Normal?

I was bringing my mom up to speed on Alex and his issues (She doesn't read my blog. No one in my family does. Which is probably a good thing? Right?) and about him not putting away his clothes correctly and she reminded me that my brother did the same thing.
Then I mentioned that Alex is sick, mopes around, looks at me with big sad eyes and thinks the world will end and she reminded me that that is a boy/man thing. Which is true. When my boys/man are/is sick - they really can't do much but lay around and feel sick - and want to be waited on or sleep forever - whereas we girls just keep going - for the most part. 

(My apologies to my one male reader....Andreas.)

But it dawned on me. Alex's issues just might be Alex's issues?  And have nothing to do with being neglected and raised in an orphanage. Perhaps this is his normal?  Sure he wants to pawn his issues off on his past life. With the generic,  "I am meant to live in orphanage" or "My Ukraine mom was too drunk to teach me." But sincerely kids have issues. All kids, not just adopted, previous Ukraine orphans. Yet, I'm always trying to link his issues to his past. "He must act like this when he's sick because he's use to being sent to a hospital for every ache, pain or pimple." "Or maybe he can't remember to put away his clothes because of the alcohol his mother drank while he was in the womb?"

Maybe.

Or maybe he's just a man-child when he's sick and just like other 13.5 year old's that cram their clothes in any nook and cranny without a thought or care to order or their mother's feelings.

Maybe. 

I still think the lying and cheating are ingrained traits that he carries from the orphanage. That's not to say my other children have never cheated. Everyone has a time or two but they learn a lesson and get over it. Whereas with X, he just keeps repeating the same behavior over and over.

His honesty issues,  I think has everything to do with living in an institution in Ukraine where lying and cheating were the norm. In fact, as I look back on our adoption experience, I think the adults we associated with there lied and cheated too. The whole adoption process was crooked and full of bribery. What is normal for Ukraine - is devious and deceptive over here. Which is so hard for Alex because what was normal and acceptable there is called lying and cheating here.

In other behavior news, Austin has 11 U's. Which translates to 44 detentions. Not for fighting, swearing or poor citizenship. Nope. For tardies. Tardies? Seriously?

It will be a happy day if-and-when this child walks with his cap and gown clutching his diploma in hand!

Devree was thinking Austin's detentions were pretty funny until it was pointed out that her RIDE to school now has to leave at 6:45 each morning and stay after 45 minutes each day. Truth be told, the reason for some of Austins' tardies would be Devree. Her 1st period teacher doesn't take tardies. Austin's does. And he's always waiting on her to get out the door! Just like the whole family is waiting for her in the car - honking - to get to church.

Rylee is miffed that I wouldn't let her go to a basketball game last night. A basketball game a particular cute boy was playing in that she just happens to really like.  Give me a break. She's twelve! The problem being that while on our cruise my brother in charge let her go to one. I just told her to count that as lucky because had I been home? No way. I know. I'm a mean mom. And I know it's hard to be 12 and see her 15 and 17 year old siblings going to such activities but such is life. She already gets lots more privileges and allowances then the older kids got at her age.

I am just now getting over my cold. The cold that James gave me. The cold I gave to Alex. Alex is convinced his voice has dropped because of his cold and is quite concerned.  I assured him that his voice - like mine - will return to normal when this cold passes.

I really need to post pictures of our cruise :)  and the funeral :(

 Not sure when that will happen. 

Just trying to keep my head above water right now. Get everyone where the need to go, feed 'em, keep 'em in clean underwear and remember how to log into my jetBlue computer. 

That's about all I can handle right now.

But I see a light. 

Maybe in a day or two I'll be back to normal. 

Normal for me that is.....

 

February Wrap Up!

The girls taking their picture during church......grrr.....

Rylee's first trip to the temple as a Beehive...

Cousins came for a quick visit!

Basketball season if finally over!

James turned 45!

Happy Birsday!

(Our little Asian server sang the song this way!)

Alex and Austin are growing out their hair and their sisters are having so much fun!

Alex Rant

It seems I only write an update on Alex when we've had issues. So, these long stretches of nothing about Alex is proof that things are going well. Or at least are not monumental enough to write about.

And really, today's update is a bunch of different events spread out over a few weeks.

So, as you know Alex has issues with cheating and lying. He's done so well but - dang - if he doesn't fall off the wagon every once in awhile.

So, he has at home English studies 5 days a week - in exchange for not taking his "annoying" functional literacy class. He picks two words he doesn't know the meaning to, writes the definition, uses them in a sentence, and writes a short story using each word twice. He does one English worksheet and reads one short story with comprehension questions. 

Thirty minute - tops - if he actually concentrates and works. It can take two hours when he looks off into space and/or goofs around.

A couple of weeks ago, I was praising him on getting all his comprehension right. He really struggles with comprehesion. So about day 4 or 5 of perfect worksheets, I get one of my mom promptings and ask him what the story is about that he scored so well on? He has no idea. He makes up a story about a bridge - because it mentioned bridge in the title. He has cheated. The answers keys are under my calendar on my desk and he's just been cheating. 

Boo.

He cries and I get mad. We come to the conclusion that the reason for cheating is to hurry and get it done so he can play with his Ipod. So, no Ipod. He cries more. (Because he honestly feels bad about losing his Ipod. Not cheating. Not losing trust. Not hurting my heart. It is what it is. It hurts him more to lose this precious electronic device.)

Then I pull up his grades. He has failed a math test. Not the end of the world. What is not okay is that he has a chance to improve his grade by making corrections and turning them in but he has a zero. I ask if he did his corrections?

Yes.

Then how did you get a zero?

I got them all wrong.

Oh.

I decide to email his teacher. He never turned in corrections. When he comes home I tell him I've caught him in a lie and until he figures it out there will be NO Ipod. (We had an agreement he could have his Ipod for an hour a day once his week is up from getting it taken away in the first place.) He is stumped. It takes him a day and quite a few hints but he figures it out and upon figuring it out, promptly and cheerfully asks me for his Ipod. No way.  I just can't give it to him. He has no remorse for lying  and he's told me as much. It is so much ingrained in him that he doesn't even feel bad. He only feels bad when he gets caught and has a consequence. Besides his week isn't up anyway. 

So we go on our cruise with the arrangement that Alex can have his Ipod for ONE hour a day when everything is done. Except I forget to tell anyone where I hid it. Oops.

I honestly thought he'd call and/or my brother in charge would call and I would tell him. But no one called and I totally forgot about it.

We get home and Alex is pretty much under the assumption that he cannot have his Ipod and who am I to argue? I tell him he can have it for an hour but that's not good enough I guess? He'd rather just go without? Okay by me.

He gets caught cheating again on his comprehension.

Sigh.

James and I are trying this new parenting technique - called co-parenting? We will talk together and decide together what to do? I know. Most of you have probably figured this out but with James gone so much, I pretty much run the show here. This new technique is cool because James is way more level headed than I. I tend to think like this "He cheated. He will continue to cheat and lie. He will lie to his wife and she'll leave him. He will be unable to hold down a job and resort to a life of crime. I will visit him in jail."

James on the other hand thinks, "Maybe these stories are too hard?" 

Geez.

It is discovered that the stories are NOT too hard.
After talk # 65 about lying and honesty, Alex confesses that he wishes this life was all a dream. That he would wake up and be back in Ukraine and I would be there to adopt him and he would KNOW everything he knows now and he could start over.  Sort of profound. Sort of sad. But so not a solution to our problem.

We talk about how life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it. The real thing. And that all we can do is learn from our mistakes and try harder.

Then my grandma dies and last week was a whirlwind. 

Yesterday, I needed healing therapy and for me, that is cleaning. I go to town on my house. I get to his room. and I consciously DON'T look in his drawers as I know everything will be shoved in there helter-skelter and it will drive me insane. I just focus on getting everything out of the bottom of his closet and off his dresser and behind his bed that does not belong. I pile it on his bed. Dust and vacuum and he comes home from school and puts his pile of crap away. 

Later that night I ask if he would please put his clean laundry away and in the correct places.

He take two seconds to shove the entire pile into his closet and leaves.

Oh mercy.

I call him back in and ask why there isn't any underwear in his top drawer - where it goes. Because it's shoved in his closet on top of his shoe rack. 

He then has to clean out his drawers. The drawers that have no sense of organization or order -despite me just cleaning them out over a month ago. 

He's crying.

I'm mad.

Really mad.

He starts throwing things.

He's mad too.

I tell him that despite his age in years he acts more like a 5 year old when it comes to doing what he knows he should do. Like put his clothes away in the right place.

He gives me this excuse,  "I am meant to live in an orphanage."

Oh please.

I have no compassion.

I lose it. 

Really? You are meant to live in an oprhange? That is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard. Rather than just step up to the plate you like to blame everything on your past. Get over it. You have had almost three years to figure this out. How many times do you think we've talked about putting your clothes away in the right places? 

He comes up with twenty. I figured if we've talked about if for ten minutes each time that's three hours and twenty minutes. 

Good grief. 

What a waste of breath and time.

I just let him have it. We're wrapping it up and I've calmed down and he just starts sobbing. Why? I ask. He refuses to tell me. I tell him that's fine. No one is leaving this room until he tells me what he is crying about. 

Ten minutes pass then he lets on (or comes up with) that this is all his Ukraine moms fault. That she didn't teach him anything because she was too drunk. That may be true but it is yet again another excuse. I explain - and I'm holding him now and talking softly. That his Ukraine mom made some bad choices that she wouldn't have made if she wasn't addicted to alchol. That the worst choice she made was giving him up and that she probably regrets that and wonders how he is. But that he has me now and I've been trying to teach him all the things he missed. But he has to want to learn. I just keep repeating myself over and over. After all these talks and lessons he'll just nod and hopes it will stick without any concsious effort on his part. I tell him how I taught the other kids when they were little with silly games and praise and that I could teach him like that too but he would feel like a baby. He agreed. 

We left it with a commitment that he will try and think about in every situation "Is this what my mom taught me to do or would want me to do?". I figured this would work with just about everything. Chores, school work, the idea of cheating, etc.

This morning I woke him up early (6:10 am)  to finish his dishes. He had shoved uncovered bowls of twice left over food with spoons in them in the fridge. We've covered this subject a few times too. 

I was very patient. 

I explained -again - that we don't store food uncovered in the fridge.  We never leave spoons in the containers, and that when we've already had it as leftovers once, chances are it needs to be thrown out and that he can always ask me if he is unsure.

Good grief. 

If he would just learn from his mistakes instead of making the same mistake over and over, both our lives would be so much easier.

Anyway, that's my rant.

Grandma's Funeral

My Sweet Grandma.....

Well, James and I have returned from a lovely seven day cruise and I have pictures to share but my Grandma passed away on Tuesday and our life is a little topsy-turvy right now.
I have been blessed to have three living grandparents during my lifetime. I have now written all three of their obituary's. Not an easy task. I have also written and delivered all their eulogy's. A even harder task. Wish me luck because I'm going to need it.
 

Leola Mae Daniels

Oh, what a sweet reunion must have taken place on February 21st 2012 when Leola Mae Jenkins Daniels graduated from this life and into the arms of her eternal companion Richard "Pete" Harvey Daniels. After almost fifty years apart – they are now together forever.

Leola was born November 7th 1925 to the late Ernest & Pearl Ophelia Jenkins. She is proceed in death by her older sister Elaine (Jim) Moore and survived by her younger sister Arleen (Dale) Simpson.
Leola married the love of her life, “Pete” in the Salt Lake LDS- Temple on June 6th 1946. Widowed July 30th 1962 Leola raised their four children, Brent (Elaine) Daniels, Dian (Gayle) Johnson, Debbie Hilton and Ray (Shirley) Daniels. She lived in the Rosepark 3rd Ward on Poinsettia Drive for 54 years but relocated to Murray to be closer to her family about ten years ago.
She leaves behind her much loved 19 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren (one on the way) and three great-great grandchildren.
Leola’s life is a legacy of love. She loved her family - be it by birth, marriage or adoption. She loved her friends, her neighbors, her dogs and she loved the Lord.
Please join us as we honor and celebrate the life of our cherished mother and grandmother.
Saturday, February 25th 2012
Viewing: 10 am – 12 pm
Funeral: 12:00 pm
Liberty Ward House
67 West Clay Park Drive (6340 South)
Murray, Utah.
Internment to follow at Wasatch Lawns
Leola’s family would like to thank Bristol Hospice for their tender care of Leola in her last days.
“I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father.” Enos 1:27

Our Cruise!

Waiting to get on the ship....

The first day at the buffet.....

Kicking back.....

Chocolate Melting Cake....

Towel Animals.....

Hitting the gym....

Listening to the guitar guy play on the Lido deck.....it was cold.

 Can you tell?

The first formal night....

Posing with our favorite towel animal.....

Cabo....

Going 4 wheeling through the dessert and to the beach!

Riding the tender back to the boat.....

Zip lining - they wouldn't let us use our own camera and we didn't buy any pictures of our fat selves hanging from a wire!

The Carnival Splendor

Puerta Vallarta

The broken glass fence - instead of barbwire?

Margarita Grill

The sunset...

This bear picture reminded me of James so I made him pose....

2nd formal night.....

James and Joseph - our server.

(Joseph thought James looks like Jason Statham and asked us to post this picture on Facebook for him. We are now FB friends with this hardworking man from the Philippines!

We had so much fun!