at work.

***
A random situation from life with a two-year-old: the boys are brushing their teeth, His Babyness shouts suddenly: "Ouch!" and I hear sobs. I rush into the bathroom to check what happened. His Babyness shows me his ear and says: "I got hurt here." Since he looks calm, I comment: "But you look quite happy." "Yes, I do," says His Babyness and continues brushing teeth.

A confession (another reason to hate me)

2011-09-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers, I must confess: today I realized something. I have been in deep grief for the last 19 months. I was grieving our nice life as a childless couple. Although having children has always been my dream, living with just your hubby and cats had some benefits. It was easier, no naptimes, no Legos, no need to get dressed in Saturday morning... And then... we took a leap of faith and had these three complete strangers moving in. I think I have gone through all Kübler-Ross grief stages during this time. We have pretended that all is well, Mommy has been really mean and angry for days - and suppressing it with lots of chocolate -, I have bargained. Bargaining actually turned out as something good. I believed that things will get easier if I try to be a good housewife and a homeschooling mother who reads to the children every day. Things didn't get much better but the kids heard some quality literature read aloud and learned something, too - and being a good (or better than I was) housewife has become a habit.

Then the depression hit, together with my illness. Actually, I cannot remember much that happened during April and May, because I was always in pain and completely exhausted.

And then... On Saturday I was in the woods looking for mushrooms. My mother took the two older boys along, because I tend to walk very long distances very quickly and even Leader Of The Pack cannot keep up with me. Suddenly it hit me "like a ton of bricks" (although I believe that getting hit with building stuff ends up a lot messier and unhealthier) - I felt Love. Real warm love toward the boys. Just like that. Most mothers feel that with bio children when the baby is just born, for some it takes a few weeks. I am not sure what is the "normal" time for adoptive mothers, but for me... it took 19 months. Before there was caring, responsibility and wish to give them a good life. Now I feel real love.

I have noticed changes in my own behaviour this week. I have more patience and try harder to be a good Mommy. before I tried, too, but I falied again and again and again, losing patience, not listening etc. A friend, also adoptive mother (the only one I know here!) once told me that it feels like you are taking care of a neighbour's child who has been left with you too long. You take care of the child and try to meet his needs, but that's it. OK, I did cry in the waiting room in April while His Babyness had his adenoids removed, because he was so terrified and I felt so powerless that I couldn't protect him from the fear and pain... but he is only two. It is so much easier to love a baby who actually looks like you (don't ask how this is possible) than an older child with several RAD issues. Or two older children with RAD and FAS issues.

Love is a decision... but it takes time to get from head to heart. At least it is so with me. I mourned my privacy just the same way when WonderfulHusband moved in. I had been living alone with my kitty for couple of years then, and suddenly there was a man. My best friend, yes, but he was there all. the. time. Sometimes I thought I'd go crazy - and when I had been alone for two hours, I started to miss him. The whole process lasted about 17 months until I felt happy and secure living with him. I just wonder... If we ever have more children, will it be as hard or would it be easier? After all, I am now used to tiny cars on the floor, planning days around naptimes and answering a zillion of questions any given moment. The transition from zero children to three children seems worse than from three to, say, six, right?

I am not regretting that we chose to bring the boys home. I just regret that feeling real Love took so long. This is something the social workers never tell - "happily ever after" does not start on the moment when the child walks into your house. It can take time.

Stormy weather

2011-09-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

The weather has turned definitely toward Fall here. While we have been spared from the end-of-August frost this year, it is raining often and the leaves on trees turn slowly yellow. This morning I got soaking wet during the two minutes walk between the preschool and work. (I have misplaced all umbrellas in the house - no worry, they will turn out again) Also, we are getting the last rages of hurricane Katia. It is very windy, but our home was spared today. We even have electricity - this is not a sure thing during storms! It is time for hot soups and making fire. We are not heating all the ovens and stoves in the house, we just made fire in the fireplace in the family room today.

And this is how it looked after burning some time. The red thing is the fireplace that WonderfulHusband changed form a Very Unsafe Ugly Thing to a Much Safer Thing. The colour was hubby's choice but since we already have used this color in sevral places of our home, it seems to fit. The walls colour was a very frugal decision - we just walked into the store and chose between the paints that were on sale. I think it is a nice tone. The door besides the chair is - after being in the right place for a year - still packed in plastic because it is pure wood, no paint, no any other protection, and the room on the other side is um... under constuction. Meaning the old stuff is teared down but because of the porch project we haven't gotten to even removing all the debris or starting to put new plaster on the walls there.

Anyway, even having many things unfinished I like our house. Especially the possibility of making nice hot fires when it is dark, wet and cold outside. Were we dependent on city heating systems like WonderfulHusband's parents are in their apartement home we would be freezing right now.

The Bedtime Story

2011-09-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

I am a lazy person. As Mommy to three children, I am also a busy person. So with all the cooking and ironing and gardening and going to work there's not much time for reading books aloud. But... reading aloud is important. I am not going to tell you any scientific reasons, because it is 9.30 pm and I am sort of tired, but some of the "common sense" reasons are: it creates a love and interest toward books; it gives a good opportunity to discuss various themes with children; it is educational; it helps building attachment; it is just fun.

I am surprised, schocked and angry every time when I hear at work that parents don't read to their children. Too busy, they say. I mean... Usually at least one parent gets home early enough to spend time with the child(ren). Instead they spend time with T.V. And then they ask why their children refuse to read books. How should they want it if they have no idea that books could be fun.

I have been reading to our boys from the very first day. On the day we brought them home from the orphanage, after supper and finding their pajamas in carbage sacks where their stuff was packed in, they brushed their teeth and were told to sit quietly on beds while Mommy reads. Leader Of The Pack knew about telling fairy tales, so he knew what to expect. The Dreamer (3 y 5 m then)had no idea what reading was. It took me some time until he stopped interrupting me with exclamations like: "This is a kitty!" when he recognized something on the pictures. Also, the boys had no idea that you can only read letters and not pictures...

Since then I have skipped the Bedtime Story only when it is too late to read (like on Midsummer when we got home near midnight), when I have been too ill (sore throat, no voice) or when I am not at home (like praying with other Mommies). We have a routine: I am sitting on The Dreamer's bed and holding His Babyness on my lap. The Dreamer usually wants to snuggle close to me and sometimes Leader Of The Pack wants it, too. So all boys can look at the pictures, if they want to. Walking around and/or playing with something is not allowed because before we forbid it they jumped on beds and never really listened. Questions about the story are encouraged, but long off-topic musings are not. This way we have read many nice books that the older boys now remember and can refer to. We haven't gotten to all childhood classics yet, but we have read "Winnie-the-Pooh", "Charlotte's Web", "The Moomins", "Jip and Janneke", "The Children of Noisy Village" any many others. We recently finished with "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle" and currently we read an Estonian children's classic about two dolls traveling to the land of insects. Always when I find a word that I think the kids don't know, I stop and explain. So their vocabulary grows. Also, in fairy tales I keep saying that spiders in real world cannot talk nor write, and that unfortunately no parrot has ever teached its owner to understand dog's language. They seem to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, at least when it is in books or movies. They must to - because although we forbid Harry Potter and Discworld books until the boys are at least 12, we seem to have a disproportionally large number of fantasy books in our house. In a way it could be a side-effect from my job - when hearing about divorces and all kinds of other problems all day one just doesn't want to read anything serious in the evening.

I only fear that by the time they are old enough for J. F. Cooper and Sit Walter Scott, they are avid readers themselves and I cannot read those and other nice historical books to them... Hopefully we have another bunch of little ones by then, so that I can start with the Moomins again.

A sidenote: if any of you are offended that we read Harry Potter, please, accept us the way we are. We have asked several church leaders about it and they all have agreed that this book is just another book. Also, in Estonia never was such craziness about the characters, dress-up parties and commerce that we have heard from other countries. I think that even the Harry Potter Legos are usually on sale and very cheap because no-one cares about all the stuff (we don't buy them, though - I said that the books and movies are not suitable for children under 12!). "Pirates of the Carribean" is the actual problem here. All little boys are crazy about pirates. We try to minimize this in our house.

His Babyness

2011-09-09T10:23:00.001-07:00

His Babyness finished finally his supper, used successfully the potty and ran to the family room where the bigger boys who finished eating much earlier are watching "Ratatouille". Soon he came back looking worried.
"Mommy-mommy! We are having a biiiiig trouble."
"?"
"I didn't get to watch the cartoon!"

***
He is fully potty trained now. To the extent that sometimes we wake in the middle of the night, hearing a tiny person running to the bathroom while whining quietly. We have nightlights so he finds his way in the dark. Then he returns to his bed and sleeps until morning. Going potty in the middle of the night (like 2 a.m.) without any help at 30 months!

***
He is speaking about everything he sees and starts to say what he likes and what he has done during the day. Of course the words sometimes turn out funny. Today he told me that there's a dead Estonian on the couch. He actually meant a dead wasp (some piece of a plant that he thought is wasp), these words sound a little similar in Estonian.

***
He refuses going to sleep at bedtime. He goes into his bed and obediently lies down. But then... he starts to sing. And to play with his zoo of teddies and other stuffed animals (last count was 13). A couple of days ago he had decided to enrich his nightly entertainment program and danced in his bed. I just hope he won't fall through it since in this bed have very probably been sleeping several children before him - it was a quite tired-looking second-hand item.

***
His cardiologist told me that the hole in his heart is not life-threatening but not getting better the way it should be. It seems that some children who are born with a hole in the heart get better by themselves -like The Dreamer - and some just won't, but there is no need for surgical measures. His Babyness may face some heart problems as adult. I just hope that he will still have a long, happy life.

***
And he is cute. Oh so cute. Um, unless he is screaming his head off because he won't get his way. But so are all two-year-olds. Just... ours is the cutest ever.

The Grand Plan

2011-09-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

First the best news that I have been keeping from You, Dear Readers. WonderfulHusband got a full-time teaching job! He teaches math and computer in a school in the middle of town. He is just a replacement for a lady who is at home with her baby right now, but the job is his until at least March, but maybe - we hope so - until the end of school year. We pray financial wisdom and a good income for this young mother so that she can stay at home with her baby after the "mother salary" ends (another benefit of Estonian social care system - young mothers who have worked before the child is born keep getting their before-baby year's monthly salary until the baby turns 18 months so that they can stay at home). She has the right to come back any day if she wants to - or to stay at home until the child turns three and then she can have her old job back. Anyway, we are happy with the situation right now.

But two parents working full-time, a household to keep and some building/renovating to do means that we need a Grand Plan, also called PLN (if you have ever read Terry Pratchett's books bout Nac Mac Feegles, you know what I mean - Mr Prachett is definitely not a Christian author, but his books are great entertainment).

This is how our life will hopefully look during the next weeks.

On most workdays we will leave home around 8.00. His Babyness goes to Granny's, sometimes accompanied by The Dreamer. On most days The Dreamer and Leader Of The Pack go to preschool (the Estonian sort that means preschool plus kindergarten plus first grade in USA) . There they will have breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, take a nap and play hopefully educational games with other kids until 16.00. We will pick the boys up between 15.55 and 16.05 (depends who will pick them up because my workday lasts until 16.00 and the preschool is actually just across the street from "my" school). Then we will pick up His Babyness and head home. We will arrive at home 17.15 latest. I will start cooking supper immediately. WonderfulHusband will in the same time take care of heating the house, since we still don't have any central or automatic heating system and we probably won't get it for several years. The table is set and we'll eat at 18.15 or even earlier. At 18.45 are we all finished. His Babyness must learn to eat in a normal pace like everybody else. Then we have time for homeschooling, watching movies, taking baths, playing, renovating etc. The kids get their sweet snack at 20.20 latest and will be in bed, all tucked in, kissed goodnight and lights out at 21.00.

We tried this Plan on Thursday and it worked perfectly.

On days when we (or I) are not working, I try to catch up with Mount Ironmore and to do some proper homeschooling in the same time. I put up the ironing table besides the kitchen table where we do all the schoolwork and this way it has functioned well before, so I hope that it will continue so. Also, on free days I will try to do some cleaning and gardening, WonderfulHusband will continue working in our hallway (this is a real nightmare at the moment, but this seems to be the natural state of every room that gets remade completely). Sundays are usually for church.

The worst part on the Grand Plan is that the preschool is actually open until 18.00 and Leader Of The Pack, who still has no concept of time, thinks that leaving before other kids (who mostly live next to the preschool in terrible huge appartement houses with central heating and no garden, in appartements the size of a matchbox) is The Unfairness of All Times. He is extremely social and loves to be around other children.

I actually wish that I could stay at home with the children, to take them places myself and to be with them 24/7 (with an occasional date night), but after WonderfulHusband being unemployed for 8 months we need my salary. All bills have been paid during this time, but it would be nice to have some savings again... or to pay off some student loans earlier... or to eat out in the nicest cafe in town. Or to go to a proper vacation with the boys. Therefore I have declared September a non-shopping month in our family. We try not to buy anything that is not absolutely necessary to survive (like milk and cat-food). It will be fun to see how long we can do this.

Fabulous, Fantastic Five

2011-09-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

The Dreamer turned 5 today. If you wouldn't believe in God and His endless grace, how would you explain that a child who had so serious developmental delays is now a healthy and happy child? How would you explain how an autistic 3-year-old needs only 18 months to become a social, nice and polite 5-year-old? How would you explain how a child who can barely speak at age 3,5 starts using very complicated vocabulary and knows all the letters at age 4,5?

The Dreamer is the living testimony of the power of prayers. I am not sure who prays for him, but I am thankful for everyone. He started going to daycare/preschool (in Estonia we call preschool the institution where children can play and learn until they turn 7 - then they will go to "real school") two days ago and he loves it. He knows all the letters, sings songs, entertains His Babyness if necessary, is a great helper when Daddy is doing some building in the house and - most important - he has a friend. My best friend's youngest son is 5 months younger but they get along fine. I think this is a wonderful achievement for a child who used to be autistic. I still think that he could have Asperger's but 9/10 of the time he acts like a perfectly normal, very good child.

He had great fun today, discovering his gifts, playing with his new tower crane, playing with his guests (his friend and his 7-year-old sister) and eating his cake. Only Leader Of The Pack and His Babyness were so jealous... Leader Of The Pack has hard time accepting that his clumsy and helpless younger brother is becoming a big boy. He even cried a little bit. Also, His Babyness threw the worst temper tantrum in weeks. Sorry, children, everybody has birthday once in a year... Other than that we had a good day.

The boys were playing with the balloons and in constant movement, I couldn't get a clear picture. Balloons are something that belong to a birthday, don't you think so?

He asked... and she said nothing

2011-08-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Leader Of The Pack is in love. It is exactly so dead serious as it can be if you are 6 years old and have the most "crushable crush".

We got to spend three days away from home. On the first day we went to see a friend who usually lives with her family in Pennsylvania but right now is visiting her parents in Estonia. She has really adorable daughters and after some shyness the kids ran happily around in the garden, swam in the pool (if this is not posh, I don't know what is. No-one in Estonia usually has a pool in the garden. A pond, yes, but never a swimming pool.) and laughed together. Finally we left to see another family. These friends live close to our capital Tallinn and they have a seven-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy. There is always 11 or 10 months between their and our kids, so when I once went to a children's museum with all five, we joked that they could all be mine!

We took a trip to the zoo - just our family -, found out that it was still too big for The Dreamer who expressed tiredness already after the first exposition (but the tiger and the lion woke his interest again), and then watched our friends' children while the parents were at a meeting. Actually, WonderfulHusband crossed the street with all five to the seashore - the church where our friend works and lives is located directly at Tallinn Bay. They climbed the rocks and threw stones while I cooked dinner for all. I think that five children is even more fun than three. :) Unfortunately, we cannot keep those two - not yet.

Because when I was reading "Doctor Dolittle" (the original from H. Lofting) as bedtime story for all five, Leader Of The Pack said that he would like our friend's 7-year-old daughter to marry him when thay are grown. The lady in question who sat just beside him smiled shyly and obviously had no idea what to say - it was her first proposal. I used my standard answer for things like that: "This is a good idea, dear, but you don't need to decide it yet. After all, she must want it too and nobody knows what you both will think in ten years' time." Then the young lady found her tongue again and said that she agrees with me... but she wants to be good friends. Our friend is very protective about Daddy's little girl and he is actually not very happy about a skinny 6-year-old wanting to whisk away his daughter to live happily ever after in a treehouse - but we all saw that Leader Of The Pack is serious about his feelings. On they way home he kept musing about "can we still visit her when God sends Uncle R. somewhere else to do His work?"

As a mother I am proud of my son's choice - the girl is as much a Christian as a 7-year-old girl (all princesses and ballet dancing) can be, she is a good friend, she will probably be a good mother someday (every time we go there, I can forget that His Babyness exists - she is the most reliable babysitter one can imagine), she is from a "good family" and as bonus she is very pretty. I wouldn't mind having her as daughter-in-law one day but we'll see what will happen during next 10-15 years.

Are they all yours?

2011-08-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

Last week I experienced this question the first time. The postman (um, actually a "postlady" - but I don't know the right word in English!) was there and I went out to take the newspaper so that she won't need to get out of the car. Ours boys were playing outside and they gathered around me. The "postlady" looked at us and said in a surprised tone: "So many children... Are they all yours?" My answer was: "Yes, they are mine, but they are not that many, only three."

I really think that we have only three. It is not many. Having never been mother of one or two, three children seems to me perfectly normal. Obviously it is "many" for some people. I wonder what will they say in case we have more...?

In a way I can actually understand why she asked me so. It is summertime and quite often people visit friends and relatives who live in the countryside. Sometimes they leave their children there for a few days, so maybe she thought that I am taking care of one or two nephews.

If you don't have enough money to buy food...

2011-08-13T02:10:00.001-07:00

... shop from your pantry. I read this sentence somewhere some time ago, maybe it was at the Prudent Homemaker's blog? But I love that the financially poorest month of the year is always the time when we have a full cellar, a full freezer and a garden that gives us every day fruits and vegetables for at least one meal.

You see, in Estonia all teachers and other staff at schools, including school psychologists, get extra-long summer vacations. Two months - that's a bliss, actually. Almost makes up for the tiny salary and very fixed work schedule. But that also means that no money is coming in during August. None at all, unless you are a parent - and the "childcare money" is tiny - or a foster parent. But the money from the foster program just barely paid our this months' bills. Thank God for savings account. :) I did put some money aside just for times like now. Not much, but probably enough to last until next payday.

Also, our priorities are... maybe not so easy to understand for some. Right now the money is tight. But we are planning a trip to Tallinn next week to visit friends and to go to the zoo. This we have promised to the kids long before Daddy lost his job, so this Must Be Done. Also, we are spending some money on a new Home Improvement project - the front porch and outside stairs will be completely redone. This is actually a necessity, because it has been wacky (and as it turned out, rotten) for some years already and WonderfulHusband says it would not have lasted one more winter. I will post before and after photos when it's done. We use as much as possible the wood and stuff that we already have but floorboards, paint etc we had to buy new.

But. We have all nice things, books, clothes and kitchen machines that we have bought when we were wealthier. Our cellar is full. The freezer is full - mostly homegrown berries and freezer jam. In June we got some flour and spaghetti from an EU project - churches and other welfare organizations are supposed to distribute food (flour, spaghetti, oats - dry stuff) among people in need, but obviously too much was given to our church so most people with "many" children got some, too. We bought a lot of sugar in Germany when bringing our car, because it costs there less than half the price that we should pay here. Also, during our trip to the beach we visited a very cheap supermarket that in all the other cities is meant only for other stores, restaurants and companies - but in Pärnu they sell to "ordinary" people, too. That means that we have enough rye flakes for porridge (I am allergic to oats) to last until Christmas. Also, the tomatoes, leek and carrots are just starting to ripen. The future menu means lots of rye porridge with homemade jam, home-baked bread, apple pies and homegrown salads - but isn't that healthy? We only need to buy dairy products - mostly milk -, eggs, meat (very cheap here, in European terms) and potatoes.

Another great source of food is the woods. The blueberries and mushrooms. :) I cannot get so much food foraging as this lady, but her lifestyle sure is inspiring! I am not ready for a slow year, but we have long practised buying less stuff and I firmly believe that we will continue that no matter how good the times turn (another thing I firmly believe in - times will turn better for us). Things we mostly buy are books - you cannot have too many good books -, toys of the sort that the boys don't have yet and that have at least some educational value, (used) clothes for children and shoes for everyone if needed. I love if I can pass the clothes on from older brother to the younger, but The Dreamer and Leader Of The Pack went through 8 pairs of jeans this winter, so I turned them all into shorts and we certainly need to buy several pairs of long pants - shorts are for summer and this is nearly over! Buying shoes means that um... my only pair of open-toed summer shoes is falling apart and I cannot find anything to replace them! For about 10 years it was near-impossible to find a pair of nice, ordinary, not too "fashionable" shoes for the spring-fall season. Now there are enough of them in shops but no summer shoes that look nice and have a normal heel - only the back-killers with extremely high heels or no heels at all. I wonder do the shop-people ever ask what the customers want? But this is certainly good for our budget, no temptation to buy too much!

Anyway, I feel extremely blessed right now. During the last months we have learned to be even more frugal than we were and we have experienced that less money on the bank account don't always mean giving up everything. If these lessons are the reason why the Lord has given us more time together as family, WonderfulHusband being at home all time and all, we are thankful.

The Beach

2011-08-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

From left: WonderfulHusband posing as white whale (he has extremely fair skin, never gets a tan), His Babyness, The Dreamer and Leader Of The Pack.

The weather was wonderful. The beach in Pärnu, where my in-laws live, seems endless, although it is only about... maybe 25 kilometres long. With some havens and places where one just cannot get close to the sea because of bulrushes, but measured from one end to the other... it could be that long, yes. We checked out three different places where to stay. One of them was nice but the walk to it was too long, on the other we were able to park the car very close but walk down to the beach was too steep, but the third was just perfect. Of course, we found it on our last day.

We built many sand castles and found out that His Babyness has no fear of the water at all. He "swims" in his swim ring, lets the water carry him and even tries to steer with his little feet. He is only two and has never had eny swimming lessons! We also developed a system how to get all the boys out of the water and into dry clothes quickly and effectively. I am not so sure that The Dreamer remembers next time that he is NOT supposed to dry off the soles of his feet, while standing in the sand...

As you can see on the picture, the boys refused to take off their swim rings and thingies on the arms while we were on the beach, no matter if they were in the water or playing on the shore. For some reason they think that swim rings are part of swimsuits. :)

We were able to stay at the summer house of a friend on my MIL. In former Soviet countries many people had summer houses in special summer house villages. Mostly they were built so that it was impossible to heat them, so that nobody could live there in the winter - but it was allowed to build in a sauna. Many such summer homes were built under the name "sauna-summerhouse". The house where we stayed was very small but actually quite cosy. It had a tiny bedroom and a bigger living room, a very basic kitchen and a sort-of bathroom. The toilet was terrible, but since nobody lives in this house and the owner only visits it to do some gardening, I can understand that a chemical toilet is enough for her. I would rather run to an outhouse in any weather than have this kind of "honey bucket" in the house! But I am a bit sensible in this topic anyway because when my great-grandmother (who lived with us when I was 7-13) was bedridden for years she couldn't manage the walk into the toilet and she also had a chamberpot in her room...

Otherwise everything was fine and I am thankful that we were able to go there for a few days.

Guess what?

2011-08-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

His Babyness is finally potty trained!!!!!!! The last accident he had happened when we were away from home and he had missed his nap - but he can now say when he needs to use the potty and he can wait if the bathroom is occupied. In the morning he asks his older brothers to open the doors for him, because we don't want the cats to sneak into kids' beds and so we keep their bedroom door closed in the night, but during the day we keep all doors open and he can go and manage everything by himself!

And The Dreamer can very nearly read! He has understood the concept of written language and knows all letters AND he can read shorter words (like "auto" - "car" in Estonian). He is not even 5 yet! I still think that he could have Asperger's but if his academic skills continue developing, he will find his way around his autistic traits. Praise God!

Good things - and one bad, too

2011-07-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

The good news is that our little blue car is sold. Actually, my father liked it so much that he decided to keep it and all we have to do now is to make arrangements at the bank so that the monthly leasing rate will go from his account instead of mine. And, of course, we have to sell his old car that runs perfectly but after an accident looks like a car... that is been in an accident, I think.

Also, we will go to the beach next week! My in-laws are "booked out" with WonderfulHusband's grandmother living now in their guest room, but we can use the summer house of a friend of my MIL's. Hopefully the weather will be nice and hot, so we can spend hours on the beach, digging in the sand and playing with the kids.

We have a blessing of berries this year. Two days ago I went to the woods, spent there 2 hours, came back with 6 lbs of wild blueberries and I got it all from an area that is about the size of our living room! That means many, many berries in the woods, all delicious, 100% natural food and all free! I will bring the kids next time, maybe I can even make WonderfulHusband to come. He does not love he woods as I do, but maybe this time...

Leader Of The Pack finally learned how to ride a bicycle without training wheels. Actually, he learned it 2 months ago. ooops. But this week he was "upgraded" to a bigger bike! This was actually mine, when I was 6 years old. We tend to keep things that may be useful some day - and now Leader Of The Pack rides it happily. The Dreamer has "inherited" the smaller bicycle, but he is yet unsure how it works and quite unhappy when he falls, too.

Did I tell you that The Dreamer, who 18 months ago was at the developmental level of a two-year-old (being then 3 and half), lost his first two baby teeth? He is not even five! It is said that a child who is losing milk teeth is ready to go to school. I really wonder what kind of surprises will come from him when he gets older...

And the bad thing - history repeats itself. Just 10 days less than a year ago The Dreamer hit His Babyness with a stick directly into eye. The eye was swollen for several days. Today His Babyness danced and jumped... and hit with the corner of his right eye the hardest part of the couch. The only hard part of it, actually. 10 minutes later he was quite happy, but tomorrow we will go to the church with a child who could pose for illustrations in a booklet about abuse. Someone told me that raising little boys means keeping them alive until they are not little anymore. I think this someone was right. I am just thankful that he didn't need to see a doctor.

Wishing you all a blessed Sunday!

One huge thing

2011-07-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted about our summer plans. One of them was a trip to Germany. It is over now and we were successful!

Used cars are so much cheaper in Germany than here and in so much better shape, that buying one from there is mostly a good idea. The Estonian winter kills an older car quite often during three years. We wanted a car that is: bigger than Opel Corsa (a mini-car); has automatic transmission; is not too old; is cheap; lasts long and uses not too much gas.

We had plane tickets to Germany for Tuesday, July 5th. On Monday morning I woke up early and prayed about our trip a long time. Then God whispered to me: go and check out the website that you never use (there are two main websites in Germany where one can find ads about selling cars; WonderfulHusband likes one, I like the other). I turned on the computer and the first thing I saw was an Opel Omega, not too old, in our price range and with automatic transmission AND quite close to the town where we planned to stay in Germany. I phoned the owner and he sounded trustworthy, so we agreed that if the car is not sold by Wednesday, we will come and look at it.

Our plane ride was uneventful and I am sooooo thankful for that! On our last flight 5 years ago I got most terrible, unbearable headaches so that I even begged God to take me away, but this time I only felt sharp and intense pain in one ear for about 5 minutes. I kept waiting for it to turn worse but it was bearable and stopped after the plane landed. All this day was extremely blessed, we got so easily to the place we were staying and our friend - an old lady, also a very devoted sister in Christ - even offered us her car for the next day.

Next day we went to see first a car close to our friend's home, but it felt not really right. So we drove to where this Opel Omega was standing. This city is called Cologne and even the locals say that driving there is hard. Cologne is located on banks of the Rhine river and guess where the summer roadworks were done? On the bridges, of course! We drove for about an hour back and forth to find the right street, it was terrible. Finally there, we found out that the owner of the car was not German as we had thought but a Turk, probably grown up in Germany, but still quite set in Muslim ways. Anyway, the car seemed to be OK. We consulted with a friend over the phone and he said that Opel Omega is the best car he has ever had. Then we decided to buy it.

Our trip back home was quite easy, the car functioned well and all the paperwork went easily (if you buy a car from another country, you have to fill several documents). Our kids were happy at Granny's but also happy to have Mommy and Daddy back. His Babyness who usually loves his "Mamma" refused to get out of the car - we let the kids sit in there a while first and then we went inside my parents' house to talk and get all the kids' stuff.

The transition from a compact mini-car to a huge (in European terms) family car is... interesting. Have you seen the movie "Speed"? The lady who suddenly has to drive the bus is asked if she can manage it. She says: "Yes, it is like driving a really big Pinto!" I have no idea what a Pinto is but it sounds like something small. Now that is what I feel while driving this huge (16 ft long) car - it feels like driving a really big Corsa. It has so much space in back that I cannot reach all the way in! I think it is a good training for our next car that will hopefully be a 7- or 9-seats van (we hope to have more children one day) because some vans are exactly the same size! Now we only need to sell our little car and then we are one step closer to acceptable income to finish our adoption! (the court wants to see our income and debts - our income is small and the Corsa is leased, so we need to stop the leasing; then only our building loan will stay and we hope to get rid of this, too!)

Now we are enjoying summer with our kids. The blueberries are ripe and the weather is not too hot. I just wish someone would do the household chores so that I could concentrate more on gathering berries and on gardening - but we spend so much time outside, we hardly have time to notice the mess inside. :)

"My America"

2011-07-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

Some years ago an Estonian journalist married an American man. They moved to the States and soon she wrote a book about her experiences, titled "My America". I have only read the excerpts, but this was enough to understand that there were many things she liked and even more things she didn't like - consumerism for example. Somehow she had not noticed that here. :)

I have only stay-at home experiences with America. They start with the wonderful picture books and strange photos from my aunt (actually my mother's cousin, but I have called her Aunt Hildi as long as I remember) in California. No snow on Christmas pictures... her sons in colourful shirts and flapping shorts on the beach - all men and boys here wore very tight swimming trunks in the 80s. Later, coffee and "National Geographic", all sent by the same generous aunt.

Then, Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry. I loved those cartoons, even if they were not the nicest sort. Later, "real" movies. "Dirty Dancing" and "Gone with the Wind" were shown in cinemas in the same year. Actually, the first Hollywood movie that I remember was "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", I think I was 11 then. Many Hollywood films were shown more than 15 years after their first release.

Then the books came. First was "Charlotte's Web" and I think it was well before all cartoons and movies, but then there were "Tom Sawyer" and all Leatherstocking Tales... I got to read "Gone with the Wind" years before I first saw any of the Little House books. I am sorry to tell you, but my all-time favourite American author is Stephen King. Maybe also because his books are so... American. There are a few that I refuse to buy, but we most of them I have... and like. Not the gooey parts, but the way he describes the people.

And so I come to the most important part of "my America". The people. I have no real contact with my second cousins, and there are of course all those people who eat only fast-food and need warning words on coffee cups... and those who still drive huge cars with huge engines (no car needs a 5-litre motor, unless it is a big construction truck)... and those who are unable to elect proper presidents... Um. In this last one we are not better here. But there are also people whose ancestors were brave and adventurous - and who have inherited these traits. World's best scientists, explorers, missionaries. People who are generous and honest. I only know a few of them - several through this blog -, but I am absolutely sure that there are more of these people out there. Many more - and when times turn hard, there will even more people who suddenly find that they can survive much worse things than the local Wal-Mart being closed due to whatever reasons Wal-Marts close. I am not sure that many Europeans have it - after all, our ancestors chose to stay where they knew things, even when times were bad. Most of my great-great-grandparents etc never travelled further than to the next town. None of them thought about going far away and seeking their luck in another country. Courage to try new things - this is what describes real Americans the way I see them.

Hope you all had a nice Independence Day!

How to explain a child that Grandpa is um... losing it?

2011-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

My father is a kind man in many ways. He has worked hard all his life and since he was twice deported to Siberia (came back with youth amnesty only to be taken back again) he has suffered a lot in his life. He is also a very punctual person and he has never broken a law in his life. We are not always on friendly terms, because our views are so different - he loves tools more than people; he despises traveling - I love people and hate tools, especially in my living room - long story - and I am convinced that traveling is a human right, just to give a few examples. :) But I can get over it and I guess he can, too. After all, he is my father and I am his only child.

But... He is been paranoid for many years. I am not sure when it started, maybe 15 years ago. He once owned a very cheap and ugly car - and he built a complicated alarm system into his garage because "they" will otherwise steal it. When he comes to our home, he tries to hide all tools from possible burglars - like a burglar would want to steal an old ax when there is a computer in the house. He is so good in hiding tools that we often have to ask him later where did he put all the things! Whatever his neighbours say or do, be it even a garbage can left out a day longer, he thinks it is done to hurt him, his house and family. He is also very narrow-minded in his thoughts, but this is a completely different problem. Then again, he is a near-ingenious inventor, he can build all kinds of machines and devices using just scraps and thrash when he has heard the general idea of them. (sounds like a crazy professor from some comic movie - and this is what he is like, old workclothes included, only that his hair is extremely short instead of being the classic "too forgetful to have it cut" crazy professor hairdo)

Coming back to him being paranoid - sometimes he gets his ideas. Like that truck drivers throw little stones at windshields of small cars, just for fun. I guess a truck driver has enough to do while on the road, he should be crazy to start bullying other drivers - but this is how my father thinks. His last "bee in his bonnet" came out when WonderfulHusband was helping his grandmother to move. My father asked what is going on, and I told him the truth. Then he became worried and asked what will happen to the apartment, then? I said that we have no idea yet, it will probably stand empty for a while. My father very nearly had a heart attack or so it seemed. He became very agitated and started to talk about homeless people and how they will move in and start a fire at the very moment my FIL drives around the corner with WonderfulHusband's granny. I couldn't make him believe that a: the apartment is on 3th floor; b: it has an iron door; c: the door on the ground floor is also iron and locked all the time. After all, there are not so many homeless people around and they only move into empty houses in the winter, not in the summer.

The real problem was that Leader Of The Pack was listening to this conversation. I don't believe that a child's world should be free of all worries. Leader Of The Pack knows about wars, beggars, my miscarriages and people dying - all explained in simple words and short conversations. But all this information is something that does not involve people he knows. Even a miscarriage ("Mommy has some kind of illness that makes all Mommy's babies die before they are big enough to be born") is alien to him because he cannot yet connect a nameless fetus with a real living brother or sister. But how to explain that Grandpa, who is a Very Wise Man - almost As Wise As Daddy (who of course is the Wisest Man Ever), is sort of... going crazy? I first told my father - I was quite angry and nervous - that he shouldn't talk in front of a child things that aren't true. Then I took Leader Of The Pack aside and told him that Grandpa has seen scary things in TV and that he tends to believe that these things happen far more often than it really is. I am not sure what he thought of it but he has not brought up the topic of Grandpa's fantasy again. Have you ever seen a family member losing his mind a bit at a time and if so, how did you explain this to your children? When my great-grandmother "lost it", I was about ten and since she was also bedridden it seemed natural - physical health was gone, so was the mental health, this is what happens to old people. My father is physically quite OK for his age, but his paranoia and fears have been deepening over the years slowly, but constantly. I don't want him to plant these fears in our children's minds. On the other hand he is a wonderful babysitter, when the kids are at my parents' home, he constantly plays with them (and my mother cooks constantly all their favourite foods). I am not even sure what triggers the paranoid thoughts.

Life is not a restaurant. You can't always get what you order.

2011-06-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Some months ago I wrote this.

We have had the boys for nearly 17 months now and I would not give them back for nothing in this world. And we will go to our first child-free vacation in less than 10 days (actually, we will fly to Germany to buy an used car because they are so much cheaper there, but we will "steal" a day or two to be just... us). And I cooked 11 jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam today. I consider making preserves as a hobby, so making jam on a Sunday is not work for me. It makes me happy.

But... this is not what I had in mind when I first got married. I "ordered" some perfectly normal pregnancies, births out of a textbook, happy infants and getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight in less than 3 weeks. Also, all my babies were meant to sleep through from the very first night on, never have any illnesses except the occasional cold, and Be Brilliant. Like using the potty at 12 months, talking with sentences at 18 months and reading at 3. Um, like I was. Except that I nearly killed my mother while being born and I was not a very happy baby. And all my preschoolers (in Estonia we call kids "preschoolers" until they turn 7) were meant to be thoughtful, quiet, and easy kids who never throw tantrums and never, never, never tear their clothes*. Um, like I was... not. But like I should have been. Isn't being philosophical and calm the natural state of a 6-year-old child? Anyway, WonderfulHusband was a calm and philosophical teenager with serious interest in chess and science. One can always hope, right?

Anyway, when I whine like this to God, He says: "Life is not a restaurant. You can't always get what you order. You get what you deserve. And sometimes you get what you can manage and someone else cannot." And I say: "Thank you, God, for giving me so much." Because even with FAS and having experienced all the horrible things and needing so much teaching... these kids are perfect. Just what we need. Not what I ordered, but who am I to order something from God?

I just hope that tomorrow His Babyness will not throw any temper tantrums... and The Dreamer will not have any autistic moments... and Leader Of The Pack will read his reading lesson in Children's Bible Picture Book without getting stuck in simple things. And that I can every day be a bit more thankful for what I have.

_____
*Leader Of The Pack has gone through 7 pairs of jeans this year. Just the knees are torn, everything else is OK, so I will probably just cut off the legs and make 7 pairs of shorts of them.

The Magic Word

2011-06-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Leader Of The Pack: " Daddy, what is the magic word that you have to say if you want to get something? Please tell me, please!"

I am not sure how it is in English but in Estonian some people call "please" a magic word and teach their children that they have to say the "magic word" it they want something. We don't use it this way, so Leader Of The Pack was absolutely confused about all grown-ups laughing.

Here lies a tree which Owl (a bird) was fond of...

2011-06-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

Oops. I have been away too long once again. The things that have happened to us lately in no particular order are...

Yesterday we had the typical June weather - sunshine, rain, sunshine, rain etc in 10-minute rhtyhm. The wind was a bit stronger than usual, but we didn't think anything about it until WonderfulHusband heard a thump. In front of our house we have a little park (in European sense - lawn and big trees). One of our old oak trees was not so big anymore - one branch, easily over six feet long had fallen off. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before WonderfulHusband started to cut it into firewood, so you have to just use your imagination how it looks when a huge branch lands just there where the kids have left their toys. Thankfully, nobody was outside at the moment it fell, also nothing important was damaged. Why it broke and fell is still a mystery, because it was not that old nor dry.

WonderfulHusband's grandmother is moving to live with my in-laws. She is well over 80 and her health is quite bad. That means we are getting most of her things - old furniture, books and dishes. We have the space and I love old things, but I am still sad because this sweet old lady is probably fading now. Otherwise she would have kept fighting for her right to live by herself.

We had the most unusual hot weather during the first half of June. Normally, June in Estonia is rainy and cool, but this year we got 12 days of sunshine and heat. The weather was so hot that we were able to go swimming on June 12th - this is the earliest I have ever experienced.

The mosquito situation is better than last year, but quite often the mosquitos wake at dawn and think that their breakfast is served to bed. Not fun. We keep the doors and windows closed during the worst mosquito season, but they still find some way to come in.

His Babyness is very nearly potty trained. He has finally understood that wet pants is something bad. He was able to produce something into the potty every time about 6 months ago, but if he wet his pants, he just ignored it happily. Now he stays dry most days and cries when he has an accident - I will just use up this package of diapers at night and naptime and not buy any more. That means I have to sew more sheets for him...

We will continue homeschooling Leader Of The Pack through summer. He reads too slowly for my taste and he cannot draw at all - he draws at 3-year-olds level! We are working on that.

I still think that The Dreamer may have Asperger's. He can understand German, English and French just by watching cartoons and his logical thinking is above average. Also, he still has some autistic traits. He will go to preschool in September and I wonder what the teachers will say. One of them is specialized on special-need children, so we trust her opinion.

WonderfulHusband still has no job. We all hate this situation, but we love that he is at home.

I am... better, I think. My hands still hurt a bit, but this is not too bad. The ear-throat-nose specialist who also happens to be... married to our pastor's (his wife is one of my best friends) nephew's wife's brother (in Estonian Baptist Union nearly all are related to each other) and therefore a Christian and therefore trustworthy... said that my tonsils Must Go. I am not really looking forward to this, but the surgery should happen on Aug 24th. Unless God sends me a flu that would be a sure sign that I must keep the tonsils for some more time. I decided to break the gluten-free experiment because I was on strong medication that took away the pain anyway, and it was just too complicated right now. I have none of the stomach problems that are associated with gluten intolerance, so I am no sure if this is he reason. And - like the doctor said - my tonsils really looked awful. They don't feel awful and I am thankful for that.

I don't really know what to do with all the free time that I now have - I am not working during the summer break and it really seems that there's nothing to do. OK, the washing and cooking and homeschooling and gardening, yes, but everything else? Probably more gardening. We cannot do much building this summer because of money matters and we will not be traveling much, so we really have a lot of extra time this summer. I hope to do more canning and preserving food than ever. I started it on Sunday with six jars of rhubarb chutney and three freezer boxes of rhubarb for cakes. It made me feel so good. Next week I hope to cook and freeze a ton or um, 30-40 lbs of strawberries. Cook to jam, that is, I freeze them uncooked whole and as puree.

And one more wonderful thing - did you know that a certain sort of hormones used to treat arthritis also cures hayfever? I have been on those hormones for a month now and I have only sneezed about 10 times during this time. Normally I am miserable in June, because my nose is running so badly and the usual allergy medicines don't help. Unfortunately I have to take my last pill tonight...

Summertime

2011-06-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

We have full summer now. It is confusing - the temperatures are typical for mid-July, but the nature (the colour of birch leaves for example) looks like beginning of June. It is very hot and sunny every day. Imagine, two moths ago we still had Too Much Snow...

There's one special thing with this weather that has not happened often before. Our kitchen opens to northwest, so that we hardly ever have enough natural light in there. Usually it is rainy in June when the sun should shine longest. This year there's no rain and our kitchen is filled with sun... around 9 p.m. This is so unusual, sunshine in the kitchen every evening. It is also confusing for children, why they have to go to bed when the sun is still shining? But this is life in Nothern Europe.

Our summer plans include: St John's day celebration, having friends over, visiting friends, family trips to Tallinn (to see friends) and Pärnu (to see in-laws), but also me and WonderfulHusband traveling to Germany to buy an used car (long story, but ours is not just enough for us anymore). Without kids. We think about sending Leader Of The Pack to the in-laws because my parents won't manage all three for 5 days. Those of you who have adopted, what do you think? Leader Of The Pack loves adventures and he is actually old enough to participate in a summer camp or something like this, so 5 days at grandparents' home (whom he knows and loves) without brothers are maybe not too hard?

All summer in a day

2011-06-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

Summer in Estonia is often unpredictable. When I was very young, it usually got gradually warmer, until there were some very hot days in July and August, and then it got colder again. The last 10 years have been quite crazy, we get summer temperatures often in April and in May, and in June there will be night below freezing point! So if the weather is nice, we have to use it as much as possible.

I was freezing in church on Sunday, the weather turned nice on Monday. Yesterday was really hot and sunny. I had day off, so we were at home all day, feeding mosquitoes (and these are here Big and Hungry) and mowing grass. After the snow melted 6 weeks ago, our lawn has gotten high ambitions to transform into a real jungle. We are trying to tame it, but it is hard work and there is still a very thick and high patch that we haven't reached yet. The kids are not allowed there because high grass is the favourite spot of ticks - and an estonian tick is no fun, it may carry diseases.

Today I had to work, but the weather was still hot and nice. So I left work early - it is allowed when there's no school and yeasterday was the last ral schoolday -, collected all the kids and headed home where WonderfulHusband had been cleaning and carpentering all day. We had a quick dinner and then we drove off to see Lake Peipus. The water was too cold to go swimming, but the kids had fun throwing sand into the lake and searching for shells. If you clicked on the link to Wikipedia and scrolled down, there are four smaller pictures of what the shores look like - we actually visited two of these places today - we looked at sandstone in Kallaste and viewed ships at Mustvee harbor. Then we had some candy and yoghurt drinks in the car and bought some pickled cucumbers* from a local man. For many years people in this area used to grow cucumbers and tomatoes to sell them on the market in St. Petersburg. Some always sold their produce on little stands at the road, too. The borders are closed now, but some people still have their greenhouses and try to sell vegetables to people who drive past. Pickled cucumbers from a farm stand is a treat from the road trips of my childhood - I hope that our kids will like them, too. Anyway, they ate the cucumbers happily. :)

Later we brought to bed three tired, but happy and thankful little boys. We cannot afford a family vacation abroad this year, but we will try to take them to day- or half-day trips this summer - there is enough to see close to home.
_____
*not really pickled, but um... salted and fermented somehow, with a slight sour-salty taste - actually delicious.

He did it!

2011-05-29T04:48:00.000-07:00

As I have told here before, The Dreamer is a special needs child. When he came to us at age 3y 5m, he was socially functioning at the same level - or even less in certain areas - as His Babyness is now, at the age of 2y 2m - and His Babyness is not the brightest toddler ever, he is quite normal in his development, but no genius (but he is oh so cute). Now The Dreamer has catched up a lot. He knows most letters, he can draw things that look like things he calls them, he can climb trees and since March he can be alone in his Sunday School class. Previously, he was confused, unable to concentrate, his speech was incomprehensible, he did not tolerate changes in his routine, he had huge temper tantrums etc. I still suspect that he has Asperger's but he is too young to have him evaluated for that. He certainly has FAS and maybe his autistic traits come from that.

Today there was the last day of Sunday School before summer in church. We have Sunday School from September till May, just like the regular schoolyear is. Every group had to perform something in front of all churchgoers. Some sang (Leader Of The Pack, too), the oldest kids asked questions about virtues. The Dreamer is in the youngest group, but being the only child in his year (our parish is small, only about 200 people), he is the oldest in this group of mostly three-year-olds (The Dreamer will be five in September). Considering his special needs this is the right place for him. Anyway, before the service every kid in his group was given a small item and told that he/she has to say what God has created. There were different things, a seashell, a toy bird, a star etc. The Dreamer got a tiny plastic dog and he was supposed to say that God has created all dogs. When we - me and WonderfulHusband - tried to explain this to him, he just closed in himself the way autistic children sometimes do. Finally we coaxed this sentence out of him. When he had to go forth and say his sentence, we were 100% sure that he will not say a word - like all the younger kids who obviously felt too shy. I was ready to run and whisk him away in case he starts to scream. But, when the microphone was shown to him, he proudly declared that "Father in Heaven has created all dogs". There was only one other boy in this group who managed to say something loud enough. :)

We are so proud and thankful. With every success like that we feel how mercyful God is and our hope that The Dreamer will have a normal life one day grows stronger.

A new name for Granny

2011-05-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Our older boys call my mother "vanaema", as is the correct Estonian word for grandmother. It means "old mother". His Babyness is just learning to talk and he has decided to give Granny a new name. Whenever he talks about Granny or calls her, he says "M'ma". It is quite close to "mamma", that is actually a slang word or um... I don't know the right description, anyway, a grandmother or a mother can be called a Mamma. I used to call my Mom "mamma" when I was a teenager and felt a bit rebellious. I wonder how His Babyness came to this word? I sure haven't used it for a long time. Anyway, it is better than how a friend's boy called his Granny. He turned "vanaema" into "ama" - now there you need to use your imagination to understand who the child is referring to!

In literature a Mamma is usually small and um, round. So is my mother, so I think this name fits. Maybe His Babyness remembers me reading out loud the Moomin stories? They have a Mamma there, she is always kind and cooks a lot, just like my mother. Also, the Moomins have a Pappa, and my Mom often calls Dad Papa (no idea why). As long His Babyness will not refer to himself as Moomintroll, Sniff or Snufkin, I am content being a daughter of "Mamma".

What we are up to

2011-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

His Babyness is using two-word sentences for nearly everything and his vocabulary is at lest 150 words! Just four months ago his neurologist thought that he will have a speech delay, and look at him now! (he is 2y 2m, fits quite well into all norms, especially with the bad start that he had)

The Dreamer has not had a temper tantrum for... I don't know how long. I can almost believe that he will be FIVE in less than four months! Also, he will go to the preschool then - into the same where Leader Of The Pack goes, and into the same group. It is called a "family group" and there are kids aged 2 to 7, so it is the closest you can get to the natural group of children - meaning natural like in the family or friends in the neighbourhood.

Leader Of The Pack will participate in a play on Friday, being a pirate. Also, we have almost decided not to send him to school this year, but to wait another year (this is when he actually should start school) and to send him - if we can afford this (actually, it is cheaper than preschool!) - into a very good private Christian school. Um, this is "the Catholic school" (that's it's name) and we are Baptists, so some people will not understand this, but several kids from our parish go there and we have heard only positive things about it.

WonderfulHusband is still out of work. We keep praying and God provides enough, all the time, be it a bill paid by my parents or a winning lottery ticket - we hardly ever buy any, but we have had more wins than losses. Next two weeks WonderfulHusband has a job, he is teaching another computer course for grown-ups. There is a teaching company that keeps asking him back, so obviously he is a good teacher. He has also taken over most of the cooking. And on Saturday he took all the boys outside to carry our firewood (bought from a local farmer) into the shed - imagine a two-year-old carrying logs almost the same size as himself!

I am... still ill, but my throat stopped aching after I saw my doctor on Monday, and my hands are so-so. I am on very strong painkillers now, but they don't seem to help much. Today I decided to ignore the pain and went to do some weeding in the greenhouse - after all, it's time to plant the tomatoes there! We'll see what my hands will do tomorrow, probably hurt more. I will see an ear-nose-throat specialist on Friday, no idea what she will say! I lay my hopes on lilac tincture that my MIL recommended. I will definitely make me some bottles of it, as soon the lilacs start blooming! It should happen soon, since the weather is quite nice and everything starts to bloom now. Today we even heard a cuckoo, also it must be real spring now.

Experimenting on myself

2011-05-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Paula recommended going gluten-free for two weeks. Usually I don't believe in food intolerance - when it is about me. I can eat practically anything without getting remarkable health problems, with the exception of oats (and everyone whom I tell that says that a person cannot be allergic to oats). But who knows? I did some quick research in the Internet and somewhere I read that gluten intolerance can come for a couple of years and go again. Sounds perfectly logical to me, a body is going through changes during the years and so the need for food can change.

I have decided to give it a try. It cannot hurt, and when it brings relief, then it's wonderful. I must eat more fats, though - I cannot afford losing weight! I have been eating a lot of gluten-containing food lately, so reducing gluten in my diet about 98% should be enough - I will not drive myself crazy over an occasional breadcrumb, but I'll give up all bread, pasta and cereal that is made of wheat and rye (I never cared much about barley). That leaves rice, potatoes and corn. This will be a little complicated, but it is just for two weeks at first! I will not eat less dairy products or sweets (although I will look at the labels more carefully!), one thing at the time.

In case it works, I will continue and probably put the whole family on this kind of diet for two weeks - because I think it would do good to WonderfulHusband. If it won't work, then it won't.

I have survived lunch and dinner with foods containing rice. Not too bad. It would be nice to write that my left wrist (that I cannot move at all) got so surprised at the second serving of rice that it stopped hurting, but it will not work that fast. I wonder will there be a difference by Wednesday?

A question

2011-05-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, do you know how do mothers manage long-time illnesses of their own? I know that there are much worse things than a tonsillitis gone bad (I mean really very bad), but right now I am living with constant pain in joints of my hands and it seems that I can't anything Done. I would really appreciate any thoughts about combining housework, mothering and illness.

As you can see, today is not a good day for me.

A happier note: His Babyness is using 3-word-sentences and tries to combine two thoughts. Even it is quite often: "Daddy pants, Mommy hands ouch," (Daddy, help me to put on my pants, Mommy cannot because her hands hurt) I think this is a progress.

Waiting for rainy days

2011-05-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

The weather is beautiful, the kids are playing outside all day and I have been gardening all day... as much as I can, still sick (but getting better oh so slowly).

Sounds wonderful... but who will do the homeschooling and all the housework? My kitchen still looks a mess, Mount Ironmore is growing and all beds need fresh sheets. The last chore I must probably ask WonderfulHusband to do for me because the arthritis or whatever it is has moved from my knees to my wrists. Typing is... ouch. But still, I am not a good housewife right now.

The problem is, you can never be too sure about weather in Estonia. When the sun is shining, one has to do yardwork and gardening, because tomorrow there might be rain - four weeks in a row is not uncommon. But the weather forecast says rain on Friday (I am not at work on Fridays). I will do some ironing and clean he kitchen - at least the stove - and bathroom then. Promised. Also, there will be some homeschooling again.

Happy Mothers' Day!

2011-05-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today... I had my second Mothers' Day. So far it's been quite nice.

Leader Of The Pack had Mothers' Day celebration at his preschool on Friday, so it started already then. Actually, due to the mysterious illness (my doctor thinks it could be mononucleosis, but the results of the blood test have not arrived from the lab yet) I was exhausted already at 3 p.m. - we had a quite busy morning, ear doctor with His Babyness, new shoes for him, 20 minutes at work helping a girl with her research project, shopping for groceries, seeds and a dress shirt for Leader Of The Pack... Not much, but finally at my parents' place waiting for His Babyness and The Dreamer to wake from their nap I needed a nap myself and actually fell asleep on the couch! The celebration itself was very nice. The kids recited short poems and sang a little. I think The Dreamer liked being among other kids, too.

On Saturday I finally got to do some gardening. I had two choices - gardening or cleaning the mess some people call our home - and I chose planting leeks, peas etc. Then my Perfect Best Friend showed up - she is this sort of woman who once upon a time married to her high school sweetheart, gets pregnant whenever she wants to, she has never any cereal in her hair or spit-up on her shirt, she cooks nutritious, heatlhy meals, her home and her children look immaculate all. the. time AND she has a career of her own. Also, in case on my Perfect Best Friend, she is generous, godly, smart and forgiving - and I feel honored to be her friend. She just happened to be in the neighborhood... and so she saw us in our natural state, all dusty and in working clothes. I just happen to know that she didn't look much better when her last was a baby and kept her up long nights... I was childless then and helped her a couple of times with ironing and other housework. It was still embarrassing that our home was in the state it still is... Anyway, the kids had fun. She had her two youngest with her and they are about the same age as our two oldest.

Today... there was no coffee-drinking in bed or flowers. Leader Of The Pack sang in the kids' choir in church, so we had to bring him in early for the last practice. The Dreamer wanted to spend the day at my parents' house (we don't make the kids come to church unless they have Sunday School, sometimes they want to come and sometimes not), so we had just His Babyness with us. We went to see WonderfulHusband's grandmother - she is over 80 and has extremely bad health, so it is better to keep visits short and unexpected (otherwise she would prepare a big lunch or dinner and exhaust herself). Then is was time to go to church. Leader Of The Pack sang really good, also he was very attentive and interested in his Sunday School class - so a lady told me. I am so proud.

We - as foster parents - were given tickets for a concert on the afternoon. We took all boys with us, all dressed up in dress shirts and black trousers. I think we looked quite nice. :) The kids also behaved nicely, it lasted too long for them, but they liked the big orchestra, the nice singing and the chairs (special theatre chairs). Just when the concert was about to start, His Babyness asked to go potty... But we were sitting at the end of the row, so we didn't disturb anybody running out and later back in! We did get some Looks from older ladies around us, because although His Babyness and The Dreamer were quiet, they wanted to look around, to stand up, to move a little between me and WonderfulHusband etc. These ladies probably had no idea that we could be one of the foster families who were specially asked to this concert! Usually, nobody has three foster kids that small here in Estonia - yes, we are sill waiting for WonderfulHusband to get a steady job so that we could finally adopt them (the trouble is, all jobs the he could do are far away and we will so. not. move - except maybe to Germany or Austria for a couple of years because the salaries are so much better there - but we would then keep our house to have a home to com back to). Anyway, it was nice to be somewhere as a family. And I think it is good for the kids to go sometimes to places where little kids usually don't go to.

At home I got something special - not having to cook! WonderfulHusband cooks sometimes, but this usually when I am too ill or too busy. Today we had frozen pizza, the good sort. When I make pizza at home, it is usually quite simple and kid-friendly. Today I got one with shrimps and other sorts of seafood (WonderfulHusband hates all things fish, so I never cook any seafood), WonderfulHusband had one with extra chilies that I and the kids don't like, and the kids got "pizza salami". Having something else for everybody is a real treat in our house. Now the older kids are watching "Barbapapas" on DVD and His Babyness plays with his new dinosaur. We are going to have cake soon and then there will be some pages from "Charlotte's Web". Goodnight kisses and then... no more mothering for today (except for checking the kids when they sleep), but maybe a nice hot bath for Mommy. This is a luxury, too, when you have little kids in the house.

Hope your Mothers' Day was as nice or even better than mine!

Blessings,
EstonianWife

Spring

2011-04-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

I decided to continue the White Mini series. She loves to look out of the window and so you can see how our park looks. We are living in an old, small and terrible-looking manor house and the park is one part of our property. The leaves need to be raked... but we have been (WonderfulHusband is feverish and has a sore throat, too) too ill to do any yardwork. The reason we didn't do it in the autumn is that the weather is very rainy and chilly in the autumn, also we have oak tress that drop their leaves often sometime after the first snow! I hope the next picture will show a well-groomed lawn!

Also, there are the violets. All around the south side of the house the lawn is covered with tiny flowers and the smell is oh so good. I love this time of the year, there are so many new possibilities, so many new promises to myself about new exiting gardening ideas (and I even manage to fulfill some!) and it is really liberating to go out without heavy boots and coats.

The children have been outside playing every evening this week - and refusing to come in! We had a week of really warm weather, up to 69'F! Only tonight the wind turned and we will probably get some cold rain during the next days. This is quite usual here, there is a week of "summer" in April and then the winter will come back. But usual does not mean nice, I could live with summer temperatures until Advent! I hope that the weather will turn permanently warm soon because my tomato plants feel too crowded on the shelf in front of of our bedroom window and I really want to move them into the um... porch is not the right word, it is closed, but almost all the walls are windows... before planting them into the greenhouse in June.

Hope you have nice weather, too. Everything seems better with some sunshine.

Blessings,
EstonianWife

Still alive... at least I'm breathing

2011-04-25T09:58:00.001-07:00

The good news is that the snow is as good as gone. There are some shy snowpiles in very shadowy places, but the weather is soooooo nice and warm and our garden is snow-free!

The bad news is that I am ill. About two and half weeks ago I woke one night with terrible pain in my throat. On the next day my tonsils looked like a fly agaric - bright red with white spots. Acute tonsillitis. I haven't had it that bad for 11 years. I felt too sick to see a doctor. Thankfully, WonderfulHusband had to go see our family doctor with the boys for some blood tests, so he convinced our doctor to prescribe antibiotics. I mean, I have lived with my body for 36 years and I know tonsillitis when I have it! Antibiotics are not the wisest choice in many cases, but I have absolutely no resources of my own to fight with something so intense - I was not able to sleep for two nights because of pain, couldn't speak, couldn't really eat... And we have three little kids here who need to be cared for no matter how miserable I feel. And I need to go to work because we need my salary (WonderfulHusband got another temporary job offering for May, but the hours are few - still, it is good to have something).

I got better. I took dutifully my pills until they were gone. Last week was crazy at work and crazy at home - His Babyness had his adenoids removed and ears shunted - after several ear infections his ears were full of liquid so that he was nearly deaf - no wonder he does not speak much! Guess who sat in the hallway during the operation and cried because His Babyness had cried so pitifully while being sedated... He recovered better than I did. :)

Then... Friday morning I woke up with the same unbearable throat pain. The antibiotics obviously were not enough and the tonsillitis had come back. Good Friday is a holiday in Estonia, so I had no chance to see my doctor. Thankfully, my MIL's best friend is a doctor (MIL is a doctor, too, but she is currently working in a different branch of medicine, so she has no right to prescribe anything) and we had planned to see my in-laws this weekend anyway. Sunday morning I had no pain anymore - I am so thankful for that. But all this has been bad for my heart - I have chronical myocarditis anyway and I just feel so tired. There are moments when I feel that even breathing is hard work.

Today... The weather was wonderfully warm. We had planned to repair our greenhouse, but I was too weak to do anything but sit on the swing in the park. I just hope that we can do all the necessary work outside before the first "mosquito attack". I love to be outside in the spring, he smell of violets fills the air, the sun is shining (the boys are getting a nice tan already) and it is so warm after the too-long winter. Our cats are busy bringing mice and our storks are um... behaving badly ("Mommy, wat is dat sto'k doing on top of de odder sto'k?").

I hope to write something happier next time.

More than four

2011-04-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

The Dreamer knows that he is four years old. Daddy explains that he is actually four and a half. The Dreamer refuses to believe at first and then says quite resentfully: "I've gotten old then or what?"

White cat at the window. Take two.

2011-04-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

As you can see, the snow situation has improved a lot. Now we have the mud situation. The mud in the greenhouse - or in the debris where the greenhouse used to be - is trying to eat boots. We also have at least three new ponds in the garden. Several towns in Estonia are in "red alert" because of possible or already happening floods.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, I am not a good photographer and probably never will be.

Who's that woman?

2011-04-10T00:48:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we went to a market close to our boys' former home - to sell rag rugs that my mother has weaved. The kids stayed at my parents' house and behaved fine. Obviously they are getting used to this. The sales were extremely bad, this trip was really pointless... But maybe... just maybe...

Once I asked the social worker who is responsible for our boys and their birth mother, what she looks like. She said just two words: "very... masculine." (or whatever the correct translation is, I hope you understand). I imagined her then being big, rough and loud, cheeks swollen because of heavy drinking, wearing a black, puffy jacket and jogging shoes.

I was quite anxious yesterday, I was not sure if I want to meet the people from the orphanage - we didn't - and I was afraid of recognizing the birth mother. Who knows what she looks like?

Then a woman walked by. I had to look twice to be sure if she is a she. Very short - our boys are all very short for their age -, light hair in a boys' haircut and grey eyes like our boys have (like 50% of Estonians have). Sad eyes. Shapeless body clad in really unfeminine clothes. Confused, helpless look - the looks of this sort of woman whom certain men use, abuse and throw aside when they have gotten what they want. Probably able to love, but unable to deal with everyday's problems (like remembering that the baby needs a diaper change every few hours or when the schoolbus comes). She... stuck out from the crowd.

I have no reason to think that this was our boys' birth mother, but... who knows? Leader Of The Pack is such a good child, I am sure that he was loved by the birth mother. Loved, but not cared for (we have heard stories about fleas in the shirt and being hungry all the time - and not because the birth mother was too poor, just because she was helpless and drunk). Some people are just unable to learn. We have the court verdict and there is said that the social workers tried to teach the birth mother about childcare and household, but she just never learned. Sometimes I just feel sorry for her. Maybe this trip yesterday was necessary that I would start thinking about her the other way - that maybe she was not rough, maybe she was just helpless and confused. I hope she will find peace of mind one day.

The blessing of a baby brother

2011-04-03T13:17:00.001-07:00

There is a young boy in our church. He is second or third oldest of 5, maybe 15-16 years old, all elbows and knees, like boys that age often are. He is very quie and - it seems to me - rather shy. But he is amazing with little kids. He has no problem lifting a baby just a few inches away from the door, taking care of his little brother or talking to our family's jabber box, Leader Of The Pack. being comfortable around babies, toddlers and preschoolers is not something you see often in teenage boys. I guess he will be a good father one day.

Today The Dreamer had Sunday School and His Babyness spent his time at Granny's. So only Leader Of The Pack was with us during the sermon. We sat with him in the "small room" where families with little kids usually stay. He was colouring some pictures peacefully and with apparent deep concentration, when a baby girl, maybe 11-12 months old tried to climb onto the couch beside him. She tried and failed, tried and failed... Before her mother has time to react, Leader Of The Pack reached out his hand, grabbed the little girl's diapered bottom, heaved her onto the couch and continued colouring. There was nothing ugly in this move (I am not sure he even understood that this was a girl), just the big brother routine. I think he often helps His Babyness this way when the kids are alone.

I have never noticed older brothers before, but I think that having a baby or toddler in the house greatly improves the older kid's attitude toward little ones. No matter if the age difference is 10 years or 4 years, if the older child feels older (this will probably never happen between Leader Of The Pack and The Dreamer, they are just too close in age), he starts to take responsibility. And being able to do this is a big step toward becoming a godly person.

Um, this means that we will need more kids someday, so that His Babyness could also have the blessing of being the older brother...

The reason why this blog is quite depressive lately

2011-03-28T04:38:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that I have had nothing nice to say lately. We Estonians actually have two "national diseases" - depression and headcold. Some doctors have even said that these things often come together and this seems logical to me - you cannot be happy if you cannot breathe and everything tastes like cardboard. Also, we have very long winters here, it is dark and cold. Today I thought about our family's health this winter. Since mid-November we have had two weeks' worth of days when no-one is ill. Really. No wonder I cannot find anything to be happy about! When the kids are sick, I worry about them and feel quilty about leaving them at my mother's - because I have to work. When WonderfulHusband is sick, he is grumpy and complains a lot (I think most men do!) and I feel sorry for him. When I am sick... I try to do everything that Needs To Be Done, but I lack the energy and joyfulness. And so it has been for nealry four months now. Thankfully, none of us has been very sick, the fevers only last a day and everything has been curable, but still... Hope you out there have had a better winter. I will try to be more optimistic from now on. Blessings, EstonianWife

Measuring the world

2011-03-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

We have many toys in the house, but the coolest and never-dull things are the "real things". One of them is Daddy's measuring tape. He has several and that's good, because quite often one or the other is missing. All three like to "measure" everything what they see. The conclusions may be a bit unclear like "my arm is three hundred ten twenty long" or plain "A! Bang! Ugh!" (His Babyness, of course), but I think they learn something just by playing with it. We will tach them how to use the measuring tape appropriatly when we have reason for it, but I think then it will quickly lose its charm...

The unfairness of life

2011-03-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

We have spring break this week. That means, I have as good as vacation - I am expected to go to work anytime during school days whenever there seems to be a crisis (it has not happened often, but the readyness is what counts), but nobody wants anything from me during school breaks. WonderfulHusband is still mostly at home, so we should actually enjoy it.

I don't.

I had plans! I had happy plans for this week! Gardening plans! If not anything else, then at least hope to repair our greenhouse (it is um, quite flat at the moment). Maybe to wash some windows, too - even if I hate cleaning. I managed to suppress my knowledge of reality until yesterday noon. Then I realized that none of my plans will work. Nothing.

Because of that.

This picture was taken last week, White Mini looking out from the kitchen window. The snow situation has not gotten much better. I cannot do any gardening, because my garden lies under ice and snow, 2 feet thick! Also, it is too cold to open windows. The snow is melting, but it takes ages and warm weather is not predicted until mid-April.

I hope to get over my disappointment soon, but right now this free week seems to be wasted.

Good news are that the kids behave nicely, our dentist said that their teeth are fine, our roof is still holding and I have about 100 tiny tomato plants waiting for spring. Maybe life isn't that bad... :)

The Dot System

2011-03-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

Obedience in our house is not a big problem... but in certain areas it is a terrible problem. Leader Of The Pack is not hyperactive... but quite often he just chooses not to control his jumping and dancing, until something is broken. The Dreamer can eat quickly... but almost every day he chooses to eat verrrrrry slowly because the food served is not his favourite. His Babyness is two years old. It's his nature to be disobedient.

So we decided to develop The Dot System, so that the kids would be motivated to behave better and that they could have an overview how they behave. I divided a paper sheet into two columns, on the left for Leader Of The Pack and on the right for The Dreamer. Both columns I divided in two sub-columns again - one for mornings and one for afternoons (or Before Nap and After Nap). The I bought dot-shaped stickers in three colours - green for Good, yellow for So-So and red for Really Naughty. Both boys get two dots every day, one for morning and one for afternoon.

Leader Of The Pack is six. The Dreamer is four and half. Guess how many red dots they have got during the last 12 days?

Three (3). Once - both - for Not Letting His Babyness Sleep At Granny's. This is a Big Crime. Both older boys don't want to obey to my mother and since they can manage without nap, they are allowed to stay up when at my parents' home. The problem is that quite often they want to play and shout, but my parents' house is so small, His Babyness just cannot go to sleep when big brothers make noise. Actually they are supposed to play quietly or to draw something when His Babyness naps. The third Red Dot was for Temper Tantrum from The Dreamer. Sometimes he just refuses what he is asked and it may turn ugly. This time it lasted over an hour, until he calmed down and said that he threw his temper out into the snow (and good riddance to it).

Also, they have had only a few yellow dots. They can control themselves quite well, if they want to. We have not promised them any rewards except for the knowledge that kids with many green dots are good kids.

But... Inofficially we buy them some new toys (if we can get good deals) if the kids behave well.

This wooden blocks set was the first "price for good behaviour". The boys were just happy to get something new. I have absolutely forbidden all kinds of new toy cars because we have a zillion of them, but I don't think there can be too many building blocks in a house with three little boys. Sorry about the bad picture, I turned off the flash last time and forgot to turn it on again...

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

2011-03-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am not in Christmas mood, no. This Christmas song just spins around in my head, because in my opinion the most wonderful time is now.

The snow is melting! Finally! There is still far too much of it everywhere, but on our driveway we have about three square foot grass peeking through! On the driveway that was cleared from snow... like every day for two months, that is. Hope on grass is still far away in places that have been the way they were.

We have had warmer weather for a week now, and every normal year the snow would be gone. This year is not normal. There are still many one-way streets in the city that actually are two-way - the snow has reduced their width so much. Also, we can keep waiting for the first flowers to come out; it will probably take another two weeks of melting before there is even hope that a flower would see sunshine.

At least, the air smells like spring. I have planted 188 tomato seeds and over 100 leeks. Hopefully the snow will be gone by the time they have to go outside!

The Battle Over Food, Take Two

2011-03-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

His Babyness hates eating. At least, when the meal does not consist his favourite foods - candy, some fruits, yoghurt, spaghetti or pickles. Sometimes he also likes his breakfast porridge (with homemade jam), but sometimes he just takes a bite and starts to scream - or he just looks at it with disgust and cries silently. I am not sure if this is just trying to get what he likes best (he is a quite strong-willed Terrible Two) or is he really picky. Anyway, he must eat what is on table - I usually serve quite healthy food and he needs all the vitamins and proteins and stuff, also he must eat to gain weight. He is too slim for my taste, our doctor says that he is OK, but for me he seems nearly skinny. And - we cannot afford pickiness. I want to serve as many homegrown fruits and vegetables as possible, that means he has to eat what we have - when we have it. It is so much healthier, no insecticides or anything like that in them!

I was a picky eater myself and believe me, I was miserable most of my childhood. Nothing tasted well enough to eat it. Especially when eating not at home - at school (in Estonia parents pay some money and kids get warm lunch served at school; a lunch box is something we have never seen in this country), at someone else's home, in restaurants (I have one positive restaurant experience from my childhood, this was eating blini in restaurant "Tulip" in Lithuania while on vacation with my parents)... I "learned" to eat food that is not my favourite at age 17 (yes, seventeen) when I was in youth camp in Germany and I knew that I have to eat what is served or I will be hungry. OK, the food there was mostly very good, but some things I didn't like much - but I ate them anyway. I don't want my children to go hungry most of the time just because I haven't served their favourite food.

The Battle Over Food continues. Today at lunchtime he cried a long time, looking at his rice, until I showed him a banana and told hime that he won't get any fruit before the rice is gone. At dinner he ate happily his mashed potatoes, but played with his beef casserole for an hour until I removed him from table and sent to bed. Then I got an earful of SCREAMING. I must find a way to get some meat into this child.

Listening to them play

2011-03-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

WonderfulHusband was reading the newspaper in the living room. I was reading some blog, also in the living room. All kids were sitting in the "fireplace room" and watching a movie. The two rooms are actually quite far from each other.

I heard laughter and screaming (like when little kids have a lot of fun, not sitting quietly) from the kids. It sounded like three minutes before tears - if you have little kids you know what I mean. I said to my husband: "What do you think, how long will it last until they cry?" He looked at me and laughed. He had been thinking the same thing.

A minute later we heard shouts like "Baby, NO!" and another minute later all boys came quite grumpy and told that His Babyness had shut down the computer - we have another computer* (without Internet connection) there so that the kids can watch DVDs sometimes, the "main TV" with DVD player is in the living room. Although Leader Of The Pack knows how to turn a computer on, he does not know the password - and I don't think he should know! So they were all very disappointed when Daddy said that movie-watching is over for today.

I believe in watching and correcting the kids often, but sometimes they must sort things out by themselves. They know the basic rules - don't hurt anybody, don't break anything - and we think that at age 6 and 4 the older boys should remember them.

Another topic - my mother says that The Dreamer can read. Could be, he knows all the letters. He has a better relationship with my parents than with us, so I will not force him to show his new skill. He will demonstrate it to us when he feels like it, probably in a few days. It could well be that we have two early readers now in the house.

____
*If you wonder how can a not really rich family have two functioning computers in the house, that's easy. WonderfulHusband knows very nearly all about computers and he is able to take three broken laptops for, say, $30 and make of their parts one well-functioning laptop. This particular item, though, belonged to his uncle who decided that he won't need it anymore and so we got it.

Don't see doctors. They will find out that there's something wrong with you.

2011-03-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

Today I had the long-awaited appointment with a new doctor. All about my painful knees and sore muscles. Guess what this nice elderly lady said?

I have rheumatism. I have had it very probably since I was six, because then I had these weird pains in my legs that everybody just dismissed as "growing pains". Mothers out there, if your kid complains about leg pain, take this seriously, please.

Also, I have chronical myocarditis. Oh joy. It is OK to know what I have, but my life's goal is to become a grandmother...! So I must live long enough that my kids can marry and have children! Of course, I will take all the pills that were prescribed, and I will go again to the ears-nose-throat doctor to see what she has to say about my tonsils. I hate the idea of operations, but I want my life to be as normal as possible, as long as I live.

I wonder does the climate here have something to do with rheumatism? And if yes, would moving to a warmer and drier country help? Politics - taxes and laws - are pretty bad nearly everywhere, but the weather is better in some places. I hate our long winters anyway, also the fact that nothing grows here (this is exagerrated, but many fruit trees and plants just die because of the cold).

Leader Of The Pack complains about leg pains sometimes. I will take him to the doctor. Promised.

To be continued...

2011-03-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

First, thank you for the comments and encouragement. There are some days that are harder than other days, that's it. And there is no guarantee that bio children would be perfect. I have tested a kid for learning disabilities - and found out that he really has them; his parents (he is definitly not adopted!) are both teachers at the university. His siblings are brilliant, but he struggles through every lesson. Who says that something similar wouldn't happen to my child?

About FAS - Sharon, have you ever checked this site? http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/special_ed/disabilities/fas/ There are several links that seem helpful to me.

I used to pray years before that our children would be healthy, smart and that they would follow Christ. Leader Of The Pack once said that he wants to become a pastor. :) They are all quite healthy and they are not stupid - FAS does not mean that they are stupid. They just tend to forget things that they have learned and they cannot understand many things that come naturally for all the kids we know. One of my friends has 5 bio and two foster children and she once told me that this is the first time she is purposely teaching letters - to her older foster child (with FAS visible in his facial features) -, that all "her own" children have picked up reading easily and quickly. We have something similar here. Also, The Dreamer still gets his moments of autism or whatever he has. Last weekend I discovered him at 23.30 in the dark bathroom, playing with matches (not lighting them, just playing) and manicure scissors - I don't think this is normal, thinking about his reactions to being discovered and the things he sometimes says. He might have Asperger's but I will give him a couple years before I have him diagnosed.

Our boys are affectionate and actually very well-behaving. The longest temper tantrum we have experienced with His Babyness (who turned two on Thursday) lasted about 10 minutes and the worst things they all have done have been breaking a few things - happens to all little boys, I think - and hitting each other. The latter happens less and less as they grow older. Maybe we must start hiding car keys when they are in their teens, but we are not worrying about that now. After all, we have often very good moments.

Like...
His Babyness is close to being potty trained. He can be dry for days and goes every time I put him on the potty. He also uses more words - no sentences yet, though!
The Dreamer is interested in feelings and reasons why people do things. He also knows many letters.
Leader Of The Pack has just finished reading his first book. He still needs a lot of assurance, but his reading skills get better and better every day. I had him tested again lately - his verbal skills are at the level of 8-year-olds! (On the other hand, his memory is really poor.)

Anyway, I am thankful for our life the way it is. It would be wonderful if I could be SAHM and WonderfulHusband could have a job again, but this is what we pray for and until (in case) God's Plan brings us that we will be content with what we have. Also... we pray for more children. Having girls would be wonderful, I think that combing long hair and sewing little pink skirts is every woman's birthright. :)

Blessings,
EstonianWife

I give you the reason to hate me

2011-02-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

Yes. This post is not going to be nice. This post is going to be outright ugly, but I hope to feel better later.

I love our boys. Sometimes I wonder what we did before they came to us. But sometimes... I cannot help wondering about their strangeness. I don't think our biological children would have been better behaving or more beautiful, no, not that. But I am quite sure that our biological children - unless something went wrong at birth or they had developmental issues due illnesses - would have been fast learners, in academical sense. There would have been no endless questions, is it K or T (being P), no weeks of hard labour to learn where is the right and where the left side. And no battles over "reading pictures" (Mommy, why do you read this page? There are no pictures on it, you cannot read here! Read this picture instead!) or months of explaining what direction we turn the pages. Living with the "Other Mommy" (their birth mother) has shaped their lives more than we were able to imagine - more than we know now. FAS is only one part of it, but if we add the missing experiences of normal life and terrible experiences of living with drunks...

We can manage it, God will not give us any harder tasks than those that we can manage - but sometimes I feel that I am being cheated. I am thankful that I am spared from all pregnancy woes and fears - I have never even seen a heartbeat of "our own" babies, it has always ended so quickly -, because I am terrible with all health issues and I hate all medicinal procedures - but I feel like I am robbed of one basic right. I might never hold the biological child of my husband in my arms, never see his extreme intelligence blossoming in a baby. It is very likely that I'll never send a child to a math contest. Not like my mother and my MIL who have both heard their kids (um, me & WonderfulHusband) winning math contests and seen us graduating high school among the very best.

I will not bear any grudge toward our boys if they won't bring exceptional academical achievements. They have other skills and we are not here to make them win awards. Our purpose is to give them a life, a future - whatever this may be. But it would feel fair if there would be a chance. Um. To be like us. We have given them a new lifestyle, a completely different social class (doesn't that sound terrible? But this is how it is, I like to think that there is a big difference between the flea-ridden drunks' home and our life, being blessed by God), but we cannot give them the academical brilliance that we both had in our teens. We know that adopted kids often have IQs closer to their adoptive parents than to birth parents - I am a psychologist, after all, I have studied that -, and that left at the orphanage they would have been left unteached until school and then it would have been too late to achieve anything more than 9 years at school and then some sort of vocational school - probably even less for The Dreamer -, but... If all their friends at church go to university and they cannot, wouldn't they feel cheated, too?

This is just one part of adoption, and for me this seems to be the hard part. To accept that the kids will be different in a more complex way than biological children ever would be. At last, they look quite similar to us, no racial or even hair colour issues here. :)

Maybe I only have these thoughts because the last 13 months have been hard and um, unusual. :) Also, we have had a very hard winter, with all the snow and the last cold spell that has cooled our hose down so that it seems never to get warm again. I hope things will look nicer when spring comes.

I'm off now to give out rations of cough syrup and to labour over the number 10. Hope you have nicer thoughts.

Blessings,
EstonianWife

Am I a bad parent?

2011-02-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

I must confess... We watched "Home Alone". I and II both. ( the third part has different actors, so I think that wouldn't count anyway)

His Babyness has ear infection. The bigger boys and WonderfulHusband all have colds. There's far too much snow outside and the weather is cold anyway, so we sat two days at home and watched videos... "Home Alone", that is. I know that this is unsuitable for little kids. I know that there are many better movies in the world. But I also know that one can watch "The Incredible Journey", "Cars" and "Teddy's ABC-Book" only so many times and that we just don't have enough new (like new to the boys) videos at home to choose from. A couple of years ago we taped many movies from TV but most are either sci-fi (that WonderfulHusband likes) or romantic comedies that I like - and I am not ready yet to explain why this fat lady throws her underwear at the man in bed ("Shallow Hal").

But. We did a lot of explaining. Starting and finishing with "nobody is allowed to try these things at home" and "I guess the parents never told the big brother that telling horror stories about lonely old men is wrong" and "these bad guys have really hard skulls, every normal person would be dead by now" in the middle. We watch most movies together, explaining why somebody does what he does and what is actually happening. Imagine - the concept of boarding the plane on time was completely strange to our boys because all traveling we have done has been with our own car!

If the boys suffered any emotional or behavioural damage from this experience, we'll see it later. I have heard about little boys setting traps at home after seeing this movie - but we just hope that our kids are smarter...

Who needs a hairdresser?

2011-02-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

Today WonderfulHusband went to the hairdresser with the two older boys while I was at work. We have been to the same lady several times before, my parents use her services, I usually recommend her to anyone who needs a nice haircut... So I expected to see two nice-looking little boys and a husband who looks even better than usual. Instead I got something that I would have done better myself. My husband's hair is actually OK, except it should have been an inch shorter (he had his last haircut sometime in June, also there were several inches to cut). Leader Of The Pack looks like he was caught in the scissors, nothing is even, nothing has the right length. The Dreamer is the worst. Having very fine hair that grows in patches (I think it has something to do with his FAS or the drug consumption of birh mother) he needs a very good haircut - like the one he had last time. Right now he looks like a badly-sheared sheep. Or a hairy egg... Or his haircut could also be described as a mullet, of all things. I am sorry if you like mullets, here it is mostly the haircut of drunks and very low-class people (not that I would be better, but you know, I mean under low-class those who throw beer bottles at their wives and smoke in the kitchen, wearing underwear that they never change).

As you can imagine, I was not happy. My mother tried to talk me out of it, but I phoned the hairdresser lady immediately and asked for another appointment to make the boys presentable. She accepted my critics and I hope to get the boys' hair cut properly (and no fees!) on Monday. Until then, we will not go out to the public...

The last is easy to manage, because we have our Independence Day tomorrow and we have Friday off work -and it is still -25'C (-13'F), so we just have to find some excuse for the church on Sunday why the boys look like they look...

The good, the bad and the ugly

2011-02-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

WonderfulHusband had three full days of work this week in Tallinn, our capital city. Good, because it gets paid nicely and we had the opportunity to visit friends whose 5-year-old son is our boys' best friend. Bad, because the weather this week has been the coldest this winter. In the worst morning there was -28'C (-18'F)! This is not nice if you have wood heating.

We had nice three days, I went to the best children's museum with five kids - the only girl was nearly 7, the boys 6, 5, 4 and nearly 2. I would have needed a 3-year-old, then it would have been perfect. :) Also we had the chance to visit another friend who has two girls, 6 and 4 years old - the kids "clicked" immediately.

My father came to heat our house while we were away -but the water pump went on strike. We always have a water supply in the kitchen, so he was able to cook for himself and to wash his hands, but this situation was not nice.

The ugly part was our toilet - it was impossible to flush it, only to pour some melted snow-water into it. That was obviously not enough.

We got home last night to a quite warm home. I am thankful for that. Today WonderfulHusband poured 40 litres (approx. 10 gallons) of water into the pump until it started working again. We now have water in the kitchen and we can flush the toilet. Also, the washing machine functions. The pipes to the bath and to bathroom sink are still frozen, but this is not that bad anymore.

I just wish this white hell called winter would end soon. Next week is supposed to be nearly as cold as this week has been.

Now that's crazy

2011-02-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

I just looked at my blog's stats for the very first time. Yes. You see, I am computer challenged and I usually do what I know how to do. And um... I just never noticed this possibility.

OK, OK, I am very short-sighted! Do not tell me that the word "stats" is on the screen just as far from my nose as the word "new post". I just didn't care to look.

First, I am a bit surprised that I have many, many pageviews from Estonia. I hope you all are nice people who can keep secrets. /waving/

Second, why has someone found this blog with searchwords "lady g*ga p*ker face"? I'd hate anybody to find it again with those words, that is why I used the "*"s. Sorry fans, but you cannot find any information about this person and her (I think "her" is right, although there have been weird rumors) songs here. I just don't like them. I don't even think I have ever posted anything about her.

Of course there could be all sorts of searchwords, I am actually lucky that I have obviously never posted anything s*xual.

Frog!

2011-02-09T09:56:00.001-08:00

His Babyness is not a talkative little boy. At the age of very nearly two he uses approximately 40 words, no more. Today's word was "frog" - "konn" in Estonian.

At my parents' place where he spends 2-5 days in the week there is an old ABC-book with really nice pictures. His Babyness loves the pictures of frogs, and there are plenty of them. On the most popular picture there are 20 frogs! He loves to point at all animal pictures, but right now he loves frogs most. So we decided to buy for him some toy or something with a frog. It seems that there is plenty of everything in shops except on the day when you decide to go and to buy something special for your toddler. I have seen frog toys, frog cups, frog books and frog clothes during the last year everywhere and today - none. We actually only went to two shops because we have a flu-like virus in the house that has brought fever (not really high, thank God!) and coughing to all boys, so we wanted to go and pick them up from Granny's, but still... there could be more frogs around.

At home we found an old teddybear-style frogthat actually looks like a doll with a frog's head, but it is at leats green. His Babyness accepted it as frog.

We have a garden. In the middle of farms and woods. Guess who will - in case the love to frogs continues - run around in the spring, shouting "Frog! Frog!" and giving every frog a heart attack? I'd better prepare to finding half-concious frogs in pockets...

Sharing the bearskin...

2011-02-05T03:43:00.000-08:00

before the bear is shot. This is what we say about thinking too far ahead, like making plans what to do in a new job before you get the confirmation that you are chosen to do that job, etc. Actually it is kind of silly, too many "what if" questions.

But still... We will very probably get a quite big tax refund this year (I am not sure if this is the correct way of saying it, but it means that we have paid too much income tax and we will get some back), sometime in March. It is nice to get some extra money that you didn't expect to get, right? The main problem is what to do with it.

Our car leasing will end this spring. We must either give the car back (but we need a car!) or pay for it fully (it would be best, but we don't have that much money!) or get another leasing contract on the same car - we cannot afford a new one; the last is what we want to do. We could use the tax refund to make a good first payment into the new leasing so that he monthly payment would be less and it would last shorter.

Or... our roof. We need a new roof. If the tax refund is as big as we hope, we could get the sheet metal (dircet translation, but you know, the metal roofs - this is not our house!) for that. Not enough to pay the workers, not enough for any windows or insulation, not even enough for transportation. But... we have friends who would help. Also, there is a house not very far from us that looks just like ours and it's roof broke two days ago under the weight of snow. With metal roof the danger of breaking is much less, because as soon as the snow starts to melt, metal gets slippery and the snow slides down. We have sheet metal on one part of the roof and there is no snow at all.

Both choices would be good. We cannot have both. Of course, if the snow breaks our roof we know what to do with the money. But isn't it stupid to think ahead without even knowing how much it could be?

It is not as bad as it looks

2011-02-04T06:39:00.000-08:00

...but it means extra work. This used to be our woodshed. Where we keep our firewood. For the winter, you know. Um... The heating season has not ended yet, but um... Do you see the slight bend in the roof? Here you can see how the woodshed used to look - the lower part of it, anyway - um Before.

Tuesday morning we heard a muffled CRACK, bt we thought that the cats had something to do with it. They didn't. The roof of the woodshed finally broke under the snow. We can get the firewood out if we are careful but we don't know how long it will be safe - I am home alone right now and I'm not even thinking about going in! Neither I let my husband go in without me being nearby with the cell phone, ready to call the rescuers if necessary. We do have some firewood in the garage that we can use until we figure out what to do with this roof. WonderfulHusband says that the roof was built wrong and unstable at first, um because it didn't stand on the most stable part of the woodshed. Could be. On the same day we went to the attic - no cracking, no visible broken or too-much-tension parts in the roof beams.

Personally, I would gladly see all roofs in our home broken, as long as the house stays fine. We don't need the garage and the stalls anyway, and the little shed over the root cellar is completely useless and extremely ugly - the cellar itself was originally built to be a bomb shelter, of all things, so I think this will last.

Now we only have to figure out how to get the massive beams out of the woodshed when the door of this particular place where we keep them is blocked by the roof that came down. Then we can make the roof stable again... in case we get an idea how to get close to the shed when the snow is hip-deep and heavy. We only have one path to it and this is not enough to do any repairs!

Basically... you don't need a special shed for the wood, it is just more convenient. For the next truckload in May or June, I think the garage would do, too - in case it's roof holds!

8 years. 1 year.

2011-02-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a double anniversary. 8 years ago WonderfulHusband asked his father how to tie a tie correctly. I had three red roses and make-up like some actor on stage - but it looked pretty. We had no party, just coffee-drinking with families. Later we found out that we were still able to go to the young families' meeting of our church. I still remember how the host opened the door and screamed: "Why are you here, why are you not getting married?" We said that this part of our to-do-list is already done. :) We have gone a long way since and I hope that this is just the beginning. I love my husband more than anybody in the world and I am honoured that he chose me.

1 year ago we drove through the snowy landscape, looking at the map to find the house where we needed to sign the paper to become foster parents. After that we got lost in a local "city" and finally got to the orphanage. There we got one undernourished baby, one little Russian brush and one empty-eyed egg. Also several carbage bags with bad-quality toys and rags - I have thrown away almost every piece of clothing that they were given, the things were so ugly! A year later... His Babyness runs around and tries to talk, he knows colours and the letter "A". Leader Of The Pack has now proper haircut and is very nearly starting to read, also he looks more like an Estonian child (yes, there is a difference). The Dreamer... still dreams, but he is able to concentrate and he understands what he's told. Also, he can tell quite long stories that he has heard (like in books) and he, too, has a proper haircut. I had a nightmare this night - that the boys were supposed to go back to their biological mother. I hope this stays just a bad dream. She gave them life and we are grateful for that, but we want to give them a future - something she never cared about.

An unhappy event and a warning

2011-01-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

First I wanted to send a DVD to a dear friend. Ordering that in the Internet seemed a good idea. We browsed several dealer sites and finally found something that seemed a good deal. It seemed funny to me that the paying person and the one who gets the DVD had to be the same, but WonderfulHusband said that only the credit card number counts. The DVD was shipped to my friend, the right amount of money left my bank account and everything seemed fine until I checked my credit card account today.

Somehow there was a little money missing. Not much, really not much. Um... maybe enough to pay for lunch for two in a café. Or maybe... enough cat-food for a week for three cats (if cat-food is on sale!). Or... 1/4 of what we pay in land taxes in a year. These taxes are here ridiculously low! So it was not a great loss. But um... I never paid it! I only ordered the DVD and that was all!

It took us some time to figure out that the DVD sales company was member of a bigger chain of companies (was shown in really tiny letters and only to be seen if scrolling the page all the way down - useful information was on top only) and this had really sent me an e-mail that I thought to be spam. Now I'm saying something really ugly, sorry about that, but... Respectable companies in Europe are called Halens. Or Otto. Or um... PhotoPoint. Or... PetCenter. Or Volkswagen. Not BestBrandValues, that sounds and looks like spam at first sight. I get so much spam e-mails that come from "companies" like this (I have heard that there are spam robots in Russia sending out e-mails about buying cheap Vi*gra and suchlike things - anyway, they always use names like that) that I never read anything that calls itself so! This company with the spam-like name had added me to their members (I think that means customers) and had taken money out of my bank account without ever asking me if I want it. Also, this was not shown on my account on the DVD shipping company's website.

We phoned the bank and asked them to sort it out, also I canceled my "membership" in BestBrandValues right away and wrote a quite angry report about them. Also, the credit card system is so smart that it was possible to cancel all international payments from now on until I really need it again. But next time I will stick to Amazon or try to find some christian Internet store. Friends, I really recommend to stay away from BestBrandValues - the name might sound funny only to me, but they are not honest. I just hope that my friend in USA will not get any complications from all this mess - he DVD store only accepted her name and address and never gave any chance to give them mine (they took money from my account, so this part they did right).

Maybe this is the way business is done in the world these days, but... I would actually prefer the little shop around the corner where the saleslady knows your name and the ages of your children.

Mommy, when will the winter end?

2011-01-30T02:33:00.000-08:00

This Leader Of The Pack asked a few days ago.

Last summer the weather was too hot, so that the kids refused to go outside. Now we have too much snow - and can you guess what is going on behind the window right this moment? You're right, we are in the middle of another snowstorm! - and the kids refuse to go outside. It is obviously not so fun to play in the snow that reaches your chin!

A couple of days ago I had my first claustrophobic experience ever. We were picking up the kids from my parents' place and my father came out to see us off. He always helps us (like, he waves "wait!" or "go!") to back out from the parking space because there is Too Much Snow and it is just impossible to see if there are any cars coming down the street or not. I have never thought about my father as a small man - he is not very tall, but he is also not short - but standing beside this immense pile of snow he looked like a dwarf. The snow walls on the street are nearly 7 ft high! It felt like something out of a horror movie. I haven't seen many movies about new possible Ice Age or something else where there is Too Much Snow, but it felt so surreal... Later when we drove home it was dark outside and the only thing we saw in the headlights were the high snow walls. I have studied enough anxiety disorders to recognize a panic attack when it comes, so I was able to steady my breathing, but it was no fun. Thank God WonderfulHusband was there with me. I got the same panicky feeling next time when we drove to work, I felt like crying when I finally got inside. With my office on the third floor it is possible to pretend that the snow is not that deep...

We decided to skip church today because WonderfulHusband had a fever and the snowstorm... But I actually dread going to work tomorrow. Isn't it crazy, to be born in a Northern country where snow is a normal thing in the winter and to be a psychologist... and to develop a snow phobia? I wonder would our health insurance cover moving into a warmer place until spring?

No kids today

2011-01-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

Two days ago a coworker had her birthday. When I congratulated her, we hugged. A mistake. Just about 6 hours later this lady felt the onslaught of a 24-hours stomach bug that we have heard about lately. She recoverd quickly and was today at work to tell me about it... but guess who has this bug now?

When I called WonderfulHusband on his cell phone to pick me up from work, I felt OK. 20 minutes later I was miserable. 20 more minutes later I was so miserable that I couldn't look at the food in the supermarket and we felt like "abandoning" our kids at my parents' place would be a good idea. We all hate that, my mother is not really well herself, none of the kids had pajamas or toothbrushes - we felt fine this morning, no-one thought they should stay overnight - and it was heartbreaking to forbid hugging Mommy. The Dreamer cannot understand why, he only understood that Mommy didn't want him. But I don't want my kids to catch it, especially the smaller two who cannot say that they are not feeling well (The Dreamer can speak but he tends to repeat what his brother said or what he said last time - like when it was cold yesterday, he says today "I'm cold," even if he is sweating -, so we cannot be sure if he tells the truth. His Babyness has a very limited vocabulary, he can say "ouch" and point where it hurts, but I don't think he could express nausea.). So we are risking the attachment in favour of their health. Thank God my father is well right now and started to play with them when we left. All three love their Grandpa!

It feels weird at home without kids. Suddenly we have too much space and everything is too quiet. It also feels weird in the car without kids (we drive an Opel Corsa, this is a hatchback mini-car), too much free space.

I hope that this bug will pass very soon, so that we could bring the kids home tomorrow. I am relieved when they go to bed at night, but I miss them. A lot.

I already felt well enough to sip a little tea. Hope it stays where it belongs.

The Big Crazy Question

2011-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Leader Of The Pack turned six last week. According to Estonian education laws he has to start school in September of 2012, when he is seven. Homeschooling is something I would love, love, LOVE to do, but... we need my income. There could be financial miracles of all kinds in God's Plan, but until they happen, we will live with what we have and the way we have to.

The Big Crazy Question is, should we send him to school a year earlier? He will go to the school where I work, this is certain - it is the easiest for us, we can go there together in the morning and when his schoolday is over, he can take a bus to my parents' home, eat there and do some bonding with Granny and Grandpa until we pick him and his brother(s) (not sure if The Dreamer will start preschool in fall or not) on the way home. Also, I like the foreign languages there - English first (in the second grade), French in the fourth grade, then Russian or German in the seventh grade - if the child wants to. In other schools there is compulsory English and Russian, no other choices. Leader Of The Pack is a six-year-old boy who is more interested in languages than in dinosaurs, imagine that. The problem is that there are three Absolutely Wonderful Teachers for grades 1-3 in this school. One teacher gets a class (or group? I am not sure how to call it) for three years, she starts with them when the kids are 7 and sends them "up" to the 4th grade when they turn 10. Two of the Absolutely Wonderful Teachers start with grade 1 this fall. The third just has grade 1, so she will have first-graders again in 2013, and it is probably impossible that Leader Of The Pack would be permitted to wait with school until he is 8 - you need to prove that the child has some sort of developmental delays but Leader Of The Pack is actually quite bright. A mild case of FAS is no reason for delaying school. In 2012 also three ladies start with 1st graders (classes A, B and C, because this is a big school), but um... one of them has um discreet relationships and therefore power issues and um there are um... issues. Although as teacher she is Absolutely Wonderful, in case there would be a power battle between her and my actual boss, I would be loyal to my boss and that would probably not be good. The other lady is elegant and pretty, but there are certain things she passes unnoticed or just ignores; also, she does not expect her students to work hard, but hard work is what Leader Of The Pack needs to learn. The third lady I know least, but we are struggling with the worst 5th grade right now and she was the teacher for them in grades 1-3... On the other hand, she is a very friendly, happy and sunny person. None of the latter two is teaching much art or crafts in her classes, but this what Leader Of The Pack would need.

So if we would send him to school this year, he would be able to get one of the Absolutely Wonderful teachers. Next year... it wouldn't be so. But this idea is so crazy, isn't it? He would be one year younger than the others! Younger and weaker! Although... he is more independent than several kids in this year's first grade, also he has experienced so different things than the others that he seems much older in many ways.

What would you do? Would you settle for an average teacher so that your son could be with kids his age or would you take a risk and send the child to school earlier so that he could get an Absolutely Wonderful Teacher?

Things would be easier if I wouldn't know anything about teachers who may be... Also, his preschool teachers never said that we would do serious harm to him, we asked what they think. They didn't say yes either, but...

Are the questions about school supposed to be this hard or is it just me?

So wonderful

2011-01-25T02:11:00.000-08:00

Leader Of The Pack's and my birthday came and went. We had a little party at home with just two families (3 kids each), but I think this was enough for him and, um, for me, too - I was the one who had to make all the food.

But yesterday at work I gave candy to "my" kids. Of course, it spoke around. One girl brought a friend who is not my regular visitor. I know her vaguely, enogh to know that parents of this highly intelligent young lady are divorced and that her younger brother is sort of a mischief-maker. Of course I asked how she is doing these days. And guess what she said?

Munching a toffee, she told me in a matter-of-fact tone: "Everything is fine, I went to a camp and I'm a Christian now and I have so many cool new friends!" Her friend added solemnly: "She was saved." The other girl stood up, hopped towards the door and said: "Yes, and that's cool! Mom says I have to make my own decisions! Gotta go now, bye!"

It is so rare here that a young girl or boy from a non-Christian family finds Jesus - and is allowed to continue so - that this was the most special thing I have heard in many days. I hope that this girl will continue going to her youth group and find there much more than just cool friends.

A Day Out

2011-01-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday WonderfulHusband did some teaching in Tallinn, Estonia's capital city. I went with him and planned to take all the boys, too, but... There were several changes of plans and in the end we decided to leave the two younger boys at my parents' place and take just Leader Of The Pack.

Tallinn is actually not very far, just two-and-half hours driving, but with the snow situation here (we have had another 5 inches since last week, thanks for asking) we decided that we leave the day before yesterday and spend the night there. My mother was actually not very happy, because The Dreamer and His Babyness cried both at night (The Dreamer's reason at one point: "I wanted to dream something and I haven't had no dreams at all! WAAAAA!"). The alternative would have been getting up at 5 in the morning to get there by 9 - and the road to Tallinn is the most accident-prone. Also, the weather forecast said that there will be more snow and the roads will be very slippery.

We did stay at a friend's place, like Estonians usually do. We try to avoid going to hotels and sleep on someone's floor instead. Actually, this friend had a couch for us and Leader Of The Pack loved his inflatable mattress. He also loved this friend (his best friend's unmarried uncle). The only thing he was not happy about was the long trip in the dark.

We got up early in the morning to get through Tallinn's crazy traffic. I still cannot understand, why everybody warns of traffic jams in rush hour - WonderfulHusband was at work 30 minutes earlier than he had to be.

So what to do with a very nearly 6-year-old at nine in the morning in the big city when there is Too Much Snow everywhere and even schopping centres are closed? We drove to the only free parking place close to Old Town and tried to take a walk... But where I knew to be a sidewalk in the summer was just a huge pile of snow. Thankfully, the port was close. So we went to see the ships and I experienced some terrible minutes because this was not safe. We walked alongside the place where the small ships are and there was no railing, only some knee-high sidewalk stones that would not hold a careless little boy. Fortunately, Leader Of The Pack is quite smart and there were no unexpected swimming lessons.

There's always wind at the sea and it got quite chilly. Leader Of The Pack was not very interested in leaving, but I promised him something else. We went to Tallinn Zoo, a place he had never been before. Of course, many exotic animals and birds were in their "winter rooms" where they cannot be seen, but some were out. The biggest problem is that this zoo has a huge territory, to see all animals you have to walk a lot. We only looked at a half of it and Leader Of The Pack was exhausted! I have never thought that the zillion different goats and wild sheep that they have there would be very interesting but Leader Of The Pack found them nice. We found some bored seals and hoped for crocodiles - they are kept inside year-round -, but to my surprise we first got to the outdoors cage of Japanese macaques. There was just a window between us and the monkeys and it was possible to go very close to the animals! We had lots of fun watching the monkeys, especially when one baby got scared of us and started to cry. His mother took him into her arms and started to make "scary" faces in our direction. What the macaque mother didn't understand was that going away from the window - it was a big cage, lots of privacy for the animals, too - would have made her baby much happier. I have never much liked any kinds of monkeys, but these little fellows were really worth watching!

The crocodiles were not very interesting - if a crocodile gets interesting, it is usually dangerous, so it wasn't much of a loss - but in the same house also live three chimpansees, several pretty sea creatures and a large family of tiny monkeys. The monkeys were fun to watch and one of the chimpansees actually scared us - after doing complicated jumps and other exercises it jumped against the cage-glass. Knowing that the glass is supposed to stand all kinds of flying apes is no help if you see a huge ape coming with full speed at you! It was a female and um, probably hoping to find a mate (because her "bottom was so ugly" - I refused to explain more), maybe this was the reason she acted this way. But maybe she just wanted to have some fun... Leader Of The Pack asked later: "Why did this simpson jump at us?" Chimpansee=simpson. Go figure.

After zoo it was time to eat something. We went to McDonalds. Um. I know that there are many better places where it is possible to get proper food, but just once won't hurt. We usually only eat there when we are traveling, so this has not happened for 6 months... also, this was close to where WonderfulHusband worked, and he had his lunch break, too, so we were able to have lunch all together.

The other half of the day was far too short - there is a new children's museum in Tallinn and I wanted to check it out. Honestly, this is the most wonderful place for children where I have been in my adult life. I can say this as a mother and as a psychologist. If you ever travel to Tallinn with children under 10 and you need something to entertain them, this is the place to go. Also, when the weather is nice, there is a huge playground outside - and a beautiful historical park around it (plus the fact that our president's house is located in this park...). Leader Of The Pack, who is normally a quite obedient child, outright refused to leave. It took a lot of talking and some force to get him out. There was a big indoors playroom with several things to climb on, look into, search for and play with. Then we went into the museum room, where there is a historical shop, a clockmaker's table, a sewing room and a postal service room, all child-sized and very probably with original things from 192x (or around this time). Also they have a nature room, a sports room (not a gym, but you can learn about sports) and a craft room. Mostly everything is themed "friends" and it is really, really beautiful. We could have spent a day there, exploring, playing, reading and watching videos abut animals. We will go to Tallinn again in a month. Then I will bring all my children and a friend's two kids, because it will be certainly be more fun with friends. And we will have one whole day there.

Then it was time to pick up WonderfulHusband. We went shopping and Leader Of The Pack got one early birthday present - a construction kit. He has been playing with it since, stopping only to sleep and to eat. I hope he will love his other presents, too - tomorrow is his 6th birthday.

The drive home was eventless, except that Leader Of The Pack woke once crying - he was obviously overtired from such a busy day -, but then he was able to go back sleeping. What else is there to do on a long ride in the dark?

I hope that we can have such "personal attention days" once in a while with every child in turn.

Things we want to do in 2011

2011-01-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

Or, actually, what I'm saying that we want to do. The last year was crazy, diplomatically speaking, and we hope that this one will be more organized.

Leader Of The Pack will: learn to read right now. He knows all letters and actually he can figure out short words. Then I want him to learn about clock, calendar and math (adding and suchlike until 20, maybe). Also, I hope that he will learn about 100 words/phrases in German.
The Dreamer will: learn to read. He also knows nearly all letters, but we have not learned them with him specifically.
His Babyness will: master using potty and start speaking, using more words than just "mm!" or "ugh!" (actually, he is using about 30 words now, but he prefers to use gestures and shakes his head when asked "will you ever start speaking?").
WonderfulHusband will: lose about 22 pounds. Get his master degree in teaching.
Mean Mommy will: focus more on homeschooling, homemaking and gardening than she did last year. Also, I will try to be more patient with the kids and a better wife.

Home Improvement goals: to finish several unfinished spots in the rooms that we already use and to rebuild (this is not about redecorating, we need a complete new floor, new wiring and double doors!) our entrance hall.
Relationships goals: to visit more friends and to have friends over more often.
Religious goals: church every Sunday. Not one Sunday School lesson missed, unless the child in question is sick or the weather conditions make leaving home impossible. More praying, more Bible reading. Maybe helping part-time with some project at our church.
Blogging goals: keep up the good work. :)
Financial goals: to stay alive and to pay the bills on time. What with WonderfulHusband being as good as unemployed for who knows how long and our income being thus smaller than it used to be...

Not goals, but dreams: a family vacation. France or Kosovo (our friends are missionaries there). Only possible when we manage to be miraculously frugal and to pay off something, maybe my student loan. A new roof - only possible when we happen to win the lottery. To finish the adoption and start waiting for another sibling group (we are definitely not "done"!) - only possible when WonderfulHusband gets a well-paid job and we win the lottery.

And this is how it looks

2011-01-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

Our car is about as high as most other cars here. There are even higher snow-walls on roads, so turning around a corner is a lottery - will there be another car or will we get lucky this time, too?

The boys are trying to clear the path to the garage - sorry about their weird clothes, I will not let my kids play with mud (happens sometimes, too) and snow in nice-looking things that are hard to get or just too expensive!

You can see a summer picture of this here.

The entrance. The snowpile is more than 5 feet high.

The path to the woodshed needs to be cleared at least once a week lately.

WonderfulHusband is taking a breath from snowshoveling. The little ugly box in front of him contains our water-pump, all wrapped in stone wool and with an extra heating system to be switched on when the weather turns extremely cold - did you know that you can use floor heating cable for that? Yes, it is quite safe. The red brick building on the right is entrance to our root cellar where we keep all the homemade jams and juices.

The view from our bedroom. The heap in the front is our summer breakfast table.

The view from the kids' room. You can see a spring picture of our greenhouse here.

We are in the middle of another snowstorm today. Although I was not cold today while helping WonderfulHusband to clear our driveway (thanks to a very generous friend who sent me a very warm gift, God bless her), I was praying for this curse to end. I wouldn't mind having a muddy or just snowless winter for a change...

More snow

2011-01-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

Today I got stuck in the snow - with the car, I mean. There was a very fresh, very white 3-inch layer of snow this morning when I started to drive to work. Everything was so white that I was seriously afraid to turn into a snow wall and get stuck. So I tried to drive verrrry carefully out... and got stuck. In our gate there is a slight rise, it is no problem in the summer, but in the winter one must speed up the car a little. I didn't. So WonderfulHusband came out wearing slippers and freed the car.

I love the way snow looks, but I'm getting tired of it. Today I asked my 78-year-old father if he remembers a winter when there has been so much snow. He said that he has never seen something like that, at least not in Estonia - Dad was deported to Siberia for 14 years, but the weather is probably quite different there. The snow walls in front of my parents' house are higher than I am, and I am not a very short woman. The city responsibles say in newspapers that they cannot bring the snow away anymore because they have nowhere to put it. The river is high and there will very probably be a flood in the spring. Some streets only function one-way. Even the main streets have high snow walls along them, although they have been cut slimmer (there is some kind of special machine for that but I have no idea how it is called, not in English nor Estonian).

At least our white cat has camouflage, except for her pink ears.

Too much snow

2011-01-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

We had the Monika. Then we had Scarlett around Christmas. And then... we have had snow every. single. day. Maybe not much, but there is always a fresh layer in the morning. And we were all sick, starting on Christmas Day, right until New Year's Eve. WonderfulHusband needed to get to the dentist and we needed some groceries - milk and suchlike things (powdered milk is something I have never seen in the shops and evaporated milk is just too expensive to buy; it is never on sale), so we had to clear our driveway, but that meant more coughing, sneezing and headaches.

Today we felt fit enough to try to get some snow down from the roof. Our roof is 105 years old and it has survived probably worse winters, but it is impossible to predict how much more snow there will be... and when will the roof finally break. We are not sure that the insurance would cover this.

Our roof is very high. Very big. Impossible to get near, because everywhere is So Much Snow. So WonderfulHusband made a 22 feet long stick out of three sticks and tried to get some snow down... Not much luck. Then this stick just broke. I decided to get into So Much Snow, because my "town boots" are knee-high and very tight, the snow just cannot get in. The broken stick was long enough to get maybe 3 ft x 15 ft of roof cleaner, but this is maybe 1/20. Then I was too tired, too cold and had another headache coming (but if I will not be any sicker tomorrow, I will try again). Also, the snow that came down came quite often into my sleeves and once straight into my face - it felt like being hit with a snowball, I was really glad that I wear glasses!

We cannot go out to the roof and clean it from there, because the hatch? (I am not sure if that is the correct word) is closed off with too much snow. Also, we cannot open the windows on the upper floor (they are built into the roof) because they open to the outside and there is too much snow. The only way to clean the roof from snow is the one that we used... and there is Too Much Snow on the other side of the house, I tried to go and to take a look, but walking, um, swimming in hip-deep snow is actually not my favourite sport.

We'll just hope and pray that the snow will come down eventually by itself. Without taking the roof with it. After all, this house is been built for winters like this.

Um, and have a blessed New Year. I almost forgot about that already, with the snow and Terrible Twos starting two months earlier and all this. Hope your 2011 will contain less snow and much less temper tantrums than ours.

The Battle Over Food

2010-12-28T07:25:00.001-08:00

I think that in every mothers' and toddlers' life there will be a time when getting acceptable food (candy doesn't count) into the toddler becomes a fierce battle of wills. Maybe there are toddler boys in the world who eat anything happily until they become teenagers and eat anything happily, what, I have heard so, all teenaged boys do, but I have probably never seen one.

His Babyness refuses to eat. He sits quite willingly in his high chair. He puts food into his mouth or lets me do it. But chewing it - no ma'am, no thanks. Thankfully, this is not happening at every meal with every food, but during the last 3 weeks often enough to become a problem. Sometimes he frowns at the plate in front of him, sometimes just cries. At first he only reacted so to fried egg - OK, I gave him scrambled egg, although I don't believe in picky eaters, I hate some foods myself (I have an inolerance against oats, so they don't count, but there are a couple of others that I try to avoid just because I hate the taste), if a child doesn't like the texture of fried eggs, he can have his eggs in a different way. Right now he is sitting in his high chair, picking at a perfectly ordinary slice of bread with cheese and whines. He is hungry, his last meal was hours ago*, but this is no what he asked for! He asked for "omm" ("komm" means "candy"), and before there is no "omm", he will not eat. I think this is called a tie and it also has some sort of name in chess, but I have no idea what it is - he will not eat what I gave him because he wants to have candy, and I will not give him any candy before he eats what lies on the plate. On any other day he has eaten bread happily, so this is just a battle. A battle I intend to win with my powerful ally - Hunger. Just checked on him, it seems I will win, he started to eat.

A week ago he ate between lunch and next morning's breakfast just three spoonfuls of "I don't remember what we had that day". He drinks mostly water, but plenty of that, so I don't think one day's fasting would be really bad for him. But obviously he has forgotten that he was nearly starved to death when he was just 2 months old...

One reason for such behaviour can of course be the "Christmas elves" bringing a little piece of candy every morning. The "elves" are now "on vacation", so I hope this will be forgotten soon.

The cheese bread is gone! Now he can have some "omm" in form of a Christmas cookie (no chocolate).

_______
*I am aware that if a person is very hungry, he can feel nauseous so that eating seems a bad idea - but the only good cure to that seems to be eating something sustainable, candy is no real answer. Candy only helps if the blood sugar drops too low, but it seems that His Babyness has no problem with that.