Alex Update....the good, the bad and the rambling.....

I've been re-reading each day about your adoption adventure which we were on exactly two years ago. I am so glad I blogged. It's so good to re-read and remember and realize just how far Alex has come. So here's an over due, way to long, and not that interesting Alex update:

• Today in church Alex was complaining that it was boring. I told him I knew a way it wouldn't be so boring, he could get up and bare his testimony. "No.", he said. "Next week." "Next week will not be fast and testimony meeting. Two years ago we were in Ukraine adopting you and you knew nothing about the Church. You could say something about that?" He shook his head but got up and walked to the front of the chapel.  His first words were "I am up her because my mom wants me to bear my testimony." The congregation laughed. He said he is thankful he is alive and that all of us are alive. He is grateful for the scriptures because they teach us about God and the Church is true. In the name....
• Alex had strep throat a couple of weeks ago and informed me that he had the same sickness in Ukraine and was put in the hospital for 28 days. TWENTY EIGHT DAYS and TWENTY EIGHT SHOTS. I asked if he went to school during his hospital stay? No. How often did he go the hospital? 6 or 8 times with the minimum stay of twelve days. No wonder he's so far behind scholastically. He told me how he was in a room with a little boy and an older lady. No one from the orphanage visited. No one came to see him.  As I gave him ibuprofen and brushed his hair off his forehead while tucking him into bed, I thought of him in a hospital bed without a mom or family to comfort him and how little and alone he must have felt. Hurts my heart.
• He is over Strep but now has a cold that all the children have been passing around. He informed me - very dramatically - about how sore his throat is when he coughs. I know. Being sick isn't fun. I think he felt neglected because I wasn't rushing him to the doctors but I know this is viral. Finally I just gave him some nasty cough syrup and he miraculously started feeling better. I explained in America we don't go to the doctors for every little sniffle, cough or pimple. 
• Friday night we had a wrestling match and I wrestled with Devree, Rylee and Alex -individually - and won! Twice! (It helps that I can't stand to be pinned so my fear of claustrophobia makes me very feisty!) After tucking Alex in to bed he crept into my room and asked if he could sleep with me? I told him if he wasn't coughing he could but that I didn't want to catch his cough. He understood. It warms my heart that he still wants to sleep with me. I wonder when he's going to realize that most boys his age don't sleep with their moms? I think I'll just let him figure it out on his own....
• He's been really hug-y and lovey lately. Last night after ten or fifteen hugs goodnight I asked him what he was feeling. "Like hugging you." "Why?"  "I don't know." He has a hard time putting his feelings into words. I challenged him to a week of not saying "I don't know." But to come up with the words that describe what he's feeling. He wanted a prize for this challenge and suggested a week of no journal writing. I agreed. I think I"ll just add a day for every "I don't know." rather than a one time win or lose. Trust me, he's going to need a few chances as he said "I don't know" within 10 minutes of taking the challenge. 
• Our road trip to St Geroge over spring break was a bit trying. I think anytime we take Alex out of his routine he gets a little over stimulated and many of the behaviors we've worked so hard to over come come rushing back. Our trip started off with Alex not doing his job properly and lying about it. For his consequence (this weeks vocabulary word) he had to write about what happened and why he did it. He was fine with that until James added "And write about how it makes your parents feel!" With that he shut down, started to cry and his eyes glazed over. We made a pit stop and I pulled him (literally) out of the car to talk about what was going on. After some coaxing I got that he was fine with me giving him a consequence but that "Dad is not nice!" I think it hurts his heart to disappoint his dad. James is a lot of fun and I think Alex considers him his "buddy"  and it's hard to realize that he's his dad too. (All my kids feel this way. Why is it when James says something they listen better or take it to heart more?)
• We went to SEP's this week and he's getting A's and B's. Wish I could find more joy in that but upon questioning his teacher about what he was actually studying in each subject I was sort of upset. For English he  1. Writes in his journal - it is not corrected or even looked at and 2. Memorizes a quote and recites it. I asked about worksheets? Diagramming sentences? Grammar? Writing assignments? Sentence structure? Nope nothing. In fact I realized that NOT ONCE has he had a creative writing assignment this year and only two book reports the whole year. (And the book reports were more like art project - decorate a cereal box about your book.) For social studies, they study as a group and write down the answers together. Good grief. This boy is going to be chewed up and spit out in junior high. I tried to talk with his ESL teacher but she wasn't around. The speech teacher claims he hasn't been turning in his assignments (What assignments?) and his citizenship grade wasn't very good. He's been talking and goofing around a lot. Great. I've got him scheduled to be tested at Sylvan this week. I am hoping that will give me ammunition to get him some additional help in school?
• The first day back to school after spring break Alex had to call home and tell me that he had a "black card" pulled. Which means he had three cards pulled in warning before the dreaded "black card" - which means you have to call your parents. He wasn't upset or even afraid. He informed James later (as I sent him in to talk to the boy as apparently he is so much more effective than me)  he "just wanted to have fun" and play baseball with his ruler and wadded up ball of paper. Good grief.
• Which reminds me about how his teacher told us that he should be playing baseball. That he has a really good arm. This we know. He can also run like the wind but he has no interest in playing baseball. Oh, well. I learned long ago not to put a child in a sport unless he really wants to play. (That would be me bribing Austin to play soccer at age 5 and he tying his sweatshirt hood into a little circle where only his nose stuck through and wandering blindly around the soccer field. OR playing goalie because "he likes to sit" but then getting distracted trying to find four leaf clovers in the grass! Nope. Not a first time mom anymore!)
• I have picked up quite a few good deals on clothes for Alex for next year. We were organizing his closet and cleaning out the too small items and he remarked about how many clothes he has. He was proud to realize that he has just as many things in his closet as the rest of the kids. It's not that I think he cares a smidgen about fashion or the latest styles. I think his closet full of clothes his proof to him that we love him just as much as everyone else!